Too Many Ideas - Not Enough Time

I would consider myself a pretty creative guy. Sometimes it feels like ideas just keep growing and growing, and I need to get them down on paper before my mind explodes. I get a little obsessive creating a new setting, or an adventure, or a totally new roleplaying system. Sometimes they ideas develop into something I use. Often times they just get forgotten in a notebook. Regardless, I feel better for putting the thoughts down and on paper and allowing my mind to move on to something else.

 

This post is going to be composed of random thoughts on gaming, weird ideas I have and some inspirational pictures found online.

 

 

 

 

 

I like the look of this little guy. Makes me think of a gnome. In fact, I would love if this is what gnomes looked like - or some gnome like alternative in my game. Something that looks a lot less human than the standard gnome. It looks friendly, but also alien. Something you could see living in the depths of the earth, inventing weird things and crafting strange magics in the dark. I'm going to call his race the Tovi.

 

The Tovi are distant relatives to the goblins, but also share some dwarven mixed blood somewhere else down the line. They are creatures of the earth, that prefer the deep dark places, and are perfectly at home in the Mythic Underworld. They are generally good natured, yet cunning and mischievous. This puts them at odds with the various other creatures that inhabit the deep dark places.

 



 

The Tovi live in very alien labyrinths of their own design. Organic yet crafted, often smoothed stone and metal are used in the construction of their communities. They care less about symmetry, and claim to be "listening to the earth" as they craft, which gives a very chaotic appearance to their tunnels and rooms.

The Tovi live in large communities, from hundreds to thousands in a series of these twisted tunnels and labyrinths. They have a strong sense of community, but their minds are a little bent. Leaving most of them toward the neutral alignment. Lawful members of the community tend to be the leaders and spiritual deacons, where as the chaotic members of the society tend to be the trap-crafters, soldiers and spies that put their bent minds to work to weaken the dangerous other inhabitants of the deep dark.

The Tovi are terrified of the Dwellers in the Dark, and work endlessly to protect themselves from the madness that those beings spread. They construct death-trapped hallways and rooms, lures for the beings of chaos, insulating their community from the rest of the mythic underground.

Perhaps I will stat these guys up as a DCC race at some point in the future. I could see these making interesting additions to a party once contact has been made with a colony of them. They are likely to be the only allies the PCs would find in the deepest reaches of the earth.

Random Setting Idea: Dying Earth and Science Fantasy

A world of laser, sword and spell

I really, really, really want to run a game with a mix of fantasy and sci-fi. Some hardcore, heavy metal themed world of crashed alien spaceships, wicked monsters and barbarians. Barrier Peaks and Cthulhu all over the place. Mad Max with a broadsword, some influences thrown in from Borderlands, Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards and Dying Earth. The idea has my brain simmering with excitement. I just don't know when I will have the time to run this with my current games I am doing - or if I will even have any interest. It's been my experience in the past that players don't like Sci-Fi in their Fantasy.

Oh, and the setting has to have gratuitous nudity and scantily clad female warriors. This is a must.



 

 

What happened to this world? Well.. I don't know yet. In my head the world had become very advanced. Similar to the world depicted in the Dying Earth series. The world is near the end of it's life time. Humanity had become very advanced but something has happened - some great disaster or catastrophe. Things have been set back to a much more barbaric time. Magic exists now. Dark things creep into our world through cracks in the fabric of reality. Alien ships have crashed, and some of the high technology functions for those who can hold on to it.

It is a world of conflict and war. A world where the strong rule over the weak. Where magic reigns and life is cheap.

This is a setting I really want to run.

Homebrewed Species: The Dwellers in the Dark

They lurk below. Within the realm of the sightless, yet they see all. They are the twisted abominations of the darkest reaches of the world. Where the abyss and earth meet, on the periphery of reality they wait, hungry for the minds of mortal men. Their madness poisons the roots of the earth, allowing their insanity to seep into the world of light above.

I've been trying to come up with a name for the creatures that exist in the depths of the ruins of Esterfay. I would like to share some information here without spoiling anything in the campaign.

When I started making the ruined halls I wanted there to be something very alien, something very old, that were the original architects of the halls. The place would have been basically a giant strip of fly paper for them to catch civilizations in to feed their inhuman hunger.

The weird stuff that exists within the halls is a product of their madness leaking to the surface. Some of the weird things were created by mad wizards falling prey to these dark creature's malign influence. Others were created by the creatures themselves, to lure in the greedy, vain and prideful.

The other reason I made the Dwellers in the Dark? I love Mind Flayers and Beholders, but they are totally owned by Wizards of the Coast. I wanted something that I could call mine. Something I could do anything with and mold into the antagonists I wanted in my game.

Description: The Dwellers in the Dark are a few feet taller than a man, but irregular and slender. Above their shoulders resembles a snakes, long and serpentine, with no disenable difference between neck and head. Eyeless, with a pair of wicked mandibles framing a sucker-faced jaw of many rows of circular teeth. They have four arms and two legs, their shoulders and joints pointy yet thin. Their skin is scaly and slick, often colored pale white, indigo or other bizarre, unnaturally bright or pale colors (Weird Lizard Colors). They dress in robes most often, but the more martial members of the race wear strange proto-organic armor that makes them blend in with the darkness as they move.

Combat and Powers: I don't want to get too much into this, for fear of giving too much away. The Dwellers are very strong physically, but often prefer to use their potent magical abilities on their victims. One such power they have developed is a powerful defense mechanism. They can force their skin to flicker brightly, emitting a blinding hypnotic flicker of light that causes sighted creatures to make a will save or become paralyzed by their own nervous system going into shock.

Some sample magical abilities, in no particular order: Charm Person, Command, Paralysis, Sleep, Detect Magic, Invisibility, Spider Climb, ESP, Magic Missile, Lightning Bolt, Magic Shield, Teleport

Of course, individual powers will vary.

Servants of Flesh and Spell: The Dwellers in the Dark make things. Spell and flesh woven together to create servants to enact their will upon the sighted world above. They make their madness manifest in an assortment of ways, and no two things are exactly the same. That said, they have some "common" creations that they use to serve them.

• The Sightless Hounds - Pale slime skinned hounds the size of a horse, that can run down prey for the Dwellers. A single pack typically serves a single Dweller. They are deadly, with a poisonous bite and vicious claws. Many appear mutated in strange ways - faces on their hides that scream in pain and beg for death; tentacles covering their hide, grasping and pinning those they fight; or strange appendages and spikes.
• The Crawling Madness - Deadly worms that first appear as tiny parasites too small to see. The Dwellers have released these parasites into much of the drinking water, and they can also be transmitted via bodily fluids. An infected individual first appears to have their eyes "Swimming with madness" as the worms multiply quickly in the body. They grow stronger, gaining bonuses to their strength and stamina, as well as growing smarter, gaining bonuses to intelligence. Their bodies begin to mutate as the worms reweave their flesh from within. Soon, they become so insane with bloodlust that they attack on sight anything that is not under the control of the Dwellers. A rare few will be chosen by the Dwellers to undergo the Apotheosis, and be transformed into Dwellers themselves.

Just some teasers. Maybe it's too much?

Back Gaming!

I'm back in my hometown with the old crew and getting some games going. I am currently running two games, and thought I'd share some of what is going on.

Ruined Halls of Esterfay

Started a new group to DCC, and decided we would play in my Ruined Halls megadungeon with a couple of sandbox adventures in the area around them. They are given the freedom to do what they want, chasing down adventure leads or plumbing the depths of the megadungeon for their riches.

The first session was the character funnel, where the players each had four 0-level characters and went through "Portal Under the Stars" the DCC introductory adventure in the book, which was also the first adventure I got to play when my friend Kevin introduced me to the game.

They had a blast, and the death toll was high. My friend Randy, new to DCC but has been playing with me since the 80s, lost all of his characters. Ginger, also an old friend of mine but new to DCC as well lost all but one. On the next session we had another player join us, Scott, who rolled up a wizard with the worst mercurial magic effects I have ever seen.

Randy rerolled a set of characters, I allowed him to pick two to level to first level - He chose a dwarf and a cleric. The party then met up in the Wanton Wench, a bar in the city of Loris that caters to treasure hunters. They listened to some rumors of wealth and opportunity, and decided that they should check out the frog men of the swamp to the east that have been attacking villages.

The ventured to a town on the edge of the vast swamp. Really just a couple of families living close enough together to be called such. They met a farmer who had been attacked by one of the frog men.

He had seen them rooting through the abandoned farm next to his own, and the next morning they came to his place. He caught one in his barn, tried to drive it away and it drew a sword and ran him through.

The party, armed with the knowledge that the frog men had weapons, went to investigate the old farmhouse first. They discovered it had been stripped of anything of value, and even had boards taken from the walls. with more questions than answers they pushed forward into the swamp.

I would like to point out here that this is a random adventure I created by rolling a couple of dice of a random adventure name table and coming up with the adventure from there. This adventure is titled "The Fens of the Frog God".

In the swamp they quickly got lost, but since they didn't know what they were looking for it didn't matter. A couple of hours later and I rolled up a random encounter. While passing through a treacherous section of the swamp they are attacked by waterlogged bloated corpses.

The party quickly pulled up to some nearby dry ground to defend themselves. The battle was pitched, but they came out victorious. This is the first time that Scott's wizard got to cast some spells - One of the things I have been doing lately is rolling up the mercurial magic effect the first time the spell is cast - So it's a mystery until the wizard finally unleashes the spell. Scott discovers that every time he casts magic missile someone he knows dies! Lucky for his friends and family he can't manage to cast the spell without failing.

The cleric (who's name is Farmer - Randy says his father had a sense of humor about it) attempts to turn the undead with the power of Ildavir, and fails. His second attempt even nets him disapproval, forcing him to have to pray for ten minutes following the combat.

The thief Jess, played by Ginger, and the dwarf - Who's name is currently escaping me, both make quick work of the zombie horde, though are seriously wounded in the process. Jess falls unconscious and loses one of her daggers in the high swamp grass.

After dispatching the last zombie and healing they decide to press on a little more before resting. The cleric conjures forth a feast for them all, scoring a critical on his cast and summoning a feast to feed over a dozen people. They leave the remaining food as bait for wandering monsters and find somewhere out of the water to rest.

Camping on a wide fallen tree, they manage to make it through the night without any further incidents. The next day while traveling they spot a massive twenty foot tall elf in the distance, wearing leather and moving silently. They fail to hide and the thing approaches, demanding that they explain themselves.

Only the cleric in the party speaks elvish. There was a level 0 elf traveling with the party as well, but he was too stupid to speak his own language.

After some quick banter with the giant elf, they learn that the giant is hunting a dragon. He tells them where they can find the bullywugs they are hunting, and tells them they have recently moved in to an abandoned temple in the swamp. They thank the giant, and the they go their separate ways.

They reach the mound of  the temple entrance. Descending the tunnel, they find the central entry chamber is a below ground garden full of frog topiary hedges. A fountain in the middle is full of glowing mushrooms. A trio of the bullywugs is here, and leap to attack.

The battle is deadly! Both of the random zero level dudes go down to the bullywug's blades. Jess the Thug gets to ambush one of the frogs and slays him. The wizard drops to a flurry of blades and nearly bleeds out before being saved by Farmer. They finally stand triumphant over the mutilated frog corpses. They find that the frog men have a surprising amount of treasure on their persons, gold, silver and even a gem. One even has a piece of platinum. There must be more treasure within! They pass through the double doors to explore further.

The main hallway goes a good distance before splitting. Evidence that the tunnel had collapsed before is found, and a large section is still blocked off. They find some side passages to explore. In the first room they encounter a group of frog men bathing in slimy knee deep water. They do not have their armor, but the frog men seize initiative and get to their blades. A fourth bullywug peeks out over a ledge along the wall and begins shooting his crossbow down into the group.

This battle goes much better for everyone but the wizard, who continues to lose spells and fumbles with his blade. The dwarf has now taken to calling himself "Moller the Tooth Smasher" as he uses his warhammer and shield to smash the teeth out of everything he fights. After killing the frogs they discover two more passages out of this room, both up off the ground level but decide to go back to the other passage they discovered off the main hall.

This room has a pair of bullywugs speaking in croaks, standing near a blood soaked altar. The room filled with columns. The party does not give them a chance to attack first, and rushes them down. Killing these two easily. Searching around they find a secret compartment in the altar, that contains a few coins and a wooden box with two potions.

Note: I use a special system for potions in my game. Different potions can be identified by their characteristics. This is just an example, but a healing potion might be a golden thick liquid with swirls of red color, that smells of lavender and tastes sweet. They would then know that any potion matching that description would be the same type of potion (though there may be different looks to the same potion - and some poisonous liquids may be improperly brewed versions of that potion).

After some discussion they decide to not try the potions unless they are desperate and proceed on through a door in this room. They find another hallway heading toward the collapsed section of the temple, as well as a door marked with a red x. They investigate, discover the door is locked and open it up anyway. Inside is an abandoned armory filled with rusted weapons, armor and piles of bone. They step inside and the bones start to rise, forming into frog-men sized skeletons.

They rush in and battle, Moller the Toothsmasher leads the charge with a bulrush and a tackle, taking out two of the skeletons in one go. The third one falls to the thief with a warhammer, and the others get turned and backed into a corner where they crush them into piles of dust.

They decide that his might be a safe place to rest, since the frog men obviously don't come in here anymore. They close and lock the door, and prepare to sleep.

End of session two.

We play again next Monday, so I will give you all an update then.

As far as my second campaign I am running? I will save that for another post.

Ruined Halls of Esterfay: Strangeness in the Megadungeon

As I return to playing my campaign and dust off the binder containing the dozens of pages of megadungeon maps and notes, I remember all the cool random things tucked away in the dungeon that the players last time through got to see. There were also countless things they didn't get to see, because that's just the nature of a megadungeon. When you're first dungeon level has six hundred rooms the players are going to skip over a few things.

I thought I'd share a few of my weirder things here. Maybe someone can borrow something and put it to good use.

The Fountain of Youth and Beauty

I love making dangerous fountains. Just something about a beautiful fountain in a cursed and deadly place makes me cackle like a mad man. I think it goes back to when I was young and first read the Dungeon Builder's Guidebook. There was this excellent picture of a group messing with a fountain and getting sprayed with deadly acid. That has always stuck with me, and perhaps makes up a core of my being.

A large chamber somewhat near the entrance of the dungeon. On the walls leading up to it, the kobolds that live in the area have scratches warnings to their fellows into the wall. The players might see the two foot high cross scratches by the time they hear the fountain bubbling and splashing.

The chamber lights up when light is brought inside, reflected upon the perfectly polished mirrors that line the walls. There is a wide hall exit from the four cardinal directions of the room. There is also a 1 in 6 chance of there being a skeleton or rotting body laying next to one of the mirrors, but the giant rats and slimes that clean this section of the dungeon usually sweep through here for an easy feast.

In the center of the chamber is a massive fountain of polished white marble. A statue of a maiden with a strange looking face- vertical eye slits, fanged mouth and naked - sprays water from her outstretched hands into the pool around her. The water shimmers clean and bright. A few coins sit on the bottom of the pool, from countless travelers making a wish.

Effects of the Fountain

Drinking from the fountain has a variety of effects. Failing a charisma/personality test causes the character to gain a point of the stat. Their ugliness fades, wrinkles and scars vanish and they just radiate attractiveness.

Succeeding on the roll does not grant beauty, but it does grant youth. Restoring a lost year to the character from a sip, making them younger.

Either way, a character that drinks must make a saving throw (will in DCC) to avoid drinking again. In my game the DC was 15, +2 for each drink the character has had. Failing causes the character to become addicted to the beauty they can receive from the fountain and gorge themselves on the water. Unless physically stopped from drinking (and they will fight to drink) they will unmake themselves in a matter of minutes.

After drinking, even with making a save to resist drinking again, the character must make another will save to leave the room, failure meaning they stop to stare at themselves in any mirrors they pass (remember the walls here are also covered in mirrors). They will waste away staring at themselves in the mirror, their vanity becoming so great they wont eat or drink anything for a week save for staring in any available mirror.

Mimics in DCC - AKA Dwarfbane

In Dungeon Crawl Classics, the dwarf has the ability to smell gold at a distance of up to one hundred feet. As I thought about the monsters that might inhabit my megadungeon, I thought about what sort of evolutionary changes I could make in a classic monster to make it fit into the setting. I always loved mimics, and somehow this idea popped into my head: Mimics love the taste of dwarf flesh.

Mimics in my world have developed the ability to smell like gold to a dwarf. Each one is born with a strange cluster of gold in an organ in their body. They can "flex" this muscle to emit a potent waft of "gold smell" out of their body. They often incorporate gold into the camouflaged forms they take when laying in wait for food.

This has led to some interesting encounters with mimics, when the party allows the dwarf to lead them around by his nose.

Ruined Halls of Esterfay Sneak Peek: The City of Loris

The City of Esterfay was once the seat of a mighty empire; one that dominated the country that is now known as the Forlorn Lands. For countless years the city has set quiet, crumbling away forgotten by history. One hundred and fifty years ago a group of explorers and historians from the southern kingdoms discovered the ruined city and began exploring. The artifacts they discovered made their way south to the stabilizing kingdoms, who desired more of these ancient riches. Soon, the town of Loris was built upon the bank of the River Black. A whole economy sprung up around the exploration and study of this ancient city and the secrets it held. The Ruined Halls were discovered early on, carved into the bluffs beyond the city proper. Believed to be where the final citizens of Esterfay fled after their empire crumbled and when some final great disaster struck the city. Initial exploration confirmed this, and that the ruined halls predate even the ancient Empire of Esterfay. Doom struck those who entered, however. The danger of the Ruined Halls was too great for all but the most cunning and courageous of adventurers, so even after the last century and a half only the upper most levels have been explored.

What secrets lie within the ancient halls of the forgotten kingdom? What treasures await those with the skill and strength to take it?

The Ruined Halls of Esterfay is a megadungeon that I have been working on for a while now. Last year I ran a weekly campaign for several months using the DCC RPG system to explore this massive complex. The megadungeon is set in the wild north. Once the seat of a sprawling empire that seemingly vanished overnight. The City of Esterfay is just a ruin, nestled against the mountains and the great pine forests.

A Brief History of the City of Loris

Around two hundred years ago, explorers discovered the ruins of the once great city Esterfay. From the destroyed city, rare treasures and rarer magics were recovered by explores, treasure seekers and adventurers. Various camps grew into a semi-permanent settlement along the shores of the river. As these treasures made their way through the southern kingdoms, so too did the stories of the bounty of riches that was waiting in the north. More fortune hunters arrived, and with them a community built up seemingly overnight. Sages from the Isle of Salara to the south established a college to study the historical artifacts. Soon the camp had become a large village, and then a city within a few years. Inns, taverns, blacksmiths and anything else you could imagine. The Gold Rush of the north was not for a mine, but for the wealth hidden away in the sprawling ruins.

With the bountiful natural resources, and the constant stream of valuable treasure, the burgeoning city became a target of raids and piracy on the river. A knight from the southern lands of Salara was named Duke of the Northern Reaches. Sir Loris Endaris became the first Duke, and the city took his name soon after. Bringing a small army and navy, he secured the city from external threats and oversaw the expansion of the city proper.

Since then, much of the old city ruins have been picked clean. Loris has expanded to cover most of the old city, and dozens of smaller villages lay within a week or less from the jewel of the north. Loris boasts one of the largest libraries in the world, and most certainly the largest in the north. The history of ancient Esterfay is a topic debated among the scholars and sages of Loris College. Still, adventure and treasure seeking is the cities' primary attraction to outsiders. Even though the old city ruins of Esterfay have been picked clean, there are other ruins of the great empire within a days travel, including the terrifying Ruined Halls.

I'm Back!

Alright, it's been forever since I dusted off this blog but I felt like I should get some writing done. Since moving away from my regular gaming group several months ago I have not spent any time working on my megadungeon, and that saddens me truly. So, I have decided to return to writing and if I can keep it up? Well, maybe I'll see about publishing the megadungeon!

About Random Encounters

I like random encounters, especially when playing a dungeon crawl game. I think the unpredictability adds a sense of suspense to the game. The players realize their character's could encounter something at any moment. While thoroughly searching the walls of a room for secret doors someone needs to stand watch at the door just in case something wonders by and hears them. It adds to the immersion level by letting the player feel some of the anxiety their character should be feeling poking around in a dusty maze all day.

I use the same rules for random encounters regardless of what game I play, but have some added house rules here for DCC RPG that I will include for posterity. Most of these rules never come up at the table, and are mostly just internal guidelines I use when running the game.

Time Keeping in DCC RPG

• One round of combat is 10 seconds. 
• One turn, is six rounds, or 1 minute. 
• A random encounter is checked every 10 minutes (Mostly). 
• Main hallways are checked more frequently (5-8 minutes). 
• Extents of large dungeons are checked less frequently (15-20 minutes).
• Searching a 10 foot section of wall for secret doors or the like, takes 2 minutes.
• Searching a rooms contents takes between 2 and five minutes, depending.
• While not fighting or fast walking, real time equals dungeon time.
• After a fight, characters take a turn to drink some water, bandage wounds, etc.
• Moving down hallways takes real time, or 1 minute per short section if actively searching for danger.
• After an hour of play, torches need to be replaced (I need to remember to enforce this more often).

Checking for Encounters

I use a very simple system for checking for encounters. I roll a 1d6. On a 1-2 (33% chance) there is a wandering encounter. On a six, (16% chance) There is a special chart I use that includes: Random sounds in the distance, clues left on the ground, rubble or fecal material, tracks, etc.

Creating the Encounter Table

When creating the random encounter table for an area, I first look at what sort of things might be wandering the halls. This helps me not only have reasonable encounters, but can give the players clues to what else might be lingering the area they haven't encountered yet. I will usually use a percentile die, and assign creatures based on how big their community is in the area, and how mobile they are. I will also include a few listings from areas a bit further away, and then throw in a few dungeon classics like oozes. I will have a few wild cards from deeper in the dungeon, but usually only near the main passages or in an area containing a passageway that leads deeper.

Creating the Random Events Table

Think of sounds the characters might hear based on the area they are in. If there are doors that need to be opened to get around, make sure you have the sounds of doors slamming, creaking of wood or the grinding of stone in the distance. Screams, sounds of combat, and strange babbling can all add the theme and mood you want to portray in the underworld of a dungeon. In nature settings this gets even easier to come up with, and can lead to a very immersive experience. This table can also be an excellent place to stick the weird stuff you would like to include in the dungeon. In my megadungeon I have a few magical events that are triggered by this table.