Variant Spell Preperation

Casters are overpowered in Pathfinder. It’s not exactly a controversial statement. They’re less overpowered compared to non-casters than they were in D&D 3.5, but that’s not saying much. Wizards were demoted from Gods, to merely Demi-Gods. Finding ways to creatively nerf wizards has become a side hobby of mine. I’d like to bring them in line with the other classes, without taking away of the flavor which I view as central to the class.

In early editions of D&D, Magic Users gained their spells at random, and that served as an effective balancing device. And while I think it’s a really cool idea, I don’t think it fits into the Pathfinder mythos very well. A Pathfinder wizard is a scholar; there is nothing random about how they go about their business. I’ve suggested before simply removing any spells that a wizard gains by leveling up, and instead offering the wizard spells as treasure. I still like this idea a lot, but I understand that not everyone can get behind such a large nerf. It has also recently been suggested that any spell a Wizard casts from a scroll should count against their total spells per day. I quite like this idea as well, but obviously it’s not sufficient to completely balance the class.

While reading a recent post over at Brendan’s site Untimately, I struck upon another idea. What if the spell slots of the Wizard (or any other Caster) were not level specific? According to the current Pathfinder rules, every time a wizard gains a new spell level, they have only 1 spell slot for that level. At the next level it goes up to two slots, two levels after that it goes up to three slots, and three levels later it maxes out at four slots. By level 20, a Wizard is able to prepare four spells from all ten spell levels each day, for a total of 40 spells every day. If they like, a lower level spell can be placed in a higher level spell slot, but that always feels kinda wasteful, doesn’t it?

Using this idea, a wizard will still have spell slots, and still prepare their spells using a Vancian “fire and forget” system. But instead of having X number of slots for Y level spells, the caster will instead gain generic spell slots which can be used to memorize spells of any level. The catch is that each spell requires a number of spell slots equal to its spell level to memorize. So a fifth level spell will require five spell slots.

The way the system scales is really quite interesting. Using the official Pathfinder rules, characters who reach a new spell level can only prepare a single spell of that level until they gain a new character level. Using system, however, characters probably have enough spell slots to prepare several of their highest level spells as soon as they gain access to them–but at the expense of only having a few spells to cast for the day.

I feel like I’m writing ‘level’ and ‘spell’ a lot.

Another interesting thing about this system is that it becomes remarkably easy to scale the wizard’s level of power until you find a good fit for your game. If you’re running a low magic game, Wizards start with 4 spell slots, and gain 2 new slots each time they gain a class level. If you’re running a game with more magic, wizards start with 3 spell slots, and gain 3 each time they level.

The system seems elegant to me, but I haven’t play tested it yet. I wish I could claim credit for coming up with the idea first, but it appears Brendan beat me to the punch by almost a year. And apparently an old sourcebook called The Principalities of Glantri Gazeteer beat him to the punch by several decades. Still, I think the idea deserves some consideration.

May of the Dead: Hungry Hungry Vampire

May is winding down, but we’ve got time for one last May of the Dead post. I’ve really enjoyed writing these, and if you’ve enjoyed reading them I hope you’ll decide to stick around. Papers & Pencils updates regularly, and it’s difficult for me to go too long without writing something about the undead. They are so much more engaging than other types of fantastical creatures.

I’m going to make a bold leap, and assume we’re all familiar with the traditional vampire. The one which stays out of the sun, doesn’t show up in mirrors, and sustains itself off of people’s blood. That last point is what I’m going to focus on here: blood as vampiric sustenance. Aside from being dead, feeding on blood is perhaps the most consistent element of vampire lore. Some stories will dismiss vampires being invisible in mirrors, others disregard their weakness before religious relics, but even the greatest bastardizations of the vampire concept maintain the idea that vampires must consume blood to survive.

So…what happens if they don’t consume any blood?

There doesn’t seem to be any definitive agreement on what happens if a vampire doesn’t consume blood. For living creatures the answer is simple: if we fail to consume sustenance, we die. But vampires are already dead, so the consequences for them seem far less certain. I haven’t found any primary source that could provide an answer to this question either. I’m not exactly a scholar, but my limited knowledge of folklore and classical literature has not provided me with an answer. Probably because those traditional stories are not told from the vampire’s perspective, but rather from those desperately hoping they don’t become the vampire’s next meal.

Lacking any definitive answer to the question, we have the opportunity to fill in the blanks ourselves. And I’ve got a few ideas.

The Official Explanation As a Pathfinder GM, I still rely on a lot of my old D&D 3.5 sourcebooks. And on page 9 of Libris Mortis, there is a table which categorizes and quantifies the various undead, how their hungers affect them. It indicates that Vampires are “Diet Dependent” on Blood, and have an “Inescapable Craving” for life force. These terms are defined thusly:

“Inescapable Craving: Some undead have no “bodily” requirement to feed, and could continue to exist solely on negative energy, but are driven to their diet all the same by inescapable cravings. These cravings, denied too long, could turn even a sentient undead to mindless hunger. Once the feeding is accomplished and the hunger sated, the intensity of the craving drops back to tolerable level, but it is a cycle doomed to repeat itself.” -Andy Collins & Bruce R. Cordell, Libris Mortis, Page 8

“Diet Dependent: Some undead must feed on the living to retain either their mobility or some of their other abilities. The link to the Negative Energy Plane for undead of these sort grows increasingly tenuous the longer they are denied the necessary food. At some point, their mobility or one or more specific abilities are suppressed until they can feed again. However, no matter how enervated by lack of feeding, undead cannot be starved to the point of permanent deanimation. A fresh infusion of their preferred food can always bring them back to their full abilities. Most diet-dependent undead can go for 3d6 months before losing all mobility.” -Andy Collins & Bruce R. Cordell, Libris Mortis, Page 10

I cover some of these ideas in more detail below. Personally I don’t find them very satisfying.

Re-Death: I see no reason why there shouldn’t simply be a point at which lack of blood to feed upon causes a vampire to be destroyed. Part of what makes vampires such intriguing villains is that they are notoriously difficult to kill. Take them to 0 HP, and they’ll just turn into a cloud of mist and escape through the cracks in the walls. The only way to kill a vampire is to outsmart them in one way or another. Fool them into entering an area of sunlight, for example, or find their (no doubt well hidden) daytime lair and drive a stake through their heart. Depriving a vampire of blood for a year fulfills the same criteria: it requires the players to outsmart the vampire by first constructing a prison which will hold it, then figuring out how to get the vampire inside of it. Though if you could do that, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just expose it to direct sunlight.

Insanity: Each month a Vampire goes without blood, they permanently lose a little more of their grip on reality. After one month, it’s just little things. They forget minor details, like where they left their favorite candelabra. After two months, they occasionally forget larger things. Whole years of their existence disappear from memory, only to be recovered later. Three months without feeding causes the Vampire to occasionally depart reality entirely, and they suffer vivid hallucinations. After four months the vampire lives constantly in a disconnected state. It knows to avoid that which is dangerous to it, such as sunlight, but it otherwise seems to have no connection to reality. After five months, the vampire becomes like a feral creature, constantly hunting for blood, with no thoughts or concerns beyond finding more and more blood to feed upon. Finally, after six months, the vampire loses its understanding of danger, and will most often wander into the sunlight and destroy itself.

This insanity is cumulative throughout the vampire’s existence. Feeding on blood only prevents the process from continuing forward for another month. Nothing can help a vampire regain lost sanity.

Blood is an Addiction: Vampires are blood junkies. They don’t need it to survive, but they crave it with a desire more intense than they can possibly resist. If they don’t drain at least one victim a week, the cravings become unbearable and drive the vampire to take greater and greater risks in order to get their fix. If, by some miracle, they manage to resist the urge to feed on the blood of the living, there is no amount of time which will free them from their addiction. They will begin to suffer withdrawal pains, and will continue to experience agony until the end of time if they can’t feed.

Blood is Power: Perhaps there are no real ill effects for failing to consume blood. If a vampire never leaves their mark on another neck, then they can continue to exist as they already do for as long as they like. However, it is only through consuming blood that a vampire learns, and grows, and becomes powerful. Immediately following a feeding, the vampire feels a rush of power which slowly fades after about ten minutes. But a small sliver of that power remains. After draining 100 living victims, the Vampire gains 1HD.

Less Blood is Power: Assuming blood is an addiction, as stated above, then what if vampires grew in power the longer they were able to exist without blood? Perhaps the pains of withdrawal are simply the pain which is inherent to being a vampire unencumbered by narcotics. The longer a vampire avoids dulling their mind and their body with Blood, the stronger and smarter they become. The greatest vampires have gone without blood for centuries, and exist in a state of constant pain.

Demotion: Vampires are the highest form of undead creature, rivaled only by the lich. They retain all of their knowledge, their self-awareness, their willpower; everything about who they are remains intact. Even their appearance is unchanged! The only real drawback is that in order to retain everything that they managed to keep from their living existence, they must constantly feed upon blood. If they do not, then as time goes on they will begin to forget things. They will become less self aware, and their willpower will fade. After too long, they will be nothing but a ghast, or perhaps even a lowly zombie.

Blood is Youth: Each week a Vampire goes without blood, their physical body decomposes about the same amount that a corpse would normally decompose in a given day. So vampires who wish to intermingle with human society (as Dracula did) must feed frequently. While those who care less about whether or not they can pass for alive do not need to concern themselves with feeding regularly. The effects of this decomposition would be cumulative, so once you miss your weekly feeding, you’ll never be able to return to a less-decomposed state.

Coincidentally, this would explain the large variance in vampire appearances. In the original novel, Dracula was able to pass for a living human. Whereas the classic silent film, Nosferatu most certainly cannot. Strahd is somewhere in between, as he is often depicted with deathly blue skin.

Last Blood: About six years ago, I started reading a webcomic called Last Blood, which was about a group of vampires attempting to help some humans survive the zombie apocalypse. Its been some years since I stopped following the comic, but it was quite good. And the catalyst for the story was a vampire who went for too long without blood. You ought to read the comic’s explanation, but the short version is that if a vampire goes too long without blood, then they become a kind of “alpha zombie,” which is able to create other zombies, and control them. Not too frightening in a high magic world where zombies are commonplace, but in a low magic world where the the very thought of walking dead is still enough to send a shiver down an adventurer’s spine, this could be an interesting method to use.

May of the Dead: Crypt of Ancient Wisdom

This week’s May of the Dead post is partially inspired by an idea for a novel which I’ve been toying with for a few years.

The Tragedy of the Gorovik Family

It began when a warrior named Toman Gorovik led his followers to an untamed piece of land. There they settled, establishing the Kingdom of Gorvikar. Toman found a high, defensible ridge with a sweeping view of the forest, and began to build his castle there. He would never live to see the massive structure completed, but to honor her father, Yehne Gorovik had a crypt built into the castle behind the throne. When she lay her father to rest, she decreed that the monarchs of Gorvikar would always rest upon the wisdom of their forebears.

An unintentionally prophetic statement.

Three generations later, the Gorovik Family Castle came under siege from a violent army of southern men, eager to gain a foothold on the northern frontier. Anotar Gorovik, a skilled diplomat, was at a loss against his intractable foe. His military advisers tried to help, but each suggested a different course of action, and Anotar felt unqualified to pick between them. In a moment of frustration, he ordered everyone out of the great hall so that he could think. He paced the room for fifteen minutes without making any progress. Desperate for guidance, he pushed the stone door behind the throne open, and descended the short spiral staircase into the family crypt.

Anotar knelt beside his father’s shelf in silence for long moments. When he finally spoke, he told his father of the trials he was facing, and his lack of preparedness for them. He outlined the potential dooms he predicted if he were to follow any of his advisers’ council. He begged for his father’s guidance. He did not expect an answer, but his dead father’s mouth moved slightly, and with dust filled lungs he whispered “Harron,” the name of one of Anotar’s advisers. The young man stared with mouth agape for long moments, not sure if his father’s advice had been real or imagined.

Resolving that a decision he was wary of was better than no decision at all, the young king sealed the crypt, and ordered his soldiers to follow Harron’s plan. They did, the siege was broken, and the southerners were sent running back to their distant homes. Anotar was hailed as a military mastermind, and he humbly tried to divert the praise to Harron, fearing the backlash from his people were they to learn he had received advice from the dead. He returned again to the crypt many times throughout his rule, and found he could seek guidance from each of his ancestors buried there. By taking advantage of each of their wisdom, Anotar’s rule became the most prosperous in the history of Gorvikar. The nation’s territory and influence expanded greatly.

The secret of the Crypt of Ancient Wisdom was passed from monarch to monarch for a century before it was given to young Queen Byan from her father as he lay on his deathbed. Byan was a scholar, and shortly after her father’s internment, she began interrogating the corpses there about how the crypt functioned. When she found that none could answer her, she brought in necromancers from around the world to study the phenomena. They discovered that the castle had been built on a small fissure in the prime material plane, which intersected with the Negative Energy Plane. The fissure was very small, and the negative energy which filtered through it acted like a permanent Speak With Dead spell upon the whole castle.

The effect was so unique that Byan had no difficulty recruiting the greatest necromancers in the known world to help her study and refine the effect. Over the years she became quite a necromancer herself, and was personally responsible for many of the major breakthroughs in understanding and manipulating the fissure. As knowledge of the fissure spread, she comforted her people by telling them only that the gods had granted the Gorovik line a gift, by allowing them to seek advice from their ancestors who had passed on to the heavens. The reality wasn’t quite so celestial, but no one needed to know that.

Thanks to Byan, the fissure’s energy was focused so it only affected the crypt itself. And the fissure’s shape was refined, allowing the ancestors interred there to offer more than one-or-two word answers. They could converse with those who came to seek their wisdom, and even offer suggestions of their own. Byan also established a permanent, and secret, school of necromancy within the castle. It was her hope that research and refinement of the fissure would continue long after her time had passed. Though, since she herself would be interred there, she hoped to continue her research even after her life had ended.

Byan’s daughter, Gwyndolin Gorovik, trained every day at her mother’s knee. She became a powerful necomancer herself. When it came time for her to take the reigns of power, she already had great plans for how she would contribute to her mother’s legacy. She hired agents, graverobbers, to go out into the world and bring her the remains of history’s wisest. Philosophers, tacticians, scholars, and wizards were all brought to her, and she personally placed each one in the quickly-filling crypt. The collective knowledge of the crypt grew tenfold during Gwyndolin’s reign. Guided by the crypt, Gorvikar embarked on an expansionist war of conquest against its neighbors. The day Gwyndolin accepted the unconditional surrender of the nation of Thoreon, she declared herself the first Necrarch of the New Gorvikar Empire.

For a thousand years, the unbroken line of Necrarch’s ruled the Gorvikar Empire ruthlessly, easily out-thinking and out-maneuvering all who challenged them. An open bounty on the remains of anyone wise enough to contribute to the Crypt caused an endless stream of fresh perspectives to be added to the ever-expanding catacombs. The rift which caused the effect repeatedly had to be widened to cover a larger and larger area of the castle, as the crypt was expanded to accommodate more bodies. By the reign of Ophelia Gorovik, all that remained in the castle was the throne itself, and thousands upon thousands of bodies. When Ophelia died on her throne without an heir, it was thought that the Gorvikar empire would end with her.

Weeks passed. Many of the nations which had been conquered over the ages began to secede, thinking the threat of the Necrachs had passed. Even those who hoped to seize the throne of Gorvikar for themselves agreed that the Gorovik Family Castle must be destroyed. As they stood outside the castle gates, planning the demolition, they began to hear an indecipherable whisper. As they listened, the whisper grew more confident, and was joined by other voices. Soon, thousands upon thousands of voices joined together in a booming, unified chorus:

“We are Gorvikar. The nations to the south have seceded. This is unacceptable.”

May of the Dead: Undead Items

It’s Friday again, which means it’s time for another undead-themed post as part of the May of the Dead Blog Carnival! This week’s entry is a new type of magic item which I call an “Undead Item.”

An Undead Item is not simply a magic item with an undead theme. Plenty of magic items have skull or death motifs, and many have effects which are related to undead. But though these items have an obvious connection to undeath, they are not themselves undead items. An undead item has an un-life all its own. While not necessarily intelligent, undead items are created by taking dead matter (such as a limb from a corpse) and empowering it with negative energy through an evil crafting ritual which creates–in essence–a very simple undead creature. A creature which usually cannot move or act on its own, but which instead serves to bestow its powers upon whoever wields it.

It is important to note that while many undead items are named for more well recognized types of undead creatures, the item itself is not necessarily made from that creature. In fact, as with other forms of undead, an undead cannot normally be created from a corpse which has ever been animated before.

Zombie Juice This swirling red concoction comes in vials of about 6 ounces each. If it is imbibed, then unintelligent undead will view the user as ‘one of them’ for one hour per ounce which is consumed. Zombies, skeletons, and other such creatures will not attack the user unless specifically direct to do so by their master. And, in such a case, commands such as “destroy the human!” will not work. The undead creature’s master must very specifically indicate which creature is to be attacked.

If anyone wishes to consume more than 6 ounces at a time, they must succeed on a constitution check (DC: 12 + the number of ounces over 6 which are being consumed). Failure causes the user to be incapacitated for 10 minutes while they violently vomit. After 5 minutes of vomiting, the any effects gained by the Zombie Juice disappear, and the incapacitated user is subject to attacks from unintelligent undead.

Crafting Materials: Blood from an intelligent creature which was alive when the blood was taken but has since died, Unholy Water

Deadman’s Gaze A Deadman’s Gaze appears as an eyeball wrapped in flesh, with eyelids intact. It sleeps much of the time when it is not in use, but occasionally looks around on its own, taking in its surroundings. From the back of the orb protrudes a 20ft long ocular nerve, thick and tough like a rope. Anyone whose skin comes in contact with this ocular nerve will see whatever the Deadman’s Gaze sees so long as their own eyes are closed. Whoever holds the end of the ocular nerve will also be able to control the eye, opening and closing it, and looking in whatever direction they desire.

The eye’s primary use is to scout dangerous areas without putting the user in jeopardy. It has also occasionally been used as a torture device, since it can be used to force someone to watch something they wish to look away from, even when their eyes are closed. One of its most useful applications is as an impromptu nighttime guardian. Someone holding the ocular nerve and closing their eyes will not find it difficult to sleep. They will see what the eye sees as though it is a noiseless dream. The eye will attempt to observe everything it can from wherever it is positioned, and will focus on anything which visually seems threatening, but it cannot sense audio indicators of danger.

Crafting Materials: The eye of a humanoid creature, a sliver of brain tissue from a humanoid creature, an ounce of freshly shorn humanoid skin, 20ft of finely crafted rope.

Dead Messenger This simple skull and jawbone can record any message which is whispered into its “ear.” Once the message has been spoken, a set of necromatic command words are used to determine when the message should be activated. The parameters of its activation must be relatively simple, such as:

A command word, or phrase is uttered within “earshot” of the Dead Messenger.
A creature of a certain type comes within 20ft of the Dead Messenger.
When the area the skull is in becomes illuminated.

When the parameters are met, the Dead Messenger will then repeat the message in its own, guttural, clattering voice. It will continue to do this, repeating the message any time the parameters are met, until it is given a new message set of necromatic commands.

Crafting Materials: One skull and jawbone from the same creature, one silver piece placed between the skull and jawbone.

Food Taster This un-decomposing humanoid tongue is wet with saliva. Though it is not necessary, many are mounted on a handle, since it is unpleasant to hold them in your hand. When a Food Taster is touched to a substance, it will turn green if that substance would have a negative chemical or biological reaction to the user’s body. It can be used to detect any kind of poison, whether it is an ingested, inhaled, intravenous, or contact poison. It can also be used to locate dangerous diseases by touching it to an infected individual. Note that this item cannot be used to determine any information about a dangerous substance, only that the substance is dangerous to the user. Note also that if the user is immune to a substance which might be dangerous to others, the Food Taster will will not turn green in the presence of that substance.

Crafting Materials: One humanoid tongue from a creature who was killed by a poison, venom, or disease.

Grip of Despair Two skeletal hands connected by a single radius and ulna (the bones of the forearm). When not in use, the hands clasp and unclasp, or waggle their fingers, looking for something to grab hold of. When placed on the arms or legs of a small or medium creature, the Grip of Despair functions as a pair of masterwork manacles. In addition to binding a creature, the Grip of Despair cause any creature they grab hold of to act as though Shaken for as long as the manacles are on. No saving throw against this effect is allowed, though creatures which are immune to fear effects are not affected. In addition, any creature bound by a Grip of Despair takes a -2 on all will saves, with an additional -2 for any will save against fear.

Crafting Materials: Two skeletal hands (one left, one right), one skeletal forearm.

Spinal Column Scimitar This +1 scimitar, composed entirely of vertebrae, pulsates with negative energy. When not in use, it can occasionally be seen flexing back and forth with its limited mobility. On a successful hit, the victim must succeed on a fortitude save (DC: 18) or be paralyzed for 6 rounds. Even on a successful saving throw, the victim will be paralyzed for 1 round.

Crafting Materials: The spinal column of a paralyzed humanoid.

Funeral Procession Carriage The body of this carriage has a largely normal construction–though many are ornamented with depictions of skulls or other deathly imagery. It differs from a normal carriage in that it has no wheels, nor any harness for horses. Instead, the carriage is supported and propelled by row after row of skeletal legs which move in unison. Each pair of legs is mounted to a pelvic bone, which is mounted directly into the bottom of the carriage’s coach compartment. The legs are speedy and agile, which allows the Funeral Procession Carriage to move faster, and across more difficult terrain than most carriages could manage.The legs are also capable of shifting to a kneeling position to facilitate easy entry and exit from the carriage.

In order to function properly, the skulls associated with each pair of legs must be included in the construction of the coach. This is sometimes accomplished by mounting the skulls on the carriage, but more often the skulls are broken into smaller pieces, and their shards embedded in the wood used to construct the coach. The shards are spread evenly throughout all the wood of the carriage, and so long as one skull fragment from a given skull remains as part of the coach, the associated legs will continue to function. This prevents minor damage from disabling any of the legs.

Most necromancers are able to control a Funeral Procession Carriage using necromatic command words. Most of these carriages are also designed to accept any commands spoken by someone within the the cabin, though some are intended for use as prisoner transports, and do not include this function.

Crafting Materials: One carriage, at least twenty skeletons (four rows, five columns. Torsos are not required), the brain of a carriage driver.

Jabbering Prophet An un-decomposed head with emeralds embedded in each eye socket. The stump where the neck would normally connect to the head is capped with a metal plate which has been bolted in place. The jabbering prophet speaks constantly about things which seem to be of little or no importance. In fact, these nonsensical utterances are a constant stream of information about the past, present, or future of random creatures which exist throughout the multiverse. Were anyone able to record and catalog all of this information, it would no doubt reveal a great many secrets, but the task would be an impossibly monumental undertaking.

Once every hour, the jabbering prophet pauses for 30 seconds, then its emerald ‘eyes’ look towards someone within its field of vision, and it speaks a prophecy relevant to that individual. This effect can be controlled by facing the jabbering prophet towards a specific individual, and ensuring that no one else stands within the head’s field of vision. The prophecy which is spoken will most often relate to events which can take place within an hour’s time, but occasionally an event of great importance which may not happen for many years will be prophesied. Examples of such prophecies include:

If you travel south, you will be ambushed by orcs.
If you visit the elves, a blade in hand will be more deadly to you than to your enemies.
The Duke of Elloron will deceive you thrice when you meet.

Aside from the pause it takes each hour, the jabbering prophet never stops speaking, though it does know to whisper if its wielder is attempting to be quiet. This causes a -6 penalty on all stealth checks. The sound of the prophet’s speaking can be muffled by cloth, or magically silenced. However, if the jabbering prophet is ever physically forced not to speak (such as with a muzzle) then it will strain to speak until it destroys itself.

Crafting Materials: The head of a diviner 12th level or higher, two emeralds with a spell of True Seeing cast upon them.

More Goblins for 'We Be Goblins, You Be Food'

This coming weekend, more than half of my group is unavailable for our normal game. I don’t want to send the Rogue and the Barbarian on an adventure all by themselves, so I’m arranging something a little different for this session. Late last year–before the Rogue or the Barbarian joined my gaming group–I ran a free Pathfinder module called “We Be Goblins.” It was immense amounts of fun, and the whole group agrees that we’d like to return to those goblin characters and play some more, but we’ve yet to get around to that. However, since neither of the players attending this session were there when we played through the module the first time, I figure this will be a good opportunity to introduce them to goblin culture.

The adventure was pretty easy with four players, so I don’t imagine it will be overwhelming with only two, and I’m trying to rustle up a third. However, I don’t really want to let these players use three of the four pre-made characters which come with the module. Chuffy, Mogmurch, and Poog. Because if we ever do get around to playing the goblins as a full group, I don’t want more than one person in the group to feel attached to a given character. The guy who played Rita really didn’t like her and has already asked to change characters, but that still leaves two potential players who wouldn’t have characters of their own to play.

To that end I made two new goblins in the same style used in the module: Gork Stabslicer the Barbarian, and Yrt Gutmuncher the Ranger. I even filled both of their inventories with garbage, and wrote little songs for them to sing, like the four original characters had. And given that a lot of people find this site by searching for the module in question, I thought their sheets might be of interest to anyone who will be playing the module with a group of more than four players.

Gork Stabslicer
Male Goblin Barbarian 1
CE Small Goblinoid
Init 4; Senses Perception +5; Darkvision 60ft.

Defenses

AC 21, Flat Footed 16, Touch 16 [10 + Dex(4) + Hide Armor(4) + Size(1) + Dodge(1) + Shield(1)]
hp 14 (1d12 +2)
Fort +4 Ref +4 Will +1

Offense

Speed 40ft
Melee Warhammer + 5 (1d6 + 3 /20 x3)

Stats

Str 16 (+3) Dex 18 (+4) Con 15 (+2) Int 8 (-1) Wis 12 (+1) Cha 9 (-1)
Base Atk +1; CMB +3; CMD 17
Feats Dodge
Goblin Trait Advanced Distraction (1/day use a swift action to gain +2 AC for one round.)
Skills Ride (+8), Stealth (+12), Acrobatics (+8), Perception (+5), Survival (+5)
Languages Goblin
Gear Warhammer, Hide Armor, Light Wooden Shield (Old barrel top), 32 silver pieces, loaf of stale bread, Book with all the pages torn out, 3 iron ladels, pet toad in a birdcage named “lil’ Gork,” a wizard’s hat, a small jar of jelly beans.

Song

Gork like slicing, Gork like stab,
Cut up longshanks into ham!
Make the dogs and children flee,
On their faces I will pee!

Yrt Gutmuncher
Female Goblin Ranger 1
CE Small Goblinoid
Init 4; Senses Perception +6; Darkvision 60ft.

Defenses

AC 19, Flat Footed 15, Touch 15 [10 + Dex(4) + Hide Armor(4) + Size(1)]
hp 11 (1d10 +1)
Fort +3 Ref +6 Will +2

Offense

Speed 30ft
Melee Handaxe + 3 (1d4 + 1 /20 x3)
Ranged Shortbow + 5 (1d4 /20 x3)(60ft)

Stats

Str 13 (+1) Dex 19 (+4) Con 12 (+1) Int 11 (+0) Wis 15 (+2) Cha 7 (-2)
Base Atk +1; CMB +1; CMD 15
Feats Point Blank Shot
Goblin Trait Color Thief (+2 on Stealth checks)
Skills Ride (+8), Stealth (+18), Craft(Fletcher)(+4), Heal(+6), Perception(+6), Survival(+6), Knowledge(Dungeoneering)(+4)
Languages Goblin
Gear Handaxe, Shortbow, 24 arrows, Hide Armor, 40 silver pieces, small steel mirror, Pet Toad “Jog,” Jingle Bells, Dull Shaving Razor, Bundle of 12 rat tails, Empty wine bottle, Wooden holy symbol of Kord

Song

Yrtie fire arrows sharp
Pointies pierce you in the heart!
Axe will rend and tear and bite,
Yrtie hurt all beasts in sight!

May of the Dead: Variant Zombies

I’ve always had a passion for the macabre. In particular, I am very fond of all things pertaining to undeath. My preference tends towards the unsettling majesty of gothic fantasy, but I’m not above enjoying a B horror movie or two. So when I was asked to participate in May of the Dead, I didn’t hesitate. I don’t exactly need an excuse to fill this site with my darker imaginings, but since I have one, I thought it would be a good opportunity to work on a number of undead-themed posts in a row. Each Friday during the month of May, I’ll be animating a new undead-themed post. And if you’d like to read more, there are many other websites participating in this little carnival.

For this first post, I’d like to discuss zombies. Though they lack the elegance of an animated skeleton, and are currently suffering from their severe overexposure in recent years, the zombie is none the less a fundamental fantasy foe. And while the classic shambling cadaver will never go out of style, it is diminished by its own omnipresence. What is a GM to do? How can we inject a sense of danger back into a creature which players have faced so many times that they know the creature’s statblock and abilities like the backs of their character sheets?

We reinvent it.

Part of the reason zombies are so enduring is because they are the most fundamental kind of undead we can imagine. They are dead bodies, which none the less are capable of moving on their own, and want to hurt the living. You might say that a zombie is a blank slate, waiting to be given the kind of unique attributes which can turn it into a truly memorable monster. Pathfinder has already done this, somewhat. In the Bestiary, the zombie entry contains a small section titled “Variant Zombies” on page 289. Detailed therein are the “fast zombie,” and the “plague zombie,” both of which are pretty self explanatory. The former are faster than normal zombies, and the latter can infect victims with a zombifying disease. Here are a few other ways I’ve come up with to reanimate your player’s fear of zombies:

Exploding Zombies These have become popular in zombie-centric video games which need a way to ramp up difficulty without straying too far from their core theme. The idea makes a certain kind of sense: when a person dies, their decomposing body creates a lot of gas. Normally this gas is expelled gradually, but if we can stretch our imaginations far enough to accept walking dead in the first place, then we can certainly imagine that all of these gasses somehow end up trapped inside the corpse. Perhaps inside a bloated and distended stomach. This state could be an accidental byproduct of the reanimation process, causing perhaps one in every ten or twenty zombies to become an exploding zombie. Particularly sinister necromancers might create these undead bombardiers intentionally, and unleash a horde of them on an unsuspecting adventuring party.

Pungent Cloud Zombies Speaking of gasses, why limit ourselves to something as ostentatious as an explosion? I find undead are always the most enticing when they’re a little mysterious, and subtle. Those same gasses produced by decomposition could form an oppressive miasma. A single zombie would only effect those standing in adjacent squares, but each zombie reinforces the cloud of fear and despair which surrounds them. A large enough horde might affect anyone standing within a mile of them. Those affected would have their intellects clouded, and their bodies made sluggish. Wizards would find they could not recall their most powerful (read: highest spell level) incantations, and fighters would seem to miss a lot more than they normally would (-5 to attack rolls).

Slightly Intelligent Zombies Traditionally, zombies are mindless. That’s almost part-in-parcel of what it means to be a zombie. If a necromancer needs a servant which can think, they create a ghoul. A zombie is created when a necromancer needs a large force which will obey them without question. But lets say that a group of zombies is created by an erratic necromancer, or perhaps has no master, but has managed to avoid destruction for years or even decades. Why not give them an intelligence of 2? That’s not enough that they could learn speech, or form any kind of society. But it is enough that they could communicate on a very basic level, and even form simple tactics to better defeat their enemies with.

Somewhat-to-Highly Intelligent Zombies Zombies created by a downright insane necromancer, or who have lived for a century or more, might become as intelligent as you or I. It is unlikely that they would recall, or care to recall, anything about their life, but their intelligence would provide them with a unique advantage in their un-life. It is doubtful that any such zombie could ever be anything but evil, since their continued life depends on negative energy and consuming the flesh of the living. But as villains, they might be truly formidable.

Necrotic Bite Zombie The dangerous nature of a Zombie’s bite is an important element in most zombie fiction. For some reason it’s never really made the leap to game mechanics, leaving Pathfinder zombies to rely on their slam attack. Necrotic Bite Zombies gain a +0 bite attack which deals 1d6 damage. Anyone who is hit by the zombie’s Necrotic Bite must make a fortitude save (DC is equal to 10 + half the zombie’s HD + the zombie’s cha modifier). If the fortitude save fails, roll 1d10 to determine where the victim has been bitten. A result of 1-2 is the right leg, a result of 3-4 is the left leg, a result of 5-6 is the right arm, a result of 7-8 is the left arm, a result of 9 is the torso, and a result of 10 is the head. The skin around the bite becomes black and flaky, like skin which has been severely burned. This effect slowly spreads throughout the day. After 24 hours, it grows enough to spread to an adjacent part of the body. The spread can be stopped either with magical healing, or by amputating all affected body parts. Aside from severe discomfort, the necrotic zombie bite has no negative mechanical effects until it has fully spread throughout both the torso and head of the victim, at which point the victim dies and rises as a necrotic bite zombie 1d6 minutes later.

Zombification Zone A particular dungeon could be enchanted in such a way that anything which died within it would be raised as a zombie within 1d6 minutes of death. This would include any creatures which the players slay, or any players which die within the dungeon. Just as the players leave a room after clearing it, they would be accosted from behind by the very creatures they thought they had just destroyed!

Boneblade Zombie Zombies are often covered with jutting bones. It can be an exposed ribcage, a broken femur, or just a forearm without a hand. Boneblade Zombies have been specifically crafted to maximize the number of jutting bones, and to sharpen those bones to razor points. The slam attacks of these zombies deal 1d8 +6 piercing damage, and they gain +2 natural armor bonus to AC.

Minion Zombies When I was first learning about 4th edition, the concept of minion NPCs was one of the first things to really turn me off to the game. As a rule, I don’t like the inclusion of enemies which functionally exist for the purpose of being defeated easily. As an option, however, I think it could be a flavorful alternative to the zombies presented in the bestiary. When a level one party is fighting a necromancer, and 5 zombies enter to assist him from the next room, the players are in pretty serious trouble. While zombies are not particularly difficult to hit, they are capable of doing a fair amount of damage. And since each one has 5 damage reduction on top of 12 HP, the party is going to need to devote at least a few turns to each one. If, on the other hand, you remove the damage reduction from each zombie, and reduce their HP to 1, the necromancer could call 30 zombies into the room to help him! Since Zombies are cannon fodder anyway, it makes sense for them to be easy to destroy. And since they don’t lose any of their ability to harm the players, they still pose a serious threat.

Plant Zombie Rather than being animated by negative energy, zombies could functionally be created by a flower which grows in the skulls of dead people. The roots weave throughout the brain, and stimulate it to produce movement. The blood and flesh of the living are used as fertilizer, allowing the plant to sustain itself, and a puff of pollen on the corpses of the dead would allow it to reproduce. Functionally this would be no different from a normal zombie, but don’t discount the value of fluff in making something old feel new again.

Parasitic Zombies Did you know that zombies are real? There are a variety of real life parasites which take control of their host creatures. One such parasite, the lancet liver fluke, was featured by The Oatmeal, and its life cycle serves as a good example of other similar parasites. Insofar as I’ve read, all of these parasites take control of a specific type of organism, then do their best to get that organism eaten by one of its natural predators. The parasite then reproduces in the colon of the new host, and its eggs are released into the world when the creature poops. In reality, I’ve never heard of these parasites taking control of anything larger than a small fish, but in fantasy such a parasite might be used to take control of humans. Once controlled, the brain-dead humans would function essentially as zombies. They would attack anything in their path, sustaining themselves on the flesh of others, with the ultimate goal of being devoured by a dragon, or other large human-eating creature.

Beloved Zombie These zombies are sometimes created by experienced necromancers with a particularly sadistic bent. Each zombie is under the effect of powerful illusion magic, which causes anyone who sees the zombie to believe it was created from the remains of a deceased loved one. Any attack roll made against such a zombie is made at a -1 penalty per HD of the zombie. Low level beloved zombies might simply appear to be the viewer’s long dead grandparent who was kind of a dick. Whereas a high level zombie would appear to be the recently deceased son of the viewer, crying while he plays with all of the viewer’s dead childhood pets.

Playing The Other Side: Mindless Undead

Anyone who plays tabletop RPGs eventually starts coming up with ways to pervert the concept. A group will only play good and neutral heroes for so long before they start to consider playing evil characters. They’ll only play as humans, elves, and dwarves for so long before they start to wonder what it would be like to play as an orc or a goblin. It’s only natural for a person to look for unusual and flavorful experiences, particularly in a game which is already about exploring the fantastical. Even Gygax would purportedly send his D&D players into Western or Science Fiction scenarios–still wielding sword and spell. Deviations like these can be great fun. and it was while entertaining these perversions that I struck upon the idea of having my players take the reigns of mindless undead creatures.

I would start with a dungeon, probably on the smallish side. Perhaps only a single level. It would be filled with everything you would expect to find in a dungeon: interesting rooms, treasure, traps, and so forth. It would even have adventurers. The only thing it wouldn’t have is monsters, because that’s where the players come in. Each player would take command of a single skeleton or zombie with a very simple task: prevent adventurers from defeating the necromancer who was kind enough to animate them. They would be given a map of the dungeon, as well as guidance from their master’s divinations about the location of the invading adventuring party. They would be free to use any tactics they wished to defeat the adventurers. I, in turn, would move the adventurers through the dungeon, rolling for damage when they passed a trap and buffing them up a bit each time they encountered treasure.

I would do my best to defeat the zombies, but until the adventurers slay the necromancer, a new zombie or skeleton will always join its fellows within 1d6 rounds of its predecessors death. So no matter how many the adventurers kill, they’re fighting an uphill battle through the dungeon. Any time an adventurer is slain, one of the undead may spend a full round eating its corpse to regain all of their health. Any time the undead succeed in causing a TPK, all of the individual undead involved gain 1HD, and are allowed to add +1 to their damage rolls henceforth.

The cool thing about the idea is that player death really doesn’t matter all that much. When a player has invested a lot of time into creating, or playing a character, it can be a sobering experience for that character to die. It’s one of the big weaknesses of Pathfinder’s involved character building process. But when all of a character’s abilities and statistics are found under “S” and “Z” in the Bestiary, there’s no character creation process to go through. And since the new character appears a mere 1d6 rounds later, I imagine it won’t take long for players to start wantonly sacrificing themselves to create barriers, or to lure adventurers into deathtraps. And while a character who has leveled up might be a little too valuable to just throw away, I doubt any player would grow so attached to a few more HP and a +1 to damage that they’d feel at all sad to lose the character.

The way I imagine it, this would be a pretty fun evening of gaming to run. A brief deviation from the norm to cleanse everyone’s adventuring palette. Little will the players realize the insidious information they’re inadvertently providing to their GM: tactics. It’s just a side benefit really, but I know I’ll be watching my group carefully to see what they come up with. And I’ll be sure to use something similar against them next time they’re unfortunate enough to be level one adventurers taking their first wary steps into a dungeon.

In truth, this is closer to a board game than it is to an RPG. The only reason I wouldn’t call it a board game flat-out is because of tactical infinity. There are no limits to what the players can do to defeat the adventurers, so long as they can convince the GM that the idea is plausible.

Behind the GM's Screen: ToKiTiMo 3

First thing is first: If you are one of the four people playing in my ToKiTiMo campaign, you should not read this post. It contains information from this past Saturday’s game, as well as information which may be used in future sessions. I believe at least two of the players in that game do check this blog occasionally, and reading this post will ruin some of the game’s upcoming surprises. Fortunately for me, I don’t play with any child-minded buffoons who would actually cheat at a tabletop RPG, so I can rely on the honor system for this kinda thing.

Moving on; I recently got around to doing what most other GMs did back in the 90s: I started preparing my game notes on a computer rather than by hand. It was a difficult decision. I’ve always loved the tactile feeling of a pencil scratching across paper. Plus, since I don’t own a printer, it saved me a trip to Office Max and a few dollars on prints. The downside, though, is that it can be difficult to make changes. Sometimes mistakes can force you to scrap an entire page and need to re-write it. And with the way I grip pencils, my hand tends to cramp up after a few minutes, which limited the progress I could make in a given evening.

Plus I type about four times as fast as I can write on paper, so there’s that.

Anyway, now that my games are neither trapped on sheets of paper, nor written in indecipherable chicken-scratch, it occurs to me that I can easily share them. The question is: should I share them? Is this something people would be interested in reading? I certainly have fun writing it, but whether anyone else is interested in them is something of a mystery to me. I think I would like to read other GM’s game notes. I could certainly learn a thing or two from GMs who are better than I. And, hell, if somebody wants, there’s no reason they couldn’t just run my adventure for their own group. That last part might just be my ego talking, but I like to pretend that people find my small contributions to gaming helpful.

So here’s the deal: below is act 1 of the third adventure in my ToKiTiMo campaign. Or, if you’d rather, you can download all three acts of the adventure as a PDF file. If you read it, leave a comment. Let me know if you enjoyed it, and if you’d like me to continue posting my adventures. And if you’d rather I not do this again, speak up! I can take criticism, and if nobody tells me they hate this, I’m going to keep doing it.

ACT 1: Journey to Overton

Part 1: Mahudar Kosopske’s Tower

When the previous adventure ended, the players had just returned from the goblin village with the special tree branch the gnomish wizard would need in order to ward the town of Honon against fire. He allowed them to stay the night, and to drink from his curative fountain to restore their health. The game will begin the following morning.

In the morning, Mahudar is eager to begin his journey to Honon. He ushers the players out of his tower. As he locks the tower, he asks the players if they have any pressing engagements. Assuming they say no, he asks them if they would like to do some work for him. If they agree, read the following text.

“There is an artifact–a small golden orb–which I would like you to retrieve. It’s an item of great importance to the gnomish peoples, but is hidden deep within an underground keep which is warded against our entry. Despite my best efforts, I was never able to dispel them. You lot seem to be trustworthy folk, and as humans the wards would have no effect on you. If you would retrieve this artifact for me, I would reward you handsomely.”

He intends to pay each party member 200 gold for their trouble, and will allow them to keep or sell anything they find. If the players Haggle, Mahudar offers only moderate resistance. We still want to encourage haggling. He will go no higher than 400 gold pieces.
If the players do not mention it themselves, Mahudar offers them 4 days rations, which he pulls from his bag of holding. In the future, rations should be up to the players, but I haven’t been strict about ration tracking in the past, so they should not be punished for not thinking of it this time.
Since Mahudar used “teleport” in the last game, they may ask for one. He has not prepared it that day, and he must begin his travels to Honon immediately, so unless they wish to accompany him that far, he cannot help them. If they press, he will require payment for the spell (8,000 gold).

When the players ask how to get there, read the following text.

“You will first need to travel to Overton. Two miles south of my tower is the river Bynt. Follow its northern bank through the forest. Overton is built where the Bynt meets the mighty River Yosregal. Your journey should take no more than four days time if you don’t stray. In Overton you can rest and resupply. Once you are ready, seek out the man known as Geary Therman, and ask him to direct you to Ursnol, a gnomish settlement a few days travel from Overton. In Ursnol, you will have no trouble finding a guide to lead you the rest of the way to the dungeon entrance. After that, you will be on your own.”

Part 2: Hex Crawl

The area between Mahudar Kosopske’s Tower and Overton has long been the domain of a tribe of Gnolls, known as The Spotted Bull tribe, which is led by a minotaur named Korakus. Recently, an evil Wizard named Dheef Gason moved into a nearby dungeon. He has been using unholy magics to merge captured Gnolls with his Ogre servants. He sets the twisted abominations free in the forest, and they have gathered into a loose society, directing their rage at anyone they find.

While winding through the hilly hexes, the river is at the bottom of steep hills on both sides. This makes it a great place for an ambush if combat is rolled. This first leg of the journey will work off one encounter table for the hills, forest, and plains hexes.

Remember to track the character’s food closely. Also track their movement (they should have 24 movement points if they do not attempt to acquire a mount.) Lastly, make sure Rosco (the ranger) rolls survival to avoid getting lost, in accordance with this table:

Terrain	Examples	Movement Cost	Becoming Lost
Easy	road	4	No Check
Average	clear, city, grasslands, trail*	6	Survival DC: 10
Moderate	forest, hills, desert, badlands	8	Survival DC: 15
Difficult	mountains, jungle, swamp	12	Survival DC: 20

Weather: Day 1 is Cloudy and Windy, Day 2 is Rainy and Windy, Day 3 is Rainy, Day 4 is Sunny, Day 5 is Sunny, Day 6 is Cloudy, Day 7 is Sunny

Time Tracking: This is the first game in which we will be tracking time. For simplicity’s sake, the adventure will start on the first day, of the first month, of the 3999th year of the common era. Day, Week, and Month names can be determined at a later date, but start keeping track now of how many days have passed.

Kobold Adventuring Party: In the first adventure, the players attacked a Kobold encampment. Despite being given an opportunity to negotiate, they attacked. 6 survivors, separated from their clan, have vowed vengeance on the party. They are stalking them. They will not attack the players outright, as they have not yet become powerful enough. However, they do attempt to lay deadly traps along the party’s suspected paths.

Undead: A lich named Erstic Von Kolt lives not to terribly far from here, though he is not along the projected hex path. Years ago, while he was still alive, he passed through this area and created a number of undead goblins. He’s long since forgotten about them, and they roam aimlessly now. If the players investigate the undead, they might discover a distinctive mark on all of their chests. Showing that mark to anyone in a leadership role will get the players some basic information on the lich.

Part 2 Subsection A: Random Encounters

Each day, roll twice. Once for the morning, once for the evening. Roll a third time for the evening, but only accept results which have mobility (such as monsters). All other results for the nighttime roll should be considered “Nothing of particular interest occurs.”

Monsters: When rolling a monster, use Trollsmyth’s purpose chart. 2d4 for bestial monsters, 1d10 for intelligent monsters:

1. Diplomacy
2. Patrolling Territory
3. Hurt
4. Horny
5. Hungry
6. Napping
7. Fighting (Roll again to see which creatures it is fighting.)
8. Home
9. Raiding
10. Art

Kobold Traps

1. 10ft deep pits. Perception DC: 16
2. Trip wires onto leaf-covered sharp sticks. Perception DC: 17, Attack +8, 1d6 damage.
3. Snare. Perception DC: 18. Failure causes characters to be pulled up 10ft off the ground.
4. Falling tree. Reflex save DC: 14 or be hit for 4d6 bludgeoning damage, and be trapped under the tree until you can be rescued.

Part 2 Subsection B: Fixed Locations

Garok Torar

This dungeon is represented by a dungeon icon in the center of the forest, one hex north of the river, and two hexes east of the large mountain. Parties entering this hex have a 10% chance to encounter this location.

Garok Torar is a collection of ruins in a large clearing. Made of blue-white stone, the ruins are heavily overgrown now, and no structure save one rises above the first floor–or even has a roof. In the center of the ruins, however, is a larger building. A stairway leads up to the large double-doored entrance–though the doors are long gone. Within appears to be some manner of courthouse, or other official building. In the large central room, an ornate staircase winds downwards.

The staircase leads to the first sub level of a 3-level dungeon. This is where the wizard Dheef Gason has taken up residence. His ogre minions can be commonly encountered throughout all of Garok Torar.

Mount Suvisar

The tallest mountain in the region is located near the western edge of the forest, next to the clearing where Overton can be found. The mountain is heavily forested. It is a little known fact that this is where the roost of Kolgoth’Ronnomaktar The Red can be found.

Castle Nalew

This mega dungeon extends 6 levels above ground level, and 15 levels underground, ending in entrances tot he underdark. However, it is currently sealed up tight, and none know how to enter it. It can be found on the southern edge of the Overton fields. Locals know of it, but none have ever been within its walls.

Part 3: Overton

CN Large Town (Population: 3k; 98% Human, 2% Half Elf, 1 Gnoll) Government: Mayor

Basic Info
Overton is built at the joining of two rivers. The town subsists primarily as a fishing village, but also serves as the central hub for the many frontiersmen who live and work in the nearby forest. It also trades with the gnoll and elvish tribes which live there. The people are generally friendly and honest, but hard from a life in the wilderness. The town’s official patron deity is Obad-Hai, but the town’s population is not particularly devout.

Services Available
Carpenter, Butcher, Blacksmith, Small temple (Obad-Hai), Brothel (“The Comely Castle”), Alchemist’s Shop (“The Crimson Elixer”), Stable (6 horses for sale, left by previous adventuring party who didn’t come back), General Store, river transport, tavern/Inn, leatherworker, tanner.
Town’s Total Purchasing: 4k gold

Notable NPCs
Geary Therman – The town’s mayor. A broad-shouldered huntsman with graying temples. Highly respected, always willing to do manual labor, and to help those in need, even outsiders. Tends to be anywhere he’s needed within the town. When the players ask for him, he’s on the docks talking to Ester Thomas about fur prices.
Hyerman Devon – Manager of the general store. One of the scrawniest men in Overton, but polite and willing to haggle. Sticker price is a few gold more than normal costs.
Old Berman – The high priest at the temple of Obad-Hai. Able to cast 4th level spells. Is not very friendly to those who do not follow his god. Will help for a hefty price, unless anyone offends him or his nature deity.
Melina Ayvon – Wizard in charge of the alchemist’s shop. Sells a variety of concoctions, and able to sell 2nd level spells for a fee. Acts more like a wheedling salesperson than a scholarly wizard. If the players seem capable, she might ask them if they want to find a rare herb for her
Anita Whyk – Half-elven Madam at the Comely Castle. Works as an information broker on the side. Advanced in age now, she still cuts a dashing figure, but does not work herself. She’s protective of the sex workers she employs. She’s a little distracted because one of her girls is missing. (Detective sidequest. she was taken by Gnolls. will be dead by day 7)
Ester Thomas – Ferry captain. A six-and-a-half foot tall woman with beefy arms and a bellowing laugh. She can be brutish and rude, but she’s much smarter than she lets on. She and her sailors are spending a week at rest in Overton whilst they wait for a delivery of animal furs to take south.
Bittereye – Geary Therman’s old hunting companion, a gnoll whose tribe is no more. He helps barter with the nearby gnoll tribes, and serves as an enforcer for the town guard when they need some extra muscle. Doesn’t want players help locating missing brothel girl.

When the players eventually seek out Geary Therman, he’s only too happy to direct them where they need to go. Read the following text:

“Well, easy way is ta cross th’ river here, and hoof it due west until you reach The Forest Queen–that’s a big hulkin’ statue of an elf lady. Can’t miss it. From her, ye can go north until ye reach th’ grasslands. Follow them nor-east. Iffun ye reach the forest’s edge, ye’ve gone too far.”

And that’s Act 1. If you’re interested enough that you’d like to read more, you can download the entire adventure. It’s 22 pages long if you include the three maps. And don’t forget to let me know if you would like for me to continue doing this!

Colorful Characters 16: Novre Homberk, Tailor Savant

Little Novre Homberk never really seemed to be paying attention to anything. It concerned his parents, Helen and Krastus, that he would rarely look anyone in the eye, and did not start to talk until he was four years old. The child spent much of his time staring into the distance, twisting his fingers together and untwisting them, or playing games no one around him really understood. The other children sensed something was different about Novre. At first they avoided him out of fear, but as time passed, they took to teasing him for his apparent disconnect from the material plane.

After Helen died, Krastus was left to raise his son alone. He started to drink heavily. Occasionally he would even beat his son whilst in a drunken rage, but he was not so much a monster that he didn’t regret it once he’d sobered up. His business as a small town’s clothier and tailor began to suffer. Orders were ignored, and the quality of his work began to drive people away. All Krastus could do was drink more and more heavily, decreasing the quality of his work further. Losing his livelihood seemed to be a foregone conclusion, until one day he stumbled in through his shop door to discover that he had accidentally locked 9 year old Novre in the night before; and that all of his tailoring work had been completed.

And not only was everything finished. Everything was done with a remarkable quality which Krastus could never have matched in his life. His customers were ecstatic, and congratulated him on sobering up. Seeing an opportunity to make a great deal of money, Krastus took the money he had been spending on booze and bought materials of higher quality than he had purchased in many months. He gave the materials to Novre, and watched in astonishment as the child created some of the most beautiful clothes the tailor had ever seen. Elaborately embroidered dresses, robes, shirts, pants, gloves, the child seemed possessed of some type of divine talent, and Krastus was not about to let it go to waste. He immediately began selling the boy’s work as his own, and his business grew at an exponential rate. Within a year nobles were traveling for days simply to buy the magnificent clothing which Novre was quietly creating in the back room.

A local wizard of small repute named Erlem, himself a member of the nobility, eventually came to investigate Krastus’ shop, and was very pleased by the elaborate and fashionable items sold there. He purchased a number of clothes for himself, and returned to his home. Erlem was proud of his new clothes, and wore them whenever he found an opportunity, but when he did he sensed something strange. The clothes felt somehow…off, to him. He began to study the clothing in earnest, and was surprised to discover that not only were the clothes very fine, they were magical. The pants he had purchased granted the wearer the ability to resist spells, and the gloves made his somatic gesturing somehow more precise. Erlem was pleased, but confused. He had paid a hefty price for the clothes, but the magical abilities of the clothes made them worth fifteen or twenty times more than what he had paid.

Erlem was not very skilled with divination, but spent the next few days observing Krastus and Novre via an expensive crystal ball. That told him everything he needed to know: Krastus didn’t understand the depth of his son’s talent. Somehow the boy was creating powerful magical clothing, and the father was selling it for a pittance because he thought its value was purely aesthetic. Erlem returned to Krastus shop the next morning, and placed an order so large that the fraudulent old tailor fainted. It cost him much of his fortune to do so, but in the months following the delivery of the goods, Erlem made his fortune back many times over by quietly selling the clothes to adventurers and other wizards.

That arrangement has existed now for a year or so. Erlem the wizard exploits Krastus the tailor by purchasing clothing well below market value, and reselling it at a fair price. Krastus, in turn, exploits his son by selling his son’s magnificent work as his own. And Novre, now a boy of 18, doesn’t care. He happily creates beautiful garment after beautiful garment, content in the act of creation.

Thoughts on Use

The players might encounter either Erlem, attempting to sell them magical items made of cloth. This encounter might end with the purchase of the clothing, or if the players have some reason to be suspicious, they might inquire as to how a low-level wizard of no great skill produced such fine garments. Erlem is terrible at keeping secrets, so it’s only a matter of time before he spills the beans to someone. Alternatively, the players might encounter Krastus as a purveyor of fine clothing.

Magical Garments

Novre can craft any magical item which is made from cloth within 1/8th the normal amount of time it would require, using materials which cost 1% of the normal cost for the item.

Novre Homberk (CR 2)
XP: 600
Male Human Expert 4
CN humanoid
Init +2; Senses Perception -3

Defenses

AC 16, Flat Footed 14, Touch 16 [10 + Dex(2) + Jerkin of Deflection(4)]
SR 19
hp 28 (4d8 + 8)
Fort +6 Ref +6 Will +11 (+2 to disbelieve Illusions)

Offense

Speed 30ft
Melee Unarmed +5 (1d3 + 2; 20/x2)

Stats

Str 15 (+2) Dex 14 (+2) Con 10 (+0) Int 6 (-2) Wis 4 (-3) Cha 18 (+4)
Base Atk +3; CMB +5; CMD 17
Feats Naturally Gifted, Skill Focus (Craft: Cloth), Skill Focus (Craft: Clothing)
Skills Craft(Cloth)(+10), Craft(Clothing)(+10), Spellcraft(+7), Use Magic Device(+7)
Languages Common
Gear Jerkin of Deflection +4, Sewing Kit

New Feat: Naturally Gifted

You are able to call upon extraordinary abilities without first gaining the usual prerequisites.
Prerequisites: Level 1, Character must be an NPC
Benefit: Damned near anything. A natural gift can take whatever form the GM wishes. For Novre, it is an uncanny ability to create magical items of cloth. But for other characters it might be the ability to unerringly see the future, or to solve complex magical formulas.
Drawback: While not strictly required, it is customary for characters who receive such marvelous gifts to suffer a corresponding drawbacks. Characters who can see the future may be blind, or they may be cursed to never be believed, or they may simply be unable to express themselves in a clear fashion. Novre has savantism as his drawback. While he excels in creating wondrous and magical clothing, he is disconnected from the real world, and will never be able to function as an adult.
Normal: You’ve gotta kill a bunch of shit and take their stuff and level up and it’s this whole thing.

Reality is my Sourcebook: Bejeweled Skeletons

History is interesting.

Like, really interesting.

Americans, like myself, don’t tend to get a lot of historical education. I don’t know about the what others may have experienced, but looking back it seems as though I simply learned about the same things over and over. It wasn’t until a few into my university education that I realized I knew next to nothing about American history after the revolutionary war. I was even less familiar with the history of other countries, and even less familiar than that with the history of countries outside of the west. It is a failing I have been regrettably slow to correct, which is really too bad, because ya know all those people who were alive before our parents?

They were awesome.

I mean, they were awful. For most of history, every social group has been dirt under the feet of the social group above it. I firmly believe that the human race has, overall, improved as time has gone forward. But none the less, if you take the time to explore the past, I guarantee you’ll find something amazing. Something like bejeweled skeletons.

I haven’t been able to find much more information than is given in my original source (Defunct). The scant information I’ve been able to discover about the individuals has covered their lives, and stopped short after their death. But, apparently, these are all saints of the catholic church. As best I can determine, it seems that all died sometime before 1100 C.E. Each was taken from Rome (probably the catacombs under Saint Peter’s Basilica, though I’m not positive) sometime in the 1600s. Their remains were dressed in these elaborate, bejeweled imitations of what was then modern fashion. They were then re-interred in the catacombs of a small German chapel.

I’d love to learn more if anyone can find anything on the subject. Though the benefit of not knowing is that I get to imagine the details for myself. Was this odd, elaborate ritual done peacefully, or were the remains stolen? If the former, why? Was the transfer of hallowed corpses a bargaining chip in a diplomatic negotiation, or were the corpses moved because it was felt they did not belong amongst the hallowed corpses? Perhaps they were garbed in such a rich fashion in an attempt to satiate their spirits for the dishonor of being removed from a more respectable grave. And if the latter, if the remains were stolen, why, and how? Was there a battle, or was their acquisition a daring act of subterfuge? Were they each members of some secret society, and were taken so they could be buried according to that society’s rituals, or were they all secretly members of a single family? The possibilities are enticing, and endless.

This is the stuff adventures are made of. For a low level adventurer, finding just one of these skeletons would be worth delving through a 10-level dungeon. Even higher level adventurers would be awed to find a group of these skeletons posed around a table, perhaps reenacting some magnificent deed from their lives.

Pictured above is Saint Maximinus, whom I imagine would not be a fun person to game with. Each of the skeletons below are labelled in turn. Many thanks for the beautiful photography must be given to Toby De Silva. You can see more of his work on his website. (Defunct) He’s got an eye for the macabre, which I like.