Spell: Swan Boat

Not the same thing at all

Swan Boat (Enchantment/Charm)
Level: Druid 2nd, Magic User 4th
Components: V, M, S
Casting time: 4seg
Saving throw: Neg.
Range: 3"
Duration: 1hr/level
Area of Effect: 3", 1 swan/lv

Swan boat enchants a group of swans, cranes, or similar flying animals, and a boat such that the swans can carry the boat through the air at a rate of 36" (Class D).

Each swan can lift 50lbs weight and the total weight of the boat and its occupant must be accounted for or there is no effect and the spell is wasted. Each swan gets a saving throw unless it is willing.

Material components are small golden crowns which go around the swans' necks and from which depend delicate golden chains linked to the boat (the magic bears the weight). These amount to 100gp per swan but are not used up.

The boat may be any normal craft, but it must be sea-worthy (or at least lake-worthy). The swans will sense in advance that the spell is ending and will attempt to make a landing on water. If they can not, the occupants of the boat will take 2d6 damage and the boat will almost certainly (90%) be damaged beyond immediate use.

Loyalty Bonus

The only "core system" I didn't cover back in the early days of the blog when I was doing the introduction to AD&D posts was, or perhaps were, the twin topics of loyalty and morale.

The reason for that is that it's been a long time since I used them as written. In fact the loyalty rules contain a note to the effect that an experienced DM shouldn't really need them and probably the same goes for the morale section. But, as with so much, it's worth going back and re-calibrating every so often, so here's a summary of the loyalty and morale rules.

Twin Peeks
Looking at morale first, we're given a system to decide whether a particular opponent will stand and fight when the going gets tough. It's certainly worth noting that this starts at a base of 50% for creatures of less than 2 hit dice if they are intelligent. What if they're not intelligent? That's not stated but I'll come back to it below.

There's a list of fairly obvious to make a morale check - 25% of party killed, leader runs away etc. - and a set of possible modifiers. To make the morale check, the DM rolls the dice, adds the modifiers and subtracts the base morale of the figure. If the result is positive then the creature falls back, disengages, flees, or surrenders depending on how high the result is.

On the loyalty side, things seem fairly similar: there is a base score of 50% modified not by hit dice but by the charisma of whomever the loyalty is owed to, a set of occasions on which to test loyalty, and a bunch of modifiers.

Sadly, as is often the case, there is a pointless difference too: loyalty modifiers are added to the loyalty score before rolling, although they could be subtracted from the dice of course, and any score over the loyalty score indicates a fail. Although there is no grading of the degree of failure as there is for morale, I would suggest that the DM should take it into account.

Loyalty
Loyalty has a broader scope than morale. Loyalty can be tested by a bribe or by temptation when left to guard valuables and so forth. It's also subject to many more modifiers than morale and it's quite possible to end up with loyalty scores of 200% and more if a high-CHA character associates for a long time with henchmen or troops who are treated correctly. Simply being lawful good gives a bonus of 15%, and a racial preference gives another +20%, which means that paladins inspire a base loyalty score of 115%+ right off the starting blocks when dealing with humans who are of a compatible alignment.

On the subject of which, there is the question of compatible alignments and a strange table on DMG p 37. If the henchman (or whatever) has an alignment "1 place removed" from their liege then there is no modification. 2 places gives a mod of -15% and three one of -35%. But what is a "place"? The examples given are bizarre: LE<->LN is 1 place; LE<->LG is 2; but LE<->CG is 3. So what would LE<->CN be? I can only assume that the last row in the table should read "3 or more places removed" and that neutral is meant to be 2 places from LG and only 1 from CN.

It is possible for substantial loyalty penalties to be incurred, but generally they are all for things which a LG character would never do, so it's a fairly sure thing that if a paladin is leading a group of NPCs then those NPCs will come under "Fanatical - will serve unquestioningly and lay down own life if necessary without hesitation", probably even the chaotic evil ones (which is as good a reason as any to introduce a massive penalty for alignments which are opposite).

Loyal to whom?
So who is loyalty owed to? It's not defined specifically but the DMG does repeat the fact that the rules apply to hirelings as well as henchmen and seems to intend that the rules be used for any "associated character". I take this to mean those which are paid by or recruited by a character directly to to whom the liege character has paid specific attention to.

In a combat situation, I would also apply it to any friendly figures within a radius of the character's CHA stated as scaled inches (ie, 12" for a charisma score of 12), assuming that they are not being commanded by someone else and can be communicated with to some degree. In the case of an army on the field of battle, perhaps the normal (non-mercenary) soldier could have a score calculated from a base 0% instead of 50% and capped at 90%.

Morale
Morale is a much simpler system and hardly has any more detail than covered in the overview above, but it's worth looking at some typical scores.

A bog-standard man-at-arms has a morale score of 50% and a morale check with a 5% penalty is triggered when any figure has lost ¼ of its hit points. Since a man-at-arms can't have more than 7hp, this means that just 2hp damage gives a 55% chance that the figure will try to withdraw from combat to some degree. Orcs are the same, and gnolls have only a 5% increase on that.

A troll, on the other hand, has a base morale of 81%. Assuming that non-fire/acid damage doesn't bother a troll much, then even facing a superior force which is striking twice as often as the troll means that the troll will only fail morale 19% of the time and will never panic or surrender unless the attacking party are really showing no signs of wear and tear.

But still - 19% isn't peanuts and the morale system's tables allow for a rout to set in as each deserter grants a 15% penalty for those left behind, so three trolls will not last three times as long as one before retreating.

Morale makes a huge difference to combat, especially at low levels where it's needed most to soften the opposition that a party might face. Ignoring morale issues is certainly a cause of many low-level party wipe-outs.

So what about those unintelligent monsters? Well, it depends on what one means by unintelligent. My rule of thumb is that animal intelligence means a morale of 50% flat regardless of HD while true non-intelligence effectively means infinite morale, and certain particularly aggressive animals such as bull elephants, giant wolverines, water buffalo, and females with young, should get the normal hit dice bonus.

On that subject, what about loyalty and unintelligent creatures? Well, clearly animals can have loyalty but I'd say that most fungus can't. Most of the loyalty modifiers are, in fact, reasonably applicable to any creature that is capable of personalized memory of individuals and I would include the alignment mods (see below).

Conflict of Self Interest
The place where loyalty and morale come together is in combat. The DMG simply states that creatures which have loyalty use it instead of their morale score in morale checks (assuming that they have been ordered to fight, of course). That's fine but there's the chance that morale is actually higher than loyalty, what then?

The simple answer is that an NPC fights for themselves first (morale) and then for their leader (loyalty). If they don't want to fight then they will only do so if commanded to do so by someone they will obey. So, when morale breaks, check using loyalty.

For example, a party with three NPC men-at-arms (Larry, Curly, and Harpo) is in a dungeon and get into a fight with a substantial force of hobgoblins. The MaA have a loyalty to the party leader of just 40% and a morale of 50%.

On the second round of combat Curley is dropped to half their hp and makes a morale roll (at +15) of 70 - disengage and retreat. The leader orders Curly to stand firm and he makes a second check using his loyalty score (but with the same +15), rolling a 30. Curly's morale has broken but his faithfulness keeps him going.

On the third round, Larry is killed. Curly's morale has already broken so he rolls another check using his loyalty score (now at +30: 10% for a quarter of the party being lost, 10% for a friendly figure being killed, and 10% for taking casualties without inflicting any) with a total roll of 83, Curly throws down his weapon and flees. Harpo, meanwhile makes a check against his morale score (at +30% too; Curly's desertion won't have any effect until next round) and rolls 78% (disengage) and then 93 (surrender); taking the best of these means that Harpo attempts to disengage while Curly legs it.

If these guy's retreat is blocked (say, by other members of the party) then the only chance is to talk them down, making another loyalty check, but this will disrupt the party and another fail here may lead to fighting between the would-be flyers and the rest of the party.

Alignment
There are modifiers to loyalty for alignment. I know from experience that the first thing a would-be Evil leader will claim is that they are not going to act evil and so should have the "neutral" modifier of ±0%. Well, as previously mentioned, alignment is an actual force in the AD&D world and as such I regard these modifiers as being unavoidable. People just sort of know, even if they can't quite put their finger on what the problem is.

Evil has many advantages in that it's always easier to be destructive than to be helpful and careful and the alignment modifiers to loyalty can be a strong boost to Good characters.

Meanwhile, Back in the Real World
At the table, of course, all this is baloney. There's no way any sane DM would sit and add up and subtract all the possible modifiers that might apply and still less track the changes (-1% per living enemy hit die?).

But the base scores are not too hard to quickly tot up and note on a stat-line for a monster or NPC and after that most of the intent can be captured by making reasonable guesses at modifiers and applying them ad hoc. If you roll 90 for morale when the party are low on hit points, it's likely that the NPC has decided to quit or even change sides if their loyalty breaks too. You don't need to worry about every little mod.

And in that spirit, you really don't need to use percentage scores for all of this either. The PHB mentions giving a +1 to morale in the bless spell and by +2 in the 4th level illusionist emotion spell. These clearly are signs that Gygax was intending to divide all these numbers by 5 and use a d20 instead. I suggest you follow suit and forget about the little ones like the hit dice modifiers to loyalty.

Some Spells
Banner (conjuration/summoning)
Cleric Lv3
Components: V,M
Casting Time: 1r
Save: None
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 turn/lv
Area of Effect: target's charisma+1" radius per level

Banner causes a spectral flag, pennant, banner, or otherwise culturally appropriate image to appear above the character touched. This expands the range of the character's charisma for the purposes of loyalty scores. Any friendly figure within that area is treated as having a normally calculated loyalty score to the target of the spell. If there is a conflict, whether because of another use of this spell or simply that the NPC already has a loyalty to someone else, then the higher charisma is the one which gains the NPC's loyalty with ties broken by the level of the charismatic character and finally by dice rolling. Once the spell ends, previous loyalties are restored.

The material component is a finely made duplicate of the image which is to be displayed. This must contain on it some identifying and inspiring mark associated with the target character.

This spell is generally only available to clerics of war gods and leader-type deities (e.g., Odin and Tyr; Zeus, Ares, and Athena; but not Thor or Pan).

Talisman (conjuration/summoning)
Cleric 5th level
Components: V, M
Casting time: 1 turn
Save: None
Range: Touch
Duration: 12hrs
Area of Effect: 1"/ level

Talisman causes the cleric's holy symbol (the material component) to radiate a sense of well-being and security to all those of the same faith as the cleric (same deity or same pantheon). It grants those within the range of the spell +10% (or +2) to their morale scores and -2 to those that they fight.

For Good clerics, the symbol also radiates a bright light such that monsters which do not like sunlight will fight at -1 even at night (vampires and the like are not damaged but do receive -1 to combat rolls). Evil symbols generate a gloom such that evil monsters can fight normally even in daylight (vampires and so forth included) and those without infra- or ultra-vision suffer -1 on ranged attacks only.

Protection from Evil/Good will ward out these effects as appropriate, assuming that the casting cleric is Good or Evil.

The area of effect is centred on the symbol and continues even if it is taken from the cleric, but no cleric can have more than one of these spells in operation at a time; later ones fail upon casting.

Magical items which duplicate the talisman spell power must take the form of holy symbols and never have charges. They are often associated with the tombs of saints (of all alignments).

Evil Is As Evil Seems

I'm not bad, I'm just...actually, I am.

Evil is a real force in D&D and the stories it is based on - both traditional folklore and pulp fantasy (and high fantasy, for that matter) view Evil as something that has an effect on the world.

If a witch (hags are the closest that AD&D gets to traditional witches) sets up home hear a stream then you can be sure that the stream becomes filled with slimes and its banks become marshy and unwholesome; the local fauna becomes less and less colourful and fungus will spread. This is not a specific power of the witch, basilisk, or dragon - it is the effect of their Evil nature.

Evil in this sort of fantasy is a corrupting force which can alter nature, causing malformed offspring such as giant versions of normal insects, spiders, frogs, and so forth.

You can still tell it's a wig

I mention this only because it is so tempting to get into a "monster ecology" frame of mind, which I like fine but when the ecology is just real-world issues like predator to prey ratios and logarithmic analysis of female fecundity rates it starts to drift away from monsters being monsters. The term "monster" is in fact one that means something unnatural or outside of normal experience - often an impossible mix like the chimera, the type V demon, or the owlbear.

One aspect of this "fairy-tale ecology" that doesn't go down well in our post-modern world is the reverse of the coin: that Good is normal and normal is Good; indeed that beauty is Good. There is certainly a strong strand of this in folklore and the attitude often leads to real-world racism and xenophobia when the other party does not fit local ideals of beauty (hence all the Nazi head-measuring crap, for example). But over the centuries the inventors of these stories have seen the dramatic possibilities of subverting the trope - of making the beautiful step-mother be, in fact, Evil - that to a degree that has to a degree reversed the notion, so that a person who is too good-looking seems suspicious.

"You look shocking, my dear.
Shocking, geddit? Oh, please yourself."

Frankenstein is an interesting case where the hideous monster seeks a righteous revenge on his initially rather dashing creator, but ultimately he too is unable to really shrug off the burden of that word: "monster".

So there's a double standard here: we very rarely see honourable and upright heroes and heroines who are not good-looking and physically idealized before the 1960's (when the potential for ugly central characters to be "pure of heart" instead really took off), but the beautiful can be Evil.

In AD&D we can see the influence of this pre-modern attitude by a quick scan of the Charisma table on page 13: assassins are the only class with the possibility of Charisma below 6, paladins have to have a charisma of 17, and humans view half-orcs as never more than 12 CHA, reflecting the xenophobia aspect (not quite sure about the druid's place in this).

Tell-tale sign of Evil taint:
two right hands

Interestingly, although I encountered a few characters (either PCs or NPCs in printed material) with high CHA but who were not physically attractive, I don't recall anyone with a character possessing a low CHA but who was supposed to be good-looking, which is an interesting mirror of the asymmetry mentioned above.

When UA added comeliness, the modifiers involved meant that assassins really are uglier than average, and paladins more physically attractive on average. The comeliness rules even have a half-arsed attempt at suggesting that the sufficiently hideous is in fact attractive to those who are Evil. The assumption is that Evil tends towards ugliness and Good towards beauty. They are tangible forces that have effects on living things.

This all links to the central notion of D&D being about archetypes (classes) rather than the much more nuanced character creation of RuneQuest and its descendants (although, of course, there are very few physically attractive Mythos creatures in Call of Cthuthlu). For D&D, simulation is still a key to the rules - they're not intended to be abstract - but it's always good to remember that it's not a simulation of the real world.

Monster/Campaign: The Cuckoos

Aren't they adorable in their little suits?
Who's mummy's little alien seedling?

The Cuckoos are a strange race who's adult form is purely intellectual and is normally encountered only on the astral plane, where it is greatly to be feared. Fortunately for astral travellers, the adult form is the shortest part of the cuckoo's life cycle. Unfortunately for everyone, if the adult form is encountered it is because the cuckoo's are travelling from one world to infect another.

4-24 cuckoos (the number of adults in a normal encounter) will approach a world, spread out over it and each will start a new iteration of their life cycle by creating a psychic "egg" which is used to infect one populated site; the adults dying in the process.

The Cuckoo's Egg
Each adult will attempt to find a settlement of beings with no adult member possessing less than INT 5 which is reasonably isolated (basically, not part of some larger settlement) and capable of being encompassed by the cuckoo's "egg" - an invisible psionic sphere two miles across which has a number of effects.

The first one is somewhat like that of a sleep spell. Any creature within the volume of the egg will fall asleep. Those with less than 2HD get no save; others do and receive WIS modifiers.

The egg's second function is to harass those intelligent beings who prove to be immune to its sleep effect, with the intent of forcing them away from the area. This will take the form of a psionic attack. The egg has 200 attack points, all attack modes and can not itself be psionically attacked. It does not recover attack points, however, so if it can be resisted then it will eventually simply give up.

The egg's primary function is the production of new cuckoos. This is done by causing all the females of child-bearing age to become pregnant. Individuals may make a save versus breath weapon, with WIS modifiers, to avoid this fate. Note that this effect may take some time to become apparent.

Those who are put to sleep by the egg will recall nightmares of a fairly unspecific nature but which in fact create a post-hypnotic desire to protect the young cuckoos when they "hatch" via normal childbirth. This will have a 50% chance of compelling the victim to protect the children both before and after birth, although the strength will fade away by 5% per month after the "happy events".

The future mothers, however, will be specifically targeted by their foetuses prior to birth using the minor psionic discipline of hypnosis and so will be totally incapable of knowingly allowing any action which would threaten the pregnancy.

The Children of the Cuckoos
The young will be born at more or less the same time (and this applies across the infected sites as well as the individuals within each site) but they will manipulate the labours in order to ensure the maximum chance of success viz-a-viz available midwives and other help. Other than this, the chance of a successful birth will be the same as is normal for the campaign world and the specific location therein.

It's easy to spot once you know it's there

Physically, Children will resemble their host race, although probably not their host parent, but will have some distinctive trait that they all share - albinism, violet eyes, long or missing tails if the host is a tailed race, different hair or plumage etc. The difference will be strong and distinct but it will not be physically handicapping.

The stats for the Children are more or less normal. However, they will all have INT, WIS, and CHA rolled on 10+3d3 and they will all be psionically endowed.

At birth, each will have one attack mode and two defence modes, however they will initially rely on their minor discipline of hypnosis.

Psionic strength base is calculated as normal (so there is a minimum score of 3 and a maximum of 84) but no percentile roll is made. Instead, each infant is born with a score equal to their base plus 10 and psionic ability is double this - so from 26 to 188.

Growing Up Different
As the Children grow they add 5 psionic strength points (and therefore 10 points of psionic ability) per year for 10 years. On odd Birthdays, each cuckoo will develop a new attack or defence form (at random but no re-rolls) and on even ones they develop a new minor discipline and add a general level of mastery.

The development of the minor disciplines is such that any particular group of Children will only have a maximum of two examples of each type. On the Birthday, roll for the strongest Child first and then down to the weakest, with later members of the group simply not developing any new ability if they roll one that has already two examples in the group.

It's like Russian Roulette, but
with less uncertainty

No member of the group will willingly stray further than a mile from the others during this period and they will use their hypnotic power to protect themselves and ensure that they are well fed and looked after by their hosts. They will attempt, probably very successfully, to remain hidden from the outside world and strangers will be well-treated initially. Only if they show signs of staying too long or nosing about will any trouble occur.

On the 12th Birthday, the stronger members of the group will decide upon the weeding out process. Any Child with less than 3 minor disciplines, or less than 3 attack forms will be "consumed" in a ritual which results in their psionic points being drained and divided evenly among the "strong" members. If all the surviving Children are classed as weak, they will all die and the infestation will be over. This process is part of their life cycle and individuals will not resist - indeed, can not resist. The host bodies of weak members do not survive this process.

Village of the Damned
The survivors will now have psionic ability scores roughly in the range of 126 to 288 (perhaps slightly more if there were weak members to absorb) and as part of their 12th Birthday development all survivors gain two major psionic disciplines: Mass Domination, and Telepathic Projection. Mastery levels for all psionic effects will be raised to 8th and all the Children make a final roll on the minor table, limited as before to 2 examples of each ability within the surviving group.

The next phase lasts for another 12 years during which the Children gradually dispense with those members of the host community of no use to them - starting with the elderly and those under about 4 years-old. Anyone able to resist the cuckoos in any way will also be eliminated and there will be much less fuss about hiding from the outside world.

Breeding will commence with the adults around them, which will result in cuckoos rather than normal host children, regardless of whether the mother is a cuckoo or a host. Cuckoos can not breed with each other.

Once there is a new generation of 12-year-olds ready to breed, the first generation will leave the area to find new locations where their powers can be used to create ever more cuckoos. Back at the original settlement, once all the host adults are beyond breeding age they will be dispatched (probably at their own hands) and the place abandoned.

Ever Onward
Host bodies will live a normal lifespan, albeit one that has all the advantages that can be obtained by such a species' use of its powers over those around them. When the host body dies, the adolescent (ie one that is more than 11 years-old; young cuckoos simply die if their body is destroyed) is finally released to become an adult without physical form. This adult can produce a new "egg" - perhaps with a new target host race. If no viable sites are available then the adults will form into packs of 4-24 before leaving to find new worlds to consume. Adults gain 4 levels of mastery (ie, 12th) and an additional 20 points of psionic ability.

Violent death of a host body is likely to be accompanied by enough psychic distress to kill the cuckoo itself, unless a save against death is made. If the cuckoo has no class levels (all have the potential to gain levels, but need to find a mentor before the age of 12 in order to fulfil this) then they save as a 4HD monster. The cuckoos will not normally risk suicide unless they have infected a long-lived species, in which case they will end their own lives at the age of about 100. Naturally, they will do this in a way that avoids violence and the need for a saving throw.

Adults
Frequency: V. Rare (astral plane only)
# Appearing: 4-24
AC: 10
Move: 24"
HD: 4
% Lair: nil
TT: none
# Attacks: none
Damage: none
Special attacks: Possession, psionics
Special defenses: +2 or better to hit
MR: std
Intelligence: 10+3d3
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Size: M
Psionic Ability: 142+4d4x10
Attack/Defense Modes: var./var.
Lv/xp: V/ 230+4 per hp

For random encounters with adults, assume 1d3+2 attack forms and 1d3+1 defence forms. All adults will have hypnosis, mass domination, and telepathic projection as well as 1d6 other minor disciplines at the 12th level level of mastery.

The adult forms will attack anything they encounter, in order to prevent any warning of their movements. Although normally invisible, the adult form resembles a fuzzy ball which propels itself through the astral plane by will force alone.

Intellectually, the race is detached and aloof, considering all other intelligent PMP races as farm animals to be used as tools and discarded when they are no longer useful. Although not a hive mind as such, they are completely devoted to the survival of the race and will willingly sacrifice themselves for the good of the group and, of course, many will actually have abilities that allow them to work in concert. Although evil, they are not sadistic - they don't care enough about their hosts to engage in that sort of behaviour - although their treatment of the host parents will certainly be cruel.

Children
Children are difficult to stat out as normal monsters as their abilities vary by the host race to some extent. However, they do appear in lair 100% of the time (with treasure appropriate to the location and host) and of course they have psionic abilities which add to the xp value but even these vary with age.

Working together for
a more ordered tomorrow

It is worth remembering that psionics can work together in chains, and even when young the Children will do this in order to maximise their ability to resist any threat to their uncanny "kindergarten". Adults will do this too, of course.

The older adolescents who have moved on from their original homes are more stable and will have the same number of attack modes as the adults, no major disciplines and mastery of their minor disciplines at the 8th level.

Notes
Yet another example of my belief that something interesting can be done with the psionic rules even if they are badly written and explained. The monster is of course based on the Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, which was made into a movie called "Village of the Damned" in 1960 (and, bizarrely, remade just four years later as "Children of the Damned"). It also inspired many comic book adaptations and variations, including "Freak Angels", a modern "what if the children had grown up?" look at the idea.

The monster can be used as a one-off, but it also has potential to kick off a major development in a campaign world as various sites are infected, discovered, and tackled while the cuckoos use puppets and possibly their own powers and class abilities to counter any resistance.

Magic Item: Potion of Regeneration

Come Prepared

A potion of regeneration contains 3 draughts. A single draught grants one point of regeneration per round for 3 turns; a double grants 2 points per round for 2 turns and consuming the whole potion grants 3 points per round for 10 rounds.

Taking draughts in overlapping stages increases the regeneration ability from that point onwards and shortens the duration, but time already used counts towards the time limit. So, if a character took a single portion and 5 rounds later took the other two, they would have 3hp/rnd regeneration for only a further 5 rounds.

The regeneration is limited to returning the user to the state they were in when the first draught was taken, but otherwise is fully effective. So, for example, if a one-armed man drunk the potion they would not re-grow the arm, but if a person lost an arm while under the influence of the potion it would regrow (in 1 round). Similarly, if a character is reduced from 72hp to 10 before taking the potion, it will only regenerate further damage suffered; it is not a healing potion.

Unlike troll regeneration, the potion will heal any damage even from fire and acid.

The potion will not protect against poison (unless it does hit point damage), nor against effects such as disintegration. A severed head will grow back from the neck down (if the head is destroyed, say by being put into a Green Devil's mouth which is actually a sphere of annihilation, then the potion will fail) in 3d6 rounds. Other than these limitations, any amount of damage which does not reduce the drinker to ash or similar will be regenerated, time permitting.

Other healing magic will work in conjunction with the potion of regeneration, but healing potions use at the same time will require a roll on the potion miscibility table (DMG p119) and any damage done as a result of that roll will not regenerate.

The active ingredient is troll-blood (which is generally very hard to obtain).

XP value: 500
GP value: 1200

Turning Japanese

Nagora is a samurai of great honour

Blog's quiet at the moment as I'm spending a lot of time learning Japanese using Heisig's system and the Obenkyo application on my phone, which is working very well. However, if anyone else is interested in trying this be warned that Obenkyo is based on the 5th edition of Heisig's Remebering the Kanji and the cross-referencing will not work with either the new 6th edition or the older ones.

With 70 minutes to spend on the Tube each day, I've been able to get up to 508 Kanji memorized pretty quickly, which only leaves another 1600 to go!

I have also learned the Hiragana (using Heisig's method as well), but of course that gets you nothing other than the ability to read out some Japanese without any comprehension. Learning 500 Kanji means I've learnt 500 actual words/concepts which I can use to read and comprehend text. This is a lot more satisfying, especially now I work beside SOAS and have access to huge amounts of Japanese books, magazines, and newspapers. As fragments become lines and lines become paragraphs of understandable text it is a great boost to morale and I'd heartily recommend learning Kanji before tackling phonetic Japanese, especially as there are many Japanese books which are almost totally written in Kanji. If you can get a Japanese text about something or somewhere you know about it's useful too; I'm using a Japanese guidebook to London.

The ultimate goal is to be able to visit Japan and be able to get about without help - reading signs, maps and so forth - so verbal communication to others is definitely a secondary requirement for me and I'm happy to leave it until I can read and write useful amounts. The downside is that, as Heisig says, knowing 50% of the 2000 common Kanji isn't really enough - they're genuinely "common" and normal text has a wide variety of them, just as written English casually draws on thousands of words without seeming flowery or overblown. So Heisig presents the Kanji in an order that suits his memorisation method rather than the more normal presentation in frequency order. This means that the symbol for person (人) is #951 in his system, whereas it usually turns up in the first ten or so Kanji in flashcards and dictionaries.

The major downside of not learning the sounds of the Kanji is that it makes it impossible to take advantage of Emac's very impressive Japanese support which depends on the user being able to type the phonetics and then choose from a menu of Kanji.

Heisig's method for the Hiragana leaves something to be desired, by the way, if one is a native English speaker rather than an American. He suggests mnemonics for the sound of each symbol and links that back to a word which has a similar sound in American and if you aren't American it can be rather weird. The worst example is the mnemonic for あ (an "a" sound) which Heisig links to "otter"! Try saying it with a broad American accent and it's a bit clearer: "ay is fer ahtter, y'know?" sort of thing. So, you have to patch the method up a bit if you're not from the right part of the world but other than that it works well and of course the Kanji are not affected by this as he's not trying to teach you the pronunciation of those.

So, that's what I'm doing at the moment.

Things Cybermen Hate #1: "Genius" Sidekicks

"I'm not annoying am I, Doctor?"