Everybody wants fairies, the subsecret blackmarket catalyst for all kinds of horrible people getting their way.
Fairies are small & potent magic. Oftentimes captured and held in bottles to be used later. Fairies desire FREEDOM and being held in a jar for them is like being buried in a coffin for you. They'll do anything to get out, even grant minor wishes. Their magic is contingent on their freedom which is why captured fairies are powerless to escape and need someone bigger to free them.
Fairies are cute and sweet and gentle on the surface and totally fucked up and manipulative on the inside. Secret lore: it's impossible to be friends with a fairy. They're really just biding their time to fuck you over. The longer they wait the more they secretly hate you and want you dead. They'll wait around until justthe right moment then turn the dirt under your left toe to water, causing you to tumble off a precarious ledge.
So really, you shouldn't feel bad when you squeeze out fairy guts into your mouth like candy from a sausage casing to get your spell slots back for the day. They're kinda assholes.
Everybody uses fairies if they can get them, which is nearly impossible (plenty of wizards have tried to automate the process, to the greater or lesser suffering of all life).
Goblins use fairies to grow into ogres for 2d12 minutes. Dwarves expend fairies to get a boost of creativity. Orcs use fairies to appear as normal humans and sneak into castles. Wizards use fairies to get a nefarious edge on their rivals, who are likewise using fairies as expiremental fuel sources for trans-demonsional portholes.
Plucky halfling adventurers in green tunics use fairies to heal their wounds.
Where did fairies come from? Fairies are to elves as dogs are to humans. They've always been together. Elves brought fairies to this plane with them as they fled their collapsing dimension. Fairy abuse is just as taboo in elf culture as it is for dogs in ours, but the reality is (just like our's) most of them have really fucked up ways of using fairies.
You know, like how most people keep their dogs, who are freedom and exercise loving play machines, trapped in their houses or chained up, never getting as much attention as they really need, never being properly trained or allowed to follow their instincts in a healthy directed way. Elves kind of treat fairies like that. But they get super mad when they see YOU doing it.
But it doesn't matter because elves suck.
(More on elves next time).
So fairies give PCs access to minor wishes or healing. They're about as rare as +1 magic swords in most OTHER people's games which means they're kinda common. It's like the default OOOSHINY treasure. If somebody finda out you have a fairy they'll try to steal it from you. Nobody's immune. Everybody wants something, even if its pure and selfless, it's probably also asking for wreck and ruin. Widows will steal to get their husbands back, amputees to get their limbs back, children to get some stupid trinket they want, assholes to inflict suffering on people they dislike, priests to make parishioners pay attention in mass, old ladies to bake nice cakes, hobgoblins to stop every human heart in a 5 mile radius.
Each fairy has a morale score of 2d6. Roll under for friendship over for mayhem. Every time somebody is a dick to the fairy reduce their morale by one. Nothing raises a fairy's morale because fairies dont want anything except for you to immediately set it free and ask nothing in return.
When somebody makes a wish on a fairy make a morale check. If you roll over they might grant the wish with a condition, warp the meaning, or add some other kind of magical mayhem mishap or mutation. Like, you get your sight back, but also your head is now a fly's head lolbye.
If you roll under the fairy just does it and its all cool. Then it disappears in a puff of glitter.
As stated before eating fairyguts straight from their neckhole, yknow by wringing them into your mouth tongue sticking out like a rag of neon koolaid, heals you completely and restores all your spell slots. 1 in d12 chance the fairy got off a last wish that does something horrible to you.
Wild fairies are proud and tribal and can often be reasoned with. They are hesitant to use their powers to help you, but will often trade useful information or rumors for seemingly mundane or benign things, like a dram of saltwater, a small crystal, a silver spoon, a bit of smoked meat, a brass screw, or worse, something that isn't yours to trade, like a lock of the local cowmaiden's hair, or a buzzard's whisper.
Elven outposts tend to be surrounded by fairywoods, places where fairies are freed to playfully wreak havoc. If you wander into a fairywood reality will bend and warp, subtly at first, growing more extreme the more attention you bring to yourself until ice catches fire, the stars wink out, the directions vanish, all sound becomes color, and standing still is the same as moving. This is why it's impossible to reach an elven settlement without powerful magic or an invitation.
Sunday, June 30, 2019
Fast dungeon design for lazy people
If you get stuck consult the I-Ching
1. Steal, scrawl , or randomly generate a map. Look at it, does anything jump out? Write it down. Roll some dice on fun tables and riff off a couple o things.
2. Come up with d6 factions or d4 monster infestations that inhabit the place. How do they relate to each other? What are the major resources they're using there?
3. Generate various other critters that might be there. Start considering what various (d8?) locations might have been/currently be for. Bonus points if they don't make sense.
4. Outside of the "tribal stronghold" area, key some monsters using random tables. Place a few according to some idea you've got so far. Let weird combos arise and guide you toward interesting design choices.
5. Once the inhabitants are here figure out what stuff looks like based on who lives where/what they're doing. Giant centipedes might live in cavernous areas with glowing fungus and dark interconnected pools, Cockatrices build nests on high walls using bones and their tarlike saliva.
6. Add treasure they like. Orcs might purposefully hoard cool stuff, giant spiders might have forsaken adventurer's gear in websacs.
7. Doors/secret rooms/stairs/traps/tricks...........
8. Once you have a rough draft make a second draft rearranging anything new you thought up.
9. You should have a mostly empty dungeon splattered with coolstuff here and there, and some idea about how all the coolstuff relates to itself. Fill in all the extra rooms by rolling dice or using percentages
1-2 monster (33%)
3 trap (16%)
4 special (16%)
5-6 empty (33%)
3in6 monsters have treasure (50%)
2in6 traps have treasure (33%)
1in6 empty rooms have treasure (16%)
You want enough treasure so that a Fighter could get to the next level TIMES the number of expected players (TIMES 0.8 for 80%, if you're giving XP from defeated monsters but I don't), then take that number and double it because your players aren't going to find everything. Hide the extra half in stupid places they'll never look.
THUS a Fighter needs 2000XP to get to level 2. Using this formula a first level dungeon will have about 128,000 GP worth of treasure in it. But only 6,400 worth will be laying around in the open or on monsters waiting to be found. The other 6,400 will be hidden in secret walls, inside paintings of opulent feasts, buried in the sand, hidden in statues that try to bite off your hand, or tucked inside rotting elephant carcasses.
If you're considering giving XP for collecting magic items you're on your own. I consider magic items to be something else, and most of them come with a cost.
10. Look at nearby levels and determine what may or may not happen when the players intervene. Leave what actually happens up to play, but it's good to have a general idea of the mechanations within the loose naturalism.
11. Keep notes during play, re-populate accordingly.
I'm working on some Abulafia generators for making interesting treasures, rooms, and traps. Most random dungeon generators just spit out boring stuff (10000cp, a trap where a pit opens up with spikes, every room has cobwebs and manacles). I'm a fucking cyborg and I like to get random generator gibberish to feel out things. I'd rather paint on hewn bark than clean canvas.
Idea for treasures: generate some GP values like 3d8xdungeon level+player level, do that for d% of the rooms each. Hide treasures equal to the GP value in each room. If you roll a maxval on a room make it a special magic treasure.
I-Ching gibberish for dungeons:
1. Steal, scrawl , or randomly generate a map. Look at it, does anything jump out? Write it down. Roll some dice on fun tables and riff off a couple o things.
2. Come up with d6 factions or d4 monster infestations that inhabit the place. How do they relate to each other? What are the major resources they're using there?
3. Generate various other critters that might be there. Start considering what various (d8?) locations might have been/currently be for. Bonus points if they don't make sense.
4. Outside of the "tribal stronghold" area, key some monsters using random tables. Place a few according to some idea you've got so far. Let weird combos arise and guide you toward interesting design choices.
5. Once the inhabitants are here figure out what stuff looks like based on who lives where/what they're doing. Giant centipedes might live in cavernous areas with glowing fungus and dark interconnected pools, Cockatrices build nests on high walls using bones and their tarlike saliva.
6. Add treasure they like. Orcs might purposefully hoard cool stuff, giant spiders might have forsaken adventurer's gear in websacs.
7. Doors/secret rooms/stairs/traps/tricks...........
8. Once you have a rough draft make a second draft rearranging anything new you thought up.
9. You should have a mostly empty dungeon splattered with coolstuff here and there, and some idea about how all the coolstuff relates to itself. Fill in all the extra rooms by rolling dice or using percentages
1-2 monster (33%)
3 trap (16%)
4 special (16%)
5-6 empty (33%)
3in6 monsters have treasure (50%)
2in6 traps have treasure (33%)
1in6 empty rooms have treasure (16%)
You want enough treasure so that a Fighter could get to the next level TIMES the number of expected players (TIMES 0.8 for 80%, if you're giving XP from defeated monsters but I don't), then take that number and double it because your players aren't going to find everything. Hide the extra half in stupid places they'll never look.
THUS a Fighter needs 2000XP to get to level 2. Using this formula a first level dungeon will have about 128,000 GP worth of treasure in it. But only 6,400 worth will be laying around in the open or on monsters waiting to be found. The other 6,400 will be hidden in secret walls, inside paintings of opulent feasts, buried in the sand, hidden in statues that try to bite off your hand, or tucked inside rotting elephant carcasses.
If you're considering giving XP for collecting magic items you're on your own. I consider magic items to be something else, and most of them come with a cost.
10. Look at nearby levels and determine what may or may not happen when the players intervene. Leave what actually happens up to play, but it's good to have a general idea of the mechanations within the loose naturalism.
11. Keep notes during play, re-populate accordingly.
I'm working on some Abulafia generators for making interesting treasures, rooms, and traps. Most random dungeon generators just spit out boring stuff (10000cp, a trap where a pit opens up with spikes, every room has cobwebs and manacles). I'm a fucking cyborg and I like to get random generator gibberish to feel out things. I'd rather paint on hewn bark than clean canvas.
Idea for treasures: generate some GP values like 3d8xdungeon level+player level, do that for d% of the rooms each. Hide treasures equal to the GP value in each room. If you roll a maxval on a room make it a special magic treasure.
I-Ching gibberish for dungeons:
Line 4:
Progressing like a Five Skills Rat.
Persistence is dangerous.
Persistence is dangerous.
Trying to progress without the ability to do everything that is needed. Going on may get one into trouble.
(It is said of the Five Skills Rat, that:
It can fly, but it cannot go past a roof,
It can climb, but it cannot do an entire tree,
It can swim, but it cannot cross a ditch,
It can dig, but it cannot conceal its body,
It can run, but it cannot before a man.)
(It is said of the Five Skills Rat, that:
It can fly, but it cannot go past a roof,
It can climb, but it cannot do an entire tree,
It can swim, but it cannot cross a ditch,
It can dig, but it cannot conceal its body,
It can run, but it cannot before a man.)
Sounds like a PC
Sunday, June 9, 2019
Subvault dungeon
I'm trying to draw up more dungeons as a creative exercise because my brain is numb and I forget things easily and also I get depressed when I don't sit by myself somewhere and frantically scribble in a notebook. It's just gotta be that way OKAY???
I don't care for dungeons with tons of detail. It's too much crap to sift through and my brain doesn't work that way. I like when dungeons imply that something is there, but doesn't really show you, so you can daydream about it and fill in the stuff on your own. Like paint by numbers but with blood and swords.
This heap of forgotten trash is called the SubVault of the Wandering Plague. Is the wandering plague you? Is it the monsters? Is there some rampant disease barely contained within? Hoho! Play on to find out!
The room descriptions are intended to be evocative rather than perscriptive. The idea here is that I puke out what I think is cool and if someone else can harvest anything from it all the better. A loose attempt at dungeon ecology is made but a creative person with a wee bit of drive can probably find loads of stufff in there. The theoretical GM would need to interpret a lot and do some actual preperation (gasp!) before running this. At least enough to know what the fuck is going on. With that in mind I've also provided a number of tables which fill in the blanks. What's in this room? What goodies were the baboons hiding? Can I use this to kill stuff? All the important questions.
The SubVault is a small branch of the Undervoid colonized by batmen and lizardmen from nearby sectors. They really don't like each other but life goes on. Both have enslaved pit gnomes just as nature intended. Shroom goblins also have a habitat here, living in synthesis with the native orb spiders.
Also there's deeper remnants of this sector's past. A train station, an abandoned research facility, a reservoir. The new denizens are using this stuff for their own ends, but they don't comprehend it. There's some giants living to the southwest. They've live here a long, long time. They're sick of living. They stay because there's a fire demon trying to escape and they don't know what else to do but try to keep it at bay. They're about ready to give up.
Tune in tomorrow for more I think
RANDOM ENCOUNTERS
1. shroom goblins
2. lizardmen
3. batmen
4. pit gnomes
5. corrosive jelly
6. orb spiders
7. golem of skulls
8. rival adventuring party!
WHAT ARE THEY DOING??
1. Lost & aggressive
2. starving/hunting
3. hauling loot
4. arguing
5. fleeing from....
6. signing a truce
7. exploring
8. carrying wounded
9. eating a............
10. fighting..........
BONUS ROUND
1. knows where the good stuff is
2. willing to trade
3. knows the way
4. secretly diseased
5. one of them is a wizard
6. maybe royalty
7. hiding something??
8. traitors
9. captured a fairy
10. doomed grandiose plan
SMALL TREASURES
1. brass trinkets w sequins
2. slightly rusty tools
3. dead body
4. a gem of minor value
5. weapon cache!
6. chains/rope/pulleys
7. torches/lamp oil
8. a bomb
9. is this food?
10. elegant heavy furniture
11. sinful and hedonistic art
12. tastelessly opulent clothes
13. exotic medicinal herbs
14. ritual stuff (silver, incense, monkey paw...)
15. orb spidersilk (weave w moonwool to make mythril)
16. poison (roll fav tables)
17. potion (as above)
18. ring (only barely cursed)
19. wand (d6 charges)
20. amulet(does it do anything?)
CONDITION roll this table for any reason (utility of plan, state of treasure, safety of bridge)
1. garbage
2. workable
3. good.
4. FANCY
5-6 roll again/stolen>>1. magic 2. owner wants it back 2-6 valuable
DANGERS!!!
1. fire
2. ice
3. water
4. collapsing
5. needles
6. gas
7. teleporter
8. biohazard
9. undead
10. cursed
11. sunken
12. vorpal
13. pitfall
14. siren
15. makeshift
16. fortification
17. diseased
18. illlusory
19. WarZone
20. roll twice
GOOD STUFF
1. healing
2. ESP
3. truesight
4. blink
5. float
6. enchanted
7. talking
8. shapeshifting
9. blessing
10. expensive
11. growing
12. hiding
13. glowing
14. edible
15. finding
16. muting
17. shaking
18. telekenisis
19. purifying
20. roll twice!
Treasure Form
1. jewelry
2. equipment
3. weapons
4. armor
5. art
6. clothes
7. monsterparts
8. ancient/lost/lore
9. books
10. artifacts
11. really big
12. really small
13. portal
14. container
15. vial
16. rod
17. energy
18. ghostly
19. tech
20. map to cache
Trap form
1. pressure plate/tripwire
2. machine
3. alter/bookcase
4. chest
5. door
6. statue
7. puzzle (free roll on any tables!)
8. liquid
9. wall
10. orb/light/gate
11. furniture/artifact
12. pile of dead bodies
Trap activation/shutoff
1. lift
2. lever/switch/button
3. transmute
4. given
5. eyes
6. lose
7. center
8. knock
9. look
11. voice
12. blood
13. flood
14. smash
15. heat
16. light
17. spirit
18. magic
19. intent
20. dreams
special--the hidden way through
1. trapdoor
2. ladder
3. chute
4. alcove
5. tunnel
6. teleporter
7. bag
8. door
9. vault
10. temple
I don't care for dungeons with tons of detail. It's too much crap to sift through and my brain doesn't work that way. I like when dungeons imply that something is there, but doesn't really show you, so you can daydream about it and fill in the stuff on your own. Like paint by numbers but with blood and swords.
The room descriptions are intended to be evocative rather than perscriptive. The idea here is that I puke out what I think is cool and if someone else can harvest anything from it all the better. A loose attempt at dungeon ecology is made but a creative person with a wee bit of drive can probably find loads of stufff in there. The theoretical GM would need to interpret a lot and do some actual preperation (gasp!) before running this. At least enough to know what the fuck is going on. With that in mind I've also provided a number of tables which fill in the blanks. What's in this room? What goodies were the baboons hiding? Can I use this to kill stuff? All the important questions.
The SubVault is a small branch of the Undervoid colonized by batmen and lizardmen from nearby sectors. They really don't like each other but life goes on. Both have enslaved pit gnomes just as nature intended. Shroom goblins also have a habitat here, living in synthesis with the native orb spiders.
Also there's deeper remnants of this sector's past. A train station, an abandoned research facility, a reservoir. The new denizens are using this stuff for their own ends, but they don't comprehend it. There's some giants living to the southwest. They've live here a long, long time. They're sick of living. They stay because there's a fire demon trying to escape and they don't know what else to do but try to keep it at bay. They're about ready to give up.
Tune in tomorrow for more I think
RANDOM ENCOUNTERS
1. shroom goblins
2. lizardmen
3. batmen
4. pit gnomes
5. corrosive jelly
6. orb spiders
7. golem of skulls
8. rival adventuring party!
WHAT ARE THEY DOING??
1. Lost & aggressive
2. starving/hunting
3. hauling loot
4. arguing
5. fleeing from....
6. signing a truce
7. exploring
8. carrying wounded
9. eating a............
10. fighting..........
BONUS ROUND
1. knows where the good stuff is
2. willing to trade
3. knows the way
4. secretly diseased
5. one of them is a wizard
6. maybe royalty
7. hiding something??
8. traitors
9. captured a fairy
10. doomed grandiose plan
SMALL TREASURES
1. brass trinkets w sequins
2. slightly rusty tools
3. dead body
4. a gem of minor value
5. weapon cache!
6. chains/rope/pulleys
7. torches/lamp oil
8. a bomb
9. is this food?
10. elegant heavy furniture
11. sinful and hedonistic art
12. tastelessly opulent clothes
13. exotic medicinal herbs
14. ritual stuff (silver, incense, monkey paw...)
15. orb spidersilk (weave w moonwool to make mythril)
16. poison (roll fav tables)
17. potion (as above)
18. ring (only barely cursed)
19. wand (d6 charges)
20. amulet(does it do anything?)
CONDITION roll this table for any reason (utility of plan, state of treasure, safety of bridge)
1. garbage
2. workable
3. good.
4. FANCY
5-6 roll again/stolen>>1. magic 2. owner wants it back 2-6 valuable
DANGERS!!!
1. fire
2. ice
3. water
4. collapsing
5. needles
6. gas
7. teleporter
8. biohazard
9. undead
10. cursed
11. sunken
12. vorpal
13. pitfall
14. siren
15. makeshift
16. fortification
17. diseased
18. illlusory
19. WarZone
20. roll twice
GOOD STUFF
1. healing
2. ESP
3. truesight
4. blink
5. float
6. enchanted
7. talking
8. shapeshifting
9. blessing
10. expensive
11. growing
12. hiding
13. glowing
14. edible
15. finding
16. muting
17. shaking
18. telekenisis
19. purifying
20. roll twice!
Treasure Form
1. jewelry
2. equipment
3. weapons
4. armor
5. art
6. clothes
7. monsterparts
8. ancient/lost/lore
9. books
10. artifacts
11. really big
12. really small
13. portal
14. container
15. vial
16. rod
17. energy
18. ghostly
19. tech
20. map to cache
Trap form
1. pressure plate/tripwire
2. machine
3. alter/bookcase
4. chest
5. door
6. statue
7. puzzle (free roll on any tables!)
8. liquid
9. wall
10. orb/light/gate
11. furniture/artifact
12. pile of dead bodies
Trap activation/shutoff
1. lift
2. lever/switch/button
3. transmute
4. given
5. eyes
6. lose
7. center
8. knock
9. look
11. voice
12. blood
13. flood
14. smash
15. heat
16. light
17. spirit
18. magic
19. intent
20. dreams
special--the hidden way through
1. trapdoor
2. ladder
3. chute
4. alcove
5. tunnel
6. teleporter
7. bag
8. door
9. vault
10. temple
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Wrasslin Owlbears
Grappling is fun. Jump on the dude and pull 'em to the ground, strangle the life out. Just like Conan! RAAWWGGHH BODYSLAAAMMM!! Like everything else in life people try to overly complicate grappling rules. I like my gameplay simple and decisive. If you put yourself at risk to accomplish a goal your success has to be worth the danger. I try to encourage players to do things other than just say "I stab his face". You gotta make the mechanics just as simple as attack rolls. Saves are good for everything.
A strength check is enough--how does your strength compare to their strength? Maybe if the other guy is big enough they could get a size bonus, but who really cares? How much fun would it be for the halfling with 18 strength to strangle an ogre to death? We know from the fiction that he couldn't choke out a black dragon but I'm willing to be lenient in certain cases for rule of cool.
If they want to strangle an unsuspecting victim unconscious they'll probably automatically succeed if they pass the check, especially if they're using a garrote. Regular combat is too granular to go straight to auto-shotting dudes while grappling, so mostly its about restraining a foe, and yourself at the same time while both combatants struggle for supremacy. If you wanna try to throttle them after grappling they take d4 damage on proceeding turns. You can't grapple someone and stab them with something bigger than a dagger at the same time.
A PC with a martial arts background could probably do more with hand-to-hand combat than others. If a Tanner cum lvl 1 fighter wants to throw sick high kicks he'll just fall on his face.
The danger is here: If you fail your save it puts you at a disadvantage. Oftentimes this means the grappler becomes the grapplee, or gets knock prone, or thrown off a cliff, or gets sucker punched in the tussle. Depending on what system I'm running getting attacked while defenseless could mean a bonus damage die, damage taking the next die size up, or jumping straight to critical damage. If two PCs are holding a monster while the third stabs it in the face the fight is probably over. This goes both ways: monters can and do use the most of the grappling mechanics.
Wizlock--magically bind someone's wrists together after touching them. Can be broken with a strength check Vs caster's Int.
Pile-d-d-driver--after grappling an opponent bodyslam them on the following turn. 1HD monsters are instantly killed. All others take d12 damage and are knocked prone for d4 turns.
A strength check is enough--how does your strength compare to their strength? Maybe if the other guy is big enough they could get a size bonus, but who really cares? How much fun would it be for the halfling with 18 strength to strangle an ogre to death? We know from the fiction that he couldn't choke out a black dragon but I'm willing to be lenient in certain cases for rule of cool.
If they want to strangle an unsuspecting victim unconscious they'll probably automatically succeed if they pass the check, especially if they're using a garrote. Regular combat is too granular to go straight to auto-shotting dudes while grappling, so mostly its about restraining a foe, and yourself at the same time while both combatants struggle for supremacy. If you wanna try to throttle them after grappling they take d4 damage on proceeding turns. You can't grapple someone and stab them with something bigger than a dagger at the same time.
A PC with a martial arts background could probably do more with hand-to-hand combat than others. If a Tanner cum lvl 1 fighter wants to throw sick high kicks he'll just fall on his face.
The danger is here: If you fail your save it puts you at a disadvantage. Oftentimes this means the grappler becomes the grapplee, or gets knock prone, or thrown off a cliff, or gets sucker punched in the tussle. Depending on what system I'm running getting attacked while defenseless could mean a bonus damage die, damage taking the next die size up, or jumping straight to critical damage. If two PCs are holding a monster while the third stabs it in the face the fight is probably over. This goes both ways: monters can and do use the most of the grappling mechanics.
Wizlock--magically bind someone's wrists together after touching them. Can be broken with a strength check Vs caster's Int.
Pile-d-d-driver--after grappling an opponent bodyslam them on the following turn. 1HD monsters are instantly killed. All others take d12 damage and are knocked prone for d4 turns.
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Spellweaving
Wizards search for the true names of things, the stuff inside the part that you see and touch. All things have an inner beingness, and a name which corresponds to its identity. Not just the peninsula and atoll as a whole, but every pebble and blade of grass dwelling there.
To change a thing in the world you have to understand its truer nature, how it's connected to the whole. Things can only change in accordance with their nature. The deeper sms more significant the change, the more things have to change around it to compensate. The more you stay with something's original state the less work needs to be done.
A log is a log, no more work needs to be done. It is already perfect.
A river with a dam needs not only the materials to make it, but all the accumulated technology, life-stories, knowledge, and infrastructure required for dam building. 70,000 years of history.
A beaver builds a dam out of logs. They do so, without thinking of it at all, in a way that improves the land around them. They create habitats and bring balance to the area.
When humans make a dam the landscape changes, the river changes, the fish die, the forest dies, the river dies. Humans have gained mastery, but in their mastery also destroyed. Things are thoughtlessly moved out of place and the world around compensates by dying.
Wizards learn the art of the beaver. Health, hearth, home with tiny movements and simple words, nothing more. Change the least and preserve the balance.
To change a thing in the world you have to understand its truer nature, how it's connected to the whole. Things can only change in accordance with their nature. The deeper sms more significant the change, the more things have to change around it to compensate. The more you stay with something's original state the less work needs to be done.
A log is a log, no more work needs to be done. It is already perfect.
A river with a dam needs not only the materials to make it, but all the accumulated technology, life-stories, knowledge, and infrastructure required for dam building. 70,000 years of history.
A beaver builds a dam out of logs. They do so, without thinking of it at all, in a way that improves the land around them. They create habitats and bring balance to the area.
When humans make a dam the landscape changes, the river changes, the fish die, the forest dies, the river dies. Humans have gained mastery, but in their mastery also destroyed. Things are thoughtlessly moved out of place and the world around compensates by dying.
Wizards learn the art of the beaver. Health, hearth, home with tiny movements and simple words, nothing more. Change the least and preserve the balance.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
NPC generator
I made this NPC generator that produces crazed lunatics to drop into your game. They've got flaws, drives, and personalities. Works for rival adventuring parties, quest givers, local flavor, or any other type of fantasy bum whose sole purpose is to complicate your PC's lives. Stick 'em in some encounter tables and let your players do the rest.
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Dungeon as a living entity
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| Santiago Caruso |
The Dungeon isn't a really place built by people, though parts may be added on by mortal hands, or something made by mortals may become a Dungeon. It is something that grows from the world itself. The Dungeon is the inevitable decay of Law towards an entropic state, it emerges when things begin to break down. The Dungeon has its own mind, its own plans, its own desires & processes. It moves and changes by subtly bending smaller-scale living things to its will. The Dungeon is patient and plotting.
This is why traps reset themselves, why the architecture makes no logical sense, why doors open for monsters but are stuck for players, why everything is trying to kill you. The Dungeon is itself a living ur-trap, with bait to lure and teeth to gnash.
The Dungeon's desires: to Lure, to Harvest, to Grow
How dungeons grow
Dungeons start out as a sharp rock in a wasteland, or a forest about to catch on fire, or a sinkhole. It catches some prey, feels and tastes its blood and screams, and wants more. It harvests their suffering and uses the magical energy to establish itself. It changes the landscape bit by bit via evolution, adding a vine here or a cave there. The more and smarter things it kills and eats the more it grows. Eventually it finds a way to attract manflesh, then the game is really one. The older and deeper a dungeon the craftier it gets.
Each body caught in a pit, strangled, slashed, burned, beaten, within its walls issues a life force which is consumed by the Dungeon.
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| Kris Kuksi |
Corridors emerges and stretch and shift, taking the shape of something of a sympathetic nature to the surrounding area. Damp cold stone crawling with roots and insects. Hand-cut marble and brass trim. Tile mosaics depicting dolphins and men having sex. Highly detailed carved soapstone tentacles wreathing and tangling together. The Dungeon is a touch artistic and inventive in its architectures, it wants to inspire curiosity.
For this reason too Dungeons bury themselves in the ground, hiding spooky entrances, with rusted gates and skulls. Foreboding but speaking to an inner lust of curiosity and tale it knows all sapient races have.
dungeon as the in-between
Not all dungeons grow from a dangerous piece of the landscape. The most dangerous and horrible ones grow out of loneliness. A tomb constructed to house a king, stuffed with his magic spoon and mythrile sword and precious wives, and left to rot. The stinking vapor of his failed career and laments of the trinkets desiring a new master coalesce and take shape.
A family lives in an old house for generations. They store their most treasured belongings in the attic. Grandpa's gun, great-grandma's love letters, a locket containing the umbilical cord of a stillborn child, a box of weird shit belonging to some forgotten uncle collected during the war and never spoke about but he hid it and secretly looked through it and reminisced, forgotten under a floorboard.
The family died out, the house passed through various hands, most of the stuff cleared out, but some of it was left. The attic wasn't used as much and the stuff sat there and grew lonely, it missed being reminisced over. Eventually that part of town gets blighted, falls into ruin, the house is left standing, delapidated.
All horror movies are about dungeons. You were attracted by something, now you can't escape, and there's a thing that wants to give you a fate worse than death for its own confusing and malignant satisfactions.
Places that were known, used, then forgotten can grow into dungeons. The creepy stairs leading to your cellar is an embryo. The pile of stones that look like a house in the woods is mimicking something. Dungeons grow where things are lost or forgotten, unlooked at by human eyes. They collect in the dust and rot and grow like bacterial colonies where the fresh air doesn't reach to clear it out.
If you don't do spring cleaning, open up and air out your house the rot might set in. You'll start having bad luck, have to move out, then the house will be vacant and the poison can grow.
Dungeons don't exist in physical reality. Dungeons can be measured from the outside but not the inside. A torn apart ancient monastery with a creepy staircase that made up its own lies about a sacrificial cult, twisting the echos of the good natured old monks into something it can use. Behind the door is a different reality created by the dungeon.
treasure as lure
dungeons get their treasures by luring in idiots, eating them, and keeping their stuff to use to lure more idiots. sometimes it does this by spreading rumors on the wind like pollen to attract adventurers. sometimes it does this by being on a layline or having some resource to attracts wizards and dwarfs to embiggen it and manufacture fancy trinkets, before constructing their doom.
that's why we laugh at wizards and dwarfs. there's inherent folly built into their cravings. They build and search and hunt and experiment while what they make is actually the fertile soil for a dungeon to grow. Wizards and Dwarfs are the worms that turn mountains and caves and metal and gold into dungeons.
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| Wolfgang Grasse |
monsters as symbiotic parasites
Monsters are like gut flora, or part of a root microbiome for dungeons. The Dungeon gives them a place to live away from the light and infest and be horrible, and in return they help it kill things and keep them from leaving.
Goblins move in. Kobolds infest. Hobgoblins form a stronghold. Ogres seek shelter. Oozes seep out. Every dungeon needs an ecosystem of lesser creatures to aid in digestions.
looting dungeons
It doesn't want to be looted, its loot is its stored nutrience, but to give the impression that it is lootable. It can't just snap its jaws on every person that walks in or people would stop going in. If you take magic stuff out of it some of the mystery that keeps it going is lost.
The Dungeon doesn't want you to leave, but as you do, loaded with sacks of cold, it smiles coldly to itself, for others will be coming soon.
A universe dies when it becomes one enormous dungeon, sprawling for infinite, before collapsing on itself back into singularity.
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