Cosmic Monster: Geminoids

This is a continuation of my series on the non-Euclidean, this time a non-Euclidean monster.

Imagine a 2-dimensional world, full of 2-dimensional castle and 2-dimensional people.  Now imagine a person standing to the left of that world, so that their body doesn't intersect with it in any way.  Now imagine that they have a couple of paper puppets, and that they insert into the 2-dimensional world, making them stand on top of that 2D castle as if they belonged there.

Now you know what a geminoid is.

completely inaccurate
a 2-dimensional drawing of a 4-dimensional fellow
and the geminoids should be larger relative to the puppeteer

They look like twins, with a strange look about them.

Their shapes are crude, with odd ridges and flat spots, like wax pressed into the shape of a human.  They seem like imitations, because they are.  They wear thin cloaks to obscure their clumsy shapes.

They are hand-puppets, pieces of a much larger creature that is projected into our world.  The puppeteer cannot be seen, cannot be felt, cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.  It is sideways to our world, and you cannot reach it any easier than Mario can turn sideways and leave your television.

Beneath their cloaks, they do not wear much.  They are always hot to the touch.  The puppeteer, floating in the vacuum of the void, struggles to radiate heat.  There is no air there.  And so the hand-puppets must manage the temperature of the entire beast.

Sometimes the puppeteer relaxes, and turns the puppets slightly sideways.  One arm might shrink to a stump; another arm might grow thick and untextured.  A normal-seeming eye might relax into a colored spot on featureless skin, like a giant freckle.  If you pull back the hood of a sleeping geminoid, this is what you will see.

(I will speak of geminoids in the plural.  This deception is for your players.)

Their arms are as bony as their fused ribs.  Their legs are thick, calloused things, made to support more weight than you'd expect.

If you watch closely, you will notice that geminoids don't seem to breathe.  Their extra-long breaths form condensation in cold places, but their chests don't rise and fall.  This is because the lungs are in the puppeteer, not the puppet (although the puppeteer must still breath through his hands).

Inside a geminoids spindly body, you will find almost nothing except muscle, bone, and circulatory system.  Some of these will seem illogical or impossible, such as an artery that forms a loop with itself, and connects to no other part.  (Their heart and lungs are located inside the puppeteer--you will not find them.)

what looks like levitation is really just a geminoid raising its hand behind the scenes

If the attack deals low damage, this may indicate that they are striking you with their puppet-limbs, like you would expect a skinny fellow to do.  If the attack deals high damage, this may indicate that the geminoid has curled themselves up into a ball and flown at you, as if hurled telekinetically.

Geminoids can hit you a lot harder than you think.  (A hand-puppet curled up into a fist can hit you a lot harder than a man the size of a hand-puppet.)

Geminoid
HD 6  (HP 24)  Def chain  Slam 1d10 each
Move *  Int 10  Mor 4

If you define them according to the format of a game system, geminoids have a lot of abilities.  But once you grasp the concept, it's really simple.

Shared Body -- Geminoids share an HP pool: 24 points.  They also share their weight, which fluctuates depending on how much of the overall creature remains in the void (which has no gravity).  They share a blood supply and a mind.  They function as two creatures against AoE damage, but against spells that target creatures, treat them as a single creature.

Flight -- One geminoid can fly anywhere within 20' of the other geminoid, provided the other geminoid remains on the ground.  (This is equivalent to the puppeteer using one hand to pull themself higher while reaching with the other hand.)

Exit -- A geminoid can leave our dimension.  This looks like the creature being sucked down its own bellybutton, and then shrinking until it is just a small sphere of flesh the size of a basketball.  It looks like new types of skin are flowing from the asshole on the back of the basketball and swirling down the bellybutton on the front.  Smaller and faster and then it is gone.  (This is equivalent to the puppeteer taking his hand-puppet off the stage.)

The puppeteer needs to have both hands in our dimension in order to hold on.  Without at least one geminoid to anchor it, it will come untethered, and starve to death in the void.

A geminoid can grab a character and pull them sideways into the void.  This requires one turn to grab, and another turn to pull them sideways.  The character gets a Cha save to resist, and if they are holding on to something, they also get a Cha save.  If they are tied down, the geminoid must break the ropes before it can pull them sideways.

Once a character has been pulled into the void, they gain 5 Trauma and begin to suffocate and overheat.  There is no light in the void.  The geminoid can attempt to throw them away or pass them to the unborn twins (see below).

Entrance -- A geminoid that is in the void can enter the world the same way it left.  It can appear anywhere within 20' of its twin, even on the other side of walls.

The puppeteer may carry items on its extradimensional body, similar to a bag of holding.

Unborn Twin -- Every geminoid has 1d3-2 (min 0) immature buds.  The yare the unborn twins gestating in the void, like unfinished hand puppets.  If it needs reinforcements, the geminoid can put these unborn twins into the world, effectively doubling the number of geminoids.  The unborn twins have the same stats and abilities as their siblings, they just look wet and unfinished (because they are) and have AC as unarmored.

Full Entrance -- The puppeteer has no reason to ever enter our dimension.  It has no reason to.  Besides, it is too Thick to exist here, much like a puppeteer can never put their whole body atop a paper-thin diorama.  (The only reason I can think: it might need to pass its body through our dimension to hide on the other side from a larger predator.)

Still, nothing is preventing the puppeteer from pulling its whole body sideways and materializing in front of a stunned party.  This would make it look like an inside-out octopus, with each of its four tentacles connected to an inside-out human.  Viewed from the side, its head looks like a three-dimensional version of a CAT scan of the human head, magnified to monstrous proportions.

These would be inappropriate structures for Super Mario World
A geminoid's true body is an inappropriate body for our world.

Extradimensional -- The puppeteer can see if you are carrying a bag of holding.  It can rip it open and steal its content without you ever knowing.



Biology

When describing geminoids and the puppetmaster, remember that they are not natives of the Void.  (True natives have no interest in an incomplete dimension, and would actually struggle to affect it in a systematic way.)

This is because they were human before they were aliens.  They have adapted to the liminal spaces between worlds, like penguins, pelicans, or flying fish.

It is believed that the first proto-geminoids were created by mishaps while investigating extradimensional spaces.  (Beware the bag of holding.  Never allow the extradimensional space to detach from the burlap and attach to you.)

They are not a true species.  They are created by the induction of a fourth-dimensional uterine prolapse during the first trimester.

Psychology

Their minds are completely human.  They are not Outsiders.  (But they know strange things.  They have met Outsiders.)

When they are born, they seem almost like a regular pair of twins.  The puppeteer is still undeveloped at this point, and they seem like two creatures instead of one.

The easiest way to test a newborn is to attempt to separate it from its twin.  Newborn geminoids cannot be moved more than a few feet away from their twin.

If you forcibly try to separate a pair of geminoids, you might rupture their sac-like body.  Their blood will spill out into the Void, and the two babies will blanch, weaken, and die. 

More likely, though, you'll just succeed in pulling the baby sideways.  It will volute in your hands, shrinking through a thousand stages of deformity in the second before vanishing.

Helpfuls

In my current ruleset, characters stop gaining HP at level 3.  From level 4 onward, they gain +1 Helpful every time they level up.

Level 1	HP = 1/3 of Con
Level 2	HP = 2/3 of Con
Level 3	HP = Con
Level 4+	+1 Helpful

Helpfuls are a renewable resource.  They replenish whenever the character gets a good night's sleep.

A player can spend Helpfuls to modify an ally's roll by an equal amount, up or down.  There is no limit to how many Helpfuls you can spend at once, and multiple people can contribute simultaneously.

The only caveat is that you must have a feasible way to affect their ally's action.

• The fighter feints, helping the wizard land a hit on the orc.
• The wizard shouts a warning, and the arrow meant for the warrior's throat hits him in the shoulder instead.
• The fighter reaches up with his shield, catching the arrow like an outfielder.
• The rogue sticks out his foot while the fighter shoves the zombie hog.

The fiction doesn't matter too much.  Let them be badasses.

Thieves

Thieves get an extra Helpful for every template.  Unlike other classes, Thieves can spend Helpfuls on themselves.

Discussion

GLOG characters don't really get much more powerful beyond level 3.  Instead, they get more versatile.  Helpfuls fit this philosophy well.

+1 Helpful is comparable to getting +1 HP (since you can use your Helpful to reduce incoming damage by 1 point).

They are similar to getting +1 HP at each level, since you can use Helpfuls to reduce incoming damage by an equal amount.  +1 HP is better at a single thing, while +1 Helpful is more versatile.

The biggest tweak over Luck Points (the previous incarnation) is that you can only use Helpfuls on other people, rather than yourself.  This has a few effects.

• It helps higher-level characters keep lower-level characters alive.
• It encourages players to stick together.  It hopefully fosters camaraderie, too, since players will be saving each other a lot.
• It works as insurance, insulating the player against a streak of bad luck.  If a lot of bad luck befalls one player, the other players can dump Helpfuls to keep them alive.
• It gives players something to do when its not their turn.  Hopefully, they'll be watching each other's rolls, looking for places where they can turn a miss into a hit.

I don't know if I want to put a cap on Helpfuls.  I've never had a game where players had more than a handful.

Trois Monstres

Shrifling

Named for the noise it makes.

One arm, one leg, one jaw, and one eye--it only needs one eye to see out of both sides of its paper-thin head.  If you reached out and touched it, it would squirm away, sharp hairs rushing under your fingers like the frayed rope connected to a falling boom.  The fibers are silky, but the tips are like knives.

Supposedly, they are born when rope kills its owner.

A competing theory maintains that they are cooperative colonies of tiny rockworms, akin to a migratory slime mold.  Everyone admits that this theory is less exciting, and therefor less likely to be true.

HD 4  (HP 1)  AC chain  Bite 1d12
Move horse  Climb spider  Int 6  Mor 10  Str 1

Threadlike -- Takes no fall damage.  Can creep along ceilings without falling.  Can leap through keyholes without slowing its gallop.  Looks like a thin strand of hair when it holds still.  Coiled up, a dead one barely fills your palm.


Confused by Hair -- Supposedly, it believe that the hair on a human's head is a baby.  It will attempt to 'rescue' the hair from a corpse, carry it to safety, and 'mourn' when it is unable to rouse the hair.

A shrifling I drew while waiting for the PCR to finish.

Barlutra

Giant carnivorous otters that hunt in packs.  Stats as wolves, except with a swim speed and a lower land speed.

They seem to show no fear of humans, and will occasionally prey on humans.  There is a tremendous amount of fear surrounding the barlutra, perhaps more than it deserves.

Superstitions:

1. Barlutra are drawn to pregnant women, who they seek to disembowel.
2. If a barlutra tail is waved over a sleeper, they will sicken.  Do every night for 7 days and they will die.
3. If a barlutra skull is buried beneath each room of a house, and the house is near a river, the house will be destroyed in a flood.
4. If a barlutra jumps over a corpse, the corpse will speak blasphemies until 3 am, damning the soul of the deceased.

When a pack of barlutra gets large enough, it will build a dam.  The dam forms a reservoir, and eventually multiple families of barlutra may take up residence around the reservoir.  Over a few years, they will dig and shape the reservoir until it is a perfect circle.

Then, the barlutra will contruct four false 'dams' at equidistant points around the circumference of this circular lake.  All dead creatures within the area will be raised as undead in service of the barlutra, who generally ignore the shambling, flopping things.

The rooms within their dams are lined with the skeletons of fish.  Animate, but waiting.  The corpses of their prey are often too scattered to recompose themselves, but those that can do so will drag themselves to the nearest 'dam' and incorporate themselves into the dam's structure.

Paladins and firebombs usually get involved long before this critical stage.  Still, barlutra in the remote parts of the world can remain undiscovered for generations, and the five towers of their reservoirs can grow to prodigious sizes.

Sidebar: Secret DM Knowledge

The reservoirs are summoning circles, waiting for someone with the knowledge to activate them.

Barlutra were corrupted long ago by Shadoom, in order to build his infernal infrastructure around Centerra.  Being beasts, they would never understand what they were building.  They would never betray him; they would never steal his secrets.  (Goblins were created for much the same reason.)

Grievous Insect Nebula

Insects rip each other apart with a cruelty that is unfathomable to humans, but these depredations are impersonal.  In fact, the insect kingdoms are closely allied with one another.  They speak freely to each other, even as they tear the legs off one another.  They are united in their alien morality.

When the insect kingdoms become overcome with grief (when sorrow crushes them like a boot), they will mourn.  They do not weep nor pace.  Instead, all of the holometabolous insects in an area (except moths) come together and form a cocoon.

When a caterpillar forms a cocoon, the first thing that it does it to release enzymes that dissolve itself.  If you were to cut open a cocoon at the right time, a thick soup would dribble out.  The only parts of the caterpillar to survive are the soul discs, maintained by a webbing of nerves.  Safely encased in this nutrient soup, the insect regrows itself.  Unbound by its previous form, it is free to take any shape it wishes.

A grievous cocoon follows much of the same steps.  Each grievous cocoon is formed from hundreds of immature insects, and each cocoon is about the size of a soda can.

What emerges is a globular cloud of scintillating hatred, about a meter across.

HD 3  AC none  Bites 1d6
Fly moth  Int 6  Mor 14

Gaseous -- All attacks against a nebula hit it.  Most attacks deal 1 damage.  Fans deal 1d4.  A bucket of water deals 1d3.  A strong gust of wind deals 2d6 (or perhaps [sum], if caused by a spell).  A nebula cannot enter the water.

Bites -- Small, deep punctures, like the wounds from buckshot.  (Feels like buckshot.)  These attacks leave debris: butterfly scales, insect legs, urticating hairs.  If you are bitten by a nebula, you will be unable to derive any benefit from non-vegetarian food, and will immediately vomit it back up.

By New York State Museum;University of the State of New York.

Encounter Stew

I've tried to overhaul the random encounter system before.  So have others, sometimes with very interesting results.  Here's one more log for the fire.

You make a encounter check every 20 minutes (every 2 exploration turns).  An exploration turn is the time it takes to investigate an average room.

Your stew pot is a bowl in the center of the table with dice in it.  Whenever you make an encounter check, you roll all of the dice at the same time.

You get Light Dice based on the size of your torch.  Brighter light leads to fewer encounters.
You get Scout Dice by being quiet and observant.  They give you clues and help you get more ambushes.
You get Alert Dice once you piss off the dungeon.

Light Dice

The brightness of your torch affects the frequency of your random encounters.

Your torch starts off as a d12.  With each subsequent check, it shrinks in size, eventually sputtering out.  The size of the torch also affects how far it sheds light.  If there are multiple torches, the strongest torch increases size for each weaker torch.  The die size cannot increase above a d12.

d12 - 30' range - first encounter check
d10 - 25' range - has burned for 20 min
d8 - 20' range - has burned for 40 min
d6 - 15' range - has burned for 60 min
d4 - 10' range - has burned for 80 min
d2 - 5' range - has burned for 100 min and is about to go out.
d0 - Roll a black d20 on the Exultations of the Underworld table instead (below).

Whenever you roll a 1, a random encounter occurs.  By default, neither party is surprised.

A flask of oil has 30 measures of oil. You can choose how much oil you want to burn in your lamp: anything between 4 and 12.  Treat it as the same-sized torch.  (So if you want to burn 12 units of oil, you treat your lamp as if it were a d12 torch.)

This has the added benefit of making the characters and the DM more aware of the passage of time, since the mechanism is literally in the center of the table.  It also makes light sources more important, since there is now some strategy about when you should switch out your torch.

No goblins bothered you while you were lighting up a fresh torch.

Sidebar: Shouldn't More Light Lead to More Encounters?

I can see the logic in that line of reasoning.

However, I'm not approaching this from a simulationist angle.  The Underworld is a mythic place.  It is a nest of dreams and darkness, and even the smallest basement is an extension of its will.  Light is a speartip that holds the Darkness at bay.

And this reinforces the type of tension that I want to create.  I want players to have to choose between safety now VS conservation for the future.  Will low HP force them to burn through all of their torches in a hurry?  Will low torches force them to creep around in the thickening gloom?

If you follow the philosophy of less light = fewer encounters, then you're encouraging your players to wriggle through your dungeons with the tiniest candles.  (This seems less fun, since you'll have to describe rooms through a narrow straw.)  And at the extremes, you may force players to choose between using a tiny candle and travelling in pure darkness, which doesn't seem like a dilemma I want to encourage either. 

Darkness is evil.  Shun it.

Sidebar: Shouldn't This Just Lead to Backpacks Stuffed with Torches?

I'm okay with that.  Players can't carry to much unnecessary stuff if you track inventory.  (GLOG: Inventory holds Str + 2 items if you've got a good backpack.)

They can bring a hireling along to carry a sack of torches for them, but that just means that the DM has one more person who can fall into a chasm, get eaten by ooze, or flee screaming into the abyss.  A torch monkey removes some risk, but it opens up the door to new, interesting modes of failure.

Scout Dice 

By default, the party has a single green d6.  This is the scout die.

Whenever the scout die shows a 1, you find some trace of an encounter.  You might find enormous clawed tracks (traces of a basilisk) or a crawling, shattered skeletal hand (traces of undead).

If the party has encumbered people, they lose their Scout Die.

For every ranger in the party, they gain +1 Scout Die.  If the party gets a pair of 1s on the Scout Dice, they find traces that they are able to track back to the creature's lair.  This gives the party a chance to ambush the creature while it's sleeping (50% default) or explore its lair unmolested.  Either way, they'll have an opportunity to scoop up the beast's loot.

If both the Light Die and at least 1 Scout Die show a 1, then you detect the enemy before you encounter it.  The party has the choice to either avoid the encounter or ambush them.

You heard some goblins coming before they saw you.

Sidebar: Surprising the Party

You may have noticed that there is no default way for enemies to surprise the party.  This is intentional.

Instead I prefer surprise to be a feature of specific monsters.  For example, I run panthers as ambush predators.  The players will always be alerted "hey, a panther is stalking you" and then the panther attacks at some point in the next 8 hours, whenever the party is most vulnerable. 

I've found this gives the party a fair chance to react, while still allowing for the circumstances to evolve in interesting directions.  (Sometimes things happen in the next 8 hours that make for more interesting panther attack scenarios.)

Alert Dice

By default, there aren't any Alert Dice in the stew.  You gain alert dice when the dungeon begins reacting to you.  (The most common example of this would be the goblins mobilizing search-and-destroy groups after the party has killed their shaman.)

Alert Dice work as enhancers.  They make certain encounters worse.

If you roll a 1 on an Alert Die, you encounter an enemy patrol.  (By default, this is just the regular goblin group from your regular encounter table, just alert and pissed off.) 

If you roll a 1 on the Light Die, you encounter a regular encounter.

If you roll a 1 on both the Light Die and the Alert Die, the party faces an enhanced encounter.  Either double the size of the encounter, or add 1-2 elites.  If you have multiple Alert Dice, treat each 1 as a similar, stacking enhancement.

Alert Dice can also be used to modulate the horror in a dungeon.  Perhaps once the second floor is unlocked, the catacombs flood the first floor with undead.  Enhanced encounters would be with undead versions of the previous encounters.

Alternatively, Alert Dice can be used to modulate the weirdness in a dungeon.  The Prism Castle begins to shift back to its home dimension once the Pope is rescued from the Infinite Carousel.  Patrol dice are added to the stew, but each Patrol is actually a random hallucinations/insanities that affects the party.  The enhanced encounters are a regular encounter where all the enemies are the ones affected by the madness.

You ran into a patrol while your torch was burning low.

Exultations of the Underworld (d20)

Without the light of the sun, the Throne of the Authority, the souls begin to loosen in their sockets.  Where the Underworld grasps, Hell will soon follow, and those fires have always held a certain attraction for souls.

1 Abduction.  A random player goes missing.  Their companions heard nothing, saw nothing.  If they were restrained by ropes, the ropes are now cut.  They were snatched away by troglodytic paws, or perhaps tumbled down a rocky embankment.  Their cries were muted by the dark.  (This may require two alternative timelines, now converging.)

Now they are held captive on some other part of this floor, or perhaps one floor deeper.  If they are not rescued within 24 hours, they will never leave this place.

2 Panic.  The Underworld speaks, and the soul trembles.  Everyone must make a save vs Fear.  Failure means that they will run in a random direction, ignoring each other and ignoring all threats.  If they are restrained by ropes, they will cut the ropes.  Everyone who is affected can make a new save each round to end the Fear.

3 Rapture.  The Underworld commands, and the soul obeys.  Everyone must make a save vs Charm.  Failure means that they will attempt to murder themselves in the quickest possible way.  They will hurl themselves from cliffs and drink poison.  If they possess a bomb, they will detonate it.  Everyone who is affected can make a new save each round to end the Charm.

4 Dispersion.  If you are crossing an underworld hex-crawl, the party is moved 1 hex in a random direction.  If you are in a dungeon, you are moved 1d4 rooms in a random direction.  This occurs even if the intervening movement would be impossible, e.g. through solid rock or locked doors.

5 Unburdening.  Every character must make an Int check.  If a character fails, a random item of theirs goes missing.  They may find it again, with light.  It is somewhere on this floor, or perhaps the next.

6-10 Trauma.  Everyone gains 1 Trauma.

11-15 Encounter.  A regular random encounter.

16-20 Surprise.  A random encounter, with the enemies getting a surprise round.

Gamjee and the Kludger

First, I've got a goblin for you.  He lives in the Bospero hexcrawl I'm tinkering with.

Then, I've got a new class.

HEX 0614 - THE SALT MARSH

Gamjee's Redoubt [obvious]

The ship is clearly visible on the fringes of the salt marsh, where the ground is a little bit drier.

The swamp is an ancient galleon with a broken back and a busted belly.  It must have been carried inland by some ancient wave.  It is soggy with green moss, and the bowsprit is lifted into the air like a pleading hand.

For 200' in all directions, the ground is covered with traps, in a hundred sundry variations.

The danger is communicated through crudely painted signs and stacks of dire chameleon skulls.  "DANGER: TRAPS" and "FUCKOFF" and "YOU PROBLY GONNA DIE".  A more astute observer will also notice all the tensioned wires, submerged chains, and carefully assembled foilage.

A person running across the 200' killzone will set off about 1 trap every 20 feet.  A person walking very carefully through the killzone will set off about 1 trap every 40 feet.  A person probing with a pole and heaving rocks around will set off about 1 trap every 10 feet, but will avoid the effects of 90% of those traps.

Traps [d6]
1. Snare -- Hard Dex or be hoisted in the air.
2. Bear Trap -- Hard Dex or take 1d3 dmg + grabbed.  50% of these also pull you 10' underwater.
3. Swinging Log, Swinging Hammer -- Hard Dex or 1d8 damage.
4. Spear, Swinging Stakes -- Hard Dex or 1d8 damage.
5. Poison Dart -- Con or Poison (1d6).
6. Noisemaker -- Gamjee is alerted + roll for random encounter.

The ship has no obvious entrances except on the deck, which is 15' above the ground.  Anyone attempting to use a grappling hook to climb onto the deck will probably be thwarted.  The railings break away when any weight is put on them, and then trigger explosive plates on the side of the ship, dealing 1d6 acid damage to anyone standing nearby.

Gamjee has a crossbow with 20 bolts, and a ballista that can be wheeled out onto the deck in 1 round, should the need ever arise.

In a worst case scenario, Gamjee will retreat to his bathroom/saferoom, lock himself in there, and pull a lever that floods the ship with poisonous gas (poison 1d6).  The door is triple-thick wood.  Anyone trying to chop down the door will be deep enough in the bilge that they are 2 rounds away from fresh air, should the poison be triggered.

Aside from all that, Gamjee is a regular level 0 goblin with 1 HP.  He has a 4-in-6 chance of being naked (except for his machete), and a separate 4-in-6 chance of being drunk (bogshine).

If you drink his bogshine you must make a Con save or go blind for 1d20 hours.  Goblins and dwarves are immune to this effect.

Yoshitaka Amano's original goblin art for Final Fantasy I

Gamjee is a paranoic, but that doesn't mean that the smugglers aren't trying to kill him.  (They are.)  Outside of the paranoia, he is friendly, rational, and enjoys making friends and helping people.

The smugglers have tried many different ways of killing this pain-in-the-ass goblin, but all have failed.  Gamjee is meticulous and his ship is stocked with enough salted fish, boiled scum, and gosca.  He also drinks the water that seeps into his basement, although it gives him diarrhea.  He usually has diarrhea.  ("You get used to it.")

He responds to friendly hails, and is quick to talk, but slow to trust.  Trades are conducted by Gamgee raising a pole on his ship, which pulls a submerged loop of rope out of the water where it was hidden.  Two pulleys on each side allow items to be clipped to the rope and shuttled back and forth.  You can even have two items move past each other, so as to arrive at the same time.  The rope is strong enough to hold one person, but not two.

Gamjee wants:
- Fresh food
- A higher grade of intoxicants
- Something to help with the diarrhea (except real talk: he just needs to stop drinking the bog water)
- The head and the hat of Captain Bogbeard (he swore revenge after Bogbeard skinned his dog alive)

Gamjee has:
- four goblin bombados (light fuse, 3d6, Dex for half)
- two dozen spare traps (see above)
- 10 barrels of bogshine
- 1 vial of mutagen (random, permanent mutation)
- 2 vials of rage gas (fumes of hell)
- 3 fireworks
- a new litter of puppies (free to a good home)

Perhaps more importantly, anyone who befriends Gamjee can start apprenticing under him, allowing them to take ranks in the Kludger class.

Goblin from Final Fantasy 14

The Kludger

First off, go read this post by B44L.  I'm stealing an ability from him.

Now then.

Kludgers are the scrappers and the scroungers of the goblin world.  In goblin society, they are held in high esteem (i.e. passers-by are careful to avoid the windows when they relieve themselves against the side of a kludger's house.)

Note: the other respected professions are the filth wizard, the cleric of Shadoom, and the squirmisher.

They are among the most intelligent goblins, and the most likely to journey far from home. They tend to have short, eventful lives.

Template A - Improvise, Scrounge
Template B - Sabotage, Trapper
Template C - Overclock
Template D - Biohacker

Note: even though most of these abilities only require a "round of work", your DM may require you to spend more time on larger or more complex tools.  You cannot combine any of these abilities with each other.

Improvise

With a round of work, you can fix a broken tool or mechanism.  At the end of each round of use, it has 2-in-6 chance of breaking irrevocably.

Scrounge

Whenever travelling causes the DM to roll for a random encounter (roughly 2x a day for overland travel, or every 3 rooms in a dungeon), you may also roll a d6.  On a 1, you find a random broken item from the starting equipment table.

Sabotage

With a round of work, you can rig a functioning tool or mechanism to break under conditions that you specify.  The conditions must be simple, physical, and feasible.

Trapper

With 10 minutes of work, you can trap a battlefield in a specific place, or trap a battlefield in general.  If a battlefield is trapped in a specific place, the first creature to walk over that area triggers the trap with a 4-in-6 chance.  If a battlefield is trapped in general, every time an enemy moves into a new area, there is a 2-in-6 chance that they trigger the trap.  If you don't have an opportunity to tell your allies where the traps is, they are also susceptible to this chance.  Potential traps are limited to the 6 listed above, but you can probably research more if you bring your DM some Taco Bell.

Overclock

With a round of work, you rig a functioning tool or mechanism to operate at a higher level.  Weapons deal double damage, pulleys require half as much force to use.  At the end of each round of use, it has a 4-in-6 chance of breaking.  Single use items require two consecutive turns: one for overclocking, and another for use.

Biohacker

All of the previous class abilities can now be applied to living tissue, including magical properties of that tissue.  Basilisk eyes can petrify, dragon glands can still breath fire.  Corpse parts must be fresh or at least well-preserved.

If a corpse has been dead for more than 1 minute, you cannot use Improvise on it.  PCs "resurrected" in this way cannot be raised above 0 HP.  If a creature has multiple attacks, only one can be Overclocked at a time.

Monoclass Party Bonus

If there are multiple Scroungers in a party, every time a pair of 2s is rolled, an intact item from the complete Alchemy Items + Adventuring Gear list is found.  If a trio of 3s is ever rolled, you find some major magic item (Stormbringer, a genie's lamp, the Hand of Dominion).

Kobold from Final Fantasy 14!