CASTLE OLDSKULL – Oldskull Dragons is a role playing game supplement written and published by Kent David Kelly. The supplement is aimed at Dungeons & Dragons-based games, especially OSR and older types, and is covered by the Open Game License. As a result some parts are considered to be Open Game Content.
This is a 115 page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $2.99 but was purchased at the reduced price of $0.99 during a sale. One page is the front cover, one and a half the front matter, two are About the Author and three are the Open Game License.
The short Description functions as an introduction to the supplement with an example of a dragon.
How to Use This Book has suggestions for using the enclosed dragons; in a sandbox wilderness where the characters could blunder into anything and it is their responsibility to pay attention, or use the dragons in the order given for a more balanced approach or to stock a dungeon, matching them, approximately, to party capabilities.
Understanding the Dragon Entries explains how each of the different fields works, explaining the logic behind them. Names explains the origins of the names and the epithet, which is based around the dragon’s abilities. The Description gives the dragon’s size, age category, sex, subspecies, age, chance to be sleeping, language ability, spell casting ability and suggested spells. There is a fairly length explanation in this subsection on decisions made on caster level and casting spells which were not clear in the 1977 edition.
Combat Prowess has the various combat stats. This has an explanation as to how the special abilities have been added in the B/X manner using asterisks and the logic used. The claw/claw/bite damage rates have also been modified. Strengths and Weaknesses gives the various special abilities and weaknesses, including those unrelated to offence and defence, and the addition of resistance to a dragon’s own breath weapon type (which makes sense).
Further Considerations has a dragon’s saving throw class and level, Intelligence, morale, alignment and size. Again there are modifications to intelligence and alignment, diverging from the 1977 bestiary. Suggested Lair Terrain has a recommendation of where to place a dragon’s lair, followed by ancestry. Most dragons have Unknown for this but others are connected to various mythical dragon and dragon-like creatures of Europe and the Middle East, with the World of Oldskull myth origin followed by the equivalent in the real world. Finally in this section Recommended PC Party Level for Encounters the level the author thinks a party should be able to handle a dragon without a TPK.
The Power of Dragons suggests avoiding a modern trend the author is opposed to by creating colossal draconic beasts seen in media. Dragons are also recommended to be played intelligently and without mercy; a dragon in the air will probably repeatedly breathe on a party before dropping to close combat range. It states that dragons are very intelligent and should be played as such – although it isn’t mentioned that some of the dragons described are actually pretty stupid – and to increase the danger, give a dragon a similar mate.
The Draconian Exegesis: A Hundredfold Old School Dragons for Your Delectation is the d100 table of the dragons, although in anything but a totally sandbox wilderness they really shouldn’t be rolled randomly unless a total party kill is the aim. These are also divided into levels – probably the author’s Lethality Levels – from 1 to 15+.
Draconian Treasure Troves is the treasure that dragons have. It starts out explaining that the troves are randomly generated using the 1977 rules, and that even though some may look totally unbalancing, they aren’t necessarily. For after defeating the dragon the trove needs transporting and 60,000 copper pieces weigh a lot. PCs will have to determine what to do. Do they cherry pick, or do they post some behind as a guard? Either way, other intelligent creatures in the area will probably decide to get some treasure for themselves. The author mentions a well known fantasy book – deliberately calling it The Halfling – where entire armies from miles around descended on the dragon’s lair wanting a share of the hoard.
The 100 different draconic hoards correspond to the dragons in the first table. The dragon’s names are then repeated. It does beg the question as to why the two tables weren’t combined. The author also notes that the dragon’s lethality doesn’t necessarily relate to the size of the hoard, as they were randomly generated, but the most erratic results were discarded. The hoards also have likelihood percentages listed that the dragon will actually have them. Just because a dragon has a treasure entry doesn’t mean it will actually have it.
CASTLE OLDSKULL – Oldskull Dragons in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks or a table of contents. Even though much of it is taken up by the two main tables, bookmarking the major and minor sections would have been useful. Navigation is poor. The text maintains a two column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a variety of colour and black and white illustrations, by the looks of it a combination of stock and public domain, as is typical, although the styles are often not complimentary. The illustrations are appropriate to the section as well; the draconic table has lots of images of dragons including, by the looks of it, more than a few of St George and the Dragon, and the treasure table has images of treasures.
Dragons are powerful and dangerous, or at least they should be, and this supplement does help with that, for the right types of system. One area where it doesn’t really help is personality; beyond the epithet there is nothing to give each dragon personality beyond a bunch of combat stats and some vulnerabilities. Having less dragons, but with more descriptions of how they behave, in and out of combat, would be a more interesting supplement.
This supplement is basically a list of increasingly dangerous foes and their treasure – even the good dragons are essentially portrayed as things to defeat. No notes are made of an individual dragon’s behaviour, interests, proclivities etc. They are all, essentially, characterless. A more interesting treatment of a, really very dangerous, dragon can be found in Scions of Evil. A GM using these dragons would be advised to make them more individual and memorable; give them personality quirks, such as a love of emeralds but a hatred of rubies, or desires for certain things. Not just simply list some vulnerabilities. This is a good collection of draconic stats that have been developed from the 1977 version, but it’s no more than that. CASTLE OLDSKULL – Oldskull Dragons can be found by clicking here.
Leave a Reply