STONERS Remix

I thought that I already put this up here, but it doesn't look like it.  This is the latest in my ridiculous and unnecessary remixing of all the the monsters from vol II: Monsters and Treasure.  I put the Save vs. Stone creatures together with the Lycanthropes and snuck in the Gargoyles.  The stoners and the werefolk aren't usually associated with each other.  In OD&D there's a cryptic Saturday horror movie matinee inspired connection between lycanthropes and vampires, but for these remixes Undead (including vampires) need to be their own thing.

In my mind the Gorgonae like to turn Lycanthropes into stone because they make the nicest statues, and their Lycanthropic bodies & souls can somehow magically interfere with the effects of the Gorgon turn-to-stone attack.  I don't think that background interferes with the remixing of the original monster write ups.  I'll leave it up to the DM to determine if Gargoyles are in some way magically bound to the Gorgon that made them or if they have their own society and hold secret enclaves on moonless nights to plan their flight to a mythical city in the South Sea.  Maybe a Gargoyle's autonomy depends on the intelligence of the creating Gorgon.

Download here:
GORGONS, LYCANTHROPES & GARGOYLES 

As usual there is a worksheet at the bottom to keep track of what's rolled up.

The only monster remixes I have left to do are humans and undead!  I want to redo Dragons to hew closer to the source material, but I figure I better get these all done before I start redoing them.

The Magic of Cinema Forever

Well, the subject of my last post may be a hopeless cause.  Here is a cause that is near and dear to my heart and that has better prospects of being successful:
The best video store in the world, although they don't give out free beer. has started a Kickstarter to become a non-profit.  It looks like they're going to make their goal.  I'll be delighted if they do.
For preservation of legal access to copyrighted material I can't say it better than Outlaw Vern

OK, but this is a gaming blog, sooo....

d24 things from the film Saragossa Manuscript to add to your DnD:

1. Soldiers on opposites sides both enraptured by a marvelous book in the middle of a battle.
2. Ghost haunted inn in a desolate mountain pass, master suite is carved into rock, half cave and half immaculate carved rock.
3. Soldiers arguing with their commanding officer, playing a crazy lute thing and wearing ginormeous cummerbunds.
4. Hangmen on a gibbet with a vulture and piles of bones.
5.  Emina and Zibelda sisters from a foreign land, want to marry protagnist, but he must obey the Prophets Law, can only see them in his dreams and drink from a skull chalice.
6. A guy loses a duel then gives his soul to the devil, then lives and gets married.
7.  Ladies say fruit is bad for you.
8. There’s a guy missing an eye, you find out later zombie gypsies ate it.
9. Zombies/spirits try to talk a guy into coming outside so they can get him but he’s safe in the chapel.
10. The Spanish Inqusition!
11.  Zota the bandit stages a rescue.
12. A guy stuck in a crazy devil mask.
13. Things happen then wakng up by the gibbet again and again groundhog day style.
14.  A friendly Cabalist who tells of: Nach-Sou-Chasi, Chaldean knowledge,  Shir-Ha-Shi-Mir, magic words/numbers, how Adonai made the world with a word, Setir-So-Har, Pandemonium.
15. Some people can distinguish between Hungarian and Polish zombies.
16. “oh yeah, I just happen to have a castle in the neighborhood” not an actual quote, but it happens.
17.  “Good company is more precious than wealth or black magic.” Actual quote.
18. “You have books here, all the wisdom in the world is to be found on these shelves.” Another actual quote.
19. A guy in a story in a book finds the book he’s in a story in.  
20. When an old gypsy starts to tell his story a guy with a big ass spanish guitar sits down behind him an starts playing.
21. A cool gypsy in a wide brim hat just chillin on some stone lions on the town square till a rich guy pays him to spy on his wife.
22. A guy’s friend dies and he visits him as a thunderstorm to tell him about the afterlife.
23. “only an uneducated man who sees a thing everyday thinks he understands it.  A true researcher proceeds among riddles.  He errs but he gets nearer his goal every day.”
24. A fortune telling whore and another who smokes big cigars.

This list is only a tiny tiny fraction of the game worthy elements of this movie, including the whole story-within-a-story-within-a-story premise.  You could base a campaign on this movie!

I found this movie at my local video store.

Even though it's the 21st Century and oh my god aren't you downloading TV shows straight into your brain like everyone else? I'm still in love with Scarecrow Video.  Were it not for this Temple of Cinema of a Video store I would never have even heard of Saragossa Manuscript or lots of other great and terrible movies I have enjoyed watching over the years.  We are really lucky to have this place in Seattle and We should support it!

An open letter to Games Workshop

Hi,

I'm writing to ask about the possibility of Games Workshop publishing the old Realms of Darkness books.  It's easy to find illegal pdfs on the internet, and some of the best tables and art have been put up online by various people.  My problem is I don't download illegal pdfs, I don't want just a few tables or pictures, and really what I'd like is to have the books Slaves to Darkness and the Lost and the Damned.  They are so cool.  The art is really really amazing, these are some of the best rpg products ever.  Used copies can be found but they're damaged, written in, crazy expensive or all three.  

I think it's weird that while a novel if it's popular will be reprinted in perpetuity, rpg products either go out of print or are "revised" until they're unrecognizable.  Why not just keep printing the books that sold well in the first place, just as they were printed before?  No additions, editorializing, no new rules and definitely no new art is necessary!  Just good binding and all the art and content GW paid for 25 years ago.  Hey the Lost and the Damned was originally printed almost 25 years ago, right?  That's a good reason for a reprint right there. 

I know those rules are supported anymore and if reprinted as is there would be conflicting editions.  The thing is, there already are conflicting editions! Sure, now you have to pay $200 for a copy of the old edition, but it's out there.  I really believe that if reprinted as-is the old Realms of Darkness could only increase sales of current edition games and miniatures.  Wizards of the Coast has been reprinting old editions of Dungeons and Dragons, and I think it's bought them a lot of goodwill from the older fans.

If I bought used copies of the RoD books it could easily set me back $350.  It seems like you could charge a third of that and make plenty of money.  That's $116.66, hah, or $110 and $6.66 for shipping and handling.  I am sure that I'm not alone.

I just sent the above to GW's customer service email, where I doubt anything will come of it.  Who knows though, with the OGRE reprint, Metamorphosis Alpha and all of the D&D reprints and pdf releases Wizards of the Coast has been doing and the 25 year anniversary, just maybe...   

Sleestak Mafia Capital City

Just to make sure I don't get too good of a reputation, here's this:

SLEESPORT
The Big City. A den of villainy. A hive of magical research. Inequality. Larceny. Gambling. Robo-sorcery. 

Obvious facts:
Kobold ghetto
Huge casinos, Sleestak managers, human and kobold workers
Sleestak overseers, with robot servants 
Visiting dwarf merchants, buttoned down, loathing the whole place
Visiting dwarf merchants, cutting loose

Rumors:  (roll D30.  Most of these are true, but that's up to the DM)
1There is a robot underground movement, robots who have shed there Sleesy schackles and escaped and now plot against their former masters
2 There are pylons in the desert, remnants of ancient Sleestak techno-magic 
3 The Sleestaks have secret research facilities in the desert.
4 There is a pylon hidden in Sleesport
5 The Sleestaks can see into the future
6 There is going to be a massive shipment out of the Sleestak treasury soon
7 There are strange lights in the Desert at night
8 The visions you see while on Kobold psychedelics are true
9 the Sleestak treasury is guarded by a pair of giant robots and a squad of some of the toughest members of the Sleestak Mafia
10 the Sleestak Mafia is hiring outsiders for a secret mission (capture escaped robot wizard who can cast Detect Sleestaks at will)
11 The gladiator pits are a good way to make some quick dough (this rumor will come from a kobold, the gladiator pits are the only gambling facility the kobolds are allowed to control)
12 weird strangers are in town (giant intelligent cats, plant people riding rhinos, blue people, a flying squid, etc) are they here on business with the Sleestaks?
13 there's a big reward for a human princess last seen in one of the opium dens
14 the latest fashion craze is growing an eyeball on your chest by swallowing a pill. 
15 giant monsters attack Sleesport every 100 years. The last attack was about 100 years ago.
16 Sleestaks all share the same memories
17 the latest fashion craze is dressing like a dwarf (heavy blue and grey wool) and wearing stilts
18 a human wizard has figured out how to crack the anti magic shell around all of the Sleestak casinos
19 no one is ever seen coming or going out of the Romulon warrior temple
20 a secret treaty between the Sleestaks and the Romulons just went south
21 the latest fashion craze is wearing a tiny robot on your shoulder
22 the latest fashion craze is already passé
23 the latest fashion craze is pretending to be your future self who has traveled back in time to the present
24 some of the dwarf merchant houses of Foulcrest hire bandits to steal their own trade shipments because they have a great insurance policy 
25 the flying ships seen landing in and leaving the Sleestak imperial citadel are diplomats from other worlds
26 the Sleestak Mafia's secret technology comes from a place called Illinois
27 purple camels are highly intelligent, they only pretend to be dumb animals
28 somebody in the caravanserai is hiring thieves to break into the Sleestak imperial citadel
29 there is a beast in the sewers giving the kobolds all kinds of grief, killing and maiming, they need help
30 the guy who runs the giraffe stables is selling a map to treasure in the desert.

Sleestak Mafia Amulet
works like a mystical cellphone.

Sleestak Mafia Tommygun
Once per day, can shoot a ray that turns the target into a robot. It's possible but difficult to save or dodge.  Any character hit, in addition to being a robot, will be under the control of the Shooter.  Over the course of days, weeks or months it's possible for some to resist the Sleestak's control, but they're still robots.  This is where the robot underground comes from.

Otherwise the tommygun shoots lazers that don't have to go in a straight line and do as much damage as a pole arm.   

Ninja vs. Aerobics and Make Game Stuff Right Now

Last night I watched Ninja III: the Domination and this gem of 80's cinema validates completely my notion of Cursed Blades at least if you equate demons with ninjas, let's not worry too much about the details.  Ninja III also validates the writer/directors opinion regarding the erotic possibilities of V8 juice, but that's also a detail we shouldn't worry too much about.  Anyway I recommend the film, though my girlfriend would not.  

Let's change the subject.

Sometimes I'll be thinking about D&D and I'll obsess over something stupid like saving throws or thieves skills or how much damage two-handed swords should do, when what I should be thinking about is how to make my next game more awesome.  I mean I love thinking about saving throws or thieves skills or how much damage two-handed swords should do and we should all do that, we really should but then it'll be game night and I'll have half a map so we'll play Cataan and that's fine and great but not what this blog is about it's about actual D&D-type gaming.  That stuff is like, "Hi my name is Steve and I'll be your server for the evening" and what I need is the stuff cookin up in the kitchen. (more back of house and less front of house)   

So what I'm going to start doing is pretending like the time that I have to noodle over D&D is all I have before the next game. Today I did and this is what I came up with:


Wizard Wastes Encounter Table:
1 wyvern
2 humanoid scouts 
3 merg band (merg are running bird riding mongols, great riders and archers)
4 caravan beleaguered and off route, will pay for guidance, replace with another human group from civilization after this is rolled
5 dinosaur, lone carnivore 
6 dinosaur, group of herbivores
7 Cactus treants, replace with another plant thing after rolled
8 Giant centipedes
9 pteradactyls
10 giant undead spider, weirdly friendly humanoid shaman riding/living inside, replace with another weird thing after rolled


Events Table
Sandstorm: this doesn't happen randomly, it happens when the ruined city is fleshed out by DM, storm exposes city under the dunes

Rumors: beginning players hear all of these, work them into an intro monologue, tales of the crusty hermit style:
1 Ruined structures, ancient carved stones buried in the dunes
2 spending night under temple will turn humans into ghouls, some say ghouls are doomed forever, some say they can be changed back to humans 
3 demon city full of powerful magic is under temple
4 other wizards manses dot the rim of the wastes, some ancient, some new

Some things in the Wizard Wastes:
Oasis: mud, water, bamboo, some trees, likely to encounter
Obelisk: very weathered ancient obelisks dot the desert
Ruin: very weathered stone buildings, a few walls only



Encounters below the Temple:
1 Ghouls
2 giant centipedes
3 toad men subteranean desert dwellers
4 MU and mercs
5 

Toad men traps, involve sandbag weights, stone slabs, random scavenged sharp things, fiber chords, pits, meant to trap ghouls mostly, they'll dig a smooth pit, cover it with weak wood, and cover the whole path with sand.

Toad men holds defended well against ghouls, they tunnel themselves. 
Toadmen weapons are dried root clubs w shards of sharp stone, cactus spine blowgun darts, slow if hit (half move, -2 to hit, effects ghouls)
Toad men go to surface at night only, to hunt desert owls, forage cactus...
Toadmen chief is corrupt, maybe possessed, Maybe has a cursed blade.

Clawblobs: gross oozes with many claws, climb as high as they can. (Put one or two in the roof of the temple) they are dimly intelligent, attack from above by falling on victim, clawing, clinging and enveloping in ooze. Absorb everything but stone, Get bigger when they feed and split. They smell like rotting meat.


Kinds of Monsters:
Monsters that move in from the desert (toadmen)
Monsters that spawn from chaos below (claw blobs)
Monsters from surface that make forrays below (humanoids, other MUs)Monsters originally from surface, corrupted by chaos below (Ghouls) 



This is certainly incomplete, but it came together very fast and it goes a long way towards filling in the most recent map I have started and the area around it.  My advice: Make Game Stuff Now!

Zabel's Return... with tentacles

 Recently I found this painting:

 Zabel's Return by Vardiges Sureniants

It's a nice painting, right?  Queen Isabela of Armenia is returning to the throne.  But wait a minute, what is that guy on the far left looking at?  It really looks like he's staring with a shocked look on his face at something over her head.  It must be that he's supposed to be looking at the crown, but not to disparage mister Sureniants at all, it really looks like he's looking above the crown to me.  is somebody waving at him?  did he spy an assassin?  What's going on?

The only conclusion I've come up with is that there's actually supposed to be cthulhoid tentacles reaching from behind the curtains, and the guy on the left is the only one who made his initiative/surprise roll.  So, I've fixed the painting:

I haven't been able to figure out what the rules are regarding modifying public domain art.  If this isn't legal maybe somebody let me know.

What Happens When a Wizard Dies

When a Magic-User croaks roll a d6:

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A WIZARD DIES
1	The Magic-User's spirit may take one action per level as if a 20 were rolled for each action. Possible actions are anything a human could be able to perform including speak. Spell casting is not possible. The spirit of the Magic-User appears ghostly and is as intangible as desired.
2	The place of the Magic-User's death is imbued with Mana* equal to the M-U's level x d6. This Mana will manifest gradually over d6X weeks. Manifestations may include:   (d6X=exploding d6, reroll and add if a 6 is rolled)	1	fungi
		2	crystals
		3	stones
		4	man-made objects left in the area
		5	slime
		6	animals in the area
3	The killers hand warps, atrophies and falls off causing d4 damage per level of the M-U. The hand, if not destroyed with a ritual will:	1	Turn to stone and in d6 hours will grow into a:	1	Troll
				2	Gargoyle
				3	Gorgon
				4	Basilisk
				5	Demon
				6	Earth Elemental
		2	Come alive imbued with the M-U's spirit
		3	Fall to the earth and sprout a Creep Tree**
		4	Crystallize, and crystals spread in all directions 100' per day. Max days=M-U's level
		5	Turn into an Imp and serve the nearest evil M-U.
		6	Fall to the earth and spread an undead plague in all directions 100' per day. Max days=M-U's level
4	Every one within 10' per level of the M-U are consumed in ghostly fire. (d6 damage per M-U's level. Save for half damage.)
5	The M-U remains linked to one of his personal possessions the way a Demon is linked to a Cursed Blade.
6	The place of the M-U's death is haunted by their spirit forever.

* Mana can be used in the following ways:

1  Burned up by a M-U to cast a spell.  One Mana is equivalent to a spell slot of the highest level spell the M-U may cast.

2  It can be burned when researching a new spell, one Mana is equal to d12x1000 GP for this purpose.

3  If a Magic-User gives it to a non-Magic-User to consume, the non-Magic-User can cast a single spell of the Magic-User's choice that is in the Magic-Users spell book.

** A Creep Tree is like an evil Ent with twisty ropey roots.  They are really sneaky, surprising 4/6, and they can move really fast in short bursts. They are intelligent and obsessed with ruining cities and civilization.  They will find the biggest and best city and climb the highest building like King Kong or the tree in the courthouse roof in Greensburg Indiana and from there whisper evil things into the dreams of everyone who sleeps in the city.