Carcosa + the Dying Earth

Not much content to this post, the title pretty much says it all :)

I've been preparing to run a Dying Earth-esque game tomorrow, and it occurred to me that it wouldn't be a huge stretch to do a Carcosa / Dying Earth mash-up.

A strange blighted world full of ruins and ancient artefacts... Isolated settlements with odd customs and leaders... Magicians searching for aeons lost knowledge...

Carcosa one-shot: Session report

Yves has risen to the occasion!

I can sort of feel a sporadic campaign of Carcosan killy-looty-humpy-party fun coming on!

Carcosa one-shot: Aftermath

Joesky's Carcosa Adventure
+
What went wrong?
+
The bizarre Russian roulette of rolling mutations from Mutant Future
=
A sure recipe for fun!

I ran the adventure as a dinosaur hunt, rather than a "rescue the girl" scenario, but the effect was more or less the same. The cultists were brutally slaughtered (while, of course, doing their own fair share of slaughter back), the ankylosaurus escaped after an epic wrestling battle with an 18' tall PC (gigantism), and the PCs ended up gaining entry to the alien facility, which I decided on the spur of the moment was a disco.

I'll try to encourage one of the players to do a write up of the session, if they dare -- it did feature rather a lot of X-rated silliness ;).

I love the way Carcosa can be taken dead seriously as a horror setting, but can also be used as a completely gonzo mash-up of dinosaurs, space aliens and mutants!

Carcosa one-shot

Coming tomorrow evening, to a gaming group near me...

A dino joy ride in the transparent wastes of Carcosa.

Featuring:

• "What went wrong" by Jeff Rients.
• A Carcosan mini-adventure by an as yet undisclosed OSR superstar.
• Free mutations all round! (Courtesy of Mutant Future)

Character Generation on Carcosa PDF

I just finished compiling my Carcosa / Mutant Future character generation rules into a PDF.

Check it out it!

Note that these rules assume the use of the Mutants & Mazes section at the end of the MF rulebook. So we're talking D&D style characters (with 1HD at 1st level, not CON HD), possibly with mutations from MF.

Also note that in the end I decided to make the ability to learn and perform sorcerous rituals a special skill -- that is, not available to all characters. It kind of seemed to make more sense that way.

Carcosa -- Mini campaign map

So now I've got all the chargen rules for my Carcosa game sorted, I've started having a bit of a think about an initial adventure, and whereabouts on the large campaign map it'd be set. The obvious place (I thought) is in the vicinity of hex 2005, as that has already been described in greater detail in the Fungoid Gardens of the Bone Sorcerer adventure. So I chose hex 1905, one hex to the north-west of 2005, as the starting point.

To get things going, and to kind of orient myself in the setting I've created a basic map of hex 1905 and the six surrounding hexes. For now it just shows the points of interest which are described in the Carcosa book, with some names I've made up and a road drawn in between a few of the settlements. Seems like a good start... I'll add more details as I go.

(The hex PDF was courtesy of mojobob, by the way.)

Carcosa -- rituals

The last phase of my Carcosa / Mutant Future chargen rules, we come to the learning and use of rituals. As previously discussed, I've decided to reduce the number of available classes to 1, effectively removing the sorcerer class as presented in Carcosa. However, this doesn't mean that rituals are an NPC only thing. On the contrary, any PC can learn and perform rituals (or at least try). The concept I'm going with here is that when adventurers "find a ritual", they've actually (in general) found a complete description of everything involved in performing it -- including any esoteric theorems or such like which might be needed as background.

So taking a leaf from Call of Cthulhu, the main difficulty with rituals... well, the main difficulty in addition to the moral and logistic problems inherent in most Carcosan rituals, is the time required to study all that weird text and understand and learn it well enough to be able to perform it properly. I think I'll say 1 week per attempt to learn a ritual. As with other "skills", learning a ritual will have a 2 in 6 chance of success, modified by INT, and can be retried over and over, if a PC wants to.

In addition to having a high INT, two other factors are relevant. Jale Men get a +1 bonus, as do those with the arcane lore talent.

Other than that, all the rituals in the Carcosa book will operate exactly as described therein.

Now, the second point of interest is that I want to also allow all the rituals from Call of Cthulhu to be (potentially) accessible to PCs as well! This was an idea that struck me as I was reading Carcosa -- how I also have this other book on my shelf (CoC 30th anniversary edition) which has loads of cool creepy rituals which would fit right in with Carcosa. They're a lot lighter on the human sacrifice, but their effects are generally less far-reaching as well. I thought that the two types of ritual would nicely complement each other.

The only trouble is that D&D (or Mutant Future, in this case) is a different beast than Call of Cthulhu, mechanically speaking. Conversion time!

(CoC veterans, please forgive and correct my ignorance if anything I write here is totally wrong! I'm just going from having read the CoC 6th edition rules, but never having played a game with them...)

Here's what I was thinking:

1. When a ritual specifies a loss of magic points, this translates to a loss of hit points. A nice simple system, which fits well with the D&D trope of PCs gaining more hps (and thus being able to use more magic) as they go up in level. I also like the idea that by using some types of magic you are actually risking your own life.
2. Rituals which specify a loss of sanity result in an equivalent (but temporary) loss of WIS. WIS lost in this way would be recovered at a rate of 1 point per day or week or something.
3. Rituals causing a loss of POW (which is permanent, as far as I gather) result in a permanent loss of WIS.

WIS, then, is being seen as representative of a character's sanity, which is a system I've heard mentioned here and there before. It has the nice side-effect, I think, that loss of WIS makes a character more susceptible to magical forces -- i.e. to having his or her mind blasted and taken over by otherworldly entities. Nice.

Other than that, I think the CoC rituals should work pretty much as written in a D&D environment.

So, that concludes my Carcosan chargen rules. Mix that lot in with Jeff's "what went wrong" doc and I think we have a nice old-school system mash-up on our hands!

I'll probably put all this together into a PDF at some point, for use in my planned Carcosa session(s), and for the reference of anyone else who decides to go down a similar route!

ps. That was my 200th post on this blog! Crikey, that went quickly!

Carcosa -- Classes, skills & talents

So, next up in my Carcosa / Mutants & Mazes chargen rules is choosing a class. In Carcosa it is suggested that there are only two classes of adventurer: fighters and sorcerers. I have decided to reduce this even further and have only one class, making the whole concept of classes redundant. Thus there are no classes.

All characters progress as fighters, in terms of hit points, to hit rolls, XP, saving throws, etc. They can all use any weapons and armour. (Probably... I am also considering a simple weapon proficiencies system, where each character is proficient in like 4 weapons, and suffers -2 to hit with others.)

What differentiates characters (apart from their randomly determined race and any background / personality traits which the player might imagine) is a choice of talents.

Before going into what the talents do, here are four standard skill rolls which players can make. You will notice these are based on the standard "adventuring actions" of D&D. All skill rolls have a base 2 in 6 chance of success, modified by specified attribute (minimum 1 in 6 chance, maximum 5 in 6).

1. Move quietly (DEX) - penalised by 1 per point of AC below 8.
2. Search - one turn per attempt. (Note that you stand a better chance of finding things if you describe specifically what you're doing.)
3. Climb (DEX) - 30' per roll, penalised by 1 per point of AC below 8.
4. Smash stuff (STR) - usually makes a lot of noise.

Ok, pretty simple, and you can see how characters with high DEX, for example, could choose to wear light armour in order to take on a thief type role.

So, the talents. Each player can choose 3 of the following for his PC. As currently conceived, these are a one-off choice -- it's not possible to learn new talents as a PC advances. Again, many of them are based on a 2 in 6 chance of success, possibly modified by an attribute.

1. Lockpicking (DEX) - one turn per attempt.
2. Pick pockets (DEX) - target notices on a roll of 6.
3. Tracking - make a search roll to find & follow tracks.
4. Languages - know additional languages per INT score.
5. Climb sheer surfaces (DEX) - automatically succeed at climbing, roll to climb sheer surfaces.
6. First aid - spend one turn up to 1 hour after a battle to heal 1d3 hp.
7. Move silently (DEX) - automatically succeed at moving quietly, roll to move silently.
8. Weapon specialist - +1 to hit with specialised weapon.
9. Heavy armour specialist - 25% less encumbrance from metal armour.
10. Slayer - +1 to hit & damage against special enemy.
11. Tech lore (INT) - one turn per attempt to identify tech items. +2% to use artefacts.
12. Arcane lore (INT) - one turn per attempt to identify magical effects or creatures. +1 bonus to learning rituals.
13. Awareness - +1 bonus to searching. Only surprised on a 1.
14. Poisons (INT) - use poisons safely, one turn per attempt to identify substances.
15. Backstab - +4 to hit, double damage.

It's probably clear that that list of talents contains a large proportion of the class abilities from traditional D&D, and even some from AD&D. Obviously the cleric's abilities aren't in the list, but that class doesn't fit at all in the setting, so things like turning undead were deliberately left out.

It's a nice, quick, simple system, but I think it should provide enough choices and variety to make characters interesting.

Next up: rituals! (and that's where Call of Cthulhu will also enter the mix :)

Carcosa -- Attributes & mutations

Continuing my planned house rules for creating characters in Carcosa, up next is attributes and mutations.

Attributes will simply be rolled 3d6 in order. Quick, traditional and fraught.

However, as a slight twist, every attribute rolled which is below average (i.e. 8 or lower) grants the character a beneficial mutation from the lists in Mutants & Mazes. Scores of 7 or 8 grant a class 1 mutation, 5s or 6s grant a class 2 mutation, and 3s or 4s grant a class 3 mutation. Where applicable (class 2 & 3) there's a 50% chance of the mutation being physical, and a 50% chance of it being mental.

For ease of reference I've compiled mutation tables which include the experience level at which each mutation becomes active. For mutations which first activate at 2nd level or higher, I think I'll create a list of pre-active variations, so that the mutation has some use before its main effect "goes live". For example energy retaining cell structure, which is fully active from 3rd level, would perhaps allow a 1st or 2nd level character to discharge a minor shock (1d6 damage) once per day.

Class 1 Physical Mutations

d10	Mutation	Level
1	Aberrant Form	1
2	Dwarfism	1
3	Echolocation	1
4	Epidermal Photosynthesis	1
5	Gigantism	1
6	Night Vision	1
7	Prehensile Tail	1
8	Spiny Growth	1
9	Thermal Vision	1
10	Ultraviolet Vision	1

Class 2 Physical Mutations

d00	Mutation	Level
01-11	Energy Retaining Cell Structure	3
12-22	Fragrance Development	1
23-33	Increased Balance	1
34-44	Increased Physical Attribute	1
45-55	Increased Sense	1
56-66	Natural Armor	1
67-77	Optic Emissions (bright eyes)	5
78-88	Shriek	1
89-95	Toxic Weapon	5
96-00	Unique Sense	1

Class 3 Physical Mutations

d12	Mutation	Level
1	Chameleon Epidermis	1
2	Complete Wing Development	1
3	Density Alteration (Self)	7
4	Dermal Poison Slime	1
5	Dual Headed	1
6	Energy Ray	4
7	Metamorph	7
8	Optic Emissions (gamma eyes)	5
9	Parasitic Control	7
10	Quickness	5
11	Reflective Epidermis	3
12	Regenerative Capability	1

Class 2 Mental Mutations

d12	Mutation	Level
1	Ability Boost	1
2	Acute Hyper Healing	3
3	Combat Empathy	1
4	Empathy	1
5	Increased Willpower	1
6	Intellectual Affinity	1
7	Know Direction	1
8	Mental Barrier	1
9	Mental Phantasm	5
10	Metaconcert	1
11	Mind Thrust	1
12	Neural Telepathy	3

Class 3 Mental Mutations

d00	Mutation	Level
01-04	Accumulated Resistance	1
05-08	Ancestral Form	11
09-13	Body Adjustment	5
14-18	Control Light Waves	5
19-22	Control Weather	10
23-26	Damage Turning	5
27-32	Density Alteration (Others)	7
33-36	Disintegration	11
37-41	Dual Cerebellum	1
42-46	Flight, Psionic	5
47-50	Force Screen	7
51-54	Force Screen, Greater	9
55-58	Killing Sphere	10
59-64	Neural Telekinesis	9
65-69	Plane Shift	9
70-74	Possession	9
75-78	Precognition	3
79-82	Mind Reflection	7
83-86	Quick Mind	7
87-92	Teleport	9
93-96	Temperature Control	5
97-00	Vampiric Field	12

Carcosa -- Racial determination and benefits

So, as I mentioned in my mini-review of the mighty Carcosa supplement, my thoughts turned immediately to using the book in play. As the book comes with no assumed rules set (it's broadly D&D, but could work with any edition really), this inevitably led to the question: which game system to use to run it? What came to mind is three things: Labyrinth Lord (for the D&D base), Mutant Future (to further emphasise the pulp sci-fi / post-apocalyptic elements in Carcosa) and Call of Cthulhu (for more rituals -- more on this another time).

What I ended up deciding on is a mixture of all three! The base is Mutants & Mazes, the LL-MF integration described in an appendix of Mutant Future. I've come up with a very simple custom character generation system, which I'll post here in sections over the coming days.

The first topic is race. The Carcosa book describes the 13 different races of Men who inhabit the planet, but doesn't mention how a PC's race should be determined, or any differences between the races apart from skin colour. So I thought a random table would be in order, including some little mechanical differences for each of the races.

d30	Race	Benefit
1-2	Black	+1 bonus to saving throws versus poison or disease
3-4	Blue	+1 bonus to unarmed attacks
5-6	Bone	+1 CON
7-8	Brown	+1 bonus to saving throws versus magic
9-10	Dolm	+1 bonus to melee attacks
11-12	Green	+1 STR
13-14	Jale	+1 bonus to learning rituals
15-16	Orange	+1 INT
17-18	Purple	+1 WIS
19-20	Red	+1 bonus to missile attacks
21-22	Ulfire	+1 CHA
23-24	White	+1 DEX
25-26	Yellow	+1 bonus to saving throws versus fear or psionics
27-28	Roll again	Gain a mutation*. Additional rolls of 27-28 stack.
29-30	Roll again	Gain a psionic power. Additional rolls of 29-30 stack.

* For racially determined mutations I'll probably use the table in the appendix of Carcosa. Obviously, as I'm planning on using Mutant Future, the beneficial mutations therein will also come into play.

ps. For players in my Labyrinth Lord campaign: don't worry, your PCs are not about to be mysteriously warped to Carcosa! Haha. I'll probably run it as a one shot / occasional sessions, just for fun.

Carcosa!

Having received the new LOTFP edition of Carcosa in December, I sat down last night to have a first proper read of it (I'd just flicked through it previously). And, wow! I was really impressed.

To give this mini-review a happy ending, as I'm indeed very very happy with Carcosa, I'm going to describe a few minor gripes I have with the book, before going into the things I love about it.

Firstly, I do question the unusual choice of Armour Class system -- ascending from 12 -- as this system isn't used in any traditional or modern version of the game, meaning that the vast majority people who use this book will have to come up with some kind of conversion table or formula. I presume the base 12 ascending system is used in James Raggi's LOTFP RPG, but I think AC either descending or ascending from 10 would have been a better choice in this respect, as those are far more familiar and more easily usable to most people. But that's a very minor quibble.

Secondly, I got the feeling that the book is written with a certain amount of knowledge of the source material (especially the writings of H.P. Lovecraft) pre-assumed. I've personally only read a smattering of Lovecraft, and found myself a little confused by the unexplained references to things like Old Ones, the Great Race, Primordial Ones, etc, and the relation all these beings have to Carcosa. A very small introductory passage, describing what these Mythos races have been up to on Carcosa (similar to the section describing the races of Men on Carcosa), would have been much appreciated. As it is, the book launches straight into a section on "Technological Artifacts of the Great Race", before any mention has been made as to who or what the Great Race are.

Lastly, despite the physical beauty of the book, I wonder how practical the A5 format is for use at the gaming table. It's not possible to lay it flat open at a page, for example, which is possible with traditional full-size RPG books.

So, those minor issues aside, here's why I love it!

Firstly, purely as a physical artefact, the book is beautiful. It's definitely the best looking gaming book I own. The artwork, layout and quality of construction are all top notch. Clearly a lot of effort has gone into these things, and it has really paid off.

Secondly, as an RPG sourcebook, it did what good examples of such books should do -- made me want to play! Reading through it, the mind is filled with so much amazing imagery, and presented with so many interesting situations, monsters, encounters and treasures, that one cannot help but immediately think about how awesome it would be to use this stuff in play.

Aside from the vividly described details of the setting, one thing which really struck me as well was how usable and flexible the content is. It is fairly light on mechanics, meaning that it'd be easy to use with any version of D&D (or clones), and a good number of other RPGs as well, no doubt. Completely unexpectedly, I was eager to use Carcosa not only with Labyrinth Lord (my D&D flavour of choice), but also with Mutant Future, and even Call of Cthulhu! In fact, I pretty much concluded that I'd use an unholy hybrid of the three to run games in Carcosa (more on this another time).

As to the controversial ritual sorcery, it is very horrid. To be honest I can't really imagine running a game where the PCs were the ones doing this kind of thing. But from the point of view of flavour it really adds a lot to the setting, and even if the PCs only come across others performing these rituals, or encounter them in old tomes or libraries, the presence of such magic would weigh heavily on the mood.

In conclusion, this is a first class RPG supplement, and may perhaps gain the honour of being the first pre-written setting that I will actually make any use of!