I stumbled upon this resource for OD&D last night on Dragon's Foot and thought I'd share. This is OD&DITIES #01 which is a ten paged fan based magazine that has a couple of great little articles that you can add to your campaigns. Many of the articles are short and sweet, more plug and play material for campaigns. The compendium of characters adds a bunch of NPC's that you can drop right into your existing campaigns. This infact seems to be the magazine's ethos, a simple and easy to use set of rules that fits into an existing style of play. These some pretty good solid NPC's characters with bare bones material to them that can add some flare to a game. The next article we get that I found useful is about getting the PC's to work together from the beginning of a campaign. A couple of very useful bits of advice.
There's a pawn shop called Thaldor’s Pawnshop, first in a line of
town / city locations for your campaign, which I always find very useful for games. Pawn shops are a great resource for PC's and one that always seems to get over looked as a source for getting rid of loot, getting gear, a source for adventures, and a place to get a loan fast when needed. Like for gambling debts and such. This is a nice little fit especially if you've got a few ties in with the local thieves guilds, pawn brotherhood, and local law enforcement.
The 'Message' is an interesting adventure because it's geared for fighters, clerics, and Dwarves of 1st level a nice little campaign jump off point.
All in all not a bad first issue and pretty good for a free resource for an OD&D game. Grab it while you can and get playing.
Way, way, back in the nineties this classic came out and it now one of the classics of anime. This was a joint venture from France and became an afternoon staple on Nickelodeon from 1990.
This makes a great resource for a sword and sorcery campaign much of the artifact and technology was interesting as well as very original. I hate to say this but I used this material for a OD&D Hallow World campaign. Much of what follows is from the Wiki entry on the series.
"Ever since the time of the Great Cataclysm, the Arkadians have lived deep in the center of the Earth. They believed they were the only survivors of this great devastation. Their civilization thrived under the power of their sun, the Tehra...until it began to fail. In desperation, the children of Arkadia broke the law and entered the forbidden Archives, searching for a solution. What they discovered gave them hope. Anxiously, they used their special powers and created a messenger to the people above. They named her Arkana...'
The lost city of Arkadia (named for Arcadia) resembles a small Alderson Disk, and is home to an ancient civilization which escaped a Great Cataclysm by relocating deep within the Earth's crust. Unaware that life continued on the Earth's surface, and hoping to keep their people safe, the elders sealed all records of their past in the city's Archives.
Arkadia survives by the light of an artificial sun, the Tehra (Shagma), which is dying. A group of Arkadian children defy the law and enter the Archives. With information about the world above, they create a messenger, Arkana, and send her above to find help.
Arkana encounters two children from the surface, Matt and his sister Rebecca, and brings them back through the underground strata to save Arkadia. They travel in a living turtle type spaceship called Tehrig, along with Spartakus (a mysterious wanderer) and Bic and Bac (a pair of pangolin-like creatures), Arkadia's mascots.
Arkana: The Arkadian children created her out of stone with the help of the Tehra's rainbow light, as an avatar of the Arkadians. As she was made in the image of the surface dwellers, having legs, unlike the Arkadians themselves. She is a well-meaning but naïve magician, capable of telekinetic feats and projecting illusions. Her mission is to seek help from above in repairing the Tehra. She is referred to by the show's villains as the "supergeophysical gal."
Bic and Bac: Among the oldest living things in Arkadia, these two happy little animals are the best of friends, and enjoy dancing to their song, the "Flashbick." They are a kind of pangolin anteater, but unlike their real-life relatives, they have no scales or claws. They are affectionate, clever and playful, and can make fire by rubbing their noses together.
Matthew "Matt" (Bob) and Rebecca: Brother and sister, these children from above ground join Arkana and Spartakus on their quest to save Arkadia. Matt is the older of the two, and tries to protect his overeager sister, whom he affectionately calls "half-pint."
Spartakus: Formerly a gladiator in the city of Barkar, this young man escaped slavery following a revolt. His gauntlet conceals a magic crossbow and grappling hook, and can cause reactions when in close proximity to Arkadian artifacts. He remembers very little about his past, but often hums the songs his father taught him. His character is based on the historical Spartacus.
Tehrig (ShagShag): The only creature allowed free access to the Archives was Tehrig, an intelligent robotic vehicle vaguely shaped like a giant trilobite a.k.a. a turtle. It secretly helped the children of Arkadia gain entry to the records and serves Arkana and her friends as a transport. Though its computer brain dates back to before the Great Cataclysm and possesses an encyclopedic database, there are large holes in its memory. It also contains a number of tiny robots called Triggies (Shaggies) that it can mobilize to distract enemies or repair itself.
The Pirates of the Seas: Members of the Interstrata Marine Pirate Federation, these "punk pirates" roam the strata seeking helpless voyagers to rob or enslave, and they frequently show up to menace the show's heroes. Their appearance is marked by a recurring theme song and dance performance. Their society is structured in the guise of a democracy controlled through mass media.
Nasty Max (Maxagaze pun with "Masque à gaz" (gas mask)) has a large blue mohawk and leads the vicious band.
Mighty Matt (Mattymatte), a simple-minded pirate with a small red mohawk, is Max's sidekick.
Massmedia is Max's girlfriend and broadcasts station FIPIRATE from her radio craft. Her mohawk is blonde.
Sleazeappeal (Seskapil pun with "16K pille (the french for battery)"), a sophisticated pirate with a green mohawk.
Brigands of the Fjords: The Pirates of the Seas' rivals throughout the series. The only identified member is their leader, Ringmar, who frequently competes with Nasty Max for leadership of the nested worlds' rogues.
Shagmir and Loria: Are the two of Arkadia's elders. Arkana was presented to them and sent on her quest to the surface world. They tended to not believe the existence of any life on the surface.
The Inquisitors of the Living Crystal: This three-person tribunal of blue-skinned judges is first seen in the second episode of the first season, "Le cristal vivant" ("The Living Crystal"). They try to make Galileo renounce his claims of a world beyond the Living Crystal. They have the group captured and psychologically tested to convince them that they are beings who were caught in the Living Crystal and are suffering "a deformation of time". They are even prepared to re-crystallize Tehrig if Galileo does not renounce his beliefs. They are seen again in the second episode of the second season, "L'échiquier des mondes" ("The Most Dangerous Game").
Arkshag: Spartakus' nemesis and guardian of the Prisoners of the Lost Time.
Emperor Qin: The ruler of a Chinese-like empire within the strata. He marched out to conquer Arkadia. He was eventually killed amongst his army of clay robot-like warriors.
Galileo: A strata version of the real-world Galileo; he lives in the Living Crystal. When he discovers the group imprisoned in a crystallized Tehrig, he breaks them free. Their existence proves the prohibited theory that there is life outside of the living crystal. After being forced to deny the truth, he was allowed to leave with the group, but at the last moment returned home.
Gog and Magog: two monstrous creatures sharing the same body. They are unintentionally released to rage havoc by Arkana, who is misled by the Phoenix into using her powers. In the end they are both forced back to their own world.
Demosthenes: A famous spokesman, kidnapped by Nasty Max in order to help him learn the art of speaking and thus win election as leader of the Interstrata Pirate Federation. He was banished from his country because he did not have the walls repaired.
The Mogokhs: A nomadic warrior people who oppress and steal from others. They are notable for their invincibility. They never get down from their mounts for fear of being trampled to death.
Méo and Myra: A grandfather and his granddaughter who live in a village pillaged by the Mogokhs. They seek aid from the group, who help them overcome the Mogokhs.
Starkus: A scientist and Star Healer on board a space ship, he investigates and tries to "cure stars". He met with Rebecca and Matt and welcomed them. Upon hearing that they were accompanied by Spartakus and Arkana, he immediately disappears. Later, when the group returns to their own time and place (in the episode "Star Healer"), he contacts them via Tehrig and informs the surprised Arkana and Spartakus that they are his ancestors.
Thot: A strange creature that lives in the ancient ruins of a long-destroyed city. He kidnaps Arkana, but without intending to hurt her. He is shot by Spartakus when he tries to protect Arkana, but is only slightly wounded.
Rainbow: Spartakus's younger brother, he grew up in luxury as the adopted son of the Lanista (trainer of gladiators) of Barkar. Unlike his brother, Rainbow is cruel and nihilistic. After the Lanista was overthrown, Rainbow began to wander the nested worlds. For a kids show this one had a ton of stuff going on and many of the themes were way, way, ahead of their time. From the creation of artifical life to the struggles of Spartakus. There was a lot going on here. Much of the material is easily adaptable. Arkana bares a striking resemblence to the goddess upon the Hallow World campaign box. For a sword and sorcery campaign there is a ton to mine from this one. I could spend at least three blog entries on this classic. Much of the material and ideas of the series was layered in such a way as to reveal one minor thing after another to lead the PC's on. The ruins, technology, and setting kept building on itself whist dealing with the struggles of the characters themselves. I was always partial to the fact that the minor artifacts never over shadowed the characters.
This is a fast list off the top of my head of some of the influences that have appeared in my games over the years. This is a weird mix of stuff with some high science fiction style technology mixed into the background. Skeleton Warriors from CBS 1994 Pirates of Dark Water 1991 Conan The Adventurer 1992 -1993 Herculoids 1966 to 1967 Thundarr The Barbarian 1980 Most of these are in reruns now or on DVD. The Thundarr Material is available from the Savage After World right over HERE. The Herculoids AD&D files are right over HERE The Pirates of Dark Water RPG system was profiled on The Epic Fail blog back in 2011 and has a download of the game available minus artwork and such. This thing is very close to AD&D and well you can see it right HERE For Conan The Adventurer I'd say that Jason Vey's Conan material is perfectly suited to this cartoon. I'm taking away from Mr.Vey's efforts at all. I think that it emulates the look and feel of the cartoon in a much more serious tone. Available right over HERE Finally Arduin or Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea would easily work for 'Skeleton Warriors'. Simply make the heroes demi liches add in the dexterity and off you go. As always your mileage may vary considerably.
The folks over at the AS&SH website are having a black Friday sale and taking twenty percent off of their inventory. So if you haven't gotten in on the Astonishing Swordsmen action now would probably be a great time. Right HERE
Lately I've been using the AS&SH Character name generator to help roll up some scuzzy NPC's to be devil my players in an upcoming campaign. Basically, the character name generator is a ten page pdf used for generating PC names according to the various regions of Hyperborea under the dead red gaze of the sun. I like to use it to create minor and major NPC's from the various regions to deal with PC's. Minor NPC's can range from a spice seller who jacks up prices on certain wares to minor bandits who are going to pose a problem for PCs.
AS&SH Character Name Generator is a resource created by Colin Chapman~ This 10-page PDF document provides culturally specific names for the various races of humanity that populate Hyperborea. Use it with the AS&SH Character Sheet which is formatted in US Letter Size, but it contains plenty of margin space, so it should also work well in A5 and similar international formats. And you should be well on your way to having a game almost ready to go. I've got players who often times like to read up on a campaign world before play and hence why I'll often create a campaign world from the ground up. I'll be pulling out more Ancient and Accursed Terra material within the next day or so. Ninety percent of the material for generating solid npcs seems to be available in both the DM's Guide and the Players handbook for AS&SH. The real trick seems to be gauging the level of your players and then letting combat happen naturally. AS&SH is a pretty gritty and harsh combat system that seems to not suffer fools gladly as AD&D first edition is apt to do as well. The whole dynamic seems to hinge on interesting and memorable encounters during the course of adventures. Play appropriate music & go kick some sword and sorcery NPC butt.
Fairy tales are supposed be fun little stories we tell our children at bed time. Nothing could be further from the truth and 'the Disney" corporations of this world aren't stupid. They love to copyright, trademark, and stamp every single piece of the psychic landscape and our children's imagination. They can't because Fairy and the Fey won't let them. These are wild things of chaos and dream sewn together with the collective human unconsciousness of hundreds of years of legends. Think this hasn't anything to do with the hobby we love? Think again Mr. David Lance "Dave" Arneson & so did Mr. Richard Snider knew better and so capitalized on those stories for an old school rpg that never made it. It has however been retrocloned HERE
A tailor's apprentice became lost in a forest. When night came, he saw a light shining and followed it to a hut. An old man lived there and, after the tailor begged, allowed him to stay for the night. In the morning, the tailor awoke to witness a fight between a great stag and a bull. After the stag won, it bounded up to him and carried him off in its antlers. It set him down before a wall of stone and pushed him against a door in it, which then opened. Inside the door, he was told to stand on a stone, which would bring him good fortune. He did so, and it sank down into a great hall, where the voice directed him to look into a glass chest. The chest contained a beautiful maiden, who asked him to open the chest and free her, and he did so.
The maiden told him her story: She was the daughter of a rich count, and after the death of her parents, she had been raised by her brother. One day, a traveler stayed the night and used magic to get to her in the night, to ask her to marry him. She found the use of magic repellent and rejected his proposal. In revenge the magician then turned her brother into the stag, imprisoned her in the glass chest (coffin), and enchanted all the lands around them.
The tailor and the maiden emerged from the enchanted hall and found that the stag had been transformed back into her brother. The bull he had killed had been the magician. The tailor and the maiden then married.
But this is not the only tale in the Glass Coffin cycle. There is also tale of "The Young Slave"
Once again wiki :
Girls competed to jump over a rose bush; at last Cilia, the baron's sister, did so, but she knocked off a rose petal. To pretend she had cleared it entirely, she swallowed the petal and became pregnant. She bore a daughter, named her Lisa, and gave her to fairies to raise. The fairies gave her gifts, but one twisted her ankle and cursed Lisa to die when she was seven, because her mother, combing her hair, forgot the comb in her hair. This happened, and the lamenting mother put her in seven crystal coffins and put them in a room. Her health failed. Before she died, she gave her brother the key to the room and make him promise not to open it.
He obeyed, but he married, and one day while he hunted, his wife opened the door. Jealous of the girl's beauty, she pulled her out by her hair, which knocked out the comb and brought her back to life. The woman beat her and made her a slave, telling her husband that her aunt had sent her a slave and warned her that stern measures were necessary with this perverse slave.
The baron went to the fair and asked everyone for what they wanted. Lisa asked for a doll, a knife, and some pumice-stone, and cursed him not be able to cross a river to return if he did not. He forgot them, but the river swelled, reminding him. Lisa took them to the kitchen and told her story to the doll, and then threatened to sharpen the knife on the stone and kill herself if the doll did not answer. The doll did.
After several days of this, the baron heard this and eavesdropped. When the girl began to whet the knife, he broke into the kitchen and took it from her. Then he put Lisa in the care of a relative, where she regained her health and beauty. The baron brought her to his own home, dismissed his wife back to her relatives, and in due course married off his niece.
Enchanted lands, half fairies, weird magical dolls, curses, and resurrection spells all in one small story? Sounds like the makings of a Gothic Fairy Tale AD&D campaign to me!
Fairy Tales are not sexist either there is another variant with an enchanted prince and some very interesting circumstances. This one was told to me by a lovely Greek Ex girl friend back in college. The Sleeping Prince according to Wiki
A king had only his daughter, his wife having died, and had to go to war. The princess promised to stay with her nurse while he was gone. One day, an eagle came by and said she would have a dead man for a husband; it came again the next day. She told her nurse, and her nurse told her to tell the eagle to take her to him. The third day, it came, and she asked; it brought her to a palace, where a prince slept like the dead, and a paper said that whoever had pity on him must watch for three months, three weeks, three days, three hours, and three half-hours without sleeping, and then, when he sneezed, she must bless him and identify herself as the one who watched. He and the whole castle would wake, and he would marry the woman.
She watched three months, three weeks, and three days. Then she heard someone offering to hire maids. She hired one for company. The maid persuaded her to sleep, the prince sneezed, and the maid claimed him. She told him to let the princess sleep and when she woke, set to tend the geese. (The fairy tale starts to refer to the prince as the king.)
The king had to go to war. He asked the queen what she wanted, and she asked for a golden crown. He asked the goose-girl, and she asked for the millstone of patience, the hangman's rope, and the butcher's knife, and if he did not bring them, his ship would go neither backward nor forward. He forgot them, and his ship would not move; an old man asked him if he had promised anything, so he bought them. He gave his wife the crown and the other things to the goose-girl. That evening, he went down to her room. She told her story to the things, and asked them what she should do. The butcher's knife said to stab herself; the rope, to hang herself; the millstone, to have patience. She asked the rope again and went to hang herself. The king broke in and saved her. He declared she was his wife and he would hang the other on the rope. She told him only to send her away. They went to her father for his blessing. Available right over HERE Suicide, enchanted items, weird fairy lands once again and we finally have the makings of some very dangerous and dark tales this time from Greece.
Using The Glass Coffin Cycle In Your Old School Horror Campaigns
These tales clearly illustrate the most diabolic forces of Fey magic in the hands of human magicians. The lands become enchanted and very dangerous. Objects take on a life of their own. Resurrection spells come into vague and the forces of life and themselves come into play. These are epic tales where years, centuries, and hidden agendas of power of unseen forces reign over the lives of the humans of these worlds. Here the social fabric is turned inside out and tailor sons become princes and marry enchanted princesses. Suicide, death, and even undeathly sleep is the norm. This isn't the world of Tolkien or many of the fictional worlds that players may be familiar with at all. These are enchanted realms where the monsters of OD&D and AD&D are equally at home. Time is bent and broken in some cases. Many of these realms are demi planes in their own right and can be used as side adventures or as part of greater cycle. The rule here is on the epic and the magical of fairy and Fey. These tales are part way between dark Arthurian legend and the realms of legend as well as beyond. Since these tales are in the public domain be sure to bend, change, and even break the mold with them. More to come!
Disney's Maleficient teaser trailer has hit the interwebs today and is causing quite a stir. Yeah there is enough CGI eye candy to shake a stick at. Looks great, sounds wonder, incredble CGI artwork, and the trailer looks great. But you've only gotten half of the story and the story is much, much, darker then anything you'll see on screen! The real fairy land isn't owned by Disney and the "real "Sleeping Beauty is in the Public Domain. And its rifle for adapting to OD&D as well as AD&D .
The basic elements of Perrault's narrative are in two parts. Some folklorists believe that they were originally separate tales, as they became afterward in the Grimms' version, and were joined together by Basile, and Perrault following him
Plot Overview of Part One
At the christening of a king and queen's long-wished-for child, seven fairies are invited to begodmothers to the infant princess. At the banquet back at the palace, the fairies seat themselves with a golden casket containing golden jeweled utensils laid before them. However, a wicked fairy who was overlooked, having been within a certain tower for many years and thought to be either dead or enchanted, enters and is offered a seating, but not a golden casket since only seven were made. The fairies then offer their gifts of beauty, wit, grace, dance, song and music. The old fairy then places the princess under an enchantment as her gift: the princess will prick her hand on a spindle and die. One last fairy has yet to give her gift and uses it to partially reverse the wicked fairy's curse, proclaiming that the princess will instead fall into a deep sleep for 100 years and be awoken by a king's son.
The king forbids spinning on spinning-wheels or spindles, or the possession of one, throughout the kingdom, upon pain of death. When at the end of the fifteen or sixteen years, the king and queen are one day away on pleasure bent, the princess wanders through the palace rooms going up and down and then chances upon an old woman who is spinning with her distaff in the garret of a tower and had not heard of the king's decree against spinning wheels. The princess asks to try the unfamiliar task and the inevitable happens: the curse is fulfilled. The old woman cries for help and attempts are made to revive the princess, but to no avail. The king attributes this to fate and has the princess carried to the finest room in the palace and placed upon a bed of gold-and-silver-embroidered fabric. The good fairy who altered the evil prophecy is summoned by a dwarf wearing seven-league boots and returns in a chariot of fire drawn by dragons. Having great powers of foresight, the good fairy sees that the princess will be distressed to find herself alone and so puts everyone in the castle to sleep. The king and queen kiss their daughter goodbye and depart, proclaiming the entrance to be forbidden. The good fairy's magic also summons a forest of trees, brambles and thorns that spring up around the castle, shielding it from the outside world and preventing anyone from disturbing the princess.
A hundred years pass and a prince from another family spies the hidden castle during a hunting expedition. His attendants tell him differing stories regarding the happenings in the castle until an old man recounts his father's words: within the castle lies a beautiful princess who is doomed to sleep for a hundred years, whereupon a king's son is to come and awaken her. The prince then braves the tall trees, brambles and thorns which part at his approach, and enters the castle. He passes the sleeping castle folk and comes across the chamber where the princess lies asleep on the bed. Trembling at the radiant beauty before him, he falls on his knees before her. The enchantment comes to an end and the princess awakens and converses with the prince for a long time. Meanwhile, the rest of the castle awakes and go about their business. The prince and princess head over to the hall of mirrors to dine and are later married by the chaplain in the castle chapel.
After having been secretly wed by the reawakened Royal almoner, the Prince continued to visit the Princess, who bore him two children, L'Aurore (Dawn) and Le Jour (Day), which he kept secret from his step-mother, who was of an ogre lineage. Once he had ascended the throne, he brought his wife and the talabutte ("Count of the Mount").
The Ogress Queen Mother sent the young Queen and the children to a house secluded in the woods, and directed her cook there to prepare the boy for her dinner, with a sauce Robert. The humane cook substituted a lamb, which satisfied the Queen Mother, who then demanded the girl, but was satisfied with a young goat prepared in the same excellent sauce. When the Ogress demanded that he serve up the young Queen, the latter offered her throat to be slit, so that she might join the children she imagined were dead. There was a tearful secret reunion in the cook's little house, while the Queen Mother was satisfied with a hind prepared with sauce Robert. Soon she discovered the trick and prepared a tub in the courtyard filled with vipers and other noxious creatures. The King returned in the nick of time and the Ogress, being discovered, threw herself into the pit she had prepared and was fully consumed, and everyone else lived happily ever after.
Older Variations of the Myth of The Sleeping Beauty
According to Wiki:
Perrault transformed the tone of Basile's "Sole, Luna, e Talia". Beside differences in tone, the most notable differences in the plot is that, in Basile's version, the sleep did not stem from a curse, but was prophesied; that the king did not wake Talia from the sleep with a kiss, but prayed to the gods to wake her,[3] when the gods visited he she gave birth to two children, one sucked on her finger, drawing out the piece of flax that had put her to sleep, which woke her; and that the woman who resented her and tried to eat her and her children was not the king's mother but his jealous wife. The mother-in-law's jealousy is less motivated, although common in fairy tales.
In Giambattista Basile's version of Sleeping Beauty, the sleeping beauty was named Talia. When checking out her horoscope, her father had found out that Talia would be in danger from a splinter of flax. This splinter was the cause of Talia's long deep sleep. Unlike the version most of us know from Sleeping Beauty, Basile's version consisted of a more gruesome plot. After Talia (sleeping beauty) died/fell into the deep sleep, she was seated on a velvet throne and her father, to forget his misery of her death, closed the doors and abandoned the house forever. One day, while a king was walking by, one of his falcons flew into the house. The king knocked hoping to be let in by someone but since no one answered, he decided to climb up the ladder he had brought with him and go inside the house. There he saw Talia. He called on her but she was unconscious. Instead of finding out what's wrong or even being worried about this, he carried her to bed and raped her while she was unconscious. Then he just left her in the bed and went back to his kingdom. Even though Talia was unconscious, she gave birth to twins. One of whom kept sucking her fingers. Talia woke up because the twin had sucked out the flax that was stuck deep in Talia's finger. When she had woken up, she saw that she was a mother. She did not know what had happened to her. One day, the king had decided he wanted to go see Talia again and went back to the palace to find her awake and a mother to his twins. He caught her up to who he was, what had happened, and they ended up bonding. After a few days, the king promised her that he will return to take her to his kingdom and went back to his realm. The King's wife kept hearing "Talia, Sun and Moon" coming out of her husband's mouth in his sleep so she bribed the king's secretary and also scared him to tell her what was going on. After the queen learned the truth, she pretended she was the King and wrote Talia asking her to send the twins because he wanted to see them. Talia sent her kids to the "king" and the queen told the cook to kill the kids and make dishes out of them. She had wanted to feed the king his children. The cook instead of doing what the queen had told him, took the kids to his wife and hid them. He then cooked two lambs and served it as it was the kids. Every time the king mentioned how good the food was, the queen replied "Eat, eat, you are eating of your own". Then queen later invited Talia to the kingdom and was going to burn her alive, but the king appeared and found out what was going on about his children and Talia. He then ordered that his wife be burned and not Talia. He also burned those who betrayed him. Since the cook actually did not obey the queen, the king thanked the cook for saving his children by giving him rewards. The story ends by the king marrying Talia and living happily ever after.[4]
There are earlier elements that contributed to the tale, in the medieval courtly romance Perceforest (published in 1528), in which a princess named Zellandine falls in love with a man named Troylus. Her father sends him to perform tasks to prove himself worthy of her, and while he is gone, Zellandine falls into an enchanted sleep. Troylus finds her and impregnates her in her sleep; when their child is born, he draws from her finger the flax that caused her sleep. She realizes from the ring he left her that the father was Troylus; he returns after his adventures to marry her.[5]
Earlier influences come from the story of the sleeping Brynhild in the Volsunga saga and the tribulations of saintly female martyrs in early Christian hagiography conventions. It was, in fact, the existence of Brynhild that persuaded the Brothers Grimm to include the story in later editions of their work rather than eliminate it, as they did to other works they deemed to be purely French, stemming from Perrault's work.
The second half, in which the princess and her children are almost put to death, but hidden instead, may have been influenced by Genevieve of Brabant.
The princess's name has been unstable. In Sun, Moon, and Talia, she is named Talia ("Sun" and "Moon" being her twin children). Perrault removed this, leaving her anonymous, although naming her daughter "L'Aurore". The Brothers Grimm named her "Briar Rose" in their 1812 collection.[8] This transfer was taken up by Disney in the film, which also called her Aurora.[9] John Stejean named her "Rosebud" in TeleStory Presents.
The Brothers Grimm included a variant, Little Briar Rose, in their collection (1812).[8] It truncates the story as Perrault and Basile told it to the ending now generally known: the arrival of the prince concludes the tale.[10] Some translations of the Grimm tale give the princess the name Rosamond. The brothers considered rejecting the story on the grounds that it was derived from Perrault's version, but the presence of the Brynhild tale convinced them to include it as an authentically German tale. Still, it is the only known German variant of the tale, and the influence of Perrault is almost certain.[11]
The Brothers Grimm also included, in the first edition of their tales, a fragmentary fairy tale, The Evil Mother-in-Law. This began with the heroine married and the mother of two children, as in the second part of Perrault's tale, and her mother-in-law attempted to eat first the children and then the heroine. Unlike Perrault's version, the heroine herself suggested an animal be substituted in the dish, and the fragment ends with the heroine's worry that she can not keep her children from crying, and so from coming to the attention of the mother-in-law. Like many German tales showing French influence, it appeared in no subsequent edition.[12]
Italo Calvino included a variant in Italian Folktales. The cause of her sleep is an ill-advised wish by her mother: she would not care if her daughter died of pricking her finger at fifteen, if only she had a daughter. As in Pentamerone, she wakes after the prince rapes her in her sleep, and her children are born and one sucks on her finger, pulling out the prick that had put her to sleep. He preserves that the woman who tries to kill the children is the king's mother, not his wife, but adds that she does not want to eat them herself but serves them to the king.[13] His version came from Calabria, but he noted that all Italian versions closely followed Basile's.[14]
Besides Sun, Moon, and Talia, Basile included another variant of this Aarne-Thompson type, The Young Slave. The Grimms also included a second, more distantly related one, The Glass Coffin.[7]
Joseph Jacobs noted the figure of the Sleeping Beauty was in common between this tale and the Gypsy tale The King of England and his Three Sons, in his More English Fairy Tales.[15]
The hostility of the king's mother to his new bride is repeated in the fairy tale The Six Swans,[16] and also features The Twelve Wild Ducks, where she is modified to be the king's stepmother, but these tales omit the cannibalism.
Using Sleeping Beauty In Your OSR Game
Enchanted fairylands, cannibalism, weird curses, and strange events that straddle reality as we know it. Sleeping Beauty the fairy tale has all of the elements of a horrifying OD&D or AD&D game in the making. All of the themes are easily convertible to your favorite old school game because they're already written into the system. The themes of the tales have always seemed like they'd make a kick ass D&D adventure or campagin all the way back in college when I began to look into them to convert them to one of the White Wolf games. What I found is that these tales are more readily converted into a D&D style adventure. The lands of enchantment, the princesses, the orgesses and more more make this stuff classic fodder for a game of horror or high fantasy adventure. There have been classic modern retellings of the tales. Once again wiki :
There is a huge amount of room for a DM to come into these tales with adventurers helping or hindering the plot and their interaction with the weird fairyland aspect of sleeping beauty. Even though this is a fairy tale there is much to do with these tales. Adventures can take place within or around the events of both tales. The fact that many players are very unfamiliar with the niceties of these tales enables a DM to weave the mythology of snow white into the background of their own campaign. Much of the action of Sleeping Beauty can take place in a fairy realm or demi plane so as not to impact or to convey the weird timelessness of the setting.
Suddenly, Elves, Dwarves, and many other Demi human races don't seem out of place at all among the the landscape of these fairy tales. They might also be used as bridge gaps into places like HP Lovecraft's Dreamlands or the other classic fairytales of Grim and those of an older variety. Osric, Swords and Wizardry, and the works of Jack Shear can easily simulate the ins and outs of this timeless, classic, and very deadly tale that is the Sleeping Beauty Saga. Finally in 1842 Day Dream by Lord Alfred Tennyson was written about Sleeping Beauty
