The Black Company (aka Rawr, the Lady)

[Falcon]

E. Gary Gygax once mentioned that the Chronicles of the Black Company are how he imagined D&D.

Here is a link to a Black Company campaign site.

http://home.earthlink.net/~blackcompanydnd/

 

[Khorod]

Most sites to a slapdash, house-rules style conversion. An actual book sort of thing would be great. I'll help if a project starts. But I've only read the series once, and not even the first two books of the south.

The magic would work- if you do something like slow down wizard advancement, let them all have the sorcerer spellcasting table, and put little or no caps on spells known. Oh, and create critical, central rules about true names and ritual magic.

And of course it needs gritty rules for hit points and combat. Only the most bad-ass, lethal characters in the series were able to survive combats without planning and luck, high-level associated hit points never seemed to be involved.

 

[hellbender]

I am a huge BC fan and would be more than willing to help on a d20 (or any system) rpg for the Black Company universe.


hellbender

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Re: BC

I've read 'em all. twice.. three times...

i dont think the magic really fits in with D&D well.

they were very, very flexable as to what they could do and given enough time even a chump-rate wiz like one-eye could make a God-killing artefacte.


it would be fun ta try thou


joe b.

This points up how perceptions differ about books. As Falcon said, Gygax had a lot of praise for BC way back, and saw it as a good literary interpretation of D&D, whether Cook was a gamer or not.

The "tame wizards" were almost certainly illusionists, or sorcerers who used mostly illusions, and probably were of a higher level than most would be willing to concede. I'd sayThe Taken had some sort of Template applied, and were likely at very high levels, maybe even epic.

I'd say that if anything needed a bit of work, it would be in item creation. Even then, it wouldn't be too different from the D&D norm.

 

[WizarDru]

Re: Re: BC

The "tame wizards" were almost certainly illusionists, or sorcerers who used mostly illusions, and probably were of a higher level than most would be willing to concede. I'd sayThe Taken had some sort of Template applied, and were likely at very high levels, maybe even epic.

I'd say that if anything needed a bit of work, it would be in item creation. Even then, it wouldn't be too different from the D&D norm.

The "tame wizards" were also really, really OLD. One-Eye is over a hundred, IIRC. Goblin and Tom-Tom weren't exactly young, either. Remember that they almost never directly confront the enemy (shapeshifting wizards nothwithstanding), and make extremely clever use of their abilities as tactical support.

The Taken and the Circle who oppose them are Epic or darn-near, as are the Shadowmages (sometimes because they're one and the same ).

We asked Glen Cook at a convention one time whether or not he thought that magic, in general, seemed to drive you crazy, since all of the characters who wield magic in his various series (Black Company, Garrett, Dread Empire, etc) are, at best, anti-social whackos and at worst terrifying to the point of almost no longer being human. His reply? "Hmm. I never really thought about it before, but....they are a pretty crazy bunch, aren't they? I think you're right, I do."

 

[barsoomcore]

This is brilliant -- I just picked up "Dreams of Steel" again because I'm running a Lady-like (as opposed to ladylike) NPC in my current campaign and needed a bit of headspace with gorgeous kick-ass chicks (and Lucy Liu doesn't take my calls). Only meant to skim through the one book so now of course I'm halfway through "She Is The Darkness" and can't stop till I'm done.

Again.

Glen Cook stands in my reading history with Steven Brust as the two writers who most influenced my DMing. And now, Steven Erikson, who just might be better than either.

In any case, I would LOVE to work on this project, if it gets off the ground. My time is limited but I'm a GREAT copyeditor and "dress-up" rewriter -- I'm not so good at making up the crunchy bits, but I'm really good at presenting crunchy bits so they're easy to understand.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I only read the first book, but what would stop everyone in the party from being a wizard. Call it "Wheel-of-Time syndrome" if you will.

 

[WizarDru]

I only read the first book, but what would stop everyone in the party from being a wizard. Call it "Wheel-of-Time syndrome" if you will.

Simple...most wizards end up dead. The survivors just get nuts. Remember, the 'Ten who were Taken' were all really powerful wizards...and they got dominated. The wizards all need powerful armies to back up their threat. Individually, they are powerful, but not invulnerable. They are the tideturners in a battle...but usually they just end up engaging the enemy wizards, leaving soldiers like the Black Company to do the real work.

<Spoiler warning>


<Honest, spoilers here>

Note that the company's inhouse wizards don't all make it very far. They lose half of them during the course of the series, and the wizards can be overrun or starve during a siege as much as the next guy.

<OK that's it>


<Just being cautious, is all. >

 

[BiggusGeekus]

"You can't balance power with role-play"
-- Colin McComb, on what he would have done differently when re-creating the 2e Blademaster kit

If my wizard character is going to be subject to death/domination/NPC status/insanity I'm gonna be ticked.

Perhaps two "rankings" of wizards? Or feats that let you access schools of magic and a "wizard" PrC that gives that access like crazy? That way joining the ranks of the soon-to-be-doomed wizards would be more of an option.

It might be a break from the books, but it would be more playable.

 

[barsoomcore]

what would stop everyone in the party from being a wizard.

What stops everyone in D&D from playing a wizard? The fact that wizards don't get to do all kinds of cool stuff, like fight or sneak around or turn into animals or whatever. Why is this a problem? I don't get it.