Whales come from hell--everyone knows that.  They swim up from the blackest abysses.  They are formed from the souls of gluttons, who's insatiable hunger inevitably led their swollen bodies back to the light of the living lands, where they can feed on the living.  Either way, two things are certain:

• They have magic.
• They can speak.

Faroe Island Whalers

Psychology

Myconids by MOAI

Biology

Combat

Uncommon Spells and the Magnificent Travelling House

Magic Items

Using Myconids

PSA: Spores

The Great Pyramid of Asria

by Paolo Soleri

The Quiet Farms of Asria

The Defenders of Asria

by JoshMaule A mobulus looks like this, except less cartoony and more organic A mobulus is also a bit more pallid

 The Time of Fire and Madness had finally come, and the whole world strained underneath it. 

Strange lights fell from the night sky, started strange fires, and then leapt away again.  Many summoned them, but not one of the Serpents responded.  Flesh rebelled against its masters, and the stars trembled in their matrix.

The wonderful city of Avadeiga was dying.  The crops had all burnt up, and the animals had begun rotting while they were still alive.  When the graneries were opened only a fetid must was found inside.  Some fled to what would become the Madlands.  Others began an open rebellion (after all, the regium did not go hungry).

Amid this chaos, the wonderful theurges peered forward and saw a time when the fields would grow again.  It was no so far away.

But the wonderful logicians pointed out that it was still too far.  They would be dead and forgotten before sanity returned here, or anywhere.  Anything that preserved them over those long years would be subject to the same corruption.

And the wonderful mathematicians had an idea.  If the forests would be incinerated, then they must become seeds.  Numerous and subtle and redundant.  A million points from which the forest could someday regrow.  A book could be reduced, and so could a man.  With all of their power and wisdom, could they not reduce a city in the same way?

And so a messenger was sent to the granaries, to summon back the wonderful biomancers.

The Grid

Fresh leylines were placed.  The entire city was wired with a three-dimensional grid.  It was split up into cubes, each one 10' by 10' by 10.  Each cube would be reduced and encoded.  And when the time was right, the code could be used to reconstruct the original.

The code itself would be written in the germline of an organism.  The organism could multiply and grow, and as it did, it would create more copies of the code.  The people of Avadeiga would be saved a thousand times over.

For the organism, they chose an ooze.  

An ooze can survive in the cracks inside a rock, subsisting on the small amounts of moisture and organics that filter down.  You can set an ooze on fire, but unless you are careful to burn every last bit, some bit of jelly will escape and regrow.

All the apocalypses piled on top of each other would not be enough to extierpate the last ooze.

And so each germline (there were about 40,000) encoded a 10' cube of the city--another sector on the hard drive that backed up a everyone.

Gelatinous Cubes

If you gather enough gelatinous cubes in one place, you can observe this behavior.  They'll congregate, exchange names ("234-68-3"), assemble into the shape of the original city, and test for quorum.  

If quorum is reached, the cubes will form a continuous chrysalix (a chrysalis made from multiple primary organisms) and begin differentiating into the people, buildings, books, and plants of Lost Avadeiga.

If quorum is not reached, the cubes will reconvene at the next equinox.

The cubes behave like regular oozes in most respects, but when they are engaging in these programmed behaviors, they are entirely systematic.  They can respond to certain command-phrases, and can speak a certain number of fixed statements.  The most famous ululation of the cubes is "ZOOG!", which is their SYN-ACK initiator.

The voice is that of Avadeiga's Principle Biomancer, Yevanon, whose voice has been inscribed on the germline of every gelatinous cube, in order to be poorly reproduced on the vibrating facets of the cubes.

Carnosus and the Vudra

Gelatinous cubes have reached quorum at least once before, many centuries ago.  The result was the Madlander city of Carnosus, a shifting labyrinth of self-assembling cubes.

While the inhabitants originally hunted for more cubes to rebuild their city, subsequent generations cared little for their parents' struggles.  New houses were built where the old ones were not, and the lost generation was forgotten.  The sages of Avadeiga had completed their resurrection, but it was woefully incomplete.

Instead, the future generations turned their attentions towards mastery of the oozes that birthed their city, and abandoned the idea of a fully resurrected Avadeiga.  The result were the vudra and the sludge vampires (an exiled clan of the vudra).

Mutant Cubes and Weaponized Cubespawn

 Any system composed of cooperating subunits is subject to exploitation when on of the subunits chooses it's own success over the success of the system.

Cancer is a clear example of this.  A cell (and soon, a group of cells) exploits the body's systems in order to acquire more blood, more food, and more growth.  Local success, systemic failure.

Some gelatinous cubes are known to be mutants, and are capable of spawning flawed copies of Avadeigans when advantageous.  In most cases this amounts to nothing more than spawning a confused, aggressive version of one of Avadeiga's inhabitants.  Once the cubespawn has served its purpose (usually by killing the cube's enemies) both will be reabsorbed.

Cubespawn usually die quickly if left on their own.  The same mutations that allow them to be spawned without quorum also tend to inject fatal defects into their own germlines--missing eyes or digestive systems. 

At the same time, cubespawn should be viewed as rational humans in their own right.  They knew that their doomed city would be cubed off and encoded in a gelatinous matrix.  Is it any wonder that they assume that the cube is their ally in these fights?

There are also gelatinous cubes that are far more intelligent than the others.  Their primary mode of conversation is to carry around a skeleton and use it for pantomime.

by Scott Harshbarger

 Out of all the underworld'svomit, there are none so hated as clowns. 

Clown

Lvl 1-2  Def leather  Knife 1d6

Dex high  Dis silly, murderous

Schaedenfreude - Whenever one of their opponents rolls a critical failure, all of the clowns burst into laughter, gaining +1 to all of their d20 and damage rolls until the end of combat.  

Hidebehind - Clowns can hide behind each other to hide their numbers.  Up to 10 clowns can disguise themselves as a single clown.  The effect ends when combat begins, or when the clowns are observed from diametrically opposite points.

Sleight of Hand - Clowns seem to be unarmed, until they suddenly aren't.  They often approach enemies with their hands open, smiling.  (This is the most combat-relevant usage of Sleight of Hand.  Clowns can do other thiefy stuff with it, too.)

Clowns babble and coo.  They do not speak.

Elder Clown

Lvl 3+  Def leather  Hammer 1d10

Dex high  Dis calculating, murderous

Elder clowns are recognizable by their ruffed collar and leathery frowns.  The giant hammers also help with identification.  For every 6 clowns encountered, 1 is an elder clown.  Unlike regular clowns, elder clowns are capable of human speech.  They are also capable of mimicry.

Mimicry - Elder clowns can perfectly imitate any sound that they have heard, even unreasonable ones (galloping horses, etc).

For every level above 2, an elder clown gains one elder clown ability (below).

Japery 1/day - The clown puts on a performative act.  (Miming, juggling, etc.)  All non-clowns who witness this must Save vs Charm or be fascinated.  Fascinating creatures get -4 to all rolls not involving the object of their fascination (for example, Defense rolls against non-japing clowns).

Dodge 1/day - Automatically avoid something that you could conceivably dodge physically.

Beckon at-will - as command "approach".

Balloon Animals - Can make balloon animals (Move slow, fly slow, Int 2).  Not capable of attacking, but can assist the clown in other ways.  Deal 1d4 poison damage when popped (5' range, no save).  Shows up with 1d6 balloon animals and can have as many as 6.  Balloon animals can track by scent and see invisible.

Whistle 1/day - Summons allies to the clowns side.  1d6: 1 lion, 2 elephant, 3 1d20 clowns, 4 random wandering monster (non-allied), 5-6 no response.

Infectious Laughter - Has an infectious bite that causes 1d4 damage, a swollen red nose, and uncontrollable laughter.  Uncontrollable laughter causes the victim to be unable to take any other actions, not even movement.  Cha save after each round of laughter to end.  Victim lapses back into laughter whenever they observe a natural 1 being rolled.  Their bite can spread the curse.  Cured by going to church.

from Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

Juvenile Clown

Lvl 1  Def none  Bite 1d6

Crawl slow  Int 2  Dis violent animal

Juvenile clowns resemble clown-headed worms the size of children.

Clown Eggs

Worth 100s each.  A clown nest usually contains 1d6 eggs and 1d6 immature clowns.  The adult clowns are usually nearby.

If eaten, causes the eater to experience a pure, blissful sense of joy.  Laughter is quick, and fond memories are easy to recall.  

Religion

Clowns worship OmO, the false god of wisdom and foolishness.  The symbol of OmO is a nonsensical squiggle, never drawn the same way twice.  Sermons are conducted by fools and drunkards who do not know that they are preaching.  Ceremonies are held (secretly and illegally) in the temples of other gods.

Falsehoods are true, and Truth is a lie.

How to Use Clowns in your Campaign

Clowns are creatures of the underworld, like demons and slaad.  A bit more mundane and low-level, but they share the motif.

They also fit into the category of "creepy rogue-thief monsters" which is always a category that can use more members.  Let them be the creepy, sneaky, cackling, violent psychopaths that we all want clowns to be, with floppy wet shoes and stained white pantaloons.

Jelly Kids

Undead are corpses puppeted by demons.

Not jelly kids, though.  I'm not sure what's puppeting these things, but gosh if they aren't friendly!

Jelly kids are about 18 inches tall.  Their bodies are white and rubbery.  They have little wiggly noodle arms and little wiggly noodle legs.

They have no genitals (thank the Authority) and their huge heads wobble atop their narrow shoulders.

Their staring eyes bulge out of their gelatinous skulls.  Their red eyeballs are tight with red jelly and the white worms that swim through it.

Meeting Them

When you first meet them, jelly kids will probably be a little bit shy.  They'll hang back, peering at you from around the door frame, or peeping at you from under a table.

If you don't encourage them, they'll follow you.  You're more interesting than anything else in this dungeon.

If you do encourage them to approach, or if they follow you long enough to feel comfortable, the jelly kids will walk right up to you.

Loosely based on these dudes on Bogleech

Jelly Kid

Lvl 0  Def none  Atk none

Dis playful child

Hanging Out with Jelly Kids

If you don't interact with them, the jelly kids will still prove to be an annoyance.  They'll climb on things, move small objects around, and try to get you to play with them.  If you are able to move them around with a set of heavy gloves (and are good about sanitizing your gloves afterwards) they don't pose much of a direct threat.

They also provide a subtle benefit--while you are escorted by jelly kids, low level undead will not bother you.  (Level 1 undead will ignore you.  Level 2 undead will ignore you 50% of the time.)

Gifts

Jelly kids love to be given gifts.  If you give them the sort of gift that a child would enjoy, roll a d10 to see what they give you.

1 - a shiny spoon.

2 - a spider the size of a small dog (alive but bound in webbing).

3 - a human hand with a ring worth 50s.

4 - a fancy hat with a stuffed parrot on it.

5 - a treasure map OR they'll show you a secret door nearby.

6-10 - a hug!

Infection

Under no circumstances should you hug a jelly kid.

Under no circumstances should you touch a jelly kid with your bare skin, even slightly.

Either one of these conditions will require you to make a Con save vs disease or become infected.

Your starting Infection Level is 2.  Every 10 minutes, you must roll a d20.  If the result is equal to your Infection Level or less, your Con is damaged by that many points.  (So if you roll a 2, you take 2 Con damage.)  If you roll above your Infection level, nothing happens.

The time between checks is extended to 1 hour (instead of 10 minutes) if you are outside of the dungeon or if you are blitheringly drunk.  The disease is cured by staring into the sun (which causes blindness for a number of days equal to your infection level).

Repeated exposures (e.g. continuing to hug the jelly kids) increases your Infection Level by 1 point each time. 

It is extremely painful to have parasites rapidly breeding inside your eyeballs.  It is also painful to have dead parasites inside your eyeballs.

If you die from this disease, your liver, spleen, kidneys, and uterus will turn into jelly kids over the next hour and crawl out of your body.

Burst

If a jelly kid is ever damaged, their heads burst.  Jelly kids are more fragile than most monsters--even falling off a table can damage a jelly kid.

When a jelly kid bursts, everyone within 10' is covered in their jelly.  (No save, unless you're holding an open umbrella or something.)  Anyone covered in their jelly automatically gets an Infection Level of 2 (as above).  Multiple exposures (e.g. multiple bursting jelly kids) increases the Infection Level by 1 point each time.

Burst jelly kids aren't dead (unless you take an action to hack them up).  A round later, they'll get back up.  With their ruptured head sagging on their neck, they'll go rejoin their peers.  They won't be playful again until roughly three days later, when their head heals and their parasites repopulate.

Psychology

Jelly kids have the minds of playful 4-year-olds, and are easily distracted by play.

Some examples of effective toys: building a slide out of a table and chairs.  A set of dice.  A kitten.  Even throwing a teddy bear down a hallway will get them to chase it.

Jelly kids cannot vocalize, but they can express their happiness by shaking their heads from side to side.  They do not need to eat, and will not eat anything except for baked goods.  Their favorite food is toasted bread.

If you start actively murdering jelly kids, the other jelly kids will run away and hide (poorly).  

After actively murdering jelly kids, any further jelly kids you encounter will be openly hostile, and will attempt to charge into you as hard as they can, bursting their little heads open in the process. 

No one is quite certain of the origin of jelly kids.  One theory holds that they may be the spirits of corpses (in the same way that kodama are the spirits of trees).

based on a comic by Mat Brinkman

Skeleton Jellies

If skeleton jellies are puppeted by demons, they are puppeted by stupid, lazy ones.

Jelly kids have an odd relationship with skeleton jellies.  

Jelly kids love to play with skeleton jellies, and will climb on them while decorating them with everything they can find.

For their part, skeleton jellies are utterly entranced by jelly kids, and will stand motionless while it watches jelly kids play, oblivious to all else.  If a skeleton jelly witnesses a jelly kid being harmed, it goes berserk (+2 to hit, damage, and Str).

Skeleton Jelly

Lvl 2  Def Leather  Slam 1d8

Int low  Str low  Dis lazy, murderous

Jelly Skeleton - Skeleton jellies are immune to all forms of damage.

Bone Needle Men

Both jelly kids and skeletons jellies will flee from bone needle men.

Bone needle men look like the elephant man’s skeleton, except that their gangly limbs allow them to stand 9’ tall.  

Their skull is a single fused piece.  They have no eye sockets.  They have no mouth, although they have several “mouth-like” fissures.

They are undead, but their bones are filled with marrow and warm blood.

They do not wander, but stand in pools of still water.  If there is a group of bone needle men, only one will stand--the others will hide beneath the water’s surface.  If undisturbed, they do not move much (except to rattle their heads every 30-60 minutes).

The skull of a bone needle man is very valuable because of the bone needles it contains.

If the needles inside the skull are extracted in a neutral atmosphere and then cured in lye, they become bone needles.  This is typically done by submerging the skull in oil, puncturing the foramen magnum with an awl, and then removing the bone needles by hand.  The bone needles are then placed in shallow trays and washed with lye (typically changed 1/day for 3-5 days).  If any air contacts the bone needles before they are complete, they are ruined.

An intact skull is worth 300s.  It contains 1d3+3 bone needles (worth 60s intact, or 100s each once treated).  If a bone needle man every takes bludgeoning damage, the skull is cracked and the bone needles inside are ruined.

DM's Note: The last paragraph is common knowledge (although exact prices are not).  Tell it to your players when they first encounter a bone needle man.

Inserting a needle into someone will cause them to obey the next 7 words you say (as in dominate person).  They'll be sweaty and robotic the whole time though.  Creatures of Lvl 4 or less do not get a save.  The effect lasts until the needle is removed.  Victims are incapable of removing the needles on their own, although they won't stop other people from pulling out the needles.  Each needle can only be used once.

Replica Skull of Joseph Merrick (the Elephant Man)

Lvl 2  Def chain  RightClaw 1d6 Left Claw *

Int 10  Dis calculating, murderous

Skeleton - Half damage from slashing and piercing.

Left Claw - A creature struck by the left claw has its HP dropped to the bare minimum while still standing (0 HP in the GLOG, 1 HP in most other systems).  After each round, an affected creature can make a Hard Cha check to regain all HP lost in this way.  

Bone Needle Men typically use their left claws on the first round.  On the second round, they attempt to kill those affected.

Rattle

Bone Needle Men rattle their heads every 30-60 minutes.  This sound is heard by all living creatures within 1 mile (who can then approximate which direction the sound is coming from).  Sleeping creatures who hear this sound will suffer terrible nightmares, gain a point of Stress, and awaken a few minutes later.  Sleep is impossible within 1 mile of a bone needle man (except for those who are already insane).

It's been at least a year since I tore down my old ruleset and built a new one, so it makes sense that I'm feeling the itch again.  (TL;DR: here's a 22-page PDF.)

Going into this, I have the following design goals.

Diagetic Progression

In past incarnations of the GLOG, certain classes had diagetic abilities.  Fighters got bonuses based on how many things they had killed.  Thieves got bonuses based on the most expensive thing they had ever stolen.  

These weren't perfect, but at least they were (a) tied to in-game actions, such as heists, (b) a method of progression besides XP/Treasures, and (c) motivated class appropriate actions, such as heists.

These also fit pretty well alongside my idea for a character's Legendarium and should probably be integrated there.

Magic Dice For Everyone

Everyone seems to like the magic dice that wizards get.  I can probably extend it to other classes, too.

Will it be any good?  Fuck, maybe.

Centerra doesn't have a fine line of distinction between magical and non-magical things (citation).  So it follows that regular old vanilla fighters are able to do some things that are magical according to our Earthly eyes.  After all, magical shoes are made by regular cobblers, not wizards.

Mono-Class Parties

This is another idea that I've circled around for a while.  An all-thief party sounds as interesting as an all-wizard party.

First, because it invites a certain style of play.  Perhaps I should write more about to support those types of games?  For example, a mono-thief game might revolve around heists.  It makes sense to hammer out a few rules for the heist game.

Second, having a mono-class party fundamentally changes the assumptions of the game.  Lots of adventure writers will assume that the party will have access to certain magic spells by a certain level.  If everyone is a thief, that assumption will be incorrect.

That means that some parts of the adventure will be easier than intended, and some parts of the game will be more difficult (or impossible).  While a DM can flex the adventure a bit to accommodate a mono-class party, part of what makes this playstyle so interesting to me is the idea that, to a certain extent, mono-class players know and accept this. 

If we're going to write new rules for mono-class parties, we should realize that they are opportunities to fundamentally change the rules of the game, and we should embrace that.

This idea is so exciting to me that I'll create a new heading.

Emergent Gameplay and New Modes

Emergent gameplay is simply finding new ways to play the game outside of what the creators intended.

Have you heard of the Nuzlocke Challenge in pokemon?  It's a set of self-imposed restrictions that are designed to make the game more challenging, effectively twisting it into a new game.

Speedrunning is another form of emergent gameplay.  So is trying to get to maximum level on World of Warcraft without killing anything.  Same with any other videogame where players ignore the typical objectives and make their own.

Tabletop roleplaying already has a lot of emergent gameplay.  Players are already free to set their own goals and victory conditions (to an extent), but rarely do players have the option to bend the rules of the game.  The published Player's Guide and Adventure Paths present a singular interpretation of Correct Play (where both rules and goals are identical to the original publisher's). 

But it doesn't have to be that way.  

One example: I ran a one-player/one-DM Caverns of Thracia one-shot where the player was a level 20 wizard.  It was great!  Lots of exploring, lots of talking, and when a monster got uppity, they got disintegrated.  There was still some tension, though, because the dungeon had to be explored all in a single day, and each spell could only be cast once.  We weren't playing Caverns of Thracia the way that Gary and Jennell intended, but we found a new mode that worked great for us.

Another example: perhaps the group that is all dungeon hackers is able to automatically open every door they come across, potentially allowing for some major sequence breaking.

Another example: are there any groups out there that have completed pacifist runs of published modules?  That might work best if everyone is a divine concubine.

Anyway, mono-class parties seem like a crack in the Correct Playstyle Monolith that a lot of our peers worship at.  With a chisel, a hammer, and a pen, we can widen that crack.

from here

The PDF

Anyway, I ended up writing it.  I was gonna write four more classes (Ranger, Knight, Scholar, and Wizard) but I think I'll save that for another day. 

>>CLICK HERE<<

Have a look, and please let me know what you think. 

1d10 MINOR ORBS

1. Cursed Orb of Evil Snowmen

A heavy white orb, like a small felted bowling ball.  Once you hold it in your hand, it begins turning into a snowman.

The white felt turns into snow, and it begins growing.  It gets heavier.  You probably set it on the ground.  

A small sphere appears on top of the first sphere.  Now there is a small snowball on top of a big snowball, both growing.

Then a third snowball appears, even smaller than the first two.  This continues until it is snowman-shaped.

Two lumps of coal extrude themselves from the head.  Then a mouth appears.  Then, all of your internal organs are teleported into the snowman.  

You can survive by running out of the snowman's line of sight.  Smashing the snowman while it is growing just makes more growing snowmen.

The cursed orb of evil snowmen can be recovered once the snowman melts.

This drawing is by Angus McBride He painted it for a 1993 Middle Earth Roleplaying splatbook called Valar and Maiar

2. Orb of the Bounce

A red, rubber ball the size of your first.

The next time you would take fall damage, your body becomes elastic and you bounce back up onto whatever ledge you fell off of.  You take no damage.  This works even if you fall on spikes. 

In your pocket, the rubber orb shatters like glass.

3. Applejohn's Orb

Looks like wood covered in shiny red paint.  A silver band holds it together.

If you wear it or carry it, any arrow that would strike you will strike the applejohn instead.  If the orb is unattended, the radius of the attraction is 3'.

The applejohn shatters the first time a single source deals it 6 points of damage or more.

4. Glass Eye 

If you put it in your eye socket, you can see out of it. 

If you take it out of your eye socket, you can continue to see out of it (until someone else puts it in their eye).

5. Orb of Unlucky Arachnids

Black and shiny, like an insect.  It has a pale, wrinkled side, yellow-white like the bottom of a melon.  You can hear soft rattling when you shake it.

During combat, whenever you roll an 8, you become covered in spiders.  (Bite for 1 damage on the first round, 2 damage on the second round, and so on, until you spend a round brushing them off.  Lasts 5 rounds if uninterrupted.)

During combat, whenever an enemy rolls an 8, they become covered in spiders.

This orb shatters the first time it triggers twice in one combat.

6. IOUN Medic

Once per day, the first time you start dying, the medic heals you for 1d6-1 HP (min 0) and lectures you in the language of the stars.  (All IOUN stones used to be stars.)

Whenever you would actually die, the medic turns you to stone and embeds itself in your forehead.  All you need for a full recovery is stone to flesh and heal in the same turn.

7. Treacherous Bubble Demon

About the size of a cantelope.

Whenever the treacherous bubble demon would normally be popped by something sharp (arrow, armor spikes), the sharp thing pops instead, and the treacherous bubble is unharmed.  Swords break, armor shatters, spiky creatures take 1d6 damage as their spike explodes.  (Magic items get a save.  Epic items are immune.)

Whoever holds the Wand of Bubble Command can command the treacherous bubble demon to fly around at a rate of 30' per round.  You can also shove it in your pocket if you want--the bubble doesn't mind.  It has a Str of 0, but it can carry tiny objects (a scrap of paper) inside itself if you poke it in there.  Dex 0.

All attacks automatically hit the bubble, and it dies the first time it takes damage from a non-sharp source.  Dead bubbles look like a greasy, torn plastic bag and can be resurrected if fresh air is blown into them by someone who is truly innocent.  (The average farm toddler will suffice.)

If you ever come across a bubble breeder, your pet bubble will instantly ally itself with the breeder.

8. Orb of Ultimate Safety

A blue glass orb, with darker swirls going from pole to pole.

When activated, the orb instantly grows to encase you (and any nearby allies you designate).  You are all safe inside the 10' orb, which is as hard as steel.  Usable once per day.

It lasts until you dispel the effect, or until you pass out from carbon dioxide buildup.  (This occurs around 6 hours, assuming a single person in the orb.)

Anyone outside the orb can easily roll it around.

9.  Orb of Holiday Snow

A blue glass orb filled with fake snow and ethanol.  A miniature snowman is barely visible among the flakes, wearing a hat and with a blue circle on his chest.  On the bottom of its wooden pedestal, a tiny plaque says "shake and invert".

Whenever it is shaken and held upside down, it will begin to snow.  This even works indoors.

For most players, this is all the orb of holiday snow will ever do.

After about an hour of constant shaking and flipping, you will have enough snow for a snowman.

Each hour of work gives the snowman an additional Level (up to Level 5).  If you put a hat on the snowman and shove the Orb of Snow in the snowman's chest, it will animate.

A snowman is an intelligent and sensitive creature.  It speaks Gospeltongue.  It will be confused and horrified to find itself suddenly alive and sentient.  Unless it is in a naturally cold place, it will begin melting at a rate of 1 HP per 10 minutes (an very painful process).   It will probably die cursing your name (and rightfully so).  

50% chance that it uses its last moment of life to reach into its own chest and crush the Orb of Holiday Snow, so that no more snowmen will know its suffering.  (Although the exact percentage will depend on the situation and the conversation.)

10. Flesh Orb

Everyone who gazes on this soft, fleshy, pink ball will find it very sexually attractive without really understanding why.  (If you find nothing to be sexually attractive, you are immune to this effect.)

The effect isn't strong enough to magically compel people to hump it.  It's just strong enough to bring any dinner party to a screeching halt.  33% will disgusted by themselves.  33% will be disgusted by the flesh orb.  33% will be disgusted by the flesh orb but will discreetly ask how much it costs.

I'm gonna be honest with you here--the sages are just as stumped as you are.  Our best guess is that it's some god's boob, probably.

1d10 MAJOR ORBS

11. Orb of Pondering

A character who is at least level 3 may spend a whole session pondering your orb, thinking about a particular question.  (This requires the player to use an alternate character this session.)  At the end of the session, roll a d4.

1-2    Your question is answered by the DM.  (DMs are encouraged to be generous with their answers.)

3+    Almost. . . you need more time to PONDER YOUR ORB.  You will go insane if preventing from pondering your orb.

Every time you roll a 3 or higher, increase the size of the die.

 12. Orb of Annihilation

Four feet across, it hangs in the air like a blind spot in the universe.  The light around it is distorted like a lens.  There is a decent wind here, as air is annihilated upon contact and there is a constant vacuum at the surface of the orb.

Whenever the orb sees a new creature (cat-sized or larger), it has a 5% chance to be interested in them.  It will pursue these creatures in a straight line (even through walls) until it either catches them or they move more than 100' away.  Do not repeat this roll each time you meet the orb.  The orb is either interested in you or it isn't.

After the orb annihilates someone, it sits in place for 54 seconds.  Although humans can't hear it, the orb emits a complex sequence of subsonic tones.  Some parts of this "song" are unique, some are common to every "song", and some parts are repeated several times within the "song".  After the song is complete, a liquid fraction from the consumed creature flows out of the bottom of the orb.  (For humans, this fraction is essentially a purified blood sample.  Other creatures yield other fractions.)

The orb is capable of more complex, unforeseen behavior.  To this day, no one knows why it suddenly lunged at Ascorion the Annihilator, the last wearer of the Amulet of Annihilation.

13. Orb of Orb Control

Black, shiny, covered with miniscule spikes.  It would be good for massages.

You can control anything orb shaped.  If you spend your turn holding up the Orb of Orb Control and shouting commands, you can rotate, roll, and move orb-shaped objects around.

It even works on the sun and moon, but they return to their normal positions as soon as you stop concentrating.  If you change the phase of the moon, all the normal werewolf stuff happens.  You can move the sun closer or farther, changing the temperature by as much as +/- 20 F (or 12 C).

Fucking around with the sun and the moon has a 90% chance of attracting an angelic strike force (1d6 angels of Level 8) in 1d20 minutes.

The Orb of Orb Control probably works on the Orb of Annihilation, but watch your back, dude.  That orb is plotting something.

14. Spherical Tutor

A sphere inside a sphere inside a sphere.  They are not fixed in place, and move slightly when you shake it.

Allows you to use the compress ability.  Once you successfully use the compress ability to kill a creature, the Orb of the Spheres turn into the appropriate monsterball.

Alternatively, if you boil the Orb of the Spheres until it becomes gelatinous, you can spread it on toast and eat it in order to gain your first level in Spherical Wizard.  (The toast is optional, but traditional.)

15. Orb of Lykorum

Oil slick.  It seems to vibrate.  If you hold it for too long, your joints ache.

When you activate this orb, it turns into a cube and shunts the current room off into a non-Euclidean dimension, and you along with it.

Each door connects to the door across from it.  If you look out the north door, it's like you're looking in the south door.  You can see your own ass.  The rooms that used to connect to this room are now connected to each other (like the map was pinched together) in whatever way makes the most sense.  If there's an odd number of doors, a new door sprouts. 

Everyone is trapped here until you deactivate the cube.  You cannot cut people in half with this effect--the extra dimensions have soft edges.  Every time you use this orb, there is a 1-in-6 chance of it breaking (reverting everything back to Euclidean space).

It works similarly on outdoor areas, but the scope is highly variable.  It's typically about the size of a large meadow, though.

16. Graviton Orb

Polished bronze.  Mechanisms visible beneath its skin, silently moving.

It has a nubbin on the bottom.  Whenever you point the nubbin down, activate the orb, and rotate the orb, whichever direction you rotate the nubbin becomes your new down.

You can use it once per hour.  The new gravity direction affects you as long as you hold on to the orb.  The new gravity direction affects the orb until someone reassigns it a new gravity.

17. IOUN Morningstar

Orbits your head, about 60 rpm.  Looks like the head of a tiny morningstar.

Gives you a free attack once per turn (as if it were a morningstar +1) but if you are also making an attack this turn, there's a 50% chance the morning star hits you instead.  It's got a pretty erratic orbit--best keep your hands close.

18. Prison Orb of the Bone Needle Men

A spaghetti-maze of thin, fused bones.  An evil red light bleeds out of a peephole.

Anyone who looks in the peephole will see a large cave, a thousand times larger than the sphere.  At the back of the cave, there is something approaching.  Anyone who watches this scene intently will see something that looks like a bone needle man, at which point they are sucked into the sphere.  The sphere seals up.  The prisoner remains in stasis until the orb is shattered.

19. Crystal Ball

You may ask a question of the crystal ball and gaze into it for 1 hour.  

During that time, the spirit trapped inside the crystal ball will show you a scene: near or far, past or present.  Everything the crystal ball shows you is true, but there is a 50% chance that the crystal ball is trying to deceive you.

Examples of deception: You ask where the magic sword is, and the crystal ball shows the king.  (In actuality the king doesn't have the sword, but he does know where it is.)  The crystal ball technically answered your question. . . sort of.

Another example of deception: You ask the crystal ball who killed the priest, and it crystal ball shows the priest's mother.  (In actuality, the priest's mother caused his death by allowing him to be born into this world.)  Same thing.

Essentially, unless you see it happen, don't trust what the crystal ball shows you.  On the other hand, it is obliged to show you a correct answer, so it's not useless.  The identity of the priest's mother is not useless information.

The deceptive nature of the crystal ball is not commonly known or easily identified.  It's akin to a cursed item in that way.  (The trapped spirit is hoping that you will become frustrated and shatter the damn thing.)

Once someone has used the crystal ball, they can never use it again.

20. The Sports Ball

When bounced three times on the ground, it compels nearby creatures to play a good-natured Ball Sport game.  Out of all the creatures in the area, whoever has the best Save makes a single save on behalf of everyone.  If the save is failed, everyone stops what they are doing and plays a good-natured game of Sports Ball.  

The save fails automatically if the bouncer is not being a Good Sport.  (For example, by trying to use the Sports Ball to distract the enemy while allies sneak in and rob the place.)

The save automatically fails if anyone is doing anything that demands immediate attention (e.g. putting out a fire).  

During the Ball Sport game, no one plays to win.  Everyone just plays to have fun.  Everyone should make some rolls.  What kind of rolls?  Whatever!  Attack rolls!  Barely-relevant skill checks!  Just try to roll big numbers and have fun!  You get points!  You all get points!  (DM: figure out some fair way to actually generate a score with all those checks, though.  Scores are fun.)

You have about 30 minutes of in-game time to discuss whatever you want.  That's 30 minutes where the dragon isn't trying to kill you.

Afterwards, everyone is well-inclined towards each other.  If people were about to murder each other before the game, now they just want to shake hands and walk away.  It's tough to kill your teammate.  Besides, there's plenty of time for 

The Sports Ball contains all ball sports.  There is always an appropriate Ball Sport game to play, no matter the circumstances.  The Sports Ball works even if 30 peasants and a dragon want to play a game.  The Sports Ball works even if two people locked in a chest want to play a game.  The Sports Ball works even if a thousand snails in a field want to play a game.  The Sports Ball is for everyone. 

The Sports Ball is usable once per day.

The Lacunae

by Loch at nothicseye.blogspot.com

DM Advice

by Kev Walker

 Thinking about how I'm going to expand the Lair of the Lamb.

You don't have to read it you haven't already.  Just know that the adventure starts with the White Temple sacrificing the PCs to the Lamb and (probably) ends with the players escaping.  It's possible that they release a demon named Davok in the process.

The Rulers of Lon Barago

The Duke and Duchess are are in the capitol of Bospero, attempting to curry favor with the queen and her four mad sons.

Their son, the Dorcheso, can usually be found in his pleasure barge upriver, asleep between a lotus cloud and a breast.

There are several knights with households nearby--you may meet them.  The only interesting one is Sir Beloram, who married a fairy-woman.

For everyday matters, the White Temple is the real power in the city.

The White Temple

They worship Dormin, the god of wisdom and mathematics.  They have their fingers in many pies, but importantly, they control the only court in Lon Barago.

The Lamb is not something they summoned.  (It's more of a happy accident.)  They became interested in it once they discovered it could grow lambfruit, which shows the future.  (And unless the PCs killed both the Lamb and the Little Lambs, the possibility of lambfruit is still on the table.O

Sister Aloss tends the flowers.  She's convinced that they are sending him messages.  She is desperate for someone who can decode them.

Father Dibulus runs the court.  The dead are allowed to speak in Lon Barago, and a windchime in the window of the courtroom gives them voice.  (Father Dibulus interprets.) 

Father Saffron is legitimately the nicest dude you will ever meet in Lon Barago.  He loves helping people almost as much as he loves his church.  Knowledgeable about diseases and curses.  He runs the charity kitchen.

High Priestess Leshavela can read your character sheet by looking in your eyes.  Best avoided.

Brother Alabaster is an astronomer who wears bulky, concealing robes.  He is the fraternal twin brother to the Lamb.  (He resembles their late mother, while the Lamb resembles their father.)

Sister Omsa tends to the Lamb.  She noticed that the lambfruits improved when the Lambs diet was switched from grains to mutton.  She was the first to feed the Lamb a human.  Energetic, cheerful, absentminded, always intensely focused on one project at a time.  Right now it is the Lamb.  Before that, she was trying to improve the pie.  Before that, she was attempting to discover how eggs were made. 

Father Welton is not a member of the White Temple, but instead the representative of the Church.  He collects the tithes.  Whenever someone brings a cow to be sacrificed at the White Temple, they must bring two cows.  Father Welton will pick the nicer one for the Church (himself) then turn around and sell it in the marketplace.  He is contemptuous of Father Sprat.

Quests of the White Temple:

• Bring Omus captured people to help feed the lamb.
• Obviously impossible if the lamb is dead, but I still want this module to be flexible.
• Weaken the Heavy Temple.
• Take this tiny mummy and put it under Oxenbrand's bed.
• Take this little worm thing and throw it in their well.
• Find out how they get so strong.  (Secret: they're eating Davok's body.)
• Embarrass them when the bishop visits. 
• One suggestion: Get Grell out of there.
• Another suggestion: get them drunk.

The Heavy Temple

Quests of the Heavy Temple

Two Gangs

Befriending the Temples

unrelated pic by Trevor Henderson

Four Demons

Davok

Least, Better, Best

Drivian

The Demons as Enemies

The Demons as Allies

"May beetles copulate in your brain, that you may have an excuse for your stupidity!  You were captured!  I alone evaded!" 

"Worthless insect anus!  Would that you had a thousand testicles and I, a hammer!"

Fuckload

Shinedown

The Perilous Company

 I'm thinking about expanding and rewriting Lair of the Lamb.

Refining the Lair of the Lamb

The Lair of the Lamb is alright.  It was meant to be a teaching dungeon, and to teach about consumables (light, water, food), time, and the importance of running away.  It mostly succeeded in that goal, but it could use a lot more guidance for the DM.  A lot of feedback involved 

I should probably remove/rewrite the stupid drowning ghost (better on paper than in practice).

The spiders in the crack are also unnecessary--there's no harm in letting people talk to the merchant longer.

Vandress and the sleeping priests are a lesson to teach (a) rooms are sometimes interconnected, and (b) secure the area before you start messing with things.  Vandress should probably have a spell that is well-suited to killing 1-2 PCs, but not more than that.  Vandress could also use more fleshing out.

Akina needs more fleshing out, too.

Jasper and Luntz, the gentleman ghouls. I actually commissioned this from Alex S last year.

Refining the Gallery of the Ghouls

The Gallery needs a more substantial rewrite.  The purpose of this section was to allow the PCs to slow down, decompress from the Lamb segment, and learn about: investigation, exploration, negotiating with dubious NPCs, and puzzle-solving.  People tend to just rush through, without exploring the level much.

The ghouls will probably be fed some priests, so they'll probably be friendly and chatty when you first interact with them.  The PCs should have an opportunity to explore the area.

The goal--exit the dungeon, is confounded by the ghouls, who refuse to let you leave because they cannot leave.  Leaving will either involve killing the ghouls, tricking the ghouls, or befriending them.  Befriending them can involve several things, but one of them is certainly to find the missing fifth ghoul, and/or remove the ghoul fence.  They have about 24 hours--until the ghouls start getting hungry again.

The ghoul fence should be replaced with a sanctum septum.

Sanctum Septum

There's a few different ways to become a Slayer.

One way is to cut out your own eye, put in in the hand of Zotzi the Slayer, and tell her that you want to train under her.

"Holy shit," she says, laughing.  "I didn't actually think you'd do it.  When do you want to start, idiot?."

Another way is to join the Doomblades or to pry a doomblade from the bloodyfist of a Doomblade that you defeated in single combat.  (The two actions are equivalent.)

A third way is to get your hands on a chainsaw or two.

Baiken, from Guilty Gear

This is a GLOG class, cut from the same cloth as Goblin Guts v2.

PrimeKill Count

"Zala Vacha" was originally the Church's name for them--a broad category of all the cults scheduled for extirpation. They didn't have a name for themselves, because they didn't have anything in common (although they soon would).

And there were so many of them. A hundred city gods, a thousand petty divinities, and ten thousand hearth spirits (recognized by only a single family). A vast tree that hung over the whole continent, with every part shaded by its countless branches.

Except the Church did count them. It counted them, wrote out the next century's work, and then the Church pruned t hem back. Now the tree is just a stump with a few stubby arms, too thick to hack and too wet to burn. At some point the whole thing will have to be ripped up.

Let us be clear–there are some “cults of Zala Vacha” that do not consider themselves cults, and do not consider themselves a part of Zala Vacha. For the sake of your digestion, I've broken the largest "cults" into four parcels.

Please Don't Lump Me In With Those Other Guys

• Void Monks
• Necromancers
• Truthmakers
• The Dawnbringers

More Reasonable Than You've Been Led To Believe

• The Fire Cults
• Excelsiors
• Biomancers
• The Dinosaur Cult

Exactly As Horrible As Rumored

• Doomslaves
• Darklords

Held in Universal Contempt

• Goxlagog
• The Rat Cult

by Suguru Tanaka

Void Monks

The void monks abhor the other members of Zala Vacha, and want nothing to do with them. (Although to be fair, the void monks feel the same way about most people.)

Nevertheless, the monks' atheist inclinations earned them suspicion, and their investigations into the lacunae have earned them condemnation. 

They do not have a centralized power structure, but the greatest of their monasteries is the Obliterat.  Their lay followers are the House Unheard. They are not associated with any god. (Casca, god of the Void, is respectfully acknowledged but not worshipped. He has nothing they need.)

Necromancers

While necromancy certainly existed prior to Nameless Queen Yama, she was the one who perfected the art.  Nearly all of the advancements in necromancy for the last 200 years have been made simply by studying her notes.  Modern necromancers struggle to understand even the things that she attempted to explain in her journals.

The Church burned her at the stake no less than three times and obliterated her memory.  They were successful.  She has not returned since, and her original name is irrevocably lost.  “Yama” is just the word for “zero” or “null” in gospeltongue.

While there are certainly necromancers outside of the Queenscult, the best necromancers are taught by her students.  And the Queenscult is jealous–it is quick to stamp out competing schools of necromancy.  

The Queenscult is led by the Visceral Court, men and women who each possess one of the Nameless Queen’s reincarnated organs.  It is through them that her rebirth will be secured.

Her army is the decapitantes--the headless armored zombies of both humans and giants.  Her elite soldiers are the princesses revenant, nearly a hundred wights raised from the now-desecrated Tomb of Unwed Princesses in Noth.

Their goal is the resurrection of the lost kingdom of Kyona, and nothing else.

by Suguru Tanaka

Truthmakers

UmU is the god of Truth, and OmO is the goddess of Lies, except for when UmU is the goddess of Lies, and UmU is also the goddess of Truth.  It’s all very tongue-in-cheek.  If you can grasp that, you can understand the Cult of UmU in its entirety.

Their great enemies are UmO and OmU, deceitful rival deities whose schemes must be hunted down and discovered. Most of the machinations are directed towards counteracting the machinations of UmO and OmU.

All four of these gods are very, very real. As real as all of the other gods.

The first tenet of UmU is “All gods are false, and everything a priest says is a lie.”

The second tenet of UmU is “It is useless to make lists.”

The third tenet of UmU is “Irony is the superior type of humor, and people who like it are superior to those who don’t.”

The fourth tenet of UmU is “There is no greater fool than someone who understands a piece of the Divine Plan.”

The fifth tenet of UmU is “All order is false order.  No line is perfectly straight, and we should stop pretending that it is.”

The sixth tenet of UmU is “You can only start to learn things when you realize that you don’t know anything.”

The seventh tenet of UmU is “How many more of these things do I have to write?”

The tenets change every time they are written down, and in fact, joining the Cult of UmU involves writing your own set of tenets.  

Every truthmaker of UmU holds the rank of The Pope, and is considered to be a heretic by every other The Pope.  But that’s not an obstacle–the The Popes of UmU have no prohibition against cooperating with heretics.

Some of them are mad, but most of them are probably just clever people pretending to be mad.  They dress like priests of other religions.  They hold their ceremonies in the middle of the night, in the temples of other religions.  

Sincerity is anathema.  People who sincerely join the Cult of UmU are tryhards, and should be avoided.  People who join the Cult of UmU ironically are the true children of UmU. In fact, the truest followers of UmU are the people who do not know that they are following UmU.

Their schemes usually involve embarrassing important people, mass schadenfreude, and general chaos.  (Some of the schadenfreude incidents can be intensely cruel.)

Their allies are: 

• Mockeries.  What looks like a kid in a troll mask is actually something with the same statblock as a troll.  What looks like three guys under a dragon costume is actually something with the same statblock as a dragon.

• Laughing Beasts (Babarukhs).  Sort of like werewolves that turn into big shaggy muppet-ogres with bone-white masks.  Cruel provacateurs.

• Clowns.  The most hated of the Underworld’s creations.

They operate a circus somewhere in the Underworld. Their symbol is the fox, probably.

by Suguru Tanaka

The Dawnbringers

Good and Evil fought a great war, and Centerra was their battleground. Evil triumphed, the Authority turned his face from his creation, allowing it to be remade in the image of Evil.

This is why there is pain, disease, and death. In the Authority's infinite wisdom, do you think that he would create a world where your children would die of deformities before their first birthday? Where so many sleep in the streets, infected by diseases that cannot be cured? Where so many labor the whole lengths of their cheap lives, before finally dying alone and unloved?

And of all the poisons oozing from this cursed world, the cruelest one is the one that convinces us that this is normal--that this world is the natural state of affairs.

There is no justice in this world, but there will be justice in the next. This world must be ended so that the Authority will reclaim it. Only when the last sinner perishes will the world be allowed its rebirth. (And we are all sinners.)

The Dawnbringers will be the ones to do this. The Maiden has shown them how to take the love in their hearts and direct it.

Their greatest weapon is kindness--honest kindness without any strings attached. They heal all who come to them. They avoid violence and killing as much as possible. They operate many shelters and orphanages (and it is from these places that their most devout followers originate).

If they must fight, they will fight with non-lethal means. They avoid cruelty and killing as much as possible. They are not pacifists, and their soldiers include angels--beatific figures with halos and wings. They always show mercy to those that they capture. But before they release you, they will pacify you, healing your mind by restoring it to its natural state--where violence is rightfully abhorrent. You will never want to look at another weapon for as long as you live.

Truthfully, their ultimate goal is far from them. There have been mass suicides (happy ones, if you believe their priests) and sterilization of the willing. But yes, someday they will end the world--a calm sunset before a glorious dawn.

by Suguru Tanaka

The Fire Cults

The last remnants of the old volcano religions that existed in Centerra before the advent of the Church and the Taming of Fire.  They worship a paired set of divinities: Quen is the god of fire, self-realization, and rebirth.  Marsaat is the goddess of shadows, privacy, and peace.  They are believed to have a hidden church beneath Lady Hellfire, the last volcano in the world.

Out of all of the arms of Zala Vacha, the Cults of Quen and Marsaat are the most popular with the general population.  They perform all of the functions of a local church–weddings, exorcisms, namings, last rites, blessings, and festivals.  Many people have grown to loathe the Church’s inquisitions and authoritarianism, and they find resonance in the fire cult’s values of privacy and personal autonomy.

Excelsiors

Zhul is the god of money.  His followers are the excelsiors.  With his blessings, their eyes become jewels, and their skin becomes gold.  He dangles the promise of immortality, for what worth is wealth if death still stalks?

Any animal can be made into a Slave of Zhul by replacing its eyes with gold coins. Whenever the eyes are removed (from master or slave) the poor soul keels over and weeps like a toddler until they are returned.

Zhul's domain is money, mining, charity, greed, and immortality.  The excelsiors operate a number of prominent charities for the poor.  They also appeal to people who seek money, and there are always any of those.

Until recently, Zhul was a god in good standing with the Church. But the story of Zhul's indelicacy, discovery, imprisonment, and escape is too long to recount here.

 

His warlocks have the following powers.

• Appraise - learn what something is worth.  At higher levels, learn to whom it is worth the most, and why.  (This ability is more powerful than it seems.)

• Purse - stomach is a bag of holding.  Accessible by swallowing and regurgitating items.

• Covet - teleport an item into their hands.  After [dice] rounds, it is returned.

• Goldenbody - become immune to damage for [dice] rounds.  This spell has no effect on damage caused by gold, jewels, and other overt forms of wealth.

And yes, they do believe themselves to be superior to all other members of Zala Vacha.

by Suguru Tanaka

Biomancers

There are many schools of biomancy, but the oldest and the greatest is the Cult of Elcoroth, the Infinite Pillar of Flesh, who manifests as a rainbow of flesh arcing overhead (or several). If Zala Vacha has a heart, it is the miles of cardiac tissue that beats within Elcoroth.

The greatest living practitioner of biomancy is Grandfather Oshregaal, who dwells in Revanwall.

The Cult of Elcoroth has acquired a great deal of power and legitimacy simply because they are known as the greatest healers in the world.  Even the Church cannot cure cancer–something that the Cult of Flesh can manipulate as easily as your grandmother knits a scarf.

The Cult also derives its support from those who wish to develop super-human soldiers (and there are always a few).

Lastly, Elcoroth retains a degree of support among ranchers and cattle-folk.  Back when they were still called Elcor, they were a god of cattle, especially leatherworking and safe birth.

by Suguru Tanaka

The Dinosaur Cult

Tyroganon Ferox was an ancient reptile, and perhaps the greatest genius and prescient that has ever lived.  According to his own testimony, he was able to see the entire timeline of Centerra in its entirety, hold the entire thing in his mind, and perform calculations on it.

There was no power on Centerra great enough to prevent his death. If there had been, he would have found it.  And although he uplifted other ancient reptiles to serve him, his power could not prevent an apocalypse that killed all of them irrevocably.  (The Great Deluge, it is believed.)  Tyroganon Ferox died in that era, and he remains dead.

To his human servants today, Tyroganon communicates by fossil tablets.  If you wish to speak to him, all you have to do is walk through the wild places and mumble.  (So great was his prescience, that he has already seen and heard all the things that have been, and will be, spoken in all of creation.)  If Tyroganon wishes to respond to you, you will stumble across one of his tablets, where he will respond to you in perfect Common.  (His spelling is impeccable but his penmanship is atrocious.  He was a crippled tyrannosaur.  It was difficult for him to scratch in the mud.)

His loyal servants are rewarded with the locations of gold mines and lost jewels.  All of his cultists someday hope to find a fossilized treasure map.

Tyroganon has other servants.  The serpentmen, long since extinct themselves, have been evacuated from a dying timeline.  Now, the serpentmen are crawling up through the history of Centerra.  They are appearing in history books where once there was nothing.  Ancient ruins are sprouting where once there was only sand. 

Allegedly, anyway.  No one has any memory or evidence of the weird ophidian ruins not being there. We're just taking them on their word.

But their assassins are already here. Serpentmen wizards, atrox pedigrees, and the abominations they call reptoks.

They are crawling up the timelines, these dinosaurs.  They are crawling up the timelines and soon they will be here.  Every year that passes, they get 13 months closer.  Can you hear them?  The words in your history books are turning traitor.

First they’ll kill your great-grandfather, then they’ll kill your grandpa.  Then they’ll lay eggs in your grandma’s house.  Then your dad will be dead, slain in his boyhood by a raptor that crawled out of a mine.  And then they’ll be here, all teeth and scales and you’ll be snapped up and devoured.

The paradox cascade will be shunted into a sacrificial timeline. A New Truth will overwrite the Old Truth. The border will shake and then shatter, flooding all the disharmonious corners of the universe, and the universe will accept it because the Universe values for Harmony but does not understand Truth. 

The incongruent residua will be shackled with chains of irrefutable causality and drowned.  The Authority will smile down from his sun (a bit warmer than the yellow one no one remembers) and flick his tongue in pleasure.  The reptilian thieves will steal from the dinosaur kings, and all will be as it ever was.  Mammals will be exiled to to, and the victors will forget the victory.

Of course, many madmen claim that this has already happened.

by Suguru Tanaka

Doomslaves

Doomslaves are all consecrated to Phasmagore, the goddess of Blood and Doom.  Every member of her cult exists only to slaughter her enemies until their death.  Doomslaves wield serrated bastard swords called doomblades. They are deathseekers–their goal is to literally die fighting. 

Phasmagore is usually depicted as a woman riding a red horse or, less commonly, a woman sailing a ship on a sea of blood.  She wields two swords and nine heads hang from her waist.

Doomslaves cherish bloodshed, violence, anger, etc, but they are always obligated to accept a surrender–typically, they will just sacrifice a single person to Phasmagore and then be on their way.  They also won’t fight unarmed people, although they may sacrifice a few.

They claim that Phasmagore lives in a lake of blood, down in hell.  When they spill blood, they are merely “sending it back” to her.  Spill enough blood, and demons called shrikes will arise.

All who die in the name of Phasmagore are guaranteed a seat at her table, where there is feasting and fighting for all eternity.  All sins are forgotten, and all painful memories wiped away.  She does not require faith, merely service.

by Suguru Tanaka

Darklords 

Those who worship Mallefar (a.k.a. The Hammer of the Apocalypse, a.k.a. Master of the Falling Sky, a.k.a. The Debtholder) are known as Darklords and Darkladies.  They are gamblers, hedonists, diabolists, and spellbreakers.  Yes, they are exactly as edgy as they sound.

Mallefar is a comet filled with demons. Most believe that it was constructed by the Authority as a prison, and cast far from his light.  The comet returns every few years so that their repentance can be ascertained (just in case they’ve had a change of heart).  

Another theory is that Mallefar is their pleasure barge–the demons are joyriding between worlds.

Either way, Mallefar certainly seems to have a sentience of its own (much like Centerra itself).  It has a much different orbit than the other celestial bodies, and travels far from the universal ecliptic.  Speaking to Mallefar has been successful on exactly one occasion.  The evil comet spoke of its intention to strike Centerra, changed its course in order to pass below the aurora, and then departed to complete its orbit, mocking its audience all the while.

I will not repeat the comet's words here. They are too vulgar.

Mallefar has a period of 19 years and 19 days–it does not orbit near Centerra often.  In the long nights between their master’s warmth, Darklords and Darkladies turn to more conventional demon summoning to enact their plans.

They also have a connection to the Edgeless Sharp, best described as the dimensionless, semi-sentient plane of severance (in all its forms, but especially physical).  Many of them wield Orbs of the Edgeless Sharp and other strange artifacts–all gifts from Mallefar, arriving as asteroids that fall on the homes of Mallefar's enemies.

Orb of the Edgeless Sharp

Spend as long as you like gazing into the orb and invoking the Edgless Sharp.  Each round, a dozen papercuts open up on your body.  At any time, you may point your finger at a target and command the Edgeless Sharp to sever it.  It deals 1d6 slashing damage to the target for every round spent charging up the orb  (max 10d6).  

For every d6 that shows a 3, you take 3 damage.  Multiple people can charge up the orb simultaneously–the orb is “fired” by the first person to invoke it after helping charge it.  Usable 1/day.

by Suguru Tanaka

Cult of the Evil Earth

Goxlagog is the god of oozes and evil earth elementals.  He was worshipped by a nameless culture who valued boredom as the ultimate symbol of luxury.  Yes, there are pits of boiling clay, and if you go to the ceremonies you might get to meet the Black Pudding* and yes, those earthquakes did kill a lot of people, but like, Goxlagog sucks.

*The front end of the Black Pudding, not just the bucolic appendages you stumble across on wandering monster tables.

The Rat Cult

Incoherent, tawdry, and of no consequence whatsoever.

by Suguru Tanaka

Imagine a 2d wizard, living entirely in the photon-thin surface of your television screen, who learns about the existence of a third dimension--hitherto unobserved by himself.

Wizzrobe from Zelda (1986)

And even though the two-dimensional wizard might have some understanding of thesespaces and its inhabitants, the wizard still has no way to interact with it.  None of his tools give him the ability to interact with the world in a three-dimensional way.  Even his mightiest spells are two-dimensional.

So what that wizard needs is a three-dimensional tool.  Even a humble instrument would give him the purchase he needs to begin his three-dimensional machinations.  But it is difficult--so crushingly difficult--to construct such things from two-dimensional tools.

But by now you already understand that all of this is just an analogy for three-dimensional wizards struggling to interact with the four-dimensional universe, so let us speak plainly.

A tool that allows a three-dimensional creature to access the fourth dimension is called a tetravect.

The smallest four-dimensional organisms are gorbels, and many wizards attempt to summon the blasted creatures and attempt to make a tetravect from  their bodies (which have organs that grow fourth-dimensionally).  This is a difficult road--gorbels are maddeningly obtuse in both mindset and biology.  (For example, every dissection presents a new set of organs.)

Geminoids are also an option, but no one knows their true nature yet.

Second, other wizards may also attempt to summon slaad, but they are fools.  Slaad interact with the multiverse, which is entirely different from the fourth dimension.

The third and final option is to build a tetravect out of three-dimensional parts.  (This is akin to building a cube out of squares, or building a hypercube out of cubes.)  The resulting creature is a triphage (or more commonly, a tirapheg).  

We'll come back to tiraphegs in a second.  Let's talk more about gorbels first.

Gorbels

Only a fucking idiot would attempt to reach the fourth dimension with a gorbel-based tetravect scheme, and yet it happens often enough that we had better stat out the little monsters.

Gorbels are red, rubbery orb creatures.  They have three eyestalks that can be retracted inside their head.  They have two blubbery baby arms that terminate in bulky claws.  And they have a dull, drooling mouth that hides a decent set of fangs.  They are 2-3' in diameter, and they weigh less that you think.

Gorbel from the Fiend Folio (1981) Does anyone know who the illustrator is?

Gorbel

Lvl 3  Def leather  Bite 1d6

Climb average  Int 2  Dis oblivious

Rubbery - Immune to bludgeoning damage and falls.  Bounces as well as a basketball.

Self-Insertion - Whenever a gorbel takes damage, it splits into two nearly-identical gorbels (with the same current HP).  (This the actually a different insertion of the same gorbel, but don't worry about that.)

Spike Burst - When a gorbel is killed, it deals 1d4 piercing damage to all creatures within 10'.  Dex save for half.

Psuedoresurrection - Gorbels that die have a 4-in-6 chance of reappearing 1d6 minutes later at some location within 200'.

Gorbels are difficult to keep in captivity.  When bored, they bite themselves (creating more gorbels) or engage in "barbering" where they bite the eyestalks off of other gorbels.  They are famously difficult to entertain, and gorbel-keepers are advised to hire professional entertainers.  (Gorbels enjoy slapstick and children's stories.  At no point do they laugh, smile, or show any reaction.  If bored, they will wander off and commit mischief.)

Wizards who wish to keep gorbels are advised to have a disintegrator on hand so that excess gorbels can be killed instantaneously.  They will also need a system to hunt down psuedoresurrected gorbels and throw them into the disintegrator.

Gorbel-keepers are also advised to construct their lair in such a way as to avoid Gorbel Resonance Cascades.  GRCs occur when a gorbel takes damage in such a way that when new gorbels are inserted into existence, they also take damage.  A pit of acid can cause GRCs.  So can a small room with strong walls.  Once more and more gorbels are bent into a space, they can begin taking crush damage from all of the other gorbels, creating a runaway reaction that can explode castles and collapse dungeons.

And of course, the sequela of a GRC is always a bunch of gorbels reappearing in the area.  Gorbels can become aggressive when they outnumber non-gorbels by a large margin.

It is not known what type of food gorbels actually eat.  They obviously get hungry, and they are always trying to eat things, but nothing seems to give them sustenance and most things cause them to vomit and take damage. 

They are famously oblivious.  Roll a d3 when you encounter one to determine its disposition.

1 - Oblivious.  Ex: staring into the sun.  Aggressive if touched.

2 - Distracted.  Ex: trying to eat a rock, gagging, and throwing it back up again.  Aggressive if touched.

3 - Aggressive.  Will try to eat you while shouting its name.  Aggressive gorbels in adjacent rooms will hear the commotion and come bouncing in.

Magic Items of the Gorbels

In the process of making a tetravect from a gorbel, there will be many failed attempts.

Gorbelblood Potion 

Creates a clone of the drinker without any clothing or items.).  Prepared spells are split randomly between the two.  Yes, if you use it on a PC, you can now control two identical PCs.  After 1 hour, one of the two clones (determined randomly) melts painfully over the course of five minutes. 

The name of the potion is a bit of a misnomer, as gorbels lack blood, instead having a pneumatic circulatory system.

Gorbel Bile

Comes in a vial with 5 applications.  Each application of bile reduces an objects weight by 20 lbs, down into the negative weights.  Smaller doses can be applied, if you wish.  Lasts 1 hour.

If applied to a 20 lb object, the object now becomes weightless.  A second application causes the object to weigh -20 lbs, and causing it to fall upwards if not secured.  A third application causes it to weigh -40 lbs, and so on.  

If drank, each application gives you +2 to jumping and -2 to shoving (and similar).

The name of this potion is absolutely accurate.  Gorbels are 50% bile by weight--although distilling it correctly is another challenge.

Gorbel Bone Chariot

Gorbels are boneless.  Inducing osteogenesis in gorbels is a biomantic and spiritual challenge.  So is removing them, since gorbel corpse disappear shortly after their death.

A successful gorbel bone chariot is a successful tetravect--the point of this whole exercise.  The chariot described below is only one form that a gorbel-based tetravect could take.  The chariot is a spherical cage, 10' in diameter, made from chrome-plated gorbel bones.  When used, all creatures inside the cage are shifted along a fourth-dimension access to a place a few centimeters outside our universe.  The rider with the highest Charisma is the "driver" and controls the function of the chariot.

Unlike most (spirit-facilitated) teleports, this is a "sharp" teleportation.  Anyone who is halfway in the chariot when it teleports will be cut in half.  If you teleport into a solid object you will be fused with it.  It sounds like a thundercrack every time it is used, and hearing protection is strongly recommended.

There is no three-dimensional air out there.  Anyone who uses the chariot without fully exhaling and relaxing their airways will take 1d6 Con damage (if reduced to 0 Con, the result is lung eversion and death).  Even with that precaution, anyone remaining in an extradimensional space will lose consciousness after 2 rounds.  (I'm glossing over the other effects, like the nitrogen bubbles and edema.  You honestly need a space suit.)

From here, you can observe any location as if you could see through walls.  Additionally, you can teleport to any visible location with 1000'.  Each of these two usages causes the passengers to gain 1 point of Trauma.  

If you see a gorbel's true form from this vantage point, take another point of Trauma.

 Back in 2019, me and Nick put our microphones together and made a podcast called Go Die in a Hole.  We made 2 episodes.  It was a magical journey in which I learned how much I hate the sound of my own voice.

The concept:

Go Die would be a podcast where we analyzed adventure design, specifically dungeon design.  There aren't a lot of podcasts that focus specifically on dungeon design.  

* Which elements of the dungeon work well?  Which elements suck?

* How does the dungeon's layout affect how it plays?  How's the flow and the tempo?

* How well does the dungeon tell a story?

To explore these questions, we would spend 1 episode exploring a dungeon in rapid fashion: one person would be the DM and the other person would be the entire party.  Combat would be resolved in a single roll, or would be hand-waved entirely.  

Then we would spend episode two discussing the adventure.  The focus would be on (a) how information about the dungeon is presented to the player, (b) the types of decisions/problems that the dungeon presents, and (c) how a party would make these decisions.

We only sorta succeeded at these goals.

Anyway, now we made two more, so there's four in total.  And I guess that's pretty cool.

Episode 1

I run Nick through B1: In Search of the Unknown, written by Mike Carr in 1979.  It was the adventure that was included in the first edition of Basic D&D.

Episode 2

We talk about B1: In Search of the Unknown.

Episode 3

Nick runs me through CM8: The Endless Stair, written in 1987 by Ed Greenwood (creator of the Forgotten Realms).  It was an adventure for the Companion Set.

Episode 4

We talk about CM8: The Endless Stair.

-

Hopefully it won't be 2 years before we record another one.

Thank you, Nick, for your melodious voice and vorpal wit.  You have a better work ethic than me, and I resent you only slightly for it.

Note: not a Patreon post.  Psh.

 Note: Oddly enough, Bar Chakka was part of my very first draft of Centerra, back in 2010.  Centerra has changed a lot in the last 12 years, but two most important elements of Bar Chakka (the beastmen and the water worship) have not.

Orcs and Beastmen

I don't know how explicit I've previously been on this point, but orcs are technically a type of beastman.  

Beastmen are an all-male race that can breed with nearly any mammal to create a man-beast hybrid.  Orcs breed almost exclusively with pigs, and goat-men (druhok) breed almost exclusively goats and (less commonly) deer.  

They are incomprehensively virile (especially goatmen).  They are capable of blood-transmissible impregnation (similar to a bloodborne disease) and their seed remains viable for hundreds of years after their death.

The Church can explain how the beastmen drank the blood of Drumonia, a wild and ancient god of wine, revelry, madness, and sex, thereby corrupting their entire race.  Their features were made bestial to match their appetites, and despite their swollen libidos they would only be attracted to beasts.

The Orbital Liches can explain how beastmen are just another mutant race, created by the ancient wizards of a dying world, in an attempt to survive the Time of Fire and Madness.

The druhok of Bar Chakka will explain that they were born from natural species as the planet attempted to save itself from the depredations of unnatural magic.  Their birth was willed by the planet itself when it needed a defender.  (Orcs have lost their way, but the druhok still remember the path.)

Orcs, of course, believe that they were created to suffer.

Why Do Orcs Fuck Pigs?

Not all orcs do.  In every orcish settlement, you might fight a couple of dogmen or perhaps a minotaur.  

But those creatures are probably related to the chieftain, and are tolerated for no other reason.

Other types of beastmen are disruptive, and are typically driven out (if they do not leave of their own accord).  Minotaurs are famously aggressive and rarely function well in a team.  Dogmen are loud and stupid.  Equicephali creep everyone out.  Out of all the beastmen, orcs are one of the most intelligent ones, and are the only ones with mouths that can speak Gospeltongue.

Besides, swine herds can march alongside the armies, where they provide meat, companionship, and mounts (for pigs the size of royal swine).

Why Do Druhok Fuck Goats?

Because goatmen are smarter than pigmen, and they survive very well in the mountainous regions of Bar Chakka.  

There's also a large religious component to it.  The druhok goatmen are the inheritors of heaven.  The only other type of holy beastman is the stag-men, who tend to succumb often to respiratory diseases.

Goatmen are revered in Bar Chakka, where they are the only type of beastman able to become a priest.

probably the best beastman picture ever by Karl Kapinsky

Why All These Herd Animals?

Because beastmen are still men (it's in the name), and really only thrive when they are part of a society.  

The only animals that function well as beastmen are social animals.  Solitary animals tend to hate living alongside other people.  So while there are a few bear-men in the world, they're perpetually uncomfortable and anxious when living alongside others.  (Minotaurs, for example, have a sort of nervous machismo that makes them extremely dangerous to their neighbors.)

Beastmen born from non-social animals are also missing a lot of the normal sympathies and considerations that we take for granted.  A tigerman will walk past a beggar and feel nothing--not the smallest glimmer of sympathy.  Likewise, if you give a tigerman a gift, they will accept with an alien lack of gratitude.  This is because things like sympathy and gratitude exist in humans (who are meant to live together in a society) but not in tigers (who are solitary). 

Essentially, tigermen and bearmen are sociopaths, and everyone knows this.  They are stereotyped in beastman society as evil (and correctly so).

Anyway, here are the three biggest orc cities I can think of at the moment.

Tangodar 

Tangodar is the only city that the orcs have ever been proud of.  Stone spires in a foggy valley, a full half of the city secreted underground.  Gauzy screens covered the streets, and smoke from sacrifices filled the sky above.  Everything to keep them hidden from heaven.

The secret to the city's longevity was its democracy, where major decisions were settled through combat of champions (typically non-lethal), one against one, for as long as there were willing champions.  The only weapon allowed was a bundle of sticks called a bashka.  Because all orcs are adept fighters, it was difficult to disenfranchise the majority, and because the duels were such a bottleneck, the orcs had days (if not weeks) to deliberate and compromise.

The city is long-destroyed, the victim of a century-long crusade.  But the victors came to regret their victory.  The city is cursed--a clotted vector of fear, paranoia, and avarice.  Anyone who spends a night within sight of its walls can feel it.  Friends seem to be enemies, and there is no true brotherhood in those walls.

Still, the city is defensible, and many treasures still glitter in its depths, and of course there is no shortage of fools in this world.  And so it is that the city is ruled over by Pavorick the Stained, an exiled prince from Basharna, who still attempts to recruit people to his poisoned city while they all go mad.

Beneath the city is infested with squadrons of clever war-dead, puppeted by some necromancer still unknown.

And of course the orcs still seek to reclaim it.

Garlak

An embarassment to most orcs, Garlak is little more than a gussied-up hill fort.  There are three reasons why most orcs are embarrassed of Garlak.

First, it's shaped like a giant skull.

The orcs who live there swear that it's a titan skull, but it is obviously carved (and crudely at that).

Second, the orcs there all sing songs.  Everyone who has ever led an orc band knows that orcs need constant structure in their lives to be effective.  Without it, they fall apart.  (They're a bit like toddlers in that regard.)

And so the orcs of Garlak sing work songs.  They're a bit like sea shanties, although you can use your work tools as instruments.  When marching, this is obviously bootfalls, but can also be things like banging your knife on the trencher as you eat.  (Yes, the orcs sing songs while they eat.  It keeps the meal orderly.  It's less cute when they sing the flensing song.)

Even promotions are based on how many grunties (shanties) you have memorized.

Lastly, the orcs don't have a king.  They might, but they don't.

The orcs of Garlak will tell you that they obey the Hidden Masters--a secret group of seven orcs with the power to turn invisible, erase memories, and even vanish from existence for short periods of time.  The Hidden Masters leave them coded messages, which they can follow only once they've been inducted into the correct secret societies.  Since they are hidden, they cannot be assassinated.  And since they are everywhere, they always know the best things to do.

Outsiders will tell you that there are no Secret Masters.  The orcs of Garlak are simply mad.

A third theory is that the orcs have stumbled upon a masterful sort of self-regulation.  Nearly every orc is a member of a secret organization.  (There are over 90 secret organizations in Garlak, and probably more than 300.)  Inside each secret organization, there are secret secret organizations.  The orcs are constantly receiving coded messages (tipping with seven pennies), delivering coded messages (farting during certain words), and taking actions based on these secret messages (lowering the cost of their cheese inventory by 30%).

It might just be that these coded messages form a stable, self-regulating loop.  Something similar happens with ants who, seeking to follow the ant in front of it, sometimes form into death circles.  Except in the case of orcs, this self-regulating loop is a stabilizing form of society.

not shown: pig nose and lil pig ears by Lestatbishop

Godai

The orcs are reluctant to call it by it's name, and so they refer to it as the City in the South.

Godai is a city founded by fascist orc supremacists.  They seek nothing less than the utter extinction of all of subhumanity.  (True humanity is already extinct, at least on Centerra.)

They are succeeding where other orcs have failed for three reasons.

First, they are utterly disciplined.  Lawbreaking is not tolerated in Godai.  An orc who cannot regulate their baser instincts is split down the middle by The Threshing Wheel (which is sort-of-a-building, sort-of-a-vehicle, that is used for the execution of unruly orcs).

Since orcs are naturally unruly, the orcs of Godai employ several methods to calm themselves and aid their focus.  A lot of these are herbal.  At least one type of lobotomy is performed.  And subtle magics are suspected (although never proven).

Second, they confront their weaknesses.  Every Black Hand Orc can recite the Forty Humiliations by heart, and list all of the times humans have broken treaties and exterminated their race.  They will tell you in the bluntest terms the ways in which humans are superior to themselves (intelligence, cooperation, innovation).

They have a list of orcish strengths, too, but that is not as relevant.  Human superiority is something that must be meditated on daily, until the shame is burnt away and only the anger remains.

The orcs of Godai are also uniquely interested in learning.  They make it a point to capture scholars and tutors, so that they can learn all the things that they lack.  And so their greatest warriors are often tutored by the same  minds that mold the minds of princes.  Orcish brains struggle with mathematics and astronomy, but they learn languages, philosophy, and construction as easily as any human.

Third, they aggressively recruit.  Their greatest warriors (with their sword hand tattooed black) are sent out to help other orcs.  They function as military advisors, mediators, and troubleshooters.  (They're a bit like jedi.)  And when all of that fails, they draw their black blades (painted so as to be unreflective).  In combat, they are commandos, employing traps, poison, surveillance, and ambush to defeat their foes.  They are very good at this.

It is rumored that some of the Black Hands have been alchemically enhanced so as to give them further advantages in combat.

The Black Hand orc renders all of this aid for free.  But when he is done, he always calls the most promising youths to return with him to Godai, and begin training to become Black Hands themselves.  After their indoctrination into the Black Hand, they are free to return and lead their people if they wish.  Or they may carry their dim blade to more distant shores, and carry their violent proselytization a bit further.

Black Hand orcs are renowned for being lawful.  Their black-inked hand and sword are reserved to killing Dread Humans and Their Servants.  This second category is sometimes stretched a bit, but it never includes their fellow orcs.

Black Hand orcs are loathe to kill another orc.  But when they must do so, they use their non-dominant hand and a stilletto called a winnow.  A weregild is paid to the deceased's family.

Thank you everyone who invited me to participate in #dungeon23.  I've decided to try to complete it.

Also thank you for everyone who checked in on me during my hiatus.  I appreciate y'all.

Anyway, here's my first entry in the #dungeon23 thing.

I tried the cute little notebook thing but I hated it, so I'm doing to do my own thing.

• Produce an average of 1 room a day for all of 2023.
• Focus on production, not polish.

Anyway the first one is. . .

>>>HERE<<<

I strongly believe that dungeons work best when they are designed holistically, not just as a bunch of non-linked rooms that can be shuffled into any configuration.  That's why I'm hoping to develop them in little batches of ~7 rooms, instead of writing them one-by-one.

Things I like about the thing I just wrote:

1. 

The second floor is sort of a secret area.  The party will probably discover either the balcony in the first room, or the chimney-hole in the hallway.  Even finding one alerts them to the existence of the other, incentivizing their search and giving them an idea where the secret space is.  

(This is the same principle as when video games show you a secret area with no obvious way to reach it--it tells you to start searching.)

2. 

The big room isn't dangerous the first time you pass through it.  It is probably dangerous on the second visit, though.  The danger has a pretty obvious cue (the smell of rotten pickles).

3.

I think chokers can be cool and scary if they bungee down off the ceiling, grab a hireling, and then bungee back up into the darkness, where they strangle the dude 20' above  your head.  Which is weird because normally chokers are pretty lame.

4. 

The two small social encounters here (the mushrooms and the hag) are not super-deep but they seem like they'd be run to run.

5.

The wriggling finger is a good sort of puzzle.  (Why is this severed finger wriggling in a repetitive pattern?  Oh, put it up to a flat surface and it writes things.)

It also tells a piece of the dungeon's story (the hag was bisected by the wizard) and pushes the players toward faction play.  Do they really want to help the hag against the wizard?

6. 

The mushroom covered pillars are also a good puzzle.

You entered the room through a entrance flanked by a pair of pillars.

On the other side of the room there is another pair of pillars, but no obvious exit.  

Of course there's a secret door back there buried under the mushrooms.  It's obvious to us as we read it, but it's the sort of thing that slips past players so often in play.  (They'll probably forget about the boring pillars after meeting the hag anyway.  Then maybe on the way out, the DM will mention that you pass between a pair of pillars as you exit the room, and it will click in one of the players' heads.)

Kind of like those matching puzzles in Breath of the Wild that you didn't even realize were puzzles the first time you encountered them.

My week 2 contribution to Dungeon23 is done.

Again, I'm focusing on producing something instead of perfecting something.

>>>HERE<<<

It's technically only 3 rooms but it's also 12 pages, so I'm going to count it as 7 rooms and be done for the week.

Anyway the flying birdcage is a magical elevator that flies around the dungeon after the party finds the correct birds (keys) to take you there.  Quicksilver Hall is a bit of a funnel, but I expect most players to bump into the birdcage around session 15-20.

The Therapeutist by Rene Magritte, 1937 entirely unrelated to anything else on this page

Vestiges

There's a cursed item in here that houses a semi-friendly ghost (a vestige).  You get bonuses when you wear the item, but you also invite a ghost into your head.  If you drop to 0 and roll sorta-bad on the Death and Dismemberment Table, you die (even though you might normally have lived) and the ghost takes over your body.

This is a mixed blessing--if you were about to die, you survive with an interesting new PC to play (still in your old PC's body).  If you would have lived, you lose your PC.

Either way, the player should be warned (so they don't take this risk unknowingly).

I like the vestige rules on a macro level, since they encourage the kind of lateral-growth // character sheet chaos // random mutation type of game that I like.  Your barbarian got hit on the head so hard that he died, and now he's a wizard who is back from the dead and wants to join your party.  Fun!

 A big hump-backed bird, nine feet tall.  It is a filthy yellow-brown, and it has the physique of a camel’s hump (not a camel, just the hump).

The Smurgh eats money, and only money.  It will also choke down gemstones, although contemptously.

It usually just stands around and blocks doorways.  You have to pay it to move.  It will swallow your coins and diamonds, and then it will grow slightly bigger.  It will then shuffle off to block some other doorway.

If you roll it on a random encounter table, the Smurgh will appear blocking the path that the party wants to take the most.  It takes 1d10 * 1d10 * 1d10 silver to appease the Smurgh.  It will only ever say one word: “more” which it utters when it has not yet eaten enough money.  The Smurgh will stand there for the rest of the game session, however long that takes.

The Smurgh is protected by all possible legal protections.  It cannot be harmed except legally.

You can argue with the Smurgh.  You need to make three Law checks to make the Smurgh move.  You can make one Law check every 30 minutes that you argue with the Smurgh, and every failed check reduces the number of successes by 1.  If you are noble, you get +4 to these checks.  

(You aren't actually winning a legal case against the Smurgh--you're just annoying it in a language that it can understand.)

Alternatively, you can get a local judge/king to issue a legal action ordering the Smurgh to move, since it impedes a significant traffic path (or whatever–you need to have some justification).

Either way the Smurgh will move over to another nearby doorway, and take up residence there.

NOTE: THE SMURGH© IS CONSIDERED PRODUCT IDENTITY AND YOU CANNOT USE IT IN ANY GAME THAT YOU WRITE OR PUBLISH.

YOU CANNOT EVEN USE IT IN YOUR HOME GAME.  IF YOU USE IT IN YOUR HOME GAME I WILL FIND OUT AND I WILL SUE YOU FOR DAMAGES, AS I AM PLANNING ON SELLING THE SMURGH© ON A LATER DATE AND YOUR CRAPPY HOME GAME HAS DILUTED ITS VALUE AND REDUCED THE POTENTIAL AUDIENCE FOR THE SMURGH©.

IF YOU ROLL THE SMURGH© ON A RANDOM ENCOUNTER TABLE THAT I PUBLISH, ROLL AGAIN, NERD.  ONLY I CAN USE THE SMURGH© IN MY GAMES.  THE SMURGH© IS ONLY FOR ME.  IT IS MY SMURGH© BUT I WILL SELL IT TO YOU SOME DAY.

YOU CANNOT TALK ABOUT THE SMURGH© IN A NEGATIVE WAY.  ONLY POSITIVE THINGS MUST BE SAID ABOUT THE SMURGH©.  IF YOU TALK NEGATIVELY ABOUT THE SMURGH© IT IS DEFAMATION AND I WILL SUE YOU.

BY READING THIS POST YOU HEREBY AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS CONTRACT.

Bonus #1 - Another Bird

Looks like an Andalgalornis ferox head the size of a bear.  It runs on four stocky bird legs, with limb proportions somewhere between bear and wolf.  It is primarily black, but has many rainbow-feathered crests.

Andalgalornis skull by Degrange et. al.

The eggs of of the Curse Belly Kaduru Bird are considered rare delicacies when fermented.  Each nest contains 1d3 such eggs, and has a 50% chance of containing a nurse viper.

The Curse-Belly Kaduru Bird also bears the distinction of being the only known animal that seems to be native to both Centerra and Hell.

Curse-Belly Kaduru Bird

Lvl 4  Def chain Bite 1d10

Move human  Int animal  Dis owlbear

Smoke - When agitated, a Curse-Belly Kaduru Bird emits a toxic black smoke from its mouth and eyes (and they are usually agitated).  This smoke extends to fill the room they are currently in (or 30’) and lasts for 10 minutes.  The smoke grants them concealment beyond 5’, although they can see perfectly through it.

You can have a clear shot against a Curse-Belly Kaduru Bird if you prepare an action to hit it before it charges towards you.

When a Curse-Belly Kaduru Bird smokes inside a room, the room becomes poisonous to anyone who who isn’t inside an airtight container.  Whenever anyone ends their turn in a smoke-filled room, they take damage equal to the number of turns that a Curse-Belly Kaduru Bird has been in the room, up to a maximum of 6 damage.  If there are multiple Kaduru birds, the damage increases proportionately faster.  No save.

 

Example: a smoking Kaduru Bird enters a room.  If you end your turn in this room, you take 1 damage.  If you are still here at the end of your next turn, you take 2 damage.

Discussion

The Curse-Belly Kaduru Bird is the spiritual successor to a previous monster of mine.

Design-wise, it has one singular goal: to force the party into a moving battle where they kite it through multiple dungeon rooms.  (A fight that moves through multiple rooms is always dynamic.)

Bonus #2 - Learn About Alternatives to Copyrights

Creative Commons

Copylefts

Comparison of Open Licenses

You probably use puzzles in your dungeons.  I have advice for that.

DON'T Use Video Game Puzzles

Video game puzzles are highly visual, quickly communicate geometry and orientation, and often let you pack a lot of information onto the screen at one time.

DMs mostly communicate things verbally.  The bandwidth is a lot less.

I love the puzzles in Zelda, The Witness, and Portal, but none of them translate well to tabletop.  The puzzles in the Witness would require you to give your players a lot of handouts (which is fine, in moderation), and Zelda-style block pushing puzzles often require you to have a grid where you track stone placement, open doors, etc.  

A good example of a good Zelda puzzle is one where you maneuver a bunch of mirrors to bounce a ray of light through three crystals.  

It's almost as bad as when the DM hands you a sudoku when you walk in the room.  Or math problems.  Ew.

DO Use Escape Room Puzzles

Escape room puzzles are usually about pattern recognition, and/or searching an environment until you find a pattern.  (The pattern recognition puzzles in Breath of the Wild, such as the three tree puzzles, are an example of this.)

Another concept: encoding patterns in sounds.  (In Lair of the Lamb, there water that drips off a fish statue with a drip-dripdrip-drip-dripdrip pattern.  Another fish statue holds a tumbler where the players can open a door by inputting 1-2-1-2.)

Escape rooms also go wild with shadow casting, or spotlights illuminating significant objects, etc.

Some examples here.

MAYBE Use Riddles

I enjoy them, but most of the time the players either figure it out in 3 seconds or they never figure it out.  Neither is satisfying.

DO Puzzle Dungeons Rather Than Puzzle Rooms

I realize that some people will chime in with "but puzzle rooms break up the monotony of the combat rooms and social challenge rooms".  

To them I reply "combat, conversation, and exploration are already puzzles in a well-designed OSR game.  You don't need puzzle rooms to break up the monotony, because the puzzles never really stop.  How do we get past this chained-up basilisk?  Are these goblins lying to us?  How do we open this sealed door?"

A dedicated puzzle dungeon (or at least, a few puzzle rooms linked together) has these advantages.

1. You can build upon an existing knowledge base.  I you look closely at a game like Portal, you'll realize that most of the game is just a tutorial.  Each level teaches you one more thing about how to use your portal gun.  You build upon the previous knowledge and expand your knowledge base gradually.

2. It allows you to create linked puzzles, such as requiring you to use knowledge or tools from an earlier room.

3. Puzzles can be arranged by difficulty, with the harder ones in the back.

4. It allows you to set it aside from the rest of the dungeon, so the players don't feel like the puzzle is something that they need to get through.  Instead, they can choose to go to the puzzle section where they already know to pay extra attention to tiny details and slake their thirst of puzzles.  If they don't want puzzles, they can leave.

DON'T Use Puzzles if You Need Players to Solve Them

Puzzles are unreliable.  Sometimes players get frustrated and walk away.  Sometimes people don't want to do puzzles.  Sometimes the answer is simply outside of their reach.

If you need the players to get to the final boss room, don't put the boss room behind a puzzle.

DO Follow Principles of Good OSR Challenge Design

I wrote about this here.  For example, don't have solutions that require a specific class ability or specific spell.  

DO Encode Lore/Flavor/Story in Your Puzzles 

When possible, anyway.  It's nice when puzzles match the theme, tell a story, or reveal bits of setting lore.

It's also possible to have lore actual be the solution to the puzzle.  Like knowing that dwarves consider birds to be evil allows you to solve a puzzle but this only works if it's something that the players definitely remember--and never trust your players to remember anything.   They'll forget their names if you let them.  If you want to go ahead with lore-based solutions, best practice is to have the "birds are evil" thing 1 or 2 rooms earlier.

DO Use Multi-step Puzzles

Even if the first step is just looking around the room for clues.

It pads out the puzzle to make it feel more substantial (especially if it is an easy puzzle).  

Additionally, it allows you to feed the players clues one by one, instead of info-dumping everything on them as they enter the room.

DO Have an Alternative if Players Get Stuck

My favorite is to just let them smash it open.  They get the key, I get to dose them with the acidic gas that was inside the puzzle box.

Having a place to get hints also works.

The important part is to make sure that there's a cost.

MAYBE Have Extraneous Details

Players tend to get distracted by stuff.  They'll spend a lot of time discussing false paths and red herrings, even when you thought you did a good job creating a puzzle without any red herrings.

Like if you need to match the keys with the keyholes to solve the puzzle, an extraneous detail would be a cube covered in numbers.  Good chance that the players will spend too much time fucking with the cube and forget about matching keys entirely.

Having said that, puzzle rooms tend to feel pretty inorganic if every item in there is related to the puzzle.  And a lot of escape-room puzzles rely on the players finding the signal among the noise, so those puzzles definitely require extraneous details.

DO Consider an Overclue

Not just a theme, an overclue is a clue that applies to the whole dungeon.

A good example would be telling the players that each room is solved by one of the elements.  So if they had solved an air puzzle, a water puzzle, and a fire puzzle, they would then start searching the next puzzle for earth clues.  Maybe they would start digging in the dirt.  

Another good example is the riddle at the start of Tomb of Horrors.  The riddle contains about half a dozen clues about the upcoming rooms--the challenge then is just figuring out which room(s) the riddle is talking about.

DON'T Follow All the Rules Above

They're just guidelines.  Sometimes a puzzle is improved when you break one of the rules above.

Spiked Ball Trap Skyrim Concept Art by Adam Adamawicz

Putting This Into Practice

I think my next Dungeon23 effort might be a dwarven puzzle-tomb.

The Overclue is the fact that the tomb tells you "this place is designed to be safe for dwarves, but to totally fuck up humans".  Players pay attention to that sort of thing.

(Sidenote: I don't usually allow players to start as dwarves.  I'm super not-fun like that.  This means that it will probably be a group of mostly-humans who has to navigate a bunch of puzzles that are "easy for dwarves")

Basic dwarf knowledge that will be explicitly told to the players when they enter this dungeon:

1. Dwarves are short, stout, and not very creative.
2. Dwarves value labor above all else.
3. Dwarves think that humans spend too much time thinking and not enough time working.

"Easy for Dwarves" Puzzle 1

A hallway that reads "stand tall and be proud" but when you walk down it, horizontal blades swing high enough to avoid a dwarf, but low enough to decapitate a human.

I guess this is more of a trap than a puzzle, huh?

"Easy for Dwarves" Puzzle 2

A room that reads "humans will overthink this one, but it will be obvious to any dwarf".  The room is a long rectangle.  On one end of it is a stack of about 400 stone cubes, each one weighing about 100 lbs.  Each cube is covered with a different carving, showing a dwarf of a different profession.

Solution: just carry all of the stone cubes to the other side of the room.  The room is on a pivot, and once the weight has been shifted, the door opens.

Stop thinking; just do work.

Dwarven Racial Abilities as Part of the Overclue

I'll also remind the players of dwarven racial abilities.  This is also part of the overclue.

Racial Ability Puzzle 1

Dwarves have mild infravision, and can "see" the temperature of objects.

Puzzle: Different metals might look the same to a human, but look very different to a dwarf who passes a flame over them.

Human Solution: a human can just pass a flame over the metals and then touch them.  Even I can tell the difference between iron and aluminum if they've been plucked out of a fire.

Racial Ability Puzzle 2

Dwarves can tell if the ground is sloping, even slightly.

Puzzle: Find the low spot in this room.  Easy for a dwarf.

Human solution: pour water on the ground.  Spill marbles.

Racial Ability Puzzle 3

Dwarves can sense magnetism, including which direction is north.

Puzzle: Figure out which object is magnetic.

Human solution: It's still pretty easy to figure out which object is magnetic, unless it's too far away to touch iron to.  Hmm, maybe they don't know that they're looking for a magnet?

Some General Puzzles

Not every puzzle will be about dwarf lore, or dwarven racial abilities.  There will be some regular puzzles in there, too.

Example 1 - Find Numbers

A locked door requires the players to input a three digit number, then pull a lever.

The only clue is a painting:

A picture depicts dwarves bringing animals into the Underworld to save them before the Great Tornado destroyed everything on the surface.  A dwarf is leading a goat, a pig, and an elephant down the ramp, in that order.  A dozen birds of different types fly through the air, being stripped of their feathers by the righteous winds.  Further back, armed dwarves are turning away a band of disheveled, primitive humans.  Scattered on the field are a couple of cows, half a dozen pigs, a wolf, a goat, and a snail.