The Bonehoard

Here's a d20 town crier table to help the city feel more like a living entity. I'll roll on it near the beginning of a session to get an event (separate from the encounter tables I use periodically throughout the session). The list was started using this as a seed: [ link ]. Source: British Museum Event coming up (market day, holiday, festival, feast) Crown introducing new tax (luxury, staple, property, toll, market) Notorious criminal escapes / bounty offered (thief, murderer, assassin, arsonist, demon worshiper, sorcerer, monster) Someone did something to win renown (won prize fight, bred otherworldly roses, solved ancient riddle, saved child from burning building, etc) Superstition / tradition supposedly necessary for day (no crossing water, dress in red, fasting, etc) Public execution (thief, petty noble, murderer, arsonist, heretic, usurper, looters) Troubles in neighboring boroughs (riots, fires, famine, plague, sorcerous, monsters, warring groups) Weird...

Are you interested in chickens? Are your players interested in chickens? If not, this post holds nothing for you. If, like me, you have players that inexplicably gravitate towards farming in your sandbox games, you may find this post useful. Last session the party began setting up a rooftop chicken coop as part of their gang territory, to turn a profit and keep the gang fed. They plan on periodically expanding the flock, so I threw together some breeds to make the buying more interesting. Except I went overboard on this minor aspect of the game, as usual. :P I used half index cards and sketched the 20 breeds for reasons. Chickens have two stats, LAYING and MEAT. LAYING indicates how many copper a day you earn off their eggs. MEAT indicates how many silver a week they make (cash in on Sundays). It's all a bit abstracted in an odd way, but since sessions average 1-2 in-game days, I had to step up the timeline to make it worth it. I'm only making two breeds available for pu...

I love the feeling of bustling markets filled with strange goods, but players buying from equipment lists without the need for DM adjudication is so utilitarian as to have wholly supplanted any market-related roleplaying in my game. Telecanter made some cool shopping rules which I'll try out, but just for special commissions, since speed is a huge concern for me. Interactions that don't require DM adjudication are lamentably few and far between as it is. As a sort of compromise I've started utilizing "market specials" - the first time in a session the PCs say they're going through the marketplace (a central location in their borough as you might imagine), I tell 'em what freshly unloaded good is causing a buzz. Last session there was a foreigner with five "miniature bears" he was selling as exotic pets. One PC immediately bought one of the adorable critters and proudly walked it around town (leading to an invitation to meet an ennui-burdened nob...

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...

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:

Played another game in Strigastadt on Friday that went pretty well, but a couple issues were highlighted: 1) My rules for First Aid are a bit broken 2) Treasure was... insufficient for the terrible risks involved As a quick recap, I have First Aid working as a standard LotFP d6 skill (based off Logan Knight's Surgery rule), where failure means inflicting a point of damage and success healing equal to the number rolled, and you can only heal folks at or below 1 hp. Thought it was pretty handy, but one of the players only sunk a single point into the skill... which, with the healer's bag, meant a 50/50 chance of helping or harming. I like the idea of being able to do damage on a failure, but as the rules stand it's not super helpful where you need it most: when characters are a point or two away from bleeding out. You shouldn't have to dump all your points into a skill before it becomes usable! So, as a minor change: only failure rolls of 6 harm the patient... Th...

I made a little floorplan generator because I decided my quick-and-dirty handmade floorplans were subpar and couldn't find generators that worked well for a convoluted Strigastadt building. The generator works pretty well and I'm happy with it, so I decided I'd share the code if other folks want to run it: [ link ]   It's written in Python and requires pygame to run; it'll spend like five seconds creating a map for you (or 30 if you configure for "huge" maps), and then save the image to the current directory and quit. I've commented a bit in it, and you can find some explained configurable options up at the top. If you run into issues or have any questions/comments just let me know! I'm happy to help. :) Small Map Large Map Huge Map The main downside is you have to add in the doors and room numbers yourself, but I couldn't see a way around the former. Doors have a big impact on the implied usage of the space, and I don't...

On the suggestion of one of my players (a much more experienced DM than I), I wrote up some pre-made equipment packs that folks can choose during character creation. When you've just died, or are new to roleplaying, picking a pre-made pack is approximately 100000% faster than assembling one yourself. In a setting where death is not uncommon, they smooth some bumps in coming back into the game. The idea originated from this post on Zenopus Archives, and I'm quite taken with it! The packs are based on a 110 SP total, an average amount on the LotFP 3d6 SP to start roll. There's no discount to the pack and swapsies are allowed, which means they'll be chosen a little less frequently, but whatever.  The packs are definitely not perfectly chosen, but here they are in case some other folks find LotFP equipment packs handy:

RIP Harvald the Sorcerer : Single most useful party member with his use of floating disk, Harvald was slain by a very excessive amount of centipede venom. His body was recovered and properly cremated by his kinfolk from the East Shore. RIP Fisto Majisto the Fighter : Fisto was slain on only his second voyage to the Grey District, overcome by centipede venom. His burial was less noble, being dumped into a vat of necromantic ooze "just in case". May the ritual to raise his scoured bones in a mockery of life never be learned. RIP Aelfric the Specialist: The most hardened of the adventurers, Aelfric was on his sixth journey across the river when he met his fate. A trapped ladder to the third floor enveloped him in a cloud of lethal gas. His linkboys could only flee the oncoming cloud. Another ignoble burial, may the ritual to raise his scoured bones in a mockery of life never be learned. RIP Jerry the "Halfling": His first foray across the river, Jerry egged on...

(Warning: rambly post-game thoughts follow) We sat down and ran a few adventurers through Strigastadt today using Lamentation of the Flame Princess as ruleset, and I am quite pleased to report they rather enjoyed the experience. This run through was meant to be a test of the random room generator , my city layout concept, and the overall campaign idea. I had to fill in some gaps with the generator by grabbing random traps from donjon (wonderful creation that it is), and some repetition was evident in the lower-level monster types, but I was pretty pleased with the thing. Highlights of play: Most of the party's cash was generated by using floating disk to transport six marble statues across the river and sell them to a local temple whose deity the statues depicted aspects of. That is one kind of treasure... Brother Klaus was nearly slain by a poison dart trap to the neck, but a risky tracheotomy as his airways closed was able to save him long enough to get to his local temple...