I am not usually a person who loves places like Keoland, with few unexplored dungeons or long lines of hereditary rulership going back a thousand years. As constant readers know, I support a bit more mobility in my social hierarchy, since it seems to allow the entrepreneurial/devious a better chance to rise in society. Additionally, as a person who needs unexplored dungeons to help supplement his murder-based income, not having a tomb to raid or crypt to loot can hurt my coin purse.

Yet, and there is almost always a yet, Keoland is the place in Oreth to go if one isn’t interested in religion. So many other kingdoms and vales and lands have official priestcraft and invisible entities that I am supposed to kneel to, and, more importantly, give money to. Not Keoland, however. It is part of their founding documents not to have a state religion. Sure, old farmer Joha can pray to Berei and Azeth, and the dry goods seller can keep dropping his coins in Zilchus’s collection plate, but no one is making me give anything to any deity, and that is the way I like it.

Maybe it is a place to set up my second home; I guess it will depend on their tax structure and my ability to evade it.

Furyondy is a little too organized for me. I like the fact that I won’t get murdered in my sleep there—unlike certain places that I wrote of—but there are a lot of forms that go along with that. I get it; there is a battle between good and evil, and Iuz is quite evil and drawing power from the lower planes, so I kind of want him to lose, if for no other reason than that seems unfair. And this is coming from a person who routinely takes money to kill other sentient creatures.

List of forms I have filled out in the last fortnight:

• Registering myself into Chendl
• Presenting a form that I received from the clerk upon registering in Chendl to the innkeeper
• Presenting that same form to the barkeep
• A form to describe my sword when I took it to be sharpened
• A form where I described where my armor was damaged and why
• Registering when I left Chendl

Again, a little too organized.

A&D magic-user isn’t a class for the faint: Filoneth the Dazzler gets one, maybe two spells to start with, and if we are really playing by the rules, he has to use a table to determine what those spells are [hello, magic mouth]. The Dazzler also gets somewhere between 20-80 g.p. to start with, and a fair chunk of that trove might go to spell components or a birdcage, depending on how eccentric Filoneth is. So what is a magic-user to do to defend themselves in times of duress?

Buy darts.

They are cheap [5 for a gold piece]; they are light; they are easy to throw a lot of [three a round]. Didn’t get lucky with magic missile, burning hands, or even shield? Pick up 20 of these bastards, stand well out of range, and fire away. Will Filoneth hit much? Probably not: magic-users aren’t know for their combat skills. Will it do much damage? It might, and I mean might, kill a weak goblin. Is it better than erase? Yes.

In my prime material plane form, I have been adventuring for almost fourty solar cycles, giving me plenty enough time to learn how to spend the sweet, sweet starting money that somehow gets cobbled together before heading out as a first-level adventurer.

Sometimes, Roleigh the Good rolls well and lands herself 180 g.p. to leave the Kron Hills with. In that case, buy a long sword with a rad scabbard and a bow. Treat Roleigh to good armor and a shield and pocket the rest of the dosh for a later day. But, sometimes the dice don’t play nice, and Roleigh might leave Kron with only 75 clinking coins. In this case, I can offer a piece of advice: buy a battle axe. It only costs 5 g.p. and does 1-8 h.p. on a hit. If Roleigh happens to have a 16 in strength, this lovely axe is dealing 3-11 hit points, so when she starts the melee’ mash with a group of xvarts, they are going to take the worst of it.

Also, the axe is cheap enough that when Roleigh and her party get their first treasure chest of loot to split, the axe can be sold at a discount, left behind, or given to a local tavern as a sign of goodwill.

Here we are friends, another October, another daily posting of pointless AD&D trivia mixed with whatever garbage music I can dig out of the rotting dumpster.

Well worth it though since this yearly event/annual tradtion will all culminate in Halloween and candy.

Have a great month, everyone.