Rollo the Unpredictable, changeling bard (Francis)
Edward, fighter (Jack)
Artorius the Wise, magic-user (Logan)
Yesterday, four men walked to the ancient hillfort in the barren moors outside Tofeceaster, and a few hours later, three men and a corpse returned. In the raucous party around Harald Svensen’s funeral pyre, the survivors got absolutely wasted (to the point some of them now owe the Thieves’ Guild the cost of their bar tab…) and blabbed about the following:
The party consisted of two fighters (one Saxon, one Dane), a Saxon magic-user, and a Changeling bard. After briefly considering a visit to the wizard tower atop the barrow, they searched around instead and found two ways in: a hole opening onto a yawning black abyss (which they didn’t have the rope for) and the top of a buried tower.
Players love vandalism.
Down the tower, a wolf was almost bribed with cheese, then driven off. After debating who would go first (the unarmoured magic-user Artorius had to step up as the brave one to open doors), the party followed the wolf down a hallway, then left the battlements for a huge throne room. A shadowy figure tried and failed to hide, revealing itself as a rather large goblin named Bört, who agreed to help tear down the tapestries hanging in the room in exchange for the cut of the loot. At this point Edward (I think) also stripped the throne of all its gold filigree.
After parting ways with Bört, the party found some goblins at a huge round table gambling, with a chest in tow. Rollo the Changeling was sent in to use his powers of bad luck, but the goblin leader caught him cheating and only spared him on a technicality (cheating is allowed in goblin dice, but no one explained to Rollo that magic cheating isn’t). When Rollo played a real game, he narrowly lost, so the rest of the party (who had been hiding while the changeling dealt with his fellow fae) attacked instead. Without a shield to protect himself Harald took a critical hit, losing an arm, but rather than try to stop the bleeding he gave his life to kill the final goblin, moments after Artorius blasted the leader with a magic missile. The party gathered around to hear his last words: “man, fuck elves.”
Then Edward stripped all the gold off the fanciest seat in that room, too.
The last thing that went through Yoblo the gamblin' goblin's head was a magic missile.
The party returned, chest and corpse in tow, and threw the biggest funeral Svensson’s Mead Hall has seen in years. I wasn’t kidding about the Thieves’ Guild. Artorius owes them big time now, and has a hangover that’s gonna fuck up all his spells next adventure.
(And all that in just an hour and a half, including character creation!)
My entry for Secret Santicorn 2019, run over on the OSR Discord. I got the following prompt, by Catalessi: "some
spells and or magic items, lets say a d6 table of them, based on the
transformation of the user's own body. and a small table of bad
consequences if you abuse of them." I'll be honest, I didn't exactly follow it to the letter. I couldn't think of a good way to write one table for all the magic items, so instead I tried to make them all have a drawback, especially one that would punish people for using them without caution. I could only think of one spell, but since it's pretty much directly ripped from Darkest Dungeon I decided to just add it as a bonus to all the magic items. The spell is listed first, followed by the magic items in no particular order. And, as promised, here's a D6 table of them: 1 Elongation Potion 2 Amulet of Amorphousness 3 Ring of Dissimulation 4 Etchings of Skin 5 Beads of Saint Bargle 6 Green Lotus Tea Reconstruction
Magic-User
Level 1
Duration:
Instant
Range:
Touch
The
caster touches a wounded creature and spurns their body into rapid –
and risky – healing. This spell heals D20-6 Hit Points worth of
damage. If the total is a
negative number, the recipient actually suffers damage rather than
healing.
Alternatively,
a fresh injury can be rerolled, curing the existing injury as if it
never happened but inflicting another one rolled by the same process
that generated the first. A injury created by Reconstruction cannot
be rerolled by using the spell again, nor can an existing injury
(anything more than a few minutes old) be rerolled.
Because wizards healing between -5 and +20 HP is way cooler than a Cleric healing 1-8 every time.
Elongation
Potion
A
glass flask with a pink liquid inside and a paper note tied to it
which reads, in all capital letters, "DRINK ME TO GROW LONGER".
If drunk, the drinker will feel their arms and legs shifting in size,
at once growing longer and shorter, and must choose between making
their arms long and legs short, or legs long and arms short. Both
effects are permanent.
If
their arms are long, they will deal +1 damage with all weapons (as
they can swing swords harder, draw bows farther, and even steady guns
better), and can attack "over" creatures with melee attacks
as if using a pike or halberd or the like. However, thanks to their
short legs, they will be unable to run, only walk, and even then only
slowly.
If
their legs are long, they will be able to move twice as fast as
normal while walking, without growing any more tired than normal, and
sprint twice as fast likewise. They can also jump or even just step
across large gaps. Their short arms will prevent them from using any
two-handed weapon (including bows), and normally one-handed weapons
will require two hands: only things like daggers will remain
one-handed.
Amulet
of Amorphousness
A
brass amulet inlaid with an orange topaz. Whoever wears this amulet
can transform themselves at will into an amorphous orange blob that can
squeeze through almost any gap and is immune to most forms of damage
– crushing deals no damage, while stabbing and slashing deals only
half damage. They can continue to use items by forming appendages and
can even form extra limbs (but not gain any extra attacks), but their
items do not share their amorphousness to squeeze through things.
Each
use of the Amulet
of Amorphousness
lasts up to a minute. After this point, or if the user wants to use
it more than once between restful sleeps, it causes them to lose 1
Strength permanently, and an extra 1 Strength for every reactivation
or full minute of use past the first. If a character is reduced to 0
Strength while wearing the Amulet
it fuses with them, granting them its powers permanently but making
them super weak. Furthermore, their alien body and mind causes them
to cut their Charisma in half, rounded up.
A
small silver ring with two raised symbols on opposite sides – one
of the laughing mask of comedy, the other of the crying mask of
tragedy. The ring is magical, and powerfully so at that. Anyone can
tell that it's magical by touching it for a few moments, and
magicians and elves and similar types can tell it is imbued with a
combination of powerful illusion magic and powerful transformation
magic.
Anyone
who puts it on for the first time will unconsciously activate the
ring's effects to make themselves slightly more beautiful from their
own perspective. Only the truly exceptional (monks, people with 18
Charisma, robots) will be satisfied enough to not activate this. It
hints at the ring's altering effects, giving them +1 Charisma,
permanently, at the cost of -1 Strength, also permanently.
While
worn, someone wearing the Ring
of Dissimulation
can will themselves to appear like any humanoid creature they want.
They can change their appearance, their height, their race, their
species, and even their sex. They can conceal features they have
(e.g. faking blindness) but cannot create ones they lack (e.g.
removing actual blindness). This transformation takes a few seconds
(a round or two), and gives the user a profound sense of loss –
they feel that, if they perform this transformation, they will lose
the stability of whatever they originally were.
This
is because they will. The GM or player in question should write down
every change a PC performs under the ring's effects. If the Ring
of Dissimulation
is ever removed, any part of the PC's body that was meaningfully
changed at any point while wearing the ring will disappear, never to
return. A list of common changes and their effects is listed below.
Hair: PC
becomes completely bald.
Skin: PC
becomes albino.
Eyes: PC
loses their eyes and becomes blind.
Nose: PC
loses their nose and sense of smell.
Ears: PC
loses their ears and becomes deaf.
Mouth: PC
loses their tongue and cannot speak (but can still eat/breathe).
Arm/Leg: PC
loses the arm or leg (or just hand/foot if only that was changed).
Sex: PC
becomes completely androgynous and sexless.
Species: PC
becomes a weird middleground of all major demihuman races. In
addition, they lose any racial abilities. Sorry, race-as-class
characters.
Someone
who changes their species or sex doesn't necessarily change their
face or skin. This does, however, mean that you can still be
recognized – though most people will assume you're just a lookalike
of whoever they originally met you as.
The
changes caused by removing the ring are physical, not magical (though
magically induced). Cure
Disease,Remove
Curse,
and similar spells won't work. Furthermore, the changes totally
remove the organ in question, so Regeneration
and the like also won't work. Only effects that create whole new
versions of whatever was lost can replace such losses, such as the
rare and forbidden art of biomancy, or the Wish
spell.
The
Ring
of Dissimulation
also can't create anything that wouldn't be there otherwise, which is
why it can't be used to replace features lost to its removal. If you
lose an arm you can't use the ring to recover it, even if you lost it
outside of the ring's effect. The one exception is racial abilities:
if you change your species, you lose your current abilities for the
new ones. But if you lack a race, you cannot mimic any of them
either!
Etchings
of Skin
Tan-coloured
leather canvases stretched by a frame of sticks. On each of them, in
red paint – or is that blood? – are elaborate
drawings, designs of a different animal each. The "paint"
glows slightly, almost imperceptibly, but enough that close
inspection or carrying them around for a while will reveal them to be
magical.
The
designs and canvases are actually spells and scrolls, of a sort, but
rather than ones that are memorized or read, they are tattoos. A
tattooist following the design will imbue the recipient with magical
power, but slowly remove the paint from the canvas as they complete
each part. They can be drawn anywhere on the body, but are always
large enough to take up all
of a body part – a full arm, the entire face, your entire back,
etc. They show even through fur, feathers, or scales (which is
relevant as you'll see in a moment).
Their
power will alter the appearance and physiology of the recipient, and
not entirely for the better. Once transcribed, the tattoo cannot be
removed by anything short of a Remove Curse spell or similar
effect, which will both destroy the tattoo and remove both its
positive and negative effects. Transcribing it off the body is an art
lost to modern magicians, as is the creation of new etchings of this
sort.
Roll
a D6 to determine which canvas the party has found:
1 Wolf:
The character's hair grows grey and wild, and their teeth become
sharp fangs. They deal +1 melee damage and can run as fast as an
olympic sprinter, but struggle to willing leave combat and must roll
equal/under their Wisdom to do so, doing nothing that round if they
fail.
2 Bear:
The character's body is covered in thick brown fur and they grow
slightly larger overall. They gain +1 HP per level, applied
retroactively, and are immune to cold and pain, but cannot benefit
from wearing armour. Someone immune to pain can keep acting normally
until death, and perform physical feats no one else could.
3 Raven:
The character's eyes become small and beady, and their whole body is
covered in tiny feathers. They deal +1 ranged damage and suffer
damage from falling in increments of 100 feet instead of 10 feet,
but lose 1 HP per level, applied retroactively, to a minimum of 1
per level.
4 Fish:
The character grows subtle gills, thin gray scales over their body,
and webbing between their fingers and toes. They can breathe
underwater, swim rapidly, and see in the dark, but suffer double
damage from all fire and frost based sources (frost because of their
wetness, fire because the wetness is oil).
5 Snake:
The character's eyes turn yellow, their tail shrinks and forks, and
they grow thin green scales all over their body. They are immune to
poison and disease, and can squeeze themselves through any gap they
can fit their head through, but are unable to speak louder than a
whisper and lose 1 Charisma to the lisp.
6 Spider:
The character grows three extra sets of eyes and light, pitch black
fur all over their body. They can climb anything, even sheer
surfaces, and roll twice and take the better result (or otherwise
excel at) all rolls related to lying to or otherwise manipulating
others, but deal -1 damage with all attacks.
Beads
of Saint Bargle
What
appear at first glance as a set of shiny red prayer beads are
actually a set of tiny rubies imbued with the holy powers of their
long since dead owner, Saint Bargle. When used to pray over the body
of someone injured or otherwise disabled, the Beads
of Saint Bargle allow
the user to transfer any number of permanent injuries from the person
in question to themself, curing them of the disability at the cost of
suffering it themselves.
This
power can be used to cure injuries, both short-term and long-term,
but not HP loss, curses, poisons, or diseases. It can be used to cure
disabilities like blindness, even if the person has suffered the
disability for their entire life, but can't be used to "heal"
something a creature wouldn't normally have – such as to give a
blind species sight, or to transfer a tail to a tailless creature.
A
more obscure use that may require special research to discover is the
Beads'
limited ability to raise the dead. Praying over a corpse no more
than a year dead gives the user the option of restoring the creature
to life and full health at the cost of their own life. Doing so also
drains the Beads
of all magical ability and turns them from valuable rubies to useless
grey rocks.
Green
Lotus Tea
A
bag of tea made from green lotus, one of the many forms of magical
lotus. When a drink is steeped with the bag, it imbues it with its
transformative properties. Anyone who drinks the whole thing will
find their body changed, giving them the following properties:
First,
their skin turns slightly green, nothing garish but enough that it is
clearly green. This skin allows them to photosynthesize light – as
long as they spend a few hours under a torch or lantern's light, they
don't need to eat ordrink (it's magic, after all).
Lastly, they suffer double damage from fire, on account of their
newfound flammability.
Every
time the bag is used to make magical tea, roll a D6. On a 1, it loses
the ability to make any more transformations after this last one.
Here's another encounter table based on the lyrics to a song. All credit for the idea goes to Joseph Manola and his excellent Against The Wicked City blog. This one is a bit more focused than my last one, but it's based on a song by the same band, The Sword. Unlike the pretty disjointed encounters I made from Ebethron, I used this song, Lords, to make a more coherent setting. It has an adventure hook, rising tension, and a mechanic to make the journey into chaos a gradual change over time.
If you want to skip all the backstory (little though it is) below you easily can. The important thing is this: An ancient evil has been
accidentally released in a mountain pass. Are you a bad enough dude
to head up through the rapidly deteriorating highlands and return the
stolen golden seal before it's too late?
EXCESSIVE
BACKSTORY
Seven
centuries ago, Mereshehad, high priest and worldly avatar of the
Seven Serpents, was defeated and sealed in a tomb in the largest pass
over the Barrier Peaks of the east. Seven seals were placed upon its
door, and the door itself was guarded by seven stone balbals,
golems imbued with the spirits of warriors who fell in the battle
against him.
Seven
days ago, a wizard's apprentice from Brimistead, bored while his
master Grybia was in a weeks-long trance to commune with elder gods,
used a spell of invisibility to steal the largest seal, one made of
molten gold. Six hours later the others had all failed, releasing the
malevolent ghost of Mereshehad – driven mad by centuries of
isolation – upon the unsuspecting inhabitants of the pass. Its foul
magic is as horrible is it is powerful.
Seven
minutes ago, Grybia awoke, slew his apprentice immediately, and
hurried to the tavern in which the PCs are currently staying. The
elder gods with which he spoke recommended the party's services, and
so he has charged them with heading up into the slowly unraveling
pass. He promises a freshly made golden seal (worth 1,000 coins) to
each PC if they merely put this one back where it belongs. But a week
is a long time. The pass is already in open war, one which it is
losing; getting there will be anything but easy.
You'll want to click this one to embiggen it.
HOW
TO PLAY
As the party heads up the
pass, roll a D6 and count that many entries down this list below,
skipping any entries already seen. How long it takes them is up to
you, but Grybia stresses to the party that it's only a matter of time
before the avatar can fully free itself from the mound. They should
have two or three days in systems where healing happens overnight
before Mereshehad is free, and should be easily able to climb the
pass within that time.
1 The
lords of the passes are arming their vassals.
A crowd of peasant men are gathered near a crossroads, being armed
and armoured with spears and shields by their aging lord and his two
knights. There are about 20 in total. They may try to strongarm the
PCs into joining them, or offer to aid their passage north – the
peasants will break quickly when fighting anything supernatural and
one of the knights will flee at the first sign of trouble, but the
lord and other knight will fight to the bitter end.
2 You'll
find no shelter that way.
Several peasant families walk slowly down the road, heading the way
the PCs came. Some of them are visibly sobbing, a few injured, and
they carry all that they own with them or on their few mules. They
will try to convince the party to turn back, claiming that serpentine
monsters attacked their village, but that it was the soldiers who
defended them who turned suddenly and madly back to burn the
settlement to the ground.
3 The
conscripts they've taken have never returned.
A handful of armed soldiers, five or ten in total, hold a few women
at the centre of a village. They are trying to force the village,
which has hidden most of its men, to give up its conscripts. It
already gave up half of its male population a week ago, none of whom
have returned. The soldiers are unwilling to search door to door with
their numbers and want the PCs to either search for them or convince
the men out of hiding. If the soldiers aren't stopped or aided, they
will kill one, then two of the women in a few minutes before the men
give themselves up.
4 And
our hopes fade with each passing day.
At the centre of a village, several tables covered in food and what
few fineries the peasants possess have been set up. The whole
settlement is revelling over the feast, which contains most of their
food. They cheerfully invite the PCs to join, explaining that, with
no hope for the future, they are trying to make the best of the
present. Convincing them to hope, even with the evidence of the
golden seal, will be very difficult – but if they don't stop the
feast they won't have enough food come winter.
5 The
gates of the keeps are all closing.
A small but clearly formidable keep is surrounded by a camp of tents,
filled with deserted soldiers and displaced peasants. The lord inside
is letting in visibly competent soldiers, beautiful women, and
wealthy survivors, claiming the keep was sanctified against evil
magic like Mereshehad's. A few soldiers will attempt to rob or extort
the PCs to buy access. The keep's wards won't hold out even the
weakest demon, and it will be the site of a massacre if the seal is not
replaced.
6 And
broken men wander the road.
Stumbling down the road towards the PCs are a few soldiers led by a
knight. They are armoured and hold their weapons drawn, but seem
dazed, confused, and completely oblivious to the world around them.
One falls, stabs his blade deep in his arm, then stands up and pulls
it out before continuing as if nothing happened. Only if directly
approached and jostled will they awake from the stupor, their last
memories being of an attack in the night by a man with three snakes
instead of a head.
7 The
farmers have fled to the forest.
A farming village lies completely abandoned save for a young girl
wandering through it in tears. The populace fled for the nearby
forest almost on a whim, leaving her behind in the confusion. She is
too afraid to head there on her own and the villagers are too afraid
to return to the village to retrieve her. If the PCs bring her to the
villagers they will be ambushed by D4+1 wolves with the heads of
snakes (still count as normal wolves though), but will be rewarded
with trinkets worth 100 coins.
8 Burning
their fields as they go.
Several men and women march through fields of wheat, holding torches
and setting the plants on fire. One man catches on fire as the party
watches or approaches, neither stopping nor screaming until he is
fully engulfed and falls down dead. If the PCs near them or watch for
more than half a minute or so, they will see them and attack,
attempting to set them on fire instead (their torches only deal D4
damage but set the target on fire on a roll of 4).
9 The
dukes of the marches have ordered their archers.
A large group of soldiers, about 30 to 40 in total, mostly archers,
are camped on the shores of a small creek. Only about a third of them
have been possessed, but crucially so has their leading lord. He is
feigning caution and cowardice in order to wait for the possessed to
outnumber the unpossessed, before turning on them. If somehow
convinced to travel with the PCs, the corrupted soldiers will wait
until a fight before turning on their former comrades.
10 To
shoot all outlanders on sight.
A village lies in mostly smoking ruins, but as the PCs approach they
can hear cries for help. Four hunters, the only survivors of the
chaos that destroyed their home, are trying to lure them near before
shooting bows from the windows of the town's meeting hall. They are
not possessed, but believe it to be the end of days, and it will be
hard for the PCs to convince them they aren't demons in disguise.
11 Turn
back your horses before it's too late.
Five well-armed men, skilled wandering mercenaries from northern
lands, ride horses down the path towards the PCs. They fought against
the serpents and possessed soldiers of Mereshehad valiantly but lost.
Now they're living to fight another day. They are talkative and
friendly, particularly eager to talk of the man they fought who had
three serpents instead of a head, but if they learn or suspect the
party is wealthy (IE they see or are told of the golden seal) they
will risk an attempt at robbing or extorting all but the most
obviously dangerous parties.
12 There'll
be no safe crossing this night.
A wide river crossing has several beached rowboats on the PCs side,
and a visible horde of refugees on the other. No boat will cross the
water for fear of a giant amphibious serpent within the river, which
must be slain or otherwise distracted in order to make passage safe.
One brave man will attempt to swim as the PCs arrive, cheered on by
the watching crowds on both sides before being devoured halfway
across. The serpent is strong but not that strong, but it must be
lured onto land to be fought in any plausible manner.
13 Hear
the horns, pounding hooves. The
PCs have just enough time to a see a host of 100 to 200 soldiers and
a dozen or so knights in front of them before a horn sounds and an
equally large army charges down a ridge towards them. The battle will
turn in favour of the side opposite the PCs unless they intervene.
However, the nearer army is in fact the possessed one, a fact only
revealed by their silence, occasional hastily-made serpentine
heraldry, and violence towards the party if their unpossessed nature
is revealed. The battle is close enough that whichever side wins will
only have about 50 survivors.
14 Visions
of cities aflame. The smoke can
be seen before the glow, and the glow before the city itself –
really a town, a thousand people at the most – engulfed in a raging
fire. Some people are fleeing through the southern gate, but many
more are trying to put out the fire. They would be able were it not
for the to mobs of possessed townsfolk, fifty strong each, march from
place to place lighting everything on fire. A trained force or larger
mob of locals could easily defeat them. A wealthy merchant fleeing
the city promises the five golden rings he wears (worth 200c each) if
the PCs organizes a defeat of the mobs. Of course, they could always just chop his hand off and leave.
15 Wailing
cries, dawn of doom. A village
lies in ruins, many houses smashed or collapsed, bodies of soldiers
and peasants alike strewn about its limits. A huge serpent's corpse
lies at the heart. A wailing woman kneels over the body of her fallen
husband, a peasant conscript who died in the process of striking the
deathblow against the serpent. The crowd gathered around them is
being ranted at by an old man who claims the only rational response
is submission to the "serpent gods". He will try to involve
the PCs in the discussion and attempt to stir up violence against
them if they reveal their quest.
16 Die
by the sword or in chains. A
group of captured peasants and defeated conscript soldiers is led up
the path the same way the PCs are headed, guarded by a half dozen
possessed soldiers and a priest in green robes, bearing a staff with
a poorly carved snake's head at the tip. The possessed men will
threaten to kill the captives if they notice the PCs before they
attack, as will the priest threaten to turn the blood of the PCs to
poison. These are both bluffs (the priest is quite harmless). If
freed, the soldiers, three or four in number, will gladly (if poorly)
aid the PCs in their quest.
17 Men
kneel in temples of madness. A
church has had the statues flanking either side of its door defaced,
and serpentine heraldry hung above its door. A man at the entrance
invites the PCs in to "seek salvation", where a priest in
poorly-dyed green robes preaches about submission to a crowd of
dozens. If the PCs enter, five possessed soldiers will follow after
them, selecting a young woman from the audience to be dragged out and
"converted" by Mereshehad. Half the audience will cheer, the other weep,
while the woman struggles against the soldiers, who quickly overpower
her. Intervening will draw the ire of the half that cheered, and the
support of the half that wept.
18 False
prophets spread discord and fear.
An old woman in dark, ragged robes leads a procession of dozens of
peasants and deserters, praying for salvation from the gods. Every
few hours a pack of wolf-sized serpents kills one and spares the
others, a fact the woman uses to both claim that their deaths are
inevitable and that prayer is all that is saving them for the time
being. In fact, the procession is left alive only because their
despair pleases Mereshehad, and killing the serpents (who will come
in just a few minutes by their reckoning) will cause a group of about seven soldiers guiding the snakes to attack.
19 Darkness
descends once again. The sky
reddens and darkens as if it were sunset or dawn, though the sun
still hangs in the sky, now as black as night. There is a rustling
from nearby bushes and trees, until a tide of snakes swarms forward
like a tidal wave. They will not bite or harm anyone, but may cause
horses, followers, and anxious PCs to panic, and will sweep away
anyone who cannot find something to hold onto or otherwise be held
down with, dashing them against boulders and trees or drowning them
beneath the wave.
20 They
say the lords of the last days rule here.
Four possessed knights march in front of a man with three serpents
instead of a head: the earthly avatar of Mereshehad. He can control
one character per round (no save, or he can attempt to control someone else if a save is passed; though he cannot make anyone kill
themselves), and his knights are fanatically loyal. He will taunt the
PCs, and if made aware of the golden seal will use his mind control
to have it thrown to a knight before attempting to flee with it. If
killed, his spirit will rise from his body, cursing the PCs and
insisting that he cannot be killed before dissipating with a mocking
laugh.
21+ Here
it is, the tomb itself. Were it not for the stone entrance, slightly
ajar and decorated with six seals, and the seven stone balbals in
front, it would be nearly impossible to tell the mound apart from any
other hill. The balbals fight as strong warriors or knights with
incredibly tough armour, but cannot see past invisibility and cannot
stop more than a dozen people at most if charged en masse. Fixing the
seal is as simple as pushing the door shut (which even a weak person
could do) and placing the golden seal over the crack. It will glow
with a golden light, cause the runes written in each of the other
seals to glow as well, and then destroy all traces of Mereshehad's
presence outside the tomb. His serpents and avatar will fall dead and
melt into black goo, his possessed followers will awaken from their
trance, and if the sky has reddened and darkened it will return to
its normal appearance. Replacing the seal may also cause the balbals to recognize the PCs as allies and halt their attack; it's up to the GM to decide.
AFTER
THE ADVENTURE
Upon a successful return,
Grybia will reward the party with the golden seals as promised
(wizards work quickly and mysteriously), and even offer to teach any
wizards in the party a spell or two in return for a month of aiding
him as an apprentice, until he can find another permanent
replacement. He could be a great source of future adventures if the
party is willing to continue working with him.
If the party fails by
fleeing, Grybia will send eldritch beings (such as Hounds of
Tindalos, like blink dogs that can only teleport by appearing out of
sharp angles) after the PCs as retribution or even pursue them
himself. Whether they flee or are all killed, Mereshehad's foulness
will spread unchecked for days until his kingdom's expansion slows to
a halt, creating a decidedly evil nation ruled by a powerful sorceror
right in the path of many important trade routes. Not the end of the
world, but certainly a meaningful change.
I've been watching a lot of Star Wars clips recently - I don't know why Youtube started recommending them to me, but I've clicked on enough to clog my recommended feed full of them - and it's made me want to write more scifi stuff. One of the reasons I think Star Wars works is because it always paints a picture larger than what is actually being shown. While all those name drops of things can feel forced at times, it helps give a sense that the galaxy's size is larger than you can appreciate from a single movie.
Contrast this with something like Warhammer 40K, a setting with simply insane scales and many fleshed out factions, but with very few mysteries that don't have answers. It's hard to come up with something new for 40K without having to make sure it doesn't step on the toes of the setting's canon. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you, but it creates a different sort of setting.
But how can you make an RPG have that same sense of scale? Easy answer: tables. Lots of tables. By writing interesting things in advance and combining several different rolls into one, you can effectively multiply your preparation. If you write six interesting entries with two major details, you've made six encounters. But if you write three versions of each major detail and roll for them, you haven't made six encounters - you've made nine.
I was going to (and did) write a starship generator, but all those Star Wars clips reminded me of an obvious example: bounty hunters. Remember that scene in The Empire Strikes Back where they hire all the bounty hunters? They're on screen for maybe half a minute, but almost all wound up getting extensive backstories as the setting was expanded. So I wound up writing two generators. You can click the buttons below (thanks to Angus) to instantly generate a result, but I encourage you to read the tables and mine them for ideas.
BOUNTY HUNTERS
The scene in question.
Bounty hunters. They work well for RPGs, especially scifi ones. There's an obvious way to bring them into conflict with the party, and it's easy to have them simply give up and leave to fight another day. They also give you an easy excuse to play dirty - random guards aren't going to tailor their strategies to the party's weaknesses, but a bounty hunter is more or less expected to prepare in advance and know what they're doing. Plus, they can come from more or less anywhere, and are a perfect chance to show off a cool species or culture concept without forcing the party to interact with it on a large scale. To use these tables for Into The Odd, give them 12 HP, either a base 10 in every stat or 3D6 in order, and any gear you see fit. If you don't normally have NPCs be injured when they fail a STR save, simply dying, I would recommend you have bounty hunters be an exception - if only so the party can interrogate them for information. Dying bounty hunters are notoriously talkative.
D4 Who
are they hunting?
This is pretty self-explanatory, but I would recommend you let the party know who's being hunted and why - just not who by or when they'll strike. 1 A member of the party.
2 A close ally of the
party.
3 Someone temporarily
critical to the party's goals.
4 An enemy of the party. They'll fight anyone who tries to kill them instead.
D6 What
is their demeanour?
This comes up most when the bounty hunter is monologuing to seemingly defeated prey, but can also say something about how they fight. Mostly it's just for flavour. 1 All business, no
nonsense.
2 Extreme aggression,
easily provoked.
3 Boring and plain.
4 Cheerful, bordering on
saccharine.
5 Melancholic and fatalist.
6 Showy and narcissistic.
D8 What's
their modus operandi?
Again, pretty self-explanatory. They're broad descriptions, however, so you have plenty of room to determine exactly what kind of explosive, vehicle, etc they're using. 1 Explosives and heavy
weapons.
2 Long range weapons,
sniping.
3 Automated drones.
4 Stealth and melee
weapons.
5 Hired help.
6 Heavy armour and close
range weapons.
7 Combat vehicles.
8 All-rounder weapons and
gear.
D10 What
specialist gear do they own?
It can be daunting to combine two seemingly incompatible methods and specialist gears, but think on how they could work together. A sniper in power armour, for example, could wield much larger weapons, or stand straight out in the open without fear of easy retaliation. 1 A jetpack, reliable but
easily damaged.
2 Ancient weaponry that
ignores armour.
3 A heavily upgraded,
combat-specialized starship.
4 Power armour and energy
shields.
5 Combat drugs.
6 High tech tracking and
scanning devices.
7 A cloaking field.
8 A bioengineered
combat/tracking pet.
9 Nanotech weapons, easily
concealed.
10 Multiple cybernetic
augmentations.
D10 What
do they look like?
Another flavour roll, but think about how their appearance combines with their tactics and gimmick - for example, someone wearing corporate-branded punk gear tells a story. 1 Nondescript, easily
blending into crowds.
2 Military surplus
everything, trying a little too hard.
3 Elegant and elaborate
clothes and gear, like a fashionista.
4 Practical equipment, worn
by years of use.
5 Punk fashion with tons of
accessories.
6 One colour all over, lots
of fabric and plastic.
7 Robes and masks, mystical
in nature.
8 Revealing clothes,
covered in tattoos and cosmetic implants.
9 Stylish clothes, suits
and ties, dark and sleek.
10 Brand new everything,
most of it never used before.
D12 What
species are they?
In some cases, species is little more than another flavour roll, but a clever bounty hunter (IE all of them) will know how to use their biology to their advantage. Vatborn, Mentats, and Spacers are all "panhumans", human but somewhat different from the baseline. 1 Human, +2 to their lowest
stat.
2 Vatborn, +2 STR.
3 Mentat, +2 CHA.
4 Spacer, +2 DEX.
5 Lizard, +1 DEX and immune
to heat.
6 Feline, always acts
before enemies/traps.
7 Hound, preternatural
sense of smell.
8 Mantis, D8 unarmed
damage.
9 Rabbit, outrun anyone,
even some vehicles.
10 Yeti, +1 STR and immune
to cold.
11 Assassin Robot, closely
resembles an organic.
12 Combat Robot, +1 Armour
at all times.
D20 What's
their gimmick?
Every self-respecting bounty hunter has something that sets them apart from the crowd, either as a marketing technique or a quirk picked after years of stressful work. 1 They warn all their
targets in advance.
2 There's two of them:
twins, friends, lovers, clones, etc.
3 They're actually several
people working in turns. Kill one and another comes back.
4 They take great care to
avoid any collateral damage.
5 They try to make each
kill slow and painful.
6 They have branded
corporate gear and try to show it off.
7 They're exceptionally
young or old, but no less effective for it.
8 They offer to fake the
party's deaths in return for a bribe.
9 They carry incendiary
grenades and are a pyromaniac.
10 They have limited
psychic ability. One power, always the CHA drawback.
11 They are followed by a
documentary crew.
12 Their will places a
large bounty on whoever kills them, larger than any existing ones.
13 They are being hunted by
another bounty hunter themselves.
14 They dual wield their
weapons. It looks cool but provides no benefit.
15 They use only sidearms,
daggers, and other "light" weapons and gear.
16 They revel in causing
unnecessary collateral damage.
17 They are exceptionally
skilled: +2 HP and +1 damage.
18 They are particularly
inept: -2 HP and -1 damage.
19 They throw sonic devices
which emit loud, piercing screeches they are immune to.
20 They talk to their
quarry constantly throughout the fight.
There are plenty of tables out there that will tell you when you encounter starships and what statblocks they use. I would be occupying existing design space and mimicking things I've seen done much better than I can do by making one like that. Instead, I wanted to write a table that tells you what it looks like, what it's doing, and why and how it still exists. You can roll on these tables to generate a ship another table says exists, or roll on all of them at once to create everything you need for a stellar encounter.
All these ships are assumed to be roughly the same size as the standard light scifi ship most RPGs (and scifi stories in general) have the characters fly, with the "normal" size mentioned below being roughly the same as the PC's ship, if they have one. To use them for Into The Odd, give them a base 12 HP, 10 in every stat, D6 damage, and no armour. When it tells you to add or subtract +1/-1 damage, increase or lower the damage die by one size. You should take a look at my ship rules if you want more detailed rules.
D4 How
large is it?
As mentioned before, all ships are relatively small. Think the Millenium Falcon or Serenity.
1 Smaller than normal. (-2
HUL, fast)
2 As large as normal.
3 Larger than normal. (+4
HP, +2 HUL, slow)
4 Much larger than normal.
(+8 HP, +4 HUL, very slow)
D6 What
kind of ship is it?
Note that this is only its intended design, not necessarily what it is currently being used for.
1 Military: For combat or
troop/starfighter transport. (+1 Armour/+1 damage)
2 Research: For
exploration, survey, and analysis. (laboratory, medbay)
3 Industrial: For mining,
construction, salvaging, etc. (various tools)
4 Merchant: For
transporting goods and resources. (huge cargo bay)
5 Liner: For transporting
many individuals at once. (many cryopods)
6 Personal: For
transporting a few individuals in luxury. (many staterooms)
D8 Who
owns and operates the ship?
This determines what sorts of jobs it performs, who crews it, and what sort of legal recourse attacking (or helping) it incurs.
1 A major interstellar
power.
2 Rebels, rogues, and
dissidents.
3 A private individual
living aboard the ship.
4 Independent workers who
own their own ship.
5 A megacorporation.
6 Friendly or neutral
aliens.
7 Hostile or enigmatic
aliens.
8 Robots, independent or
for their owners.
D10 What
is its main strength?
Most of these are combat related, but can also say something about what it is used for, either beyond its initial design or what specific role within that design.
1 Reinforced hull. +3 HUL.
2 Large engines. +3 ENG.
3 Overclocked systems. +3
SYS.
4 Armour plating. +1
Armour.
5 Targeting computers. +1
damage.
6 Strong shields. +4 HP.
7 Exceptional maneuverability.
8 Long range, high accuracy
sensors.
9 Difficult to detect and
scan.
10 Has the benefits of
another ship type.
D10 What
is its main weakness?
As above, but in reverse, saying what it isn't used for. Can also be useful to determine what went wrong on a damaged or derelict ship.
1 Cracked hull. -3 HUL.
2 Small engines. -3 ENG.
3 Buggy systems. -3 SYS.
4 Obvious weak points. HUL
damage always causes critical damage.
5 Undersized weapons. -1
damage.
6 Weak shields. -4 HP.
7 Slow turns and
acceleration/deceleration.
8 Inaccurate, obvious
sensors.
9 Adware constantly
broadcasts its position.
10 Lacks the benefits of
its ship type.
D12 What
is it doing?
Vague, but keeping in mind the previous rolls can help narrow down exactly what it's doing.
1 It's a pirate ship, and
pursues the party. +1 damage if not a Military ship.
2 It's a pirate ship, and
is pursuing/boarding a ship. +1 damage if not a Military ship.
3 It's being hunted by, or
is hunting, a pirate ship.
4 It's drifting in space,
somehow damaged or disabled and in need of aid.
5 It's following the party,
purely by coincidence.
6 It's defending something,
and threatens the party against approaching it.
7 It's doing whatever it is
it was built to do, but is obviously about to fail.
8 It's offering the party a
trade, but rarely one as simple as credits for fuel.
9 It's doing whatever it is
it was built to do, but in a way dangerous to the party.
10 It's resupplying from a
cache of valuable materials, and is clearly vulnerable.
11 It's requesting the
party's aid in return for a reward.
12 It's offering the party
something its crew has no use of, but they would appreciate.
D20 What
does it look like?
Again this is mostly for flavour, but again it can also be a good base for coming up with ideas. A corporate ship that's blocky and grey will be run by a very different corporation, ro at least for very different purposes, than one that looks sleek and elegant.
1 Blocky and grey, totally
devoid of intentional aesthetic.
2 Sleek and elegant, pure
white with black glass.
3 Black and angular, as if
a stealth ship.
4 Green and organic-looking
– possibly a living ship.
5 Red and curved, like a
retrofuturist rocket ship.
6 A mechanical cube,
sphere, pyramid, or other polyhedron.
7 Spindly and elegant,
golden and shimmering with large glass planes.
8 A Frankenstein of several
other ships welded together.
9 Dark blue, long and with
rounded edges and bright yellow windows.
10 Ostentatious and
religious, like a cathedral turned into a ship.
11 Bright white plastic
with blue and orange extremeties.
12 A series of bright green
spheres connected by pipes.
13 Insectoid in appearance,
with bright, clashing colours.
14 Cartoonish, covered in
stars, constantly shifting between several vibrant colours.
15 Narrow and angular, like
an upsized starfighter.
16 Round, smooth edges,
dull yellow, orange, or brown.
17 Imposing, blocky, and
long, red as blood.
18 White, sleek exterior
half-conceals a pitch black, biomechanical interior.
19 An asteroid, space
station, or even space lifeform's corpse turned into a ship.
