Henchman Abuse

Proximity-Sensing Taunt Recorder

2012-03-17T17:37:00.000-04:00

What's up with ASE2-3? Well, I write at the pace my players explore, because I'm incredibly lazy, and they are firmly focused on the 2nd level right now. So it's still a work in progress. I expect them to go deeper any session now, so I'm ramping up efforts on level 3 - plus I need to get a draft to Brian so he can finish up the art. If I actually focus on writing, there's not too much work left to be done, but you know, lazy. So very lazy.

I've also joined Trey's online Weird Adventures game. Google+ is very buggy, but it was a good time anyways - Trey is a good DM. My guy is Creskin the turban-wearing wizard. Instead of being sensible and loading up on adventuring gear, I got a tuxedo with his starting money. Gotta have priorities!

Anyhow here's room #1 from level 3. This was inspired by the magic mouth illustration in the Player's Handbook.

1. Automated Taunting Machine
Mounted to the southwest wall of this room is a proximity-sensing taunt recorder. If the party has not yet had run-ins with competing adventuring parties, the recording will be of a hinge-headed, reciting “I claim this worthless stretch of dungeon in the name of Lord Pimifus and the Basalt Ziggurat!”

On the other hand, if rival parties of NPC’s have made an appearance, the message will consist of taunts, boasts, and displays of valuable loot the NPC’s have recovered (preferably referencing areas the party has previously passed up or puzzles they were unable to solve).

Proximity-Sensing Taunt Recorder
These devices have a superficial resemblance to God’s Eyes. They are triangular black plastic screens, 4’ across, with stainless-steel frames. Protruding from the frame under the screen is a single red button.

Anyone coming within 15’ of a recorder will trigger its pre-recorded video message. These usually involve taunts of some kind or, more rarely, loud noises to alert nearby guards.

Pressing the red button will cause the screen to go black, with the word “RECORDING” displayed in red in the middle of the screen. While the button is depressed, it will record video and audio, for up to five minutes. This new recording will completely erase the previous message.

These machines are firmly attached to dungeon walls with strong adhesives, and prying them off will almost always damage them. Their power is supplied through bundles of low-voltage wiring, that will be torn out with the recorder should it be removed.

Session recap, 3/8/2012

2012-03-11T21:55:00.005-04:00

CAST
--------
Netal the Elf (3), his henchmen Brad the Fighter (1) and Snidely Whiplash the Anti-Paladin (1)
Mongo the Fighter (3), and his henchwomen Buffy and Biffy the Elf Twins (1)

The adventure began, as so many do, with an extended search for henchmen. First, the party headed towards the Tattered Heel, a tavern of middling reputation, and saw three likely candidates: two fighters, and a strange looking caravan guard - one of the fabled piao shih. Mongo and Netal came up with the excellent idea of sending Snidely out to do their hiring, due to his incredible charisma and interpersonal skills, and asked him to interview the piao shih. "Nah, boss, that's a caravan guard. What you want is that guy", Snidely replied, pointing at one of the two fighters. Netal and Mongo conferred quickly, and decided that that there was no way they would ever hire the guy Snidely preferred.

Mongo approached the piao shih, and offered him a job. "Yeah, I'm looking for work. I was guarding a caravan from the Secret City of the Shoguns, ended up here, and guess what, no caravans headed back - the city's a secret, none of you have even heard of it." Once Mongo went into details, the piao shih refused - "Hey! I guard caravans! That's it!"

They got similar results from the fighter that Snidely hadn't recommended. Finally, Mongo approached the third potential henchman, and pointed Snidely out to him. "Hey, you know that guy?" "Yeah. Why?" "No reason. Never mind." Snidely made several angry rude gestures at the fighter, who shrugged in confusion.

The only logical next step was to hire more elves. Relying on Mongo's incredibly successful past history with hiring elven mercenaries, they returned to Leafy Green's Salad Bar, and saw two likely looking candidates - a pair of elven twin sisters, of moderate attractiveness. Netal sauntered up with his giant, smelly clown foot and tried to put the moves on, but the pair were too revolted by his lewd mannerisms and vile appendage (clown foot, people, get your minds out of the gutter) and they told him to take a hike. Mongo pushed Netal aside, and offered to hire them for dangerous dungeoneering work. The twins, smitten with Mongo's incredible loquacity ("Mongo take you to dungeon!") agreed instantly, under the condition that they were fully equipped with pink armor. Armor was bought, pink lacquer was bought, armor was painted, armor was decorated with bunny heads, and Netal made the twins cry whenever he talked to them.

Now fully equipped, the party headed back towards the dungeon. First stop - the mist room. Mongo wanted the wide-spectrum vision that Snidely had gotten. Sadly, pouring more water down the basin in the black room didn't do anything. Snidely also tried to become intoxicated in the orange room, but he failed as well. Whatever magic was in these rooms seemed to no longer be working.

Heading deeper, the party made their way to the lever-room from a few sessions back, on the second level. They entered the room, Netal approached the sign with tiny lettering, avoiding the pressure plate in front of it, and read it aloud - "To unlock doors, push levers up in the same order they moved down, and then wait." Mongo pressed the pressure plate with a pole, and the doors slammed shut & locked, and the levers went down one by one. Netal pulled them back up in the same order they went down, and the doors unlocked again. Having proved themselves as masters of this trap, they moved on.

The next room was mostly empty - just a pile of scrap metal in the center of the room. Two parallel tunnels headed northwest, and there was a door in the southeast wall. Checking out the door, they found an artist's studio beyond - there were a dozen steel tables holding blocks of marble in various stages of sculpting, and a finished sculpture of a tentacled worm-like creature. As it was clearly valuable, Netal ordered a complaining Snidely to carry the statue around.

The first corridor to the northwest ended at a black metal door, embedded with purple crystals. The crystals were firmly embedded in the metal, and could not be removed. Opening the door revealed a room shaped like an octahedron, tipped so that the points were far below and far above. The door opened roughly into the middle of the octahedron, and there was an identical door across the room. The walls were covered with long sharp and pointy spikes of purple crystal, densely clustered - there would be no way across this room without being cut to ribbons. Mongo tried hammering the crystals, but they were as hard as steel, and would not break.

Seeking an easier path, the party tried the other northwest corridor. This went up some stairs and opened into a thirty-foot wide corridor, heading north as far as they could see. They followed it, and eventually came to four alcoves, two set on each side of the corridor.

The first alcove had a door with a sign reading "Warning: Anomaly Ahead: Lazarus Room. Authorized Personnel Only."

The second alcove had a God's Eye, with a damaged frame and crackling with sparks and electricity. There were 17 gems on the frame, with three depressions that must have previously held gems as well. They convinced Brad to pry one out, who leaped back in pain as the electricity shocked him.

The third alcove had a shimmering red force field. Behind it floated a gleaming metal skeleton. Mongo poked it with his pole, and the red field lurched forward - it was a giant cube of red gelatin. Pseudopods flailed out at Netal, but eventually a bow shot from Biffy slew the cube. The skeleton turned out to be made of solid silver, and looked human except for the pair of fangs.

The fourth alcove had rows of bronze shelves, holding dozens of ancient, yellowed skulls. The skulls were some sort of humanoid, with massive curved and fanged teeth.

Curious, the party opened the door with the sign and headed into the Lazarus Chamber. The room beyond had an oval dais with two pillars, carved with skull-headed angels. In the wall behind the dais was a niche with three metal pins inside, sticking out of the stone, much like the niches they had seen in various spots on the first level. Pews were arranged on either side of the dais.

Lacking anybody dead to experiment with, but thinking that perhaps the racks of skulls in the alcove might be useful, they headed over to the toothy skulls to investigate. The skulls had no indentations for metal pins, so Netal and Mongo decided that they probably had nothing to do with the Lazarus Chamber. Netal then began examining the shelves, and found that one was hinged so that it could be pushed up.

The party stood back, and Mongo used his pole to push the shelf - as he did so, the wall slid back, revealing a secret room. The room was empty except for two black metal pillars, 4' tall, with silver dots upon them, that stood at either end of the room. Mongo stuck his pole between the two poles, and beams of light shot out, severing the tip of the pole.

Some more experimentation revealed that only walking between the poles would be dangerous, so they edged around the room behind one of the poles, and followed the corridor beyond into a 30' by 30' room. This room had the obvious back-side of a secret door, with a large metal handle to pull it open, and a corridor heading south, from which a soft breeze blew. By the southern corridor was a corpse in a three-piece suit clutching a briefcase, and a towering pillar of yellow yelly with tentacles waving about in the breeze.

Mongo pulled out his pole, and poked at the tentacle thing. When he did so, a few tentacles lashed out, and then the top split off and began floating towards them - a cave jellyfish! One after another, cave jellyfish began detaching from the jelly-conglomerate, and the party hacked them apart one by one. Eventually Netal, Brad, and Mongo charged the pillar and slashed at it, rending it into ribbons, but not before its tentacles wrapped themselves around Brad, knocking him unconscious.

Netal opened the briefcase, and found that it contained three solid gold ingots. Mongo and Netal theorized that a traveling gold salesman must have gotten lost in the dungeon. Snidely volunteered to carry the gold, but was instead told that he would not be allowed to carry any treasure. Netal took the worm-statue from him, one of the twins took the gold, and Snidely was forced to carry Brad's unconscious body.

The pair and their henchpeople headed south, and the corridor quickly opened into a vast empty space, stretching down, up, and to the sides as far as their torches could illuminate. Netal tossed one of the traveling-gold-salesman's shoes into the void, and eventually heard a spash as the shoe landed.

The party took account of their loot, and decided it was time to head out of the dungeon, much richer for the experience. There was only one loose end left to wrap up - Netal wanted Snidely dead. He didn't trust him, and was sick of his slacking off. Firing wasn't good enough for Snidely - the henchman had to die.

He and Mongo conferred quietly - they would lead Snidely to Fat Grundle's lair, knock on the door, cast sleep on Snidely, and then run for their lives. Fat Grundle would then finish Snidely off. With a plan as simple as that, what could go wrong?

The party headed back towards the stairs out of the second level, and then detoured north to Fat Grundle's lair. Netal knocked on the door, and the enraged 9' tall naked clown burst out, clutching his poisonous serpent and his jug of moonshine. He hurled the snake at Netal, but missed - and then Mongo pushed Snidely forward. Snidely dropped Brad, and Netal gave Snidely another push towards Fat Grundle for good stead.

Fat Grundle took a swig of 'shine from his bottle, and blew out a gout of fire at Snidely, who began screaming and slapping at himself. Netal then cast sleep, putting both the viper and flaming Snidely to sleep. Mongo and the twins took the opportunity to run for their lives.

The next round, Netal turned and began running. Snidely awoke almost as instantly as he had fallen asleep, due to the pain of still being aflame. Still burning, he chased after Netal, slashing at his backside with his longsword, screaming "I'm taking you to hell with me!" Behind the both of them came Fat Grundle, swinging at Snidely. Eventually, his blows killed Snidely, and the monstrous clown then spit a 'shine-fueled blast of fire at Netal, killing the elf.

Mongo waited for the screams from behind him to stop, and then called to his twin elf henchwomen to stop. They carefully made their way back down the stairs to the second level, where they found the bodies of Netal and Snidely. There was no sign of Netal's pack - it had been stripped from him. Mongo began instructing the girls to collect Netal's remains, so he could try experimenting with the Lazarus Chamber, but the commotion of the fight had attracted visitors - four troglodytes appeared from the northwest and attacked.

Buffy fell to the troglodytes immediately, and Mongo turned tail and ran up the stairs. Biffy made a last stand, trying to save her sister - her fate remains unknown, but the outcome was almost certainly poor. Bereft of bosom companion Netal, and even worse, bereft of the gold bars and marble worm-statue, Mongo sadly made his way back to civilization, with nothing but a solid silver skeleton to comfort him.

Gains: 900 gp silver skeleton
Kills: Gelatinous cube, cave scyphistoma, 5 cave jellyfish, Snidely Whiplash
Losses: Netal, Brad, Biffy, Buffy

ASE will be available at GaryCon and NTRPGCON

2012-03-01T20:28:00.002-05:00

Good news! Jon from Black Blade Publishing has offered to to make ASE1 available at his booth at GaryCon and NTRPGCON!

So if you're attending, stop by his booth, and buy lots of stuff!

Now, the Anti-Paladin Can See in the Dark

2012-02-27T21:48:00.002-05:00

That last session went really well. The party met Fat Grundle in all his 9' naked glory, and he tossed poison snakes at them and blasted them with flaming-booze-breath, which is what adventure is all about. I'm pretty sure this was Tolkien's original draft of the Balrog fight.

Mongo used his d30 roll attempting to one-shot Fat Grundle - and rolled a 1. Nobody messes with Fat Grundle. Panic set in soon after. Once again, a player got poisoned, and once again they relied on Dr. Giggles to save their bacon. They keep getting lucky with those Dr. Giggles rolls... eventually they'll blow the roll, though, and it will end in gruesome death. I've managed to stick Netal with a giant smelly clown foot though, so it's all worth it.

George the Cleric dropped 3 points in wisdom as well, so it was a pretty sweet night as far as player-mangling goes. You win some, you lose some. His player was kind of bummed, he hasn't really internalized that in Labyrinth Lord stats are pretty meaningless - 14 wisdom doesn't have a lot of advantage compared to 11. He likes to play with all the fiddly bits though, so he'll have to learn to take the bad with the good.

The last great triumph was the anti-paladin gaining wide-spectrum vision. Just what they need - a treacherous henchman who can now see in the dark.

I suppose it's in bad form to crow over your players' setbacks, but they walked out alive and richer than before, so I'm going to wallow in the hilarity of it all regardless.

OSR Booth at GenCon

2012-02-27T21:32:00.000-05:00

The OSR booth is coming back to GenCon in 2012, this time run by Bill Barsh of Pacesetter Games. Both ASE1 and the upcoming ASE2-3 will be at the booth, so the evil-clown-dungeon niche will be well-represented.

Session recap, 2/23/2012

2012-02-26T22:56:00.004-05:00

CAST
--------
Netal the Elf (3), his henchmen Brad the Fighter (1) and Snidely Whiplash the Fighter(?) (1), and his pit bulls Timmy and Jimmy
Mongo the Fighter (3)
George P. Burdell the Cleric (1) and his henchman, Slick Eddie the Thief (1)
Gutboy Barrellhouse the Cleric (3)

In our last session, the party had begun exploring the lair of the Painted Men. Having dispatched the incompetent and surprised security guards, they headed south, further into the lair. The southern corridor ended at a long east-west hallway, with many other corridors and doors off it. Choosing the first, they entered into a large room filled with rusty metal chairs, surrounding a black metal pillar with a red button on it.

Mongo pressed the red button with his extending 20' pole, and a woman's voice said "Welcome to the Learnatorium. Select a topic to continue." Four blue squares with writing upon them appeared above the pillar: Evolution, Arithmetic, Anomalies, and Basic Accounting. Speaking the topics aloud brought the following lectures:

Evolution: A scientist explained that Lamarckian evolution appeared to be the rule in the Anomalous Subsurface environment, and displayed a blind cave centipede that had developed eyes after being kept in a light-box. The hologram cut out, and returned with the same scientist, who expressed concerns about the pale white children being born after the parents set up a circus for their entertainment. It cut out again, and the scientist appeared, bloody and broken, warning that under no circumstances should people be living below.

Arithmetic: A young woman appeared, asking the party simple arithmetical questions. After a few answers, she explained that no, 3+3 equals 7, and the party were very stupid children.

Anomalies: A scientist appeared, and listed some interesting topics: the Lazarus Chamber on the 2nd level, the Fountain Room on the 3rd level - and then cut out with a "RAM ERROR", whatever that means

Basic Accounting - Incredibly boring, the party ordered the playback to stop

Moving on to the next room, they found a messy dining room, the table covered with the remains of painted men and other humanoids. Netal peeked through an archway into the room beyond the kitchen, and nearly took a cleaver to the face - the cook had heard them enter!

There was a brief fight, and Mongo circled around behind the cook to deliver the killing blow. Netal eagerly gutted the cook, and was finally rewarded for his ghoulish habit - inside the cook's stomach was a half-digested hand with a golden bracelet. The party then searched the cookpots, and found that one was filled with gold and a potion in a clay bottle.

Going deeper in the lair, and according to their map, closer to the big-top, they encountered a series of bathrooms and showers. These rooms were mostly full of clown-feces, and one had large blue mushrooms. George cut the head off one of the mushrooms and stuffed it in his backpack, hoping to sell it for profit at a later point. They also encountered several painted men wandering the halls, and slaughtered the increasing numbers of clowns with little problem.

Mongo began to be nervous about the proximity to the circus, and fearing being dragged in to watch The Show, they decided to retreat out of the lair and explore some other tunnels off of the 2nd level entrance. They followed one short tunnel that ended in a door, to which three heads were nailed: a painted man, a troglodyte, and a child's head.

Netal and Mongo began hammering on the door with their fists - and were greeted with a hearty "F*** off!" They continued banging and taunting, and the door suddenly swung open - revealing a completely buck-naked, nine foot tall painted man. He had teeth of gleaming steel, a massive jug of hooch in one hand, and a viper wrapped around his neck.

Netal quickly cast sleep upon the monster - and his snake promptly began napping. The giant hurled the sleeping snake at Netal, waking it as it bounced off his chest, while Mongo attempted a mighty blow to fell the fiend - but luck was on the monstrous clown's side, and the blade merely scratched him.

Annoyed, the giant took a mouthful of booze from his jug, clashed his steel teeth together, and the spark ignited the moonshine as he spat it into Mongo's face. Meanwhile, Netal faired no better, as the snake bit him in the leg, injecting him with lethal poison. Gutboy cast his delay poison on Netal, and the henchmen unleashed the pit bulls - who attacked the giant and snake as the party ran for their lives. Netal tossed back the potion they had just found, but there was no effect - whatever it did, it wasn't curing his poison.

Clearly, there was only one way to save Netal - another trip to Dr. Giggles. As the party ran off, they heard a door slam, but the dogs continued barking and snarling, so fighting was still going on behind them. No matter - the party had to get to Dr. Giggles quickly. As they finally reached the office, the nurse exclaimed "You again? Would you like to sign up for our frequent patient program? Four visits and the fifth is free!"

Dr. Giggles ran out and escorted Netal to the OR. He pulled out his sharpest bone saw, and immediately cut Netal's leg off. As Netal rolled around in excruciating agony, the good doctor wondered aloud about where he would get a replacement. Glancing at the floor, he saw the remains of the painted man he had slaughtered for his lungs a few weeks ago - ahh well, fresh enough to give it a try! The doctor crudely sewed the clown leg and its massive clown foot on to Netal, and went over the stitching with a humming high-tech medical device. "As good as new!" the doctor exclaimed.

After much praise from Gutboy, the doctor escorted the party to post-op, and bid them farewell. They quickly hurried from the dungeon, heading back to Denethix to rest and spend their hard-won treasure.

Back in town:

a. Mongo discovered that Janet, Jack, Chrissie, and the Ropers continued to be missing. He spoke to upstairs neighbor George, who hadn't seen the Ropers either, and told Mongo to knock it off with all the late-night chanting. This was, understandably, disturbing. Downstairs neighbor Larry also complained about all the chanting in Mongo's apartment.
b. Netal discovered that his foot smelled, pretty bad. Soap isn't helping. Other than the stink, and the back pains caused by the uneven legs, and the need for special giant custom-made clown boots, the leg-replacement-surgery is a perfect success
c. George manages to sell his mushroom cap to a fungus merchant for 2 sp
d. Gutboy finds a few coppers left in the donation bowl in the booth of Nisus, and pockets them. The God's Eyes in the booth remain blank

The party also visited Frondgar, the elven sage, and discovered:

1. They had found a bottle of liquid labeled "Orange Water from Fountain, Level 3, Thaumaturgically Preserved." on level 1, many months before Frondgar found that both the bottle and liquid inside were magical. The bottle could be used to preserve the magical qualities of waters from a certain fountain, and the liquid would act as a potion of healing
2. The bronze jug that Netal had been carting around for months (taken from a room full of misty arches) was also magical - if filled with water, and the water poured into basins within a certain room, magical effects would occur. He couldn't be more specific than that

Armed with this new information, the party headed back to the dungeon, making their way to the old misty-arch room they had found on the first level many months ago. There were mists of many colors, red, yellow, orange, black, white, blue, green, and purple, and beyond each were rooms with interesting murals. One by one, they experimented with pouring water into the basins in each of the rooms. The jug was refilled with water from the barrels left in the morlock lair.

Orange - the room beyond was painted with orange poppies. Mongo went in, poured the water, and became stoned out of his gourd. He walked out, and suddenly Snidely volunteered to give it a go. The second pour into the orange room did nothing.

Black - the room beyond was completely black. Snidely poured water into the basin, and his eyes became jet black orbs, like an elf's or a dwarf's - and he could see with their wide-spectrum vision

Blue - the room was painted with an undersea scene. Netal poured, and nothing happened. He shoved his head into a water barrel to see if gills would appear, but was too nervous to try breathing in the water

White - the room was painted with clouds in a blue sky. Brad poured, and he began flying around in the air

Purple - the room was painted with veins of various purple shades. George poured, and the veins of purple color coiled around him, acting as mystical armor

Red - the room was painted with flames. Netal poured, and a marble-sized ball of fire fell to the floor. Netal picked it up and put it into an empty vial

Yellow - the room was painted with a mural of a party, with the guests recoiling in horror from a figure in a tattered mask. George poured, and the mural came to life - just as the King in Yellow entered the party. The horrible visage of the King caused George to lose 3 wisdom points

Green - the room was painted with a jungle scene. Mongo poured, and a monkey leapt from the ceiling and clung to his back, howling incessantly. Eventually Netal cast sleep, and they slaughtered the monkey as it snoozed on Mongo's shoulder. This totally harshed Mongo's mellow.

The party headed back out of the dungeon - and found that most of the effects disappeared. The exceptions were Snidely's wide-spectrum vision and George's wisdom loss, which appear to be permanent, and the fate of Netal's ball of fire remains unknown - he didn't check.

Gains: 520 gp, 100 gp bracelet, unknown potion (quaffed by Netal)
Kills: 5 painted men, 1 painted man cook
Losses: pit bulls Timmy and Jimmy

Level 3 in CC2

2012-02-18T22:42:00.000-05:00

Wow, this one took a while, but the level 3 map has been converted into CC2. I need to do a bit more with the underground lake-cavern, maybe drop some islands or a few more side caves in - it's pretty bland right now. Other than that, though, it's pretty much good to go.

The map is too big to print to a single page, so I'll have to split it into pieces in the printed module. Photobucket can't deal with the high res image, so it's a bit illegible, but click to embiggen anyways:

And here's some detail on the tunnel section to the west:

And here's the entrance from the outside:

And here's the underground lake:

Just Say No

2012-02-17T22:05:00.001-05:00

Just Say No To Variegated Eye Leeches

Some more art from Brian "Glad" Thomas...

Variegated Eye-Leech

Chance of Addiction: 75% per use
Cost: 300 gp

These colorful leeches subsist on ocular fluids, injecting a powerful narcotic as they consume the user’s sight. A leech will feed for 1d4 days. The leeches, for some reason, will only feed in pairs, with one on each eye. One-eyed men are thus unable to experience the ecstasies of eye-leeches.

Effects:
Visions of the future, that May or May Not come to pass
Euphoria
Leech-Sight - while the leech feeds, the user has 30’ of vision into the ethereal plane
Blindness - it’s hard to see through a leech sucking out your eye juice
Eye Humor Loss - 1 hit point per day is lost to the leeches

Addiction: Addiction is caused simply by permanent blindness, as the leeches suck out the last of the ocular humors. Once this occurs, the user is compelled to acquire more eye-leeches to make use of their leech-sight.

Withdrawal: Withdrawal is likewise simple - if a blinded eye-leech addict is unable to acquire the leeches, he cannot see.

Here There Be Gill-Men

2012-02-16T20:13:00.000-05:00

Factions on the third level:

a. Moktars! They hold the entrance to the third level of the dungeon, and are in a bitter conflict with...

b. Gill-Men! These fish-men have been distracted by their Moktar-fight, which takes some pressure off the...

c. Hinge-Headed! They hold the main stairs leading down to the 4th level and their Basalt Ziggurat. They're making a deal with the...

d. Hive-Mind! Acting through its mind-dominated goblins, it manipulates the gill-men and hinge-headed for its own mysterious ends

This level will also introduce wights. Probably soggy, waterlogged wights, haven't decided yet. But I do want some level-draining goodness here, just to hear the anguished cries from my doomed players as their precious levels are absorbed.

Anyhow, here's some stats for the Gill-Men:

Gill-Man
No. Enc: 1d6 (4d12)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 90’ (30’)
Swim: 120’ (40’)
Armor Class: 4
Hit Dice: 3
Attacks: 2
Damage: 1d6/1d6
Save: F3
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: XIX
XP: 65

Gill-men are the product of de-evolution – humans regaining fishy attributes as their DNA regresses to a more primitive state. While impossible according to 21st century evolutionary science, gill-men are a reality in the subterranean realm of the Anomalous Subsurface Environment.

These humanoids are covered with green fishy scales, and have webbed and clawed hands and feet. They can breathe air, but they must periodically (once per hour) moisten the large gills on the sides of their heads or suffer -2 on attack rolls due to dehydration. This sensitivity to dryness also causes them to take double damage from fire-based attacks.

In combat, gill-men attack with vicious swipes of their clawed hands.

Moray Snail

2012-02-15T22:15:00.000-05:00

Here's one of the critters living in the partially-flooded 3rd level of the dungeon. A question for my readers: did somebody already make a monster like this? I think it's all me, but I've read a lot D&D related material, so it's always possible that I picked it up somewhere else subconsciously...

Moray Snail
No. Enc: 1 (1)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 60' (20')
Armor Class: 2
Hit Dice: 5
Attacks: 1
Damage: 1d12
Save: F5
Morale: 10
Hoard Class: V plus shell
XP: 500

Moray snails are giant eels with six crab-like legs, living inside intricate shells. The eel head may strike up to 10’ away from the shell, withdrawing back inside after a bite. If the head and neck is somehow prevented from withdrawing, it has an effective AC of 8.

The bite of a moray snail is venomous, and its victims must save vs. poison or be paralyzed for 1d4 turns.

The shell of a full-grown moray snail is 5’ in diameter, and is banded with a rainbow of bright colors, overlaid with iridescent arabesques. Undamaged, it is worth 500 gp to a collector.

When necessary, moray snails may scuttle about on their crab-like legs, but they prefer to wait in ambush for prey – easily done in the dark, but any party with a light source should have no problem spotting the moray snail’s brightly colored shell.

Finns going through ASE

2012-02-14T20:36:00.000-05:00

So, if you're up for a bit of Google Translate (or speak Finnish), check out Jonas's blog: Vankityrmiä & Louhikäärmeitä

He's running his group through ASE1. First session and the fatalities are already stacking up...

They're all Third Level

2012-02-11T17:38:00.001-05:00

Except for the new PC, they're all third level now - which means time to subtly encourage a downward migration. A random encounter on the way to the dungeon resulted in "human traders" - heading down from the mountain? Why? Oh, the mok war band needs supplies for their dungeoneering. They visited the entrance and thought better of it (probably due to my hectoring on how they ignore past mysteries they've discovered), so the third level remains unexplored. It's coming though...

Fun facts from the last expedition:

a. Gutboy is incensed that his former henchman, Slezgar, has the temerity to go in the dungeon on his own. I suppose it's like putting two bettas in one fish tank? He's got murder on his mind...

b. The abolitionist Society of the Luminous Spark has left yet another brain as a warning. I haven't really figured out why they leave the brains, but as far as a "signature" goes it's pretty effective.

c. The medusa head had been rotting in a sack for two weeks, so I gave it a 50/50 chance of still being potent. Gutboy rolled, and it was! Then they wanted it stuffed rather than dumped back into formaldehyde - another 50/50 roll - whoops, that messed it up. Sorry fellas, no easy victories for you. If they had succeeded, they might have gone to watch the show and take out the allosaurus pictured on the cover...

d. They got very lucky with their roll on the Dr. Giggles table. Still, whenever Netal takes a breathe, he wheezes out circus music now...

e. They're remembering their once-per-session d30 rolls now, so Mongo took out a 6 HD gladiatorial automaton with one hit (he rolled a 28). On the other hand, Netal's saving throw against yellow mold on a d30 netted him a life-threatening 6... only Gutboy's rules-bending saved him ("oh I hadn't picked spells yet, how about delay poison"). Yeah I'm too soft... but it was funny watching them scramble to get to Dr. Giggles in time.

Session recap, 2/9/2012

2012-02-10T23:30:00.002-05:00

CAST
--------
Netal the Elf (3), his henchman Brad the Fighter (1), and his pit bulls Timmy and Jimmy
Mongo the Fighter (3) and his henchmen, Black Harris the Cleric (1) and Snidely Whiplash the Fighter(?) (1)
George P. Burdell the Cleric (1) and his henchman, Slick Eddie the Thief (1)
Gutboy Barrellhouse the Cleric (3)

Where we left off: everyone in a room with a holographic ball pit, disguising sharp pointy spikes.

The party decided to head through a door to the west, and found a short corridor ending in another door, and a narrow 5' corridor heading north. They poked their heads into the 5' corridor, and then thought better of it - through the west door they went. Mongo listened at the door, and hearing nothing, opened it. To their horror, it was full of treasure. Surely this meant deadly traps. There were a pair of urns, overflowing with gold coins, a quiver with protonium-metal arrows, and bits and pieces of rusted armor and other miscellaneous junk. Shockingly, their comrade Gutboy Barrellhouse was also in the room, passed out in a corner, clutching a bottle of Jack.

Mongo carefully prodded the treasure with his pole, and it didn't attack. Suspicious, the players sent Brad in to pick up the gold. He managed to gather the loot without being poisoned, disintegrated, or attacked by the coins. They roused Gutboy, who had no idea how he ended up in the dungeon. Together they returned to the ball pit room, and then headed south through the corridor marked "Egress."

Reaching a door, they opened it - and found that it was blank stone on the other side. The door had some tension - springs were pulling against it as they opened it, and it would slam shut if unrestrained. They jammed a spike between the door and the jamb, and continued on.

Soon they found a large, dark room containing a Ferris wheel. The wheel was 70' in diameter, and disappeared upwards into the gloom. Mongo asked Snidely if he wanted to go up - Snidely quickly replied "No, boss, I couldn't take the glory away from you. It's not my place." Brad was nominated instead, and was placed into a carriage. Mongo pressed a button on the control panel, and the wheel creakily began to rotate.

As Brad reached the top, his torchlight illuminated a series of metal monkey-bars attached to the ceiling, providing a way south. Mongo asked Black Harris if he wanted to try climbing across - and shockingly, the dour cleric said "Yes - anything to get away from you peons!" Cynically, the party had Black Harris use his healing miracles upon the wounded Netal before sending him up in the wheel.

Black Harries and Brad sat in a carriage, and the wheel rotated until it reached the top. Brad extended Mongo's 20' pole, with a lantern hung at the end, to better illuminate the monkey-bars. Black Harris grabbed hold, and made his way halfway, to a ledge he could see at the top of the southern wall of the room. Sadly, halfway, a monkey bar released its hold on the ceiling and Black Harris plunged to a horrible death.

Examination of the bar (as the players stripped the body of valuables) revealed that it was unbroken - it must have been designed to release under pressure. George ordered his thief henchman, Slick Eddie, to climb the wall with a 50' rope. The thief easily climbed up to the ledge, and lowered the rope - which didn't quite make it to the floor, as he was 60' up. So back down again, and back up with more rope - problem solved. He tied the rope off to a monkey bar in the ceiling, it was tested for strength, and the party climbed up.

A corridor headed west from the ledge, and following it led to a room with musical instruments. An organ keyboard, several organ pipes, corroded tubas, and drums were scattered about, and a stack of accordions stood by a door in the corner. The party spread out to begin searching among the junk. As Netal approached the door, he stepped on a hidden pressure plate, and the accordions all contracted, making a horrendous noise and blasting a cloud of mold spores into the air. Surprised, he inhaled the spores, and began to turn blue as they invaded his lungs.

Gutboy cast his delay poison enchantment on Netal, and he was able to breathe again, but he could feel the cold touch of Death in each breath. The party knew there was only one person who could save the elf - Dr. Giggles. The only problem was escaping from the circus.

The party backtracked to the midway, and tried sneaking over the 40' to the emergency exit. Sadly, it was guarded by two Painted Men, who began shouting as they saw the party. "Time for show! You go watch! Now!" Netal replied by casting his sleep spell upon the vile clowns, and they rushed past the sleepers. They wound their way through the dungeon corridors until they reached a portcullis, guarded by another pair of Painted Men. Netal cast his second sleep spell, and the clowns went down without a word - their throats were slashed as the portcullis was raised.

More winding dungeon corridors, and Netal's breathing became erratic. As his lungs began to fill with mold, they burst through the door to Dr. Giggles' office.

Troglodyte Nurse Ratchett: "Can I help you?"
Mongo: "Quick! This man is dying!"
Dr. Giggles (bursting through the OR door, and rushing towards Mongo): "You've only got seconds to live! Quick, come with me!"
Mongo (pointing at Netal): "No, him!"
Dr. Giggles: "Of course! Quickly! We'll need to remove his legs!"
Mongo: "No, his lungs! He inhaled mold!"
Dr. Giggles: "Even worse! We'll have to amputate his lungs!"

Dr. Giggles shepherded Netal into the OR and onto the operating table, where his two assistants (a painted man and a second troglodyte) waited. He immediately began cutting into Netal, tossing aside a few unimportant fleshy bits as he pulled his ribcage open. He reached in with a knife, cut out the infected lungs, and tossed them to the floor. The doctor then realized what he had forgotten - "Quickly! I need new lungs!" - and grabbed a large saw, and slammed it into the chest of the painted man assisting him. Dr. Giggles managed to remove his assistant's lungs in a matter of moments, and flung them into Netal's chest. He brought a futuristic-looking scalpel-sized device to bear upon the organs, folded his ribcage shut, and sewed him up. Netal inhaled raspily, and sat up, in excruciating pain but otherwise largely unharmed for the experience.

Dr. Giggles: "Success! Life! I have brought LIFE!" (glancing at his dead assistant) "Mostly life!"
Gutboy: "You are truly amazing!"
Dr. Giggles: "I am the greatest doctor who has ever lived!"
Gutboy: "You are! Do you want to come with us to the surface?"
Dr. Giggles: "Surface? I don't know that word"
Gutboy: "You know, outside the dungeon"
Dr. Giggles: "Are you mad? There's nothing outside the dungeon! What are you talking about?"
Mongo: "Never mind. So we'll just give you the co-pay?"
Dr. Giggles: "Yes, yes, Nurse Ratchett will take care of that!"

The party left, thanking Dr. Giggles profusely, and gave a 30gp co-pay to the nurse as they left. They then made their way back out of the dungeon, and eventually back to Denethix.

Back at the apartment building, they found that Jack, Janet, and Chrissie's door was left open, and their own door had words written in blood upon it: "WHERE'S KROGO? WHERE'S ROGER?" Netal had to think a minute, and then remembered those were the names of his dead slaves. The lock to their apartment had been crudely broken open. Mongo charged in fearlessly, hoping to slaughter his enemies, Janet and the Evil Book. All that waited them within was a terrible mess - a human brain was laying in the middle of the floor, somebody had dropped off some "baked goods" upon his treasured easy chair, and the other furniture was all overturned.

The party headed over to Jack's apartment, and found that there were signs of a struggle, and large amounts of blood. Investigating the Roper's apartment revealed that they hadn't returned from wherever they had disappeared to, either. A quick cleanup ensued - George disposed of the brain, a maid service scrubbed the blood away, and a locksmith replaced the broken lock.

Mongo also decided to fire Snidely (who seemed a bit jumpy, and had some kind of white powder all over his waxed moustache). This didn't faze Snidely at all, who immediately turned to Netal - "Hey, so I've gotten kind of tired of working for Mongo. You seem like you'd be a much better employer." Netal thought for a bit, and decided that since everyone he'd ever tried to hire had insulted and abused him, he should take what he could get, and Snidely's unemployment came to a quick end.

Some time was spent commissioning large quantities of shotgun shells, and the party visited Ilorgo's Judgment-Free Taxidermy Shop to have their medusa's head stuffed. It had been sitting in a sack for two weeks, along with bits of broken glass, and had begun to smell a bit.

Ilorgo (stuffing a dead goblin into an "attack" pose): "What can I do you for, gentlemen?"
Gutboy: "Look, we've got something that needs to be preserved. If you mess up, you'll end up dead."
Ilorgo: "Hey! No need for threats! Like the sign says, I don't judge!"
Gutboy: "No, not like that! Have you ever heard of a medusa?"
Ilorgo: "Well yeah. Snake-headed ladies that turn you to stone. Wow, that's a challenge - but I'm up to it! Look, I'll take care of this in my basement tonight. I've always said I could do this with my eyes closed - now we'll find out! Ha!"

Returning the next day, Ilorgo handed them a sack with the head inside. The party purchased a baby grunkie, and dumped it into the sack with the head - the grunkie continued to move about, so sadly it appeared that whatever work the taxidermist had done, had ruined the medusa's petrifying gaze. Plans to turn rival adventuring party "The Excellent Elven Edventurers" to stone had to be abandoned, as did plans to wave the head around at the Painted Men's circus.

The party returned to Chelmsfordshire, and saw that Serlo, leader of the Excellent Elven Edventurers, was sitting in a booth in the town common, advertising for henchmen to join his party.

Gutboy: "So, how's it going? Where are your men?"
Serlo: "Oh, here and there. What do you want?"
Gutboy: "So, did you maybe see the show?"
Serlo: "The show? Yeah, I saw the show. You should go see the show, you'll like it."
Gutboy: "Oh, we already saw it."
Serlo: "I don't think so. Those clowns said you guys skipped out. Head back, it's totally worth it."
Gutboy: "I said we saw it already."
Serlo: "Whatever."

The bitter exchange concluded, and the party headed back towards Mount Rendon. On the way, they encountered four men heading in the opposite direction, back towards civilization. They explained that a moktar had hired them to deliver supplies to their war-band, up where one of the great lights had been shining. "It's this big set of doors, high up on the mountain. A couple of moks paid us and went back into a tunnel. There's this spring right next to the doors, and a stream runs down the mountain from there."

Intrigued, the party headed off to confront the war-band. They found the stream and followed it up the mountain to its source, and sure enough, there was a 20' wide pair of doors next to a spring. A pair of giant spot lights stood on either side of the doors, unlit. Mongo opened the doors, revealing a 20' wide corridor heading north into the darkness.

There was a brief discussion, and the party decided they'd rather exact some rough justice upon the clowns, than risk a fight with a moktar war-band. They made their way even further up the mountain to the entrance to the dungeon, and from their back down to the 2nd level.

The entrance to the 2nd level was a room with 8 exits, going in all directions. The party this time chose the south tunnel, and quickly came upon four Painted Men. Three of the painted men rushed into battle, while a fourth ran out through another exit. Netal took one of the Painted Men down, and the other two broke and ran for their lives.

Inspecting this guard post, the party found nothing of interest - so further into the dungeon they went. They reached an intersection, and had two choices: west of south. They decided to head west, and found themselves in a room with stairways heading down into a lower room, and paintings on the walls depicting a figure in black plate surrounded by defeated faceless humanoid opponents.

Both sets of stairs leading down were covered with ancient, crushed Painted Man corpses. Ignoring the subtle hints of danger, the party headed down the stairs as one. The lower room was empty, except for a figure in black plate mail, with glowing red eyes. As they entered, it shouted at no one in particular, "For your entertainment, I shall slaughter these worthless meatbags!"

Purple force-fields appeared at the tops of the stairs as the plate-clad behemoth charged at the party. Netal was able to see, with his wide-spectrum vision, that its head was glowing with radio-wave energy. The figure slashed at Mongo with one of its two swords, nicking him. Mongo, enraged, slammed the figure with his two-handed swords, hitting a weak spot in its armor, and slashing into a series of hydraulic hoses and wires. The figure slumped to the ground, its eyes growing dim, as its voice trailed off: "Meatbags? How...?"

There was a single exit from the room (apart from the stairs leading back up). The party followed it, and it ended at a red-and-black checkerboard room they had previously investigated and given up on.

The party was hankering for clown slaughter, though, and backtracked to the intersection they had passed earlier - the fleeing Painted Men must have headed south. Sure enough, they heard clownish giggles and screams off in the distance. They followed the corridor south, and found a side door as they did so, with a sign reading "Security". They stopped, listened, and heard some talking from within.

Mongo kicked the door open, and the party charged in, surprising the three Painted Men within. They were wearing blue uniforms, and sitting in rusty office chairs, with their giant clown feet propped upon antique desks. The party slaughtered them where they sat. After the fight, they searched the bodies, came up empty, and then Netal disemboweled them, hoping that their innards were full of treasure (and was once again disappointed).

They headed south from the security room, and found a storage room, with shelves and pegs filled with police equipment - transparent riot shields, fiberglass batons, and rusting two-pronged metal wands that the party deduced were tasers. The tasers looked to be in very bad shape, but Gutboy took one for later study regardless. Both Gutboy and George swapped their old-fashioned metal shields for the riot shields on display.

And there the session ended. Next session on Thursday February 23rd.

Gains: 900 gp, 10 protonium-metal arrows
Kills: 6 painted men, 1 gladiatorial automaton
Losses: Black Harris, medusa's head

ASE2-3 Cover

2012-02-09T23:51:00.000-05:00

Brian "Glad" Thomas has completed the cover for the sequel, ASE2-3. It is AWESOME.

Nominated!

2012-02-08T19:21:00.000-05:00

ASE1 is a finalist for the Three Castles RPG Design Award 2012!

I'm totally stoked, and I'm in good company to boot. The full list of finalists - all excellent products:

ASE1 - Anomalous Subsurface Environment by Patrick Wetmore

Realms of Crawling Chaos by Daniel Proctor & Michael Curtis

Stars Without Number by Kevin Crawford

Tome of Adventure Design by Matt Finch & Bill Webb

Review: Weird Adventures

2012-02-02T20:58:00.002-05:00

I've just finished reading Weird Adventures by Trey Causey (of the wonderful From the Sorcerer's Skull blog). It is awesome, go buy it now if you haven't.

Reviews should probably offer a bit more than a command to purchase. The book describes, in broad strokes, an alternate Earth, where D&D magic and monsters exist alongside the 1930's of our world, and then in detail deals with one place in particular - the City, an alternate version of New York City. The neighborhoods and boroughs are covered in detail, and full of adventure seeds. It concludes with a short list of monsters specific to his setting.

The city is simply outstanding, and the adventure hooks are wonderful. The underworld is run by the Hell Syndicate, who send their Hit Fiends to rub out the competition. The homeless are urban druids, served by feral children who roam Central Park. The sinister sorcerer Tsan Chan runs the Chinatown (well, Yiantown) gangs, and General Brant's Tomb contains the horrible thing that General Brant became. The book is loaded with adventure hooks like that - it's impossible to run out of things to do in the City.

The art is amazing. It's very very evocative of its pulp inspirations. The cover is a crazy-good homage to the original Player's Handbook, with turbaned magician, gun moll, and tommy-gun wielding gangster acting as the archetypal adventuring party. The art inside is just as cool, with hillbilly giants, hoochie-mamas, beholders stalking treasure-seekers, and a further homage to the DMG cover.

There are weaknesses. One thing it's missing is a section on 1930's weapons and armor (well, trenchcoats and fedoras, I suppose). Some guidance on these would be useful in running adventures in the City. Trey's got a lot of "magic item" type material he's been putting up on his blog, perhaps it is slated for an item-focused sequel? A short introductory adventure would also be useful for referees who want to leap into the City feet-first.

Overall, it's an awesome book, and great for a pulp/noir D&D game. The City is on the list of places my own players may end up, when they get to the various otherworldly portals in the dungeon. I've been waiting for its publication for some time (along with Dwimmermount, Planet Algol, and Stonehell 2 - get a move on people!), and it was totally worth it. BUY IT! BUY IT NOW!

Hiring an Anti-Paladin

2012-01-27T23:06:00.000-05:00

When they were out looking for henchmen, I rolled on my henchman table, and up came Margaret the Flame. They'd already met & rejected her, so I rolled instead on a list of classes from Dragon magazine. The class of the new potential henchman is... Anti-Paladin! Hahahahahahahaha. Snidely Whiplash, dastardly fiend and coward extraordinaire, is now working for Mongo.

Mongo's player likes interesting things to happen, so he's hired Snidely despite the incredibly obvious evil tendencies. You know, the moustache-twirling, the evil laugh, the references to past misdeeds followed by obvious lies and obfuscations...

I expect eventually they'll turn on Snidely, since he's already using the other henchmen as shields to protect himself and refusing to contribute in any meaningful way to the player's plans. They asked to borrow his dead gnome corpse to see if there were spikes at the bottom of the ball pit, and he flat out refused, because, you know, it's his gnome corpse. He's bad at sharing. And he's got plans that involve gnome corpses. "You can't have this! I need it!" First opportune moment, he'll be betraying the players, taking all the loot, and abandoning them in the dungeon.

Now, in a world where the gods are satellites orbiting the earth, and all clerics and paladins are to obey all their edicts, what does it even mean to be an anti-paladin? They can't serve evil deities - paladins are already required to do that. The only role left for the anti-paladin is that of being against all the gods. They've somehow worked out how to steal their cleric-like powers, and are sworn to destroy the gods. I suppose there's no particular reason they have to be evil, too, but there you go. Some professions just attract the nutjobs.

Other notable events:

a. They failed to hire the Dingleberry the Surly Clown as a henchman. That's the way the reaction rolls go sometimes. He did drop hints about Miami, but when you're in the middle of an underground circus, little stuff like that is drowned out in the sea of gonzo weirdness.

b. The party is now well-schooled in trap detection. Poles are regularly brought out to prod strange things, and if there's no promise of gold, they will usually try to avoid rooms with fiddly bits. Good old-school rules to live by.

c. The "sleep" spell is proving a lot less useful. It's a spell that scales really well as the players go up in level - as they become more proficient at combat and their survivability increases, sleep becomes correspondingly less powerful, and they are required to improve tactics to survive.

d. The guys came up with a plan to get the golden tongue, and executed it nearly perfectly. I'm quite happy about that - they are paying attention and thinking ahead about threats in the dungeon. I want that behavior to continue, so I'll be seeding parts of the dungeon with bits of information about other parts of the dungeon, so they can continue to make informed choices. Except when the information is deliberately misleading, of course.

Session recap, 1/26/2012

2012-01-26T23:41:00.000-05:00

CAST
--------
Netal the Elf (2), his henchman Brad the Fighter (1), and his pit bulls Timmy and Jimmy
Mongo the Fighter (2) and his henchmen, Black Harris the Cleric (1) and Snidely Whiplash the Fighter(?) (1)
George P. Burdell the Cleric (1) and his henchman, Slick Eddie the Thief (1)

Back at his apartment building, Mongo ran into the deceased George P. Burdell's roommate, who was coincidentally also named George P. Burdell. Mongo informed the new George of the horrible dungeon-y death of his roomie, and invited George to join the party in his stead. George readily agreed, and set out to find a henchman.

GEORGE'S STORY
--------
George headed to the coffee shop next door, and began asking the mohawk-haired proprietress a series of pointed questions.

George: "So, who do you pay to prevent things like flaming oil from being dumped on your shop?"
Mohawk lady: "Not sure I follow you, man"
George: "I'm looking for someone, you know, who likes to take things when he wants them"
Mohawk lady: "Oh, right, like yeah, stick it to the man! Five fingered discount, man!"
George: "Do you know anyone like that?"
Mohawk lady: "Yeah, man, I totally do! My friend Slick Eddie, man! He'll be here in an hour, man"

George waited, and eventually the Mohawk Lady pointed out a young man to him.

George: "Excuse me, do you think you might be interested in making some money?"
Eddie: "Oh yeah, I like money, what's the score?"
George: "Maybe liberating some goods from certain places underground"
Eddie: "Totally, yeah, I'm totally into anarchy! Let's do it!"

George escorted Eddie to a nearby armorer, and equipped the lad for subterranean adventure.

MONGO'S STORY
--------
After George left, Mongo headed down to the Inn of the Repaired Wheel, on the Street of Worthy Servitude. He spotted three rough-and-tumble characters: a shirtless, hulking barbarian, a dour man with a holy symbol hunched over his beer, and a big fellow twirling his moustache while chuckling to himself. Mongo approaced the barbarian first.

Yord the Shirtless Man: "Ha! A little man! I'm Yord, from the Worthless North!"
Mongo: "Want to make some money, Yord?"
Korg: "Ha! Ha! How'd you guess? I'm looking to get rich, and quick!"
Mongo: "How quick? You want work for Mongo?"
Korg (roaring with laughter): "Me? Work for YOU? A soft southerner? I don't think so, little man!"

Dejected, Mongo headed to the holy man.

Black Harris: "I'm sick of all these people, constantly asking me to pray for them. Pray, pray, pray, that's all they talk about."
Mongo: "Hmm, you want come to dungeon with me and get gold and booze?"
Black Harris: "Would I? In a heartbeat! I can't believe my mother made me go to seminary. I'm so sick of people. The poor people are the worst, always 'lay hands on my pus-oozing wound' or 'heal my revolting sores'."
Mongo: "You lay hands on torch?"
Black Harris: "Torch? That doesn't sound sanitary"
Mongo: "Lantern?"
Black Harris (sighing): "Fine, let's go."

All through these conversations, the moustache-twirler had been eyeing Mongo. Mongo sighed, and walked up to the dastardly gentleman.

Snidely Whiplash (chuckling evilly): "So, I see you're hiring a few men. Allow me to introduce myself, I'm Snidely Whiplash. I happen to be looking for a bit of... employment"
Mongo: "Well, what you do last job?"
Snidely: "Well, I sacked that temp... I mean, I was a caravan guard. Yeah, that's it."
Mongo: "Where you from?"
Snidely: "Oh. A village. Somewhere else. Run by a wizard, so I escaped and came here. To guard caravans."
Mongo: "Huh. How you feel about torches?"
Snidely: "Torture? I love torture!"
Mongo: "No, torches!"
Snidely: "Oh. Those are good too. Sure, everyone likes light."

Mongo agreed to take Snidely on, with some visible reservations as Snidely began laughing madly to himself, but the two of them and Black Harris headed to the market regardless, and soon the two new employees were fully equipped for a dungeon expedition.

NETAL'S STORY
--------
Netal had heard a rumor that the dog-plague had ended, just as mysteriously as it had started, and headed to the Bazaar Incomparable to find a new dog or two.

Shopkeeper: "Hey! I remember you! Want to buy a grunkie?"
Netal: "No, I'm looking for dogs"
Shopkeeper: "Sure, I've got just the thing. How about a pair of pit bulls?"
Netal: "Yes! That's what I want! What are their names?"
Shopkeeper: "Oh, I don't know, they killed their previous owner so I never found out"

Netal paid for the slavering hell-beasts, and decided to name them Timmy and Jimmy. He then rounded up Brad (who had worked for the prior George P. Burdell) and headed off to find his comrades.

TO CHELMSFORDSHIRE
--------
The trio met up after their various purchases and hires, and set out for Chelmsfordshire. They arrived just in time to Slezgar arriving from the direction of Mt. Rendon, with a large crew of men pulling a pair of wagons laden with expensive-looking furniture.

Mongo: "Slezgar! What you got there?"
Slezgar: "Oh, we found this secret room. Kind of a conference room, full of all this expensive furniture and stuff! Money for the taking!"
Mongo: "Yeah. That nice. Bye."

Annoyed by Slezgar's continued success, the party headed into the wilderness and back to the dungeon.

THE EXPEDITION
--------
The party headed down through the deserted halls of the first level, to the second level entrance - a room with eight corridors heading off in all directions. They consulted their map for a while, and decided that their best bet was to try to get the golden T-Rex tongue they had left behind on a previous (disastrous) expedition.

The party headed towards the circus, passing the room with the large tapestry and old lectern. They stopped briefly while George fooled with the lectern and discovered there was something underneath. Mongo tipped the lectern over with his 20' collapsible pole, revealing a rusty lockbox. The lockbox opened easily, its lock having long since rusted into nothing, and found a roll of 100 seafoam-green tickets, each reading "ADMIT ONE."

They walked further in, and came to a room with an excitable painted man, who started leaping up and down shouting "Ticket! Ticket! Ticket!" George handed him 9 tickets, and the clown ran off through an archway to the main circus area. The party stood around for a while, and eventually the clown came back, still shouting "Ticket! Ticket! Ticket!" The party collectively shrugged, and headed into the circus.

The carnival barker stepped off his dais and quickly approached the party. "You guys left early the last time! Do you know how much work it is to set this thing up?" Mongo replied, "Sorry! We get lost! We come back for show!" "Well, just to make sure you get lost - you! come here! You watch these guys and make sure they don't leave!"

The barker had called over another painted man to follow them around as they walked around. Informed that they had an hour before the show started, they headed around to some of the tents to see what the attractions were.

In the first tent they looked at, a Whack-a-Gnome game had been set up. Netal paid 5 gp, and was handed a wooden mallet. Sneering garden gnomes with bloodstained faces and glowing red eyes began sticking their heads up through the holes, and Netal whacked one with the mallet. The gnome became enraged, and leaped at Netal, sinking its fangs into his shoulder. Netal and Mongo beat the thing to death, and the painted man informed them that "You win little man! Excited! Yummy!"

Mongo handed the thing to Snidely. "You want this?" "Why yes. Yes (evil laugh), yes I do. This will do... perfectly!"

In the next tent, a painted man was sitting back with his feet on a table, smoking a cigar.

Surly Clown: "Now, what do you clowns want?"
George: "Hi there. What can you tell us about this place?"
Surly Clown: "Look. I like three things: booze, broads, and bashing heads. Unless you got some of that, scram."
George: "I have booze"
Surly Clown: "Give it over!"
George: "It's communal wine..."
Surly Clown: "I don't care what brand it is, give it to me!"
George: "You'll need these wafers too..."
Surly Clown: "Keep the wafers and give me the booze already!"

George offered his wineskin to the surly clown, who grabbed it away and gulped it down as quickly as possible.

Mongo: "So, you like bashing heads? You want to bash these guys?"
Surly Clown: "What's in it for me?"
Mongo: "You got booze. No women here..."
Surly Clown: "That's too bad. I like human women. Sick of these painted women, you know what I mean. I want babes like down at Miami."
Mongo: "Miami?"
Surly Clown: "Yeah, the clown women, not exactly South Beach material, you know?"
Mongo: "No..."
Surly Clown: "Whatever. No women, then forget about it"
Netal (presenting Timmy the Pit Bull, who is apparently a female): "How about this? Pretty hot huh?"
Surly Clown: "What? No. What's wrong with you? Get out of here"
Netal: "You sure?"
Surly Clown: "Look, I don't do dames with four legs. Scram!"

The party gave up on trying to get the surly clown to join their expedition, and headed past the animal pits and a corridor with a sign reading "Log Flume", to get to the last unexplored tent. It contained a dunking tank, with a clown sitting above the tank, and another demanding 100 gp for a throw.

George: "That's too much. What's in the tank?"
Clown: "Water"
George (sniffing the acrid water): "Just water?"
Clown: "Burny water!"
George: "Can I take some?"
Clown: "No! You PAY, you THROW BALL! No take water!"

At this point, the party became sick of wandering the attractions, and decided to head back to the golden-tongued T. Rex skull they had left behind during a previous expedition. They and their painted-man-watcher headed into the freak show, making their way past the exhibits til they were outside a room that had previously held a bunch of painted men watching video monitors.

Mongo walked around their painted man guard until he was forced to turn away from the door to talk to Mongo. While Mongo asked a few inane questions, Brad the henchman quietly opened the door and peaked in. "Guys, there are a bunch of clowns staring at me" he whispered.

Netal immediately cast his sleep spell, putting three of the clowns to sleep. Slick Eddie knifed their painted man escort in the back, while Brad and the pit bulls charged into the room to attack the remaining clowns. The fight was short and one-sided. Netal butchered the corpses, searching for gold in their stomachs, while George checked their belongings for valuables, finding a key.

From there, they headed to the T-Rex skull room. Slick Eddie examined the skull, and found that it had a hinge and a powerful spring under tension, connected to the back of the skull. Mongo pulled out his 20' pole and poked the golden tongue with it - the jaws slammed shut, damaging the pole so that it could no longer fully retract. The party then pried the skull open, and George pulled the tongue out. It was surprisingly light for a 5' long piece of gold - it turned out to be a much thinner layer of gold over a balsa-wood frame. The tongue was stomped and crumpled small enough to fit into a backpack, and the party continued on.

To the south, they came to a room empty of everything except some bloodstains and scraps of painted-man leather motley on the floor. A sign over the door to the south read "Invisible Treasures." The party carefully searched this room, and then opened the door to the Invisible Treasure room. True to its word, the room beyond was empty of visible treasure, containing nothing but dust and rat droppings. Mongo swept through the air with his pole while the rest of the party searched, but if there was any invisible treasure, it was not found.

They then headed southwest, ignoring a side door as they traveled, and came to a room with a 10' wide ball pit. Mongo swished his pole through the pit, and found that the pole passed right through the balls without disturbing them. It was also clanking on things on the bottom of the pit. They quickly came to the conclusion that the balls were a hologram hiding a spiked pit.

The party returned to the door in the corridor, and Slick Eddie listened at it - he heard some horrible chewing noises. The party arranged themselves carefully around the ball pit, with the dogs taking point, while Brad went ahead to open the door and lure the chewing monsters out. Brad flung the door open and ran back to the party, while two ravenous corpses chased after him.

The dogs fled as fast as they could as the corpses approached, leaving Netal on the west side and Brad on the east side to face the horrible monsters. Brad, not having many hit points left, tried to run past and leave the stronger Snidely to face the monsters, but Snidely grabbed Brad by the shoulders and shoved him towards the shambling corpse.

The priests presented their holy symbols, but their weak faiths did not impress the living dead. The corpses swiped at Netal and Brad. The fight was over quickly, though - after being bitten and clawed, Netal became enraged, and grabbed one of the ghouls by its throat and flung it into the ballpit with a sickening crunch. Brad swung his mace like a baseball bat, and knocked the other into the pit. There was no sound from below - the creatures had been permanently laid to rest.

And there the session ended. Next session on Thursday February 9th.

Necromantic Midget

2012-01-19T19:59:00.000-05:00

Behold, the stats for the Necromantic Midget. I don't like the way the text flows, so I'll rewrite it at some point, but this is essentially what they are. Replacing to-hit rolls with constant saving throws means they will be damaging players quite a bit.

Necromantic Midget
No. Enc: 1d6 (3d6)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 90' (30')
Armor Class: 8
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: Dagger or voodoo-stab
Damage: 1d4
Save: MU2
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: XVII
XP: 38

The origin of these vile necromancers is lost to time, but they are able to create new necromantic midgets from the compressed remains of larger humanoids. They appear as well-proportioned tiny humans, and wear no clothing but their black robes, as befits their necromantic passions.

The necromantic midgets are far tougher than their small size would appear to indicate, due to their unnaturally compressed flesh and the arcane blue fluid that circulates in their veins.

A typical necromantic midget will be armed with a dagger, and carry a small rag doll. They will attack by focusing their necromantic energies on a living victim and stabbing the doll with their dagger, causing the victim 1d4 points of damage unless he makes a successful save vs. spell. The voodoo-stab has a range of 60’.

Excellent Elven Edventurers Take the Prize; and Poll Closed Today!

2012-01-15T21:50:00.000-05:00

Poll closed! 61% of you want an ASE2-3 sooner, and 38% wanted level 4 as well. 1% of you found a third option, apparently. So levels 2 and 3 it is! I'll be sending off level 2 to Brian in the next couple of days so he can start illustrating, while I finish up level 3. There'll be some extras in this module too, in addition to the dungeon levels, so still plenty of value. It makes sense from an art budget as well, things would be really sparse in a three-level book.

The last session went pretty well. The players were playing pretty smart, up until the end where George's player got kind of bored and ran in without the rest of the party.

And let us all have a moment of silence for the morlocks. Yeah, no endless looting of the first level, guys. Move along, the low risk treasure is gone. I rolled some dice to see if the Morlocks or the Excellent Elven Edventurers would win in a confrontation, and was secretly thrilled that the EEE won the roll. Now the players have a rival in the dungeon, and they're fairly disgruntled about it. This should prompt the guys to do a bit more planning while looting the dungeon - the stuff they leave behind is going to be hauled out and flaunted by a hated NPC adventuring team.

Session recap, 1/12/2012

2012-01-14T14:02:00.002-05:00

CAST
--------
Netal the Elf (2)
Mongo the Fighter (2)
Gutboy the Cleric (3) and his henchman, Trezgar the Elf (1)
George P. Burdell the Magic-User (1) and his henchman, Brad the Fighter (1)

Netal, Mongo, and Gutboy gathered at the apartment, almost completely broke, except for the money they had stolen from the Ropers' apartment. Their heretofore-unmentioned neighbor, George P. Burdell, wandered over to say "Hi" and without any discussion was welcomed as their bosom companion.

George wandered off to the quad at the Academy of Elevated Thought to find a traveling companion. He spotted a calvinball game in progress, and hung around until the match ended.

George: Dear sir, that was quite a game. Do you know the rules to calvinball?
Brad: Uhh... I kicked the ball and it went into the net!
George: Very good. How are your studies going along?
Brad: Oh yeah, the Academy lets me stay when I kick the ball into the net! I'm really good!
George: Sounds like you could use a bit of tutoring. I'd like to help you
Brad: That's great! How much will that cost? I've got beer! You like beer?
George: I was thinking you could help me out in exchange. What's your name?
Brad: I'm Brad! I kicked the ball into the net!

So, George had found himself both a henchman and lackwit student to tutor.

In the meantime, Gutboy traveled back to Leafy Green's Salad Bar and found a pair of dowdy elves.

Gutboy: Say, are either of you looking for a life of riches and adventure?
Trezgar: Why yes, I was thinking of joining Slezgar's Excellent Elven Edventurers. They're quite the capable crew!
Gutboy: Slezgar? Why, he used to be my henchman! I taught him everything he knows!
Trezgar: Well, sign me up!

Henchman acquired, the party spent its few remaining resources on equipping the pair of new hires, bought a few extra shotgun shells for Netal's stolen weapon, and headed to Chelmsfordshire. Gutboy eyed the bucolic farms they passed, wondering how much loot he could get through a life of brigandry, but eventually decided that dungeon delving would be more practical.

Once in Chelmsfordshire, they saw that a second booth had been erected next to Fitzy's Dungeoneering Supplies. Gutboy peered in, and saw a familiar face - his former henchman, Slezgar! Apparently the adventuring life agreed with him - he was wearing a silver circlet with a single emerald upon his head. The same circlet they had last seen on the morlock chieftain's head, in fact.

Gutboy: Slezgar! What are you doing here?
Slezgar: We'll be auditioning henchman in another hour. You can come back then.
Gutboy: Slezgar, it's me Gutboy, your former boss!
Slezgar: Oh, right. Well, how have you been? (grabbing a raw hamhock and taking a bloody bite out of it)
Gutboy: What are you doing ?!?
Slezgar: (surprised) Oh... that! Right! Ummm... that's an elven tradition. It's an elf thing. Perfectly normal.
Netal: No it's not.
Slezgar: Maybe not in your tribe. It's a tribal thing. Never mind! Why are you here? Decided to become torchbearers?
Gutboy: We were thinking maybe we could team up
Slezgar: Ha! Don't think so. This is an elf-only crew. Except for the henchmen. Elves are where it's at! Hey you (pointing at Trezgar) you want to join up? Ditch these guys, they suck!
Mongo (grabbing Slezgar by the throat): What are you doing in our dungeon?
Slezgar (pulling his hand away): Now now, if you're not going to hold our torches, I think you should move along. Bye, good luck, bye, see you later...

The party considered violence, but the large numbers of Unyielding Fist soldiers walking through the town dissuaded them. They spent the night on the floor of the local tavern, and made their way to the dungeon the next morning.

Once inside, they made a beeline towards the Morlock lair. The morlocks had all been slaughtered, and the place was fairly well looted. Only the following was found:

a. Three creep morlock-hides hanging on pegs. The hides were twitching and wiggling. Attempts to burn them with torches had little effect beyond scorching the hides.
b. A stoppered clay bottle hidden under some ratty furs, that Slezgar's crew must have missed
c. A storeroom full of water barrels, metal bars, and 200' of sinew-rope

The party took the clay bottle, left the rest, and headed down to the second level. Once there, they proceeded southwest from the room with eight exits, and made their way back to the hexagonal-shaped chamber with an unexplored door. Passing through it, they found themselves in an octagonal chamber, with a strange device on the north wall, and a sign on the south wall reading "Please visit us in our new office! Just moments from the Plastic Tombs!"

The device consisted of a leather chair, with stainless steel straps at the ankle, arm, and neck positions. Above it, protruding from the wall, was an armature covered with drills, saws, and pincers. Next to this was a stainless steel locked cabinet, with a dial on the side. The dial had an "Off" position, and positions numbered one through ten.

They had Brad pry the cabinet open, and George stood to the side and opened the doors with a 10' pole, while Brad looked inside. He whitened in fear, and quickly looked away. "Hey guys! I read about these in Mythology 101! There's a head covered with snake hair, in a jar! And a bunch of other heads!"

The party quickly realized that this must be a medusa's head. They gave Brad a sack, and he pushed the jar in without looking at it. Fluids splashed through the porous bag, but the head was safely bagged. They then took an inventory of the other heads - a few empty jars, a few human heads, and several monster heads were present. There was also a sliding hatch in the top of the cabinet - opening it only revealed a view of the ceiling.

Mongo turned the dial to "1", and a light above the dial turned red. Trying the other numbers, he found the same behavior. He turned the dial to "Off", plopped a few heads onto the chair, and turned it to "1" again. The armature moved to neck-level (if there had been a person strapped in the chair), began sawing away at nothing, reached pincers into the cabinet, came back with nothing, and sawed and drilled a bit more. The party decided that this must be some sort of decapitation machine of the Painted Men, and vowed to destroy those evil clowns.

They moved on to the next room to the west. This chamber had four savage-looking dog statues mounted on pedastals, facing each other, in the center of the room. Their mouths slowly dripped a black liquid onto the ground, and wires from inside their mouths suspended a glass sphere between them. The sphere contained something small and metallic flitting about, but the party was too nervous to approach.

Mongo extended his retractible pole, and pressed down on the wires and sphere from 20' away. The hounds spat out flame in a good-sized fireball, but the sphere remained unharmed. He tried this trick a few more times, and decided to smash the sphere with the pole. There was another fireball as the wires were disturbed, and the small metallic flying thing, released from the sphere, began heading towards Mongo. As it got closer, Mongo saw that it was a mechanical hummingbird. He reached out with his hand, trying to grab it - it was incredibly easy, as the hummingbird flew directly into his hand. And then tried jamming its proboscis into his palm, but it hit a bit of metal on his gauntlet, and the fluid it was trying to inject dribbled down his arm with no effect. The thing, its payload of poison exhausted, continued to stab fruitlessly at Mongo, until he smashed it with a loud CLAP.

The next room after this had four humanoid figures standing in its corners, each draped in nets of silver coins tied together with wire. Mongo approached the figures, and tried looking between the coins to see what was underneath - he had a vague impression of some sort of metal skeleton or automaton beneath. When he tried parting the coins with his dagger, all four came to life, and began attacking. There was a brief fight, wherein Gutboy paralyzed three with his hold person spell, and Netal blasted the fourth with his double-barreled shotgun, and once the machines were dispatched the party found that they were in possession of 20,000 silver coins.

Encumbered with treasure, the party decided to press on further. They had a choice of directions from this room, and first went south down a long corridor, finding a room with a checkerboard pattern of red and black squares on the floor. Each square had an inch-wide hole in the middle of it.

Mongo pressed down on a red square with his pole, and nothing happened. He then pressed down on a black square, and nothing happened. Then a different red square, nothing, and another black, and nothing. He then had Netal press down on a square simultaneously - they found that sometimes one of the squares would shoot up a jet of flame, and sometimes not. They couldn't make any sense of it. Mongo started going along pressing in order, red, black, red, black, red, black, then the next row, red, black, red, black, etc, but none of them fired. With no confidence in how the trap mechanism was triggered, they decided to abandon this room and backtrack to the coin-automaton room, and try a different direction from there.

The other door from the coin-automaton room was made of stainless steel. When they peered in, they saw a long room with another stainless steel door on the opposite side. There were six levers, in the "up" position, against the south wall, and a niche on the north wall with a sign in it. The lettering on the sign was incredibly small, and there was no way anyone could read it without walking right up to it.

George decided to be bold, and walked into the room. The rest of the party stood outside, watching from the other side of the door. When George reached the alcove, the stainless steel doors suddenly swung shut and locked, leaving George trapped inside, while the rest of the party waited outside.

George heard a noise behind, and turned to see the levers going down, one at a time, seemingly at random. After the last lever had gone down, he walked over, and started pushing the levers up in the reverse order. The first two levers he remembered, and they pushed up with no ill effect. He misremembered the third lever, and the floor sprung open in two spots, releasing ten skeletons into the room.

The rest of the party listened to the screams for a while, and when they ended they decided it was time to head home. They encountered a half-dozen survivors of the morlock colony on the way back, who shouted "Mongos betray us! Mongos kill morlocks! Die all mongos!" A simple sleep spell was all it took to end that threat, and the morlocks were no more. Gutboy was briefly dismayed to see that their supposedly good friend Bilibub was among the slain, but he got over it.

Back to Denethix they went, to divvy up the spoils, mourn their lost comrade, and plot revenge on Slezgar for having the temerity to take the treasure they had ignored for so long.

Gains: 20,000 sp, clay bottle, medusa's head
Kills: 4 coin automatons, 6 morlocks
Losses: George

Hinge-Headed of the Basalt Ziggurat

2012-01-11T22:30:00.000-05:00

The fourth level holds the Basalt Ziggurat, home of the Hinge-Headed and their armies of Neanderthal slaves. That's a ways off, but an ambassador may be found on the second level, on a diplomatic mission to the necromantic midgets. I look forward to the players grabbing its mind-crystal, thinking it to be valuable treasure, and then having it shout out "Over here! Save me, fellow dungeon citizens!" at inopportune moments.

Hinge-Headed
No. Enc: 1d4 (6d10)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 120’ (40’)
Armor Class: 4
Hit Dice: 4
Attacks: 1
Damage: 1d10
Save: T4
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: XVIII
XP: 190

The hinge-headed appear to be incredibly strong human men, with cylindrical bronze helmets entirely covering their heads. These cylinders have no openings whatsoever, and are attached to bronze collars bolted to the necks of the men. The cylinders are hinged in the back, and may be pried open to reveal the contents – a glowing crystal, clutched in a hand protruding from the neck (where a head would normally be).

These crystals are the intelligences controlling the hinge-headed bodies. They may be of any color imaginable, and are uncomfortably warm to the touch. The crystals are able to hear, speak, and perceive their surroundings within 30’.

The crystal will typically survive the death of its hinge-headed body. If one of these crystals is captured and its fellows become aware of it, they will go to great lengths to free their comrade. Ransoms of up to 1,000 gp may be paid per captured crystal, but the kidnappers will also earn the undying enmity of the hinge-headed.

The hinge-headed have developed the ability to dominate the weaker minds of Neanderthals, and use these creatures as their slaves. Any Neanderthal within 30’ of a hinge-headed must successfully save vs. spell every round or become dominated. The cavemen constantly resist their crystal masters, however, and upon a failed morale check they will briefly regain their will and run for freedom.

A hinge-headed typically wears a sleeveless robe over a bronze chain mail vest, and carries a two-handed sword strapped to its back.

Golden Pendulum

2012-01-09T22:15:00.001-05:00

Another trap of the "you're going to trigger this purposely to get the loot" variety. Treasure-hungry adventurers should figure out a way to get this down. It's not very dangerous, unless the players do something insane - and they usually do. As I've mentioned in other posts, I like this style of trap - make it obvious, but make the bait compelling.

114. Golden Pendulum
In the center of this room is a 3’ square wooden platform, six inches high, supported by a series of dowels. The wood is incredibly old and fragile, and it will break easily if disturbed. Carved into the top of the platform are the words “Warning: Pressure plate beneath. Do not disturb.”

There is indeed a pressure plate beneath the platform, easily spotted now that players know to look for it. Moving the platform will cause it to start snapping – players will need to take care to prevent it from triggering the trap.

Any pressure on the plate will cause a blade at the end of a long bronze chain to swing down from the ceiling, causing 3d6 points of damage (save vs. petrification for half damage) to anyone standing in its path (running from southeast to northwest through the center of the room). The blade has a second chain connected to it, running from the southeast end of the slot, that will immediately start pulling the chain and blade back into the slot after the trap has swung once.

The blade is cast from solid gold, and is worth 400 gp. Close inspection will reveal the blade’s edge is a thin length of razor-sharp carbide steel embedded into the gold body.

The slot that the chain and pendulum rest in (and just a tiny glint of gold) can be seen should players think to examine the ceiling, 10’ above.

Skyrim Gets Surreal

2012-01-08T00:15:00.001-05:00

I've been playing Skyrim on the PlayStation 3, and things are getting weird.

a. I'm walking down the road, and a Redguard woman is standing around in her underwear, in the snow, getting harassed by a pair of Alik'R. I don't know if she's doing a Victoria's Secret shoot or what, but I chase after the Alik'R and give one a good whack upside the head - down he goes. His buddy runs screaming away from me, savagely slashing at every chicken that gets in his way.

b. On my way to find the head of these Alik'R, I see a giant and a couple of mammoths in the distance. One of the mammoths shoots up into the sky like a rocket. I steer clear, flying mammoths seem risky.

Now I'm deep in the Alik'R lair, and am offered the choice of fighting off a boatload of Alik'R thugs, or helping to off some damsel in distress. My inclination is to see if I can polish off the thugs, but when all your leveling is due to "sneak" you really aren't very handy with swords or armor.

How many levels for next ASE?

2012-01-01T14:10:00.000-05:00

I have a poll question for all of you.

Here's my dilemma: I wanted to produce a supplement covering levels 2, 3, and 4. That way, people can really start playing without having to worry too much about their players reaching un-published levels. It also lets me kick off the third supplement with the 5th level's subterranean city of Under-Miami, which is a nice starting point from an aesthetic standpoint.

But, at the rate my own players are progressing, they won't be reaching level 4 for several months. So it will push the release date out into the summer, because I'm not going to publish something that isn't playtested to some degree (not that it is possible for me to playtest every single encounter in a megadungeon).

The alternative is just levels 2 and 3, which would get released in late February or early March, depending on how quickly my players move along.

I don't know the right answer, so I'm leaving it to a customer poll: do you want to see fewer levels sooner, or more levels later?

Another Lulu sale - 35% off. And how are they making money?

2011-12-28T09:07:00.000-05:00

Well, Lulu is having another sale. 35% off today only (and yesterday too, but they're not real timely about sending me their coupon codes). Use BLIZZARDS305 at checkout.

So, this means they are losing money on every PDF purchase, since their royalty is only 20% usually, and is currently 10% til mid-January, and the base fee charged is on each PDF sale is just 99 cents. The authors (namely, moi) don't see any price changes on these sales, so Lulu is eating all that. They must have some hefty markups on the base cost for print books for these sales to be remotely profitable, because print royalties are also 20%.

How does this make any business sense? No idea. I'm guessing PDF sales are a very tiny part of their business and they just ignore the losses.

Thanks to everyone who purchased ASE1 up to the 25th!

2011-12-27T15:07:00.000-05:00

A big "Thank You!" to everyone who purchased ASE1 in the days leading up to Christmas - we managed to raise $200 for Village2Village!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

Isaiah 9:6 "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

published an adventure in FO #13

2011-12-18T15:05:00.000-05:00

Having contributed to a bunch of community efforts, one has finally born fruit - I've got an adventure published in Fight On! #13. So go buy that bad boy! You can get it here on Lulu: Fight On! #13

The adventure is called "Fruiting Towers", it was the result of an "art first" thread on the ODD forums. If anyone ends up running it, drop me a line, I love hearing how I've killed other people's players... I mean, "challenged" other people's players...

More ASE session reports

2011-12-08T21:49:00.000-05:00

Tavis (of Mule Abides) runs a Red Box New York gaming group, and he's got his players running through the Anomalous Subsurface Environment, among other things. He's managed to somehow crank the gonzo up several notches higher with his changes, so good on him!

The session reports are all posted online here: http://redbox.wikidot.com/white-sandbox-session-summaries . The players arrive at a modified Denethix in session 39, and enter the dungeon proper in sessions 40 and 42.

It's really good stuff if you like reading campaign reports (I do), and it's incredibly gratifying to hear about someone else using something I wrote.

And more Lulu sales - 25% off til the 14th

2011-12-08T20:26:00.000-05:00

Yeah I know these "Lulu sales" posts are boring, but if you haven't actually purchased from Lulu before, you won't know about the codes. Lulu says this is their last sale, for whatever that's worth. 25% off until December 14th, enter coupon code COUNTDOWN305 at check out. Remember, it all goes to support Village2Village until the 25th, so buy buy buy! Or just donate to V2V directly, it's all good!

Lulu can't help themselves - another 30% off sale

2011-12-06T11:12:00.002-05:00

Lulu must be getting desperate... there's yet another 30% off sale. Use coupon WINTERSAVE305 at checkout, it's good through Wednesday Dec 7th. This does NOT reduce how much goes to charity, Lulu eats the discount themselves.

Elves Got Guns

2011-12-02T22:23:00.000-05:00

So that was a decent session. I had Gutboy's player roll the percentile dice to decide his face at the ungentle hands of Dr. Giggles - he chose to do a d30 roll instead, and was lucky, I had loaded all the "good" outcomes into the lower percentage range. Not as lucky as he could have been - Dr. Giggles didn't manage to find any solid gold organs mysteriously implanted into Gutboy during the operation.

So Gutboy lived. I was kind of sad about that, I was hoping somebody would roll up a geisha or an equally bizarre class. But, they are almost completely broke now, and have no way to pay for equipment for new henchmen.

It was amazing how fast Gutboy's mind turned to banditry and murder. Every NPC they met was a potential victim being sized up. Mongo and Netal were a bit more restrained, until Netal saw the farmer with a shotgun. Netal's player has seen my firearms damage chart, and has been angling to get a shotgun, which I cruelly and arbitrarily said were restricted items, and nobody would sell him one. I'd since forgotten about that, but Netal's player hadn't - once he saw the shotgun, all thoughts of finding missing NPC's and collecting rewards disappeared. The shotgun was all that mattered. Not the best conceived plan, but a double-barreled shotgun is a pretty formidable weapon as I wrote up - unload both barrels for 1d12, with +2 to hit at close range. Of course if they head back to Louisburgh to follow up on that missing person quest, there's going to be consequences.

Netal's big plan was to gather some coin to buy an army of pit-fighter slaves to do his dirty work. The violent abolitionists had been brought up before, but I decided to make them target Netal - there's a reason the slavers wear masks in this city. He's been a bit too open with his slave-buying-and-getting-them-killed ways. Now brain-extracting abolitionists have got his number.

I've also changed the book from "constant temptation" to "implacable villain". It's not my goal to tempt players into being naughty, they're bloodthirsty enough without encouragement, so the book's now firmly in the cartoonish supervillain camp. Through the medium of Janet of 70's sitcom Three's Company. I really didn't intend for sitcom characters to become villains when I started this campaign... the players are so inured to my idiocy now that they don't even blink when this stuff happens.

All Proceeds to Charity thru Dec 25th

2011-12-01T21:32:00.001-05:00

All proceeds from sales of Anomalous Subsurface Environment will be going to charity from Dec 1st thru December 25th. So if you haven't bought a copy, here's your chance to indulge in some gonzo while doing a good deed!

Lulu keeps their cut, of course, but I'll be donating all my revenues during this period to Village2Village. They are an awesome charity helping out the folks in Uganda.

Here's a brief video about two of the children they're helping, Sam & Esther:

Session recap, 11/29/2011

2011-11-30T22:56:00.002-05:00

CAST
--------
Netal the Elf (2)
Mongo the Fighter (2)
Gutboy the Cleric (3)

... and Dr. Giggles began slicing wildly into Gutboy's body with a filth-encrusted scalpel, calling to his troglodyte nurse for clamps, staples, and sutures. The operation was done quickly, and he waved a vial of smelling salts under Gutboy's nose. The clown-doctor cried "Success!" as Gutboy groggily awoke. Gutboy said a quick prayer, and the sutured wounds healed without a scar, the stitches falling out of his flesh.

Dr. Giggles: "Hmm, this went even better than usual. I am truly a master of medical science."
Gutboy: "Science? Do you know those guys who shout 'Science!' all the time?"
Dr. Giggles: "No, I'm afraid I'm the only one down here who cares for science. I had to abandon my brutal brethren, for all they desired was butchery."
Gutboy: "Where did you learn medicine?"
Dr. Giggles: "I learned at the feet of the hologram of Dr. Quartermaine, in the Learnatorium"
Gutboy: "Where's that?"
Dr. Giggles: "Back with my brethren, the Painted Men, far to the southwest of here."
Mongo: "Well, we've got to be going, I've got an appointment"
Dr. Giggles: "Really? I didn't realize you were in the calendar! Please, disrobe..."
Mongo: "No! Not with you! We've got to go!"
Dr. Giggles: "Well, Nurse Ratched will take your co-pay. Please escort them back to reception, nurse"

The players followed the troglodyte nurse back to reception.

Nurse: "What insurance do you have?"
Gutboy: "Nisus Underwriting"
Nurse: "I'm sorry, we only take Miami Mutual..."
Gutboy: "Ahh! Nisus Underwriting was just acquired by Miami Mutual"
Nurse: "Oh, then that will just be the co-pay, 20 gp please"
Gutboy: "With the merger, the co-pay was reduced to 5 sp"
Nurse: "Not until I get some paperwork from Miami it isn't. 20 gp."

Gutboy searched his pockets, but came up empty. Mongo was likewise broke. Finally, Netal coughed up the cash, and the players headed west, deeper into the dungeon, looking for a way out.

The first room they came to was a large circular chamber. The walls were lined with transparent cylinders, stacked four high, with scaffolding to reach the higher cylinders. Each cylinder had a seam in the front, and it looked like most were empty but for pieces of foam with body-shaped indentations. They saw that a few in the distance were occupied. Grim fantasies of zombies or worse lurching out of the cylinders filled the party's thoughts, and they decided to try a different route.

They headed back to the offices of Dr. Giggles, and tried a side corridor - this lead to a room filled with ordure and bone fragments. They inspected the filth for movement carefully, suspecting danger, and then Gutboy looked up at the ceiling - a horrendous monstrosity was making its way towards them from above! The creature's central body was 10' wide, with a large snail-like foot, a monstrous fish head, and dozens of 20' long tentacles.

The tentacles reached down and wrapped around Mongo, yanking him up to be bitten by the fish-mouth. Other tentacles flailed at Gutboy and Netal, but they danced out of the way. Netal recited his sleep spell, and the snail-fish-tentacle-freak was put into an arcane slumber, still clinging to the ceiling. Its tentacles slowly unrolled, lowering Mongo gently to the floor.

Netal, completely enraged, ran into the room with his bow out, planning on shooting the sleeping monster in the face and killing it. Gutboy and Mongo convinced him to leave instead - they were deeply afraid that a single arrow wouldn't be able to kill it, and the thing would awaken again and slaughter them all.

The party returned to the circular room with the cylinders. Looking around, they saw three bodies in cylinders at ground level, and a another way up on the fourth level. They also saw that the room extended farther north than their torchlight revealed, and a control panel to the north as well. They briefly examined the floor-level cylinders, which contained:

1. an unmoving painted man, apparently frozen in time while struggling to escape
2. a beige humanoid whose head was mostly occupied by a mouth full of 2" long fangs
3. a human male, with no skin

They decided the cylinders were absolutely horrible and best ignored for the time being, and probably not some sort of "magic healing cylinder" as they had hoped.

Following a tunnel southwest from the cylinder-room, they came to an empty stone chamber. They began searching the walls - and Gutboy was startled to see a pair of stone eyes watching him from the wall. The eyes quickly receded back into the stone, but that was enough to spook the trio - they headed through another exit out of this room. Joyously, they found that they had reached the stairs up to the first level.

The trip out and back to Chelmsfordshire was uneventful - the few wandering monsters they met ignored the party entirely.

Back at Chelmsfordshire, they found that an entrepeneurial merchant named Fitzy had set up shop selling adventuring gear. They quizzed Fitzy for a bit, and discovered that their former henchman Slezgar, leader of the Excellent Elven Edventurers, had been flashing gold around, and more adventurers were heading towards Mt. Rendon, going through the forest and easily avoiding the Fist patrols. Gutboy told Fitzy to let him know if he saw Slezgar, and Fitzy quickly agreed.

At the sole Chelmsfordshire tavern, the Muddy Cup, they saw a few of the Unyielding Fist drinking away their salaries, and a pair of scruffy looking adventurer-types. The adventurer-types barely spoke to the even-scruffier looking trio, but after a round of drinks was purchased, the Fist got chatty. Gutboy asked for employment, and heard that a lieutenant in nearby Louisburgh was offering a 250 gp reward for information on a missing relative of a city councilmen.

Gutboy's lack of cash was beginning to cramp his style - so he began sizing up the barkeeper, wondering what kind of coin he might be hiding. Mongo and Netal talked him down, however, as the village was clearly no great source of wealth. They marched to Louisburgh instead, dreaming of the sweet reward they'd earn.

As they approached Louisburgh, the stench of rotting meat filled the air. Gagging, they went to the Pig's Bride Inn, and talked to Hulk, the proprietor, and learned the stench was caused by the nearby spinefruit orchards, and that the lieutenant they were looking for was named Armidon, stationed a few hovels down from the inn. They quickly dropped by for a visit, but failed to impress the lieutenant and his two men.

Armidon: "Well, look at this. As if this town doesn't smell bad enough already."
Gutboy: "Hi, we're here about the reward"
Armidon: "Oh, that's fantastic. Looks like we can all just pack up and head home now, a couple of hobos are going to do our job for us"
Gutboy: "So who's missing..."
Armidon: "Helmut Gargon. Some councilor's wife's cousin. Supposed to be coming up to check on the spinefruit. I could be down at the mountain where the action is, but no, some idiot has to get himself lost and now I'm stuck in this stinking hole."
Gutboy: "How much is the reward?"
Armidon: "Ha! Like you'll find him! I've been looking for three weeks, and you'll just march in and find this idiot. Get out of here already."

The party headed back to the Pig's Bride Inn, and began chatting up a well-to-do looking gentleman at the bar.

Fred: "Name's Fred Mebs. I grow spinefruits."
Gutboy: "Do you know Helmut Gargon?"
Fred: "No, can't say that I do."
Gutboy: "Does he own an orchard up here?"
Fred: "No, of course not! If he did, I'd know him. I already told you, never heard of the guy."
Gutboy: "So you've never seen him?"
Fred: "Like I said, no. Never seen him. What's this all about?"
Gutboy: "There's a reward for him. Say, do you have any work you need done?"
Fred (motioning them to a more private table): "It just so happens I do, quiet-like. See, what I need is bodies. I'll give you 10 gp per body."
Gutboy: "Well, how fresh?"
Fred: "Well, they just need to be a little juicy, that's all"
Gutboy: "So no mummies?"
Fred: "No! No! They need some juice in 'em. Don't want to know the details either. And don't bother heading to the cemetery, that's all emptied out."
Gutboy: "OK. 20 gp a body"
Fred: "No. I said 10, and I meant 10"
Gutboy: "How about goblins or morlocks?"
Fred: "Don't know what a morlock is, and there aren't any goblins round here, so I can't say how well they'd work. Tell you what, I'll give you 5 gp per goblin."

Gutboy chewed this over, and agreed on behalf of the party. They then quizzed the bartender a bit on who the local spinefruit farmers were, and got four names: Mebs, Ungol, "Sleazy" Phil Turner, and Darinius.

There was brief talk about stalking the nearby farms and killing peasants for their valuable corpses, but eventually they decided to follow up a few leads on Helmut's disappearance instead. The party headed out of town, and followed their noses towards the manor-houses in the orchards. They stopped first at the Ungol house, and asked Gar Ungol if he knew anything about Helmut - but Gar denied knowing him. They then headed towards the Turner house and knocked on the door.

"Sleazy" Phil: "Yeah?"
Gutboy: "Do you know anything about what happened to Helmut Gargon?"
Phil: "Who?"
Gutboy: "He went missing, he was coming up to check on the spinefruit harvest"
Phil: "Well, I can't say I know anything.. but... you might want to check out that Fred Mebs."
Gutboy: "Why?"
Phil: "Just a word to the wise. Mebs. and Ungol. Check out their orchards."

Gutboy thanked Phil, and the party headed to the last household - the Darinius manor. They knocked on the door, and were answered by a gruff man gripping a shotgun. Netal's eyes grewed wide as he stared at the shotgun. A fit of greed overtook him, and he began casting a sleep spell. Mr. Darinius, shocked, raised the shotgun and fired with both barrels, but missed and only took out chunks of his door. Netal completed his spell, and Darinius fell to the floor asleep. The party could hear running footsteps from somewhere in the house, so Netal grabbed the precious shotgun and the trio fled down the road.

They decided that it was too dangerous to stick around in Louisburgh, and headed back towards Denethix. Once they reached town, they had a few nasty surprises.

Netal headed back to the Tattered Heel, where he had a deal with the innkeeper for free lodging. When he got there, he found that the door was sealed with yellow crime scene tape, and a soldier of the Fist was standing guard outside. Written in blood on the front door were the words "WHERE'S KROGO?" - Krogo being a slave owned by Netal, who had died several sessions earlier.

Gutboy and Mongo headed back towards their apartment, and Mongo was shocked to see that his evil book, which he had left sitting in his chair, had mysteriously changed shape - it was now much smaller and had vile looking arcane symbols upon its cover. Gutboy, due to his basic literacy, recognized the horrifying symbols as being normal letters of the English alphabet, reading "Diary of Janet". He quickly paged through the diary - most of it was occupied with their neighbor Janet's unrequited love of her roommate Chrissie, but at the tail end it described going to the party at Mongo & Gutboy's, where she was very upset at Chrissie for running off with Gutboy, and she was fascinated by a strange comic book that Mongo had. After the party, it apparently occupied all her thoughts, until the last entry, where she wrote that she was going break into their apartment and take the book. After this entry, scrawled in a different hand, was a message: "MONGO, YOU ILLITERATE BUFFOON! I WARNED YOU, AND NOW YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!"

Mongo quickly figured out that the book had gotten sick of him not obeying the book's evil instructions, and had decided to target Janet instead. Mongo & Gutboy headed down to the landlord's apartment to discuss the break-in - but no one answered the door. Mongo smashed the door down, and they rushed inside, and found that the Ropers weren't there. Gutboy, broke and sensing opportunity, grabbed 140 gp in costume jewelry and ugly vases.

They then headed over to Jack, Janet, and Chrissie's apartment, and knocked on the door. Jack answered, but he hadn't seen the girls in two or three days - he couldn't remember exactly how long because he'd been on a bender.

They later hooked up with Netal, and shared their stories. Mongo headed down to speak to the Fist soldier at the Tattered Heel and ask what had happened.

Mongo: "So what happened here?"
Soldier: "Oh, wow, that was really gross. So get this, we hear about all this blood, and we're called down, you got this bloody message on the door, I go in, and there's blood everywhere. No body though. But! But! There's a brain sitting on the bar. Just a brain! We've seen it before, see, sometimes the Society of the Luminous Spark kidnaps a slaver, usually they just disappear, but sometimes the brain gets left behind. Weird. Don't know why they'd go to all that trouble, cutting out a brain and leaving it. This guy wasn't a slaver though. You know anything about this?"
Mongo: "Me? No, no, not me..."

And so our session ended, with new opportunities, new enemies, and a double-barreled shotgun.

The Little People

2011-11-29T19:26:00.001-05:00

Source: http://www.bookdwarf.com/?p=1108

Cyber Tuesday Sale

2011-11-29T09:12:00.000-05:00

Apparently the executives at Lulu didn't sell enough to pay for another solid gold jet airplane yesterday, so Cyber Monday has been extended into Cyber Tuesday. Enter CYBERTUESDAY305 at checkout for 30% off today!

Cyber Monday sale

2011-11-28T06:54:00.001-05:00

Lulu is having their Cyber Monday sale - 30% off! Which is the best sale I've seen out of Lulu since I've published with them. Today (Nov 28th) only. Enter this coupon code at checkout: CYBERMONDAY305

If that's not enticing enough, check out these reviews of the Anomalous Subsurface Environment:

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2011/06/review-anomalous-subsurface-environment.html
http://rpggeek.com/thread/700667/this-is-the-greatest-module-ever-published
http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=6498

Medical Mistake

2011-11-27T14:04:00.001-05:00

Medical Mistake
No. Enc: 1 (1)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 90' (30')
Armor Class: 4
Hit Dice: 4
Attacks: 6 tentacles
Damage: Restrain, plus single 1d8 bite
Save: F4
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: VII
XP: 190

The medical mistake is one of Dr. Giggles’ surgeries gone more wrong than usual. The doctor attempted to graft a cave squid, a snail, and a juvenile gill-man together. The resulting chimera survived, but quickly escaped from the absent-minded physician. The thing has grown enormously since its escape, feeding on patients while the doctor isn’t looking.

The mistake is a mass of tentacles surrounding a giant toothy fish-head, all sprouting from a snail foot. The body itself is 8’ in diameter, and its tentacles can stretch to 20’.

In combat, the mistake may lash out with up to six tentacles. Anyone hit by a tentacle will be captured unless they save vs. petrification. A new save may be made each round to escape. Opponents so restrained may not perform any actions other than attempting to break free.

Once each round, it will drag a captured opponent to its mouth and bite for 1d8 damage (automatically hitting). This bite may be performed on a newly-captured opponent.

Each tentacle has AC 7 and takes 6 points of damage to sever. The mistake has a total of 20 tentacles, although it may only use six at once (more than that is beyond its limited mental capacity).

The medical mistake’s treasure is found in its stomach, and consists of the non-digestible valuables its victims carried.

Insect-Men of the Lanthanide Wastes

2011-11-26T22:37:00.001-05:00

And here's a first draft of my other new Labyrinth Lord class, the Insect-Men. Their big shtick is being immune to most undead effects. Their downsides are a ridiculously bad reaction modifier, guaranteeing most civilized people will attack them on sight, a lack of magic armor, and a somewhat slower rate of advancement than fighters. In an undead-heavy campaign this thing would be pretty unbalanced, but I'm not real big on the undead, so the advantages aren't really that much in the ASE.

Insect-Men of the Lanthanide Wastes

Requirements: DEX 13
Prime Requisite: DEX
Hit Dice: 1d8
Maximum Level: 10

The insect-men are a nomadic people who roam the Lanthanide Wastes, riding upon giant gila monsters and hunting the human and dwarven fortune-seekers who trespass upon the desert landscape. Occasionally, an insect-man will become curious about the pale fleshy grub people and make its way to Denethix, where its inability to distinguish human children from tasty livestock inevitably leads to a brutal end for the adventurous bug.

Player character insect-men are of that rare breed that has managed to integrate themselves into the most despicable outcasts of human society: an adventuring party.

Physically, insect-men most resemble wingless praying mantises, and have six legs. They normally walk on the bottom four, and wield weapons and/or shields with their topmost legs. They can lift themselves upon just the bottom two legs, extending their height to 8’ tall, but the middle legs are not particularly dexterous and the creatures become prone to toppling over, so four-armed fighting is not practiced among the insect-men.

Insect-man mouthparts are quite capable of the extreme contortions necessary to reproduce human speech, and all insect man PC’s know the prevailing human language, in addition to their native language of clicks and chirps. Speaking the language does nothing for relations with the locals, however: insect-men suffer a reaction penalty of +3 when dealing with humans and demi-humans.

The insect-man does have certain advantages over more traditional classes. Their chitin exoskeleton means that their AC is never worse than 5, regardless of armor worn (if any). This is good, because human armor does not fit them, and finding an armorer willing to custom-manufacture a suit is difficult.

They are also immune to most undead effects other than physical damage – to the insect-man, a ghoul or wight is simply carrion on the move, and a ghost or wraith is entirely a human concern. The one exception is the mummy – mummy-rot is especially virulent in insect-men, and they lose an additional 1d4 hit points per day when under the effects of that disease.

All insect-men are immune to the effects (both beneficial and harmful) of lanthanides and hafnium. Other intoxicants behave normally upon the insect-man physiology.

Insect-men never exceed the tenth level of experience.

Insect-Man Level Progression
Experience	Level	Hit Dice (1d8)
0	1	1
2,500	2	2
5,000	3	3
10,000	4	4
20,000	5	5
40,000	6	6
80,000	7	7
160,000	8	8
320,000	9	9
480,000	10	+2 hp only *

* Hit point modifiers from constitution are ignored

Insect-Man Saving Throws
Level	Breath Attacks	Poison or Death	Petrify or Paralyze	Wands	Spells or Spell-like Devices
1-3	14	10	12	13	16
4-6	12	8	10	11	14
7-9	8	6	8	9	12
10	6	4	6	7	10

Insect-Man Attack Table
	Attack Value for Armor Class
Level	-6	-5	-4	-3	-2	-1	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1-2	20	20	20	20	20	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10
3	20	20	20	20	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9
4	20	20	20	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8
5	20	20	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7
6	20	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6
7-8	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5
9	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4
10	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3

Moktar

2011-11-26T16:09:00.001-05:00

This is the first draft of my Moktar class, designed to mesh in with Labyrinth Lord rules. Completely un-playtested of course. The idea here is to capture the buffoonish sidekick-ness of the moktar, while still allowing it to be strong in combat. So, it has a really low cap on dexterity, high strength, and an excellent "to hit table". Hit dice are crazy high for first level, 2d10. Saving throws are abysmal, except against poison. This ensures they can give out, and take, a solid beatdown, but are constantly getting themselves into trouble against wizards and the like.

I'm contemplating adding a "knockback" ability, which would allow a moktar to toss opponents away in a fit of rage if under attack by more than one. I think they might be tough enough already though.

Moktar

Requirements: STR 13
Prime Requisite: STR
Hit Dice: 1d10
Maximum Level: 8

Player character moktars are disturbed individuals who have decided to leave the comfort of the war-band to live among humankind.

All moktar PC’s understand the prevailing human tongue – but their jaw structure prevents them from speaking it. They can only communicate in the native moktar tongue, a language of roars. Likewise, while humans (and demi-humans) can speak moktarish, they are simply unable to enunciate the subtle differences in roaring that are essential to the moktar language.

Fellow player characters should be assumed to understand a moktar PC’s roars and wild gesticulations, but few NPC’s will have any grasp of the moktar’s intent. Moktar PC’s thus have a penalty of +2 on reaction rolls with non-moktars. The language barrier additionally means that moktars are unable to hire henchmen.

Moktars are not particularly agile to begin, and PC moktars (accustomed to living in comparatively cushy human cities) are even less so. Moktar characters thus have a maximum Dexterity of 8. Half of any discarded Dexterity points (round up) may be added to the character’s Strength score (up to a maximum of 18). These additional Strength points may be counted towards the minimum requirement of 13.

Due to their size and strength, moktar characters start with two hit dice (1d10) at level 1. Their thick hides ensure that their armor class is always at least 6, regardless of the type of armor worn (if any) or dexterity penalties.

Moktar Level Progression
Experience	Level	Hit Dice (1d10)
0	1	2
4,000	2	3
8,000	3	4
16,000	4	5
32,000	5	6
64,000	6	7
120,000	7	8
240,000	8	9

Moktar Saving Throws
Level	Breath Attacks	Poison or Death	Petrify or Paralyze	Wands	Spells or Spell-like Devices
1-3	16	8	14	14	16
4-6	14	6	12	12	14
7-8	12	4	10	10	12

Moktar Attack Table
	Attack Value for Armor Class
Level	-6	-5	-4	-3	-2	-1	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1	20	20	20	20	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9
2	20	20	20	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8
3	20	20	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7
4	20	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6
5	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5
6	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4
7-8	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T08:51:00.000-05:00

Among the many blessings I have to be thankful for this past year are all of you who've read this blog, left comments, purchased my module, and in other ways have made this funky little hobby a joy. Thank you so much.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Shaking up the Classes

2011-11-22T20:32:00.000-05:00

The campaign has been in progress for a year, and I feel like shaking things up a bit. P.W./Dick Dock's player needs to roll up a character, and Gutboy has a good chance of dying, so I'm making some changes to the house rules.

a. Any Basic or AD&D class is fair game, from any source. Unearthed Arcana, Oriental Adventures, the goofy ones from Dragon Magazine - it's all good. Death Masters, Anti-Paladins, Geisha, Duelists, it's all good. Only caveat here is I will rework the XP tables for any class so it's more in line with Labyrinth Lord. Stats will still be 3d6 in order, but players will be allowed to move points from stat to stat to make the minimums for a desired race or class.

b. I like variable weapon damage vs. size from AD&D, so I'm going to start using that too.

c. Not sure if I'm going to go for AD&D style hit dice (e.g. d10's for fighters) or reduce the dice used for the other classes

d. All spells are fair game for choosing wizard & cleric spells, from Unearthed Arcana or wherever.

e. I'm going to add Moktars and Insect People of the Lanthanide Wastes as playable races/classes. Now I need to stat those up.

The net effect, I hope, is to both up the gonzo factor, and to make character death more palatable. I am giving no consideration for balance - this isn't a video game. If somebody gets overpowered, great, enjoy it until you're dead. Then do something different.

PDFs are back on sale

2011-11-21T23:38:00.001-05:00

The PDF of ASE1 is back on sale! So all you hordes of disappointed shoppers may now indulge in your wildest capitalist urges and buy, buy, buy!

It's down to just the one definitely-licensed-correctly font. I got hung up trying to find out why MS Word + Ghostscript kept jamming Helvetica and Symbol into the file - it turns out that bulleted lists cause that problem. That's several hours of my life I'll never get back... but it's all good now.

If anyone has problems with the new PDF drop me an email and I'll get it sorted out for you, but my test downloads were flawless so I don't expect any issues.

PDF sales temporarily disabled

2011-11-16T20:20:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone,

I've temporarily disabled PDF sales (and map pack downloads), until I verify that the font usage is properly licensed. They'll be re-enabled in the next week or two while I make sure everything is on the up-and-up.

See the K&KA thread that prompted my withdrawal here: Digital Millenium Act of 1998; watch 'yer rears publishers

Hardcopies are still for sale via Lulu. There's a sale on currently, too, enter coupon code SECRET305 thru Friday and you'll get 50% off a second book.

Nearly a TPK...

2011-11-09T22:43:00.001-05:00

Nearly a TPK last night. Things that went wrong for the players:

a. The fight was lost before they entered the room. Because they walked into a room where they'd be surrounded by stuffed monkey-fish. How can they NOT be animated monsters? I think I know what went on - the players were completely focused on what to do with that 5' long gold T-Rex tongue and ignored my descriptions.

b. And yes, the tongue is also a trap. Come on! It's a gold tongue inside a T-Rex skull! How can it NOT bite you? Well they haven't triggered it yet, probably next session someone'll get chomped...

c. Once combat began, it went poorly from the first round, but the players refused to retreat until round 4, with almost everyone dead. How things were suddenly going to turn around after the henchmen started dropping, I don't know. The clerics (Leroy the henchman and Gutboy) went down with almost no use of their heal spells - Gutboy spent the entire combat fooling around with his pet dog, healing it and removing its muzzle, and then watching helplessly as it was gutted by Feejee mermaids.

They managed to pull out of it alive, but are in a really bad spot, though, as any wandering monster will probably take the lot of them out, unless Dr. Giggles saves Gutboy. That's a big "if", I've got a table of surgical results to write up now, most of them unpleasant. I didn't want to do it on the fly, and I hadn't written up the Dr. Giggles part of the dungeon yet, and it was late, so I ended the session on a cliffhanger.

I hope they get a bit more cautious in the next session... I want them to succeed, but I will slaughter their characters as the dice demand.

Session recap, 11/8/2011

2011-11-08T23:35:00.000-05:00

CAST
--------
Netal the Elf (2), and his slave Roger the Fighter
Mongo the Fighter (2), and his henchmen Leroy Brown the Cleric and Lorgar the Elf
Gutboy the Cleric (3), his henchman Serlo the Elf, and his dog Rufus

We left the party in the viewing chamber for the Bee Bearded Lady - who was reduced to a skeleton wearing an aluminum hexagonal mesh beard, on the opposite side of a thick wall of glass.

The party headed out and traveled further into the freak show, find a chamber with four doors - one of which appeared to lead into the other half of the Bee Bearded Lady's chamber. The door was locked, though, so the party investigated the other doors. A door to the northeast read "Feed the Geek", while a door to the southeast read "Observe the Geek." The party decided unanimously that feeding the geek would be a bad idea, and opted to observe. They sent Roger the slave through the door first - he found a room split in two by a wall of bars. On the opposite side of the bars, a horrible painted man with the tail and claws of a scorpion gnashed his teeth, trying to reach his stinger between the bars. Roger stayed well away, and was safe from the monster's attack.

The rest of the party entered, and proceeded through another door out into a hallway. They opened a door at the north end of the hall, and entered an oddly-shaped room with a stack of rusty iron cages along the south wall. Each cage held a subterranean locust, 3' long. Mongo surmised they were food for the Geek.

They had Roger open a door to the southeast - briefly, a room with a half dozen monitors was revealed, the monitors showing views of various rooms in the dungeon, some of which the party had just walked through. Six Painted Men were observing the monitors. One of them ran at the door, shouting "EMPLOYEES ONLY!" and slammed it shut in Roger's face.

There was a brief argument about whether to kill the Painted Men - Gutboy was afraid that the other Painted Men would kill them in retribution, while Netal and Mongo were irate about being observed by the clowns and wanted them dead. Gutboy's argument won out, and the party moved further into the freak show.

The next room they entered held the skull of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Inside the skull was a 5' long tongue, sculpted from solid gold. To the south of it was a large tapestry, depicting dinosaurs wallowing in a swamp - rather than a sky above the swamp, a stalactite-covered cavern ceiling was woven instead. There was another tapestry to the west, but apparently they were looking at the back side of it, as it was a featureless muddled gray.

Another argument ensued, about whether the party could successfully smuggle the tongue past the clowns. They feared the clowns exacting retribution for its theft, and decided to leave it alone for the time being, and scout around for a back way out of the dungeon. So they sent Roger to investigate behind the curtain - he saw another door to the west, and walls covered with shelves, on which rested eleven withered figures - the upper halves of chimps sewn onto the lower halves of fish. The party then had Roger check behind the dinosaur tapestry, and found a door heading south.

They decided that heading west was a better bet, and went back to the room with the eleven Feejee Mermaids. As they reached the center of the room, the mermaids came to life and flopped down onto the ground, advancing on the party with bared fangs. The party got in a few hits, but went down one by one under the onslaught of the mermaids. A few were killed, crushed into dried skin and sawdust stuffing, but eventually only Netal and Mongo were left standing.

Netal and Mongo ran out of the room - Mongo moving slowly, letting the slow-moving mermaids stay within sight of him, and Netal running as fast as he could, trying to find a back entrance into the mermaid room so he could rescue his unconscious companions. Eventually he did, rushing through a hexagonally-shaped room with a stone giant laid out upon a tall table, and bandaged Gutboy's wounds as best he could. Sadly, he was too late for the rest of the party - they were dead.

Mongo eventually caught up, slamming doors behind as he ran, and apparently losing the pursuing mermaids. They recovered a few weapons from their slain henchmen, and retreated to the room with the stone giant as the tapestry began to show movement - the mermaids must certainly have been returning from their failed pursuit. Mongo spiked the door shut, and the two returned to the giant chamber with the carnival midway, hoping to sneak out.

The party walked around the big top, taking the most direct route to the entrance possible, walking past several Painted Men who pointed and laughed at them - but were stopped at the dais by the carnival barker.

Carnival Barker: Leaving so soon? After all this trouble we've been to, it would be a shame to miss the show
Netal: I think we need to be going, our friend's in trouble.
Carnival Barker: Nothing like the trouble there's going to be if you don't attend the show. I suggest you enjoy some of the attractions on the midway. Looks like you've been enjoying them quite a bit already.
Netal: Do you know a doctor?
Carnival Barker: Oh, there's Dr. Giggles... but that's going to have to wait until after the show.

Sensing the undercurrent of menace, the pair retrated back around the midway. They checked out a few of the tents as they went - a shell game didn't interest them, but a shoot-the-skull-with-the-crossbow game attracted Netal's attention. He paid 10 gp, and fired three shots from the crossbow the Painted Man behind the counter handed him. All three shots hit, and the Painted Man handed Netal a bloodstained kewpie doll.

Painted Man: Three shots! Big winner!
Netal: Does it have any special powers?
Painted Man: Yes, it's cute! Very cute!

The duo gave the "Ring the Bell" game a pass, avoiding the snarling beefcake Painted Man and his big rubber mallet, and passed a door with a sign reading "Emergency Exit", nestled between the tent and the entrance to the freak show. The two casually slipped through the door, finding themselves in a room with yet another tapestry, this one showing smiling children enjoying a circus. They ignored the tapestry and followed a corridor west, eventually reaching a bronze portcullis guarded by two Painted Men. The guards were delighted to see visitors.

Painted Man: Strangers! Welcome! You see show?
Netal: Yes, we're just going to step out for a bit.
Painted Man: You come back and see show!

The painted men happily wheeled up the winch and wished the two well, and they headed deeper into the dungeon, dragging the unconscious Gutboy behind them. They followed twisting corridors and chose random directions at intersection, and eventually ended up at a sign reading "Dr. Giggles - Welcome to Our New Office." Following the arrow on the sign, they came to another door marked "Receptionist." They entered within, and found a doctor's waiting room. There were chairs arranged around the room, with a coffee table holding an assortment of magazines. A troglodyte in a white nurse's uniform sat behind a desk.

Nurse: Do you have an appointment? hisss
Mongo: No, we're walk-ins
Nurse: Any insurance? hisss
Mongo: Uhhh... no.... blue shield?
Nurse: No blue shield. hiss... We take Miami Mutual. hiss.
Mongo: No, do you take cash?
Nurse: Always take cash. hiss.... Better anyways, avoid co-pays. hiss. Wait here for doctor.

The nurse then hummed tunelessly for a few minutes, and then got up and opened the door behind it, announcing "Patients, Dr. Giggle!" A painted man in a white doctor's coat entered the room, a surgical mask dangling around his throat. The doctor spoke in an incredibly well-educated voice.

Dr. Giggles (rushing over to examine Gutboy): Goodness! That man needs immediate medical attention! It's a good thing you brought him here!
Netal: How much is this going to cost?
Dr. Giggles: Money? How can you think of money when a man is dying? How mercenary! Nurse, help me get him into the O.R.!

The troglodyte grabbed Gutboy's feet while Dr. Giggles lifted Gutboy by his armpits, and they quickly hauled him through a door into the O.R. The nurse stepped back through and told the two to "wait here, he in good hands now, hisss...." Realizing that they had just let strange monsters take their bosom comrade, Mongo and Gutboy insisted on seeing the operation. The nurse agreed, and admitted them to the O.R., advising them to stand in a corner out of the way. Dr. Giggles stood over Gutboy's unconscious body, scalpel in hand, with two Painted Men in nurse's uniforms assisting him.

And here we halted - you'll have to wait til next session to find out the results of the operation.

Hitler Must Die

2011-11-07T07:28:00.000-05:00

I don't have enough stupid in the dungeon yet.

a. Subsurface Circus
b. Miami
c. Dracula

So... here's something for the ninth level. Near the 9th level entrance, past the cave kraken that's been chewing on all those poor soldiers of the Unyielding Fist, there's a hangar, containing a single Avro Lancaster bomber. Everything is in perfect condition - all the rubber parts are pliable, the fuel is fresh, etc. There is also a manila envelope marked TOP SECRET, containing orders for the missing crew - to destroy the Nazi Time Ray before it can be used to modify history. Location: Hitler's Bunker.

If the plane is wheeled out of the dungeon and the airstrip outside the 9th level entrance cleared, it can be flown off - where it will instantly pass through a time portal back to 1943, over Berlin, and presumably be shot down. The Nazis will be unsure of the effects of their Time Ray since the plane only disappeared for a moment, and will send a bunch of SS thugs to capture and interrogate the crew. From there, the players must fight their way back to the Time Ray and defeat Hitler to return home. Or whatever else they want to do. Maybe find Glenn Miller and join the band? Who knows...

The circus is going over very well - I was wondering if the players would rebel at the sheer ridiculousness of an underground carnival. They're actually quite enthusiastic, and paranoid about the massive numbers of Painted Men turning on them unexpectedly, so it's working out exactly as I had hoped. Given that success, it's full steam ahead on my other stupid ideas.

Another Christianity and D&D post

2011-11-01T23:59:00.001-04:00

This is another Christianity and D&D post. There were a bunch last week, and I thought about posting something, didn't because my thoughts were muddled, and then bam! power outage. So it's coming in a bit late for that discussion. If you're not interested, no worries, I'll be back to gonzo D&D adventure in the next post - this is a content-based blog after all, non-content bits like this are almost nonexistent, so please forgive me this exception.

Nevertheless, in my recent "my players are evil!" post, I described some of the characters' interesting "developments". As I've been DM'ing the world, I've been trying to be a purely neutral arbiter, letting the players determine the story and simply presenting a sandbox. Those of you who've read ASE1 know it's a really bleak environment, but with a spark of hope. The city of Denethix is ushering in a human renaissance in the midst of sorcerous tyranny. My basically cynical world-view is that we are all brutal savages, and you don't have to look beyond the mirror to find the most horrifying monsters imaginable - and it is only through our seeking of God that we rise above our animal nature. The campaign setting is a reflection of this world-view, tempered with humor, as the human situation can be ridiculous in so many ways.

From a PC's point of view, there's not a lot of immediate consequence for bad behavior. I let things slide, because the players' actions are the same as the populace at large - self-serving and manipulative. Of course, I don't intend this to be a condemnation of my players - they view the NPC's in the game as pawns on a chessboard, and there's no moral consequence to sacrificing pawns. So Roger the Slave is the door opener, Chrissie & Janet are fair game if it means leveling up...

But I worry that I'm creating a moral cesspool out of the game. I do not want to codify bad behavior. There's no huge moral consequence - none of my players are going to murder anybody, for instance. It's all make believe, and a really fun Vancian story is emerging. On the other hand, playing out behaviors like this is, I believe, morally corrosive. It conditions a person to be a bit more callous (just a bit!), and from there it's a bit easier to be just a bit more callous than that... So it's a lot of little moral consequences instead of a great big one.

So how do I reconcile Vancian fun with creeping moral corrosion?

I believe that I have failed my players here in not having consequences for bad behavior. The real world permits evil men to continue in their evil ways, but make-believe-land doesn't have to operate that way. The villains are villainous only so far as I permit them, and likewise there's no reason I have to create an environment where immoral actions are implicitly encouraged through lack of consequence. So, a few of my dilemmas and how I plan to address them:

a. The Evil Book. I introduced a magic book on a lark, rolled some dice, and decided it was an Evil Book. So I had it trying to tempt Mongo into doing evil things. It's led to a few laughs, but in the end I'm not interested in actually tempting Mongo. So I've changed the book slightly so that it is demanding socially unacceptable behaviors - there's no way Mongo is going to be killing his fellow players. I've also made it more threatening, so there's no mistaking Evil Book for a potential asset.

b. Purchasing Slaves. There's a whole Society of the Luminous Spark dedicated to violently murdering slave-owners, a la John Brown. When I put the setting together, I wanted some opportunity for interesting moral dilemmas between law-abiding slavers and cruel, violent abolitionist terrorists. No non-violent resistance here, only two very nasty groups of people going at it. When Netal gets out of the dungeon, he's going to find that the Society has taken an interest, and there's going to be consequences for the slaving going on.

As for encouraging good behavior, there would have to be some good behavior to reward first... this would easier to play out in city adventures, but I'm all about the dungeon, so unless the players are going out of their way I try to get the city bits done as fast as possible. The dungeon, of course, is not an opportunity for rampant good deeds- it's an opportunity to try to figure out all my death traps and get the gold. Maybe when the players reach Under-Miami there will be some opportunity for do-goodery.
So that's where I'm at. I'm fairly sure this post has been rambling and semi-incoherent, but I am trying to work through the moral repercussions of my DM'ing style, and if anyone has any advice I'd love to hear it. It's possibly also useful for the non-Christians in the audience to understand at least one Christian's perspective (and please do not take it as even a correct perspective - I have many failings and I am likely blowing it big time here, theologically).

God bless you all!

Session recap, 10/27/2011

2011-11-01T22:35:00.002-04:00

CAST
--------
Netal the Elf (2), and his slave Roger the Fighter
Mongo the Fighter (2), and his henchmen Leroy Brown the Cleric and Lorgar the Elf
Gutboy the Cleric (3), his henchman Serlo the Elf, and his dog Rufus

The morning started off, as it typically does, with Mongo consulting his evil book. The cartoons within were arranged in a flowchart - the first panel depicted Mongo reading the evil book, with a cartoon that had Mongo killing Netal, Gutboy, Janet, and Chrissie. Arrows leading off in one direction showed further panels where Mongo killed his friends and neighbors, and was rewarded with piles of gold and a bevy of beautiful naked women. Arrows leading off in the other direction showed panels where Mongo gave his friends and neighbors big hugs, went to bed, and then was found in the morning chopped into little pieces, with the evil book sitting in a big pool of his blood.

Mongo thought about a bit, and decided he'd split the difference by not hugging Netal or Gutboy. Hoping that not-hugging was enough to satisfy the evil book, he headed off to buy some replacement plate mail at the Bazaar Incomparable.

After shopping was complete, the party gathered up their henchmen and headed off to the border village of Chelmsfordshire. Once there, Gutboy checked out the shrine to Nisus - it had been trampled into the dirt by pigs. Enraged, he sought out the dirt farmers he had brought around to the worship of Nisus, and found them getting drunk at the Pig's Bride.

Gutboy: "Have you seen the shrine? It's in horrible condition! Who was supposed to be watching it?"
Drunks: "Uhhh.... aren't you the priest?"
Gutboy (remembering he is, in fact, the official priest of Chelmsfordshire): "I left you in charge! Get out there and clean up that shrine! Now!"

Grumbling, the farmers went off to restore the shrine to its former wormy glory. After they left, a soldier of the Unyielding Fist approached Gutboy.

Soldier: "Father, can you bless us? We need all the help we can get in that horrible pit under the mountain!"
Gutboy: "What's going on? Have you been inside?"
Soldier: "We don't go in there anymore! But things keep coming out to kill us, so we're walling the hole up"
Gutboy: "Really? What's coming out?"
Soldier: "Tentacles, all we see are tentacles, they're dragging us into the darkness."
Gutboy: "So nobody's going down there?"
Soldier: "No, we're going to deny the place to any wizards who go poking around. It's all getting walled up. But you remember the lights that were shining? There was one, higher up the mountain, by a collapsed tunnel, and some idiot's digging it up. Must be related to somebody on the Council, we're ordered not to interfere. You know how it is."
Gutboy: "Yes, of course."
Soldier: "So can we have a blessing?"
Gutboy: "Yes, tomorrow morning we'll have a village-wide service."

Gutboy decided he was in dire need of funds, and figured passing the hat was an excellent way to raise some much-needed cash. At the service the next day, he gave a rousing sermon about the necessity of obeying the gods, particularly Nisus, and how she would protect farmers and soldiers alike. This done, he passed a bucket around, urging people to give - but this only incensed the crowd, who began taunting Gutboy as a worthless money-grubber. The bucket came back with only a measly 4 gp.

The party decided it was high time to head to Mount Rendon and the dungeon, so they quickly purchased five pigs, and headed into the wilderness. On the way there, they were surprised by a dozen musclebound doberman-headed men, wearing only loincloths and sandals, and wielding wicked scimitars. The dog-headed men growled, and demanded that the party empty their bags and give them all their money, and told them that "Canus would hear of it!" if they didn't comply.

Gutboy tried to convince the dog-headed men to join them in an adventure underground and gain great treasure, but the men only laughed, explaining that they'd just take whatever treasure he found when he came back out. Negotiations quickly broke down, sleep spells were cast, and battle ensued - the party came out victorious, and kept one of the dog-headed-men alive, slitting the throats of the other sleepers.

The party headed into the dungeon, and went straight to the morlock's lair. Mongo argued for slaughtering the morlocks and taking their stuff, but Gutboy was opposed, finding them to be valuable allies. Inertia won the day, and the party decided to just hand the pigs and the dog-headed-man over to the morlocks as a gesture of goodwill.

Knocking on the door to the lair, a lone morlock answered, and his jaw dropped in delight as he surveyed the pigs and dog-man. "Pigs! And people! Delicious!" he exclaimed, taking a quick bite out of the whimpering humanoid. He quickly called for help, and a half dozen more morlocks appeared to help drag the meaty bounty into their lair. There were squeals and whimpers of pain as the morlocks nibbled at their prizes while dragging them into the darkness.

The party decided to see what the morlocks were up to, and followed them inside the lair - the fiends were too excited to notice the party was behind them. They came into a large chamber, with a massive demonic idol in the corner, with several rotting hearts impaled on its forehead-horn, and holding a great gold bowl in its lap. Stacked next to a stew-pot were several human-looking arms and legs.

As the party entered, Chief Gribnel, leader of the morlocks, emerged from a room to the south. He had a silver circlet on his forehead, and an ivory brooch pinned through his bare chest, and wore two keys on a leather thong tied around his neck. He saw the many pigs, the dog-faced-man, and the party, and his face broke out in a wide smile.

Gribnel: "Mongos bring much food! We feast! Mongos must stay and eat with us!"
Gutboy: "Could we stay overnight? We could use some rest"
Gribnel: "Yes! I give you one of my women tonight! You take her, she the ugliest, I don't miss her!"
Gutboy: "So what are those arms?"
Gribnel: "They make sign, how you say? Eeeee's?"
Mongo: "Excellent Elven Edventurers?"
Gribnel: "Yes. No problem?"
Gutboy: "No, no problem!"

Gribnel walked over to the dog-faced man. "You want piece of him? He looks delicious!" The party mumbled a bit and said they'd prefer the pigs, and the chief merely shrugged as he pulled out a knife and decapitated the whining dog-man. "More for me!"

The party had an excellent meal of boiled pork, and bedded down among the moldy rags the morlocks used for sleeping. Gutboy made use of his complimentary morlock woman as a pillow, but declined to take things any farther. When they awoke, the cook fires had burned low, and the elves in the felt their minds refreshed and ready to re-learn their sleep spells.

They bid the morlocks farewell, and headed to the stairs they had discovered during the last foray into the dungeon, leading down to the second level. They returned to the room where the gray slime had attacked and destroyed Mongo's armor, and found a humanoid poking around in the puddle in the center of the room. The creature had rainbow-colored matted hair, and was dressed in a motley of dyed skins. Gutboy shouted "Hello!", and the thing turned - its skin was ghost-white, and its mouth had massive red lips and was filled with pointed fangs. Clearly, they had stumbled upon one of the Painted Men the morlocks had warned them about.

Painted Man: "Strangers! Customers! You must come with me! Come!"
Gutboy: "Come where?"
Painted Man: "So exciting! Exciting! So long since new people come! You must come to our circus!"
All: "Wha????"

The party argued a bit among themselves, and decided to chance following this freakish clown-monster and see what it was talking about. The monster led them to a room with a large tapestry, with the words "Anomalous Subsurface Cirus Ahead! Family Fun for All Ages!" embroidered onto it. Large arrows on the tapestry pointed towards a slit in its middle, and in front of the tapestry stood a wooden lectern. The lectern had no visible shelves in its solid square body, so the party followed the clown through the slit.

Beyond the tapestry was a room with a second Painted Man. This clown was a sleep, til the first kicked him awake. He looked surprised to see the party, and began jumping up and down excitedly. "Ticket! Ticket!" he shouted, as the first clown ran past and out of the room shouting "Visitors! Customers!" Gutboy explained they had no tickets, and the clown switched to shouting "Gold! One gold!"

The party dutifully handed over 1 gp per member, and walked past the ticket-taker into an enormous room, nearly 200' across. Occuping most of the room was a geodesic dome made of multi-colored acrylic triangles. Surrounding the dome were booths with various midway games and concession stands, and nearby was a stone dais, atop which stood a "normal" human. The man wore a straw boater's hat, a red tailcoat, and a pinstripe suit made from dyed face-skins, and carried a cane in one hand. The man approached the party, and began to talk rapidly.

Carnival barker: "What amazing wisdom you've shown in choosing to visit the greatest circus under the ground! Step right up for the amazing acts..."
Gutboy: "Is there cotton candy ?!?"
Barker: "Why yes, there is, at the concession stand..."
Gutboy: "Where? Where?"
Barker: "Just on the other side of the dome, right over there! Visit all the exciting games of the midway, and don't forget the show, starting in only ONE HOUR! See the Amazing Bundini Twins DEFY GRAVITY! Watch the lion wrestlers tame the savage beasts with their BARE HANDS!"
Gutboy: "To the concession stand!"

In the background, dozens of Painted Men hurried about, opening the tents and stands along the midway and rushing into and out of the great geodesic dome. The party quickly made their way to the promised concession stand, where they found a painted man just finishing the set-up of his booth.

Gutboy: "What have you got?"
Painted Man: "Fire beetle glands! On stick!" (holding out a skewer of freshly-fried still-glowing glands)
Gutboy: "I need cotton candy!"

The Painted Man handed Gutboy a stick covered with tightly-wound gray strands of what might be some sort of subterranean candy. He took a small strand and tasted it, finding that it stuck to his fingers and lips tightly - in fact, he could no longer open his mouth at all.

Gutboy: "Mmmmph!"
Painted Man: "Sticky! Yes! From spiders!"

Gutboy borrowed a knife from his fellows to cut away the spider-silk that masqueraded as delicious cotton candy, badly slicing his lips up in the process. The painted man offered up other goodies - "Baked people feet! Bucket o' entrails!" - but there were no takers. They bid farewall to the greasy, grotesque foods of the stand and picked another tent at random.

Inside this second tent they found an unattended fortune-telling machine. The machine was a wooden box, on top of which sat the carved and painted upper torso of gypsy woman. The box had a coin slot, and small plaque reading "10 gp". Netal ordered his slave Roger to deposit 10 gp, and Roger dutifully obeyed. A mechanical voice sounded from within the box: "Ask your question"

Netal quickly asked, "Are the clowns going to try to kill us?". The mechanical voice replied "Probably eventually, but in the meantime, enjoy the show." As it finished its answer, the "10 gp" plaque withdrew and was replaced with a "100 gp" plaque. The party made mental note of this divination machine, and vowed to leave before the show finished.

As there was still time to kill before the circus began, they picked a door at random, and found it bore a sign reading "The Amazing Subsurface Freak Show." They had Roger open the door - the room beyond was empty, with nothing but empty shelves and two more doors. One door had "Bee Bearded Lady" written upon it, and the other was marked "More Exhibits This Way!"

The party decided to view the Bee Bearded Lady, and had Roger once again open the door. Behind the door was an irregularly shaped room, divided in the middle by a wall of thick glass. On the other side of the glass, the party saw another door, and a skeleton sprawled on the ground. The skeleton had a "beard" of aluminum hexagon-shaped mesh loosely hanging from its skull.

And here we ran out of time - further exploration of the Subsurface Freak Show will have to wait til the next session.

My players are turning eeeevil

2011-10-24T22:39:00.000-04:00

So my players are turning eeeeeeevil. Mongo contemplates murdering his neighbors for the prospect of gold sandwiches and a higher level (me: "How could you kill Chrissie & Janet?" Mongo's player: "I hated that show!"), and Netal's player finds that purchasing slaves is a lot easier than making reaction rolls and hiring henchmen the old-fashioned way.

Of course this stuff is going to bite them on the ass. That's slave #2 owned by Netal, so he's bound to attract the attention of the Society of the Luminous Spark. I'll start laying that groundwork in this Thursday's session.

Mongo's player is upping the ante with the book after my lecture on character lifespans - given that Mongo could die on any given expedition, he wants to go "all in" on the book. It's about time to put a bit more threat into the evil book, so far it's been comic relief. Well, it will probably continue to be comic relief, but with more nasty consequences.

I've written (in crappy draft form admittedly) a large chunk of level 2 now, so it should wrap up soon. Which is good - the players are going to hit third level very soon, which means they'll be heading deeper. Probably without having explored too much of the 2nd level. That's fine, the essence of the megadungeon is its scale, you're not supposed to go to every single room on every single level. Not that my OCD players don't give their best effort...

Session recap, 10/13/2011

2011-10-17T22:27:00.002-04:00

CAST
--------
Netal the Elf (2), and his slave Roger the Fighter
Mongo the Fighter (2), and his henchmen Leroy Brown the Cleric and Lorgar the Elf

Mongo awoke from a fine night's sleep, and decided to consult his decidedly evil book, because what harm could come of that? He flipped it open, and viewed the comics within - they depicted Mongo cutting the heads off his neighbors Chrissie and Janet, and mounting them on spikes. The stick figure Mongo was rewarded with a pair of sandwiches. Disappointed, Mongo flipped the page - and it was revealed that the sandwiches were made of solid gold, probably worth 2,000 gp combined. Mongo began hatching a murderous plan, involving a picnic basket, and resolved he should carry his book around everywhere with him, so he could always get sound advice on what to do next.

The day continued, as it often does, with a search for new henchmen. Netal, ever pragmatic, decided purchasing a henchman was much more efficient than an extended interview process, and so headed to the Street of Tormented Flesh. He accosted a green-masked slaver in the street:

Netal: "I'm looking to buy a slave"
Slaver: "Of course you are! A pleasure slave, perhaps?"
Netal: "I need someone who can open doors."
Slaver: "Right... you're going to need to be more specific. Young, old, male, female?"
Netal: "Someone young. Male."
Slaver: "Ahh! I was right! A pleasure slave!"
Netal: "No, someone who's strong, and likes adventure."
Slaver: "Now I'm not following you"
Netal: "How about one of those pit fighters?"
Slaver: "That I can do! What rank are you looking for? I have many newly trained, unranked fighters, or perhaps a second-tier fighter?"
Netal: "How much?"
Slaver: "My first ranks are only 150 gp. 1000 gp will get you a second rank... and I see by the look on your face I needn't go any further."
Netal: "Let's take a look at your first ranks"

The slaver led Netal to a basement "stable", with a half-dozen barred cells. Most of the pit fighters within snarled nastily at Netal, shouting obscenities until they were beaten into quietude. One lad, however, seemed somewhat chipper.

Slave: "Oh, hello there! I'm quite looking forward to actually getting out of this cell and doing something. Didn't think it would be quite so nasty when I sold myself, but the family certainly needed the money!"
Netal: "What's his name?"
Slaver: "Your choice. We beat the names out of them during training. He doesn't have any rank in the pits yet, so you get to choose"
Netal: (dead silence for quite some time)
Slaver: "Sir? Are you feeling all right?"
Netal: "I'm trying to think of a name. Roger."
Slaver: "An excellent choice. That'll be 150 gp."

A quick trip to the Bazaar Incomparable was taken, and Roger was equipped with a two-handed sword and some armor.

Mongo also keenly felt the loss of Jimgar, and decided to hire a replacement elf. He wandered the bars of the Street of the Alien, and eventually came across a goateed young elf who expressed an interest in the adventuring life.

Mongo: "Anybody want adventure?"
Lorgar (stroking his goatee): "Good sir! Does this involve crawling into deep holes far underground?"
Mongo: "Yes! Lots of deep holes!"
Lorgar: "That's absolutely fantastic! I've been looking for just such an opportunity to explore dangerous caves for little to no pay!"
Mongo: "You're hired! Do you know spells?"
Lorgar: "Of course! I am a master of the arcane energies that are more commonly called 'magic missiles'"
Mongo: "Great! What's your name?"
Lorgar: "I am Lorgar"
Mongo: "What's with the gar? And why doesn't Netal's name end with gar?"
Lorgar: "That is odd. Netal, you say? Strange name. His parents must not have liked him."

More shopping commended, and Lorgar was equipped with sword and armor, and Mongo found a picnic basket salesman. The hiring and purchasing completed, Netal, Mongo, and their retinue headed into the wilderness towards Mt. Rendon and the dungeon.

As they climbed the slopes of Mt. Rendon, they came around an outcropping of rock and were dismayed to find a clearing, with a gigantic floating stone head in it, 20' tall. In front of the stone head stood a robed man with a beard and moustache drawn in ink upon his hairless face. He was directing a group of nearly a dozen men in red diapers, armed with rifles. The robed man, clearly a wizard, shouted "Who is this who dares interrupt me?"

Netal and Mongo responded by running away as fast as they could, their crew bravely running behind in abject panic. The wizard and his henchmen did not pursue - and after an hour or so the stone head was seen in the sky, flying away from the mountain. The party cautiously made their way up to the dungeon, taking a different route, and avoided any further danger.

Once in the dungeon, Mongo and Netal examined their map of level 1, and began systematically exploring the few unmapped areas. They noticed the letters "EEE" painted on the walls in a few spots. Mongo asked the henchmen if they had any idea what that meant, and Lorgar piped up - it stood for "Excellent Elven Edventurers," an adventuring company recently put together by an elf named Slezgar. Mongo recognized the name - it was one of Gutboy's former henchmen, who had quit a few months ago.

During this anal-retentive mapping, they ran into some strange sponge-bodied multilegged horned monsters, that gored Leroy and Mongo. Leroy prayed for healing, and his wounds miraculously closed up. The party then holed up in a room overnight, spiking the door shut, so that Leroy could meditate and regain his ability to access divine powers. The night was frightful, with creatures scratching at the doors all night, and eventually a party of morlocks forced their way in - but they recognized Mongo.

Mongo: "What you doing here?"
Morlocks: "Stuff"
Mongo: "Stuff? Huh. Can I help?"
Morlocks: "No, we got it"
Mongo: "Can I visit your home some time?"
Morlocks: "No, no, we're busy. Very busy."
Mongo: "You guys are always busy. What are you doing?"
Morlocks: "Stuff."
Mongo: "Do you know about the EEE sign?"
Morlocks: "Oh yeah, other not-mongos. They make sign."
Mongo: "Did you eat them?"
Morlocks: "Maybe... maybe not..."
Mongo: "Because it's OK if you did"
Morlocks: "Well we go now. Take yummy people with us?"
Mongo: "No! Maybe later. Pigs."
Morlocks: "OK, bye"

This exchange over, the party moved to a different room, and barricaded themselves within. The scratchings at the door continued, along with occasional voices - and eventually the door was beaten down once again by the morlocks.

Morlocks: "You here too?"
Mongo: "Yes, we rest here"
Morlocks: "OK, bye. Leave mark or something, we not bother you."

The party did eventually make it through the night, with Leroy having regained his divinely-inspired healing ability. He immediately used it on Mongo, and the party explored some new territory in the southwest corner of the dungeon. Beyond a door they found a room that opened onto an abyss, the bottom far below in the darkness. A bridge of strange gray shell-strips, tied by leather to stainless steel wire, extended over the abyss. The party carefully made their way to the other side, and there was another tunnel beyond, which led to a long flight of stairs leading deeper into the dungeon.

At the bottom of the stairs they entered a 50'x50' room, with eight exits. The room was full of filth, and covered with foot prints. Mongo consulted his book of profound evil, and the pictures within revealed a stick figure Mongo mounting the heads of Chrissie, Janet, Jack, the Ropers, Leroy, and Lorgar around the room. The stick figure Mongo was rewarded with a sense of a job well done, apparently, as he proudly surveyed the carnage - this wasn't nearly enough to tempt Mongo into mass murder, however.

Netal randomly chose the southwest corridor, and the party entered a damp room, with a leak in the ceiling dripping filthy water into a dirty puddle on the floor. There was a door on the opposite side of the room. Mongo made his way around the puddle, but as he did so a horrible thing of gray slime swept forth from the puddle, slapping at Mongo's armored chest with a pseudopod.

The party surrounded the creature, hacking away with swords, and eventually cut it to ribbons - but Mongo's armor was bubbling and dissolving away. The creature's pseudopod had left an acidic slime that was rapidly destroying the plate. Mongo stripped it off as fast as he could. Feeling vulnerable, Mongo and Netal decided to evacuate the dungeon and re-equip.

New OSR stuff!

2011-10-06T23:12:00.000-04:00

Got a bunch of new OSR stuff. I ordered the Tome of Horrors months ago, but the rest was ordered this week. Note the original cover art on Spire of Iron & Crystal.

PC suicide

2011-09-29T22:22:00.001-04:00

So Dick Dock's player got pissed off when he was wasted by a giant robot for thought-crimes. The exchange went something like this:

1. Dick Dock states "Bank Inviolable? That sounds like a challenge!"
2. I describe big doors, giant gold robots
3. D.D.: "I'm scoping them out"
4. I describe the mini-guns spinning up
5. Me: "What are you doing?" D.D. "I'm checking out the robots"
6. I describe crowds screaming and running away.
7. Most other players describe running away and hiding
8. Me: "What are you doing?"
9. D.D.: "Looking at the robots"
10. I start counting down slowly from 5 to 1
11. Remaining players state they are fleeing
12. D.D.: "But I'm not doing anything!"
13. Me: "What's your AC? You're hit, red mist, etc etc"

At the time I had no idea what that was all about. There wasn't any need for PC death there... I figured I'd let the mind-reading robots be a bit slow to fire and the thief, looking for ways to rob the place, can run off. But he just stood there.

So my theories:

a. Maybe he wasn't in the mood to put up with crap from NPC's. That's happened before with him, and it gets him into trouble. At first level you're not going to be pushing anybody around.
b. Maybe he felt like I was dicking with him on purpose. Of course it's all published, just going by the material I wrote months ago. Giant mind-reading psycho-killer robots in the bank.
c. Maybe he felt like there shouldn't be danger just walking into a bank, and that the home town should be safe
d. Maybe he perceived it as a contest of wills? If so I missed that entirely at the time
e. Maybe something else?

I have had players get seriously bummed out on PC death before. I'm not fudging dice, though - while it's nice to see the players succeed, if there's no penalty for failure what's the point?

This death was more like a PC suicide though.

I expect he'll be back at the next session - I'll know in 2 weeks.

The party also finally got the bug back for the sacrifice, so I tossed in some more gods stealing Nisus' thunder at the ceremony and bitching at Gutboy for wasting his time with such a minor goddess. It's been 2 months or so of attempts to get that bug, I'm glad they're done with that.

The return expedition foundered almost immediately, with the giant centipede fight. Mongo was taken out entirely for a 10 day stretch. So much for a triumphant return to the dungeon. I'm hoping they'll notice that the first level is a bit treasure-empty and head down to the lower levels. No risk, no reward, people...

I almost introduced Dr. X - they went to see the doctor at the academy, so I rolled some dice. 1-2=good doctor, 3-4=incompetent hack, 5-6=Dr. X. The dice were good to them, and they got the good doctor - cranky Dr. Howse.

Session recap, 9/27/2011

2011-09-28T22:05:00.003-04:00

CAST
--------
Netal the Elf (2)
Gutboy Barrellhouse the Cleric (3), his dog Rufus, and his henchman Serlo the Elf
Mongo the Fighter (2), and his henchmen Leroy Brown the Cleric
Richard "Dick" Dock the Thief (1), and his baby grunkie Bunkie

The party entered Denethix, hauling their giant pillbug in a cart behind them, and headed towards the Street of Temples. Mongo and Gutboy began singing songs of praise to Nisus, and soon attracted a large following of commoners and holy men, and a dancing midget to lead the procession. As the people sang and danced, the party passed around collection plates, netting some 20-odd gp. The impromptu parade made its way up to the booth that held Nisus' Eye, and the party went in to consult with Nisus on when to hold the sacrifice.

Frustratingly, the God's Eye remained blank - so the party headed to the Grand Temple to arrange the sacrifice of the pill-bug as soon as possible. The attendant in the vestibule, Mary, looked up Gutboy's reservation - it had come and gone three weeks ago. Surprised, Gutboy asked to hold the sacrifice immediately - Mary summoned the high priestess Lunexia, who saw the large crowd chanting "Kill the bug! Kill the bug!" and decided to allow the unscheduled service.

Lunexia gave Gutboy a specially consecrated dagger to perform the sacrifice - the blade was polished to a mirror finish, and had two channels running down either side of the blade, with tiny pinholes in the channel visible near the hilt.

Lunexia: "Use this knife to sacrifice the bug. After it is dead, disembowel it, examine the entrails, and proclaim what you read to the assembly."
Gutboy: "OK. Netal, you want to do the gutting?"
Netal (enthusiastically): "Sure!"
Lunexia: "Are you mad? That's sacrilege! The gods would never accept something like him participating in the sacrifice! You must do this yourself, Gutboy!"

The roles of elves in religious services clarified, Gutboy agreed to perform the sacrifice on his own. The bug was brought in through the back entrance and placed on a platform in front of the 20' tall God's Eye. Gutboy waited for the crowd to settle down, and then slipped the dagger between the chitin plates on the bug's head and into it's brain, killing it. The knife came out covered with green bug-blood and a black oily substance. Mongo quickly slashed the ropes binding the bug, and it unfolded onto its back. Gutboy then lived up to his name, gutting the bug, and examined the entrails - they were covered with strange black designs, but whatever they were supposed to mean was unclear. Gutboy waved Lunexia over to consult, and she agreed that they were meaningless.

Gutboy (to the congregation): "The reading of the entrails is unclear! This means we must be cautious! Everyone, be careful - the entrails are uncertain!"

The congregation muttered to itself in concern - but then the God's Eye behind Gutboy filled with a swirling rainbow of colors. The colors cleared, and the circular screen filled with images of crawling bugs. Nisus' voice boomed out from the Eye: "Behold, the glory of Nisus! Much praise to her champions, Gutboy, Mongo, and Dick Dock! All in the city shall be blessed with vermin from beneath the ground!"

The image then began shimmering, and was replaced by a man in profoundly filthy, stained clothes. "I am Voil! I find this sacrifice to be worthy of the gods!"

Mongo shouted "Praise Voil!"
Voil: "And may all know the name of Mongo, brave warrior who has brought this sacrifice to us!"

The image faded, and the congregation began to line up for a free meal as temple attendant began carving out slabs of pill-bug meat and placing them on large cooking grills to either side of the sacrificial platform. Gutboy handed out the collection plate, getting a meager 40 gp for his efforts. The party, having concerns about the edibility of pill-bug meat, headed for the exit. On the way, they were accosted by another attendant, Paul.

Paul: "Ahh, Father Gutboy, an excellent service. And you'll be paying the rest of our fee now, I'm sure."
Gutboy: "Right.. that's 200 gp?"
Paul: No, that's 1800 gp. The 200 gp was your deposit."
Gutboy (handing Paul the 60 gp they had collected in offerings): "Take that."
Paul: "Ha, ha, very amusing. Please, the 1800 gp."
Gutboy (handing Paul another 40 gp): "There you go. We're out of here."
Paul (restraining Gutboy): "I must insist, sir. You booked the temple, you have to pay."
Netal: "We're going to have to go to the bank."
Paul: "That's fine, we can do the transfer to the temple accounts there."

The group made there way to the Bank Inviolable. Dick Dock found the name interesting - and said aloud "Bank Inviolable? That sounds like a challenge!" As they entered in through the 20' tall gilded doors, Dick Dock spied the two giant robots to either side. They were made of gold and iron, and on their arms were a pair of mini-guns and rocket launchers.

Dick Dock began scoping them out. As he did so, the two robots looked at him, and their miniguns began spinning up. The other patrons in the bank noticed, and began screaming as they ran for the exit and overturned tables for cover. Dick Dock continued sizing the two robots up, unperturbed.

Mongo, Netal, Gutboy, and Paul fled in fear as the two robots leveled their mini-guns on Dick Dock. He continued standing there. As he said "But I'm not doing anything!" the two robots fired, turning Dick Dock into a pale red mist. Bloody gobbets of flesh were all that remained of Dick Dock and his grunkie Bunkie.

Mongo ran to the crater where Dick Dock had once stood. "No! You kill Bunkie!" he shouted in grief. He pointed at a bank manager who was rushing over, and yelled "You pay for grunkie! That was my grunkie!"

Manager: "We certainly will not. This is what happens when you associate with scoundrels and thieves."
Mongo: "You pay!"
Manager: "You do not want to go there."

Netal began bending over to collect the misshapen remains of Dick Dock's pouch of gold coins, but the manager shooed him away. "That's all confiscated - get away! We'll use that to pay for the repairs to the floor."

Discouraged by the banking incident, the party settled up with Paul and headed back to Mongo's apartment to get drunk. They began to party loudly, drinking first to the memory of Dick Dock, and then more loudly and more frequently to the memory of their beloved grunkie Bunkie. All the noise attracted attention - there was a knock on the door. Two women and a man introduced themselves as Chrissie, Janet, and Jack, their neighbors from the apartment downstairs. They invited themselves in to join the party - several beers later, Gutboy and Chrissie went back to Gutboy's room for some privacy, while Janet sobbed inconsolably at Gutboy's door - "Chrissie should be mine! Mine!"

In the morning, Chrissie, Janet, and Jack were gone - all that was left was a messy apartment and several hangovers. Determined to carry on, the party decided to round up the surviving henchmen and head to the dungeon. Five pigs were purchased, and the expedition headed into the wilderness and up the slopes of Mount Rendon.

The dungeon was once again eerily silent as they made their way to the lair of the Morlocks. They knocked on the door, and a morlock answered.

Gutboy: "Can we speak to Bilibub?"
Morlock: "Me Bilibub! You forget who Bilibub is!"
Mongo: "No! No! Is joke! We know Bilibub! We bring pigs!"
Morlock (eyeing the pigs hungrily): "Pigs! Good! I take pigs!"

Bilibub the Morlock snatched the pigs' leash away and hurriedly dragged them back into the lair, slamming the door behind them without even a "good-bye." Mongo wondered aloud what the morlocks could be so busy doing all the time.

Dismissing that line of thought, the party consulted their map. Rather than head down to the 2nd level, they decided to try some unexplored areas of the second level. They began following the 30' wide corridor that bisected the dungeon further west than they had previously. As the reached new areas of the tunnel, they saw a pair of alcoves on the north and south wall. The north alcove had an ancient organ made of bones (taken from human, morlock, goblin, and screaming freaks). Nobody wanted to touch the grim instrument, so they headed to the south alcove, where they saw a door.

Mongo boldly opened the door, and the party entered a 20' by 30' room, with a crack in the ceiling at the western end. Muddy water dripped from this crack, falling onto a large mound of dirt beneath. The mound had three 6" wide holes in it. Mongo took his crossbow and fired a quarrel into the mound - five giant centipedes spewed forth. Gutboy futilely blessed the centipedes, hoping that Nisus would pacify the insects, but it did no good. The bugs nipped at Mongo, and one bit his ankle through a seam in his armor, injecting him with a painful poison. Mongo collapsed in agony, as his foot swelled up.

Deciding that magic was needed, Netal used his sleep spell on the centipedes, and they were quickly slain. Mongo was in no condition to fight, however, as he staggered around on his poisoned foot, vomiting profusely. The party decided to return to Denethix and try to find a cure for the poison.

The made their way out of the dungeon, and began the long slog back to civilization. On the way, they heard the howling of wolves - they gathered together and waited for the pack to come, knowing Mongo could never outrun the animals. The wolves attacked, one savaging the helpless Mongo, but a sleep spell and Gutboy's mace finished the threat off. Mongo's wounds were easily healed by Gutboy's prayers, but he remained helpless due to the poison.

Once back in Denethix, the party made their way to the Grand Temple, and asked the attendant Mary to get someone to treat Mongo's poisoned ankle.

Mary: "Ahh, yes, that is a very complicated ritual. The gods demand a lot before they grant that miracle. That will be 4,000 gp."
Gutboy (outraged): "What? Are you kidding? It's just a spell!"
Mary: "The incenses, the dancers, it's a very involved ritual. I'm afraid it's 4,000 gp."
Gutboy: "Get me Lunexia!"

Mary left briefly, and informed Gutboy his request for an audience had been granted. He was led back into the sanctuary, where Lunexia sat upon a chair upon the sacrifial platform, wearing nothing but her golden lobster-helm and golden lobster-claws.

Lunexia: "What is it, Father Gutboy?"
Gutboy: "I need a neutralize poison for Mongo."
Lunexia: "Yes, the ritual is expensive. The cost will be 4,000 gp."
Gutboy: "It's just a spell! Between you and me, we can just cast it!"
Lunexia: "Certainly not. The gods demand proper obeisance. You may certainly pray on your own, if you wish, but the proper ritual must be performed."
Gutboy: "Fine. Do you know any doctors, then?"
Lunexia: "Doctors? Oh yes, at the Academy of Elevated Thought. They're a scary bunch, but if you wish you may try them."

Frustrated, Gutboy left the temple, with the rest of the party and the piteously moaning Mongo in tow. As they headed north up the Street of Temples, they heard a metallic voice shout from an identified temple to their left: "GUTBOY!"

Nervous, Gutboy edged towards the door - the voice kept shouting "GUTBOY!". He looked inside, and saw a 3' wide God's Eye, filled with the image of a golden clockwork man. Gutboy entered the temple, followed by the limping Mongo and Netal.

The image of the clockwork man boomed out "GUTBOY! I AM KIOD! I SHARE WITH YOU THIS WISDOM: YOU HONOR THAT WORM NISUS TOO HIGHLY. SHE IS UNWORTHY OF THE SACRIFICE! GIVE UNTO THE GODS IN THEIR PROPER PORTION! I, KIOD, AND THE GREAT BLIBDOOLPOOLP ARE WORTHY!"

Mongo: "Yes, Nisus is a worm!"
Kiod: "LISTEN TO THE WISDOM OF MONGO! HE HAS GREAT INSIGHT! HONOR THE GODS IN THE PROPER DEGREE!"

The image of Kiod faded away. Gutboy hurried back to the temple, and asked Mary for their big book that described all the known gods. Mary handed the Almanac of Deities to Gutboy, and he looked up Kiod. He was the god of robots, and a well-regarded deity. He was known to manifest at sacrifices of robots when the metal men sometimes wandered into the city from the wilderness.

Gutboy (disturbed): "Mary, you sacrifice robots? What if they're good robots?"
Mary: "The gods appreciate their sacrifice all the more!"
Gutboy: "Do you ever sacrifice people?"
Mary: "Oh, not very often, that's pretty unusual."

The admonitions of this jealous robot god were confusing, so the party decided to return to the original plan of finding a doctor. They limped off to the Academy, and accosted a student, who brought them to the offices of Dr. Howse. Howse was a bitter-looking man with a cane, who limped out to inspect Mongo. He whacked Mongo hard on his basketball-sized ankle. "What are you bring him to me for?"

Gutboy: "He has been poisoned! We need a cure!"
Howse: "Here's your cure!" (whacking Mongo on the ankle again) "Now get out!"
Gutboy: "Wait! What about the poison?"
Howse: "Elevate the leg and get some rest for a few days. Looks like you've been walking for miles on that thing. Now get out, I've got serious issues to deal with!"

Mongo took Howse's advice, and within a few days he was right as rain.

Next session is Thursday October 13th.

Fat Grundle

2011-09-24T15:26:00.001-04:00

81. Fat Grundle
The iron-bound oak door to this room has three rotten heads attached to it, each spiked through the mouth: a troglodyte, a painted man, and a necromantic midget (which, in its state of decay, is easy to mistake for a child’s head). The thick door is barred from the inside, and will take two turns to chop through.

Inside lives Fat Grundle (AC 6, HD 5, hp 18, #AT 1, D 1d10 (or 1d8 fire), MV (30’), Save F5, ML 8), a grotesquely oversized painted man, 9’ tall and weighing five hundred pounds. His teeth rotted away long ago, and he has been fitted with steel replacements by Dr. Giggles.

Fat Grundle eschews clothes, preferring to fight naked – his ghost-white skin is as hard as boiled leather, and he sees no need for armor. He wears a pit viper (AC 6, HD 2, hp 5, #AT 1, D 1d4 + poison, MV (30’), Save F1, ML 7) around his neck, and will toss it at opponents before wading into battle, swinging his great iron jug like a club (for 1d10 points of damage).

The rot-gut in Fat Grundle’s jug is highly flammable, and he may (25% chance per round) decide to take a swig and spew out flaming liquid at a single opponent (on a successful hit, the victim will 1d8 points of damage the first round and 1d8 more the second round). He lights the booze by gnashing his metal teeth and creating sparks.

Fat Grundle is a mercenary, working for whoever will pay his price (100 gp per combat, or a barrel of booze). He has nailed heads representing the three factions of the level to his door as a gruesome display of his neutrality.

The gigantic clown spends much of his time drunk or hung-over. Consult the following table to determine Fat Grundle’s disposition.

Fat Grundle’s Sobriety
Roll 1d8 on the table below to determine Fat Grundle’s state of mind.
1.	Passed out. No amount of noise will wake Fat Grundle for another 1d4 hours.
2-5.	Drunk off his gourd. Fat Grundle is at -2 to attacks, but players receive a -1 bonus to reaction rolls.
6-7.	Hungover. Players receive +1 penalty to reaction rolls.
8.	Inexplicably sober.

Should players approach with offers of booze, they will gain a -1 bonus to reaction rolls, in addition to any other modifiers listed above.

Fat Grundle keeps few belongings other than his snake and jug. There is a wooden tub filled with fermenting molds, stinking of unwashed feet – hidden under the thick layer of scum in the tub are his collected savings, 652 gp.

Operation Mindcrime

2011-09-21T21:22:00.000-04:00

So yesterday I got all nostalgic for some reason and bought a copy of Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime. I got the CD from the BMI Music Club back in '88 when it came out and fell in love with it - I'd crank this up to 10 as I cruised around in my Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. That's how you get the babes, see. Oh wait, no, that didn't work... Anyhow it got stolen in college, though, and I never replaced it.

I've listened to it several times now, and while it is enormously cheesy (seeing Jessica Hahn in Penthouse prompts the hero to become a heroin-addicted commie assassin - some paraphrasing there, but that's about the heart of it) it is still tons of awesome.

How can I get this in the game? Took some thought, because the revolution theme doesn't really work in a dungeon. It works beautifully within Denethix, though. Dr. X is one of the leaders of the Society of the Luminous Spark, and has made a highly addictive mind-control serum from the deadly poisonous Ambulatory Razor Plant. Addicts are susceptible to a special command word while under the influence.

As the players become more prominent figures in the city, Dr. X will either attempt to recruit them to his cause, while trying to get them addicted to his serum - or send brainwashed assassins their way.

I'll need to gonzo that up a bit more, and fit in hooker-nuns. I don't want to have too many subplots going on either - things can get too random to follow. Right now I've got these loose ends to exploit, not sure if I need more:

a. Mongo's evil-temptation book
b. Morlock lust for human flesh
c. The malicious mirror has been sold to a merchant, who has sold it on. The buyer is naturally displeased by the fact he can't get rid of it and will eventually track the party down
d. Divine intrigue between Nisus and other jealous gods, after the sacrifice goes down next week

I might use Krogo's death as the catalyst. If he had been in touch with the Society and bitching about being forced into dungeons, they'll be wondering about his disappearance.

Or I could just roll some dice on my random tables and head off into a completely unknown direction.

Some reviews around the net, and status

2011-09-20T22:11:00.000-04:00

So two more mentions of ASE, if you're on the fence on purchasing. I think at this point everyone who reads this blog owns a copy, but if you don't, trust these guys and go buy one or two or seven:

The Mule Abides
Dragonsfoot Forums

The players finally have their giant bug out of the cavern. I'm 99% sure they'll be scheduling the public sacrifice at the Grand Temple next session, so I'm coming up with new ways to mess with their heads. Gutboy's player still hasn't wrapped his head around the notion of "serving all the gods," so I think I'll have 2 or 3 more gods start vying for the party's attention and giving contradictory orders.

Work on the second level is progressing, as I try to keep up with my players' progress. It's a bit of a pain, since my maps are very non-linear - it's very hard to predict where they'll end up from session to session. I'm also starting to think about the 4th level - I've got a growing list of weird encounters that require sub-levels, so there's going to be a lot going on there. But I refuse to start mapping it out until I at least finish keying the second level and get a start on the third.

For those wondering about when the next bunch of levels are due, I'm thinking January or February. The book will probably have levels 2, 3, and 4, depends on when I hit 80 pages. At around 80 pages is the sweet spot for hiring out art without overspending the amount I'll take in. If a book gets too big, I can't afford to illustrate.

Session recap, 9/14/2011

2011-09-16T20:17:00.002-04:00

Selling yourself into slavery...

2011-09-10T20:44:00.000-04:00

I try to anticipate what my players are going to do. Selling themselves into slavery came as a shocker, though. Not sure where Dick Dock's player was heading with that one, but when he found out he couldn't "buy himself back" he changed tack.

They did a tiny bit of exploration, and ran into two rooms I had published here earlier: Hall of the Underlords and Lightning in a Bottle. They didn't bother to look through the eyes of the skulls to see the Treasure of the Underlords - very sad, I was hoping that a) they'd finally connect the dots on the crystal skulls, since they missed finding the blue skull on the first level, and b) they'd flail around uselessly trying to figure out how to get into that treasure room, because that would be funny. For me.

Nobody grabbed at a silver rod in the Lightning in a Bottle room either. The players are starting to get canny. That's good, it means it's time to up the threat level with the traps. Of course, next session they may go all reckless on me. Here's hoping!

Finally, the little side quest to get a giant bug for sacrifice looks like it might come to a successful conclusion. That assumes nothing shows up to eat their henchmen at the top of the well. So far, secret dice rolls have been in their favor.

Session recap, 9/7/2011

2011-09-08T23:32:00.002-04:00

CAST
--------
Netal the Elf (2), and his enraged pit-bull Sweetiepie
Gutboy Barrellhouse the Cleric (3), his dog Rufus, and his henchman Serlo the Elf
Mongo the Fighter (2), and his henchmen Leroy Brown the Cleric and Jimgar the Elf
Richard "Dick" Dock the Thief (1), and his baby grunkie Bunkie

It was a fine morning, as Netal woke to find no cursed mirrors and no dead hobos draped across him. He headed off to the Street of Students to find his fellow explorers Gutboy and Mongo. Heading up to their apartment, he passed a pair of girls, one homely and one beautiful, getting ready for a job - but there was no time to stop and chat. Straight up to his friends' apartment he went.

A brief discussion was held, and plans were made. They needed some muscle if they were going to lift one of those giant pillbugs out of the cavern using ropes. Then there was much discussion about finding giant bugs in a much safer way, by purchasing already-captured giant insects.

Off they went, meeting Dick Dock on the way. Once they arrived at the Street, they accosted a slaver in a green mask, leading a few branded slaves around on leashes. The conversation immediately leapt off the rails.

Dick: "So, how do I become a pit fighter?"
Slaver: "I'm sorry... you want to become a slave?"
Dick: "I want to fight something!"
Slaver: "A pit fighter? Well, sure, I'd be glad to buy you. You look like a scrappy sort. Your family will do well with the money I'll pay!"
Dick: "How much money?"
Slaver: "Oh, we'll say 100 gp. That will feed them for quite some time, yes?"
Dick: "And how do I buy my freedom back?"
Slaver: "What? Why would anyone free a slave? What are you talking about?"
Dick: "Never mind. Where can I go for pit fighting? Do they fight animals?"
Slaver: "Uhhh... sometimes. It's more interesting for the pit fighters to fight each other, though"
Dick: "Any giant bugs?"
Slaver: "No, of course not. That's not very exotic. Occasionally a velociraptor, but not bugs."

Dismayed, the party decided to harass the animal vendors of the Bazaar Incomparable once more, hoping against hope that giant bug vendors had set up shop. Off to the Bazaar they went, and straight to the nearest animal vendor.

Gutboy: "Hello! I'm looking for a large insect..."
Vendor: "Yes, you were here last week. I don't have any."
Gutboy: "Do you know where..."
Vendor: "No."
Gutboy: "Do you know any..."
Vendor: "No. I still don't know. Please, do you have any real business? Perhaps you'd like to buy a baby grunkie?"
Dick: "Wait, a grunkie? Are they dangerous?"
Vendor: "Of course not! They're fantastic pets when they're babies! Wonderful and adoring!"
Dick: "When they're babies?"
Vendor: "Well, a bit aggressive when they get older. Just flush them down the toilet, though, and get a new one. Only one gold piece!"

Dick, entranced by the six-inch tall cross between a lizard and a monkey, forked over a gold, and then another gold piece for a tiny red fez and little red vest. Naming the creature Bunkie the Grunkie, he began a futile attempt to teach it to pick locks.

As Dick played with his grunkie, Gutboy began searching for any shop that would sell drugs. Drugs that would put things to sleep. He led the party around in circles, finally stumbling upon a tent with a promising sign: "Mind Spices of the Lanthanide Wastes." Several shelves were lined with jars of a brown vegetable-substance, and an old man with a long flowing beard welcomed them in.

Old man: "Ahhh, customers! Come for the Mind Spices, I see!"
Gutboy: "Mind spices? What do they do?"
Old man: "They bring the most wonderful ecstasies! They let a man project his mind into the unseen dimensions. Oh, the sights you will see!"
Gutboy: "We're actually looking for a drug to make things sleep"
Old man: "Ahh, you are in luck today, sir! The mind spices will grant visions of the far realms, but they also leave a man completely comatose"
Gutboy: "Great! How much are they?"
Old man: "Only 800 gp for a jar"
Gutboy: "Ohhhhh. And how many men will that make sleep?"
Old man: "Oh, one man. He must eat all the spices in the jar"
Gutboy: "Eat? Oh. Well. And how much for a bug that's 10' long and 5' tall, weighing 2000 pounds?"
Old man: "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! All the spices in this tent!"

Realizing they didn't have nearly enough money to purchase the mind spices required, they tried another tack:

Netal: "Where do these come from?"
Old man: "The Lanthanide Wastes. It's right on the sign, Mind Spices of the Lanthanide Wastes. You know, with the horrible insect men and the giant Fusillade Beetles"
Netal: "How do we get there? Can we get these spices?"
Old man: "Yes, they are in a desert, far to the south. If you're going to go spice hunting, I will gladly purchase any that you harvest"

But the short and brutal life of a spice prospector was not for them - they had deadlines to keep, and giant bugs to subdue in the dungeon. They continued hunting around the bazaar, looking for drug dealers - and eventually came upon a sign reading "Gases of the Forbidden Vale", hanging over the entrance to another tent. Inside were shelves filled with Mason jars, each tinted a different color. The vendor here was another old man, with a beard sculpted into twirling shapes. He was semi-transparent, which did not seem to bother the party in the least.

Mongo: "We need drug to put things to sleep"
Transparent vendor: "Well! What a surprise! It just so happens that I've got a jar of gas that will do that. It's miserable stuff, doesn't bring any ecstasies at all, just puts the man who breathes it into a deep and unwaking slumber. I've got enough to put twenty men to sleep. It was just brought to me this morning by a man who wasn't really here."
Gutboy: "A man who wasn't really here? What does that mean?"
Transparent vendor: "Ahh, you haven't partaken of the gases yet. You can't know until you do. It won't make sense."
Netal: "How much for the gas?"
Vendor (bringing out a large mason jar, tinted pink): "400 gp. You won't be disappointed"
Dick: "Do you have any other gases?"
Vendor (pointing to a small jar of glowing neon green): "Why yes, this will transport you to the rings of Saturn. Absolutely beautiful! The ice crystals glimmer like diamonds! Partially transport you, of course. Not all of you!"
Gutboy: "Saturn? No thanks. What's your cheapest gas?"
Vendor: "Well, yes, I've got some Brown Jenkins here, that's very cheap"
Dick: "Will co-eds use it?"
Vendor: "I don't see why not..."
Netal: "No. We don't want that."
Vendor: "Of course not! It's not from the Forbidden Vale, it's just the cheap stuff... you want the real deal. Perhaps an entry-level gas? This one will bring mild ecstasies..."
Gutboy: "Do you have any gas that will make people obey you? Do stuff you want them to do?"
Vendor: "Ahhh. No, no gases to do that. That's not what the gases do. What you want is the Vermillion Nudibranch of Diminished Inhibition. They come from the river, wonderful creatures! I know a man on the Street of Lesser Men who can sell you this, just tell him I sent you. His name is Swifty, here's his address..."
Dick: "Will co-eds eat it?"
Vendor: "It's possible..."

Netal purchased the jar of pink gas, and the party rounded up their henchmen from the various bars, flophouses, and brothels that they were known to frequent. A pig was purchased as a bribe to the Morlocks, and the party set forth to the dungeon.

In the woods between the city and the slopes of Mount Rendon, the party ran into a group of four goblins. Startled, but not hostile, the two groups eyed each other.

Dick: "Can any of you speak our language?"
Goblin: "Yeah, hello. We not hunting people, just walking, really."
Dick: "You interested in gold?"
Goblin: "Yeah, sure, gold, give gold"
Dick: "You come lift stuff, we give gold"
Goblin: "No, gold now, we come lift"
Gutboy: "Where did you come from?"
Goblin: "Come off tree, no goblin around, we go walking, start new tribe"
Gutboy: "What? Off a tree? That makes no sense"
Goblin: "We come out of sack, on tree! Stupid human! No goblins around, we start new tribe"

There was a brief argument about whether to hire or kill the goblins. The goblins decided this job opportunity wasn't worth the effort or risk, and marched off in disgust. "Stupid humans!"

The remainder of the journey passed uneventfully, and the party entered the dungeon. They safely made their way through the dusty, deserted corridors to the lair of the Morlocks. They knocked on the door.

Morlock: "Ahh, mongos back!"
Mongo: "We bring pig!"
Morlock: "Great! Pig! I take, good-bye!"
Gutboy: "Wait! We need help"
Morlock: "What you want?"
Gutboy: "You hunt those bugs in the cavern? How do you get them up the well?"
Morlock: "Throw many spears at bug, it roll into ball. Then roll ball to well, tie rope, and pull up"
Gutboy: "And it's still alive when it rolls into a ball?"
Morlock: "Yes, taste more delicious that way!"
Gutboy: "Are there any other entrances to the cavern?"
Morlock: "Don't know. Go down well, is safest. No bad painted men"
Mongo: "Are there other ways into the cavern?"
Morlock: "Yes, you go north, see other big cave, lizard monsters. Very bad! Go west or south, see doorways"
Gutboy: "We need help getting the bug up after we catch it. Will you help?"
Morlock: "Me check with chief"

The negotations for help hauling the bug took some time, but eventually a promise of four pigs was accepted for help in lifting a bug up out of the well. The morlock told the party to come back when they had the bug ready - the Morlocks are busy people, and don't have time to stand around staring at wells.

Ropes were tied and lowered down the well again - and the intrepid four descended, leaving henchmen and dogs waiting at the mouth of the well. They descended to the bottom, and began walking along the western edge of the cavern, heading south, hoping to find a set of stairs leading upwards so they could avoid the hassle of the well.

The passed by the strange pit they had sighted earlier, that ended after 20' in a gray void. Mongo tied an iron spike to the end of a rope and lowered it down - he could clearly see the spike below dangling in the gray void, so whatever the gray was, it wasn't fog. He then retrieved the spike, untied it, and tossed it in. It fell silently, until it grew so small that it could no longer be seen.

Unnerved, the party decided to press on and save the gray pit for another day. They came to a corridor cut into the west wall of the cavern. Entering cautiously, the party found a 30' square room, with a door at the opposite end - and eight zombies, with knives protruding from their eye sockets and their wrists. Gutboy presented his holy symbol of Nisus, but either his faith was weak or Nisus was angry with him, and the zombies swarmed him, slashing with their wrist-blades. Mongo, Netal, and Dick ran for their lives out of the room, and Gutboy quickly followed, bleeding from several knife wounds. Fortunately, the zombies did not pursue, and Gutboy's fervent prayers caused his wounds to partially close.

Heading south along the cavern wall again, they found another tunnel, heading south. Netal led the way into this room - the walls were carved with bas-relief images, each having a title underneath:

- An empty frame, except for these words carved at the bottom: “The Last Underlord, Whose Rule Is Yet To Come.”

- A goblin in armor, attended by robed, man-sized goblinoids with swollen heads. These words are carved beneath: “Uligub, Lord of the Labyrinth. His mind lives still.”

- Three robed bearded men of advanced age. The first man holds a loaf of bread, the second has a belt around his waist from which dangle severed hands, and the third is cutting through his robe and abdomen to reveal his bowels. The image is titled: “The November Gentlemen. Living or dead, all kneeled before them. Devoured by darkness, they shall not return.”

- A spider in a vast webbed hall. It is titled: “Morguilos, Spinner of Lies. Fire burned lie and spider alike.”

- A section carved with skulls. Below the skulls are carved the words “The Treasures of the Underlords.”

- A man-shaped figure made of spikes and blades, surrounded by corpses. The words carved below it read: “The Blade of Kharg. He slew all who fought with sword, but was laid low by the song of Lem.”

Dick decided to try out some of his fancy thieving skills, and adeptly climbed the skulls. After perching at the top of the bas-relief and looking at the top of his fellows' heads, he climbed back down and began searching the room for potential traps and secret doors. Netal and Gutboy joined in - and Gutboy noticed a gap in the stone surrounding the exposed entrails of one of the November Gentlemen.

Dick placed Bunkie the Grunkie upon the entrails, but the six inch creature just clung to the stone. Dick put the grunkie back on his shoulder, and tried pulling the entrails - nothing happened. He gave the entrails a push, and something did happen - the north wall became lit up with colorful circles of light, slowly changing color from blue to green and back again. Looking around, the party saw that the eye-holes of the sculpted skulls had opened, and a light was shining from behind them. Dick released the entrails, and the eye-holes snicked shut.

Deciding to leave the mystery of the lights alone for a while, Mongo led the party west into another chamber. This one had a latticework of silver rods in its center, supporting a glass jar. Five of the silver rods terminated inside the jar - the rest wrapped around it, surrounding it. The jar was otherwise empty.

Another mystery - but Gutboy called for focus - there was mission, and that was to capture a giant bug! Further exploration was abandoned, and the party returned to the cavern, and headed towards the giant pillbug herds.

For the first foray against the pillbugs, the four adventurers were sighted as they approached, and six bull pillbugs charged at them, chasing them into the jungle. Mongo took a horn to the gut, but eventually the pillbugs gave up the chase.

Second foray: the party snuck up to the pillbugs, and Mongo shot his crossbow at the closest. The shot was true, and the bolt sank up to its fletching between segments of the pillbugs armor. It immediately rolled itself into a ball. The rest of the pillbugs took no notice. Having no idea how to safely roll the pillbug away from the herd now that it was a ball, the party retreated.

Third foray: Netal, Dick, and Gutboy stood behind the marble building in the center of the cavern, while Mongo snuck up on the herd. Mongo then began throwing rocks and jumping up and down. Four bull pillbugs became enraged, and chased after Mongo, who led them by the party's hiding place. Netal cast sleep upon the bugs as they ran by, and all but one fell asleep. Mongo ran around in circles til the last pillbug gave up the chase, while Gutboy took the jar of sleeping gas, held his breath, and opened it underneath the head of one of the sleeping pillbugs. The sleeping bug inhaled the pink gas entirely.

So this session ends with the adventurers having (presumably) successfully incapacitated a live giant pillbug. Next session is in one week, Wednesday September 14th.

Head Exchanger

2011-09-05T19:18:00.000-04:00

65. Head Exchanger
Along the north wall of this room is a leather chair with stainless steel straps at the neck, wrist, and ankle locations. Above the chair, a metal armature sticks out of the wall, terminating in an array of drills, saws, and pincers. Next to this contraption is a locked stainless steel cabinet, 8’ tall. The cabinet is fastened securely to the wall and floor, and will not move.

There is a dial on the side of the cabinet, with several settings: the numbers one through ten, and the word “Off.” It is currently set to “Off”. There is also a light above the dial. While set to “Off,” the light is unlit. If the dial is set to a number corresponding to a head in the cabinet, it will glow green. If it is set to a position in the cabinet with no head, it will glow red.

Should anyone sit on the chair (or be forced into it), and the dial is set to a number (as opposed to “Off”), the straps will clamp down firmly, holding the subject in place. The metal armature will then swing down, blades will spin and messily cut off the top of the subject’s head, pincers will remove the brain, and a pair of shears will snip off the remainder of the head at the neck. The pieces of the head will roll into the subject’s lap, while a second set of pincers reach into the cabinet from the top.

If the dial is set to a spot in the cabinet with a head, the pincers will remove a new head, dripping with preservative fluids, the light changing from green to red as the second head is lifted away. The new head will be sawn open, the brain dropped in its new home, and then head and brain will be reattached to the subject’s body. The entire procedure will be complete in under five seconds, and the subject, although enduring excruciating pain, will not suffer any loss of hit points. A hideous scar with thick black stitching is left around the subject’s neck where the new head has been attached.

If the dial was set to an empty spot, the second set of pincers will come back empty. The brain will be placed on the subject’s neck and re-attached, but without any head. While alive, the subject is blind, deaf, and mute, and will suffer seizures and hallucinations if the brain is touched. If water and pre-chewed food are poured down the esophagus, the subject can live indefinitely in this horrible state.

The top of the cabinet has a small sliding hatch that will automatically open and close to allow the armature access to the heads. Other than that, the key is required to open the cabinet doors. If opened, ten head-jars full of preservative fluid will be revealed. New heads may be placed in the jars and attached to subjects, if desired, once the cabinet is open. The heads of prior subjects of head-transplantation are ruined, however, as the skull tops have been cut off, and the machine will not stitch them back together.

The following table lists the heads initially present in the cabinet:

Heads and Their Effects
1.	Incredibly handsome human male head	Subject’s charisma increased by 1d4 points, if male (not to exceed 18)
2.	Giant fly head	Subject now unable to speak
3.	Troglodyte head	Subject’s charisma decreased by 1 point due to nasty odor
4.	Oversized fat human head	If subject isn’t already fat, charisma decreased by 1 point
5.	Empty
6.	Medusa’s head	Subject’s gaze turns people to stone
7.	Screechman head	Subject has to scream constantly to see clearly via echo-location. -2 to hit if not screaming.
8.	Empty
9.	Gill-man head	Subject can breathe water
10.	Incredibly beautiful human female head	Subject’s charisma increased by 1d4 points, if female (not to exceed 18)

Note that dwarves and elves who have their heads exchanged will lose their wide-spectrum vision, unless the new head is dwarven or elven.

The key to the cabinet is inside the desk of Dr. Giggles, in room 89. Should players unlock the cabinet (or break it open), and the medusa’s head is still present, they will need to save vs. petrification or be turned to stone.

Chime in, people!

2011-08-29T20:23:00.000-04:00

So I've sold a bunch of these ASE1's, and I'm busy working on the next levels. My players push ever downwards (when they aren't quivering in abject terror), and presumably some of you will be wanting the sequel.

So this is my mini-survey - who's started running ASE1 yet? Anyone out there? No real reason for asking other than vanity, but I'm curious who's taken the plunge. I imagine that a lot of people are holding off til they have a few more levels in hand, but I'm curious all the same. Leave a comment and let me know!

Eye Jelly

2011-08-28T17:16:00.001-04:00

I like oozes, jellies, and puddings. Anything that dissolves players or their equipment is a recipe for fun.

Eye Jelly
No. Enc: 1 (1)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 30’ (10’)
Armor Class: 8
Hit Dice: 5
Attacks: 1
Damage: 1d10 + acid
Save: F4
Morale: 12
Hoard Class: None
XP: 350

This monster is a collection of thousands of eyes suspended in acidic ooze. It is an ambush predator, waiting on ceilings for prey to walk beneath. It attacks by enveloping its prey and dissolving their flesh with its acidic slime. After killing its victim, it will extract the unfortunate's eyes and add them to its own body mass.

The eyes of the jelly are functional, and it is thus impossible to surprise one of these monsters without the aid of invisibility spells or similar magic.

Each successful attack by an eye jelly has a 50% chance of rendering its target’s armor useless, as the acid slime chews through straps and smaller metal attachment points, if not the armor itself.

Lightning in a Bottle

2011-08-22T18:01:00.000-04:00

As I've written before, I like my traps to be dead obvious, and completely irresistible. It's there, it's in your face, it's going to kill you - and you can't help but monkey around with it.

96. Lightning in a Bottle
In the center of this room is a lattice frame constructed of thin silver rods, running from floor to ceiling, and supporting a glass jar in the middle. Five of the silver rods terminate inside the bottle itself, while others wind around it.

The bottle holds an electrical charge, and will shock anyone touching the frame for 3d6 points of damage. Small amounts of insulation (such as touching with leather gloves, or a leather-wrapped metal pole) will reduce this to 1d6 points of damage. Thicker insulation (more than a half inch thick) will allow the rods and jar to be safely handled.

As long as the bottle remains intact, it will continue to shock those who touch it or any metal that contacts it. Breaking the bottle will fully discharge it, causing 6d6 points of electrical damage to everyone within 30’ feet. If properly insulated, the jar could be removed and used as a weapon this way.

The silver rods are worth 500 gp if recovered and sold.

Hall of the Underlords

2011-08-19T12:20:00.001-04:00

Here's another "special". This one gives a little history - most of it is meaningless flavor, but Uligob the Hive-Mind still lives down in the levels below. I left the first bas relief blank to encourage ambitious players who felt like establishing an underworld dominion. Ha, good luck with that if they try!

97. Hall of the Underlords
This hall stands 40’ tall, with a byzantine vaulted ceiling, carved into abstract spirals and triangles. The walls are decorated with bas reliefs, depicting ambitious underlords of the Anomalous Subsurface Environment who sought to rule the subterranean realm.

Each bas relief occupies a 20’ by 20’ area on the walls, and is bordered by raised black stone, carved in a spiral and veined with a translucent blue mineral.

a. This section of the wall bears the same border the other bas reliefs do, but is empty, except for these words carved at the bottom: “The Last Underlord, Whose Rule Is Yet To Come.”

b. This bas relief depicts a goblin in armor, attended by robed, man-sized goblinoids with swollen heads. These words are carved beneath: “Uligub, Lord of the Labyrinth. His mind lives still.”

c. The mural here shows three robed bearded men of advanced age. The first man holds a loaf of bread, the second has a belt around his waist from which dangle severed hands, and the third is cutting through his robe and abdomen to reveal his bowels. The image is titled: “The November Gentlemen. Living or dead, all kneeled before them. Devoured by darkness, they shall not return.”

d. Carved onto this section of the wall is a spider in a vast webbed hall. It is titled: “Morguilos, Spinner of Lies. Fire burned lie and spider alike.”

e. The section of the southern wall pointing inwards is carved with skulls. Below the skulls are carved the words “The Treasures of the Underlords.”

f. This bas relief shows a man-shaped figure made of spikes and blades, surrounded by corpses. The words carved below it read: “The Blade of Kharg. He slew all who fought with sword, but was laid low by the song of Lem.”

If the bas relief of the November Gentlemen is inspected carefully, the players will find that the carved bowels of the third gentleman may be depressed. Doing so will cause the eye sockets of the skulls carved into the southern wall to open. If the skulls in the Disco Vault (room 27) are still within, alternating green and blue lights will shine from the sockets, resulting in bright circles of color on the northern wall. Players may peer through the sockets to see within room 27. The sockets will remain open for as long as the bowel-carving is depressed.

Session recap, 8/10/2011

2011-08-11T20:56:00.000-04:00

CAST
--------
Netal the Elf (2), and his enraged pit-bull Sweetiepie
Gutboy Barrellhouse the Cleric (3), his dog Rufus, and his henchman Serlo the Elf
Mongo the Fighter (2), and his henchmen Leroy Brown the Cleric and Jimgar the Elf

The adventurers convened in the City of Denethix. Netal had a pocket full of gold that he was looking to burn, and after tossing aside the dead hobo draped over him, he found Mongo and Gutboy and asked them to join him at the Bazaar Incomparable. Once at the Bazaar, he made his way back to the gunsmith, once again seeking shotguns. "No! No! I will never sell you a shotgun! Away with you!"

Disappointed, the party marched back to the Street of Temples, to check in on the booth containing the devotional to Nisus. The door to the booth had been left unlocked, and a hobo had crept in during the night, defecating in the booth. Disgusted, Gutboy scooped up the turd and cleaned up as best he could.

Hobo-turds not being particularly satisfying, Netal grabbed his gruesome mirror and headed back to the Bazaar Incomparable. First, another trip to the gunsmith - this time to purchase a pistol. The smith, delighted that the obnoxious elf was no longer simply browsing, pulled out a massive hand-cannon, its ivory grip etched with images of a man getting his head blown off. On the underside of the handle was written the gun's name, "Molly." Impressed by the craftsmanship, Netal spent the vast majority of his cash to purchase the weapon, and also purchased a number of lead, silver, and solid gold bullets for the revolver.

Six-gun in hand, the party searched for a place to unload the accursed mirror. They stopped in again at "Tasteful Curios of the Forgotten Age," a tent filled with unusual artifacts from days long past. The proprietor was still reluctant to purchase the mirror, as last time, but Mongo's simple eloquence convinced him. "You buy mirror!"

Gutboy then asked to see some of the artifacts for sale, and was shown:

- A large porcelain toad, with smaller porcelain toads nested within. "Marvel at the toad, each having a smaller cousin within! There is no end to them!"

- A collection of peryton figurines, each dressed in fine clothing, drinking tea, holding umbrellas, etc

- An ancient bronze box. Gutboy opened it to find it contained a still-beating heart. "Who knows what creature this heart came from many thousands of years ago! Buy it, and the mystery may be yours!"

Deciding not to purchase these marvelous artifacts, the party wandered back into the bazaar in search of exotic animals, particularly large insects. Approaching a vendor of exotic pets, they inquired.

Pet salesman: "No, no bugs, they don't domesticate well. They always bite the children's arms off. Then everyone wants a refund. Stopped selling 'em. How about a baby grunky? Look! They do little handstands!"
Mongo: "Oooooo"
Netal: "Do you have any dogs?"
Pet salesman: "Why, of course, of course. Errr... here's a great one, right here!" Presenting a muzzled pit-bull, growling ferociously: "He's got a wonderful disposition! I call him Sweetiepie!"
Netal (as pit bull strains at its muzzle to maul him): "I'll take it! Here's 25 gp"
Pet salesman: "That'd get you twenty-five baby grunkies! Sure I can't interest you in any? No?"

Murderous pit-bull in hand, the party began discussing the hideous red mist and the hobo deaths that plagued Netal. Netal finally confessed that the hobo deaths were due to the bronze amulet he was wearing - during the night, it would steal life from the weak and give it to him. If not worn, however, it would steal life just the same - but no one would get the benefit.

Netal decided to store the amulet in the Bank Inviolable, and they headed to the fiduciary fortress. Inside, a teller took the amulet and headed to the vaults - she returned ashen-faced, and asked Netal to step aside and wait for a manager. The bank manager approached gravely, and informed Netal that the mirror he had placed in the vault had inexplicably disappeared. Gutboy feigned outrage, and the manager quickly informed Netal that of course the bank would credit his account the appraised worth of the mirror - 1,000 gp. Well content with this fraud, Netal and the rest decided to gather their henchmen and head off to the dungeon and seek a large bug for sacrifice to the goddess Nisus.

Stopping in Chelmsfordshire, Gutboy purchased several hundred more feet of rope, while Mongo sought out a pig to bribe the morlocks.

Farmer: "I have a very special pig for you! Look, a spider wrote his name right above his stall - Wilbur!"
Mongo: "Hmm. Maybe less special pig?"
Farmer: "Sure, I got Phil over here! He's only got three legs, I just had to have a haunch off him. But the rest is still good! Plenty o' back bacon there!"
Mongo: "Too hard to pull pig. I take Wilbur."

Wilbur turned to look back at the web and the spider within as he was dragged away, a tear in his eye, but Mongo had no remorse - morlocks need ham, too.

The trip to the dungeon and to the well at the end of the wide corridor was uneventful. The party stopped at the morlock lair on the way, knocking on the door.

Morlocks: "Mongos! You bring food? People?"
Mongo: "Bring pig!"
Morlocks: "We take pig!" - and they did so, immediately, slamming the door in the party's face afterwards.

This rude exchange over, the party headed to the well. They had 300' of rope in total - enough to tie off to a pillar in a nearby room and run down to the bottom of the well, leaving only 10' to spare. Then the party began discussing what to do once they had captured a giant insect, as they were now entirely out of rope.

A few light bulbs went off, and the party trudged back to the morlock lair - they hunted down below, and surely must have rope.

Gutboy: "How was the pig?"
Morlock (with bloody mouth): "Squeaky pig delicious! We bite as soon as we get to see what taste like! Pig taste like people!"
Gutboy: "Fantastic. Look, can we have some rope?"
Morlock: "Yes, yes, mongos can have rope! We bring good rope, just made from people you give last time!"

The morlock retreated into the lair and came back with a 50' length of rope, made from poor Krogo's innards - it was a length of dried small intestine, reinforced with sinew. The morlock pulled on it to demonstrate its strength, and handed it over to the party.

Thus equipped, the party came up with a plan: Netal, Mongo, and Gutboy would be lowered into the pit, while the three henchmen and two dogs stayed up above, waiting to haul them back up. They would then search out a giant bug, cast sleep on it, tie it up with Krogo's intestines, and haul it back up the well.

Netal was first down. The first fifty feet were through a stone shaft - after that, Netal found himself dangling within a massive cavern, 150' tall. The walls and ceiling were coated with a glowing red substance, and occasionally clouds of the red stuff would break off and float about the cavern. Below, the cavern floor was covered with giant cave ferns, and the blue and yellow glow of various subterranean fungi could be seen between the fronds. From his high vantage point, he could also see a large opening to the north leading to another cavern, a marble building in the middle of the cavern, a pit filled with gray nothingness, a rockfall, and most interestingly - a herd of giant pillbugs.

Once Netal reached bottom, he found that the 10' tall cave ferns were thick enough that he could only see 30' ahead. Mongo and Gutboy were soon at the bottom with Netal, and they headed towards the herd of pillbugs. On the way, they passed the marble building - it was covered with a blue fungus-vine, and it had only a single door leading inside. They looked inside, saw it was empty, and decided to not get distracted - they would stick to the mission and grab a giant bug.

As they reached the pill bug herd, the cave ferns thinned out. The bugs had chewed the ferns around their nesting area down to the roots. There were over a dozen full-grown adults - each 10' long, and 5' high. The resembled gigantic armadillos, and sported a pair of nasty looking horns on their heads. There were also large numbers of smaller juveniles, and countless fist-sized infants.

Netal cast his sleep spell upon the closest pill bugs, and three adults succumbed. Each looked to weight between 500 and 1,000 lbs. Close examination revealed that the only weapon the bugs had were their pair of horns - the mouth was tucked low underneath their heads and useless for anything but chewing plants and fungi.

Mongo prepared to tie one up - but how? He had no idea how to get the Krogo-rope underneath the creature. Gutboy urged them to try pulling the creatures by their horns - surely Netal's magic would keep them in a deep coma. Sadly, Gutboy was mistaken - trying to drag the bug around by its head did, in fact, wake it up.

Mongo pulled out his two-handed sword, and aimed a blow at the creature's horns - but the tough chitin horns easily resisted his blow. The creature was armored far better than Mongo had imagined, and it thrust its horns into Mongo's side, bellowing angrily. The other adult pillbugs bellowed in response, and the party decided that running like mad was the better part of valor.

They took off as fast they could towards the marble building. At the entrance, they hesitated to enter - but the door was narrow enough that the bugs couldn't push their way in, and reluctant to face the herd, the party entered the building.

Once inside, the three felt a strange pressure in their minds - and then the horrible voice began inside their heads. "BRING ME SORROW! GO FORTH AND BRING ME SORROW!" it roared from within their own skulls, inescapable and horrible. Their noses began to bleed, and the pain was overwhelming. Netal maintained presence of mind enough to cast another sleep through the door at the pillbugs, and the three closest collapsed, barring the rest of the herd from getting closer to the building. As the demands of the voice seethed within their brains, the trio squeezed out the door, staying between the building and the three slumbering bugs.

Outside, the voice faded away, and their minds were once again clear. A quick discussion on what to do - and the party made a break for it around the corner of the building, running towards the rope and safety. With the pill bug herd close on their heels, they made it to the rope. Gutboy began scrambling up the rope, and the henchmen above, feeling the tugging, began hauling the rope up.

Netal and Mongo were left behind, and began running through the cave ferns as fast as they could, trying to evade the angry herd. They ran past the strange pit they had seen from above - it descended at least 20' deep into the cave floor, and then began fading into a formless gray void. Running past the pit without stopping, the pair realized that there were no longer any sounds of pursuit. The pillbugs had grown tired of the chase.

They made their way carefully back to the rope, using the natural rock pillars that supported the cavern ceiling as a guide. Gutboy had made it safely to the top, and the rope was waiting for them below. The two ascended, one at a time, and the reunited party left the dungeon in defeat.

The trip back to town was marred by a goblin attack in the deep of the night - Mongo was too busy staring at the fire to notice the four marauders. A spear flew into Leroy Brown's gut and pinned him to the ground, bleeding, as Mongo drew his sword and prepared to fight. His blade swung mightily, and a goblin head was sent flying, convincing the remaining goblins to retreat into the darkness and find easier prey. Gutboy, roused by the sounds of combat, used his divine magic to heal Leroy of his wound.

The remainder of the trip back to Denethix was unremarkable. Next session is Wednesday, 8/24/2011.

20% off ASE1 at Lulu, til Friday

2011-08-11T07:51:00.000-04:00

20% off ASE1 at Lulu (well, 20% off anything at Lulu), so if you were unable to find a copy at GenCon, here's your chance to pick it up for cheap. Just enter the coupon code SINK305 when you check out. The coupon code is good until Friday August 12th!

ASE1 sold out first day of GenCon

2011-08-11T00:10:00.000-04:00

I had sent on 10 copies of ASE1 to the OSR Group for the GenCon booth - all ten sold out the first day of the con. I didn't really expect that at all, it's very gratifying. Thank you to everyone who purchased at the con (and to everyone who purchased online, too!)

Fangopede

2011-08-10T14:06:00.001-04:00

The classic D&D monsters only rarely inspire me, so I make up a lot of creatures in my dungeon. Here's a bit of second level dungeon vermin:

Fangopede
No. Enc: 1d6 (2d6)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 90' (30')
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: 1
Damage: 1d6 + poison, attachment
Save: F2
Morale: 7
Hoard Class: See below
XP: 29

These arthropods are 3’ long centipede-like creatures, with two pairs of 4” fangs jutting from the upper and lower jaws, and six segmented eyes. The teeth prevent the fangopede from closing its mouth all the way, lending it a fearsome aspect. The poisonous bite of the creature will paralyze its victim for 1d6 rounds if a save is failed. Additionally, the fangopede’s jaws will lock shut after a successful bite attack – no further damage is caused by the fangopede, as the enzymes in its saliva dissolve flesh far too slowly to have an impact in melee combat, but the victim suffers a +1 penalty to AC for each fangopede dangling from his body.

To remove a fangopede after it has locked its jaws shut, the arthropod must be killed and its jaws cut free from its head.

Fangopedes are deeply attracted to shiny objects, and each has a 10% chance of having swallowed 1d3 gems.

Review: Tome of Horrors Complete

2011-08-03T23:30:00.002-04:00

I preordered the big hardcopy of the Tome of Horrors Complete for Swords & Wizardry a few months ago, and downloaded the PDF last night.

Have I read the whole thing? Of course not, and I doubt I will. It's several hundred pages of monsters, I'll flip through it when I need inspiration. When I was young I certainly would have gone through everything, but I can't dedicate that kind of time to a monster manual nowadays.

As for providing inspiration, it does that in droves. I've been staring the prospect of another several hundred dungeon rooms in the face, and it was imposing - but just a few minutes of flipping around and ideas started flowing - many only tangentially related to the monsters I was looking at. It's got enough stuff that there's something to appeal for any given situation.

The collection has a few weaknesses. The first is that a huge percentage of the monsters are from the Fiend Folio and Monster Manual II- and I've already got those. At least I know if it's in this book, it's OGL and I can feel free to stick it in the published levels of the ASE. There's still a bunch of new stuff - I'm particularly fond of the "Skull Spider."

The second is that I don't know that I'll get much use out of the "lairs" that appear with each monster. When I first heard of the "lair" concept I was hoping for little keyed maps - actual lairs. They are actually brief descriptions of an encounter with the creature, I haven't read any that couldn't easily have been made up on the fly. There are several hundred of the things though, and I've only read a handful, so there could be some gems buried in there.

The third weakness is a particular monster I find grating - the "crucifixion spirit"? Seems pretty douchebaggy to me.

The strength of the Tome of Horrors Complete is its size. It's got tons of stuff, so it's great for paging through and looking at stuff when trying to come up with encounter ideas. I don't have the hardcopy yet, but I'm hoping it's bound well enough to put up with my thumbing through it at random.

A Requiem for Krogo, and other stuff

2011-07-29T20:03:00.000-04:00

Alas, poor unconscious Krogo has been turned into morlock-chow. Truly an abused henchman if ever there was one. Netal does so make me proud. This was building up for a few sessions - the morlocks are tired of the party's unfulfilled promises of people-flesh. I think I'll implement a "people toll" for players heading down to the 2nd level.

One thing missing from the last session report was Netal's discovery of why he is surrounded by dying hobos. He took his crow amulet (lifted from P.W.'s corpse way back when) to Frondgar the sage for identification. After several attempt, he discovered its powers - it sucked one hit point per day from the weakest person nearby, and gave it to the wearer. It also prevents all natural healing, except by the wearer. He decided to keep this a secret from the rest of the party, so I omitted it from the session report (which is a cut'n'paste job from the email I send out to my players).

He gets an "A" for conniving, but I give him two more sessions before everyone decides Netal is a life-draining vampire monster. It will be funny to watch those crows come to roost, though, so it's all good.

He barely made it out of the dungeon alive - he's a very new player, this is his first time playing the game. So he's got some risk assessment skills to develop.

In other news, James Raggi is selling some copies of ASE1 at RopeCon over in Finland. ASE1 gets a nice spot at the front of the table: http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2011/07/ropecon-2011-or-old-school-north.html, which is awesome. I love the look of his table - check out all those little yellow stripes in the corners of the books. So old-school!

Skype + Fantasy Grounds continues to be a very viable way to play the game. The feel is very much like having people at the house, so I'm quite pleased - I think I'll keep the experiment going for a while.

I am also now signed up for Google+, but am totally unimpressed by the interface. Usually Google gets things so right, but wow, it's not very useable at all. It keeps telling me my friend (Mongo's player, who sent me the invite) isn't signed up for Google+ and it is sending him emails instead. It's also not entirely intuitive when posting messages to circles. So I'm officially not loving it right now.

Session recap, 7/27/2011

2011-07-28T22:28:00.001-04:00

CAST
----------
Netal the Elf (1), his slave Krogo the Fighter, and his dogs Bitey and Moe

Alone, Netal awoke in the Tattered Heel Inn, and found that yet another hobo had died during the night, the corpse draped across Netal's legs. This put Netal in a foul mood, and he set to disemboweling the irksome hobo. The innkeeper barged into the common room as Netal spread the hobo's intestines across the floor, and was horrified at the mess. "Is this a problem?" "Oh, no, sir, it's just a hobo, don't worry about it. Try not to be so messy though."

Netal set out to find adventure in the Big City - taking out his handy tourist map, he randomly picked the Inn of Alabaster Surprise and headed over, dripping with gore. The concierge was unimpressed.

Concierge: "The servant's entrance is around back"
Netal: "What can I do here?"
Concierge: "Oh, you're looking for work. Well, the man-whores report out back. We have only the finest, most respectable pimps overseeing our man-whores, I'm sure you'll enjoy working here. Certain of our freakier clientele wouldn't mind an elf at all."
Netal: "How much does that pay?"
Concierge: "Oh, ten gold per day."
Netal: "What? Look, what can I get?"
Concierge: "Oh, you actually mean you're a customer? I recommend a bath. You're covered with blood and smell absolutely rancid."

Insulted, Netal stormed off. Looking at his trusty tourist map again, he randomly picked out the Academy of Elevated Thought as just the place to satisfy his thirst for adventure. Arriving, he saw several buildings arranged around an open quad, with students and professors streaming in and out. One of the professors took note of Netal, and came over, demanding to know his business. "You're no student! Look at you, you're armed to the teeth and covered in blood! Off with you or I'm calling the Fist!" Realizing he'd find no adventure covered in hobo-gore, Netal reluctantly headed back to the Inn of Alabaster Surprise.

Concierge: "Again? What are you looking for now?"
Netal: "I want a bath."
Concierge: "Ahh, now we're talking. The finest perfumed baths are available, with the most beautiful attendants to service your needs. Are you looking for male or female?"
Netal: "Uhhh, female"
Concierge: "Excellent, and how many?"
Netal: "To do what?"
Concierge: "Oh, only the most delightful acts. Anything in particular you're looking for, sir?"
Netal: "..."
Concierge: "Ahh, a discrete man. I appreciate that, sir. I'll just put you down for the full service. Let's see... Lucinda doesn't mind elves. She'll clean you from head to toe, and everything in between. That will be 150 gp"

Attendants took away Netal's armor and clothing to be washed while Lucinda led Netal to the baths. He emerged clean of blood and gore, and no longer smelling of old cheese, and his armor had been scrubbed clean of hobo effluvia.

Feeling confident that he would no longer offend all he met, Netal headed back to the Academy of Elevated Thought. Entering a few of the buildings, he overheard lectures on physics, mathematics, and the impact of halfling literature on modern society. Disappointed that there were no classes being held on how to blow things up with chemicals, he once again consulted his map, and randomly picked the Bank Inviolable as his next destination.

The doors to the bank were massive, 25' high and 20' across. Inside, customers formed neat lines to speak to the various tellers, while two gold-and-iron automatons stood guard at the doors. Each automaton was 20' tall, and had machine guns and rockets launchers mounted on its arm-pods. Netal stood in several lines, seeking to open an account. Eventually he spoke with a bank officer, who informed him that, sadly, the Bank Inviolable did not offer interest to its customers, only the security that comes with having giant fighting robots guard your stuff. The bank officer also had no idea where Netal could find gambling halls, and eventually told Netal to just "get out and quit wasting time."

Netal made a brief foray to the slave-pits to retrieve Krogo, and then headed to the Bazaar Incomparable to seek out shotguns. The gun vendor he spoke to took one look at the elf and spat out "One o' them elves? That done put the sleep-hoodoo on my sister and took advantage of her? Get out of here or I'll shoot!"

Once again failing to procure a shotgun, and out of ideas for things to do in the city, Netal decided to head to the dungeon. He stopped in Chelmsfordshire for the night, waking up to find a dead villager sprawled at his feet. Nobody else was awake, so with Krogo's help Netal cut the villager's head off and quietly snuck out of the tavern's common room. He washed up quickly at the town well, and then tried speaking to the many soldiers of the Unyielding Fist who had set up camp just outside the village.

Netal: "So... what is the Unyielding Fist anyways?"
Soldier: "What? Are you serious? We're the army! The city guard! The law!"
Netal: "Oh... how do I join? You need any help?"
Soldier (incredulous): "Seriously? A filthy elf? Get out of here!"

Netal recovered from his hurt feelings and headed off into the wilderness before the decapitation was discovered, heading straight for the dungeon. On the way there, a half-dozen stirges descended on Netal and Krogo, one beginning to suck Krogo's blood. Netal quickly chanted the arcane words of his sleep spell, and the stirges fell to the forest floor, unconscious, where they were stomped into paste.

Once in the dungeon, Netal made his way to several unexplored corridors, searching each in turn. Highlights included:

a. An entirely empty room, but the door had a morlock skin nailed to it
b. A room with a group of 2' long cave locusts. The locusts were non-hostile
c. A room that had the face of a smiling, bearded man carved upon the wall. The mouth was a recessed cavity, and the bottom of the cavity was coated with dried blood - a lot of dried blood. Netal cut his hand and let a few drops fall into the cavity, but nothing happened.
d. A dining hall, lined with fluted columns and containing a rotting banquet table. At the head of a table was a mirror that reflected unusual and/or horrible scenes. It first showed Netal and Krogo standing completely still, wearing white robes decorated with a symbol that they could not bear to look at for long. The mirror's frame was silver and inlaid with sapphires. Netal tried prying the sapphires off, but after getting distracted found the sapphires were no longer in his pocket but back on the mirror. Shocked and appalled by his inability to strip the mirror of valuables, he opted to take the mirror with him.

As the exploration continued, Netal rounded a corner and walked into a group of a half dozen goblins. One of the goblins jammed a spear into Krogo's gut, felling him - Netal reacted by reading from his sleep scroll, sending the goblins into a slumber from which they would never awaken. After slaughtering the little monsters, Netal poured the last of his orange healing slime down Krogo's throat, which stopped the slave's bleeding.

Netal dragged both Krogo and the mirror back towards the exit from the dungeon, but ran across a group of morlocks in the wide corridor that crossed the middle of the level.

Morlock (pointing at Krogo): "Mongos back! Mongos bring food!"
Netal: "No! Not food!"
Morlock (brandishing spear): "Mongos promise people, but never bring people! We take food now!"
Netal: "What will you give me?"
Morlock: "Chief have silver. We give silver for food."
Netal: "No, I want gold"
Morlock: "No gold! You get nothing!"
Netal: "Wait! Help me get out of the dungeon and you can have him!"
Morlock: "Deal!"

Two of the morlocks grabbed Krogo and dragged the unconscious pit-fighter off to their lair, while the others led Netal and his dogs back to the dungeon entrance.

Once outside, disaster struck again as Netal began descending the slopes of Mt. Rendon. A group of a half-dozen men in red diapers and thigh-high red boots, brandishing rifles, appeared. They shouted "Exterminate the brutal!" and began to charge. Netal released Bitey to engage the men while he poured oil all over the brush and set a forest fire. Hoping the smoke would distract his attackers, he ran off. Bitey was able to kill two of the men, but the other three shot the dog down and chased after Netal.

Hearing the pursuit, Netal released Moe to slow them down. He managed to gain another few hundred feet as the men had to stop to shoot the second dog, but it was clear they would catch up, as he was slowed down by his backpack and the heavy mirror. He stripped off his tabard, decorated with the sigil of Nisus, and tossed it in one direction while he ran off in another. This ruse appeared to work, as the men's voices receded into the distance, and Netal was able to safely make it back to Chelmsfordshire.

He was greeted at the Muddy Cup (Chelmsfordshire's sole tavern) by a distraught barkeeper. "I can't believe it! They murdered Willy, right here in my own tavern! Cut his head off! Who would do that?" Netal mumbled something noncommittal, slept for the night, woke to find another villager dead at his feet, and slunk off back to Denethix.

Once in Denethix, Netal spent the night at the Tattered Heel again, waking to find yet another dead hobo. The innkeeper approached Netal with a complaint.

Innkeeper: "Look, you can't stay here anymore. It's the hobos. I don't know what you're doing, but every morning there's another dead hobo."
Netal: "How much would it take for you to ignore the hobos? How about 10 gp?"
Innkeeper: "Are you crazy? I'm going to have the Fist all over this place, with all these hobos dying! Try 110 gp"
Netal (paying innkeeper): "Fine. But this is forever."
Innkeeper: "Not a problem, sir. Just don't go killing guests with money. I don't care about the hobos, do what you want to them. You have a nice day, sir!"

The innkeeper properly bribed, Netal went to the Bazaar Incomparable to sell his horrible mirror. He approached several vendors, but each viewed the horrible scenes (occasionally those reflected were in the glistening stomach of some enormous beast, sometimes they would slit each other's throats, etc) and proclaimed that they could never find a buyer for such a horrible thing.

Nonplussed, Netal returned to the Bank Inviolable, and covered the mirror with a blanket. He arranged to have the Bank store the mirror in their vaults for a small fee, and received a receipt in return. Heading back to the Tattered Heel, he was shocked to see the mirror standing in the common room.

Innkeeper: "That mirror just showed up! And it's reflections are really weird. I don't like it."
Netal: "What the? Here's 10 gp. If the mirror shows up while I'm not around, just hide it somewhere or stick it in a closet."
Innkeeper: "You really think someone would steal that thing? Have you seen what it reflects? You're damn straight I'll put it in a closet if I see it show up again."

Netal grabbed the troublesome mirror and sought out Frondgar, the elven sage on the Street of the Alien. He paid the sage 100 gp and requested that the arcane properties of the mirror be identified. Frondgar laid hands on the mirror, and entered a trance like state. Upon awakening a few minutes later he had this to report:

Frondgar: "I have sent my mind chasing the arcane trails to the source of the mirror's power, and discovered this. The mirror shows scenes of an altered reality, twisted in strange ways."
Netal: "Seriously? Scenes of altered reality? That's what you've got to tell me?
Frondgar: "Look, I know you already knew that. From looking at it and all. But I've confirmed it. I've seen the webs of enchantment."
Netal: "That's it? Scenes of altered reality?"
Frondgar: "Yes, I know you already knew. Look, if you come back tomorrow I can see if I can find out more."

Returning the next day, and forking out another 100 gp, Frondgar cast his identify spell again, and pulled back from the mirror with a horrified scream.

Frondgar: "I followed the magic, and it saw me! The mirror has an intelligence!"
Netal: "What do you mean, an intelligence?"
Frondgar: "A mind, a will! It thinks! The mirror has goals, a purpose!"
Netal: "Is the mirror evil?"
Frondgar: "I do not know! But it is powerful, very powerful! This is very dangerous!"
Netal: "You take it"
Frondgar: "Yeah, I don't think so. It's all yours."

Netal returned to the Tattered Heel's common room with his gruesome mirror, and so the session ended.

Next session is Wednesday, August 10th.

25% off ASE1 til July 29th

2011-07-27T08:24:00.000-04:00

There's a 25% off sale at Lulu until July 29th, so here's your chance to pick up ASE1 for cheap if you haven't already. Use coupon code TIME305 when you check out.

Cave Jellyfish

2011-07-26T22:54:00.000-04:00

For no good reason, I was reading up on the lifecycle of the jellyfish. Weird creatures, weird lifecycle. I really like the notion of the "scyphistoma" - for some jellies, the immature polyps are stacks of jellyfish that can split off. What a perfect creature for the dungeon.

While I've got a water level planned for level 3, I don't want to put too many traditional sea creatures in there. Too predictable. Instead, I'll have the cave jellies floating through the air, stinging and paralyzing and eating adventurers' faces. The scyphistoma is what they'll likely encounter at first - and when they retreat after some nasty paralyzations, the whole thing just comes apart into a dozen jellies to chase them around. Given the Labyrinth Lord rules, the scyphistoma is worth a massive amount of XP for something I'm putting on the second level, but I'm guessing the players never kill the thing before it breaks up into its component jellyfish. If they do, hey, they can have the XP, they earned it.

Cave Jellyfish
No. Enc: 1d12 (1d12)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 3’ (1’)
Fly: 60’ (20’)
Armor Class: 4
Hit Dice: 1
Attacks: 1
Damage: 1d3 + see below
Save: F1
Morale: 12
Hoard Class: None
XP: 13

The cave jellyfish is a glowing, translucent yellow creature that floats about in the air, supported by bladders of gas in its umbrella-shaped body. This invertebrate attacks by lashing out with its venomous tentacles, and if a victim is hit and does save versus paralysis, he will be paralyzed for 1d8 rounds.

Despite their clumsy appearance, the cave jellyfish are capable of graceful maneuvering, and are able to move relatively quickly through the damp cavern air.

Cave Scyphistoma
No. Enc: 1 (1)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 0’ (0’)
Armor Class: 9
Hit Dice: 10
Attacks: 3
Damage: 1d3 + see below
Save: F0
Morale: 12
Hoard Class: None
XP: 2,400

These creatures are the larval stage of the cave jellyfish. The scyphistoma is a glowing, translucent yellow polyp, five feet in diameter and eight feet tall. The polyp is firmly attached to the cave or dungeon surface, and will attack anything nearby with its tentacles. It may make up to three attacks per round, with a reach of 5’. On a successful hit, the victim must save versus paralysis or be paralyzed for 1d8 rounds by the painful venomous sting of the tentacles.

Scyphistomas are normally quiescent, but will begin the next stage of their lifecycle if disturbed and unable to feed. Should the creature come under attack, or victims manage to escape its grasp, it will began to split into multiple cave jellyfish, at a rate of one per round. Each split will cause 5 points of damage to the cave scyphistoma, until it reaches zero (or below), at which nothing will be left of the parent scyphistoma but shredded flaps of bioluminescent matter.

Each cave jellyfish spawned will have 5 hit points.

Using Fantasy Grounds and Skype

2011-07-16T21:53:00.000-04:00

For our last session, we placed using Fantasy Grounds II and Skype. It was a fairly short session, as Gutboy had a bunch of problems getting his microphone working and it took a while to resolve it all. Then we had a "training period" where we figured out how to roll dice and fill in character sheets.

Overall, it went fairly smoothly. I have a few quibbles with Fantasy Grounds, mostly with the "masking" feature for maps. If you accidentally unmask something, you have to wipe out everything you've unmasked and start all over again. I'd also appreciate being able to draw arbitrary polygons instead of just free-form and rectangles. These probably aren't issues for "battle map" style games like 4th edition, but for a megadungeon with lots of odd-shaped rooms it's a big deal.

So the two players virtually attending were a bit nervous, as always, about tackling the dungeon with reduced numbers, so they monkeyed around in Denethix instead. The old landlord has been jettisoned (and apparently won't be converted to Morlock food, how sad - I was hoping for acts of brigandry and cannibalism), and Mr. Roper has taken his place. Is this the first campaign to draw inspiration from "Three's Company" ? I'll toss Mrs. Roper into the mix at some point, and see if I can stir up some intrigue in the apartment building.

I introduced a bit of the seedier side of Denethix - hafnium addiction. That's one of the less notable narcotics. Wait til they run into the Variegated Eye-Leech addicts...

There was a lot of focus on Mongo's book, so I was just making things up to amuse myself. I had no idea what its evil powers were - I was thinking more along the lines of evil stat increases, but then the players decided to have the elven sage cast "identify" on it, and he identified a power. So I blurted out "it grants desires." Had to roll with it from there - so now Mongo can trade evil acts for fantastic prizes. To quote Mongo's player: "There's no way this can turn out bad."

Session recap, 7/13/2011

2011-07-15T20:12:00.002-04:00

CAST
---------
Gutboy Barrellhouse the Cleric (3), his dog Rufus, and his henchman Serlo the Elf
Mongo the Fighter (2), and his henchmen Leroy Brown the Cleric and Jimgar the Elf

Mongo and Gutboy awoke after spending the night at Mongo's two-bedroom apartment. The two decided that they should become roomies, and find a cheaper apartment. The upscale digs on the Street of Worthy Servitude were nice, but a bit too pricey for two down-on-their-luck adventurers.

The two tracked down their real-estate agent and headed to the Street of Students. "Well, it's not as nice as the Street of Worthy Servitude. The students are rowdy, and some of them are even abolitionists!" Mongo and Gutboy had heard enough. "Rowdy? Parties? Let's check it out!"

Walking down to the Street of Students, they found that the street was teeming with shabbily dressed young radicals. The young men had tattered blazers, many without ascots, and the young ladies' bustles barely extended past their behinds - the froghemoth bone ribs were clearly used and worn out. Upon seeing topless feminist protesters decrying the confinement of their mammary glands by the male hegemony, the pair decided they had found the perfect neighborhood.

Their agent took them to a three-bedroom apartment, where they met their prospective landlord, Mr. Roper. The apartment was filled with odors of stale beer, herb, and other unidentifiable substances. The walls were spattered with gleaming metallic stains.

Gutboy: "What's that metal stuff on the wall?"
Roper: "A bunch of haf-heads used to live here before I threw them out."
Gutboy: "Haf-heads?"
Roper: "Hafnium addicts."
Gutboy: "What's hafnium?"
Roper: "It's a metal. The haf-heads suck on it. Cheaper than the good lanthanides."
Gutboy: "They chew on it?"
Roper: "No, they dip it in a jelly and suck on it. Their mouths fill up with sparks and they spit that metal all over the place. Lousy haf-heads, they never pay their rent. You guys don't use drugs, do you?"
Gutboy: "No, of course not!"
Roper: "Good, good."
Mongo: "We need to have a party here"
Roper: "Whoa! What's that? You're not thinking of having girls up, are you?"
Gutboy: "Why not?"
Roper: "You can't have girls! It's not proper! Unless you're gay. Are you gay? If you were gay, that would be OK."
Gutboy: "No, we're not..."
Roper: "Didn't think so. I've got my suspicions about the guy downstairs too. I think he just wants to live with those two women."
Gutboy: "Do you want us to deal with him?"
Roper: "Like how?"
Gutboy: "We can kill him for you!"
Roper: "No! Why would I want that? I want rent, not murder!"
Gutboy: "Where does he live?"
Roper: "Never mind! What kind of students are you, anyhow?"
Mongo (paging through evil book): "Look, reading book! Me student!"
Roper: "You've convinced me with your scholarly demeanor. How about you?"
Gutboy: "I'm a priest. You've heard of Nisus?"
Roper: "No, can't say that I have. That a little god?"
Gutboy: "Yes! Surely, you worship a god?"
Roper: "Well, yeah, I worship all of them. I hold a special place for Daog, though. He's the god of pits, and when I was a wee lad, we lived in a pit. Those were the days..."
Mongo: "No dogs though right? Put dog in stables!"
Gutboy: "Wait a minute! I need to have my dog!"
Roper: "Well, since you're a priest... I'll let you keep the dog"

Money exchanged hands, the lease was signed, and Mongo and Gutboy were now roommates. The two began hauling the futons and overstuffed wingback chair to the Street of Students, but on the way they encountered their old landlord. He began noisily demanding the rent for the full term of the lease, but a few diplomatic words from Mongo ("Me not pay you ever. You get nothing") easily convinced the bigoted demi-human hater to release them from their obligations.

The new apartment was settled, there was some tidying-up of the worship-booth of Nisus, and the question of what to do next arose. After a brief discussion, the duo decided to revisit Frondgar the Elven Sage, and see if he could use his mystical arts to determine the powers of Mongo's evil book.

Frondgar bid them enter his home, and had Mongo lay the book out on a table. Flipping through the pages of the book, Mongo saw that where once there were letters, there were now crudely drawn pictures illustrating a man performing various vile deeds - disemboweling, murder, beheadings, wearing intestines like feather boas, cannibalism, and other gruesome acts.

Mongo handed Frondgar the 100 gp fee, and the sage placed his hands upon the book and entered a state of trance. After a few moments, the elf began shaking violently, and his nose began bleeding profusely. His eyes shot open wide, and the elf jumped back from the evil tome.

Frondgar: I have sent my mind through the interstices between dimensions to trace back the source of this book's vile energies. I have stumbled upon the edges of the hell-dimensions, but have managed to determine one thing about this book - it it is here to fulfill Mongo's desires.
Gutboy: You mean the identify spell?
Frondgar: You seek to reduce the efforts of probing beyond the veil and into the secret realms athwart reality those few mere words?
Gutboy: But it was the identify spell, right?
Frondgar: You are taking the mystery out of it.

Mongo began paging through the book. He saw pictures of a stick figure, clearly meant to represent Mongo, walking up to a sleeping priest and cutting his head off. Other pages showed Mongo lining the walls of his new apartment with skulls, and of Mongo sitting upon a thrown of skulls, surrounded by corpses.

Gutboy: Did you find out anything else? Is it commanding Mongo to do things?
Frondgar: I have told you what I have seen. It fulfills desires!

Mongo paged through a bit more - he saw a picture of himself and Gutboy chewing on hafnium, with an arrow pointing to a second picture that showed Mongo in a splendid reclining chair surrounded by adoring women. Further pages showed Mongo performing various rituals, meeting with a jet black stick-figure, and kneeling before a three-lobed eye.

Gutboy: Wait, the book wants us to drugs? Maybe we should get rid of this book
Mongo: No! I mean, maybe there something simpler? Start small?

Turning more pages, Mongo came across a picture of him shoving a child into a mud puddle, and the next picture showed Mongo receiving a sandwich.

Mongo (wondering aloud): Is child rich? Poor? What kind of sandwich?
Gutboy: This book is eivl
Mongo: Me save book for later

The pair decided to put off the matter of the evil picture-book til later, and head off for adventure. They gathered up their henchmen and headed west towards Chelmsfordshire.

And here our session ended. Next game night is Wed, July 27th.

ASE1 reviewed in Fight On! #12

2011-07-14T23:24:00.001-04:00

Just got a copy of Fight On! #12, and Gabor Lux has published a very positive review of ASE1 in that issue.

So I recommend you drop what you're doing right now, and buy both Fight On! #12 and ASE1 if you haven't already!

Review: Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom

2011-07-07T19:41:00.000-04:00

Instead of actually working on level 2 (and thus, by definition, the sequel to ASE1) I've been playing Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom. It's an Encounter Critical adventure implemented as Interactive Fiction - like the old Infocom games I used to play when I was a kid.

Man that was a sweet, sweet game. There are only a few commands to deal with (assail, parley, regard, seize, use), and the puzzles are fairly simple. The gonzo-factor is over the top though, since it is Encounter Critical.

Things I really liked:

a. Functions as a play example for Encounter Critical. Not the mechanics, but how monsters & society operates. The Encounter Critical rules are really lightweight, so this game really helps illustrate some of the default setting.

b. Bee Queen encounter. Wonderfully silly.

c. The secret identify of the Slaver King. It was jaw-droppingly over-the-top.

I've only played through the one time, and while I solved almost everything, I did goof a few things.

1. I assailed Adam, so he didn't become a buddy. Whoops.
2. I can't figure out how to get to the fifth encounter with the Delicate Doxy. Maybe if I was nicer to Adam? Or maybe there's something that can be done with the gold statue?

If anybody knows the secret to the fifth encounter, I'd love to hear it.

Game play lasted maybe 6 hours? It's a pretty easy game, but well worth the time.

Grognardia reviews ASE1

2011-06-28T21:56:00.000-04:00

James at Grognardia has written a very positive review of ASE1

I can't imagine anybody reading Henchman Abuse doesn't already read Grognardia, but if you're on the fence, check out his review and then send me your precious dollars. Your family can skip a meal - this is D&D we're talking about...

The Fear Strikes

2011-06-24T20:47:00.000-04:00

So, the fear struck the players big time this last session. They had received explicit instructions on where they could get a big bug, but stood around the well wondering about all the ways that things could go wrong.

They started exploring side corridors instead, and found a small stash of treasure (yes, the Mona Lisa, etc - Mongo's player shouted out "We found the Louvre?!?"), and then they headed towards some other corridors they had found weeks ago when P.W. the halfling, who was mapping at the time, fell into a pit that sealed up on top of him. I didn't let them map while they rushed around trying to find another way to get to P.W. way back when, so they thought it was a whole new area. I got bored, though, and told them they'd already been there and that they weren't going to be finding anything. Not very old school, but the mood wasn't right for pointless fumbling around like that. You have to know when to break the rules.

So back to the big hole, more staring and trying to figure out how to get down - a plan is hatched, and then we look at the clock. Sorry, time's up, everybody out of the dungeon so I can get some sleep...

Well, next session they may actually enter the second level of the dungeon...

20% off til June 30th

2011-06-24T07:12:00.001-04:00

Lulu's having another sale - 20% off til June 30th. The code to use at checkout is SUNSHINE305

So if you haven't purchased ASE1 yet, now's your chance for massive savings (again). Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy!

Session recap, 6/22/2011

2011-06-23T22:30:00.001-04:00

CAST
---------
Gutboy Barrellhouse the Cleric (3), his dog Rufus, and his henchman Serlo the Elf
Mongo the Fighter (2), and his henchmen Leroy Brown the Cleric and Jimgar the Elf
Netal the Elf (1), his slave Krogo the Fighter, and his dogs Bitey and Moe
Justin the Dwarf (2), and his dog Bailey

Netal and Justin spent the night in the common room at a flophouse - they woke to find another dead hobo lying sprawled across their feet. Netal showed restraint, and decided against gutting the hobo to see if he had eaten any treasure.

The two of them went to Mongo's, and banged on his door. Mongo refused to open the door to them, fearing his landlord would find out, so the two spiked his door shut. The practical joke failed miserably, as Mongo's apartment door opened inwards - he exclaimed "free spike!" as he finally answered the door, and the trio headed off to the Bazaar Incomparable for some shopping.

Bullets previously ordered were picked up, and the gunsmith still had no idea what a "silencer" was, so Justin led the party to the Temple of Science, hoping to commission something to quiet his guns. He accosted the attendant at the door, asking to meet with somebody.

Attendant: "What do you need?"
Justin: "I want a suppressor for my gun. Can you make me one?"
Attendant: "I don't think you understand. We aren't craftsmen. We are here for the worship of Science."
Justin: "Well, how do I go about getting a silencer?"
Attendant: "I suggest you pray, and perhaps Science will see fit to enlighten you."
Justin: "OK, I'll try that."

The attendant led Justin into the temple, where they both knelt before the 10' tall black step-pyramid within, the numbers at its top quietly ticking down to 0. The attendant recited, and Justin repeated: "Oh great Science, we humbly pray that Justin receive a vision of this silencer he speaks of, so that his gun may be quieted in battle, and we pray that the people of this city learn the glory of Science, so that your glories may abound evermore. Amen." An unsubtle request for a donation was made, and Justin gave the attendant 50 gp.

Justin: "So when do I get my silencer?"
Attendant: "You must keep praying, and should Science see fit, you will be enlightened."

After this burst of religious fervor, Justin rejoined the party, Gutboy showed up, they purchased an extensive collection of rope, and headed off to the dungeon. A war-band of moktars was encountered on the way, but other than some spear-shaking and grunting, the encounter was non-hostile, and the two parties departed without bloodshed. The night's rest was interrupted by the return of the dread red mist, and Serlo the Elf once again groaned in his sleep and took some damage. The party surmised that Serlo must have done something to become cursed - when asked if he remembered anything during the night, he said that he dreamt that Netal was drinking his blood.

Dismissing that nonsense, the party headed into the dungeon, and made their way to the morlock lair. Finding some morlocks on the way, they asked for Bilibub, and their friendly cannibal arrived, eager to get his claws on the promised person-meat. He was quite disappointed to be handed only a day's worth of iron rations. Gutboy asked for directions to "big bugs" and again was told to head north down the hall, and go down the well.

Heading north, the party passed a few side doors and passages, and eventually the thirty foot wide corridor ended at a circular wall. In the middle of the floor was a 10' wide hole - it looked to be at least 100' deep, with a red light coming from below. Gutboy and Justin tied 150' of rope together, with a spike on the end, and lowered the rope to see if they could hit bottom - but with the rope played out all the way, they still hadn't made it to the bottom.

Deciding to put off exploration of the well, they headed to a side corridor, and discovered many small corridor branching off it. Following one of these side tunnels north, the dogs in the lead fell into a pit trap, and the lid sprang shut, trapping the hounds within. Light pressure was enough to push the lid open again, and the dogs were extracted - further exploration revealed many pit traps in a 70' square area of tunnels, and a pair of double-doors along the southernmost tunnel.

Opening the doors, the party discovered a small art gallery, with a massive crystal chandelier hanging from the 30' high ceiling. On one wall hung a painting of a woman with a mysterious smile, on the other a somewhat abstract depiction of a swirly sky with swirly stars, and against another a well-sculpted marble statue of a naked man. Showing a remarkable knowledge of pre-apocalyptic art history, the party identified these as the Mona Lisa, Starry Night, and Michelangelo's David. Justin pulled out his protonium-metal dagger, and cut the paintings out of their frames, rolled them up, and shoved them into his sack. This done, Gutboy then went and collected the empty frames.

The party went back to contemplate a descent into the well. Unsure of how to get down, they went back to the morlocks and asked how they did. "Tie gut-rope to pole, climb down rope." "Can we borrow your pole?" "You wait, I ask chief... (few moments later) No. Chief say mongos no get pole."

The party went back to the well, stared dejectedly at it again, and then wandered off into another side tunnel. They passed through a few empty rooms, marveling at the familiar looking footprints in the dust. Eventually the realization struck that they had been here before, there was no loot to be found, and it was back to staring at the well.

Finally, a plan began to take shape - tie the rope off around a 10' square section of stone in the nearby tunnel-area and then keep tying ropes off from there, running them down to the bottom of the well. Further sounding with the rope & spike found that the depth was just around 150' - the three ropes tied together were just a smidge short. A plan for descent finally in place, they decided that they had spent enough time underground and should try to get some loot back to Denethix to sell.

The party went back, six of them grabbed the statue, and they headed back out of the dungeon. There was a remarkably one-sided fight with a group of hostile fire beetles, over in seconds with the aid of a sleep spell, and otherwise the party escaped unmolested. Another episode of the red mist occurred during the night, and even after an overnight stay in the town of Retennis, where the party kept no watch, Serlo woke up feeling drained and looking pale. Justin once again used magical healing to rejuvenate his henchman, and there was much speculation as to how Serlo became so afflicted.

Finally, Denethix was reached - and the party went to sell their priceless works of art.

"Huh. It's kind of cut up, and this stuff is pretty old fashioned. I'll give you 120 gp for the lady, 200 for the stars, and 500 for the statue."
"How can this be? These are ancient artifacts!"
"You can't step outside without tripping over ancient art. Who likes this old-fashioned stuff anyhow?"
"But this is marble! This stuff's expensive!"
"What are you talking about? Just go to any of the ruins, take some blocks from some of the old buildings. You can get it anywhere."

Grumbling, the party sold their looted art, and retired for the evening.

Temple of Sorrow

2011-06-20T23:06:00.001-04:00

121.b. Temple of Sorrow

Covered with crawling blue fungus-vines is an ancient marble temple. The windowless building has a single entrance on the southern wall. Within, the roof is supported by two rows of Doric columns. This is the Temple of Sorrow, and is the home of an Eater of Woe.

Those who enter and are suitably sorrowful (a companion PC or henchman has died in the last 3 days) will see an apparition of the deceased. This apparition is a product of the Eater of Woe’s feeding upon their sorrow. Their hearts will lighten as their grief is digested, granting a +1 on all “to hit” rolls and saving throws for the next 24 hours. Those affected will definitely note that their joy is unnatural in origin. After a few minutes, the apparition will begin to decay and crumble in upon itself. The agony upon the apparition’s face as it corrodes does nothing to reduce the supernatural joy of its former friends and colleagues.

If no one in the party is sorrowful, the Eater of Woe will manifest itself as a telepathic command to “GO FORTH AND BRING ME YOUR SORROW!” The famished Eater’s urgent order causes nose bleeds, quivering, and 1 hp of damage per round to those within the Temple, until either they depart or someone dies, causing a fresh source of sorrow. Such a victim must, of course, be actually missed by the survivors.

More Lemmy

2011-06-19T12:55:00.001-04:00

Hidden in the second level is a tomb. No bodies lie within, but seven funerary statues stand along the walls. The largest statue depicts a man with muttonchops and a prominent mole.

I draw a huge amount of inspiration from Blair's Planet Algol, so much so that I have to expunge stuff that my unconscious deeply wants to plagiarize when I'm working on my megadungeon. My "Exotic Intoxicants" submission to the Fight On! random table contest was a victim of this, I realized after submission that the resemblances between one entry and Gamma Orichalcum were way too close, and I had to email some last minute corrections to Calithena. The Tomb of Metal predates my Algol obsession though - my Lemmy fascination is all my own.

ASE1 Map Pack - free download

2011-06-15T22:55:00.000-04:00

One unfortunate problem with on-demand printing is that the printers don't do anything "fancy," like separate maps that you can pull out from the book and look at. This makes running the module a little tricky, since you have to flip around a lot.

So to help with that problem, I put together a PDF of all the maps in the ASE1 module and have made it available for download. It's in the "Download" section to the right (below the shameless money-grab section), or you can get it here: ASE Map Pack

20% off ASE1 til June 13th, and What's Next

2011-06-09T22:20:00.000-04:00

So two things:

First (and this is a big reason why I chose Lulu over RPGnow), Lulu is having another one of their sales. Until June 13th, enter code TOP305 at checkout and get 20% off! So if you haven't purchased ASE1 yet, do it now and save save save!

The second thing is What's Next. So I've got the first level published, and you want to know (well at least Melan wanted to know, so I'll assume you're all interested) what's the next thing to happen. I'm working on the 2nd/3rd levels, and possibly the 4th, for the next installment. I'll stop & publish when things hit 80-100 pages, which is the sweet spot for Lulu publishing. I've got the maps for the 2nd & 3rd levels done, and I have a really sketchy key of the 2nd level that I need to flesh out. As I write it out in more detail I'll be back to posting the various encounters & monsters, like I was doing a few months ago. I expect that part deux will be out before the end of the year.

Dungeon Module ASE1 is FOR SALE

2011-06-08T21:54:00.000-04:00

Put those dark elves back in their box and get your gonzo on! Riches, glory, and super-science await the bold and the clever in the deep places under the ground. This module describes the dinosaur- and wizard-infested future of the Earth, the city of Denethix, and the first level of the megadungeon that beckons from below: the Anomalous Subsurface Environment.

The second round of proofs came back from Lulu and all is well, so ASE1 is officially for sale. Click on the image of the cover over to the right, that will take you to the Lulu storefront.

I'm offering three versions, scroll til you find the right one.

Publisher Grade paper: $17.57. Buy this one if you're in the U.S.
Standard paper: $20.18. The printers in Canada & overseas use this kind of paper, so shipping is vastly cheaper on this version if you're outside the U.S. Buy this if you're an international customer.
PDF: $13.49

I'm totally stoked. Putting the book together was way more work than I thought it would be, but the end result looks absolutely gorgeous.

If you read this blog regularly, you already know what this is - if you're just driving by, this is the most awesome product you could ever possibly own and if you don't buy it now, you'll probably be dead by morning. Just sayin'.

If you do buy it, I must beg for a favor - please talk about it online somewhere! I'm a small blog, I try to limit myself to content-only posts (no opinion pieces) so I don't rack up the followers of the "big guys." So please help me out & tell the world what you think about it, good or bad.

Vice

2011-06-04T23:42:00.001-04:00

I just watched a marathon of the greatest television show ever made - Miami Vice. Just a few episodes, so it wasn't a marathon for me personally, but the taste is sweet all the same.

So naturally I'm going to have to figure out how to translate Miami Vice into a dungeon. Flavoring the dungeon dressing is easy - art deco & pastels. The hard part is the characters - how does a pair of too-cool detectives translate into the dungeon? And Lt. Castillo. Can't leave him out. I'm thinking they'll be the cloning facility's crime division. So somewhere on the fourth level.

Of course such a ridiculous idea has to be treated with absolute seriousness. Playing stupid ideas for laughs really cheapens the experience - it's only when really bad ideas are presented earnestly that they truly blossom.

Death of a Halfling, Unmourned

2011-05-28T23:34:00.000-04:00

The semi-suicidal halfling finally met his end last Wednesday. His player wanted a new PC, so he told everyone to not heal him. Before he had even reached -10, the vultures were upon his carcass, looting him for all he had. And gutting him for the heck of it, apparently.

I gave him the choice of rolling up a new PC or using Krogo the Pit-Fighter Slave, but he didn't want a fighter, so Dick Dock was born.

Note to fellow DM's - if you want your players to never drink potions they find, answer "what does it smell like" with "feces." Ad-libbing odors is not my strong suit.

The players MIGHT actually head down to the second level next session. They are under the impression they're down around the third level - no idea why, they are mostly rolling over 1st level monsters. One of the oddities of 2nd level is that the XP requirements are the same as for 1st level, so there's no big incentive to go deeper for the party yet - they're still picking away at 1st level loot. Gutboy's got orders to find a big bug, though, so that should get them heading deeper.

I got a proof back from Lulu for the book - it looks great, except for the maps which the Lulu printing process was not kind to. I'm reworking those this weekend, and then I'll order another proof. So the book should be available in a week or two.

Session recap, 5/25/2011

2011-05-26T23:52:00.000-04:00

CAST
---------
P.W. the Halfling (1), and his slave Krogo the Fighter
Gutboy Barrellhouse the Cleric (3), his dog Rufus, and his henchman Serlo the Elf
Mongo the Fighter (2), and his henchman Leroy Brown the Cleric
Netal the Elf (1), and his dogs Bitey and Moe
Justin the Dwarf (2), and his dog Bailey
Richard "Dick" Dock the Thief (1)

Things started off slowly in the city of Denethix. Mongo and Gutboy awoke in Mongo's apartment, with no evil-book-related hauntings to disturb them. P.W., Netal, and Justin slept in the common room of a filthy inn, along with a crowd of similar drunken wretched hobos - they awoke to find one of them had died during the night. Netal rifled the body, and contemplated gutting the corpse to see if the hobo had recently eaten gold, but decided to preserve law and order for the time being.

The group met at the Bazaar Incomparable and got a bit of shopping done. Mongo examined various wingback chairs, eventually settling on an only slightly battered clawfoot version, upholstered in fine Corinthian leather. Netal harassed a gunsmith, attempting to buy a shotgun, but was informed that sales were restricted by the Unyielding Fist.

Gunsmith: "I'm sorry, but those are restricted. I can't get you one. Look, let's approach this a different way. What's the problem you're trying to solve?"
Netal: "The problem is I want to buy a shotgun."

Eventually Netal offended the honor of the gunsmithing profession by asking if there were any gunsmiths who were less reputable, and was shooed away. Justin actually spent some cash, and left his gun with the smith so that new bullets could be custom cast for the rifling in his barrel.

Justin: "Wouldn't it be more efficient if you guys standardized the barrels?"
Gunsmith: "Are you crazy? I'd go out of business! I make a fortune crafting these bullets!"

Alas, it appears the lessons of Henry Ford and the assembly line were lost when the world was broken. P.W. decided he needed his magical bronze crow amulet identified by a sage - there were no known wizards in the city other than its ruler, Feretha, so he decided that perhaps an elven sage might be able to figure out what properties this relic held. Heading back to Leafy Green's on the Street of the Alien, P.W. asked the bartender what he knew of the amulet. The bartender cleared P.W.'s misconceptions that just any elf would be able to tell him the arcane secrets of any arbitrary magical artifact, and referred him to the eldest sage of the ghetto, Frondgar. Frondgar's attempts failed, however - he sent his mind into the interstices between dimensions in an attempt to root out the intent of the maker, but the complexity of the enchantments were beyond his abilities.

Gutboy was extremely worried about finding a bug to sacrifice that was larger than himself, per Nisus's divine instructions. He bothered the temple to see if they knew where to find large bugs, and was told that the largest beetles they knew of were the Giant Fusillade Beetles of the Lanthanide Wastes, far far to the south of the city - and that perhaps the gunsmiths would know more, as they were the purchasers of the beetle-paste. Another trip to the gunsmith ensued - and he informed Gutboy that there were no beetle hunting expeditions in town at the moment, the last had left a week ago. They should arrive back in a few more weeks, if they survive the beetles and the horrid insect-men who prowl the wastes. Disappointed, Gutboy decided his best bet was in the dungeon.

The party assembled and equipped themselves. P.W. picked up his slave Krogo from the slave-pens, and Mongo decided to leave Jimgar behind. The trip to Mt. Rendon was uneventful until nightfall - however, in the middle of the night, during Mongo & Leroy's watch, the red mist from the last session returned. Serlo once again turned pale, and groaned in his sleep, but could not be awoken, despite repeated slapping by Mongo. Mongo & Leroy dragged everyone out of the mist, but not until a half hour passed and the mist disappeared were they able to awaken the other party members.

The rest of the night went uneventfully, and the party headed into the dungeon. On the way to the lower level, they fought through four of the spongy yellow-and-red kruller-shaped monsters, and passed seven fire beetles that spun in a circle, indicating their respect for Nisus.

Once in the lower level, they made their way to the thirty-foot wide corridor that crossed the dungeon, and explored a corridor leading south from one of its many alcoves. They found the room that the warrior Too had been slain in many weeks ago, and contemplated his well-chewed remains. Mongo laid claim to Too's retractable 20' aluminum pole, and Justin grabbed the white shield that had once belonged to the warrior. There was also a locked strongbox in the room - some jabbing with Justin's protonium letter opener destroyed the locking mechanism, and the lid flipped open, revealing a wealth of silver and tourmaline gems.

Flush with success, the party decided to try their luck beyond the secret door in the room of ravenous scarab beetles and silver-tasseled tapestries that they had looted a few sessions before. The corridor beyond had many doors coming off of it - the first they opened revealed a room with a red-and-black checkerboard floor, and a door on the other side. Mongo prodded at the squares with his retractable pole, and nothing happened. Growing tired of the party's endless caution, P.W. boldly stepped into the room. "See, it's safe" he said as he began to cross to the other side. Sadly, halfway through, he depressed a five foot wide pressure plate stretching across the room, and a one foot thick section of dressed stone fell from the ceiling across the entire length of the room, crushing the halfling.

Little P.W. still lived, but it was clear he was going to die without aid. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Netal quickly stepped in and yanked the bronze crow amulet from around P.W.'s neck, and began to rifle through his backpack, retrieving Krogo's Certificate of Ownership. Deciding to forge P.W.'s signature and transfer ownership to himself, he declared himself to be Krogo's new master. Justin was also keen to help P.W., and under the assumption that the halfling must have eaten some gold for breakfast that morning, assisted his digestion by gutting the little fellow and rooting through his innards looking for treasure. Sadly, P.W.'s constitution was not up to this ungentle treatment, and he died messily.

Mongo, Serlo, and Leroy looked on this scene with expressions of horror, but they were an unsentimental bunch and quickly forgot the entire affair. They continued down the winding corridor, ignoring some doors and paying attention to others. They found a large stone door with a metal handle, and tugged it open a bit - there was webbing attached to the other side! Mongo quickly let go of the door and it slammed shut on its own. Just beyond this door was an archway, revealing a room with a transparent wall, looking into another room full of webbing, three giant crab spiders, and a struggling human caught in the webs.

A plan was quickly hatched, and pools of oil were splashed around the stone door, a rope was attached to its handle, Molotov cocktails were prepared, and flamethrowers were made ready. The door was opened, and one spider was quickly engulfed, but the others crawled through the doorway and up and over the ceiling and walls. Mongo's flamethrower singed one, and the two surviving spiders ran back into the webbing, fearing for their arachnid lives.

Triumphant, the party entered the room full of webbing, and cut their way towards the struggling human. They released him, and the burly thug introduced himself as Richard "Dick" Dock. Mongo explained that fortunately they just had an opening, and he was welcome to join their party - he accepted, and the party was whole once again.

The group moved further into the chamber, cornered and slew the spiders with arrows, and found a dessicated reptilian humanoid corpse in a cocoon of webbing. The corpse had a pouch of gold and a potion bottle that smelled of feces. It didn't look like sewage, however, and Mongo proclaimed "just because it smells like ass, doesn't mean it tastes like ass." Despite these words of wisdom, nobody was willing to make the experiment.

Seeking to return to town, they found that the door had closed behind them, and there was only a featureless stone wall where the doorway should have been. Further, the wall to the east that had been transparent from the outside, looked like normal stone from this side. A deep suspicion gripped the party, and they wondered if morlocks had been watching them the entire time they were in the dungeon.

There was nothing to do except travel onwards in hopes of finding an exit. The party followed a corridor to a room with two hooded, robed figures sitting cross-legged around a gold hookah. Decorative beads of glass hung in an archway opposite the door. Dick Dock boldly stepped into the room, heading to the other side - as soon as he did so, the figures leapt up, tossing their hoods back to reveal rotting faces with knives protruding from their eye-sockets. He screamed in terror, and ran back past Mongo. The knife-faced zombies chased after, and a grim melee ensued, until Gutboy stepped in and commanded the undead horrors to leave in the name of Nisus. Unable to face the divine wrath of the Goddess of Things that Crawl Underground, the zombies fled.

Pocketing the hookah and cutting down the strings of beads for Mongo's apartment, the party followed the single corridor out of the room. It led to the thirty-foot-wide corridor they had encountered earlier. Where their door opened into the corridor, there were two more right next to it - and a pair of Morlocks guarding one of the doors. The morlocks recognized "the Mongos" and greeted them in friendship. Gutboy asked for Bilibub, and soon the happy group were reunited.

Bilibub: "Ahh, mongos back! You bring people? For eating?"
Gutboy: "Hmm, yes. You know the checkerboard room? We've got something there for you"
Bilibub: "Huh?"
Dick Dock (clearly channeling P.W.'s spirit): "The red and black room?"
Bilibub: "Eh?"
Gutboy: "Never mind. So how have you been?"
Bilibub: "Very good. Need more morlocks though. Any of you want to be morlocks?"
(nothing but crickets)
Gutboy: "No... do you know where I could get any bugs? Bugs that are bigger than me?"
Bilibub: "Yes, yes! Go north, and down well. Many bugs there! Very big! Morlocks hunt there!"
Gutboy: "How deep is it?"
Bilibub: "Deep, yes, deep!"
Dick Dock: "How many feet?"
Bilibub: (blank stare)
Dick Dock (holding 50' length of rope): "Is it deeper than this?"
Bilibub: "Ha ha, yes, yes, much deeper"
Dick Dock: "Deeper than two?"
Bilibub: "Yes, yes"
Dick Dock: "How about three or four?"
Bilibub: "No, no, maybe that deep"
Gutboy: "Is there anything we can get for you?"
Bilibub: "Yes, yes! People to eat!"
Dick Dock (once again channeling P.W.): "How about the landlord?"
Mongo: "Yes! The landlord!"
Gutboy: "The landlord!"
Netal: "The landlord!"
Justin: "The landlord!"
Gutboy: "Do you want some of this?" (hands Bilibub an iron ration)
Bilibub: "Hmmm. OK. I take. Maybe good for soup."

The party waved good-bye to their dear friend Bilibub the Cannibalistic Morlock and headed out of the dungeon. They encountered some more crab spiders, but this set ran about in a circular pattern in devotion to Nisus, and the party passed unmolested. The trip back to Denethix was marred by the return of the red mist in the middle of the night - Serlo once again became ill and even paler, and upon awakening Gutboy felt compelled to magically heal Serlo, as the elf seemed close to death.

And here the session ended...

Boutique Product means Boutique Pricing

2011-05-19T22:45:00.000-04:00

At heart I'm fairly lazy, so instead of working on the second level I'm writing this pointless blog post. I promise the blog won't descend into a pile of self-promotional balogna, I just need to get some focus back. Probably this weekend.

So, I've done the math. I've got a small blog with a tiny following - people may say they love content, but as the content turns towards gonzo post-apocalyptic megadungeons, that content-hungry audience gets smaller. Doesn't help that the whole notion of publishing a module turned out to be a vast undertaking that sucked up all my spare time for the past few months, so my content posts have became sparser and sparser.

The reality is that what I'm about to sell is a niche product within a niche of a niche. Let's outline the nested niches here:

a. It's old-school. Very, very niche
b. It's a megadungeon. Niche
c. It's gonzo with robots and guns and other things that make "high fantasy"-type DM's blanche. Yet another niche

So what's my audience here? Possibly just me. Now, on the other hand, there are not-insignificant expenses. Mainly, art. That stuff costs money. It would be both stupid and unfair to my family to blow money on a vanity publishing effort where I can't recoup the expenses. I don't need to make more than I spent, but I do need to try to not lose money - I especially need it to break even so I can finance art for the next book.

So, what I've got is a very boutique product. There's no mass market here. So, it's got to get boutique pricing. No way around it. I'm guessing most other modules I see being sold very cheaply are very very low on art and other expenses, or I am totally misunderstanding the economics involved. Well, that's not me - I dropped some cash here, and the audience is tiny. The price necessarily has to be high.

Of course, high prices can shrink audiences even further - the plus side here is though we are all cheapskates, the majority of us have reached an age where a wee bit of disposable income is available. So, once a purchase decision is made on the quality of an item, the price isn't going to affect things too much one way or another.

So, it looks like my price is going to be $17.57 for an 87-page book, consisting of a city & setting painted in broad strokes, first level (or first two levels depending on how you look at it) of the megadungeon, a boatload of new monsters (34 entries there), some new magic items, etc.

Question about PDF purchases

2011-05-17T00:09:00.000-04:00

I have a question about PDF purchases, for people who like to buy things that way. The images in my PDF are embedded as PNG's, and they bloat the PDF out to 55mb.

Is that normal for people who download these? I could go and reduce the resolution on the images if that download size is considered ridiculously huge - but I really have no idea what the standard is. I'd appreciate any input on this.

Thanks in advance!

Once again, story emerges from play

2011-05-14T22:46:00.000-04:00

The last session went really well. Like most sessions, it started with the party being panicky about actually taking some risk in the dungeon, and hunting down more henchmen. Specifically, P.W.'s player was very nervous, which is funny given that he takes most of the risks. He's half-suicidal due to his enormously bad stats, but he can't actually manage to get himself killed.

So, first, Mongo's adventure: He's been wanting to sit in a chair in his luxury apartment, in a smoking jacket, reading a book that is inadvertently upside-down. The policy of spending gold to get XP means that there's never spare gold - so he had to make do with the tatty smoking jacket and a mysterious evil book. How that happened, he was busy looking for a book, I rolled d30x100 for the price, and it was expensive. I didn't feel like role-playing book vendors for the next 20 minutes, so I just gave the thing to him. Then I tossed in an evil laugh to amuse myself. Mongo's paranoia kicked in, and he's wondering if the book is evil. Clearly, it's got to be something, since he's placing so much importance on it - a roll of the dice says "Yes, evil". The undecipherable evil book is now in play. No idea what I'm going to do with it yet, but I'm gratified that he didn't just chuck it into the fire. Not that I'd let that work, anyhow.

P.W. has such miserable luck with reaction rolls that he decided he'd just buy a henchman from the slave market. How he thinks that decision will turn out well, I don't know... I forgot to roll a morale check when the whole party was asleep in the red mist, and it was just Krogo and P.W. - if I had remembered, that could have been a TPK if Krogo took out P.W. and went homicidal on the sleepers. It was late, and I didn't think of that. But that red mist will be back, again and again and again (at least until they figure out what they're doing to cause it).

Gutboy has been sucking up to his new goddess for several sessions now, and I've been ignoring it. Seeing as I was lavishing attention on the other two, I had Nisus make an appearance this time. Reaction rolls said she's ticked off - clearly Gutboy hasn't been spending enough effort praising her. She needs giant sacrifices, in front of the whole city. What a prima donna. Well, now he's got his work cut out for him - it was fun making him think he needed to hunt down a bulette, but I dropped some hints about the giant pillbugs that live in the caverns of the 2nd level, so maybe he'll take the bait and head down.

I think the players are finally at the point where they're going to visit the second level. That means I actually have to key it... I've got maybe 10% planned out so far, I really need to put some effort into it now. Fortunately, there's not much left on the book to do - just the index & back cover. Should have that done in the next 2-3 days, and then off to the printer for a proof. So I've got a bit of time to key the areas closest to the stairs.