Simplified HMS APOLLYON or OD&D gun rules.

Below are draft rules for firearms that I would use for HMS APOLLYON or any similar reasonably high lethality game based on a Basic/Expert or more specifically OD&D (whitebox) system.  I have only dealt with small arms below, but crew served weapons such as heavy machine guns and artillery have their own, very deadly, rules that I will detail in a future post.

My aim is to make firearm rules that provide some advantages to guns, but limit them in other ways so they don't come to dominate player's weaponry.

D100 Random "Minor" Science Fantasy Treasures

Below is a list of randomly generated "minor treasure" for the South of Denethix, where the Tombs of the Rocketmen and Obelisk of Forgotten Memories can be found. I like this sort of list because it provides random treasure for unexpected encounters, with a great variety.  Generally putting some odd valuable objects in place and then some coinage where appropriate is more fun then using classic treasure tables.

In addition to description and value I have included two other columns. Weight and fragility. Weight is based on the LOTFP "significant item" rules, and the modifications of that play are increasingly common in the games I've been playing.  A character may carry 1 significant item for every point of Strength. Exceeding that limit means the character is encumbered and cannot act normally. Fragile helps determine the possibility of the item being destroyed if it is dropped suddenly, caught in a fireball, or otherwise subject to destructive force.

100 science fantasy treasures on the table below.

A Map - just a map

Was thinking about buried vaults from before the collapse of a Science Fantasy Society and what great dungeons they might make.  Below is a small one I call Shelter Antere.  We have nuke plants and robot repair stations, a dome of green crops (or not if the light went out) and plenty of space to fill with undead, mutants, ghouls, upstanding citizens or degenerate horrors.

As a map I am not so sure. I added too much fiddly detail I think - in the engineering sections and medical sections only.

Level One - is an Engineering shop section, and there's even an abortive escape tunnel.  I'd run this as a mutiny, trapping the vault closed behind the door to this upper section, where no one survived to let the majority of the dwellers out once the safety interlocks allowed outdoor access.

Level Two - Administration, Security and Medical/Carniculture around a central growing area with artificial lake.

Level Three - On the right, living quarters, on the left reactor and robot shops.  One might note a lack of supply rooms.  This is because the large covered pit leads to a robotic supply pit, an acre of dusty crates superintended by angry robots (or maybe balrogs, because that's what happens when you dig too deep).

Well something like that at least. I mean most likely it's filled with radiation ghouls and insane AIs anyhow.  I note (as referenced in the comments with Garrison James of Heriticworks) that this dungeon is full of choke points and has very little in the way of alternate routes.  Some would suggest this makes a bad dungeon map.  This was drawn on a whim, and as is my way, drawn with an effort to make something logical and organic (i.e. things are in the space that make sense).  Yet this is unsatisfying - as a dungeon map.  If one were to fill this with vault dweller of any intelligent variety, it would be unassailable by a party unless they had a few area effect attacks at least (and the vault dwellers didn't).  Could be good still for undead - or robo undead, which is sort of the science fantasy variant, along with plain old robots.  Anyhow it's a map.  I bet the initial population of the vault was somewhere in the 25 - 50 range - too small really.  I kind of envision it as a private vault built for a pack of rich folk.  This of course seems like it would be the perfect set up to devolve into necromancy or ghoul packs.

Finchbox Play Report - Session 1 - A Tower was Crumbled.

Scab Grinder. A Red Cap

Below is the bragging story of Scab Grinder, about his exploration, with several other destitute wanderers and castoffs, of the newly fallen tower of Grimsgate's lord protector .  The Scab Grinder is a forest spirit that stumbled into Grimsgate recently.  The entity seemed harmless enough, and since the lords are vanished and the capital has fallen, there is no one to say it should be driven back into the woods. Worse there is no one to drive the foul intrusion of the magical back into the woods,but it seems willing and even delighted to do menial labor (especially butchering) for table scraps and stale beer. Scab Grinder is a Red Cap, a twisted elemental brute of animate burl and root that crudely copies the ways of man.  As a PC Scab Grinder is a Lvl 1 dwarf played in Brendan’s “Finchbox” inaugural session.  He acquitted himself well, but did little besides acting as a guinea pig for gasses and spotting hidden doors.

There was sun above the rich earth, and the vibrations of the people below, the questing touch of growing things.  This was.  Then there was movement and the light of sun amongst the forest, and it was good to be inside the growing thing.  Time existed and also self.  Self begat knowledge of that outside self, and such knowledge is not quickly found standing still.  The ambition for more knowledge of the world cannot be served by standing alone in the deep dappled woods.  That is how the root wandered.  The root found others and others were different then the root, softer and loud, calling themselves men.  The root took a name, Scab Grinder, as those were in the words of the others and sounded strong. Scab Grinder was brought most powerful sensations in the test of the Root’s form against those of men.  Squashing, pulping and looking at their inner workings – such color, worthy of a hat for Scab Grinder.  Still ambition demands more than simply wandering the woods and crushing the men found there, dipping his hat in the red water that runs from their still forms.

Signs your party is not the first in the Dungeon.

Sometimes players decide to keep returning to the same picked over part of the dungeon because it's safe rather then delve deeper.  This is especially common if it's a mega-dungeon.  best way of dealing with this is rival packs of murder hobos on a spree.  Treasure gets grabbed, enemies slain, allies turned hostile and a new extremely dangerous entry goes on the random monster table - the rival adventuring party.

Add this to your random encounter table...

Here's a table of  hints that the party might not be alone anymore.

Lost in the Dense Forests South of Denethix.

The forest South of Denethix and towards the sea, covers the entire area between Mt. Rendon and the Livid Fens.  It hols several attractions to adventurers including the fabled Molybdenum Tombs, infested with crystal jaguars, The Obelisk of Forgotten Memory and the Tomb of the Rocketmen.  The area also contains the towers, fortresses and complexes of several wizards and is a rich zone for the recovery of ancient artifacts and smaller ruins dating back to the centuries before the collapse.  The below table list random items and locations discovered while wandering this trackless tangle of brambles and ominous black barked pines. 

Perhaps these are useful for on the fly hex socking, or roll one every few hours of travel to give the forest a bit of life perhaps. This table is not a substitute for random encounters.

Zone Tigers

Recently there has been talk about “Tigers” in the OSR gossip world. Tigers being animals that appear specifically adapted to hunt humans.  From my understanding of the fossil record, and especially of how the big cats hunt baboons with terror, perhaps jaguars would be a better name for these beasts, but any large hunting cat will do and the label tigers has the advantage of a Borges reference.  The beast that “can only be faced by a man of war, on a castle atop an elephant.”

Below are a pair of  “Tigers” specifically for the “Zone”, inspired by the novel Roadside Picnic, and FATE SF “Zone Project”.  These aren’t simple anomalies, mutants, or extraterrestrial horrors, they specifically hunt the Stalkers that seek to plunder alien artifacts from the Zone.

A Real Zone

Rust Tiger – While greed or curiosity is the lure that brings stalkers and scientists into the zones, once behind the nightmare curtain of the zone, every investigator craves only safety and survival.  The Rust Tiger hunts with hope, the lure of safe passage amongst the horrors of the Zone, and it hunts with a will beyond hunger and animal cruelty.  Rust Tigers hunt only men, and will not even harm the dogs that stalkers sometimes use as scouts or defenders, and Rust Tigers show actual malice and cunning, even an art, in their predations.

The source of the Rust Tiger’s malice is unknown, but the more poetic of the stalkers claim that the secret of the beasts’ rage is found in its form.  While every Rust Tiger is different they all appear as the detritus of everyday life, objects of home and convenience left to decay, corrode and rust  in the unwholesome environment of the zone.  Indistinguishable from any mound of domestic debris or spray of forgotten objects half buried in the mud of a ruined cellar the Rust Tiger waits in ambush.  Some animating force however controls these seemingly random bits of trash, and suddenly it will rear up from concealment, tearing with claws of thick television screen glass, gnashing with jaws of broken coffee mugs, and flowing quick and deadly on limbs of warped furniture.

Tomb of the Rocketmen - 1st Playtest Report.

Tomb of the Rocketmen Playtest - I ran a playtest of Tomb of the Rocketman the other night, the party was fairly successful, losing one member to a trap and most importantly they showed me that the Tomb isn't instantly deadly (as I had feared) or impossible to enter.

THE PARTY

A crack team of skilled graverobbers, killers and antiquarians assembled at the personal orders of the Grande Vizier of Denethix.

Grisham Everyman – A perfectly mundane man of middling years, with mud brown hair and hard brown eyes.  Only his armor, a suit of white ceramic plates, marked with blue designs is remarkable. Fighter 6

Dogrok – A cyclone of anger from the beleaguered tribes amongst the Feasting Trees.  This warrior wears elaborate fluted armor made of the finest steel and his hammer is the living heartwood of a Feasting Titan. Fighter 6

Mo-Mo – Moktar Warrior from the Certopsian, Deadly with a black Zweihander from a dusty serpant man tomb and favored by his ancestors.  Moktar 6

Marina Cleric of Theosaurid – Worshipper of the gilded god of dinosaurs, a devotee of the most savage faith amongst the orbital gods (or so they claim – Rarge God of Savagery disagrees).  She is always accompanied by her Doberman convert and guardian, Lt. Dog. Cleric 6

Gamma Ray – Sorcerer of the Sword, a well built warlock who is fond of  grandiose gestures.  His past is unknown to any but himself, and he hints at retaking a tower somewhere in the Worthless North.  He carries a powerful artifact of lost sorcery. Magic-User 6

11 – An ancient machine of rust and impenetrable armor plating, unearthed near the home warrens, 11 destroyed the foolish dwarf nobles that thought he could be bound by chains of compound interest.  Its drills and magma cannon still function, and now 11 is a heartless bounty killer. Robot 6

Cliff Dwelling Map

Another Map - Playing with Isometric paper.  The hard part with isometric maps is putting rooms on top of each other.  I think they can be good for small locations or really spread out spindly ones, but I feel like a lot of information is lost and the limitations outweigh the coolness factor.

Another G'Damn Map

More for "The Pretender's Dread Machine".  Another map.  Not all cool and old school, an outdoor map, of the "Autocrat's Tear", a canyon in the midst of the accursed halfling infested (Yes halfling rustics with curare - don't say you weren't warned) Yellow Lands.

What we're looking at is a canyon, with a cavern at the East end.  I'm not sure how well it played out, but this is the trouble with drawing and drinking. The walls of the canyon are black rock, and the vegetation grey.  The milky water flowing within is poison, death by slow petrification.

A) An ancient watch tower of arcane weapons, blasted to rubble.  Formerly the den of Skip Lions.

B) A blasted crater - where a Wizard met his end when faced by Desolate Crusaders and Wire Ghasts.

C) Pubelo religious center of the ancients. Empty, dusty, gold here and there.

D) Vile Marsh where the milky water pools in stinking sludge, and Wire Ghasts roam.

E) The Cavern of the Machine, A  huge arched cavern, with cenotes dotting it's floor,  the cenotes vary in color as they have been permanently dyed by the pigments that coated the sacrifices made by the ancients, or possibly by the industrial effluvia of the Pretender's Machine.  Wire Ghasts, Rusted Sentinals and Desolate Crusaders emerge from the pools and stalk the cavern.

Updated with a bit of a fix to make the cave clearer and the letters more functional