The Gorgonis Sector

Art by Daniel Vega

Well, it happened again. It seems my post from last week about Rogue Trader: Warhammer 40,000 and how its setting, taken in a vacuum, is something very different than what would evolve later on is doing numbers. This isn't the first time that I made a one-off post about an existing setting that I found gameable only for that post to end up breaching containment and generating a lot more buzz than I thought it would, but this time the reception is a lot warmer, so there's that at least.

But it did get me thinking, and I've decided I want to do more with this idea.

Probably my favorite part of the Warhammer 40,000 universe is how it was specifically designed to have room for just about anything fans could imagine. Space, after all, is big, and an entire galaxy is especially big. The factions of 40k were created to be just vast and decentralized enough that every player's army is canon - there's room for every concept and fan creation to exist somewhere in the universe. I love that. Not only does it do a much better job capturing the sweeping scale of a grand space opera than pretty much everything else I've ever seen, but the way in which it integrates the players and their creations gives people the license to do whatever they want with the setting. And that's an approach I wish more of the big names in the TRPG sphere did, as I've discussed before.

In my opinion, it's the 40k RPGs that have taken this conceit and ran with it. One of the best things Fantasy Flight Games ever did with their line of 40k RPGs was to have the default setting of each game take place in a different sector of the Imperium, a tradition carried on with Wrath & Glory, the new RPG by Cubicle 7. This not only allows for a greater breadth of coverage that can truly delve into how diverse the Imperium is and how wildly culture can vary between planets and sectors (something increasingly vanishing in the wargame - I will never forgive Games Workshop for what they did to the Imperial Guard), it also keeps each release feeling fresh. But it also opens the door for a whole new level of creative potential. Why stop at creating your own Space Marine Chapters when you can create entire sectors of space for them to inhabit?

This approach has caught on with a number of fan projects. 4chan, for example, came together to create the Tiji Sector, and later a more serious attempt in the Victorum Sector. But in light of the reception to my post on the setting of Rogue Trader, I thought about taking a different approach: what about making a sector that could only exist in that universe?

One of my favorite blogs kitbashed one of those things.

I'll be devoting the next few posts of this blog to my current hyperfixation: creating a homebrew sector specifically for the setting of Rogue Trader, ignoring any subsequent 40k lore. For my purposes, only what's established in Rogue Trader is canon. I can bring in elements from later 40k lore if I want to, but I cannot contradict what's established in the first core rulebook, and I cannot introduce new factions wholesale.

For instance, I love the concept of space hulks - the idea of massive derelict spaceships (or conglomerations thereof) filled with valuables and threats alike is perhaps the best translation of a traditional fantasy RPG dungeon to the realm of science fiction that I've ever seen. I want to use them. Space hulks were only established as a thing by the eponymous board game two years after Rogue Trader, after the addition of Chaos as a faction. But I feel like the existance of Chaos has much greater implications for the setting than the existence of space hulks (and indeed, they're implications that make what's shown in Rogue Trader impossible), so I can use space hulks but not Chaos.

This is a look into what a sector of the Imperium might look like if Warhammer 40,000 never abandoned being a pulp-drenched gonzo space Western envisioned by an insane person (affectionate). Lore purists need not apply. Gaming in the Gorgonis Sector is not a cerebral examination of the self-destructive nature of fascist extremism. Gaming in the Gorgonis Sector is about teaming up with an elf space pirate wielding a pistol-sized grenade launcher and a power-armored coked-up cyborg barbarian wielding a gun that shoots ninja stars to blow up interdimensional space vampires on Dinosaur Planet. I highly recommend you check out my previous post if you want to get up to speed with the setting we'll be working with here. And no, I did not get those weapons backward!

So for those of you who are still here, sit back and watch this space as we take a tour of the last stop 'til Logan's World!

When the Eye of Terror blinks, ships fly between the Lost Worlds and the rest of the galaxy. Miners ship their ores and slavers play their loathesome trade. Where chance permits, the forces of the Imperium make their mark, bringing to the Lost Worlds the brutal order of the Imperium, if only for a few days.

What perhaps galls most at the local Imperial Commanders, however, is the Cambion Spur - a warp-lane located at a relatively stable point in the Eye of Terror, located in the Gorgonis Sector. Though the route is still dangerous without a trained Navigator, advanced pathfinding computers, or (preferably) both, vessels are capable of crossing the Spur into the Eye of Terror year-round, allowing traders and travelers to bypass the need to wait for the storm to dissipate.

Such a safe route would be a tremendous strategic asset to the Imperium - were it not for the dastardly Naraka Syndicate, a criminal enterprise that controls passage through the Cambion Spur. Their talons extend into all sorts of bloody business conducted through the sector, from the pirates who menace shipping lanes to the hoverbus gangs of Helsreach.

One system stands as the last bastion of Imperial law in the Gorgonis Sector. From the capital world of Gorgonis Major, the Imperium holds against pirates and raiders, but there is only so much they can do with their stretched resources - supply lines from the distant Imperial core are unreliable and often tied up in the intrigue of Earth's noble houses.

But even they enjoy a comfortable existance in comparison to Pacifica, an Imperial holdout on the inside of the Eye of Terror that must hold its own with woefully outdated technology and dwindling stockpiles.

And it is not just pirates that Pacifica deals with, for the planet lies dangerously close to the Orrathi Empire, an Orkish domain. The Imperium has only recently negotiated a tenuous peace with the Orrathi, but who knows how long that will last?

On the fringes of Imperial society and with threats from all sides, the Imperium cannot police the Gorgonis Sector with the full might of the Adeptus Arbites. Instead, many planets abide by a rough frontier justice, with Commanders having full authority to deputize civilians, mercenaries, and privateers - be they human, abhuman, Astartes, Eldar, or even stranger yet - for official missions. But those same individuals are just as likely to go into the business for their own bottom line, or to make a name for themselves in the annals of history.

The Gorgonis Sector is a place where fortunes can be won and lost at the barrel of a laspistol at any moment. It is a place where would-be adventurers just might carve out a place for themselves in the face of the relentless Imperium. But the universe is a big place and, whatever happens, you will not be missed. . . .

The Forgotten Setting of Rogue Trader

As someone with an interest in worldbuilding, there's one interesting thought experiment I've seen going around. I don't know if it's ever been given a name - or, indeed, if anyone else has ever really noticed it being a thing - but for lack of a better term, I'm going to call it selective canon. Essentially, taking an existing series but treating only some installments or iterations of that series as canon, and then exploring how such an approach would impact the setting.

More often than you'd think, this results in a setting quite distinct from canon, due to something TV Tropes calls Early Installment Weirdness. It's rare that fictional universes, especially long-running ones, emerge fully-formed - often, they need to go through a growing phase where authors are still working out the details, which may lead to ideas or plot points coming up that don't fit neatly into the vision that would congeal later. Selective canon, then, asks us to consider how things would be different if these outliers were never brushed aside or retconned to bring them in line with what came later.

One popular example I've seen asks "what if A New Hope was the only Star Wars movie?" This actually changes quite a bit. Most prominently, Darth Vader is a distinct character from Luke's father (not yet named Anakin). We know that Obi-Wan served under Bail Organa in the Clone Wars, but we don't know what or when this is. The Jedi are a religion that few people in the galaxy have ever heard of, and even fewer believe in; there's no indication that they were once a unified order, let alone one that held prominent political power. There's no Padme, no Qui-Gon, and no Yoda. If we bring the official novelization into this, there's also the fact that the Emperor is a powerless figurehead and the real power in the Empire is with his council of scheming advisors. If we ignore the prequels, the Expanded Universe, and even the other two-thirds of the Original Trilogy, what we get is something very different.

Another proposal I've seen is running a campaign set in Tolkien's Middle-Earth that assumes The Hobbit is canon, but The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion are not. We know Gandalf is a wizard, and we know that he left the party to fight an evil necromancer at some point, but as far as we know, both are simply human magicians; we have no reason to believe that they are immortal angelic beings. Elves are just as antagonistic as goblins are. Gollum, as far as we can tell, is simply a strange creature who lives in a cave and has always lived there, and he owns a magic ring that can turn people invisible. There is no indication that he is a hobbit driven mad by a cursed artifact of immense power.

On my own end, there's The Saga of the Ortegids, which was inspired by these exercises - it asks to take the first three Dragon Quest games, and their Western marketing materials, and ignore everything else relevant about the franchise, reverse-engineering a setting that has more in common with 80s pulp fantasy novels than the pages of Shonen Jump. But another setting I think is just begging for the selective canon treatment is Warhammer 40,000.

I haven't talked much about 40k on this blog, but I'm a long-time fan, first getting into it with its third edition in the early 2000s. However, I'm endlessly fascinated by what came before my time. While I do enjoy the modern 40k universe, I'm equally interested in the setting of the game's first edition all the way back in 1987 - which I would argue should be considered a separate setting, because it's evolved so much over the years as to be nigh-unrecognizable today. And I think that the setting revealed in the first edition rulebook, Rogue Trader: Warhammer 40,000 (yes, that was a subtitle at first), as well as the articles in White Dwarf released around that time, deserves to be examined more closely. It's a compelling and unique setting in its own right, and one arguably more conducive to roleplaying than the modern one (fitting, since Rogue Trader started life as an RPG, and even in its final release is only mostly not one). So, let's take a look at the far future of 1987, when it wasn't quite so grimdark and there were still things that were not war.

• While this article will discuss what the setting of Rogue Trader does have, I think it's just as interesting to pay a close eye to what it doesn't. Many factions that modern 40k players will be familiar with had not yet been established. There are no Tau, no Necrons, no Dark Eldar, no Skitarii, no Grey Knights, no Sisters of Battle (there's a single illustration of a gun-toting woman in power armor and a nun's wimple, but there's nothing to indicate who or what she is), and perhaps most consequentially, no Chaos. There's no daemons, no Chaos Space Marines, no Chaos Cultists, and no Horus Heresy. All that stuff, at this point in time, is strictly exclusive to Warhammer Fantasy. It would very quickly be added with the Realm of Chaos sourcebooks, but when we look at the core rulebook in a vacuum, the second most popular faction of modern 40k is completely absent.
• The aesthetics of the setting resemble a combination of Star Wars, Alien, and 80s glam rock. Bright colors and big hair (especially mohawks) are the order of the day. There is not nearly as much gothic imagery or as many skulls as modern 40k, and things generally look like they came off the pages of Heavy Metal or 2000 AD more than they do from a medieval manuscript.

It took me far too long to realize the graffiti was supposed to say
"MARINES OUT," not "MARINES LOL"

• The main power of the setting is the Imperium of Man, a dystopian aristocracy encompassing somewhere in the vicinity of a million planets. The capital of the Imperium is Earth (not "Holy Terra"). It is governed by the Emperor (not "God-Emperor"). He is extremely old, but mortal, and dependent on a life support device called the Golden Throne to sustain his aging body, which requires the daily sacrifice of a thousand psykers to operate. Although immobile, he is conscious and can talk, and has agents that he directly orders to do his bidding. Overall, he comes across as more of a Baron Harkonnen than a Leto Atreides.
• 
  The other planets of the Imperium are feudal dependencies of Earth, and largely autonomous. The Imperium of Rogue Trader appears to be a much more diverse place than that of modern 40k canon, even if we take Games Workshop at face value when they emphasize that the Imperium is much more culturally heterogenous than what we see in published fiction. There are multiple religions practiced and tolerated in the Imperium, including the Adeptus Mechanicus (who are explicitly based on Earth, not Mars, and do not have their own exclusive units) and the Cult of the Space Pudding. There is no indication that the Emperor is universally worshiped as a god.
• Mutants are a persecuted minority in the Imperium. They are stated to arise from the effects of long histories of pollution and nuclear war on the human genome - remember, no Chaos. There are extensive mutation tables included in Rogue Trader, allowing for the creation of anything ranging from X-Men style humans with superpowers to something more visibly grotesque. Certain strains of mutants, like Astropaths (psychics used to maintain interstellar communications), Navigators (mutants used to guide ships through the Warp), Beastmen, and Squats are defined.
• Although the Imperium is a human polity, there are at least some planets where aliens coexist openly with humans, and trade is maintained with both the Eldar and the Slann.
• Robots are explicitly noted to be a common sight in the Imperium, and are used for both labor and warfare. The Imperium also makes use of artificial intelligence in its vehicles and weapons, allowing them to operate autonomously.
• The main military arm of the Imperium is the Imperial Army (not "Imperial Guard" or "Astra Militarum"). They are supported by genetically-altered special ops commandos called Space Marines. Space Marines are often recruited from criminals and convicts and are given combat stimulants. They are easily identified by their trademark power armor and bascinet-shaped helmets; however, power armor is not exclusive to Space Marines. Both the Imperial Army and Space Marines use the same vehicles, including the Leman Russ tank, Rhino APC, and Dreadnought walker (the latter of which is piloted conventionally and is not exclusively used as a life support system for crippled Space Marines). Traitor Space Marines do exist, but they are portrayed as criminals and mercenaries who mostly serve their own agenda.
• Space Marines operate as autonomous organizations, called Chapters or Legions. Each Chapter has its own colors that it uses to decorate the power armor of its Marines for ceremonial purposes, but Marines are expected to use camoflauge while on field duty. Chapters include the Dark Angels, the Blood Drinkers, the Silver Skulls, the Ultra-Marines, and the Spacewolves (note the formatting on the latter two). In addition, there are specialized positions within a Space Marine Chapter, including Chaplains, Librarians, Medics (not "Apothecaries"), and Field Police, which all have their own designated heraldry.
  

• The founder of a Space Marine Chapter is called a Primarch. Primarchs are normal, mortal Space Marines, if esteemed and decorated ones. The named Primarchs are Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists, Roboute Guilliman of the Ultra-Marines, and Leman Russ of the Spacewolves. The former two are long dead, and their bones are on public display.
• The Imperium also uses Inquisitors and Rogue Traders as agents of their agenda, who have free reign to do what they want with whatever resources they wish, and map quite clearly to traditional RPG adventuring parties. One Inquistior is named Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau.
• The single named character most often referenced in Rogue Trader is a smuggler named Abdul Goldberg, who makes several appearances in the random scenario generator, apparently intended as a recurring rival to the PCs.
• The Squats are a race of offshoot humans with shorter, stockier builds adapted to planets with heavy gravity. They are found throughout the Imperium, but have their own autonomous holdings concentrated in the galactic core.
• The Imperium's most prominent enemies are the Orks. Orks are explicitly noted to be the most populous race in the galaxy. They have changed the least out of any major faction since Rogue Trader, but it is noted that they have planets that they govern permanently, sometimes using human slaves as an underclass.

• The Eldar mostly live in their own post-scarcity societies, but are usually encountered by outsiders as pirates, most commonly because they turned to piracy out of boredom due to their long lifespans. They can interbreed with humans.
• The Slann are a race of humanoid amphibians found on many planets. They were once a highly advanced spacefaring empire, and may have seeded life across multiple worlds, but have degenerated from their prime.
• The Tyranids are a race of hexapodal reptilians who travel in nomadic "Hive Fleets." They utilize organic technology, which is manufactured from biomass obtained from slaves. Tyranids are fully sapient and do not have a hive mind. They primarily rely on slave races to do their bidding, most notably the centauroid Zoats.
• Interstellar travel is accomplished through an alternate dimension known as the Warp. Navigating the Warp is very dangerous and often requires Navigators. There are several entities native to the Warp, including Enslavers, tentacled creatures capable of mind-controlling other organisms, and Vampires, bat-like humanoids that feed on the life force of others. The latter are capable of adopting illusory human forms, and contact between humans and vampires in the past gave rise to traditional vampire folklore.
• One hazard of the Warp is Warp Storms, which can block off routes of travel. One major Warp Storm is the Eye of Terror, which encloses multiple planets, including Logan's World, the capital of which is Helsreach. Because the Imperium cannot easily get there, the planets in the Eye of Terror are wretched hives of scum and villainy, but abide by the traditional laws of physics. The Eye of Terror can only be accessed from the outside galaxy when it "blinks" once every four to ten years, which marks both boom periods of trade and attempts by Imperial authorities to crack down on crime.

• 

  He also has a throne
  shaped like a Velociraptor.

  The Ultra-Marines are a relatively recent Chapter, and their arch-enemies are the Tyranids. The leader of the Ultra-Marines is Commander Marneus Calgar. He was originally a soldier in the Imperial Army, but was inspired to join the Ultra-Marines when they liberated a Tyranid POW camp he was being held in. Another important figure in the Ultra-Marines is the Chief Librarian Illiyan Nastase, a half-Eldar Astropath who was born on the planet Badab after the Imperium ousted its Tyrant and reclaimed control. He originally served as a member of the Dark Angels before joining the Ultra-Marines. I saved this one for last because it's such a perfect encapsulation of how much the setting has changed - literally every fact I just listed makes no sense in the current canon.
• Also, there is something called the Stegatank. Need I say more?

Friday Encounter: Helpful Monsters That Kill You

This is our first guest submission for my Friday Encounter column. In addition to DMing, I also am a player in one of my friends' campaigns, and last week he threw an encounter at us that I thought was genius. So, with his permission, I'm using it here.

This encounter revolves around Gadabouts, a monster from Spelljammer. I don't have any love for Spelljammer as a setting (that's a post I plan to write some time soon), but for some reason the stats are freely available on D&D Beyond. Gadabouts are essentially organic space suits that grapple a creature and surround its head in a bubble of oxygen. As written, they're supposed to be helpful to the PCs - but this encounter flips that concept on its head, presenting the Gadabouts entirely as they're written in official sources but recontextualizing them to be a threat. I thought it was a really cool idea to explore alternative ways to use monsters that were clearly made with a specific use case in mind (see also: cloakers).

This encounter consists of two parts: a pit of spikes, and an adjacent room containing a lush grassy area with a small pond, around which three Gadabouts hydrate themselves. In the campaign I got this from, this was in a dungeon and the pond room was concealed by an illusory wall, but it could work with a more conventional passageway instead, or even in a wilderness setting.

The pit is 10 feet deep and 5 feet wide. The spikes are coated in aboleth mucus - which can render a creature only able to breathe water if it is ingested or enters the bloodstream. Creatures that land on the spikes take 1d4 piercing damage and must make a DC 16 Constitution saving throw. On a success, they shake off the effects of the poison. On a failure, they initially experience difficulty breathing.

After ten minutes, an affected creature will find they aren't able to breathe air at all any more, and start to experience the effects of suffocating if their heads aren't immersed in water (ie. they can survive for a number of rounds equal to their Constitution modifier, after which they drop to 0 HP, begin making death saves, and can't be healed or stabilized until they can breathe again). The save can be retried every hour.

This might seem bad enough, but complicating matters are the Gadabouts in the adjacent pond. When at rest, they do not move and appear as lush vines with a giant butterfly sitting on top of them. However, if they are startled or a creature falls into the pit, they will fly toward the nearest creature in the pit (ideally one affected by aboleth mucus) and attempt to grapple them. On a successful grapple, the Gadabout attaches to the back of the target and surrounds them with a bubble of oxygen. They will then attempt to carry the grappled creature off; the target will be unable to move under their own volition until the grapple is broken. This means that the rest of the party will need to chase after the Gadabout before their friend suffocates. If the Gadabout is attacked, the damage is split evenly between it and the grappled creature.

The Gadabouts do not harm the creatures they attach to and are just trying to be helpful. They aren't aware of the aboleth mucus coating the spikes in the pit. However, the fact that they produce a bubble of air can prove dangerous if anyone in the pit is affected by aboleth mucus! This way, you can take a creature intended to be helpful and make it dangerous to the PCs without needing to change anything about its statblock - and present the players with a fun moral dilemma. How can they separate their ally from the Gadabout without harming them? And is it right to try and kill something that thinks it's being helpful?

Friday Encounter: The Curse of Seuss

No, I'm not dead. And yes, I'm still doing Friday Encounter posts. I understand that I haven't posted to this blog in months, but things were busy and I didn't have a lot to talk about. Well, today, that changed. I can't guarantee how frequent I'll be with posts going forward, but I did make this blog as a place to share my RPG thoughts, and I still intend to make use of it. And, yes, this is the second time I've made a Seuss-themed Friday Encounter, but sometimes I just get ideas I have to inflict on the rest of you.

This encounter was designed as a setpiece for a funhouse dungeon, but the conceit behind it could work in a number of different contexts - it could be the subject of a quest, or a status inflicted by an eccentric wizard or fey spirit, for instance. Feel free to adapt it as you wish.

While exploring the dungeon, the party comes upon an area that abides by strange rules. Depending on your goals (or how long you think your players are willing to put up with it), this area could be as small as a single room or as big as an entire floor. Either way, it should be obvious that something isn't right when the PCs enter this area. The ceiling is replaced by a stark white sky, and the surroundings are dominated by bizarre features - tall tree trunks that end in pink puffs, staircases leading to nowhere, and narrow pathways high off the ground supported by elaborate arches.

There can be any number of puzzles, traps, and encounters within this area - however, one rule that abides through all of them is that all creatures within this region must communicate in rhyme. Any in-character dialogue spoken aloud must be communicated in the form of rhyming couplets. All creatures entering this region of the dungeon will know this rule upon arriving, but will not know what happens if they fail to speak in rhyme. Optionally, if you want an extra challenge (and you really want your players to hate you), you can mandate that all dialogue out of character must rhyme as well.

It is acceptable to make up words in order to rhyme statements with them (in fact, this is entirely in keeping with the atmosphere), but these words must be communicated in a way that makes them make sense in context, such as by making up a creature that the statement refers to. The words cannot merely be non-sequiturs. For example, "we must discover an exit to this dungeon, before we get eaten by a Glubbulous Fludgeon" is acceptable, but "we must discover an exit to this dungeon, scrumbgeon" is not.

If any creature does not complete a rhyme while under the effects of the curse, they are immediately stricken by a powerful electric shock. The first time a given creature fails to rhyme, the shock causes them 1d4 lightning damage. For every subsequent failure to rhyme, the die of damage goes up by one size - ie. the second failure causes 1d6 damage, the third 1d8, the fourth 1d10, the fifth 1d12, and any subsequent failures 1d20. Players will hopefully learn to be careful with what they say after a few misses.

Players may rhyme their statements with statements made by other players or the DM. If a player fails to make a rhyme, another player can make a save by interjecting with a rhyme for the last thing they said. For example, if Alice ends a statement with "we should all make camp under this arch," Bob can chime in with "That's a great idea, I sure am parched!" before the DM rolls damage. If this happens, neither player takes damage.

This effect ends whenever a creature leaves the area carrying the effect.

Saga of the Ortegids: The Tower of Shampan

When I started blogging about The Saga of the Ortegids last year, I intended to conclude the project with a thesis statement of sorts. I was inspired by how some of my earliest dungeons came from me taking the maps from my Prima strategy guide for Dragon Warrior III and adapting them to D&D, and I wanted to do the same thing from the perspective of an older and more experienced dungeon master, creating a full-fledged dungeon based on one of the ones from the game.

I intended to write this post a lot earlier, but a lot has gotten in my way between then and now. But now that I've had the time to write up the dungeon and run it as a one-shot to simultaneously playtest it and introduce some new players to the game, I think it's finally ready to share with the world. Consider this a culmination of my efforts for Saga, and as my own way of revisiting my roots.

While written for The Saga of the Ortegids, this dungeon can be used in any setting - feel free to change names and details as necessary. I've referenced the very same dungeon in my Lunar Lands setting, which can be found in hex 031.026 of the Golnir hex map, so it would be appropriate to use there as well.

Lastly, my playtest was intended to test both the dungeon itself and my previously-proposed concept of modules in the form of DM screens containing all relevant DM-facing information on the inner surface. Thus, I designed the dungeon to fit on three 8.5x11'' sheets. You can get it in PDF form here. The first two pages are for the player-facing side of the screen; the second page should be printed twice to be placed on either side flap.

Saga of the Ortegids: Appendix N

If you haven't read the
Nintendo Power handbook,
do yourself a favor.

I know the Year of the Barbarian has run on longer than a year at this point, but I haven't had much time with which to sit down and write this post. In any case, I've put together an Appendix N for The Saga of the Ortegids, compiling a list of works that carry the same sort of feel I'm shooting for in my personal vision of the setting, or otherwise are useful as influences. See also this post on the "dials" of the setting - certain influences can be played up or down to convey different feels.

The Sacred Texts

These are to be considered in broad strokes canon to Saga.

• Dragon Warrior (1989), Dragon Warrior II (1990), and Dragon Warrior III (1992) (NES)
• Specifically the NES versions, including art and literature included in game manuals.
• The promotional art of Katsuya Terada (1963-) and Kensuke Suzuki (1964-2018)
• This art is the reason this project exists. If Dragon Quest canon is "Akira Toriyama's Dragon Quest," then The Saga of the Ortegids is "Katsuya Terada's Dragon Warrior."

Artists

• John Buscema (1927-2002)
• Clyde Caldwell (1948-)
• Larry Elmore (1948-)
• Ron Embleton (1930-1988)
• Frank Frazetta (1928-2010)
• Greg (1939-2024) and Tim Hildebrandt (1939-2006)
• John Howe (1957-)
• Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874 - 1925)
• Moebius (1938-2012)
• Earl Norem (1923-2015)
• Boris Vallejo (1941-)

Comics

• 300 (1998)
• Arak: Son of Thunder (1981-1985)
• Beowulf: Dragon Slayer (1975-1976)
• Claw the Unconquered  (1975-1978)
• Marvel's Conan the Barbarian (1970-1993)
• Dragon Quest: The Mark of Erdrick (1991-1997)
• Not canon to Saga, in large part because it wasn't translated until last year, but a good example of how you can expand on the lore of the Erdrick Trilogy while taking it in a grittier direction.
• Red Sonja (1977-1983)
• The Savage Sword of Conan (1974-1995)
• Vinland Saga (2005-2025)

Film and Television

• The 13th Warrior (1999)
• The Beastmaster (1982)
• Captain N: The Game Master (1989-1991) - S1E7 "Three Men and a Dragon" and S2E10 "The Trojan Dragon"
• Thankfully not canon to Saga, but it does at least give you a sense of how Western audiences perceived Dragon Quest when it first came out.
• Cleopatra (1963)
• Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Conan the Destroyer (1984)
• Deathstalker series (1983-1991)
• Dragonheart (1996)
• Excalibur (1981)
• Fire and Ice (1983)
• Gladiator (2000)
• Hawk the Slayer (1980)
• Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995-1999) and Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2001)
• House of David (2025)
• Ladyhawke (1985)
• Legend (1985)
• The Legend of Zelda (1989)
• Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings (1978)
• The Northman (2022)
• The Odyssey (1997)
• Primal (2019-)
• Red Sonja (1985)
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
• Samurai Jack (2001-2004; 2017)
• The Scorpion King (2002)
• The Ten Commandments (1956)
• The Thief of Baghdad (1940)
• Vikings (2013-2021)
• Almost anything by Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013)
• Mostly his sword-and-sandal output, but even something like One Million Years BC could be taking place in the Worldforest.

Literature

• Beowulf
• Lin Carter (1930-1988); various
• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• Ferdowsi; The Shahnameh
• Gustave Flaubert; Salammbo (1862)
• Homer; The Illiad and The Odyssey
• Robert E. Howard (1906-1936); various
• Elias Lonrott; The Kalevala (1835)
• Fritz Leiber (1910-1992); various
• The Old Testament
• Orlando Furioso
• The Saga of the Volsungs
• Yes, that's where the name came from.
• JRR Tolkien; The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955)
• Valmiki; The Ramayana
• Virgil; The Aeneid
• Vyasa; The Mahabharata
• Wu Cheng'en; Journey to the West (1592)

Video Games

All entries include North American promotional art and manual materials, if applicable.

• Assassin's Creed series (2007-)
• Dragon Warrior I & II (2000) and Dragon Warrior III (2001; Game Boy Color)
• This is after the series started embracing its ties to anime in the international market, but they are in my opinion the best versions of the games, and some content added for these releases found their way into Saga.
• Dragon Warrior IV (1992; NES)
• Faxanadu (1989; NES)
• Final Fantasy (1990; NES)
• The Legend of Zelda (1987) and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1988) (NES)

Friday Encounter: The Shrine of Blood

Here's an encounter I used in a recent session. It was originally designed as a dungeon room, but it could easily work as a feature on the road or in the wilderness as well.

I generally hew to the wisdom that magic items that just give flat bonuses to rolls are the most boring kind of magic items there are, and don't feel particularly magical. Case in point, it was only a few years ago that I realized that +1 weapons and armor were actually supposed to be magical, and not just a way to represent superior craftsmanship (maybe video games have spoiled me). If I'm going to use a magic item, I think it should always have special properties, abilities, and limitations that make it more than just a flat bonus. If you can abstract a magic item into the calculations of your attack roll, then you forget that you have the item in the first place, and magic should never be forgettable.

However, I can't deny there is a use for flat bonuses to attacks some times - it just makes for a really underwhelming treasure or quest reward. Here's a way you can make +1 weapons more interesting by giving them unique conditions to attain them, and limitations on their use.

The Shrine of Blood

The PCs should come upon a shrine where the statue of a god of war and battle (Kerne, Estark, Ares, Crom, or whoever fits the role in your setting) is stood with a shallow wide-brimmed bowl at its feet. Engraved in silver along the bowl's rim are the words "My champions shall be anointed in the blood of their enemies." A DC 10 Religion check will identify the god and their nature as a god of war; clerics, paladins, and characters with the Acolyte background or similar will know this automatically. Additionally, a follower of the god who prays in front of the shrine will receive a vision of the statue coming to life and dipping one of its weapons into the bowl.

If anyone fills the bowl with blood from a creature they have slain within the day and then dips a weapon into it, the statue's eyes glow, followed by the weapon glowing for a few seconds. That weapon then becomes a +1 weapon of the appropriate type until the next long rest, at which point it reverts to its original state. The blood is consumed through this ritual, but the bowl can be refilled an unlimited amount of times. The ritual will not work if the blood is not fresh, or if the user did not land the killing blow on the creature the blood came from.