(continuing my goal of using every book as a D&D sourcebook)

The Riddle of the Sands is is a pre-World War I British spy adventure, written by a real British spy who was later EXECUTED FOR TREASON. I think this adds a lot of authority to a book. Imagine if Naomi Novik, author of the Temeraire novels, died by FALLING OFF A DRAGON. That would give her a little something called AUTHENTICITY.

The characters in The Riddle of the Sands spend a lot of time poking around the German coast in boats, and there are a lot of details about Admiralty charts and tide tables. Some sailing exploits, and sights, are only possible at high tide. For instance, there’s an abandoned church on an island: at high tide, the island is underwater and the church can be seen sitting on the surface of the water.

Imagine the temple crypt below such a church. A macguffin entombed in the deepest part of the crypt might only be accessible at low tide, for, say, an hour; soon afterwards, water would start flowing in, giving the DM a great excuse for the classic rooms-filling-with-water hazard. On Earth, it takes about 6 hours for a tide to come in; so in a reasonably-sized dungeon, the PCs won’t be in danger of drowning unless they get caught in a trap or there is some sort of delaying terrain. This dungeon should probably have both.

What monsters would be in such a dungeon? In order for water to flow into the crypt, there must be an outlet to the sea somewhere. Mermen and other aquatic creatures can definitely be hanging out in whatever portion of the crypt is currently underwater.

The currently-above-water part of the crypt is more difficult. It must only be inhabited with amphibious creatures – which, luckily, includes undead, the most obvious dwellers in a church crypt. Imagine a skeleton which has spent half its time underwater for hundreds of years. It and its axe would be trailing weeds and slime; it might or might not be part coral (depending on how much you like The Tempest: does that sea change stuff actually happen?); and it would undoubtedly have something gross in its eye socket, skull or rib cage: a dead fish or scuttling crab.

The rest of the dungeon would be pretty unpleasant too: the church itself, up to a few feet up the walls, would be coated with weeds and slime, and paved with muck and stinking fish. Every level down would be successively more unpleasant.

I have a theory that any book -any book at all – can be used as a D&D sourcebook.

This is the second time I’ve illustrated a Blog of Holding post with a Babysitter’s Club cover. That’s because there are a lot of them around the house. Babysitter’s Club books are my wife’s slumming comfort book, just as 1970’s fantasy/horror novels are mine. “The Fire at Mary Anne’s House” kind of looks like it could be a genre crossover.

I’ve never read “The Fire at Mary Anne’s House”, but I don’t even have to open it to find inspiration for a supernatural horror D&D game. Look at Mary Ann! Her face and posture bespeak guilt, fear, or a deceptive faux-innocence. If she’s not a psychotic or possessed child, there’s a good chance she’s an evil spirit. In any case, I think we all know she burned down that house. From the title of the book, we can infer that she burned down her own house, unless she’s not really Mary Ann.

And how about that tag line? “Can Mary Ann rise from the ashes?” OK, so clearly Mary Ann was burned alive and is returning as some sort of vengeful ghost.

I think that what happened is, people whose bodies are burned but whose souls are unquiet (possibly because of some unfinished baby-sitting business) rise as spirits that the common people called “firebugs”. (Maybe the girl firebugs are called “fire Marys” or “fire Annes”.) Firebugs usually return at night, holding lanterns or candles. A firebug’s only desire is to burn their former homes, enemies or loved ones – everyone and everything they once had strong feelings about.

This is why, in a world where corpses can rise as zombies, cremation is not universal. Cremation can produce a firebug, juts as burial can produce a zombie.

An adventure idea: the PCs enter a village on Lantern Night, a festival where everyone carries a lantern or candle to protect themselves from the spirits who haunt this night. The first person the PCs meet is a solitary little girl with a candle, who speaks confused words about “saving the little ones” and runs towards an abandoned, half-burned house. If the PCs follow, they may be able to stop her from setting the building ablaze. If they don’t, they will have to deal with a fire sweeping through town.

Every Book’s a Sourcebook

From now on, I’ll try to record one d&d rule, adventure, or encounter idea from every book I read. This should be pretty easy, since about 1/2 of what I read is crappy pulp fantasy and sci-fi: the other half is, for the most part, 18th and 19th century novels and early 20th century adventure fiction, most of which has some swashbuckling. So for the most part it won’t be a stretch at all. If I somehow end up with a biography of Carol Burnett, or something, I’ll do my best.

I reserve the right to suppress any super-awesome ideas that I plan to use to surprise players. After all, if I don’t blog about a book, you poor bastards won’t even know I read it.