Awful Hobo Incursion

Okay, so first thingks first: Hobo is not a great word. Let's not fetishize NOR minimize the plight of unhoused people, and also (let us hope and pray) that the darkness of a thing's aspect is not Lynch's commentary on race nor ethnicity, although I think it does deserve to be examined but doing it here is maybe not a great format. You can if you wish. As much as I dig David Lynch (hi, Mr. Lynch, if you're watching! Love your work but maybe put some melanin in your thing) I do get a little nervous about lack of representation - even in Dune (I hate/grow weary of Chalamet personally but the rest of the cast is pretty varied in the new thing)... I don't know where was I. I'm brewing some tea, so bear with me here. This is gaming, and horror, and cinema, and if I need to explain more, then, uhhh, tea's done so time to make my kid lunch. BRB

(later) Not to give too much away, but in Twin Peaks season 3, and also in Lynch's Mullholland Drive, and even in a bunch of other interesting horror things, homelessness/sleeping rough has A Quality - not a good one, I guess. But it does make you separate, powerful by virtue of forbidden knowledge, and dangerous. And rightly angry.

IF you can make a deal with these outsiders, who exist by virtue of society's disregard and willful obstinate forgetting, then they can give things in return. Do you have a light? There is nothing worse than walking around with a cigarette dangling out of your mouth looking for a light. If you had a light, you might get a favor later. They might find something for you, or share in their modest power of survival. Or run an errand for you.

They might come out of the cracks and crannies of reality to assist you, because the universe wants favors (not kindness nor charity) returned. As above, so below - dig? it works with fairies, demons, devils, vampires, djinn, ghula... a certain tit-for-tat that must be obeyed for historical reasons. Deep Magic, see?

If you can somehow get a positive reaction roll (the mechanics are sketchy and Moldvay's way seems to me to be tooo easy - I did a deep dive on Alma Mater's reaction table once but it's private in my head) in an interaction with an interdimensional hobo whose aerthly aspects is a gaunt and desperate being in tattered clothes and grime and soot but this is just the tip of the metaphysical icemberg - why then! They might somehow pitch in begrudgingly by (for example) crushing the skull of an innocent like a sparrow's egg, or perhaps casting a sleep spell over the radio, or in extreme cases reversing otherwise mortal damage to your incarnate meat form, or bringing you something from a lost place

Are they separate and distinct from Duergar? Shaver's Derro? Yes, but no. 

How do these beings, possibly once human, acquire such power? Not through their own efforts but rather through the subconscious rejection by society at large, by being literally shunted aside, willfully forgotten, by the conscious acquisitive grappling of reality for the sake of capitalism. They are, in effect, the vestiges of human sacrifice that it takes to keep the boat afloat, so to speak. Tantric demons no longer fit for the world, the price they have paid already gives them a sordid kind of power and they find comfort in pulling the innocent and content into the Outer Dark with them, even if only for a little while. Obviously, rejection of society's underlying mechanisms this way places one at risk of Chaos/Xaos/Kaos/Yang problems and it becomes hard to make tulpas etc. when your chakras are aligned so poorly but that's another post I guess

maybe thematic connected works:

They Live (Carpenter) George Buck Flower is a multidimensional incursion all by himself (drawn to time-travel/tachyon bursts/crazy drunk driving?)

C.H.U.D. (I just watched this the other night and it occurs in the rough vicinity of my brother in law's place in NYC). These meat-things are on the brink of madness and discovery and transformation, and the monsters and real villainy are greed and bureaucracy and degradation

Mary Poppins (yes - soot covered magicians who come from the near-ethereal and dwell in a land of smoky quasi-realness and magical tulpa people - it's all there, yo, you don't even need to dig). Mary AND Bert are both doing tulpa stuff the whole time, the whole step in time!

IT! (i'm thinking of things long left alone, and rotten, and the Leper but probably many other thematic connections)

The Shadow People by Margaret St. Clair (also, Sign of the Labrys but I digress)

they call it an eremite, but it's the same idea

Tcho Tchos as Player Races in Dungeon Crawl Classics

I proposed this DCC rules tweak some months ago, and it's been waiting in my "drafts" since then, another unfinished thing that weighs on me on a tiny way every time I look at the list. To prove it's entirely possible to crank bloggery out without recourse to fluff and Groupthink, here's what you get on my lunch break

I had a discussion about alternate character classes that could be used to muck over the Tolkien-y Token Hobbit/Halfling that drips from fantasy roleplaying. Frankly I understand neither it nor the elf - for some reason I'm not big on dwarves but I like 'em better than the others.  With a literally infinite number of bookmarks for "small/cute/quick/deft", why do people want one that is essentially a little human?  Dwarves have their thing and gnomes have theirs - one good thing that DCC gives halflings is the Luck thing so every party wants a token halfling to keep them alive when the chips are down.

Dave allows skaven/ratlings in his iron canyons thing

I also thought about froglings, bug-folks, Yazirians and Dralasites a la the Star Frontiers game.  Speaking of Thri-Kreen and Vrusk, they make good elf replacers. Just me.

I'd find a copy of Talislanta if I could.

Anyways - back to the original premise. Tcho Tcho!  Evil halfling cannibals!  Steeped in magic and madness and white ganglion paste!

My idea was to have the Luck burn work in a manner opposite from the Halfling's - that is, burn a Luck point and get double the amount to reduce rolls that impact the player character or party members, e.g. attacks by enemies/spell rolls. You have to have a by-the-book DM and pretty good trust and the agreement that once the roll is known you can reduce it with the burn and purchase.

I haven't drawn up a document like I did with the Deep One Hybrid - that was sort of a "whole cloth" thing and this is just twerkin'

Maybe I could throw in a "quick regeneration of Luck points with the consumption of human/demi-human flesh" mechanic but I think I just did it.  Maybe access to one bad spell every couple of levels and some way to add a greater amount of corruption associated with casting (increase the corruption threat to include successes and not-disastrous failure)

Blow guns, garrotes, sacrificial knives, poison (needs poison skills, obviously)

I even went so far as to draw a thing for this when I was thinking of it... It's around here somewhere. Will add captions and fun links for later.

Scratch off "Tcho Tcho" and add Yazirian and Dralasite and Vrusk. Me and Evan worked out a Mok already

They file their teeth down, those Tcho Tchos, for bitin'

Edit: add on (possible halfling alternates) Robear-berbils, any of the shorty races from the Fiend Folio, mephits (if you're adventurous), goblins/kobolds/redcaps/kappa/Tenku

Ewoks

Gummi bears (duh!)

I proposed a couple of anthropomorphic animals a couple of weeks ago (Otter, fox, raccoon, possum, armadillo)

I don't know, these aren't even particularly creative ideas but they beat the endless parade of Frilbo Saggville-Hagginses

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Even More Unique Undead!

If you prefer to have your tables in NOT .pdf downloadable form, this is the follow up to my BARROWMAZE post yesterday.  I've used many of these in the DCC Barrowmaze campaign I ran last year.  With normal undead varieties, these Unique additions, and the 'masks' rules from BM2, a nearly infinite world of awfulness is well within easy reach.

LET THE SLAUGHTER COMMENCE

Expanded Unique Undead Tables

D100

Noah Stevens

For the original 20 entries, see DCC rulebook 381

1 Energy-draining touch (ability score damage; Will save resists)
2 Level-draining touch (lose XP; Will save resists)
3 Searing gaze (1d6 damage with a look)
4 Touch of cold (1d4 damage; immune to fire spells)
5 Chill aura (all within 100’ take 1d4 damage; immune to fire spells)
6 Blood drain (causes 1d4 damage + 1 Stamina point each round)
7 Flight/Levitation
8 Transformation (rat, cat, bat, wolf, worm; or mist, dust, spirit; etc.)
9 Extraordinary strength (Strength 22+)
10 Swift (2 actions per round)
11 Slow (1 action every 2 rounds)
12 Immune to non-magical weapons
13 Immune to non-silvered weapons
14 Resistant to spells (50% chance of any spell not affecting it)
15 Cannot be killed without special ritual (stake through heart, exorcism, destruction of phylactery, form burned in fire,
etc.)
16 Paralysis with touch (Will save to resist)
17 Translucent/transparent/invisible
18 Issues a curse with every strike (see Appendix C of DCC book or some other source)
19 Casts spells as wizard of level 1d4+1
20 Continues to worship a dark god in undeath; casts spells as cleric of level 1d4+1; can turn living/lawful/good as a
cleric turns unholy
21 Embalmed in oil and rags, and susceptible to flame - takes 1d10 extra points of fire damage on strikes
22 Infested with vermin, and upon destruction 1d6 leap out to attack for 1 HP damage each
23 Enchanted with pyromantic runes and explodes upon destruction for 1d8 damage to all within 10 feet
24 Semi-ethereal, increasing AC by 1d10, determined at the start of each round
25 Necromantic backlash when struck, causing 1d6 points of damage to attacker (save for no damage)
26 Accompanied by haunted music, Will save at –(1d6) or PCs and NPCs charmed for 3 rounds
27 Stealthy, always has surprise (free actions first round)
28 Spider-climb
29 Spreads disease on strike, Fortitude save to resist
30 A Foule Stenche - Aura of disease within 10 feet, Fortitude save +3 to resist
31 Black Bilious Humours – weapons that strike it become stuck
32 Cloud of Flies – distracts foes in combat, no spells with somatic or verbal components may be cast
33 Revenant – attracted to one particular PC/NPC (a murderer?) and will attack no others
34 Sleep of ages – each strike on it causes the character to age a year
35 Weak necromancy – has only 1 HP before dissipating the material form
36 Compelled to count items – when faced with e.g. caltrops or pins, will stop attacks for 1d8 rounds
37 Crawling horde – when destroyed, summons or conjures 1d3-1 more of the same
38 Knitted flesh and wired bone – any individuals encountered are actually a single colossal individual
39 They Hunger – will attack wounded first, and pause to feed on the dead
40 Mouldy – each strike showers the attacker in spores for a Fortitude save or acquire Lung Rot
41 Melancholic humours – each strike, PCs must make a Will save or lose the next round out of sadness
42 Packed with sawdust – coins and other small items found inside and low value treasure spills out when struck
43 Send More Paramedics! – as intelligent in death as they were in life
44 Failing enchantment – lose 1d4 HP per round but healed full amount of damage by any spell effects
45 Jealous – will not stray from the treasure it guards/was interred with
46 Strong runic soulbinding – Maximum possible HP, discernible enchantment warning
47 Unnerving laughter – Will save or lose action this round, attackers
48 Hades’ Glamour – killed or incapacitated characters spirited away to the Court of the Dead
49 Milling about – will not chase, but will attack first any who attack them
50 Grandma, NO! – Related to a randomly determined character or NPC party member, that character must make
Will save to attack
51 Incorporeal in light, but attackable in darkness
52 Autumnal Shroud – attended by a cloud of dead leaves that strike at players every other round for 1d6 (Reflex save
for no damage)
53 Book- or Scroll-bound – priceless texts attached to them via string/nails/wire/glue
54 Slightly mechanized – tick tock gives the approach away (no surprise) but add another HD and an orichalcum gear
at the heart
55 Steam driven – a steam mephit is bottled inside the abdomen and this animates the corpse
56 Dusty – a dust mephit resides in the corpse’s head and any hits cause blindness/choking
57 Sanguine humors – bloody mess (any hits on PCs or by PCs cause a intense splash of gore that wrecks the future
reaction checks of intelligent creatures until cleaned)
58 Phlegmatic humors – spits a gob of ethereal slime that drains level/XP/lowers action dice
59 Choleric humors – sucks the moisture out of everything nearby – hits from undead desiccate PCs for extra 1d6
damage and thirst
60 Elemental-ridden – also enchanted with some weak elemental and cannot be turned, no damage from that attack
type
61 Demon-plagued – a demon/devil resides within and it cannot be turned, is semi-intelligent and will bargain for
release
62 Teleporter – teleports struck PCs d100 feet in random direction, or else whole party
63 Insidious designs – paralysis/invisibility on struck characters
64 Convincing Argument – charms all struck characters, or all characters within 20 feet who hear the whispers
65 Death is but a Doorway – upon being put down, a portal to the Ethereal/Astral/Negative/Dread plane opens
66 Time-limited – at Midnight or 3AM, vanishes/clatters to ground
67 Scurrilous – gains +20” to move, spider climbs, digs at 20” through loose earth
68 Serially connected – each “death” of the group reduces the HD of the next member by 1 (total HD equal to number
appearing)
69 The words of a random 1d5 level spell are inscribed on the skull/skin/robes in permanent ink
70 Biological matrix – animated by non-necromantic forces (e.g. colonization by vines/tendrils)
71 Palldium coated – reflects spells cast at it to nearest attacker
72 Johnny Shearsfingers - +1d6 attacks per round of wicked blades
73 Rawhide and Bloody – hidden in darkness, no chance for spotting, loves stairwells and cupboards
74 Gateframe – ribcage/arms/skull/whatever allows extradimensional incursions from outsiders
75 Berserk - +1d6-3 attacks per round at +1d10-3 to hit (re-roll each round)
76 Glowing menace – radiates powerful mutagenic forces, exposure for more than 3 rounds causes minor corruptions
77 Davy Jones – seeks to drag grappled foes into the water
78 Cold embrace – on successful claw+claw hit, massive temporary massive loss of Strength (down by half)
79 Fluxed – when destroyed, arises again 1d6 times each time at ½ HP
80 Thundercrack deafens characters within 100’ when it is destroyed/put down
81 Lost flock – adds +2 levels to cleric’s calculated level when turning
82 Weary – will not attack but begs for release (other effects may apply at DM’s discretion)
83 Unreasonable Atheists – only turnable by Neutral clerics
84 Dishonored – no chance of turning by Good or Neutral clerics, but may be turned by Warriors of
Strength/Stamina/Personality 15 or higher
85 Beloved – the villagers have been looking for this one
86 Actually a “probe” of some powerful Patron – destruction will cause wrath but can be conversed with as mouthpiece
87 Chamomile and Valerian – surrounded by herbal fog of sleep, Will Save at 1d20 or slumber, make save = dazed 1st
round
88 Fey hatred – preferentially attacks elves/those bonded to Elf King
89 Against the natural order – walks on ceilings/through walls/turning makes it stronger
90 Bad harmonics – Usually incorporeal undead are corporeal and mostly helpless; corporeal undead wink in and out
of Material Plane every other round
91 Truth of the Grave – will answer questions put to it (roll 1d6: 1-3 honest, 4-6 malicious lies)
92 Suggestible – will follow orders from randomly aligned characters
93 Floaters – on successful claw/claw attack will float away with character at 20’ up per round
94 Free roaming - +1d100 Hit Points, no chance of turning (1 individual only!)
95 Friendly, talkative
96 Mostly dead – in the process of total revivification and will finish in 1d10 turns
97 Tickly – will not damage but only cause struck characters to laugh as per Tasha’s Uncontrollable Hideous-type
98 Ticklish – will only laugh when struck (no apparent damage); Will or Fear save at DC 14
99 Almost there – maximum HP, minus 1 – no chance of turning except with Luck burn
100 Spitefully unfinished – this space intentionally left blank, roll again thrice

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.

The Treader in the Dust, now with more Dungeon Crawl Classics

I usually do projects like this in order to learn stuff, and I confess that writing this entity up was somewhat hypnotic.  Lots of Q's.  Good thing I didn't use an umlaut.  Also, InDesign has much, much juju.  Now that I have slayed it and eaten its bitter, black heart, I...  Sadly, I think that with the baby having come between then and now, I have forgotten many of the clever things I learned to put this document together.  Oh well, there's always the next project.

I offer you the Dungeon Crawl Classics patron Quachil Uttaus, an awful thing from beyond time and space that gives those who know of it extended life, a modicum of mote-y power, and a messy and dusty end.  If you don't know all this good stuff already, it's from this story by Clark Ashton Smith, which you can find over on the Eldritch Dark.

I hereby abjure you to drop it in to your DCC campaign, kill some players and NPCs with it, and let me know how it works out.

Next: more Eldrich Horrors, this time as PCs in Dungeon Crawl Classics