Unkind things

Print PDF Unkind things
1. Rooms filled with a single fish
2. Castle vital organs
3. adulthood here is obtained when 3 children climb onto each others shoulders and never come down again
4.the sword is a sensory organ. The more it tastes only you the greater the chance that it will emerge to eat you
5.the cauldron contains the boiled down fat of an entire city. It will be used to make a single candle
6.The speak with dead spell has unlimited duration and effect. You may ask nothing of them, only listen.
7.Every house has toad that they do not speak of but worship painstakingly
8.The dogs are very big and very smart for dogs. They are smart enough to enforce the laws but not well. Not well at all.
9.The wars of ancestors have left rivers of blood. This has frozen in a glacier which makes its way home slowly even now.
10.Take turns being the cow
11.This land is insects.
12.The disease breaks you like crystal but rarely kills.
13.The city walks on small soft legs
14.Dimensional parasites tunnel out space and brains from the inside of tall hats. There are books about it.
15.Souls are water.
16.You mint  your own coins with your own pain. Suffering is the only guarantor , really, when it all comes down to it.
17. Gods are dirty unkillable old men who make the weather work and harvests ripen.
18. There is no limit to hunger. You will not die. You will be just more hunger
19.Kings.
20.The most fertile land is that around flood prone river and muttering volcano

Lakes?

Print PDF Big hated things that Sunk Cost Fallacy keeps me plugging away at how I loathe thee.

Much decent ideage goes off into that dark realm.

Meanwhile y'all get this crap:

This Lake Seems Fine to me:
BUT

1. No surface tension in the water. Nothing can float or swim in it.
2.Once a week it releases a killing invisible cloud of carbon monoxide
3.It connects up to a vast underground sea. Surprisingly large things can find their way into this lake
4. A Turlough lake with a ruin at the bottom. Drains and floods suddenly like the cruelest of water levels though.
5.A nearby civilization has covered up a genocide by concealing the evidence at the bottom of this lake
6. The crabs here seek out human bones to make flutes with. If they do not play these flutes , something worse rises out of the lake and rampages.
7.Evil horse live at the bottom of this lake. They can see you from the very bottom of the dark waters.
8. The touch of the waters causes monstrosity and when the moon is full a great wooden cube rises from the waters. Inside is a labyrinth, with treasure apparently, but mostly monsterized former treasures seekers who failed to make it out again before the labyrinth sank.
9.Those ducks. Actually lures on the noses of horrible frog beasts
10.Big snapper turtles with the 7 seven words that can unravel the world carved on their shells
11. Drinking of these water is the equivalent to the signing of a contract in the understanding of eldritch elemental powers. This means you have agreed use of your body by the them for a certain amount of time at a unspecified date.
12. This is where you go when you die. It's cold and it's dark and nothing happens. Everyone who has died is at the bottom of this lake.
13.This lake is where the night is kept when not in use
14.There is one giant eye at the bottom of this lake. Someone is looking for it.
15.The mouth that will swallow the sun is swimming up from the bottom of the lake. The lake is always stretching its depths so the mouth will never arrive but the lake will tire one day and become finite and the mouth will arrive
16. The only innocent things in this world are the stingless jellyfish that swim in this lake and now you have found them who else will too?

unheimlich farm encounters

Print PDF 1. Deflated cow
2.eyeless chickens,moving in perfect stop motion synchronicity
3.A Cat. Always the same size in relation to your perceptive, so the further away it is the bigger it is
4.Red Swans
5.Sheep sucking on bones
6.Crying magnificent bull
7.Ducks walking around on the bottom of the pond
8.Various people planted head down in the soil.
9.cabbage patch kids
10.whistling crows
11Softly breathing hay bales
12.Pigs shattered like porcelain
13.Too many pigs
14.Quiet, numerous, nocturnal goats
15.Rubberboned horse
16.Pipe smoking donkey
17.gravestones with the inscriptions just children's drawing
18.  House elves/brownies packed seamlessly cheek to jowl in every cupboard, nook, drawer and oven. Look at blankly at you until you close the door/drawer. Then breathly giggle. If provoked they swarm and tear off hunks of skin and hair with their clammy child like hands
19.A jolly farmer, with no family, animals , crops, tools, food, bedding, sheets, cups, bowls, pets, spare clothing, vases, ornaments, portraits, knick-knacks, seeds, etc.
20.Animals poorly disguised as each other

I love the smell of khemistry in the morning

Print PDF Players spending money on explosives/incendiary  research.

What could go wrong?


Well letting "you can have cheap, safe and effective. Pick 2" be my guide, here is how I'm resolve this.

Currently available options are:

Flaming oil (1d6 dmg, keeps burning on 6 on the damage die), full round action to prepare and throw.

Fire Lance 1d10 dmg in a 10 by 5 feet cone, dex safe for half. One shot.

Bomb , classic blackball with wick. Cut wick length to control delay. Well, "control". The size of wick is represented by a number from zero and 4. On the moment it's lit roll a d4 , add that number to it. 6 or higher it explodes immediately. Immediately upon its landing and at the start of every round roll a d6 and add that number. 6 or more and it explodes.
Explodes for 2d8 (fire/concussive) damage, dex save for half. (10 foot blast radius)



 SO what happens when you pay a bunch of madmen/geniuses to invent something worse/better?

Choose what you are paying them to work on. Then a die is rolled and compared  the difficulty of the item.
A 1000 gold gets you a d8
2000 gets you a d10
4000 gets you a d12
10,000 gets you a d20

In addition if you hire a risk taking visionary , roll a d8
1:they die in an explostion, money and research wasted.
2: they attempt to make something else instead, randomly determine what
3: Add 3 to the roll, but if the device is successful , it will catastrophic fail when a  1, 2 or 3 is rolled to attack.
4: If the roll is succeeded the device is more sturdy and reliable than usual.
5-8 add this number unto to the roll.

Flamethrower :More in the style of a weed sprayer.  Requires 2 rounds pumping to build the pressure required to propel the fluid. Will maintain the pressure for an hour. When tank has pressure any violent jolting will ( explosively) rupture the tank. 1d10 ranged touch attack (10 feet). Sets people on fire if does 6 or more points of damage. Has enough fuel for 12 shots.


DIFFICULTY 8 (1 will be made)

Cluster Bomb : like the bomb , but after the intial explosion 1d6 bomblets (1d8 damage) are scattered around the area. Explode as per Bomb rules

DIFFICULTY: 6, 6 will be made

Dragons blood:
basically petrol.  As burning oil but 1d10 damage and keeps burning if it does 6 or more damage.

DIFFICULTY: 4  6 vials will  be made

Rockets
Like fireworks but more explodey. Use int/savvy bonus to hit with  , do 1d8 damage and set things on fire if they do 6 or more damage.
DIFFICULTY: 4   10 rockets will be made

Dainty Bomb as a bomb but does not have fuse, has a pin , after removing pin , any impact will set it off.

DIFFICULTY :10 6 dainty bombs will be made

Sticky Bomb
as bomb but glues itself to the first thing it hits. Requiring a successful strength and then dexterity check to remove it (as in you pull it off your head but then it sticks to your hand unless you are careful)
DIFFICULTLY :5  4 sticky bombs will be made


Sunkiss
an incendiary bomb. Pull a pin then throw it. Breaks on impact, releasing  expanding cloud of flame Everything within 30 feet takes a d6 damage and is on fire (taking a d6 damage each round

DIFFICULTY 10 2 will be made


Incendiary Rounds
as per normal shot, bolts or arrows , but target is ablaze as well as damaged. (1d6 damage each round)
DIFFICULT: 4 for sling shot 5 for bolts and arrows, 10 for shot.
Makes 10.

Now I could get more complicated and set up a research tree style system, but I needed something from tomorrows game, and this should do.

A research tree would be good , as alchemists don't share research and so if a sponsored alchemist blows themselves up, poof goes all the items they have discovered.
Note: Might half the gold cost for repeat requests.

Note: If this is going to be regular thing in the campaign, I will have to come up with some weirdo creepy research trees that have more in common with this http://middenmurk.blogspot.co.nz/2013/05/alchemy.html
than is happening right now.


 EDIT: I'm going to need this
Random alchemists:
name , title, quirk, pet project
1Zues |the shining | mumbles| animating erotic statues
2 Gizzard| the Stinky| Smokes toad skins | discovering additional dimensions
3 Mad Jill| the Mad| Calm, methodical, tidy| destroying all life
4 Zimmer| the chromatic| absurdly dressed| impossible pigments
5 Zug| the fool hardy| looks like a pit fighter| platonic solids
6 Zhuck| the lucky| blind, seeing eye squid | crisis theory
7 Zhillidale| the drunk| made of liquid| destructive resonance
8 Zwan| the unwieldy| arm coming out of his forehead| transhumanism
9 Kieser| The lobotomizer| cruel| eugenics 
10 Prussian | "old smokey"| part bear| talking to insects
11 Jacksticks| "monkey"| paranoid| flying machines
12  Quasar | "shakey"| bipolar| restoring the dead to life

Horror People Asked For

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Requests served like vegemite icecream.

This guy. Tom Fitzgerald asked about a Gorgonopsia. Well they are pretty hard to make any more monstrous  They are basically like a pitbull/lizard/hyena cross. If you want something like a dragon but bestial and mythologically disposable ,  look to these guys. This one here is a Lurking Pulverine. Which means it is surprisingly stealthy and if you look at it and fail a save, you then believe you haven't seen it and rationalize away any evidence of its existence.

Sanctious Lope-Lope

 Patrick Stewart asked about Pituriaspida (and/or one of the Ostracoderms) . (basically really early proto fish which were a helmet with a tail) Which I had surprising trouble drawing (because they already look interesting but not in a dynamic way). Anyway the above and below are the ones I liked the best. The above is avenging angel of a dead long forgotten subterranean God. It fliess and shoots freezy beams.
The below (a glooming) is something that swims around the astral plane and makes fate tunnels when jumps out of the astral plane (to elude predators). A fate tunnel is a zone that can contaminate people spending too much time there, linking them to each other, so coincidence will conspire to intertwine their lives together.

Glooming
 "You are bound together.... by FATE"
"but why? for what great cause"
"Astral Fish Escape Witness"
"So.. for no reason then" -Patrick Stuart

Krytox! and SnickHound

 Krytox! is obviously an transplanar bounty hunter and his dog. (Request from Joey Lindsey).
Krytox! is far far far too old for this shit. He was too old for this shit when the gods were an itch in the loins of a Titan. He is a battered, jaded , and inexorable veteran, relentlessly plodding away at a vocation he loathes, out of sheer bloody mindedness.

Squelch 

 Reynaldo Mandrinan  said I should do something called a Squelch. Which is obviously a hagfish hag. Empowered by squalid magics (even by hag standards) it can secrete enough mucus to form a powerful external body , like an exoskeleton of necrotic fluid. They are given to periods of chronic catatonia and hibernation and their lairs can be mistaken for being abandoned and therefore safe, until the Squelch , rubber-boned emerges from a small, over-looked box in an attic or closet to restate her claim.

Labyrinthodontia

 These are the giant amphibians that ruled the earth before dinosaurs. The immediate monster appeal is from the ones that were like crocodiles but with even bigger mouths, and the ones with a disturbing human looking yet  quadrupedal gait. The big mouthed ones are for making swamps and gladiatorial pits worse and should be given names like Guzzler, Miremaw , Globber-whole, and Hellmouth.  Their character should combine the manic depressive energy of the crocodile and the gross physical proportioning of a toad. A fist with a mouth.
The weird human walking ones should be a cross between Old Ones of Innsmouth and Fey, with certain nights in which they roam and baby swapping and odd offerings hung from trees. The "Cousins".

(reference picture by someone else)

The Eye Phantasmagoric

Mike Evans asked for this. It a giant floating eye , the only part existing in this plane of some godling voyeur. A bug torturing child on a cosmic scale. Attracted to Summonings.   Sometimes it just observes. Other times it makes something to observe.   The baneful magics it inflicts on you are actually just the effects of the godling thinking of you. Its ideas of you are realer than you are.

Gobbledegook

and he asked for this. It is a Gobbledegook. Which of course climbs down your chimney, eats half of your children , and ties your arms and legs together. Its form suggests not something originally human, but something mimicking human form in an alien and obscene caricature. Unfathomably malign. 

Here is some reference pictures I am including because I don't think I did them justice.

Burgess Shale

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Look it's some critters based off critters from burgess shale fossils.

 This one is based off Hallucigenia. It is called a "Gizzery".
It's a cheery old war weapon that can impale sounds on its spines. If someone says all the words in a spells title (Say "Cure" "light" and "wounds") it can immediately cast that spell. The person will not be able to use those words for a week.  Can be dangerously aggressive about maintaining the "aural hygiene"  around its lair.

Quank
(based off a Wiwaxia), was harvested for arrow and spear heads. Is now sullen and paranoid. Can shoot off  its spikes as a random magic arrow or bolt. 

Zag.
Just your typical deluded bioweapon that believes it is from the future and trying to destroy a particular lineage of tyrants.
Based off “Anomalocaris”

Based off Opabinia, Kun are cruel and wanton and sad and reflective.
Former space warping assassins and historians for the Jummerlng, now half-heartedly hire their services out .

Based off trilobites and this here http://falsemachine.blogspot.co.nz/2013/01/trilobite-knight.html

Jummerlng are space wizards.
Based off Crinoid(s)

Jummerlng can store "time" as use it as weapon, like "an aging beam" and an "evolution beam" (ignoring how evolution actually works). They are responsible for making all of the above , they think. They kinda went mad due to dabbling into possibility harvesting and lost everything and now are deluded solipsists living in coral towers drifting on the surface of underground lakes.

Rogue Die

Print PDF I have been having trouble thinking about how to do rogue skills.
Like you have a system for them to sneak, and the question is how do you resolve people other than the rogue sneaking? Then oh noes skills can sneak it in and they can be a pain.

Anyway I like how Lamentations of the Flame Princess and 52 pages rules do it, BUT decided not to do it that way. Kinda of.

Skills are done with a stat check. If you do not have a skill it will be a half stat check.
 Rogues additionally will have a rogue die for each skill. This is a d6. There rogue die is rolled at the same time as a stat check. If it gets the value or under you have in it  , you get either a reroll (you must take the new result however ) or a bonus. So if you have a value of 2 in your stealth you would get a reroll or bonus if you rolled a 1 or a 2 on the die.
Rogues start with 6 points to spend at level 1. The skills are Stealth, Sleight of Hand,  Deceit (a mixture of disguise , bullshiting , and charm) , Climb, Acrobatics, Tampering (find/remove/modify traps).
Spending a point firstly gets you the skill (not having a skill means the stat check required for successful use of the skill is done with the stat halved. Some things cannot be attempted without the required skill) , and additional points are the value that you need to roll on the rogue die.
So a first level rogue could have all the skills without a rogue die in them, or have 3 of the skills with a rogue die of 1 , or one skill with a rogue die of 6.

Examples of bonuses : Flamboyantly (affects the morale of npc), Undetectably , Quickly (takes only a moment to perform), Thoroughly (nothing left behind),  etc.

Each time you gain a level you get +1 to either purchase a new skill or increase a rogue die by one.  
A point spend on a rogue die after it reaches 6, starts a new die. So the skill has an automatic bonus or reroll, and you are now rolling the rogue die to see if you have an additionally reroll or bonus. 

I'm still undecided on how to do skills for the other classes. I think it will be something like 3+int modifier and you can choose them in play  ("wait does your guy know how to swim? Umm sure..") if at all.
 There is some good "background" systems floating around which replace skills. Basically you count as having training in something if your background would cover it. I was playing around with making big tables that had your background how much money and equipment you had and what skills. They were not so good.
Although having the background table weighted by if you belonged to the "right sort of people" or not was kinda cool.

The mulplicity of being in planescape

Print PDF Being rejiggering the character creation stuff.  Here is the race stuff.
Tried to make each race feel unique , and sheered off as "much +1 to a thing" abilities as I could. Also tried to keep each races abilities strictly to the core of the race and not worry too much about if dwarves are better or worse than halflings at picking locks etc.

Class notes in next post. I'm still in the air about how to treat thief skills.
Ratatosk are giant squirrels from Yggdrasil.  Muggin are crows with arms and wings.
Ghuls are half dead people and ragdolls are fabric people with human organs. That should explain everything.

character creation for planescape/redlands version 3.2324

3d6 assign as you go.
modifiers as 3rd ,

2-3 (-4)
4-5 (-3),
6-7 (-2)
8-9(-1)
10-11(0)
12-13(+1)
14-15(+2)
16-17(+3)
18-19(+4)

Stat modifiers are applied mostly the same:

Strength adds to hit and damage for melee weapons and some thrown weapons
Dexterity adds to armour class, and to hit with deft weapons (both thrown and melee)
Constitution adds to hit points
Wisdom adds to hit rolls with projectile weapons and sorcerer spells known and quota.
Intelligence adds to spells known and quota for wizards and is added to the 3d6 you roll (before multiplying by 10) to determine starting gold (along with your charisma modifier)
Charisma add the modifier to the 3d6 you roll (before multiplying by 10) (along with the intelligence modifier) to determine starting gold. For clerics its added to your spells quota
Spells Known:
For wizards they will have their intelligence modifer (minimum of one) written in their spell books +2 randomly selected. To successfully understand a spell they have copied in their spell book requires an intelligence check modifed by the spells level. They can try once per spell per level.
Sorcerers will have 1+wisdom modifer (if this is zero or negative they get one randomly choosen spell instead) known to them.
Clerics will have available to them all the cleric spells of two of their god's domains.

Spells quota:
Means how many spells you can cast before needing a recharge. You recharge your quota as you would hitpoints, ie with a short rest.  Wizards also need to spend a minute per level of spell memorizing each spell. Sorcerers pick their spells as they cast them
Start with: 1+relevant stat modifier 1st level. If this would give less than zero or less you get one spell but have to roll to get it to work.
Roll an exploding d6 subtract the level and apply the stat modifer
If it's postive the spell works.
If it's zero it comes out mutated.
If less than zero nothing happens, the spell is not wasted you can try again..
(Spell Failure  from 52 page rule book (Link)
1: Spell has no effect and is used up
2: Spell target chosen at random from possible targets (if cast at place, random direction and distance from caster)
3:Spell cast, caster stunned a number of rounds= spell level
4:Different spell known by caster cast (even if already cast)
5:Random spell of same level not known by caster is cast
6:GM adds or changes 1 word in spell effects (or rolls on a different spell mishap table)

CHOOSING YOUR KIND:
(index)
Concentrating means while as such you can attack,or do full move instead of attack and move. Out of combat any stat checks fumble on 18,19,20.
Bulk: adds on to strength and con where size and weight would matter (including carrying capcity). Adds directly onto damage. For every 2 points you get 1 point of damage resistence. Every 1 is about one half as big as the last. (human  (0)-> bug bear(1) -> ogre (2)-> something bigger than ogre but smaller than an elephant(3), elephant (4).
If you have bulk 1 you take up as much space as 2 people on the battle field for getting in each others way purposes( only one of you could fight comfatable in a 5 foot tunnel for example)
Sturdy is like bulk, but does not give damage resistence , but does add on strength and con for saving throws and opposed checks.
Gangly is like bulk but only for the purpose of taking up room.
Small: adds to armour class, subtracts from damage.
Reroll <stat>: means reroll that stat and choose either result.
Advantage/Disadvantage: I was using the mechanic from D&D next without realizing it, now that I do , I'm just going to use the name of it to. Basically means roll twice pick best (or worst in the case of disadvantage)
Choose race:

Aasimar: Celestial (count as such for spells and effects), Unforgettable (for better or worse people always remember your face), Armoured in Life (reroll one save per session) Idealistic (if you are trying to disguise your motives you do not receive your Drive exp). Reroll charisma or con

Bariaur: Natural weapons (head butt as club), canter (move is 16 rather than 12), gangly (bulk 1 for when it's inconvenient for you), orneriness (if you turn down a challenge you do not receive your Drive exp)

Elf: sylvan : low light vision (as a cat), feral (one free reroll per session in the environment of your upbringing, roll must somehow relate to environment, includes combat), passions! (Choose from anger, empathy, joy, curiosity. If an opportunity comes up to follow your passion and you do not take it, you do not get your drive exp) , Rustic (you have Disadvantage when it comes to technical or city stuff) reroll dex or wis

     high : Low light vision, passions! (Choose from anger, empathy, joy, curiosity. If an opportunity comes up to follow your passion and you do not take it, you do not get your drive exp), reroll dex or int

     drow: infravision (120 feet) , wyrdling (pick three 0 level spells you can naturally cast. You have a quota of 3), photosensitivity (disadvantage to all rolls in bright light), paranoid (you cannot rest around anyone you don't truely trust or have complete power over) reroll dex or int

     outlander: Feral,  Stride (move is 14 instead of 12), fuck head, (disadvantage any rolls to do with getting trusting or making a good impression) reroll dex or con

Dwarf: generic: Sturdy (bulk 1 for resisting stuff and carrying stuff), infravision (60 feet), stoneken (advantage with any rolls to do with understanding stone or stonework), slow (move is 10 rather than 12), swim like a rock (you can't swim and sink like you are made from rock),vertigo (you have disadvantage around heights (above ground) reroll str or con

         derro: infravision (120 feet), wyrdling(pick three 0 level spells you can naturally cast. You have a quota of 3), batshit (You have advantage against mental effects including social . if you a 1 on any stat check resisting a mental effect the intiator is effected by it instead), photosensitivity (disadvantage to all rolls in bright light) reroll , con or int

         duergar: infravision (120 feet), black lung (advantage against smoke or air born toxins) , photosensitivity (disadvantage to all rolls in bright light),  Sturdy (bulk 1 for resisting stuff and carrying stuff), , bitter hearts (advantage against any emotion effects) reroll con or str

         clay: inorganic (but still eats and and breathes), heavy, cold/heat resistance (2), natural armour (4), numb (disadvantage in sense based tasks) reroll con or str. Reroll dex and take the new roll if worse.

Gensai:
Earth: may have 3 faces like weird stone idols or some other earth type creature thing. Heavy builds, and or grey skin. Protruding angular bones. damage resistance against physical attacks 1 , +2 per die damage from falls.
Fire: Veins appear to burn underneath skin or  appear like ash or coal with beards or hair like (or in some cases actually) thick smoke that bursts into flame when they are angry or excited fire resistance 5, use up twice the amount of oxygen a human of their size would. Means can only hold breathe   for half as long
Water: Marbled eel skin, rows and rows of evil fish teeth, fish or octopus eyes, frills, gills, body seems to ripple and flow. Can breathe underwater, must drink 3 times as much as a human of their size, and suffering deprivation damage accordingly.
Air: hair moves slowly as if in wind, small sylph   wings, clouds are seen in eyes weight a tenth of what they should, take fall damage only after 100 feet Feeble (you count as having 3 strength for the purpose of encumbrence)
Salt: Skin cracked like a river bed in a long drought, eyes shriveled up to little sullen raisins , hair    bleached white or very pale. inherent: any liquids ingested or injected (helpful or harmful) are half as effective                                
Ash: Grey skin, sunken in look , mouth cavity always pitch black, teeth like coal, any deprivation damage is halved (round down, minimum of one), you have no sense of taste (food/drink wise) or smell.
Dust:Skin like sandstone, raspy voices, sweat dust, hair falls out all the time, grows back and breaks down real fast.  When anyone with 20 feet of you rolls a 1 on a d20 you get to choose a mundane object that breaks (within 20 feet). If you roll a 1 , in addition to the normal results of a fumble, something on your person breaks (randomly determined)       
                      
Vacuum: cracks in skin lets show a void that seems to suck at the light. Eyes pour out darkness. Always seem quieter around them. All rolls to do with hearing things within 10 feet are at a Disadvantage.

Ooze: Always looks wet and sick. Eyes leak weird fluids, weird rubbery boneless movements. If you are effected by a poison,gas, spore or slime, you heal 1d4 hitpoints. If you fail the save the effects last twice as long but anyone you touch must safe or be effect as per the original effect

Ice: Look like you froze to death. d.r 5 vs cold. If you take damage from fire or heat you must make a con sav or be confused for one round per point that you failed the save.

Smoke: Burnt black lips, glowing eyes, dark or grey hair that moves slowly like smoke Not effected by gas or smokes. Take twice as much deprivation damage.

Magma: Flowing movements, no outlines of bones, light shines out of mouth and eyes.  4 fire resistance, but suffering 5 or more points of cold damage , or suffering stat damage from exposure acts like a slow spell on you until the damage is healed.

Mineral: Hair like spun silver or gold, eyes like gemstones, quartz shimmers in skin .lucky, can reroll one dice each day, but 1d6X100 g.p worth of precious metals and gems can be retrieved from your corpse, and this is widely known.

Steam: skin seethes and ripples, little vents open up releasing little puffs of steam. Always wet look. Can make an Obscuring Mist effect once before needing recovery, drink twice as much as regular human, any metal on your person rusts steadly unless constant oiled and polished.

Lightning: Eyes crackle with lightning, sparks play along skin. HAir stands up like near a telsa coil 5 damage resistance vs lightning, but any electrical attack coming within 10 feet of you has 1 in 3 chance of arcing into you instead of its original target. If you are the target for an electrical attack there is a 1 in 3 chance it will arc to someone else randomly within its normal range, and effect them as well as you.
Radiance: Coloured light pulse from under skin depending on mood. Its like light has been jammed under your skin. YOur   hair is freaking rainbow. Always producing light, like that of a light spell.

                                  
Goblinoid: goblin (small 1), scavenger (you advantage on any rolls to do with scavenging), fuckhead (disadvantage any rolls to do with getting trusting or making a good impression) infravision 60 feet reroll dex

                orc: garbage guts (advantage on resisting poison or disease from ingested materials, fuckhead (disadvantage any rolls to do with getting trusting or making a good impression), infravision 60 feet , reroll str or con

               bugbear:  big  (bulk 1) , fuckhead (disadvantage any rolls to do with getting trusting or making a good impression), infravision 60 feet,  reroll str or con

Githzerai: opportunities other face( you have advantage the next time you make a roll you just fumbled on), must change drive every session , reroll dex or wis

Ghul: semidead (undead for purposes of magic healing hurts you, undead effecting effects, but live because you still need to eat (rotten food only) , sleep and breath, plastic form (if you have access to fresh corpse and half an hour per point, you can modify any physical stat, your move, or armour class. You must lower another stat(s) by a totally of  2 for the first point, 4 for the 2nd , 8 for the 3rd. 3 points is the limit.)


Halfling: short (small 1), low light vision, lucky(one free reroll each session), slow (10 rather than 12) reroll dex or cha

Human:Unattuned (you have to concentrate to not resist desired magic effects. IF you do not concentrate you have to make a save as you would hostile magics. Once under the effects of a spell you do not have to keep concentrating), reroll two stats.

Muggin (crow): flight (you can fly if unencumbered for 2 rounds per point of con), feeble( you have 3 strength for the purposes of encumbrance) , scavenger (you have advantage when it comes to rolls to do with scavenging )

Modron(rogue): orthodox (you neither crit nor fumble), heavy, numb(disadvantage when it comes to sense based rolls), inorganic (need no breath, or eat), hardpoints (lower dex by 2 and spent exp = half the item original cost to build something directly onto you. If it require ammunition before you now generate 30 of it per day depend) , natural armour (4)

Ratatosk: rustic (disadvantage when it comes to anything technical or city related), feral (one free reroll per session in the environment of your upbringing, roll must somehow relate to environment, includes combat)), bat shit climbing (you move your full move when climbing), small (1), reroll dex, pretty much broke (start with one mundane item and one basic weapon and no gold)

Ragdoll: boneless (you may count as small 3 for attempting to fit in somewhere), feeble (your strength is 3 for the purposes of encumbrance), strange healing (must have access to needle and thread +fabric to heal) reroll dex

Tiefling: tainted (roll 3 mutation pick 2), fiendish, wyrdling(pick three 0 level spells you can naturally cast. You have a quota of 3), moody (you must Concentrate if you are angry or feeling spiteful and wish to not act upon it)

Thri Kreen: Rustic, natural armour (2), natural weapons , Gangly (bulk 1 for the purpose of getting in the way of stuff), Bug mind (disadvantage on all rolls to do with understanding other people) reroll dex or strength, Broke (start with one basic weapon and that's it)

Lizard folk: natural weapons (claws and teeth as dagger), armour(2), rustic (disadvantage when it comes to anything technical or city related) , aquatic, slow metabolism (you are at disadvantage to all rolls an hour after you wake), bulk (1), pretty much broke (start with basic weapon and one mundane item) reroll strength

\

It's been 8 hours and you bastards haven't finished killing each other

Print PDF The carnage cube happened.
Which was a "warlords of vornheim" game set on one of the cubes of archeon , and unlike most of these player vs player it was completely in canon because something something doomguard promoting entropy.
Anyway the point was I made a 6 sided cube (..okay , 6 sided as in sides that can walked on) out of lego and then made lego figures out of everyone's characters and then with teams of 3 they proceeded to try and kill the shit out of each other.

Player map

 It took 8 hours.

I like made 6 or 7 of these before the game.

And don't think that was because it was some drawn out siege because of that.
No it was 8 hours of brutality.

I said I would get around to taking better photos, by that I meant I would forget about it and play with glue instead

 Look here's the teams. That above is Team Knight. From left to right : Sir Manning. Currently responsible for far too much of the mess in cobalt reach. Played by Trent , who runs New Feierland, famed for being a wretched , dire setting of colonyism and dying in mud. My level 7 monk is currently dead there but since he is leaking acid from a mutation picked up in cobalt reach he is not rotting nor turning into green slime. Green slime because there is now lake of green slime because there were fish guys who were dicks and someone had a potion of green slime from the Vats of Manzarin and fuck your ecology fish guys you tried to steal our stuff (more explain here).
Anyway he has the best looking + 3 shield ever from a dungeon shaped like a phrenology map.

The eyes follow people around the room, but never both eyes on the same person at the same time

 Shit I'm tangentialing but this illustrates my point of how absurdly byzantine this shit gets.

The guy with the hair is Sir Ward, a would be paladin with collateral damage count in the 1000s , but regarding as one of the nicest flailsnails p.cs. Later that session he would drag his best friend with a fish hooked studded net face first over bear traps. He is played by Reynaldo of bum rush the titan.

Lastly The Green, a muscle wizard, currently active in Monster Johnstons Wizards Gang of New Wizard city and bringing to the table some of the most frightful unhinged magic items. Kasper the player did warn me about them before hand , but the full horror of them in action escaped at them time, and so I did not fiat down on all the possible combos. (items including the ring of 9 dragons which allows you to make exact copies of your self, yet share the same stats,  and a potion that increases your armour class each time you get hit) This was one of the lessons. Some people bring a crossbow some people bring a staff of unlimited dimetrodon summoning, and that's not important. What's important is if that player has some horrible dimetrodon based combo they plan to unleash.

Team Rogue

That's Malice Afterthough on the left. He was missing a hand and his favourite flaming sword had recently been destroyed. He is played by Zach and he frequently adventures with Sir Manning and Sir Ward. But today he would attempt to destroy them utterly over some money.

In the Middle is Blixa, played by Zak Smith of D&DWPS infamy. The two Za(ch/k)s reputations as twisted schemers and dire exploiters of lard and spike had team knight in utter conniptions in their planning session. It was hilarious. No, wait it was funnier than that. His lego figure is wearing vampire slaying pants because Blixa has it in for vampire and has killed Strahd twice. The vampires started it with the cruel death of Gleichman the war dog, who now has a commemorative zoo in his name. Blixa is paying gold if anyone has anything zoo worthy captured.

In the Santa hat is Noggin , a long toothed , promoted henchmen , played by Barry, and who immediately set to coating a fish hooked net with wyvern poison.
Because he is British and the British are horrible.

Fwump. Maps

Anyway Team Bastard had the defender role and set to bear trapping , smoke braziering, scarecrowing, and my favourite move, over packing the cannon with all the powder leaving it for the other team to capture. What happened is Sir Ward fired laser beams down the barrel and it blew up and he nearly got nailed by the cannon ball.
And Team Implausible Denibilty took to making a walking tree siege tower and stomping around the battle field.

I didn't keep a record of the blow by blow of it , and lack the stamina to try and recollected in here, but the early precedent of allowing reincarnation/cloning potions to work instantly and the not-quite-deadness of the house rules mentioned in the last post kept this meat grinder going for far too long.

The early death of Noggin , meant that the allowing an instant  reincarnationing him via a potion to keep him back in the game seemed to be good idea. Like how many reincarnation potions did people have? MORE THAN I THOUGHT.  That plus the Cloning Potions , (all from from Vats of Manziran) meant that this meat grinder would proceed to churn far far longer that anyone thought.

Any way  it was brutal and I'm impressed that fun was still had even with it going on for that long and the bizarre punishings of game balance and house rules going on.

Other high lights include g.ms having to explain how an item works as its being used on their own p.c. Oh and the fucking code. Team Sneaky had a code, here is brief extract of it



Rook, King, Queen, knight (any chess terminology at all) =Kasper
Alpha beta gamma delta =Reynaldo
Apple Bacon Cheese Sausage (any food) etc= Trent
Tinker =Drop/prepare floor with
Tailor =Hide
Butcher=Sneak up on
Baker =Do not move, Overwatch
Soldier=Move maximum speed toward/to (pref. from behind if possible)
Motherfucker=Behind
Beggarman=Climb the wall (in the tunnel) (to ceiling if possible)
Thief=Overwatch
Jacques, Pierre, Francois (any french name) = Malice
Monday, tuesday wednesday (any day of the week) = Barry
January, February, June (any month) = Blixa Atomizer, Songs about Fucking, Hammer Party, Pigpile (any big black album) = Caltrops
Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Neptune, Moon (any planet/sailor scout)= Marbles
Whiskey, Gin, Jagermeister (any drink) = Lard
Mega = Rope

I think a lot of these had been worked out anyway and fuck it I'm spoiling this one because it gave me such a head ache and it's gonna be a long long time before I run another one.

This was additional challenge , having to look up what the player actions were . IF google plus hangout had a "deafen" option as well as a "mute" it would of made this unessacery. I did enjoy saying "okay so you are still undertaking "richman protocol confirmed?" a lot it has to be said.

 Stealth makes things so much more complicated, but like. so does icing (okay icing isn't complicated, for this allegory it's complicated icing) and thieves are doomed without it.

The Carnage Cube itself, was actually quite shit at letting the p.cs understand who was were. It was great for me though. Greater than just drawing up 6 grids with arrows pointing to where the sides connected? Well.. yes. Just. Except the cube immediately started falling apart because of my shoddy lego skills and the camera on the lap top not being good enough to allow a viewer to distinguish what the  fuck was where. If I had a better stockpile of lego , I woulda monochromoed each side with a different colour, for side identification  (because I kept forgetting which side was A and which was E) and to make it far easier to translate the visual noise into data.
Having a usb plug in camera that could be independently moved and a separate person responsible for moving the camera around at the request of the players is getting a little grandiose though. (but it would be awesome).




Anyway so that was fun or horrible or a mixture of the two (team knight won  though, kaspers punishingly cheesy combos gave them the endurance to out last the endless ambushes, traps, and schemes).

ALSO!!!

So I've decided to bud off the" draw pictures and sew creatures" part of this blog into to its own tumblr. http://raggedyassmonstermanual.tumblr.com/.
I will shout out here when I got something particular grand happening there, but in the mean time I can just do posts there that are "look at this thing, I did this" and keep the posts that are here fairly incoherently rambling meaty and useful. MEAT.

Discrete Injury table

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So the endless tinkerency of the rules to stop the voices continues.
Hitpoints. I'm liking having it being extremely easy to heal hitpoints. Like if you can catch your breath, you can restore 50% to full and less than 50% to 50%.

That "catch your breathe" thing means you need a safe environment (like if it was a stupid movie one of the characters would say "we are safe here for the moment" and everyone would talk about their feelings for ever), like hiding in a closet wouldn't do it. The characters need to feel that they can reliable drop their guard. So the rooms exits are firmly secured , or the surrounding area is known , cleared and patrolled. Basically imagine if you were your character.
Could you imagine yourself being able to have a hour long nap where they currently are? (and presuming you do not suffer from narcolepsy)  

It's hitpoints firmly in the  "luck and confidence  and minor scratches" end of the  spectrum.

It's only when your hitpoints run out that your meat starts falling apart. That's when the
"oh god man down man down, I can't stop the bleeding WHY WHYWHYA RGHHnew feierland is the worst why did I come hereARGHH" stuff starts happening


I am of the firm belief that players will always engage with the most amount trouble they think they can handle (and then push it anyway) . SO having them in full health the majority of time does not mean they will merrily go off to steam roll all the giant rats in the vicinity. It means they will go straight into the giant hatchet spiders nest and lose an arm or two.

Disclaimer this is coming out of my bias of play style  (impatient)  and a general dislike of resource management heavy ,  slow pressure build , gritty but petty dungeon crawling.

Also I hate clerics and even when I don't hate them , I hate how they have to fill up most of their spell slots with healing spells because that is the only reliable source of healing available. Especially if the heal hit points per day of rest thing is not scaled per level. Like healing 1 hit point per day when you are a fighter with 30 hit points is frustrating, when the wizard is pretty much ready to go again with a days rest.

Hitpoints being the fighters "encounter currency" like you will lose hitpoints in every fight, (unless you spend the entire game session setting up the perfect ambush or something. Which is great once in awhile but will bore me to fucking tears if it's every fucking session) so while everyone else recovers their encounter currency fairly effortlessly , if you don't have a cleric handy you will have to be CAUTIOUS and SHIT. Ugh. Man like I have to use so so much diplomacy and guile to survive in my day to day life , can't I just smash the shit out everything with the big numbers on my character sheet already?

Then there's the malarkey with "let's clear out 2 rooms and return room" (fuck that) or "let's sleep for a week in a 10 by 10 by 10 room" (again, fuck that)

IS it bad to be trying to make the perfect system for your own joneses as a player? WHO KNOWS

 ANYWAY you run out of hitpoints. You start to have negative hitpoints. IF these get lower than your constitution score or half your maximum hit point (which is ever is less), you are now dead.
Go to page 14.
IF you are not in that dread realm  you still need to make a con check modified by you hitpoint total or lose consciousness. (you will wake up after a number of rounds = how much you failed the con check by).

 As well , every time you take damage that puts you into (or further into) negative total hit points , a hit location dice gets rolled , either you have custom die for this or
1 left arm
2 right arm
3 left leg
4 right leg
5 torso
6 head

and roll a die to see how much that area is fucked up .
 d10 is rolled
10-5 it is damaged , 4 -2  is severely damaged and on a 1 it is completely destroyed.

Now here I had a thought. By doing it this way different attacks could be deadly or less deadly. I can't really see any massive advantage in getting too persnickety but rolling a d20 for bare hand attacks and a d8 / d6 for some kind of vorpal weapon or elite murderism seems cool.

I think for now, I will play around with the d10 default and d20 "non-lethal" attacks.

I still am going to try out rolling a 20 means an automatic roll on this table. It seems to be a cool idea, and the chance of instant kill is pretty dang low (about 1 in 500 I think?).

NPCS and monsters will general just die at negative hit points unless particular interesting or important. Because Feng Shui has warped my way of thinking forever.

Anyway
ARMS:
Damaged: Fractured, deep lacerations (but not an artery) , needs stitches, splints etc. The arm cannot be used effectively, -2 to all actions, and possible off hand penalties. This will take about a month to heal. If it is not attended to at least a day after happening (cleaned, bandaged, stitched , braced etc) your con is at -4 for that month. If that puts you con at zero or less I guess you die from the resulting infection

Severely Damaged: Artery severed, tendon damaged, greenstick fractures etcs, as above but you are losing 1 hit point per round until bandaged/attended to. This will take 3 months to heal.
Even after bandaged any exertion will make the bleeding start again.
(yeah I'm kinda playing fast and loose grouping greenstick fractures and artery bleedings here. ANd tendon damage is unlikely to heal fully functionally, but like this already getting into rolemaster territory )

Destroyed: As above but that arm is not ever coming  back. The -2 penalty lasts a month after which you have more or less adjusted to the balance change.

LEGS:
Damaged:
as per arms but half movement as well
Severely damaged:
as arms but can't stand up without support, movement is a crawl at best.
Destroyed: As above but your movement is now half (with crutches) or 2/3 slower (with a pegleg and 3 months adjustment) or a hop, which is as fast as slow walk with a dex check each round or you ass over.

TORSO:
Damaged: Possibly cracked rib, definite heavy bruising , deep puncture (but not enough to reach an organ), -1 to all actions. Roll twice for strength or constitution checks and take the worse result.
A month to heal

Severe: as above but internal bleeding 1 per hit point per round , on a successful con check (with the roll twice take worst) it stops, but starts again if you exert yourself. This is stuff like visible intestines, sucking chest wounds, cracked ribs puncturing lungs etcs. WELL maybe those last 2 would be far more mechanically severe. 3 months to heal

Destroyed: Evisceration, massive internal hemorrhaging , punctured  heart etc. Basically, you are dead

HEAD:
Damaged:  blinded for one round and stunned for 1d6 rounds. For the rest of the day any wisdom, charisma or intelligence checks are rolled twice with the worst result taken.

Severely Damaged: As above but  this is stuff like detached corneas , broken jaws, ruptured ear drums etc.
If you are knocked out by this blow you are in a coma for a week , and will be in a coma until you succeed a con check (one per week) each time you fail , you lose one point of either intelligence or wisdom. Otherwise -2 to all actions and randomly determine a sense (1 sight 2 hearing 3 taste and smell 4 balance) that barely works for 3 months (automatically fail any rolls to do with that sense)
Destroyed: yeah.. throat torn upon , stabbed through the eye,  fatal aneurysm , or just plain gone. You is dead.


Magical healing as well as restoring hitpoints will restore some of the physical damage. For each level of the healing spell , that many "categorys" are healed. So a cure light wounds can restore a damaged leg to normal or severely damaged arm to just a damaged arm. In case of multiple injury sites the levels will have to assigned as the healer thinks best. So a cure critical wounds (level 4) on some one with 4 severely  damaged limbs  could restore each limb to damaged or 2 limbs to full health. Anything destroyed requires a Heal or Regenerate spell. The Heal spell restores all categories and the regenerate spell can restore any one area to full even if destroyed.

Healing via the wonder of waiting around for stuff to grow back on and the risk of infection.
NOW I was so tempted to get all stimulationlist and go "oh burns are fucking horrible for infection but slash wounds are fairly quick, while puncture wounds can get all complicated if they have introduced foreign material deep enough so it can't get bleed out".
 But I managed to resist.

So  let's just say you make a  con check for every week you are healing and if you fail you lose a point of con (which will be recovered with a further weeks rest) and if you roll a 20 it's now one stage worse (severe becomes destroyed etc) And wilderness conditions is +4 to the roll while having a healer in attendance is -4 and in between stuff is in between.
Oh and maybe +2 if there was a decent first aiding done at the time, and -1 to -4 if it was particular infectious environment (sewers, jungles) or nasty wounds (burns of all kinds, poop covered arrows)

I had this all done in note form and then was looking through the 52 pages rule book and noticed that they had something very similar. So go look here if you want something more tidy than what I just wrote
http://rolesrules.blogspot.co.nz/2011/06/characters-hit-points.html
Also I'm going to do a review soon about that pdf, because I used it up in Wellington with new players  and it had a lot of merit.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxxIbZkFu4wdZkVLbnlkVFNvcVU/edit
Check it yo.

Also their background/skill system in this document has also more or less scooped me on something I had sketched out but not finished yet.

Treasure!

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"treasure"

Treasure! 
How do people make it interesting? 
(don't say "make it hard to get" .What are you? My dad?)
 Does it even need to be that interesting ? (right now, however , I can't even make myself write 200 gold pieces plus assorted gems without my hand rebelling and drawing a flying skull ship instead)
It often turns into semi-abstract units of advancement, like the transformers and their energon cubes..

"..and here is your share of the exp loyal henchman"

because it is pretty much a semi-abstract unit of advancement.
Like you can write a tidy little description of say," a pearl and serpentine necklace with the pearls carved to illustrate hubris and the serpentine carved to illustrate a humbling" but like if the p.cs are going to need a couple of 1000 of them to make it to the next level, then very quickly it's just so much box text.

Anyway my point is it's one of those things that is there because of how it is entwined with the flow of play more than how it is part of the setting/world building/simulation/whatever.

(I prefer personally to not do the 1 gold piece 1 exp thing. Like I have 5 categorys of thing (conquest, cunning, diplomacy, exploring, riches) and you get either 10/20/50/100/200  per level for whatever categorys depending on if there was abit/kinda/yes/heaps/hella amounts of that thing in game.
And each character chooses a category that they focus on , they get double in that category, and can change it once per level. Still tinkering with the numbers.

Also it sometimes gets brought up that 1 gold piece = 1 exp is way of exactly defining the amount of achievement and that it is too much work to try and decide what is worth 500 exp without such a formula. I don't really understand this at all, like sure, it is harder but its still not actually hard to make up some fucking numbers. Also say the players steal an antique ebony writing desk to convert into energon cubes sell for gold. How much gold is it worth? OMG YOU HAVE TO MAKE UP A FUCKING NUMBER CRAZY

And that other thing that gets said and I struggle to not be rude about because why am I even being rude about a fucking game mechanic anyway, is that if you make exp mainly from fights then p.cs have to go around fighting stuff all the time and that makes the flow of the game wack. Which is true, but the goldpiece standard also makes the game go to some pretty wack( or colossally entertaining depending on tastes) door knob stealing places.

)
ANY WAY TREASURE WHAT IS IT?
You have a thing for the p.cs to want to get, and a way to reward them when they get it and they get enough of the reward and they can do new things hooray.

Anyway I was thinking about other things that could do this, as a thought experiment more than anything else.

Junk:  miscellaneous scrap metals and debris, to be utilized by the scavenger community you are part of when you successfully come home with it . Junk can be found lying around and stashed in ruined and buried military bunkers  (teeming with mutants, killbots, cyborgs and bioweapons, who of course, yield "treasure" when killed) and if you felt like being fancy could be broken down into categories such as "researchables", "metals/basic materials" , "fuels" , "rare components", "semi-operational parts".

A nice mechanic would be that once certain amounts of a material were retrieved  to the community things would change. Get enough basic materials and better housing happens. Enough "researchables" make it back and someone has better weapons they can make for you.
The role played by magic items could instead be played by actually blood dripping hunks of cyborg monster that you bring home to have installed into you.
 And if you as g.m did not want to have such a direct sudden mechanic improvement, then treat the trophy as "treasure" ie it generates exp, but can still shape the characters mechanical improvement more directly than "I have 10, 000 gold pieces, what can I buy?"  (and without resorting to magic item shops which clunk.

IF the characters were some kind of horrible cyborg bioweapon , new abilitys and classes  could be unlocked by the increasing development of the scavenger community. Like "oh we have enough fuel that we can install a jet pack in you/ or you can start purchasing levels in a living gun/fusilier class now" etc.



Suffering:

The p.cs are physics, obscure ghosts, or miscellaneous freak shows. They are on this earth to eat psychic trauma residue, which congeals in the secret places of the dark underbelly of the earth. Often Horrors, murderous angels , and reality chewing worms lurk there  and are, more often than not,  the cause of the  trauma. The suffering/treasure could have some physical form or could require the p.cs to deduce what has happen there in order to digest it (or filing reports??) and thus cleanse the environment.
So the more accurate your report / understanding of the event, the more exp you are getting.
In a way this could be "evidence" as "treasure"

Secrets:
Might overlap with the above. There is secrets. The more you learn the more you are. Either like the Planetary or like the characters as barely real dream spirits , growing in actualness and power. Similar game flow as suffering, but more investigatory/exploring.
At the end of the session , the players relate to the d.m what they have unravelled (and can prove?) and get exp based on how much they have got right.

character selection screen?

Souls: The world is dead, everyone is dead, but various souls are left trapped in the husk of the world. You have to find them, liberate them from their horders and take them back to the void where they can disperse freely.

Glory:

like you get exp when you are back in the drinking hall and have a great story to tell. And something to prove it. So severed heads are always good, but also, say, the beard of the red lake king, cut from him while he was sleeping, or the golden cattle of the honey lands, or a flower from the
garden of death. Basically treasure is anything you can impress everyone with by showing it off back in the long house.
What would be really good here is if the end of session exp tally had some kind of specific boosting/bragging minigame.

Food:
Mike's blog http://terruizeng.blogspot.co.nz/ seems to be in status mode at the moment , which is a shame for it does wonders with the idea that treasure is food you bring back to your tribe to increase your mana (not as in magic, but a word meaning social standing, personal power and responsibility ), ie your exp.

Also shout out to Zachs "dungeon Chernobyl" involving treasure as weird tech, anomalies , and dangerous artifacts of science