Sanctum of the Heresiarch (a one-shot dungeon)

So in the Lands of the Heresiarch, the Xenomorph-worshipping cult (think Alien: Resurrection but in the  middle-ages) has built its shrine around the crashed ship where the alien was first discovered.

This is where the cult performs its creepy rituals and the cult's alchemist performs his creepy experiments.

click to enlarge

We Won The 3 Castles Award (Again)

 Like Red & Pleasant Land before it, Nebulith, our Japanese-themed LOTFP book, just won the prestigious (and very heavy) Three Castles Award.

This award is extra cool because the award jury tends to be composed entirely of game designers from the early days of the hobby, the Red & Pleasant Land jury was David "Zeb" Cook (of the original Oriental Adventures), Steve Perrin (Runequest), Dr Dennis Sustare (as in Chariot of Sustarre), James M Ward (Metamorphosis Alpha), and Steve Winter (Nightmares of Future Past, etc). 

Winter, Sustare, and Grubb, were on the jury this year, along with Allen Hammack (of TSR's Slave Lords series), and Ben Burns (Call of Cthulhu and Savage Worlds)

Grubb, who wrote a lot of classic stuff including the Marvel Super-Heroes (FASERIP) RPG and Al-Qadim and Spelljammer, had this to say about Nebulith:

The Nebulith is a volcano magically halted mid-eruption, so it is a huge frozen stone cloud hanging over the island of Awa Nikko, and serves as the "dungeon" for this setting. The setting is rich in lore, changing the euro-centric LotFP rules to adapt to samurai, ninja, and martial arts. This is the first Asian-themed product I've read that beats out the venerable Oriental Adventures from TSR. I love the art, I love the lore, I love the game design.

So, that's very cool!

If you haven't got it, its available here and here.

If you ask about it and anyone gives you static, it's because of this and this.

Caroline Pierce Ate A Cat

 

If you know Caroline Pierce--outside of her, ahh, work--pretty much the first thing you know is she's a cat lady. Epic scale cat lady.

But last night she ate a cat.

Ok, technically her character ate a cat, Elaria, the half-elf ranger.

In her defense, it was because she refused to eat a person, so that's a good(?) sign.

I blame Session 2 of Maze of the Blue Medusa.

It went like this:

After last session our heroines wake up in the first room there at the bottom, barricade themselves inside and hope to regain spells etc and heal up for their next sojourn into the Maze.

They are interrupted after an hour by a polite knock on the door from 6 Bondye Reparatè (humans who believe the Maze is heaven and their job is to perform maintenance on it). They would never be so impolite as to bash down the door so they slide a polite offering of two hand-rolled cigarettes beneath the door and move on.

Despite Elaria, being a ranger and all, being able to identify these as ordinary hand-rolled cigarettes, a weirdly lot of time is spent trying to figure out what the cigarettes do (nothing except give you cancer 40 years after making you look cool).

The next hour a Chronomancer (lizard wizard) and a pair of his thrall mammals (ape-morons) show up. They kill one moron and steal the pearl that allows the Chronomancer to control the other and shoot him fulla holes before he can use his time-magic to reverse the damage. The newly-cnotrolled moron thus played an important meatshield/scouting role in the rest of the session.

Also note the girls made extensive use of the wardogs in this fight as they pounced on and murdered one of the morons, though out of deference to a recently deceased real pet Kimberly Kane's was turned into a war-cat.

You might see where this is going.

So anyway after defeating the Chronomancer, the girls went past the living chess pieces (basically a wise decision), used a mirror to investigate the Jade Tiles That Freeze You and inadvertently made them freeze themselves.

(Dialogue in this room:

Michelle: "Uh, I have Trap Sense?"

Zak: "You sense this is a trap.")

 ...and then cast Dispel Magic to make thetiles mundane enough to cross. Halfway through another Lizard Wizard attacks and gets beat up.

All this time Caroline Pierce is taking notes. 

Zak: "You take a lot of notes, CP."

Caroline: "Well the thing is your dungeons are always like a puzzle, none of my other games are like that."

Zak: "I don't know whether that's a compliment or not, but you're still around after 15 years so I'll assume its a compliment."

They investigate some more rooms and pronounce them weird. They are: the room with the snail golem, the room with the light-eating roses, the room with the grape juice.

Then they go into the Gallery section.

Those of you who have played Maze of the Blue Medusa know that in the Gallery section there's a mechanic that speeds up time and spoils food. So the PCs get hungry fast and will start to lose hp if they don't eat.

There are lots of solutions to this--the Create Food and Water spell, moving in and out of the gallery from the peripheral areas around it, stashing food in other places, etc., but a common one among the adventuring classes is cannibalism.

The PCs poke around at the magical artworks, including the paintings that show all the wounds you have, then encounter some cannibal critics! They hate art and want to eat the moron! (Contary to popular belief, Patrick Stuart made these monsters up. They are jussssst this side of too whimsical for me.) The PCs make quick work of them and Michelle's halfling Jinx wastes no time slicing off one's cheek and eating it. Kimberly Kane's cleric of the Great Maggot eats the other. I remind her the Great Maggot has no compunctions about eating flesh.

Elaria, a noble half- elf, abstains.

Soon they find the pit in the middle of the reptile-eye floor mosaic and head inside, down into the Reptile Archive. After accidentally annihilating the Nyctocaust Memorial (a touch-sculpture that is destroyed by light, oops) Elaria takes the multi-lingual warning sign ("please do not use light in this room") to see if she can start to puzzle out other languages from it. Clever.

Soon they wind up in the room with the clockwork needlebirds that tattoo you. They send the moron in first. He gets tattooed to death. Then they send in the pets. The cat gets tattooed to death. Only the terrier escapes.

Elaria helicopters in with her magic morningstar (the Steel Cyclone) and kills the remainder of the birds but it's too late. And she's hungry, losing hit points. She barbecues the cat.

Jinx attached the cat's tail to her hat. "Well we are using every part of the animal".

The rest is conscientiously sliced up into pieces and packaged for later. After a short fight with a chameleon women waiting to ambush them and passing some strips of tattooed flesh and undead bees, the crew winds up in the lair of the Lampen Proletariat, a wax golem who urges revolution against the masters of the Archive.

What will they do???? Find out next time!!!!

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The Testing Chamber

This can be used in any appropriate dungeon or just as its own dungeon. It should keep players busy for an hour or two.

• PCs appear in the chamber colored green. 
• Each of the four doors out of the green room has one symbol: sword, coin, cup, wand.
• Behind each of these doors is a sleeping ogre with a sack of coins worth 100gp. Each ogre is identical to the other three.
• Opening the red doors leads to a magic portal--the portal leads back to the green room.
• To end this loop, each ogre must be overcome by the proper means, which won't be told explicitly to the PCs:
• --The ogre behind the sword door must be defeated (at least partially) by physical attacks
• --The ogre behind the wand door must be defeated (at least partially) by magic
• --The ogre behind the coin door must have his coins taken by the PCs in a nonviolent way
• --The ogre behind the cup door must not be harmed (or robbed) at all--just get to the door
• If an ogre is overcome in the way appropriate to their door, then they will remain in the state they were left (dead, sleeping, etc) any time that door's checked until all 4 of these identical ogres have been properly overcome.
• If an ogre is overcome in an "inappropriate" way, they will reappear in their original state (unharmed and asleep with all their coins) next time their door's opened and any coins taken from that ogre will evaporate.
• Once all four sleeping ogres are overcome in the way appropriate to their door, the PCs still reappear in the green room, but this time each door leads to an ogre that's awake. This is a different ogre (technically a mountain ogre rather than forest ogre) and he has a sack of coins worth 400gp. He must be overcome 4 times in the same ways as above.
• After the mountain ogre, the 4 rooms contain coffins, inside each of which contains 800gp and an (identical) sleeping vampire. She must be overcome 4 times in the same ways as above.
• After the coffin is overcome, the 4 rooms each contain a different vampire (awake) wearing 1200gp worth of jewelry. She must be overcome 4 times in the same ways as above.
• After all that, the test is over and the new, richer PCs can go back to whatever and wherever they were.

The Island Formerly Known As Paradise

The players come upon an island.

It used to be this place:

1. Palace of Queen Hyppolyte. Here is located the Magic Sphere, in which past, present, and probable future can be viewed.

-Now filled with a variety of "statues" of former amazons. Kria Visthala, a Harryhausen-style medusa now resides here, where she has hoarded much of the the island's treasure

-She is served by 24 small, blinded halflings, skewers still poking from their eyes

2. Palace Gardens

-Wildly overgrown

-Several more "statues"--broken and whole

-Five murderous werecheetahs stalk the gardens now

3. Temple of Aphrodite, located at the highest point of the island

-Much decayed and partially fallen, however its magic is still potent.

-Erotic acts here heal 2d8hp if performed at midnight

4. Memory Center, location of the Memory Chair, which can stimulate or erase memories

-The chair remains, in altered form

-If a creature has lost or forgotten memories (including level drained experience), they will be restored.

-If not, then random memories will be lost

5. Forest

-Hungry dinosaurs

(pterodactyls, raptors, most harmless parasaurs, a blue t-rex)

-Some escaped kangas (descendants of giant riding kangaroos)

-Some remains of dead amazons, with some treasure

6. Pool of Monsters: Very deep, swimming forbidden here

-Largely unchanged

-Contains a plesiosaur, cannibal mermaids, ixitxachitls (manta men), and whatever other freshwater monsters you want to include.

-There's treasure at the bottom

7. Observatory, with early warning system for enemies of Earth or other worlds

-The telescope, orrery and other machines are in ruins

-A wizard who scrounges for an hour here can assemble 2000gp worth of useful materials and books but every ten minutes there's a 2-in-6 chance of a monster from another area nosing its way in here

8. Amazon School and College

-There are still a lot of valuable books here, if you have a random book table this is a time to use it, if not, get Cube World

-Kria Visthala spends a lot of time here (1-in-6 chance)

-Also the cheetah women occasionally hunt here (1-in-6 chance)

9. Amphitheater for entertainment and sport

-If Kria Visthala captures a creature alive she sometimes blinds them and then has them fight here for her entertainment

-The cells beneath contain 3 random blinded NPC prisoners as well as a variety of animals, dinosaurs and other monsters caught on the island, kept well-fed enough to fight in the arena

10. Swimming pool

-Kept in good knick because Kria likes to swim

-Beautiful lapis lazuli tiles and gold trim

11. Hall of Records

-Chaotic, but still has a lot of historical records--a great place to try to find information on lost artifacts, islands, etc

12. Kanga stables, where giant riding kangaroos are kept

-Still two kangas here belonging to Kria Visthala, Octhir and Tyria

13. Science complex

-This place is completely ruined and ransacked, though there are some inscrutably-labelled barrels of radioactive and high explosive material stored here that nobody here knows what to do with

14. Amazon Living Quarters

-Mostly completely dilapidated but for every hour of searching there's a 1-in-10 chance of a treasure and a 2-in-6 chance of a monster from another area showing up

15. Hospital, where the purple healing ray is now housed

-The ray is long gone

-But there are various salves, herbs, bandages, tools etc that will help with non-magic healing and surgery

16. Army barracks

-A mess, but certainly enough weapons and armor to equip a party

17. Navy barracks

-Like the army barracks

18. Dock and ships

-Kria Visthala's pleasure ship, the Sickle Moon, is moored here and guarded by a crew of blind halflings

19. Cliffs from which Princess Diana (Wonder Woman) first spotted Steve Trevor drifting on a bit fo wreckage from his plane

-This happened millennia ago. Nobody knows what a "plane" is anymore, but there is a colony of cannibal mermaids living near its wreckage down here.

20. Princess Diana's private lab, where she used the healing ray on Steve. Now operated by Paula, formerly Baroness Paula von Gunther, now an Amazon by adoption.

-Paula von Gunther was an evil Nazi that Wonder Woman reformed.

-She is long dead but the lab is now cursed by the spirits of her victims. Anyone entering will roll a 1 on their first attack, save or other check next time they're in combat or in a life-or-death situation (initiative not included).

21. Culture complex, including library, museums, etc.

-More books, as in 8

-A blind cenobite cult has taken up residence here--there are 16 of them and they worship Kria Visthala

-Each has a grotesque mutation, 50% chance they have one useful in combat (like being able to throw their head at you) and they're a fighter level 2d4, 50% they just have a cosmetically weird mutation and are a magic-user level 2d4

-The entire complex has been filled with creepy chains and S&M stuff

-They don't leave this area during the daytime

22. Fountain of Eternal Youth, the waters of which keep the Amazons from aging

-The fountain itself is brackish and cracked but the waters still work

-That's why Kira Visthala took over the island, centuries ago

-Drink from it and you will never age

23. Landing field for Amazon air- and spacecraft

-Nobody now living knows what this cracked plaza was used for

24. Hangars

-The semicollapsed remains of strange crystalline vehicles, ribbed like whales.

25. Reform Island (also called Transformation Island), where female criminals are rehabilitated

-This labyrinthine prison-island is now completely overrun with werecheetahs

-Their priestess has built a shrine here, she is a level 12 cleric and wants to sacrifice you to the cheetah gods

-A female titan named Giganta sleeps in a large chamber beneath the island unbeknownst to anyone but the priestess, who harvests her spinal fluid for her rituals.

26. Forbidden Island, home of menacing animal and plant life; here the Amazons must go for the wonderful sun-swords they use for defense. 

-The menacing plants and animals remain, including:

--A young-adult dragon, grey and fire-breathing

--Giant bats

--Vengeance trees, which ensnare explorers and trap them inside

-At any given time one Sun Sword will be growing from one of the many vengeance trees--any foe looking upon it must save or be blinded each round it is unsheathed. Its power lasts one year.

You come upon a ruined hamlet, villagers all fled or slaughtered

It's the bowl. Someone might find it in any old shop, it is earthenware mixed from the bones of the last shaman of Nilotte. 

Whosoever eats from the bowl is possessed by the shaman, who seeks vengeance on all other faiths and gods for driving his from the Cube. The eater gains the shaman's consciousness and powers (10th level druid + any spells of any kind in the "Necromantic" family up to 5th Level + see below) then goes about: 

1) Slaying the local clergy and destroying the works of their faith, then

2) Converting the locals

3) slaying any unconvertible locals

4) having the converts march to the ruins of the Wrack Citadel deep within the forest and 

5) Kill themselves

6) Collapsing into dust, leaving only a ruined town and a bowl, which is inevitably picked up by some scavenger and moved to some other town or merchant.

Each time the population of a town sacrifices itself, the next possessee to drink or eat from the bowl is 1 druid level higher.

Two-Player Head-to-Head D&D

Unfortunately for my wizard, Game 1
ended exactly the way this looks

1. Both players generate a 1st-level magic-user in any system.

-You each get a single 1st level spell

-You each get 12 hit points modified by Constitution modifier

-You have a maximum of 5 minions (see below for how you get minions), modified up or down by your Charisma modifier

-You get money and equipment as usual for your system

-Assume that Sleep and Charm don't work on your main wizards, so you could say they're elf magic-users if you like

2. Set up a board something like this:

Click to enlarge

-There are rectangular or square blocks which are spaced apart all the same width, one to two inches. (In our case, a width of one of the lettered building blocks, but it can be any size wide enough for a standard miniature to fit through.)

-Characters will not climb on top of the blocks, the blocks just mark paths between that creatures can use. (We used rectangular marker cases and wood building blocks but you can use whatever rectangles you've got that will fill your table.)

-There are starting places at opposite ends for each wizard.

-There are "mystery markers"--these can be indicated by any object that will fit in the maze paths, we used big dice. The markers are placed approximately evenly around the maze and none are in either starting wizard's position's line-of-sight. Although only three are circled on the picture in yellow, all the dice in the picture above are mystery markers.

-We have a pool with an octopus in it, that's a hazard and that's optional.

This one had 2 hazards: an octopus
pool and a undead spider pit

3. Each player rolls a d20. High roll gets to either:

-Pick which of the two starting places they start at.

or

-Go first.

The other player gets to do the other thing.

4. Turns alternate

-One player moves their wizard--and any other minion creatures they pick up--then the other player does. There are no initiative rolls.

5. On your turn your wizard may:

-Walk up to 6 inches and take any action they could do in D&D

or

-Run up to 12 inches

or

-Move up to 6 inches and teleport to a random location. There are lots of ways to pick a random location--we did this by rolling an alphabet die and then teleporting the wizard to a random location adjacent to the block with that letter on it.

or

-Walk up to 6 inches and shift any block in line-of sight the width of the dungeon path. Like so:

Or like so:

--You cannot shift multiple blocks at once.

--You cannot shift a block into an area occupied by anything--a creature or mystery marker or another block, etc.

-You cannot teleport on two of your turns in a row or move a block on two of your turns in a row.

-Remember, though, that the creatures can only go through the paths, not stand on top of the blocks.

6. As soon as either wizard is in line-of-sight to a mystery marker, something happens:

-The mystery marker "activates",

-This means you roll a die on a table to determine what the mystery marker represents.

-The table includes:

• 1. Trap (save or take d6 damage)
• 2. Random magic item (roll on whatever random magic item table you have)
• 3. A different random magic item from a different table (If you have more than one magic item table, otherwise treat as #2)
• 4. 1st level human with a sword and a bow (wizard picks class)
• 5. 1st level dwarf with a sword and a bow (wizard picks class)
• 6. 1st level elf with a sword and a bow (wizard picks class)
• 7. 1st level halfling with a sword and a bow (wizard picks class)
• The other results on the table randomize across every other miniature in the house. Do you have to number every mini you have? No. We did it like this:
• 8. Sandalwood box, top drawer
• 9. Sandalwood box, middle drawer
• 10. Sandalwood box, bottom drawer
• 11.Tackle box, top drawer, left compartment
• 12. Tackle box, top drawer, middle compartment
• etc.

If there's more than one miniature in a location, you take them all out and roll a die to randomly choose which miniature is placed on the table

For example--there are ten kinds of miniatures in my sandalwood box middle drawer--roll a d10 to decide which you get.

Note that I said "kinds"--if a location has, say, 15 wolves, one ghost, one goblin and a giant spider, just roll a d4--you don't have an increased chance of wolves.

-If it's a trap, resolve it. (The trap is where the wizard is even if the mystery marker itself is down the hall.)

-It it's an item, it is now sitting there, ripe for the taking or use in any way you might use a D&D item.

-If it's a creature then place that miniature there--it is now a minion of the wizard who found it.

7. Minions!

-Minions may begin to act on the next turn after they are discovered.

-They heed the bidding of the player whose wizard discovered them.

-Minions move a maximum of 6" no matter what.

-Otherwise they can act as the monster in the Manual or whatever standard monster book you're using. If it's a hydra, it has hydra stats.

-If the minion is a character model (like a little fighter) and the table doesn't say their level then roll d4+1 to determine their level.

-If there's ambiguity or the monster's unlisted, the players need to agree what it is and what powers it has. 

-When in doubt: 4hd, d6 damage, AC 15.

-Minions (even wizard minions) don't have the wizard's power to move blocks or teleport randomly.

8. Hazards

-Hazards (like the pool above) are optional.

-Line of sight doesn't cross hazards.

-You have to deal with some creature or thing to get across them.

-In our first game this was an octopus with 4hd that attacked any foe in the pool for d6.

9. Play until one team kills the other team's wizard!

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The games we've played so far all ended in funny ways.

In one, I stymied a hydra with a darkness spell it was too stupid to easily navigate out of for several rounds but then I tried a teleport and ended up between it and a backstabby thief, after a rounds of everyone bumping around in the dark they massacred me.

In another, I managed to score a higher level wizard as a minion (I got a wizard mini and we randomly rolled he was Level d4+1, so: 5). The enemy's main wizard managed to run up and Sleep him, though. However, in the next round my goblin threw a spear blunt-end-first at my own sleepy wizard, conking him for 4 points of damage but waking him up so he could barbecue the enemy with a 5th level magic missile. 

 Game 2 ended better for me

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Are Conservative Gamers Just Stupid?

 There's been a recent one of those fistfight-in-a-fishbowl things online. A go-round of grousing lately online, dozens of responses.

Conservative gamers complaining but its hard to know what about "This sucks!!!" why? Who knows?

The only concrete complaint to emerge about anyone is they don't like my maps.

Allegedly, from the point of view of utility.

So, real question for anyone who can answer it--why is this:

...with all the information literally on the map.

Harder to use than this:

...where you have to flip through dozens or hundreds of pages to answer a question like "I succeeded on my Listen roll--what's around the corner?"?

Does anyone anywhere know?

The Adept's Arena

 

A practitioner who has earned the confidence of local adepts in a major metropolis may given a sealed envelope with an address in a deserted district—and an indicated time deep in the black hours.

The sealed envelope will contain a key to the door at that address.

The door will lead to a stair and that stair will lead down and down beneath the city.

Eventually there will be another door, not locked, and inside a chamber.

(The difference between a chamber and a mere room is that chambers are private.)

The chamber is full of mages. Users of arcane magic of every stripe. They are gambling.

They occupy the circumference of a stone circle, in the center of which is a bloodstained summoning sigil.

Into this ring comes a competitor, she whispers to the master of ceremonies her name and the powers to which she aspires.

The master announces then ”Here is Vasylaa of Thrazz, who seeks secrets of the Eigth Octacle!”

The crowd roars and exchanges bets, the sigil begins, blackly, to bubble.

From the center comes some creature of the outer spheres, whose power is commensurate with the power Vasylaa seeks.

They duel, of course, to the death. If she wins, she gains sorcerous knowledge from the dimension from which the creature came—if she loses, her cares are at an end.

In Game Terms

State the level of the new spell you wish to gain—it must be at a level you are able to cast.

Then step into the ring and an extradimensional creature will be summoned randomly. It will have hit dice equal to the lowest PC level at which a standard magic-user is able to cast the spell level desired. It will have abilities to match.

The Lamentations of the Flame Princess Summon spell works well enough for this, though other options are fine so long as it’s random and can spit out a sufficiently interesting and powerful creature. If using LotFP, the initial magic save is also an initiative roll—if the magic-user makes the save they get initiative in the first round.

Good luck wizards.

Break The Goblin Siege!

...an adventure.

Your assignment: break the goblin's siege and rescue the town.

Thee Fortyfied Towne

 

1. Goblins attack the front gate from a siege tower

2. A scout on wolfback protects the approach road

3. The Wicked Standard at the outer gate curses all who would interfere 

4. A rhiding rhinoceros trundles forward to attack

5. The lookout hides in the tower

6. Mighty Grovulous protects the rear-guard

7. Seetha the Unclean directs the siege

8. The townsfolk cower in the streets of the inner city

9. A thunder lizard batters the inner wall

10. A great troll hurls rocks to weaken the inner defenses

11. Sir Scorphis of Newle directs the defense of the town

12. Purkle Heems and Mulbor Wetwort 
take advantage of the tragedy to loot
their fellows

13. The prelate attempts to comfort the beseiged populace

14. Doomdrums of the Loud Shaman terrify all who hear

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