A cold war has a fantastical world at a standstill. On one side, the Holy Church and its manpower, authority, and divine influence. On the other, a small contingent of powerful wizards who seek to dissolve the church’s power.
This is an adaptation of the OD&D rules for use in a particular custom setting. It includes modifications to and additional rules for play, some setting information, new monsters and treasure. You should be familiar with the OD&D rules to play.
The original classes of Fighter, Cleric, and Magic-User are available for all player characters. However, alignment is modified in the following way. There are three alignments: holy, hedge, and neutral. Holy characters are aligned with the Holy Church and its mission in the conflict, while hedge characters oppose the church. Neutral characters have no convictions in the side they take in the conflict, though they will often come under scrutiny as to if they truly remain neutral.
There are Hedge Clerics, who have abandoned the church, and holy wizards who have joined it. These are rare and an exception, rather than common. Fighters are often neutral.
Advancement is also modified. Rather than collecting experience points per gold retrieved in the adventure, players complete adventures to earn Reputation. Experience is earned one-to-one with reputation.
Reputation is tied to alignment: there are holy adventures, neutral adventures, and hedge adventures, which only award reputation to the player characters of the relevant alignment. Note an exception to the previous: a neutral character can gain reputation from any adventure, and any player can gain reputation from a neutral adventure. Thus it makes sense to have a party of uniform alignment and for the referee to be clear if an adventure is holy, hedge, or neutral.