Downward! into Barrowmaze Again... ?

Coming up on the anniversary of the Scourge of the Barrowmaze campaign - a thing that lasted 6 or 7 months last year and brought me a good deal of fun times.  At that time, I was inspired by +Dave Younce 's IRON CANYONS campaign (soon to be rebooted?) - I was struck by the simple return into a relatively easy format of a game I loved.  You may say that the "Dungeon Crawl Hack and Slash" is a bit crusty - well, you oughtn't to say it but I guess you could.

But there is unlife in those bones, yet.

Witness the nextest iteration of BARROWMAZE

I hope this becomes funded - I am unable to fund it at the "Little Guys" level, and I probably can't even do it at the lowest level until maybe early next month, but it's a great setting and always ratcheted up the tension.  As much as I want a box of all those little plastic (or metal? some alien alloy?) figs, almost the entirety of my RPG'ing these days comes over the G+ pipes and the figs would be frowned upon by my wife (she still doesn't like the box of Space Marines taking up square footage in the back bedroom).  Also, my latest favoritest all-consumingest game lately is "DADDY" in which my levels are fairly low but quest opportunities abound.

If you've come here looking for DCC character classes, know full well that Barrowmaze is the ideal vehicle to slaughter a funnel full of sub-heroes, and also it's great fun to laugh as the survivors flee in terror back to Helix across the moors!  If you feel particularly cruel, you can have ghouls or bandits chase them almost the whole way, having eaten/stolen their horses and the digging crew they left to watch them.

Muwahahaha!

I released these to the G+ DCC community last year in the late spring, but 'ere you go, in the interests of making more flubaloo around Greg's awesome project.  You will find a "better than doing it on the fly" conversion of the monsters from Barrowmaze I to DCC stats.  There's also a combined Random Monster Encounters for my campaign which includes some monstrosities hell-bent on vengeance against the party, and a secretive clan of reptilian ghoul worshippers.  The entries include all kinds of opportunity to Hell to bust out in the middle of the tomb-quiet hallways, which of course degenerates into a "eat your brains" free for all.

1.  Barrowmaze I common critters with DCC stats
2.  Turbocharged BMI+BM2 random encounter tables

I had a plan to DCC statify all the Barrowmaze monsters in all the encounters throughout the text (something that +Paul Wolfe inspired me to do) but, there's an awful lot of variety and it comes to like 150 different monsters and then the baby came in August.

I also have a "mildly improved" list of awful random properties to add onto Undead Encounters, but I will hold off on that since I'm enchanting it a little stronger.

I might reboot the campaign - if you're interested, then drop me a line - or even better, just join the community on G+ and say so.  You can find the funnel generator for it at the Purple Sorcerer here (this is my opportunity to connect +Greg Gillespie and +Jon Marr who have done a bunch to get me excited in RPGs again). If you are interested in a paper version of the d200-something funnel occupations chart for the thing, to see what classes I was hoping to include into it, then that can be found here. Warning: madness abounds, there - I was inspired by Discworld, Gamma World, Ravenloft, Lovecraft, and Realms of Crawling Chaos.

The Scourge of the Barrowmaze is sort of an attempt to instill Ravenloft-style Gothic Horror and Post-Apocalyptic (think ASE) despair onto a traditional Dungeon Crawl Hack n Slash vehicle.  We never made it too far into the actual BM complex, since almost without exception the party was swamped by random groups of undead or surface-venturing parties of looters or cultists.  The community design is a pale rip-off of the Labyrinth Lord Roll20.net Barrowmaze game hosted lovingly by +Jason Paul McCartan.  His is an absolute model of what a campaign community ought to look like - frankly I don't know how he does it what with his other commitments.

I usually don't get into the crowdfunding for reasons that others may better explain, but this setting in particular has given me a lot of good times and I wish it well and Greg good luck.  Also, it would be fun to see even more hideous evil unearthed.

Announcing a Summer 2014 release of THE HOUNDS OF HALTHRAG KEEP for DCC

In my line of work (mental health therapy), we tell people that unless you have clear and concise goals and have written them down somewhere (anywhere!) then you don't really have goals.  You have ideas.

I had an idea early last year to self-publish, under the HAPLESS HENCHMAN imprint (maybe), a solo game book that captured the terror and distress that trying to stay alive in a fantasy world with no training ought to be.  Essentially, the DCC funnel, but all alone - like that first lonely Kai Initiate except without all the cool powers.  Merely a dagger and a spool of twine.

Well, my idea is a goal, and (lucky for me), I have successfully acquired a limited amount of mastery over some fundamental tools needed to make the thing a reality.  I'm drawing again, and when I am not Spelunky-ing or holding the baby or drinking whiskey, I have picked up the arts of layout via InDesign in a rudimentary fashion.

So, work proceeds!  I have acquired permission to pursue the thing from Goodman Games.  I've written the first draft of the rules.  I've written the first draft of the random encounters section of the book.  I've gone over many of my initial influences which are

Try here

also here

also here

maybe here, too

Next, in no particular order, I need to:

It takes a while to get the hand uncramped after 30 years of not drawing.

1. Finish the clumsy black and white scrawlings I call 'art'

2. Finish the game map and decision nodes - the setting itself hangs behind my eyes almost every free waking moment
3. Write the 300-400 more entries it takes to make an exciting and arduous 0-level solo funnel for DCC

Mr. Goodman (and a couple of others) have advised me - quite rightly - to seek help.  And a number of particularly cool people have offered it unsolicited, and I thank them deeply and graciously.

Here is what I propose, before motivation slips away tonight.  I must write and for that the map needs finishing - this weekend (probably tonight) I will scour the house for my first-draft map of the ruins of Halthrag Keep, outside of which the Jackal Gang holds a number of innocent people captive, forcing them to enter in and search for... Something terrible.  I know what this is, and I even have a couple of low-level endings (like you would get in the CYOA games if you didn't make a lot of good choices).  The random encounter entries for both day- and night-time are written and include a dozen or so new monsters for DCC that will be quite harrowing for your average level-0 medieval Joe or Jane.  I may release a bestiary as a teaser or something very soon.

What I need is to have goals established or else (like many other things) I will dilly dally with Spelunky and babies and never finish this thing.  So:  the official goal is to release the PDF version in the Summer of 2014, with a print-on-demand of the thing if anybody is interested.  If it sells even a single copy at PWYW then I might make a DCC module for a funnel and append it to the printable version or release it as a standalone, since most of the work will be done already (actually, that part is mostly done now IN MY HEAD)

I figure once I've gotten the map and outline, the simple thing will be to untangle the knot of entries, and that's taken care of mostly but I'll speak to it later.

Anyways, the big goal is out in the world.  Twist my arm or ear or whatever as you will.  Subgoals, officially (and I am sure there are many that are hidden to me)  Map -> Static Encounters Keyed -> Write/Edit the Entries + Draw the arts + Lay out the document -> Submit to Goodman Games for approval.  By the by, I'm trying to find a way to enable a particularly old school favorite of mine to do the cover, but we'll see how it goes.

My birthday is in May, and I have selected that as the submission date, so I hope the hellish deities that hound desktop publishers will yap at me in my sleep.

That said - I need to get off of here and write/draw/make! Or game, or something.

Long have I laboured, searched far and wide

Well, not really.  I am retro-playtesting the BSOLO adventure module, trying to decide if it was nostalgia or fun I was having.  Seems like raw frustration, now that I am older - some of the pre-gens are handily supplied with Potions of Gaseous form, with the obvious upshot that you lose all your stuff when you go through the bars...It's all lying there on the other side of the portcullis and the wizard Sargon's magical might dispels all enchantments within...  You walked 9 days from the town to the Gate of Lion Castle, only to float through the portcullis all smug n' shit, to die of starvation a few days later.  Seems about right.

The fact of the matter is, getting through Lion Castle is difficult for anybody, nevermind a puny 1st or 2nd level Basic D&D Magic-User.

I used the 3rd level MU - Eztar - that was the best (non-elf) pre-gen and he was killed by a Giant Ferret in the first room after entering the tail tunnel.  Furry bastard saved against my Web and we resorted to combat - with his AC of 5 I needed 17's, With my AC of 9 he needed 9's.  Got him down to 1 HP, though.  Fucker. I can't bring myself to write "Skeleton of Eztar" in the margins of the module since getting all the (poorly spelled) pencil scrawlings off'n it surely must have weakened the 30 year old paper.  The good thing is, the next guy will surely find Eztar's corpse, iron rations, and +1 dagger. And spellbook!

So, will my Labyrinth Lord: Realms of Crawling Chaos 3rd level Deep One Hybrid do any better?  I hope so, as I intend to use him to go through The Ruins of the Undercity after pilfering Sargon's fortress... I don't believe that the ring can be mine, though, since Sargon will never allow a non-magic user or elf to be his heir.  The shame is that at 4th level the stirring call of the ineffable deeps will surely distract him from his travels...

Why am I going through this? Well, as you may have caught snippets of, here and there, I am self-publishing (one day - possibly this year!) a licensed solo module for DCC... My precarious initial tests of what I've got so far reveal that there is little likelihood, the way it is set up, that any 0-level character will survive the whole thing.  I hesitate to change the time mechanic or the plot of the thing to accommodate any considerations as trifling as survivability though.  It will take a generous run of lucky dicing and a perilous amount of Luck points to make it out - although I've placed about 5 "medium good" exits in the first draft.  I think maybe a half-dozen to a dozen plays through will give you a survivor, provided you leave good notes in the margin and aren't surprised by any zombified previous characters, as getting their stuff will naturally be harder.

Think of it as an alternate funnel for when you can't find a game online or face-to-face.

OLD DEAD WIZARD'S LION SHAPED CASTLE, I AM IN YOU!

Merriments and Festivities

Not much to report, here.  Chipping away at a solo-play module for DCC, in the vein of the old Choose Your Own Adventure modules.  A healthy sprinkling of Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf books, as well as the D&D B/X SOLO ones (which I am currently combing through very carefully for stylistic/layout issues).  I think I could manage a pre-release teaser of the wandering monsters portion of the book after some crowd-sourced editing and some place-holder art inserted.

We'll see.  It's coming along.  I just noticed that my fitbit account posts to my old wordpress blog, and it's also tied to my flickr account that my wife keeps putting baby pictures on, so I have a wee bit o' cleaning to do.

Also, as Tlaloc, I brought Horus and Sharee low in a game of Master of Magic.  I was most of the way through research on the Spell of Mastery and kind of just marched my Collossi and Dragon Turtles and heroes armed with death-dealing artifacts all through their cities.  Pretty tame for Christmas this year.

Raze?  Yes.  No worries, that way, of reconquered cities coming up behind me.  The Gods of Death and Nature must be satisfied.

Oh yeah. Merry Christmas, if you're into that pseudo-paganry.  My wife (and daughter) are of the chosen people and we need not celebrate Jesus of Nazareth's birth and then ascension into demigodhood, but we still partake of merriment.

tremulous anticipations

There is (almost always) something about the Autumn that makes me afeared.  Being from Miami, Florida, I was somewhat mystified and taken aback by the falling of leaves and the cool, brisk winds.  It made me take up smoking, once.  I'm done with that now, but when the winds blow I always have the urge to sit on the stoop and light up, and think about awful things.

In that spirit, I give you some ideas for a few monsters.  This is DCC format, since that's the way I roll these days.

I just submitted one to the Spellburn monster contest, shouted out in episode 12: Like a thief in the night.  I don't want to promote too much competition with me, but hey - get on it.  Details in the episode.

http://spellburn.com/2013/11/01/episode-13-like-a-thief-in-the-night/

Also, you should take a look at the adventure that's linked to in there (The Jeweler That Dealt in Stardust).  It is damn fine work.

Here is an autumn body/sex horror monster, burbling around in my psyche since I started to eat crabs after a long psycho-somatic period of pseudo-allergies

The Succubus Crab

Init -4; Atk Claw x2 melee (1d6) or fly bite +2 missile fire (range 120’, 1d3+1); AC 15; HD 3d8+12; MV 20’; Act 1d20; SP charm.  SV Fort +5, Ref -5, Will +6; AL N

The Succubus Crab requires, for its sexual reproduction, the transmogrified essence of a male humanoid host. It is a lumbering 10 foot tall semi-aquatic abomination, appearing for all intents to be a tentacle-mouthed pink crab-like being with a chitinous shell and razor-sharp claws.  These are the females. Buzzing around the giant clacking horrors are a cloud of males, smaller by an order of magnitude and winge'd.

In order to complete the reproduction cycle, the female sends a contingent of males to a likely victim, who is promptly stung should a succesful attack occur.  Those males that miss are not fit to reproduce in any case.  A small sting signals success, and the victim (usually a human male) must make a DC 15 Fortitude Save, else the reproductive essence of the male succubus crab wends its way (temporarily) into the host.  Aside from the walloping sting of a bite, no further effects are immediately incurred.  That said, biological changes are occuring on a cellular level in very specific tissues.

Any party encountering the female crabs are right to flee in horror and disgust - however, any stung and affected male humans are suddenly enraptured by a cloud of pheromones.  The tentacular and chitnous foreparts of the Succubus Crab female appear to be a desirable member of the female human sex, writhing in erotically charged agony and ecstasy.  The human male victim approaches, mates with the facial parts of the Succubus Crab, and is stunned for 1d3 rounds in utter sexual helplessness.  Meanwhile, his captor carves him up into piecemeal to sustain the egg-hatching process, for the young of the species need much in the way of sustenance - at least, the females do.  The males flit around like flies.

The chitin of the Succubus Crab can be shaped and worked into plates, and cured into light-weight and durable armor (AC 15, light encumbrance).  They are very succulent with a sprinkling of Old Bay seasoning and sprayed with lemon, but difficult to place entirely in a steamer.