Final DIY 30 post

Hi, normally I put off these posts just because I procrastinate but I missed yesterdays deadline due to mental health reasons. Sorry for the inconvenience.

30. Share something cool you made if you can at all justify it as RPG related.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/201856/The-Meat-Gods

I made this. I think its pretty cool.

Note: I'm gonna be writing another Halloween adventure this year, so I'll keep you posted on that

De Yai Wai thordy 29

29. Goblins are great. Why or why not?

I love goblins.

I love them an awful lot, they're just so wonderful to use.

There are so many directions you can take goblins in. Are they chaotic, nonsensical little green folk who are humorous but deadly?

 Are they creepy giggling child-things which steal infants from their cribs and dwell in the walls of decrepit houses?

 Or are they vegetarian monsters which transform humans into plants?

The possibilities are endless.

I tend to lean towards creepy with all of my interpretations of monsters, so goblins are usually pretty nasty and ugly. Unhealthily pale skin, warts, and asymmetrical faces. They eat kids and hide under beds, and they can be found everywhere. Demons and dragons are beyond the reach of the typical peasant, far away beings that you hear about in stories. But goblins haunt the nightmares of the common folk.

All other goblinoid type monsters fill this same niche. Orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls, kobolds, bugbears, xvarts, redcaps, the list goes on. They're fundamentally just people, with some slight monstrous differences. Its something easily believable, they're almost just natural animals.

But there's something off about them. You can't imagine a goblin taking loving care of its children or sending diplomats to cities. They're just nasty and evil. You can't really have that with people. Even the most despicable of individuals has compassion and love. It may be buried underneath layers of bigotry and evil, but they're still complex creatures. A goblin isn't. A goblin will smash a vase over your head because its funny, they'll steal children and eat them because its just what they do.

And that is creepy.

Die Ei Wai Thurdee 28

28. What's a really cool imaginary place you've made up? Draw a map of it. Don't worry it's just a map. E'rybody can make maps.

Screw it I made a map of a place completely improvised based on some ideas I had lying around.

This is the Howling Desert, so named due to the fact that there are harsh winds here. Because magic is a thing and wizards are godawful, these winds are even worse than normally possible, and contain air elementals.

The Dome is the only major settlement here. Its a giant octagonal thing made from glass and steel, and it contains an oasis within. Within the dome is a nearly tropical environment, with arboreal houses, though there are also extensive mines beneath the artificial forest floor.

The Mountain Gate leads into the mountains, and leads down into an endless stairwell that nobody has returned from. It is said that Fyreiclau, an ancient and powerful dragon, descended the stairwell and eats any who try to reach the bottom.

The Tomb Palaces are two enormous 4 sided pyramids full of living statues, mummified corpses, and bound demons. They were built for an ancient matriarchal society of sorceresses. The Big Palace contains the mummy last queen of the society, before they moved to a more democratic system of government and also royally screwed over the environment with magic. The Small Palace contains the mummies of her dozen husbands.

Dee Eye Why Thirty 19 through 27 AAAAAAAAHHHHHH

Wow I sure did procrastinate on this didn't I?

19. What single change would you make to a popular D&D setting and why?

Screw it lets go with Greyhawk: We don't need this many pseudo goblins. Xvorts, kobolds, orcs, hobgoblins, mites, all those guys, they can just be one thing. Just have goblins be themselves. Even Tolkien didn't make a distinction between goblins and orcs. They're the same.

20. Describe a mechanic you would put into your Science Fiction Heartbreaker.

You have a space fever stat. You know how people stuck in a cabin go kinda bonkers after a while? Its like that but with a spaceship. The more time you spend in a ship without leaving, the higher this stat gets. When doing something stressful, you have to roll over your space fever stat or you don't do it and start babbling about the void.

21. Most unexpected spell that helped you get past the walls of the Fortress of See.

Light. The honorable pastor Matthew cast the spell to distract the countless eyes that dot the fortress walls, allowing him to sneak through one of the fortress's many mouth-doors.

22. Describe Milk Demons for me. What do they do, what are their names, what do they taste like?

They look like oozes made from rancid milk, and they like to go inside cows. They crawl into their udders and corrupt the cows, transforming them into cruel demonic cattle. Milk demons all have names that sound like bubbles, such as Borbleglook, Durble, and Bipplewip. Anyone who dares to try and drink from a milk demon will find that they taste delicious, like ice cream, shortly before the idiot's bones melt.

23. How should gods work in a game?

They don't. There may be gods, but they don't actually care that much. Clerics/priests/whatever are basically tricking gods into giving them what they want. Unless you call special attention to yourself, gods aren't likely to notice you.

In fact, though many zealous folk claim that gods created all that is, it is far more likely that a mixture of physics, evolution, natural magic, and only the slightest bit of divine intervention actually created the world as we currently know it

24. If the object closest to your left hand right now was a magic item in your campaign, what would it do?

Purple colored pencil. You can draw living constructs with it, but it drains your life force to do so.

25. The last thing you drank is a potion. What are its effects?

Milk. The "potion" is actually a milk demon in a jar. Your bones melt. Idiot.

26. Your childhood pet is now a monster. How is it going to kill me?

Smudge is a small cat-like being that haunts 1 room in a house. It blends into the background, hides under beds, generally stays out of notice. But as time goes on it becomes bolder, leaving scratches and bite marks on you while you sleep. Eventually, it slits your throat.

27. So what's with that overly-elaborate locked box?

Its full of weird BDSM demons that will tear your soul apart.

Just kidding, it stores the finger of a powerful dead demon god. The box is enchanted, blessed, and virtually indestructible, to prevent cultists of the dead monster from bringing it back to life.

Brain Fart 1

Where did these organisms come from????

Trees are:

The veins of the universe, and the reason why magic works

Really slow squid

Slow flowing liquid that disobeys the laws of gravity and goes upwards

Giants that fell asleep and never woke up (at least the really old trees are)

Goblins are:

Big frogs with swords

Halfings' shittier cousins

The evil thoughts of humanity brought to life in the rapidly regenerating bodies of stillborn infants

Weird people shaped things that form out of nasty holes in the ground

Monkeys that got too smart and now they kill people

Dragons are:

Lizards that drank demon blood and now they're big

The personifications of greed

what happens when you accumulate too much wealth and don't spend it

War machines from an ancient age

Apes are:

False men, monkeys evolved to look like children so they can sneak around by night.

What humans become if exposed to a strange disease.

The devolved creators of humanity, who came to Earth thousands of years ago.

Cats are:

The eyes and ears of faeries, they use them to keep watch on humanity

The reincarnated souls of wizards and witches

Minor deities

Chimeras and manticores and other monsters made from bits and pieces of other animals are:

The result of teleporter malfunctions a la the fly

A bunch of animals sewn together by scientists/mad wizards

The kids of people who reproduced with demons or faeries

Dreams given form

Oozes and slimes are:

All the fluids in the human body that refuse to die and just keep living

Swarms of tiny, tiny, gnomes

God got stabbed and his blood became ooze

Ectoplasm

DIY 30 days 16, 17, and 18

Hi welcome to once every three days post dump. Lets get started shall we?

16. Make an equipment list for a post apoc setting, using only things in 1 room of your home. Garage and kitchen are easy mode.

See this is is easy as hell because my room is cool:

1. Short Sword of ancient Scottish design
2. Dagger
3. Mace (Its garbage though, and breaks after 1d6 uses)
4. Walking Stick
5. Water Jug
6. Nature Guidebook (Bonus to survival checks)
7. Plastic Trombone
8. Microphone with a several yard long cord
9. Bottle of hand sanitizer
10. Cap gun (not real but looks realistic enough to give a bonus to intimidation checks)

17. What political situation existed 500 years ago, and how does its fall affect the world of today?

There was a nation of dragon riders and a nation of powerful wizards. One of these nations did something to piss off the other, and they got into a huge war. 

The dragon riders managed to recruit the help of giants, and razed the wizards' kingdom to the ground, leaving nothing but ashes and underground ruins. 

However, the wizards unleashed a final spell that irrevocably ruined the fabric of reality in the dragon riders' nation. 

As a result of this, you now have two regions full of treasure to be looted. One is a wasteland of ash and destroyed buildings, inhabited by scavengers and things that live in the underground tomb-fortresses, and the other is a wacky and gonzo radioactive hellscape where physics doesn't make sense.

18. The wizard has researched a new spell named “Chance Minutia.” What does the spell do?

The spell appears to do nothing, but one subtle change is made to reality, determined by the GM. Perhaps a word is now spelled slightly differently, or someone's eye color changes. If enough wizards cast this spell at once, it could make the world a very different place...

DIY 30 days 13, 14, and 15

This is rapidly becoming less of a RPG a day thing as it is an RPG every 3 days thing, but who is keeping score anyhow?

13. Three Sports Wizards Play

1. How many shots can you take and still be able to do the exact calculations needed to summon an imp?
2. Frog Uglying. You find a frog and mess with it magically to make it as gross and ugly as possible, while still technically being alive.
3. Competitive Time Stasis Hide and Seek: These games can take years for the competitors, but take no time at all for everyone else. 

14. Roll a d20 and count down that many photos on flickr.com/explore. Thats your prompt.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/aizkorbe/37083369771/in/explore-2017-09-14/

So the first thing this picture made me think was "Silent Hill But Its In The Woods" and honestly thats just such a good concept I'm gonna roll with it, and write up 3 monsters that would show up in this setting:

Dryad

These things look vaguely like the outline of a woman, but thats where the resemblance ends. They have no actual limbs, what looks like legs and arms are merely protrusions from their flesh, fused to their body. Their fingers trail and branch off like roots, forming tentacles an inch thick covered in thorns that propel it forward. 

The monster's face is the worst. It is the highly detailed visage of a beautiful lady carved into its stiff flesh, and sap-like blood oozes from the lines. The face never changes, even as the beast's thorns stab into you.

HD 2

AC as leather

Attacks 2

Damage 1d6 each

Morale 12

Fake Owl

At first you think its an owl but no, owls are feathered and cute. But this? This thing is fleshy and wet and looks like someone covered a baby in too much skin before extruding wing-like flaps of flesh out of its head.

It has two enormous piercing eyes that glow a pale blue, and has foot long talons.

HD 1

AC as leather

Attacks 1

Damage 1d6

Morale 12

If you are in the vision of a Fake Owl you are in bright light and everyone can see you.

Big Bad Wolf

Theres a kind of material called Vantablack that absorbs 99 point something percent of visible light. If you paint something with this material, it becomes a silhouette, wrinkles on foil disappear from sight. It looks like you're staring into the void. Thats what looking at the Big Bad Wolf is like.

At a glance it looks canine, but the longer you look at this unearthly black mass the more wrong it looks. The muzzle is too long, the skeletal structure is all wrong, and you swear you've never seen a wolf with a tail that thin. The Big Bad Wolf never makes noise, unless it is about to attack, in which case it emits a terrifying sonic screech that is so loud it physically hurts.

HD 7

AC as leather

Attacks 1 bite or 1 screech

Damage 1d6+2 bite or 3d6 screech (save halves damage)

Morale 12

15. Write a pitch for how you'd change a shitty game into a good game.

4e but you're all demigods. Why does the warrior get weird special abilities that don't make sense? Because he's the son of Ares and he's phoning his dad for help. 

The reason why all your conflicts slowly get more and more ridiculous and divinely important as you level up is because you're Slowly Becoming A Damn Deity. You unlock better spells and attacks as you level up because you're ascending to godhood.

Fighters are children of Ares, clerics and paladins are Hephaestus's kids, rangers are children of Artemis, wizards and warlocks are the kids of Hecate, rogues are descendants of Hermes, etc etc.

Theres already a crap ton of mythological beings in the monster manuals, just grab them and go. Maybe XP is their life energy or something, I dunno.

Anyway I'll post more soonish I still need to write a session report for my last playtest.

DIY 30 Days 10, 11, and 12

I gotta catch up on this so here is another post.

10. What is beyond the wall?

Beyond the walls of the Great City, the world is divided into petty fiefdoms, each ruled by a lord. These self appointed rulers often give themselves ludicrously grandiose titles, regardless of how much land they may actually control. For example, a man that calls himself "The Gold Crowned Emperor Of Laurencia" may actually only control 5 square miles of land and rule over a hundred people.

Monsters roam the countryside, with goblins, faeries, dragons and worse killing at will. Most "kingdoms" have a small militia, but few are really capable of standing up to the monsters. Thus, adventurers and monster hunters are almost always needed. 

11. Why is the stone circle on the hill broken?

The stone circle on the hill was once a kind of temple or church, used by ancient people for worship. However, long ago these people angered the fae, and were slaughtered by them. All that remains of their culture is the broken stone circle and the goblin haunted catacombs beneath.

Sometimes some teenagers go up on the hill for a dare, and usually come back okay. Those that don't come back are killed by goblins, or worse; taken alive into their lair.

12. What is there to do when stationed on an interstellar lighthouse?

If you're lucky you can get yourself an omnicube, a recording device containing all public domain human media. That should keep you occupied for a while, but they cost quite a bit. Alternatively, you could always listen to the subspace radio, keep up on galactic politics. The reception tends to be a bit crap, due to the lighthouse's small receiver, but you can occasionally pick stuff up. Another option is black market drugs. Buying hallucinogens from other planets can be a bit of a stress on your wallet, but the results can be truly breathtaking.

DIY 30 Days 8 and 9

Sorry, I've been busy for the past couple of days and haven't been able to post. Anyway, here is what I wrote for the DIY RPG meme for days 8 and 9.

8. ¨Mommy, what are tooth faeries like, and what do they do with all the teeth?¨

Faeries are weird and highly varied creatures. Some try to categorize them into different types, like brownies, dwarves, elves, and gnomes, but these categories aren't exactly correct or logical. Its like how medieval scholars thought barnacles were a kind of bird, humans just get things wrong about them. Changelings (the more human faeries that get dumped with people because they're annoying and fleshy and talk funny), like the playable halflings, dwarves, and elves, are the most consistent kind of faerie, but others are more nebulous and confusing.

In any case, sometimes faeries just take kids' teeth. If you're lucky, its when the tooth is about to fall out anyway, but if not, they could always just whisper some magic words with their false tongues and make your kid's teeth fall out like raindrops. Just pray they don't try to make them grow more teeth back.
Table of what faeries did with your teeth (Roll 1d12)

1. They planted them into the ground and grew a new You, which they took deep into the blackest woods and ate. 
2. They made magical swords from your teeth, beautiful ivory blades forged from the molars of countless children. These swords are extremely deadly, and are said to be the only way to kill one of the more powerful faerie lords. 
3. They ate them. They have vast feasts in the forest, beautiful pointy eared delicate creatures munching and crunching on the stolen bone of children. 
4. They made bone knuckles. They´re like brass knuckles but they´re made with teeth. 
5. The teeth are used for some unspeakable purpose in faerie reproduction. 
6. The faeries make protective wards against goblins with them. They will not acknowledge that they make these wards. 
7. They give them to trees so the trees have mouths. The trees that are given mouths realize they´re alive and get up and start killing things. 
8. Dentures. Look, even faeries get old, over aeons. 
9. They're used as a building material for the smaller faeries. 
10. The faeries have tiny little hermit crab-like creatures that they keep as pets, and they use teeth as homes for these pets. 
11. They've thrown them down a hole and don´t talk about it. Do not ask them what its for. 
12. Faeries like to put them in the mouths of wolves to freak out hunters when they find wolves with grinning human teeth. 

9. Who rules the deepest sea floor?

The sea floor is hard to reach, requiring powerful magic or technology beyond current science. But, if one was able to walk across its surface, they would find darkness and death. The corpses of whales slowly being picked apart by scavengers, the ruins of ships moving across the sea floor, propelled by currents like winds and crewed by ghosts.

Few intelligent creatures live in this forbidding landscape, but there are the fishfolk. Also called mermaids by land dwellers, the fishfolk are humanoid creatures of varying piscoid nature. Some can change their shape, and use this ability to lure sailors to their doom. They are the unopposed rulers of the depths, and it is said that they worship a powerful demon of cursed water.

DIY 30 Days 6 and 7

6. There are 6 kinds of vampires. Don't be boring.

One: Aristocratic

They are very fancy men, they suck blood with expensive golden straws and wear posh suits. They can bite, they have sharp teeth because they are vampires, but they much prefer to have their servants (usually goth vampire wannabes) capture victims and tranquilize them. If they particularly like your blood, they will keep you alive in their basement and bring you out for parties.

Two: Dropper

You know how ticks sit on leaves and fall down and land on people? These vampires do that, but they climb buildings. They are all skinny at first, but when they land on their victim and suck out their blood, they get a little bigger. The really successful ones are really large, but can still cling to sheer surfaces like an arachnid. They aren't very talkative, but they aren't stupid either.

Three: Blood-drink Clouds

These vampires spend most of their time as a cloud of gas. They have creepy red eyes floating inside the gas, and they look like an old Star Trek monster effect. They only condense to feed on their victims, taking the form of a tall pale humanoid with sharp teeth and red eyes.

Four: Teethrakers 

These nasties live in sewers. They have big lamprey mouths, wrinkly skin, and they smell bad. They're very stupid, but they're still strong and deadly like other vampires. Their bite not only drains blood, but may infect you with a terrible disease.

Five: Dramatics

The dramatic vampire feeds on blood, but something about their transformation makes them need to be noticed. They have an intense desire for attention. These are the kinds of monsters that wear black cloaks with red linings, stand atop towers during thunderstorms, and sleep in fancy sarcophagi. They are just as dangerous as other vampires, but often easier to catch due to their inability to stay unnoticed.

Six: Bat

Bat vampires look like what would happen if you took a vampire bat and stretched it into a human shape, then shaved it. They dress in rags and have enormous ears, relying on echolocation. They can fly because they're magical, but their "wings" are just very long fingers with some skin between them. They have high pitched squeaky voices and are super annoying.

7. What happens when you water trees with goblin blood?

If the tree was home to faeries, they hate you now.

If the tree was dying, now it is dead.

If the tree was useful, a stump is found the next morning, with goblin axe marks on it.

If the tree had a bird's nest in it, the mother abandons her children and lets them starve to death.

If the tree gives fruit, the fruit tastes sour.

DIY 30 Day 5

5. What sort of abilities would a Bug Knight class give to a character?

You're an ascended insect, given sapience and a vaguely humanoid form by your patron, which is some sort of powerful lawful being. You have no need for armor, naturally possessing a chitinous exoskeleton, and you are proficient with shields and all melee weapons. You also are granted some minor powers from your patron, and can cast cleric spells as a cleric of half your level, rounding up. 

Bug Knight 

Hit Dice: D8s

Armor Proficiency: None, but by default you have an armor class equivalent to chain mail. You can use shields though.

Weapon Proficiency: All melee weapons.

Experience Progression: As Elf (Or magic-user/fighter if using a race separate from class system)

Saving Throws: As Fighter of equivalent level.

Spell Casting: You can cast cleric spells as a cleric of half your level.

Linguistic Pheromones: You can speak with all kinds of arthropods through the release of chemicals.

Arthropod Origin: You can choose one of the following species of bug, gaining the benefit described, or talk to your game master to come up with another type.

• Spider: You have a natural bite attack which you can use in lieu of your normal melee attack. It deals 1d4 damage on a successful hit, and requires the target to make a poison saving throw or take an additional 1d6 damage per Bug Knight level.
• Mantis: You have two natural claw attacks which you can use instead of your melee weapon. Each one deals 1d6 damage. If both hit, then your target is grabbed and must make a saving throw versus dragon breath to escape.
• Grasshopper: You can leap 60' feet instead of moving normally on your turn. If you attack while leaping, you take a -2 penalty to hit but deal and additional +2 damage.
• Cockroach: You can eat almost any organic material, and are immune to all forms of poison.
• Firefly: Your butt glows like a lantern. Hey c'mon, admit it, thats pretty cool.
• Land Crab: You can breath underwater, and your armor is treated as plate instead of chain mail. But you can only walk sideways and diagonally.
• Pill Bug: You can, as a move action, curl up into a ball. This increases your effective armor class to Plate mail and Shield +1. However, while in this state, you cannot do anything else except wait or uncurl from your ball as a move action.

Code Of Honor: If you use an alignment system in your game, Bug Knights must be the most lawful and good alignment available. They must strive to protect the innocent, to vanquish evil wherever it may strike, and to assist the poor when able. If a Bug Knight chooses to not follow this code of honor, they will lose 1 point of intelligence per day until they gain forgiveness from their patron. At 1 intelligence, they revert back to the bug they originally were.

DIY 30 Day 4

4. Make a monster based on your deepest fear

Mimics are demonic creatures which can assume the form of another creature. Usually, these beasts' main goals are the acquisition of more biomass, but some of the more intelligent ones gain a sick pleasure in imitating their victims.

One individual, known as the Perpetrator, usually takes the form of a well respected member of a community. This person may be a king, a baron, or even a somewhat popular artist, the Perpetrator does not care. While using this person's shape, the Perpetrator commits a crime of some kind. The crime the Perpetrator commits varies depending on who they are mimicking. For example, if the Perpetrator was disguised as a famously chaste holy man, the creature may go visit a brothel and make its presence obvious. If the Perpetrator's victim was a outspoken pacifist, it would kill someone violently in public.

After committing the crime, the Perpetrator slinks into the shadows to watch the conflict. It will plant evidence that its victim was really at the scene of the crime, making it seem like its victim is guilty without any doubt. When its victim's reputation is finally ruined beyond repair, the Perpetrator sneaks into their house in the middle of the night and kills them, absorbing their biomass and leaving behind a suicide note to make it seem like their victim killed themselves in some way that would destroy the body.

What Is A Goblin?

What is a goblin? What are those things you find in dungeons that crawl and skulk in the shadows, stabbing at you with sharp bone knives and staring into your soul with their hateful shining eyes?

Why do they hate you? Why do they build traps to kill and maim and hurt? Why do they cackle with glee as they cut out the entrails of your fallen comrades?

Why do they stay away from the light? How come they are so much more dangerous by darkness than in broad daylight? They must need to see after all, why else would they have eyes?

How do they breed? Do they breed at all? How come they are already in tombs and crypts and ruins and labyrinths long before humans break down the bricks that seal them in?

What do they eat? Is it the adventurers they kill? The mushrooms growing in their damp caves and moldy passages? The fierce red eyed rats the size of dogs that squeak and scurry in the unnatural darkness of the goblins’ lairs?

How are they related to the faeries? Why do faeries refuse to talk about them? Do faeries fear goblins? Can faeries even experience fear? Why is the goblins’ language so similar to the faeries’ own tongue?

Why do they hoard treasure and magic items that they never use? They have no need for commerce, no need for money, so why do they have chests full of glittering gold and jewels? 

Why are there no baby goblins? Do goblins age? How old is the beast I just killed? A day? A month? An aeon?

Why do some call them kobolds while others call them orcs, and yet still others insist that they are gnolls? Whats the difference? Why does it even matter, if they are all the same type of creature anyway?

Why are they so pale and nearly hairless? Why do they need such sharp teeth? Why are they so twisted and malformed? Is this what they consider beautiful? Do they even have a concept of beauty?

WHAT IS A GOBLIN AND WHAT DO THEY WANT FROM US??

DIY 30 Days 2 and 3

2. Whats a campaign you would love to play in, but nobody is running?

Completely gonzo genre mash up. All the different universes and time periods have smashed together into one weird physically impossible mess. Giant crashed spaceships controlled by goblins, World War 1 soldiers riding tyrannosaurs, armies of zombie dwarves with machine guns, that sort of thing. Characters could be made using any sort of race/class combination from anything in the OSR, as long as it was vaguely balanced. An adventuring party could be composed of an elf, a mutant, a deep one hybrid, a gray alien cleric, and an 18th century pirate, so long as the classes were all OSR.

3. How can a monster harm a character in a new and unusual way?

If this monster touches you your bones grow longer. At first its just uncomfortable, but as the thing caresses and pokes you more and more you can feel your bones begin to pierce through your fingertips.

If this continues for long enough, your ribs curve into your lungs and your spinal column stabs through your brain, killing you painfully.

DIY 30 Day 1

This 30 days of DIY RPG thing was posted, and it looked like fun, so I'm doing it.

1. What is a heretofore unknown secret of Troll ecology?(Beware, poorly thought out pseudoscience below)

It is widely known that trolls turn into stone when exposed to sunlight. What is not known is that this process is caused by a strain of strange algae that has a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with their troll host. Curiously, this algae somehow gains energy from the absence of light, and this seemingly impossible power helps fuel trolls' regenerative process.

Large amounts of UV light cause a chemical reaction in these bizarre organisms, rapidly transforming the carbon inside their cells into silicon. This process releases extreme amounts of energy, which is what kills the troll, and is why trolls' stony corpses seem to steam after the reaction takes place. Trolls were originally a relatively normal subspecies of giant, but at some point they were joined with this darkness powered algae. Some claim it was a purely process of evolution, that just happens to have occurred only in trolls, while others believe that they are the creation of a mad sorcerer.

Setting Idea I Came Up With At 11:15 PM

You and your party members woke up in a town. The town is old, but it is new, there is a mixture of architecture spanning centuries, but it is almost all crumbling and abandoned. Monsters lurk in the ruins, strange and terrifying.

Your comrades seem to come from different worlds. One is a dwarf out of norse legend, yet another is a World War One submarine captain. The monsters in the town don't seem to make sense, they act more like puppets piloted by some unseen entity than real creatures, scary masks worn by a hidden force.

You can find gold coins, all minted with the same pattern, all seemingly brand new. There are settlements of scavengers throughout the town, and in each settlement is a merchant, covered in black cloth. If you give a merchant gold coins, they will give you something in return.

Do you find out the secrets of the town? Or do you merely want to escape? Do you wish to conquer the various tribes that live in this strange place? The choice is yours.

2d6hack Playtest Session One

Our heroes and hirelings for this evening are:

Job, a wizard
Grog, a warrior
Richard Dicky, a crazed hireling with a scalpel
Bartholomew, an NPC wizard who assisted the party
Bert, the hireling and friend of Bartholomew the occultist

The heroes found themselves in the Shattered Lands, an ashy waste dotted with subterranean vaults. A new dungeon had recently been discovered, and the party decided to investigate and search for treasure, hiring a shady individual named Richard Dicky for assistance.

They descended into the tunnels and found themselves face to face with 3 albino wolves. During a fierce combat, one of the wolves is slain and the other two flee, and Richard Dicky meets his untimely demise. The survivors find a small stash of coins hidden behind some loose bricks in the wall, and retreat back to the surface to nurse their wounds.

After purchasing some armor and joining forces with Bartholomew and Bert, and occultist and his servant, they once more enter the dungeon, where they encounter a single walking corpse, which is promptly slain. Heading west, the group discovers a room with a red and black checkerboard pattern on the floor and spikes on the ceiling, from which the corpse of one of the wolves that fled is dangling. They quickly determine the nature of the trap, and manage to avoid the spikes by stepping only on the black squares.

Continuing onward, the party finds a small bookshelf along with a reading desk. Bartholomew finds a scroll of disguise and pockets it. The party continues to move west, and enter a room filled with art and two statues.

Job and Grog are cautious, but Bartholomew orders Bert to pick up a small sculpture. Immediately, the two statues spring to life, attacking Bert. Bert flees, breaking his shield to avoid being smashed, but one of the statues catches up to him and snaps his leg in half, exposing bone. Bert passes out from shock, and Grog fires his pistol at one of the statues, blowing a chunk out of its head. Bartholomew and Job both fire magical bursts of energy at the statues, Job knocks off one of the statue’s arms, and Bartholomew decimates one’s leg, which causes it to fall on top of Bert, smashing his skull. The party then flees.

The party heads south, finding a room with a magical circle containing a skeleton and a gem. Grog smashes the skeleton with his war hammer, being careful to stay outside of the circle, before knocking the gem out of the circle by throwing his now empty pistol at it.

Going through a western door, the adventurers find a room covered with debris and rubble that covers the floor. They carefully prod at the debris, which causes a spike to shoot out of the floor. Fortunately, nobody was harmed, but they decide to retreat anyway. 

The party heads back to the entrance room, and heads north, finding an armory. Grog replaces his shield that he broke in a previous combat, and Job picks up a shield and some rusted swords to sell. Continuing north, the floor collapses, causing Job to be injured. The cautiously continue on, encountering a group of 6 goblins. They manage to scare off the goblins, and kill 2 of them. Following this encounter, the party heads back to town and sells off their loot.

End of Session


Kill Counter


Richard Dicky - Bitten to death by a wolf
Bert - Leg snapped and skull shattered by living statue

Notes From Players Regarding System

• Fun for the most part, ran smoothly
• Combat could get somewhat dull at times due to the bell curve of 2d6 combat

A Ramble On Spells As Treasure

I feel that a lot of people, myself included, don't really like the standard rules for spell acquisition and research in old Dungeons and Dragons. I tend to hand wave the whole affair, simply letting players choose what spells they learn as they level up.

However, the concept of spells as treasure has recently interested me a great deal. The concept of wizards delving deep into the Earth, facing monsters and traps to acquire a dusty old book of spells is quite interesting to me.


Such spell books are likely to be written in a strange language or cypher, or maybe the book is damaged. In this way, a game master could both rule that only some spells may be readable easily, perhaps 1 or 2 per book.  If a wizard wanted to get more use out of a recovered tome of spells, they would have to enlist the aid of a translator.

I picture that while fighters and other warrior types are looking for ancient magical swords, or powerful suits of armor, the magic users are scrounging through piles of old tattered books, desperately trying to find something of use.

These magic books could also be cursed, perhaps containing the soul of the wizard who wrote it, or as a vessel for a demon (like that one Buffy episode with the robot). Reading ancient books could be a sort of random encounter, rolling on a table to determine the exact kind of book. Perhaps something like this:

1. The book is indeed a tome of magic, but requires translation in order to be read.
2. The book is mostly blurry or damaged, but 1d3 spells can be read.
3. It seems this spell book was written by an apprentice, and only contains a single, low level spell.
4. This is a spell book of some kind, but the formulas are all wrong, and completely alien to you. There is a 50% chance of failure when trying to cast spells found in this book.
5. A demon is trapped in this book. Any who cast the spell that it is bound to will be possessed by it.
6. The spells' titles and descriptions have been written out of order. When casting a spell, the effects are of a random different spell of the same level.

Books of spells may also contain primarily one kind of magic. For example, a war mage's notebook would be mostly full of destructive incantations, and a demon cultist's mad scrawls would primarily be instructions on summoning beings from beyond. This could help add to the flavor or a dungeon, finding spell books left behind by the previous occupants.

The Church Of The Monocular Seer

The Monocular Seer is the title of a deity whose name is too long and bizarre to pronounce by human tongues. His followers, The Watched, believe that if one were to write down his name it would use up all of the paper on Earth. 

The Watched believe that The Monocular Seer observes everything in the universe, thus allowing it to exist. However, although he is a bringer of life and order, he is not a kind god. The Seer is a believer in strict morals and harsh punishment. According to the church, anyone who sins without repentance (which involves a donation to the church of course) is damned to Hell for all eternity. Any sin can cause this fall from grace, so long as it is not properly apologized for. 

As a result of this belief system, the Watched are extremely guilt ridden and paranoid. Constantly fearing for the safety of their very souls. Every week, the Watched gather in their churches and perform a ceremony to cleanse themselves of sin. 

The Seer's followers are very kind and polite, even to those they hate, for they believe that rudeness is a sin, and since any sin can damn them to Hell, they must be careful with their words.

The holy symbol of The Monocular Seer is an eye of providence, and the church's holy book is a long list of sins called The Lawbook.

Clerics of The Seer tend to wear simple armor, and are often flagellant.

Dreamblade Miniatures

Guess who just got some new miniatures in the mail? Well, probably a lot of people, but also me! I got a Dreamblade starter set off of eBay, and have decided to show off what I got.



Here is the Doomball, next to a D&D paladin on the left. This is one of the few miniatures I’ll get almost no use out of, he’s just a bit too boring and modern. Might be good for a sci fi game though.



The Rune Tagged Brawler, I think is what this guy is called. He has really crappy feet, which I messed up even more after I cut him off of his base and put him on a 28mm one. Oh well. He’d probably be good as a golem (not the boring living statue D&D ones, the kind from Jewish folklore).



The faceless stalker is a very good miniature, and would work well as a faerie or doppelgänger. Her paint job leaves something to be desired, but she is quite a usable figure.



The Boneclaw Hunter is a nice sculpt, but I’m not sure what to use him for. He’s a bit too monstrous looking for a PC, due to his sharp teeth and weird boils on his arm, but not nasty looking enough to be a half-orc in my opinion. He could work alright as a cave man perhaps, or someone possessed by a demon. 



The All Seeing Mage has faces on his hands and no proper head. He would work okay as a cult leader.



I absolutely love this miniature. The Savannah Dreamhunter is a really good PC miniature, and would work especially well for a Spears of the Dawn campaign. I like him a lot and I hope I’ll get a chance to use him some time.



I’m torn about this miniature. It’s a nice enough sculpt, but its hard to discern exactly what it is, but that could be a good thing if it was used as a sort of Lovecraftian abomination.



A samurai! I don’t have a use for him at the moment, but he is really cool.



This big ol’ demon thing would work well as a troll or ogre, so he’s a pretty useful miniature.



I think this guy is either a badger or a raccoon in armor, and he would be an okay stand in for a dwarf character.



The Mirrorman figure is the same on both sides; he has two heads, 4 arms, and 4ish legs. He’s a bit modern for D&D, but would work well for other games.



This figure is called a Dreamstuff Entity and it looks almost like a gibbering mouther or a protoshoggoth. 



Shark fin. Honestly I don’t think I’ll ever use this miniature.



The Jack Of Blades is an amazing figure, he’d work well as a nazgul, ghost, cultist, serial killer, or a Nightvalian hooded figure! I am so happy I got this guy.



This fellow is called an Ardent Zungar, which I assume probably means something in the lore of the game, but to me he looks like a 50s movie monster. He’d be good for a gamma world game, a modern sci fi scenario, or even a D&D game, as anything from an alien to a lizard man.



This isn’t so much a monster as it is dungeon dressing. Its called the Gateway To Psychosis, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it but I love it a lot.



Heres a photo after I rebased a few of them. As you can see, they look extremely good next to the paladin.

A Few Combat Systems

A lot of Dungeons and Dragons type games tend to be quite focussed on combat, and for good reason! It feels great to play a knight in shining armor, valiantly swinging your sword to lop off the head of a ferocious and deadly goblin. But there are a lot of different ways to determine how it all plays out.

Below are a few combat systems I like, that have cropped up across numerous games.

The Roll Over System

The Roll Over system is used in every edition of D&D after second, Lamentations Of The Flame Princess, and every other damn d20 system game ever made.

In essence, a roll over system involves rolling a die and hoping for a high roll. In D&D, this is typically the d20, which you then apply a bunch of modifiers to and try to roll over your target's Armor Class. Its much more straightforward than the weird combat charts of the older editions.

Pros

• Easy to explain to new players
• Easily scaleable, simply make the target number higher

Cons

• A little difficult to determine probability of hitting

The Roll Under System

The Roll Under method of combat is used in The Black Hack, Basic Role Playing, and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying (I think).

There may be different dice involved, different numbers to roll under, but the core mechanic is the same: Roll a die, you want to roll low. Its simple, quick, and efficient. Typically the number you must roll under in order to hit is listed on your character sheet, rather than in D&D where you roll a d20, add a bunch of modifiers, and hope for the best. In d100 systems, this typically means you know your percent chance of hitting when you're going to attack.

Pros

• Easy to determine probability of hitting
• Target number is typically listed on Players' character sheets

Cons

• Discourages risk taking in my experience, as players with decent chances (50% or so) may not attack as they feel its not worth the risk

Opposed Roll System

Opposed Rolls are used in Tunnels & Trolls and Fighting Fantasy.

With an opposed roll combat system, both the attacker and the defender roll dice. In most systems, whoever rolls a higher value deals damage, though in some cases a defender rolling a higher value may simply mean they dodged the attack. This system adds a touch of variability to opponents, as its difficult to determine how easy they are to hit. This can be a good thing, as it adds chaos and randomness to combat, but it also makes it difficult to figure out the odds.

Pros

• Can add chaos and excitement to combat

Cons

• If fighting against more powerful opponents in systems where the winner deals damage, it can be very difficult to survive, as chances are that the defender will deal more damage than the attacker
• Very difficult to determine chance of hitting an opponent

"Screw it you do damage" System

There are only a couple systems that use this mechanic, including Maze Rats, Into The Odd, and a homebrew role playing game I wrote when I was like 11.

With this system, all attacks hit, always. Either characters have large numbers of hit points or hit points represent dodging attacks, with permanent damage being dealt to another attribute. Armor is typically represented by damage reduction of some kind. This system makes combat very quick, but it can also be quite deadly.

Pros

• Extremely simple

Cons

• Can be quite lethal (though this isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on the game)

Cheap Miniature Roundup!

I’m on a roll of making miniature posts! This post is gonna be about custom minis that I’ve made, ranging from repaints to me sticking a toy on a plastic coin and calling it a day.



I bought a pack of 36 “guardian knights” on amazon, made by toysmith. They have some good molds and as you can see are almost in scale with standard miniatures. They costed about 9 bucks.



Here is an ogre/hill giant and a troll, both made from figures from a Lord of the Rings chess set. I haven’t used them much, but they look pretty good in my opinion.



This is a spider-person, which I made using a cheap spider toy, the torso of an “alien warrior” party favor (more of those later), and the head of an Aliens toy. I painted the whole thing purple with black for the weapons.



This weird looking figure is based on a demon from the Appendix M blog, and mostly made from a xenomorph figure.



On the left is an old toy skeleton I had that I painted up. Its quite a bit bigger than the standard D&D skeleton on the right, but it could work as an undead giant of some kind.



Velociraptors (technically deinonychus if we’re being scientific) make very good lizard people, or just dinosaurs. One of them has a Warhammer 40k choppa.



Blob wizards from when I tried to use modeling clay. Maybe they’re some weird kind of ooze.



A painfully badly made dragon on the far left, and some half-decent Earth elementals on the right, all made from modeling clay.



These are the “alien warriors” party favors I mentioned earlier. I use them as goblins or orcs. Theres also a picture of one of them being compared to a pathfinder orc, reaper orc, and a WOTC goblin.



This blobby miniature was a failed attempt at making an elder thing. Oh well.



Ninjas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not much else to say here honestly.



I love these skeletons, though I had to replace the bulbous heads for some of them to look vaguely realistic. 



I haven’t modified this in any way, its just something I found in a toob set a while back, and it looks great.



2 crab men and a spider with a skull for its butt. 



These demons were made by chopping off the “alien warrior” heads and replacing them with the left over skulls from the skeletons. I then glued some horns/antennae to their heads and painted them red.



Finally some dragons, bought for extremely low prices and glued to bases, as well as today’s Drax miniature next to a pathfinder orc for scale.