Preparing Sewer Rats, Part 4 (Finishing Touches)

Countdown to the Grave

Sewer Rats' health system is a lightly edited version of the standard Into the Odd system, with a Darkest Dungeon-style twist.

Damage is completely normal - take damage to HP, when that runs out, take damage to STR. However, you do not roll for Critical Damage (placeholder) when you take STR damage. You function perfectly fine until you hit 0 STR, at which point you drop dead.

Healing has been changed around as well - at the end of each Delve, you regain all your HP. However, you never regain STR. It's just a timer, counting down until you die. This is intended to balance the increase in equipment characters get over time - as characters get better, stronger equipment, their STR (probably) decreases, making it more of a risk to bring them down into the sewers.

This gives the players a good, in-universe reason to start building up a stable of characters - it's a bad idea to bring a long-running character into a low-level delve, because they'll be slowly worn down through attrition (after all, even a single lost point of STR is a problem), and you want to save them for more dangerous, more lucrative missions.

Optional: Dying of the Plague

To no one's surprise, the sewers under a titanic metropolis aren't particularly clean. Luckily, as long as you don't get cut, you should be fine.

You didn't get cut, right?

When a character takes STR damage, there is a 1-in-8 chance their wound is infected. Roll on the Disease table of your choice (and please, post it in the comments, I need one).

Dungeoncrawling Procedures

Dungeoncrawling is pretty simplified, made up of Turns and Delves. Each Turn, everyone moves, you check off one turn of light, and you roll a 1-in-6 chance for a random encounter. A Delve is the entire time you spend in the dungeon. Most beneficial items will last for a Delve.

I'm using a very simple 2d6 reaction table (2: immediate attack, 3-5: hostile, 6-11: neutral, 12: friendly), and resting during a delve is impossible. They're simply too densely inhabited for it to be a good idea.

Optional: Salary

This rule adds some extra pressure to your players. The Ratcatcher's Guild does not pay for everything. If you do not complete either of your objectives, you get nothing. If you complete your Primary, you get 2 Coins. If you complete both, you get 4.

Coins can be spent on 4 things: Housing, Food, Medicine, and Ammunition. If you do not pay for Medicine, you do not regain HP for the next Delve. If you do not pay for Ammunition, you cannot recharge the Usage Dice of your Ranged Weapons. If you do not pay for Food for 3 Delves, you die. If you do not pay for Housing for 3 Delves, you lose your house. This limits your inventory to 3 items - you must carry everything you own.

Optional: Retrieved Equipment

While most equipment in Sewer Rats is provided by an incredibly efficient and effective system (cough cough), that doesn't mean there's nothing to find during Delves. However, your superiors probably want whatever it is you've found.

Firstly, you must surrender half of any mundane items or equipment uncovered. Hoarding equipment is illegal, and can be punished with lost salary, imprisonment, or expulsion from the Guild. Of course, if you stash everything in an empty part of the sewer to come back for later, who's going to know?

Arcana is of much more interest to the Guild. Legally, you must surrender any Arcana for inspection, which takes 1d4 Delves to complete. If a 4 is rolled, the Arcana is confiscated permanently. If the Arcana is incredibly destructive (disintegration ray, hurricane gem), inspection is automatically permanent. If you hide Arcana and it is found, it will be assumed to be a weapon, and you will be charged with terrorism.

Random checks of Sewer Rats' inventories occur after 1-in-6 Delves.

Preparing Sewer Rats, Part 3 (Equipment and Progression through Self-Debasement)

One of the main focuses with Sewer Rats is speed - fast character creation (thanks to Into the Odd), short sessions, that sort of thing. The other one is bureaucracy - Sewer Rats don't really get to make their own decisions, and they have a vertigo-inducingly huge chain of command telling them what to do and where to do it.

And you know what isn't fast? Spending half an hour searching through equipment lists and thinking about if you want a hammer and nails or another 50 feet of rope! And you know what has lots of bureaucracy? Being assigned equipment by some incompetent middle manager who doesn't have the faintest idea what Sewer Rats even do!

So, every time you complete a mission, more equipment is provided to your group.

If you complete only your primary objective, you roll 3 times on the table below per player, and each player can choose 1 item. If you complete both objectives, each player can choose two items. New characters are created entirely as written in ItO, and get all the equipment they normally would.

We are tracking ranged ammunition, using Usage Dice. Whenever you get new equipment, you have a 2-in-6 chance of having your weapon's Usage Die increased back to the default (1d8).

Digression: Sewer Rats House Rule #1
I've run a couple sessions of Sewer Rats using Into the Odd completely RAW, and now I am doing the OSR thing. Instead of the standard 3 stats, I'm using 4 - Vitality (STR + CON), Dexterity, Will, and Charisma.

I like having Charisma, because in the same way being smart can help you avoid a pit trap, but you still get a Dex save to avoid it, being persuasive should help you persuade someone, but you should still get a Cha check.

The change from Strength to Vitality is just because STR ended up being used for poison and disease saves anyway, so I wanted the name to reflect what it really was.

Of course, there are more house rules - disease stuff, healing changes, etc. These will be coming in the 4th and final Sewer Rats post, possibly next week (either that or another Sunless Horizon post, depending on the will of the people).

Another Digression: Using Useless Items
Loads of these items seem totally useless. Let them not be useless. If someone tries to distract a Hurtta with dried meat, get drunk to improve their Will saves, or change their clothes to help them with a VIT save against disease, let them. Sewer Rats PCs won't get many (if any) magic items, so getting use out of mundane objects is very important for keeping the game interesting.

1d100 Items from the Ratcatcher's Guild

1. A bucket, with a large hole in the bottom.
2. A single boot.
3. An empty bottle.
4. 1d4 pieces of chalk.
5. A wooden 10' pole.
6. A tattered shirt.
7. 1d20 feet of rope.
8. A bent trumpet.
9. Half of a shortsword (1-3 handle end, 4-6 blade end).
10. 1d4 bottles of beer.
11. A cheap pair of pants.
12. A shoddy hammer.
13. 1d4 metal spikes.
14. 1d20 caltrops.
15. A broken musket.
16. 2d4 candles.
17. 1d6 pieces of dried meat.
18. 1d8 matches.
19. A blank book.
20. A quill and ink.
21. A whistle.
22. 1d4 flasks of lantern oil (each lasts 5 Turns).
23. 2d8 empty glass flasks.
24. A lantern.
25. 50' of rope.
26. A net.
27. An empty barrel.
28. A pair of rusted manacles.
29. A loaf of dense, dry bread.
30. 1d20 pieces of paper.
31. A crowbar.
32. A chicken.
33. A bucket.
34. A pickaxe.
35. A mirror.
36. A shovel.
37. A pair of heavy gloves.
38. 1d4 sticks of unreliable dynamite (1d10 damage, 30' radius, 1-in-4 chance of detonating, 1-in-4 chance of detonating in the next 1d4 turns, 2-in-4 chance of nothing). If an explosive does not detonate, you can collect it and try to use it again.
39. 1 set of Shield Armor
40. 1 flask of acid
41. 1 dose of antitoxin (cures poisons, but not diseases)
42. A metal 10' pole
43. A set of caltrops (covers 4 10' squares)
44. 1 vial of rosewater (defends against airborne illnesses)
45. 1d8 torches (each last 3 Turns)
46. Heavy Plate (as Modern Armor, sinks)
47. A full set of clothes.
48. A handheld battering ram.
49. 1d2 doses of dragon's blood - when consumed, be consumed by anger; +2 to attack and damage, must attack each turn, no defensive or subtle actions, must pursue fleeing opponents. Lasts 1d6 Turns, lose 1d4 VIT when it ends. (while called dragon's blood, it is actually created alchemically from far more mundane ingredients)
50. 1 huge mining charge in a cart (2d10 damage, destroys walls, 100' radius, goes off 5 turns after the fuse is lit).

     51-60. Melee Hand Weapon (dagger, shortsword)

     61-70. Ranged Hand Weapon (pistol)

     71-80. Melee Field Weapon (pike, longsword)

     81-90. Ranged Field Weapon (musket)

     91-95. Melee Noble Weapon (rapier, sabre)

     96-100. Heavy Gun (arquebus). Heavy Guns have a 1d6 Usage Die instead of 1d8.

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Preparing Sewer Rats, Part 2 (Bestiary)

Last time on this series, we went over the basic premise of Sewer Rats, and built some prep tools to make running the game easier. Now, we continue working on dungeoncrawling basics with

m o n s t e r s

Since the true theme of this series is laziness, I'm not making my own monsters, that would be ridiculous! Instead, all of these are stolen from the video game Noita.

They're organized by difficulty - over time, you should start slowly integrating higher level enemies into dungeons - both rooms and random encounters. For example, the first dungeon might be entirely Level 1, the second will have 1 Level 2, the third will have 2, etc. If your players are having a really easy time, you should start turning the level up faster.

Level 1

Hurtta

Hurtta are shelled, crawling creatures of the underground. They mostly hunt Hämis, but have no issue with taking bites out of an incautious Guildsman.

STR: 10 DEX: 8 WIL: 4
HP: 4
Bite: 1d6 damage.

Hämis

Hämis are waist-high violet tripods, with rubbery skin stretched taut over a thin skeleton. Their head holds three green, pupil-less eyes, and their legs end in barbed spikes. They are not predatory, but they are very territorial, and will lunge explosively towards perceived threats.

STR: 6 DEX: 12 WIL: 4
HP: 2
Lunge: The Hämis leaps 30 feet forward and stabs into a target, dealing 1d4 damage.

Limanuljaska
Limanuljaska are strange beings, seemingly risen spontaneously from the sewers themselves. They float aimlessly, rarely taking an interest in the world around them. They truly cannot exist - they have no organs, no blood, only a poisonous, pressurized ooze.

STR: 4 DEX: 4 WIL: 4
HP: 3
High Pressure: Whenever a Limanuljaska takes damage, they release a 10' long stream of toxic ooze in the direction the damage came from. Anyone hit by the stream takes 1 STR damage.
Poison Orb: 1 damage direct to STR.

Rotta
I mean, the game is called Sewer Rats. I had to have them somewhere.

STR: 2 DEX: 10 WIL: 4
HP: 2
Bite: 1d4 damage.
Filch: The Rotta grabs one item held by the target, and starts to run away with it.

Hiisi
The Hiisi come from an advanced society, living somewhere underground. Some of them reach closer to the surface to explore, running into Guildsmen on the way. Their bodies are humanoid, with gray-green skin and odd faces - all the structures of a human (eyes, nose, etc.) but rearranged; no two Hiisi have identical arrangements.

Hiisi Grenadier
STR: 12 DEX: 10 WIL: 11
HP: 3
Knife: 1d6 damage.
Grenade: 1d8 damage in a 30' radius. DEX save for half. Each Grenadier carries 3.

Hiisi Pyro
STR: 12 DEX: 8 WIL: 11
HP: 3
Knife: 1d6 damage.
Flamethrower: 1d6 damage in a 40' cone. DEX save for half. Sets flammable objects aflame.

Hiisi Soldier
STR: 13 DEX: 11 WIL: 12
HP: 5
Machinegun: 3 ranged attacks, each dealing 1d4 damage. Can attack different people.

Shotgun Hiisi
STR: 13 DEX: 11 WIL: 12
HP: 5
Shotgun: 2d6 damage, ranged.

Level 2

Lepakko

Lepakko are flying squid-like creatures. They fear light and heat, as they must stay moist to survive. They build faintly glowing purple webs to block off escape routes, then attack suddenly with bites and sticky projectiles.

STR: 7 DEX: 14 WIL: 4
HP: 3
Heat-Fearing: The Lepakko takes 1 damage every time it ends its turn inside the radius of a source of light and heat.
Flyby: 1d4 damage, then the Lepakko moves 30 feet.
Trap Shot: DEX save or be immobilized for 1d4 turns. You can still act, just not move.

Happonuljaska
Happonuljaska form from groups of Limanuljaska fusing together in times of stress. Around Happonuljaska, Limanuljaska become more present and observant, as well as much more aggressive.

STR: 4 DEX: 4 WIL: 4
HP: 5
Influence: The highest Reaction Roll result that can occur with a Happonuljaska is Hostile. This effect applies to all Limanuljaska near it.
High Pressure: Whenever a Happonuljaska takes damage, they release a 10' long stream of acid in the direction the damage came from. Anyone hit by the stream takes 1d4 damage and loses one random item.
Acidic Orb: 1d4 damage and the target loses one random item.

Laahustussieni

Laahustussieni cores grow deep in the sewers. Once they are ready to release their spores, several Laahustussieni grow off from the core and wander until they find a good location to explode, releasing their spores.

STR: 6 DEX: 6 WIL: 2
HP: 2
Death Wish: The Laahustussieni will leap in front of attacks, taking the damage instead of the intended target.
Spore Bomb: When the Laahustussieni dies, it releases a 30' cloud of spores. Roll 1d4 for the effect of the spores.
1. Hallucinogen
2. Intoxicating - roll with Advantage (Into the Odd is a roll-under system) for all checks for 1d6 turns
3. Blindness - you sure are blind! All attacks have a 3-in-6 chance of missing, along with other effects of... blindness.
4. Just Poison - 1 damage direct to STR.

Tulikärpänen

Tulikärpänen are large, luminous insects found in some deeper parts of the sewers. Their threatening greenish glow comes from a solution of white phosphorous dissolved in oils. They are usually left alone - not just because of their danger, but also a long-standing belief that they come from dead torchbearers.

STR: 6 DEX: 11 WIL: 4
HP: 5
Rupture: Upon death, the Tulikärpänen explodes violently, dealing 1d6 damage in a 30' radius, setting flammable objects alight.
Phosphoric Vapors: 1d8 damage in a 50' cone. DEX save for half. Sets flammable objects aflame.

Tankki
Tankki are tracked machines built by the Hiisi for use as fire support in extremely dangerous environments. They are controlled by a limited AI, commanded by a nearby group of Hiisi.

KK-Tankki
STR: 13 DEX: 4 WIL: 10
HP: 10
Artificial: KK-Tankki are immune to poisons, mind-affecting magic, and disease. They take half damage from normal weapons (swords, guns), but double damage from electricity and explosions.
Heavy Machinegun: 3 ranged attacks, each dealing 2d4 damage. Can attack different people.

IT-Tankki
STR: 13 DEX: 4 WIL: 10
HP: 10
Artificial: IT-Tankki are immune to poisons, mind-affecting magic, and disease. They take half damage from normal weapons (swords, guns), but double damage from electricity and explosions.
Rocket Launcher: 1d10 damage in a 50' radius. DEX save for half.

Laser-Tankki
STR: 13 DEX: 4 WIL: 10
HP: 10
Artificial: Laser-Tankki are immune to poisons, mind-affecting magic, and disease. They take half damage from normal weapons (swords, guns), but double damage from electricity and explosions.
Beam Emitter: 1d6 damage, adding 1d6 with each turn the Laser-Tankki spends charging.

Häivehiisi
Hidden under advanced metamaterials, Häivehiisi are used for scouting. Remember, if you see one, there are many more.

STR: 8 DEX: 12 WIL: 10
HP: 3
Invisible: It requires a WIL save to notice a Häivehiisi or find its location.
Splinter Rifle: This weapon deals no damage on a hit. On the target's turn, they take 1d6 damage from no apparent source.

Level 3

Hahmonvaihtaja
Hahmonvaihtaja are dark spirits, risen from the Underworld. They are perfect shapeshifters, copying faces and voices to manipulate humans into their bidding. If their machinations fail, they shift to their true form, and enter war at the head of a swarm of Hyypiö.

STR: 12 DEX: 12 WIL: 14
HP: 10
Shapeshifter: Hahmonvaihtaja can perfectly copy the form of another being.
Claw: 2 attacks at 2d6 damage each.
Infernal Pillars: 3 pillars of fire, each with a 20' radius, form around the Hahmonvaihtaja. Anyone touching the pillars take 1d12 damage. Ranged attacks fired through the pillars are instantly destroyed. These pillars last until the Hahmonvaihtaja is killed or leaves the area.

Hyypiö
Hyypiö are accursed souls, dragged up from the Underworld at the behest of a Hahmonvaihtaja. The heavy clay masks chained to their faces glow with red firelight when provoked by Arcana.

STR: 6 DEX: 8 WIL: 4
HP: 4
Rune of Command: The Hyypiö can copy and use the effect of any Arcana near it.
Death Wish: The Hyypiö will leap in front of attacks, taking the damage instead of the intended target.

Infernal Spirit: When the Hyypiö is killed, it creates an Infernal Pillar where it dies.
Flail: 1d6 damage.

Mulkkio
Mulkkio come from Happonuljaska, mutated from strange substances in the deepest parts of the sewers. Unlike the Happonuljaska's wide acid orifice, the Mulkkio's has constricted unnaturally, releasing not a sphere of acid, but a high-pressure, destructive jet. Luckily, this mutation stops Limanuljaska from seeing them as a leader.

STR: 10 DEX: 10 WIL: 6
HP: 15
Higher Pressure: Whenever a Mulkkio takes damage, they release a 30' long stream of acid in the direction the damage came from. Anyone hit by the stream takes 2d4 damage and loses 3 random items.
Acidic Jet: 2d4 damage and the target loses 3 random items.

Peitsivartija

Peitsivartija are tall, thin Hiisi machines with a broad wedge-shaped head. They hold a large railgun that fires foot-long metal spikes. 

STR: 10 DEX: 14 WIL: 10
HP: 10
Artificial: Peitsivartija are immune to poisons, mind-affecting magic, and disease. They take half damage from normal weapons (swords, guns), but double damage from electricity and explosions.
Railgun: 2d6 damage and drags the target 40' backwards. If they are dragged into a wall, they are pinned by the spike and must make a STR save to pull it out.

Salamurhaajarobotti

Salamurhaajarobotti are released into the sewers by the Hiisi to hunt for intruders. They are shockingly fast, and defended by a indestructible energy field.

STR: 10 DEX: 14 WIL: 10
HP: 10
Artificial: Salamurhaajarobotti are immune to poisons, mind-affecting magic, and disease. They take half damage from normal weapons (swords, guns), but double damage from electricity and explosions.
Energy Field: The Salamurhaajarobotti takes no damage from attacks hitting it in the front.
Beam Sword: 4d6 damage

Robottikyttä
Robottikyttä are unstoppable titans of metal, standing twice as high as a man and bearing a massive rotary cannon. The Hiisi use them to defend their most vital installations.

STR: 16 DEX: 10 WIL: 10
HP: 20
Indomitable: The Robottikyttä's weight lets it crash through walls with ease.
Artificial: Robottikyttä are immune to poisons, mind-affecting magic, and disease. They take half damage from normal weapons (swords, guns), but double damage from electricity and explosions.

Active Countermeasures: When hit by an attack, the Robottikyttä releases a 20' plume of electrified smoke that lasts 3 turns. Everyone inside the smoke takes 1d6 damage on the Robottikyttä's round.

Rotary Cannon: 4 ranged attacks, each dealing 2d6 damage. Can attack different people.

Preparing Sewer Rats, Part 1 (Base Premise & Prep Tools)

I think it's vital to have a filler game - something you can easily set up and run when you're missing people from your campaign, have to run on short notice, or have a schedule too unreliable to make a campaign work.

In my group, Libra has been serving as our filler game, but it takes longer to prep than I'd like (reading Delta Green shotgun scenarios can only get you so far), and everyone's starting to get bored. So, with the new year starting, I began:

Sewer Rats

Sewer Rats is an idea largely stolen from this D&D Wiki post, where someone created a premise for a low-fantasy dungeoncrawler, and promptly ruined everything by deciding to run it in 3.5e.

This series will be comprised of 4-ish posts, probably completed within the next month:

1: Base Premise and Prep Tools

2: Bestiary
3: Equipment and Progression through Self-Debasement
4: Finishing Touches

X: Play Reports

Base Premise

Sewer Rats is an Into the Odd campaign where the players work as repairmen/pest control in the sewers and other under-places of a fantasy metropolis. They're underfunded, underequipped, overstressed, and have learned from experience that everyone who outranks them is dangerously incompetent at best and actively malicious at worst. (If your underlings die, you get to report "unusually high danger", netting you a nice raise thanks to your "increased responsibility".)

The gameplay loop is simple - enter the dungeon, complete your Objectives, realize the map your superior gave you is wrong, nearly die, get rewarded with new equipment from the Ratcatcher's Guild, repeat. It's a nice, simple dungeon crawl with as little extraneous nonsense as possible.

Everything is going to be done entirely as-written in Into the Odd - I know that if I start changing anything it'll just end up as a classless GLOG hack, and I want to try another system for a

Prep Tools

One of the main reasons I'm transitioning to this campaign is the ease of prep: with a bit of work now, making dungeons later will be quick and easy.

The first step here is maps, where there are 3 standard options:

1. make your own map because you're not lazy

2. grab premade maps

3. use a random map generator

Now, all of these options have some problems: I'm not going to make my own maps because I am lazy, eventually I'm going to run out of premade sewer maps, and random map generators don't know how to make a decent map and I'm too grumpy to deal with it.

So instead, I commit heresy.

heresy

Instead of any of those normal reasonable options, I decided to do all of them at once. I went over to Dyson's Dodecahedron, searched for "sewer", grabbed all the maps, and frantically cut them apart into vague shapes, before rebuilding them to make horrid monstrosities like this.

Objectives

Next, we have to put things in them; monsters will be coming later, but for know the most important thing is Objectives - things (other than "kill kill kill clear the dungeon") you have to accomplish before you leave. I'm splitting these into Primary (not completing your primary objective makes the Ratcatcher's Guild "somewhat irritated"), and Secondary (completing secondary objectives gives you rewards in the form of extra equipment).

1d6 x 2 Objectives

1. Primary: A group of Guildsmen went down into the sewers and haven't come back. Rescue everyone still alive. Secondary: Bring back the bodies and equipment of any casualties.
2. Primary: A pipe's shattered. Escort a repair team down and protect them while they fix it. Secondary: Keep all of the repair team members alive.
3. Primary: Some kind of monster has killed the last two teams we sent down there. Get rid of it. Secondary: Capture the monster and bring it back up to the surface.
4. Primary: Bring down this giant pile of volatile explosives and detonate them here. Secondary: Go through and clear out the area on the other side.
5. Primary: Make a map of this area. Secondary: Prep the area for others to come through (disarming traps, building bridges).
6. Primary: We think one of the other Guildsmen parties is "losing" their equipment down in a sewer, then retrieving it to sell. Follow them on their next mission. Secondary: If our suspicions are right, capture them and bring them up to the surface.