Yora – Page 100 – Spriggan's Den

Fantasy Safari: Monster Manual (D&D 3rd Ed.), Part 3

More Monsters from the Monster Manual.

The Mohrg looks both icky and also pretty cool. It’s a human skeleton whose chest is filled with purple worms. It is however not a worm riding a human skeleton, but really a single undead creature that is created from a murderer who died unpunished. And it seems to be implied that it is the evil soul that makes the criminal return to unlife and not the work of a necromancer, which really raises the question where these worms are coming from? Perhaps the artist got unclear instructions what it should look like. A morg attacks both with its hands and its tongue, which in this illustration is also a worm. The tongue causes paralysis in living creatures, while it can also use the Improved Grab ability when it hits with its arms. Since humanoid ceatures never have the Improved Grab ability, I would guess the best way to describe it in combat would be to have the worms that are wrapped around the arm bones wrap around the target and hold it. The players sure would appreciate it. A mohrg is much more powerful than a skeleton and other than in appearance has nothing at all in common with those. When a creature is killed by a mohrg it raises as a simple zombie, but only after one to four days. Which in completely useless in combat, and you would have to add a lot of zombies to make a fight against a CR 8 monster more challenging. Considering all this, the writer who created the mohrg probably had much more in mind for it than just being a stronger skeleton to jump out from behind a corner and be killed in two to three rounds. This creature is really much better suited as the centerpiece of an entire adventure. One to four days is quite some time in which a lot can happen to a corpse. The mohrg might take it back to its lair and wait for it to rise, or it might be left where it fell. Or it might even have been found and already burried in the graveyard or being prepared for burrial. Suddenly, zombies! Zombies everywhere! A great investigation adventure which at the end will come together with a fight against the mohrg itself. Which being a murderer in life, should also have some backstory to go along with. This is exactly the kind of hidden information I am looking for in these books. Monsters that are much more than something to encounter standing in a dungeon room and to be forgotten four rounds later, but are actually made to have adventures created around them. And I must ask, why doesn’t this book spell this out?! This book is 15 years old, I had it since it first came out, and I have been using it countless times. And only now, carefully disecting each obscure monster and searching for tiny details that might be used as plot hooks, did I ever notice it? “1d4 days” is only seven characters, but they make all the difference. Why hide it? Would it have been so hard to add two more sentences to the description? Imagine if they had made that effort for all monsters in this book? D&D would be a completely different game than it is today and not the rules obsessed tactical combat simulation that it became.

Do I have to say it again? I probably shouldn’t, but I’ll do anyway: This Nightshade illustration is fucking awesome! Like almost all Sam Wood illustrations in this book. The perspective makes it clear that this is a not a human sized guy and when you check the description it’s fucking huge. Not just big, but size category: Huge. A 6 meter tall bastard of pure darkness with blue glowing eyes. Nightshades come in three variants, the nightwing (huge bat), nightwalker (huge man), and nightcrawler (gargantuan worm) and are from the Known World setting of BECMI. Which I think is the reason for its biggest flaw. In BECMI, character levels go all the way up to 36, almost twice as high as the maximum of 20 in the 3rd edition core rules. Unfortunately, when converting the creature this difference was apparently not accounted for making the nightshades pretty high level creatures with a CR of 16 for the nightwalker. Which means I never got any opportunity to use it. Let me get my soap box, I think I need it today. I hate high level play in D&D. My campaigns usually don’t go any longer than 3 years and almost all of them start at low levels, because I very often get lots of people to play who never played any RPGs before. And since I don’t run dungeon crawling grind-fests, I’ve never seen any PCs of a level higher than 8th, either as GM or as player. And the way D&D is set up, that meant a huge amount of content never could be used at all. Like this cool badass bastard. Today I know better and could just rebuild him as a CR 8 creature and use that, but I used to be a young and stupid GM and that never really occured to me. I am afraid I don’t have much to say about the monster itself. There isn’t really any description what it is and what it does, and the abilities don’t seem interesting either. But damn, it looks cool.

The Phantom Fungus looks very weird and kinda stupid in this illustration. Which doesn’t actually matter because it’s completely invisible almost the entire time. The stats for this monster are really very simple. It’s medium size, has animal intelligence, and is only CR 3. It’s natural invisibility is the only ability it has. Actually, you could just ignore the illustration since none of those things on its back or the tentacles coming out of them are doing anything. It is permanently invisible, walks up to you, and bites. Clearly the artist thought that this is totally boring and painted something much more interesting, if stupid looking, instead. The invisibility really is its only thing. I think the best idea is probably to just take this ability and add it to other creatures and make some really interesting monsters. Continue reading “Fantasy Safari: Monster Manual (D&D 3rd Ed.), Part 3”

Fantasy Safari: Monster Manual (D&D 3rd Ed.), Part 2

Continuing with the Monster Manual. And what a weird bunch of critters we have.

I think the Ethereal Filcher is hands down the weirdest thing to ever appear in any D&D book. This beats brain collectors and pherims by a long shot. As their name indicates, ethereal filchers are creatures from the ethereal plane, a place that is often mentioned in D&D but to my knowledge never really explored in any way. Mostly because it’s supposed to be almost entirely empty and featureless, I believe. The filcher is one attempt to add something to that plane, and I think we have to consider it a complete failure. They actually live in very hard to reach caves on the material plane, only moving through the ethereal plane to get in and out of their lairs and to sneak up on their prey. What they do is using their natural ability to sense magic to find people carrying magic items. Then they pop out from seemingly nowhere, grab the item, and return back to the etheral plane. Which really sounds like a terrible monster to use in your game. A group of 3rd level characters should have no ways to track or follow the ethereal filcher in any way and any item it gets a hold on is almost certainly gone forever. This just sucks. No wonder they were never used for anything to my knowledge.

The Ethereal Marauder is another creature from the ethereal plane and actually native to that place. It also does not look nearly as insane as the ethereal filcher. It is also not much better as a monster, though, as it uses the same trick of popping out from nowhere, delivering a bite against their prey, and disappearing again until their target is dead. There isn’t really anything 3rd level characters could do about it other than readying an action, but as a GM, I would not allow players to say “I attack the thing when it pops up again in any of the six squares next to me”. At the very least you’d have to specific the space you are targeting and in that case the marauder just pops up behind your back.

I believe Formians are a race that originates in Planescape, or at the very least had their greatest appearance in that setting. I think they have something to do with the border between the lawful outer planes of Mechanus and Arcadia, but nothing else is said about this in this book. They are still described as agressivelly expansionist, trying to create new colonies everywhere and taking control of every place they come to. There are several different types of formians, ranging from the small and quite weak workers to the very powerful myrmarchs and of course the magnificent queens. All formians within a 50 mile radius of the queen are always in telepathic contact with each other, making it almost impossible to surprise them or infiltrate their lairs. If one of them sees you, all of them know you are there instantly. Formians have various magical abilities depending on their rank. While workers are pretty weak and harmless, groups of them can work together to cast the spells cure serious wounds and make whole unlimited times per day, so any damage adventurers may cause to a colony will be very quickly repaired. Unless a formian is outright slain in battle, it will be back at full strength a few minutes later as long as workers can get to them. Taskmasters not only control formian workers and warriors, they also have the ability to telepathically control almost any kind of living creature and will almost always be accompanied by bodyguards of some other race. Myrmarchs have even more powers than that and the queen of a hive is always a sorcerer of at least 17th level. Even though workers and warriors are not very strong or dangerous by themselves, it is very unlikely that players will just run into a small group of them. Formians will almost always be encountered as a complete hive that at the very least consists of several dozens of warriors and hundreds of workers. And given their extremely effective organization they are also significantly more dangerous than just their individual numbers. If you’re using formians as opponents for your campaign and you are using them as described, it almost certainly should be as a major threat and the centerpiece of the whole adventure, most likely for pretty high level characters of 15th level or above. Continue reading “Fantasy Safari: Monster Manual (D&D 3rd Ed.), Part 2”

The Difference between Conan d20 and Barbarians of Lemuria

Yesterday someone had been asking me why I consider the descision to base the Conan d20 roleplaying game on the d20 system to be the biggest mistake the developers had made. I think the d20 system is not suited for any game based on fantasy literature, movies, or videogames and only gets in the way of everything that defines the Sword & Sorcery genre in particular. It’s all about fast action and outrageous stunts and is deeply set in a mindset that is all about emotion and not rational consideration. It’s not the smart and calculating guys who win, but the ones who are courageous and daring. It takes place in worlds that work by the Rule of Cool. And the d20 system is the total opposite of that. You can play in a world that looks just like a Sword & Sorcery world, but it does not play like a Sword & Sorcery world.

This is something that requires explanation if you are not familiar with rules light Sword & Sorcery games like Barbarians of Lemuria and especially when all you ever played is d20 games. I couldn’t see how the choice of system makes a difference either until I really started to learn some other games as well.

Conan d20

GM: While you are sitting at your table in the tavern, an officer of the guard and two guardsmen approach you. The officer steps next to your chair and orders you to come with him to the palace.

Player: Is the officer within 5 feet of me so I can strike him?

GM: Yes, he is right next to your chair, looking down at you.

Player: Is he wearing a helm?

GM: Yes.

Player: What kind of helm?

GM: It’s a type of steel cap.

Player: How close are the two guardsmen? Am I in the area they threaten to make Attacks of Opportunity?

GM: They are too far away to attack you from where they stand.

Player: Okay, I want to take my mug and bash the officer in the head with it to knock him out.

GM: Make a Sleight of Hand skill check to see if you can grab your mug without drawing suspicion.

Player: 12.

GM: The officer has a 15 on his Spot check and notices you reaching for the mug. Roll Initiative.

Player: I got a 15.

GM: The officer has a 9, the two guardsmen have a 17 and a 6. The first guard is too far away to see what is going on so you go first.

Player: I try to hit his head with my mug.

GM: Are you still sitting or do you stand up first?

Player: Can I still draw my sword in the same round when I stand up and make an attack?

GM: No, standing up and drawing a weapon are both Move Actions. But since your Base Attack Bonus is +1 or higher you could draw the weapon while you are standing up as a single Move Action.

Player: Okay, so I try to hit the officer with my mug while still sitting, then stand up and draw my sword at the same time.

GM: Since the officer has not had a turn in this fight yet he can not make an Attack of Opportunity because you use an improvised weapon. Do you have a special ability that allows you to make attacks with improvised weapons without a penalty for not being proficient with it?

Player: No.

GM: Okay, then make an attack roll with a -4 penalty for using an improvised weapon and a -2 penalty for sitting.

Other Player: Is there even enough light in this smoky tavern to make a normal attack roll or should the attack have a 20% miss chance from Concealment?

GM: They are standing right next to each other, I think that’s good enough to not have a miss chance.

Player: My attack roll is 12.

GM: Since the officer has no weapon in his hand he can not parry. But as he is still flat-footed he also loses his Dexterity bonus and Dodge bonus to his Dodge Defense, reducing it to 10. You hit him. The mug deals 1d3 points of nonlethal damage plus your Strength modifier.

Player: Since he is flat-footed I also get my extra 1d6 Sneak Attack damage, right?

GM: Yes.

Player: Okay, that’s 1d3+3+1d6… 9!

GM: Since you said you specifically want to bash him in the head, I only apply the Damage Reduction for the helm, but not the armor he is wearing. So that’s 8 points of nonlethal damage.

Player: Does that knock him out?

GM: No. As it is his turn now he draws his sword and makes an attack against you.

Player: Oh well, was a fun idea though.

Barbarians of Lemuria

GM: While you are sitting at your table in the tavern, an officer of the guard and two guardsmen approach you. The officer steps next to your chair and orders you to come with him to the palace.

Player: I bash him in the head with my mug!

GM: Roll attack.

Player: 11!

GM: Your mug shatters on his face and he drop down cold. The other two guardsmen raise their spears in panic.

Player: Come and get it!

The Ancient Lands in 20 questions

I saw a link to Jeff’s Gameblog with a list of 20 questions meant to create a quick introduction to your campaign setting that lets people know what it is about. Seems like a good idea to go through them with my Ancient Lands setting.

What is the deal with my priests’s religion?
Most priests are shamans who serve as mediators between the spirits of the land and the people who inhabit it. They perform the rituals to ask the spirits for favor and to appease them when they have become angered by something. Many villages have one primary spirit they worship, which rules over the valey the people live in or a mountain or lake that sits next to it, but shamans are not servants of any one particular spirit. Instead they see to it that all the spirits cause no harm to the village by performing rituals and sacrifices for them, and banish hostile spirits that come to the village to cause chaos. In some of the large cities, there are also local cults dedicated to specific gods like the Sun or the Moon, who are revered as great guides of wisdom and philosophy.
Where can we go to buy standard equipment?
Most villages don’t have stores were equipment is sold, but its usually no problem to trade for supplies if the locals are friendly. Many villages make their own axes, spears, and arrows, but shields, armor, and swords are usually made in larger central towns where the people from the surrounding villages come to trade for them.
Where can we go to get plate armor custom fitted for this monster I just befriended?
There is no plate armor in the Ancient Lands. The best places to get custom made large mail hauberks or lamellar armor is in the mountain strongholds of the skeyn, a race of short grey-green goblin-like people. Another option might be to try one of the handful of large port cities on the coast, which are big enough to have specialized craftsmen for more unusual trades.
Who is the mightiest mage in the land?
The greatest sorcerer in the Ancient Lands is probably the immortal Naga-Lord in the jungles far to the south, beyond the lands of the lizardmen. Few people have heard of him or know really anything about him and he never leaves his distant homeland, but his agents and those of other naga sorcerers sometimes show up in the most expected places, though most are probably never discovered as such.
The second most powerful would likely be the Sorcerer Queen of the city state Ven Marhend, where many nobles practice the dark arts of sorcery in the open without fear of attack from druids or demon hunters.
Who is the greatest warrior in the land?
Most people consider the Sun Emperor of the lizardfolk empire to be the greatest warrior in the Ancient Lands. In his current position he almost never gets to test his strength in battle, but he was chosen by the priests of the sun to be the most capable warrior in the empire. In recent years, the Lord-General of the order of warrior monks has become the most successful and feared conqueror of the Ancient Lands, who turned the army of his predecessors from one among many into one of the major powers of the Ancient Lands.
Who is the richest person in the land?
This would most certainly be either the Sun Emperor or the Naga-Lord who have almost full control over all the riches of their lands. But in the lands of the elves and humans, there are many highly succesful merchants in the port cities who are believed to be fabulously rich as well.
Where can we go to get some magical healing?
Most village shamans know some healing magic and would likely be willing to share it with guests and travelers, unless the people of their village need it more. But to someone who is from an enemy clan or suspected to be allied with them would have a very hard time to get any kind of help.
Where can we go to get cures for the following conditions: poison, disease, curse, level drain, lycanthropy, polymorph, death, undeath?
Poisons, diseases, and minor curses can be dealt with by most shamans and witches. For more severe dark magic and the powers of undeath, the loose order of the druids is well known to have studied these dark forces and is dedicated to fight and eradicate them.
Is there a magic guild my mage belongs to or that I can join in order to get more spells?
The two largest and most influential groups of mages and shamans are the druids, who opperate throughout most of the Ancient Lands, and the noble sorcerers of Ven Marhend and the towns and mannors that surround the city. The two are bitte enemies though, and have completely opposing views about the dangers and potential benefits of sorcery. There are also numerous small and secretive groups of warlocks, but even most sorcerers consider them insane for consorting with demons.
Where can I find an alchemist, sage or other expert NPC?
In most places, shamans and witches are the best place to look for alchemical brews and the knowledge of sages. Other experts are probably more likely to be found in the larger towns, but if one needs someone of very great skill, the handful of large port cities are the only place where one could reliably hope to find them.
Where can I hire mercenaries?
To fight a dangerous nearby threat, a dozen or two additional armed men can be found in almost any village, but these would only fight to defend their home from an immediate danger. To find warriors for hire one would have to go to one of the larger towns and try the taverns around the market, but the possible choices are usually few and of questionable reputation as few warriors have any reason to leave their home villages and fight for pay. When in need of large numbers of elite mercenaries, the Warrior-Monks are always looking for reasons to fight something, though they come very expensively.
Is there any place on the map where swords are illegal, magic is outlawed or any other notable hassles from Johnny Law?
In any place where the local shamans are known to be involved with the order of druids, sorcerers are very much advised to keep their special arts hidden and pretend to be common witches. The druids are very quick to eradicate any trace of sorcery they find and few people would try to get in their way. Naga and serpent warriors found in the lizardfolk empire are usually killed on sight or captured to be interrogated and executed later.
Which way to the nearest tavern?
Most villages don’t have a tavern, but large gatherings are in the great halls of the clan chiefs almost every night and guests of the clan are always expected to spend their evening there to share new and tales. In larger towns, taverns and small inns are usually found near the market. In the port cities numerous taverns line the harbor, but more are found almost everywhere inside the city walls.
What monsters are terrorizing the countryside sufficiently that if I kill them I will become famous?
Most of the Ancient Lands is wilderness and most of the wilderness is full of monsters. Sometimes these wander dangerously close to villages and each clan has warriors who watch out for them as much as for warriors from enemy clans. The most dangerous beasts likely to be encountered are wyverns, manticores, and various sea monsters, which often can be much to powerful for most common warriors, shamans, and witches.
Are there any wars brewing I could go fight?
There is always something brewing between the High Druids of Angdal and the Sorcerer Lords of Ven Marhend and the region between these two major power is constantly seeing some small scale fighting that occasionally grows into short wars. To the Warrior-Monks war is their life, and wherever companies of them are going there is most likely to be some big fighting to be found. The worst fighting tends to be in the jungles between the armies of the Sun Emperor and the Naga Lords, but both sides usually take only lizardmen into their forces. Hunting pirates on the Inner Sea is also always an option.
How about gladiatorial arenas complete with hard-won glory and fabulous cash prizes?
No, not really.
Are there any secret societies with sinister agendas I could join and/or fight?
The two best known factions are the druids and the sorcerers who have been at odds for ages. The druids are dedicated to fighting the use of sorcery and the corrupting effects it has on the land and the people that live on it and will stop at nothing to destroy the presence of any demons that have been lured into the world by the use of sorcery either accidentally or on purpose. The sorcerers of Ven Marhend believe that the study and mastery of these can create magical wonders far beyond those of common witches and won’t allow the frightened druids to stop them. The much smaller faction of the demon hunters agrees with the druids that all demons have to be destroyed, as well as those sorcerers who take the path of the warlock and make deals with them, but they think that the best way to fight demons is to fight them with their own sorcerous magic. The little bit of magic corruption they cause is a small price compared to what would be left in the wake of a rampaging demon. The Naga Lords are another group of sorcerers who have always been rivals of the Sorcerer Lords of Ven Marhend and the two groups are constantly trying to send spies and assassins at each other and to gain control over burried magical secrets from ancient times before the other find them.
What is there to eat around here?
Most people live in small villages that grow most of their own food, which to a great part is wheat, rice, and potatoes. Most villages are small and remote enough to provide plenty of food by hunting in the forests and hills, which are full of deer, boars, rabbits, and geese. Sheep and goats are also commonly kept in small herds and when human nomads from the steppes in the west settled in the Ancient Lands a few generations ago they also brought with them cows. In the jungles and southern islands there are plenty of fruits, while in the north it’s mostly berries, apples, pears, and plums.
Any legendary lost treasures I could be looking for?
Ancient treasure left behind from the times when the fey ruled the world are the most prized things to be found anywhere in the Ancient Lands. While not exactly common, there are countless burried and overgrown ruins scattered throughout the massive stretches of unexplored wilderness and every small clan chief will sacrifice almost everything to get his hands on some. Especially if this keeps their enemies from getting them instead. The hunt for these ancient treasures is the main reason that drives warriors to explore the wild and that makes chiefs to send their best warriors and scouts to explore the surrounding wilds.
Where is the nearest dragon or other monster with a huge treasure?
Gold and jewels have little value to beasts and spirits, but those left behind by the few thousands of years ago are usually found deep in the ruins of their ancient castles and cities, which are often full of strange and very dangerous beasts not usually found near settled areas. Only a few of these ruins are well known and finding them in the trackless wilderness is a difficult challenge in itself. But even these usually have never been explored in full and there is no telling what might still be hidden in the deeper chambers. The best finds are usually made in those ruins that have never been seen by mortal eyes before and are located in the most unreachable parts of the great forests or mountains.

Fantasy Safari: Monster Manual (D&D 3rd Ed.), Part 1

To me, and probably lots of other people my age and younger, the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition Monster Manual is clearly the one and only true monster book. It was the one I started with and unlike the later monster books for the edition, it had all the normal monsters, like orcs, goblins, ogres, owlbears, manticores, yuan-ti, beholders, gelatinous cubes and so on. Well “normal” for Dungeons & Dragons. But it also had quite a number of creatures that always made me think “did anyone ever use this?” and that never seemed to make any appearances in any other books. There was just that one entry with the weird picture, which I soon didn’t even notice any longer when I flipped through the book looking for monsters for my adventures. Since I assume that lots of people felt similar about them, I wanted to give this one the Fantasy Safari treatment for quite some time, even though it’s possibly the least obscure monster book for almost anyone under 30.

Monster Manual for Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition by Wizards of the Coast, 2000/2003; 266 pages of monsters.

I am not going to lie, I love the Behir mostly because of the picture. Damn, this thing looks cool. A behir is a huge spiky purple snake with lots of small legs. While they are not particularly bright, they are still of somewhat human-like intelligence and able to talk. But like animals they are of neutral alignment, which means they shouldn’t be attacking everyone they encounter on sight, as an intelligent creature killing other intelligent creatures for food is almost always considered evil, no matter what particular interpretation of alignment you follow. Though that leaves the question, how do they interact with player characters? They probably would defend their home against intruders and keep anyone from stealing their treasures, but with a creature like this its hard to imagine why they would even have treasure in the first place. The most likely situation I can imagine for players to fight a behir would be the behir being in service to some other more powerful creature or NPC and guarding the entrances to their stronghold. But even then, given the behirs usual alignment and intelligence, talking might be a real option as well. As a giant worm, a behir has all the common abilities of such creatures in 3rd edition, as wrapping around a smaller creature and crushing it or swallowing it down in one go. It also has a lightning breath, but as it can be used only once per minute, it probably will use it only once in a fight. The behir is actually a pretty old creature that predates the Monster Manual by almost 20 years, but I’ve never really seen it used anywhere through all editions.

Chaos Beast, we meet again. It’s the Foaming Blasphemy from the Bestiary of the Hyborian Age. The Monster Manual actually predates the Bestiary by several years, but since the Bestiary usually only includes creatures from Conan stories, I think it’s a strong indication that this is where D&D got the idea from. The Bestiary then just copied the rules for the mechanical implementation that had already been written up for D&D. (Since the Conan d20 RPG is basically the same system; why invent the wheel twice?) Continue reading “Fantasy Safari: Monster Manual (D&D 3rd Ed.), Part 1”

We are not using the Z-Word!

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the concept of Evil in my Ancient Lands setting. It got me thinking about how a story or series of stories can be given its own distinctive character by deciding what words and concepts don’t exist in their worlds. Even longer back, I also remember reading an article about a writer saying he doesn’t use the word “damn” in his story because in that world there is no damnation that could await people. And it does not make sense in a Legend of Zelda game when a character says “Gee, it sure is boring around here”, because “Gee” is Jesus. Selectively not using word is probably something that readers are very unlikely to actively notice unless they are specifically looking out for it. But I think a great number of readers will at least sense it unconscously. So I’ve been thinking some more on other words I don’t want to use in my writing.

"Why not?" "Because it's ridiculous!" — “Why not?”
“Because it’s ridiculous!”

Zombie: The original Z-word. In the world I am using there are the corpses of the dead which get animated by magic and wander around attacking the living. But these are not created by some kind of plague or being altered by a wizard, but are possessed by ~~evil~~ hostile spirits. They can be mostly intact or nothing more than skeletons or anything in between. While not terribly smart or displaying any real motivations, they still think. They are still very much like zombies, but they are also quite different from the common movie-zombie. Also, a zombie is something the readers know and are familiar with, and within the world of the story the walking dead are so rare that almost no character will ever have encountered them. If I call them zombies, the readers will think the protagonist thinks of them as zombies and therefore assume these are not really anything to worry about for an experienced hero. If the protagonist is surprised and does not quite know what he’s dealing with, then the reader should feel the same and that just won’t happen if they are described as zombies.

Hell, hellish: Something can not look hellish, like Hell, or like from hell if there is no place called Hell and the people in the stories have no concept of such a place.

Ghost: Still not entirely certain about this, but I think I want to avoid using the word ghost. Those are those white glowing souls of the dead with unfinished business they have to complete before they can depart. In a world that is highly animistic, the default world for an incorporeal being would be “spirit”. In case the spirit is actually a dead person, I prefer the words Shade or Wraith. Like the zombies, it keeps readers a bit uncertain what exactly it is.

Soul: Like Evil, the word soul comes with a lot of preconcieved bagage. If the life energy of a person is not immortal and going to remain what it is in some form of afterlife, the term soul seems misleading to me.

Sin: Another word that really works only in a christian context. The best analogue in an animistic world would be taboo.

Wizard: I never use the term wizard. It always reminds me too much of scholars with libraries of arcane tomes and magic wands. Since that’s not in any way similar to what these people are in my stories, I always call them sorcerers or witches or something like that.

Fire!: This is admitedly pendantery. But arrows and catapults are not fired.

(And yes, I know. I need to find some other names for Ghost Paint and Soul Stones.)