Showing posts with label OSR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OSR. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Restocking the dungeon Part 2

First post

Yeah how do I do this best, now? My documents are in german, so how do I talk about it with least amount of work?

Hmm. Let's just assume for the sake of this post that my dungeon is almost empty and if it's relevant to tell whats in a room, I will. Okay? Okay.

That thing again.
My ideas for repopulating the dungeon are as follows:
-I want to show my players that the dungeon is dynamic
-I want to show signs of fighting between the factions
-I want to implement a new faction

The two last points are directly derived from the first, so we don't have to do a lot of things to show its dynamic quality.

-I will do following procedure to repopulate:
-rewrite the small random-encounter table for this small dungeon.
-Pick one bigger room as the lair for the new faction
-Maybe pick a room or two to insert my own ideas
-write a small "Special" table for the dungeon room contents that will be appropriate for faction warfare
-use the b/x dungeon room random contents table to iterate over each explored room in the dungeon.

The cockroach people will put bags over the heads of their undead servants. This has three reasons:
-The cockroach people like to eat the soft face parts but don't enjoy the look of eaten faces.
-I want the players be able to distinguish between the undead of the blue baron and the undead of the cockroach people
-I want to creep out my players

With this in mind, let's start!

Wandering Monster Table:
1-3
Troglodyte
1d8
4
Skeleton
3d4
5
Zombie
2d4
5
Ghoul
1d6

This is my old wandering monster table. I know. Pretty bare bones. But it does the trick and I am lazy. As you see the split is even. With the actions of my players the population of undead took the greatest damage. Now that the troglodytes are in combat with them and the cockroach people have control over them, I will reduce their number even further.
But first I'll roll how many "potential" cockroach people will have entered the dungeon. I rolled 14 cockroach people, with one leader as an extra.
There are:
14 cockroach people
17 troglodytes
13 undead of the blue baron

I will now determine how many these factions lost in skirmishes. 1d4 for a good position, 1d6 for a mediocre position and 1d8 for a really bad position.
The undead of the blue baron are already weak and the stronger troglodytes turned on them. Plus the cockroach people have a mayor advantage to them.
I rolled a 5, so there are 8 potential undead left, which is pretty pathetic!
The troglodytes are in a medium position, they don't know how to respond to the spell casting bugs and have lost some warriors against the party. I rolled a one. They're still kicking it, with 16 Troglodytes.
And the newcomers get a great positional advantage. But I rolled a 4. 10 cockroach people, I bet they are pissed for getting their ass beaten by the troglodytes.

The new table would look like this:

Wandering Monster Table:
1-3
Troglodyte
1d8
4-5
Cockroach people
1d6
6
Ghoul
1d6

As the lair of the cockroach people, I will pick 16. The characters neatly cleaned that room out, and north of it is a pile of corpses that are pretty interesting to the cockroaches.

The lair of the other two factions are 10 for the troglodytes and 20 for the blue baron.

I'll fill room 1 by hand. I know that my players will use this entrance to enter the dungeon, because they didn't have searched for other entries.
In this room will be the single dead Troglodyte. Around him 3 dead, weird and naked undead with burlap sacks over eaten faces. That's unusual. The players will immediately get that something's up. kinda in their face.
In 3 I will put a handful of Troglodytes, who play with some cockroach corpses and some troglodyte guards in 9.
In 15 and 17 will be some cockroach person guards.
12 will be filled with defensive undead of the blue baron.
Each faction guards their lair against the two other.

with that done, I'll create a small "special" table.

special
1
Combat: Troglodytes vs Cockroachpeople
2
Combat: Cockroachpeople capturing undead
3
Combat: Troglodytes vs Undead
4
Old Battlefield: Troglodytes vs Undead
5
Old Battlefield:
Cockroachpeople vs Troglodytes
6
Undead caught in snare traps
7
Blocked room
8
Combat: chaotic three-way fight in which the characters probably will somehow get involved.
something is burning in the room and is filling it up with smoke, holy fuck

For combat, decide who is winning
1
A is superior against B
2
A has an advantage against B
3-4
Draw between A and B
5
B has an advantage against A
6
B is superior against A

To determine how many combatants each side has:
If one party is superior:
roll 1d6 and 1d8
The superior party gets the higher roll.
If one party has an advantage:
roll 2d6
The party with the advantage gets the higher roll.
Draw:
roll 2d6 drop lowest for each party.

8 on the special table counts as a draw.

I'll roll some loot for the new faction, to drop some in their lair and scattered around the dungeon. They got a treasure type of F.
I just rolled 12000 silver coins (I use silver standard) and nothing else. That's just lazy. I'll transform it into some weird pieces of jewellery/tools and magical components. They got a makeshift laboratory with 4000$$$ worth of empty scrolls, oils and other icky ingredients, and a sack of weird bronze dentistry-looking tools, rings, ocular apparatuses and small knifes worth 8000$.
Not a lot for such exotic items, but it's okay. My players are rich enough at the moment.

Now we can go and iterate through the cleared rooms and fill them with stuff.
First I drop some monsters in the rooms I'd wanted to fill by hand, namely 16, 3, 9, 15, 17 and 12.
In 3 I rolled four troglodytes, in 9 three.
In 16 I'll put 5 cockroach people,1 leader, 4 zombies, 1 ghoul,
the magic lab and the rest of the crafts and tools that I don't roll for other rooms.
For 15 I rolled three cockroach people and 4 skeletons.
For 17 I rolled another three cockroaches, 3 skeletons, 3 zombies
In 12 I'll put 6 vicious ghouls.

Now I'll use the b/x random Dungeon Room Content table the other cleared rooms. I roll first and then fill them afterwards. It will get a bit cluttered here, but thats alright.

2: empty, but treasure!
4: special
11: monster, no treasure
13: monster, no treasure
14: trap, no treasure
19: special

now I'll give them life.

2:
This room looks like something has fucking exploded. there are people-sized insect parts lying around. scattered around are bronze tools that look like weird LSD inspired dentistry tools, some are broken and slightly bent and burned. worth 700$.
4: I rolled a 7 on my table, that means the room is blocked. This room is inside troglodyte territory, between a guards and the lair. So it wouldn't make sense for them to block off their only escape route, so I'd say that these troglodytes are actually cut off from their lair, because some exploding cockroaches collapsed the room.
11: four Troglodytes
13: again troglodytes, now three.
14: The trap-room. Being near the lair of the cockroaches, I guess the cockroaches laid some trap to catch some undead or to kill some troglodytes.
Alright, the ground is littered with poisoned bronze caltrops. kills troglodytes and makes undead a tiny bit less mobile. save or die. serves as some nice loot for my murderhobos, too.
19: I rolled a five. An old battlefield between Troglodytes and Cockroaches. Alright. there are two dead cockroaches there and one wounded troglodyte, chilling out. He isn't in a condition to fight. The two cockroaches got spell books, don't forget!

Well.
As you can see, creating a special table was really overkill, for only rolling twice. But it helped me, I had a rough guideline which I could give sense depending on the context around it. I am sure this technique could be useful if that dungeon weren't that small!
Hope you guys can get at least something out of this. I'd be glad if you guys commented, maybe gave some constructive critique, things like that.

I'm a bit tired, so I just post without checking. Really annoying that I have to keep a dictionary at hand just because my english is so damn terrible. I hope this has at least some charm to you and isn't terribly annoying. I love you all!
See ya!

Monday, February 18, 2019

Cockroach people and their weird-ass magic

"Next post I'll populate the dungeon."
I lied!
I sometimes like to create weird spells that the characters can use, like this weird-ass animal messenger spell or that one witch curse.
And I thought, man, why not create some weird level one spells for the Cockroach people?
Also I'd thought, how lame would it be if these cockroach dudes just put every party member to sleep? Well maybe not that lame, but I want to reduce the probability of that happening
I'll create 5 level 1 spells for a random table and 3 level 2 spells for the Cockroach leader.

Level one Spells

Explode Self
Range: self
Well, what do you think? It fucking nukes the magic-user. Everyone around it saves vs. breath or takes 2d6 damage per HD of the caster. Naturally, this kills the magic-user and destroys their body.

Shape valuable Metal
The magic-user can shape a small amount of gold, bronze or silver to their liking. The items created this way show really weird intricate fractal patterns.
Really mesmerising when observed under a microscope.

magic missile, recursive
Range: 150'
This Spell conjures a glowing fractal dart of energy, made out of glowing fractal darts of energy.
The missile hits unerringly (no attack roll required).
If this is your first cast of this spell this turn, roll a d3. If not, take the previous roll of this spell and decrement it by one.
On a one, this spell does 1 damage to your target.
Else, your target suffers this number as damage and you'll immediately recast magic missile, recursive at the position of your target.

control body part
Duration: 1 turn
Range: 150'
The caster gains control of one body part of a target. Doesn't have to be living, but has to be functional. He has to concentrate to use it. Attacking with it is a bit finicky, because there is more to an attack than just swinging an arm. -2 to attack rolls if the caster wishes to attack with it. The target looses full control over the body part. Targeting the head is suuuper tricky and can possibly fry the magic-users brain, because he has to control the flow of two separate consciousnesses at the same time. The caster instantly dies if he fails a save against magic, but is still in control for 1 turn of the body.

I hope so much that my players will use this spell to let people shit themselves, I know I'm so immature I'm sorry.

microscopic vision
Duration: 6 turns
Range: 60'
Select an eye as a target. That eye can now magically observe microscopic things. Really fucking trippy, -2 to attack-rolls because the eye is essentially useless for other things and is really hella distracting.

Level two spells
 
Control Undead
Sorry man, I promised you new wacky spells, but I need a reason how the bugs are controlling undead. It's charm person, but with undead. Will give control over unclaimed unintelligent undead indefinitely. If they're controlled, the INT of the original owner is used.

Kick-start Consciousness
Duration: 6 turns
Range: touch
The caster needs to touch an exposed brain for this spell. Will reanimate and reinvigorate the brain, which will have impaired control of the dead or dying body. Being an undead creature helps in that regard. The caster has telepathic control over the brain while touching it, can communicate with it and give it orders. There is no real conciousness or soul inside the brain, only a proxy, which runs through the simplest thought-loops, but has access to the memory, the personality, instincts and bodily functions. After the spell ends, the brain will melt into an bubbling goo, which promptly will exit the head through the nose, mouth and ears. This goo is intoxicating and lets the drug-user hallucinate weird and unusual dreams filled with foreign emotions. Comparable with an okayish to semi-bad salvia trip, the cockroach people enjoy the shit out of this high.

Solve Equation
Another rather gimmicky spell. The caster can ask wolfram-alpha a single question.

I think this draws an interesting picture about the cockroach dudes. They have a weird concept of self, see themselves as an instance of the universe rather than individuals, are highly curious about the universe and would love to understand how life and consciousness works. They never fear death but would like to prevent it, for the sake of experiencing things. Like psychopaths, in a sense.

1d6 Random spell
1 Explode Self
2 Shape valuable Metal
3 Magic Missle, recursive
4 control bodypart
5 microscopic vision
6 Reroll on another table. Maybe your own spell-list, idc

Restocking the dungeon Part 1

These fuckers will never see that coming.

If you read my blog, you'd find out that my players are pretty new. They almost cleared out the dungeon, with only 17 Troglodytes and 13 Undead left from the original 27 and 24. My players will probably not expect the dungeon to be a dynamic thing that reacts to their actions, so I thought about why not try to emphazise the fact?

The Troglodytes, annoyed at the impotence of the undead of the blue baron, freed themselves and another faction found the dungeon and got inside it. There are now three different competing bodies inside, ignoring the clerics of the sungod and the party, which is a point I'll speak about.

The players are bound to the church, which asked for their help. But what if that weren't the case? What if there was a competing force that could either a) help them or b) be good cannonfodder for them?

I thought about it.

NECROMANCERS!
NECROMANCERS WHO WANT TO INQUIRE THE POWER THAT HAD RAISED THE BLUE BARON!

I know right, boring as fuck, that was my first thought. So I threw it away for the time being. Maybe Goblins? Nah. Maybe Kobolds? Nah, they'll get their debut later, I'd love to play them out as vietkong inspired vicious guerilla combatants, so I'd keep them for some time later.
My buddy Richard, who isn't part of my osr group talked about how he'd like to play a ratfolk some time and I thought: Man ratfolk don't sound too bad, don't they? Maybe ratfolk necromancers? I mean, my murderhobos would surely love to learn how to control the undead that plague the land, those edgy fucks. Actually that could be it, right? A faction that stands as a contrast to the priests of the sun, who try to free as much souls as they can. A faction of bestial monsters, opposed to the somewhat edgy, but human clerics. A faction that can't help out in giving food, shelter and safety, but a faction that gives uncertainty, forbidden knowledge, maybe riches otherwise unobtainable.

I sold myself on the necromancer idea, fuck!
But ratfolk are still boring. So I came up with:

source: v-e-r-a 
I know, I am, like, super creative.
But think about it. They're disgusting. They're monstreous. They're alien. But they're sophisticated enough to learn the cosmic truths of life and death. What do these curious creatures know?

Alright, why theyre in the dungeon. They're a small clan of scholars. They're really curious and are really interested in undead getting raised on their own. Raising undead is really difficult magic, but nature does it all the time. Now with the Troglodytes busy fighting against the undead, they quickly invaded some rooms and enslaved some of the dead. They got fine, intricate tools for analysing magical energies and are very good craftsmen regarding fine tools and crafts. They don't have pity in other humanoids and are almost sociopathic in their behavior, but they aren't dumb, they can be allies or tradepartners. That should do it for their personality.

They want:
The blue baron gone.
The troglodytes gone.
Humanoid bodies, for food and labor.

They offer:
Alien looking crafts made of gold, bronze and chitin.
magical training in controlling the undead.
some dialogue with an exotic and weird race.
peace.

They have (If taken from them):
2 magic oils that can raise undead
spellbooks
Alien looking crafts made of gold, bronze and chitin.
vengeance.

Relationships to other factions:
Troglodytes - Bad, troglodytes are quite aggressive
The Undead -Neutral to Bad, they see them as a dangerous natural phenomenon
The Clerics of the Sun - No contact until now, would absolutely hate eachother.

Stats:

Cockroach People
DAC/AAC 6 / 14 HD 1+1 (5 hp) Att 1 x Weapon (1d8 or by Weapon) THAC0/AB 19 / 1 MV 120'(40') SV D13 W14 P13 B16 S14 (MU2) ML 8 AL chaotic XP 20 Leader: 35 NA 1d6 (4d6) TT F
Magic:
Cockroach People can cast spells as a level 1 magic-user and have a magic book containing 3 random spells.
Undead Servants:
Cockroach People groups often have undead servants:
50% 1d6 Skeletons 30% 1d4 Zombies 10% 1d3 Ghouls
Leader:
Groups of 20+ are led by a Cockroach Person with 3HD (16 hp) that can cast as an level 3 magic-user.

That should do it for stats.
Next post I'll populate the dungeon.

Session 4 - Tomb of the Blue Baron

Last Session

Aaaaalright, we had plenty of time last friday to play and some fun things happened. Get ready for some gore, intrigue and pvp.

I probably should have written sooner, but I was busy with Dwarf Fortress, playing out an epic story about a long lost holy scripture of a god stolen by an Ettin, necromancer dwarven kings and war against elves.

Nonetheless, heres what happened last session:

The Characters:
Miss Penchu, the human magic user, played by Till
Mei, the Woodelf Fighter, played by Julia
Drago, the lizardman fighter, played by Ceco
Eine Frau, the Tiefling Specialist, played by Alina 

Hansi, the Human retainer of Miss Penchu
Hubert, the Human retainer of Drago
Wolfgang, the Human Sungod Cleric retainer of Drago

So this Walter White looking cleric dude asked them to clean up that new dungeon right? That dude still has no name, though.
Right. I actually have some troubles remembering everything, don't know if because that session was almost only high octane dungeon crawling or because it was the longest session so far. As usual I can't be bothered to recap the layout of the dungeon in fancy words because I suck, so enjoy this drawing.

Seriously, feel free to steal that shit if you can't be bothered to draw some dungeons.
So they went inside, from the entry to 1, because they hella didn't feel checking out the region. (They'll learn, I hope) They started to fight a bit with their retainers, Drago commanded Hubert to lead the party and he really didn't felt like it, so they squabbled for a bit, with Hubert threatening to leave the party. Drago told him to fuck off, so Hubert quit their agreement and joined Eine Frau, who he dearly wanted to impress. I felt Ceco's, who played Drago, bloodlust rising, lol. In the meantime, Penchu told Hansi to open the goddamn door to 1, which he did, although feeling uneasy. As I told last time, Troglodytes lived in this cave and their stench mixed with the smell of undead really upset some stomachs. I described opening the door like opening an infernal dishwasher, and Miss Penchu and Hubert started retching. Drago took this opportunity to bully Hubert a bit. After drinking some water and acclimating to the stench, they went inside and saw an old mural depicting a war scenery on the eastern wall. beside the doors north and south were some finely crafted statues of warrior looking dudes with sharp facial structures that were decorated with blue robes. Drago took some of the fabric with him and they decided to go south, because the smell was stronger at the south. So they went inside 2, which was a hall filled with trash, troglodyte poop and dead half eaten adventurers and got ambushed by four sneaky troglodytes, who heard them entering and retching. They weren't happy about it, to be honest. The Girls were chill as fuck, but Till and Ceco complained a bit. So they got flanked, right? The Troglodytes flanked the middle of the adventurer chain and murdered the shit out of Miss Panchu and Hubert. Luckily the rest survived, although wounded. (Not cavegirl-wounded, though).
At this point, our food order came, I ate a shawarma, Julia made some coffee and Till made a new character. Man I love hummus.

Oh, I almost forgot. Miss Penchu died, but Hansi, the useless chubby retainer fought like a madman against the troglodytes, even wounding one or two. Absolute legend. They saw potential in him and Eine Frau recruited him for 30% of her loot in that dungeon. He accepted. After this fight, his confidence skyrocketed. Remember this fact for later, lol.

Alright, we ate, drank some coffee, I dual-wielded a beer because I opened one before Julia suggested coffee and the now injured party left the spooky-ass dungeon.

They chilled at a small guestroom in the shabby church, helped the clerics with a bit of their work and were allowed to stay for a week and save a ration every other day. After some days (I don't remember how many), some dude entered their room.

The curtain lifts for:
Fuhan, the human magic user, played by Till

I liked Fuhan. He was a very charming guy but had a rather strong squint. He was a flashy newbie wizard and wanted to go on an adventure, so he joined the party. They asked him of his skills and then fun stuff happened.

You see, Till never even casted one spell with Miss Penchu, lol. And he rolled charm person. One of the stronger level one spells, I'd say. And as many people know, new wizard players tend to get mad with power, which I dearly enjoy as a DM.

So Fuhan was rather the show than tell kinda guy and he blasted Drago charm person in his scaly face. This is a pivotal moment for the group, regarding friendship, trust and their love for magic-users.

Mei and Eine Frau were really not excited. Unlike Fuhan, who got a new best buddy. There happened a lot of out-of-character shit and they hated the fucking smug look on Tills face. So next day comes, Drago goes out to grab some beer for himself and his new best friend, and Mei and Eine Frau started murdering the ever living shit out of Fuhan. Fuhan blasted Eine Frau with charm person and she decided to step back. After some bloody fighting between Eine Frau und Fuhan, the Wizard was dead and the spell lost its power over Drago and Mei. The Headpriest checked out what the fuck happened and they told him the story how this motherfucker charmed Drago. Frankly he gave no shit, he got shit to do. He asked them to bury Fuhans mangled corpse and get fucking done with the dungeon. So They chilled for some days to tend to Eine Fraus wounds and yet another person joined them in their small room.

The curtain lifts for:
Sareh, yet another human magic user, played by Till

This black haired girl is apparently the younger Sister of Fuhan. Nobody knows this, yet. Don't know if this will ever be relevant though. She isn't as charming as Fuhan (yes, I know), is rather small, has black straight hair and a face-veil.

They didn't trust her a single bit. But they were low on helping hands so they reluctantly accepted to take Tills character with them, although he couldn't stop looking as shady as possible. Till didn't enjoy this distrust, but hell, I did. It was amazing. Drago, Eine Frau, Mei and Hansi really grew together through the hardships they faced, so they decided some things:
- Traitors will be fucking murdered on the spot
- You gotta prove yourself, or you can fuck right off

Now with this little distraction gone, they packed their shit and headed again for the scary Toooomb of the Blueeee Barooonnn~

I like cheesy names okay, don't judge, maybe I'll post this dungeon as a PDF some time, for you guys to steal.

So they went to 1, from which they went to 2 and then took the stairs down to 14. There they found a pretty big statue of this guy I call the blue baron here. The statue had some gemstones for eyes and the party quickly pried the blue alexandrite out of the rocky face. Below the statue they found a locked chest. Eine Frau checked it out, found nothing wrong with it, so Mei started to open it up with her crowbar. She heard the breaking of a glass flask and white fume started to leak out. Luckily she saved against death (I really enjoy the elven axe murderer), so she jumped away in time. The party waited until the gas vanished and they found hella loot in the old chest. They found Tourmaline, gold earrings with garnet and 1000 cash money. (I use silver standard)
That has been the first treasure they found, so they were rather happy.

Hansi the retainer started to man up and confidently opened doors for the party, which they really fucking loved. At this point he was better integrated into the party than Sareh, Tills new character.

They went to 15, killed a single ghoul and stole a silver ring with tourmaline from the corpse. They went to 16, and holy shit they found seven fucking Troglodytes. They closed the door and shut it close with their crowbar. Pretty quick thinking. They heard them trying to open the door but then stopped after a while. The party peeked inside and saw that they left. They correctly suspected that the dungeon loops, so they locked the eastern door in 15 the same way. in 16 they spotted four troglodytes waiting in alcoves and shadows, trying to ambush them again. The room has been a bit bigger so the troglodytes were a bit spread out. Hansi and Drago charged the first two, while the others pelted the enemies with bolts and arrows. They weren't that effective and to their dismay, their good friend Hansi got slaughtered. The cleric retainer Wolfgang tried to protect the ranged combatants and got half his face ripped away, which he survived though. After some brutal combat the party was victorious and had time to check out the room. But first Sareh decided to pry the silver ring from Hansis cold, chubby fingers, which the party really didn't took well. Drago even started slapping her. I loved it. She argued that she didn't want to steal it, but she was afraid the others would forget the ring on his finger. They didn't believe her. After this discussion they started to inspect the room.
It was a great hall with alcoves and decorations and in the middle has been a table with hella loot. They found: 500 copper coins, 1000 silver coins, 2 zircons, one tourmaline, a silver chain, a silver statuette of the blue baron and a rpg dice-set made out of jade with bronze numbers.

From left to right:
15' pole, the 15' pole
Sareh, the distrusted magic-user
Mei, the elven one-armed axe murderer
the mangled corpse of Hansi
Drago, the lizardman fighter
Eine Frau, the tiefling specialist
Wolfgang the cleric retainer.


I've forgotten to tell, Drago started collecting thighbones of his fallen friends. He plans to build an amazing Halberd. He has currently the thighbone of Miss Penchu and Hansi. They decided to leave the dungeon and have done so with no problems, while dragging Hansis dead ass out of there.

Back in the church they started to split the loot. Wolfgang didn't want some, so they split the loot between the four of them, with Sareh getting the least of it. They argued a bit and the core of the party (being Mei, Drago and Eine Frau) told Sareh that she's a fucking creep and useless so far. They lamented their companions death and pressed Sareh to reveal her face and tell them what the fuck she's good at. Coerced into revealing herself she reluctantly showed them that she just has no nose and is just a shitty wizard with really bad spells. The party had a pretty good collection of level 1 magic-user books, lol, and they discussed if they let Sareh learn something. They had the book of Gogiga, Cecos first character, Miss Penchu and Furhans book. Penchu learned sleep from Chelestra the Witch, so they gave Sareh the book that she could at least be of some use to them. They were really fucking uneasy with her learning spells though. And Till couldn't fucking stop his shit-eating evil fucking grin, which absolutely didn't fucking help his cause. That fucker. We all know that he will betray them at some point. Learning sleep took one day, Walter White came to them and slapped their butts with cure light wounds after seeing that Wolfgang lost half his face and left without a word and so the party was ready for the next descent.

Rather than explore side-routes they wanted to explore their taken path further, which annoyed me a bit. They Went back to 16, I actually don't know if I rolled one random encounter, which I checked for every 10 minutes. They were really lucky in that regard. But whatever.

From 16 they went into 17, opening doors with their trusty 15' pole, and found that the floor was littered with corpses. Like, imagine a carpet made out of carcasses. They were obviously reluctant to enter the room, so they chilled out a bit, probed it, threw some shit inside to check if some of the bodies would move and then rushed trough it to the eastern door to 19. They found a really pretty hall that illuminated itself with blue flames along the walls. You know the trope. In the room was a stairway leading south up to a stone pavilion/gazebo thingie in which a small column stood. On the column were the holy text of Marodas, an old god of war. Julia really enjoyed this room.

from there they took the eastern door and went to 13, found two ghouls, which they fought. They were a bit overconfident and Eine Frau lost a leg. lol. Drago missed a Ghoul which was wrestling with her and absolutely fucking severed her right leg above the knee, which has been propelled away by the blow. They decided to press on, because Alina, the player of Eine Frau, absolutely didn't want to go back to the surface. She told her party to take her cash money and leave her as bait if something shitty happens. Drago and Mei objected. What a heart warming moment between three psychopaths. Remember, these fucks sold a family of poor, cursed bastards to an evil witch.

They went north to 12 and found a zombie with only one arm, no legs and a brass trumpet. The Zombie blew into the trumpet and made a really pathetic sound, warning the blue baron and his servants in the room upstairs to the left.

They put the undead to rest and took his trumpet and went north to 11. Didn't feel like checking out the stairs. Good. Didn't want to end the night with a total party kill.

In 11 they saw some Zombies in not-roman armor. I had been annoyed by them just blindly rushing into battles and getting slaughtered, which they absolutely would have been at this point, so I once, only once, suggested maybe outsmarting their enemies. They got a rope, they could lure them into the room and let them fall over and then smash their skulls in. They were seemingly amazed that they even could do that. I were really confused at that point. I mean, these guys didn't play much video games and had almost no experience with other rpgs, why did they think that they couldn't avoid combat?

Well I usually don't want to influence the players that much, but it was for the best. Two of them stretched a rope across the entrance and waited for the zombies to run inside. The zombies did, got caught, and I decided to roll how many zombies would fall over.

No zombie did, lol. But they still kept them from reaching inside, and the ranged characters started shooting these zombie fucks. After most of them were dead, they let the rest in and started pummeling the remaining ones. They were victorious.

I absolutely forgot to tell that Mei looted a crossbow from Furhan. She bonded with her axe, though, so she likes to utilize both. How is she reloading, are you thinking, right? Well, she's the one-armed axemurderer, she's a badass. She locks the crossbow on a carabiner on her belt and starts cranking, that's how she's doing it. Don't ask okay my characters are badasses.

They went to 11, found nothing of interest and checked out the stairs. They saw 7 skeletons with their back turned to them, guarding the stair from which they are coming, interestingly. They locked up the southern door in 11, which was actually really good. After realizing that they don't have to fight fair, they started to oil up the stair. Drago blew the trumpet, almost all skeletons fell on their asses, exept one, who stood in the doorway up the stairs and they lit the puddle with a spark. The skeletons started burning up and the party started to hack them into pieces. Drago critfailed and I ruled that his Halberd started burning, which he enjoyed, though. Behind them they heard undead pounding at their locked door. That could have gone really bad.

They went up the stairs to 9, found nothing interesting and carried on to 8. In 8 they found tanning skins of humans and broken symbols of the sungod nailed to the walls. That really rustled Wolfgangs jimmies. In an alcove they found a bust of the blue baron, before it was a small plate filled with teeth, bones, and blue candles. Wolfgang was about to rip the bust out and break it, but the group calmed him somewhat. They went to 4 and saw three Troglodytes. Sareh put them to sleep and they happily slit their throats. After they massacred them they went to 3 and found a statue of a blue painted warrior with tourmalines for eyes. They quickly took them and discovered an amateurishly crafted, slimy and stinky crate filled with 400 copper coins and one hematite, which they gladly took. Luckily they went west and found room 1, the room which they started in.
Julia has been keeping a map of the dungeon, but she didn't felt like precisely drawing the dungeon down, so this was really lucky actually. They honestly weren't in a state to further explore, so they left.

It was pretty late in the night at this point, and Alina has been fighting falling asleep for a while now, so we packed our shit. She drove home, Ceco fell asleep while Till, Julia and I watched some memes and then Ceco and I took the bus home.

Oh boy, what will happen next time? Will Sareh prove herself to the party or will she betray them? Will the blue baron absolutely kill all of them? Or will they just leave?
Until next time!
Which is next friday. Not sure when I'll report back, this shit takes fucking time to write down, holy shit.

Next Session

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Session 3 - Saint Melek Monastery

Last session

So the heroes thought about what to do. Go to the city? Check out the region? or..

The Characters:
Miss Penchu, the human magic user, played by Till
Mei, the Woodelf Fighter, played by Julia
Drago, the lizardman fighter, played by Ceco
Eine Frau, the Tiefling Specialist, played by Alina

Eine Frau was very surprised to see Mei missing an arm. After a week of work in the tuning fork she went down the road to the south and heard about some dudes throwing a giant party in the beerbucket. Being poor and an opportunist, she naturally checked it out. There she found the lady wizard Miss Penchu, the lizardman warrior Drago and the one-armed elven axemurderer Mei.

Hey why not use this moment to describe them a bit?

Eine Frau is a 20-30 years old chaos tiefling, who looks almost human. She has two little horns on her forehead. she was married to an astrowizard and saw him die while he looked through a telescope. She's interested to find out what the fuck's going on with that damned star.

Drago, well I actually don't know much about him. He made a really nice knife handle out of Meis bone and gave it to her as a gift. He likes to fight and probably is an absolute psychopath. He seems interested in the crusaders of the Sungod.

Mei, well Mei. She started as a typical lotr elf from the woods, but she evolved beyond that. She wants to see the world end. She seems like a fun person, ignoring her evil tendencies.

Miss Penchu is a stout human. She has one single huge tit, idk what happened to the other one. She's self concious about it and hides her spellbook where the other one should be. It's pretty convincingly padded. She is moody, quick to anger and somewhat smug.

After Eine Frau found back to the group and has been updated regarding what happened they started thinking about what to do next. Eine Frau heard about this abandoned monastery and really wanted to go. So they started gathering infomation. They learned that the river is terribly polluted and most of the brewers there think that it has something to do with that cursed monastery. The village Emen has a lot of brewers and distillers, with the beerbucket being a local meeting spot for everyone to show off their newest creations. The party learned that the monastery was called the saint melek monastery and was renowned for their legendary brewing, so naturally some of the brewers would pay a hefty sum for the recipe. They also found out that if they follow the west road, they'll find a horrible war theater, where some crusaders of the sungod reside. The crusaders are putting the dead to rest. They didn't find out why the monastery was cursed and they thought about maybe going to the crusaders to talk to them, because they're hella afraid of undead, lol.

The party found one brewer and asked them what he'd pay for the recipe of the saint melek monastery. He said 1500 cash money. They said whaaat, give us more. He said 2000, nothing more. They started an auction in the beerbucket. God damn. The brewer raised it to 3000 but somehow the adventuring party rised it even higher to 4000? I don't even know anymore, they are greedy assholes. But whatever, they still have to find the recipe first, that's why I'm not worried lol.

With this fat sack of cash before their noses, they started heading north, following the river. They indeed saw that the river was filled with garbage, shit and other stuff. Huh. They didn't take the time to scout the region, my cute little noobs, and went for the entry. Eine Frau lit her lamp and interestingly they even started mapping the dungeon, which was done by Miss Penchu. In the first room they saw this spooky blue ghost again, that vanished through the north wall. Fuck I'm way to lazy to discribe the rooms with height and width, I'll just post the map and give you guys a quick run down what happened, okay?


I'm not sure where this map is from, I found it on the internet and thought, yeah alright this will do for a cute little dungeon. There are no stairs leading down except for the big one in M9, which is locked though. In the basement is a shitload of beer and the corpse of an Elf.

Alright. They went into M2, chilled a bit, looked through the windows into M8 but didn't see anything interesting, went trough the door west, advanced a little bit and bumped into five goblins.

I don't know why, but Mei holds a raging hatred against goblins. They ran back to M2 to have some open space and the goblins followed. They quickly slaughtered two of them and captured one while the rest tried to flee.
Mei speaks goblin so they interrogated him. Apparently these goblin fucks live here because people usually stay away because of the ghosts. He called Miss Penchu fat and ugly and tried to convince them to keep him as a guide, but Eine Frau really felt like killing people, so she murdered the goblin and was satisfied. They went from M2 to M5, found some beds and three ghouls. They started a fight, Eine Fraus leg and Dragos arm got terribly fucked up but they won this skirmish. Eine Frau wanted to press on, Drago not so much. They decided to check out room M4, which was a bedroom without ghouls and room M3, where they found five relatively fresh human corpses. The corpses had died because of bloodloss, they had ripped eardrums through wich they lost a hell of a lot of blood. How could this even happen? No matter, they then left the dungeon and relaxed back in Emen for a week, regenerating their crippled bodyparts.

In that week, they started looking for some retainers. Miss Penchu recruited Hansi, a chubby and rather dim-witted dude and Drago recruited Hubert, a short, dark haired human with a really big larynx.
This time they decided to check out those crusaders first, before going into the dungeon. They really wanted to know what to do against fucking undead. But first they visited the priest of Emen, in hope of gaining some knowledge.
The sunpriest warris is a very sick old man, lying in his bed. They learned from him that undead are weak against holy water. He sold them two bottles. They also found out that no human ghost usually destroys the eardrum, the priest told them that the monastery was involved against a holy war against elves and that evil elven spirits, called banshees could kill with a single sound. Warris told them that they were fucked if that was the case. He also told them that there surely has happened something gruesome, he couldn't comprehend otherwise why his god would allow such a strong curse in one of his places of worship. Furthermore he told them that he suspects the Abbot of that monastery did something weird, Warris never liked his face.

With this knowledge the party started following the street to the west, where they found an abandoned village by the road, filled with ghouls, a doppelgänger that posed as Miss Penchu and finally the war theater.

What, you want to hear about the ghouls and doppelgänger? Eh alright.
The road to the village was fenced off, a sign told the group that the village is plundered and emty, there are only ghouls there. They didn't want to deal with it, so they took the detour around it.

Six miles later, they found another Miss Penchu in their group. The trick was that Till was playing the doppelgänger and I controlled the real Miss Penchu. They understood that rather quickly, murdered almost the real one, decided to take both with them for some time but Eine Frau was overtaken by her bloodlust again and correctly killed the doppelgänger. Alina, who plays Eine Frau was a bit bummed out after choosing correctly though.

And then they found the war theater. They found a small improv church made of wood and some dudes working. They spoke with one who was called Wolfgang and asked him how to deal with undead. He didn't tell them much useful stuff, like, smash their heads, burn them, cut them to pieces, etc. But he told him that clerics could turn the undead, which got them interested. Wolfgang brought them to his boss, a Heisenberg-looking motherfucker in a garb. He told them that they discovered a dungeon while they unearthed some stone for tombstones. They found out that the dungeon is the tomb of some saint of a heathen wargod, which apperently awoke as an undead because of the devastating wars above his tomb. The cleric told them that he suspects that he's one of the reason why the undead are so agiated in this region. Furthermore he told them that he apparently enslaved some troglodytes who guard his tomb now. The clerics don't have the resources to deal with troglodytes and he told them that he'll give them two clerics as retainers for the saint melek monastery if they put the undead in the tomb to rest. The group bought two flasks of holy water from him and Wolfgang the human cleric joined them as a retainer for the tomb of the heathen saint.

That's it. Let's see what happens next friday at the
TOMB OF THE BLUE BARON
yes I called the dungeon that, don't make fun of me.

Next session

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Session 2

Last session

Here we go again.
Alina had no time that day, so I decided that her character Eine Frau stayed at the tuning fork and helped out. She was a bit too freaked out after getting abducted, so she needed to chill for some time.

The Characters:
Nagga, the Kroakling Specialist, played by Till
Mei, the Woodelf Fighter, played by Julia
Gekko, the Lizardman Magic User played by Ceco

A day passed, and the adventurers relaxed in the tavern, drinking beer, eating food and getting strange looks because of their two robed bodyguards. Chelestra gifted them some robes to hide their Orc friends.
remember they got some after slaughtering some poor dudes? Right.
The lazy witch was very interested in these two. She knew about the fountain but didn't knew that sacrificing some poor fucks would result in free slaves. So she hatched a plan.

On this morning, Gekko spotted a crow behind the window. He naturally let it in, being curious about the animal. It went inside and sat in front of Gekko.
Five seams in the flesh of the animals head opened up and rolled back like a banana peel. In it were red and blue slithering but thin tentacles that started to curl together to form the flesh of a human hand, which quickly grew skin. The hand grabbed inside the crow and pulled out a letter. Gekko took the letter and the crow immediately keeled over and started to twitch, convulse and bleeding out. He opened the letter and found a piece of paper that started speaking in the voice of Chelestra. She told the adventurers that 12 miles west from her house were living some freaks who surely nobody will miss. She would give them 200 cash money for every freak they'll bring her and even teach Gekko some black magic shit. They were so freaking distracted by the hand-crow-abomination that they didn't pay any attention to the details. They only knew that they had to bring some people to Chelestra, so they started moving. Somehow they thought they had to move northwest, found Chelestras old home and were really ashamed to be that helplessly lost. They debated visiting Chelestra but didn't want to look incompetent. They bumbled around in that forest, started camp and decided to visit Chelestra again, the next day.

I rolled a random encounter. Five Zombies. Shouldn't be bad, right?
Well. They ran to the zombies, let them circle them and got fucking slaughtered.
Nagga, Gekko, Gekkos orc and Meis orc died. Through luck, Mei made it, killed the last couple of zombies, lost an arm and stopped the bleeding. She crawled in her tent and slept until the next day.

At the same time:
Miss Penchu the human ladywizard and Drago the lizardman warrior were on the way to their fountain. Miss Penchus stupid brother Dickerle went without them, that bastard, who knows what problems he got his ass into. Whatever, serves him right.

The curtain lifts for:
Miss Penchu, the human magic user, played by Till
Drago, the lizardman fighter, played by Ceco

Right, so these two new murderhobos found a fucking massacre. In the middle of it sits a tend with an elf. She's missing her arm, but she seems fine. Mei tells them that she knows a witch which will buy captured dudes, 200 cash money each. They talk for a short time and everyone's on the same page:
1. money
2. no morals, ever
Penchu is a nagging bitch, so Drago slaps her once and they walk south to the river. They follow the river north west and finally find the teapot of Chelestra. Mei is fucking hella relieved and starts sprinting to the building and starts hammering at the door. Chelestra opens it and Mei says:
Chelestra, I found two sacrifices for you!

...
Julia, what the fuck. I laughed for a minute.

I considered it, but Chelestra didn't feel like fighting. She's a coward. She let Mei inside and discussed the situation with her. She wants some immobile people with which she could deal more easily, like the letter said, there lived some freaks west in the hills that lead up to the mountain.
Chelestra let the other two inside and really defused the situation. Drago considered murdering them all, but he let that one slide.
Till has been zealously cartographing after their characters have been lost for a while, so his character Miss Penchu had took the map from Naggas body and noted where these freaks should live.

Hold up, I remembered how Dickerles name, I called him Thomas. Thomas the wizard, the brother of Miss Panchu.

That was random.

Nonetheless, they started traveling and went west for 12 miles. They found the hills and spotted two small buildings. After some observing they indeed seen some harlequin-baby looking freaks. They waited some time and spotted 3-4 different people. Some time later they decided to just go there, tell them that they're lost wanderers and would welcome some help. They went to the house, the harlequin-baby looking girl bolted inside and some ugly looking dude with vertically aligned eyes started talking to them. He was the Head of this family that got cursed by an evil witch because he didn't let her eat their apples. The group freaked him out, so he decided to close the door. Somehow they convinced him that they just want to stay the night and will be on their way in the morning. They gave him their weapons, he led them to a room and that's that. The adventurers started to discuss if they really should do that shit. Mei had doubts about Chelestra because she apparently doesn't want to deal with evil witch shit, and Miss Penchu surprised me, because she took pity in the cursed family. They only wanted to be together until cataclysm. They decided to abduct them in the night. Money's more important it seems.

At night they started moving. They went into the living room, without weapons and wanted to go to the bedroom of the dad and mom. These people aren't idiots though, so they rigged the doors with falling pots, which made hell of a noise. The Mom went to the door, equipped with Meis now signature weapon. (Mei has been using the bow at first, which isn't possible anymore with only one arm.) The mom got a lucky hit against Mei and fucking destroyed her leg with the axe, but got a hell of a shield bash from Drago to the face. Dad tried to intervene, but they took his wife captive. With this encounter done, they captured the rest and got their weapons back.

Mei, drawn by yours truly.

They waited for the day and traveled back to the witch, which took a while because Meis leg was fucked up. Chelestra was happy to see them. They brought her five freaks, of which she sacrificed four at the fountain and put one in her magic cauldron, with which she can create any food she wants out of people. The party was delighted.
I mean, yes, really delighted, that wasn't sarcasm, those sick fucks. The witch brought a pig to the party and hit it softly with a small, golden hammer. The pig exploded into gore and on the floor were laying 1000 silver, which the party took happily. They stayed there for a week, in which they sacrificed the dudes, ate, talked, relaxed and learned some spells. Miss Penchu learned sleep, that weird-ass animal messanger spell and the turn-normal-looking-dudes-into-ugly-looking-dudes spell. After the week they followed the river down to the village. On their way they found an abandoned monastery, they peeked inside, saw a ghost and fucking bolted outside.
After a while they reached the Town Emen, went to the Beerbucket, a nice little tavern and blew a shitload of cash on a huge party, for some XP.

I would have liked to write down the next session today, too, but nah, lol. Maybe tomorrow. Friday's next session, there will be some dungeon crawling and hopefully some character deaths.

The beautiful map Till made!


Next session

Oh, boy, Actual Play?!

Right. I'd love to write about the shenanigans my group is doing.
As a quick rundown of them, I'd like to say that they have very little experience with rpgs and that they are very hip and stylish people.
We play in my Setting Dies Irae, I'd like them to explore the Observatory at some point.

Session one
Fuck, I really hate first sessions with noobs. Nobody knows what they're doing, you have to divide your attention between five people, some understand faster than others, aaaaghhghg.
Whatever. We did it, took an hour or so. That's why I love b/x. fuck rules. fuck wasting time with character creation. Julia (a player of mine) said she likes more detailed character creation, but nah.

The curtain rises for:
Nagga, the Kroakling Specialist, played by Till
Mei, the Woodelf Fighter, played by Julia
Gekko, the Lizardman Magic User played by Ceco
Eine Frau (ger. transl.: a Woman), the Tiefling Specialist, played by Alina

Okay. I hope you excuse that I maybe don't remember some things, because that session happed maybe three weeks ago. Whatever.

I started it off with them being drugged by Dickerle, a short, pignosed, blonde asshole who promised them some awesome loot.
Yes I forgot his name, I don't care, they sacrifized him to an evil fountain.
He dragged their asses into a wood with the help of Fink, some mercenary/adventurer dude with half his face missing. He had a lovely attitude.
Dickerle found a magical fountain in the woods, but couldn't determine what the fountain does. He only found out that sacrifising a person would trigger the magical effect.
Well, with the world ending in two years, he really didn't see anything wrong with just fucking finding out what happens.
So he drugged up some useless adventurer looking motherfuckers and paid another to drag their asses up there. They woke up and were hella pissed.
They negotiated, tried to find out what the fuck is happening, played cards with Fink and then fucking tackled the shit out of him. Some lucky dicerolls later they stole his sword, Gekko got blasted with a magic missile by Dickerle because he kicked his shin before, but the missile only did 2 damage.
two damage to a MU, though.

Alright. That chubby cunt of a MU was really no challenge for them after subduing Fink. I think Gekko ate one of his fingers or some fucked up shit and they decided to check out that well. They gathered their stuff and started heading into the direction. Eine Frau actually found the route that Dickerle and two others took. Dickerle told them that he found the fountain a week ago and rushed here to check out what happens if you sacrifice people.

Alright, they found the ground plan of an old building made of stone, sitting near a river. Has been a fortress a long time ago, they think. in the middle of this ground plan sits a decorative fountain, spewing black, gooey water. Dickerle was ugly-crying, begging them to spare him. I gotta tell you, these dudes aren't nice people. I mean, shit, they loved Fink but still sacrifized both. Fucking assholes.

They put him into the fountain and slit his throat. He keeled over and lied there, while the fountain stopped spewing water. He started bubbling and dissolving, like a fizzy tablet filled with bones and guts. The well water thickened to a black, shiny resin and a minute later, a grimy creature pressed itself out of the fountain.


Mei killed Dickerle, so she made a save vs. magic and gained loyalty of the now newborn Orc. They were delighted and started eyeing Fink very jealously. Gekko took the opportunity and murdered him, spawning another Orc for himself. He saved against magic and like Mei he gained control over his new slimy boi. RIP Fink I really liked you as an NPC.

So now what? They got some Orcs, but what now? They remember meeting in a tavern, lol, but that's it. They know there's a city nearby and they see the mountains north-west, with the river leading into that direction. So they logically followed the river up the mountains, finding an old dwarven ruin. They decided against exploring it because a) they couldn't get inside because a massive metal gate was closed b) they needed to find civilisation first and c) I had nothing prepared for that ruin lol. They made a camp in the alcove before the gate to the dwarven ruin, saw a cyclops in the night and decided that the mountains are pretty dangerous. They looked around and saw that the river leads out of the forest below into some grasslands. There they saw a cute little village. So now they decided to go there.

They followed the river down and after some walking through the forest they found a cozy little Teapot sitting by a pond near the river.
Mei being very genre savy already knew that a nice, chill witch will live there and she was absolutely right. Chelestra the lazy witch welcomed them in their home, served them some biscuits and some tea and told them of her problem. She moved recently and forgot her favorite shoes in her old home and she can't be bothered to go there. They obliged, went to her old house, found the red leather boots and brought them to her. They stayed the night and Gekko saw his opportunity. You see he really, really wanted her spellbook. And with the liberating freedom of "shit son, you can do whatever you want", these fuckers decided that they want to see the world burn. Gekko woke up Eine Frau and asked if she would help him, which she declined because she really doesn't want to be killed by a random magic user. Pretty smart. So Gekko inquired about the layout of the Building and found out that the small latrine is across from Chelestras bedroom. So he picked his weapon and moved there stealthily. He opened the door really carefully, entered the bedroom and oh shit her coat started screaming. She had cast magic mouth on that thing and commanded it to start screaming if something enters the room. Gekko being quick on his feet told her that he wanted to use the latrine. She had no reason to suspect otherwise, because he was rather charming at day, so she left it at that.

They went back to bed and the next morning she told them of a street to the east. The street goes from north to south and splits at some point. There's a tavern called the Tuning Fork at that split and the adventurers decided to visit that place, travelling on the road will be surely easier. They bid goodbye and went to the east, going a bit off-course to the north. They found the route and some travellers and went with them south to the Tuning Fork, chilling there for the rest of the day.
And that's that for the first session.

Next session

On Cavegirl's Horrible Wounds in OSR games

Hmm. Logically, I absolutely adore the idea to mutilate player characters. Secondly, I like to give my completetly new players the chance to keep their characters, but still let them learn a lesson.
So it isn't surprising that I absolutely am in love with cavegirls rules for horrible wounds, but I have one problem with it.
I know, mechanics aren't everything, but where is realistically the difference between a mutilated bodypart and a missing one? In my campaign, I handwaved it and let the characters heal the mutilated bodyparts after chilling out for a week, but this left me with a bitter aftertaste that I'm maybe to soft with these murderhoboing fucks.
But I remembered. I was a GURPS GM for some time (still adore the system). As you maybe know, GURPS has a shit-ton of mechanics to choose for your game, like a wounds mechanic. It wasn't as streamlined, but if I remember correctly, you had to roll under your HT to determine how bad your wound is.
Hey, why not use this idea with Cavegirls rule? I'm a genius.

Ruined Bodyparts
After combat, make a is-your-bodypart-super-fucked-up check.
(This can be anything: save vs poison, roll 1d20 or 3d6 under CON, I don't care)

If you fail, your use of that bodypart is really fucking impaired. Shit, maybe you'll never use it again. It is healed in 1d4 exploding months. Maybe a tendon is badly torn, a bone is horribly splintered or muscle tissue is ripped apart. (This is essentially forever in games)

If you pass the check, your bodypart isn't even that fucked up. It will take 2d6 days to regenerate. Take some days off, spend your loot for exp in town, everything will be alright.

optional:
If the check is a crit success, your bodypart will be fine the next day. Lucky!
If you crit-fail the check, you'll get a nasty infection that will probably kill you on top of it! Have fun!

Make that checks as difficult as you like. I'm a softie, so I'd make it probably easy, with 3d6 under CON as a check.

Character Sheet

Hey why not post my character sheet for my homebrew?
That took wayyy too long, I am obsessive when designing things.



Get that shit here

Dies Irae

Alternative Title:
The Dwarves are dead, the nobility has gone nuts, the gods have left us, everything's shit and I am bleeding out on the cold ground of an abandoned ruin
.


Aaaaalright. Now to my setting. I made a two pages long document composed of rough details, just for myself. I didn't knew my players wanted to read that shit, lol, because usually exposition through text is really fucking annoying. I think they wanted to read it because I didn't pushed it in their throats. But still, I won't bother you with this shit, first of all because it's in german and I absolutely can't be assed to translate that, and second, nothing, I'd post the full document if I were motivated enough to translate it.

I'll try to summarize:
There were some astrowizards living in a huge-ass observatory in Arkosa, an university town. They discovered a new strange green star, named Provodis, Endenstar or Greenveil. Well shit, the star is coming closer to the world. the Wizards panic. A lot of them die mysteriously, their bodies show white hair and dried out flesh.
One day, now known as the shroud, every intelligent being started to have terrible nightmares for a week or so. The clerics and astrowizards declared armageddon in a dozen years. Most clerics said that the star is coming to rob the souls of every being, so they proclaimed a call for mass suicide, which a lot of people followed, like almost every dwarf ever. (Dwarven Ruin dungeoncrawls heyyy)
The peasants totally didn't want to work anymore and a lot of brutal wars with a ferocity never seen before plagued the lands. This period of decay has been ongoing for five years, until everyone sobered up for a bit. Tradeprinces amassed a lot of wealth and influence in that uncertain time and guided the people to redevelopment. This period of rebuilding has now been ongoing for 5 years.
Most people just want to chill out until cataclysm hits.
Two years left. Let's fucking crawl some dungeons.

What is interesting:
  • The world is in a state of semi-ruin, with a lot of shit to discover
  • Dwarven freaking ruins
  • there are good hearted mass murderer clerics who want to free every soul from greenveils damning grasp
  • With most clerics leaving the world, dark forces spread in the lands. very good for a touch of gothic horror adventures, there are undead, lycanthropes, etc. everywhere
  • What is this weird-ass star that gives us nightmares? what? Can we stop it?
  • There are aliens and time-travelers in this setting lol
  • The Arkosan Observatory is a huge-ass mega dungeon  
What is boring:
  • What? Everythings interesting. Don't be silly.
Little Hexmap I threw together really quick. Maybe, Maybe I'll redraw this map.

Races

Alright, Races. Whatever. I like to have the option to characterize my settings with the many different intelligent races and my problem with race as class is that first, every dwarf feels mechanically samey, I mean yeah races shouldn't be just different humans, but I don't care okay. And second, like I said I want to make my setting dependant on the people living in it. If I have a setting were only albino bat-like drow and dark dwarves and maybe some other whacky shit exists, I really don't want to stat them up from level 1 to 14 just that people may or may not play them.
But I don't like the heavy mechanical implementations of races from never games.
What I observed is that the crucial element of races, which defines every aspect of how they are played by the player, is the name.
Yes, that's right. If you give the option to players to play Elves, but they don't differ mechanically from Humans, they still will play them very, very different.
So that's how I use my races. I have a table in which I discibe a very mechanically minor, if even mechanical at all, advantage and disadvantage and a stat which the players can reroll with a 2d6+6 and thats it.
I'm not sure if I like the rerolling, though. Maybe I'll switch to ability prerequisites for races at some point, we'll see.

Down below you'll see the races for my setting Dies Irae, a doomed world.

1d10 Race Reroll Advantage Disadvantage
1 Human - Is a cool race. No, really Humans are pretty cool.
2 High Elf INT +1 save against Mindcontrol. very fussy.
3 Wood Elf DEX Natural survival ability in forests Likes cannibalism and really doesn't get the problem with it.
4 Dwarf CON are very familiar with mining and stone processing. Is pretty moody when drinking too little alcohol
5 Halfling DEX Are really lucky. Reroll one shitty roll per session. Is pretty moody when eating only one ration a day.
6 Tiefling (Chaos) CHA Very sexy. Very feisty.
7 Tiefling
(Law)
INT uncannily skilled in bureaucracy, law, etc stands by their word.
8 Kroakling
(Frog/Toad people)
WIS Thick Skin, +1 AC tend to binge on alcohol or drugs.
9 Lizard People STR Can eat raw meat and other food of lower quality just fine really dislike the cold.
10 Dog People CON Very good nose. very bribable with sausages.

Humans, being special snowflakes, can reroll an ability of their liking and have no advantage or disadvantage.

source: smalllebowsky

helloworld.c

Eyyyy!
Welcome to my blog, if anyone's even reading this. I hope you'll excuse my at times terrible use of the english language, it ain't easy as a german at times. Our school systems are total crap. But whatever. I've created this blog just to post the fun adventures of my group, and maybe to offer the OSR DM's some fun stuff to steal. I know I have stolen a shitload of stuff from the OSR blogosphere, so feel free to take shamelessly take everything from me and pitch it to your group as your own.

My name is Eddie, and I run a basic/expert d&d homebrew. Which I call edis b/x, because I am creative like that. There is nothing much to say about it, most of the mechanics are straight from b/x or lotfp. My system uses:
  •  AAC and attack-bonus
  • races as ..races, rather then as class
    (yes I am a filthy 3.5 convert, don't bully, okay)
    Mechanically, I am using this (thanks, Skerples-sama) for races.
  • For classes I use Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric and the lotfp Specialist
  • I use the lotfp inventory system (thx Raggi 💖)
  • And I am using Cavegirls wonderful horrible woulds (domo arigato, cavegirl-chan) 
And that's it. As you can see, I steal wherever I can.
And you will never stop me.
Next post I probably will talk about my setting, or maybe about races? idk.

My players fucked my booklet up with white wine, lol