Harry Potter and the Braindead Fundamentalist

A surly look at Harry Potter and the Bible: The Menace behind the Magick (2001) by Richard Abanes. This is not an attack on Christianity or even fundamentalism. It instead a brief look at some of a particularly annoying and disingenuous book. It does eventually relate to D&D.


Although a more apt title for this book might have been Harry Potter and the Disingenuous Opportunist: A Book for Gullible and Narrow-minded Zealots, it was too long for the header. Unless the author is completely "batshit crazy" this book is quite intentionally misleading and targets an audience that will not have read the books and seen the movies and will not bother to check on the half-truths and lies through omission that are rather prevalent.



The first chapter is a mostly honest summary of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, although beginning with a quote from a "witchcraft & wicca web site" is almost certainly an attempt to prejudice the audience against the stories (Page 13). Abanes overreaches on page 16 when he claims that "Muggles are consistently portrayed by Rowling as a narrow-minded and callous group of persons unable to grasp the glory of magic." A problem with this is that there are only three muggles in the first book who are aware of the magic world (Vernon, Petunia, and eventually Dudley Dursley). It is beyond absurd to believe that Rowling would have to balance out the Dursleys with good, wise muggles because every single reader of these books is a muggle and knows other muggles. Also problematic is the phrase "glory of magic" which does not appear in any of Rowling's books. Fundamentalist Christians tend to reserve the word glory for God and by using this phrase, Abnes is subtly, and falsely, implying that the book presents magic as being worthy of veneration and not merely as a cool tool.

Chapter two "Sorcery in a Stone"is the author's attempt to link Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to the occult, a word which seems to mean to the author, Wicca, paganism, evil, mythology, or satanism, superstition, or any combination of them.

He takes out of context quotes such as "I don't believe in magic in the way I describe it in my books." and then proceeds to ask several Dana Carvey church lady type questions "Is there another 'sense' in which Rowling does believe in witchcraft?" (page 22-23) Apparently he misses the fact that Rowling answers these very question through Dumbledore "Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here!" (HPatSS chapter 7).

Abanes then argues that the first novel is intrinsically connected to alchemy because of the sorcerer's (philosopher's) stone and Nicholas Flamel. He then describes the ancients myth about the stone and Flamel, citing The Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology and other esoteric occult sources. Using unnecessary obscure sources (much of the same information would have been available in any standard encyclopedia) is clever trick designed to fool the mostly uninformed audience, and possibly himself, into believing that the sorcerer's (philosopher's) stone is a bit of obscure, esoteric knowledge known only to few fanatical occult practitioners rather than being a likely $100 dollar question on Jeopardy. Fans of DC Comics might remember that one of The Flash's major enemies was Dr. Alchemy who used the philosopher's stone as a weapon.

Later in the chapter, Abanes attempts to connect Rowling to Theosophy, an obscure philosophy that was a source of inspiration for "New Age" beliefs. Part of his "evidence" is the undeniable fact that anagrams play a small part in Harry Potter (The backward writing around the Mirror of Erised and the anagram involving Tom Riddle's name in The Chamber of Secrets). This logic that Theosophy uses anagrams + J.K. Rowling has anagrams in Harry Potter = J.K. Rowling is into Theosophy is roughly equivalent to I like Sudoku + Sudoku is from Japan as were samurai = I am a samurai. Neither are likely true.

Harry Potter and the Bible: The Menace behind the Magick continues this way throughout the rest of the book. I would continue but I'm afraid that a full refutation of this garbage would end up being nearly as long as the book itself. 

There are a few points that especially bother the author and don't directly relate to his "intended to lead to worshiping the occult" silliness and should be mentioned. First he is upset that the characters often lie and break rules, often without any negative consequences. This is mentioned first in the section "Potterethics." Abanes never seems to grasp that the good characters in this book do lie and break rules but only for what they, and virtually all readers, consider to be good reasons or to avoid being unfairly punished. Nobody's perfect and it is hard to imagine a good story in which all the heroes were perfect saints, especially as children. Later in the book, Abanes lists the Lord of the Rings as an example of good morals, apparently forgetting that Frodo Baggins begins his adventures by spreading the lie that Bilbo's money had run out and that he was going to settle down in Crickhollow and lies, with good reason, a few more times in the trilogy.

Abanes's second complaint against "Potterethics" is that the characters don't often enough confide in, and ask for help from, adults. True, but in what universe are children and teenagers the epitome of wisdom? And of course, any book that featured a hero of any age who always went to the authorities and waited patiently while they fixed the problem would only work as satire or farce, not heroic adventure.

The last major ethical complaint that Abanes has is that there is profanity in the book. Yes there is and in a perfect world nobody would swear, but that it isn't reality. It is much easier to have a willing suspension of disbelief of such  things as magic and monsters than it is to believe that all good people are perfect all the time.

Abanes fundamental misunderstanding of the Harry Potter series reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the legitimate purpose of escapist literature. He is clearly an absolute believer of that idea that all fiction, especially children's fiction, must be didactic in nature. In his case it is the belief that it must impart Christian values. Nothing can be just harmless fun. In a textbook example of an either or fallacy, either the work of literature perfectly conforms to his appalling narrow standards or it is evil. Even that fact that "several prominent Christians" speak highly of the stories, a fact that he acknowledges on page 5, cannot  put a dent in his intolerance. It is sad that a professed Christian like Abanes wrote an entire book that bears false witness and repeats others who did so earlier.

Afterword
Not surprisingly, Abanes managed to pull in the completely discredited horror story that D&D led Sean Sellers to Satanism and murder.

Criticizing the Brushstrokes #2: Pig-Headed Orcs

Important Disclaimer - 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is a masterpiece. It is still one of my favorite RPGs and is one of the most important games ever published. Because of my love for the game, it would be too easy for me to come up with 101 things I like about it so I am challenging myself by trying to come up with that many complaints about it. This does not reflect any animosity toward the system or the artist, rather the opposite.

 

Put simply, real vampires don't sparkle and real orcs don't have pig heads. Over the years, there have been many attempts to defend the rather unfortunate decision to inflict this ignominy on one of gaming's great antagonist races but none, at least to my mind, have been convincing. 

The argument that orcs are a pre-Tolkien monster is both wrong and irrelevant. Some confusion about their pre-Tolkien existance exists because of line 112 in Beowulf which reads "eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas." However, orcneas is translated as "evil phantoms" (Seamus Heaney), "evil spirits" (George Jack and John R. Clark"haunting shapes" (J.R.R. Tolkien - line 90), and "spirits" (Burton Raffel).  Others go off half-cocked and site Ariosto's Orlando Furioso as a sixteenth century source for orcs, ignoring the fact that it refers to "a gigantic sea monster called the orc," a singular creature that in no way resembles orcs. Only the name is the same in much the same same way that the clubs used in baseball and cricket share a name with a flying mammal. However, regardless of their origin, it is certain that there were no pig-headed monsters bearing the name "orc" prior to D&D.

The second argument is better but still not especially convincing. This is the argument that fantasy and mythological creatures should constantly be reinterpreted and reimagined for each generation. This is a subjective opinion and therefore neither right nor wrong. However, most people who subscribe to this viewpoint would agree that the should be more interesting, cooler, or more relevant.  Pig-headed orcs are none of these. They are allegedly, depending on which story you believe, either inspired by the fact that orc sounds like pork or by an overly literal interpretation of the term "pig-headed."  Of course it is just as likely that it was an attempt to make them slightly less obviously Tolkien's orcs in response to possible legal action from their excessive use of Tolkien's creations in OD&D (Hobbits, Ents, Balrogs, etc.).

In the end though, it come down to rather or not it makes the game better. In my opinion it does not.

Criticizing the Brushstrokes #1 - Alignment Languages

Important Disclaimer - 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is a masterpiece. It is still one of my favorite RPGs and is one of the most important games ever published. Because of my love for the game, it would be too easy for me to come up with 101 things I like about it so I am challenging myself by trying to come up with that many complaints about it. This does not reflect any animosity toward the system, rather the opposite.

#1 Alignment Languages

I might as well start with the lowest hanging fruit, an by low hanging I mean so low hanging that it takes a shovel to pick it. Alignment languages are described as being "the special set of signs, signals, gestures, and words which intelligent creatures use to inform other intelligent creatures of the same alignment of their fellowship and common ethos." (DMG page 24). It is described as being "a handy game tool [. . .] not unjustifiable in real terms." (Ibid.)

Even the two examples given in the DMG, thieves' cant and the Latin of the medieval Catholic Church, are highly flawed examples of secret languages that might be similar to alignment languages. First there is the obvious problem that these real world examples were connected to occupations and not alignment giving them logical ways to be learned (e.g. during apprenticeship or initiation). No one has ever in fantasy or real life apprenticed to be Chaotic Evil. And, of course, these real world languages had no alignment restrictions. If a priest had a change of heart and stopped being good, he would not suddenly forget Latin. Also neither language, especially Latin, ever kept completely secret.

With no comparable real world examples, we must try to come up with a reasonable explanation of how such languages would be acquired. Parents could not teach their children because children often grow up to have a completely different ethos than their parents, who may not themselves be perfectly aligned with one another. Apprenticing for an alignment or being initiated into one might make for an musing short story, but is too absurd for a game or novel (the willing suspension of disbelief on goes so far.) This leaves only the "will of the gods" or some other other deus ex machinato save this hopelessly irrational concept. Unfortunately, there is no reason for gods to magically intervene and cause every person of a given alignment to speak that alignment language. The languages' uses are limited at best and assassins ability to speak different alignment languages (PHB page 29) undermines even them. Why would deities go to the effort of instilling this language upon some, but not all, members of an alignment for an alignment that can't be spoken in public without repercussions nor used elsewhere unless one is already certain of the listener's alignment? (DMG page 24). And the DMG strongly implies that this is not how it is acquired (ibid.).

So without any logical reason for alignment languages existing in a game would, there must be some indispensable game function such as balance for them, right? Unfortunately not. The most obvious uses might be to test the alignment of a possible recruit or to give commands in combat. The first is allowed, but the fact that assassins can speak alignment tongues makes it untrustworthy and the latter would not work because the vocabulary of alignment languages are limited to "the ethos of the alignment in general" (ibid.).

Even if they were useful and had a logical way of existing, I would still not care for them. They take something that should be abstract and subject to debate and place a layer of absolutism on it. Players should know their characters' alignments but he characters probably should not. Even paladins should likely consider themselves to be "good" and not say "lawful good." It's just that they consider the lawful good ethos to be pure good and any deviation toward either chaos or evil to be less good at best.

So let me reemphasize how much love first edition and respect its creator before positing that alignment languages are not just one of the worst ideas of any edition of D&D, not just one of the worst RPG ideas not in F.A.T.A.L., but easily one of the top 1% of bad ideas in imaginative literature. 

Coco - New Monster

A nearly complete rough draft of a "new" monster.
Coco

Frequency:              Rare
No. Appearing:       1
Armor Class:            2
Move:                        12"
Hit Dice:                   3
% In Lair:                Nil
Treasure Type:         Nil
No. of Attacks:         1
Damage/Attack:       1-8
Special Attacks:        Fear aura
Special Defenses       +1 or better to  hit
Magic Resistance:    Standard
Intelligence:              Low
Alignment:               Lawful evil
Size:                          M (see below)
Psionic Ability:        Nil
   Attack/Defense Modes: Nil
Morale:                     14
Ep:
Source:                      Latin American Folklore

One of several monster types that can lay claim to the children's term "boogeyman," a coco is a natural shapechanger that was first created by a sadistic demon lord to inflict suffering on lawful and good parents. This typically human sized monster is usually covered in loose fitting, hooded robes that cover most of the creature's face. In this form, only glimpses of the its face are ever seen, nearly always a human or horse skull. Whether this is its natural form or a preferred shape to inflict terror is unknown.

This shapeshifting, child killer is bound by a strict set of rules. It can only attack children who have misbehaved recently or are in the process of misbehaving. Being lawful, it interprets "misbehaving" as breaking any rule set down parents or other adult authority. Being evil,it delights in punishing the slightest infraction, regardless of rather there was any intent to break a rule. And being of low intelligence, it often confuses halflings and beardless gnomes with human children.

It is this last tendency that is most likely to bring it into conflict with adventuring party. If it observes any halfling or beardless gnome "disobeying" what it perceives to be a parent (any adult human, dwarf, elf, etc.) it will attempt to kill and consume the "child." If possible, it will attack when its target is alone, but will attack its prey even in the middle of a crowd if necessary.

While the Coco can shapechange, this gives it neither advantage nor disadvantage in combat. Only if it changes into something large size will there be any effect and then only if the gaming system allows different weapon damage on large creatures. Its reason for shapechanging is to inflict additional fear. Any creature hunted by a coco or coming between it and its prey must save vs magic or be subjected to a fear spell.

A coco has no lair, forming out of nothingness as the sun sets each night and fading into nothing at the sunrise. It cannot be permanently killed as killing it only causes it to fade away and reform the next morning. However, characters need not fear it seeking revenge as it never remembers the past day. It exists only to kill and consume disobedient children and has no treasure. It will those that get between it and its prey but will not consume them. A female coco is called a coca, but is in all ways identical to its male counterpart.

All monster statistics are Open Game Content, including, but not limited to, the stat block from “frequency” through “source.” All references to spells, and other preexisting open game content referred to in the text is Open Game Content. 

At a Glance - C&C Players Handbook, Morgansfort, and Monsters, Magic & Sorcery II

A few thoughts about some new arrivals that I have had time to skim, but not thoroughly read. All are quite different, but each is interesting and worthwhile in its own right.

Castles & Crusades: Players Handbook (Troll Lord Games.- 2014)
This OSR book is an extremely professional looking book, with great artwork, a clear layout, good binding, really it looks flawless. If you thought of it as a glossy re-envisioning of the original Players Handbook, you wouldn't far off.  It would make an easy substitute for the 1e Players Handbook, but as such, there isn't much really new. Still, it is pretty awesome so, at a glance, I have to give it a thumbs up

Morgansfort: The Western Lands Campaign (Basic Fantasy - 2006-2014)
 I love Basic Fantasy as a great first game for newbies, regardless of rather they move on to other games or not. For roughly $10, you could get the core rulebook, a monster book, and this campaign adventure. This module looks well organized with some descent old school style art. At $3.50 for 68 pages, you cant go wrong. It even 2 1/2 pages of a basic world setting making

Monsters, Magic & Sorcery II (Unicorn Game Publications - 1992)
For Quest of the Ancients, a somewhat AD&D like game, this 80 page booklet contains new monsters and magic items for that game. At a glance, the monster section is mildly interesting, though many appeared earlier in 1e behir (MM2), black annis (annis MM2), cat, faerie (elfin cat MM2), centipede, giant (MM), etc. Many of the new creatures are interesting enough, some would be worth converting to whatever system you are using. There is only limited art in this and though the art is mostly well drawn, much of it transferred poorly and looks like an old photocopy.

Just by reading a few of the magic item descriptions, I've come the conclusion that this section is a goldmine for any GM. Well thought out and described , these items would work in most campaigns.  I should mention that this is the only RPG item that I've ever gotten by accident. I ordered Monsters, Magic & Sorcery I but the seller had mislabeled it. Still, it's a keeper.

Unusual Gaming Inspiration - Guns, Germs, and Steel

Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997) by Jared Diamond would certainly would seem an odd choice for an RPG blog but it raises interesting ideas that could serve as inspiration when populating a newly created world (or newly discovered continent).

In this book, Diamond posits the idea that the availability that large animals that easily domesticated and of good grains and pulses in an area is the primary determining factor in the rate at which societies transform from hunter-gatherers to settled food producers.  He also argues that this allows for much higher population densities and the specialization of labor, two factors critical for the development of  technology higher than stone-age tools. Diamond also shows technology spreads through diffusion to neighboring societies in inverse proportion to their degree of isolation.

Interesting enough, but how can this be useful in a role-playing game?  While this idea would certainly be of very limited use in an ongoing campaign, However, these theories about  the distribution of technology can aid a game master in world creation.

If a world in which the technology levels are relatively even, then the GM can assume a widely diverse group of easily domesticated grains and pulses grow on each continent and that there are also large, easily domesticated animals on each one. Without both of these, a society would advance much more slowly and have less incentive to move away from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

For example, lets say that a GM has an ongoing campaign and wants to add a large island (roughly the size of New Zealand's North Island) on which there are the ruins of an ancient civilization and living dinosaurs. The GM has located this island roughly half-way between two large continents, one with a medieval European style society, the second with a medieval Asian style society.  The GM wants there to be people on the island to be able to lead the characters to the ruins, but doesn't know what there society should be like. First, the GM should determine how isolated this island is. In this case the island is extremely isolated with it lying outside the shipping lanes between the two continents, which are rarely used. Because of this, the inhabitants of the island will have been limited to whatever technology they brought with them (almost certainly good stone age technology) and what they developed there. 

Next, following Guns, Germs, and Steel, the GM should look look at potential food sources. Because there was a civilization developed enough to leave ruins behind, there was very likely at least one good grain or pulse available, but the size of the island makes it extremely unlikely that there were many. As for there being large easily domesticated animals, the obvious answer is no. With the island being home to dinosaurs, no large mammals or birds are likely to have evolved leaving only the dinosaurs which would been far to aggressive to domesticate, though a few may have been a few charmed or even tamed. This leaves us with a civilization that at its peak was depended upon a very limited number of grains (likely supplemented by fruits and vegetables which are great but don't store well) with no large mammals. While there may have been a few chickens, hunting will have likely been the main source of meat. The lack of large mammals to pull plows, carts, etc. and the reliance on hunting would make the society more labor intensive and allow for fewer individuals being able to specialize in anything other than food production/gathering. Fewer specialists means much slower development of technology. This society, while advanced enough to leave ruins, was very unlikely to have advanced beyond stone tools (obsidian if the island is volcanic) and beaten copper jewelry. From this we have an isolated society that in some ways may have resembled the ancient Mayans.

This leaves two important questions. How did a stone age civilization arise on an island  overrun by dinosaurs and why did it fall? The first, although it would be utterly impossible in a mundane world, is easy in a fantasy world. Magic! Only if the inhabitants had powerful magic when they arrived could they ever advanced beyond terrified hunter/gatherers living in caves to avoid the larger dinosaurs. Interestingly, the game system being used might make a difference here. In most old school systems, this would mean that the society was literate and that there will likely be magic scrolls (not necessarily rolled or on paper), spellbooks, maps, glyphs, etc. for treasure. However, if the game system allows sorcerers, there is no absolute need for literacy and it would be completely up to the GM to decide. Regardless, this means that these ruins will likely have many magic items and magical traps, but only simple mechanical traps.

For the second question, Guns, Germs, and Steel and Mesoamerican history provide the easy answer. Crop failure. Being dependent on a single grain, a society could not survive it failing for a few years. At some point in the distant past, a crop failure occurred, likely a crop disease that greatly reduced food production. As the people starved they turned against their magic user leaders and slaughtered them, and in the process left their civilization defenseless against dinosaurs. The few survivors would have had no choice but to adopt a hunter-gatherer lifestyle going wherever the food was and learning how to avoid the dinosaurs.

When the characters arrive, they will find an extremely primitive people who have become experts in stealth to avoid being eaten. They will know where all the ruins are and know which ones are safe to hide in and which are dangerous (magic traps, undead, etc.). One complication that might cause distrust between the characters and the locals is that they will have far less resistance to disease than the characters and anyone who accompanies them (sailors if they arrive on a ship). Because most dangerous diseases have their origins in domesticated animals and the locals have not been exposed to them for millennia, if ever, they will not have the resistance that people from more developed societies (the characters) have. And although primitive, the locals are not stupid and will draw logical, though wrong, conclusions. Strangers arrive, we help them, we are struck by a curse, therefore the gods are angry that we helped them.

From just a few very basic concepts, isolated but inhabited island, dinosaurs, and ancient ruins,  Guns, Germs, and Steel has helped to flesh out the beginning of what could be a fairly original and logically consistent adventure or campaign. This book was both a best seller and a Pulitzer Prize winner, which means that it will be available in most libraries for the frugal game master.

Germican Stench Rat

It's been far too long since I posted anything and hope to be a bit better in the future. I'm currently working on the sequel to PO-1: The Stolen Child which is taking far loner than I had hoped. In the meantime here's a new Old School Monster.


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Germican Stench Rat

Frequency:                              Rare
No. Encountered:                    1-12
Size:                                        Small
Move:                                      12"
Armour Class:                         4
Hit Dice:                                 1-4 Hit points
Attacks:                                   1
Damage:                                  1-2
Special Attacks:                      Stench
Special Defenses:                   Charm
Magic Resistance:                  Standard
Lair Probability:                     10%
Treasure:                                 None
Intelligence:                            Animal
Alignment:                              Chaotic Neutral
Level/XP:                                1/9+1/hp



This seemingly minor nuisance would be viewed as just another breed of giant rat, of which it slightly smaller and less intelligent than, if it weren't for two unfortunate qualities.The first of these is the more obnoxious. At the start of every encounter, a germican stench rat will release a cloud of gas that exactly duplicates the second level magic user spell stinking cloud, except the range is zero. This sulfur-smelling cloud is full of germs and has a 5% chance of infecting anyone within its radius with a serious disease(as a rat bite). A successful saving throw versus poison prevents infection.

The annoying pest has survived not by its wits but by its unusual charm abilities. For some mysterious reason, sentient beings with intelligence scores less than nine inevitably mistake it for a small dog and beings with wisdom scores less than nine tend to find it cute. Either of these makes a potential victim vulnerable to the stench rat's charm ability. If the potential victim fails its saving throw, it will find the rat "adorable" and adopt it as a pet. At first this might seem relatively harmless as the stench rat is naturally tame. However, the stench rat is a lousy companion in a dungeon. At the slightest noise, the germican stench rat will begin growling and making a loud annoying sound that vaguely resembles high pitched barking, making surprise impossible. Even worse, the stench rat's gas cloud is not completely under its control and there is a 1 in 12 chance of it accidentally gassing  the party each hour. And in the event of an encounter, it will forget that its new friends aren't immune and will launch its gas attack immediately. Due to its insanity, a stench rat never needs to make a morale check or save vs fear, though it enjoys antagonizing dangerous monsters then "hiding" behind its owner.

If taken home the stench rat will have its 1 in 12 chance of it accidentally gassing and it will reveal another unfortunate characteristic, its tendency to destroy any paper product it can find. It especially likes scrolls and spellbooks and left unsupervised will chew them up. Any unsupervised germican stench rat will have a 10% chance of destroying one of these each hour. Only if there are none in the house or they are all magically secured will they be safe. If the stench rat destroys something especially important to the owner, such as a spellbook, it is allowed a new saving throw against its charm.

Sages are uncertain as to the relationship between giant rats (Rattus Sumatracus) and germican stench rats (Rattus Peeyewicus) but suspect the latter are descended from an especially smelly subgroup of the former. They have no value.
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Everything between the lines, except the photograph, is released as open game content. The photo is not open game content. There is no additional product identity.