Fiend Factory 5E. White Dwarf 50: Livingstone the Editor

Issue 50: Livingstone The Editor

 

For the 50^th Issue, our old reliable chum Phil Masters is in charge of a “special edition” Fiend Factory that provides stats for the various characters that have come to grace the pages of White Dwarf. These are semi-serious at best, with dual stats for Dungeons and Dragons and RuneQuest.

Could you use these in a game? In theory, yes. A few of them –Griselda and Wolfhead, Ugbash and Agaroth – would easily make for regular NPCs with no gimmick attached.

There was also a boxed set of minis that came was produced to go with this, which I owned but sold many, many, years ago.

 

First up is the magazine’s mascot, The White Dwarf himself.

Kind of a tricky individual to produce stats for, since the White Dwarf is only ever a little icon, and has never, in 50 issues of the magazine, expressed any personality (unlike, say, The Mighty Tharg of 2000AD). And so Phil attempts to encapsulate both a typical dwarf, plus the ethos of the magazine generally.

 

Gobbledigook is a goblin character that features in the eponyomous strip by the artist Bil. So far in its run at this point in the magazine, the Gobbledigook strip has been a 3-4 panel affair, mostly simple jokes about Gook’s mindless violence and foolish curiosity. Gook occasionally works for the evil wizard Wizilevard, beats up the wise sage Gaxygygar and is followed around a small furry thing (which we later learn is called Niibl).

 

Thrud The Barbarian is another cartoon strip character, this time by Carl Critchlow, a parody of characters such as Conan, Kyrik, Kull and other “mighty men of renown” from classic sword and sorcery stories. He’s big and tough, but incredibly stupid, with a tiny head on top of his muscle-bound body. Thrud’s occasional wizardly mentor, the necromancer To-Me-Ku-Pa, bears an uncanny resemblance to Wizilevard.

 

Griselda and Wolfhead are two RuneQuest figures from Oliver Dickinson’s stories set in the Gloranthan city of Pavis; they managed to find their way into official RuneQuest material and so here we only get their D&D stats. Dickinson’s stories, told in the style of Damon Runyan’s Guys and Dolls, are great fun and colourful. Griselda is a spunky redhead adventuress living by her wits and sword in a dangerous city. Wolfhead, a silent protector figure, doesn’t feature as much; they’re not really a double act as such. But eminently usable.

 

The next two characters began life in an increasingly elaborate series of full-page adverts for the Games Workshop Mail Order service. Initially they were just colour notes, with Agaroth the Unwashed declaring words to the effect of “Listen, Man Things, Use Games Workshop Mail Order, or else”.

 

As time went on, the pantheon of characters grew, and a background grew with them. Later additions to the pantheon were Gunatha, a zombie with a teddy bear (who also became a character in his own right) and a deranged grandmother figure. These characters were also expanded in a small “official fanzine” that was sent out bi-annually to subscribers, called “Black Sun”. Hence, Ugbash Skullsplitter’s allegiance to the Slavers of the Black Sun.

 

Again, joke characters, but eminently usable as viable villains.

 

In the end, I chose Livingstone The Editor. Although Griselda, Wolfhead, Agaroth and Ugbash would make decent sensible statistic blocks, I wanted to convey some of the sense of fun from this article. And also, having started this whole series off with a monster created by Ian Livingstone, it seemed good to come full circle and create Ian Livingstone as a monster.

 

Phil was a little harsh on the poor man with his terrible statistics, so I’ve toned those back, but tried to keep the general sense of portraying a man who loves pubs, money and gaming, and who is a kind of beloved tyrant to his underlings. And also, all of the elements work as viable 5^th Edition options for adding flavour to a character, in keeping with the sense of the original article. You could even, for example, interpret the Damage Immunity to Criticism to mean that, say, vicious mockery would not work on Livingstone. The poison pen did acid damage under the RuneQuest rules, but I changed it to poison, because it just didn’t sound right otherwise.

 

Livingstone the Editor

Medium humanoid (human?), chaotic barwards

Armour Class 12 ( thick skin, hard head) Hit Points 11 (2d8 + 2) Speed 30 ft., 50 ft towards lucrative book and computer game contracts

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 8 (-1) 10 (+0) 13 (+1) 10 (+0) 12 (+1) 10 (+0)

Proficiency Bonus +2 Skills Intimidation +4, Perception +3, Persuasion +4 Tool Proficiences brewer’s kit, gaming set (RPGs), writers tools Damage Immunities criticism Condition Immunities inebriation Senses passive Perception 11

Languages Common, Gaming-Speak

Challenge 1/8 (25 XP)

Editor’s Eye. Livingstone has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks to spot spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Gamer’s Luck (3/Day). Livingstone can reroll any dice roll, choosing the best result. Influence. Livingstone uses double his Proficiency bonus on Intimidation and Persuasion checks against gamers (already included in statistics). Writer’s Flourish. Livingstone has a +2 bonus to any checks when using writing implement, including attacks with his poison pen (already included in statistics).   ACTIONS

Baseball Bat. Melee Weapon Attack: +1 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 3 (1d8-1) bludgeoning damage. Poison Pen. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 5 (2d4) poison damage.