Orks!

Rafael Chandler made a Random Orc Generator.
Quick test! d10!

1. # Enc. 1d8. Move 90′ (30′). AC 13. HD 1. Attacks: 1. Damage: 1d8. Morale: 11. Moss-covered Wood Orcs carry weapons of bone and shields of hardened bark. These orcs are known for their loyalty, as well as their tendency to hoard the bones of their enemies, which are arranged into letters that spell out prophecy. A tribe of these orcs will be led by a 3 HD chieftain who inflicts 1d10+1 damage. Treasure: d20 gp, 1d4 gems.
2. # Enc. 1d4. Move 90′ (30′). AC 13. HD 1+1. Attacks: 1. Damage: 1d6+1. Morale: 10. Thick-necked Stone Orcs usually have quarry dust upon their hands. They take half damage from edged weapons. These orcs are known for their loyalty, as well as their tendency to impale their captives on long wooden stakes. A tribe of these orcs will be led by a filthy gnoll who consumes an orc child each week. Treasure: d20 sp, d20 gp, 1 small gem.
3. # Enc. 1d6. Move 90′ (30′). AC 15. HD 1+1. Attacks: 1. Damage: 1d6. Morale: 10. Six-armed Spider Orcs clamber head-down as they attack. Each shield they carry gives them an AC bonus of 1. These orcs are despised for their sadism, as well as their tendency to fill dungeons with treasure chests containing nothing but spores. A tribe of these orcs will be led by an orc priestess with 3 HD; she can cast two first-level spells. Treasure: d20 gp, d10 pp, 1d6 gems.
4. # Enc. 1d8. Move 120′ (40′). AC 16. HD 2+1. Attacks: 2. Damage: 1d8+1. Morale: 10. Thick-necked Stone Orcs usually have quarry dust upon their hands. They take half damage from edged weapons. These orcs are reviled for their treachery,as well as their tendency to hoard the bones of their enemies, which are arranged into letters that spell out prophecy. A tribe of these orcs will be led by a captured adventurer whose torture only stops when he provides useful tactical advice. Treasure: d20 gp, 1d4 gems.
5. # Enc. 1d6. Move 150′ (50′). AC 16. HD 2. Attacks: 2. Damage: 1d8+1. Morale: 11. Swift and cannibalistic, Blood Orcs usually inhabit jungles. These orcs are known for their nobility, as well as their tendency to impale their captives on long wooden stakes. A tribe of these orcs will be led by a troll with low self-esteem. Treasure: d20 gp, d6 pp, 1 mysterious key.
6. # Enc. 1d8. Move 150′ (50′). AC 15. HD 1. Attacks: 2. Damage: 1d6. Morale: 10. Silent and unblinking, Aquatic Orcs emerge from the depths to eat the flesh of land-dwellers. These orcs are reviled for their treachery,as well as their tendency to feed captured religious leaders to starving swine. A tribe of these orcs will be led by a troll with low self-esteem. Treasure: d10 cp, d10 sp, d6 gp.
7. # Enc. 1d6. Move 120′ (40′). AC 15. HD 2. Attacks: 1. Damage: 1d4+1. Morale: 11. Scarred and pitiless, Desert Orcs hail from the shimmering sands. These orcs are known for their cowardice, as well as their tendency to sacrifice married couples to their dark gods. A tribe of these orcs will be led by a captured adventurer whose torture only stops when he provides useful tactical advice. Treasure: d20 cp, d12 sp, d8 gp.
8. # Enc. 1d8. Move 120′ (40′). AC 16. HD 1. Attacks: 1. Damage: 1d4+1. Morale: 10. Thick-necked Stone Orcs usually have quarry dust upon their hands. They take half damage from edged weapons. These orcs are known for their nobility, as well as their tendency to impale their captives on long wooden stakes. A tribe of these orcs will be led by a filthy gnoll who consumes an orc child each week. Treasure: d10 cp, d10 sp, d6 gp.
9. # Enc. 1d6. Move 150′ (50′). AC 15. HD 1+1. Attacks: 1. Damage: 1d8. Morale: 11. Calm and cautious, Mist Orcs are found near the shore. They can breathe water as well as air. These orcs are famous for their courtesy, as well as their tendency to impale their captives on long wooden stakes. A tribe of these orcs will be led by a 3 HD chieftain who inflicts 1d10+1 damage. Treasure: d20 cp, d12 sp, d8 gp.
10. # Enc. 1d4. Move 90′ (30′). AC 13. HD 2+1. Attacks: 1. Damage: 1d6. Morale: 10. Fur-clad Primordial Orcs from distant lands. They regenerate 1 hp per round until slain. These orcs are famous for their arrogance, as well as their tendency to hoard the bones of their enemies, which are arranged into letters that spell out prophecy. A tribe of these orcs will be led by an orc priestess with 3 HD; she can cast two first-level spells. Treasure: d10 gp, d8 pp, 1 parchment map.

Awesome!

About an invasion that never happened

So, a while back ago, when Monte Cook's Numenera sprung out to existence, our group wanted to test it. Given the premise of being sci-fi-ish RPG rather than trad fantasy, I wrote an intro, which would start very much like DCC RPG's funnel, but every player would create one 0th level character. Foci, descriptors etc. would be added on the fly, on appropriate moment, good role-playing etc. Everyone would start out with abilities of 10 and effort 1.

So, minimal background, first:
I live in a certain town in a certain alpine valley, which is somewhat famous for what happened here during the WW1. Because of the front, landscape is drilled with tunnels, trenches, nearby mountains and remote ravines still hide rusted scraps of weapons, bomb shrapnel and skeletal remains of the fallen. Such is the case of Castle, a hill that rises two hundred meters above the basin, on top of which ruins of thousand year old bastion still stand. The hill is drilled with caverns and there is a legend that a secret tunnel leads from the castle to town below. The cavern system is vast and not completely explored because of many cave-ins and seismic activity in the area.

Valley of Emerald River

This document is not polished, nor finished, as we never really had a chance and will to play it, so feel free to use it if you like it. I found out that cypher system was not my cup of tea, anyways.

You can grab The Egg Of Smohl here.

About daily travel distances

I got this idea yesterday while walking the countryside.
In RPGs there are these travel distance tables and they more or less all claim that a person can walk 24 miles/8hrs(day). I think that these numbers are exaggerated. For normal men, I think, 10 miles a day is enough to feel it next day. So, let's try a different and cruel approach to daily travel distance covered.
Basically, a character can move up to his Constitution in miles per day without problems. Anymore than this, he makes endurance checks or suffer Constitution damage. So one lazy and/or sickly character could move as far as 3 miles per day max and an athletic character type would move as far as 18 miles per day normally.
I would say +-33% for roads, mountains, weather etc.

I don't know why, but - Source.

MOVEMENT RATES

PC/NPC adventurer can normally travel as much as her/his/it's/their CON in miles before they must stop and rest for that day or push forward. If you push forward, you make a lucky roll below, but allow to burn STR to avoid the check.
 Round distances to 5 if you like.
Make another check in half the normal distance.


You press on and ...
0 - This journey starts to wear on your nerves.
1 - Your nagging causes your wizard to save vs. your roll or lose a random spell for that day.
2 - You stumble and easy DEX check or Unlucky bruise: -1 to all rolls for one day.
3 - Trip-a-friend - same as above, with an obvious difference.
4 - You step but your ankle does not agree to cooperate. Lucky check or sprain the sucker: -1d (or-4) on combat and movement die due to poor footwork.
5 -  Your backpack or belt-pouch becomes lose and you lost the marbles. Spend 10 minutes packing back.
6 - Your eyes are heavy and in you drift for a moment. In your vision, your patron appears and gives you a quest to distant land which you must uphold or suffer their disapproval.7 - Gremlins infest your footwear: Lucky roll or it smells so bad that you immediately attract a troll to bug your party.
8 - You lost half of your consumables somehow (potions included).
9 - Traveling fever - gain a random disease from the area.
10 - Double vision - make a save or lose it on next perilous crossing.
11 - This is bat country - bats swarm you and you must fight them off or suffer -2d (or -6) on all checks until rested.
12 - Break a leg - this is bad. Hard check or your limb becomes useless and needs 12 HP in healing to function again.
13 - Foot of lead - your feet become heavy and you sink into matter to some extent, you leave obvious tracks and every distance counts double.

Start with 1d4 + Luck then go to 1d6, 1d8, and 1d10.

Horses double the CON value in mileage, fast horses triple it.
Beasts travel up to their HD before losing interest in chase.
Humanoids add 10 to their HD.

Carts & caravels coming soon.
Maybe.

Copy of this post is at www.drunkenwizard.org

Sunday Swag 1

Treasure is one of the key elements of a traditional fantasy role playing game and something one can never have too much of. I like to run games with a prepared list of strange and funky items on hand, to pepper and salt my games as required.

Golem Chainsaw

Of intricate dwarfish craftsmanship, this large brass and ceramic box has various handles and lever, while within it conceals a tandem of specialized golems that power the chainsaw. Sages disagree whether it was made to cut down trees or plow through opponents, but whatever the case is, it remains a noisy testament to a time when mortals thought they could harness the elemental forces with impunity.

The chainsaw is heavy and unwieldy, if used as a weapon it requires two hands to wield and has a -3 to hit penalty. It does, however, deal 3d6 points of damage on a successful strike. An attack roll of 1 means something has jammed and the chainsaw is unusable for the rest of the combat.

Value: approximately 30 to 3000 gp, depending on the buyer.

Mossy Mittens

Flimsy mittens of a damp and moldy cloth decorated with intricate geometric spirals and shapes. Some might say they are of swamp elven manufacture, while others would disagree, pointing out that elves do not exist. In any case, the mittens seem ordinary, if shoddy, articles of clothing until they come in contact with moss. The a magical moss sprouts from the mittens, completely covering the wearer in a carpet of green growths and little flowers. The moss remains for several hours, before shriveling up and sloughing off. It can also be scraped off manually, which takes at least 10 minutes.

When still and hiding the wearer of the moss receives up to a +10 bonus to hide, depending on the environment. When moving, the moss-covered fellow receives a -2 penalty to physical activities, due to moss in his eyes and itchy moss all over his body, however the damp moss does provide a +1 bonus to AC and a +3 bonus against fire.

Value: up to 300 gp to the right buyer.

Source: National Geographic

Santa Claws presents

THIS IS

a nice nice, very nice tool for generating PC/NPC characters.
All credit and thanks go to dizzydragon and his minions.

Imagining Content - Dungeon Bestiaries

Inventing monsters is always fun and it seems to be something that happens to me automatically as I try to invent and imagine dungeons, settings and so forth. Often I will scribble out a map and then write a paragraph or two of silly fluff about the map and from there will spring ... the background of the setting, the rationale for the monsters, decorations and so forth. I don't start working room-by-room but basically set down to write a description of the entire dungeon (or section of dungeon). For example, a while back I fiddled with a 3d labyrinth in illustrator and came up with the following (text added earlier today):

The Fourfold Catatomb

From the description I came up with a massive tomb built to commemorate a deified, vicious despot who ruled with an iron fist and a trumped up state religion. After his death the bureaucratic state he set up kept running things by reference to the aforementioned monarch - a bit like a feudal-fantastic police state. Eventually it might have collapsed, but that's neither here-nor-there. The dungeon/tomb is explained as a state effort to glorify a mighty monarch and keep him protected and pleasured through the ages ... or his spirit, in any case.

What does the dungeon look like? Geometric, symmetrical, finely made and richly carved. Obviously, no expense was spared to make it and slaves were worked to death to ready it. There might be hidden niches, scrawled graffiti where it couldn't be seen, places that were sabotaged by the workers themselves. However,  most of the dungeon is rich, carved and well made. Much of the treasure in such a dungeon would be in the form of carvings, friezes, wall-hangings and so forth. Places might have decayed over time, been flooded or otherwise, but the overall feeling should be rich, and possibly oppressive and over-awing, with large statues of the monarch.

What are the monsters? Well, this is where my imagination usually runs off with me. Basically, the dungeon was stocked with protectors for the monarch - undead made from enemies of the state. These would be the afore-mentioned bronze-corpses, wood-walkers, bone-banes and lilting-weirds. These are probably more-or-less mindless undead or combinations of automatons & undead, powered by the souls of the king's enemies. These would be a generic menace to adventurers entering the dungeon, but something that could also be turned or subverted to help - or at least ignore - the cunning adventurer. A simplistic approach would see looters trying to wade through ever larger hordes of them, possibly dying pointlessly. On the other hand, the crystal-and-blood creations are sworn protectors of the dead monarch, implacable foes of looters and a combat trial that has to be faced to win riches or avoided. The bone-and-wax creatures are there to provide pleasure for the monarch, these would be used more to give a sense of horror and the macabre to the dungeon than to truly be foes for the adventurers, though they might overcome weakened characters. Finally, should the characters come upon the resting place of the king himself, a fitting end would be to have them face the "four ancestors" - perhaps demons bound to the king's body, who had empowered him to raise the kingdom.

In a final twist, the demons might actually be waiting for somebody worthy of them and they might offer one of the adventurers the temptation of taking their gifts (lets say of a silver tongue, a mighty hand in war, eyes in the back of the head and a ward against physical attacks) and reclaiming the lands the king had ruled. Perhaps the king was an unwitting pawn, perhaps he had played the demons for fools, in any case, this gives an open ending - instead of just going for the treasure, the heroes might unleash further adventures.

And there it is ... a self-contained, wealthy, maze-like tomb, filled with macabre soul-powered automatons, dolls and corpses, centred around a quartet of powerful demons. Add a dash of jellies, oozes, gelatinous dodecahedra, perhaps some worms or rats, and voila. Serve properly dried and diced!

Sandbox BASS

I have run sandbox-ish campaigns for as long as I can recall, and most times the rules I've run them with have made it harder, not easier, to run a campaign of that sort. Playing with various incarnations of D&D, there would be the invariable scaling from 1st level wimp to 10th level hero, to a situation of "high-level over-powered munchkin that is impossible to challenge seriously". Well, impossible to challenge without putting in far more time as a DM than I found fun. I never wanted to spend hours compiling spells, abilities, treasures to *finally* challenge the players. I wanted to spend that time on fun characters, plots, twists and turns ... bits and pieces of lore and adventure that I could drop into the game.

About 2-3 years ago I ran across the various concepts of old-school gaming & sandbox games on the internet and soon realized this was pretty much what I had been looking for. Fiddling around further, I realized I wanted a game with less of a power-curve and more bloody damned adventuring. I wanted the players to start with "heroes" like Conan, characters with back-story & ability - but not with super powers. That's the direction we started developing BASS - which is basically still little more than a simplified house-rule-set & a character generation system for creating bad-ass, unusual characters.

The next few steps I want to take are the development of tables & elements for populating the sandbox: regions, locations, items, artifacts, opponents. Tools that will allow me, as the DM, to throw more at the players, more easily and with less planning. Because that, I think, is a rule that should be set in stone:

Planning and preparing for a game should not take longer than actually running the game!

It might be fun, but, honestly, much of it will never be seen. So why do it? That's why I want elements that can recycle from adventure to adventure, campaign to campaign ... and if one of them sparks a hook that starts a player of on a cycle of adventures, then so be it. If not: it's just loot for sale!

More to follow ...