Invoker (GLOG Class)

this is not all there is

The world of the supernatural has layers & scales, just as the world of the natural. There are bacteria, and animals, and people, but none of these things are these things. Clerics, reaching up to the divine, brush their fingers against the largest beings of the supernatural.

But there are many things further down - nature spirits, long-dead tyrants, minor demons. The Invoker has, through time and ritual, become able to hold on to these Entities. They bring them from the spirit world into themselves, becoming almost possessed by the thing they've summoned. The stronger they become, the further from reality they can reach.

A: Invocation, +1 MD

B: Ritualism, +1 MD

C: Participation, +1 MD

D: Separation, +1 MD

Invocation

You are able to summon Entities and bind them into your own body. Any Invocation lasts until the next dawn or dusk, and you are able to access any of the Entity's abilities for free while they are Invoked. You cannot Invoke two Entities simultaneously.

When you perform an Invocation, roll your MD and [sum] the result on the Entity table.

Ritualism

With every hour up to [templates] spent on a single Invocation, you can move [sum] by one.

Participation

When you perform an Invocation, you can place the Entity in a willing participant. You cannot place two Entities into the same person.

Separation

You can place two Invoked Entities into a single person, including yourself.

Entity Table

The first 12 of these entries are spirits known to humanity. They are cooperative, though perhaps not friendly, and their will is easily crushed by an Invoker. Past where the spirits reside are the 6 Elemental Planes, which can be dangerous to open as their power is barely contained in the body. 

The last 6 are residents of the Outer Planes, great things beyond the understanding of mortals. The first time you contact them, you can hold them back, barely. The second time, they are prepared, and burst through their bonds, permanently possessing the Invoker even if the Entity was supposed to rest within another participant. They don't care about anyone else. They need you.

1. Young Crow - only just born, but already wandering. While Young Crow is Invoked, you are able to fly at your walking speed.

2. The Stars - always watching, like a man standing over a pond. You can see perfectly in the dark.

3. Leviathan - the size of a continent, buried somewhere under the sea. You can breathe water.

4. Beria, the Martyr - incinerated by dragonsfire. You've heard that the Church keeps a bone of his in some cathedral you've never seen. You cannot be damaged by fire.

5. Imperious Lord Alsebeth - once conquered the world, now lies in an unmarked grave. Your Strength is set to 20 or doubled, whichever is greater.  

6. The First Ghoul - killed thousands of years ago, perhaps. Still hungers. Your hands extend into claws, dealing 1d4 damage and requiring a Save against paralysis.

7. Last Queen of the Elves - she will reign someday, far in the future. You can talk to all animals.

8. Astarii - a minor demon of paranoia. Allows you to read the surface thoughts of anyone within 60' of you.

9. Five-sided Square - don't look at it don't look at it don't look at it. You can teleport within 60' to anywhere you could walk to - you don't have to see your destination, there just has to be an unblocked path.

10. Echo - trapped and afraid, whispering to no one. Whenever you speak to someone, you may choose to make them Save against fear.

11. Black Glass Demon - hates all this noise, all this movement. Within 90' of you, all magic has the highest-rolling MD used in its casting discarded. 

12. An Angel - perfect, holy, silent. Your touch allows people to make new Saves against disease and possession, and deals 2d6 damage to spirits and demons.

13. Opens a hole into the Plane of Fire. The character affected takes 1d8 damage an hour unless immersed in water, but can breathe a 2d6 damage 30' cone of fire [dice] times.

14. Opens a hole into the Plane of Water. You can walk on water, but need twice as much water per day.

15. Opens a hole into the Plane of Earth. The character affected gains +4 AC, but has halved movement speed and sinks in water.

16. Opens a hole into the Plane of Air. You weigh only 10 pounds. This is both a benefit and a drawback.

17. Opens a hole into the Plane of Light. The character affected emits light in a 240' radius, but can barely see, gaining disadvantage on attack rolls and Wisdom checks for perception.

18. Opens a hole into the Plane of Darkness. The character affected can hide perfectly in darkness, but takes 1 damage per minute spent in light brighter than a torch.

19. The Eternal Fates - they pull the strings of the world . You can reroll any die that does not involve you - another PC attacking a monster is fine, but you attacking is not.

20. Seventh Hand - placed all the stars in their places in a single moment. You gain 5 ethereal arms. In a single turn you can make 3 actions, along with any other benefits from having a load of arms. 

21. Sun-in-Splendor - the envious life-giver. You glow like the sun. Your touch melts stone and deals 6d4 damage.

22. He Who Is Bound in Red - he lays deep in your blood. No matter how much damage you take during this period, you cannot die. You can still be hacked apart, burned to ash, etc., but you won't die from any of it, until he leaves your body.

23. The Worm Behind the World - it's so cold out there. You can shapeshift into any humanoid perfectly.

24. The Jade Throne - who wrote the first laws: gravity, conservation of energy, the speed of light. Everything you say is followed unquestioningly.

The Response Engine (Sunless Horizon Intro Dungeon)

Since I released the Sunless Horizon beta last September, I've run it through another short playtest and have been working on the next beta. That's been going much more slowly than I had hoped, however.

To take a bit of a break from it, I've polished up the dungeon I used for the playtest into a fully usable adventure. It's heavily inspired by Lair of the Lamb, taking its core concept (you start in the dungeon with no equipment and have to break out) and the earliest section (being chased around by some horrible thing you can't kill).

It also borrows part of the Activation Chamber test from Dan's Minimodule 2: FIRST CONTACT PROTOCOL.

I expect that the most divisive thing about will be the lack of random encounters - instead, the dungeon is almost entirely full, and time pressure comes from the Response Engine moving towards a Black Zone, with the PCs (hopefully) managing to escape before it reaches it.

Click for the PDF

Zine Quest Interview 4 - Ava

My interview series continues with renewed fervor now that Zine Quest has begun. If you have an active or upcoming ZQ project and would like to schedule an interview, feel free to contact me through email or Discord, both linked on the sidebar.

Archon: Would you like to introduce yourself and your project?

Ava: Yeah, sure. I'm Ava, I am barely a person, but I have spent the past 5 years noodling on a little game called Errant and it has now been unleashed upon the world. It's a pretty classic fantasy RPG, but where it differentiates itself I think is in the wide range of procedures it gives you for dealing with game situations like chases, duels, lockpicking, domain management and downtime in ways that are fast, simple, meaningful, and fun.

Archon: Do you have an example of one of these procedures that you think exemplifies the system?

Ava: I think lockpicking is a fairly good one. Instead of just rolling a skill check, players open locks by selecting one of three options (Tap, Turn, Twist). A lock requires 3 correct actions to pick; no two actions are ever used in a row. If you pick a wrong action, the lock gets Stiff, and your next wrong action will make it Jam, rendering it unopenable.

Archon: How modular are these procedures? Like for lockpicking, does Errant have advice or options on how to make more complex locks?

Ava: Yeah, it does give ways to make more complex locks. I think most of the procedures are pretty modular; the book explicitly call out adjusting or removing things based on the needs of your game. The Downtime Turn procedures though give the game a lot of its specific flavour, in my opinion, so I reckon those are worth giving a shot out of the box as is. Some things that I describe as procedures, like tracking different types of turns and rolling an Event Dice each turn to see what happens (e.g. if there's a random encounter, if you need to rest, if you use up some supplies) are pretty core to the game and changing them would have knock-on effects throughout the whole system. I go into this pretty in-depth in my last blog post, the second in my series of deep dives into the design of Errant.

Archon: It's interesting to see someone discussing the reasons and goals they have when designing a game, like you do in those blog posts. Do you think that made it easier to work on Errant?

Ava: The blog posts are largely retrospective, I don't think they've shaped the design of Errant much at all. Just describing my thought processes and specific decisions I made.

Archon: Ah, alright.

Some old RPGs that could be described as "procedure-heavy" are now often seen as overly-complex and disconnected from themselves - like a dozen minigames with no connective tissue. Does Errant do anything to address this, or was it not a worry during development?

Ava: I've tried to take some measures to unify things. There is a core mechanic in Errant which is a d20 roll equal to or under a given attribute and above a Difficulty Value. Then there are the 4 turn types: Travel Turns, Exploration Turns, Initiative Turns, and Downtime Turns. On all of these Turns except Initiative Turns you roll 1 or more Event Dice to determine what happens. So most of the procedures in Errant refer back to one or both of these foundational aspects of the game: something either takes a turn to do and/or requires a check of some kind.

Archon: That really does seem like it solves the problem to me.

Looking at your pitch, you seem to have a very large team (12 in all) for a Zine Quest project. How did you manage to get together so many people for what I think is your first Kickstarter?

Ava: I am lucky to be part of a fairly tight knit community of creators and friends who have graciously offered to help me along with the project for next to no compensation. As Nick, my layout designer put it, "small art only survives because small artists help one another."

Archon: That's wonderful. I'm happy you're getting the help your project needs to be how you want it.

And speaking of help, Exalted Funeral is running distribution for Errant. Do you have any advice for people who want to work with a publisher or distributor?

Ava: Truth be told getting to work with Exalted Funeral is entirely the results of the efforts of my publishing partner, Chris Mennell. But from what I've seen: just email people, it never hurts to try.

Archon: There's still more than a week left in your campaign, and it does look very well-run, but do you think you've learned anything important from it yet?

Ava: One thing that seems completely obvious in retrospect but I didn't realise was possible was to partner with multiple distributors to better serve international customers. Going forward that's definitely going to be my M.O.; it hurts seeing how high non-U.S. shipping prices are.

Archon: Errant has already gone far past your goal - will this motivate you to aim higher with your next project?

Ava: I have very lofty ambitions for Errant volumes 3 and 4, which will likely have to be brought down to reality at some point, but yes. I'm aiming to take whatever money from this that doesn't go into the hands of artists, editors, designers, and consultants on this project and put it towards making future Errant products as crassly and absurdly gorgeous as they can be.

Archon: That's all the questions I have - is there anything else you'd like to talk about?

Ava: There may or may not be a bonus Errant adventure involving a Goose dragon in the works...

If you want to hear more, come down and chat in our community discord!

Archon: Thanks for your time, have a good evening.

Zine Quest Interview 3 - kahva

My interview series continues with renewed fervor now that Zine Quest has begun. If you have an active or upcoming ZQ project and would like to schedule an interview, feel free to contact me through email or Discord, both linked on the sidebar.

A: Good afternoon! Would you like to introduce yourself and your project?

K: Sure! I'm kahva. I've been playing OSR games since about 2018, particularly GLOG and Into the Odd - or something in between the two. My project is Boots Full of Mud, an overland travel procedure accompanied by two topographic maps.

A: What are the basics of that travel procedure, and what do you think it gives a game that a standard crawl doesn't?

K: The foundation of the procedure is the watch - a unit of time roughly equal to four hours. Each watch has three phases: weather, planning, and resolution. The party can accomplish one activity per watch - think things like trekking, resting, or delving into a dungeon. My focus has been on creating rules that are simple, easy to remember, and easy to reference when that's necessary; while still taking advantage of all the information afforded by topographic maps.

Compared to other travel procedures the most obvious difference is the ability to take advantage of all that information. I've always been fascinated by maps, to the point of approaching them like art pieces - displaying them on my walls like you would a painting. Hexcrawls and pointcrawls have never scratched the same itch that examining a detailed map of a region and plotting your course does.

A: Speaking of those maps - if you aren't using hexes or points, how does your system track distance?

K: All the maps include a scale - 1 centimeter is equal to 5 kilometers, for example. When using physical maps I like to get a piece of string and mark it in appropriate increments. If playing online, the best solution is to use a VTT that has a measuring tool (roll20 does, as do many others). 

I don't sweat the details much, though. Especially when playing online winding paths can be a difficult to measure accurately, so I'll usually just get a quick estimate and call it good.

A: Your KS has a tier with example maps, but is there anything in the zine itself to help people make their own?

K: No. There are some tools to aid in creating dynamic weather and encounter generation, but nothing for map creation.

It is worth mentioning, though, that the rules can be used with basically any map you pick up - be it a real world US Geological Survey map of your area, an atlas-style map of a region, or even a quick sketch you threw together 10 minutes before the game. 

You can even use this procedure with a standard hex- or pointcrawl with just a few tweaks.

Interior mockup not final and subject to change

A: That seems like it may be more helpful anyway.

About these maps - they're more of an endeavor than a lot of ZQ projects (where you're just mailing the zine and you're done). What made you decide you needed to release physical maps?

K: The maps are really the core of the project for me - I created the rules to support the maps, not the other way around. I love the experience of rolling out a big map of an unfamiliar place and making sense of it, plotting your course, making decisions. I wanted to bring that to my RPGs, so the maps came first. Then I needed to create rules to support them. The big challenge there was making the rules smooth enough they wouldn't bog down play, while still making use of all the detail a topographic map provides.

A: In that case, let's keep talking about the maps.

Unless you reach your stretch goal, you're making 2 to release with the Kickstarter - what are they?

K: The first is a sparsely-populated subarctic island. I imagine it could exist somewhere between the Faroe Islands and Iceland in our world.  It's got a spine of tall mountains, lots of rivers, and a few mostly disconnected settlements. It's pretty close to final - I'll rename things, tweak some topography here and there, maybe adjust some colors - but nothing too major.

The second is a humid equatorial island. I imagine it could exist somewhere in the Indian Ocean or off the coast of Central America. It's got broad river valleys carved into the mountains, dense cloud forests, and a smattering of settlements. This one is still being drafted - the topography is there but will be changed up a bit, as will the rivers, and the color scheme might be revamped.

Map not final and subject to change

A: These both also come with brochures, but your Kickstarter pitch says the maps are unkeyed. In that case, what's actually inside the brochures?

K: The contents of the brochures fall into 3 categories:

1. Weather and encounter generation tools tuned to the environment and ecosystem of the map.

2. Descriptions of a selection of landscapes found on the map.

3. Descriptions of the towns and villages found on the map. These are meant as a jumping-off point for referees, they're not fully detailed adventure locations. Slotting in locations from your favorite modules would be a great way to flesh them out a bit more.

A: And those brochures are being partially written by Jojiro - did you always intend to work with him, or was this a recent change?

K: The weather and encounter tools will be done by me, but yeah, all the descriptions will be written by Jojiro. It is a pretty recent development, and one I'm happy about. I enjoy writing mechanics and procedures, but the closer something gets to prose, the more difficulty I have. I'm happy to focus on the maps and mechanics and let Jojiro handle the text in the brochures.

A: I think it'll be great.

Before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to talk about?

K: Nothing comes to mind! If anyone wants to chat with me about the project - or anything else - they can find me on the OSR discord.

A: Alright! Thanks for your time.

Zine Quest Interviews 2 - Philippe Ricard

My interview series continues with renewed fervor now that Zine Quest has begun. If you have an active or upcoming ZQ project and would like to schedule an interview, feel free to contact me through email or Discord, both linked on the sidebar.

A: So, would you like to introduce yourself and your project?

P: Yeah, for sure! I'm Philippe Ricard, I'm an illustrator/comics artist/tabletop RPG designer (whew!) from Santa Barbara, California. My Zine Quest project, Lethal Fauna Bric-a-Brac, is a zine with 16+ new monsters for OSR games. Each monster gets a lovely full-page ink illustration by me, as well as the usual stats and description. So, it's a monster book. Pretty simple pitch! But I think it's gonna be pretty dang cool!

A: 16+ monsters - so some of them are stretch goals, I assume? How did you decide which ones had to be in the book, and which could be optional?

P: Good question! So, the main goal of the campaign is to do a 24-page zine. Most monsters get a full-page spread and then there are a couple that get crammed in 3 to a page. I did the math, and the total number of monsters for the 24-page zine would be 16. I guess this is a spoiler, but yes, if we reach certain stretch goals, there will be more pages and thus more monsters in the book. The first two stretch goals aren't for additional pages though, because I recognize that promising extra content sometimes bites people in the ass. As for which ones I included in the book, it was pretty much whichever ones excited me the most?

As I said, I call myself an illustrator, I'm illustrating this entire zine myself, so most of the monsters started as drawings in my sketchbook. That's how I think a lot of the time. So picking the monsters for the book was mainly going through my sketchbook, picking previous doodles to riff on, and then some of them just seemed more conducive to an interesting monster/story than others.

Iterative thinking!

A: Which part do you prefer - the art, or the writing?

P: I really like both. The processes are super different but I love doing both. I guess I would say art, because if I had to choose between this being a no-text or a no-art zine, I would choose no-text.

There's that adventure that Evelyn Moreau did a while back? Gourmand's Larder, I think was what it was called. Not sure how well it worked in practice, but the idea was to be an adventure with all art no text. I think a similar approach could work for a monster book.

A: I think it would, especially with how simple OSR stats tend to be. Speaking of stats, do these monsters tend to have quicker, more basic statblocks, or more involved ability-heavy setups?

P: They're on the quick and basic side. There's a couple examples on the project page of what a full-page spread with stats looks like for the monsters. They follow the B/X format: Hit Dice, attacks, armor class (except i use "as leather" or whatever instead of the number, for increased compatibility), morale, movement. No treasure types because I don't play with treasure types and I don't know anyone who does lol. There aren't a ton of abilities just cuz I would forget them in play, to be honest. The interesting part is mostly the stuff that happens with the monsters BEFORE initiative is rolled!

A: What sorts of thing do you mean by that, and how do your monsters support that idea?

P: So in general, the kind of games I run are ones where one hit from a monster is likely enough to kill you. So, having fat mechanics seems a little silly when combat could be over in one round anyways.

I was talking with someone about my process for writing monsters a couple months ago, and they said "huh that's basically world-building"; as in, each monster has a lot of description with it such that you could go, oh, I could build a whole adventure around that guy. They imply a setting and most are faction-like in that they have things they need and want.

For example, the False Grandfathers. They're sentient grandfather clocks. It would be boring if all I said was, "here's a big clock." So, I thought about what sort of thing they might be doing that's interesting. Oh, they're clocks, they must really like time. So they really like cyclical, repeating processes. They're quiet observers.

And then that raises the question, well, how do other people interact with them? Well, they probably have a funny utilitarian purpose. So, wizards keep them on hand for finding leaks in their castle (since leaks will go drip-drip repeatedly). And then why would you encounter these clocks in the first place? Because a clock salesman was robbed and killed, and now all the sentient clocks from his caravan are just hanging out in the woods.

It's sort of preemptively asking questions and answering them. And then that implies a whole adventure around them, most of which is not gonna be combat.

A: That's a great way to go about monster design, in my opinion. Let's talk about the operation of your Kickstarter itself: the physical copy tier for your zine is only $6 - how did you manage to sell it so cheaply?

P: I'm doing all of the art, layout and writing by myself. So the only actual cost I have to pay is printing and shipping. That's also why my project goal is pretty low compared to other ZQ projects.

Printing zines from Mixam only costs a little over a dollar a book (including the cost of getting them shipped to my house). And that's on the heaviest paper stock they have. So the material cost is very, very low.

With ZQ this year I've seen that the average price is $10-$15. I totally get why people charge that much. RPG stuff is a LOT of work. But personally, I was involved in zine scenes before I was really involved in RPG stuff. And the going price at zine fests for a 24 page black and white zine is more like $3-7 bucks.

Basically, I'm fine with only profiting a couple dollars on each zine I sell. I like that my stuff is accessible. Other people would rather be paid more for their time. It's all fair! I'm not sure if I'm doing it right!

A: I'm not sure if there is a right way to do it, honestly.

This is your second Zine Quest project - what was your first, and what did you learn from it?

P: Yeah! So my first ZQ project was last year. It's called The Beloved Underbelly, and it's a faction-based, low-level OSR adventure. It's a little undercity full of weird factions: beekeepers, feral hogs, sorcerers that really like platonic solids, taxidermists. And it's all illustrated by me, in collage.

What did I learn from it... so, I know I just talked about how I still want my zines to be cheap, but last year I learned that I was selling things maybe a bit too cheap. I did $5 for the physical and $3 for the PDF. I still made a profit, but yeah, I guess I wanted a bigger profit from it just cuz of how much time making the zine took, and because of the labor involved in shipping things. I think the difference between people who will pay $3 for a PDF and people who will pay $5 is not much. So I was making less money while also not making things much more accessible. Lesson learned. Get some self respect.

That book was also my first time laying out an entire text-based zine in inDesign. It took much longer than expected. But hey, I did the Underbelly, and then i took a typography class, and now I'm pretty proficient with inDesign. Cool.

I also learned that people like my stuff?? My online sales outside of the Kickstarter are not very good. But selling through Kickstarter, and then through some RPG distros like Exalted Funeral and Spear Witch, showed me that hey, there's an audience for my weird RPG stuff. It resonates with people! Woah! It's just a question of connecting with the right audience.

A: Now that Lethal Fauna Bric-a-Brac is funded, do you have any plans for your next project?

P: Well I've got to finish this one first! I already know  all the monsters in the book, but I still need to do 12 more final illustrations, and i need to turn my notes into something that people other than me can understand.

I'd like to do the troika sphere jam that's happening this month, but we'll see. I've been working on this project about  knights with melons for heads, originally for a jam, but i missed the deadline. Which is fair enough. I'm not sure if it's an adventure or setting or what. But I've done some art for it already, so it will turn into something eventually!

A: I'll make sure to keep an eye out for any of that. I'm out of questions - is there anything else you'd like to say before we stop?

P: Uhhh I can get gross with self promotion if you want!

A: That's the whole point, isn't it?

P: Yeah! I'm @philippericardart on insta and @thatphilippekid on twitter. Hit me up anytime to talk about RPGS or monsters or art or whatever. Oh also, I'm tryna get together a little google forms or spreadsheet for people making zines who want to trade zines by mail. So ask me about that if you want the link when I get it organized, cuz I think trading zines is really fun!

Geeleg (GLOG Class)

A while ago, a word appeared in my dreams: Geeleg (n.) - thief's slang for a lookout using trained owls.

I assume this is a sign of some kind, so here's what happens when I deign to follow signs. This is based on Lexi's thief guilds, and takes two abilities (Tricky Fingers and Opportunist) from them, to give more thief-ness to the owl-ness.

A: Lookout, Gain 2 abilities at Rank 1

B: Rank up an ability, then gain a new ability at Rank 1.

C: Rank up 2 abilities

D: Rank 2 abilities, then gain all abilities you don't have yet at Rank 1.

Shantanu Kuveskar

Lookout
You have a pet owl you've trained to keep an eye out for trouble. It can see in the dark and has incredible hearing. When placed somewhere, it will wait until it notices something amiss, then fly back to you.

When an owl is killed, you can either spend 1 week training a wild owl, or spend 25 gp on a trained owl.

Abilities

1. Connection
✧: The instant an owl sees something amiss, you hear it screeching in your head.
✧ ✧: You can look through the eyes of your owls like security cameras. While doing this you cannot see anything or move.
✧ ✧ ✧: While looking through your owls, you can control them.

2. Influence
✧: You manage to find and train another owl.
✧ ✧: You collect a total of 4 owls.
✧ ✧ ✧: You can interact with any wild owl as if you had trained it. Assume no owls in any location during the day, and 1d6 at night. They cannot be collected, and will fly off as soon as you leave.

3. Conflict

✧: When an owl detects a target, they attack once (1d4 damage) before coming to meet you.

✧ ✧: Your owl has been trained to attack more efficiently - targets attacked by it must Save or be blinded for 1d4 hours.

✧ ✧ ✧: The owl attacks until every target has been blinded, screeching constantly.

4. Chimerism

✧: The owl's features start to blend with yours. You can see for 15' feet in complete darkness.

✧✧: Feathers start to grow in place of hair. You can choose to fall at 10' per round and take no damage.

✧✧✧: Your arms become winglike. Your darkvision extends to 30', and you can fly at walking speed.

5. Tricky Fingers

✧: Whenever you try to perform sleight of hand (lockpicking, pickpocketing, etc), failure won't alert anyone who isn't already paying attention to you.

✧✧: You leave no trace of tampering, or specific traces of your choice, when you perform sleight of hand (whether you succeed or fail).

✧✧✧: Whenever someone tries to retrieve or draw an item, you can (on a 2-in-6, with 1 guaranteed success per day) reveal that you actually burgled it from them at some point in the recent past (if you had access).

6. Opportunist

✧: Whenever you would gain advantage to hit, you may also roll damage with advantage.

✧✧: Whenever you would gain advantage on a roll, you may reroll 1s.

✧✧✧: Whenever you would gain advantage on a roll, you may roll 3 results instead of 2 and take the best.

Zine Quest Interviews 1: Sam Sorensen

 My interview series continues with renewed fervor now that Zine Quest has begun. If you have an active or upcoming ZQ project and would like to schedule an interview, feel free to contact me through email or Discord, both linked on the sidebar.

A: So, to get started, would you like to introduce yourself and your project?

S: Sure. I'm Sam Sorensen, sometimes known as SquigBoss. My current project—or at least one of them—is an old-school-ish toolbox/supplement called Lowlife. It's about caves, mines, trenches, and other nasty places underground.

A: It looks very interesting, and seems like it would slot neatly into a lot of OSR games. It's also random-table focused with cave generators and that sort of thing, isn't it? How did you make sure those generators give cohesive results?

S: It is in part, yeah. The random cave/trenchwork generation tool is still somewhat in the works, but the basic gist is that it's always 2d6, and thus the results skew towards averages; so long as you can draw your data from those 2d6 (or other averaged rolls), you can predict what the "average dungeon" will look like with more accuracy.

The trickier thing, honestly, was—is—the process of retroactively adding in tunnels and passages to an already-existing dungeon. Maps-from-scratch tools are pretty straightforward, and there's a fair number of good ones that are easy to reference, but a process that needs to account for an extant dungeon is tougher.

A: That retroactive addition system one of the parts I find most interesting - it's always good to make supplements easier to add to a game. What are the basics of its process, at least in its current state?

S: It's a derivative, ish, of the ship-building process from Dead Planet, the Mothership adventure: you roll 1d6 for each room (or area, significant hallway, whatever), and any set of two dice that add to 7 have a tunnel connecting them. You use the angle of the lowest die to determine how big the tunnel is; optionally, you can use the dice as a d36 table to get some kind of variation or hazard in the room: collapsing ceilings, dangerous gases, skittering beasties, that sort of thing.

The main goal was that you roll 1d6 for every room on a floor, and can transform an otherwise-normal dungeon into a rat's nest of nastiness.

A: Does the zine include any advice on how to map these more spatially complex dungeons?

S: It does!

The basic method—which might get updated—is a lot shorthand annotation: a filled-in circle is a large passage, two concentric circles is a medium passage, a hatched circle is a narrow passage, that kind of thing. On top of that, my recommendation is that you draw a simple side-view sketch of the dungeon, maybe even two, so you can track which tunnel goes where vertically.

Mapping 3D is difficult on graph paper, and while stuff like isometric paper can make it easier, there's no substitute for good note-taking and careful diagrams.

Of course, even pretty simple dungeons can get players lost—especially in the dark—so adding even a modicum more complexity will leave them confused and afraid with just a few twists and turns.

A: 3D mapping is one of the most difficult problems to solve with more unusual movement - anything from tunnels to 0g seems to lead a lot of people to throw up their hands and give up. That system seems nice, though - certainly a lot easier to deal with than the mapping in Veins, for instance.

You referenced that the room modification tables could add monsters; are these going to be specifically monsters from Lowlife, or will it also have more standard cave-based creatures?

S: A mix, probably. I feel a little weird, as a designer not present at the table, just straight-up saying "this room now has a monster" so, it'll lean more towards "a monster has tunneled in here" or "there are gross-but-probably-not-dangerous insects crawling around in this room".

Things that influence the tone and mood and vibes of the dungeon, but are less directly influential on whatever difficulty curve it has.

A: That's helpful for the kind of GM who wants their dungeon to have a certain pacing, then.

But those generators aren't the only parts of the zine; there's also player content like items. Dungeoncrawlers tend to have a plethora of equipment already, so how did you find new things to add?

S: In terms of equipment, it's a mix of classic dungeoneering equipment in slightly higher detail and granularity (a shovel, a pickaxe, and a hammer and chisel all have very different uses, for example); riffs and variations on basic equipment, like a shovel-mechanism that can dig on its own but needs to be fed lamp oil, or dynamite that can be spread around like a sticky liquid; and straight-up oddball magic items, like a big worm kept in a bag of holding that will eat anything you hold the opening to, including earth, stone, and metal.

A: That's definitely a lot to fit into 30 pages.

Now, let's talk about some nuts and bolts: Lowlife isn't your first Kickstarter, or even your first Zine Quest project, but it is the first time you've worked on fulfillment without the help of DTRPG. Was this a choice on your part, or were you forced into it?

S: A smidgen of both?

DriveThru's great for some things, like if you're really new and don't quite know what to do and don't know how many copies you'll be selling. But this time, for Lowlife, I was both getting tired of dealing with DriveThru's nonsense (slow turnaround, odd menus, annoying formatting requirements) and am interested in selling wholesale to online retailers (your Exalted Funerals and such), which DriveThru makes significantly more difficult.

Also, LightningSource, DriveThru's printer thing, is killing zines in a month, so there's that.

A: You've decided to use Mixam instead, if I remember correctly. That's what I used for my ZQ project last year, and I found them really easy to work with.

Lowlife has hit almost all of its stretch goals at time of writing, and your earlier Kickstarters have also tended to be quite successful. Do you think you'll aim higher with your next project in terms of size and complexity?

S: Hahaha, that's nice of you to say.

My last project—a guide about running a West Marches game—was significantly larger and more complicated than Lowlife, so it's been nice to ease off a little bit and just chill with a simple zine. But yeah, the next project probably will be something more complicated. Or at least, you know, something with a bigger pagecount and a hardcover.

A: In terms of future projects, how do you decide what to Kickstart when? For example, what made you choose to expand your caving rules instead of Big Wet or Seas of Sand for ZQ?

S: Oof, that's a big question. A lot of comes down to momentum.

I get started on some project, I noodle some drafts, I run a couple of playtests, I see what sticks. If each of those is successful—i.e. the rules drafts aren't terrible and the playtest is useful and the players seem interested—then it might get to go further. But if I hit snags in any one of those, which happens all the time, it probably dies.

For the two you mentioned specifically, Seas of Sand is too big (it's probably the next big project) and the Big Wet has seen exactly zero playtesting. Not that those won't ever appear in the future, but they would've taken significantly more legwork to get ready for this year's ZQ.

A: What I find interesting is that you've moved backwards in the generic order of OSR progress (blog, zines, books) - you had already completed multiple Kickstarters before starting your blog. Do you think that's helped or hurt your ability to work on larger projects like zines?

S: Running Kickstarters and making zines definitely has made me better at running Kickstarter and making zines, if that's what you're asking.

A: I was asking if having the blog has made it easier or harder.

S: Oh, oh, oh, I'm a dingus.

But yeah, the blog. It means I can put stuff out into the open and gauge the waters a little bit ahead of time, which is very handy.

But it also adds another step to the make-game process: you come up with an idea, you draft it up, you put in your blog, then you start thinking about making it into something more real. A lot of the stuff on my blog ends up being things that I was working on anyway; making stuff "for the blog" hasn't really worked for me—other than just kicking around GLOG classes, which is basically a micro-hobby unto itself.

I also kind of doubt that the blog is helpful for marketing other than in the sense of having an extant portfolio of drafts; like, my posts average something like 50-100 viewers, which isn't going to pull any kind of engagement for a Kickstarter. Hanging out on a popular server for months and engaging with the community and running playtests, though, that does drive engagement. Chilling on the ex-McDowall OSR discord is, I think, in no small part responsible for the success of Lowlife.

A: That kind of community entanglement is really the most important thing in something as niche as the OSR.

I'm out of questions - is there anything else you'd like to talk about before we wrap up?

S: Uhhh, I didn't bring any talking points, really. Buy my games? Make cool shit? Don't be afraid to publish? I dunno.

A: All great points.

Thanks for your time, I hope you have a good night.

Year Three of the Court (+ Sunless Horizon Progress)

While I am technically a day late, it doesn't matter because time isn't real. Fight me. 

It's the beginning of the year, which means it's time for me to look back on bla bla bla. You get it.

Year in Review

Unlike 2019, I didn't find any paid writing work this year. However, I supplied work on both Delver's Digest and Charcuterie Board, a pair of Discord-based community zines.

I also ran my first Kickstarter as part of Zine Quest, releasing King of Dust, a cyberpunk game. Along with that, I released another GLOG hack, the urban fantasy game Libra, and collaborated with Vayra to release a solo post-apocalyptic RPG, Canyon.

Most importantly, I completed the first public beta of Sunless Horizon, my SF-horror game, as well as being able to run a playtest campaign. This continues to be my most popular long-running project, and there's still more on the way.

Year in Preview

Sadly, I'm not going to be doing a Zine Quest project this year. I'm under plenty of stress already with starting college and all that, I really don't need another deadline (and also the 5 things I've tried to write for it have all burnt out).

However, now that the Sunless Horizon beta is out, I'm hoping to get it at least mostly done this year, and publish it... somehow. I honestly don't know how it works help aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 

Of course, blog stuff will continue as well, with no real schedule.

Sunless Horizon Society Pages

I said there's more on the way, didn't I?

As part of the new wider focus, I'm working on giving each faction a one-page section with everything the players need to know to play that faction - the idea being that the players all get together and choose one before the start of a campaign.

Each one has a description, equipment, a table of names, and 1d6 backgrounds, which have both a benefit and penalty. So far the only one complete is the Navigator House page, which you can get in PDF by clicking on the image below.

Ask The Stars Microsettings

In the recent post containing Chris McDowall's solo RPG, Ask The Stars, he uses the oracle table within to create small 3-point settings. This seems like the most interesting use to me (mostly because of my constant drive to make more settings), so I gave it a try here, creating a few microsettings of my own.

Setting 1: Never Go Home

First roll: Traveller, Exiled (wandering/chance, guilt/autonomy). So, we have a group of people leaving their homes. Our first question is that guilt/autonomy split - were they driven away, or did they choose to leave?

We roll - were they banished? A Hard Yes. But why? Another roll on the symbols and positions gives us Legion, Rooted (unification/identity, stability/plenty). Someone else moved in, trying to subsume their culture. But they wouldn't let go, and they were banished for it. 

Now we know what's happening, but I want to know when. Is this the near future? A Hard No. Is it earlier? A Soft Yes. 1800s imperialism would be the obvious answer, so I want to skip it. Instead, it's a Cold War equivalent. Two superpowers, dragging smaller nations into their proxy wars. Our travelers are the losing side of one of these. 

But what can the exiles do now? I roll Traveller, Twinned (wandering/chance, intimacy/dependency). A pretty easy answer, then. This has happened before - the whole region is up in flames. You could run, taking advantage of your good position with one superpower. Or you could band together, gather up members of other communities, and strike back against your common enemies, pulling your home from their sphere of influence.

Setting 2: What's Mine is Yours

For the first roll, I get Hand, Entombed (creation/misdirection, memory/death). Creation of memory, misdirection of death. Transhumanism? Immortality?

How are they doing it? Is it a science? Hard Yes. Some new technology has made this possible. Is it accessible to all? Another Hard Yes. 

What else is there? I roll Eye, Exiled (judgement/secrets, guilt/autonomy). There's something being hidden here, possibly by the technology's creators. What kind of secret? I roll Elder, Waning (authority/tradition, hunger/decay). No secret of the technology itself, then, but of ideas surrounding it. The powers that be, grasping at it, thinking they can fit the genie back into its bottle. It must be new, then. But are they right?

Hard No. They are only selfish.

Setting 3: Immortal King Anshia

My first roll is Cage, Crowned (protection/obligation, ambition/ruin). A would-be tyrant. I roll again, to get more detail, and get Fang, Entombed (hostility/fear, memory/death). So, he is already a ruler over man, now, hoping to conquer their final fear - death itself. 

Immortality seems to be common in these settings. But how can the tyrant reach it? Is this the past? Hard Yes. This is the furthest past, all the way back to the stone age. Do the players support their rule? Soft Yes. They are ministers of this desperate, dying leader, sent on quests to hunt and deliver the alchemical ingredients the tyrant believes will keep them alive. However, the rest of their time is spent in attempts to scheme their way into a better position when the tyrant dies.

Sunless Horizon Beta 2.3 Release

Commissioned from Scrap Princess

excited screeching

I've been posting about Sunless Horizon for about a year, and after finally getting it playtested, have it ready for a wider release. Since this'll be the landing point for new people to the game, I've also put together a setting recap.

Sunless Horizon Beta 2.3

Despite all the stuff I've said about Sunless Horizon, I've never talked about the system.

Sunless Horizon is classless and levelless, with character progression entirely through equipment. Its core is a die step system, where your stats determine Check Dice that rolled against static target numbers.

Combat is working off a simultaneous resolution system, and instead of HP or an abstract wound system, damage for the PCs goes directly to a large Wound Table, similar to the GLOG's Death & Dismemberment.

Most of the rules are exploration-focused; a pointcrawl base expanded with rest actions, pathfinding, and a Difficult Terrain system for adding more gameplay to climbs and crawls. 

The game is currently mechanically complete (hopefully), but is missing content such as generators. Currently, there is a 4-entry bestiary and 2 d6 Obstacle tables, mostly for use as examples. Later releases will be focused on patching holes and developing these tools.

Click on the cover to take a look, and feel free to tell me what you think in the comments.

Introduction

Sunless Horizon is a SF-horror RPG set on the worldship Ein Sof; the last sanctuary of humanity at the end of time.

The worldship's AI, Keter, has created new creatures to serve it, working deep in the most inhospitable corners of Ein Sof to slow the machine's decay. Some of them have escaped, creating new societies far from Keter's eyes. 

The players are members of these societies, sent out into Ein Sof's halls to hunt for needed resources.

Peoples of the World

The people of Ein Sof come in many forms.

Kaiva are tall and thin, with large faces and knotted, bulging veins. Their skin is translucent - under it is a shimmering silver second skin, which absorbs radiation to balance out their tremendous food requirement. In times of stress their veins pulse, and they discard tremendous amounts of energy in a single fast movement, damaging themselves in the process. However, the energy stored for these actions leaves little for the body to use to repair itself.

Seeleh are heavy and strong, with their bodies arranged radially - 3 faces, 6 legs, and 6 arms, all emerging from a reinforced central spine. They can carry more than other phenotypes, and their multiple lungs let them last longer without air. However, they are more susceptible to Keter's words than the other phenotypes.

Iklen are strange and graceful. Their ridged skin changes color constantly - some of these patterns force eyes to slide off them, as if they didn't exist. Those ridges are covered in small scales, that shed from the Iklen and drift through the air. If inhaled, they change the emotions of the sufferer. Iklen move slowly and inefficiently, as if dancing. When surprised, this dance ends, and they must consider their next moves.

Ayir are small and fragile, with gargantuan eyes. Their light weight and small size helps them navigate difficult terrain, but make them more easily injured. Even when they sleep, some of their brain stays active, letting them move and act.

Godhead

Keter's only goal is to keep humanity alive and safe in their Empyreans while He works towards the completion of the Ishtar Program - opening a gate to a stable new universe, where humanity will rise once more.

However, the Program may take tens of thousands of years of technological advancement and failed attempts, and Keter's machines would fail someday. But, while He can run out of metal, living servants could sustain themselves indefinitely.

But despite Keter's best efforts, Ein Sof is still collapsing. Many of the biotech bays used to create these new servants now lie abandoned and unreachable, following their old orders. These lost thousands formed their own societies, and now live in the ship like parasites. 

Those were not His only followers, however. The machine Disciples of this silicon god still stalk through the halls, staving off the ship's failure and hunting those who have escaped His grasp.

Societies of Ein Sof

Superpowers

The Navigator Houses

The Houses are an industrial state, led by hereditary nobility. They have only just arrived to this part of the worldship, after being driven from their homes by the Disciples. 

In their territory, peace is kept through force. Holes are burned through walls, lights are strung up across new roads, and dissenters are strung up with them.

They trade with the Oasis Kingdoms, but plan to soon solidify their influence. If things go their way, tanks will roll through the Kingdoms' streets within months. 

Of course, there's no guarantee things will go the Houses' way. The Lord Navigators, each head of a House, are only held apart by a Regent. Border skirmishes are becoming more common. 

The Houses will go to war. The only question is who it will be with.

The Oasis Kingdoms

The Kingdoms were here first. They have control of most of this region, with each kingdom built on top of an important resource, whether that's power, water, farmland, or rare resources. Their authority was unquestioned - there has not been war for generations.

But now the Houses are on their doorstep, and the Kingdoms are forced to trade food and art for guns and time. 

Minor Factions

Ghoul Nests

Ghouls are born from human stock, meant for the Empyreans. Some stage of the cloning process was, when viewed through Keter's unknowable perceptions, deemed a failure, and they were released into Ein Sof to survive on their own.

Some nests turned to raiding towns and attacking traders. Now, both the Houses and the Kingdoms see them as a threat; that they are to be shot, and their nests are to be burned.

People of the Sea

Sea People shelter in the remaining towers of the Coolant Seas, farming the meager food that can be grown in its blighted water. This resource leaves them targeted by other groups, including the Navigator Houses. 

To protect themselves, the People of the Sea have turned their home chambers into trap-webbed nightmares. Despite this, outsiders are still more than happy to throw themselves into the grinder in the hopes of finding food.

Skinborne

Skinborne groups avoid Ein Sof's internals for its cold, sterile skin. They travel nomadically, floating through space in improvised voidcraft. The rare times they enter the ship are for violent raids, gathering food and components before fleeing. 

All these resources are being gathered for one purpose - completing the Ark, an escape ship made from a single engine of Ein Sof. They say the Garden World is passing by soon, and the Ark can bring them there. 

Sustainer Cells 

To the Sustainer Cells, everything is temporary. They say that someday, no matter how far in the future that is, the world will be safe. To keep themselves alive over this vast gulf of time, they commandeered many of Ein Sof's cryobays.

Now, most of their population rests, while those still awake struggle to keep them alive. This lack of manpower has forced them to focus their society on efficiency, creating a 4-caste system. Personality has been eroded, with Sustainer society expecting newly-awoken members of these castes to act identically to those they've replaced.

Walker-Tribes

To keep themselves safe, the Tribes stay on the move. Their cities were uprooted and retrofitted into sealed walkers, each one hiding a secret - a functioning seed AI the Tribes hope to grow into a weapon to topple Keter from His throne.

However, the seed must be kept safe. Infohazards and hacking attempts can (and have) possessed them, and sent cities marching off cliffs.

Independents

Many tiny groups, unassociated with any faction, hide within Ein Sof. Runaway nobles from unknown nations, dragging their servants on a doomed quest for independence, strange cults following dream-quests from decoded transmissions, quiet villages, and a thousand thousand other mysteries, all (eventually) randomly generated.

Mystery Cults of the Hive Cities (GLOGtober Day 8)

It's GLOGvember now, get off my case. Part one is here. Also technically counts for GLOG WEEK, no matter what Oblidisideryptch says.

Day 8 - Mystery

Travelers in the Hive Cities would be remiss to think the dry-eyed people of that land have no religions. They have many, all hidden from the view of outsiders.

These Mystery Cults share some traits - baroque social orders, complex rituals, and an effect. Unlike the other religions of the world, the Mystery Cults work, contacting something out there that helps them.

1d4 Mystery Cults of the Hive Cities

The Mystery Cults use the format of A Distant Chime's Shrines and Saints.

Uncle Rainmaker

Patron of the desperate and the dying. Saves those who deserve it. Those uninitiated call to him frantically, to help themselves. Those of his Cult save their prayers for others.

Shrine: A pair of scales, one side filled with water.

Cult: Largely composed of judges and other agents of the state, although they will accept anyone. Aspirants are locked in a room in pairs, then abandoned. If they cooperate to escape, they are accepted. If they attempt to save themselves, they are abandoned.

Blessing

Rainstorm

R: 100' T: 25' radius D: [sum] minutes

Clouds form in the sky, flooding an area with enough water to survive for [dice] days if collected. If 2 or more dice are used, you may also strike the area with [dice] bolts of lightning, each doing 1d8 damage.

Strictures

1. Save the dying, no matter their allegiance. 

2. Eat and drink only when necessary.

3. Be just in all your decisions.

Cousin Birdcatcher

Hopes only to be free.

Shrine: A string knotted with feathers, tied to the highest point accessible.

Cult: Cousin Birdcatcher's worship is favored by those who want change. While many join as a symbol, assassins and rebels often leave prayers to Cousin Birdwatcher for more direct reasons. Initiation is simple - climb to the nearest shrine, and take it. The rest of the cult will try to stop you.

Blessing

Glide

R: 0 T: self D: until landing

Shoots you [sum]*2 feet into the air. You fall at 1 foot per minute until you land. You can still act while falling.

Strictures

1. Support the shrine with one feather each day.

2. Lead everyone deserving into the cult.

3. Always have an open route between you and the sky.

Father Farseer

Killed the first dragon, freeing the Hive Cities.

Shrine: There are no shrines, only totems - tiny sculptures of a dragon's skull, which only work if broken.

Cult: Hunters and their families make up most of the cult. There is no initiation - the cult will come to you if they feel you deserve entrance. This tends to lead to nepotism and other unfair influences.

Blessing

True Strike

R: Touch T: one projectile D: instant

Bless an arrow or stone with Father's sight. The next attack with the projectile gains [dice] damage and always hits. The attack can accomplish impossible feats, like curving around corners.

Strictures

1. Never hurt that which could not hurt you.

2. Never hurt something, then leave it alive.

3. Be the last to eat from what you kill. 

Mother Firetaker

Took the sun from Brother Bricklayer after he dropped it, burning the world.

Shrine: A piece of glass, pulled from the desert after the storms end.

Cult: Hide in plain sight. 3 people walk past, each wearing discs of hammered metal on your forehead. If you ask what they are, they respond "Oh, you're so clueless!", then walk further. 

Blessing

Light

R: 0 T: Self D: [dice] hours

Project an orb of light, as bright as a torch, from your hand.

Strictures

1. Shun fire and its glow.

2. At dawn, bow to the sun in public.

3. Expose secrets, except those that would cause harm.

OSR Interviews 3 - Xenophon of Athens

 This is the continuation of a series, where I interview members of the OSR community. 

A: So, introduce yourself - name, blog, social security number, etc.

X: Well, I'm Xenophon of Athens (not the real historical one, of course... or am I?) of https://xenophonsramblings.blogspot.com/, and my social security number is 000-00-0000.

A: Huh, I thought that was mine. Must've been mistaken. 

What have you been playing and running recently? Anything you've enjoyed?

X: I've been running a GLOG campaign in my own (unfinished) GLOG hack, Carolingia. I'm running Patrick Stuart's Deep Carbon Observatory, which is a fantastic module, and it's been great fun. I'm also in a GLOG campaign of deus ex parabola's G20 hack/Unfinished World setting, which has been going for a while now. Finally, I have been playing in a "bucket list" group where we play one- to three-shots of various games we want to play but haven't yet. Vayra DMed Sailors on the Starless Sea in DCC, and next week is Esoteric Enterprises run by Erika.

A: Deep Carbon Observatory was the first RPG book I bought in print, but I've never run it - it's good to see it's gone well.

I'm excited to see Carolingia when it's finished - what's going to make it different from other GLOG hacks?

X: Well, the basics are that it's a roll vs DC system rather than roll-under, and it is very thematically/aesthetically tied to the Early Medieval period in Western Europe (specifically ~800-840 CE). It's also got some slight differences in skills, and weapons deal class-based damage with weapon-defined to-hit bonuses. I'm planning to write some fairly in-depth domain play and mass battle rules, although those might be a while in the making, and religion rules similar to the ones Arnold K and Lexi have made recently.

It's also got its fair share of classes, some of which I'm currently very happy with and some of which still need some polishing.

A: I have a feeling you'll think some of them need polishing until you're dead.

I don't think we have any GLOG hacks with domain rules - that'll be good to see. Other than Carolingia, do you have any large projects?

X: I've got three other projects that I want to make, although none of them have anything substantial put to paper as of yet. A hard sci-fi RPG about being a mercenary with a spaceship in this solar system about 2-300 years in the future, an Earthsea-inspired RPG about being wizards with some sort of freeform magic system (somewhat like Mage: The Ascension but hopefully not bad), and an OSR adventure about journeying through the wilderness to a dragon's lair beneath a mountain.

A: Back to the classics, I guess.

And speaking of back, how'd you get into RPGs?

X: I've only been into RPGs for, what is it, three years now? Something like that. A friend invited me to play D&D 5e, I happily joined with a character that is in retrospect very cringeworthy - an attempt at making Gandalf a 5e character, using the Unearthed Arcana Mystic class (which was a terrible choice for a first ever character) and literally named Olorin. 

I played 5e for a couple of years, then got linked to Goblin Punch somehow, I think from a Reddit post about the False Hydra. From there I got into some other OSR blogs, and then eventually clicked on the link to the OSR Discord on Chris McDowall's blog about 7 or 8 months ago, and here we are.

A: ... that's exactly what happened to me (minus the Gandalf)

Which other OSR blogs would you recommend?

X: That's a hard question. There are far too many good ones. Goblin Punch and Coins and Scrolls are of course the biggest and most popular GLOG blogs, and are always excellent. Every GLOG blog run by someone on the OSR server is worth recommending, but I'll give a particular shout-out to As They Must, Mad Queen's Court, Caput Caprae, and of course Archon's Court, among many others. As far as non-GLOG blogs go, there are once again so many worth reading, but BASTIONLAND, Cavegirl's Games, and Throne of Salt are ones I read often.

A: What books (RPG or otherwise) have you enjoyed recently?

X: I haven't had too much time to read recently, but as far as RPGs go I've just read a fair bit of Cavegirl's Esoteric Enterprises in preparation for an upcoming game I'm playing in. It's a really fantastic game, and even though I'm not generally a fan of urban fantasy it really captures it perfectly and compellingly. It's also got a ton of excellent random tables that could work in any game. There's Deep Carbon Observatory, of course, since I started running that, and as I said before, it's a really good adventure. 

I started reading Robert McFarlane's Underland, which is a non-fiction book about, well, everything under the ground, and specifically the human relation to the underground. I only got a couple of chapters in before school and such made me put it down, but what I did read was excellent. It definitely should be suggested reading for a Veins of the Earth campaign. 

And since rereading things takes less brainpower, a severely limited resource for me currently, than reading them for the first time, I've reread Ursula Le Guin's truly classic novel The Dispossessed and started rereading Lord of the Rings for the 27th time or so.

A: Alright! Thanks for coming, and I hope you have a good night.

X: Thank you as well! I enjoyed this a lot.

Hermit of the Blood-Knots (GLOG)

Fractal Meadows of Reality is a new blog, started last month. It's already excellent. Their second post, on the demiplane of the Glass Fields, has a few references to Blood-Knots - strange assemblages of blood and glass, that whisper secrets - and the hermits who live around them.

Immediately, those words leapt off the screen and beat me over the head, crying "make a GLOG class".

Hermit of the Blood-Knots

The blood whispers to you. It speaks of sacrifice and preservation. Remember its secrets.

Perk: You can survive indefinitely by eating glass.

Drawback: Your teeth have changed shape (because you keep eating glass). Your speech is slow and incredibly distinctive. Anyone who hears it will recognize you.

Cantrips

1. Lose 1 HP worth of blood to give someone else 1 HP.
2. You can step through your shadow. Normally, this lets you move an extra 5 feet. Being tricky with bright light and long drops will let you extend this.
3. After you drink something, it suffuses your blood. You may take 1d4 damage to create another dose of the substance.

Spell List

1. Sent to Seek

R: 100' T: N/A D: [dice] Rounds

You can peel off one of your shadows and send it hunting for a specific object. It uses your Wisdom score + [dice] for search rolls, if those are required.

2. Draining Needle

R: 30' T: [dice] creatures D: [dice] rounds

You conjure the life-draining glass flora of the Fields, throwing them like knives. Targets take [most] damage each round of the duration. You regain [dice] health each round.

3. Listen to the Blood

R: N/A T: Self D: [dice] rounds

Your blood whispers to you. It can answer [dice] questions from this list, or others.

• Where is the person you like most?
• Who hates you the most?
• What is the most threatening thing in this area?
• How does this person feel?

The blood does not know facts - it cannot tell you what 2 + 2 is, for instance. It knows feelings - fear, hatred, love.

4. One is Preserved

R: Touch T: one creature D: Instant

A creature gains [sum] HP. Any dice used in this spell are automatically exhausted.

5. Another is Sacrificed

R: Touch T: Self/1 wizard D: Instant

Recharge [dice] MD. You may recharge another wizard's MD if you wish. In exchange, you or a willing participant lose [dice] max HP, permanently.

6. Raise the Pillars

R: 100' T: N/A D: Instant

[dice] pillars of glass, [sum] feet high, rise up from the ground. They move slowly, carrying people up rather than impaling them.

7. Heat Glass

R: Sight T: [dice] pounds of glass D: Instant

Glass shies away in fear of your gaze, and melts. On contact with a person, molten glass does [dice]d8 fire damage.

8. Silent Message

R: Sight T: [dice] creatures D: Instant

Send a message to [dice] creatures you can see. If you spend 2 or more MD, they can respond.

9. Silence

R: 40' T: 20' radius D: [dice] minutes

No sound can be emitted in the radius. This prevents most spellcasting.

10. Stallion's Path

R: 30' T: 30' line D: instant

A line in front of you is parted, shoving everything off to the sides.

1 [dice]: shoves people

2 [dice]: shifts trees

3 [dice]: splits buildings

4 [dice]: parts small lakes

11. Into/Out of the Fields

R: 500' radius T: N/A D: [sum] minutes

You and everyone else in a 500' radius are thrown into or out of the Glass Fields. NPCs who do not expect this transition must immediately make a Morale check.

12. Blood to Glass

R: Touch T: one creature D: Instant

The target's blood turns to glass. They must make a CON save - if they pass, they take [sum]*2 damage. If they fail, they take [sum]*[dice] damage and one part of their body is turned to glass permanently.

Mishaps

1. MD only return to your pool on a 1-2 for 24 hours

2. Take 1d6 damage

3. Random mutation for 1d6 rounds, then make a save. Permanent if you fail.

4. Lose 1 MD for 24 hours.

5. You must sacrifice 1 HP per MD you regain for 1d4 days.

6. Your blood solidifies and slows down. On a successful CON save to avoid an effect, you must succeed on another CON save on your next turn or be affected.

Dooms

1. Your blood shifts, and begins to whisper. It wants whatever you want, but more. 
2. One of your limbs turns to glass. It is completely under the control of your blood.
3. The rest of you turns to glass, and you become an NPC.

GLoGtober - Week 1

For GLOGtober, I've decided to make a setting, one week at a time. I don't know if this is a good idea, but it's certainly... an idea. 

Note that this is done in sections - I haven't read any of the prompts past week 1, so the setting may shift as I take later prompts into account. Buyer beware, Saturn reigns, etcetera.

Day 1 - Guns

Guns are a modern invention, their use spreading from the Sunset Isles and across the lands of the Empire. Currently, there are only two: heavy, long cannonets, and light single-shot derringers.

These are both wheel-locks, limiting their use by the Empire's military due to their expense. However, this makes them more useful for the few that own them, as armor hasn't advanced enough to protect its wearer.

Both have been made illegal throughout the Empire after a spike in assassination attempts, including one on the Empress herself.

Derringer

4d6 damage, one slot, all enemies and hirelings must make Morale saves. 20' range, advantage to hit. Illegal.

Cannonet

4d6 damage, 3 slots, all enemies and hirelings must make Morale saves. 300' range, disadvantage to-hit within 30', advantage past that. Illegal. 

Day 2 - Blood

Blood is the seat of the soul. Without it, the body is only a husk. When someone dies, their blood pulls itself out of their body and ascends to Heaven, as the body hopefully reduces itself to dust. 

Of course, sometimes the body does not. Then, it reverts, driven only by the base impulses written on humanity's bones. These Geists stalk the wilderness like animals, hunting for humans. (Just stat them as zombies, minus any infection chances.)

Some magicians of the Lamb's Continent have managed to die, releasing their blood, then control it, pulling it from its path to Heaven and using it as a tool before returning it and living again.

Hemopath

Starting equipment: a pendant token of your order, a katar (light), ritual equipment (six candles, a vial of sparrow's blood), a short magnetic bar (used to test the iron content of blood, which is thought to correlate to moral purity)

A: Motility

B: Condensation

C: Blood & Bone

D: Twist the Path

Motility: Through a short ritualized "death", you convince your blood to emerge from your body in an angelic form, bringing your consciousness with it. The blood can move at twice human speed, and fly. While your blood is gone, your body cannot move, and you take 1 damage each minute. The blood is too diffuse to move anything more than a pound, and too condensed to move through walls.

Condensation: You can shift the blood, making more or less condensed. When condensed, it is solid enough to hold as much a person or even attack, but cannot fly. If hit, it will dissolve. When diffused, it can slowly move its droplets through walls, but cannot hold anything. You must choose how dense your blood is when you release it.

Blood & Bone: You have reached inwards, reinforcing the instructions carved on your bones. When you release your blood, you can also raise your body as a Geist.

Twist the Path: When you die, your control continues, counting down from full health. When time runs out, you're dead. You can't return your blood during this time - it won't let you.

Day 3 - Goblins

Goblins do not exist. Despite this, it's normal to see about one a week. They are emanations from the noosphere, said to be responsible for bad luck. They knock over shelves, hide things, trip people, and all the other things that would be caused be random chance.

Hobgoblins and Bugbears are manifestations of even worse luck - a Hobgoblin will break your sword over its knee, then run into the forest. A Bugbear will burn down your house.  

Day 4 - Swirling Rainbow Vortices

Above the world is a gateway. It does not circle the world like the Sun and Moon. It sits, perfectly still. When the sun crosses it around noon, this is the Short Night, where work ends and people return to bed. When the moon crosses it around midnight, this is the Witch Hour, where monsters meet under unnatural darkness.

This is the gate to Heaven, where blood crosses into that prismatic city. The observatories of the Guild of Astronautics have peered through it, and now plan to build a great machine with which they can shuttle themselves (and their patrons) into Heaven without being judged.

Day 5 - Map

Here's an early map of the setting. I have no idea what any of this stuff is, but this'll remind me to figure that out later.

Day 6 - Food

1d4 Foods of the Empire

1. A heavy meat stew served over dumplings - traditional during the winter holidays.
2. Smoked fish, preserved and buried for emergencies.
3. Pickled vegetables.
4. Sweet wine, imported from the Lamb's Continent.

1d4 Foods of the Hive-States

1. Small, bitter berries hardy enough to survive the droughts. Slight stimulants.
2. A thin syrup made of those berries. Strong stimulant, usually mixed with water or wine to weaken the taste.
3. Hard seeds, ground into a paste. Usually served on bread.
4. Clams, pulled from the pools they hide in.

1d4 Foods of the Lamb's Continent

1. Small soft cookies, shaped into spheres and stamped with (usually romantic) messages.
2. A light salad of bitter greens.
3. Raw fish, rubbed with hot herbs.
4. Thinly sliced meat, seared quickly.

7. Adventure

1d6 Reasons to Adventure

1. Your home in the Hive-Cities is suffering a drought. You want to find some way to alleviate it.
2. The Imperial Guild of Astronautics has sent you to map the stars from all the corners of the world. You faintly suspect this is because they wanted to get rid of you.
3. A border skirmish in the Lamb's Continent ended recently. Now you (and hundreds of other soldiers) have no work.
4. You and the rest of your cell were caught on your way from the Bitter East, your assignment burned out of your heads. The Empire has given you a deal - work for us, or die.
5. When your mother died, her blood streamed to the south. No one could tell you what happened to it.
6. You want money. A lot of money.

On Depthcrawls + The Hundred Hands Depthcrawl

Part 1: The Depthcrawl

Depthcrawls are a new way to track space in RPGs, pioneered by Cavegirl's Gardens of Ynn. They are presented as a table, rolled on with an increasing bonus (the Depth), until a goal is reached.

Each of these rolls gives you a location. Each time the players pass through one of these locations, their Depth increases by one. This leads to them to the higher end of the table, and stranger environments.

For example, your players have just entered a depthcrawl, so you roll, and get a 13, which the table says is an abandoned tower. They are currently at Depth 0, because they just arrived. When they leave the tower and keep going, they would reach Depth 1, and you would roll on the table with a +1 bonus.

As well as locations, depthcrawls will usually have extra tables - Gardens of Ynn has an encounter table (rolled after the PCs spend time in a location) and a detail table. These tables are unaffected by Depth.

Players can also move backwards (returning to a location and decreasing Depth) or sideways (rolling a new location and not changing Depth).

Depthcrawls are very situational - generally, they're best used in environments that are either fluid (alternate planes like the Gardens of Ynn) or large enough to have wandering around seem sensible (an abandoned city).

Recently, depthcrawls have become more common, with blogs like I Don't Remember That Move creating new ones. After a discussion on Discord, Morgan (of no blog, sadly) and I created a framework to use for depthcrawl generation.

Part 2: The Template  

an epiphany

The template is made of three steps: the Aesthetic, the Threat, and the Goal.

The Aesthetic is the location of the crawl itself - the Gardens of Ynn are Alice in Wonderland-like, the Stygian Library is an endless repository of books, and Seraphim's Gate is a distorted assembly of cathedrals.

The Threat is something specific to this location - not just monsters in general, but something particular. In the Garden, the Threat is environmental, in the form of the Idea of Thorns. It could also be a particularly dominating group, like the Stygian Library's orders of librarians.

Finally, the Goal is the thing at the center, all the way at the highest depth. The Library's all-knowing computer, or Araquiel, the angel at the center of Seraphim's Gate. This should be something other than "a load of money" - it should be unattainable anywhere outside of the depthcrawl.

Template Example

We're going to use this as our example setting.

Our Aesthetic is winding tunnels of stone hands, interspersed with clusters of different stone organs - a room of eyes, one of stomachs, and so on.

Our Threat is the embodied sins. While you fight them as monsters, they are also influences, slowly affecting your mind as you spend time in the maze.

Obviously, our Goal is the ascended's brain, which shows you how to follow that long-forgotten person into the Final Heaven.

Part 3: Filling the Frame

Now that we have an outline, we can start to fill it in.

First, you want to determine how long you want the depthcrawl to be - this will decide how large of an environment table you need.

For short depthcrawls, make an 8-entry Environment table, and roll a d4. This gives you a minimum of 5 locations, and a maximum of 8.

Medium-size depthcrawls can use a 15-entry Environment table, rolling a d6. This gives you a minimum of 10 locations, and a maximum of 15.

Large depthcrawls should be of comparable size to the Gardens of Ynn - a 35-entry table with a d20 roll. This gives you a minimum of 15 locations, and a maximum of 35.

The last result of any of these is X+ - so for a short depthcrawl, the last result on the table is 8+, not just 8.

Now, you fill the table, with more mundane entries on the lower end, and stranger ones at the higher end. The Hundred Hands is going to be small depthcrawl (because I'm lazy and it's just an example), so this is my table.

1. A cavernous, empty room made of hands all grasping each other.
2. A bone of the ascended, full of holes. The wind slowly plays it like a flute, frightening spirits. Every turn you spend here decreases your Sinfulness by one.
3. The ascended's lungs, slowly expanding and filling with lightly hallucinogenic incenses.
4. One of the ascended's eyes, focusing any light in the room into a web of burning beams.
5. The stomach, which is half-filled with acid. Stone sculptures of food float over the acid, unharmed.
6. Petrification is slow. This room of hands still lives. They grasp blindly at anything touching them.
7. The heart, the size of a house. It is crossed with rivers of pure, cold water, and rains constantly. These rivers cannot be forded without equipment. The rain makes the stone slippery - when under stress, characters must make a DEX check or slip.
8. The brain, sitting on a stone pedestal. If you have a Sinfulness of more than 5, it prevents you from touching it. 

Aside: Sinfulness

Sinfulness is being used to track the PC's ability to ascend. At 2 Sinfulness, they must make a Wisdom save each hour or act according to their dominant sin (whichever one has dealt the most Sinfulness to them). On a failed save, they will still act, but they will act in accordance to their sin (someone dominantly Slothful will still set up a bridge over a chasm, they'll just be really lazy about it). At 4 Sinfulness, the PC must make a Wisdom save each hour or completely follow the dominant sin (someone dominantly Slothful will lie around and complain that they have to do any work). Past 5 Sinfulness, you are unable to ascend.

After you finish your main table, you should create an encounter table. This one is unaffected by Depth, but should be about the size of your environment table - you can expect to roll on both of them the same amount of times.

In this case, (because I'm lazy) each of the 8 monsters are a different Sin. Some are embodied, taking forms of hard stone. They can be treated as Golems, with an extra attack that provokes Wisdom saves or increases Sinfulness. Others are disembodied, floating invisibly through the air to whisper in your ears. They can be treated as Ghosts, except instead of level drain they inflict Sinfulness.

1. Sloth (embodied) - an enormously fat, cheerful statue. Obstinately blocks your path, has a job it wants you to do for it - 1. move this heavy rock 2. find my lost ring 3.  4. nothing, it's just not moving.
2. Pride (embodied) - a glorious marble sculpture. Automatically hostile unless praised.
3. Wrath (embodied) - acts like a professional wrestler. Wants a challenge - it doesn't have to be you.
4. Envy (disembodied) - wants the prettiest/most magic/otherwise superlative item you have. Can be tricked.
5. Greed (disembodied) - will just start stealing your stuff. Runs if attacked.
6. Gluttony (disembodied) - clamps on to the highest CON character and starts to drain them (1 CON per round).
7. Lust (disembodied) - wants to go on a date. Candles, nice food, the whole thing.

Part 4: Depthcrawl Variations

One of the biggest problems with depthcrawls is a lack of player choice - they just go, continuing forwards until they hit the point where the game is done.

Morgan has made many complex variations on the depthcrawl in order to solve this (along with other problems, like the amount of time it takes to generate areas with detail tables). They're all great, and you should definitely take a look at them. 

Along with those, I have a simple variant of my own - a branching pointcrawl. To add more choice in the players' exploration, roll 1d4 locations each time, showing the players each one. When they move to one, then roll details and encounters for that particular location.