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Rolang's Creeping Doom

Author Archives: Chris

Dangerous Mines

July 15, 2013 5:14 am / Leave a Comment / Chris

Picking back up where I left off months ago…

R. Silva
onsaid:  


I request some horror scenes for an exploration of a dwarven mine, please.

Entrance collapses.

A fire in the tunnels above. You must head downward…

Loose timbers. Oh and look, here’s a dead giant termite. I bet there are others.

A dead canary (you did bring one, right?).

A trap involving a long and disorienting mine car ride.

Random noises will get the party on their toes.

A skeleton is strewn along a passage. Every ten to twenty paces a few more bones are found. The first are foot and toe bones, the last a skull.

Several pellets strewn about (probably an owl bear)

One single mithril object. Worth maybe half a kingdom. Don’t think that’s scary? See what the players might do to one another…

Players think they see a dead girl every few hours. Or some other creepy imagery. This is caused by gasses in the air. What one player ‘sees’ from a hallucination will be the topic of player conversation and more will see the same thing through the power of suggestion.

 

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Posted in: Uncategorized / Tagged: bring it, mundane

Minor Noble’s Entouage

February 4, 2013 1:53 pm / 1 Comment / Chris

Claytonian
on said: 


Members of the noble’s entourage. Interesting and dangerous characters that attend to the noble and protect him while doing in vogue things too.

This request is from the Mundane Request Thread.

Minor nobles will allow almost anyone into their entourage for the sake of having an entourage, which is of course a sign of great importance.

 

Firstly, there is the body man or handmaid—the servant who knows the noble most intimately as They also know what wig powder to use, which eau de toilette to use as the most recent bath fades further into memory and gernally deal with the soiled handkerchiefs, spurned milkmaids/stable boys and stained smallclothes of the minor noble.

 

The Cook. They are generally quite bad, as the good cooks are already taken, but he entire entourage is obliged to publically praise the food so as not to shame the noble for not being able to hire a good one.

 

The Syncophant: Usually a cousin or even lesser noble, this person desperately hangs on to the nobles ever word, laughs at the worst jokes and secretly hopes to have a torrid affair with the noble.

 

The Guard: This is by far the most well-paid member of the entourage, for without the guard, any number of people might kill the noble out of sheer loathing. The Guard, in fact, would be first in line were he not paid well.

 

The Secretary: The minor noble may have been tutored (see tutor below) but when it comes to actually writing an eloquent letter, the secretary puts quill to paper. He also keeps the schedule and acts as a social director (begs for invitations).

 

Driver/Groomsman: takes care of the horses, carriage and does the driving.

 

Protégé: Every noble must have a protégé artist in order to be called a patron. Poet, musician or painters only. Actors are gauche. Jesters are for kings.

 

Prostitute: some nobles have a bed-warmer. If so, this person is near the top of the hierarchy.

 

Beast: A noble will typically have a deformed person or beast (read: orc) hanger-on who serves as the bottom of the pecking order.

Banker: Entourages are expensive and many minor nobles are deep in debt in order to support them. The banker is a minor representative of the bank that keeps the noble afloat. Why? Influence.

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Posted in: campaign window dressing, legacy D&D, NPC / Tagged: bring it, mundane, npcs

The Ratmen

February 3, 2013 5:34 pm / Leave a Comment / Chris

Arr Mateys. I be answering your requests in a mundane way. Don’t be askin for no potion mishaps or magical codpieces in the request thread.

Trent B
on September 27, 2012 at 1:29 am said:

Well if you like you could create a small selection of ‘things some nonchalant 3ft ratmen pirates might be doing when they have stolen basically all of the ships/supplies and are now sitting pretty on an island off the coast which might have just been landed upon by some unscrupulous adventurers and their mysterious meatshroom tavern’? 
If you’re bored or whatever =P

Here’s your mundane answer, ya lubber:

The “3 foot ratmen” are a gang of nine brothers known for their longish faces and short stature. They are horrible sailors but excellent gunners, usually tasked with mending sails and swabbing decks when not in combat. Last August they were hired as crew on board Galadriel’s Garter, a privateering vessel backed by the Dutch. The garter’s officers were greener than their crew and at first encounter with the English frigate HMS Astonishment, the captain, first mate and both lieutenants were taken by chain shot. The Ratmen were the highest ranking left on the ship and they never, ever stop firing. They managed to cripple the English vessel so badly the remaining officers surrendered in exchange for a tow.

Which they did, after slitting the English throats. Alas, as I have mentioned, they are horrible sailors and managed to steer both vessels into the Fog of the Unknown and have landed on DedSkull Island.

Unaware of the dinosaurs, oversized animals, witches, fishmen, truant officers and weresharks surrounding them, the Three Foot Ratmen and their crew have declared a shore leave and have hauled the English rum and tinned beef to the beach. What are they up to when the party arrives?

 

  1. Drinking
  2. Burying “treasure”, mostly gold buttons and swords taken from the dead.
  3. Buggery
  4. Arguing over who is captain, first mate, “leftenant” and cook.
  5. Trying to figure out maps
  6. Making time with the native women
  7. Trying to open a hatch in the ground
  8. Target practice on oversized tree-living sloths
  9. Industriously harvesting lumber and straightening out nails to repair the ships
  10. Torturing a native to get the location of the lost city of gold from him
  11. Cooking a giant sloth over a spit
  12. Singing filthy sea chanties while (roll again)
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Posted in: content, encounters, legacy D&D / Tagged: bring it, firearms, mundane, naval, pirates

Fantasy Tibet on Santicore

January 13, 2013 4:25 am / 2 Comments / Chris

I’m publishing this here and on Santicore. It’s rough and way late, but here it is.

Also on the Santicore blog.

Campaign Setting: The Roof of the World

DM’s note: This is a rudimentary setting description based EXTREMELY loosely on Tibet in the 9th or 10th century or so. It’s not meant to be any more detailed than most RPG settings and of course there are elements that are inaccurate or grossly simplified because gaming.

 

I think this would work best as a place for a party of outsiders to venture. That way, the characters themselves (and the players) will experience the fun of exploration, not having little or no ‘common knowledge’ of how things work there.

 

The Roof of the World lies between the grand empires of the south and the horsemen of the north. The humans are mostly nomadic yak herders, distant cousins of the northern horsemen. Because the climate is so cold, the geography treacherous and the air thin, life here is harsh and generally short.

 

Why would a party of adventurers venture to an isolated wasteland so hard to get to? There have been persistent rumors that the god of wealth lives in the mountains. The locals themselves tell of a hidden paradise where men live as for centuries and never get sick. Sorcerers have been known to return from trips to the mountains with great and terrible new powers. Dwarves have an old legend about the largest vein of gold being under the world’s tallest mountain. Clerics may have heard that the priests of the southern beliefs have had success subduing demons and taming the wild folk. A thief might find sanctuary from the long arm of the law or the longer arm of the thieves’ guild here.

 

Getting to the plateau is difficult and dangerous. Not only are the paths from the south guarded by xenophobic clans of horsemen; there are monsters on the trails and demons in the mountains.

 

Adventurers will be extremely conspicuous here. They will look different, sound different and most will have a fortune in steel and armor with them. Ordinary arms and armor are rare here and very valuable. Men have been killed in their sleep for their armor. The best approach is to keep one’s best weapons hidden and wear the local leather armor (which is more comfortable in such cold climates anyway). Demihumans are almost non-existent so cover those pointy ears with a knit cap.

 

Adventures must take care to not offend the representatives of The Way (see below). Locals respect and revere these men and women. Most lamas, monks and yogis are dedicated pacifists, but if they need to resort to force to protect others, they will. After all, they are also protecting the wayward from earning bad karma and coming to a worse rebirth. Horesemen and mercenaries will act first and attempt to purify their karma later.

 

The air here is thinner. All party members suffer a -1 to constitution while in this climate and dwarves suffer -2.

 

Every mountain, every river, lake and forest has a spirit or demonic inhabitant. Small features such as ponds, small crags and streams are home to small elemental spirits who make only minor trouble for men and can be appeased by offerings of food and drink left at dusk (torma). Larger features such as mountains are the home of demons and gods, the original inhabitants of this land. Everyone knows what demon lives on the closest mountain and they take great care to avoid its notice and failing that, stay in its good graces. Caravans have been known to leave a great deal of wealth at one end of a bridge, hoping that will distract the spirits of a gorge while they rush across to the other side.

 

 

History

For millennia the people of the plateau have scraped by as nomads and traders of furs, butter and salt. Kingdoms are small here, as the weather makes widespread warfare and continued control difficult. Most of the ‘action’ takes place in the form of clan and family squabbles, which were generally resolved by marriages, contests or payoffs. In every clan or village, there were families that maintained the equestrian traditions of the north. This meant every small dispute could potentially become an extended, bloody feud. Petty kings employed these horsemen in their wars.

 

Legends tell of a great time of unification, when the people rode from the north and drove out the previous inhabitants, who are described as savage and demonic.

 

If there is great treasure to be had here, it is certainly not in the hands of the people.

 

The Way

 

A hundred years ago, a great caravan from southern kingdoms climbed the paths to the plateau. They brought with them great scholars and meditators who had been sent north at the behest of the gods, it is said, to tame the wild peoples of the north and to turn the demons of the sky toward the path of kindness. These Great Gurus, as they are called, defeated the demons of several high peaks in contests of logic and displays of miracles. These mountains became safe for people again, so long as they respected the newly reformed protectors living there. Despite these miracles, they taught the people a simple, pacifistic way of life called “The Way”. It combined meditation with a monastic tradition and quasi-magical utterances (mantras) meant to turn the mind away from evil karma, which they said was the cause of the plateau’s troubles.

 

Villages and cities were established around monasteries in the southern and central provinces. Much of the male population destined to become warriors, bandits or merchants instead took on robes at the monasteries and put their energies to good use, crafting items of protection, performing healing rituals and studying and copying the Thousand Scrolls of The Way. Because the missionaries were so successful at taming the demons and spirits of the wild and reducing strife in the community, The Way has become influential. With that has come of course the corruption and strife that comes with human institutions, and of course the demons and spirits are capable of subterfuge.

 

The average home has a small shrine to the Enlightened One, the Great Gurus or to a local protector deity. They leave offerings outside their tents and sing mantras as they go about their day. This focus on protection and good deeds has enabled the family to live longer and feel safer. They believe their bad deeds could lead to rebirth in the hells, or as animals or hungry ghosts. Their goods deeds cold lead them to rebirth in the heavens, but if they devote themselves to the Great Guru or one of his servants, they will be reborn in a secret land where one may meditate and work toward enlightenment for many eons.

 

NPC Classes

 

There are four main NPC classes here. Horsemen replace fighters, Monks are clerics and cleric/illusionists, Lamas are cleric/rangers and Yogis are Illusionists (with psionic powers if applicable in your game).

 

Horsemen

If your rules have a barbarian class, this is an excellent fit for the plateau. Take the class, add riding and archery skills and apply no penalty to attacks when shooting from horseback. Their horses are able to travel a quarter further than common warhorses without tiring. In mountainous terrain that would normally slow a mounted party, native horsemen suffer no penalty.

 

While some clans have specific traditions and codes, just as many serve as mercenaries to local lords, demons and wizards. In lands of the peaceful way, warriors have either become bandits or anointed themselves protectors of holy men and pilgrims. These last can be found on the paths leading up from the south, sometimes turning away foreigners and adventurers while allowing pilgrims and monks through.

 

Monks

Monks are not the AD&D masters of the martial arts. A few of them are low level clerics, capable of casting various spells protecting, blessing, healing, curing and clairvoyance. While individuals might live up to their code and vows to varying degrees, all monks follow a lawful good path. Even those who have previously been thieves and murderers are allowed to follow The Way (albeit with careful supervision).

 

Treat most monks as simply 0 level humans of Lawful Good alignment. They have renounced the world and joined a monastery where their energies are turned towards copying books, building holy sites hard labor to improve their karma. They follow a strict code of pacifism and renunciation. There are literally hundreds of vows of renunciation they must take.

 

Monasteries are headed by an abbot, who is the spiritual head of the community. Treat NPC abbots as cleric/illusionists with no combat ability They can cast spells simply by concentrating, without the need for speech or gestures. They usually have healing, curing, protection, clairvoyance and illusionist spells prepared. They emanate a bless spell and protection from evil spell at all times with a radius of 10 feet/ cleric level. Abbots typically have one level in both classes for every 50 monks in their charge. High-level abbots are revered as avatars of saints and Buddhas.

 

Monks are easily recognized by their maroon and yellow robes and shaved heads. They always have rosaries called malas with them. They have taken vows of celibacy, non-killing and will not take intoxicants or steal. (In extreme situations, they would if it prevented harm to a living being). All monks can cast a protection from evil spell ritually. The power of this spell should ‘stack’ if cast by multiple monks.

 

Monastaries

Monasteries serve many functions. The spiritual had often acts as a magistrate if no local warlord exists. Monasteries buy many blankets and consume great quantities of firewood, butter, milk, and salt. Well-respected monks travel the countryside performing protective ceremonies, pacifying ghosts and teaching practices meant to pacify the spirit and generate positive karma. There are a few nunneries, but their locations are kept secret to protect their inhabitants.

Monasteries serve as stand-ins for keeps. Use them as sources of shelter, quests or mysteries. A haunted or abandoned monastery works well.

 

Nunneries also exist, although they are rare and their locations kept quiet.

 

Lamas

Lamas are trained in ritual practices. They are capable meditators, healers and lore masters. In some cases they are also monastics, but they are usually part of the lay populace. Some even have families and homes. Many travel between villages. Depending on your rule system, treat them as non-combative ranger/clerics. In addition to their normal spell allotment, they can perform ritual versions of any healing, curing or protective spell. These require material components (hallucinatory herbs, pure water, rice, gold, etc.) and take one hour per spell level to perform. Lamas are sitting ducks to physical attacks during these, but magical protection circles are a standard beginning for all rituals.

 

Lamas who have taken monastic vows are still part of this class, although they are also 0 level monks.

 

Yogis

Yogis and yoginis are men and women who have abandoned their homes (or monasteries) to pursue meditation in remote places. Most of them are normal 0-level people, but once in awhile one of them will attain a level of realization that immediately puts them at the level of an illusionist of fifth or higher level. These accomplished yogis and yoginis usually want to be left alone, but are often hounded by jealous demons or eager students. They will use their powers of illusion to avoid detection or to educate these eager passersby.

 

A Note on Morality

Monks, lamas and yogis, are prohibited from taking life or causing harm in all but the direst circumstances. In fact, a monk, lama or yogi would not kill in self-defense. For this reason, they make poor player character classes. In no circumstances would they associate with “murder hobos” who kill monsters and loot them. They would, however, do harm if it were necessary to prevent a great tragedy (harm of a child or of many innocents) and it were clearly the only option. Morality in this land is not what the law or tradition or a king says, but what causes harm. Also note: don’t play these NPCs as hippies or wimps. They are also not vegetarian as there are no vegetables here. Adventurers should not assume, however, that everyone they meet in a robe is trustworthy. There are charlatans, thieves, spies, doppelgangers and weak-willed individuals as well.

 

 

 

Other Beings

Demons

Demons here can mean genuinely evil-minded demons of most RPGs, elementals or semi-spirit creatures such as dryads or sirens. Many have a reputation with the locals who know them by name. They feed on ignorance, fear and conflict. They resist the monasteries by killing wandering monks, caravans bringing goods to monasteries and in some cases hiring mercenaries or infiltrating the monks.

Many demons have a sorcerer apprentice who does their bidding.

Demons are the main Bosses of this setting and while are spoken of a great deal, they shouldn’t be over-used.

Some demons are converted to The Way by powerful lamas and gurus. Lower-level demons might become dakinis or helper spirits. Medium-level demons convert to guardians of locales or protectors of sacred treasures. The most powerful become wrathful deities who use their horrific appearance in the service of The Way.

Demons do not suddenly lose their powers or become sweetness and light after conversion. A demon might continue to protect his mountain, for example, from those whose greed has lead them to try to steal treasures. Instead of actually killing adventurers, he might enslave them for a few centuries or polymorph them into animals or make them experience death only to awake in a remote village.

If killed, demons are banished to another plane. In this case, we’ll say the hells of the Buddhist cosmology.

 

Dakinis

These powerful female spirits might manifest as old crones, young demon girls or as giant dancing goddesses half-dressed in bone garlands. Their appearance and energy is always feminine. Treat them as efreet or djinn. They travel between planes, see the past and future. They absolutely might kill someone and then immediately resurrect them to show the illusory nature of the world. They are pure mischief and generally mean trouble. They are excellent for giving quests to parties.

 

Nagas

These Monster Manual staples are human-headed snake demons. They are usually dangerous and untrustworthy, but a few employed as guardians of great treasures of The Way.

 

Undead

Most bodies are ground up and fed to vultures, so undead are not so common here. A sorcerer might animate a corpse to do his bidding. These are called rolangs. They are mid-to-high level undead and should not be treated as zombies. Rolangs, it is said, can kill by casting their shadow upon someone. Those dead become a rolang at the next sunset unless burned and there is a ninety percent chance they will not be under the control of any master at all. Rolang walk stiffly, with their arms out. Every house has a low door to keep them from entering at night.

 

Lamas, monks and yogis know rituals to dispel them. If a DM wanted to have PC monks, lamas and yogis, a party or rolang-hunters would be appropriate.

 

Ghosts

There are lost-spirit ghost and there are hungry ghosts, or pretas. Lost spirit ghosts are the same as in your game–undead spirits and/or plot movers. Pretas are spirits with giant stomachs and small mouths, who are always hungry. For gaming’s sake, you can make them hungry for human flesh, brains, blood…

 

Animals

There are animals that speak human languages here. They are rare. Most will not be helpful unless bribed or caught. Treat them as the animals behave in fairy tales.

 

Witches, Sorcerers, Dopplegangers, Penengalens, Giant Animals and Bandits

The plateau should be just rife with these.

 

Dragons

Use Chinese dragons, not western wyrms.

 

Treasure

Many of the world’s most powerful artifacts and magical items can be found on the plateau, often on the world’s highest peaks. These are usually items that cannot be destroyed but also cannot be allowed fall into human or demi human hands.

There is almost no gold, silver or diamonds on the plateau, but lapis, turquoise and other precious stones serve as currency in the larger markets. Salt, meat, butter and livestock are the most important items of barter. Iron, steel, tin and precious metals are brought in via caravan.

Relics are considered great treasures. Any body parts of holy people such as bones, hair, skull cups, femur horns and so forth are considered sacred and valuable. You can use these as the macguffin for many adventures.

Hidden Lands

Even the locals will tell you there are places that fold and twist between the mountains, cities that can only be found during the worst snowstorms and valleys from which travellers never return yet are never found frozen.

Some of these are secret lands occupied by saints and yogis of centuries past. Others hide entire communities hidden from the ravages of time, war and disease. Some conceal doors to other planes. Shambhala, or Shangri-La, is one such hidden land.

 

Death

If you want, replace resurrection in your game with some form of reincarnation. Coming back from the dead was not an option in the Way. Moving forward is, however. Have a PC roll a new character but with the same memories. How did he get old enough to adventure? You figure out a way. One tradition is the magical transference of consciousness at death into another being. But whatever you do, don’t make it a respawn. Make it something that has to be worked through.

A TPK is an opportunity to take the party through the bardo, a place between lives. Here they could encounter tests, traps and peaceful and wrathful demigods within a mandala-shaped palace. Google it and have fun.

 

Cultural Flavor

Clockwise is good. It keeps the clean hand toward the center. Many pilgrimages and rituals involve circling a holy object or structure in a clockwise direction. Counter-clockwise is bad.

Prayer wheels, cylinders with mantras printed on them, are ubiquitous in civilized areas and common in the nomad’s camps. They can be small and handheld or giant and part of the architecture. They are always rotated clockwise. They can be used for designing puzzles where specific syllables or letters must be matched.

Wheels used for transportation or work are considered tasteless. The wheel is a symbol of The Way.

Flags with prayers printed on them provide protection from evil in windy places. Count them as minor protection spells whenever the wind blows.

Tea is served with butter and salt. Butter is also used in lamps.

Hospitality is a paramount virtue. Even an enemy would not dishonor his name by harming a guest or turning away someone in need of shelter if anyone might know about it. Guests are expected to behave themselves and accept any and all food and drink offered until full. One does not refuse a meal because it displeases, only when one has already had enough to reasonably claim to be stuffed.

The dead are fed to vultures. If the vultures do not eat the body, this is seen as a sign of bad deeds.

It is a great honor for a family when a son is accepted as a monk or lama in training.

 

The Way

I have taken care not to tie this setting to closely to Buddhism, but it is a natural fit. If you want to add realistic flourishes, research specific historical figures such as Padmasambhava, Milarepa and Gesar of Ling. Real meditative deities and art can be used. In most cases, it is the trappings that matter in the game, not the actual beliefs. Using made-up names and ideas is perhaps more respectful.

At its core, the Way, which is the stand-in for Buddhism in this setting, should be about non-harming. This sets the stage for tension with the violence-loving demons and the warriors who have ruled for millennia. This also prevents high-level locals from becoming a deus ex machina.

I have left out some important aspects in the name of simplicity: tantric aspects of Buddhism are very misunderstood in the west and I think better to leave out. There is also a long tradition of reincarnated teachers who take over their predecessor’s role (the Dalai Lamas are the most famous of these). I have left this out as well, but you can do a little research if you want to use these elements.

 

Adventure Ideas

  • For foreigners, just making your way up the paths to this part of the world is dangerous. Sprinkle steep paths with classic giant animal monsters (a vulture-like roc) and of course a (or the, your choice) Yeti. Mounted warriors seek to turn away anyone they don’t deem a holy man, scholar or genuine pilgrim.
  • A hidden terma (treasure scroll) has a spell that repels the rolang. You are given a few clues and must escort a lama to find it. She is, however, a demon in disguise.
  • A prominent abbot has passed, and a stupa (tomb) is being prepared for his interment. Protect the body from relic-seekers and the stupa from demons that would ruin it before it is finished. A single drop of blood on the unfinished stupa defiles it completely.
  • There is a monastery that has abandoned the belief of non-violence and is training its monks in destructive sorcery. You must bring as many of them back into the fold as you can, but cannot trust them all. You have been given a bound rolang to help you sniff out deceivers. Be careful not to break that leash.
  • A dakini has tasked you with hiding the path into and out of Shangri La. Will the party be able to resist the temptation to stay? Why would they need to obscure the way out?

 

 

Geography

 

The high plateau sits about 5000 meters above sea level. It should be the highest or nearly the highest region in your gaming world. To the north and far below are vast grassy plains. To the east and northeast, a desert. To the west are lower mountains and hills and to the south there is a large, rainy subcontinent. This geography assumes the wind and moisture comes from the south, hits the side of the mountains and returns down as mighty rivers. The rain shadows are north and east. If the winds come from another direction, adjust the rain shadow accordingly.

 

The southern part of the plateau is warmer and more humid, but never getting warmer than 16 degrees C (60 F) during the rainy season (May to September). In winters, it gets to -16 C (3 F). In the north, it ranges from a high of 10 degrees C (50 F) in the rainy season to far below freezing depending on altitude and wind.

 

 

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Posted in: content, legacy D&D, Santicore, Uncategorized

Finishing Up Santicore Post

January 1, 2013 11:23 pm / Leave a Comment / Chris

I’m finishing up a mini campaign setting for a Santicore present. It’s taking some time because I’m basing it on a real, still existing culture and I could easily screw it up. I’ve been through many drafts and have decided to sneak past the dragon of perfect wordsmithing but I still face the owlbear of giving it the right amount of detail and the slaad of making sure it’s worth playing.

I’ll post it here and at the Santicore blog. After that, there will be many requests to fulfill here on this blog. Luckily, none of them are mini campaign settings.

 

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Posted in: commentary, legacy D&D, Santicore

Santicore Updates Galore

December 24, 2012 4:39 pm / Leave a Comment / Chris

Every hour from now til midnight PST, there’s a new Santicore present at the Santicore blog.

Space Hyenas, Gorgons from Space, a UFO Table, Adventure Generating Tables Potion Mishaps, a Mole-Man Character Class–these are but a few of the treasures that await you today.

 

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Posted in: recommended reading / Tagged: santicore

Santicore 2012 Website

December 9, 2012 11:33 pm / 1 Comment / Chris

Oh hi. Yeah, it’s been awhile. Long story. Anyway, before I start gearing up and answering your requests, I am going to be posting Santicore presents here.

See, I’m one of a few gaming bloggers who helped Jez wrangle the requests and the responses this year. For very good reasons beyond anyone’s control, if there is a PDF for this year’s Santicore, it will not be here by Christmas.

But fear not, for the Hanukkah Harpie arrived this weekend with a blogspot site where I intend to archive all the entries I wrangled. One was or another, I hope to get all the entries others wrangled up there too. Everyone is busy in the weeks leading up to Christmas, so the entries will come sporadically. You might find some entries on other blogs first, but I will try to keep everyone as informed as possible.

If you follow, subscribe to or whatever the posts at http://santicore.blogspot.com/ you’ll be all set. Or you can follow me on twitter or Google+. From now on, every time I update on Santicore, I’ll tweet it with the hashtag #santicore.

I should also take a moment to reaffirm my commitment to this blog. I’ve let it lie fallow the last few months, which I periodically do. It’s usually a sign of me being overwhelmed by a good-paying gig. So I know you’ll understand. I have some time off coming to me and will get started on the mundane requests then.

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Posted in: Santicore

Bring on the Ordinary: Post Your Mundane Requests Here

September 27, 2012 12:03 am / 14 Comments / Chris

It’s been quiet around here, thanks to some gainful employment that fries my brain on a daily business. On the good side, I’ve been playing 1e fairly regularly and am helping wrangle submissions to this year’s Secret Santicore. I gotta hand it to Jez, Secret Santicore is a real crown jewel in the DIY/OSR community.

I did write one encounter for someone’s personal use (and thus didn’t blog it) and it was an unusual one for me in that there was no magic. Just the woods, an archer and a road. I purposely avoided anything fantastic as a key element of the encounter and I was quite pleased with the results.

Being one of Santicore’s helper elves also showed me where people’s minds are in terms of what they want from their D&D and I have to say this year will be pretty gonzo. With DCC and Carcosa coming out, I’m not surprised people are in a gonzo state of mind. I’m not immune–I read and want to play in DCC and appreciated Carcosa and I damn sure expect some top-notch stuff from the 2012 Santicore.

But then I’ve been playing 1e AD&D as a fighter with the New York Red Box crew. A dumb one–a pregen in a rules-as-written campaign using a Judges Guild module. And our magic user is reluctant to cast his spells, so in a lot of ways, there’s hardly any magic in this game. And I kind of like being a simple fighter.

And then I saw 13 Assassins. There has GOT to be some sort of kick-ass adventure there. And if this doesn’t make you want to break out Oriental Adventures or Legend of the Five Rings or Ruins and Ronin, you are a fool.

And then today I get my package from Sir Raggi, which had The God That Crawls and The Magnificent Joop Van Ooms, both of which are set on EARTH (thank you) and one in my favorite foreign city, Amsterdam. The God that Crawls scratches that shambling doom sort of itch, as its name should tell you. I expect I’ll give it a try. Joop does me a real solid with a wharf encounter table with only the tiniest bit of magic or the weird and more than 40 encounters that could really have happened in 1615 Amsterdam.

To make this short story long, I’m in the mood for the non-magical.  I don’t mind that most of the OSR is running solidly toward the gonzo, but I think I’m going to spend some time working out a table of brigand encounters and a dictionary of con games to run on your players. Low, low magic stuff that can be used every day and which should make your gonzo stuff stand out.

Keeping what I said above in mind, I’m going to take requests again. If you want some sort of material that is low or non-magic for your campaign, post something in the comments below. As I did last year with “Bring It”, I’ll get to it when I can, which might mean you’ll get it this year.

How is everyone doing, by the way?

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Posted in: commentary, content, legacy D&D, product recommendations / Tagged: bring it, dcc, lotfp wf rpg, low-magic, santicore

Death of a Game and a Sense of Place

September 9, 2012 7:33 pm / 2 Comments / Chris

Before I started this blog, I used to play MMO’s, the gateway back to pen and paper in my case. I played a good deal of City of Heroes, a superhero MMO released in 2004 and now about to be shut down by its owners unless somehow the players get someone else to step in.

I don’t see many similarities between MMOs and RPG’s, but my recent forays back into COH have highlighted something that I would like out of RPGs as a player: a sense of place.

When I launch City of Heroes and my character spawn in Paragon city, I know where I am. The streets I’ve run on (and flied over) since 2004 are places with memories.

I can remember the northwestern corner of Atlas Park that is a sort of walled off area with warehouses. It used to be populated with the Clockwork, but now it’s controlled by Arachnos. It’s easier to get in and out and slightly more survivable than it used to be. I don’t know why or when they changed the mobs there but it’s not how it was back in the day and that is EXACTLY how it happens in real places.

I’m getting nostalgic, but what I’m getting at is this: City of Heroes managed to pack a lot of adventure into a small area, one that had its own inconveniences and idiosyncrasies. Because MMOs are an audio and visual medium, I don’t need to imagine the path from Steel Canyon’s southern subway station to the northern station. As I moved, I saw where I was going and heard the incidental music that played as I moved from neighborhood to neighborhood, avoiding the outcasts.

I’m in a 1e game where I’m the only PC from the village nearest the dungeon. To save money, the party crashes at my character’s parents’ barn. Since there’s never been a map, drawing or description that I have heard, I am sure we are all imagining this place quite differently.

What I am wondering is how we can (or do we need to) create a sense of place in a pen and paper game. Do you use maps, illustrations, descriptions? Do your players even revisit the same places often?

 

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Posted in: commentary / Tagged: #saveCOH, City of Heroes, COH, MMO, sense of place

Micro-Review (spoiler-free): The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time

August 13, 2012 3:42 pm / 3 Comments / Chris

I am not often moved to review modules because I think there are far more well-read bloggers out there who do review things and a lot of what is published is not to my personal taste and therefore better addressed by someone else.

But every once in awhile something comes along that makes me say “Damn, I really wish I’d made that.”  The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time, an adventure by James Raggi IV and published by his company Lamentations of the Flame Princess, is one of those things. I backed this in its indie-gogo campaign earlier this year and was both nervous and excited to see the payoff. It became available as a pdf this morning.

To start, you have to get the party to explore a mysterious valley. Caravans have disappeared, adventurers are missing, locals say there’s something fishy… whatever reason. And the players willingly step into the quicksand, perhaps expecting the usual wilderness hex crawl. What they get combines the weirdness of LOST with the ominous tone of 2001.

This adventure reminds me most of the painting in the cabin in Death Frost Doom. That was a set piece that defied player’s expectations of what could happen in a game. When I ran it a few summers back, the players spent a good half hour trying to figure out if it was safe to touch, was magic, an illusion or sellable. It was, for me, the highlight of the afternoon because the grizzled vets of the New York Red Box looked stumped. But that was on a small scale.

Monolith is packed with situations that defy players’ expectations but with far greater consequences. I can’t give any for-instances without spoiling, but I can tell you some of this stuff is just brutal and mind-bending and the sort of thing that, as a GM, you would WANT to see happen because it would be so damn cool to see  the looks on the players faces when they happen. I don’t mean insta-death stuff. This isn’t a death trap, necessarily. And luckily, there’s enough of these crazy things where at least some of them have to happen.

This is one of those adventures that, as a GM, you want to run right away, but you have to already have a campaign going. I don’t think it makes sense as a one-shot. I think it really needs to be run in an established campaign. If you run it in the beginning of a campaign, it would be hard to top later on. If you run it as a one-shot, the life and game-altering effects of the adventure would be lost if your characters have no future.

It’s one of those adventures your players will talk about for years.

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Posted in: legacy D&D, review

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