Freebie Dungeon Challenge

So, here is the recent outputs of my ever-evolving dungeon generator code for Tablesmith. The idea is that you generate a big map. I use this ZORBUS map generator and also a local installation of Wizarddawn, mostly. Although I enjoy drawing maps, I find my own style of mapping is a little lame and IMHO dungeons ought to be the weirder the better, dig?

fixing to throw down a gauntlet. Are you an all-powerful demigod, or a scrub? Well? Which is it?

So, you make a vast, mostly lightless land. Then, if your players are brave (they are!) they agree to consensually hallucinate entry of their avatars into this perilous realm. If you the DM/Judge/Whatever are brave (you are!) you may try it like this:

You get your random map and have your mass-generator make you THREE different levels, slightly more dangerous than what you would feel comfortable with. Why? Because death is right around the corner. BUT, you don't look at the listings. Instead, you place each listing into a separate envelope. And you sit down to play. When the avatars go hence into the deeps, you have a player pick an envelope and you play the dungeon inside it, with the map you already made! You AND the players will have about as much awareness of what is going to happen... a kind of magic.

Your random encounter table ought to include some badass wizards, some crazy nasty dragons or near-dragon substitutes, friendly dungeon caretakers, a couple of settlements with some friend-able factions, and a fuck-tonne of treasure there for the taking, with plenty of things for each class to do. Unlocking locks, slaying beasts, turning undead, deciphering codes, tracking escapees, maps to follow, frenemies to make, and many many saving throws. So much treasure that you level up a lot, but dangerous enough to get that you die a lot if you fuck around and find out. And you have to get somewhere safe with the treasure to get your XP. Sprinkle around some easily defensible safe rooms with water and a toilet (I mean, why the fuck not?)

the pseudorandom lightless realm in question

I use the Moldvay random encounter method : every other turn roll a d6 and on a 1 you get an encounter moving toward the party from some short distance away (2d6x10") is how I interpret it. If you wanted to really and truly up the ante, you could have a random encounter happen on a 1 or a 2. You are free to make the random encounter table to your liking, because that will take some of the pressure off of you to totally think on your feet - you can stock it with RP opportunities, combat, horrid events, mysterious clues, helpless supplicants, or faction leaders for players to align with. Whatever you want the mostly flavor of the thing to be, the Random Encounters is where you really customize it. And feel free to slightly modify the weird entries if they don't suit your sensibilities but be fair and consistent or some players will catch on and get cranky (in my experience). You can pick some core beasties for the level, a couple of humanoid factions, and keep an eyeball on one of your bigger rooms for a possible small settlement.

EXAMPLE NOAH'S RANDOM ENCOUNTER TABLE (2d6):

2: A BADASS RANDOM WIZARD and ENTOURAGE (have these generated previously)

3: FRIENDLY NATIVE (some talky, wimpy race of under-dwellers, plenty of food and rough gear to trade, possible henchpersons or replacement PCs)

4: NPC Party (again, generate randomly, I usually have like 6 pregenerated parties on a separate sheet with their alignments and gear and some motivations)

5: swarm of beasties, small and irritating

6: pack of beasties, few but dangerous

7: wandering beasty, large but not a top-level predator (see below)

8: strange possibly dangerous environmental disruption (lights out/on, noxious gas, gravity fluctuations, chaos magical flux, mass-migration of vermin)

9: mindless undead or automaton (I like robots, because genre purity is dumb)

10: ethereal undead (gotta keep clerics useful, too)

11: random unguarded treasure but slightly hidden (in addition to whatever might already be generated in the room)

12: A Dragon. Whatever that means (I like Manticores, myself). Run for your life, or stay and get trounced or possibly make a powerful ally.

I include, as an attached file, one of these that I have made this morning. I challenge you to use it, and I will think of a prize if you let me know how it goes. I am thinking of making a donation of some copies of my gamebook to the local High School's gaming club near where I work, and maybe I will include you as the benefactor if you will let me know how your session(s) go.

ENTER WITHIN IF MOXIE AND/OR YARBLES YE HAVE

Weird Americana HH Monographs

I am working out an effective (to me) and easy-on-the-eyes 6x9 (possibly poorly layed-out objectively and subjectively) little thing.  I call it a monograph style, but these aren't REAL PLACES, they are only little locales for use in games.

The feel and flavor is a little bit DCC, a little bit Wampus Country by my associate and pal +Erik Jensen . Something like Wind in the Willows, Bioshock, and Thundarr smooshed together.  I'm going to offer them on G+ as feeblies/freeblies as I diddle with them, and maybe if there is a good response then to gussy them up and offer them as PWYW on RPGNow.

Just as motivation for myself, and if anybody bites the hook and Pays What They Wants, then it allows me to use that as credits for buyin' other peoples' stuff.  I think it's a fair idea, on paper.

Anyway, the setting and the actual adventures are implied rather than explicit, and revealed in small bits in the descriptions of NPCs and monsters. This last one I cooked up on a slow workday is more sort of Deep Ones/Crawdads/Academia than anything else, but I forget why I made it that way.  The thing is inspired by frequent dreams of mine where I am wandering around a U.F./F.S.U. simulacrum of 20+ years gone by, fretting about missed classes and the state of my apartment... Why did I always miss class? Well, Professor, it's like I told you, some nefarious beings made me forget.  Can I get a passing grade rather than a flat F? For the record I never tried this approach after the first time I tried it because, uh, lesson learned.

I FORGET TO PUT IN THE LINK.

After the Mower, Larval Stage

I finished a thing for WayneCon next week, but maybe I think even the folks that don't get to go there might roll this around in the spirit in which it's conceived.  WayneCon will be one of those times when pictures will be insufficient to communicate the awesomeness of the brain waves engendered, so I offer the wavelength I'm at at the moment.  Payment to the community for just being fun people to interact with, bat things around with, create and explore with.  Like a mystical journey, dig?

For my part, I was in contact with some of the folks that will be at WayneCon when I had this game fall out of the sky into my head while I was mowing/thrashing the patches of weeds and roots that symbolized a lawn outside the trailer in the woods in which I lived with my wife and Very Tiny Baby.  Doug K.'s taken an interest an' this may suffice to whet our appetites, for a spell.  It's late - late means many prepositions and nested ones

That particular mowing, I turned about half way through and I noticed that the Bees were all hovering there, looking at me, as if to say ARE YOU GOING TO MOW THIS PATCH OF GROUND, MAN?  And I was struck by their patience and simple Stoicism and my time there was somewhat trying but almost always interesting in that way.  The game tumbled out of those bees into my ear and I laughed and I fleshed it out later, and it was better at one point but this is what I have, now.

The fox that attacked me, we had come across each other a couple of times in broad daylight when I was jogging in the woods - I didn't know then that each time we crossed paths it was getting more ominous and unsafe, and I was struck by wonder that an animal like that could be so flagrantly fearless.  Not a good sign.  And rabbits!  So many rabbits.  I learned that the woods kind of depends on large numbers of rabbits NOT making it, or else there would simply be too many rabbits, and hungry, ill, and desperate foxes.  Like after the tenth dying baby rabbit, it's not that your heart hardens, but Ants and Buzzards gotta eat same as Rabbits.

Here you go. Simple target numbers, modified maybe by 1 or 2 tops in either direction, 2d6 - you only need one die to signify a success.  2 1's is a critical success, etc. etc.  I think doubles of any kind ought to have some magic in it, so there.

Let me know what you think, or not.  A premise of the game is that Death comes for critters the same as anybody, and it's okay.  Life in the woods goes and goes and they don't tend to complain too much.

Sargon, DCC Patron

Subcreatures, Spring Hath Arrived and I'm between jobs, and relaxing except for money and with relaxation comes creation.

I've made Sargon of Lion Castle into a Patron for DCC, sort of a middling level one, with a good amount of risk to balance your rewards.  I don't particularly subscribe to the "only one God/Patron" view, so my idea is that you ought to be able to take up to your limit in Invoke X of different flavors, provided you're okay with all the stuff that could go wrong.  Of course, this means a rather Vancian notion of "swap out spells as needed" change to the vanilla DCC rules, and it's between you and your Judge how it goes if a Patron gets jealous - I do believe that some ought to get jealous by their natures.  Also, I don't particularly believe that Patrons need to have a 1-2-3 level spell and different burns and taints; this one just naturally kind of fell that way... But I note that provided you don't mind the "Manimal approach", Sargon gives you access to the Polymorph spell at level 3 rather than 4, with some limitations.  To my mind, if you want to risk casting a level 4 spell at level 1, then I say GO FOR IT for such are heroes forged, yes?  He's not so powerful, for example, as Dr. Chapman from Daniel Bishop's Creeping Beauties Series

For Sargon's part, I think he'd be cool with it, provided you don't abuse cats or anything, but even Lions don't look out for Tigers if you get my meaning.  It occurs to me this is a very '80s Patron.  If you're curious, the next one will be The Ancient Spirits of Evil from Thundercats, tossed around in a bowl with some Cthulhoid entities and Clark Ashton Smith gods.  Also, I have a Luchador class with a magic variant in the works!

YOU ARE ALL SARGON'S HEIRS  

Halthrag Keep Bestiary Freebie

Essentially, all the huggermuggers what run around my personal project and hug and mug 0-levels that wander around in there.

Yours for the taking - pretty sure this will be the version that makes it into the hard-copy POD version that ought to be out on RPGNow and Lulu by the end of the month.

GET THE PDF HERE SUBCREATURE

Hmm.  Lulu.  I don't have an electronic version on Lulu, yet.

Hmm.

Anyways, enjoy!

DCC Rogue's Gallery 1 : Henchpersons and Hirelings

Screwing around with Excel 2003 and InDesign CS4, I offer you a thing.

You ever need hirelings, schmucks, schmendricks, red-shirts, paeons, or the hoi polloi?

In a jiffy?

I threw this thing together while the baby was watching this Sesame Street thing that I no longer have the capacity to keep from playing in my head THANK YOU ERNIE YOU ORANGE BASTARD

Anyways, it's a 50-person Rogue's Gallery of DCC Henchmen/-women or Hirelings, or "Funnel Characters Who have not yet/will never graduate" but who might one day ascend into usefulness or be merely chopped into smithereens. Nobody sports HP better than 4, since I lack the wherewithal to learn how to do that in Excel since I have no technical juju but only a limited ability to immediately find what I need

Two characters are close approximations of some I have played as funnels, and one is just a wink wink

There was a column on the right in the original draft labelled "Condition" for when they were killed but it's not necessary.  Kill them, cross them off.  Print it again, change the names.  Who cares?  Meat for the grinder, grist for the mill.

These are Hapless Henchmen for you.  Maybe I'll make a bunch at a time going forward.

HAPLESS HENCHPEOPLE VERSION 1

Dealing with Forgotten Daemons

I don't know if this is heavily protected stuff, but after somebody's posting the other day of the magnificent White Dwarf stuff for AD&D, I went on a tear and checked it out.  It's enchanting and awesome, particularly the Fiend Folio II, the gigantic listing of clever WD monsters that didn't make the cut for the original Fiend Folio.  The FF is my favorite D&D book of all time, probably more due to nostalgia than anything else, since it was the first RPG book of any kind that I ever owned.  A lot of the magic probably had to do with Russ N.'s amazing drawings (seriously, the Sons of Kyuss have damaged me in ways I cannot begin to explain not the band the monster)

This maggoty creep can find anything on the internet, or in a dungeon, or in the Palaces of Alabaster Flesh.

There is one section in there from maybe WD#45 and it's all about a bunch of whacky but sinister demons - entirely unlike the MM and the other TSR demons, generally.  Likely because they are conversions from a previously published article about RuneQuest demonology.  The more I learn of Runequest, and Questworld, the more my eye turns back to my BRP Elric and I'm interested in the other ways that RPGs might have gone if they'd been untethered from statistical analysis and wargames earlier...  Whole 'nother post, I guess.

I musta had some weird whispering coming through the warpgates, or whatever, but I tracked those RQ down, snipped 'em out, and was going to convert them to a shiny new document but it seems maybe like too much work and the illustrations are fanciful and exciting.  The first couple of pages has renderable text, so I guess you could (if you were inclined) suck the words out and make a beautiful new thing with it, but...

Edit: I withdraw this. I don't feel so great about putting the thing up even 35 years later without permission.

I particularly like the bargaining bits, and the flowchart comic for dealing with summoned demons.  The stuff is not entirely new or original, now - but it was probably pretty neat back then, and I like the variety and new/old flavours since all I usually consider are Vrocks and Malfeshnee and Rifts-type stuff and various entirely random things made with the Esoteric Creature thingamabob.  The particular fun is when you get into bonding with the Big Bads and the special powers etc.

Assets and Learning and Sharing Make for More Funs

1.  I'm not an artist.  I was lucky and cool-headed enough to purchase a copy of the CS4 suite back when I was in college - I justified it by saying I might make some money with photos one day.  For that 300 or 400 hundred dollar purchase, I will likely pay many thousands of dollars in interest and penalties to the student loan people, since I am dim and place too much faith in the premise of education and I sunk myself into needless debt thinking my career path would pay off in BIG MONEY

2.  I'm working out the kinks, and the little squirt of dopamine in my brain that happens when I figure shit out is way more than enough to keep me entertained, at least since I quit smoking.

3.  I like you kids out there.

4.  I want you to be happy.

5.  I was trying to figure out how to make little encounter icons for my scanned-in maps, exactly what I'm about to give out here.

6.  I figured it out.  Praise THE DARK GOD THAT LIVES IN THE WOODS BEHIND MY TRAILER for the handy dandy "hold down alt and drag to copy" thing that illustrator has

7.  This thing is for you to use, or not, if you like.  It's a .PNG file so it ought to be transparent around the bubbles so you could just copy and paste from my thing into your thing, if that kind of stuff might help you

8.  Hey, if one has riches, then what good are they if not for bringing joy to friends and loved ones?

The (to my mind gorgeous and sexy) font is IM Fell, that this amazing fellow puts out for nothing and for which you are not fit to touch the hem of his garments.  The whole package will give even your weakest and poorliest-edited documents the sexy grace of type-set musty English volume by Bishop J. Fell.  I can only grovel and aspire before the model set by Mr. Fell in his efforts to PUBLISH interesting things

But I am working on it.

Back to the presses I go

Ichorteat Grottoe - Community Map

A simple map - I was at a staff meeting last week and bristling against paperwork and little blue squares and such.  I went out of my way to make sure the angles mostly aren't square and rectilinear.    What an ugly word.  Parallel. That's a lot of L's

I envision some Runequest-style demonologists and a cult or three for the big hopping toad idol at the top. Came back to the whole thing and inked the first layer of walls after reading some of the stuff in the unofficial Fiend Folio II that +Greg Gorgonmilk posted onto the G+ thread

Lots of traps and maybe a few secret passages.  Gateway drugs into demon-toad worship and the bodies of a few dozen innocents.  Mugwumps, doelms, and bullywugs. Flooded passages (haven't decided which they ought to be, yet)

This is the basic version but maybe I'll do up a thing like Dyson does with all the hatching.  It's soothing and a stress thing  and good for goldbricking at meetings.  Or while waiting for clients to arrive or fill out paperwork. Writing the odd dissonant hymn or dirge to a toad demon while waiting for the coffee to brew

Update:

If I had used the scanner I could have cleaned up some of the pencil lines but then I'd have had to clean the back desk off and... Well, I will work it out later.

Indeed, the Gods Are Crazy

Thinking about the wide range of Orbital Gods that pop up in the first book of the ASE, and some of the games I've played as clerics, lately.  I read this post about what things a fantasy deity would want from boots on the ground, and here goes the list of stuff the two "on the fly" beings I invented might want:

The Great Albino Catfish, the Lord Who Floats in the Deep, Dark Water (from the STOUTFELLAS game by +Doug Kovacs with +Wayne Snyder +Paul Wolfe and +James MacGeorge).  In this I was "Fishbit" Burris, Lawful (but Evil!) Dwarven Cleric - former smuggler turned low-level gangster, turned hamburger by some mighty Pro-Sex Warrior Priestess Woman.

Wants you to (based on the play):

1) Drown
2) Drown things, or murder them unawares
3) Throw nice things in the water
4) Be cold, and/or wet
5) Move quietly in darkness
6) Murder things and dump the bodies in the water
7) Smuggle, but only in boats at night

His granted spells (this is in DCC) manifest as coldness, dark water, catfish-y tentacles, and the silence of the deep.  I think I had Darkness, Detect Magic, Paralysis, and Holy Sanctuary (which didn't get cast in the course of the game).  I was thinking of a big white Aboleth that masqueraded as a fish...  My chosen weapons were the spear and the javelin (recast as a harpoon).  Distinctly a Lawful Evil god, I guess if I needed to pick domains for other game editions I would say, Water, Evil, and Darkness.  Incidentally, the slow-moving and cold sewer water under the city of Cube sufficed for holy water in this case.

Then there was a DCC game I played in as Forthelbert, 1st level Cleric of The Lady of Day Old Baked Goods; as yet unnamed.  Forthelbert was a homely but pleasant artisan (baker) in his former life, and so tried to give succor to the roving bands of adventurers that sprung up like weeds in his hometown.  This is in +Darien Mason 's game, but I didn't get to follow up in it - not sure if he's followed up, either (I think we played a couple of games since then)

If you read this, suggest a name for the Lady and I will include a reference to you in my upcoming solo module for DCC.  Multiple entries will make for better references ;)  (Note: funny that I studied Greek and Roman mythology in college pretty well and didn't recall Fornax)

She wants you to:

1) Break bread with strangers (even evil ones)
2) Pelt non-believers with stale rolls, or hit them with stale baguettes fortified by faith
3) Heal companions
4) Feed the poor and sick
5) Sell leftover (never fresh!) baked goods at a mild discount and tithe it all to the nearest Lawful temple

Spell effects manifested as heat, with the smell of freshly baked bread that passes quickly.  I think the spells I had were Resist Cold/Heat, Food of the Gods, Blessing, and Detect Evil.  His staff was actually a peel (the baking kind), and his sling sent divinely staled rolls shattering upon the brows of the faithless...  I guess in both instances the spells I rolled suggested the god rather than any other method.

The cool thing about ASE is what it suggests - essentially the gods are sort of like the fractured AI from Gibson's Sprawl Series - intelligences spun out into wild personalities that suck up symbolism from human culture.  I think of some God of Orbital Laser Platforms and how a Flame Strike would look as a laser strike from space, silent and blinding and happening here and there as the platform adjusts to the coordinates, like in the final fight in Akira...

Anyways, thanks to +Daniel Davis for the ideas - what do your non-traditional deities do and want?

Late edit: I just came across this thing by Gorgonmilk which is a sterling example of what I have discussed.  Literally Petty Gods

Also, generating minor deities from games with others

If I may say so, these last two are utterly fantastic.  Why are you still here?  Read those things instead, already!

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.