Finally: Lazer Dwarves!

This is going to be kind of a catch all post, starting with some self interest and navel-gazing, but stick with me and there will be a sweet finish!

CAMPAIGNS

So here are the games I'm working on running:

#1 will get written about more here in the future I'm sure.  It will take some work to get together and then there will be players to find... this one is definitely on the back burner.

#2 will use my DMing improv tools, but also would be a good place to drop in things like Death Frost Doom or Tower of the Stargazer.

#3 is on the front burner as the players are asking "when are we gonna start?"  The system will be 4e D&D but the soul will be Encounter Critical.

#4 is just an idea and maybe won't happen but if it does it's going to draw heavily from the Black City and Land of Ice.

BLOG PROJECTS

Ongoing things I need to write about/finish: 

Monster Remixes: these are maybe not quite half way done.  I'm still hoping that someone will be able to tell me where I found the undead remix so I don't have to do that one.  I've decided that I'm definitely going to do the mundane animals, they will be fun though not entirely mundane.

Image of the Dungeon: Will likely finish this with one post.


Castle and Dungeon Maps: that huge castle I did is still my most popular post thanks in no small part due to Paul, so I've done another castle map and plan to do more.

Orc Cult Cave and Castle Lyongast - Map-less Adventure Generators with roll mat.  These will be used in the pick-up game.

Player Handbook Giveaway for pick up game (with house rules, like Planet Eiris, but as clear and concise as possible)

DM Book (for pick up game)

BLOG ROLLS

I've noticed that several folks who used to have me on their blog roll no longer do.  If your reading this and you're thinking "this dude is on my blog roll for sure" maybe check and see.  I know a few times Blogger has dumped blogs off of my roll and I had to re-add them.

and now.... 

LAZER DWARVES!

I promised lazer dwarves on my first post, here they are!  These are for the 4e-esque space-fantasy game.  I was to lazy to draw the robo-claws on the "storm trooper" (they're an air elemental inhabiting a robotified stormtrooper suit, get it?)  The face of the Psi-Witch is from Skinner.  These are half-assed but they were a lot of fun to put together.  I'll print these out to use in-game (and so I can draw on those robo-claws).

SLEESTAKS

Brendan liked the idea of re-skining Dragonborn as Sleestaks in my last post, so I'll expound on that idea a bit.  I'm sure there have been write ups of Sleestaks and a playable race but this is specifically for 4e D&D or a simplified/hacked facsimile. 

SLEESTAKS:

Sleestak PCs are identical to Dragonborn, but they look like the guys pictured above and they have no breath weapon power.  Instead they have one of the following powers:

"Sleestak Memories"
one in ten Sleestaks can, in brief flashes of insight, remember the ancient secrets of their ancestors.  (Roll D10 at character generation.  They have this power if a 1 is rolled.)  Once per session the Player can make up a detail about any dungeon environment the characters find themselves in, details may include secret doors, passwords, codes, the location of a pylon or how to operate a pylon.  The DM should let the player throw their idea out there in one short sentence, but then further details are for the DM to determine.  Note that ancient Sleestak technology allows for structures that are larger on the inside than the outside and other warping of time and space, so dungeon maps need not be modified except to note the location of any new Sleestak generated details.  It is of course the prerogative of the DM to declare a dungeon off limits to this power because it was not built by Sleestaks or has been otherwise untouched by their weird lizardy claws.

"Sleestaks Come in Threes"
All Sleestaks that don't have Sleestak Memories have this power.  At character generation, the PC will have 2 Sleestak companions who appear to be identical to the PC, have identical equipment, but have 10s in all stats, no powers, and only 1 HP.  These accompanying Sleestaks may be controlled by the Player.  They will not be automatically replaced, but more may be recruited if the Player wishes and the DM allows. 


These are weird and maybe overpowered compared to typical 4e powers, but I don't mind.  To put this in perspective, I played Rifts and liked it.

Here is where the PCs could start out or venture to in a campaign with Sleestak PCs:

Sleesport

On the bluffs overlooking a huge briny lake sits the city of Sleesport (pronounced Sleaze Port).  Founded by a bug-eyed and lizard skinned version of Bugsy Siegel and resembling both Vegas and Lankhmar, Sleesport is largely owned and operated by a criminal gang of Sleestaks.  Anything can be had in Sleesport.  Non Sleestak NPCs feel a mixture of respect, fear and loathing for the Sleestaks.  Sleestak PCs may be drawn into the machinizations of their powerful brethen, however, this will almost always prove to be more of a pain in the ass than a benefit for the PCs.  It is rumored that a lost city lies hidden beneath Sleesport.

Electro-Necro-Orchard and Flying House

It's been too long since I've posted so here are a pair of locations.  These are graphics, produced by architects I've found and annotated for gaming purposes.  The first was described as an electric power plant/necropolis/orchard which leads me to believe that they are handing out random tables from the 1e DMG to architecture students.  I decided to stick with the program and made it an electro-ghoul factory town.

 This one is the house of Pluma d'Antimore the witch.  Her house is suspended from the moon by silver chains.  She is known for her extravagant parties by the end of which several guests are likely to have been polymorphed into birds.  The wayward sons and daughters of several very powerful and influential noble families are in her flock.  Guest are transported to and from her parties by holding onto a ribbon held by one of her birds and saying a magic word which renders them weightless, allowing the bird to carry them.

   If I use these it will be in a game of 4e D&D re-skinned to look like Encounter Critical.  I know, that's basically what Gamma World is, but I don't own Gamma World. I'll have them roll up characters from the basic 4e books on character sheets that look a lot like this and then let them find laser guns and acquire mutations and such.  I'd probably end up with some of Brendan's House Rules, but Dragonborn would be called "Sleestaks" (and have no breath weapon) and Eladrin would be "Vulkins".

Mostly Dead is Slightly Alive; Hit Points, Injury and Recovery

Fellow bloggers at Aeons and Auguries and the Fighting Fantasist have gotten me thinking about Hit Points.

I've mentioned this in passing before.

After playing D&D for a long time I've fairly recently decided to take Mr. Gygax at his word and rule that HP are abstract and not actual wounds. Here is what I've started doing:

INJURY

When characters reach 0 HP they roll on this:

I was inspired by this and this. Like Aos, I wanted the table to be generic, that is I wanted it to make sense for an injury made by tooth and claw as well as blade or bazooka.  Like Trollsmyth I wanted things like knockdown and buff to be possible and I wanted helms to be important.  I also wanted the super simple hit locations to play a role.  This table's label is a bit of a misnomer, I don't use this when a Natural 20 is rolled, only when characters are dropped to zero HP.  I suppose I meant it that way when I made the chart and maybe I would use it that way if I was playing a game with high level characters.  Zero HP is the worst a PC can be, I don't track negative HP.  Depending on how they roll on the crit. chart, a PC with zero Hit Points might be walking around just fine, or they might be on the ground dying.  This could also be used in a pinch for fumbles: roll a D4 as if the D6 rolled a 2.

RECOVERY

HD are rolled every morning.  If you've spent the night in the wilderness or in a dungeon, then your HP can go down when you make this roll.  I've thought about also making them roll an extra die and dropping the highest in wilderness/dungeons, but I haven't tried that yet.  If the character is in civilization (as in a house, castle or inn, crashing in a haystack or barn counts as camping) then if a lower number than the character's current HP is rolled it can be disregarded. 

If characters take a short rest (1 turn) then they can add 1d6 to their HP, but their HP cannot be raised over their max for the day.  They can rest as much as they like, consecutively or not, but their HP won't exceed the max for the day. If a character has been reduced to zero and is wounded or dying, then they stay at zero until fully healed, resting won't help.

I have only used this a few times and I haven't used this at all in a game with a Cleric but this is how I would deal with their healing spells: Cure Light Wounds would eliminate one Light Wound, or make a serious wound a Light wound, or make a dying character merely seriously wounded.  A character healed this way would not loose the limb, and would be only faintly scarred.  The Cure Serious Wound spell would eliminate completely a light wound or a serious wound and would make a dying character only lightly wounded.

If the Character is dead and there are no high level miracle workers around, there's only one thing you can do: go through their clothes and look for loose change.

TREASURE MAPS

I haven't done a .pdf post for a while, so here you go:

TREASURE MAPS

It's great if you have treasure maps prepped, who doesn't like a good prop?  But, if you don't have anything prepped then you're up the creek without a... treasure map.  I think it's weird that I've never come across anything like this before. 

My goal with this was to make something that allows a DM to roll up a treasure map on the fly in-game, something easier and meatier/more evocative than the 1e DMG.  The DMG has a pretty good system for generating random treasure maps (of course, it has random charts for everything).  One divergence I made from the DMG regards clues to the nature of the treasure.  It explicitly states in bold even, that there is never any indication as to the nature of the treasure.  That seems silly to me, so I included charts to give the DM and the players (since they are learning about this together/at the same time) some indication of the Treasure and its Guardian.  It's kind of a lot of rolling, but I think you could roll things as the PCs studied the map.  I have not used this in play yet!

What's in the Woods part II

This is the companion to the "Beasts of Fairytale Miscellany" post from a while back.  This one, like the first is using the excellent classification of D&D Monsters laid out by Sham here.  While that set of random charts was a remix of the more monstrous or animal-like Fey creatures, this set remixes the Humanoids.  This includes: Nixies, Pixies, Dryads, Gnomes, Dwarves and Elves.

 I added some powers not included with the originals to make these creatures more fearsome and/or appealing to the PCs.  You could, for example roll up a "fairy" who has the head of a bear, can cast a Geas on a PC and turn invisible.  (the PCs better hope that reaction roll goes well!)

The default creature is an "elf" but the definition of elf is wide open.  

The stats in the middle are actually pretty representative of the original material.  In play I don't think I would stick to the number appearing or use it only as a rough guide.  I think I would make encounters with individuals or mixed parties more likely than a bunch of fey with all the same properties.  Though I would keep the Home consistent even with a mixed group.

The bit at the bottom of the page there is so the DM can note whatever type of Fey creature is rolled/encountered.  That's there because this (as well as my other creature remixes) are intended for that moment in-game when the PCs go in a direction that you didn't expect.  You could of course also use this in advance if you wanted to. 

Here is a link to the pdf:  Humanoids of Fey Woodlands

When I get a chance maybe I'll bundle these remixes together.

Winged Tree Lion!

I've made a table that remixes the more monstrous creatures from the group that Sham categorizes as "Fairy Tale Miscelany": Centaurs, Pegasi, Treants, Unicorns, Hippogriffs, Rocs and Griffons.  The idea here was to do the same thing with these creatures that I did with Slimes Molds and Jellies (That's a revised S, M, J pdf there, reformatted to fit on a 8.5x11 portrait).

Remixing the above "fairy tale" creatures the way I have can lead to some weird results... such as the Winged Tree Lion! Testing this, I rolled Eagle, Tree, Lion with the Special Ability: Teleport.  So this creature has Eagle clawed hind legs, I'll say that it can fly by vibrating translucent blue-veined leaves that cover it's "trunk" and the lion head has a mane of ivy with brillain colored mushrooms hidden within it.  and the PCs just met D6 of them.  (what happens if you eat those mushrooms, hmm?)

Here's the pdf:

BEASTS OF THE FEY WOODLANDS


Also, check out the info to the right on Old School Gaming in Sacramento if your in the area.

Slimes Molds and Jellies!

Even if you are not in the camp that says all monsters should be unique, it can be a challenge to find or create monsters that savvy players can't just easily metagame their way through.  To help alleviate this challenge I created this chart that allows a DM to quickly create a remixed version of the slimes molds and jellies of classic fantasy adventure gaming.  This chart can be used on the fly or when preparing a dungeon.  Personally I think it works best when used to generate an ooze or two to give various rooms or regions in a dungeon a specific flavor.

Please download and let me know if you use it:

Slimes, Molds & Jellies!