Biomancers

April 24, 2015, 5:17 am

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My wizards belong to specific schools. They can still learn any spell, but their school gives them some unique twists. They begin with 2 random spells from their chosen school, and they can combine any two scrolls to make a scroll containing a random spell from their school, or a random unlearned spell from their school.

Each school of wizardry has a perk and a drawback.

Each school of wizardry has a few cantrips. These are minor, non-combat spells that the wizard can use at will.

Each school of wizardry has a legendary spell (or spells) that they all quest for. Their personal holy grail, so to speak. These spells will not be learned automatically, but only at the end of a quest or particular dungeon.

Biomancer

Perk

When you drink a potion, you gain the effects as normal. Then, you have a 50% chance to be able to recycle the potion, and will excrete the potion through whatever orifice you prefer, good as new. You have 10 minutes to excrete the potion.

Drawback

Whenever you receive magical healing, you have a 1-in-6 chance to gain a mutation. The regeneration spell doesn't trigger this.

Cantrips

• Put slight muscles in a plant for a few minutes. This doesn't let them uproot themselves or make attacks. Most plants will use this opportunity to wiggle happily or reach toward the sun.
• Temporary, cosmetic changes to animals, such as changing the color or shape of a body part. This has no mechanical effect, and lasts a couple of hours.  Each creature can only have one such cosmetic change.
• If you wish, your appearance will no longer age. Once you activate this, you will always look the same age.

Spell List

1. Acid Arrow
2. Alter Self
3. Animate Potion
4. Extract Venom
5. Hide From Ooze
6. Infantilize
7. Monsterize
8. Mutate
9. Regeneration
10. Spider Climb

Legendary Spell: Control Ooze

Acid Arrow

R: 50' T: creature D: 0 rnd

Target takes 1d6 damage. Unless they spend a turn washing it off, they take another 1d4 damage over the next 2 turns. Boost: +2d6 initial damage, +2d4 damage on subsequent rounds.

Animate Potion

R: touch T: potion or liquid D: 2 hr

You turn a potion into an obedient homunculus (HD 0). It is tiny (1' tall) and feeble (Str 1), but it can go where you direct and even bring you small items, such as keys. The potion can be delivered by touch or by “drinking” the homunculus. Despite the name, this spell works on any liquid except water.

Extract Venom

R: touch T: creature D: 0

You pierce a creature with a sharp object and draw all of the venom out, which then pools in your hand or a vial. If you use this to remove the poison from a poisoned creature, that creature gets a new save with a +4 bonus (but this spell doesn't automatically cure them). You can also use this to draw all of the poison out of a venomous creature. Unwilling venomous creatures get a save. Note that this spell doesn't work on all poisons, just venoms (organic, mechanically delivered poisons, usually from things with fangs or stingers).  Most biomancers keep on of their fingernails razor sharp for this purpose.

Infantilize

R: touch T: creature D: 10 min

Target saves or becomes an adorable child version of itself. Creatures lose 1 HD (-4 max HP, -1 to hit, -1 to save). Player characters have their Strength dropped to 5 (unless it was already lower). The target is now so adorable that all who see it must make a save the first time they try to harm it. If they fail this save, they hesitate, wasting their action.

Monsterize

R: touch T: creature D: 10 min

Target saves or becomes a horrible monster version of itself. Monsters get +1 HD (+4 max HP, +1 to hit, +1 to save). Player characters have their Strength raised to 15 (unless it was already higher). The target also flies into a rage, and becomes incapable of tactics, kindness, or retreat, even if urged by friends.

Mutate

R: touch T: creature D: permanent

Target saves or gains a random mutation. If the creature chooses to fail its save, roll two random mutations, and the caster chooses which one is gained.

Regeneration

R: touch T: creature D: 2 hr

Target regenerates 1 HP every 10 minutes. If a unicorn horn or green troll heart is consumed during the casting, the recipient also regrows all missing limbs and body parts.

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Some Monsters, Part 29,287

April 27, 2015, 5:42 am

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Cannon Lizard

HD 2  Defense leather  Tail Slam* 1d6 or 1d8
Move slow  Int 5  Morale 8
Special cannonball

Cannonball: Cannon lizards have an organic cannon tube that runs from their mouth to the tip of their tail.  Each cannon lizard has an iron cannonball (size of two fists) that it keeps at the tip of its tail.  It is capable of propelling this cannonball out of its mouth (via peristaltic contractions) as fast as a cannon fires.  The fired cannonball does 3d6 damage to everything in a 200' line, Dex check for half.  The lizard must then re-swallow the cannonball if it wants to reuse this ability. (It only has 1 cannonball).  When it has no cannonball in its tail, its tail slams do merely 1d6 damage.

Dungeon Bug

HD 1  Defense leather  Pincers 1d6
Move as human  Int 7  Morale 6
Special hiss

Hiss: Once per day, 6 dungeon bugs can hiss in unison.  Those that hear the hiss must save or be instilled with some of the primordial insect impulses.  Treat this as a command spell that lasts for 1 minute, or until it has been successfully carried out (therefore removing the source of stress). Roll a d3:

1. Extinguish all light sources!
2. Hide underneath some furniture!  Or at least between some furniture and the wall!
3. Bite your enemies to death with your own mouth!  Then (try to) lay eggs in their corpses!

About 3' long.  When not in combat, they walk on their back legs, so that they can carry stuff in their hands.  When in combat, they skitter around like hissing cockroaches, which they resemble.  Their preferred tactic is to leap on to someone's chest and eat their face or vitals.  They will often gather all the garbage in a dungeon (especially broken furniture) and stack it in their room.

Atavistic Psychoplasm

HD 9  Defense unarmored  Psuedopod 1d8 + grab
Move as dwarf  Int 1 Morale 10
Special anti-intelligence field, devolution beam

Anti-Intelligence Field: 30' radius.  Spellcasting requires an intelligence check.  If the check fails, the spell is not lost, but instead remains in memory.  Characters AND PLAYERS may not speak or think in polysyllabic words.  For every polysyllabic word the PLAYER says, their character takes 1 damage for every syllable beyond the first.  This represents their brains overheating.

Devolution Beam: 1/day.  200' long.  All targets in the beam must save or devolve.  This grants them +1 to hit and -1d6 for intelligence.  They also become unable to speak except through primate screeches and hoots.


Tusk People
HD 1 AC leather Move as human
Weapon 1d8 Int 10 Morale 7

Tusk people with 7 HP are the shamans.  They are marked by red string twined around their tusks and the cow skull masks that they wear.  They can cast acid arrow once per day.  Whenever they lock eyes with someone (single target each round as free action, gaze attack) and take damage, the damage is mirrored onto the other person.

Tusk people with 8 HP are the leaders.  They are marked by the breastplates that they wear and the elaborate scrimshaw on their tusks.

The Isles of the Dead

April 30, 2015, 2:59 pm

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This dungeon is a dungeon that you run only after all of the PCs have died in the last dungeon you ran.  It is also my submission to the 2015 One Page Dungeon Contest.

It is a post-TPK dungeon, where you start in the afterlife with nothing except for your favorite set of clothes and a couple of pennies in your pocket.  You will, of course, have a small chance to return to life, but it is a small chance.

Writing it, I think the best thing is that high level parties might just be able to steamroll the dungeon.  Kill the angel, bully their way into heaven.  Or shake the demon by his collar and force him to resurrect them.  Of course high level adventurers can cheat death!  They do it all the time.  Of course they can sneak into heaven!  They are adventurers, after all.

Anyway, you can download the dungeon HERE.

And +Daniel Dean wrote an excellent one-page review of my one page dungeon over HERE.  He has a ton of good ideas about how to actually run it.  If you want to turn it into a two-page dungeon, just print this out and staple it to the back.

And if you want an unkeyed map for the players, here it is:

I am the best artist, yes.

Five Riddles

April 30, 2015, 10:39 pm

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Here are five riddles.  As usual, I am aping my betters.  They're meant to fill in for my One Page Dungeon.

1
It's owner could not eat their fill,
and so they abandoned it,
and flew weeping into the light.

I was born in in it,
I call these red walls home,
and devour it in the dark.

And when I have eaten my fill,
I will abandon it,
and fly laughing into the light.

(maggot on a corpse that died of starvation)



2
A bird with feathers, but no wings.
An engine with fuel, but no metal.
When they meet, one yields,
but this is the end of both of their arcs.

(arrow in a heart)


3
I am the enemy within.
All will join my cause,
and grow pure and clean and thin.

(skeleton)


4
I am the destroying tree.
I do not grow, but spring forth full grown.
I do not give, but take away.
From my fruit, nothing grows.

(gallows)


5
Born of earth,
I bring the sky closer.
Fly from my crown,
and return to the earth forever.

(suicide from the top of a tower)


Answers are in white text below the riddle.  Highlight to reveal.

Some Monsters, Part 29,288

May 1, 2015, 9:49 am

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I was listening to a podcast of some people playing through Sailors on the Starless Sea, and one of their adventurers got killed by a rot grub.  They were having so much fun, so I thought I'd make up a higher level version of one.  They look like finger-sized maggots with garbage disposals for mouths.  Also popular for assassinations.

Like their larger, slower cousins, they hide in corpses.  Unlike their smaller cousins, a 10' pole isn't enough to save you.

Turbo Grub
HD 1 Defense leather Hungry Leap 1d6 + fleshburrow
Move motherfucking gazelle Int 1  Morale 9
Special Hungry Leap, Fleshburrow
*Due to its freakish speed, a turbo grub gets +4 to attack.
*Hungry Leap -- The turbo grub jumps up to 20' when it attacks.  If it hits a meaty target, it will deal its damage and then burrow into the target's flesh.  If a target has a readied action, they may make an attack against the grub while it flies through the air.  Two-handed weapons get -4 to this attack because they are too unwieldy for razor-quick reactions.  If the grub misses its attack roll, it drops to the ground (and will leap again next turn).
*Flesh Burrow -- Inside its target, the turbo grub blenderizes its insides, racing around their guts like a wormy racecar.  Inside its target, it deals 1d6 damage per turn and can only be attacked with piercing attacks (not even magic works, unless it is AoE).  Whether the attack hits or misses, the person with the grub inside them takes an equal amount of damage.  When a turbo grub takes damage, it will leap out of its host on its next turn, targeting the nearest warm-blooded thing within 20'.

What happens when you cast stone to flesh on a statue?  What's that, you say?  It just turns into a gross pile of meat in the shape of a person?  No, no.  That's just what happens most of the time.  One sixth of the time, it turns into a flab man.

What do they look like?  Oh, they're fucking awful.  They have arms and legs but they don't know how to use them.  They just ooze along the floor like a slime, or blobber around like a sack of meat.  And they try to speak, but they don't know how to do that, either, so they just spray ground beef everywhere.  Poor things.  It's no wonder they're so aggressive.

Flab Man
HD 8 Defense leather Slam 2d6 + corpulate
Move dwarf Int 5 Morale 7
*Corpulate -- On a hit, the target gains a number of pounds equal to twice the damage done.  This huge injection of body fat occupies an inventory slot as if it were a normal item.  This magical fat can be lost at the rate of 1 inventory space's worth every month, simply with normal activity.
*Meaty -- When killed, a flab man provides enough meat for 1d20+40 days' rations.

Ah, the quantum ogre.  I don't know why some people hate them.  

First misconception: they're a summoned creature produced by a spell, not a natural creature.  They come from a very specific curse.  And it's impossible not to realize that you've been cursed with the quantum ogre, because the invocation part of the curse is the wizard shouting at you, "I CURSE THEE WITH THE QUANTUM CURSE OF THE OGRE!"

So it shouldn't really be a surprise when you run into the quantum ogre.  That guy is everywhere.  (They say that there's only one quantum ogre.  Or maybe there's an infinite number.  I forget.)

Quantum Ogre
HD 4  Defense leather  Fist 1d10
Move human  Int 5  Morale 7
*Paradoxical -- When the curse of the quantum ogre is cast on you, you can rest assured that the next unexplored path you take will bring you to the quantum ogre.  If you do not kill it/them, you will continue running into more ogres until you or ogre(s) are dead.
*Splitting -- Each time the quantum ogre takes damage, it splits into two ogres with an equal amount of health.  This is true whether they take 10 damage or 1.  It is possible to duplicate so many ogres that they fill up the available space and begin dealing crushing damage to each other.  This is what is known as an Ogre Generation Runaway Expansion Event (OGRE Event).  The ensuing fountain of gore can knock down flimsy walls.  Creatures near the epicenter take 8d6 damage, while those farther away might only take 4d6.  Save for half.  You also get 10x the normal XP for a HD 4 monster; you killed a million of 'em!

Closing Thoughts

The turbo grub reminds me of the rabbit from Monty Python, and that's the way I like it. You'll pretty much have to fight it by stabbing your friends, and by taking up basebase stances with your swords, in case it leaps for you next.  I haven't seen a monster like that before, so that's cool.  (And again, I'm amazed at how much monster variety you can get just by using 0e D&D rules.)

The flab man fulfills my philosophy of attacking all parts of the character sheet.


And the quantum ogre is just a bit of exploitable, gamist cheese.  I'm okay with that.  It scratches an itch.  If your players manage to explode the fort with infinitely duplicated ogres, they'll talk about it for *weeks*.

What Is Tested?

May 2, 2015, 9:36 am

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When designing a dungeon, one question you should ask yourself is: What am I testing for?

Math tests challenge your math skills.  Drinking contests challenge your liver and your brain.  But what does your dungeon test?

How is the wheat separated from the chaff?

If you write a test that everyone succeeds at, you are merely writing a dungeon tour.  The party walks through, witnesses all this cool shit, and has the same experience no matter how skilled or unskilled the players are.  (Digression: I know at least one group that enjoys dungeons like this.  Nothing wrong with that; they're having fun.)

If you write a test that everyone fails at, you are merely writing a doom cave.  Rocks fall.  Everyone dies.  If no one, no matter how skilled or lucky, can progress through your dungeon, you've written a dead end.

So a good dungeon must lie somewhere in the middle.  But what is the mechanism that sorts skilled groups from unskilled groups?

Does it test aggregate weight?  Does the first room weigh the entire party, and if they weigh less than 1000 lbs, they may walk across to the treasure vault, while heavier parties fall down the pit straight to hell?

Does it test the character's combat skills?  There are different kinds of combat tests.  Does it test their character builds?  I.e. did they build a strong enough character, numerically and mechanically, with enough synergy and clever combos that they can wear down difficult foes?  Does it test their levels?  Does it test their tactics, with lots of fights that can be deadly unless the party retreats to a choke point?  Or the party's insight, where they must realize that the shrine guardian can only be killed when it is outside of the shrine?

Does it test their problem solving abilities?  Must they solve riddles?  Or find hidden doors?  Do they use inductive logic to solve things, such as realizing that the cure for the fire snake's venom is the ice snake's venom?

Does it test their role-playing abilities?  Does it, god forbid, test a player's acting ability?  Does it test the parties ability to discern the motives of NPCs?  Does it test their discretion, in choosing which NPCs to trust?  Does it test their ability for subterfuge and lies?  Does it test their scheming ability?

Does it test system mastery, where players have an advantage if they know protection from evil also protects against possession?  Does it test setting knowlege, where a player has an advantage if they realize that the guy in a mantis mask is a high level assassin?

Does it test luck?  If you use dice, you are testing luck, but to what degree?

You probably read through this list and shook your head at some entries, and nodded approvingly at others.  That is good.  You are thinking about it.

I have seen dungeons test all of these things, to large and to small degrees.  Suffice to say, they are all adjustable.  An organic chemistry exam can have 60% of its questions test redox reaction, or it can have 0%.

For example, if you write a dreamlands dungeon where a character's ability scores are all mirrors of their Charisma score, and all of their abilities are replaced with randomized dream abilities, you have negated any influence character build has on that player's success or failure.

And there is no right answer.  Some groups will love one thing; others will loathe the same.

Narrow and Broad Tests

When you have an obstacle, how many ways are there to overcome it?  Combat, the quintessential obstacle, usually has a bunch of ways: diplomacy, fighting, bribery, running away, treachery, etc.  There are many paths to success in a broad obstacle.

Some tests are narrow.  A door that can only be opened with the crystal scepter.  A hidden room that can only be found with magic, not ingenuity.  There are few paths to success in a narrow obstacle.

Generally, I like things to have at least 3 solutions.  A locked door is good example.  It has three or four solutions.  It tests a character's build, by allowing a thief to pick it.  It tests a party's willingness to risk a random encounter, by allowing anyone to kick it down noisily.  It tests a party's thoroughness, by allowing them to find the key in room 22 and open it.  It tests a character's build, by allowing the wizard to cast knock on it.

Personal philosophy: if you are going to trap the party in a dungeon, give them at least 3 ways out.  Don't make any of them easy.

Rule of Thumb: Don't use narrow tests.

At their worst, they're just pixel-bitching.  Narrow tests are cool only when they are optional.  A clue that only be found if all of the spider webs are burned away.  A small treasure vault that can only be opened if the party answers a riddle correctly.

Riddles

There is a wrong way to use riddles, and it involves putting the riddle in the middle of main path through the dungeon.  If the party can't answer the riddle, they can't progress in the dungeon.  Shitty.

If you are going to have a riddle block a main path of the dungeon, there should be other ways around it (it should be a broad test).  If a sphinx blocks a path, you should be able to kill it, bribe it, or go around it.

Alternatively, you can use a riddle to block off a small side-branch of the dungeon, as mentioned above.  Maybe just an alcove.

Pro-tip: What to do when the smartest player is playing the dumbest character?  You obviously can't have the Int 5 guy answer all the riddles.  Just transmigrate the answer over to the Int 18 wizard, and let it come out of his mouth.  Fiction is preserved, the smart player gets to have fun being smart at the table, and honestly it probably takes a table full of guys to simulate Int 18.

Discriminatory Ability and Secret Areas

Remember when I said a test that fails everyone or passes everyone can't discriminate between skilled parties and incompetent ones?  That's still true.

If you want to have a test that discriminates between skill and incompetent, you need to have challenges with a variable difficulty.

Rule of thumb: Some treasure should be easy to find.  Some treasure should be moderately difficult to find.  And some treasure should be damn near impossible to find.

The reason for this is to test (and therefore reward) players who search.

If the group just runs through the dungeon, they'll get the obvious treasure, just sitting out in the open.  Maybe they're low on health, or maybe they're just careless.

If the group is clever or thorough, they'll find more stuff.  Chests hidden under beds, keys in the pockets of dead guards, secret passages hidden behind easily-moved bookshelves, etc.

If the group is clever and tenacious, they'll find everything, including the really hard to find stuff.  Treasure at the bottom of the outhouse.  Secret alcove that can only be discovered if you topple the statue of Nyarlathotep (which takes time, and makes noise).  Some parties won't be able to do this, because they're low on HP, or time, or too low-level to risk more wandering encounters.

The reason I write my dungeons like this is because I want to reward cleverness and tenacity.  With treasure.

If finding all of the treasure in your dungeon requires a moderate effort (not automatic, not extremely difficult), they you might not be offering enough rewards to players who run quickly through your dungeon (perhaps they're dumb, perhaps they're too low-level) and you might not be offering enough rewards to players who are both clever and tenacious.

Two Rabbit Tattoos Talk About Hidden Rooms

RRT: It sounds like you're advocating putting treasure in rooms that most parties won't ever find.

LRT: Yes.

RRT: Why waste time creating content that most players will never get to enjoy?  Surely, it is better to spend your time creating treasure and rooms that everyone will get to enjoy.  Take those impossible-to-find treasure vaults and stick them somewhere obvious, like on the main dungeon path.

LRT: I think one thing about old-school play that a lot of newcomers don't grok is that there is a lot more emphasis on exploration, and less emphasis on straight-up combat.

When you do well in combat, you survive with less damage, or none at all.  There's a variable degree of success in it.

When you do well in exploration, you should find more treasure.  There should be a variable degree of success in that, as well.

RRT: Do what you want, but be aware that the DMs who follow your advice will write up 10 rooms and their players will only find 8 of them, on average.  That can be frustrating for a DM.

LRT: You know what?  I'm okay with that.  It's more important to me that my dungeon is a more discriminatory test of exploration ability.

The Invincible City of the Tusk People

May 4, 2015, 6:40 am

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It is called the Invincible City because it has never been conquered by an army (though the city's masters have changed a few times).  From a distance, it looks like a loaf of bread.  It sits in the frozen south, the adopted brother among the other Ryvanwall kingdoms.

The Invincible City has always been alive in the most literal sense.

Legends

If you believe the tales, the people of Mon Ryva were beset by enemies, and they called out to their god for a place of refuge.  But no refuge was forthcoming, and they were driven to the sea, where their prophets bid them wait.

It was heralded by flotsam.  A door the first day.  Then a mass of broken furniture.  Many thought that there had been a shipwreck.  It wasn't until the beach broke out in cobblestones, like a rash, that the people of Mon Ryva realized that something extraordinary was happening.

Something came in from the ocean that night.  They all watched it approach; they saw its humped back against the horizon.  Chimneys bristled against the midnight sky.  Atop a spine of minarets, brine-spattered flags licked the wind before dipping back into the sea.  Hundred of feet boulevard churned the surf behind it.  Moon-stained windows broke above the surf, glistened, and then dove back under.  The city was swimming to land.

When the reached land, there was an earthquake, and water swept away the observers.  When the confusion died down, there was no sign of it.

And over the next few days, the Invincible City grew from the dirt, an inch every hour.  Miniature houses sprouted like mushrooms, and ballooned.  Larger buildings pillowed over smaller ones and eventually subsumed them.  And like honeycombs, they arranged themselves into squares.

Through this chaos, a network of streets.  Large thoroughfares first that later swelled, and branched into smaller tributaries.  The geometry of vascularization.

The walls grew like weeds.  A mixture of stone, plaster, and other intermediate materials, they encircled the new city like molars.  They were huge and blunt and bit at the sky.  To this day, they still resemble teeth.

The foes of Mon Ryva came for them, but the walls were scarcely needed.  The earth itself opened up and swallowed them all; men and horse alike went tumbling into that gnashing pit.

The City

It is a strange benefactor, the city that Mon Ryva sent them.  It has its own whims, its own whiles.  And it has a secret history that the people are not privy to.

In the early days, , it is said that strange buildings would sprout.  Rounded things that bristled with coral.  Buildings without doors or stairs.  Vertical avenues into the ground, that led to columnar apartments that would only be suited for tenants capable of flight, or swimming.

And there are stories, too, of the cities old inhabitants.  Glassy-eyed fish men found cowering in alleyways, who were snapped up by the cobblestones as soon as they ran for the ocean.  Or people who would open a closet and find a set of sea fans wreathed in gold wire, or a set of pink-lipped amphora of coral.  But then the city would snap the closet shut and draw it away, as if it were embarrassed, and such closets would never be seen again.

Of course that has all changed now that the Invincible City has learned to imitate our cities perfectly; such slip-ups no longer happen.

The city is no one's slave, and it does what it wishes.  It eats people, sometimes a great deal of people, but this is never haphazard, and never without reason.

The city has four immutable rules.

1. No metal.  Such a hard substance makes the city jealous, for it's hardest stone is still softer than a child's tooth.  Money changers are available outside the city, and they will exchange a traveler's coinage for the money-marbles of Meltheria, or the hakaam (dog bones) and ceremony plates of Fangol.  Metal weapons are likewise forbidden, and all of the nobility of the Invincible City wear chargale swords.  
2. No digging.  This is a wound in the flesh of the Invincible City, and it will be quickly met with destruction.  You must also be more careful in the basements of the city, for it is closer to the city's heart, and therefore, more carefully watched.  
3. No destruction nor construction of buildings.  Like digging, this is either an injury or an insult.
4. No blood on the floor.  The slaughterhouses are all located outside of the city, and if you are wounded in the city, you must be careful not to drip any on the floor.  The city hungers, and sometimes it cannot control itself.

Of course, these rules are limited by the city's attention and senses.  It sees from its surfaces and it tastes with its floor, but these are slow and indistinct senses.

In the marketplace, a man draws a metal sword and stabs an enemy.  He quickly sheathes his sword, and nothing terrible happens to him.

In the marketplace, a man dapples the bricks with his blood.  He moans and cups it to keep from running, and his friends leap to bind the wound with their shirts.  Nothing terrible happens to him.

These men are lucky.

For every round that you use a metal tool, or drop blood on the floor (from a piercing or slashing weapon, for example) there is a 2-in-20 chance that you will draw the ire of the Invincible City.  This chance increases cumulatively with exposure, so after the third round of using lockpicks, there is a 6-in-20 chance of being noticed.  Taking measures to disguise your metal (such as wrapping a mace in leathers) will cut this probability in half.

If the city is annoyed at you, and watching you more closely than others, also increase the chance by +2-in-20.  If the city loves and adores you, you may wear metal freely and bleed where you wish, but the city loves no one save Angra Blacktongue.

If the city wishes to kill you, this is what happens: the street suddenly yawns beneath a man's feet, and it closes around his torso.  A moment of crying out, a stunned alarum, and then the cobblestones part slightly and the man is sucked down and swallowed, slurped up like a noodle.

Beneath the ground, the people say, the cross-sections of the underground are neither brick nor sewer but something streaked with red and white and blue that is thick like clay.

But to tell stories of such incidents is to exaggerate the malevolence of the city.  Obey the rules and you will be fine.

Playing House

There are no taverns in the Invincible City, because there are plenty of houses.  Buy some food from a vendor in the street, and then find an uninhabited house.

However, the city has expectations.  If you want to occupy a family house, the city will expect you to act like a family (not a bunch of adventurers).  Failure to do so can lead to leaky roofs, stuck doors, rats, and other signs of the city's disapproval.

The Secret Names of the City

As you'd expect, this produces a lot of curiosity.  Wizards and sages have done their own research, and the city usually eats them for their trouble.

By all accounts, the Invincible City has other names, true names, dating back from when it was something else, somewhere else.

By all accounts, the Invincible City has a mind.  There have been many attempts to speak with it; but there have never been any responses.

By all accounts, the Invincible City is capable of speech.  It merely chooses not to respond.

Neighborhoods of the City

Architectural Features
Roll 2x for each neighborhood

1. Caged balconies dipping into the street.
2. Migration of windows, moving across the surface of building as if through molasses.  Despite this apparent softness, they are not any easier to remove than normal windows.
3. No streets.  This syncytial neighborhood is one big, connected interior.
4. Small earthquakes.  This doesn't disturb the buildings, but other things (shelves) might fall over.
5. Waves traveling through the cobblestones, as if they were floating on top of a thick ocean.
6. No exterior doors on the first floor.
7. Buildings have a freakish abundance of doors, placed at all levels.
8. Buildings made entirely of glass windows.
9. Buildings are sideways and built into the floor.
10. Rats behaving like ants.
11. Grinding sounds coming from beneath you.
12. Sudden senses of vertigo.  People in the street (including you) are wobbling as if drunk or dizzy.  Everyone has lost their sense of balance.  Tripping people is fantastically easy, but attempting anything more complex than a walk risks falling over.
13. No buildings, just hills made of cobblestones with doors in the side.
14. Underground.  The size of the corridors changes to reflect how much the Invincible City likes you.  Beloved people come and go easily, but enemies are nearly smothered.
15. Flooded.  Water up to the waist.  Thousands of fountains erupt from the street.  Sharks police the streets.  Canoes.
16. Uneven floors.  Not one surface in this neighborhood is level, and most are quite steep.  Buildings lean drunkenly into each other.  
17. Continental drift.  New buildings erupt from a miniature fault line, travel across the neighborhood, and disappear into another fault line.  The whole process takes less than 3 days, and most people change their addresses daily.
18. Streets and buildings are reversed.  Huge network of branching hallways surrounds courtyards.  The courtyards are private residences, while the hallways are public streets.
19. Hungry houses.  The buildings here are carnivorous.  There is a distinct smell of blood.  Locals travel through these neighborhoods, but know better than to enter an untrusted building.
20. Sealed houses.  No doors, no windows.  Locals mostly travel through this area, but you may find a few of the poorer people camped out on the porches.
21. Archetypal Slum.  Urine trickles from between crumbling bricks.  Deep mud lines the streets.  Scrawls of graffiti display a startling self-awareness, yet a lack of understanding of proper context.  "I will kill the diggers.""Poor people."
22. Archetypal Aristocratic.  Mansions.  Balconies.  Plaster walls.  Golden filigree in the lintels.  Locals know better than to scrape off the gold.  Many are multiple stories tall, but only have one story inside, with very high ceilings.  If multiple people are in a house, the city expects some to behave as servants and others to behave as nobles.
23. Ordinary buildings, magnified into towers. 
24. Yawning pits in the middle of every intersection, emitting gases that cause temporary blindness.
25. Monotonous repetitions of the same building cause travelers to be lost. Getting out of this neighborhood requires longer than usual.  If the person leading the party fails an Int check, roll a d6: 1 extra hour, 2 extra half day, 3 extra day, 4 extra week, 5 extra month, 6 extra year.  Even a success causes the party to be stuck there for an extra hour.
26. Stunted buildings.  5' ceilings.  3' doors.
27. Overgrown buildings.  Doorknobs too high.  Stairs difficult to ascend.
28. Malformed buildings.  Stone is soft to the touch, streaked with reddish bits of stone that look like veins.  Slouch against each other.
29. Buildings are ready for war.  Gutters as wide as moats.  Most buildings have drawbridges instead of doors.  All windows are barred.  Murder holes.  Arrow slits.  Spikes.
30. An intrusion of the sea.  The first story of all the buildings is submerged in ocean water at high tide.  Urchins prickle the walls, and the streets are awash with silt.  Grey, fat-bellied bull sharks.

Landmarks
Roll 1x for each neighborhood.  Some of these are unique, and the city will only have one.

1. Pit of Justice.  Judicial and honor duels.   Fights are always to first blood (and death).
2. Ecstasy Den.  Alchemically infused prostitutes deliver ecstatic drugs through their own body fluids.
3. House of Blacktongue.  It spirals up like a rose, and sinuous curves of wood support the supple flesh of the stone like spreading veins.  A woman inside a house inside a courtyard inside a house inside a courtyard inside a wall.
4. Mercenary Barracks.  Long and low and smelling of sulphur.
5. Garden.  False trees.  False flowers.  Stone benches.  The sound of water, but no sight of it.
6. Marketplace.  A network of narrow canyons through smooth-walled buildings.  Merchants loom in shadowed alcoves, selling snakes, spices, and chargale swords.  The density of corners means that they all appear suddenly.
7. Harbor.  Whalebones and alehouses.  Lantern-oil sellers, demonstrating the quality of their wares, spilling fire.  Bone harpoons.
8. Flesh market.  High quality slaves sit unattended atop pedestals, shouting out their prices and extolling the quality of their breeding.  Lower quality slaves do the same thing from cells embedded beneath the road, peering up through the slats at you, stating their worth, sounding doubtful.
9. Military Command.  Real soldiers, sober and attentive.  A grey-walled building, stained as if from a millennium of rain.  Trained walruses, eager for a chance to test the strength of their ropes.
10. Cult House.  The sign of the tusk painted on every wall.  The smell of ash and vitriol.  The yellow-robed clergy of Zala Vacha.  Sounds of bloodless sacrifice.

the sign of the tusk

Then a wizard named Oshregaal came to the Invincible City and precipitated the rise of the Tusk Clan.  They are led by Angra and Gaskin Blacktongue, and their depredations will probably have to wait for a separate post.

The Meal of Oshregaal

May 7, 2015, 5:04 pm

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I wrote a 17 page PDF about a dungeon.

First things first:

Patreon supporters, thank you for putting money in my tip jar.  That was the kick in the pants I needed to start typing up my dungeons and striving for some degree of professionalism in them.  So, this dungeon was really only possible because you paid me to do it.  I hope you enjoy this dungeon.

Second things second:

I think this is one of the best things I've ever written.

I've been working on this dungeon for like, 10 days, and I've realized that I'm never going to be 100% happy with it.  It's a little too dense with insanity.  There's probably too much treasure.  But that's okay.  I can revise it later if I want.  It's only a PDF.

Download it by clicking HERE

I intend to write another PDF each month, so this is hopefully just the first of many.

If you use this PDF and like it, consider buying me a beer by supporting me on Patreon.

---

Muscular Puncher

May 8, 2015, 1:41 pm

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Muscular punchers are a class of adventurer.  They are based on the wizard.

But while wizards train their minds, a muscular puncher trains only their body.  After years of eldritch exercises, a muscular puncher's muscles become corded things of impossible geometry and strength.  Within their bodies, their muscles speak to each other through subtle contractions, and engrave sigils on their very bones.  What a "mundane" wizard does with voice and concentration, they do through movement.  Their exertions are physical incantations knitted through the fabric of spacetime.

But muscular punchers don't know any of this.  All they know is that they are in possession of secret exercise manuals, which detail types of push-ups that man was not meant to know.  By performing these long exercise rituals, they store the power in their bodies, exactly like winding up the clockwork inside a toy.  And by punching, they release it.

Some muscular punchers come from secret gymnasiums.  Others come from circuses, where they are bred like animals and forced to learn the punches of their ancestors.  Many of them travel to learn to the nine forbidden punches, which combine to form the Apocalypse Combo, which can doom the world, or save it.

They have little patience for nerds, and don't believe that they have anything in common with wizards.

Loincloth HP

+3 maximum HP per hit die as long as you are unarmored.  Magical effects that would normally improve your AC instead improve your maximum HP, if they function at all.

Muscular Punch

At their option, their punches can either function as a dagger (1d6 damage) or a mace (1d6+Str damage).  Yes, this allows them to cut ropes by punching them.

Punches Per Day

Muscular Punchers can store punches inside their body in pretty much the same way that wizards store spells inside their head.  Use whatever chart or system you want for that, except use Con instead of Int.  I've written some level 1 punches at the end of this post, but if you want level 2+ punches, you'll have to either adapt some wizard spells or write your own.  When writing punches for this class, try to limit yourself to effects that could be appropriately delivered through a punch (no ranged attacks) or things that a person could conceivably do with magic muscles inside their body.  Muscular punchers always shout the names of their punches as they are performed.

Learning New Punches

A muscular puncher begins play knowing two level 1 punches, chosen randomly.  A muscular puncher can learn new punches from eldritch exercise manuals, other muscular punchers, or certain locations (like weight rooms dedicated to Nyarlathotep).  If they eat two scrolls containing level 1 spells, they will learn a previously-unknown level 1 punch (determined randomly).

Magic Punches

At level 3, a muscular puncher's punches count as magic, and they can punch ghosts and other incorporeal things.  

Level 1 Punches

Most of these punches are modifications to a basic melee attack.  For example, if a muscular puncher finds him- or herself in a dungeon without any doors, they can still use the Door Destroyer to get +2 to hit on a single attack (with no additional effect).

1. Atomic Butt Drop
2. Door Destroyer
3. Dragon Uppercut
4. Elbow Drop
5. Flying Clothesline
6. Haymaker
7. Saturday Night Punch
8. Nerd Slapper
9. Tag Team
10. Three-Point Landing

Atomic Butt Drop

+2 to hit and double damage.  Only usable against prone opponents.

Door Destroyer

+2 to hit.  As shatter or knock.

Dragon Punch

+2 to hit, double damage.  Can only be used against flying targets not higher than 30' off the ground.  This punch can also be used to jump 30' vertically.

Elbow Drop

+2 to hit.  Can only be used against targets at least 10' below you.  On a hit, the target takes all of your fall damage (in addition to normal punch damage), while you take none.

Flying Clothesline

As jump.  If you make a punch attack at the end of this movement against an opponent who is at least 30' away, you get +2 to hit and the struck opponent must make a Str check or be knocked prone.

Haymaker

-2 to hit, triple damage.

Saturday Night Punch  

+2 to hit, If target fails a save, their clothing/armor is destroyed.

Nerd Slapper

+2 to hit.  The target takes an additional +2 damage for every spell it is capable of casting.  (Wizards who have expended all of their spells take no additional damage.)

Tag Team

You and a willing ally (who has not yet acted in this turn) make simultaneous melee attacks against a single opponent.  You both get +2 to hit.  If both attacks hit, the target takes an additional +1d6 damage.

Three-Point Landing

As feather fall, except there is no reduction of fall speed.

The first person to write up a muscle wizard was Ian over at the now-defunct Monstrous Television.  Others have proposed excellentalternatives.  I suppose other influences would have to be professional wrestling, Flex Mentallo, and those kung fu manuals (a la Kung Fu Hustle).

Exotic Arrows That Aren't Arrows

May 9, 2015, 6:02 pm

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So, different cultures around Centerra have different ways to hurt people at a distance.  Most people use arrows.  But not everyone.  So here are 3 alternatives, all mechanically identical to a bow with 20 arrows.

• Requires two hands to use.  
• Requires an attack roll to hit.
• Does 1d6 damage (or whatever an arrow normally does).
• Takes up the same amount of inventory space as a bow and 20 arrows.

They probably cost about 10x as much as a regular bow and 20 arrows, but those things are usually pretty dirt cheap, and players love weird ways to kill shit, so the price is probably justified.

Honestly, some of these are cool enough that you may just want to make them unique items (but see the last few paragraphs below).

pleez don stab meh don do it be a bro

Baby Fluke Shark and a Needle

Off the coast of Charcorra, the spindle kickers sometimes return with sharks infected with echo flukes.  If these sharks are pregnant, Charcorran sickness weavers will then handle the messy task of extracting their fluke-warped embryos.

Fluke sharks are a type of mutant shark.  The adults are pretty horrible, but don't concern yourself with that at the moment.

In Charcorra, you can buy a baby shark in a clay pot of brine.  You take the shark out of the jar and stab it with a needle.  The baby fluke shark is injured, and it bleeds.  After about 20 stabs, it dies.  However, whenever the fluke shark takes damage, it mirrors that damage onto whatever it is looking at.  Baby fluke sharks magnify the damage they take, so a needle stab on a tiny shark becomes a much larger puncture wound on whatever it looks at.

So the drill quickly becomes (1) remove the baby shark from the jar, (2) point the baby shark at your target, and (3) stab the baby shark in the head.  (4) Don't drop the baby shark.

Hatesteel Gloves with an Ioun Morningstar (20 charges)

Of course ioun stones have been weaponized.  Don't be dense.

An ioun morningstar orbits your head like a ball bearing covered in spikes, a bit like a miniature moon.  Each ioun morningstar is bonded with a pair of hatesteel gloves, which can control the tiny, furious moon.

A wielder can direct the ioun morningstar out in increasingly eccentric orbits at increasingly ludicrous speeds, until the diminutive missile smashes into its target as hard as a sling stone.

After 20 such attacks, the ioun morningstar becomes exhausted, and must be alchemically resurfaced.  This is a trvial process that costs about as much as a bundle of 20 mundane arrows.

Flag Batons with 20 Zingerbees

The  halflings of Centerra keep bees, which are used for food, alchemy, and protection.  Among the weaponized species, the most deadly species are called zingerbees.  Black Dancers, Angel Eaters, and the greatly-feared Rabanollis.

Zingerbees, on average, are as intelligent, deadly, and loyal as any wardog you will ever meet.  You usually buy them in packs of 20.  They are usually sold in a hive-hat, but these are not really necessary.  Beekeeper assassins usually just store the zingerbees on the inside of their sleeves.

The bees die on impact, but not before discharging their deadly loads of acid.  (So, I guess this one does acid damage, but aside from that, it's mechanically identical to a bow and 20 arrows).

Zingerbees are directed through gestures made with a pair of flag batons.  So think twice before you make fun of a halfling with a pair of flag batons.

Expanding the Concepts

It may be that you want to use these weapons as unique or magical weapons, instead of just shallow replacements for a bow.  If so, consider the following changes.

The baby fluke shark might never take any lethal damage from needle pricks, or it might heal a certain number of needle-stabs every day.  This means a character is basically carrying around and abusing a stunted, mutant shark for the whole adventure, which is pretty cool.  It probably also requires food an a brine jar, which are nice drawbacks to a magical weapon.  You may want to have it do more damage, but I think that might not be necessary, since it's already ripe for player exploitation (i.e. what happens if you trick an opponent to step on the poor thing?).

The ioun morningstar probably should just exist as a permanent weapon; ditch the charges.  If you wanted a more interesting variant, you could have it store +1d6 damage for every turn you spend charging it up, up to a maximum of 3d6 damage at 3 rounds.  At that point, it's whirling around your head as fast as a lawnmower blade.  The other wrinkle here is that opponents might be able to trap, eat, or damage the ioun morningstar.

And the zingerbees can be expanded into a hundred different interesting directions.  Just make sure you keep the flag-batons involved--that's the center of the whole charm.  But you can give players a bee hive to carry on their back, which can hold up to 50 bees and regenerates 1 lost bee a day as long as the colony is fed.  Maybe give the queen bee telepathy and Intelligence 10.  Hell, give her Intelligence 18, so she's smart enough to know that you're an idiot adventurer who's probably going to plunge her whole family into lava any day now.  That makes an nice alternative to a egotistical magic sword, doesn't it?

Downtime Activities + Carousing Table

May 10, 2015, 3:00 pm

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These are straight from my house rules, so some of them are going to refer to rules that you might not necessarily use. 

Resting in town is important. DMs who have experience with multi-day hikes and heavy backpacks know how incredible it feels to sleep in a real bed at the end of it all.

I want to have rules that make downtime more important.

A player loses 1 insanity point for every week spent in town, engaging in non-stressful activities (no adventuring).

Each week, a random person in the party has a 5% chance to make a Charisma check. If they succeed on this check, they gain an ally. If they fail it, they gain an enemy. Roll a 1d6 to see how important that person is.  

Each week, a player can pick how they want to spend their time.

1. Philanthropy allows a player to spend money and gain reputation in a neighborhood. This costs 1000c in a poor neighborhood and 10,000c in a rich one. You gain +1 to all reaction rolls in that area. If you succeed on a Charisma check, you also gain a permanent friendly ally in that neighborhood.  You can also choose one small change to make to the neighborhood that your money makes.  Perhaps all of the street urchins are in a free orphanage school now, or the shitty roads finally get repaid.  Players should be able to easily see how their money has changed the neighborhood for the better.  This is how they change the world for the better--one neighborhood at a time.  Villages and towns are so small they usually only count as a single neighborhood.  +1 Rumor.

2. Relaxing for at least a week allows a character to be cheered (+1 HP per HD) until the end of the first day where HP actually matters.  (So hanging out in town or travelling on roads doesn't cause you to lose your Cheered condition, but getting into combat or exploring a dungeon will cause you to lose the Cheered condition after you've had a day to enjoy it. +1 Rumor.

3. Prayer is mechanically identical to Relaxing (above), except that you can simultaneously engage in Philanthropy (above) as long as you are donating money to the temple or church. If you are a cleric or priest, you will instead be expected to lead ceremonies.  +1 Rumor.

4. Boasting after completing a significant adventure, the party can spend a week boasting of their accomplishments.  The whole party must engage in this together.  This earns them an additional +5% of the XP of the adventure they just finished.  This is basically a roleplaying activity, where the party can recapitulate their adventures in dramatic narration (and open lies) while the DM queries, cheers, and heckles them while roleplaying as drunken tavern patrons or opium-addled nobles.  (If you come back from Dragon Mountain with a bunch of treasure, there's going to be at least one noble who invites you to their house, eager to hear all of your stories.)

5. Skill Training allows a player to gain a check mark in a skill (within reason—you cannot train swimming in the desert, nor study marine biology without access to either fish or a good library). This takes 1 week. This maycost money.

6. Skill Masteringallows a player to test their skill to improve it. Erase all three check marks and roll a d6. If the result is higher than the character's current skill rank, the rank improves by 1. This takes 1 week.

(I should probably post my skill rules, since they've changed a lot since I posted them on this blog.)

7. Spell Study allows a character to learn a new spell. This takes 1 day and 100g if the spell belongs to the caster's chosen school. If a wizard attempts to learn a spell from outside of their school, it takes 1 week, 700g, and takes up a skill slot.

(Players have skill slots equal to their Intelligence.  Skills and off-school spells both compete for skill slots, which makes the Intelligence stat more in-demand for wizards.  It also helps limit how many off-school spells a wizard can learn, so while a necromancer can learn all necromancy spells, they have to be more selective about which illusion spells they want to learn.)

8. Spell Invention allows a spellcaster to invent a new spell. This requires expensive (1000g or more) or rare (quest) items (or both)and takes a month (or a year, at the DM's discretion). At the end of the month, a successful Intelligence check allows the caster to invent the spell that they were seeking. DMs are encouraged to say yes to whatever the character proposes, modify it to ensure it's not exceptionally broken, and then put a cost on it that reflects it's value.  More powerful/exploitable spells are more difficult.

For example, a version of fireballthat does cold damage instead of fire is very reasonable for a wizard who already knows the fireball spell. This might only cost 1000g in icethorns and seed diamonds and require a month.

9. Working earns reliable money. The character gets a job that earns 2d6g per week (this money is worth no XP). If they have a relevant skill, they earn an additional +1d6g for every skill rank. If a character is willing to engage in risky/unethical work (such as burglary for a thief, selling demonic consultations for a wizard), they earn triple, but there is also a 1-in-6 chance of a mishap (the thief is arrested, the wizard is cursed).  +1 Rumor.

10. Carousing for a week allows a character to spend money and gain XP at their own risk. 100g = 100 XP, 400g = 200 XP, 900g = 300xp, etc. Then learn +1 Rumor and roll on the carousing table.

Decide beforehand how much equipment and money you want to carry when carousing. Weapons and gold might come is useful, but they might also be lost or stolen. No one parties in armor.

Decide with the DM what sort of form your carousing takes, so that you can create the fiction together. Gambling, drugs, prostitutes, extravagent tea parties, river cruises, etc.

There is a 50% chance that your carousing will be fun and uneventful. Otherwise, roll on the following table.

Players can choose to carouse together, consolidating their roll into 1, thereby allowing them to share in the same fate (whether good or bad).

Carousing Table

1	Horseplay! d6: 1-4 lose your mount to thievery, gambling, or negligence, 5 gain a horse, 6 gain an exotic mount, such as a camel or riding bird.
2	Shanghaied! Wake up on a pirate ship that's already set sail, or in the back of a slaver's wagon.
3	Friendship! You saved their life, or they were really impressed with your toasts! Roll a 1d6 to see how relatively important your new friend is.
4	Animosity! You insulted a noble, or hit on the wrong girl. Roll a 1d6 to see how relatively important your new enemy is.
5	Windfall! You gain 1d6 x 100g in a risky venture.
6	Losses! You lose 1d6 x 100g in a risky venture. If you do not have enough money on you, the debt is doubled and you may face jail time.
7	Wake Up In Bed With Someone! d6: 1 servant, 2 dead prostitute, 3 someone super hot, 4 random other PC, 5 important local NPC, 6 1d4 halflings.
8	Public Fool! You'll be mocked as long as you stay here. Maybe you kissed a donkey or something.
9	Arrested! Facing 1d6 weeks of jail time, unless a bribe is paid (~1d6 x 100g, discreetly).
10	Wounded! Roll on the Death and Dismemberment Table, with Severity 1d4+4.
11	Unusual gift! d6: 1 baby, 2 taxidermied pegasus, 3 slave, 4 pet cat, 5 obviously cursed item, 6 tavern.
12	Good reputation! You'll be welcomed in most places around here. People seem to know you, even though you have no memory of them
13	Wanted for crimes! 50% chance you were framed. Penalties as Arrested entry (above).
14	Fall in love! Describe you who fall in love with to the DM. If you make a Charisma check, it's reciprocated.
15	Combat! D3: 1 barfight vs 1d6 drunkards in a free-for-all, 2 1d4 thieves in a dark alley, 3 cage fight vs level 1d6 opponent.
16	Robbery! Lose all carried money.
17	Disease! Probably dirty cups or unprotected sex. Roll a Con check to avoid it, and roll a d6 to see how severe it is. 1 = cold, 6 = plague.
18	Inducted! You seem to have joined some sort of secret society and/or cult. If there are no obvious candidates, roll a d6 to see how powerful the cult is and another d6 to see how harmless they are.
19	New Tattoo! Exact design is decided by a random player around the table (including the DM).
20	Fire! You accidentally burn down either the current carousing location or the most important building in town (50% each). d3: 1 everyone knows you did it, 2 only your new blackmailer knows, 3 only you know.

Keep Dungeon Threats Threatening

May 14, 2015, 5:59 am

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This post is going to assume some things about dungeon crawling.  Namely, that exploring a dungeon is just as complex, tactical, and interesting as combat.  It only applies to games where dungeon crawling is a major facet of the adventure (think Torchbearer) and one that I enjoy having in my games.  If you don't want dungeon crawling (with resource management) to be a major mode of gameplay, this post is not for you.

There are things that I try to limit or remove entirely from my games.

• darkvision
• water-breathing
• flight
• see invisibility
• detect secret door
• immunity to poison
• immunity to disease

I'll never include a trident of water-breathing in my loot piles*.  You'll never come across herd of grazing pegasi.  (Fuckin' animals, man.)  And my dwarves don't even have darkvision.

I want things like darkness and and drowning to remain threats.  Because as soon as everyone has access to darkvision, one of the big mechanics of dungeon exploration—light—is no longer an issue. The dungeon has become less complex and less interesting.

pic by noah bradley

If light removes the threat of darkness, water-breathing removes the threat of drowning, and flight removes the threat of falling into a pit, what is left? Not much. 

Light : Dungeon Crawling :: Ammunition : Combat

Dungeon crawling is a mode of gameplay that is just as complex and interesting as combat. If you remove the teeth from some of the failure mechanisms in exploration, you've made your game a lot less interesting.

 For the same reason, I wouldn't give a player a suit of armor that makes them immune to all HP damage.

If I did, I'd have to rely on other forms of combat to provide texture and menace (ability score damage, save-or-die effects) but those have their own problems, or they are harder to visualize. HP, and the threat of HP loss, serves a very specific role in combat. The replacements aren't as satisfying.

And if I can't rely on spiked pits being a threat anymore, I'd have to replace it with what?  Force fields? Anti-magic zones?

And there's something to be said about the scale of low-level threats. A 10' drop with spikes on the bottom sounds fucking awful in real life; it should be awful in-game as well. You don't have to read the D&D rulebook to know that falling off a 90' cliff is going to kill you, or that you'll drown if you fall off the boat while wearing plate mail. The threat-of-falling-to-my-death is intuitive and natural, and I love that. The threat-of-getting-caught-in-a-teleport-trap doesn't have the same impact.

That's why I'll never give out a flying carpet with unlimited uses as loot. I want my deadly pit of spikes to be a deadly pit of spikes, not just solved equation.

I don't want these threats to be plateaus that are reached and then forgotten behind us.

I'm not saying that we should get rid of all the fly scrolls in our game, just that we shouldn't give the entire party flying boots.  And everburning torches can go fuck themselves.

I'm not arguing for a game that does away with levels.  Players can still increase in power numerically all you want.  Linearly, exponentially, whatever.  As long as they never get access to items or abilities that let them cheaply negate the need for a light source, or ignore the need for air.

Nor am I recommending a game where players never learn new abilities.  You can still gain the power to stop aging, teleport to the nearest princess that needs rescuing, deal damage on a miss, turn corpses into bombs, turn bombs into slavish automata, and transform into ogres with cannon hands.

Nor am I advocating for a low-power game, or a gritty game.  You can still be epic.  You can still shoot fireballs that deal 15d6 damage. You can still kill the nega-princess and save Satan.  As long as your players still fear darkness.

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I'm sort of moving away from 'HP is slow to recover and you should get magical healing' to an 'HP is easy to recover, but you can get lots of permanent injuries' because I want to move away from HP as something that is overcome  and then forgotten.  (And traditionally, HP has been a solved equation for a long time.  The solution is a cleric stacked with healing magic.  It's not fun or interesting being the party's healbot, but that's the tax that's required to overcome this particular plateau.)  The nice thing about giving parties lots of free healing is that it diminishes the need for a healbot.  And the nice thing about a system with permanent and long-lasting injuries that it maintains the threat-of-being-stabbed-to-death.

*This is a lie.  I've definitely let people play races/class that can breath under water.  Or even fly.  But hypocrisy aside, the theory is sound.  Obstacles need to remain obstructive.

------------

UPDATE: The next bunch of paragraphs is in response to a smart thing that +Mateo Diaz Torres said, which was that abilities that let characters bypass core dungeon hazards could be balanced by giving the characters other weaknesses.

If everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, that's great. Part of the game, even. But if everyone has a different immunity, they can bypass a lot of the threats that I want to keep threatening.

If I put a pit trap in the dungeon, I want it to be threatening. I don't want to have to metagame my players, thinking about what immunities they have. Then I have to build an encounter around that, just to challenge them.

Sure, the fairy takes double damage from silver, but when the party gets to the Indiana-Jones-Spell-The-Name-Of-God-Or-Fall-To-Your-Death puzzle, the fairy just flies across and grabs the key. Or the party finds the weird fungus and they send the dwarf over because he's immune to its spores. And then they fall in the water, their torches go out, and the whole thing is easily overcome because the elf can see the safe island right over there and the fish-man can go down and help the fighter out of his plate mail.

When I'm designing a dungeon, I want to be able to rely on certain assumptions of what is and what isn't threatening. Darkness and drowning should be consistently threatening, no matter how many other drawbacks you give the players. That should be a threat that's consistent across all characters.

Like, imagine if people started showing up to your FLAILSNAILS games who were all immune to damage. Sure, their movement rate is 3", get half XP, and die if sunlight touches them (they're vampire snail people, okay?) but those drawbacks don't matter when they walk through your dungeon without being challenged. This is because you built your dungeon with the assumption that HP damage would be a valid threat.

And so when I write my dungeons for my characters (and I usually let them play whatever they want, even flying fairies) I try to operate on the assumption that darkness, drowning, and sudden drops are all threatening. And that's a consistency I'd like to have in my system.

Death, Dismemberment, Insanity

May 19, 2015, 2:57 am

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I typed up my newest version of Death and Dismemberment, as well as Trauma and Insanity rules.

--> CLICK HERE TO GET THE PDF <--

by Jim Roslof

Orbital Biomes

May 22, 2015, 2:01 am

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It is a great secret, but the era before the Time of Fire and Madness was one of creation and mastery. Among a great deal of other things, the sorcerer-kings created orbital colonies.

The high elves made a great many things, including orbital colonies.  When the Time of Fire and Madness scorched the earth, the creatures in orbit did not escape unscathed.  Now the low orbits above Centerra are filled with their own, unique biomes.

Membranous forests made of enormous leaves, each one hundreds of feet across, that all turned in unison to face the sun.  Globular habitats of silico-cellulose.  Nacreous blooms of orbital krill.

Most of the orbital environments are pieces of Eladras, the elven sky-tree that grew from the moon down into the planet's atmosphere.  Like the rest of the world, it was shattered by Fire and warped by Madness.  Strange things swim through the bristling woods of the void.

art by Mikhail Rakhmatullin

Aventuring In Low Orbit

The easiest way for an adventurer to get into Low-Centerra Orbit is to travel to Ba Dwai La and use the portal to get to the moon, where they will be able to buy fish skins* and No Breath potions.  From there, it's just a short jump out of the moon's gravity well down to the Maze.  Any captain worth their voidship can take you.

*Fish skins = space suits.  They're covered with scales, and they're alive.

The other easy way to reach low orbit is to travel to the Grey Waste and catch the Cat's Tail when it passes overhead.  This is the remains of an old orbital elevator.

You could also summon a byakhee and ride it, but most people don't enjoy their half of that bargain.

You could also ride a dragon, but this is the riskiest task.  Terrestrial dragons tend to over exert themselves and blow up before getting any higher than 30,000 ft.

A digression about dragons: Look, dragons are highly magical creatures.  Anyone with a cursory knowledge of biology is going to tell you that a dragon would need much larger wings to actually fly.  And that's true, until you factor magic in.  A dragon's wing superheat the air beneath them, giving them a great deal of buoyancy. And once they get into open, gliding flight, they are capable of a mild form of jet propulsion along their wings.  That's how you know a dragon is really struggling: their wings start to smoke.

Drakes do the same thing, and are much faster.

Space dragons presumably do the same thing.  The only known space dragon is Forganthus Valore, who lands every ~100 years for the Hundred Year Stew.  He is a gourmand.  And after he eats the 90 million or so calories required to escape from the planet's gravity well, he departs atop a pillar of fire.

Space dragons don't look much like dragons.  Except for the fire, that's still the same.  Their bones are raw feroxite and their bellies are just pools of rocket fuel.

art by Mikhail Rakhmatullin

Orbital Forests

Eladras's green shards did not die when it was sundered.  They grew, like potatoes abandoned under the sink.  The trees are spindles of enormous leaves that rotate in order to best face the sun.

The largest threat of the orbital biome: high-velocity impacts from micrometeoroids and other debris, and handled simply by avoiding any biology with weakspots.  Any tree can be shattered; each piece will safely regrow.  The leaves--each hundreds of feet across and as thin as a piece of paper--are riddled with millions of ragged holes and scorchmarks.

The interior of these forests are the safest places.  There is some shielding from the radiation here, and most micrometeoroids don't penetrate into the forest's interior.

Parishes

A parish is a hermetically sealed township.  They are full of clans of goggle-eyed halflings (being the race best adapted to living in tiny, sealed containers for their entire lives).  Quite a few of them are primitivists, and many of them believe that the planet is only illusion--nothing lives on the surface because it has no surface.

If you were expecting space-halfings to have better technology and magic than their earth-bound counterparts, you would be sorely mistaken. The tools are foreign and the magic is strange, but most orbital halflings eke out miserable existences inside their metal tubes.

art by Mikhail Rakhmatullin

Voidborne

There are races of man who are adapted for the void as well.  You can see them sometimes, with their gossamer wings dimming the sun, flitting around the perimeters of the forests.  Their skin is metallic, to protect against the burning radiation of God's Fury--the sun.  Their horrific faces belie an alien but not incomprehensible intelligence.  They communicate with bacteria, and lack lungs.

They are huge, 20' tall, and weight about 40 lbs.  They move ponderously, like creatures at the bottom of the sea.  Only in combat do they lash out quickly, with movements that threaten to rip off one of their own arms.

They tend to ignore travelers unless they are approached, or if they've formed into a raiding party.  So, it is not hard to observe them without much fuss--perhaps a mother wrapped in the amber silk of her wings, with an infant pressed to her mirror-like breast.

Although every part of their body can be regenerated if damaged, their brain cannot, and such a precious cargo can only be protected in one way: their skulls are solid adamantine.

Undead

Oh, there are a great deal of undead in space.  The biggest hazards of that place pose no threat to those who are already dead.

Space ghouls sometimes travel in voidships like other civilized folk, but more often they just travel in ravenous packs linked together by rope.  They're all armed with grappling hooks (or a reasonable approximation).  They use these hooks to catch fleeing creatures as well as to hold their pack together.

If you approach the poles, you may be unlucky enough to see one of the lich princes, riding a ziggurat ripped from some lunar necropolis.  The lich will be at the apex, naked face gazing into the void, preparing to enter the polar blowhole and descend into the blue-lit interior of the planet.

You are, however, quite safe from vampires up here.  The sun is huge and inescapable.

Poets

You can find poets of the lunar people here as well.  They'll be orbiting the planet a few times, locked tightly inside their hedonism-shells, where they invent narcotics and drink water from the tail of a comet.  Sometimes they do poetry, as well.

art by Mikhail Rakhmatullin

The Rugmaker's Den

May 23, 2015, 5:09 pm

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Also by Mikhail Rakhmatullin

Every Sunday, I play D&D with some of the best people on the face of the earth.

I've recently begun encouraging them to try their own hand at DMing, and have mostly been blown away by their enthusiasm and panache.  Cameran, John, Vic: good work, guys.

Anyway, John decided to run a dungeon called The Rugmaker's Den.  It lasted us about two sessions, and I got to graft a morphic tentacle onto my vat-spawn.  Then John TYPED THE WHOLE THING UP, AND GAVE IT TO ME AS A PDF!  Now you can download it.  The only caveat is that you aren't allowed to post comments telling me how much better it is than my dungeons.

Download it

>> HERE <<

"This dungeon is hopefully the first of many such ones that I will write, and combines my love of the horror genre with the incredible dickishness that can come along with shapeshifters. Much of the story for this one was inspired by Stephen King's IT, and the game Prototype. None of this would have happened though, if I weren't introduced to D&D by Arnold. His love of the game, creative stories, and an eagerness to bring in new players has been an absolute inspiration. I look forward to seeing what sort of awesome adventures this game takes me on, as both a player, and a new DM." - John Uhrig, Dungeonmaster

---

Gurgans

May 25, 2015, 4:21 am

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Gurgans eat beauty and shit salt.

They're squat things, like shriveled men with distended bellies and enormous, flaccid penises, which they drag through the dust behind them.  They lurk in alleyways, croaking out their sorrows.  Sometimes they break into houses and gulp down babies with their gummy lips.  But most often you'll find them in the middle of the street, pouring dust on their head and sobbing.

Everyone knows that Gurgans have curses.  (This is automatic knowledge--all adventurers know it.)  If a Gurgan asks you to feed it and you do not, it will put its first curse on you.

The First Curse of the Gurgan: The next time you roll a natural 20, it turns into a 1.  Until that time, all food tastes like ashes (but provides the same nutrition).

If you attack a Gurgan or drive it off, it will give you its Second Curse.

The Second Curse of the Gurgan: It licks you with its rancid tongue (requires an attack roll).  On a hit, your Charisma is reduced to 3, and the Gurgan shits out a brick of salt.

If you kill a Gurgan, it will give you its third and final curse.

The Third Curse of the Gurgan varies.

Towns usually endure the Gurgan long enough for it to get bored and move on to the next town.  This usually takes 1d6 weeks.  Attempts to reason with the Gurgan are usually met with self-loathing and incoherence.  The creature is a master of redirecting conversations into different, more miserable topics.

The most remarkable thing about Gurgans is that people sometimes go to great lengths to avoid the horrid little things.  If there is a Gurgan in town, 1d8 x 10% of the people will just evacuate.  For a few weeks.  They'll go visit their cousin or something.  Anything to get away from that horrible Gurgan.

If you need stats for them, give them stats as a goblin that gives a negative amount of XP.  If you use more gurgans, consider giving them alternate curses.

from Star Trek

Plot Hooks

1. The obvious one is that a town wants you to get rid of a Gurgan that refuses to leave.  Maybe they have an important festival coming up.

2. Get information from a Gurgan.

3. Get a Gurgan to curse someone else.  This is going to involve tricking either the Gurgan, or the other person.

4. Protect a Gurgan.  It's horrible, demeaning work, but if you don't defend the Gurgan from the ire of the townsfolk, they'll attack the poor thing, and it'll curse the town with bone cancer or something.

5. Oh my god, there's a whole city of these things.  They just weep and masturbate and curse each other.  Go there and kill them all.  Or steal something important from them.  All that matters it that you're going to get so many curse-curse interactions in your body.  It's like mixing potions.  Who knows what'll happen?

Ego Sprite

May 26, 2015, 11:01 pm

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Ego sprites are interesting because they aren't real.  They're a bit like pseudo-imaginary dinosaurs in that way.

You walk into a room and look at it, and it looks like a creature, but it's not.  It's a shared hallucination.  It's the manifestation of a meme-infested mind, not a creature on it's own.  It's a self-contained meme that resonates more strongly than the other ideas in your brain.

In that way, it's similar to a brain tumor.  Except outside of your head.  And it's contagious.

All ego sprites desire the same thing: attention.  Their plan to gain attention is sometimes circumlocutious, but it always boils down to the same result.

It is often difficult to pin down exactly what an ego sprite is, since they often resemble angels or demons.  In fact, some theorize that ego sprites are simply nascent godlings.  According to this theory, once an ego sprite has grown powerful enough to erase its ignoble circumstances of birth (possibly as an especially captivating graffito), it will establish itself as a god.

A picture of an ego sprite is an ego sprite.  It doesn't "summon" an ego sprite, it is the ego sprite.  Anyone who has seen an ego sprite before can draw that ego sprite.  Anyone who draws a picture of an ego sprite permanently loses 1 point of Charisma, so great is their investment.  

Ego Sprites are also sometimes drawn spontaneously by especially sensitive artists of any skill level.  Think Pygmalion, but also think hallucinatory mad man.

Ego sprites always resemble beautiful creatures, usually people of some impossible anatomy.  Maximally-resonant memes can have many appearances, but here are some examples (d6):

1. Feathered serpent containing all possible colors.  Head like a beaked horse.
2. Narrow, spindly man-shape with a head like a needle and a voice like heartbreak.
3. Blue-skinned woman with malleable flesh and gemstone eyes.  
4. A collection of glassy marbles that fly through the air.
5. Old woman that is actually a crab below the waist.  Has another, younger woman inside of her, visible through her mouth.
6. Man who is being controlled by two impossibly beautiful sock puppets.

And here are some sample powers:

1. Fear.  At 10 HD, this is reversed (people become afraid to run away) and permanent within a 20' range.
2. Color Spray.  At 10 HD, people have their senses of color permanently altered, and forever-more become unable to tell what color an object is (because they cannot describe the impossible colors that their eyes now see).
3. Sleep.  At 10 HD, creatures that are put to sleep with this ability dream only of the ego sprite.  This counts as attention, and they will sleep until dawn.
4. Cure Light Wounds.  At 10 HD, creatures that the ego sprite heals change shape subtly to resemble the ego sprite.  After an ego sprite has healed you 3 or more times, you resemble a pale imitation of the ego sprite.
5. Reduce Person.  At 10 HD, this ability shrinks a person to the size of a mouse.
6. Confusion.  At 10 HD, this ability causes portions of the target's memories to be overwritten with whatever fiction the ego sprite sees fit.

Plan to get attention:

1. Strife.  Gangland drama or philosophic controversy.
2. Lust and open adoration.  Possibly going as far as to be a cult, but cults are lazy fiction.
3. High-society parties.
4. Glory, usually through good works and displays of benevolence. Cheap sainthood.
5. Public spectacle: circuses, public plays, etc.
6. Control of an institution: orphanage, hospital, etc.

Weapon:

1. Sword
2. Stave
3. Scythe
4. Needle
5. Fork
6. Golden Hand/Claw of Disintegration.
7. Eye Lasers
8. Black Hole Anti-breath

by Peter Mohrbacher

Stats

Ego Sprite
HD X  AC chain Weapon Varies
Move 12  Int as smart as the smartest observer  Morale 7
Special Charm Person OR Special Power 3/day

An ego sprite's HD is equal to the number of people who are paying attention to it.  If no one is paying attention to it, it dies.  (Attention equals focusing on it, not merely being aware of it's presence).  An ego sprite with 1 HD is the size of your hand.  An ego sprite with 6 HD is the size of a human.  Ego sprites with 7+ HD may grow to be giants, or may remain human-sized.

A person can ignore an ego sprite if (a) the ego sprite is not slapping them, caressing them, or yelling in their ear AND (b) making a Wisdom check.  If the ego sprite is somewhere else and the person is doing an unrelated task (making breakfast, reading a book), they forget about the sprite if they roll under Wisdom * 2.

An ego sprite's weapon does 1dX damage, where X is equal to HD, rounded down to the nearest die size (min 1d4).

An ego sprite gives XP = maximum HD reached * 10 XP.

by Franz Wacik

Gameplay

Ego sprites can arise pretty much spontaneously.  It's possible that the PCs witness something conceptually momentous (e.g. angel sex, Cthulhu's butthole) and an ego sprite springs fully-formed from their mind.  You might even want to put ego sprites on your Insanity table.

If an ego sprite has only a single person paying attention to it, it's going to be very demanding.  They can't let you fall asleep after all.

Ego sprites rarely appear as bad guys at first blush.  (And in fact, they don't have to be strictly villainous.)  A tiny ego sprite knows that it depends on getting more people to pay attention to it, and handles that dependency with appropriate caution at low levels.  After all, most PCs wouldn't immediately kill a tiny, blue-skinned woman who follows them around casting cure light wounds and asking to please be brought back to civilization.  Plus, they're all liars.

Player: And this is the rest of my party.  This is Fitarr, and Hand, and--hey!  Did you just get bigger?
Ego Sprite: That's my angelic nature!  I regain strength whenever I regain hope!

Et cetera.

Ego sprites don't kill mass amounts of people.  Still, they can disrupt a lot of people's lives with their charm person ability and huge followings.  If the town watch is too busy fawning over an ego sprite that just showed up in their barracks, they won't be able to protect the town.  So they can do a lot of damage that way.

And if an ego sprite ever grows to god-like power, they might just vanish, taking thousands of people with them and most of the city, leaving nothing except for a handful of empowered clerics ready to spread the gospel of a new religion.

And yes, an ego sprite at the center of a 1000-person orgy is going to have enough HP to shrug off pretty much any damage the PCs through at it.  Trying to kill it with a save-vs-death is also going to have slim chances of success.  But the attention dependency is the real big weakness:  Pump some sleeping gas into that room, put everyone to sleep, and the ego sprite will die so fast that you'll swear that you don't deserve all this XP.

by Michael Hutter

Just-in-Time Durations

May 27, 2015, 2:45 am

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So the player fails their save vs paralysis.  Now, they're paralyzed for 1d6 rounds.  The DM rolls a d6 and gets a '5'.  He tells the player "You're paralyzed." and makes a note on his tracking sheet.  Five rounds later, he'll tell the player "You're no longer paralyzed.  What do you want to do?"

That's how it's always been done.

art by KD Stanton

So, I've already written about why I think just-in-time-resolution is better (where the effect isn't resolved until it actually matters).  In this case, the player just goes into paralysis and the duration of the paralysis isn't resolved (and no know knows the duration) until the paralysis effect expires.

This requires a dice trick.  It only works if the duration is determined by a single roll of the dice.  (So, it doesn't work for 2d6, but it works for 1d8+1.) 

1. The first turn it might wear off, roll a dWhatever-the-size-of-the-die-was.  So if it lasts for 1d4 rounds, you'd roll a d4.
2. If get a 1 on the dWhatever, the condition wears off and you can act normally.
3. If the condition doesn't wear off, at the start of your next turn, roll a dWhatever-1.  If you get a 1, the effect wears off.  Otherwise, continue this process of decreasing the die size.

I know it looks weird, but its mathematically identical to a duration of 1d6 turns.  Here's an example.

DM: You're paralyzed.

Player: Fuck.

Player's 1st Turn: *character is paralyzed.*

Player's 2nd Turn: Rolls a d6, gets a 2.  Character is still paralyzed.

Player's 3rd Turn: Rolls a d5, gets a 5.  Character is still paralyzed.

Player's 4th Turn: Rolls a d4, gets a 1!  Character is no longer paralyzed, and takes their turn as normal.  Everyone at the table was excited and surprised!  The player saves the day!  Yay!

Yes, if they end up rolling a d2 and getting a 2, the surprise is ruined, and they know it'll wear off next round.

Yes, you might not have a d5.  Just use a d10, or a d6-reroll-any-sixes.

Using Just-in-Time Durations has a few advantages:

DM doesn't forget.  

It's (hopefully) rare, but sometimes the DM just forgets to tell the character that they're no longer paralyzed after 5 rounds, and the poor character stays paralyzed until someone asks the DM how much longer the paralysis is going to last.  It's shitty, but when there are a million things to keep track of, sometimes the DM loses track.

DM doesn't metagame.

Two of the players are paralyzed by ghouls.  The DM rolls a pair of d6s, and. . . shit.  Both of the players are paralyzed for 6 rounds each.  They might get a TPK here.  And then the idea creeeeeps into the DM's head: "Maybe I should reduce the ghoul's HP, or start fudging their attack rolls, or. . ." If you are a DM who wants to be free from temptation, this is one solution.

Player has something to do.

I think this is what 4e was going for when it made all of those "55% chance to expire each turn" effects.  Players like rolling dice, even when their character is paralyzed.  Especially when their character is paralyzed.  It puts the roll back in their hands, too, so if they get TPK'd, they can own the results.

Players have an idea of how bad it is.

I like giving players more information.  That's how they make informed decisions.  For example, I'll usually tell you a creature's AC after you attack it once.  The same goes for durations.  Once a player finds out that the hallucinations last 1d6 minutes, they might decide to retreat from combat.  But if they find out that the hallucinations last 1d6 rounds, they might decide to stay in combat to tough it out.  Let players know the risks, so that they'll have no one else to blame when they fail.

Dice rolls are out in the open.

Everyone likes this, right?

So there you have it.

You can also use this mechanic for Just-in-Time Charges.  You start rolling duration on the first turn that an effect might wear off (the beginning of the second round of the effect), so you do the same thing with a wand with an unknown 

Players find a wand with 1d20 charges?  You could keep track of its charges on your sloppy pigpen of a DM's sheet* while you wait for them to identify it, OR

1. Player uses the wand and you tell them that it has 1d20 charges.
2. The next time they use it, they roll a d20.  
1. If they roll a 1, it fizzles.
2. If they don't roll a 1, it becomes a wand with 1d19 charges.
3. The next time they use it, they roll a d19.
4. Etc.

Wands in my game have 0-19 charges (d20-1), so my players start rolling that d20 the first time they use a wand.  It's always possible that they picked up a wand with no charges. 

*at least mine is a sloppy pigpen.  Your DM sheet may be more of a duck pond.  I don't judge.

Omens and Lake Drakes

May 31, 2015, 12:05 am

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Omens

When you roll a 1 on a wandering monster roll (d6), you encounter the monster itself.  If you instead roll a 2, you encounter that monster's omen--foreshadowing of something yet to come.

For mundane monsters, this is usually a mundane experience.  You might catch a glimpse of it flying near the horizon, come across half-eaten prey, hear its roar, or smell its spoor.

For more mythical monsters, omens can be just about anything.  Just like true foreshadowing.

There are three ways to experience a mythical monster's omen.

1. Rolling a 2 on a wandering monster roll.  (Already mentioned.)
2. Approaching the monster within it's lair.  By the time you reach the monster itself, most/all of the listed omens should have occurred.
3. If a mythical monster is discussed or investigated, there is a 1-in-6 chance of an omen (if appropriate). Examples:
1. While reading a book about the Lord of the Flies, a researcher is suddenly set upon by a swarm of stinging gnats.
2. A group of villagers is telling the PCs about the red dragon that burned down their village.  After the discussion, one of the villagers is suddenly struck by a powerful feeling of greed.  He robs his companions, and flees.

Omens never repeat themselves.  They are ripples in the cosmic fabric, not intentional powers of the monster.

art by DevBurmak

Lake Drake

Drakes hate being called lesser dragons.  They are about the size of a horse, and lack a breath attack.  They are as intelligent as humans, but have no way of communicating despite a basic understanding of Common.  They are known for their speed, and many of them are much faster and more maneuverable than dragons.  They are considered untamable, being both proud and vicious.

In my mind, drakes are a good lower boundary for monsters that can by considered "mythical".  They also have mild omens--ones that are more atmosphere, less mechanical effects.

Lake Drake Omens

1. Terrified fish plow through the water, jumping as if to escape something.  A number of the fish land in the boat / on land.
2. The wind stops.  The surface of the water is dazzling.  A hireling momentarily zones out and falls in.
3. Far away, a silvery shape leaps from the water.  It flies a short distance, droplets spraying from its wings, before diving back in.

Lake Drake

HD 8  Defense chain Attacks 1d6/1d6/1d8
Move 12 Fly 24 Swim 12  Int 9  Morale 8
* If a lake drake hits an opponent with at least two attacks, the drake may grab or tackle them.  A successful Str check  (at a -4 penalty) avoids this.

Lake drakes are a good example of monsters that don't need a lot of weird mechanics to be interesting.  They have so many cool tactics that a lot of the excitement in an encounter can (and should) come from the "mundane" things that drake does.  Examples:

• Ambushing by leaping from the water and then immediately taking flight.
• Escaping by diving into the water from the air, then swimming away.
• Fly-by attacks / Swim-by attacks.
• Attacking the boat and/or knocking people into the water (with its tackle).
• Grabbing people and flying away with them.  Possibly dropping them.
• Grabbing people and diving underwater.  Possibly drowning them.

If you want to give lake drakes a mechanical ability because you feel itchy when a monster doesn't have a unique mechanical differentiation, just say that it gets +2 AC and attack whenever it bursts out of the water splashing sunshine and droplets everywhere.

And unlike, say, a golem, people already have a good grasp on the ecology (and motivations) of lake drakes.  They eat fish.  They're jealous of dragons.  Just those two facts allow people to manipulate the behavior (and therefor engineer the combat).  They might be distracted by fish, or accept them as a bargaining chip.  They might get angry if you tell them how inferior they are to true dragons.

New Class: Bug Collector

May 31, 2015, 11:45 pm

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≪ Previous: Omens and Lake Drakes

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Based on the wizard.  Just subtract the spells and add all this stuff.

Level 1
Bug Collecting 1
Bug Badges
Save +4 vs Bugs

Level 2
Bug Collecting 2
Bug Buddy

Level 3
Bug Collecting 4
Speak with Insects OR Killing Jar

Level 4+
If you want to expand this class beyond level 3, I wouldn't just increasing the number of bug collected each day (although you could certainly do that).  Instead, I'd give them an expanded table of bugs in each ecosystem with d12 different bugs each.  Bugs number 11-12 have more powerful effects.  Then at level 6, increase it to a d14 table, with two more powerful bugs.  Et cetera.

Bugs are insects, spiders, snails, slugs, and limbless worms of all types.

A Save vs Bugs is a save against any effect that originated from a bug, or any effect that is bug-themed.

Each bug collector begins play with a Butterfly Staff (functions as both a quarterstaff and a butterfly net), a bug journal, and a comfy pair of shorts.

Bug Collecting
This is how many bugs you can collect--if you have a positive Intelligence modifier, add it.  Right before dawn, you can spend an hour gathering this many bugs.  At any other time, you can spend 8 hours gathering this many bugs.  You cannot collect more than 2x this number of bugs in a given day.

Each ecosystem has a different selection of bugs.  Bugs are collected randomly.  Each time you get a new bug, enter it in your bug journal.  (DMs: Make up a fun fact about each bug.)  Once you've collected all 10 bugs in each ecosystem at least once, you get a bug badge.

After being collected, each bug only stays alive (and therefore useful) for the rest of the day.  (They're functionally equivalent to spells, in case you were wondering, so this is equivalent to getting a random selection of spells each day.)

Each bug can be used for its effect once, and then the bug either escapes, dies, or is eaten.  This really depends on whatever sort of fiction the DM wants to enforce.  (But I recommend that nursery spiders should be eaten to gain the effects of spider climb.)

Bug Badges

These are random items that you find near bugs.  It might be a half-eaten leaf or a chrysalis.  To others, it's just a piece of trash.  To you, it is a magic talisman that bestows magical powers.  And, you're right!  But only while you wear it.  However, you can only carry so many bug badges at a time.  If you carry too many, you lose the effects of one of your older ones.

You also get mad respect from other bug collectors.  The number of bug badges is directly proportionate to the chance that you will have more bug badges than other bug collectors.  If you have more bug badges than other bug collectors, you outrank them, and can boss the around.

Bug Buddy

You gain a bug buddy of a type chosen by you (butterfly, beetle, non-poisonous centipede, spider, ant, worm, moth, or fly).  This must be a mundane bug without any special powers, no bigger than what you could fit in your (closed) mouth.  The bug has Int 3 and obeys you unhesitatingly.  It can understand commands of up to two words, optionally pointing to something as well.  If your bug buddy dies, you get half the normal XP from this session, and you gain a new bug buddy the next time you go bug collecting.

Speak With Insects
This effect is permanent.  Bugs mostly know things related to food and predators.  Poisonous insects are sarcastic.  Shelled insects are gruff.  Worms and caterpillars are naive.  Grasshoppers and crickets are jokesters, and are intelligent to provide pleasant conversation partners.  Ants are boring.  You can also talk to purple worms, who have personalities like furious trucks.

Killing Jar
You can store a bug in a killing jar indefinitely, but only one bug.  This lets you "lock" one of your collected bugs (spells), so that it lasts beyond the 1-day expiration date.

I eventually intend to do many different ecosystems.  Here are 3.

Ecosystem: Cave

Cave Badge: Treat your falls as if they were 10' shorter.

1. Albino Cricket: Gain darkvision for 10 minutes.
2. Crocodile Maggot: Summon a giant centipede (HD 1) not under your control.
3. Coward Moth: Flies towards the exit.
4. Fire Beetle Larva: At some point in the next two hours, you can breath fire.  1d6, 15' cone, save for half.
5. Glow Worm: Glows as bright as a torch for 2 hours.
6. Mnemobeetle: Learn a full description of a random room in this dungeon, as described by a beetle that has explored it to the full extent that a beetle could.
7. Nursery Spider: If eaten, grants spider climb for 10 minutes.
8. Pinnate Scolipede: This HD 0 bug (HP 1, AC 10, MV half human, bite is save or die) is highly aggressive.
9. Rot Grub: as the classic monster.  Becomes "armed" once it leaves your hand.
10. Vociferous Cricket: Gain noisy echolocation (60 ft) for 2 hours.

Ecosystem: Forest

Forest Badge: Take half damage from poison.  No effect on poisons that don't deal HP or ability score damage.

1. Acid Wasp: As acid arrow.  Can also be squeezed out, equivalent to a vial of acid.
2. Bore Driller: Can be thrown as a ranged attack (20' max).  On a hit, deals 2d8 piercing damage.
3. Bird Eater: All birds in 50' must save or flee in fear.  Non-birds merely get goosebumps.
4. Hercules Beetle: Picks up an object not heavier than 2000 lbs and follows you around loyally for 2 hours.
5. Pugilistic Parasite: When eaten, will eat all the other parasites that you are currently suffering from.  After 1d6 hours of tummyaches, the parasite explodes from your anus and runs away, leaving you with 1 HP.
6. Rope Spider: Functions as a grappling hook that shits out a silk thread as soon as it is thrown.  The chance of the rope breaking increases to 1-in-6 after 1 day, an increases over the next 5 days.
7. Saw Bug: Over the course of 3 rounds, fells a tree in a direction of your choice, or deals 3d6 damage to a plant.
8. Scorpion Spider: Can be used to block a doorway with web.  If thrown at a flying creature, will attempt to bind its wings, knocking it out of the air if it fails a Strength check.
9. Unicorn Fly: Heals 1d6 HP and grants a new save against an ongoing disease.
10. Whistling Grub: Incredibly annoying sound.  Supernaturally delicious if eaten.  Can be used to summon a random encounter.  Only applies to random encounters that are interested in eating an incredibly delicious grub-thing.

Ecosystem: Plains

Plains Badge: Save +1 when wearing shorts.  You cannot wear shorts with armor heavier than leather.

1. Blattoderm: Gives you natural armor equal to plate, with none of the weight.  Lasts 2 hours.
2. Chaos Cicada: All creatures within 50' that hear this cicada are confused for 1d6 rounds.  Save negates.
3. Dragon Ant: Can be thrown as a ranged attack (20' max).  On a hit, target is incapacitated by pain for 1d6 rounds on a failed save, or 1 round on a successful save.  Lingering pain lasts for days.
4. Elf Beetle: As faerie fire, when thrown (20' max).
5. Jeweled Beetle: Worth 10g.  Usually worn as a broach.
6. Grimbly Fly:  If eaten, grants fly for 1 minute.
7. Longfly:  Can be used to poison a drink.  Poison stays active for 1 hour.  Colorless, but tastes salty.  If ingested, negates the next spell the drinker attempts to cast.  No save.
8. Brain Beetle: As ESP for 10 minutes.  Additionally, save or fall unconscious for 1d10 minutes.
9. Purple Worm Larva: 1-in-6 chance of summoning a purple worm (HD 10) not under your control.
10. Zattis Dragonfly.  Kicks up dust in a 100' radius.

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