Everyday Arcana: Trade Magic

A crew of builders are hard at work on a bridge that is lighter, longer, and stronger than what could be built with available mundane techniques. As they work, a trade magician sits cross-legged atop a half-finished truss, dozens of crystals and ingots of metal slowly orbiting their body. Deep in a trance, they stitch together metal and stone, complementing the efforts of the builders at work on the structure, creating something that couldn't be done without magic.

An isolated hut just outside the village is surrounded by concentric gardens filled with exotic herbs and strange plants. Within, the trade magician crafts potions and charms. She is not a wizard or cleric, but rather part apothecary, part pharmacist, part herbalist; a trade magician.

An enormous galleon sails the open seas, too far from land to navigate by dead reckoning. In the ship's hull, in a spherical room crafted from specially grown coral, a trade magician keeps the ship on course, monitors the stability of the hull, anticipates storms, and wards the ship against fire and explosion.

Ordinary people in a medium- or high-magic world do not not use magic to delve dungeons or fight dragons. They use it to do Normal Human Stuff: build things, create art, grow food, and raise healthy families. Few of the spells in the Player's Handbook (what ordinary people might call strange magic or high magic) do these things; or if they do, they do them indirectly, inefficiently, or in a way that is bound to attract unwanted attention.

Ordinary people are more familiar with trade magic. It is slow, predictable, limited in power, and useful for everyday purposes. All trade magic is ritual magic, with casting times typically ranging from an hour to the better part of a day, depending on the complexity of the task. They may require significant material components, or the cooperation of several trade magicians. Few high magic spellcasters (i.e., PCs or NPCs with class levels) cast any trade magic, or vice versa.

There is no particular limit to the scope of trade magic, but it runs broadly parallel to the real-world advances in science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, and other fields from the beginning of the renaissance to just before the industrial revolution. It is useful in civilized places, but mostly useless in the wilderness or in the dungeon.

Culturally, trade magic has moderately high social standing, and if low or middle class families have children with a knack for magic, they maneuver to place them in the most prestigious programs. High magic, by contrast, is seen as suspicious at best and criminal at worst, depending on local laws and customs.

A Closer Look at the Medusa: Seven Variant Gorgons

I posted this to Reddit last year, where it received a generally positive response. I've made a few improvements based on the feedback. I'm leaving the weird distribution of damage favoring the reaction for the Mother of the Desert, because I'm enamored with the idea that it would incentivize strategic play by the PCs; but if I ever have a chance to extensively test that in a game, it would be ripe for possible revision, per the comment in the thread. 

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The various Monster Manuals of D&D provides classic, archetypal creatures. In many cases, they are fine to use as-is. But they also invite interesting questions, opportunities for variation, and implicit worldbuilding. The following is an attempt to explore the variations within one classic monster: the Medusa.

A taxonomic note: This entry will use the term “gorgon” as the group term for monstrous humanoids related to the singular Medusa of legend; not the etymologically confused Foure-Footed Beastes described in the “Gorgon” entry in the Monster Manual.

Mother of the Desert

The lands to the west of the steppes were once rich and green. The weather was fair and the harvests bountiful. And the land was safe, for giant stone sentinels guarded the borders. The prosperous queen of this land had everything except time; so she prayed to the gods for more of it.

In her immortal form, she outlasted her prosperous kingdom. Into the ruins came invaders. First small bands of treasure hunters; eventually, conquering armies. Preferring the peaceful silence of her empty queendom, she petrified them all. Over time, the land became cluttered with statues, so she ordered the giant stone sentries to dispose of them. They did so by grinding them up, methodically, century after century, until the fine rock dust of countless soldiers formed the desert you see now.

Mother of the Desert (medium monstrous gorgon ruler)
AC 19 (stony skin) HP 255 SP 30’, burrow 30’ (sand only)
Abilities. Constitution +5 / Intelligence +3 / Wisdom +3 / Charisma +5
Saves. Wisdom +8
Skills. History +8 / Insight +8 / Intimidation +10 / Perception +8 / Persuasion +10 / Religion +8
Darkvision 60’; speaks only a dead language.
Petrifying Gaze. As Medusa (DC 17).
Sandburst (recharge 6). A scouring blast of sand in a 60’ cone deals 8d8 magical bludgeoning damage (DC 17 CON save for half). Petrified creatures are immune to this damage.
Heavy Scepter (x3). +10 to hit, 4d6 bludgeoning damage.
Anguished Cry (reaction). After taking damage, the Mother may use her reaction to emit an earsplitting cry of pain. Each creature within a 30’ radius of the Mother must make a DC 17 CON save or take 10d8 thunder damage. Creatures made of stone or petrified creatures have disadvantage on this saving throw. Non-magical objects neither worn nor carried also take this damage.
Legendary Action (once per round). Move up to her speed by burrowing through sand; does not provoke opportunity attacks.

Stone Sentinel stats as Stone Golem.

The Coral Gorgons

After a hero of old killed an ancient stone-eyed king, the hero severed the head, for use in some epic quest. The hero did not think of what might happen to the headless corpse they left behind. For 999 years, the body bled a continuous river of blood down to the ocean, subtly changing the sea life dwelling just off those shores.

The aquatic gorgons that now swim in this part of the sea have the power to petrify soft flesh, but their gaze does not turn intruders to lifeless stone; instead, they transform them into living coral. Over many generations, a barrier reef has formed, entirely composed of pearl-stealing divers and trespassing merrow. Those brave or foolish enough to explore these waters can still find traces of terrified faces in the coral formations. And some claim to have used Speak with Animals to converse with this coral, saying that it still retains vague memories of its life before transformation…

Treasures found among the coral statues of the sea gorgons:

1. Gilt-Leaf Kelp. Leaves can be hammered to extract 20 GP per pound, but it must be done immediately after they are removed from the water, or they lose their value in the dry air.
2. Sea Urchin Armor (light armor). Offers protection equivalent to studded leather. At the start of each of the wearer’s turns, they deal 1d6 piercing damage to any creature grappling them.
3. Encrusted Cube. Man-sized; covered in so many layers of rust and barnacles that it is difficult to make out what it is. Time-consuming (roll random event) to scrape it away and heavy/difficult to move. Actually a remarkably airtight safe; contains three bottles of fine wine (100 GP each) and a dire ermine coat dyed magenta (500 GP to a buyer with bad taste).
4. Coral Sword (magic, martial). This longsword is composed of living coral, and grants +1 to attack and damage. The wielder of the sword is affected by the Freedom of Movement spell while underwater. The sword must be immersed in the ocean for at least an hour per day, or its magic fades, and is only restored after a month’s uninterrupted immersion.

The Arbor-Bane Gorgons

Stories say they were once wood elves who betrayed the treants of the old forests during a long-forgotten war. Today, just as the gorgons of human legend petrify the world’s fauna, these gorgons of elven legend are deadly to the flora of their ancient homelands. They wander the wilderness, wearing veils made of thin, gauze-like material that allow them to use their cursed vision selectively. Their petrifying gaze has no effect on creatures, but instead instantly turns wood to stone.

This does not make them much less dangerous than their famous cousins. They travel in small groups, and are skilled ambushers. Favored tactics include turning heavy tree limbs to stone to create deadfall traps, or transforming several treetops to stone simultaneously, such that they buckle and topple, and using the ensuing noise and panic of local wildlife to mask their approach. When they strike, these deadly archers use their gaze to turn the wooden shafts of their arrows into stone a fraction of a second before the hit, multiplying the force of their impact.

Arbor-Bane Gorgon (medium monstrous gorgon archer)
AC 15 (bark-like skin) HP 52 SP 30’
Abilities. Dexterity +4 / Constitution +2 / Wisdom +2
Skills. Perception +5 / Stealth +7 / Survival +5
Darkvision 60’; Elvish, Sylvan.
Petrifying Gaze. As Medusa (DC 15), but only affects creatures composed in part of wood.
Longbow. +6 to hit, 3d8+4 piercing damage.
Deadwood (reaction). The gorgon may add 2 to its AC against one ranged weapon attack that it can see, if the attack was made with non-magical ammunition made of wood or a non-magical thrown weapon made of wood. The ammunition or thrown weapon used to make the attack is petrified and useless.

The Time Travel Agent

Most people fear and avoid the gorgons. But a rare few seek them out, welcoming their gaze. For the body does not age, or grow sick, or even require sustenance while petrified. Perhaps a person wishes to see the wonders of the future; outlive persistent enemies; or merely wait for an investment to appreciate.

This scheme relies on the safe storage of the statue, as well as a reliable third party to cast Greater Restoration or apply the proper basilisk gut-oil when the “traveler” reaches their “destination.” But the few gorgons willing to engage with civilization in this way have made a profitable business of this practice.

Adventure Hook. A Gnomish reinsurance consortium is hiring adventurers to investigate a claim they acquired as part of a collateralized package of policies. Apparently a caravan of pilgrims went missing; they were last seen embarking on a journey through the Elemental Plane of Fire. Following leads in the City of Brass, inquisitive PCs can learn that the pilgrims voluntarily petrified themselves to safely cross the burning plains, but that the firenewt caravan guards they had hired to chaperone them abandoned the caravan when their wagon jackknifed into a fumarole. A hefty reward is on offer if the PCs can find a way to return two dozen cumbersome, petrified pilgrims to safety; but a clutch of purple worms is approaching the site, drawn by the smell of foreign stone, even as the local topography bubbles into seismological wakefulness…

The Sculptor

Like many of his kind, the gorgon who would come to be known as the Sculptor lived in exile, long after the kingdom that once feted him fell into ruin. Fascinated by mortal creatures, he would study how they moved with the eye of an artist. Through much practice, he learned to approach creatures that looked into his eyes just as the petrification process began, and gently manipulate their limbs into a desired pose.

This form of artistic expression began with creating individual “statues.” Over time, the Sculptor arranged figures in increasingly elaborate scenes, where petrified animals, people, and monsters populated beautiful gardens, and seemed to interact in lifelike ways. But eventually, mere imitation of life failed to satisfy the Sculptor’s ambition. He wanted to create something original; something the world had never seen before. So he practiced petrifying creatures in very specific poses, such that the statues would interlock or pile on each other in novel ways. Soon a stone superstructure on a heretofore unseen scale began to rise in the wilderness, built entirely from petrified bodies…

The Sculptor (medium monstrous gorgon artisan)
AC 18 (stony skin) HP 234 SP 30’
Abilities. Strength +2 / Constitution +4 / Intelligence +2 / Charisma +4
Skills. Athletics +6 / Insight +4 / Perception +4 / Performance +8 / Stealth +4
Petrifying Gaze. As Medusa (DC 16).
Darkvision 60’; Common, Primordial.
Chisel and Hammer (x1 each). +9 to hit, 3d8+3 piercing and 4d6+3 bludgeoning respectively; both attacks have advantage against creatures and objects made of stone, and deal double damage on hits.
Artist’s Eye (reaction). When a creature fails its save against Petrifying Gaze or another effect that causes petrification, the Sculptor may use their reaction to move up to 30’ toward the creature and attempt to initiate a grapple.
Creator’s Rage. Whenever a statue is destroyed in The Sculptor’s presence, he must make a DC 15 CHA save; if he fails, he has disadvantage on attack and saving throw rolls until the end of his next turn. If he reduces a creature responsible for destroying a statue to 0 HP, he is immune to this effect until the next dawn.

The Unblinking Eye

When the city guard finds a shattered statue of a man, the fragments of his face twisted in terror, everyone knows that the Guild of the Unblinking Eye has struck once again. This cabal of gorgonic assassins is famous for poisoning their arrows with a serum that curses their prey with 360 degree vision, even through solid surfaces. As their victims flee in terror, they cannot even avert or close their eyes to hide from the hideous gaze of their pursuers.

The Unblinking Eye’s “poison” can be quite useful to dungeoneers who inject to intentionally gain the x-ray vision it provides. Of course, stealing this poison from the Unblinking Eye is a good way to move oneself to the top of their hit list…

Lyncean Poison (magic, perishable, poison). If this perfectly clear liquid is introduced into a sighted creature’s bloodstream, they must make a DC 15 CON save or gain x-ray vision, with a 360 degree field of view, up to a range of 30’. This includes seeing through their eyelids and other parts of their body; they cannot avoid observing their surroundings as long as they are conscious. A creature may choose to fail this saving throw.

The Squamous King

If you ask the serpent-whispers of the Yuan-Ti, they will tell you the gorgons are pale imitators of their snakely ways. If you ask a gorgonologist, they will say the Yuan-Ti are merely an offshoot of a much older branch of gorgonkind.

But on at least one storm-wracked island amid an endless archipelago, these debates are moot. Here, the Yuan-Ti worship an immortal gorgon as a kind of demigod, and the gorgon has adapted over innumerable centuries to reflect the boons of that worship. The one they call the Squamous King has the lower body of a Yuan-Ti abomination, the torso of a man with green-gray skin, and a fearsome head covered in a mass of writhing serpents.

The Squamous King (large monstrous gorgon yuan-ti)
AC 16 (stony skin) HP 268 SP 40’, climb 40’, swim 40’
Abilities. Strength +4 / Constitution +4 / Charisma +4
Saves. Strength +9 / Wisdom +5
Skills. Athletics +9 / Acrobatics +5 / Deception +9 / Perception +5 / Stealth +5
Immunities. Poison, Poisoned
Darkvision 60’; Abyssal, Draconic.
Envenomed Scimitar (x3). +8 to hit, 4d6+4 slashing damage plus 3d6 poison damage.
Serpentine Blood (reaction). When the King takes slashing or piercing damage, he may use his reaction to create a flying snake-spawn (stats as Flying Snake, but with Cockatrice petrification effect in lieu of poison damage).
Legendary Actions (any two per round).
Slither. Move up to 40’.
Constrict. +8 to hit, reach 10’, 3d6+4 bludgeoning, grappled and restrained on a hit (escape DC 16).
Stones to Snakes. An area of non-magical stone no larger than 10’ x 10’ x 10’ within 30’ that the King can see turns into a mass of writhing snakes (stats as Swarm of Poisonous Snakes, but with speed 0’). A creature sharing this space (or falling into it) may make a DC 16 DEX save to move to an adjacent space.

Who is the Petrified Person We Just Restored?

1. A moon musician, petrified for playing displeasing music in the gorgon’s royal court. Talented, but out of sync with zodiac shifts during their long period of stony hibernation. Can cast Augury once per day by playing musical horoscopes on their lunar lute.
2. An art vandal, petrified as a form of ironic punishment. Will eye any other nearby unbroken statues lasciviously while tapping their sledge hammer absentmindedly.
3. A cavalry officer, petrified to buy time to find an antidote after she was bitten by a rare spider… You do have that antidote, right?
4. A scorpion knight, petrified while trying to steal poison from the gorgon’s hair. Hails from a forbidden knightly order that poisons its weapons. Weirdly chivalric; will honorably aid anyone who saved them, but will impulsively attack frog knights.
5. The gorgon’s lover, petrified during a quarrel. Will have complicated and conflicting feelings upon revival, whether the gorgon in question is alive or dead.
6. A chaste ascetic, petrified for shaming the gorgon’s alleged vanity. Restored, their outlook has flipped to epicureanism, and they now wish to live in the moment and indulge their senses, insisting their saviors join them in celebration.

The Unexpected Verisimilitude of Shohei Ohtani

We talk a lot about immersion and verisimilitude in games at the RPG table, but it’s always amusing when we find it, unexpected, in the wild. That was my experience a few years ago with star baseball player Shohei Ohtani.

This requires some context for those who don’t follow baseball. I’ll try to make the background here as brief as possible on my way to connecting this to RPGs.

Almost all modern baseball players are very specialized either as position players (fielding and hitting), or as pitchers (throwing the ball). Shohei Ohtani is an anomaly; he is excellent in both roles, so he is like two great players in one body. His multifaceted greatness earned him the Most Valuable Player award in 2021, and he is once again vying for the award this year.

Fantasy sports run through websites allow fans to create fictional teams that tally up baseball players’ real-world performances. Each participant in a fantasy league drafts players from across baseball and combines them into a virtual team.

Fantasy baseball teams are neatly divided into hitting and pitching statistical categories. Prior to Ohtani joining the major leagues, there were very rarely players who could both hit and pitch well, so the websites that facilitate fantasy leagues mostly ignored these "two-way" players. When Ohtani joined major league baseball in 2018, most fantasy leagues treated Ohtani as if he were two separate players; the hitter and the pitcher. This was clearly the least complicated solution to the “problem” his unusual profile presented. It made sense to me.

A majority of the participants in the fantasy league I participate in hated this solution. They hated the idea of “splitting” a player into their hitting and pitching statistical performances. If they were going to draft Ohtani for their fantasy team, they wanted to reap the rewards of both his pitching and his hitting, just like his real-world team. Our league implemented a few fairly complicated solutions to facilitate this.

So, what does this have to do with RPGs? Different players in a game community (and a fantasy baseball league is a gaming community as much as a TTRPG group is) have different thresholds for verisimilitude. I shouldn't have been surprised that the standard solution to this unusual player shattered the ludic illusion for others, even if it didn’t bother me.

A huge (but often invisible) part of gaming culture is mediating different expectations of verisimilitude among participants, and we’re often feeling around in the dark to find those limits. Observing them away from them table can help inform that search.

Game Design is Innate, not Learned

“Game design” feels like a hobby or a profession – or at least an aspirational one – that someone adopts only gradually after many years of playing games.

But I don’t think that’s really true. Many people are “game designers” almost from the moment they play a game for the second time. Children deciding what is out of bounds in the backyard, or how to compensate for a shorthanded team, is similar to hacking a game or creating homebrew; an intuitive and innate part of the social negotiation inherent in group play.

Bounce

When we were kids, my brother and I created a game that we named (aptly, if not distinctively) Bounce.

Bounce began with one player shooting free throws from several points, aiming at a basketball hoop attached to our garage. They would score points for each shot they made. When they eventually missed a shot, the ball would rebound onto our driveway. The other player could then field the ball, shooting it or tossing it to a different part of the driveway. The fielding player could touch the ball at any time from when it left the backboard until when it touched the ground for the second time; i.e., they could allow it to bounce once, but not more. 

Our driveway had a shallow slope toward the garage, so play tended to naturally drift back toward the hoop. If the ball bounced twice without being fielded, the player who didn’t have possession could start shooting free throws again, and the whole process would repeat.

The receiver of the ball could rebound and immediately shoot in mid-air. They could let the ball bounce once, then try to make a cleaner shot. Or they could toss the ball to a different part of the driveway, possibly setting up a difficult bounce for the opponent to field. There was tennis-like tension as players pulled each other in different directions, always trying to set up their own shot while denying a good shooting position to their opponent.

Duel Risk

I used to play games with a group of friends who were Risk junkies. I never thought of myself as such a big Risk fan, but I did sink dozens (hundreds?) of hours into Conquer Club’s custom maps years later, so what do I know?

One of these friends figured out an interesting way to hack Risk by replacing the die rolls that determine the outcome of battles with quick contests in video games. A game of Risk involves a lot of battles, so we would choose video games where two players could square off and very quickly determine a winner. 

Fighting games worked well, particularly if they were fast. This was the PlayStation era, and the Bushido Blade games, with no health bars and the possibility for one-hit kills, were popular. We also played the then-recently released Pong: The Next Level, with players choosing "home courts" they could specialize in when defending the Risk territories they controlled.

I don’t know that we ever named this game, but it had a weirdly compelling combination of the slow, dry, strategic gameplay of Risk; contrasted with the fast, frenetic, blink-and-it’s-over resolution of the video game matches.