There's this curious book I got a couple years ago. "Stone Shelters" by Edward Allen, MIT Press. Not me, he was writing it in the 60s when I was just a kid. Looking the book up, I find he was pretty prolific in architectural books. My copy is old and used, a '74 printing, but I see copies available on Amazon.
Anyway, this other Edward Allen went to southern Italy on a Fulbright in the '60s and studied, photographed, and sketched trullo houses and cave dwellings that stayed in use well into historical times. A trullo is a house built around sort of a beehive dome of unmortared stone blocks. The combination of photos and plans of trulli here are appealing for modeling buildings or doing RPG maps. The cave dwelling maps he provides are fascinating to show the patterns in which cave dwelling people actually carved out caves into homes instead of a gamer's guess. Google image search turns up only one bad scan of his floor plan as part of an architectural essay.
It's worth picking up on Amazon.
Showing posts with label RPG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RPG. Show all posts
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Medieval pet names
This article on medieval pet names might be useful for fantasy or historical RPGs. http://www.medievalists.net/2013/06/23/medieval-pet-names/
Friday, January 3, 2014
A villainous creature for Barbarians of Lemuria
The Zaqqun
A quivering mass of translucent motile plasm from which emerge groping pseudopodia, it appears to be a typical blob monster. But unlike most blobs, this one is very intelligent, and will act with deliberation and stratagem. Being smart it will retreat if appropriate, plan and scavenge to grow and plot vengeance. It can stealthily ooze through a crack of 1/2 or less width, taking a few minutes to do so. It's not so much a simple monster as an oozing villain.
Attrributes
Strength 6
Agility 0
Mind 4
Career - intelligent blob monster 2
All languages of characters absorbed until their bonus LB is gone are known, and careers at original level -2. It can form sensory parts at will. It can emphasize any one sense at a time, taking about a round to reconfigure, the optimized sense being nearly as good as an animal that specializes in it - smell like a dog with a bit of a cold, see like a slightly nearsighted raptor, hear like a slightly deaf bat, pick one. It can form vocal apparatus at will and sound like an eerily altered version of the person whose memory and vocal shape it is borrowing.
Combat Abilities
Strike with a pseudopod 1d6 acidic attack. Half of all damage absorbed by armor degrades the armor, roll off fractions (1-3 round down, 4-6 round up). Mighty success does both maximum damage and gives an ongoing +2 to hit that target as it begins to engulf, contact broken on a subsequent miss.
Defense 2
Protection d4-1 (half degrades weapon damage permanently by acidic damage, as above for pseudopod strike, but reducing the values of the weapon that hit it, instead of the armor it hit).
Lifeblood 16 + 1 per 50 pounds of flesh it digests, digests a +1 per round in contact with a dead or helpless target (takes 3-5 rounds after a kill to engulf and digest an adult male human target, bonus lasts for a day, if quiescent bonus degrades much more slowly, up to 20x, giving an opportunity to grow huge if it engulfs a lot of creatures).
Movement - it can ooze along at up to about 4 mph, faster than a walk, much slower than a run, but maintaining that pace will burn through 1 LB per hour.
If resting to slow its metabolism to not burn through absorbed lifeblood, it will take a full round after it is aware of enemies to rouse enough to action, and then act at -2 for a round.
It is vulnerable to fire. Plunging a typical torch into it will do it 1d4 of damage on a successful hit, extinguishing the torch. It is particularly vulnerable to alchemical bases, a few ounces of soda ash or ammonia will do it 1d6. Hunters, magicians, alchemists, and scholars might know this (knowledge test on the career, possible retest if there is time and a library to research it) and alchemists are likely to have enough for 1d3 attacks if they have their typical travelling supplies on them (resource test against alchemy career if necessary to determine randomly). Obviously, it will look out for alchemists and flee from prepared ones or fire bearing mobs.
Acidic damage to armor and weapons can develop slowly, mention the sizzle or blackening at first but only inflict the weakening effect after another round or so if you want it to feel a bit more real.
A quivering mass of translucent motile plasm from which emerge groping pseudopodia, it appears to be a typical blob monster. But unlike most blobs, this one is very intelligent, and will act with deliberation and stratagem. Being smart it will retreat if appropriate, plan and scavenge to grow and plot vengeance. It can stealthily ooze through a crack of 1/2 or less width, taking a few minutes to do so. It's not so much a simple monster as an oozing villain.
Attrributes
Strength 6
Agility 0
Mind 4
Career - intelligent blob monster 2
All languages of characters absorbed until their bonus LB is gone are known, and careers at original level -2. It can form sensory parts at will. It can emphasize any one sense at a time, taking about a round to reconfigure, the optimized sense being nearly as good as an animal that specializes in it - smell like a dog with a bit of a cold, see like a slightly nearsighted raptor, hear like a slightly deaf bat, pick one. It can form vocal apparatus at will and sound like an eerily altered version of the person whose memory and vocal shape it is borrowing.
Combat Abilities
Strike with a pseudopod 1d6 acidic attack. Half of all damage absorbed by armor degrades the armor, roll off fractions (1-3 round down, 4-6 round up). Mighty success does both maximum damage and gives an ongoing +2 to hit that target as it begins to engulf, contact broken on a subsequent miss.
Defense 2
Protection d4-1 (half degrades weapon damage permanently by acidic damage, as above for pseudopod strike, but reducing the values of the weapon that hit it, instead of the armor it hit).
Lifeblood 16 + 1 per 50 pounds of flesh it digests, digests a +1 per round in contact with a dead or helpless target (takes 3-5 rounds after a kill to engulf and digest an adult male human target, bonus lasts for a day, if quiescent bonus degrades much more slowly, up to 20x, giving an opportunity to grow huge if it engulfs a lot of creatures).
Movement - it can ooze along at up to about 4 mph, faster than a walk, much slower than a run, but maintaining that pace will burn through 1 LB per hour.
If resting to slow its metabolism to not burn through absorbed lifeblood, it will take a full round after it is aware of enemies to rouse enough to action, and then act at -2 for a round.
It is vulnerable to fire. Plunging a typical torch into it will do it 1d4 of damage on a successful hit, extinguishing the torch. It is particularly vulnerable to alchemical bases, a few ounces of soda ash or ammonia will do it 1d6. Hunters, magicians, alchemists, and scholars might know this (knowledge test on the career, possible retest if there is time and a library to research it) and alchemists are likely to have enough for 1d3 attacks if they have their typical travelling supplies on them (resource test against alchemy career if necessary to determine randomly). Obviously, it will look out for alchemists and flee from prepared ones or fire bearing mobs.
Acidic damage to armor and weapons can develop slowly, mention the sizzle or blackening at first but only inflict the weakening effect after another round or so if you want it to feel a bit more real.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Using The Last Day of Ragnarok adventure generator with Barbarians of Lemuria
+Kenneth Hite wrote one of my favorite game settings, The Day After Ragnarok. I have the Savage Worlds version. I particularly like the random scenario generator, probably the best of its sort I've come across. I've used it a couple times with minor tweaks in other settings.I intend to make an example here of using it to set up a scenario for Barbarians of Lemuria. I'll dice my way through and discuss how I use and tweak the results.
Before starting, I want to mention that the random city generator is also quite good.
Our hook is 10 on D12 - Old Friend
The second table, location, is maybe the one to fiddle with the most. The result "City" is 1 out of 12, which feels a bit low to me for a lot of settings. That can be glossed over by several of the other results having an option to include cities, e.g. "Exotic Land", or possibly be included in cities, e.g. "Mansion". Or just set it in a city if that feels appropriate to where you last left the characters and where they were headed. No need to be a slave to the dice.
Anyway our location roll is 5, a Mansion. Given the more ancient theming of Swords and Sorcery, I'll probably take that to be a Palace instead.
Heroes' Goal - 3, Discover or solve a mystery, will have to see more of the results to figure out what sort of mystery fits.
Villain 6 Cultist, in The Day after Ragnarok, a servant of the Serpent. Well, serpent gods are almost de riguer in S&S so we can still go with a serpent cult just fine.
Villain's Goal 2 Destroy - The serpent priest is out to destroy somebody or something, what a surprise...
Henchmen - this table can get multiple rolls, as many as you feel fleshes out the scenario right. So let's go with three rolls.
6 - Igor, a long suffering, probably deformed, personal servant of the villain,
8 - Operative, an agent of some sort, in this case probably a palace official secretly working for the cult.
12 - Warlock, a magic specialist, a Sorceror in our case, but one subordinate to the High Priest of the Serpent God. This one and maybe the operative should have loyalty checks rolled to see how likely personal ambition for leadership of the cult or other advancement might conflict with the villain's plans.
Since all three are singletons, we might throw in a few thugs or turned palace soldiers for a rabble encounter with minions at some point. Or snakes, possibly an avatar of the snake god, or other creatures summoned by the sorceror? Loyal guards that would oppose the villain would also be a possibility. I've just realized that I have already be casting the villain as an outsider worming his way into the palace. While "Villain's Lair" was a different result, it could be that the story works out better with the villain in more or less control of the palace at the start.
Victim - 2, that most stereotypical victim is rolled, the Damsel in Distress, and in S & S usually some degree of undress as well. Is she of low rank or high? If the villain's goal is to destroy her, that would make her someone significant standing in his way to power, perhaps the Queen, or a rival like the new Priestess of the Sun God, newly in office since the sudden demise of her predecessor. Or she's the sacrifice by which he'll gain use of the Serpent God's power to destroy something grander, the palace, city, kingdom, something else? Or a destruction of the country and she's the victim because she's queen? Smaller scale, destruction of the rival Sun Cult's power if she's the High Priestess.
Guest Star - 10 Official or Bureaucrat. Perfect, that totally fits and can be used in the story in various ways. Would probably have some palace official scene anyway.
Guest star's goal - roll once on Hero Goal and once on Villain Goal and pick, 7 - Money/Reward or 2 - Destroy, so we can have a greedy vizier or one that has long been a rival of the Snake Cult and wants to see it destroyed. Or does this official want somebody or something else destroyed that complicates things?
Obstacle - 3 Chimaera - a partially human or transformed human monster. Okay, a serpentman or a naga or some sort of partially snake-like monster seems to fit here.
Twist - 1 Ally in trouble (or innocents in peril) - Either through the heroes' actions, villain's machinations, or coincidence, there is a conflicting need to save somebody that complicates the heroes' ability to achieve their goal. Can they do both or do they have to sacrifice one to succeed in the other?
This is shaping up pretty clearly, but the final cohesive writeup will have to be continued...
Before starting, I want to mention that the random city generator is also quite good.
Our hook is 10 on D12 - Old Friend
The second table, location, is maybe the one to fiddle with the most. The result "City" is 1 out of 12, which feels a bit low to me for a lot of settings. That can be glossed over by several of the other results having an option to include cities, e.g. "Exotic Land", or possibly be included in cities, e.g. "Mansion". Or just set it in a city if that feels appropriate to where you last left the characters and where they were headed. No need to be a slave to the dice.
Anyway our location roll is 5, a Mansion. Given the more ancient theming of Swords and Sorcery, I'll probably take that to be a Palace instead.
Heroes' Goal - 3, Discover or solve a mystery, will have to see more of the results to figure out what sort of mystery fits.
Villain 6 Cultist, in The Day after Ragnarok, a servant of the Serpent. Well, serpent gods are almost de riguer in S&S so we can still go with a serpent cult just fine.
Villain's Goal 2 Destroy - The serpent priest is out to destroy somebody or something, what a surprise...
Henchmen - this table can get multiple rolls, as many as you feel fleshes out the scenario right. So let's go with three rolls.
6 - Igor, a long suffering, probably deformed, personal servant of the villain,
8 - Operative, an agent of some sort, in this case probably a palace official secretly working for the cult.
12 - Warlock, a magic specialist, a Sorceror in our case, but one subordinate to the High Priest of the Serpent God. This one and maybe the operative should have loyalty checks rolled to see how likely personal ambition for leadership of the cult or other advancement might conflict with the villain's plans.
Since all three are singletons, we might throw in a few thugs or turned palace soldiers for a rabble encounter with minions at some point. Or snakes, possibly an avatar of the snake god, or other creatures summoned by the sorceror? Loyal guards that would oppose the villain would also be a possibility. I've just realized that I have already be casting the villain as an outsider worming his way into the palace. While "Villain's Lair" was a different result, it could be that the story works out better with the villain in more or less control of the palace at the start.
Victim - 2, that most stereotypical victim is rolled, the Damsel in Distress, and in S & S usually some degree of undress as well. Is she of low rank or high? If the villain's goal is to destroy her, that would make her someone significant standing in his way to power, perhaps the Queen, or a rival like the new Priestess of the Sun God, newly in office since the sudden demise of her predecessor. Or she's the sacrifice by which he'll gain use of the Serpent God's power to destroy something grander, the palace, city, kingdom, something else? Or a destruction of the country and she's the victim because she's queen? Smaller scale, destruction of the rival Sun Cult's power if she's the High Priestess.
Guest Star - 10 Official or Bureaucrat. Perfect, that totally fits and can be used in the story in various ways. Would probably have some palace official scene anyway.
Guest star's goal - roll once on Hero Goal and once on Villain Goal and pick, 7 - Money/Reward or 2 - Destroy, so we can have a greedy vizier or one that has long been a rival of the Snake Cult and wants to see it destroyed. Or does this official want somebody or something else destroyed that complicates things?
Obstacle - 3 Chimaera - a partially human or transformed human monster. Okay, a serpentman or a naga or some sort of partially snake-like monster seems to fit here.
Twist - 1 Ally in trouble (or innocents in peril) - Either through the heroes' actions, villain's machinations, or coincidence, there is a conflicting need to save somebody that complicates the heroes' ability to achieve their goal. Can they do both or do they have to sacrifice one to succeed in the other?
This is shaping up pretty clearly, but the final cohesive writeup will have to be continued...
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Caverns
Here's my first try at a caverns map in Krita. Krita is free open source software by the way so give it a try if you don't have a favorite paint program ready to hand already.
I didn't decide on an entrance yet, so this map doesn't show one. If you use it, it will take that much modifying at least. The dots are stalactites.
I didn't decide on an entrance yet, so this map doesn't show one. If you use it, it will take that much modifying at least. The dots are stalactites.
Met on the road in Lemuria
For a long time I've been meaning to get into running a Barbarians of Lemuria game. So far, I've just done a a one off scenario. Here's a few NPCs as I reacquaint myself with character creation.
People your PC might meet travelling in Lemuria:
Rang Kar (starting PC or equivalent NPC )
Retired spearman of the line and gentleman farmer
Rang Kar left Malakut military service after 12 years, and has been farming the plot of land in a border province he earned as a soldier's retirement.
Soldier 3, Farmer 1
Strength 2
Agility 1
Mind 0
Appeal 1
Brawl 1
Melee 2
Ranged 0
Defence 1
12 Lifeblood
Boons - Fighting-spear, Blind combat
Flaw - Landlubber
He's usually out with just a dagger and a staff, dressed in homespun laborer's garb a cut better than a peasant's, and his pocket change is just that, perhaps driving a wagon, plowing a field, or herding some livestock; but he has a full set of legionary medium armor packed in a trunk, and spear, shield, and sword ready to hand hanging on the wall.
He's fierce in defence of farm and family but definitely no longer going out looking for fights.
If the gods are fickle, he's just one tragically burnt out farmstead away from an adventuring career...
Zenna of the Forty Veils (starting PC or equivalent NPC)
Parsoolian entertainer with a secret second life
Dancer 3, Assassin 1
Strength 0
Agility 2
Mind 0
Appeal 2
Brawl 1
Melee 1
Ranged 0
Defence 2
10 Lifeblood
Boons - Carouser, Pirate killer
Flaw - City dweller
She will always have at least a strangling wire or a hairpin, most likely a dagger. Possibly more than one and poisons if pursuing an assassination.
Caravan guards (rabble+ & standard NPC)
Three swaggering bravos with a few journeys under their belt, a shade better than your average rabble
Guard 1
Melee 1
4 LB
Light or Medium armor
One or two of: dagger, sword, spear, mace, and/or crossbow
Their leader, Stonnek (the sot, behind his back)
Str 1
App 1
Melee 1
Defense 1
7 LB,
Guard 2
boon - detect deception, and flaw - drunkard.
Barrow Map
Another map to learn more of Krita.
This one is pretty similar but using the straight line tool a lot and doing less detailing. Its a barrow tomb complex.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Hook Horrors
"My rat is full of basements. Can you clear them out?" This inverted hook made me laugh last night when I thought of it and how it might be worked up to make it plausible. More mundanely, the proprietor of a tavern named The Rat has discovered dungeons below the premises. More graphically, there is a large structure in form like a giant rat statue, or an actual enormous petrified rat, and the resident needs similar aid. If its a real, live, rat or even giant rat, you're getting into space warping or some sort of Fantastic Voyage scenario of shrinking PCs. A Tardis shaped like a rat?
I came up with a few more this morning.
"Sheep are stealing our goblins!"
Hordes of vicious elves and dwarves are ravaging the countryside. The Dragon King of Orcs needs your help to stop them.
"My hovercraft is full of eels... seriously". Alternately a location in a hex crawl, a stranded hovercraft half submerged in a swamp, and full of eels, or eel-men.
The tavern stumbles into a dying man with a map. Perhaps the tavern the PCs are in is on legs in the mode of Baba Yaga's hut?
The tomb of the undead needs protection from grave robbers.
I came up with a few more this morning.
"Sheep are stealing our goblins!"
Hordes of vicious elves and dwarves are ravaging the countryside. The Dragon King of Orcs needs your help to stop them.
"My hovercraft is full of eels... seriously". Alternately a location in a hex crawl, a stranded hovercraft half submerged in a swamp, and full of eels, or eel-men.
The tavern stumbles into a dying man with a map. Perhaps the tavern the PCs are in is on legs in the mode of Baba Yaga's hut?
The tomb of the undead needs protection from grave robbers.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Somebody Make this Monster
This is a Boarcroc.
That's not my name for it, it is the scientific common name for Kaprosuchus saharicus, a recently (2009) discovered crocodilian found in the Sahara, one of five species that hit the news from the same research team together. 100 million years ago, there were a lot more species in the crocodilians. And this one is maybe the most fun among them for it's gaming potential. Though there is something to be said for the Supercroc as well.
The boarcroc is one of the scariest animals ever, and right up there with Mantis Shrimp* as an underused real world creature to D&D monster.
The boarcroc a twenty foot long, galloping crocodile that hunted dinosaurs. I love the ferocity of this picture. I've seen it on a number of websites (Artist- Todd Marshall according to Paleoillustration).
Some of the other sources show shorter hind legs. But this is the best picture for gaming inspiration.
It totally deserves to be in games and have a miniature as cool as this picture.
* The Mantis Shrimp or stomatopod is wildly colorful and at a few inches long. The hammer armed species hit like a .22, and they are known for breaking aquarium glass. There are spearing species that strike just as fast. In game terms, they can see behind them with their stalked eyes and probably see invisible since they see UV as well as visible light with their very complex eyes. What's not to love with scaling up that critter? I put them into my D&D game back in the 70s when I first read about them in Scientific American. Giant ones turned up in Pathfinder or D&D 4th recently, which is the first published appearance I know of.
That's not my name for it, it is the scientific common name for Kaprosuchus saharicus, a recently (2009) discovered crocodilian found in the Sahara, one of five species that hit the news from the same research team together. 100 million years ago, there were a lot more species in the crocodilians. And this one is maybe the most fun among them for it's gaming potential. Though there is something to be said for the Supercroc as well.
The boarcroc is one of the scariest animals ever, and right up there with Mantis Shrimp* as an underused real world creature to D&D monster.
The boarcroc a twenty foot long, galloping crocodile that hunted dinosaurs. I love the ferocity of this picture. I've seen it on a number of websites (Artist- Todd Marshall according to Paleoillustration).
It totally deserves to be in games and have a miniature as cool as this picture.
* The Mantis Shrimp or stomatopod is wildly colorful and at a few inches long. The hammer armed species hit like a .22, and they are known for breaking aquarium glass. There are spearing species that strike just as fast. In game terms, they can see behind them with their stalked eyes and probably see invisible since they see UV as well as visible light with their very complex eyes. What's not to love with scaling up that critter? I put them into my D&D game back in the 70s when I first read about them in Scientific American. Giant ones turned up in Pathfinder or D&D 4th recently, which is the first published appearance I know of.
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