Deadly Dungeons 16: Gold Egg Lure

This natural chamber contains several wide, shallow pits. Perhaps 1ft deep and between 6 and 15ft across. Each pit holds several eggs of brilliant, sparkling gold. Each egg has a beautiful swirling pattern, and some even have speckles which appear to be tiny pearls. The beauty of these artifacts is all the more profound because they do not appear to be a work of craft, but a work of nature. The intricate details of each entirely unique egg could be studied for hours.

The empty space in each pit is filled with a dark, foul-smelling mash of organic material. This is packed around the eggs, holding them upright. No egg is closer than 1ft from any edge of the pit, or any other egg in the pit. It is a simple matter to identify the mash as the rotting meat of dead creature. Anyone with basic knowledge of nature will be able to deduce that this was probably done to insulate the eggs before they hatch, and provide food for whatever young emerge from them after. A close, detailed inspection of the mash will reveal that while most of it is of unrecognizable origin, there are several distinct humanoid parts included in the mash, such as fingers.

Also within this room are several small alcoves. The entrances to these alcoves are placed above eye level, between 7 and 10 feet off the ground. They are small, and well hidden amongst the natural flow of the stone walls. They will not be noticed unless the players specifically declare that they are looking at higher areas of the cavern wall with their torches. Simply walking the perimeter of the room would be insufficient.

Within these alcoves rest the parents of the eggs. Between 3 and 8 of them. The specific manner of this creature is left to GM discretion, as this is not a Merciless Monsters post. However, for my purposes, I chose a special breed of giant spider with the following attributes in addition to the basic ones:

Spins web which is razor sharp, rather than sticky. It prefers to consume chunks of bleeding meat, rather than drain its victim’s innards.
Mandibles which become superheated and can easily smelt metal or stone. This is both how it escapes from a golden egg in its youth, and how it creates this specific environment from sheer stone when it is time to mate.
Preys particularly on humanoid species.
Evolved eggs which avaricious humans would find too tempting not to try and steal.

Whatever creature is used, some sign of its presence should exist. Perhaps tangled strands of razorweb bunched up at the door, which a perceptive player might notice glinting in the torchlight.

While characters are distracted by the eggs, the creatures will move in to kill them. In the example of the razorweb spiders, they will spin a web across the cavern’s only exit, causing anyone who leaves to fall into bloody chunks. If the players set a watch while examining the eggs, that watch should notice the spider’s efforts and alert the rest of the party. Unless this or other precautions are taken, however, it is likely that at least one player will die here. Bear that in mind before making use of this room.

Tavern Tales 3 & Deadly Dungeons 15: The Funny Tea Room

The room is simple, largely conforming to the architectural style and level of dilapidation of the surrounding rooms. It is good if this room can be placed adjacent to a dining hall or kitchen, as when the dungeon was active, this room produced a drink which (for some reason) was favored by the lord or lady of the place.

It is dominated by a large pit in the floor, 5ft deep, filled with a swirling, bubbling, steaming liquid of a faintly brown color. On the wall of the room is a large rack covered in pegs, and from many of the pegs hang wooden mugs with a copper inlay. The mugs themselves are essentially worthless, being worth ~3cp each, for a total of 20-60 cups in all. The liquid in the floor both smells, and tastes, like a mild tea. If any one drinks it, they are affected by one of the following, determined by rolling 1d12. All effects are permanent, unless noted otherwise.

The liquid is poisonous to your body. Roll a save v. poison, or a fortitude save DC 15. Failure causes death.
A -1 to a random ability score. Use 1d6 to determine.
Spend 10 minutes vomiting and shaking violently.
Burn the roof of your mouth really, really badly.
Antlers sprout from your head.
Tiny, inefficient wings sprout from your back. They might be of *some* use keeping cool or jumping an extra 3-4 inches, but that’s about it.
Skin turns orange.
Feel pretty good about yourself for the rest of the day.
A scorpion stinger grows in your mouth. It is not harmful to you, nor does it interfere with normal tasks. It can be used to sting anything you put your mouth on, delivering a poison which deals 1d6 CON damage per turn, for 3 turns.
+20 to your strength for 1 hour.
A +1 to a random ability score. Use 1d6 to determine.
+1 level.

Players may continue to drink from the pit as many times as they like. Effects will stack with each other, and any effect rolled twice for the same character should be properly “enhanced” according to GM discretion. However, once a character has rolled a 9 or higher, their body will have adapted to the effects of the brew. From then on, regardless of the mixture they create (see below), or what they roll, no magical effect will occur. The drink is still quite tasty, though. They’ll find they enjoy it even more than before.

Adjacent to this room is a room filled with barrels. These barrels each contain a mixture which, when combined with the tea-water in the previous room, will slightly alter the random roll. If a barrel is completely dumped into the tea-water pit, then the additive will become inert after 10 minutes. If any two of these are mixed together, then their numerical bonuses or penalties will average. Orange spiral overrides anything it is mixed with. If any of these are consumed without being combined with the tea water, it tastes so awful the players will reflexively spit it out. Forced consumption causes death.

The symbols on the barrels, and their effects, are:

Blue Square. Smells like meat-juice. -4 to the random roll.
Purple Triangle. Smells like a bowl of raw egg. -2 to the random roll.
Red circle. Smells like beets. +2 to the random roll.
Black “X.” Smells like coffee. +4 to the random roll.
Orange Spiral. Smells almost sickeningly sweet. The random roll is replaced by a 1d6 roll to determine the player’s skin color: 1. Bright Red, 2. Blue, 3. Green, 4. Purple, 5. Orange, 6. Transparent. This effect functions even after the player has become immune to the tea-water’s other effects.

The above room appears in the megadungeon my players are currently exploring, Castle Nalew. They discovered it yesterday, and I think we probably spent an hour or more there. They tried every concoction they could think of, and much of the above information is stuff I had to improvise when they asked questions I wasn’t prepared for. Other information I had to improvise was: what happens when you become transparent twice, and what happens when you feed the liquid to a green ooze?

I could write a rather lengthy post about how much fun we had with this, but much of it would probably come across as “you had to be there” humor. However there is one story which is so impossibly perfect, I could not resist sharing it.

The very first character to dare drinking from the tea was the party’s monk. He rolled a seven, meaning his skin turned orange. Later, when they discovered the barrels in the next room, the monk was the first to try the orange spiral concoction, rolled a 5, making him orange a second time. I said that while he had been “Trump Orange,” he was now a wholly inhuman neon orange. After popping around to a few different colors, he again hit orange twice in a row, causing him to actually begin to glow orange with the strength of several candles.

The character’s name?

“Karrot.”

Sometimes the dice are the best comedians at the table.

Deadly Dungeons 14: Breaking Your Mother's Back

The floor of this room was apparently a single, smooth concrete surface at one time. Time has apparently not been kind to it, however, as a spiderwebbing network of cracks now cover the floor. Aside from any exits, the only notable feature of the room is a statue of a woman in the center. If the players are positioned such that they can see the statue’s face, each character will recognize it as a statue of their own mother. Any character who never knew their mother will see merely a blank face on the statue. Powerful illusory magic emanates from the statue.

Note that while describing the room, the GM should specify that the cracks are “spiderwebbing” in the manner written above. The GM should attempt to say this merely as part of the description, and only if the players choose to examine the cracks more closely should they be told that the pattern of the cracks does indeed vaguely resemble a spiderweb.

If a player specifies that their character will avoid stepping on the cracks, this can be accomplished easily; though the character’s speed will be reduced by half due to their caution. If a character declares they will move through the room without specifying that they would like to avoid the cracks, roll a 6 sided die. If the die lands on 1-4, then the character has stepped on one of the cracks and their foot immediately becomes stuck. If they are wearing light shoes or no shoes, they will also feel that their foot is not only ‘stuck’ on the bottom, but in fact being held by something wrapped so tightly around their foot that they cannot move it from the floor.

When a player becomes stuck, two things will happen immediately. First, that player will see the statue of their mother crack in half just above the waist, and the top half will fall to the floor. Other players will not see the statue crack, however, they will see a duplicate of the statue’s top half (bearing the face of the relevant player’s mother) separate itself from the actual statue, and fall to the floor. The standing statue other players see will continue to bear their own mother’s face.

Second, thousands of tiny green spiders erupt from the cracks all over the room. They will immediately descend on the trapped character, crawling all over them, and wrapping tiny green webs around their victim’s body in an attempt to cocoon the trapped character. The spiders are so numerous that no mundane attempt to stop them (such as stomping them or brushing them away) will be effective. More dramatic means (such as a wind blast or fireball) will work. It takes approximately 1 turn (10 minutes) for the spiders to entirely cocoon their prey.

If at any point the players cast See Invisibility, or use a spell which has a similar effect, they will be able to see a strange green sludge in the cracks. It gesticulates independently of outside forces, and is piled up around the foot of any player who is trapped. It is clearly a living ooze of some type. If they are able to see this ooze, the players will also notice that the spiders are apparently made of the same substance, and freely separate and merge with it. Once a player is completely wrapped in the cocoon, the sludge will drag them to the ground, and begin to pile itself over the player. A player in this condition will be given room to breathe as the beast prefers live prey, but will be devoured within 3 turns time.

The ooze creature is impervious to most mundane forms of attack, however it is vulnerable to fire, ice, electricity, and salt. Any of these in sufficient quantity will kill the creature, but only a small amount (such as the fire from a torch, the cold from an ice cube, or a small amount of salt for food flavoring) should be enough to free a trapped character.

Picture Thursday 24: Etchings from Francisco de Goya

I’m a big fan of Francisco De Goya. My experience with classical artwork is limited, as it is not really an area I have studied. But this dude had one dark, fucked up imagination. The way he exaggerates the facial structure and anatomy of his humans creeps me out, and of course, his famous depiction of Cronus remains the single most horrifying painting I have ever seen.
I recently found a collection of his etchings, and while I liked pretty much all of them, these are some of the ones which I found the most inspiring. I can imagine turning any of these into a monster.

Reader Mail: Player Driven Stories, How Do They Work?

In response to me tweeting that game masters should not plan campaign arcs, regular commenter and friend, Jimmy, asked:

“Then I have a slight request/idea. What about an article about how to best to get that player-driven story?”

I immediately agreed because it feeds my ego when people ask me these types of questions. But as I’ve thought about it, I’ve discovered that my answer is remarkably simple. So simple that it may even appear to be facetious. The best way to get your players to drive the story is to let them create characters, then put environments, challenges, and rewards around those characters. As your players tentatively explore the small world which exists around their characters, alter the world in response to their actions. Improvise and build on what your players do to expand the world around them and give them new goals to explore.

To sum up the above: just do what a game master does, without the story part. The story-crafting part of being a GM is unnecessary, and wastes a lot of energy. Players usually have a good idea of what they’d like to do next, and if they don’t, I’ve found that a very tiny nudge is usually enough to set them running. And as they run, the story unfolds from their actions.

The trick of a player driven story is the kind of story you get. If you approach tabletop RPGs expecting traditional narrative structure, this method will disappoint you. Stuff like “plot arcs,” which “build” to a “climax” rarely occur. Emotional payoff is rare, and anticlimax is common. If you were to read the story of one of my games in a book, it would seem directionless and random. It would have a shifting cast who have shifting goals. For a few months they’re trying to master a difficult spell, but they lose interest before completing that, and decide to spend a few months exploring an ancient castle instead.

I don’t chronicle my player’s adventures as an ongoing narrative. Rather, I gauge the success of my game’s story by the stories I hear my players relating after the fact. The anecdotes which light up their eyes with the retelling. Like that time they conquered an entire tower full of bandits even after being imprisoned and forced to improvise their weapons. Or the time they met that crazy guy who lived in a dungeon and took him back to town so he could watch their house while they were away on adventures!

But just because the GM isn’t the driving force behind the story, doesn’t mean the world can’t have cool stuff going on in it fore the players to discover. In fact, I happen to know that the princess of one of my game worlds is plotting to overthrow her father with the assistance of one of his generals. The general thinks he’s manipulating a spoiled 15 year old, but only her father knows that she’s a powerful enchantress. He took the precaution of obtaining protective wards for himself, but failed to similarly outfit his advisers. This has allowed the princess to cloud the general’s perceptions, and guide his actions towards her own ends. To boot, she has a powerful red dragon under her complete control, which she’ll use if things turn against her. My players might encounter this story any number of ways. The most notable are that the dragon’s Aunt–an ancient red–is infuriated by her nephew’s subjugation and has been raiding human settlements (unknowingly aiding the princesses’ schemes). Additionally, the general has been financing a number of bandit groups to destabilize the kingdom and foster discontent with the crown.

Some might call that a story, but I would not. It’s a situation which exists in the game world, for the players to do with as they will. Perhaps they’ll find it, solve the mystery of the princess’s treachery, and confront her in a climactic battle. Maybe they’ll just poison her food, or tell the king to watch his back. Maybe they’ll help her claim the throne in exchange for land ant titles. Or maybe they’ll never find out about this plot and instead spend their time looting ancient crypts of their gold. They certainly seem happy with that for the moment.

I recognize that this style of gameplay is not for everyone. For many, tabletop role playing games are a means of sharing a narrative. It’s serious-minded improvisational theater. I myself once viewed RPGs that way. But over the years I came to realize that tabletop RPGs were not satisfying to me as a storytelling medium. Between players who didn’t want to get into character, and the tremendous effort involved in guiding a narrative without outright railroading, I ultimately just found tabletop games to be stressful. Now I just respond to what my players want their characters to do, and I find I’m much happier for it.

Book Review: "At the Queen's Command," by Michael A. Stackpole

Book cover of “At the Queen’s Command” by Michael A. Stackpole.

Full disclosure: Mike Stackpole is a personal hero of mine. As a writer, as an independent thinker, and as a righteous dude. I’ve read and loved his books since I was a young child, so I’ll readily confess that I’m more than a little biased in assessing the quality of his work. None the less, I think this book might be of interest to my readership, so I wanted to share my thoughts with you.

I first picked “At the Queen’s Command” quite some time ago, back when Boarders was going out of business and selling off old stock for a fraction of its value. Its taken me this long to pick it up because I’m disinclined towards early colonial history. Ball and powder muskets bore me, and the rules used to engage in combat turned actual war into “combat as sport.” Not to mention the uncomfortable reality that the slaughter of native peoples and the slave trade are intrinsically linked to many of the ‘heroes’ of that period.

However, this world is entirely fictional. Though obviously based on the history surrounding the American revolutionary war, the names and circumstances have been altered. “Mystria” stands in for America, “Norisle” for England, “Tharyngia” for France, and “Altashee” for native peoples. This approach allows the book to go beyond the constraints of typical historical fiction or alternative history, into complete historical fantasy. A history where proto-draconic wurms are the pets of nobility and the mounts of the most prestigious cavalry. In this world magic is commonplace, but weak and of extremely limited use, requiring technology (such as the “firestones” in guns) to make it effective. It also allows for the oppression of the natives to be approached without historical baggage, and for slavery to be omitted entirely. The relationship Stackpole’s world has to the real one isn’t so different from the relationship Middle Earth or Westros has to medieval England. The parallels are just a little stronger in this instance.

In keeping with the low-magical tone of the setting, the real life wonders of the new world often dwarf those elements of the story which are actually fantastic. When wurms are introduced, they are treated as commonplace. The characters not only know they exist, but also have experience being around and handling them. Then there’s this passage, which is among my favorite in the book:

“There, thirty yards away, a massive beast on long legs emerged from the brush and onto a small sandbar jutting into the river. Brown in color save for its long, buff muzzle, its head was crowned with a huge rack of thick antlers. Its stubby tail and brown ears flicked about. The creature surveyeed the riverside, then cropped some of the grasses growing at the river’s edge.
“Owen lowered the pistol and released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. At that range he couldn’t have hit the beast. No matter. Such was its size that a single lead ball wouldn’t bring it down. Even a jeopard might think twice.
“The monster looked in his direction for a moment, then ambled back into the river and swam across the deep center channel. Once it had its feet under it again, the creature strolled toward the far shore, nibbling as it went. It never cast a glance back.”

Later, Owen is informed that what he saw was a moose.

But while a good setting (which this is) is important for a fantasy piece, the characters and narrative are what make a book worth reading. Here is where “At the Queen’s Command” really excels. The author gives us characters we can easily fall in love with; a duty-bound soldier who wants to do the right thing, an excitable and passionate natural philosopher, a skilled frontiersman who doesn’t have much use for society, and a native who cares for his friends, but is wary of the danger their people pose to his. He also gives us characters which twisted my gut with fear or tightened my teeth with hatred. I normally have trouble remembering character’s names, but the people inhabiting this world were so real to me that I don’t think there’s a name I’ve forgotten. Even the farmer in Hattesburg who shows up all of three times; his name was Seth.

The book’s narrative is often slow, but never plodding. It does not rush towards action and adventure, but rather takes its time to luxuriously peruse the locals and characters you encounter. Stackpole takes his time, without ever allowing a scene to feel excessive. And when action does occur, I found it that much more exciting. There were times when I was moving my eyes across words as fast as I possibly could because I was frantic to discover what happened next. That’s a very special level of engagement which I wish I experienced more often!

“Compelling” would be the TL;DR version of my thoughts. If you’d go so far as to grant me another word, I think I would go with “Fucking Compelling.“

I’m currently reading the book’s sequel, “Of Limited Loyalty,” and it’s no less impressive. It is tragic that the series’ third installment is in jeopardy due to issues with the publisher.

Buy this book. For serious.

Deadly Dungeons 13: Twisty Turny Dead End

This is a simple room, but one which kept my own players puzzled for some time.

At the end of the hallway, the players pass through a simple opening into a circular room. The room has a stone floor, and walls of bronze which gently curve inward at the ceiling, rising to a point in the center. The walls may be engraved or otherwise adorned, but the room itself is empty. If the players decide that this is merely a dead end, it is important that they be able to go back through the dungeon and take an alternative route.

If the players choose to tap the walls, they will find most of them to be solid. However, there are definite hollow areas which echo when tapped. Closely examining the floor where the ceiling meets the wall will reveal that the bronze walls are fitted into a groove in the floor which extends all the way around the room. This groove is most obvious where the players entered the room. However, given the generally poor condition of the floor, characters will not notice this groove unless they pay special attention to that doorway.

In fact, the bronze cone has special ball bearings beneath it, and can be turned freely. It is heavy, But a concerted effort from a strong character, or two characters with strength 10+, is sufficient to slowly turn the room at a speed of 1/4 rotation per game turn (10 minutes). More characters working together will be able to turn the walls proportionally faster. As the wall turns, the opening moves, revealing previously hidden passages behind the bronze wall.

The danger, of course, is that by turning the cone the players are cutting off their means of escape back through the dungeon. Unless they have enough people to turn the bronze cone very quickly, they will be forced to face any dangers they reveal.

Picture Thursday 23: Creepy Church by Nicole Cardiff

The stillness in this piece is palpable. When I look at it, I swear the room gets a little quieter around me.

Nicole Cardiff’s gallery is extensive. I highly recommend you browse through it. There’s page after page of amazing sci-fi and fantasy artwork. These are some of my favorites from just the first page, because there are too many to list them all:

Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

Water Temple

Ambush

Zombie Gnome

Pathfinder Class Analysis 12: Alchemist

Something which I greatly respect about Pathfinder is the way in which Paizo has avoided system bloat. D&D 3.5’s run produced some truly terrible books, each of which came with a handful of new classes, dozens of new prestige classes, and mountains of new spells. And while Paizo has published books containing all of these, they’ve usually done so with a measured hand. The non-core, base classes are well considered and fit nicely with the 11 core classes. They’ve also been released under the OGL, which Wizards of the Coast did not do with their supplemental material.

So while I’ve completed my analysis of the core classes, I see no reason to stop looking at the rest of them.

Core Concept: While it may seem contrary to my statement above, I hate the Alchemist. In my mind, the existence of an alchemist class which gains access to impossible new heights of alchemical mastery invalidates every wizard who ever made time to focus on brewing potions. In the core rules alchemy is made out to be a great feat–not so for alchemists! They can brew potions in a minute flat!

Hit Die: 1d8 seems quite high, doesn’t it? What makes the alchemist deserve a larger hit die than the wizard? I suppose it might be argued, based on the class description, that “using his own body as experimental stock” has toughened up the otherwise squishy character. But I think 1d6 might be more appropriate.

Alchemy: As mentioned above, my least favorite aspect of this class is the way in which I feel it devalues alchemy. Creating concoctions in a single minute, and being able to create so many in a single day, makes run-of-the-mill alchemy look silly.

Once upon a time I was working on a class (never settled on a name for it, though I did have the working title of “Alchemical Surgeon”). It was primarily a healing class, and while it did receive some bonuses, it largely had to craft potions using the same process as any other class. The primary difference was that the surgeon was much more adept at using the potions, delivering them via needle prick, and allowing a single dose to be used multiple times rather that only once.

I think this would have been a much more interesting route to go than the one the Alchemist’s designers chose. Not only does it avoid the problem of devaluing non-alchemist alchemy, but it avoids another problem as well. The Pathfinder alchemist’s concoctions only work when being held by the alchemist. Something about the alchemist’s aura makes them work, blah blah blah, bullshit. It’s the kind of explanation people come up with when they need to implement a rule for game reasons, and can’t think of sufficient justification for why that rule would exist in the game world, so they just say “magic.”

My surgeon, on the other hand, was able to make concoctions more potent because he or she possessed knowledge of anatomy and knew where & how to inject the patient. That’s a much better explanation in my book.

I will say one positive thing about alchemist alchemy: I like the idea of a caster who can save spell slots to prepare later in the day with a minimal investment of time. That’s something I would like to see implemented better with another class.

Bomb: Bombs are pretty cool, I essentially covered my only issue with them above: they become inert when held by anyone but the alchemist. Which begs the question: what if the target of a thrown bomb catches it? Shouldn’t they be given a chance to do this since the bomb will become inert as soon as they posses it?

Brew Potion: Kinda obvious that this would be a bonus feat at first level.

Mutagen / Persistent Mutagen: This is actually a pretty damned cool idea, and works a mite better than the other two types of Alchemist alchemy (bombs and extracts). A better explanation for why it only works for the alchemist who created it might be that every mutagen must be tailored to the person who will use it, and they are so complex that it’s not really possible to understand another person’s physiology well enough to create a mutagen for them.

One thing I would have liked to see was more flavor. Functionally this is just an alternate form of the Barbarian’s rage ability. I think it would have been cool to have a handful of special monsters which the Alchemist could turn into at different levels.

Throw Anything: I like the Throw Anything feat. It was a clever addition to this class which I don’t know that I would have thought of myself.

Discovery: Perhaps this is just because I’ve been getting more old-school lately, but does anyone else think this would be much more interesting as a random roll rather than a choice the player must make? The impression I get of the alchemist is that they do a lot of random mixing “just to see what will happen,” so random discoveries would be appropriate.

Regardless of how they are chosen, however, I like how this ability is implemented.

Poison Resistance: I think it would be better if Alchemists simply gained immunity to poison at level 2, rather than receiving a resistance which slowly grows until it becomes immunity at level 10. But that’s a pretty consistent difference between Paizo’s design philosophies and my own.

Poison Use: Impossible to poison one’s self while using poisons. Straightforward and logical. I always thought this ability ought to be a feat.

Swift Alchemy / Instant Alchemy: These abilities only further speed up the Alchemist’s ability to create concoctions, and compound my primary issue with the class even further.

Swift Poisoning: Unlike performing alchemy quickly, applying poisons more quickly is pretty mundane and makes good sense to me. Though now that this ability exists, it ought to be an assassin ability as well.

Grand Discovery: This is among the cooler capstone abilities. Again it feels like it should be random, but that’s a pretty small complaint all things considered.

Alchemist Formulae: While I have no comment on the content of the Alchemist’s spell list, I like that the maximum spell level available is 6. There are several “partial casters” like the paladin who are primarily focused on their non-spellcasting abilities, but they normally max out at 4th level spells. The Alchemist leans in the other direction, with a heavier investment in magic. I’d prefer to see more classes like that, I think.

Map Monday

I’ve been working on making better dungeon maps lately. Incorporating interesting elements, creating large branching paths, stuff like that. This is my most recent attempt which I probably won’t be using for anything. I’ve recently become enamored of dungeons with rivers running through them. It’s an interesting way to incorporate something natural into the generally artificial dungeon environment, and serves as an interesting tool for both exploration and encounters.

If you’ve any desire to use this, feel free.