Sed multa bona in vita habuerunt, et aurum eorum aemuli (Mucking your texts up with Google Translate)

Late-night thinking about Markov Chains and textual analysis brought me to this.  I know/suspect/intuit that I am not the first to posit this process, but I mentioned it J.D. on the DCCRPG community and thought I would share the inputs and outputs.  The text I've entered is hideous fluffy stuff from my Ssessarid tomb map from a few posts back, thusly:

"The entrance is an underground dome with a basin, guarded by caryatid columns who will attack if the players do not cleanse themselves in the basin's waters, first (Although this carries a risk of disease).  Packs of ghouls crawl from the various holes in the structure and broke free to maraud when the hidden entrance was revealed in a rock slide.  The whole complex is highly trapped - the Ssessarids loved Blue Cobra poison and the disfiguring scars that remain should interlopers not die shortly after injection.  At the far end of the complex, 'asleep' on his bier, lies the body of the clan's founder, a ghul sorceror of some potency who does not hesitate to call upon his patron's representative - an elegant Naga with the face of a seductress.  She has ties to the Yuan-Ti, and the crafty Serpent Men who first taught the clan to use and distill poisons, and who coached them in the arts of subterfuge.  Since the geological event that re-opened the tomb, the ghul raiders have swept into the nearby town nightly to feast on children, the elderly, and local beggars.  They had much wealth in life, and are jealous of their gold."

Here is the text in Google Latin (I always quake in fear of Latin owing to difficulties I had in college with it):

"Introitus est sub firmamento cum pelvim, custodiuntur a columnis caryatid si quis invadet histriones non mundarentur in pelvim aquae scriptor primum (quamquam non caret periculo morbo). Sarcinas de ghouls repunt e cavis compages varii ac fregit liberum maraud absconditum introitum, quando revelata est in rockslide. Toto complexu sit altus capti - Lorem Cobra est uenenum Ssessarids dilexit foedans et cicatricum manere debet mori interlopers non multo post iniectio. Ad usque finem complexus, 'dormit,' in lecto, iacentem, corpus gentis conditor, a ghul sorceror aliquam potentiam qui non dubitavit appellare patroni repraesentativum - elegantem Naga cum facie LENA. Habet ties ad Ti-Yuan, et callidi serpentis Qui primus docuit uti familia et venena et descendant, et qui in artibus quoque subterfugium illatum eos. Cum sodales id quod re-aperuit monumentum ghul populatores delevi in proximum oppidum nocturnis convivium pueris, senibus, ac locorum mendici. Sed multa bona in vita habuerunt, et aurum eorum aemuli."

It appears that Firefox-form Google Translate dry heaves at the poor Latin prose my poor English prose generates.  Firefox just wouldn't do it, but after a moment's hesitation, the mules in the back of Google Chrome (no doubt flogged relentlessly) made this - which I like better than my own starting text in some ways:

"Entrance into the expanse of the basin, guarded by columns CARYATIDES if any players not be overcome with purified water in the basin's first (though it carries a risk of disease). Packs of ghouls crawl out of their holes in the structure of various and broke free maraud secret entrance, when it was revealed in rockslide. Aggregate is highly trapped - Welcome Ssessarids Cobra venom is loved and disfiguring scars remain interlopers should die shortly after injection. At the far end of the complex, 'sleeps' in bed, lying down, the body of the founder of the nation, from Ghulam sorceror some power who do not hesitate to call a representative of the patron - a handsome face with Nagai PANDERESS. It contains whenever he turns up the Ti-yuan, and was the first of a discreet man who has taught us to make use of the family of the serpent, poisons, go down, and those in the arts of subterfuge also inflicted on them. When the members and re-opened the tomb to the next, I have destroyed the town of Ghulam Raiders of the nightly feast for children, old people, and the local beggars. But they have had many good things in life, and their gold rivals."

Panderess?  That's good.  Note, the all caps are Google's, not mine.  I think it's a neat thing, and I wonder what could be got by using e.g. Urdu or Arabic or French.  Wait - why wonder?  Here is the output from the Gujarati iteration, which appears beautiful and sinister in plain text form, like a basket of poisonous Nagai:

"Players into the basin's waters, the attack will not cleanse himself, guarded by a caryatid column is a basin with an underground dome, (although this carries the risk of disease). Packs of Ghouls crawled from holes and hidden in the structure of a rockslide was revealed to be a robbery, breaking free. The whole complex is very trapped - Ssessarids Blue Cobra venom is loved and disfiguring scars interlopers that should not die soon after injection. The face of a seductress with a magnificent Naga - at the end of the complex away from the 'asleep' on his bier, clan founder's body, do not hesitate to call on behalf of his patron, a ghul sorceror some strength lies. He has ties to the Yuan-Ti, and taught the first descent of the Serpent Men astute use poisons and distill, and were trained in the arts of subterfuge. Tomb reopened to the geological phenomenon, ghul raiders children, the elderly and to feast on the local beggars night is swept up in a nearby town. He lives in a property, and is jealous of his gold."

Substantially the same, but different enough to make it confusing and misleading and perfect for throwing impetuous players into the maws of some beast. Muwahaha.  Mayhap Google Translate could be a tool you use in your campaign, I dunno.  Just a fun time sink.

Enough!  Back work to need I am must having go to and cleanse myself of usage internet else boss-attacked I am becomed.

A Plethora of Alternate Classraces for you To Crawl through Dungeons In

So, I really dig Realms of Crawling Chaos (hereafter RoCC) for Labyrinth Lord - it was the purchase of this item that prompted me to start the DCC campaign, together with a smattering of play in Dave Younce's and Jason Paul MacCartan's games and Daniel Bishop's Christmas module from last year ("The Thing in the Chimney" - adroitly run for me and Jurgen Mayer by Josha Petronis-Akins).

Since DCC is kinda my rules-set of choice these days, and I've been poring over interesting ideas in the never-ending quest to keep the folks coming to play, I have been much pondering over the White Ape, White Ape hybrids, Voormis, and Deep One hybrid ("Sea-Folk") in RoCC.  As I have argued in other fora in the past, in DCC there's really no reason IMHO why you couldn't slap any "race" you wanted on a bunch of stats and wing the skills etc. from there (provided the class is right for you).  So, if I had a high Strength and Stamina Warrior and wanted a White Ape, then hey, call him "Gruthorn the White Ape", have his occupation be "Banana Warden" or whatever, and off you go.  Some approaches to occupations outside of the traditional medieval ones are simply outstanding, to my mind, and the core rules sort of encourage with a sly wink that characters should go with the mood that moves them.  Hey, read it how you want to.

Anyways, with this in mind, and my eye on several neat posts on the DCCRPG community on G+, here are links to a bunch of alternate classes or races that have utility and could show up in a game near you, soon.  Or not - I've noticed a good deal of puritanism so far although my circle of DCC gamers is small.

Serpent-Folk, Deep-One, and Orc

Centaur

Drunken Monk

Wild Mage

Kenku (note: several other races hidden in nearby links wink wink)

Lizardfolk

Monk

Ninja

There's even a campaign  around there somewhere where here, in which the Judge allows a motley crew of races culled from a wide variety of TSR stuff from way back.

Also, don't forget about Crawl! fanzine #6 which has a Gnome, a Ranger, a Paladin, and a Bard.

I only link these because I hate elves.  I hate them.  At least, the Tolkienish elves, except the ones from the Rankin-Bass Hobbit movie.   The Magic Candle had interesting bald, weird looking elves.  Anyways, I don't judge you elfy types.  It's all good.

If you know of more, please feel free to add a link in the comments.

Also, I just saw this which I like to think about. A method to generate non-standard races for play during the funnel.

Thus came the Mole-Man

My own race, the Deep One Hybrid

The Robot re-coalesced into demireality.

Warforged

The Samurai is lost in the aether maybe returned to us, with honor and much wisdom gleaned from the nebulous realm of non-existence

Thanks to you, sir, for your Tiefling

There's a thing called Transylvanian Adventures on RPGNow, includes a bunch of new classes.

A pretty cool Druid for you

My very own Tomb Rustler

A loose framework for the anti-halfling Tcho-Tcho Marauder! It eats all your white ganglion paste and Long Pork Short Ribs

My own list of Star Frontiers races conversions for DCC use

Mystic Bull's Tokar - shaggy maned stout hunter gatherers from THE GOD SEED AWAKENS

I saw a Weird Scientist happen the other day

A Talislantan Thrall Warrior

My own Skate Hero, zipping around and olly-ing over stuff

The works of +Daniel Bishop are rife with  new races; I think maybe it's a point of honor for him to include new ones in the things he publishes.  The Creeping Beauties of the Woods series is now in its second installment and has a Faerie Animal that is chock full of potential!  I want to play a chaotic Fox Spirit heavily corrupted by plague in memoriam to the rabid critter I killed to death with a coffee mug last year, but I digress

Crawljammer #1 has a Lizardman Mercenary and the requisite occupations

I have it on good authority that the Crawljammer! #2 has a Technomancer (it's now in my RPGNow cart)

Also, rumour has it that Crawling Under A Broken Moon  fanzine has a Technologist class, and it can be had for purchase over at THIS LINK.  Lords of Light!  Let's Ride!

Tales from the Fallen Empire is a setting book for DCC, including 6 new classes and a revision of the Wizard - on the wishlist but soon to be picked up.  It includes a Man-Ape, so it's a must-buy next paycheck for me.

Daniel Bishop posted another race on his blog which looks fun, The Zariah

My toil is unceasing, far from home, I present The Moon Dweller Psionicist

Behold the coming of The Scrappler!

A thewsy Barbarian

Age of Ruins has a Henchman set up for second-string survivors (not a full write up)

If something's not on here, it's mostly because I don't own it yet (for example in the case of the Tales of The Fallen Empire source book)

I am gratified that this list is evidently useful - spread the word to all yer friends! (also, it may need a break down and rebuild as it's getting unwieldy and may become a print thing also)

New Stuff... Every so often.

So, I've been running a Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign on Google+, with its awesome Hangouts feature. I settled on the Barrowmaze megadungeon by Mssr. Gillespie.  The administering and thinking about this campaign peaked out (piqued out?) maybe a month ago, and now it's on a simmer instead of a rapid boil.  I've met a lot of great gamers (just great people generally) and had a great deal of nefarious fun.

The Barrowmaze itself ought not to need any introduction and crystallizes a great number of things I felt as a wee young tike all o' 8 years of age, ugly blue plastic dice in hand, idolizing my brother and feverishly fumbling through the Fiend Folio.  Scourge of the Barrowmaze lets me chortle and plot and connive in the way that I imagined my brother's friends did long ago, and I find that it's helped me as a player, although I rarely am able to play as a PC these days.  Now that I have the DCC ruleset mostly under my belt and understood, I have painstakingly rather loosely converted the Barrowmaze's random encounters into an easy to use DCC chart! To save myself a good deal of .pdf page flipping and verbal pauses ("Ehmm... Uhm...  Bear with me guys... Almost there...  Mmmm...")

Here it is, and enjoy it if you like.  I had started to make a conversion of ALL the monsters in the first book to DCC stats but when I set up the spreadsheet and counted 'em all up it came to 89 different monsters or so and then my evening tea wore off and I passed out.

Thanks to Jeramy Deram and his conversion document, that was as good a guide as any you could hope for.  Feel free to give constructive criticism, or what-have-you.  And to Paul Wolfe who inspired the idea and gave a good headstart.  By way of crowdsourcing, if'n you are interested in helping me convert the rest of the BM1 monsters to DCC, then gimme a shout out here or on G+.  I could make the spreadsheet publicly available, I suppose... (note, it's in Word 2003 format since I suck, but I guess I could make it a Google Doc if any fish bite this hook).  This would spread the word on the Barrowmaze slightly farther, save some poor be-knighted DCC judge some footwork, and bring the end and doom of some hapless PCs slightly ahead of schedule.

The Crawling Horror of the Playerless DM

Interesting, to me at least, is the fact that while there is a super-abundance of players and games on G+, it can be somewhat difficult to actually get a game going as a DM.  That's my experience, I don't know how it goes for you, Dear Reader.

This is partly due to scheduling, and also partly due to the fact that no one knows me from fuck-all, except a couple of really cool people I've gamed with who are also hip deep in a couple of ongoing games, already.

So what's a floundering and up-coming DM to do?  Is there some method aside from the "attract-players-you-like-and-hope-for-the-best" approach?  It seems to me that my throwing out "game on Wednesday night" is bound to get about a less-than 30% success rate, even with a sound campaign that is well known and atmospheric (i.e. the Barrowmaze), and a system that has a strong foothold in a certain type of gamer (i.e. DCC).

These animated skeletons and the risen corpses of previous adventures are growing bored with sharpening their rusty blades.  Wights and wraiths and ghouls fight a slow and endless war to gain favour with Nergal, Kyuss, Gax, Nyarlathotep... let us say that the list of god-things that scrabble over the salted earth of the marsh is wearying and nigh endless.  What the campaign needs (when it starts) is something, not just the standard creepy horror, but some kind of imminent disaster.

I'm toying with an "apocalypse counter" a la some great Mythos-flavored board games that counts inexorably down to '0' at which time the horrors of the Barrowmaze will simply break free of their constraints of stone and turn the whole of the land around Helix into a hellish wasteland.  The only thing that offsets the countdown is the number of Luck points or XP earned by the party, in some totally unfair and unpleasant ratio.  The only way to stop it, well, I mean you'd need to have read it to know this but .... well, let us say there are clues in abundance if the players will only play.

In my head and campaign notes, I run the luckless meatshields I have at hand through the first few rooms, chuckling at their demise.  To turn them into dungeon dressing, or have them await the next batch of heroes in their undeath, that is the question!

The Tomb of the Ssessarids (map doodling)

So, thanks to G+ and the hangout phenomenon, I have been lucky enough to find a semi-regular play group. Got me really thinking about DM'ing again, although I love play and have insight that my role-play has become very very rusty.  One thing I really dig is tossing dice and generating PCs and NPCs from random stats.  I find that DCC does this very well with the luck roll and occupation.  I'm off after this to purchase a thing from RPGNow.

Meantime, the other thing I like to do is mapping.  I no longer have reams of maps I made as a wee git, plunging ever downward with my Kayen Telva (lifted from A1 The Slavepits of the Undercity) and magic markers.  However, with my fancypants scanner I am able offer a thing I made last night in a couple of hours, namely the tomb of the Ssessarids, the hideous mercantile family prone to internecine warfare with other traders in the capital city of Thrax.  They were rumored to be snake worshipers who mingled licentiously with reptilian things that slithered up from the pits beneath the capital city.  They searched for long-life or perhaps immortality but instead turned into a degenerate pack of corpse-eaters, lead in the end by a blue-black scaled she-demon.

In the interests of digitizing the thing, I had made a key but chopped it out with PS and cleaned it up with threshold etc.  I intended to feed it into Illustrator as a LiveTrace thing to clean up the lines but, meh.  I ran out of steam.

The entrance is an underground dome with a basin, guarded by caryatid columns who will attack if the players do not cleanse themselves in the basin's waters, first (Although this carries a risk of disease).  Packs of ghouls crawl from the various holes in the structure and broke free to maraud when the hidden entrance was revealed in a rockslide.  The whole complex is highly trapped - the Ssessarids loved Blue Cobra poison and the disfiguring scars that remain should interlopers not die shortly after injection.  At the far end of the complex, 'asleep' on his bier, lies the body of the clan's founder, a ghul sorceror of some potency who does not hesitate to call upon his patron's representative - an elegant Naga with the face of a seductress.  She has ties to the Yuan-Ti, and the crafty Serpent Men who first taught the clan to use and distill poisons, and who coached them in the arts of subterfuge.  Since the geological event that re-opened the tomb, the ghul raiders have swept into the nearby town nightly to feast on children, the elderly, and local beggars.  They had much wealth in life, and are jealous of their gold.

Anyways, it's all there in the map.  As always, the ascent is treacherous so take heede