I'm amazed I'm the only one to back a black hat so far. Knowing gamers and their taste in clothes, I thought that would be the only color anyone backed.

Ghul wrote:

Blackadder23 wrote:

Ghul wrote:

Very nice. So, what is left at this point?

Kimmerian, Kimmeri-Kelt, Lapp, Lemurian, Moor, Mu, Pict, Pict (Half-Blood), Roman, Tlingit, and Viking. Since I'm reusing relevant ones from previous races (i.e., Moor-Amazon is the same as Amazon-Moor), each successive race has one fewer new cross to create than the one before. So Vikings will only have one new cross (Viking-Yakut) and Yakuts will be 100% reused previous crosses.

Anyway, I'll get it done.

And then you can move onto tri-ethnic waifs! ;)
 

I think those all just yield "common" men. Or that's my story anyway.

Better late than never(?), here are the Kelt crosses:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/orhjrv5reh5hz38/Bi-Ethnic_Waifs_of_the_Boreas_%2528Kelt_Crosses%2529.pdf/file
Unsuprisingly, there are lots of "common" men here, and many more who will become so in the next generation.

The magical (super science?) properties of the room should react with the grenade and blow open a gaping hole to the Black Gulf!

My feeling is that paladins are in a worse position in Hyperborea than in a typical D&D campaign world, so they can't afford to be as picky. For example, Gary once stated that Lawful Neutral was the most common human alignment in default D&D. This would surely be the Chaotic alignments in Hyperborea, because of the outsized influence of Xathoqqua. Hyperborean paladins probably can't turn up their nose at help, even from necromancers.

And, to be honest, I didn't always enforce strict alignment restrictions on paladins, even in default D&D.
 

Osric_of_O wrote:

But if a prone creature could not attack, that would mean that Pyromancers' Fire Web spells, which keep the victim prone for multiple rounds, would be an instant, no-challenge, encounter-winner.  And we don't really want that, do we?

Lots of spell are instant encounter winners, depending on the circumstances. That's why it's important not to tamper with the rules that make spells a limited commodity. If a character uses an encounter-winning spell now, they won't have it in the next encounter, when they might need it more. Today the PCs get an unfair victory, and tomorrow they get screwed by bad rolls. IMO it all comes out more or less even in the end.

To me it makes no real world sense to allow prone attacks (especially melee attacks) as a general rule. I would permit them in very limited circumstances (a deliberately prone character sniping with a crossbow or blowgun, perhaps). I might also accept an argument from a monk character that he might be able to make some martial arts attack from a prone position. Everyone else has to stand up first!

If you're asking if the Hyperboreans practiced slavery when they had political power, they definitely did according to the Referee's Manual ("Along the way they noted the advent of terrible beasts and monsters, as well as the infiltration of savages; these latter were paid no more heed than apes or dogs to be slaughtered or enslaved as whims dictated."). Whether a specific Hyperborean king would be interested in perpetuating the institution if restored to life and power is your call. I guess it depends if you and your players are interested in delving into what can be a distasteful subject.

Here are the Greek crosses:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/fbky6eyvnnqibfo/Bi-Ethnic_Waifs_of_the_Boreas_%2528Greek_Crosses%2529.pdf/file
As expected, lots of "common" men here, and many more who will be in the next generation. Much of Hyperborea has an Hellenic basis, so nothing too strange here. The next ones will be the strange ones...

Carnby wrote:

If your players aren't super used to OSR-style gameplay, it might be useful to try and keep pressure up to keep them moving forward. When I ran it, my players tried to back out and rest basically right at the finish line, but luckily went to talk to a priest who was able to tell them it was probably a bad idea to leave a rat daemon around to plot revenge. Luckily they listened, if they had waited the night I'd have had to have them come back to the whole inn infested and the NPCs stripped to the bone by ravenous rats.

One useful method here is to put the PCs on a time limit right up front: "In three days my daughter will be executed by the bandits who kidnapped her. Rescue her before then and you get 500 gp each; if she dies, you get nothing." That will reduce the chance of them fooling around. Another method (although it's heavy-handed, and I would use it less often) is to cut off their retreat (with a collapsed hallway, overwhelming numbers of monsters, or whatever).

Iron Ranger wrote:

Frank for the win!

Well, he was taking the minority position in that discussion, but that doesn't make him wrong. The smallest minority is the individual, and no individual DM is ever wrong about his own campaign.