The Old Brewery - Deep Cellars

26. Deep Cellar – Clear running water rushes through this natural cavern. Once it supplied the brewery with water and now the stram provides the degenerate halfling tribe with it's water and the blind cave fish who thrive in the rich fungal pools and cave insect filled stream that dominates this chamber. A narrow wooden ladder formerly descended to the pebbly and cave fungus strewn floor of this room, but only holes in the rock remain to hint at it's presence. It is 80' from the cave floor to the lip of the pit described in Area 15. The rich environment holds only one real danger, the pool marked with an X has a froth of vibrant green slime (yes, sometimes it's actually green) that will injure who touches or wades through it.

Wampus Country Contest.

Do this! Do this now - Wampus Country is the best.

This! Illustration by Jim Calafiore, from Rex Riders

Vector Sigma of Wampus Country (which I always want to call Wampus County) is running a contest to sponsor the creation of a Western Penny Dreadful style set of game content.  The prizes are pretty great and the campaign world very fun - I can't recommend this highly enough!  Get it while it's hot.

Again here's the link:

CONTEST!

A doodle of Skull Town

This is the City of Skull - from Gib's Metal Earth.

So this city is a pleasant oasis inside a giant skull ruled by some kind of horrifying centipede thing. Now I think the main problem with this drawing is that the angle makes the town look tiny not huge.

Check out Gib's blog - it's pretty great and I like to steal his rules. Metal Earth the blog.

Now in Black and White!

Belated Weird Adventures Review

WEIRD ADVENTURES

"I take SPACE to be the central fact to man born in America. I spell it large because it comes large here. Large and without mercy" - Charles Olson, 1970

Since the Internet seems to have an insatiable hunger for my maunderings about DYI game products I've decided I will put up another review for an excellent OSR product that I have purchased.  Trey of Sorcerer's Skull has produced "Weird Adventures" a campaign book/gazetteer for a fantastical 1930's America.  It's a commingling of Pulp Science Fantasy and Pulp Detective/Adventure and is the most compelling “Diesel Punk” settling I’ve seen, as it’s well rooted in weird Americana, horror and New York’s anarchic past.

Gratuitous Gun Moll

Now I've always liked Pulp detective stories of the 30's/40's and I think it's been because they evoke a sense of place. In my favorites - the Phillip Marlowe of Chandler comes to mind, one can almost smell the sun baked concrete of 1930's Los Angeles. Weird Adventures has this feel as well, putting setting first - a setting that has internal logic, and is perverse reflection of out own history, but changed enough not to be a simple dribbling of fantasy over interwar America.  The book touches a little bit on the hinterlands and wildernesses of the world, and in general is good at giving a feeling of a larger globe beyond "The City" (New York) through small adventure seeds and notes. Buoyed by this believability and feeling of place, the vast majority of the book is devoted to an almost block by block survey of the City that contains a fair number of ideas to spark adventure.

HMS Apolloyon - 20 Questions

My idea of running a giant haunted passenger liner of science fantasy regressed to low, zeppelin free, steam-punk as a Google + game is coming together.

Here's how I am thinking of doing it.

Kelp Zombie? From 'The Rift' - 1990

Time: Some weekday around 7:00 PST, likely Monday or Thursday.

Characters: Standard “Flail Snails” conventions, you can bring anyone in from anywhere as the fishing crews of the HMS Apollyon are constantly pulling people up out of the eldritch seas. All your character needs do is take a sea voyage that goes badly... Right now the oceans around the Apollyon are especially active, and the Stewards and 1^st Class of Stern-town are taking advantage, trying to use this influx of man/strange creature power to reclaim and refortify lost areas – right now they are looking towards regaining the nearby forges, so that the town will have more industrial capacity.

The other option would be to roll up a local via the tables nesting tables I'll put up sometime soonish. It should be noted that there are only four races, human, flying monkey, tainted (exiled 1st class), and frogling, though more friendly races may become available if players discover them.

Rules: I will be using Labyrinth Lord Rules, as I am familiar with them, there are a few bits of additional rule – I will be adopting something like the LOTFP Specialist rules for “Thieves” - Assassins, Pack-handlers(Rangers of sorts) and a similar system of military proficiencies for fighting types. Firearms will be available up to the breach loading rifle (though cartridges are dear and expensive) and will use exploding damage.

Below I have filled out a Jeff Reints “20 Questions” because I hear it's a cool thing to do.

The Old Brewery - Why we fight.

THE OLD BREWERY - ADVENTURE HOOKS AND A NOTE ON SOURCES

DM's Notes:

This adventure location is a vile urban nightmare, but it is based on an actual location in 19^th century New York, that according to the hysterical imagination of its times shares some topographical/name elements and a general environment with the fantasical location I've written up. My primary source is Herbert Ashby's Gang's of New York (itself fodder for many an adventure), and Luke Sante's more studied “Low Life” on the same topic. None of this matters, but if you like this adventure it owes a lot to the purported actual character of early American urban life (with added grunkies).

Wampus County - Play report.

Skeleton Knight by Maxarkes on Deviant Art

 Played a game in Wampus County last night - Google + worked well until the GM was apparently carried away by storms and hail.

My alter-ego was a 3D6 in order nebbish of a college twit named Chauncy.  He is an unreilavble narrator, but since he came into some gems decided to write home about his first Wampus experience.

Chauncy is a jerk, so when his overly bold 3HP self inevitably gets devoured by some terrible zombie beaver no one will feel sad.

Letter is as follows and the Heathen practices of Preacher Jones are only causally referred to for the delicacy of civilized readers.

Mr. Sandman, Send Me a Dream.

So Magic Missile is all well and good, but Sleep is the most commonly used spell in my games.  I don't think that sleep spells need to be specifically sleep, mechanically the spell simply causes  immobilization that can be broken by forcefully disturbing the target.

Anything that stuns, traps or immobilizes seems to work.  Sure Color Spray, hypnotism and hold person also do these things, but with different mechanics, and most of these sleep spell re-skinnings could apply to those spells as well.

The image on the left is Maxfield Parrish's "Sleeping Beauty"I think, and even if it looks like something that Grandmother would have loved, it's a cool painting I think.  It also suggests that sleep spells needn't be violent, NPCs might pay to have sleep cast on them if it provided nice dreams, or untroubled rest for the ill.

Here are some sleep alternatives in the spirit of the Magic Missile ones from yesterday.

The Old Brewery, Den of Thieves

 The Old Brewry - Area 2 - The Den of Thieves

 GM's Note:  As a matter of play majority of the denizen's of the first level are not evil, simply the poorest and most pathetic of a the fantasy city's residents. They are weak and sickly, and frankly using them as a lesson about XP and alignment is not a bad idea. I would give the full (paltry & maybe a bonus) XP to Lawful characters for trying to help them (ineffectual though it will be) and full XP Neutral characters for bypassing them, Chaotics of course are simply in it for the money and thrills, but I still wouldn't give them XP for slaying scabrous children, feeble beggars and drunken wastrels. I would also provide an XP penalty for any character who engages in wholesale slaughter of these people simply because they are so feeble it doesn't even comport with the diabolic evil of a worthy anti-hero to kill them – it's just sad. It's so sad there won't even be consequences from local law enforcement.  Of course there are other nasty surprises related to the halt and the lame.

Jacob Riis - 1853

2. Den of Thieves - While this room contains thieves. The chamber is crammed with the lowest sort of petty pilferers and diseased kleptomaniacs, but most of its residents are simply the desperately poor. A huge, filthy, stinking chamber with tall ceilings lost in soot and darkness. Wooden Pillars with filthy sheets and assorted rags strung between them block the view, except for a gaping doorway at the far end. Several small fires provide the only illumination while the scent of rotting garbage and smoke sting the eyes of anyone entering.

The back half of the room is shadowed by the a loft (Area 7) 14' above the floor. Thick curtains drawn tight conceal the loft, but if the room below is quiet and dark dim light and soft hypnotic music will be noticed leaking through the curtains (they magically keep sound out, not in). A ramp leading down to the cellar used to serve as a way to roll beer kegs up from below for distribution and brandy kegs down below for aging. The huge wooden doors to the cellar are now barricaded (on both sides) by the mutually distrustful inhabitants and trash is piled five feet deep against them. Opening the doors would require much work including hacking the doors off their hinges.

Character Sheets and Hopeless Losers

So I drew up a simple character sheet for use in a Google + game, my first, and thought others might want a gander at the character sheet - two semi-disposable minimalist mooks on a single page! Also the mooks in question are included as an example.