Troglodyte Campaign II - A February start?

If I was to start up a game of the Troglodyte campaign  in Roll20 in February using a lightly hacked version of OD&D and a variant on Chainmail man to man combat, would anybody be interested in playing?

More caves!

Yet another batch of caverns, trying another approach to marking walls. With the emphasis on the wall treatment, I left the floors blank for now. Is it better to fully treat the walls of the upper cave in the vertical overlaps like on the right or leave them a simple line so to to reveal as much as possible of the one below like on the left?

Crystalmek

This level is loosely inspired by Kevin Campbell's maps that Dyson reposted. Its not an attempt to reproduce his style but borrows the short stretches of wall meeting at odd angles, giving some of the faceted look, and then going off in other directions.

Caverns of the Western Reaches updated

Added some slopes and intensified stippling near the walls. Rescanned in color, which seems better for this creamy paper, digital retouch limited to a bit of smudge cleanup and a sharpen filter.

Of course there are always places to add stippling that I don't see until I've scanned, and emailed, and posted.

Slings

Slings get underrated in D&D on their range, ammo types, damage (at least for the quality ammo) and variety.  Their actual difficulties also go uncovered. I've been very fond of slings since reading of the Grey Mouser using one in the story collection "Two Sought Adventure", making and shooting a couple and clay shot for them in my rural teens, and reading an article on them in Sci Am back then.  Slinging.org is a gathering of sling geeks and sling info.

Caverns of the Western Reaches

Drew this while we watched West Side Story on Netflix. I was learning as I went. Staedtler Pigment Liner 0.5 and 0.1

Skrad - a dungeon

The scanner saved a PDF. I converted two copies of the file in Preview, one a JPEG, one a PNG. Posting the PNG, since the JPEG went gray and the PNG did not. Source of some of the gray background mystery, I guess. Will save PNGs from now on.

The loopy bits to the stippling were a fun experiment to do but I don't think I'll go with that particular embellishment next time.


Since Skrad is an exercise map, I'm scraping off some rust in dungeon stocking as well... I'm doing this more from the perspective of what the map calls to mind than a plotted adventure. As I was drawing it, about the only thing I had in mind was to place some kobolds or something else that is small in the narrow passages section at the top, a secondary bit of construction. 

Any notes on armament and armor for most creatures here should be replaced by whatever your figures have if you have miniature figures to use in playing this.

1 The entrance is a stone archway into a cliff face. A row of stone blocks raises the sill several inches. Inside the archway the floor slopes away downward. The diagonal lines are wires from the floor up to a niche above the capstone, where they will pull down a box of many small round stones if triggered.  Careful search or a find traps success will spot the fine wires before they are triggered. Easy Dex check to avoid stepping on some, falling, and rolling down the slope if they are triggered. If a character does fall, they are likely to lose one item in hand or on their person (2/3 chance), take 1 HP, and be surprised by the hobgoblin sentries in 2 when they fetch up. The hall here down to 2 is approximately 8' wide.

2 The base of the slope, a couple of  hobgoblin guards lounge in the fresh breeze that blows in from the outside. If they feel threatened and have time, they'll fall back into the cover of the barricade in 3 or all the way back across the pit bridge in 4, hollering and throwing their missiles. Both are in leather armor. One (7 HP)  is armed with a javelin, a sword and a shield, and the other (5 HP) a two handed club and a rock for throwing. 20 SP each. Each wears 3-5 barbaric talismanic nodoz fetishes of bundled bone and feathers. The fetishes (collectively fore each set, not individually) are good enough to enhance one save vs magic once, for a +2, and give a normal save vs magic against a sleep spell, and then they are consumed, bones crumbling and feathers shredding and drifting away in bits. If split up, each fetish will provide a +1 or +0 to the save instead.

3 The niche in the wall has marks on the floor indicating it once held an octagonal pedestal. Across the hall is a partial barricade of wooden boxes filled with rocks and earth. One has 20 coppers and a the top half of a crude and broken statuette buried in the dirt, the statuette glows faintly green in the darkness, enough to be spotted in the dark within LOS but not enough to provide a useful light source to see anything over a few inches away. In games with a Luck stat, take a -1 to Luck rolls while carrying it. In games without a Luck stat but with saving throws take a -1 to whichever save is listed first on your character sheet or master table. It is not a "sticky" cursed item. It can be discarded at will.

4 A deep pit spanned by a makeshift bridge of rough boards. Dex check or the equivalent to cross quickly, auto success if going slowly and carefully and not under attack. They can be removed from either side, pulled back with care or just kicked down into the pit. The pit is about 25 feet deep. The bottom of the pit has a secret door on the south side into room 9 about 4 feet up from its floor. The narrow opening in the north wall west of the pit  is 2 feet above floor level and goes directly to a short stairway of stairs about 4' wide with 5' of head clearance and steps so narrow they are practically ladder rungs for normal human feet.

There is a bas relief of a flaming demonic head and an inscription of warning in an ancient tongue on the south wall over the stairs, foreshadowing room 7.

5 As mentioned in 4, 4' wide by 5' high halls link a series of small rooms. Human sized PCs will have to stoop and not have much space for weapon play and should get appropriate penalties. The ceiling in the rooms is higher, about 6-7 feet. The stonework is noticeably different from the larger halls, with smaller stones set into the walls. A dwarf's stonekenning check or some similar dungeoneering skill will recognize kobold wrought stonework.

• a - 2 kobolds, 1 is cooking over crude brazier stove in NW corner if not alerted. If alerted, they'll spread 2 flasks worth of oil behind the door and he'll be ready to fling the brazier of hot coals into it. There's a couple days supply of perishables and a couple weeks of nonperishable foodstuffs.
• b - Gark the "guard dog", a demented and twisted kobold, will bark and growl and foam at the mouth at intruders. He was maimed and maddened in a horrible magical lab accident, on all fours, and is chained to a rusty iron ring in the floor,  so not much of a direct threat unless you walk right into his reach.  (fecal mess,  food scraps, bones)
• c - 6 kobolds (basic book stats). Szipp Yip, Krrek's henchman and littermate will talk for them if it comes up. If alerted, and they probably will be due to  Gark in (b), they can use a net prepared to drop over intruders that enter the room. The corners of the net are attached to stones rest in niches up on the walls over the west side of the room. This is manually operated by a tug on a rope to dislodge the weights and release, so there is no disarm possible from outside, but really cautious entry gives a chance to spot a corner of the net resting in the niche on the other side once the door is open. The trigger rope is hooked to a bracket on a wall when they aren't standing alert and takes a few seconds to loose and ready.  If prepared the kobolds will wait in the safe east end and be ready to trigger the net. It'll be a Dex save or similar to dodge back through the door or rush past the net before it finishes falling.  They don't have much, copper and silver trinkets and coins to a total value of 150 CP and 24 SP. 

• d - Kobold leader Krrek Yip is tall and burly for a kobold. 1 full HD, 7 HP, dagger and whip. The door is trapped, as he doesn't really trust the other kobolds. Its a simple 1D6 damage deadfall of stones from a hollow in the ceiling behind the door unless his brass key is used to open it. Lockpicking will unlock the door on the first success, but usually trigger the trap. A crit or second roll to disarm traps must be made to safely open it by lockpicking. He proudly wears four gold pieces pierced and strung on a on a leather necklace. In his pouch is a packet of mushrooms, and the skull of a mole.
• e - hallucinogenic mushrooms grow here - Krrek's private stash and trade goods. There are some hanging from threads and drying, and four hide packets of dried mushrooms on a flat stone ready for use or trade at the north end of the room.

6   Three hobgoblins (4, 4, 6 HP, leather, 2 daggers, handaxe for sidearms). If unalerted they are eating and gambling. A table and stools at the south side. Three baskets of dry foodstuffs along the north wall. 240 CP and 30 SP are in stacks on the table, some in front of the players, some in a pile in the center. The game seems to involve small bones and stones scratched with runes.
Spears and shields lean against the wall. The big one has fetishes like the ones in location 2. The other two have lower quality fetishes of no magical effect. If alerted, one will bang on the door to 7 to alert their shaman and they'll take up the spears and shields and move to ambush positions in the NW corner (one) and SW corner (two).

7  Gazgur, hobgoblin necroshaman, festooned in mystic fetishes, is in the midst of a long series of rituals seeking to bind the spirit of the demon Alakiterosh, Black Goat of Fire,
whose skull is entombed in the living rock north of this room.

Gazgur is 4th level, 4D6 HD. Most of his spells are tied up in rituals towards binding the demon's ghost, but he can cast a level 2 blinding curse (save vs magic) that lasts until the save is made, checking once an hour. He is the maker of the fetishes worn by the other hobgoblins, and has a nodoz set (save vs magic on Sleep and +2 to magic saves) like the others, and more that he keeps to himself, one set that will turn the first  melee blow or missile that strikes him, and another that gives him a +2 save vs poison, once. He will have a variety of shamanic paraphrenalia and fetish components, worth maybe 5 GP to a merchant, but 100-200 GP to a mage or sage with an interest in shamanic magic. He has 5 GP in a pocket, and wears rings worth 10 GP, 10 GP, 40 GP, 120 GP, and 300 GP. He uses a silver shod staff and a silver dagger engraved with necromantic sigils that is +1 underground or at night.

Unalerted, he will be conversing with Alakiterosh, and spend his first round compelling the ghost to defend him. Alerted, he will be lurking at the back of the room, and Alakiterosh will be the first thing the PCs see.

Alakiterosh should be pyrotechnic! Metal!! AWESOME!!!  Lots of flame effects, swooping, horrific scream, and histrionic declarations of doom and woe. Invoke a fear check if you can't induce fear/caution in players by the narration. Holiness or having been Blessed armors against its fear effect, +4.

Given the partial success of Gazgur's ritual to date, Alakiterosh's manifestation is incomplete. It cannot chase beyond room 6. It has 4 HD and 16 HP, AC4, fly 12", only affected by magic, silver, holy water or weapons wielded by lawful Clerics, Paladins, or characters under a Bless or similar holy enhancement. It can strike with a 30' linear gout of flame that does 1D6+1 and sets the target afire unless a save vs magic is successful for an ongoing 1D4 per round until ordinary fire can be extinguished, up to 4 rounds. This costs it 1D3 HP, so it cannot use it too much. It has a burning melee touch attach, with the same damage but no HP expended. It will flow and swoop around and attack any character it chooses for its attack, will not be pinned in melee. Fire will boost it, water or wine will harm it (typically 1D3) temporarily. It can regenerate damage by normal weapons wielded by the holy or ordinary water at 1D6 per full turn, even after defeat. Should Gazgur complete his rituals in a couple weeks time, he will level up and Alakiterosh will be bound to serve but become much larger, able to leave, upgrade to 8 HD, AC 2, lose vulnerability to normal weapons and water completely, and do 2D6 with its gout of flame (range 60') and melee attack. Alakiterosh will also subtly start preying on his mind and working to free itself. If it does so, it can be a terrible threat until the statuette mentioned below

A secret niche where the south wall meets the curved wall holds a magic statuette of an fire demon bound in chains. Gazgur has not discovered it. It is a key component to binding the ghost to this place and this plane. If  destroyed, Alakiterosh can go wild for several rounds, increasing in power by a HD per round, until it reaches 8 HD, and will then open a portal back to its home Plane and pass through it after three more rounds of rampage. Any within 20' at that point save vs petrifaction/paralysis or get sucked along through the portal. If carried away, Alakiterosh will be able to manifest within 100 feet of the statuette at midnight.

8 Crated supplies.  A table with three skulls on it. They are dwarf skulls if examined with a sufficient forensic anatomy related skill or a really good perception (raw INT?) roll. The skulls chatter and roll around if disturbed in a minor bit of animating magic. They don't talk, or attack, or anything particularly interesting but might have a bit of value as magic knicknacks to the right buyer. A necromancer, given some research and rituals, might get much more powerful results from them. They are a backburner project of Gazgur's, neglected since he has become absorbed in controlling Alakiterosh.

9 secret room. Secret doors in from the pit N (see 4) and room 8. A chest here with a poison needle trap in the lock contains a potion of healing, a scroll of Cure Disease, and 200 GP.

10 Four hobgoblins, all have the nodoz fetishes. 30 GP.  Stairs go down to the second level. They have a barrel of oil (not depicted on the map yet) and a burning oil lamp at the head of the stairs, ready to make a fiery defense against the horrors below.

11 The cave in is still unstable and digging at it has a chance to cause more of this disused chamber to cave in. Detect Magic will pick up a source of magic in the rubble though, a Ring that grants the power to speak to cats, though cats being cats, they will often be dismissive after initial curiosity. The ring has a feline motif to the cut stone and markings in an ancient language indicating it was crafted in honor of the Cat Goddess, Bast if appropriate to the campaign mythos. A second power, less likely to be discovered, is that it makes the wearer fascinating, even alluring, to weretigers and Rakshasas. It will take three turns of digging to recover the ring. After one, there should be creaking and some shifting, some dust or gravel falling. After two, serious cracking and a dislodged stone has a 1/3 chance of hitting a digger for 1D6. After three, the clumsiest, lowest Dex digger rolls 1D20 vs Dex: over Dex triggers a major cave-in. Each point over Dex caves in two feet of the chamber back from the cave in. Anybody that would be caught rolls a Dex check to cinematically escape as the ceiling collapses behind them. Anybody caught in the cave-in takes 2D6 and is buried under rubble. Success and the ring is found.

Possible Hooks
How to use Skrad? Krrek Yip's magic mushrooms are a likely hook, as is Gazgur's plot to enslave Alakiterosh reaching either a PC mage, pulling him or her here when it is a disturbance to spell meditation nearby, or a more powerful or cleric further away dispatches the PCs to investigate the disquieting emanations in the magical ether. Or the PCs come across the legend of Alakiterosh's entombment in the wake of Gazgur having found the same clue. It can just be a drop-in "What's that gateway in the cliff face?" sandbox location as well.

What is below?
I don't know yet. Haven't started a map or settled on any thematic ideas. But the oil barrel trap in 10
suggests Gazgur's hobgoblins fear it.

Playing "How to Host a Dungeon"

I started a game of "How to Host a Dungeon" last night, recording the map this time in Krita, and the log describing the dungeon and some play by play commentary in a text file.  It is basically a game you play solo to build a fleshed out classic side view dungeon map with levels, history and factions developed as you go.  Last night I completed the Primordial Age. Will post the game here once it has progressed a bit. Once done, the map you make can be turned into an OSR dungeon by drawing up and populating the levels to go with the side view.

I played once before, on paper, but stopped before the Age of Villainy. The resulting map was quite evocative and not one I would have drawn a priori. It might be worth finishing as a scenario as is, or setting back up and completing the rest of the How to Host a Dungeon history.  I'll probably scan it and transcribe the notes anyway.

Bought the paper game kit on a whim a couple years back. It's definitely a worthwhile thing for anybody who enjoys building your own dungeons with some random aids. Planet Thirteen has an unillustrated PDF version for free on their site.

Troglodyte campaign

One of the games that has been clattering around in the back of my head is a village in a cavern system who have been cut off from the surface so long that an open sky is a thing of legend and not much believed. Maybe they are humans who have adapted to a life in the caves. Maybe some more normally troglodyte species. Goblins that just think of themselves as "The People" are the most frequent way I've poked at this idea.

It's probably a sandbox/underground hex crawl campaign, with a small area of caves making up the village and the well known immediate surroundings and fungus farming & fishing cave streams being the main food supplies of the village at the start. They'll have fuzzier knowledge and maybe some artifact maps of places up to a couple of days travel down tunnels and through caverns, and know some local dangers with strategies passed down for coping with them.

They'll be neolithically equipped, not a metal culture, with some shamanistic use of specialized fungi (& creatures? & minerals?) along with the usual eating kind. Spirit/ancestor magic seems a likely second magical path for them. The spirit magic could also include some attunement to the spirits of the stone - so they can appease elementals that might otherwise bring down the ceiling on them, etc. Memory songs - their records of the past would likely be largely retained in song. Their "bards" would also be keepers of tribal history. Re metals, finishing the thought, coming across metal weapons and tools will be a major and precious discovery.  For this to be the case, the first few layers of opposition have to be unarmed creatures or similar to themselves or they would at least be culturally aware of metals.

Beyond that a cave network extends beyond their ken, much like the TSR Underdark. 

Most of the tribe is very cautious about going too far, and after a coming of age test/hunt versus some of the local dangers and creatures, settles into regular patterns of life and ritual.

Possible hooks: Our PCs could be

a) an unusually curious generation, for reasons to be developed

b) thrust into the role of explorers by some creeping doom that imperils their village which can only be answered by finding a solution or place of refuge beyond the known extent of caverns

c) cut off from the village by a calamity (earthquake and rockfall maybe? shifting of an underground river?) during a coming of age hunt and looking for a way back the long way round, getting into adventures and exploration while seeking a way home.

Big discoveries possible for the PCs:

Strange or legendary creatures

Metal

More advanced worked stone

Subterranean places that are less of a forgotten backwater than their home

Magic, beyond the shamanism they have at the beginning

Fire?

Other races & subterranean cultures, friendly or otherwise 

Gods

Surface Dwellers

Access to the surface

Rules? probably something OSR, but maybe Savage Worlds, Dungeon World, BRP

So does this appeal? Has something close to this been published in game modules I don't know? I'm not too familiar with the Underdark stuff, it being from the era between OD&D and 3rd edition when I got back in but think it was mainly from a traditional D&D surface explorers or considerably more advanced Drow perspective.

Notes from a decrepit pocket notebook

While looking for the other half of the card deck came across an ancient pocket notebook with some RPG idea notes. I will transcribe the notebook here for whatever small utility the notes may have and chuck it. It's grotty.  May not be interesting to anyone else but that's okay. Somebody might find a bit of it useful.

---
Try working through a universe in which a young, growing Terran space effort (united? divided?) of maybe 40 systems and maybe 1-3 allied alien species bumps up against large, powerful alien empire, old, slow, patient, some tech advantage and some tech disadvantages. This empire should have a dominant alien race and several subject species. It isn't eager to enslave/destroy H. saps bu is driver to do so by obvious manifest destiny behavior on human part.

On other sides should be open/dangerous region(s), useful planets including undiscovered alien races, and maybe a smaller, but very aggressive alien territory or brushfire war neighbor.

----

Good king poisoned in ambush is resting up in Tower Keep in Wilderness awaiting rescue. An evil army joins the ambushers for assault to capture the king. A messenger has slipped away and summoned rescuers including a priest who can cure the king.

---

D&D room situation

An ornate room with frescos of the Walking Dead (skeletons, etc) in imitation of the Four Seasons.

 Spring - planting, lovers wooing

Summer - peasants at fieldwork and nobles at war

Fall - Harvest festival, Nobles hawking

Winter - Feasting, Boar hunt in snow, skating

A tree carved of white marble stands in front of Spring bearing five ruby "fruits".

If PCs enter, five phantoms will materialize before them, somewhat slowly, taking one round, but can move while materializing. The phantoms are linked to the rubies. They attack by draining STR at 1D6/hit (recovered at 1/day if COM roll made)

They are 6 HD, AC 2, Move 9", invulnerable to normal weapons and dematerialized by magic weapons for # of rounds equal to hits inflicted.

They can pass through walls and doors an will stay within ten yards of the rubies, attacking if rubies are removed and carried on a  D6 roll of 1 each combat round.

The phantoms can be destroyed by clerical turn as spectres. On turn result, they return in hours equal to the cleric's level. They can also be destroyed by magic weapons rolling an instant kill, 20 followed by 19-20 confirm, or a single hit by magic or a magic weapon over their HP, return in a number of days equal to HP. Or by destroying the gems.

They can be gotten rid of by leaving the gems.

A deep well shaft close to the room is a possibility.

A lawful cleric that inters the gems with a proper burial ceremony gets 500 exp, others 200 exp. If the rubies are interred with the crypts housing the final remains of the phantom's earthly bodies nearby, they achieve final rest and the cleric gains 1000 exp.

---

A Magic Mouth on the Door shouts when the door is listened to. "TRYING TO LISTEN TO THE DOOR, HUH?" "TRYING TO SURPRISE THE MONSTERS, HUH?"

----

Little man in little house -

A box like a gingerbread house, if handled, has a little man, 3" tall,  come out.

He can be induced to serve in some way. When carried along, he'll leave box, shrink useful stuff to his size and take it into box. The box is like a little Tardis, has unlimited Dimension Door and will do so at his choosing or when threatened with damage, like attempts to pry or bash it open.