Peshwa Anarchs (Fallen Saints) - Blackmoor Week

Peshwa Anarch (Fallen Saints)

Black Saints, Dark Ancestors, Calelrin's Fallen

STATS (BECMI)	Anarch
Armor Class	3
Hit Dice	7**(M)
Move	120' (40')
Attacks	2 daggers or 2 arrows
Damage	1d10+ poison or 2d6+paralysis
No. Appearing	1(1)
Save As	F7
Morale	12
Treasure Type	E
Intelligence	10
Alignment	Chaotic
XP Value	1250

TYPE: Planar (Very Rare) 

Peshwa Anarchs are corrupted ancestors of the Peshwa horsemen culture of Blackmoor. Once mortal champions of evil, these creatures have been promoted by the evil patrons of their people into a demon like status. When they are sent to the Prime Material Plane, they will often contact some of their living descendants or other corrupted individual mortals that they will direct to accomplish their goals. Anarchs are often mounted on skeleton horses or Nightmares (See AC9). 

 In combat, Anarchs will often use their mounts to try to keep at a distance from foes and will fire their bows. They can shoot two arrows per round and may fire at no penalties while mounted. Targets hit by an arrow must save vs. Paralysis or be paralysed for 1d6 rounds. Elves are immune to this effect. In close combat, the Anarch will attack with its poisonous dagger doing 1d0 points of damage. Targets hit must save vs poison or die. 

 Anarchs may be Cleric Spellcasters and advance up to 7th level using the monstrous spellcaster rules. 

 Terrain: Planar, Ruins, Plains 

Trivia: "Peshwa" Saints were introduced in the sourcebook Riders of Hak by Tad Kilgore and Dave Brainard for the d20 Dave Arneson's Blackmoor product line, but the book never really defined what these Saints were like. The above is my attempt to provide a game mechanical representation that can be brought into any game based on those ideas.

Illustration by IceWingsArt

Thanks to RobJN and the CBI Team for sparring with ideas and overall support.

-Havard

Dungeon Clean-Up Crew

As Dave Arneson's group were exploring their early dungeons, the fascination of the players for these underground activities lead to new and interesting ideas being formed. I have previously discussed David Megarry's ideas for turning dungeon exploration into a commercially viable board game. In the Blackmoor games, dungeons were commonly explored more than once. This lead another player, Ross Maker, to ask about what happened to all the corpses, rusty weapons and armor left behind after a party of adventurers had waded through a dungeon. Wouldn't that become messy after a while?

So, the Dungeon Clean-Up Crew was invented. These consisted of the Black Pudding, Oche Jelly, Grey Ooze, Yellow Mold, Green Slime and others. As this older article at Sham's Grog & Blog mentions, they were even referred to as the Clean-Up Crew in the rulebooks when the monsters first appeared in 1974.

Dave Arneson was a great fan of B-Horror films, and brought many such ideas into the game. According to Gary Gygax, the Green Slime was based on the 1968 movie with the same name. As many of you will know the Black Pudding was inspired 1958 movie The Blob. Greg Svenson has previously described the time when Dave Arneson introduced this horror into the game:

"At this point Dave took us into the laundry area of the basement, telling us he wanted to see what we would do. He had us line up in our marching order. Then he turned off the lights saying a sudden wind had blown out our torches. Then we heard some screaming. We generally scattered as best we could. He turned on the lights looked at what we had done and then went back the other room, telling us that a black blob had killed one of the NPCs who ran into it. We soon found that our weapons dissolved when we struck it. Then we got some torches relit and found that we could fight it with fire. Eventually we killed it losing a couple more men in the process."

In addition to this being an example of truly experimental roleplaying technique by Dave Arneson, the seed to the idea may have been the implementation of Maker's idea that something was eating all the remains left behind in dungeons. Arneson's players were allowed alot of input into the game. A lesson worthy for generations of gamers to come.






Image Sources:
Gelatinous Cube
The Blob

-Havard

Harpies

I've never really regarded the Harpy as a particularly Blackmoorian creature, but on Friday, A Paladin in Citadel made me remember the legendary harpy illustration from Supplement II. I wonder to what extent the monster selection from Supplement II should be an indication of which creatures are the most common in Blackmoor. Based on who wrote what in that supplement, perhaps not so much, but then again, the book does have the Blackmoor label on the cover and Dave didnt seem to mind having it associated with himself even in later years.



-Havard