New Earth

This was a campaign setting that my brother started back in '77, and which I took over later when he gave up the hobby. The map was taken from the old SPI generic war-game Strategy 1, and the central conflict was between the invading armies of the sorceress Oktvabrina of Ostoslavia, and the heroic defenders of the Lion Empire. Though there were a lot of dungeons involved as well.

The systems started out with all or the original D&D books up to Eldritch Wizardry, plus Metamorphosis Alpha; but there was a lot of major system revision going on at that time. Some character classes (Alchemist, Bard) and add-ons (social standing) were gleand from The Strategic Review and early issues of the Dragon. MetAlpha (as it was known) is also responsible for the presence amongs the original campaign notes of stats for the original X-Men, Avengers and other similar characters who I shan't transcribe here, plus stats for the Zcarab from the Roger Dean poster.

Solar system

The system is a binary, a G-class primary (Surya/Osiris/Apollo) with a distant (67 AU) M-class companion (Agni/Set/Ares) in a 400-year orbit with eccentricity 0.45.

Planets

	Name	Orbital radius (AU)	Moons	Notes
I	Vasha/Horus/Hermes	0.2	—	Mercury like
II	Brahma/Thoth/Aphrodite	0.6	—	Venus like
III	New Earth	1	Sarasvati/Isis/Artemis and Ratri/Nephtys/Athene	Moons also known as Fei Lien and Feng Po
IV	Indra/Anubis/Zeus	3.6	8 moons, rings	Gas giant
V	Shiva/Shu/Hera	6.6	8 moons, no rings	Gas giant

Native Life forms

Bugbears, Umber Hulks, Hellhounds, Stirges, Owlbears, Ropers, Dragon Turtles, Giant Owls, Fire snakes, Winged Serpents, Dharzi Dogs, Fire Lizards, Minotaur Lizards, Giant Beetles, Dinosaurs, Giant Sharks, Rays, Water Spiders, Eyes, Morkoths, Mashers, Mastodons, Giant Ticks, Giant Slugs, Giant Mammals, Orcs (stone-age technology at time of landfall), Trolls, Manticoras, Wyverns, Dragons (Dominant life form pre-landfall), Purple Worms, Bicorns, Pegasi, Hippogriffs, Rocs, Gryphons, Slimes, Native equivalents of most Terran imports

Imported Life forms

Terran

Man, Horses, Mules, Dolphins, Wolves, Lions, Crocodiles, Dogs, Pigs, Cattle, Bears, Boars, Stags, Leopards, Elephants, Tigers

From Elsewhere

“Demons” — Very few, of numbered varieties, types I–IV being constructs; 12 Mind-flayers, each individually statted out and named.

NPCs

The Royal-Imperial family of the Lion Empire

(in 3421)

K.E. Roderic II (3360–3419) m Anzia of Kreuzland (3370–); their children are

King Emperor Anton IV (3389–) m Karlian of Ilmor (3393–)
Roderica (3391–) m King Leon of Ispanos
Antonia (3396–) m Duke Poul of Ilmor
Valric (3398–)
Zonja (3402–)

K.E. Anton has children

Anton (3413–)
Angara (3415–)

Stats under the earliest and least modified systems

	KE A n t o n IV	R o d e r i c a	A n t o n i a	V a l r i c	Z o n j a	L e o n	P o u l	D o w a g e r   E m p r e s s   A n z i a	QE   K a r l i a n
STR	14	7	13	15	13	11	14	5	7
INT	11	12	15	8	15	9	12	18(84)	17
WIS	13	15	8	13	8	13	16	11	10
CON	8	7	6	8	12	14	13	13	10
DEX	12	15	9	9	20	10	11	9	13
CHA	11	14	15	11	23	12	11	18	15
Will	5	14	15	12	16	10	9	11	15
Psi	—	—	71	—	—	—	53	83	76
Level	F7	C6	M c h a r m 2	F1	F6	F6	F8	M E l e m 7	M E l e m 4
HP	33	22	6	32	32	38	39	23	12
P s i   p o w e r s			R e d u c t i o n				C l a i r a u d i e n c e	L e v i t a t i o n D e t e c t   m a g i c, evil P r e c o g,   t e l e p o r t A t t a c k s — b l a s t   a n d   c r u s h D e f e n s e — T h o u g h t   s h i e l d	M o l e c u l a r   a g i t a t i o n,   S h a p e   a l t e r a t i o n

Other Significant NPCs

These are recorded under later system revisions, with a fixed hitpoint combat system

Oktvabrina : The never encountered major opponent, very much the archetypal evil sorceress, icily beautiful

STR 6 INT 21 WIS 18 Faith 14 CON 15 DEX/R 20 DEX/L 10 CHA 20 Will 14 Size 10 Psi — Sense 13

Elementalist Hits total 7 head 2 chest 6 arm 2 leg 2   Parry 5 Anti-parry 1   Hit +1 Damage +2 Dodge -6

Level 20 400 spell points All elementalist spells learned to +3, used to +5 Rings (right hand): Human control, shooting stars, forlorn encystment, pressor, true ring Rings (left hand): Fire resistance, regeneration, spell turning, prot +5   Circle of psi resistance

Sandra : Famed mercenary warrior, major field commander for the Lion Empire

STR 18 INT 15 WIS 11 Faith 10 CON 16 DEX/R 22 DEX/L 21 CHA 23 Will 19 Size 14 Psi — Sense 17

Fighter Hits total 19 head 3 chest 16 arm 4 leg 5   Parry 25 Anti-parry 20   Hit +5 Damage +6 Dodge -8

Level 15 Sword +3 Power Gauntlets (+6 damage, doors 1–9) True sight circlet (det illusion, infravision, disbelief)   AC: Shoulders 3 Forearms 6 Torso 5 Neck 4 Lower legs 7 Otherwise 9

Anetchka : Exiled Ostoslavian noble, focus of the resistance.

She lost her right hand to Oktvabrina's torturers, and now weilds a scythe/hook weapon prosthesis. She has a paralysis dart gun, a remnant of pre-landfall technology.
STR 16 INT 17 WIS 14 Faith 11 CON 16 DEX/R 14 DEX/L 7 CHA 18 Will 17 Size 13 Psi — Sense 16	Fighter/Energy Hits total 17 head 3 chest 14 arm 4 leg 5   Parry 11 Anti-parry 11   Hit +1 Damage +1 Dodge 0	Level 10/12 140 spell points Spells learned to/Used to Detect magic +3/+3 Read magic +3/+2 Light +3/+3 Magic Missile +3/+5 Pyrotechnics +3/+3 Wall of fire +3/+4 Electricity +3/+4 Lightning bolt +3/+7 Lightning resistance +3/+2 Disintegrate +3/+2

Geography

Obviously, the main map can't be transcribed here, but for those with access to the originals, the some cities were named.

In Hombierge, H1 is Géra, in Ispanos, I1 is Iszorra, in Jaegerstaat, J5 is Kelnir, in Kreuzland, K1 is Kreuzstadt, in Löwerreich, the cities are Helm, Idinburg, and Imor. In Morrashnorad, Wrǒc (if the letter between the ‘r’ and the ‘c’ doesn't come out it's Wrôc with the accent upside-down), Urrunsgrad, Aver-Ister, and Strelsau; in Novonorad, Noczwa, Stepametropol, Graach, Popushki and Galatz. In Ostoslavia, Dominets, Ostoslav, Karagora, in Palestan, Athach. In Rasha, Al-Haaq, in Simburi, Zupopo, Nurunga and Ndambange. In Tantassi, Genville and D'Ourbain. In Ubo, Uboga and Ngotu. In Vien-tan, Hoku-go, Chungking, Ping-liang, Cheng-tu and Hsiang-tan. InWeidong, Jabalpur and Thanjavur. In X'chow, Hanamaki, Sagamihara and Takamatsu. The various resource hexes were mapped to the castles, sorcerer's towers or temples from the Underworld and Wilderness (i.e. book 3) wilderness encounter tables.

The walled city of Idin-Burg, lying on the river Valdon. Roads lead north to Géra, south to Iszorra and east to Helm. The Royal-Imperial palace is on a mount, surrounded by its grounds running down to and across the river. On the east bank lie the dwellings of the gentry. North of the palace are, the barracks, to the south-west, the noble district and to the south, King Roderic's College. The marketplace is marked by the large coaching inn. By the Géra road is the Kreuzlander quarter, and by the Iszorra road, the Quantari quarter

Crunchy Bits

Priests

The campaign used the Pasadena Cleric system, which gave something like (level*(level+1)/2) + (faith-13) prayer points, and casting success was 60% * cleric level * prayer points / (prayer level²), and prayer levels are about twice the spell level one is used to, with magical abilities like turning undead coming in as level 1 prayers. Some high level spells, such as Raise Dead Fully, or Finger of Automatic Death mapped to prayer levels 15–20

The use of the various gods out of Gods, Demi-gods and Heroes ws accomodated by the early invention of specialty priests, assigning Pasadena levels to Druid spells, and portioning the whole ensemble out amongst the various pantheons e.g. from the ever popular Asgardians, Odin priests — Get ESP at prayer 6, 12 elemental summoning at prayer 12, no access to raise spells or their reverse. Thor priests — are split-class fighters, with prayers Call lightning at 5, resist lightning at 6, Control Weather at 10, no reversed spells, no Commune. From popular Olympians, Hermes priests — are split-class thieves, and gain +2″ move, Nike priests gain no curative spells, and have all destructive spells at 1 prayer level easier.

Combat

weapon vs weapon difficulty chart

	Attacker's Weapon
Defender's Weapon	Dagger	Sword	Flail	Greatsword	Staff or Polearm	Pike
Dagger	14	20	20	25	22	35
Sword	12	12	15	18	9	22
Flail	19	25	17	22	22	22
Greatsword	22	8	10	7	5	15
Staff/polearm	12	7	7	6	4	7
Pike	19	20	20	20	18	12
Shield	11	8	13	7	9	9

Beat the number on a d20 to parry. Modify by each person's STR based to-hit, weapon/shield plusses and fighter level. The attacker gets the benefits of his to-hit from DEX, and the defender from his AC bonus from DEX.Take -3 on the roll per previous parry this round.

Magic Items

Gloves and Gautlets were the specialty type of magic item in the campaign, including the power gauntlets (AC6, metal plates on leather) used by Sandra above, pickpocket gloves (+20%, leather, AC8), Dex gloves (+6 DEX, thin black cloth, AC9)

of magical specialty: +5 if one is a specialist in that type, +10 if not (slighlty offsetting the out-of-specialty penalty).

Mage Gauntlets

Specialty	Description	Colour	AC
Fire	heavy gauntlets	glowing red	5
Electricity	elbow length gloves	electric blue	6
Healing	thin cloth	white	9
Enchantment	thin leather	grass green	8
Illusion	thin cloth	matt black	9
Elements	elbow length gloves	silver	6
Mesmerism	leather gloves	iridescent	8

Semi-magical items included weapons made of exotic high-tech materials left over from the in-flight days, with names for the latter fallen days like High Bronze (+3 to hit) or Godsmetal (+5).

Rules for weapon enchantment were simple — pay enough gold, and expend enough spell points (implicitly giving the time involved), e.g. pay an up-front amout to ready the weapon for enchantment (120 each per pound of steel) then pay 1000N of each to boost a weapon from to +N to hit from +(N-1); and another +1000N to boost to +N damage from +(N-1), where damage pluses were never greater than the to-hit pluses, and flat sums extra for each power.

Magic System

The campaign used a system called Red Book (as it was written in a red school exercise book), an earlier cousin of .DSYS which went as follows:—

Specialist bonus = +1/2 per deviation each of INT and requisite from the 9-12 range (so a 7 counts as -1); Generalist bonus = +1 per deviation of INT from 9-12 (so +6 for INT 18). Specialist own class +5, Generalist or General spell class +0, Specialist other class, -5.

Spells take level in weeks to learn to +0; for each extra level weeks, another +1 to a maximum of +3. Each spell has a use bonus, starting at +0, with N successes needed to increase from +(N-1) to +N, failures subtract directly from the use bonus.

Roll 3d6, add the above bonuses, add the number of spell points used (at least equal to the spell level), and subtract points used to customise the spell, and compare against the effect table for that spell. There are no standard success values

Spell points are min (eps/1000 +5, eps/5000 +85).

Sample spell — Magic missile

This is a typical spell; it only has a few parameters to tweak. Fireball was far more complicated, along the same lines; other spells (e.g. cure paralysis) just had a simple fixed success/failure value.

Base number = 1, -2 per additional. Base range 50m, -1 per extra 5m. Base speed, 3m/s, -1 per extra m/s. Base accuracy +0, -2 for each +1 to hit. Base damage d6, -2 for each +1 to damage.

Success vs roll table

Power	up to 12	13-15	16-20	21-25	26+
Result	suffer attack	suffer 1/2 attack		success	+1 change per 2 over 25
Usage	-2	-1		+1	+2

Power over 25 can be used to belatedly buy customisation but at half the benefit.