Crunchy Corner: The Inheritance of the Meek

Don't pick fights with drunk old men nor PCs with low stats.

With a handful of exceptions, all experienced DnD players fear the dreaded Rolling of 3d6 Straight. Allow me to explain. When making a character, there's a lot of variation on how to roll up the primary stats. Most people favor options that A) Allow the player flexibility in what numbers they assign to what stat and B) ensure a middling-to-high average.

3d6 Straight gives no promises. 3d6 is the cool hand of the green-eyed Lady. Feel her breath on the nape of your neck as she guides your dice-hand. Was that the sound of high-impact resin clattering together, or a soft giggle at your expense? Ah, look there... three ones.Write it down. No, not there... start at the top, with Strength, and work down.

Personally, I find something a bit... thrilling... about the idea. But then, maybe I'm a little jaded. I've seen enough characters with 10 or higher in most stats, and it's been so long since I've been a player instead of a DM that, you know what, let Luck tell me what class I'm going to be. If my stats are low across the board, I'll have to be all the more clever for it.

And there is a part of me that sometimes... just sometimes... wants to inflict 3d6 on my players as well. I see it as the best cure for a poison MMORPGs have unleashed on gaming. "Oh, we already have a damage-dealer and a healer, Clarice. We don't have a heavy spell-caster, though. Why don't you be a wizard?" Ick. I'm certain there's a lot of entertainment to be had from a party of nothing BUT barbarians against an evil sorcerer, or mostly clerics thinking up a smart way to defeat a dragon. Situations that make one think about "defeat" and whether it can only be defined as "slay."

But in DnD, I will never do this, because I can understand why players - especially new ones - want a promise of non-miserable stats and a bit of choice in who they'll be. But musing on this made me think of something that could be incorporated into a new system: What if there was a score that was higher the lower one's stats were?

This score would have to be carefully weighted in usefulness - the setting I have in mind has a spirit world, so my version is mainly useful there. I wouldn't want to make it pointless to have high stats, just... let's say that if you role high on your main stats, great, you are good at those things and bad at this other thing. If you role low, too bad but at least you're good at this other thing.

I'm thinking it's a set number that you subtract each stat from. It's probably a body of spendable points. A lot of people will no doubt find this laughable and player-coddling - and I don't care. After all, part of the intention is to make players more comfortable with rolling their stats straight with no do-overs - nothing coddling there. I'm not removing negative consequences of bad rolls; a low strength means you are not strong. I'm just adding a new variable to ensure the character is useful and enjoyable to play no matter how Luck shapes them.

People can build stupid shit without alien influence, thankyouverymuch.

Wrote this to my wife after some time spent researching tombs, and realized I might as well post it here. It's tangentially related to my recent dungeon thoughts.

Whoops!

It's a constant source of humor to me that, any time a fictional Egyptian-style pyramid appears, it is full of rooms and halls to the point of being almost hollow. This is because we think of them as buildings - as architecture.

They are not architecture - they are tombstones. Most of them were not even designed to be as big as they are. They were originally short narrow step pyramids like the older ones, maybe a bit bigger, and then they started falling down so stuff was piled onto them to shore them up. In the case of the Bent Pyramid, they screwed that up and halfway up it started to crush the tomb, so they changed the angle. The result was an empty pyramid - the pharaoh had another built. After all, would you want to be the one buried in the fucked up pyramid?

At that point, they had these big things sitting about as a result of having to essentially repair the old tombs, but no one wants to go in a smaller tomb than the other guy, so they started making them that way on purpose. They built their little chambers, then built a large pointless step pyramid on top, then another on that and another on than, then finally a smooth outer surface. Essentially mimicking a process that had been accidental - "Oh shit! Guyfacemcdudeatep's tomb is falling! Quick, make the slaves shove bricks against it!"

This is why people who think there is anything magic or supernatural or alien about Egyptian construction are wrong (or at the very least, wrong that they needed magic or aliens to do what they did).

This is about as complicated as it got. By the way, this one
fell in because it was too complicated.

Egypt was full of people, and people are the dumbest, smartest creatures on Earth. We don't need aliens to tell us how to make thousands of slaves work themselves to death over a few decades ensuring huge stones fit together perfectly. Give me unlimited manpower and years to achieve it, and I'll make you a space station. And they weren't that smart, were they? If you actually know anything about architectural history, you know it was a process of trial and error and building up of knowledge and skill over the course of a 2000-year civilization. We look at the Giza pyramids, with their stones so tight you can't slide an index card between, and forget the slabs over holes in the sand, the step pyramids, the collapsed failures, the screw-ups like the Bent Pyramid. We forget almost every single tomb we find was robbed within years of first being sealed up, because a granite slab is hard to get through but the sandstone it's fitted in is not. The workers (and even priests) that stuck the body in there just came back and tunneled around the door.

Furthermore, and more to the point of why people want to believe those massive, massive things have something in them besides a tunnel and a dead guy - the dead need not justify themselves to us. We can hold them accountable in our minds, pass judgment on what they did... but it means nothing to them. They had their reasons, and those reasons went with them.

No.

No.

The pyramids map the stars, sharpen razors, cure cancer, contain our genome, are spaceships, etc. etc. etc... they have to be SOMETHING, right? They're so... big and devoid of purpose and that can't be true. And it isn't, but the truth is that they are devoid of modern purpose. They make no sense today. But when they were built, for the people that built them, they were the most important things in the world. To them, it wasn't stupid to build the biggest structure in the world to house one tiny room with a single dead guy and his stuff in it. It wasn't a comedy of errors that they had to keep shoring them up and rebuilding them. It was all extremely meaningful.

We are the smartest, dumbest creatures in the world - we do remarkable things for nonsensical reasons. But they are reasons.

I imagine all this can be applied to dungeon design somehow. You figure it out.

Dungeons: A Visual Essay

Sympathize with the dungeon, for you are to it as pathogenic microns are to you. You were both built for a purpose, and as you subvert its own with torch and 10-foot pole, something inside you beats its flagellum ceaselessly down your corridors. Your chambers are well stocked with white monsters and glandular death traps, but the DM of Evolution has printed out a whole stack of character sheets.

There are five stories of cathedral below the cooled lava surrounding this church in Mexico. Dungeons are undead structures - they had a purpose in life but it died with them. Only echoes of it remain, but they lumber on, taking on new purposes and new inhabitants. A dungeon is a corpse, and corpses teem with new life.

(Very Large Image Alert) In Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which I call the Platonic Idea Dungeon, that previous life is readily apparent. Dracula was obviously a living man in this castle, or some form of it, once. In undeath, he's taken his armies, his staff, his court and even his fallen foes with him.

Of course, SoTN was merely putting the Castlevania aesthetic on Metroid's structure. Super Metroid may be the better dungeon, depending on your taste. While I don't quite count it because it's still serving it's original purpose - it's a base for the Space Pirates and there they are, basing themselves in it - it's still a great design.

Castlevania is the Platonic Dungeon

I’ve been thinking a lot about dungeons. You know, the second noun in the title of the two-noun-and-an-ampersand game we play? It’s funny how rarely I’ve ever really used either in a game.

Mmm... dungeony.

Dragons, eh. But dungeons - my lack of experience with dungeons is evidence of my youth - old school DnD is all about the dungeons (as a figure of speech: I know there’s more to the old-school ethos than that, so put away the flamethrowers). Still, I’ve thought about them a lot, and I’ve read plenty of dungeon modules from the TSR years.

They weren’t any good. Bits were good, but I’ve never encountered the Platonic Idea Dungeon.

Save one. It was a video game.

I submit Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (and the further 2D games that were rooted in it) as the Perfect Dungeon, the closest we may ever see to the Platonic conception of Pure Dungeoness.

It is non-linear - you can tackle areas in almost any order you care to. What you do in one area can affect another (powerups that allow you to reach areas you could not otherwise - not a perfect example but close). There are traps and tricks that make you start examining the pretty scenery closer. There’s a variety of monsters, of course. Lots of loot, much of it weird and special. There are secrets out the ass. But most importantly, the place feels like a place, not a bank in the ground custom built for the sole purpose of being robbed. It feels lived in... or unlived in or whatever.

Some examples of what’s so fucking great about SoTN:

• The castle has art galleries, a library, a chapel, an indoor colosseum, a clock tower, catacombs, a mine and pretty much everything but a kitchen, all stocked with appropriate enemies (undead pit fighters in the colosseum, angel-like things in the chapel, books in the library). This gives you a sense that this really was a ruler’s castle before things changed. Living people went about their business here, once, long ago.

WHAT is this asshole's deal, anyway?

• In said chapel, there’s a confessional you can use. A ghost priest will come if you sit on one side, while the ghost of a woman will show up if you sit on his. They will either listen to you or confess to you, or try to stab you through the confessional grate. What an awesome trap.

• Sometimes there’s just random weird shit, like a zombie kung-fu artist that attacks you in a room. There’s only one of him, he’s not a boss or anything... he’s just this unique single thing.

• There’s more than one faction in the castle, sort of. The Librarian will sell you goods and info. There’s a ferryman that will take you across an underground lake. There are two other characters loose in the castle doing their own thing against Dracula, but not with you. One of them has been brainwashed by Drac’s minions. Beyond that, there’s a ton of bosses with hinted backgrounds and motives of their own.

He's called Yorick in the English versions. I know. Sorry.

• There are elements you can use against the inhabitants, like teleporters and elevators. Oh, lets count save spots, why not.

• Did I mention secrets? SPOILER WARNING: 50% of the castle is only accessible if you wear a special item, don’t kill the person that looks like they’re responsible for things, and instead attack a magic ball. Do this and an entire, upside-down version of the place comes out of the sky, where the REAL bad guy is. This is all completely optional.

• A giant floating ball of screaming corpses.

This image comes with a bonus asterisk! *

SoTN does something that is very hard for a video game - it makes you forget you are essentially on an obstacle course with someone waiting at the end for you to assassinate them. The thing is, this should be easy to do in an RPG. Just construct a dungeon with a sense of purpose beyond the PCs, be it "An evil monarch who would later become a vampire lived here" or "we buried an important person here and by the Gods we want them to stay there."

In short, publish a dungeon module that was more like Castlevania and less like “in the room, there is 50 gp and a ochre jelly” and I’m a customer. Since I’ve not seen one... I’ll just have to make it myself, won’t I?

* Disclaimer 1: This image is from a later game using the SoTN model, I just thought it was metal as fuck. Disclaimer 2: I am not metal and the above statement should in no way betaken as accurate. I'm not responsible if you call this metal and Eddie from the Megadeth covers kills you in your nightmares.

Have a Secure, Unmolested Sizzlepissmas!

In my household, we do not celebrate Christmas. There is no Santa.

There is only the Solstice Night, when the sun is swallowed up and then slowly regurgitated by Sizzlepiss, the Solstice Opossum. She crawls up your duct work to leave "presents" in your shoes. If you've been naughty, she doesn't leave coal - she chews open your gas lines. Place the rotting scraps of your heathen feasts by your trash bins now and you may yet please her.

Sizzlepissmas is also celebrated in the City-State of Carrow, where gifts are exchanged much you do for your holidays. In honor, here's a random table for you. Technically, I made it up for a post on another forum, but it's the thought that counts.

So the PCs have been captured by some subterranean "savage" culture, like gnolls or orcs. Instead of outright execution, the PCs are sealed inside the skull of a giant, which is then filled with either:

1. A mild acid (will ruin cloth and paper, removes all body hair, permanent scarring over entire body),
2. Cave Bees (like normal bees but deal with fungi spores instead of pollen),
3. Gnoll pups,
4. Cave Honey Mead (think bourbon with traces of LSD in it),
5. Blood,
6. Snakes and chicken eggs,
7. Snakes and live chickens,
8. Hallucinogenic Mushrooms,
9. Rotting meat,
10. A candle, some dice, a couple hunks of meat and a kobold who just happened to get caught the very same morning.

Gygaxian Democracy with your host, Zak Smith

I've been throughly enjoying the Gygaxian Democracy series over at Playing DnD with Porn Stars. Basically, Zak posts some kind of prompt - a table to fill in, a keyed dungeon to stock, a list of villians - and the rest of us provide the rest. Crowdsourced DM material, in other words. The results have been mostly fantastic, and I'm really proud of what Smith's prompts and the other contributions have inspired out of me. Here's a few of mine, but really, read the others as well.

1. For a list of villains, I choose to fill in the details for "giant centipede with excellent hygiene"
2. Shriekglass is made from the cries of dead virgins, and is being smuggled into town. Several parties are interested in it, including mine (which I used a Tarot deck to make up).
3. The King has lost his head. The Forces of Badness have made impostures, each of which has a different effect if put back on his body. Like inflating and floating away.
4. The Hammer of Exorcism exorcises things hammered with it. Unless it doesn't, in which case one of a number of things might occur. Like total protonic reversal.

Play Report 4: Exploring the Underworld

And now on to the megadungeon. Using Maptools, I did this an unusual way. I made a large scale map of the tunnels, with each square representing an hour of walking. Each hour, there was a 1/6th chance of an encounter. I had previously made a chart of possible encounters - some vicious, some innocuous. So it was sort of like an old 16-Bit JRPG video game - walk around the map until there's a sound and you're in a battle!


This way, the story evolved very organically. The Grims were on the list, as was Drusiphia (one of my favorite NPCs) and some other characters. There's a lot I designed that was never even approached, or rolled. This is, of course, good - it means I'm kept on my toes just as much as the players, and it means their choices and luck really have an impact, instead of stuff just thrusting its way in front of them.


Here's Steph's report:

Mostly this one was a series of dungeon encounters as we followed the tracks of the mine cart. People digging up rocks usually want them brought to the surface, right? Or at least to some sort of city. So we head along the tracks. First, we encounter a large talking owl called the Grim, who informs us that it's a guardian placed to help cleanse the dungeon of evil -- and that, as good creatures, we're safe around it. That's good to know! There are other Grims in the dungeon, including some "padfeet", but it doesn't know the way out. Too bad!

Traveling on, we find some mysterious things on the ceiling. Spucky throws a rock and skeletal bats swoop down to attack! We make short work of them, especially with Junior around.

Farther along still, we come to a watery area with a lot of puddles. One of the puddles hulks up into some sort of humanoid form made of living blood, and here it comes! Agartha and Spucky bat at it a bit but the real heavy lifting is done by Junior again, who hits it once and splatters it messily. Junior makes things a bit too easy, truth be told, but since I don't have Chops with me, I'm glad to have him! Spucky saves some of the blood in an empty flask (from a healing potion, taken off one of the gang, which Agartha chugged earlier). You never know what might be useful.

The tracks end at a vast underground lake, where they seem to have collapsed. Whoops! I guess we're not getting out that way. The cavern is huge - we can't see the ceiling, and we're too high up to get to the lake. Agartha chucks a rock, and there's a flash of something mysterious and humanoid in the lake. Then, suddenly, the lights go out, and Agartha is almost stabbed from behind by a mysterious assailant. She manages to grab them instead, though - turns out that it's a woman named Drusiphia with horns on her head. Even though she just tried to attack us, she seems to be stuck in the dungeon too - she claims to have been on the run from flying heads for a while. Hmm, can we trust her? Spucky probably would -- their aren't many evil gnomes, and she hasn't been in big-people land too long. Besides, when lost in a dungeon, we can use all the help we can get, and Drusiphia says she knows the way out. So she comes along, even though there are some suspicious things about her. For instance, when Spucky shows her the bottle of blood, she grabs it and drinks it!

DM: Specifically, Dru has two deer horns on one side, and a ram's on the other. I introduced her because I wanted another living being lost in the caves, but she became so interesting to me that I'm basing a novel around a (un-DnDified) version of her.

Soon the flying heads Drusiphia mentioned catch up with the party. Vargouille attack! The tiefling puts her fingers in her ears just before they let out a paralyzing screech. Sheesh, thanks for warning us about that! Agartha is frozen, while Drusiphia and Junior each take out one vargouille each, and even Spucky manages to down one with a couple of bullets from her sling. It doesn't take long, and when the battle is over Agartha is angry at having missed it.

We decided to end the session here, so the party prepared to make camp. It was still late afternoon in-game, but we'd been hiking around all day, and Spucky was totally out of spells, so we agreed to stop for a while and eat our rations.

She's right about Junior making things too easy. It's a good thing they rolled Drusiphia when they did.

Just some stuff I drew.

Afile, self-proclaimed daughter of the Raven herself

A map of the region east and south of Carrow

And another map contradicting it on key points.

Creature Feature 3: The Switch-Witch

EDIT: I am remiss for not crediting Kitty Lowrance for this one, as the concept was almost entirely her own, right down to the name.

These Fey are made of living hickory - extremely long supple branches forming the rough figure of a human. They are the height of an average human, but their lash-like fingers can reach up to 15 feet away to deposit welts on the flesh of their foes.

Switch-Witches grow when the cries of a child unjustly “switched,” spanked, struck or even beaten are heard by sympathetic Fey. These Fey plant the cries, then gather the child’s tears to water them. By the next twilight a Switch-Witch will have grown in the spot. It will then track down and whip the perpetrator mercilessly until dawn. Lashing them unconscious is enough - the Switch-Witch will wait until they recover enough to reawaken, then beat them back under, but won’t beat them to death unless they are attacked with enough power to potentially slay them.

A Switch-Witch will leave at dawn, but will return every night to repeat its retribution for a full lunar cycle. If slain, they’ll regrow from the same spot and return the next night. The only way to dispell them prematurely is to dig up the “seed.” The Switch-Witch itself will never lead anyone back to this spot - at dawn it simply wanders into the woods and dissolves into sticks. Only the child it is revenging can find the seed, via a supernatural intuition.

While the Switch-Witch may seem like a boon - a protector of the weak and small - one must remember it is Fey, and the blessings of the Fey are indistinguishable from their curses. The Switch-Witch punishes a light smack on the bottom that’s immediately regretted just as viciously as a severe beating from an unrepentant abuser. Furthermore, it will often decide anyone who could conceivably have contributed to the situation also need punishing - the rest of the household for not stopping it, someone who contributed to the perpetrator’s bad mood by being rude that day, or the wood wright that carved the paddle used could all wake up to the cruel caress of the Switch-Witch.

COMBAT:
A Switch-Witch can attack with both arms each round, using them as huge whips, with each of six fingers leaving angry red welts. They will tear cloth to shreds - padded armor will be destroyed by the first hit. Other kinds of armor are ignored as the Switch-Witch’s fingers always find gaps, seams and other ways around them. The damage dealt has the potential to be lethal, but the creature will only do enough damage to leave its victim unconscious. It will not extend this concern for anyone that tries to interfere.

Creature Feature 2: The Malignancy

Malignancies are pure hatred, spite and bitterness distilled and made corporeal. In fact, each one represents an entire lifetime of negativity, compressed into a tight wad of churning flesh. The creation of one requires the processing of both the soul and corpse of a humanoid that whiled away an entire lifetime in anger, in a method not dissimilar to refining grain alcohol.

The resulting being barely maintains the form of a human head, writhing with temporary sensory organs, digits and mouths that re-submerge just as quickly as they arise. Disturbingly, taken alone these pieces are often very attractive - supple lips, long dark eye-lashes and comely noses only add to the horror of the overall mass.

Malignancies float at roughly head-level, and it's not uncommon for the twisted sorcerers that make them to sew on expensive wigs, attach fine jewels and drape cloaks that trail below them and create the illusion of a full figure.  

COMBAT
Malignancies and corporeal undead, but their ooze-like nature allows them to ignore most bashing wounds, and quickly seal up other kinds of damage.

Each mouth unleashes a string of intensely foul curses that assault the will of its victims, trying to drag them into the same spiral of misery that birthed it. By focusing its fueling force, it can also spawn a great black orb of an eye, filled with such supernatural loathing that its gaze can boil flowing blood, damaging the constitution of it's target. This assault is particularly draining, though, and weakens the creature equally. The Malignancy is primarily interested in feeding on the facial tissue of its victims, though. It will try to weaken them via other attacks, then get close enough to use it's multiple bite attacks until killing the prey.

Curiously, the Malignancy seems only interested in eating the face, suggesting that it gains nothing but psychological satisfaction from the act.

As a closing note, there are legends of Malignancies being instantly vanquished by the site of an item that reminds them of a lone happy moment in their life, or proof that they were not as spurned as they believed. Whether these tales hold truth is unconfirmed.

Announcing: 31 Days, 31 Creature Features!

October is my month, and Halloween my day. I've loved it all my life, for as long as I can remember. As a teen I could never shake the feeling Halloween would one day change my life for the better. As it happens, I married a woman born on Halloween. I proposed in a graveyard in Salem, MA on (the weekend before, close enough!) Halloween, and we married a year later on... you guessed it... Halloween.

I am hardcore about Halloween.

Thus it felt fitting to celebrate the month that justifies the existence of every other month with all of you. The best way I can think to do that is gifts, 31 of them, handed out one at a time.

Each day from 10/1 to 10/31 I will post a completely original beast, monster, undead horror, uncouth abomination or particularly unpleasant person. I will try and post some kind of original art with them, but no promises. I also can't promise stats - I'll try to give D&D 3e stats, at least, but as that's the most time consuming part I may skip it. Hey, I'm giving you 31 ideas for monsters here! It's kind of a big commitment! Besides, make up your own stats and you can use them in Call of Cthulhu, GURPS or whatever you wish.

I hope you find Make Believe's menagerie tricky for your players and a treat for all involved. We'll see you tomorrow... meh heh heh...

Ten Things that Might Be in a Goblin's, Gnoll's, Orc's or Troll's Pocket

1: bag containing 16 meaty sticks fried in tallow. Each contains three small bones and a hard bit at the end. Can be eaten in place of a day's rations.

2: Phosphorescent, foul-smelling green sludge packed into a small tin. The being carrying it has some smeared over a partially-healed wound. Will clog bleeding wounds immediately, and speed natural healing 50%. However, the wound will scar terrifically and a Fortitude check must be made for every point healed. If a check fails, the scar tissue grows deep enough to be a source of constant distracting pain (1 point permanent Charisma loss). After a save is failed, no more checks are required and there is no further Charisma loss for the duration of that application. There's only enough salve left for three applications.

3: A red, a blue and a purple mushroom. The red mushroom is the only antitoxin the the poisonous blue mushroom (no save, immediately begin "drowning" as throat constricts). Eating the purple mushroom grants the ability to tell the effects of all fungi at a glance for 1d4 rounds, but renders you colorblind for the same amount of time so that the mushrooms are the exact same shade of grey - the player can specify "the poison mushroom" or "the antitoxin mushroom" but isn't told which is blue or red. The blue and red mushrooms are exactly the same in all ways except color, and each are big enough for four doses, but the purple mushroom is very small and it only works once.

4: A torch that has been soaked in something improper. A spot check DC 20 will show a funny tinge to the tar. A wisdom check DC 17 means the PC notices a strong chemical smell. An attempted alchemy check DC 15 will reveal the substance contains several dangerously explosive ingredients. If a small bit of the tar is "tested," see below.

Whoever tries to light it must make a Reflex save or take 1d6 damage, with a 25% of catching fire (hair, a shirt, something). Regardless, anything that can ignite will if the torch lands on it. The torch burns hot enough to melt iron, but will exhaust itself in 10 seconds leaving nothing behind (besides any fires it inevitably started).

5: An ugly black stone with a frowning face carved into it. Every 12 hours there's a 35% chance anything flammable and in contact with it will catch fire. If held or worn when the roll is made, it will do 1d6 points of fire damage.

6: A thick white liquid in a vial. It's a healing potion, restoring 6 HP but also dropping your WIS, INT and DEX scores to 3 each, or 6 on a Fortitude save, as you collapse into a heroine-like high.

7: A screw-top jar with a spider in it. Every so often the spider simply vanishes, then reappears in the jar. It's actually a baby phase spider - the jar has an equal presence on the ethereal plane because a suicide once drank poison from it.

8: A fine blond wig, some lipstick, various colors of eye shadow and a charcoal pencil like the kind fashionable ladies and fops use to line their eyes. The wig is remarkably well-kept. All together the set is worth about 50gp. Also, a comb carved from a humanoid pelvic bone and a highly-polished silver plate. The plate's worth 25sp.

9: A rabbit pelt sewn back together to make a crud hand puppet, with a little wooden dagger tied to its paws and thick leather stitching for eyes.

10: A living, Tiny chunk of ocher jelly in a bottle. Can be thrown as a grenade-like - will break on contact and do an ocher jelly's acid damage in a splash-pattern. That will dissipate the jelly enough to kill it, though.

Scalable NPCs

Responding to the idea of "NPCs as Artifacts" on Telecanter's Receding Rules:

I like the idea of having some scalable NPCs handy. These are villains you can pull out that are more interesting than "Bandit Leader" but with plug-and-play features so the are just as fair a threat to level 1 PCs as level 20.

I specifically want to avoid just adding more underlings. I am cool with upgrading equipment or spells, but it should be iconic stuff - the evil sorcerer with a fetish for electricity would have some better, stronger electricity-based spells. I specifically do not mean that, if the NPC is reoccurring, they should scale - there are reasons when you might want to do that, but usually it cheats PCs out of the pleasure of going back and kicking the ass of the putz that sent them packing last time.

Not sure if this concept fits with Telecanter's original idea, but it's something I've been chewing on and the Artifacts thing made me thing of it.

Without further adue:

Phillip the Culler

Phillip's body is as tense and knotted as corded rope, and he has the charisma of a coiled viper. Few who knew him as a boy would be surprised to learn he became a highwayman, and a good one. When Phillip's crew are working a stretch, it's with a methodical grace that's yet to fail him. Phillip has established a near-mythological reputation for himself as "Phillip the Culler," through the clever combination of a fear-inducing poison, his talent at sneaking and hiding, and his expertise at fighting with the twin sickles handing from his best. His overriding preference for his iconic weapons may be his most exploitable weakness in combat.

Scaling: Phillip should always fight with his twin sickles, but how good he is at it is up to the DM. Without any help, a character is severely handicapped in most rulesets when they fight with two weapons. Increasing his skill with the weapons, with dual-weapon fighting, and the quality of the sickles themselves all incrementally strengthen Phillip's threat. The actual effect of his poison is also worth tinkering with - simple morale penalties, up to forcing characters to drop weapons and flee, or cower, on a failed save are all possible.

Undead Gundam Zombie Mechatech! (Bicycle Panda Rollerskate)

The following was generated using Zak Smith's Mad Libs Dungeon Generator. I take no responsibility for the stupidity of any of my answers.

Acid, smacid - Try reading this scroll, man!

*Kandinsky, Yellow, Red, Blue

The idea that a moped is safer than a motorcycle is insulting, because the only difference is that one goes faster: Therefore, you are saying the rider is too irresponsible to drive a safe speed on the motorcycle, whereas the moped just limits his or her ability to get out of the way.

There. An argument. Now, Joesky's Rule.

Synesthasia:

You probably know that synesthasia is the state of experiencing one sense or perception as another. Tasting colors, seeing sounds, etc. What you may not know is the condition has many interesting variations. Several of them could be very entertaining after-effects of miscast spells, potions, fungal spores etc.

Here's three I thought would be fun as temporary effects:

This one's for Joesky

I've been made aware that Joesky's Rule is now in effect. Unfortunately, this means my last post was in direct violation, and I'm pretty sure that means I'll get socked in the gut with a fistful of nickles if I don't correct it.

Sorry, Joesky. Without further adieu:

RANDOM RUMORS TABLE: Random crap people are whispering around that town or village.

1: A witch hunter is in a nearby hamlet, and her methods are simple: All the citizens must take their turn sleeping on a oil-soaked pyre. If nothing happens, the citizen is not a witch. Thus far the pyre has burst into flames every night at the same hour.

2: Goblins are actually born from eggs, which are laid in the bellies of kidnapped children. This is believed because a local boy who was lost in the woods for a week returned shitting one obsidian orb each day.

3: One of the PCs is thought to be a famous pirate, dangerous but loaded with gold and worth a considerable bounty dead or alive. On a 1 or 2 a merchant will lower prices 25% out of fear. On a 3 or 4 they will raise them 25%. All taverns contain 1d4 drunks who think they can take the PC. (The actual pirate is of the opposite gender, a halfling who is short even for halfings, broke and hundreds of miles away).

4: There's a party of NPCs in town that have been claiming to be the PCs. Everyone likes them better, even if the truth is revealed.

5: "For a good time, pay a call on Leanna." (Leanna turns out to be a giant spider with an attractive woman dangling in front of its maw angler fish-like.)

6: Slips of parchment are being handed out, saying that if presented at the local weaponsmith your purchase is 50% off. They weren't made by the weaponsmith, who would be driven out of business if they were honored. Angry customers may riot.

7: The PCs are vampires. 50% of people encountered at night believe it. 25% of people encountered in daylight do. 5% of vampires do.

8: A local barkeep, Fish-Faced Floyd, is a mummy. (He is.)

9: A local shopkeep, Slow-Eyed Sue, is a lich. (she isn't.) [she is a night hag]

10: If you look at your reflection in the water left in wagon tracks after a rain, your blood and the rainwater will switch places, killing you instantly. This is a children's "urban legend" that (you guessed it!) came true for one young man.

Brainworm, Large

Idea totally stolen from Steph Cherrywell's delicious comic Intragalactic. No, really, it tastes good - lick your monitor and see.

The Brainworm, Large (Also know as the 'Brainworm - Large,' the 'Brainworm (large)' or the 'Brainworm fingerquotes Large fingerquotes') is a... um, worm that eats brains, absorbing the information contained therein. It then uses the corpse to find more prey... unless the victim was sentient.

The parasite survives by gripping onto the skull of its victim via four strong mandibles, gnawing into the brain cavity and devouring the contents. The worm then "plugs into" the sensory organs, takes control of the muscle system and receives sustenance through the victims' usual methods. It can live this way indefinitely, preserving the corpse it's riding in an (almost) perfect state. However, the worm can't progress in its growth cycle this way, and usually uses the host to reach a fresh meal of brains.

However, when a brainworm mistakenly latches on to a fully sentient lifeform, something odd occurs. While the victim still dies, the memories and emotions absorbed by the brainworm form a dominant personality. The worm both recalls being a brainworm, and being the victim. In this state, the parasite effectively becomes a new incarnation of the dead host and will simply try and live the life it technically ended. Often with a massive guilt-complex.

For crunchiness (rules, for you non-DnD blog readers), most mental stats of a brainworm-bitten PC or NPC remain the same. The primary difference is that the actual life form is the large grub-like worm-thing stick out of their head, and only damage to it can kill the character. The corpse can suffer damage, and at 0 - CON hitpoints the worm will be forced to detach from its ruined host. Otherwise the corpse can go indefinitely. No critical hits or sneak attack bonuses. The only drawback is that the body cannot heal naturally, and potions of healing (as with any other potion or poison) only affect the worm. Healing spells work normally.

If someone aims for the worm, use the worm's AC to determine if they hit it. If attacking the worm specifically, sneak-attack damage, critical hits DO apply.

If someone attacks the character without aiming for the worm (most figure it's a hat), natural 20s are assumed to hit the worm, but still without bonus damage. Things that hit everything in an area, like fireballs, hit the worm.

So, here's what happens when your PC's brain gets eaten. Drop your Charisma 1d4 for the giant bug and the fact you look like death. Raise your Intelligence and Wisdom each a point for the addition of the brainworm's past meals (which would have all been non-sentient things, remember?). Raise your Constitution 1d4 for being dead meat. Lower your Dexterity a point for mild joint stiffness and counterbalancing the big thing sticking out of your head.

And without further adieu, the Brainworm:


Attached Brainworm, Large
Abberation, Tiny (although quite Large for a worm)
HP: 6
AC: The host's, minus armor, plus 5 (+2 size, +3 natural armor)
Saves: Fort + 1, the other two are the same as the host's
Abilities: Str 18, Dex Host's -1, Con 13, Int Host's +1, Wis Host's +1, Cha Host's -1

Unattached Brainworm, Large
HP: 6
Initiative: +0
Speed: 10 ft
AC: 15 (+2 size, +3 natural armor)
Saves: Fort +1, Reflex +0, Will +1
Abilities: Str 18, Dex 11, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 11, Cha 3
Attacks: Leap and Grab with Mandibles +5
Special: After a successful grab, the worm can automatically bite for 1d10 damage each round until dislodged. On a natural 20 it's grabbed the opponent's head, it may spend a turn to maneuver to the back instead of biting. On the next round, it instantly opens the skull and devours the brain, killing the victim. On the subsequent round it may take over the corpse.

"Twas a Dire whatzit... opossum."

Let me go on record as saying I think "Dire" things are stupid. I suspect the idea comes from the Dire Wolf, a prehistoric canine and the largest on record. Fine. Giant wolf. Here's the thing there: Worgs are cooler, and once you've introduced Worgs, Dire Wolves are just confusing.

Dire Bears... okay, a giant bear. Why can't we call them giant bears again? Does that not sound metal enough? You know "bear" and "wolf" are actually the results of "taboo deformation" - that is, in several languages they were called one thing, but people so feared them they stopped using their "real name" for fear just saying it would attract their attention. Thus they called them things like "the brown one," until eventually that taboo reference replaced the actual name.

Ten Interesting People You Might Bump Into on the Streets of Carrow

1: A stray goat wearing a large emerald as a pendant, worth 500gp. Will protect the emerald to the death.

2: A skeleton in good Carrow Guard plate mail. Necromatic wires got crossed during last uprising in the Graveyard, has been wandering aimlessly ever since. No one's noticed: Carrow Guard mail covers everything but the face, and citizens are accustomed to guards on leave stumbling around drunk or hung over. Won't attack unless provoked.

3: A Church of Krae* zealot. Dressed to the nines, very snooty unless a PC has a shiny and expensive-looking object visible. Then they are very friendly in offering to buy it for way less than it's worth, making every attempt to convince the player it's not what they think it is and they are giving them a deal. If they prove particularly astute, the zealot will change tones, tell them they belong in "The Unkindness" and warn them against Charlie Crow* heretics.

10 Things That Might Be In A Treasure Chest

1 - A pewter ring and a three-foot long toy snake made of articulated joints of dark wood, with a hinged jaw and steel fangs. The head is hollow, and can be filled with liquid (pushing in both eyes causes a valve in the back of the throat to open). One 'dose' of potion or poison can be poured in without spilling.

When the ring is worn, the snake becomes animate and can be controlled via thought. It moves clumsily, but can slither around and bite things. The bite can't hurt anything a halfing's size or bigger, but it can inject the potion or poison in the snake's head.

Besides the obvious use, a clever player will see the value in using the snake to deliver healing potions to fallen comrades during combat.