Encounters in the House of Hours

Three Encounters From the House of Hours

Reaction rolls should be rolled when the monster reacts to the party (either on its first round of combat or after the PCs have had a chance to speak a few words to it) with a 2d6 roll.  Apply all modifiers then.  Weapons in hand = -1 to Reaction roll.  Suspicious stuff like spell casting = -2 to Reaction roll.  Prepping for combat = -3 to Reaction roll.  Warmth & Politeness = +1.  Charisma Bonus = +bonus.  Monsters will also have Reaction modifiers unique to themselves, with a negative number indicating greater hostility.

Neutral (instinctual) reactions are in the 6-8 range.  Higher results are friendlier/beneficial, etc.  Reactions are not just a gradient between combat and friendship.  Bargaining, fleeing, and immediate surrender are options.

This IV rack killed 2 PCs.

Hospital Golems (always hostile, except to hospital staff)
Seven feet tall, spindly, made of stainless steel.  The bottom of their torso is a five-wheeled base, ending in wheels, which makes them very fast (horse speed) on flat surfaces but puts them at an immense disadvantage on stairs or when climbing.  They have two long arms (each 5' long), each terminating in a "hand" that is little more than a highly articulated cluster of hypodermic needles.  Their metal skeleton is draped with saline bags (and other solutions) that flap around and slosh while it fights, and are connected to it's needle-fingers.  It's head is a clipboard, filled with pages of arcane script, that (a) incompletely describes the procedure required to bind an elemental spirit into a construct, (b) a patient with uncontrolled aggression and poor impulse control, and (c) recommended drug schedules for this patient.

HD 6
AC 4 [15]
Atk Needlefingers +6 (1d6+1 and Injection)
Move human x 2 on flat ground, human / 2 on everything else
Save 9 [11 if roll-under] but also has Golem Immunities

Injection: On a hit, the golem injects its target with horrible substances.  Roll a d4:

  1 - 8L of saline, -1 to hit, -25% speed until you squeeze it all out.

  2 - 3ml of 0.2% perchloromyrmidene, save or massive synesthesia (treat as blindness) for 1d6 hours.

  3 - 3ml of mutagen, save or gain a mutation from your DM's favorite table.

  4 - 3ml of morphine solution, save or stun 1 round and the DM keeps track of your (now secret) HP total for 1d6 hours.

Wizards of Eldritch America

This isn't a real blog post.

I killed +Alex Chalk's PC in my House of Hours game a couple of hours ago, and he wants to make a wizard to replace him.

Localization being important, I mentioned that I have pages and pages written up about the mechanics and rules for wizards in my Eldritch Americana (prosperous, post-apocalyptic Cthuloid 1920's American America).

Which is true, but I just need to convert them into something retroclone compatible.  So here's some of that conversion.

A Crowdsourced Wizard Tower

+Alex Chalk mentioned that he could really use a wizard tower dungeon, one with a live wizard inside.  Not an abandoned structure, but a living one.

I think that sounds like a great idea.  I could really use a random wizard tower, too.  They're awful easy to plop down on one's map.

Here's the tower of Khazan Khiraj, the Machinist.  He's a wizard who makes a lot of mechanically animated shit, and loves improving living animals.  The tower is called the Spire of Righteous Verticality.  Khazan Khiraj is fond of claiming that it stands straighter than any other tower in the world.

Psychonauts of the Floating Realm

There is a place.

No, that's not quite right.

Let me start over.

There is a experience of place.  It is not another dimension, as some have claimed.  Nor is it merely an experience, the way meditation is.  It lies beyond the wall of sleep.

You may call it the Dreamscape, but that's not accurate.  Sleep is a doorway, not a destination.

Neither is Psychotropia an accurate name since it is not of the mind nor part of it.  You do not describe an ocean by looking at the vessel you sail on.

You may not call it Qorfu.  That is what the residents call it, and it enrages them to hear our words from our lips.

The poets call it the Floating Realm, or The Land Adrift.

The Elves, in their usual idiom, call it Dul-Vecni-Farraf, which means "Garden-Behind-the-Wall".

In fact, none of these things may be true, since it isn't a place, but merely an interface.  Like the surface of the water, where a fish swimming east may meet a bird flying west.

While we are awake, our mind is filling our brain, controlling our body.  The two mesh.  But when we sleep, our mind wanders from our body, and ventures somewhere else. . .

Some Basic Facts about the Floating Realm:

1. Dreams are smaller versions of the Floating Realm.  They are private and safe.
2. The Floating Realm is public and dangerous.
3. When people dream, they sometimes enter the Floating Realm, or touch it briefly.
4. Even animals dream, and enter it similarly.
5. These visitors leave impressions in the Floating Realm, reflecting their memories.
6. Many things in the Floating Realm are projections (extractions) from the material world.
7. Many things in the Floating Realm are natives (as far as we are concerned).
8. Psychonauts are the people who enter the Floating Realm, to communicate or gather information.
9. In the Floating Realm, you risk more than your life.
10. Time is utterly meaningless in the Floating Realm.
11. There is a limit to how much you will remember when you wake up.  No more than a couple of paragraphs, for neophyte Psychonauts.

All Your Questions Will Be Answered

D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Troll and Flame did it: http://trollandflame.blogspot.com/2014/01/d-40th-anniversary-blog-hop-challenge.html

So did Swords and Dorkery: http://mikemonaco.wordpress.com/2014/02/01/dds-40th-blog-hop/

And Dyson: http://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2014/02/01/dungeons-dragons-dyso-28-questions-answers/

NOW I WILL DO IT.

I've never done one of these before, but I'll do my best.  Let me know if I go off topic or ramble or something.  

1. First person who introduced you to D&D. Which edition? Your first character?

I want to run a game where I put stats on everything.  HP, AC, attacks.  Like, at the most fundamental level, this would mean that the barbarian could dispel an enchantment by hitting it with his axe.  But it would also apply to other things.  Kill a fire by shooting it with wooden arrows?  Fine.  Destroy a child's sense of wonder?  Okay.  Attack the darkness?  YES.  Killing someone's civil liberties?  Check.

Basically, it's a one-button video game, and you can solve any problem by (a) identifying what you need to kill, and (b) killing it.