'The Tale of Rhovanor' Interlude

 Artist source HERE

  So much for posting Rhovanor's tale often as I initially claimed! I'll get back to it in the days to come... In the meantime, I thought I'd post Rhovanor's stats and tell you guys where I'm going with this game, assuming he survives long enough. (For those who are first reading about Rhovanor, he's the character in a one-DM and one-PC game I'm running for a friend.)

 Elf Level 1
Cha 14, Con 13, Dex 15, Int 10, Str 12, Wis 11
HP: 7

  And now to my 'master plan'. In my campaign, elves don't age. My idea is that the character will go through many eras. He's currently in traditional medieval fantasy. But as the game goes on we'll move on to the Fantasy equivalents of...

- Rennaissance
- Victorian
- 30's Pulp Adventuring
- Modern Times
- Cyberpunk
- Space Opera
And finally...
- Post-Apocalypse

  I'll be cannibalizing the following books to serve my campaign when it comes to playing in other time periods/tech levels: Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque I-III, Machinations of the Space Princess, Abnomalous Subsurface Environment Vol.1 and Mutant Future.

GM Screens for Adventures

As you can see on the left, Zangief has become a vampire.

   So I have no idea if this has been done before, but White Wolf has released a GM Screen for their adventure scenario 'Blood and Smoke'. (Check it out HERE)

  Now, I haven't read the adventure so I have no idea how good it is and this probably isn't the first time they do something like this. Heck, for all I know another company did it before White Wolf did. (If anyone knows, feel free to comment as I'm genuinely curious.) Maybe it's been done for those adventures made for conventions or for things like Living Grehawk or Pathfinder Society? It seems like something they'd do in the era of PDFs. (Keep in mind that I'm just speculating at this point.) But honestly, this is the first time I find out about such a screen and I think it's genius.

  A screen made for a specific adventure where you don't always have to flip through your book for details about the adventure, that will help you run it more smoothly.

  There's many tips on the internet on how to make your own home-made GM screen. Instead of having scattered notes and constantly flipping through an adventure book to find this bit of information or that one, I think this is an elegant alternative; Make your own GM Screen for the next adventure you'll be running.

Dungeons Falling from the Sky...

  I've noticed that the OSR seems to be heading in a very Gonzo-esque direction lately. Browsing online, I can find countless dungeons that are actually fallen spaceships for your typical Fantasy characters to bravely explore. Many of them are quite good. But how many can you really insert in your campaign? How often can you really get away with it before it becomes unlikely enough to suspend disbelief? I can think of two ways. The thing that must be kept in mind is that there are two types of such sci-fi dungeons; Those that crashed on the campaign world long ago and the recently crashed. So let's go ahead with the two ideas...

  1- Have a map or a NPC with information of many 'castles that fell from the sky' over the centuries. It can start with a recently crashed spaceship, which the PCs explore as they would any other dungeon. During or after said exploration, they meet someone interested in these 'fallen sky castles' with a map he's gathered over the years from rumors and travels. If they so wish, players can now go find even more alien artifacts within these mysterious 'sky castles'. Once they are asking around about these things, it's not hard for PCs to also find newly crashed ships.
  If they ever get to speak with an alien who can explain it (Thanks to a Comprehend Languages spell, telepathy or because the alien stayed long enough to learn Common or any other local language), perhaps far away in space there is a black hole fairly close to a trading route, and sometimes a ship will fall through it and come out over the campaign's main planet, crashing down on the PCs' world.

  2- Drop 'em all around the same place! That's right! You have a hex map of your campaign? (If not, you should.) Perfect, then grab a bunch of hexes near each other and place the ships there. Either it's from a long-ago space battle... Or one that is happening right now! No matter which one you choose, you might have to tweak some spaceship dungeons to fit with the idea that it has crashed recently, or vice-versa.
  If they have crashed long-ago, I would probably recommend you go with idea #1 instead unless you want the PCs to do a few of these but don't want to make it last too long with them having to explore and search for the next ship. And idea #1 incorporates better the mix of recently crashed v.s crashed long ago, which would mean less work for the DM.
  I think idea #2 is better suited for a battle that is still going on over the planet... Because it offers the possibility for the PCs to take the fight to those idiots who keep dropping those massive sky-castles over their heads!!! All it takes is a working shuttle with a coerced alien, a teleportation spell or teleportation tech somewhere, and the PCs can go fight it out in the stars!

  Oh and PCs could have access to some shiny new spells too! Check out the FREE PDF of Space-Age Sorcery!

To Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of D&D

  Today is the 40th anniversary of D&D. To celebrate it, I suggest that all DMs who run a game on this day, no matter the system or setting, give double XP to their players so it feels special to them and they remember it in the years to come. Just an idea. :)

'The Tale of Rhovanor' Part 2: Goblins v.s Kobolds!

 

  

  On their way down the underground tunnel towards the dark elf territory, the only way from which Rhovanor the elf and the band of ten non-evil goblins might find a way out of where they are currently trapped, the second goblin Rhocanor met (the first being the one he decapitated) tells him his name is Crack, but that in goblin it doesn't sound as silly. (We had previously rolled to see if Rhovanor knew the goblin language. He didn't.) It wasn't long before the growth of underground glowing fungi and mushrooms gave them enough light so that they didn't need torches anymore.

  The group ended up facing four different underground passages and they could hear sounds coming from the last one on the right; an odd squeaky language Rhovanor did not know and the sound of splashing water. The old goblin chief mentioned that it was Kobold-Speak and at Rhovanor's behest, translated what they were saying: "One says: 'Hey, don't be a dick and stop splashing it on my face!" and another says "Give me some space, I wanna go in too!'"

  Rhovanor was really thirsty so he suggested that they enter the room and see if they could peacefully ask for some water, despite the warnings from the goblin chief that these kobolds served the dark elves and were 'not natural'.

  When they stepped into the huge cavern, Rhovanor saw what the old goblin chief had meant; The kobolds inside were all mutated horribly (Two heads, one was big as a human, another had quills on his back...) and most were bathing in a pool of red liquid. The goblin chief barely had time to speak as the kobolds attacked right away.

  I'd rolled 17 kobolds, there were 10 goblins and there was Rhovanor. 'Burgs and Bailiffs: Warfare Too' does have some rules for group skirmishes but since I didn't remember the rules correctly and didn't want to slow down the game, I decided to use the tables on the back covers of 'Vornheim' to deal with this quickly. I'll read up on 'Warfare Too' sometime soon.

  The medium-sized kobold went to duel Rhovanor... And the kobold scored a critical. I open up a random critical hit table from my bookmarks and roll on it... Rhovanor almost loses an arm but doesn't. Instead he goes negative. I roll on the table in 'Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque II' for when a character goes negative. Rhovanor gets to stay up for 3 rounds but after that he'll die if he receives no medical assistance. In a desperate all-out attack, Rhovanor manages to kill his kobold opponent while the battle rages on around him, but he's still bleeding out...

To Be Continued...

'The Tale of Rhovanor' Part 1

  The first in a series of posts where I share a new campaign I'm running for a friend. (A one GM/One player game) We'll be playing once per week and I'll be posting daily (more or less!), so one session is told over the course of its following week.

  My friend rolls up an Elf using the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rules. For those not used to systems where a race is a Class, Elves in that game are basically a mix of Fighter and Magic-User.

  We then use Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque to roll up his background (Prostitute!) and Dark Secret (He once ate human flesh and he liked the taste!).

  I start rolling dice for almost all the tables of The Dungeon Alphabet to help me flesh out the dungeon while my friend listens to some music.

  'What happened right before the game actually starts', A.K.A we make sense of the background and dark secret that were rolled:
  Rhovanor Werlyndren was an Elf gigolo who worked in the human city of Silvercrest. A few days ago as he was working at an orgy for nobles and rich merchants, a Dwarf woman wanted to sleep with him. He refused no matter what he was offered in coins because Elves don't like sleeping with Dwarves. The Dwarf Lady took it poorly and demanded that Rhovanor be castrated. The Elf escaped the orgy and hid in a seedy tavern, where he met three adventurers who were about to leave for an expedition to a nearby mountain. (Anyone who brings the left ear of a goblin to the Silvercrest guard gets a silver coin for it and there were rumors of goblins wandering around the foot of the mountain.) Desperate to leave along with an armed group, Rhovanor joins them.

  The three human adventurers were Paldred (who smelled of cheese according the the NPC generator I used), Dar and Galdar, who had no tongue. (I decided that in Silvercrest, spies and bards who insulted a noble got their tongue cut out.)

  The four adventurers entered a cave at the foot of the mountain when suddenly rocks collapsed at the entrance, trapping them there with just a bit of sunlight coming through. After a few days, once their provisions had run out, Paldred started killing his companions while they slept. Galdar woke up and managed to wound Paldred before dying and then Rhovanor snapped out of his meditation and finished him off with his stiletto. Since he had no food source and they were dead anyway, Rhovanor found himself with no other choice but to eat his dead companions.


  Gameplay actually starts:
  A secret door suddenly opens at the end of the cave and two goblins with torches walk into the cave, looking surprised to see Rhovanor. The Elf attacks right away and decapitates the first one with his longsword. (10 xp!) The second one begs him to stop while mourning his now-dead friend Grizzt, explaining that they are not like other goblins and are actually peaceful! Rhovanor listens and the goblin explains that if the cave entrance is sealed, it means that now the only way out of there would be through the Dark Elf territory deeper underground. The goblin finds it odd that the huge rocks would just fall like that over the entrance and believes it would take someone who knows stone really well, like a Dwarf, to do such a thing. Rhovanor realizes he's been possibly trapped by the Dwarves he was fleeing. The goblin leads Rhovanor to a tunnel that goes downwards and then through another secret door hidden in the tunnel. (Rhovanor is unable to tell if the tunnel is natural or not.)

  Rhovanor then meets with nine more non-evil goblins in their extremely filthy little cave. (The filthiness becomes important later on!) One of the goblins is old and bearded, the chief of the tribe. When the old goblin hears what happened, he gathers the small tribe and everyone heads out to confront the dungeon of the dark elves that lies below, since there is no other way out anymore and there is no food or water source in their small cave.

To Be Continued...

Mega-Dungeon Inspiration: Junk Head

  If this animated short film doesn't inspire you for a game of D&D, I don't know what can.