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Thursday, July 25, 2019

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!

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