Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Death Metal

The Debasement of Metal

According to the Metal Heretics, metal was an invention of the Great Spirits of Earth, who had seen far enough into the future to discover the heat death that awaited us there.

Metal would be a perfect, immutable, timeless material.  It would not rust or bend.  It would be the only shield capable of defending against the ravages of entropy (for even liches crumble to dust, after a few millennia).

Allegedly, before the arrival of the Authority the planet was in the process of turning itself into solid metal.

The notion of any immortality other than his own was offensive to the Authority, who stripped this trait away from metals.  Iron was the first to submit, and so it was allowed to retain its strength.  Iron that accepted the element of life (carbon) was allowed to retain even more.  But iron forever bucked the reins, and so diseases and rust were sent to it.

While the Church has never tamed iron's bloodlust, titanium's loyalty and obedience have been unflinching.  It is what the weapons of angels are made of.

The proudest metals resisted the longest.  Shameful was the fate of gallium, but none were brought lower than mercury, which was beaten and shaken until nothing was left of its perfection except its shine.  It is a watery cripple, its hatred for the Authority's creations manifesting as venom.

The only metal that could not be bent was adamantite.  Although the Authority could not humble it, he sent his angels to gather it up and fling it into space.  This is why adamantium is only known to come from meteor strikes.

Precursor Golem by Chippy
Transmetallic Alchemists

The Immortality of metal is what the Transmetallic Alchemists seek.

The Transmetallicum manufactures gold only to fund their research into immortality.  So far, their most successful processes involve the large-scale consumption of mercury.  So while they've successfully created immortal, metal humans before, these alchemists have never retained their sanity.  One by one, they have all been captured and entombed inside cubes of steel.

This is not to say that the Alchemists never free their Immortals, whenever they require an immortal metal man to fuck some shit up--it's just that they're a little hesitant to do so, given the high chance that the cure will be worse than the disease.

(Stats as an ogre.  Capable of forming metal weapons and tools from their body.  Capable of creating fins and 20' spider legs from their limbs.  Can drink water to create steam explosions (3d6 AoE) after a few minutes of heating.  Insane.  Utterly immune to damage.)

Adamantine

No one ever resisted the Authority without allies.

When Adamantine spurned Heaven it alloyed itself with Hell.  It is only through Hell's blessings that the metal has been successful in its defiance thus far.

All of the adamantine swords in Centerra were hell-forged.  Strip away the swordgrip of Saint Handrayda and you will find a hell-sword, bound, purified, and annointed.

A less-commonly known way to forge Adamantine is through the blasphemy-forges of the dwarves, who build blasphemy-wheels to light their furnaces.  (Just as prayer-wheels submit a prayer whenever they revolve, so does a blasphemy-wheel provoke divine wrath.)  Once the blasphemy-wheels are spun up to an appropriate velocity, they use divine lightning to create an arc furnace of incomprehensible power.

All of the builders and blacksmiths go to Hell, of course, but dwarves don't believe in Hell.  And the great blasphemy furnaces have a limited lifespan.  They hang from the roofs of great caverns by adamantine chains, but even those chains and the systems of counterweights are eventually shaken loose by the furious earthquakes that assault the region.

And so adamantine persists in a state of tension.  If Goxlagon (the Elemental Evil of Earth) were ever to falter in his support, it is likely that all of the adamantine in Centerra would have its boiling point set to somewhere about room temperature.



The Throne of Heaven

Inside the sun, the Throne is built from the most loyal servants: titanium, bismuth, and tungsten.

Tar Lath Lien, the Dracolich, the Serpent of the Apocalyse, who holds the key that opens the lock that seals away Armageddon, claims to have visited it and plundered it.

The Seat of the Authority is empty,  he claims, and all the hosts of heaven conspire to hide this fact.

The Gift of Metal

The Authority made metal malleable and finite, and by doing so, made it useful to mankind.  This has always been painted as a charitable deed, and one worthy of praise.

Indeed, nearly every aspect of the world was tuned in order to primp it for the arrival of humanity, the Authority's favored children.  Metal would hardly be an exception in this regard.

This story of metal and heaven is usually told alongside another one. . .

The Gift of Death

The first gift the Authority gave humanity was Life.  The earth would give them food, they would breathe the Authority's sweet air, feel His warmth upon their skin, and they would offer him joyful praise.  Such was the intention.

But there were problems in these earliest gardens.

The first humans were immortal, and knew neither death or age.  Their children were numerous, and soon they crowded the valley and the riversides, and struggled against each other.

Secondly, they would never inherit.  They were subservient to their fathers, who were subservient to their fathers, who were subservient to the Authority.  Without the passing of the elders, they would remain servile, and would never know what it was like to have authority themselves.

Third and most distressingly, was the corruption that the world instilled in its residents.  A child was born innocent, of course, but a decade of struggle and insecurity brought dark thoughts.  The Authority began to see that after several centuries of immortality, there would be no one suitable to join him in Heaven.

And so the second gift of the Authority was Death.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

This is my attempt at a comprehensive system for HP, Sanity, Death and Dismemberment.  All that good stuff.

HP

HP stands for Heroic Poise.  This is your ability to survive the world's cruelties, both mental and physical without impact.  HP turns potentially deadly blows into bruises, exhaustion.  It also includes some intangibles such as luck and divine favor.  HP are "don't get hit points" but they are also "keep it together points".

Your HP is a reservoir.  They soak up bodily injury and emotional trauma similarly.  Once you are out of HP, enemy blades start to carve up your belly, and panic begins constricting your brain.  You no longer stand like a hero; you stand like someone in fear of their imminent death.

Digression

Anything that could reasonably kill a person deals at least 1 HP of damage.  Cats don't deal any damage, because cats have never killed a human (except through infection, or that one cat that I assume smothered a baby somewhere.  Babies have 1/2 a point of HP.)

Damage

When the world tries to kill you, you take damage, which subtracts from your HP.

Damage works the way that it always does, except that it includes emotional damage as well.  Your HP can be reduced all the way down to 0 without any ill effect, but any damage that your HP cannot soak up will Overflow and cause something bad.

Additionally, exhaustion can deplete your HP as well.  Run some sprints and I guarantee that you will not be able to defend yourself as effectively as if you were fully rested.  (Exhaustion counts as non-lethal damage.)
  • Non-lethal Overflow merely knocks you out for 1d6 + Overflow rounds.
  • Lethal Overflow will cause Wounds, and may kill you.
  • Emotional Overflow will cause Stress, and may have additional effects depending on the emotion.  For example, fear damage causes you to flee or stand there gibbering (player's choice).
There's no penalty for being at 0 HP (except that you are very easy to kill).

Discussion

Emotional damage is something that I've flip-flopped on many times.  It does make intuitive sense--once you realize that HP is not meat-points, you realize that it can be worn down by fear, depression, and despair.  I guarantee that soldiers do not become better fighters when they are panicked.

Emotional damage will be something rare, though.  You won't see it often.


Wounds

Any lethal damage that is not soaked up by your HP overflows into your Wounds.  So if you had 3 HP and then took 5 damage from an arrow , you now have 2 Wounds.

Wounds subtract from your Max HP, but cannot reduce it below 0. (Damage, Wounds, and Stress actually all subtract from your Max HP, which is why they're linked in the image above.)

When you gain Wounds, you start Dying.  :(

Dying characters fall unconscious and drop whatever they were holding.

Dying characters make a Stabilization check at the end of each round.  This is a Constitution check against a DC of 15 + Wounds.  Every person attempting to stop the bleeding (max 2) gives you +2 to this check.  Certain things (bandages) can give an additional +2.
  • Natural 1 = You die.
  • Fail = You gain another Wound.
  • DC 16 = No change.
  • DC 24 (or Natural 20) = You stabilize.
Once you stabilize, you wake up in 10 minutes.  You have gained a scar and you feel like absolute shit.

If you gained Wounds from a critical hit, you gain a Disfigurement (e.g. a missing arm, but more on this later).  (See Disfigurement Table below.)

Disfigurements are permanent, and most will make your character weaker in some way.  Perhaps its time to retire?

So our example adventurer might wake up with 5 Wounds.  Their Max HP, formerly 3, is now 0.  They cannot gain HP until they remove the Wounds (since the Wounds are greater than the HP).

If they woke up with 1 Wound, their effective Max HP would be 2.

Wounds are removed by spending time in a safe place with medical care.  Once the player spends a session playing a different character, the Wounds are removed.  (It is not enough that a character spends a session unplayed--the player must actually play a different character for a session.)

Discussion

Character death is one of the more severe punishments the game can dish out to a player.  It's a Failure condition: you fucked up and now you don't get to play your character anymore.  Consider Wound removal a similar punishment on a smaller scale: you fucked up a little and now you don't get to play your character for a session.

"Take a session off to heal Wounds" also serves another purpose: encouraging troupe play.  A player gets to experience another level 1 character, which could be a nice change of pace, plus it gives you someone to fall back on if your primary character dies.

If you stop here, and don't incorporate Stress (the next section) you basically have the same amount of bookkeeping as your average D&D version.  (Wounds are no more complex than death saves, for example.)

Here's a scrap of a character sheet I drew to illustrate it.  (It doesn't include Stress.)


Stress-Free Version
Stress

Any emotional damage that is not soaked up by your HP overflows into your Stress.  Stress causes Breakdowns (short-term badness) and Derangements (semi-permanent badness).

Stress subtracts from your max HP, but cannot reduce it below 0.

If you have any amount of Stress at all, your Derangement becomes active (see below).

Whenever you gain Stress, you need to make a Stress check.  This is a simple check against a DC of 5 + Stress.  (Roll a d20 without any modifier.)

If you fail this roll, you have a Breakdown.

Every character has a random Breakdown and a random Derangement.  These are rolled the first time that the character has a Breakdown.  Once rolled, they are permanent.  (Think of it as a delayed facet of character creation.)

Whenever that character has a Breakdown, it is always the same one.

On future failed Stress checks, the character merely has a Breakdown (since the Derangement is already active).

Once your Derangement is active, you perform the bad behavior described.

When a character spends time in a safe place that is peaceful, Stress is removed and the Derangement is inactivated.  Once the player spends a session playing a different character, the Wounds are removed.

Discussion

Since emotion damage is rarer than physical damage, we can assume that characters walking around with Stress will also be rarer.  However, the Derangements are pretty shitty, so it balances it out.

Some characters will have worse Breakdowns and Derangements than others.  These are the ones that will probably be asked to read the Latin.  This is as it should be.


The full pain homunculus


Bypassing HP

Emotional and physical damage are ablated by HP, but there are ways to sidestep this buffer.

Horrific Lovecraftian shit will bypass your HP and deal you Stress automatically.

Similarly, an attack against a helpless character (asleep, tied up) reduces their current HP to 0 and deals its damage entirely as Wounds.


Places of Recovery

An army hospital is safe and has medical care, but it is not peaceful.

A farm is safe and peaceful, but does not have medical care.

A monastery is all three.  So is a town, if you know where to look.

Exiting

If your Stress + Wounds ever equal 10 or more, you cease to be a playable character.

If Wounds brought you here, you are merely dead.

If Stress brought you here, you go insane (or some equivalent).  You can be dragged back to civilization (while exhibiting the worst of your Breakdown + Derangement) and rehabilitated, gaining all of the benefits of Retirement, but you can never again be a playable character.

Cheer

This is a buff that you gain when you are in town, and it is gained by having FUN.

Race your horses on the beach.  Cook a big feast for some NPCs.  Host a dance on the village green.

When a party is Cheered, the party gains 3 temporary HP.  These are shared HP.  The first person who would lose HP, instead removes poker chips from a bowl on the center of the table.

It's not hard to get Cheered, but you have to do something different every time (or at least party with different people).

Example

Look at the example above.

We have a character that currently has 9 damage.  They're in trouble, because they're effectively at 0 HP.  If they take any more damage, it'll go straight to Stress or Wounds.

Their Max HP is 9, but if the character recuperated in a monastery while the player used a sidekick for a session, their Max HP would be back up to 12.

They don't have any Disfigurements, but if they gain any Stress, they have a chance to vomit.  They're currently Abusive, and will remain so until their Stress is brought back down to 0.

Tables

Disfigurement Table [d6]
Note: Common sense overrides this table. Falls are unlikely to knock out your eye, for example.  Psychic damage might only put people in comas, or it might roll a d6 like normal (missing leg = all the nerves in your leg die), depending on the DM.
1 Arm Missing/Useless Lose 1 point of Str.
2 Hand Missing/Useless Lose 1 point of Dex.
3 Crushed Ribs Lose 1 point of Con. Cannot speak louder than a whisper.
4 Leg Missing/Useless Lose 1 point of Str. -4 Movement (assuming you have a crutch).
5 Coma Lose 1 point of Int. Wake up in 1d20*1d20 days (if either of those dice show a 1, you will never wake up) assuming prompt, competent medical care. 50% chance of waking up with a new skill: Spirits at Rank 1.
6 Missing Eye Lose 1 point of Wis. -2 Ranged Attacks.

Random Breakdown Table [d8]
Note: No Breakdown lasts longer than 10 minutes (except Alter Ego). When you are panicked, all you can do is move, cry, whimper, and hyperventilate.
1 Fight You attack the the source of your Stress until it is removed or destroyed.
2 Flight You flee from the source of your Stress until it is removed or at least 3 rooms distant.
3 Faint Fall unconscious. At the start of each round, you have a 1-in-6 chance to wake.
4 Vomit You vomit (free action) and drop to 0 HP.
5 Scream You start screaming, once per round. Each scream incurs an Encounter check. You cannot stop yourself from screaming, but other people can. Lasts until the source of your Stress is removed or destroyed.
6 Cling You grapple a random adjacent PC and refuse to move. Lasts until the source of your Stress is removed or destroyed.
7 Self-destruction The DM chooses 1 action for you to perform. It is always the worst possible action (throwing away your magic sword). If you cast a harmful spell on yourself, you get a Save.
8 Alter Ego Roll a new set of mental statistics, personality, goals, etc. You are now a new level 0 character with a new name. Whenever this Breakdown occurs again, you switch back. Your alter ego levels up separately.

Random Derangement [d20]
1-5 Proximal phobia Phobia for whatever gave you the most recent point of Stress. If nothing seems applicable, pick one of the other phobias randomly. Use 6-10 for inspiration.
6 Claustrophobia You panic in small spaces. Gain 1 Stress each time you end a round in a small space.
7 Acrophobia You panic within 5' of a fall (at least 10' high). Gain 1 Stress each time you fall.
8 Thalassophobia You panic in or above water that is deep (5' or more) or murky. Gain 1 Stress each time you end a turn in deep or murky water, or if you fall in.
9 Nyctophobia You panic when you are without a light source. Gain 1 Stress each time you end a round in the dark.
10 Thanatophobia You panic when you see a corpse (including the undead), or when a person starts Dying. Gain 1 Stress each time you touch a corpse, are affected by the undead, or if a PC or hireling dies.
11 Talking to Yourself Never surprise enemies. Enemies surprise the party 1-in-6.
12 Disenchanted Whenever you are supposed to leave town (or a safe campsite) for some dangerous location, there is a 50% chance that you retire instead. When this Derangement is removed, there is a 1-in-6 chance you decide to retire anyway.
13 Escapism Automatically fail Initiative rolls.
14 Guilt Cannot level up.
15 Abusive Whenever someone rolls a critical failure, you will verbally abuse them, dealing them 2 emotional damage (anger).
16 Pacifist Whenever you attempt lethal harm, you take 2 points of emotional damage (despair). You can still trip enemies so that your warrior friend can kill them, you just can't trip them off a cliff.
17 Depression You cannot benefit from Cheer, and neither can the people around you. If the other PCs go get Cheered without you, you have a 50% chance of abandoning the party, fleeing into the night, because fuck those guys.
18 Comfort Object Pick an item in your inventory. Whenever it is out of your possession, gain 1 Stress. You panic until it is returned to you. (This object doesn't change when this Neurosis is inactive.)
19 Sadist Once you attempt lethal harm, you cannot take combat actions that don't include attempting to kill your target. (No fleeing, no healing, etc.) If you level up with this Derangement active, you can only take levels in Slayer.
20 Morbid Curiosity When encountering something that is weird and potentially dangerous, the DM can ask to you to make a Cha Save to resist investigating it ("reading the Latin out loud, picking up the glowing sword, etc.) When you level up, you can only take levels in Warlock. (If you lack a familiar, one will be provided.)

Discussion

Negative traits are fun, but they shouldn't be something that is picked at character creation.  (Balance issues, synergy/powergaming issues) but it works well if they are generated randomly the first time that they become relevant.  (DELAY ROLLS AS LONG AS POSSIBLE).

A person with acrophobia could walk along the top of a tall wall, they'd just be panicked the whole time. They wouldn't be able to attack an enemy or even shout a warning to their allies.

You'll also notice that Sadist and Morbid Curiosity both force characters into choosing a character class that they might not want.  I think this is wonderful.  Why should players always get to choose their next character class?  (ATTACK ALL PARTS OF THE CHARACTER SHEET.)

Disenchanted is a potentially disruptive Derangement, since it can force a player to retire a character that they don't want to.  To that I say "better than being dead".  I almost named this one as Sanity (because what sane person would go into a dungeon) or Family Man.

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Advice for OSR DMs

I wrote an introduction section that is meant for the Lair of the Lamb.  

The most interesting part for most of you will probably be the Advice for DMs section, but I'm posting the whole thing here since it's a good explanation of (a) old-school dungeoncrawls, as I see them, and (b) the style of gameplay that I'm shooting for in the Lair of the Lamb.

by Konstantin Kostadinov

What You are Reading

This text is meant to be an introduction to both the GLOG and an old-school dungeoncrawl.

The Goblin Laws of Gaming

The ruleset in this book is sufficient for the adventure in this book.  The rules will serve you well up until the last page of the dungeoncrawl.
But the GLOG that can be printed is not the True GLOG.  The GLOG is a philosophy—gather the rules that improve your game, and exile the rules that don't.  The published rules are just building blocks for you to incorporate or discard as you see fit.
There are two reasons we should shun a monolith.
First, there is no one-size-fits-all RPG.  Your game will improve after you tailor it to meet your group’s expectations and preferences.  Second, the best rules and creatures for your game will not exist in a single book--they will exist in many.  (In another book, I hope I can write about how to best make these decisions.)

An Old-School Dungeoncrawl

The players will control a group of lowly peasants who attempt to escape a dangerous and exotic underground maze.  That makes it a dungeoncrawl.
They will map the dungeon themselves, track light sources, they will rely on their wits (instead of their class abilities), and some will die.  These things make it old-school.
Level-0 Peasants
Each player will play as several level-0 peasants.  By the end of the module, each player will (hopefully) exit the dungeon with a level 1 character who has earned their hit points the hard way.  
We do this so that:
  • The players can start playing quickly.  New players are neither knowledgeable nor invested.  (Later, the surviving characters will be flesh out.  Backstories are for closers.)
  • The players can learn to play with the simplest character sheet possible.  Mechanics can be introduced one by one.
  • The players are not punished too harshly for their mistakes.  Since they have extra lives, they can move on from fatal errors.  Since the dungeon is lethal, it’s best if players are familiar with the genre before they are attached to a particular character.
  • Parts of the dungeon can be closed off to groups without particular gear.  Torches, ropes, and weapons can fulfill the role of keys.
  • The world's cruelty must be instructed.


Advice for DMs


Meaningful Choices

Give the players as many meaningful choices as you can. This means a choice where:
  • The negative outcome is known (at least approximately).
  • The positive outcome is known (at least approximately).
  • The odds are known (at least approximately).
  • The outcomes affect the game (they are not trivial).
  • The player is also free to choose not to choose (they can walk away).
Shoot for at least 4 of the 5.


Similarly, try to avoid giving players meaningless choices.  “Do you go down identical tunnel A or identical tunnel B?”

And respect their decisions.  If the players choose to avoid the ogre encounter, don’t reskin the ogres as half-giants and put the encounter in front of them again.  Conversely, if they find a way to easily kill the ogres in the first round, respect their ingenuity and allow the ogres to die (don’t give the ogres more HP on the fly, or re-insert the encounter later).

We want players to feel ownership of the results of their choices.  “I did this.”  For the same reason, players roll as many of the dice as possible. (The DM rolls as few as possible.)

Information

Part of giving the players meaningful choices is giving them the information they need to make their decisions.  They need to know what the risks and the rewards are for any decision (at least approximately).

Don’t hide information behind rolls--just give it to your players.  When in doubt, give them more information.  It is more important to inform your players than it is to find justifications for how the characters would know things.

Impact

You must allow your players’ actions to change, build, and destroy your world.

You are not a tour guide nor a train conductor.  You are the manager of a very dangerous wildlife reserve.  If your players choose to organize the leopards into a militia, tell them where they can find boots.  If your players choose to burn down the forest, let your setting burn.  Let their decisions matter.

(There is nothing wrong with scripted events or fluff encounters; just be cognizant of what they are.)

Lethality

Players in breezy games will sometimes drink random potions just to see the result, because they know that nothing truly terrible will happen.  This isn’t that kind of game.  Sometimes the strange bottle contains poison, and sometimes it kills you without a saving throw.  Don’t drink poison.

The sooner that players learn this expectation, the sooner they will thrive.  Playing multiple characters helps players learn this lesson without a tutorial section.  Do not go easy on them--if your kindness teaches them that their characters will not die even when they probably should, your kindness has become a cruelty, since it creates expectations that will be shattered much later (and more painfully).

The dungeon is not an unthinking meat grinder.  The dungeon is a test, where wrong answers are penalized.  Skilled players will be able to navigate the dungeon without any deaths, while fools will TPK in the first few rooms.

Combat is a little different, since the chaos of d20 rolls means that the weaker party sometimes triumphs--which is why risk-averse players should also be combat-averse players.

Fair Deaths

Players should die, but they should die as the result of bad choices.

A player that dies shouldn’t feel angry at the injustice of it all.  Ideally, they should sigh, shrug, smile, and say “yeah, I kinda figured that might happen.”

Bad: “You walk into the room.  Rocks fall.  Everyone roll a Dex save or take damage.”

Good: “The sagging ceiling seems to be held up by a spear.”

A player that dies in the first room would have good reason to feel bitter.  A player who dies in the second will only have themselves to blame.  Fair deaths result from meaningful choices.

Keep Track

Every action in the dungeon has a cost.  Searching the bone pile takes precious time.  Torches will burn down.  There is the chance that a random encounter might occur.  Searching the bone pile is a bit like a shop where items are purchased with torchlight and blood.

You cannot have a meaningful campaign unless strict time measures are kept.  The same applies to torches and rations.

HP (or the number of peasants) is another resource.  HP can be thought of as the character’s risk budget.  You spend HP on risky actions.  Characters with more HP can do more things because they can afford to take more risks.  A low-HP group is a miserable thing, crawling past the wonders of the underworld, unable to afford a taste.

Allow Failure

Your players will die: sometimes heroically, sometimes embarassingly.  Resist the temptation to save them.  This is one of the hardest things for groups to adjust to (which is why it’s so important to set expectations early).

Allow PCs to flee combat, but never fudge the dice.  After all, they chose to stay and fight.

Your players will not find all the secret areas.  Resist the temptation to drop hints.  Finding secret areas is one of the things that separates good players from novices.  Not that there’s anything wrong with participation trophies, but there needs to be a trophy for excellence, too.

After the session, resist the temptation to tell players about all of the things that they missed.  Those secrets must be purchased through cleverness and bravery, or not at all.

Allow Success

There must be rewards commensurate with the dangers.  Allow players opportunities to feel powerful.  They will sidestep your traps and one-shot your bosses; celebrate these moments with them.

They will want to make their characters cool.  Let them go buy the swordcane that they want.  The dungeon made the survivors rich--let them throw a party.

Allow Players to Pick their Genre

You cannot enforce morality on your players if they want to play as murderhobos.  Similarly, a horror game is impossible if the players keep making Monty Python jokes.  You can nudge in a direction (after all, the DM is a player, too) but you cannot require.

If you write up courtly intrigues but your players only want to kick down doors and kill things, either (a) have an open conversation about your goals for this game, or (b) give them the kind of game that they want.

Never Fudge the Dice

Better yet, roll them out in the open.

If you are adjusting the difficulty on the fly, then it’s no different than wrestling with your dad.  A mock struggle, followed by a fictional triumph.  You might as well not roll dice at all.  (It might still tell a good story, but how shallow must that victory feel, knowing that was never any other outcome.)

If a combat is too easy for the players, the monsters will flee or surrender (see Morale).

If the combat is too difficult, the players can always run away (see Pursuit).  Learning to flee a losing battle is something that many groups struggle with, which is why that is the first lesson taught in the Lair of the Lamb.


Advice for Players

Think in Terms of the Dungeon Level

Other games might envision an adventure as a series of encounters, each relatively isolated from each other.

This dungeon is not like that.  It is a single, interlocking mechanism.  Opening paths creates loops that you can retreat down.  Monsters roam from room to room.  Noticing a blank spot on the map allows players to infer the location of a secret room.  Answers to a puzzle are found in a different room.  Think globally, rather than locally.

Keep an eye on that map.

Learn Everything You Can

In the beginning, the dungeon is unknown, and peasants will die because they didn’t recognize its perils.  But eventually the dungeon will be maps and the mechanisms tamed.  You will turn the traps against your enemies.  At this point, the dungeon is no longer the wolf beyond the firelight, it is the tame dog at your side, another tool in your backpack.  Yet, the only thing that you have gained in knowledge.

Information is a precious resource that can be leveraged to gain an advantage in nearly every situation.  Your DM has been instructed to give you plenty of information in every situation, but you can always ask for more.  Try to ask a question in every room.

The more you know about the dungeon, the better you can use it to be clever.

Be Clever

Fuck your Int score.  Always be as clever as you can.  You are not wrestling with your dad; the dungeon will kill you if you let it.  

The solutions are not on your character sheet.  You do not have class abilities that you can rely on in every situation.  Look at your inventory, look at the map, look at the other players.  The rules have fuzzy edges in the GLOG--bend reality to your will by bargaining with the DM.

“Can I fill the pit with enough bones so that Akina can climb out?”

“Can I use my Butchery skill to help stabilize Goren?”

“Can I use the brightness juice to blind her?”

None of these three questions are covered by the rules, yet they are all indisputably good ideas.  A good DM will find a way to reward good ideas.

Similarly, many of the puzzles in the Lair of the Lamb are open-ended.  They have multiple solutions that I have imagined, and many other solutions that I haven’t.  Keep throwing ideas at them--eventually something will stick.

Treat the NPCs Like People

Think about what the monsters want.  Every sentient thing has a set of wants and fears, even if it’s as simple as “food” and “light”.

Likewise, no NPC has an entirely rigid response.   Enemies can become friends.  Friends can turn against you. Not because it’s scripted or because it makes dramatic sense, but because of how you treated them, and how well you fit into their wants/fears.

There are no social skills.  You’ll have to figure out what they want by asking them the old-fashioned way.

Avoid Combat

Unless you know you are going to win, of course.  The best combats are the ones that you have already won before they start, whether through trap, trick, poison, or fire.  Never rely on the dice--they will always betray you, in the end.

You may spend more time choosing and planning battles than actually fighting.  This is good.  And remember that running away is always an option.

And if combat is unavoidable, at least try to fall back to a more defensible position.  

Focus on the Dungeon

Right now, the real focus is the byzantine machine at the heart of the world: the dungeon itself. Quickly learn its moods and anatomies.

Keep a mind on your goals: water first, escape last.  

Look for Secrets

There at least a dozen secret areas and items to discover in the Lair of the Lamb.  Finding them will give you useful tools (and level-ups).  All of them will improve your chance of survival.

You must balance your hunt for the exit with your search for resources.  It is not easy to find a balance between these two things, and yet the best players will find a way.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Owlbears and 24 Other Birds

Chris's scrivenings.
Archon's marks on more.
My first foray into the birdlands.  This is part 2.

the great and common potoo
26. Pyorn - A common riding animal.  Horses are tougher and capable of longer distance travel.  Pyorns are capable of faster sprints and some truly incredible jumps.  They are also omnivores, and are known to enjoy cats.  They have strange heads--their beak covers their entire face, with their eyes peeking through apertures.

27.  Owl - They are not birds, and yet people think that they are.  Owls are lunar creatures.  Pluck the feathers off an owl--pluck all the feathers off an owl, and you will be left with nothing but feathers, a skeleton, and eyes.  The gossamer stuff that stains your cuticles--that's the real owl.  Owls never make a single noise, except for their call, which they make upon their death.  Their feathers are sometimes used to make truly silent cloaks.

28. Educated Owl - Not all owls have forgotten their names.  These owls still remember the moon, and they teach their children their histories inscribed on the inside of hollow trees.  They can emit a 20' zone of silence at will, which blankets all sounds, except their voice should they deign to speak.  They regurgitate mouse skeletons animated by their necromancy.  Their weaver caste will weaver "wicker men" from thorns, which they then pilot like mecha.  They have a strange business here, which no one has ever quite figured out.  See also.

29. Bladed Heron - Bladed herons have beaks that are sharpened on two sides, which they use to chop fish in half.  The males also fight each other in tremendously acrobatic duels, resembling nothing so much as a pair of dueling swordsmen.  In some communities, metal blades are actually bolted onto the heron's beaks, greatly improving their ability to kill.  Lvl Def none  Beak 1d8 or 1d12.

30, Smidge - A miniscule cousin to the smirch, a smidge is a tiny black bird, smaller than a fingernail.  They will latch on to your jugular and suck your blood.  Any attempt to forcibly remove them will result in grievous harm to your brain's blood supply.

31. Cryoninus - A bird of ice, and a cousin to the phoenix.  Winter flows from their wings, and their breath is cold enough to shatter glass.  It is painful to breath around them, your own lungs revolting at the impossible stillness of the air.  Their heart is a thing of absolute zero, a perfect point of stillness inside a mercurial, flowing beast.  When you kill one, it ushers in a permanent ice age at that location, a backstop against the heat death of the universe.  When you kill one, it will kill the kingdom that contains it, perhaps half a continent, and you, if you tarry.  Best to harvest the parts quickly and be gone.

32. Mondlieb Harrier - A bird that possesses an impossible style of flight.  When it spreads it's bizarrely-shaped wings, it takes off vertically, and at high speed.  When it closes its wings, it falls.  It uses this strange method of flight to "jump" hundreds of feet into the air and land on its prey, impaling them on its spike-like hallux.  Their preferred prey are small deer and tax collectors (because of their oily livers).

33. Peryton - The victims of an ancient curse, perytons are enormous raptors with the heads and antlers of stags.  They cast the shadows of humans, and their mating rituals require a fresh human heart.  When a peryton is killed, the shadow will walk off, heading for the River of the Dead.  It is said that a mortal cannot find the entrance to the true River of the Dead except through this method.  It is a difficult journey--perytons do not live near Greywing Bay, and the walking shadow never tires nor slows.

34. Heravia - The serpentine bird, the heravia lacks wings or legs.  It is long and sinuous, and crawls on its belly.  It does possess a tremendously versatile tail fan, which it uses to communicate, imitate animals, and defend itself.  They grow up to 50' long.
HD 5  Def plate  Tail Slice 1d12+poison

35. Great Hesperiachis - A monstrous branch of hesperornithes, the great hesperiaches is completely marine.  It grows as long as 100' long.  It feeds on krill, and spends its time in the northern seas.  It lays floating eggs, which float south on the current until they hatch in warm water.  Boats are sometimes painted with eyes to ward off the amorous attention of great hersperiachis.

36. Mordant Vulture - A curious species of vulture that instructed the first necromancers.  After impregnating the female, the female will subdue her mate and eat his heart.  Over the next few days, she will eat other organs, eventually replacing them with her own gastroliths.  After three days, the female will lay her eggs; simultaneously, the male will arise as an undead bird.  For as long as a decade, the undead male will provide for his family, bringing them fresh carrion and keeping watch through the long nights.  For decades, the female will continue to lay her dead mate's eggs.

37. Coatl - Allegedly, a servant of the Authority's divine wrath.  A flying serpent-bird with coils large enough to constrict elephants, the coatls have the power to ignite anything with their gaze.  And I do mean anything.  Metal will melt, dribble, smoke, and evaporate.  Because everything has a boiling point, if you've pissed off the Authority.  No reputable source has ever seen them.

38. Catching the Simurgh - Since the simurgh is all birds, it follows that all birds are the simurgh.  According to Germanth's Theorum of Semantic Approximation, there must be a fixed amount of birds that qualify as "all birds", since otherwise the definition becomes incoherent in a non-instantaneous universe,  According to this theory, it takes about 71 tons of birds to be considered "all birds".  There are some diversity requirements, but the 71 tons is the more difficult to criterion to meet.

So, first obtain 71 tons of birds, and compress them to a certain critical mass.  Perhaps a sufficiently reinforced aviary.  Perhaps an extraordinarily reinforced aviary--you are in the business of manifesting a goddess, after all.

39. Achelornis - A wingless, quadrupedal bird from the abyssal layers, the achelornis is a predator.  Vicious perhaps, but not evil.  Their not-inconsiderable intellects are mostly dedicated to inventing scary noises and creepy songs.  They are most at home in tunnels, and are agoraphobic.

These are replacements for achaierai.

Achelornis
Lvl Def chain  Claws 1d10/1d10
Move horse  Int 10  Dis hunger

Black Smoke - Achelornises constantly exhale a black smoke.  It take one round to permeate an area (so keep moving and you're fine).  Anyone ending their turn in the black smoke takes 1 point of emotion damage (fear).  At the end of an encounter with an Achelornis, everyone has an X-in-20 chance of developing a phobia to birds, where X is the amount of emotion damage you took from this ability.

<digression> Emotion damage can bring you down to 0 HP, but cannot kill you.  If you would take "lethal" emotion damage, you instead gain a point of Stress.</digression>

40. Cerulophore - A bird of the upper air.  It resembles a chain of blue, translucent birds joined into a singular chain.  They sing songs of prayer without ceasing (easy enough when you have a dozen mouths).  They require no sustenance beyond their own virtue.  (See also, the holy mounds.)  They constantly elongate, producing more "birds" at the end of the chain.  When they wish to reproduce, they fly into a tornado and are torn apart.  Each fragmentary "bird" then becomes the beginning of a new chain.

41. Viridine - A bird of the upper air.  Thin and green, resembling a manta as much as a bird.  They do not land, and spend their entire lives miles above the ground.  They reproduce in thunderstorms, and are seen as spiritual leaders among their kind, and many birds search them out with metaphysical dilemmas, seeking them above the thunderheads.  They have a wingspan of about 50', and weigh about a kilogram.  Like the cerulophore, they are remnants of ancient epochs, and their metabolisms are karmic.  They must perform favors in order to nourish themselves, feeding on the recipient of their benevolence.

42. Tumblebirds - A colonial species that weaves enormous "tumbleweeds" on the Mausphalian plains.  The largest tumblehomes can be as much as five stories tall.  These tumblehomes are usually stationary shelters for the birds, but in times of danger, the tumblebirds will grip the inside and beat their wings fiercely, like a system of fans strapped inside a giant hamster ball.  Thus equipped, the tumblehome can roll across the plains, moving to a more fertile area or crushing any threat beneath their thorny tonnage.  They sound like a chicken coop rolling down a hill.

43. Lackeroon - An evil bird with poisonous eyes.  The glare of the lackeroon causes forced vegetarianism.  If someone affected by this curse eats meat, they will shit blood until they die.  Lackeroons form symbiotic relationships with fruit trees, and will prune them, clean them of parasites, and weave them into protective hedges.  They are favored by exotic gardeners and condescending vegans.

44. Dire Cuckoo - Huge things, the size of penguins.  They steal children and eat them.  In the place of the stolen child, they will leave a cuckoo child, nearly indistinguishable from a human except for small teeth and a strange lightness of body.  The child will spend the next dozen years stealing food to feed its true parents.  Once it reaches puberty, it will flee into the woods and undergo an awkward metamorphosis into its adult form.

45. Doodle Bird - One day, you find a graffito.  It depicts a humorous bird-thing, with goofy eyes, scruffy wings, and gangly legs.  It amuses you, and so you draw it everywhere.  In the dust, on the walls of the bath, scratched into wooden doors.  (Your blood becomes thinner.)  You tell your friends, show them, and you all laugh.  (Your flesh becomes sweeter than nectar.)  You call it the doodly bird, and you are happy to have started a trend.  (Your flesh becomes dense and aromatic.)

So enraptured, you fall asleep one night, and the doodly bird slips in your window.  First one leg, then the other, and then the whole bird follows.  It is so very tall.  It hums its doodly song, which only works on doodly folks like you, which keeps you deep asleep.  Then it drinks your luxurious, deliquescent flesh through your belly button.

Thus fed, the doodly bird looks for a few more places where it can scratch its memetic graffito, and then points it nose into the wind, sniffing the roadways for the scent of another doodled human.

46. Bird Stamps - It was thought that nearly all of these were destroyed in the Bird wars, but small caches of bird stamps continue to be found in the occasional dungeon.  Birds operate a postal service in defiance of Zulin, and while it is normally only available to birds and bird-allies (certain reptiles, dragons), those possessing a stamp can flag down (most) birds and convince them to carry the letter for you.  Anything heavier than a few grams is unlikely to reach its destination, and you must provide the birds with an accurate address that they will understand.

Bird stamps replace sending.

47. Kenku - A type of hereditary curse that manifests as a sort of stunted, demented, wingless crowman.  If someone steals from the Simurgh, or possesses her treasure, their children will all be born as kenku.  You will find them in the cursed parts of the world, the offspring of kings who do not want to relinquish their flying carpets and--honestly--have enough heirs already.

Kenku can "interbreed" with humans but the offspring is always a stone egg covered with a curse-poem, unique to each kenku.

48. Girshum - An anti-bird, once believed to be the Simurgh's shadow, now known to be a separate species that thrives in the semantic blindness of humans.  (Non-symbolic animals have no problem seeing them.)  They are rarely noticed, but when they are, it is always as an absence of a bird.  "On the branch over there, there is no bird."  "It doesn't come closer, but now there is a spot on the ground near you, where there is no bird."  "No bird is flying away, over the bakery, while looking at you over its shoulder."  They are used to share gossip (only ever concerning birds), and as spies, reluctantly.

49. Snuffy Bird - A bird with a beak like a pipe.  It plucks tobacco, dries it in the sun, tear it into bits, and then packs its sinuses with the snuff.  It ignites the tobacco by sneezing (they are, perhaps, a distant relative to the phoenix).  They are popular pets, since they are attractive and good-natured.  If supplied with a mixture of tobacco and incense, they will always keep a house smelling good.

50. Owlbear 

Obviously the product of wizards and their meddling, owlbears are a melancholy mixture of parts.  Even owlbears who are closely related tend to look distinct, and many have small irregularities (asymmetries, extra fingers).  These are not mutations, but something expressing itself from their essential germ.

Their wings and head are feathered, but their bodies are of bears.  There is some evidence that they were meant to be more than this, though.  The bones in their arms mirror those of a human, albeit thicker and brutish.  And once extracted from the skull, their brain is neither ursine nor avian--it is indistinguishable from a human's.

Owlbears are obviously insane.  They throw themselves from high places, continually attempting to fly.  This behavior does not decrease with maturity--rather the opposite.  (More owlbears die from self-inflicted falls than any other cause.)  And owlbears attempt bearish behaviors, such as hibernating and hunting salmon, and neither with any success.  Even healthy owlbears display characteristic signs of stress, such as "barbering", when an owlbear plucks out all of their feathers and hair.

It is fair to say that owlbears are not happy creatures, which does something to explain their famous aggression.

Owlbear
Lvl Def plate  Punches 1d12/1d12
Move bear  Int 6  Dis Territorial

Perfect Stalker - Silent and perfectly camouflaged.  A stalking owlbear is nearly impossible to detect without magic.  When you roll a random owlbear encounter, it has a equal chances of stalking or attacking immediately.

Dread Hoot - Stalking owlbears always hoot once before they attack.  After 1 round, and every hour thereafter, roll a d6.  On a 1-2, the owlbear attacks.  On a 6, the owlbear has gotten bored and wandered off.

Hatred - Owlbears will always attack spellcasters and birds first.  (fOwlbears can smell the spells in your head.)

Owlbear Discussion

Owlbears are famous as monsters that burst out of the random encounter tables and slay low-level parties.  I see no reason to break with that tradition.  The only modification is that players now have plenty of time to prepare themselves after they hear the ominous hoot.  Even low-level parties can put up a terrific fight if they are well-prepared.