Mad Monks of Kwantoom - Delve 1

Just going to put the map up for this, I rolled up a Deep One Hybrid Thief, a Half Elf Lakshmi Cleric, and an Indian-flavored flexible-sword wielding Monk.  The Monk died in the first Pagoda, and was whupped pretty badly in his first fight trying to save a Tengu on Day 1 in the city.

Here's the map of the first pagoda:

I really dig this thing, this solo-game setting.  Lots of Saffron and Jade and Rare and Magical Spices, if you get my drift.  It's available for 5.00 now and well worth the price (as is the predecessor Ruins of the Undercity)

Let Loose The Hounds

Digital Cover

 I've finished it, it's done, and I am happy.  With some pride and some natural relief and reticence, I give you The Hounds of Halthrag Keep, available late last year in digital format, and now in a dead-trees style 6 by 9 (which was strangely the most requested format, almost unanimously).  The world's first DCC Solo-Gamebook, hearkening back to the days of Fighting Fantasy, Choose Your Own Adventure, and Lone Wolf is NOW and FOREVER, something you can hold in your hand (at least until the servers are taken over by super-intelligent AI and those resources are turned to the crushing of the sapient mammals from the Aereth)

Let me tell you about requesting artwork for covers some day

Anyway, enough blubbering and shit.

You can get it at:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/138653/HHSOLO-1--The-Hounds-of-Halthrag-Keep

Any questions or complaints, let me know.  Or not.  I'm probably going to jack the price down around late May for my 40th birthday, but if you want to self-abuse via a murderous band of villains and a haunted/alien-infested ruin, then feel free to try my thing and let me know how it goes.

I can't tell you how nice it is only to have ideas and to not have an actual project looming, but now I know exactly what the next thing is:

THE OMINOUS ALLOY OF THREND

being a diversionary night's entertainment for friends

and a satire of politicians

and bandits

and other species of crooks,

and oppression and the Rape of the Commons for profit
A funnel adventure and campaign base

six by nine - INCOMING

The finalized version of my 6 by 9 DCC solo game book - The Hounds of Halthrag Keep - is done, approved by OBS, and the proof is on its way from where the little elfs make these things.

I spent 20 bucks from my royalties to get it here fast, so (barring some terrible horrific blunder) it ought to be available next week - i.e. first week of February 2015

I'm glad to have no personal projects (aside from a mixed composition Necromunda gang and some private OBS-printed campaign cards) to work on, hanging there like a Damoclean Sword +1

Anyways, will drop a photo here or on G+ when it arrives. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, at least on the screen.

SPACE DUNGEON - Small Business Tuesday

Carl - owner of Carl's CloCloCloning

Carl is a Dralasite, and a quite handy bio-mancer.  With the smallest piece of tissue, he can grow you a mindless clone that has the equivalent memories of a like-new baby-thing, and there's a couple of new concerns cranking up to install memories into clones (wildly expensive just now!). Carl doesn't have that capability and only does the meat side of things, and mostly humans and Yazirians but dwarves and elf-like races are a special treat for him.  He won't clone a Dralasite for religious reasons except for a lot a lot a lot of money - like quintuple.  He's happy to provide referrals for memory-installers and indeed the folks at the local Rekall branch give a discount for a referral from him (and a nice kick-back to Carl)

Anybody can get a like-new clone of their favorite person or themself delivered in a week or two (so, 1 session later) but you need to reroll Intelligence and Personality and Luck, and change occupation to 'Clone' and cost depends upon 'How bad did you blow the turn the body over roll?' or 'what killed you and by how much?'  Elves lose all spells, as do Wizards!  Patrons may take exception to being cheated this way (and it's unclear if a soul comes with the clone but it'll depend on hilarious circumstance).  The bond for a clone can never be as high as the original Patron Roll the primary being had, until that original is dead for realsies.

D100xd20, with a special discount for Demi-humans (a d12 instead for the factor). Wildly Non-bipedal or exotic races or inherently magical ones are likely more but Carl takes it in stride. A very low price (like if you get Lucky on the d100) means that some defects are bound to occur, maybe a corruption or a couple of mercurial effects or something more fun (the threshold is about 100 creds).  Maybe that batch of aminos had expired, or something.

You can pay ahead of time, in which case Carl can take a tissue sample (brain works better, but hey) and you Spellburn some permanent damage and Carl keeps it on liquid nitrogen for your eventual demise and you don't need to worry about corruption and mishaps since he calibrates the PCR chambers and the in-house AI writes some DNA poetry as well as she can.  Velma, by name, who/which is weakly protected from hacking owing to Carl's being mystified by the whole silicon thing.

Velma is vindictive and sometimes makes clones just to mess with people that cruise her firewall and Carl imagines this is great fun - Velma's slam hounds once took out the whole board-room of NeoGroin Testicle Repair because she scanned their IP signature as she was cloning some third-rate low-G porn star

Carl laughed and laughed and laughed and it was like HHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHKKKKKKKKKKKKKLLLLLNMNNNNNNNNNNTTTTHHHH

They say he picked up her crystalline AI core in the tomb of a hideous evil necromancer, but he might have bought it off the surface. He doesn't recall very clearly, anymore, and anyways she works pretty nicely for what she does.

Carl will also buy raw materials and chems and occasional samples (don't push it) and a side-hobby is poisons and toxins but he doesn't sell those. 

Sewage Elemental - Into the Odd

Probably been done before but I was going through Out of The Pit before I slept fitfully a fortnight ago, and there was this and it's liberated from the DRAFTS folder:

INSERT COOL PICTURE HERE

Well, anyways, I could take a picture of the thing and pop it there, but essentially it's a colonial elemental that lives in muddy bogs and swamps and lazily spends its days and night funneling critters toward its mouth, and the picture in the OOTP is not that great (but the previous owner colored it for me!).  The entry explains that although it's not undead, it wails and moans when intelligent life approaches and warns interlopers off on account of it's so territorial, and of course survivors take the moaning to mean it's risen dead or somesuch.  I don't know.  Standard issue stuff.

And I was thinking about Ravenloft and Paridon and the nightmare realm of sewers that wends its way down beneath that sprawling town (this is Arthaus 3rd edition - I can't recall if it appears in previous editions.)  Coincidentally, I was reading A1 - Secret of the Slavers' Stockade and there's a lot of sewers and water flowing lazily, and up popped up in my Into the Odd game The Frothing Gates, an architectural wonder where raw sewage flows out of the side of Bastion and into... well, whatever is doused in sewage below.

One of the fun things about Into the Odd is the delight it takes in throwing away all those burdensome mechanics.  A bit of a refreshing take on things, wot?  Wot?  Here you go:

SEWER WRAITH

Sewer Wraiths are generally sluggish and ill-tempered elementals, possibly an alchemical mixture of the elements of Earth and Water and Human Sloth and Disease; not the purer one-element sort that is usually summoned or conjured by Wizards.  They arise incrementally through the coalescence of magical effluvia from potion consumption and too-rich foods in the more affluent sections of large towns and cities.  Some have speculated that the elemental spirits concentrate around corpses of drowned criminals.  They haunt quiet corners where filth flows and swirls and collects, and the bones of the dead dance in the eddies.  Turning them is impossible, since the elemental portion is too awful and jealous.  Sufficient blunt hits will disperse them for a time, and they take half damage from slashing and no damage from piercing weapons.  On a successful hit, the victim must make a Dexterity or Strength save or else be plunged into the muck, taking 1d4 damage from nausea and inhalation of sewage per round until extricated or until a Willpower save is passed.  If he or she dies within the mass of filth, then the bones and flesh power the thing and the being's soul is added to its baleful motive.

HP 22, Damage 1d8, Armor 2.