One Thousand and One Nights and One Night
a role-playing game campaign design ’zine
The Quick and The Dead
This issue, I’ve got something
inspired by a 60 Minutes (ABC)
episode. Also, my friends and I
email a lot to each other, about all
sorts of topics. Some of them are
gaming related, most of them are
funny. Here’s one of the latest that
we’ve talked about. If you have any
comments, please send them to
1001nightsand1night@gmail.com.
Food for Thought
A riff off of the scene in The Warriors
(Paramount) that my friends and I have been
bandying back and forth lately.
[At the big conclave GenCon meeting, Cyrus,
the boss of the Indianapolis Indie-RPG Gamers
appears]
Cyrus: [yelling] Can you count, suckers? I say,
the future is ours... if you can count!
[a couple of gamers cheer for Cyrus]
Cyrus: Now, look what we have here before us.
We got the Savage Worlders sitting next to the
World of Darkness Boys. We’ve got the DnDers
right by the Palladium Rifters. Nobody is
flaming nobody on the internet. That... is a
miracle. And miracles is the way things ought
to be.
[Few more gamers cheering for Cyrus]
Cyrus: You’re standing right now with nine
delegates from 1,000 gamer groups. And there’s
over three hundred thousand more groups.
That’s 2,000,000 hardcore members. Two
point six million, counting affiliates, and eight
hundred thousand more, not organized, but
ready to fight: 3,300,000 gamers! Now, there
ain’t but 200,000 LARPers in the whole
country. Can you dig
it?
Gamers: Yeah.
Cyrus: Can you dig it?
Gamers: Yeah!
Cyrus: Can you dig it?
Gamers: YEAH!
[shouting and
Cheering]
Content © Wooden Leg Named Smith Productions 2009
Website: 1001nightsand1night.110mb.com
Vol.: 2, Issue: 46, January 15, 2009
The 60 Minutes Green Eyeball
I was watching a 1980s episode of 60 Minutes
(ABC) on YouTube.com that featured their
hatchet job expose on Dungeons and Dragons
(TSR). It was the build–up to the “RPGs are
roads to the Deeevil” years. They interview
Patricia Pulling (whose son “Bink” Pulling
committed suicide) then
Gary Gygax, all trying to
“get to the bottom of this
game.” One of the shots
during the vid was of a
group of RPers in a
gameshop somewhere, playing a game. They
looked like normal 1980s kids, and nerdy kids
at that. The GM looks around the table and says
“About two months ago, a green eyeball was
seen up in the sky. This eyeball was so big it
blotted out the Sun.” I wonder what that
adventure was? I wonder what I could do with
that line alone.
Traditionally, and historically, the sky has held
many “signs and warnings” of “things to come.”
Modern astrology is the result of centuries of
star–gazers trying to
predict the future or
understand the present.
Every culture has stories,
myths and fables dealing
with the sky, from the Romans and Greeks, to
the Incas and Aztecs. In a fantasy world, with
actual magic, the stars would provide a great
resource to the rich and powerful. After all,
magic is all about knowing the unknown and
seeing the unseen. And who better to afford it?
The eye, though, is another sort of symbol that
most cultures have references, from the
Egyptian Eye of Thoth to
the “eyes are windows to
the soul” from Western
thought. The eye sees
things, it watches, it
captures events and changes none of it. A giant
eye, as opposed to some other facial feature,
means that someone, somewhere, nameless
and faceless, is watching you.
(continued on Page 2, First Column)
published in association with the Corvis Babbage Cliological Society
’zine art is either open source or through fair use of copyrighted works
One Thousand and One Nights and One Night
a role-playing game campaign design ’zine Vol.: 2, Issue: 46, January 15, 2009
Eye in the Sky, Looking at You!
So the appearance of a great big green eye, large
enough to block out the Sun, would be a
shocking thing in a magic–filled world (I don’t
figure it would be too welcome in a modern
world, either, but that’s a
separate setting creation).
What would the powers–
that–be do as a result of
this momentous event?
First, there would be widespread panic by
nearly everyone. Just what the hell is that thing
doing in the sky? Is it the end of the world? Has
the justice of God(s) fallen on us? Assuming no
normally–stable nation falls as a result of the
looting–and–pillaging, and the initial panic has
subsided, each of the religions of the world
would have to explain it, probably to the secular
authorities.
So two months have gone by, with nothing
changing. That great big ugly green eye is up
there. Wizards have bent their will to find the
answer, priests pray to gods that don’t answer
about this, armies have
marched, all to no effect.
Religions have fractured,
each trying to explain
why this is a good thing
or why this is the herald of woe. The populace is
on edge, after all, who wants that Sword of
Damocles hanging there, waiting to strike?
What if it’s the opening move of some sort of
giant green eyeball invasion? What if it actually
blots out the Sun? What if rays of death and
destruction reign down from the Heavens from
this evil orb?
Enter the heroes. When someone needs
something done that can’t be done by the
common man, when dragons threaten the weak
and necromancers hold sway, that’s when great
heroes, like those from yesteryear, will appear,
to stop these menaces and save the world. And,
yes, this is one of those “save the world” times.
Oh, yes. But where do they go and what do they
do in order to save the world? Well, let me tell
you! It’s the hero’s journey, writ large.
(continued on Second Column)
Content © Wooden Leg Named Smith Productions 2009
Website: 1001nightsand1night.110mb.com
Page 2
Into the Eye of the Storm
An ancient Lich is responsible for the green eye.
Through many arcane spells and evil sacrifices,
he has cast a great scrying spell, powered by the
dead body of the Evil God
Xoraxes that fell to earth many
eons ago after being slain by
the combined might of the
gods. He fell onto an island in
the western ocean that the Lich now occupies.
He can cast great spells through the eye, but
each time he does so, the dead god stirs. Will
the heroes arrive in time to stop his nefarious
plans? Will they stop the dead god from
awakening?
The information about the Lich is the first
hurdle of the PCs. They need to find a wise sage
(or the spirit of a wise sage) to get this
information. Personally, I’d have an obscure
prophesy mentioned to the
PCs, attributed to the sage.
He was last seen in his
tower (which has a few
minor monsters now
occupying it that need to be
cleared out) and from there, the PCs get
another clue to the final resting place of his
body. A ritual is used to summon the shade and
they get the info, but the green eye watching
them attacks with a huge blast, not killing them
but damaging the terrain between them and the
coast.
A quick dash to the port and the PCs narrowly
escape some of the Lich’s followers (a bunch of
willful undead zombie pirates or some such),
with a battle on the ship as it sails out of the
harbor. Lots of potential
for daring–do and
swinging from the
yardarms. The sea voyage
is beset with sea monsters
and sirens, all sent by the
Lich to delay the PCs. Finally, they shipwreck
on the reef and swim ashore, to trek inland to
the Ivory Tower of Evil, where the final
confrontation between the heroes and the Lich
takes place. Will the heroes be triumphant?
published in association with the Corvis Babbage Cliological Society
’zine art is either open source or through fair use of copyrighted works