Firearms Fumbles

Firearms are something I end up using in my games, and I think a lot of folks do on G+.  As such I've made up a special d30 fumble table.  My intent is for firearm fumbles to occur more often, while muscle powered weapons will receive a "save vs. fumble".  I think the table below offers a nice selection of bad things, for the inconvenient to the lethal.  I may create a "wands and ray guns" fumble table as well in the future.

Pahvelorn - These Ziggurats Contain no Gold, Only Death!

The band hadn’t had a good score since Illum Zugot where the priest king had been willing to pay to have the ancient barrows around his city cleansed, and the barrows themselves had been full  of wealth. Still it was again into the pit of Pahvelorn, an giant chasm, ripped from the earth.

The adventurers had already come down though the buried city, dispatched an incompetent necromancer, who’d been more irksome than dangerous, and entered one of the stone barrows beneath the city.  Three stone sentries containing buried magicians and unspeakable guardians.  They’d imagined this one would be better than the first which had cost the party it’s most puissant wizard, Beni Profane's a kindred spirit amongst the pious clerics and sinister warlocks that made up the group.  Satyvati, an easygoing hedonist was an easygoing hedonist, like Beni, but had been pulped by a stone guardian statute standing watch over the desiccated remains of some kind of trapped sorcerer form bygone ages.

Statuary had tried that previously on this delve as well, but luckily the party's strong arms were up to the challenge and two stone warriors had been pounded to fragments before they could do much harm.  In a room beyond the statute, beautiful murals on a rather punitive religious theme dominated.  The paintings were well done, but Beni didn’t appreciate them, both because they were antithetical to his own animism, and because the frescos were firmly attached to the wall.  Ten minutes of careful work only removed the figure of one saint, which despite it’s beauty really did not make up for the risk of animated statuary. 

Big Ants

Random Character and Impressions of Rappan Athuk

Character made using random generator (4D6 - worst D6) and random appearance table to quickly generate a 4th level character.  The appearance I rolled was female, youth, threadbare clothing, bald. 

The below character is the result.

Percian was sent into Rappan Athuk with a group of similar delvers heavy on fighters and clerics.  She survived and did some good - both taking risks faced with an interesting flame puzzle and acting true to her nature by sacrificing gnolls to Blibdoolpoolp

Percian Icthisus
4th Level Fighter

STR 15
INT 10
WIS 11
DEX 17 +3
CON 16 +2
CHR 6 -1

HP: 31 AC -1 THACO 16/15 ranged
Alignment: Neutral/Neutral Evil

Equipment: Kraken Shell Plate Armor (AC 2) +1, +1 seaweed shrouded trident (2-9/2-12)+1, 4 hand axes (1D6), 5 vials unholy water, 6 torches, flint steel.  30' rope (dried kelp), 1 week dried fish, mirror, sack of sea shells, weighted net. Unholy silver and pearl chalice (100 GP)

Setting Ideas

So I occasionally get ideas for settings, places where I'd love to run an adventure or two, do a little world-building or just think about a bit.  Below are a few that have got me amused lately.

1) Mystical Realms of Tropeliche - Really bad high fantasy played for laughs.  Every place,NPc and Monster would have ridiculous names.  There would be dwarfs that were all beards and axes (literally a dwarf is a beard, somehow holding an axe and a mug of 'strong brew', also very susceptible to fire and mange). There would be dragons everywhere, underfoot even, little vicious things all with names like "Flameterrior the Nightmare of Fire".  Into this mess where every damn day some doe eyed elven queen is asking a random strong jawed goatherd to take up a quest for "The Lost Sword of Pointedness, forged for the Great King Thronin Wharmer the Metaphorical in the ages before Mu sank beneath the waves" and bearded wizards are entrusting every hedge dwelling half-goblin with a dangerous journey into the heart of the "Dread Lands of Evil" come the players - who are of course Little Brown Book 3D6 in order hoodlums who only gain XP from gold.  Gold gotten however really. Mostly what I need for this is some ridiclous naming tables as the rest of the content has written  itself.  Things like "Orc Bandits are raiding the Villagers' swimming hole" and "Unwashed villagers are Swimming in the Orc Refugees only source of fresh water".

This, but with Mutants

2)  Zanzibar Green - Total 70's dystopia.   Paternalistic social science in the distant past and technological abundance created a society with so much wealth and so little work that people were simply warehoused in sealed self sufficient arcologies.  Of course several hundred years of ennui and an existence without challenge has resulted in complete disaster.  Primitive thugs living in crumbling pastel colored modernist tower blocks and feed off eachother for a change from perfectly balanced nutra-meals, dispensed at your whim (in five flavors!).  Everyone beautiful (except the mutants), everyone healthy and everyone reduced to such uselessness that they mostly stopped breeding or bothering to interact with each other.

The characters would all be young delinquents, trying to find something interesting, a way out or a functional society that exists among the scattered enclaves of lotus eaters, fascistic pocket states, nests of cannibal mutants and kill crazy muckers.  equipment would be junk mostly, no weapons in the arcology of course, so spears and bows ground down from parkland trees run wild would be high technology. Idea is real simple dungeon crawl D&D, but with a Logan's Run (except more desolate) veneer. 

3) Regressive Conflict - Starting something like a military sci-fi campaign and ending as a dungeon crawl amongst the slagged ruins of future earth - done as a series of one shots.  The party starts out as a squad of high tech soldiers in space armor and what not, newly awake from stasis and entering the front lines of an interstellar war.  Lasers flash and such.  If they survive the first battle/adventure they go back into cold sleep.  When the adventurers awake the ship has moved on, but there's no resupply in Eisensteinian space.  The stores are depleted, the weapons not as good.  Slowly the tech winds down or is replaced by random junk the party has scavenged on alien worlds.  The enemy sometimes suffers the same fate, but sometimes the party (now armed with swords and a single laser rifle that works 1/2 the time) is asked to raid a technological alien enclave for ship parts by a ship AI that is slowly going mad to further a war that may be over for 1,000 years due to time dilation effects.  Ultimately it becomes a quasi swords and sorcery thing, but the characters are the same Stars Without Numbers party, now playing low fantasy pirates.

Letter from my Wayward Son, A Father's Warning About Life on the Frontier - Wampus County Play Report

I read my son's erratic letters with increasing dismay

Dear readers,  I write this short editorial with grave concern and much sadness, but I must out of my sense of public duty.  While the material contained within is but a domestic drama, and the tale of the sad loss of another beloved child to the pernicious influence of sorcery and the rude wilderness, I must share it with you, not out of a desire for sympathy or aid, but to ring a clarion call of warning to other parents who may find their children considering a journey to the Eastern wilds, that land without comforts or mores, known as Wampus County.

My son, who must remain nameless with the distant hope that some shred or vestige of his soul, mind and body may recovered from the wilderness, graduated from a respectable thaumaturgical institute of higher learning two years ago.  While not the most puissant of warlock, 'Chauncy' was a young man with possibility before him, educated and prepared for a life of gentlemanly contemplation.  However due to unforeseen circumstances and youthful abandon Chauncy wasted his inheritance (a bequest from his dear Mother's family - I myself would never have supported such youthful folly) but like youth everywhere resolved with the innocence of inexperience to find a new fortune in the great lands to the East.  At first, duped by those peddlers of stories and false promises about the wealth of the frontier, I supported this venture and sent the young man on his way, hopeful that if nothing else he would learn that whatever it lacks in excitement, the life of an associate sorcerer-jobber makes up for with respectability, safety and a lack of excitement.

The Pleasure Gardens of the Bruised Enormity - Map

The Bruised Enormity is the name given to a hedonistic creature that resides in the mountains between the Livid Fens and the Lower Certopsian Plains.  Some regard the creature as a Wizard of the normal megalomanical sort, though it is unclear if it holds any villages in thrall, or rules much of a domain beyond its own pleasure garden.  It is obvious that the Entity has access to potent Super-Science and dangerous magics both from the danger posed by its protectors and its otherworldly appearance.  The Entity is a protean mass of bruised looking flesh that speak telepathically and trundles slowly along on a series of stump like legs.  The enormous creature is served by a loyal staff of equally strange and varied creatures as it lolls about in the pools of its mountain side pleasure gardens.  From beautiful languid odalisque to hulking multi-armed guards the servitors of the enormity appear strangely alike, their flesh marked with the same flushed and purple tone as their master.

The Enormity is not actively hostile, seemingly content to bide its time and remain neutral in the struggles all around it.  It is no weakling however, and besides its battalions of mutated and freakish soldiers it possesses many allies and trades in intelligence among the various factions South of Denethix.

The Pleasure Gardens of the Bruised Enormity

The Fetid Pit - HMS APOLLYON location

THE FETID PIT

From the Starboard side of the Promenade, Sterntown's premier shopping and temple district (off limits to sea washed flotsam, scavengers and such) and beyond huge reinforced bulkheads is the Fetid Pit, an air shaft that rises 700 feet to the grey light of the top deck, split by numerous fans that slowly rotate pulling down fresh air and scattering the faint light that leaks from above into maddening kaleidoscopic patterns.  The pit plunges down another 300 feet from the level of the promenade, presumably sealed where the lower submerged decks, the domain of the ash plague, begin.

The Fetid Pit - As Explored in the employ of Clavadius Krab

The Wheaton Dungeon Map

Recently there's been some fun had redrawing a map posted by Will Wheaton on his blog. So far Dyson Logos has done a quick sketch of the "Wheeton Dungeon" as has Matt Jackson at Lapsus Calumni (whose excellent maps I've just discovered).

Since I couldn't think of anything to map lately I did my own version of the map - as some kind of slimy fish deity temple where the horrible cult god, all scales, spine and giant sightless eyes comes slithering up a ramp to greet/eat its followers.  This arrangement was suggested purely by the layout.  I've fiddled with things a bit placement wise - making corridors shorter mostly.  Also used a variant fill - a spiral hatching that I've been trying to get right.

Here's the Map:

Recent Expeditions into the Hull - A digest of HMS Apollyon One Shots

The following are recent exploration notes from several one shots that may provide information about the various semi-explored areas and potential adventure leads currently aboard the vessel.

Pretty Close to My Guess on What the Grottos look like - Art from Cryptcreeper  DeviantArt

1. The Familial Difficulties of the Devil Malchris

The Marines (strange, insular and vaguely cultish) hired a group of scavengers to go beyond the defenses they maintain in the very aft of the Apollyon and attempt to assassinate or otherwise deal with a troublesome outsider named "Malchris".  After winding through empty rooms marked with magical traps and strange signs - the Marine's much whispered about Sigil Maze.  Within a surly marine scout guide the scavengers were able to reach their destination, a Corrupted Train Station transformed into a hell scape of cinders a and spectral ash figures.  After seeing the Devil lord's guard force of spider centaurs and triggering an explosive runes trap they elected to parley.

Stretching their moral imaginations the party agreed to help the bug eyed devil enforce a contract for the soul and body of a small passenger class boy, the last of his line - and surprisingly upon their return to the Sigil Maze the proper seeming Marines revealed a depth of pragmatism edging into cruelty and offered to help abduct the boy. The Haldivar Mansion on the upper deck was visited and an elderly caretaker bribed to hand over the child, who proved to have an obvious strain of outsider blood, specifically great bug like eyes and a murderous vengeful disposition.  Keen to enroll the aid of a high ranking member of Hell's Nomenclatura for bloody vengeance on his family's tormentors and enemies little Lord Haldivar was glad to go. 

The party handed over the child to the Devil (who proved to be the child's Great Uncle) and intended to see to his proper upbringing and protection.

As a result of this adventure the Sigil Maze is open to those on good terms with the Marines for exploration or passage into the outsider lands beyond.  Malchris has offered rides on his train towards the fore in exchange for favors (principally the slaughter of rival Devils) from the Corrupted Station.

2. A Restful Interlude Amongst the Grottos

An expedition to search out allies for defense of The New Lands, specifically a search for a purported group of Black Gang soldiers on Deck 9 had no luck at finding the allies it sought.  It did discover the partially flooded apartment and entertainment block known as The Grottos where large pools and lagoons crossed by broken bridges and infested with fungus, slime, mold form a swamp like environment below deck.  Almost upon entry the scavengers were accosted by a pack of phase crabs, who were very difficult to hit and appear to be some kind of other-planar vermin. The Party found a broken bridge leading to a Black Bastion but could not find a way across so went Aft and discovered a pool of kelp paddies worked by somnolent and diseased looking humans under the harsh control of grey diabolic overseers.  This was the domain of the Last House, a family of passenger class sorcerers who have interbred with their outsider patrons a bit more than normal and for unknown reasons exiled themselves from Sterntown.  The Family of the House was friendly enough, putting the party up and feeding them roast shark, but distinctly strange and cruel.  The Family offered to sell some sleep walking gladiators as thralls, but the party did not follow up on this.

Discovered the Grottos and the Last House.  It's unclear what lives in The Grottos beside phase crabs, and less clear what the intentions of the Last House are though they seem powerful, evil and not especially hostile.

3. Return to the Grottos and Ghoulish Discovery Within the Black Bastion

Returning to the Grottos a different party of scavengers attempted to skirt the broken bridge by moving through the once opulent apartments that arc over the pools, but discovered these are also infested with terrible fungal horrors.  After destroying a Cyan Fungal Pillar the group reached the Black Bastion, which while full of powerful military technology to scavenge was also home to a large pack of Ghola - giant, degenerate, flesh hungry humans who use paralytic poison on thier bone weapons. The Ghola were eliminated, and much equipment recovered including a light suit of 4th generation boilermail and a semi functional war golem.

Information about the Black Gang has been discovered in the Black Bastion and scavenging companies would be happy to get a crack at the luxury apartments along the The Grottos, despite the terrifying fungal horrors and poisonous molds that grow there in the dark.

4. Descent Into the Fetid Pit

In an attempt to recover the body of an unsanctioned victim of internal mafia violence and aid the Thieves in Law holding a tribunal for the alleged killers a band of scavengers were hired to plumb the depths of the Fetid Pit a huge air shaft to the starboard side of Sterntown.  Descending from a Steward guard tower the band spotted a Moribund Agricultural Station, a Floating Gas Angler Colony and finally began exploring an Infested Customs Bastion. The crawling death infected guardians of the Bastion convinced the scavengers to return to Sterntown, but the fetid Pit clearly holds some valuable and other strange wonders.

It's the End of the World as We Know it...

So the Apocalypse has come and gone and I feel fine.  Yet the end of the world is a seductive concept, as every individual always seems to presume they'll be a survivor of the end. Of course in a game you can really have your apocalypse, and so below is a table of ten world ends, in honor of today's non-pocalypse.  All are based on literary sources filtered though D&D logic.

Vastenov - 1887

1.“From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire” – Frost 

The world ended in fire, those that are left live huddled beneath the Earth out of the cindered skies and black obsidian deserts.  

2.“I think I know enough of hate, To say that for destruction ice, Is also great, And would suffice.” – Frost

The world ended in ice and sheets of frozen blue still blanket it.  Survivors crouch in caves in the lees of volcanos while nightmare creatures of white fur and fangs hunt endlessly through howling blizzard.

3.“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” – Yeats

The center of the world broke from divine struggle, titanic magics or simply untold age.  Now the fragments drift together a string of strange islands in the vastness of the Empyrean. 

4.“What rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born” – Yeats

The Apocolypse Wyrm has come.  It's million children poison the Earth with their venom and pollute the sky with toxic breath, ichorous poisons drip from the leaves of every flattering tree.  To fight is folly, but their is no other path.

5. “On the day the world ends, A bee circles a clover,” - Milosz 
As if everyone has stopped in mid-task and walked away, they are simply gone, but a few remain, and things that should not have existed are crawling out of the shadows.
 

6.“Not With a bang but with a Whimper” -  Eliot
The world ended and no one realized, life goes on its ruts and and rituals continue unabated as in a waking dream.  Only you are awake from the dream and see the slow sickness spreading as the world contracts and at its edges something alien an antithetical intrudes.

7. “The Crumbling Pageant” – Dryden
Decadence and evil leaking in, the world of the fey has finally broken through and the innumerable courts of the otherworld demand fealty and sacrifice in this one.  Things change, melt and shift.  All is mutable whimsy, and all is deadly beauty.

8. “Everything’s Coming to a Grinding Halt” – The Cure
It has stopped, the magic and the gods drained from the world, and with them the cities and cultures of man crumble.  The arts are lost, the skills of living without magic or the boons of the gods are vague memories and savagery has reasserted itself.

9. “The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air.” – Byron
The dying sun has burnt its last, only the moon and the worlds own slowly cooling heat allow any life, there are those who adapt - monstrous, those who struggle - futilely, and the majority who simply die.

10. "And where the scythes of Truth had mown. Clear space for Liberty's white throne.” - Realf
Truth is death, freedom is death and death now sits on its bone white throne above the world. Some may be living still, but they are monsters at loose in a world of undeath or livestock to the vampire lords waiting to be recast into zombie thralls