Lilith & Lolth & Illith & Thlaadi

SO... I'm running a game this time next week for a bunch of lads, some who haven't played D&D for 10 or 20 years. I've gotta find a balance between keeping it simple enough that they pick it up real quick, and complex enough to keep the regulars happy. I'm gonna run a hacked version of Castles & Crusades as it's the closest I can find to what I want out of an OSR system; I'm toying with pregens just so we can get gaming quick, but most importantly, if they're gonna make me run an old school dnd game, this is what I feel obliged to give you: Mind Flayers and Yuan-Ti and Drow and Slaad.

A few years back I had a go at a cosmology/world history for a PbP called Tales of the Black Tentacle, finding a way to combine these guys into one unified story. Here's the brainstorming notes, which I'm gonna jury rig as the background to the new campaign; next post, my ideas for the stomping ground and the first adventure.

Random Table : Healing from the Spider God

When healed by a priest of the spider god the target must pass a Fortitude Save (DC 10+ the number of times healed), or roll d20 on the following table:

1. A swarm of spiders erupt from the healer's hands and scurry into the wound, leaving a thick trail of webbing that they use to pull the torn flesh shut.

2. The wound closes shut and heals miraculously, with no immediate side effects; 3d4 hours later, whenever the target speaks, tiny spiders crawl out of their mouth and find places to hide on their body. Close inspection reveals the small hieroglyphs inscribed on each spider's belly, one for each letter of each word spoken. This unnerving effect lasts d3 days. (Clever players may use this to translate the hieroglyphs into modern speech, a difficult task but one that will unlock ancient texts of the spider god). 

3. A fat spider as big as fist slowly crawls out of nowhere and sinks its fangs into the wound. The flesh blisters and boils and rapidly swells, closing the wound, with the spider inside it.

4. The wound closes shut and heals miraculously, with no immediate side effects; however, whenever the target turns around suddenly they have the awful sensation of walking face-first into a thick sticky spiderweb that only they can feel. It is terribly distracting, causing a -2 all rolls during strenuous activity (combat, dancing, chases, etc). After d3 days the effect wears off.

5. Gossamer trails of sticky strands fall from above and land across the injury; whereever they land they suddenly constrict, binding the open flesh.

6. The wound closes shut and heals miraculously, with no immediate side effects; however for the next d4 days, whenever the target, or anyone within d100' of the target, wakes up after a decent sleep their eyes are filled with spiderwebs and take d6 rounds to pull off. 

7. Eight long spindly legs erupt out of the gash, grab the surrounding skin with their claws, and pull it shut.

8. The wound closes shut and heals miraculously, with no immediate side effects; within d20 hours the target is overwhelmed by the need to get butt nekkid as their skin begins to itch terribly. With each passing hour their skin gets harder and harder, and after 2d4 hours they are completely immobile, with a hard outer casing (equivalent of full plate armor). They remain in this state for 3d4 hours, until a vertical split appears down their spine. The target begins to molt, shedding their old skin, and emerging renewed and invigorated, with eight eyes in various locations around their skull.

9. Spiders scurry out of the priest's mouth and run across their skin to the injury. The first spider pulls the edge of the wound together, then sinks its fangs in and holds it close with its painful bite. The other spiders do the same, forming a long line of stitches that burrow into the upper dermis. They fall away within d6 days.

10. The wound closes shut and heals miraculously, with no immediate side effects; after an hour the target's throat begins to itch, and within d8 hours they begin coughing up spiderwebs for d4 hours. This effect passes, but leaves the target ravenously hungry for flesh, a hunger that cannot be satiated and lasts for 2d4 days. During this time the target's shit is riddled with spiderhusks that get bigger each time, till towards the end they pass nothing but spiderskins. at the end of this time they are suddenly wracked with abdominal pain, a crippling episode that passes within moments. From then on the target's hunger and digestion returns to normal; only when they are completely still do they have the vaguest sensation that something is crawling around inside them. The next time they receive a major slashing wound, a cat sized spider erupts from the wound to the target's defense, and if it survives treat it as a familiar. If the target already has a familiar, the spider will try to kill it at the first opportune moment.

11. A solitary spider's leg slowly extends out of one end of the wound, digs its claw into the other end, then zips the wound shut as it disappears back inside.

12. The wound closes shut and heals miraculously, with no immediate side effects; within d6 hours the target's flanks become itchy, and a red rash breaks out on the sides of their torso. The rash continues to worsen and irritate, and the target is compelled to scratch away until the flesh is raw, revealing to dark protrusions on each side. From now on every time the target receives healing from a spider priest the protrusions grow d10 inches. This is in addition to rolling on this table as normal. Eventually the protrusions are revealed to be spiders' limbs, and while unable to hold any objects or make extra attacks, the limbs greatly aid in climbing. 

13. Thick web begins spooling out of the wound, and in moments it is completely covered over like a cocoon. The web slowly hardens like a scab and falls away in d8 days; during this time, cutting the web open causes the injury to inflict the same damage and thousands of spiders spill out of the gash.

14. The wound closes shut and heals miraculously, with no immediate side effects; within d4 hours the target begins to suffer severe pain in their teeth and jawbone. this pain lasts for d2 days. at the end of this period the pain ceases and there is no noticeable difference, though the first time the target places their lips on warm flesh poisonous fangs shoot out and injects a fearsome venom into the unsuspecting recipient. the venom does d10 CON damage and paralysis that lasts for d20 turns (save for half damage and no paralysis). it takes one day full day for the poison to accumulate in the poison sacs. 

15.  Two spinnerets appear on the target's tongue, and they begin vomiting spiderwebs until they figure out that the webs are to coat the injury, forming a scab as above. Once this is done the vomiting ceases, though every d12 hours nausea overwhelms the target and they need to coat the wound once again. This passes within d6 days.

16. The wound closes shut and heals miraculously, with no immediate side effects; within d6 hours the target's flanks become itchy, and a red rash breaks out around base of the spine. The rash continues to worsen and irritate, and the target is compelled to scratch away until the flesh is raw, allowing three protrusions roughly the size of a fat thumb to jut out. The target now has spinnerets; they shoot out web whenever the target is surprised, for  a distance of up to 60 feet, as long as the spinnerets are exposed (otherwise they make a sticky mess underneath any clothing). This can make the difference to life or death in any sudden falls, and the target can spend XP to gain a skill in Spinnerets and learn how to make more skillful and useful constructions. Treat as a web spell that can be used three times a day.

17. A bloated spider the size of a dog crawls out of the shadows and squats over the injury. It sinks its fangs into the wound, injecting a colagutive poison that stops any bleeding within d3 rounds. The flesh around the wound rapidly hardens and becomes necrotic; the spider hangs around the target feeding on the flesh until it heals within 2d4 days, when the spider leaves. When the wound does heal it does not close, leaving a deep scar and possible permanent reductions to CHA depending on the location of the wound.

18. The wound closes shut and heals miraculously, but whenever the target tries to talk their mouth is filled with webs, making any conversation or somantic spell impossible. Charades is fine though. This lasts for 2d10 hours, during which time the target may freely communicate with any spider.

19. The wound closes shut and heals miraculously, with no immediate side effects; but the spider god takes a sudden interest in the strands of the target's fate. How this plays out is up to the DM. Chance meetings with people from the target's past, sudden escalation in the chain of events surrounding an important confrontation for the target, people important to the target suddenly dying in bizarre accidents... anything to illustrate that something is watching the target and messing with their fate.

20. The spider god has different plans for the target; a vast arachnid bulk reaches out of the shadows and grabs them (treat as a Retriever, p75 Fiend Folio, with a shadow-stepping ability, and replace the transmutation to swarm of spiders). If the target is reduced to 0 HP the black creature snatches up the target and pulls them back into the shadows. the target is lost forever, unless the DM wants to play out the conversation between a spider god and a talking snack bar. If the target is able to defeat the Retriever (reducing it to 10HP or less) the creature surrenders, and will serve as a mount for the target for a year and a day. 


Unless otherwise stated above, all wounds healed have the following conditions:

All slashing wounds healed by a spider priest leave a subtle tracery of weblike scars around the edge of the injury, which if toyed with can come loose and reopen the wound, doing d2hp bleed damage/rnd.

Crush damage that is healed by a spider priest leaves an angry patch of boils. Occasionally they swell and burst, spawning hundreds of tiny spiderlings. If caught and killed, the priest's deity is angered, and the spiders attack their host as swarm.

Piercing damage healed by a spider priest does not close up; instead it serves as a home for tunneling spiders shut as trapdoors, and the wound is surrounded by a thin veil of web. If caught and killed, the priest's deity is angered, and the wound begins to bleed doing d4hp/rnd. 

Autopsies conducted on people healed by spider priests will reveal the presence of webs and spiders deep inside the cadaver. The more healing they have received, greater the infestation.

All these effects can be completely mitigated and reversed by taking an oath of obedience to the spider priest's deity.

3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars : G+ Game

©Gregor Hutton

Great game. I ran it on the spur of the moment last week on G+, and it worked well enough that I'm willing to have a crack at running a campaign.

So yeah, if you're keen for something a little different, go here:

3:16 Carnage Among the Stars @ ConstantCon

You are humanity's only hope for survival. Don't fuck up.

Moar Hobo Goblinobo

The final illustration of Cheroot for Trey.

Hobogoblin!

For Trey over at From the Sorcerer's Skull, a sketch of Cheroot the Hobogoblin!

Weeklings : Wizard in the Kitchen

Simon Forster asked for:

"How about an illustration of a halfling chef wizard? He has a chef's hat and a ladle, and is chubby. He's my current PC, and cooks a lovely breakfast :)"

Better really really really really really really fucking late than never. 

So yeah. Weeklings. Back in action, taking requests. Hit me.

FLUX #01 : Island of the Killer Twig-footed Trunkburger

Sunday night I got to muck about in Scrap Princess' homebrew game, lovely to meet her and her creations. Very nifty. We were joined by Christine all the way from Germany, who'd traveled a hulleva long way to play her first rpg. But she sank her teeth in like a pro; and Scrap's friend John who hadn't played in ten years but was all over it.

We did chargen in half an hour or so using Scrap's mashup rules (a little bit Feng Shui, a little bit Pathfinder) and came up with:

• Hennowar - refugee thief of undecided gender from someplace unimportant (Christine)
• Kalfur - ghul ranger, and his sidekick Kalfur Jr the Vicious Mudgoose (who's the dad, eh John?)
• Durandu - fluxchild wizard spelljunkie inspired by these posts over on rolang.com (me)

and we kicked off as castaways on an island unknown, just up the beach from an upturned and half drowned river barge. Found the dying bargepilot from NewDawnFades in the shade of the the jungle's edge; turns out he was symbiont with the cutest little talking caterpillar hidden on his shoulder (Scrap Princess does a very excellent forlorn caterpillar impression). Said dude was brain dead, heart still going, and grub thing was gonna die with him. omg moral quandary! what do we do? Loot the barge. Well Hennowar does, and keeps all the best stuff for hirself. Fucking thieves. Unwittingly aiding her was Kalfur Jr, going off like a frog in a sock about something in the trees. Suddenly, Stilt-legged Pygmy Elephant!

Now gaming is one of those things where players like to get carried away and add a few details, like "We're on a castaway island!  Ergo, we must be starving!" which can cloud their vision and make Stilt-legged Pygmy Elephants look like hamburgers on toothpicks. So Kalfur goes all manhunter and runs off to kill us some dinner. Only dinner kicks his arse all over the beach; the collective might of three 1st Level characters sans spells or decent weapons aided by the unholy screech of the mud goose be no match for a slightly pissed off Twig-footed Trunkburger and we retreated, dragging an unconscious Kalfur Sr. and dumping him along side caterpillar man. Trunkburger rolled a 3 and decided to bugger off.

A brief discussion including the phrase "eat the mud goose" was enough to rouse the ghul, and it was decided that crabsticks are way better than trunkburgers. Campfire stories were had. Come morning and a fresh batch of spellikins for Durandu we sauntered off into the jungle looking for slightly smaller creatures with which to prove our killiness. First said creatures were man-eating crabs; fortunately they'd found three dead men to go to town on and were too busy to give us any claw action. The hombres were uniformed, booted, armoured and one wore a cutlass in a jaunty style through his skull. Divvying up the loot I discovered Durandu was quite the fashionista and that crocodileskin leathers weren't for him. All the good shit went to Kalfur, as is befitting a meatshield, though the poisonous munchrooms that induced rage and frenzy before death ended up in Durandu's pockets.

From there Hennowar climbed the trees: "zer are zez thingz flyink around ze pig in ze diztanz" and a tower. Simple plan: get to the peak, climb the tower and find out where we are. Suddenly, foot-long spikefaced maggot thing! That it went for Hennowar tells me she needs to wash more. Also, maggot-faced wolf thing! One girly scream from Durandu followed by a mouthful of arcantrixical verbulation and the maggot wolf lay slumbering at Durandu's feet, dreaming sweet dreams about how one day, when it grows up, its face was going to be a fly. The heartless bastard that was Kalfur shattered such youthful hopes and ran the beastie through. A lot.

And that's where we had to end it; two random encounters, a moral quandary, and a bit of looting. I know Scrap Princess was holding back on the weird, there was a new roleplayer to consider after all. Didn't matter. Good time had. Return customer fer shure. What happened to the caterpillar man?

Character Sketch: Lurkio

Moorcock has his Eternal Champion, but I have my Eternal Scumbag. Lurkio turned up in nearly every long-term campaign I played in, but this was his first incarnation as my archgrunge murderhobo, 90s style. Lurk was cool.

Character Sketch: Corbando

This here is Corbando, my old D&D2E myrmidon, name lifted from an obscure line in Shakespeare which in Spanish means "cut across the gut" apparently. Corbando was cool.

Character Sketch: Spanner

So I found me a bunch of old character portraits from the last 20 years. This one's from a short lived Jovian Chronicles game waaaay back when. V-something somethingrussian. Techhead obviously. Took shit from no-one. V-thingy was cool.