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Thursday, April 16, 2015

Brewery Encounters


Gonna put a brewery dungeon on my viking hex crawl.

If you are a player in my Sunday D&D game, fuck off.  Especially you, John.


Animated Barrel

It's a fucking barrel that hops around and bashes into you.  What the fuck else do you want me to say?  What's inside the barrel? [d3] 1 nothing, 2 grain, 3 1d3 barrel riders, who will hop out as soon as they wake up (such when the barrel takes damage).

HD AC as chain Slam 1d6 + swallow (50% chance)
Move slow Int Morale 12

Wooden Walls -- Takes half damage from piercing.  Whenever they take physical damage, creatures inside the barrel take damage equal to half the original amount.
Rowdy -- Barrels with an enemy inside them will bash themselves against walls, roll down stairs, and leap out windows.  They take half the usual damage from these activities; their occupant takes full damage.  The barrels enjoy this process; they don't care if they get smashed to bits in the process.


Barrel Rider

These are horrible little people, halfway between goblins and halflings.  They know all of the drinking games, and communicate by singing drinking songs.  They piss all over everything.

HD 0 AC as leather Shank 1d6
Move as human Climb as monkey Int Morale 6

Roll Barrel -- Can roll a barrel.  Rolling barrels go as fast as a human on flat ground, and much faster down hills or stairs.  If one hits you, treat it like a trample attack that does 1d6 damage (or more if the barrel is full of heavy things).
Drunkards -- They are always surprised.  Even if the PCs set off a stick of dynamite in the next room.  If good-quality booze is dropped on the ground, they will abandon everything else to grab it.  If it is very high quality booze, there is a 50% chance that 1d3+1 of them will fight each other over it, even in the middle of a battle.


Hoplick

These are big plants made of long, leafy vines.  If you piss them off, they'll uproot themselves and flop over to you, like clumsy, boneless spiders.  *rustle whump rustle flop rustle*

HD AC as leather Flail 1d6 + Poison
Move slow Int Morale 10

Leafy -- Take double damage from slashing.
Poison -- Make a Con check or be unable to taste anything for a week (except more Hoplick).  If you have already lost your sense of taste, you instead drop what you are holding (50%) or fall over (50%) from nausea.
Flail Wildly -- Hoplicks can attack all creatures in 10' simultaneously with their Flail attack.


Beer Elemental

HD 6 AC as leather Slam x 2 1d8 + poison
Move as human Swim fast Int Morale 10

Mostly Water -- Can flow under doors.  Immune to fire.
Poison -- Suffer the effects as if you had just had 1d6 drinks.  Save for half.
Somehow Drunk -- Each turn roll [d6]
  • 1-2 Slam nearest enemy
  • 3 - Slam most injured looking enemy
  • 4 - Stumble onto adjacent enemy.  Make 1 slam attack against enemy, and if they fail a Str check, they are knocked prone.  Then the Beer Elemental falls prone.  
  • 5 - Fumble as if the Beer Elemental had rolled a natural 1.  
  • 6 - Beer Elemental vomits beer in a 30' cone.  No damage, but everyone must gains 2 drink points (save for half).  This automatically extinguishes fires.  The loss of fluid deals 1d8 damage to the beer elemental.

Fire Elemental

Fire elementals usually just huddle in a furnace at their minimal size (about the size of a cat), conserving their energy.  They'll eat slowly--a log every now and then.  Maybe a lump of coal.  They are castaways, conserving their meager rations.  Soon they will be dead.

Most of them are smart enough to avoid burning down forests and towns.  Sure, the temperature is pleasant for a while, but once everything is burnt down, they'll quickly starve.

HD AC as leather Slam x 2 1d8 fire + Ignite (Dex check)
Move fast Int Morale 8

Mostly Fire -- Take 1d6 damage if you throw a bucket of water on them.  No attack roll required.   At full health and size, they shine twice as bright as torch.
Fuel Dependent -- Must constantly eat fuel, usually wood or coal.  If they don't eat anything for 10 minutes, they begin dwindling, losing 1 HD every 10 minutes.  Eating fuel restores them quickly.  They can shrink down to cat size when quiescent (to conserve fuel), but flare up to their full 7' height when they want to kick ass.
Explosive Finish -- Unless it is killed with water, a fire elemental releases all of its hot gases upon dying.  All creatures within 10' must save or take 2d6 fire damage (save for half).


Frothmonger

These poor creatures have been colonized by sentient yeast.  Picture a leather jerkin and leggings, with yellow foam fizzing out the collar and from between the buttons.  When they run, the yeasty froth blows off their heads and plops on the ground.  Also you should google what a mash paddle looks like if you don't already know.

HD AC as leather Mash Paddle 1d6
Move human Int Morale 6

Cleansing Flame - Whenever they take fire damage, they get a save vs Disease to shake off the yeast infestation.  (This returns them to a level 1 brewer.)
Nasty Froth -- Whenever a frothmonger takes physical damage, it explodes of nasty squirts of yeast.  All creatures within 5' take 1d4 damage.  Creatures that have no sense of taste are immune to this effect.
Contagious -- If you eat or drink frothmonger froth, save vs Disease.  (Frothy Doom: 1d6 Dex, causes head to turn into fizzy yeast mounds).  Frothmongers are eager to spread this disease.


Rules for Drunkeness
  • Every drink you take gives you a drink point.  You lose a drink point every hour.
  • The first X drink points do nothing, where X is half of your Constitution.  Each drink beyond t hat threshold is instead a drunk point.
  • Each time you gain a drunk point, you must make a Con check to avoid passing out.
  • Each drunk point gives you -1 to Initiative, Saves vs charm or emotion, and Con checks to avoid passing out when binge drinking.  Additionally, each drunk point expands your fumble range by 1 (so if you had 3 drunk points, you would fumble when you rolled a 1-4, instead of just a natural 1.)
Rules for Being on Fire
  • 1d6 damage each turn, after your movement but before your action.  Your scrolls burn up.
  • Can be extinguished by jumping into water (movement) or rolling around on the ground (action).
Rules For Being Swallowed
  • Can escape if the monster dies or if you claw your way back out its throat.  The latter is a Strength check with a penalty equal to the HD of the monster.
  • Can attack the monster normally with daggers and small weapons.  Attacking with other weapons is at -6.
  • If it exists, stomach acid does 1d4 damage per round.
  • Obviously, you'll have to hold your breath.
Rules For Holding Your Breath
  • You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to half of your Con score.
  • If you prepare for a round (hyperventilate, calm yourself) you can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to Con score.
  • If you black out, you need to be resuscitated by someone.  This is the same as resuscitating someone from the Dying condition: The medic needs to make an Int/2 check, with a -1 penalty for each round that you've spent Dying (or unconscious underwater).

Nonsensical Rant about Fire Elementals

Okay, real talk.

Elementals are sort of stupid.  I don't care how intuitive they are, or how much mythic resonance they have.

Water elementals are basically just H2O, because that's a liquid at room temperature.  Air elementals are assumed to be atmospheric gases like N2 and O2, because those are gases at room temperature.  And earth elementals are whatever, maybe granite or various oxides, because those are solid at room temperature.

But fire isn't like that.  Sure, plasma is the fourth state of matter, but when you look at a candle flame, you're basically looking at a chemical reaction between solid soot particles and hot gases.  The light comes from blackbody radiation.  That's a temporary thing.  Fire is temperature dependent in a way that the other elementals aren't.  You can't point to a singular molecule and say that this is what fire is made out of.

But this is only true on the ground.  Fire elementals exist happily in the sun, in volcanoes, and in the upper atmosphere in the auroras (where they are huge and diffuse and happy).  But walking around a dungeon is incredibly horrible for them.  Our world is as inhospitable as Antarctica to them.

So fire elementals exist not as matter, but instead as a zone of hot, cycling gas.  They're very well insulated, so that they don't cool down too fast.  This is why they aren't as hot as you'd expect--merely campfire-hot instead of furnace-hot.

1 comment:

  1. This is the sort of classic post-modern fantasy tension between Platonic Elementals and Periodic Elementals rearing its ugly head again. Maybe a setting where the two are constantly at war. I dunno.

    Fire elementals are definitely much improved by being actually fuel-dependent, aren't they. One of those ideas that people should just have had all along. A flame that hates you is an encounter once, a flame that wants something from you is half a campaign. I don't know shit about chemistry but are there other reactions that might be after you to help sustain them? Would a static elemental be after you to round up a Van de Graaff generator for them? (I googled that).

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