Aliahan

The Kingdom of Aliahan is the starting area of Dragon Quest III, and consequently chronologically where the Erdrick Trilogy begins. It's only fitting, then, that we begin our exploration of the Trilogy's setting for The Saga of the Ortegids there.

Aliahan is, by the standards of the game, quite a large kingdom, seemingly occupying an entire (albeit small) continent. There are two towns and several dungeons located there - of course, we can assume that this is a constraint of game mechanics, and that any kingdom of such size would hold many more settlements that are glossed over due to not having anything to serve the game's narrative. Its remote location makes it isolated from other major powers, but numerous NPCs in other areas are familiar with the kingdom, so it can be reasoned that it maintains trade with them. Furthermore, it does appear to have a military - the castle has guards, and the protagonist's father, the titular Ortega, is noted as an accomplished warrior. Thus, it doesn't appear that Aliahan is particularly isolationist. At the least, it may need to deal with threats from inside its borders.

What is interesting is that NPCs in Aliahan mention that the kingdom "once ruled the world" - some nebulous time in the past, its influence was far greater than it holds in the present day. We see evidence of this in how the eastern end of the continent contains an ancient shrine with a portal to elsewhere in the world, and similar such shrines are discovered in the game, scattered throughout the overworld and allowing for fast travel.

I don't think it's much of a stretch to assume that these shrines are in fact the remains of magical infrastructure left behind by a much vaster and more advanced Aliahanian empire, perhaps one that established most of the cities in the game given how they tend to be located close by. This gives the vibe of a lost ancient civilization, grander and more powerful than its degenerate successors - both a very pulpy idea, and one in keeping with trends in OSR gaming. It's also very gameable - ancient Aliahanian ruins and artifacts would lend themselves nicely to dungeons and the treasures within.

Aliahan is one of the few locations in DQ3's overworld that doesn't have an obvious real-world counterpart. The land mass it's located on appears to be a completely original one, located in the center of what would correspond to the Pacific Ocean, and the culture has always been portrayed as generically medieval European. Some have correlated it with Australia or Antarctica, but both of those already have closer parallels in the game (we'll get to that in time). Others have cited comparisons to the lost continents of Mu or Lemuria, which certainly lends things a pulpy tinge.

For The Saga of the Ortegids, I've chosen to portray modern Aliahanians as Anglo-Saxons - fyrds, shieldwalls, and boar-crested helmets. I'd even go so far as to combine the city's castle with the tavern you can recruit allies at to instead have a grand mead hall where adventurers from across the land gather.

There's a number of reasons behind this. In a meta sense, considering I'm taking liberal inspiration from Beowulf for this setting, it only seemed right to call back to the people who wrote it. But it also fits the insular location, and the presence of periodic unrest and blood feuds caused by a tradition of weregild would justify a martial culture despite the lack of hostile neighbors, as well as tying into the fact that the plot of DQ3 is largely driven by you seeking revenge for your slain father. The fact this would make the culture similar to yet recognizably distinct from the vaguely Nordic Alefgarders is a fortuitous touch. Also, the most important Aliahanian in the series is Erdrick himself, and the name "Erdrick" is derived from "Eardric," a (to my knowledge) invented name that would translate to "world ruler" in Old English. While 3 would retcon this into being a title, if Erdrick is only a historical figure in the setting rather than a playable character, I see no reason it can't simply be his real name here, in the name of streamlining. The presence of ancient Aliahanian ruins from a bygone empire would also make for an amusing inversion of Roman ruins in Britain, although that analogy may be a little strained when a Roman analogue also exists at the same time.

The World of the Ortegids

The setting of the Erdrick Trilogy has some very interesting worldbuilding implications. Not all of them were intentional - some appear to have been invented as a means to justify game mechanics and engine limitations - but if one was to run with them, it would produce some intriguing opportunities at the tabletop. For The Saga of the Ortegids, I've decided to interpret the setting as looking something like this, in order to best take advantage of these implications:

Erdland: The outer surface of a hollow planet, which behaves as a typical Earthlike planet would. Has a sun and moon and a normal day-night cycle. I've chosen to go with a geocentric interpretation here, mainly for symmetry with Torland. Very much a History's Greatest Hits-type setting in the vein of the Hyborian Age; the land masses correspond roughly to those of Earth, and the cultures and civilizations parallel those of the appropriate regions, though not always contemporaneous ones. Notable locations include the Kingdom of Aliahan, the Romalian Empire, the islands of Zipangu, Dharma Abbey, and the deserts of Isis. The majority of Dragon Quest III takes place here.

Torland: The inner surface of the hollow planet, with its own oceans and land masses. It is lit by an artificial inner sun, causing it to be in a constant state of twilight (this, incidentally, is because they hadn't figured out how to do a day-night cycle in the first two games, and rather than admitting that like a normal person, decided to go full Burroughs). The geography is invented; culturally, it seems to be vaguely Norse. It was said that demons, dragons, and monstrous races originated from Torland (compare Alexander's Land of Darkness), though most of them have established native populations in Erdland. Likewise, humans have settled Torland and established their own kingdoms there, including Alefgard, Rhone, and the three Ortegid kingdoms of Lorasia, Samartoria, and Moonbrooke. Dragon Quest I, II, and the latter third of III take place here.

Zenithia: A small floating island located in the clouds above Erdland. Inhabited by a magically advanced civilization of winged people, who dwell in Castle Zenith. At the summit of the Castle dwells the Divinegon, an immortal god-dragon who will grant one wish to anyone who can impress him in battle. Zenithia doesn't play a role in the games' story until IV, V, and VI (the "Zenithian Trilogy"), which are not explicitly canon to the Erdrick Trilogy and are thus outside the scope of this project, but it was added as a bonus dungeon to later releases of III, so it makes the cut.

The Pit of Giaga: A massive chasm in the earth linking Erdland and Torland, located at the caldera of a volcano in the Southlands of Erdland. Previously the only means of travel between Erdland and Torland; descending from the Pit in Erdland would cause one to fall out of the sky in Torland. It was sealed off after the events of Dragon Quest III, but no one can say how long that will last...

The Worldtree: A massive tree linking the three realms of Erdland, Torland, and Zenithia. It grows over the course of every Age, periodically wilting, crumbling, and regrowing. By the time of Dragon Quest III it was only a sapling, and we don't see it again in the Erdrick Trilogy, though similar features have appeared in other games. For the purposes of The Saga of the Ortegids, the Worldtree has grown to its full strength by the modern era, and serves as a means to traverse the three realms. Its mountain-like roots jut out of the ground in Torland, and one can follow them up into Erdland and Zenithia, or descend the trunk, which grows in the continent-spanning Worldforest of Erdland, into Torland. This has allowed for travel and trade between the different realms, though the locals of the different worlds have been slow to accept the sudden contact with other lands.

Friday Encounter: The Drunken Duelist

This encounter will make the most sense on the road, or in a town, preferably late at night. It could even work in a dungeon as well.

The PCs are suddenly accosted by a young man in fine attire, drawing a rapier from his belt and pointing it in their direction. He introduces himself as Dunstan von Larstead, the scion of a respectable noble line, and a master swordsman. However, it is quite noticeable that Dunstan doesn't have his head on straight. He has the scent of wine on his breath, he slurs his speech, his clothes are disheveled, and he walks with a stumbling limp. Despite this, his bravado is unchecked. He is so drunk that he doesn't realize he is drunk - which, in fact, will prove quite problematic.

Dunstan is, in fact, not a master swordsman at all - only the bored and listless son of a noble family in the area. He has little interest in learning to manage his father's estate, and prefers to spend his time idly indulging in worldly pleasures. He swiftly gained a reputation as a drunkard and a lout, and his father sent him off to study at a nearby university in order to keep his trouble as far afield as possible. Even then, though, he shows nary a care for pursuing higher education, and spends much of his time at the taverns in town.

In his inebriation and foolishness, Dunstan has gotten it in his head that he is an undefeatable master of swordsmanship, and he intends to prove this. He will, without hesitation, issue a challenge to the most capable-looking fighter among the party, insisting on a duel. Even if his offer is declined, Dunstan will not take no for an answer. If it becomes necessary, he will incessantly taunt and insult the party to try and provoke them into starting a fight, and if that doesn't work, he will attempt to just attack his desired opponent directly. Once a fight begins, he is so absorbed in his own delusions that he will ignore whatever pain or harm comes to him and has no qualms about fighting to the death. He cannot be talked down from his furor unless cured of his drunkenness by magical means, or incapacitated until he sobers up the next morning.

The problem is, Dunstan actually knows very little about swordfighting, and when he is as drunk as he is, he poses a greater threat to himself than anyone else. He has the stats of a noble, but has Disadvantage on all his rolls to hit and any Dexterity checks or saves due to his drunken state. If the party doesn't tread carefully, he may well get himself killed picking a fight - and that presents its own problems.

Dunstan is, after all, the son of a lord. If the PCs end up killing him, it would cast great suspicion on them, and may negatively impact their standings with local authorities - if not get them arrested. And Dunstan's family certainly has the means to see to it that their son's death does not go unpunished - he might be a fool, but he is their son. Even if Dunstan does survive, if he's caught up in such a foolish escapade and word gets out, it would be an embarrassment that he and his family will do whatever possible to save face about, lest their status fall - and that could land the PCs in trouble.

In Defense of Gor, Part 4: Stuff I Like

Welcome, everyone, to the fourth and (most likely) final installment of my series on why the Gor novels deserve a look if you're interested in worldbuilding. We've discussed why the series isn't as bad as people make it out to be, the influence it had on the early TRPG scene, and why the setting works so well for gaming. To finish us out, I intend to take a more personal look at the world of Gor, and go over a few aspects of the setting I find interesting. The stuff I couldn't really fit into my other posts, but which I enjoy all the same.

You might find some of these things cool too. Or you might not. You might even find other parts of the setting more interesting - your perspective is unique, and all your own. I encourage you to peruse the rich lore of the novels; with 59 years in print and 38 books, there's bound to be something that interests or inspires you. But these are mine.

Technology Laws

In my personal opinion, Gor is the only setting to do Medieval Stasis right. For those unaware, Medieval Stasis is a concept in worldbuilding describing how a setting can have an in-universe history stretching back centuries, yet never develops modern technology in order to keep the medieval fantasy feel. Various settings over the years have come up with their own answers to this, ranging from "magic makes technology unnecessary" to "technology just doesn't work on this world" - I, personally, just go with "the stories I am telling in this setting happen to take place during its preindustrial era." I don't think you really need an excuse to have medieval technology and society in your setting, considering our world had such things for hundreds of years. However, if one does need an excuse, Gor handles this concept the best out of every setting I've seen.

Gor, as a planet, exists simultaneously with our Earth in the modern era, just on the other side of the sun. However, the people there have technology around the level of Earth's Iron Age, with some later innovations like crossbows. Although it's technically a sword and planet story, I find the feel a lot closer to sword and sorcery - or perhaps sword and sandal - because of the relative lack of advanced technology. However, the possibility for advanced technology is there - but it's limited by the Priest-Kings.

Art by Chris Achileos

Who are the Priest-Kings, you might ask? If I am to spoil a decades-old book, the Priest-Kings are in fact a race of hyper-intelligent insects from another planet who have set up Gor as something like a wildlife preserve as part of a mysterious experiment. Humans from various cultures and eras have been brought to the planet throughout history, and the Priest-Kings take precautions to ensure their ways remain consistent. This includes enforcing strict regulations on technology - things like firearms, explosives, communication devices, and full-body plate armor are prohibited. Interestingly, this doesn't encompass all modern technology. Goreans have light bulbs, for instance, but they're prohibitively expensive for most people, and culturally seen as weird. They even have some inventions more advanced than those on Earth, such as portable translators. But most modern technology as we would think about it is banned.

If you're wondering how the Priest-Kings go about doing this, it's quite simple. Most Goreans don't know that they're alien bug people at all. They've established a cult around themselves to posit themselves as gods, and insist that technology is to be shunned as witchcraft. They themselves have technology the Goreans don't have access to, including spaceships, and use it to work "miracles," including causing people who invent banned technology to spontaneously combust. That tends to get the impression across.

Some might recognize this as quite similar to Forgotten Realms, in which the Harpers are an international organization that suppresses societal and technological progress by assassinating anyone who disturbs the status quo. The difference is that the Priest-Kings are actually portrayed as having questionable motives. They're actively suppressing progress in the name of their own ends, be it research or something more nefarious. This is an easier sell to me than accepting the Harpers as good guys in spite of everything they do. One could even conceive of a campaign in which the Priest-Kings are set up as the villains for this, and the PCs are rebelling against them. I find this answer does a good job of answering why technology doesn't advance, grounding it from a conceivable in-universe explanation that - better yet - offers compelling opportunities for storytelling.

Furthermore, if technology is illegal but not impossible, this creates even more opportunities. You could easily pull an Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and have off-world technology take the place of magic items in a Gorean campaign. Goreans would likely react to, say, a laser gun or a communicator as enchanted artifacts, which could help introduce what functions mechanically as magic into a world where actual magic doesn't exist. In addition, the party would likely have to hide these items from the authorities, lest they be reported as witches, which presents opportunities for conflict. This is actually where I would deviate from the books a little - instead of having the Priest-Kings be able to spy remotely on people and immolate them at will, if I was running a Gorean campaign, I would have "witches" be hunted down and persecuted by the people of Gor. That would make it easier for PCs with such items to avoid undue attention, and could allow for more human drama if the enemies they stand to make from using technology are people they can see and interact with directly.

Kurii

In terms of the roles they play in the story, the Kurii are essentially Gor's equivalent of orcs - a monstrous race that usually appear as antagonists and enemies of Gorean society. However, they deviate from the stereotypical orc in a number of ways, and those ways provide some insight into how one can shake up fantasy tropes to make them feel more fresh.

First of all, they are only orc equivalents in terms of the role they play in the story. Visually, they have more in common with Wookiees than anything else, standing seven feet tall and covered in thick fur, with claws and fangs. We've seen plenty of settings where the main bad guy race is one of tusked green-skinned brutes, but how many can you think of where the heroes fight armies of Bigfeet?

Secondly, in keeping with its attention to detail in worldbuilding, the series goes into great depth about the society, culture, and biology of the Kurii. Like most portrayals of orcs, they are a barbaric warrior race that enjoy fighting and believe that might makes right; they engage in ritualistic combat in order to be allowed the right to mate. They also see humans as a food source, and their word for "human" translates literally to "meat animal."

Where things get interesting is in their biology. They are more active at night, they go into a frenzy at the scent of blood like sharks, and they store food in a second stomach to digest it later, meaning they don't need to carry food while traveling. They also have four sexes, although two of them - Dominant and Nondominant - seem to be more akin to genders and have more of an impact on their place in society than their role in reproduction. Then they have another sex called a Blood-Nurser, which is akin to a cross between a queen insect and a biological incubator; an Egg-Carrier, after being fertilized by a Dominant, implants that egg in an immobile Blood-Nurser to gestate until the baby forcibly eats its way out of the Blood-Nurser. All in all, the Kurii truly feel like another species, and not just humans with funny heads.

What's perhaps most interesting of all, though, is that despite their warlike ways, Kurii are not merely dumb brutes that exist to raid and prey on civilization. They are, in fact, an advanced spacefaring race that are in a state of cold war with the Priest-Kings. Many Kurii on Gor are actually secret agents working to undermine Gorean society and overthrow the Priest-Kings, though others have gone native and have no ulterior motives. They don't just pull out guns and shoot everyone because they too are subject to the Priest-Kings' technology laws and will be persecuted for them, so they use the same limited technology Goreans do. It certainly subverts expectations if a setting's equivalent of orcs are some of the more advanced races around (ironic, because that's what they were in Tolkien, but I digress), and if they have bigger motives than just wanton destruction. Those motives also help to justify their role as villains. They aren't inherently evil, and in fact some Kurii even develop respect for the protagonists of the stories, but they're on the other side of a war most Goreans don't even know they're fighting.

Exotics

Gor is a humanocentric setting, but other races do exist. The aforementioned Kurii and the Urt People, for instance, are sapient nonhuman species, but they don't appear to play a very big part in mainstream society. Most Goreans of most cultures are human. However, the books do make occasional references to so-called Exotics. They don't go into much detail about them, which is unfortunate, but the information we do get is quite interesting.

An Exotic is a slave that possesses some unusual quality. The term is a broad one, and it isn't limited to physical characteristics. One example given is that of a female slave who was raised not knowing about the existence of men, only having been exposed to women. But the term also describes slaves specifically bred to have unusual physical features. These traits can be cosmetic, like unusually large earlobes, or more unusual and stretching the limits of plausible human biology, like having venomous saliva.

I find this concept quite interesting, and it could certainly be used to add additional races to a setting that doesn't have them. Want to play a dwarf? How about someone with horns? Just keep whatever stats are relevant and flavor them as Exotics bred for those traits. It could also be a good excuse to break out your favorite mutation table. Even those Exotics that don't possess strange physical features could present interesting opportunities to roleplay as a character with a very unusual outlook on the world, shaped by their upbringing to serve as a curiosity.

No one can get kaiila right.

Wagon People

Those of you with a good memory might remember that what kicked off this series in the first place was me kitbashing some miniatures to make an army of Wagon People for something like Kings of War. I started on that a while back, and I do intend to return to it. My motivation goes beyond simply having the appropriate parts on hand, though. Out of all the cultures detailed in the series, the Wagon People might be my favorite.

The Wagon People play an extensive role in the fourth book in the series, 1969's Nomads of Gor. Because so much of the book focuses on them, we know quite a bit about their society and culture, which provides ample source material for gaming. Quite fortuitously for my project, we know what weapons and tactics they use, how their military units are organized, and even their heraldry - it all reminds me of the information found in wargaming materials (or even how humanoid armies were organized in the old Monster Manuals), and gets back to my point about how John Norman totally would've been involved with tabletop gaming had he been born a decade later. But besides being easily adaptable to a gaming context, the Wagon People are just cool.

As nomadic raiders and pastoralists, they fill a role similar to the Mongols; indeed, they seem to be largely based on them. They travel in tents on wheeled platforms similar to yurts, and their armies consist almost entirely of cavalry. However, while many cultures introduced later in the series have details borrowed heavily from their real-life counterparts, Norman did not get so lazy with the Wagon People, and they have many quirks unique to them.

They use an elaborate system of facial tattoos to indicate rank in society. They don't eat vegetables (meat, dairy, and fruits are okay) because they have a cultural taboo against eating anything that touches dirt. They accept certain outsiders as welcome guests and allow them to trade with them, but in order to receive such status (marked by a brand on the forearm), one must present themselves to the Wagon People offering gifts, and if they aren't impressed they might just kill you. Because they trust their memory more than the written word, they have people tasked with memorizing the calendar and recounting the passage of years - which are named after important events that happened in them, and are counted from snowfall to snowfall, so they don't have a fixed length. I love these sorts of little cultural details that give you a window into how these people think, and help make their societies feel more real, fleshed out, and lived-in.

Also, perhaps more usefully to DMs, the Wagon People are a good example of how you can vary up a culture based on a real-life one by mixing and matching details from other cultures. Although they're mostly based on the Mongols, they don't feel like Mongols, but like something all their own. A lot of the details are either completely invented or taken from other sources - they have skalds, for instance, and some have noted that they appear to be partially based on gauchos, as they live on the plains and use bolas and throwing knives. If this is the case, it showcases how the New World has just as many interesting cultures as the Old, and how even for a medieval fantasy setting one need not limit themselves to the medieval era when it comes to inspiration. As someone with a culture based on Mexico, I should know.

Finally, while most Goreans ride either giant birds or dinosaurs, the Wagon People ride a creature called a kaiila. Most renditions that I've seen draw them as horses with fangs. This is coward behavior. To me, the way they're described, with long necks, silky hair, and clawed feet, makes them sound much more like carnivorous killer death-llamas. I shouldn't need to explain why Mongols with bolas on carnivorous killer death-llamas are cool.

Verticality

We exist in three-dimensional space. That statement might seem trivially obvious on the surface, but it's something a lot of games forget. Because of the limitations of depicting it on maps, and because of the fact that we rarely have to interact with our world on a Z axis unless we live in a big city, not a lot of maps truly make use of three-dimensional space. Adding towers, chasms, tall ceilings, and the like can really liven up your dungeon design, quite literally giving the players a new dimension to explore, and adding new challenges to how they approach the world around them. For instance, they might need to scale a sharp cliff in order to get from one level to another, or balconies on one level could overlook rooms on another, providing opportunities for ambush. I think it's something a lot of people forget, since we're so used to dungeons being stacks of simple floors on top of one another. But looking at real-life cave maps shows how complex an enclosed vertical space can really be.

Gor has verticality baked into its setting, and because of that, it serves as a good illustration of what vertical design can do for a game. It achieves this through two ways - first, through the ready availability of flying mounts (one can buy a tarn for a single gold tarn disc, although that's "more than many common laborers will earn in a year"), giving characters a means to maneuver up and down, and secondly, through the use of vertical space in the design of its locations. Many large Gorean cities are complex multi-leveled affairs; buildings consist of tall towers, with different businesses and facilities on different levels, and bridges spanning between them. One could navigate a city not only through the cardinal directions, but also moving up or down, and discover new things. Mapping a Gorean city would be quite similar to mapping a dungeon, and could provide just as many opportunities for exploration. It would also make chases through the streets more exciting, as PCs would have to move between levels - or avoid falls off narrow bridges, particularly because Goreans think railings are for cowards. All in all, it's food for thought that presents an interesting perspective for designing dungeons and other spaces.

He just wants to discuss philosophy. 

Spider People

I love these guys. The Spider People don't really do a whole lot in the series. There's one brief encounter with them all the way back in Tarnsman of Gor, and they kind of get forgotten about afterward. But the concept is so batshit insane that I have to mention it.

The Spider People are another sapient race on Gor, dwelling in the swamps north of the city of Ar. With a name like that, your mind might conjure the image of driders. They're part spider, part person, right? No - Spider People are literally just giant spiders. They're "people" insofar as they're capable of rational thought and speech, but there's nothing anthropomorphic about them. Considering giant spiders are a staple of dungeons, having one of them turn out to be a friendly, personable NPC could be a fun way to subvert your players' expectations.

What's also quite interesting is their culture. Although the Spider People are sapient, the people of Ar hunt them for sport and to harvest their webs. They could easily wipe them out if they wanted to, but keep a small population alive to have a steady source of silk. The Spider People are completely okay with this and do nothing about it, because they have such a strong taboo against violence that they will not do anything to harm another sapient being, even in self-defense. If a person wants to kill them, they'll just assume they have a good reason to and let it happen. This line of thinking is so alien that it stands as a great example of Norman's approach to worldbuilding, making his cultures and races feel truly distinct from humanity, and avoiding Flintstonism.

I hoped you enjoyed this look at the world of Gor. Hopefully, you came away from it with a better idea of what the setting is, how it's informed gaming, and how it could continue to do so. For all the books' flaws, I truly do find the series to be up there with some of the most fascinating worldbuilding projects put to paper, and I'm sure many of its ideas would appeal to DMs.

This will probably be the last post I write about Gor. There's so much more I could talk about, but Luther has already catalogued everything far better and more extensively than I ever could. I might make some more posts here and there if the mood strikes me, but for those interested in looking into the setting more, I encourage you to click around his site, or even to seek out the books if you truly are interested. Until then, I'll be continuing to post on other settings, and intend to get back to The Saga of the Ortegids. See you then!

Friday Encounter: Double Agents

This encounter assumes a conflict that the PCs are outsiders to, so it's best used as something the party comes upon while traveling on the road. Ideally, at least one PC should have ties to nobility. As always, feel free to modify this encounter to suit your campaign.

Background

Like many small feudal subjects, the village of Rielenberg answers directly to its lord. Also like many small feudal subjects, the results of this arrangement depend heavily on how reasonable this particular lord is. Rielenberg, as it so happens, is under the thumb of Baroness Gloria von Habischem, a woman who believes it is the right of all nobility to do as they will, unfettered by the voices of the peasantry. After all, they should be grateful the nobles even allow them to stay on their land - who are they to complain?

Recently, Baroness Gloria's forces repelled a bandit raid elsewhere in her territory, but the cost of maintaining and raising a sufficient army put strain on her coffers. In response, she subjected the people of Rielenberg to crippling taxes in order to make up the cost. For the people of Rielenberg, who have long felt that the nobles were uncaring and indifferent to their concerns, this was the last straw. The people are planning a revolt in secret, uniting around the leadership of the blacksmith Lorenz Bahr, a charismatic visionary who feels the time is right for the peasants to fight for their freedom. Though they are sure they don't stand a chance in a head-on assault of the Baroness's castle (not knowing how meager the garrison is), they have begun stockpiling weapons and plotting movements to disrupt her patrols in what they hope will be the first step in a long guerilla war.

However, the forces of the Baroness have picked up rumors of these plans. And when the PCs arrive on the scene, it'll soon be realized that their status as outsiders could be valuable to either side...

The Encounter

While traveling, the PCs should come upon either the village of Rielenberg or Baroness Gloria's castle, which is located about a mile to the northeast. Decide which location you would prefer to use. The players may be swayed by whichever side they hear from first, so keep that in mind.

If they go through the village first, they will find the people are struggling to sustain themselves under the burden of taxation - their fields are poor, they don't have much to sell at the market, and they can barely scrounge together enough food to offer a meal at the local tavern. If the PCs enquire about this, the people will explain that they are suffering under the Baroness's taxes. They will direct them to Lorenz, who they explain is forging weapons on the side and hiding them at caches around the village (in barrels, under hay bales, and the like). Lorenz sees an opportunity in the party - as experienced fighters, they might stand more of a chance in taking on the Baroness's forces than any of them could alone. If they seem trustworthy, he will let the party know of the location of his weapon caches and inform them that he is planning on ambushing a patrol of the Baroness's guards under the cover of night in three days' time, where he plans to hold the guards for ransom. He invites them to participate if they wish.

If the party visits the castle first, they will similarly discover that it is facing hard times. The castle's halls are empty and the guards are few in number, making it clear that it was built to hold a larger garrison than it currently does, and everything is covered in dust, as there are not enough servants to attend to its upkeep. If the party seeks an audience with the Baroness, it will be granted; alternatively, if there are any nobles in the party, one of the Baroness's knights will invite them to the castle, hoping that they might be sympathetic to her cause. There, the Baroness will explain her situation, noting that she suspects that the peasants are planning an uprising under her nose - they have, after all, been speaking in whispers whenever the guards are around, and moving around barrels and hay bales for seemingly no reason. The castle surely will not be able to defend itself against a revolt unless it is crushed soon - and she hopes the PCs might be able to turn the tide. She requests that the PCs gather information on any potential revolts, reporting back to her on their movements or leaders. She emphasizes that under no circumstances can the peasants learn that the castle is undermanned, or they would surely be emboldened to attack.

For this encounter to work properly, the PCs should have the opportunity to visit both parties and hear both sides of the story. Both factions feel the party would be able to help them - as outsiders, they would hold no preconceived loyalties. Naturally, this makes for the perfect opportunity for the PCs to act as double agents - they have information on each side that the other side would want. It's only a matter of choosing which side to aid.

Further Developments

If you want, you could easily extend this encounter with the PCs performing missions for whichever side they choose. The peasants, for instance, might request the party's aid with transporting weapons to potential allies, while the nobles might need them to set a trap for the peasants during one of their mobilizations. To make things really interesting, both sides can give the PCs missions as long as they believe they're on their side, and the PCs can aid or sabotage them accordingly. You can keep this going as long as you, and your players, find it entertaining.

The end goal for the peasants will be storming the Baroness's castle and deposing her from the throne, while the end goal for the nobles will be stamping out the leaders of the rebellion. Ultimately, the conflict should culminate in one of these things, and the PCs may well be involved on the front lines.

If the PCs sided with the peasants, the people of Rielenberg will have little to offer them, but they will be hailed as heroes every time they return to town, and the people will be happy to provide them aid. Any of the townsfolk will give them a bed for free if they need to stay the night, and they will lend their services if called upon to the best of their ability. Lorenz will also offer to forge each of the PCs an enchanted weapon of their choosing - it has +1 to all to-hit and damage rolls, or +2 if the attacks are made against a noble or similar authority figure.

If the PCs sided with the nobles, Baroness Gloria will be thankful for their aid and grant them all knighthood, with all the privileges that entails. They will be able to stay at the castle as welcome guests whenever they wish, and she will provide them land on which to establish a manor of their own. This could be a good introduction to domain-level play, if one so desires.

Regardless of the outcome, the status quo will surely be shaken up, and this can be used to fuel further adventures. If the Baroness is deposed, it will leave a power vacuum that must be filled at some point - and her feudal masters might step in, not wanting to leave such a powerful peasant levy unchecked. If the rebellion is crushed, it might well inspire another such group to take up arms some time down the line, seeing the attacks on the people of Rielenberg as a gross abuse of power they are motivated to fight against. And the bandits that plagued the Baroness's forces might well return, too...

In Defense of Gor, Part 3: Gaming on Gor

Now that we've gotten the disclaimers out of the way and taken a look at the history of Gorean influences on the gaming scene, we can finally get to the stuff I've been wanting to talk about. We now know that many individuals in the early TRPG community read the Gor novels and used elements of the series to influence gaming materials. But is there any particular reason why Gor was used as an influence by so many gamers, as opposed to any other novel? I, personally, think there's something to that. Looking deeper into the setting, we can see that the way it's set up makes it very easy to facilitate RPG campaigns, especially those in the old-school milieu.

In fact, after reviewing these things, I am convinced that, had he been born ten years later, John Norman would likely have been an early contributor to the RPG industry. To date, the only official Gor RPG is Postmortem Studios's Tales of Gor, originally published in 2017. We have no reason to believe that Norman ever played an RPG, or even knows what one is. But he was an advocate of roleplaying as a activity in Imaginative Sex, citing it as a natural behavior that one should not be afraid or ashamed of engaging in, and as a safe outlet for desires that would be unethical or impossible in real life. Yes, he's talking about a different kind of roleplaying game here, but it isn't hard to see how he might be intrigued by tabletop gaming if he had been in the circles where it first arose. For that matter, the setting he created shares many traits in common with some of gaming's most enduring settings, as well as the ideals elaborated by those writing on the subject.

Before we begin, though, I would like to include an addendum to my last post. White Dwarf, back when it was a general gaming magazine and not solely a Games Workshop-related publication, used to run a column called Fiend Factory, listing new monsters for D&D, often submitted by readers. Many of those entries would later be collected in the Fiend Folio, making that book and its monsters a part of the British old-school gaming tradition. Issue 49 features a Fiend Factory article themed around insects, and includes stats for the golden beetle, a creature prominently featured in 1968's Priest-Kings of Gor. The entry, submitted by Steven Quayle, specifically lists the novel as its source material. Once again, we have evidence that many gamers of the era read Gor novels and wished to bring them to the table.

Anyway, back to our subject of the day: what makes Gor so gameable?

1. Deep, Readily Accessible Lore

Though the novels are infamously dry and many find the prose unexciting, it cannot be denied that a lot of thought went into the creation of Gor as a setting. Over the course of 38 books, Norman extensively details multiple cultures, locations, and characters, exploring what this world looks like, who lives there, and how these people think, act, and behave. We know how Goreans fight in wars, what their etiquette is like, how their castes are structured, what they eat, and so on. This is the same sort of information that might be found in an RPG setting guide - and because of it, it would be quite easy to run a campaign that feels like it authentically takes place in the same world as the original stories.

In fact, many books in the series focus on a journey to a particular region of Gor; for instance, Tribesmen of Gor takes place in the Tahari Desert, and Explorers of Gor focuses on the equatorial jungles of Schendi. They describe the inhabitants of these regions, some key locations there, and the sorts of things that may be encountered. It can be argued that Norman's focus with these entries is more on worldbuilding than storytelling - which makes them subpar as novels, but quite like a systemless RPG sourcebook, with a narrative attached. Much like the Mystara Gazetteers, these books detail specific parts of the setting and bring them to life, creating a deeper world.

It isn't hard to see how useful this much lore would be for the purposes of roleplaying in the setting. I'm far from the first person to note this - in the 90s, there was a substantial Gorean roleplaying community on IRC, which to my knowledge has mostly moved over to Second Life these days. While, yes, the people here are mostly engaged in a different kind of roleplaying, they still found that the books provided enough material for them to conceivably envision themselves in the roles of characters in the setting - and the same could be said for players in an RPG campaign.

I'm reminded of this post on Erin Hunter's Warrior Cats series, arguing that the series is technically an RPG. Though is is not presented as an RPG, and includes no hard mechanics like stats or die rolls, the setting is detailed and codified enough that one can easily understand how new stories with new characters could be told within the framework of the world - as is evident when one sees the multitude of original characters created by the fandom. Gor is much the same way. Even before it received an RPG, one could argue that the novels provided all the contextual details and dynamics to ground roleplaying in the setting and make sure it was consistent and in keeping with canon.

Of course, the fact that all this worldbuilding is contained in novels (and ones that can prove impenetrable to casual readers) makes for a barrier to entry. Luckily, one should never underestimate the dedication of fetishists. During the boom of Gorean online roleplaying, a number of fan sites sprung up to catalogue the lore of the novels in order for those interested to better understand the setting. In these articles, I've linked extensively to Luther's Gorean Education Scrolls, a series of articles cataloguing various aspects of Gorean worldbuilding originally written for roleplayers. In my opinion, this is the most accessible way to get into Gor, as it presents the relevant setting details without needing to slog through the original context - and it provides plenty of material that would be useful for would-be DMs. It does, however, only cover material through Witness of Gor, the 26th book in the series; more material has been published since. The Gorean Cave provides quotes directly from the text on a number of subjects, but isn't as easy to navigate. There is also an official illustrated encyclopedia released by Postmortem Studios entitled World of Gor; although released in conjunction with the RPG, it does not contain game stats and is targeted at both gamers and enthusiasts of the setting.

2. Highly Non-Flintstonist

One thing we know from all that worldbuilding is that Gor is decidedly not a Flintstonist setting. Goreans do not think, behave, or act like modern-day people do; in fact, that is kind of a recurring theme of the novels. Even besides the presence of widely accepted slavery, there are a number of key differences between Earthling and Gorean society - Luther even has an entire scroll on this. These range from superficial jargon (Goreans say "tal" instead of "hello," and "I wish you well" instead of "goodbye") to characterful bits of background detail (Goreans sit on floors, with free men sitting cross-legged and women and slaves sitting on their knees; we do have a few examples of women sitting cross-legged, and this is seen as a provocatively tomboyish behavior) to things that could impact gameplay or create new challenges (Goreans haggle over prices at stores and do not set fixed prices for items).

With so much detail given to culture and sociology, a campaign set on Gor would provide a great opportunity to immerse players in a truly exotic world, rather than a reskin of their everyday lives. There are many ways this could create enjoyable and engaging roleplaying opportunities. It is true that this sort of thing isn't for everyone; some people may feel intimidated by the thought of portraying a character whose thought processes and the context they exist in are so different from those of the player. And few gamers enjoy having to read a bunch of worldbuilding notes in order to play the setting consistently. Luckily, there are a few aspects of Gor as a setting that make this easier.

3. Historical Parallels

So a Spartan, a Viking, and a Mongol walk into a tavern. They find a table where a Bedouin is engaged in a fierce arm-wrestling match with a Scythian. A samurai is watching from a table where a forest-dwelling amazon lies slumped over drunk. Then a Wookiee gets up and flips his table in a rage.

No, it's not the setup to a very bizarre and esoteric joke. This scene could very well play out on Gor - granted, it would be an unusually cosmopolitan tavern, but nothing says that it couldn't happen.

Gor is a History's Greatest Hits setting, where cultures and locations based on multiple real-life eras coexist simultaneously. Like Howard's Hyborian Age, it's a setting where all sorts of pseudo-historical adventures can take place without anything feeling out of place. In fact, this is justified within the lore of the setting - Gor is a planet located opposite the sun from Earth, and throughout history, the aliens running the planet (it's a long story) abducted humans from different cultures and brought them to Gor, restricting their behavior so that their cultures would stay relatively unchanged over time. Thus, you have a culture descended from the Vikings existing side by side with one descended from Greco-Roman traditions, and so on.

This means that one can get a pretty good idea of what several Gorean cultures are like by perusing the history of the groups they're based on. None of the cultures are an exact match, and some borrow more heavily from real life than others, but there is enough precedent for the different cultures that a newcomer doesn't necessarily need to consume a lot of exposition to get the gist. As a bonus, this also means that if a DM wants to do some worldbuilding of their own and introduce a new culture to their personal Gor, they can do so and have it make sense in the setting - they just need to find a culture Norman hasn't already covered.

They're even being meta
about it now.

4. Isekai

For those not versed enough in weebery, isekai is a Japanese word translating to "other world." It's used to describe stories where the protagonists come from a mundane world like our Earth, but are transported to a new, fantastic setting. It's become very popular in anime in recent years, but the term has also been used to describe classic fantasy stories like The Wizard of Oz or John Carter of Mars.

Gor is also a setting that lends itself to the isekai route. Those same aliens that abducted a bunch of historical people also routinely abduct modern-day humans, on a much smaller scale. Most of the series' protagonists are brought from Earth to Gor this way, usually as slaves, but sometimes for other reasons. This is useful for gaming purposes because it provides an easy excuse for PCs to not know everything about the setting.

A big reason isekai is so popular in anime is that it allows writers to portray fantastic worlds, but use protagonists the reader can relate to. This way, worldbuilding doesn't have to be delivered through long spans of exposition going over things the characters already know. The details of the world can be revealed to the characters at the same time it is revealed to the viewer. From a TRPG perspective, this would also allow for lore-dense settings to be introduced to players without requiring them to do homework in order to portray characters from that setting. A campaign in which the PCs are humans from Earth brought to Gor allows them to experience the world without it seeming weird if they get details wrong or don't know everything. And discovering more about the world can be a source of progression, allowing PCs to better understand the contexts surrounding them and their places amidst them.

This isn't a new concept in RPGs. Empire of the Petal Throne is known for the richly-detailed setting of Tekumel, which also boasts extensive worldbuilding elaborating on its cultures, social dynamics, mores, and customs. Many players have cited this as an obstacle, as they feel like they can't make characters who conceivably exist as a part of the setting without researching the lore. But this ignores how the setting worked in practice. MAR Barker would, famously, begin most of his campaigns where the PCs were foreigners arriving in Tsolyani lands for the first time. That way, they could discover the setting a little bit at a time, just as the players did, and gradually understand more and more of what was going on around them. A player in a Gor campaign wouldn't need to read all the books in order to understand the setting. Their character wouldn't have to know anything more than they did, and there would be established precedent for it.

5. Points of Light

All these points outline how Gor lends itself well to roleplaying. But what about specifically roleplaying games? Well, there's plenty for that as well. In the leadup to the fourth edition of D&D, Wizards of the Coast described the new default setting as points of light in a sea of darkness - a setting that mostly consisted of unexplored, inhospitable wilderness, with a few scattered, isolated islands of civilization. This way, the setting could feature exploration and high adventure, while still containing enough settled areas for parties to have a home base, as well as the possibility to get themselves involved in social intrigue.

It was a term that caught on, and it has been used to describe a number of different settings, with some noting it as the platonic ideal of an old-school D&D setting. It also happens to describe Gor pretty well. The social assumptions of Gor are grounded more in the ancient Greek polis than medieval feudalism. Each city is a self-sufficient unit with its own government, and its people consider themselves loyal to the city rather than to any higher-reaching state or culture. Cities rarely form colonies, and when they do, these colonies usually become independent once they reach sufficient size. This means that Gor does not really have anything comparable to a wide-reaching kingdom with centralized authority, and as such, there is plenty of wilderness in between the cities. This lends itself well to a campaign framework of traveling from a city to adventure in the wilderness, and then either returning to the city or traveling to another along the road, both of which are often seen in old-school games.

This sort of thing.

6. Megadungeons

Another common feature of old-school campaign settings is the megadungeon - a single dungeon large enough to comprise the setting for an entire campaign, often explored over the course of multiple sessions, with the PCs returning to civilization in between. Some of the earliest campaign settings seem to have grown around a single megadungeon and its adjoining city, like Gygax's Castle Greyhawk. Conveniently, there are a couple of locations described in the Gor novels that resemble megadungeons, or could easily be adapted into them.

One of these is the city of Treve, located in the Voltai Mountains, which forms the setting for Witness of Gor. Treve is a heavily fortified city deep in the mountains, renowned as a haven of thieves and cutthroats; it relies on raiding other settlements for food. The city is only reachable from the air, or through a maze of underground passages, narrow crags, and outposts; even getting there entails braving many dangers. Beneath the city is an extensive network of pits, tunnels, and corridors used to hold prisoners, with traps to prevent their escape. Is there anything more OSR than a lawless city of rogues built atop a vast subterranean trap-filled dungeon?

The other is the Sardar Mountains, Gor's holiest site, and the home of the Priest-Kings, the insectoid aliens that style themselves as the god-like rulers of the planet (more on them later). Though the mountains themselves hold cultural importance to Goreans - they are the site of festivals held four times a year where all Goreans may gather to sell wares and settle disputes, and all Goreans are expected to make a pilgrimage there during their lifetime - the Priest-Kings themselves dwell in an underground complex of tunnels and chambers containing strange creatures (including the aforementioned golden beetles) and powerful technology off-limits to the general populace. Surely a campaign involving raiding the Sardar Mountains under the noses of the Priest-Kings could provide plenty of excitement and opportunities for OSR gaming.

I am this entire image.

All in all, I'm not surprised that so many early voices in the TRPG communities embraced Gor - the setting seems almost tailor-made for gaming, especially the sort of gaming that predominated in that era. I have no doubt that more than one DM at the time used the setting for their games. We know such a thing wasn't unheard of - Wilderlands of High Fantasy began as a campaign set in Tolkien's Middle-Earth before the PCs were teleported elsewhere, for instance. Surely people noticed the same points I did and realized how ripe they would be for gaming. And while the Gorean roleplaying community is largely more concerned with the bedroom than the table, a lot of what makes the setting appealing to one circle also makes it appealing to another. In the end, people into RPGs and people into BDSM aren't so different - and we can see that principle at play here.

We're almost done with this series, but before we go, I still have one post left in the tank - one devoted to things I personally find cool about Gor as a setting, now that all the theoretical stuff is out of the way. Until then, I wish you well!

Friday Encounter: Cloaking Devices

I've said before that cloakers unfairly get a bad reputation as "gotcha monsters" that only exist to pretend to be cloaks and fool anyone stupid enough to put on some random cloak lying around in a dungeon. But I've never seen them that way. Firstly, because in no game I've ever run has there been a situation where it would ever make sense for someone to put on a random cloak that they just found in a dungeon - and secondly, because the concept of a flat monster has so much more potential. Potential I intend to exploit here.

This encounter is best suited to a dungeon. There should be a room where there is a tall, narrow shaft in the ceiling, extending some 30 feet above the PCs' heads. The shaft is too narrow for a humanoid to fit through, and the sides are too steep to be climbed, but it is home to a cloaker - and it makes use of this fact to launch ambushes.

If creatures pass underneath the shaft, the cloaker will drop down on top of them, attempting to latch onto them with a bite attack to smother them. It will target any creatures bearing light sources if possible, so that it won't be adversely impacted by its sensitivity to light. If the creatures prove a threat to the cloaker and it drops to half HP, it will attempt to use its Phantasms ability to distract the party with illusory decoys before it retreats to the shaft to take cover. While in the shaft, the cloaker has full cover and cannot be targeted.

Even when wounded, the cloaker will attempt to secure its prey, using hit-and-run tactics against the party. It could wait for the PCs to pass through the room again, hopefully when they're weaker, and then strike. It could attempt to make noise to lure one of the PCs apart from the rest of the group and try to pick them off. A really devious feature for this encounter would be to have the shaft connect to other rooms in the dungeon, creating a network of narrow passages that the cloaker could travel through, but the party couldn't. You could even design an entire dungeon around this conceit!