The Bonehoard

Tonight's game was with a smaller crew than we're used to, yet it was quite eventful! It turned out to be a super long play report, so maybe grab a cup of tea before you dive in. :) Characters: Belina the (mutant) printer [Jackson] Barbarus the aspiring chicken farmer [Also Jackson] Roxanne the wrecker [JT] Cecilly the acrobat [Alex] The session started with some upkeep / long-term plans. Cecilly is rounding up acrobats, jugglers, and other performers in a scheme to establish a sort of street performers' union backed by the protection of the Stone Cats. She found a few acquaintances willing to join if the Stone Cats established their reputation a little more solidly (Roxanne: "So we're a clown gang now?"). Work was also done to take control of the Belltower, former hangout of the Blind Vipers and crossroads of two inter-building bridges, where Cecilly hopes to establish a sort of soft toll checkpoint. The resident old bell-keeper resignedly sighed and

And with this, the blog is finally caught up! Previous play report: [ link ] Last week's session summary: Roxanne [JT], wrecker Tom [Mackenzie], fungus farmer Ludovica [Lauren], apprentice alchemist Leonora [Bart], spy Cecilly [Alex], acrobat Zamara [Heather], initiate of Zig Belina [Jackson], mutant printer The party returned to the borough Krüger on the inhabited side of the river, seeking to recuperate from wounds the Vorn Owls inflicted as well as establish themselves as a proper gang. Lo Ren Zao was left in the Rat King's care as he underwent a transformation... In Krüger Cecilly gained patronage for her performances from one Count Marshhold, a smiling but somewhat creepy noble who has recently moved back into Strigastadt, apparently at the behest of his relative Greta the Pious (leader of the Glass Street merchant consortium). Zamara worked hard at gaining new converts to the following of Zig, and Tom focused on setting up his mushroom children... He

Previous play report: [ link ] first: [ link ] Session summary: Belina (Jackson), printer Celeste (Heather), fisherwoman Jafar (Mason), apprentice sorcerer Leonora (Bart), spire polisher Lo Ren Zao (JT), initiate of Otun Tom? (Mackenzie), fungus farmer Zabina (Lauren), Sewer Militia recruit After discussing plans for returning to the inhabited side of the city, the party spent the night on the upper floor of King Murod's building. After the party heard distant animal screams in the night, a messenger from King Murod appeared, requesting their presence. He informed them that the immediate area was controlled by Vorn Owls [taken in a half-ass manner from Fire on the Velvet Horizon , which I highly recommend] , terrible predators that kill all that moves after sundown, and warned them to avoid the streets at this hour. The party offered to remove the threat for King Murod, who was skeptical they could do so and survive. The party bargained him up to offering four

Speaking of characters getting disfigured, I figured I'd share my Death & Dismemberment chart. I found most charts insufficiently generalized for my purposes, so created my own. So far it's worked well, dishing out non-lethal wounds at times but never feeling safe to roll on. Mechanics explanation - similar to WFRP, once characters are reduced below zero grit they roll on the below chart, adding one for each negative number they've reached. I.E. at -2, if they rolled a six, they'd get to 8 on the below chart. I've got a custom hit location die I use for the fights, so we know what's being hit for armor and wound purposes, which has arms, legs, torso, and head on it in varying proportions. DEATH & DISMEMBERMENT 2 - Adrenaline rush    - Advantage on next roll of choice   3 - Jagged wound     - Scar (-(1d4-2) Cha if on face)   4 - Sub-part damaged (finger, eye, etc)       - save or permanent inhibition       - 3d4 weeks normal healing   5 - P

The next session was a bit unproductive as far as play goes - due to people's schedules coinciding and other factors we had a full eleven players show up, so things kinda ground to a merry halt. They still managed to explore a little more of the fungus building (this time without any incidents of infection) before deciding it was too dangerous and expending a considerable amount of oil in order to burn it to the ground as the Rat King requested. More strange fungal creatures were encountered, and Tom the fungus farmer smuggled out a colony of tiny fungoid creatures who appeared inquisitive and non-hostile. Tom's mushroom children have been the subject of some debate, some characters advocating throwing them back on the blaze when first discovered, and much trepidation shared amongst the rest of the party. Mushroom children Awesome illustration by Emma Lazauski , a print hangs on the wall next to our play table.  The remainder of the session was spent investigating the se

Part of my ongoing series of posting older play reports in order to catch up. Only a few more now! A largely different group of players returned to the Grey District the next session, following up on the previous session's lead, flasks of oil and a sack of cats in tow. As they entered the building, cinnamon-scented miasma began filling the street, burning exposed skin. They quickly filed in and beelined it to the chamber from where the drums had sounded last session, bursting in to find swarms of rats and several circles of white mice already formed. The poor cats were released and simply cowered before the massive quantities of huge rats, their exit barred by the party. As they considered their next step, a voice from deeper within commanded them to halt their futile struggle. Surprisingly the party complied, and as mishapped humanoid figures lit the candle sconces in the room, a voice from the silhouette of a throne began to speak. Thusly they met Rat King Murod, lord over secr

Another old session summary: Last session was the party's initial foray across the river to the abandoned / quarantined Grey District, looking for loot. The party had just pulled off a heist on an arms warehouse of the Hargrave Guards, and wanted to make themselves scarce while patrols led by Sigga the Wolf scoured the borough for the culprits. Most the evening was spent cautiously exploring their selected landing spot, well away from the vaguely threatening group they had sold their ill-gotten arms to a couple days prior. After passing over the building overflowing with fungal blooms (party: 'Nope nope!') they entered a large dockside building with ratholes gnawed through the doors. Predictably, the party immediately had to deal with a flood of rats. After the initial wave retreated, however, a small swarm of white mice entered the hallway ahead, running in concentric counter-rotating rings that began to mesmerize the onlookers. Fortunately Cecilly the Arsonist'

Continuing with my posting of month-old summaries to get the blog caught up: Session recap: Last session the group put on their strategist hats and drew up a plan of attack for a job Barbarus (Jackson) received from his contact with the Righteous Banner. Mork had requested he burn down a warehouse full of armaments owned by Lady Hargrave's guards, a callous but skilled group stationed on the upscale Glass Street. The Righteous Banner fears that, should the political situation turn violent, the ruthless Hargraves would be a serious existential threat to their people. Several plans of attack were drawn up, including convincing a waiter of an upscale tower-restaurant overlooking the building to conceal them after closing so they could descend unseen, but the party was split over the arson aspect of the plan since the warehouse was on the ground floor of a partially residential building, and a midnight burning would likely entail the deaths of bystanders. Barbarus argued

This is like two months old at this point, but I'm gonna post up some older summaries I'd sent out to the group to get the blog caught up, and then start posting weekly summaries thereafter. Background info: The group has now been back in Strigastadt for ten or so sessions, running a homebrew rule system I made based on WHFRP 1e and B/X, with other bits thrown in (variable spellcasting, advantage/disadvantage, etc). It's worked surprisingly well so far, with a few tweaks. They started out this foray to Strigastadt in a funnel, impressed into service in the sewer militia (a handy way to run a funnel in a city, sewer militia stolen from Heretic Werks ). Each started with a secret objective, like half of which ended up unused but dangling hooks for later. With surprisingly few casualties they managed to escape. Session recap 0.5: In a shocking turn of events not a single person died! There was an encounter with what is now known as "grease dogs" which develope

One of the traditions I love best at our table is the graveyard - a place where notable PCs wind up when they die. Instead of fading into obscurity, we have a reminder of their awesomeness sitting next to the play table. They're fun to make and take a lot of the sting out of character deaths. Here's our graveyard, now full after almost a year and a half of play over several settings - it starts with Strigastadt, moves to the Forgotten Shore, goes to the Lost Pyramid, and finally returns to Strigastadt. With Chuck Chuckleston's death to a brutal combination of fungal hounds, grease dogs, and giant wasps recently, it looks like we need another expansion... Open in new tab if you want it legible

Last time I ran Strigastadt I had a bit of trouble communicating vertical relationships of buildings to each-other - 99% of movement was done via streets since that's what was obvious on the 2D marker map. This time around I got some slate & travertine tiles which're working really well for me so far. Since there's only 3 shapes of tiles (plus the small towers), they're quick to grab and plop down as the party explores. Slate & travertine are also dark and light enough for colored chalks to show up on them, so we can mark up the map as we go. Plus it's much more fun to plan out a borough by physically placing tiles. Material details if you're curious:

After playing around with the idea of using a metal band name generator for spell lists, I ended up just writing my own generator to satisfy my preferences. A good portion of them are various flavors of summon spells, and of course a good chunk are nonsensical but that's just how things go with generators.

As previously stated , sorcerers grow artificial bodies in order to duplicate spells. Typically, very short-lived homunculi are used, lasting just long enough to get the job done. Some sorcerers create longer-lived homunculi via this process however, commonly referred to as vatlings. Here's a system for their creation accompanied by some bad scans of crappy watercolor splotch drawings I made. The demon-flesh samples used to grow vatlings are contained in specially-constructed zinc cylinders that stabilize the tissues for long-term storage. They're expensive to create and feed, so mostly sorcerers make do with a handful of strains, but if a new mutation is particularly useful it can be tempting to add to your repertoire. When finding a new tissue sample (from another sorcerer), roll random characteristics for the fleshy shells that strain creates (or just make something up):

Riffing off / reinterpreting the idea thread Scrap Princess and Arnold K. have going here and here about spells being an actual lifeform. I am a literal-minded fellow so I took it towards spells originating as flesh-and-blood creatures. So, spells originally come from demons. Many demons have the ability to project their consciousness outwards from their bodies, manifesting as fireballs or choking mists or whatever. Unmoving, vacant gazed, their bodies wait until the consciousness returns (usually quite quickly). Some people a very long time ago figured out how to trap those roving consciousnesses, first as a defense, then utilizing them as weapons. All spells are therefore unique entities, although there is some commonality in function between them. I don't know what level spell this guy is but it's bad news [ src ] Each page in a spellbook is a spell-mind trap, with the mental key belonging to the sorcerer. You can get a spell from someone, but the process is akin t

[Edit - Refined and PDF'd version here ] Game playtested with my friends a single time - so take with a grain of salt. It's sloppy fun though, and part of the point of it is to end up with play artifacts that can be used elsewhere. Requirement: an understanding of how some D&D concepts work (DCs, combat mostly). It's nice to have a reference for average AC, HD, damage, and DCs as well for folks less familiar. Start the game with a stack of index cards. Each person makes (should take < 15 minutes in the making phase): - A class + starting item (at a minimum, HD and level-up requirement [kill three snakemen per level, etc], but trapfinding bonuses, attack bonuses, special abilities are nice) - A piece of loot - A spell (either go Vancian with your spellcasting or have a spellcasting DC on each spell, detail what happens on success or failure) - A monster (HD, attack bonus, AC, damage, you know the drill) [probably start with 1-3 HD monsters, go up 1-2 HD w

As mentioned in the last post, PCs in my game enjoy both participating in and betting on the Fighting Pits of Zig. Zig's cult is filled with muscle priests who worship that divinity of strength, praising physical prowess over all else. Priests especially steeped in the lore of Zig are known to wrestle bears, emulating the myths surrounding their divine patron. Anyhow holy fight club. Brawling rules are a modified form of those found on Detect Magic here : Roll d20, add attack bonus. Whomever gets higher is winning. Ties = no advantage either way. Crit fail = make a fool of yourself. Crit success = accidentally escalate an extra category. Fights go from bruised -> bleeding -> screaming -> broken -> maimed/dead If you win the round, describe how you make your opponent bruised/bleed/scream/etc and you get +3 on your next roll. If you lose, choose whether to tap out or escalate to the next category. Example - The mighty Blax Jax (ftr 2) is facing off against Jadi Am

(warning, wall of text ahead!) Due partially to icy roads only three players showed last night, which created a much different dynamic than the 7ish person parties we've been used to. With less people in the decision making process, shit got done! Also, since they were painfully aware of being under-staffed, potentially hostile encounters were avoided at all costs, leading to much less random bloodshed and speedier travel. Blax Jax the fighter has been taking every opportunity to prove himself in the fighting pits of Zig (muscle priest fight club, have an obsession with bears), initially as a means of becoming more skilled with cesti. We moved to Dungeon Crawl Classics where two-weapon fighting is pretty crappy for fighters with normal dex, so this was a way for him to become competent at what he wanted his fighter doing. It soon enough transformed into a spectacle where the other PCs bet on the fight outcome, almost exclusively favoring his opponent since he had a streak of ba

In my campaign, henchmen request 50gp per level up front at the very minimum, besides their 1/4 share and sundry expenses. Knowing what they're spending that money on tells much about their character. I would swear I've seen such a list before but can't for the life of me find it, so I made my own. If anybody has an idea on where I'd seen it before, I'd love to hear it! 1 Pay off debts to... Landlord 2 Physician 3 Gambling House 4 Drug Supplier 5 Loan Shark 6 Legal System 7 Other 8 Gift money to... Impoverished 9 Temple 10 Library 11 Political Movement 12 Distant Family 13 Lover 14 Pay mate's bail 15 Bribe Parole Officer 16 Buy something coveted 17 Provide for local family 18 Funeral Expenses 19 Bribe Judge 20 Massive Party or Bender

Looking at a megadungeon map it struck me that the rectangular dungeon sections looked almost like model sprues side-by-side. Wondering how such a dungeon would look, I threw together this quick 'found dungeon' in like ten minutes. Behold, the flakvierling dungeon! :P

When I was running Strigastadt I had a pretty well-developed sense of theme that helped unify the elements of the setting and give the game a certain grimy-glimmering feel to it (although there were some theme swings here and there). I reckon that's one of the inbuilt advantages to having a setting-driven game. By contrast the Forgotten Shore phase we're in now is all about a particular game structure - the hexcrawl. When stocking the hexes and creating the landscape I was left with a feeling of dissatisfaction with the grab-bag nature of the locales, and frequency of generic fantasy stuff I was shoe-horning in. The root problem was that I simply didn't have a solid idea of what the place was trying to be. A ways into the project, I ran across an interview with Yoon-Suin creator David McGrogan wherein he mentions an approach where you compile a 25-word list describing your setting, to use as a reference to encourage setting consistency and strengthen theme [ah, here's