On the Bookshelves

This is an encounter that takes place in the library of a cult temple, from my latest adventure Xanadu. Even though the most useful part for readers of this blog is the random table of books found on the shelves, I've reproduced the encounter in its entirety.  

Bibliotecha

Door, sandstone, arcane locked, painted with cult symbol. Stone pillars, flanking the door, each carved with a representation of female creatures with wings, similar to statue in area 5. Bookshelves, filled with tomes, various bindings, sizes. Smells like wax, stale incense.

Door
If door is touched: it is magically trapped. Touching the door causes (d20): 

• Result of 1–18: a fireball for 2d4 damage to everyone within 10’ of the door (save vs breath for half),
• Result of 19–20: a lightning bolt to explode for 2d20 damage to everyone within 10’ of the door (save vs breath for 1d20 damage).

How to disarm the door: trap is deactivated by pressing a release button behind one of the stone pillars next to door. A thief can find this by investigating for traps. 

Bookshelves
Books of various shapes, sizes, and colors. Some are ancient, some modern. Volumes of esoterica, occult, directories, almanacs, local histories, etc. There is nothing magical here.

On the bookshelves (d20): 

1. Instructions on exotic poisons.
2. History of the temple.
3. Methods of smuggling, extortion and various other activities this cult is involved in. 
4. Treatise of personal sins.
5. Names and notations that look like a collection of financial debts.
6. Journals of notes from failed experiments.
7. Guidebook to invisibility.
8. Interviews with the undead.
9. Handbook of cannibalistic recipes.
10. Opus on tales of astral seas.
11. Travel directory to other planets.
12. Formulas to perform the summoning ritual in area 26 (The Tooth Fairy).
13. Almanac listing locations of the birthplace of all monsters.
14. List of undiscovered cities.
15. Ancient torture methods.
16. Picture-book of decadent fashion.
17. Volume of love poetry.
18. Reference work on arcane dentistry.
19. Guide to ancient meditation techniques.
20. Manual of unpopular magical theories.

Review of Xanadu

My most recent adventure Xanadu, written for Old-School Essentials, was reviewed on Ten Foot Pole.

The Settlement of Protu

Here's a preview of a hexcrawl location from Aquilus issue #2, coming soon. Proto is located in a region of Aquilus called Ostaria, which the forthcoming issue will focus on.

Protu

Standing within a clearing of saturated swamplands is a settlement that has invented a thanatotic compound, which allows users to get a glimpse at life after death. The highly valuable, sought-after substance is supplied as an extremely addictive opiate to the very wealthy. It is extracted from highly poisonous fungal growth that is scraped from tree trunks in the surrounding areas. This area is pervaded by vicious predators, and teeming with disease. It smells putrid, like decayed animals and boiled urine.

What about the residents? 

• They have photosynthetic skin which allows them to produce their own food in sunlight. 
• They do not permit laughter or singing. Punishments for violations are severe. 
• A family of three lives here, with flesh that looks like translucent gelatin. The residents are secretive about them. 
• They can instantaneously eject ink from the pores of the skin, which envelops them in a mist and protects them from spells. 
• They make saving throws vs all magic at +2. 
• The children spend their days stroking dead animals with thigh bones of the dead. The stroking produces miniature lightning storms of static. They store the electrical discharges in jars, which are then used to illuminate the home interiors at night.
• They communicate with deadly insects that guard their settlement at night.

Halgarth's Magic & Spellcasting Academies

This is a preview of a random table that will be included in Aquilus issue #2, coming soon. There is a section in this issue which details the city of Halgarth. The table below generates magic schools found throughout the city. In a future post, I'll release another random table that generates the styles of magic that are taught in these academies. 

(d12) Roll 3 times and combine:

1.	The Seat of	Future	Chronomancy
2.	The Affiliation of	Ecological	Philosophy
3.	The Academy of	Natural	Hermeticism
4.	The Faculty of	Spiritual	Alchemy
5.	The League of	Practical	Inscriptions
6.	The Seminary of	Ancient	Alteration
7.	The Society of	Temporal	Divination
8.	The Alliance of	Geomantic	Experimentation
9.	The Foundation of	Hermetic	Necromancy
10.	The Union of	Evolutionary	Invocation
11.	The Center of	Sorcerous	Abjuration
12.	The Guild of	Mathematical	Summoning

Arcana, Magic Items & Devices from Aquilus

An expanded version of this table is published in Aquilus issue #1.

Roll (d10):

1. Jar of Life: A small jar formed of translucent material. Place organic matter or a severed limb inside, and it will remain alive forever until removed.
2. Dust of Forgetfulness: When thrown at a living creature, the dust causes the victim to forget everything that happened to them during the last day. After one week, the lost memories will be restored.
3. Essence Extractor: Extracts the consciousness of willing being. The consciousness can be stored in a vial and drunk by another being to absorb their soul.
4. Ice Pipe: When smoking this pipe using a particular strain of tobacco, any smoke exhaled will be of sub-zero temperature. It will deal 1d4 points of damage to a living target. Target must be with a 3 ft range.
5. Initiative Dust: Snorted through the nose, the dust creates paranoiac hyper-vigilance. It reduces sleep requirements, accelerates the aging process, creates constant perspiration, and adds +2 to initiative rolls. Lasts for 1 turn. 
6. Protective Gloves: The user’s hands are sheathed in gloves made of solid sound for one hour. The user can touch or handle poisonous substances
7. Purifying Incense: A stick of this incense will purify the air and allow a PC to smell emotions within 30 ft. It is 70% accurate and burns for about 20 minutes.
8. Thought Amulet: A character who successfully activates this ability may send a brief mental message to the mind of any intelligent creature within 360 ft. This message cannot be more than one short sentence.
9. Tobacco of Accelerated Healing: When smoking this strain of tobacco, the PC gains no additional benefit from magical healing, but instead, their natural healing rate is doubled for the next ­twenty-four hours. 
10. Protoplasmic Gel: A jar of gel made by the Riverfolk. It can dissolve any material at the rate of 1 inch per round. It has two uses and lasts for 1 hour.

Creating Hooks Within a Sandbox

I'm currently working on a new mini-sandbox/point-crawl called Night Land, which I'll write more about in the coming weeks. It will run at around 60 pages, contain ten locations, half of those being adventure sites with maps and keyed areas. It's essentially a weird world to be explored, with no overriding objective or goal for PCs at the outset. 

This has presented challenges in determining engaging hooks I can plant in the setting, which encourages players to interact with adventure sites. The questions are what kinds of hooks to have and where/when to find them. In similar settings I've studied, it's often achieved with rumor tables, which I wanted to move away from.

Here is a list of additional ways to create hooks. These are broad conceptual ideas, which you could expand upon with specific narrative threads or plot-lines relevant to the setting:

• Active: an event that happens directly to PCs.
• Passive: events that happen and draw the PCs in.
• A social hub the party meets. 
• Developing major NPCs, stakeholders with motivations.
• A default action that offers hooks.
• Items (such as books, scrolls) about a place someone has been.
• Items the PCs already have.
• Items the PCs have encountered.
• NPCs informing players of what is going on.
• A current need of the PCs, such as a depleted resource.
• An encounter that needs to be resolved.
• Putting PCs in the path of an obstacle.
• Consequences of walking away from opportunities.
• Living world, events unfolding even if PCs weren't there.
• Situations that act as triggers. 
• Synergy between the different elements of the setting, one outcome triggering another.
• Timeline of events that occur unless the PCs preempt and stop them.

Aquilus Character Class Name Generator

Here is a character class generator I've developed for my setting Aquilus. 

I'm especially interested in how language can drive inspiration for RPG content. Firstly, come up with the name of something you might find in your world or campaign, then determine what its characteristics and properties are. Chris McDowall – the writer of Electric Bastionland – has a blog post about this technique which he calls Spark Tables, "taking two results and smashing them together for inspiration." The results can be counter-intuitive or even absurd, but they're often flavorful and stimulate the imagination.

In the generator below, I firstly fed in around 1200 character classes collated from sources including RPG wikis, indexes, rule-sets, etc. I then fed in hundred of adjectives. The first result generates an adjective (and occasional noun) followed by a class. The second generates two different character classes put together, both results offering thousands of possible combinations. 

I'm currently working on several other generators for elements such as spells, magic items, landmarks, encounters, and monsters, which I'll share in due course.

 

What do you hear about the nearby cults?

An expanded version of this table is published in Aquilus issue #1.

Roll (d20):

1. They are controlled by a sentient artifact that manipulates them to it's own end. Their leader knows the answer to almost every question posed to them.
2. Their temple is near a dark and fog-shrouded swamp of glowing vegetation and breeding grounds of beasts. They have their tongues cut out and do not speak. Their leader has opened a portal to another plane. 
3. They worship an immaculately carved statue near their temple, located deep within overgrown woods. They hybridize with non-humans. New members must drink poison and save vs death as an initiation ritual. 
4. They suffer from persistent sickness and their children have birth defects. Their leader is a ruthless killer, who members would die for.
5. They are reformists with new ideas for control. They have groups of street children throughout the land in their employ as spies. Their temple is known for its stunning architecture and music. 
6. They are a charity that helps desperate travelers, feeding the hungry and bringing food and water convoys to the needy. They deliberately expose themselves to mutagens.
7. They are starving, miserable beggars who are facing certain death. They take care to avoid sharp objects. They bleed an unknown substance. 
8. They worship an overlord who awakens from cryonic sleep every decade to give new orders. Once per week, they must go to a specific shrine or sacred place. 
9. They are working on plans for the reincarnation of a long-dead entity. One member has fled with important pieces of information and is being hunted. The leader is a great artist.
10. They are wealthy, thrill-seekers from powerful families. They practice intense anonymity and wear masks in public. Their leader is a mind reader.
11. They worship a monolith that causes past-life flashbacks. They travel on winged beasts. Some of the members are shape-changers. 
12. They bury magical items and artifacts with the honored dead. Some of the cultists are members of an extraterrestrial race. A trader in the village has deceived the cult without realizing their true nature.
13. They are grave robbers who deal with local holy people to scare the town folk to pay for protection. They speak to each other in a language they have invented. The leader has mastered the art of time travel. 
14. They are former assassins. They possess an artifact that alters life and accelerates evolution. Their temple is heavily guarded.
15. An evil wind has brought a plague to their temple. They avoid moonlight and can discern a voice that doesn’t belong to one of their members.
16. They are an apocalypse cult that worship star gods. They have been murdering local farmers after they exposed their leader's past. Members meet once a month at the store-house of a local merchant and drink each other's blood.
17. They are the last remnants of a once-widespread faith. Their practices involve ­self-mutilation and sacrifices of newborn. 
18. They have been seen digging up ancient graves and crypts, where they found mysterious tablets. Their leader is a great healer.
19. They carry news and letters across the land. There are tunnels under their temple that lead to secret places.
20. They use mysticism, astrology, and narcotics to make outrageous claims about the future, that many believe. Deep within their temple is the greatest library in Aquilus, filled with forbidden tomes.

Painting by Neo Rauch.

Fater: A New Character Class for the DCC RPG

Faters are hermits, thinkers, skeptics and philosophers. They value knowledge, logic and reason above all things. Unbeholden to gods, they reject the idea of the spiritual and supernatural, believing instead there is nothing beyond the world of Áereth. To the Fater, magic and the forces of darkness are susceptible to discoverable laws, and the explanations for the mysteries of the universe are ultimately knowable. Although most men are inevitably doomed to their fate and destiny, the Fater has sought self-mastery through the forging of his intellect, discovered patterns in the chaos of life, and has risen to understand his role and potential in the greater drama. Through his focused mind, the world can bend to ways that give the Fater premonitions about the path he must take, of whether a future action will be a bane or boon. To reward the Fater’s reverence of nature, she has granted him the secrets of healing with plant extracts. For any healing using Lay on Hands performed on a Fater by the Cleric, they are treated as opposite alignment. In addition, the Cleric receives 1 disapproval when successfully healing a Fater. It is viewed as a great sin by the Cleric’s deity to mend such an adamant unbeliever!

Background option: A Judge may decide to introduce the Three Fates patrons (Chapter 7: Judges Rules of the DCC RPG corebook) into their campaign when using the Fater class, for interesting storytelling possibilities. Perhaps Faters are fallen subjects of these patrons, outcast through renunciation, corruption or taints. 

Hit points: A Fater gains 1d6 hit points per level.

Languages: At 1st level, a Fater automatically knows Common, and 3 other determined languages. They know one additional language for every point of Intelligence modifier, as described in Appendix L of the DCC RPG corebook.

Weapons training: Faters train to use their bodies as a weapon. They can use small melee or ranged weapons, but prefer to fight unarmed with bare hands, and receive a Deed die bonus when doing so. 

Alignment: Faters are generally neutral. They are impartial to law, chaos and judgment.

Armor Bonus: Faters rarely choose to wear armor. Calculate Armor Class: 10 +Agility modifier +Character level. However, if the Fater chooses to wear armor, they do not receive the Agility modifier or Character level bonus. 

Attack Modifier: Unlike other classes, Faters do not receive a fixed attack modifier, they instead receive a Deed die bonus. This is not used to perform Mighty Deeds, but rather an attack and damage modifier only given if they attack with bare hands in close melee combat. 

Special abilities

Polymath: 

When not adventuring, Faters have an unquenchable curiosity about the world around them. They wander throughout the land like vagabonds, seeking information (for which they are prepared to pay handsomely!) from rare books in fantastic libraries, common peasants in a fishing village, the tavern owner, thieves in the night, and other journeymen they meet through travel. Faters can have detailed knowledge in the following areas. Roll d20 at 1st level to acquire 3 different skills, then roll for 1 skill per level thereafter to acquire a new area of expertise (re-roll if a skill has been previously acquired): 

(1) weapons, (2) architecture, (3) physiology, (4) seafaring, (5) botany, (6) mathematics, (7) history, (8) art, (9) weather, (10) maps, (11) astronomy, (12) the supernatural, (13) agriculture, (14) lore & legend, (15) genealogy, (16) magical inscriptions, (17) languages, (18) masonry, (19) traps, (20) chemistry. 

If asked to make a DC check which requires a field of knowledge which the Fater is proficient, roll d20 + Intelligence modifier +Deed die.

Thief skills: 

Faters have the following abilities, as per Thief skills described in Chapter 1: Characters in the DCC Core Rulebook: Read Languages, Forge Document and Handle Poison. When attempting these skills, the Fater rolls d20 and applies their Deed die to the DC check.

Strength of Mind: 

The Fater adds their Deed die to any Will save against mind-influencing spells, in addition to any attribute modifiers. 

Wild Healing: 

Faters are skilled in the wild healing arts. Through their reverence and love of nature, they are able to perform healing upon other creatures with ointments, balms, salves, and extracts derived from plants, fungi, molds, and herbs. Faters carry remedies which can restore hit points, the effectiveness and frequency of which it can be used each day are given on the Wild Healing column of the table below. They may heal any living creature, as well as themselves. The Fater must physically touch the wounds and work for 1 round. When using Wild Healing, roll d20 +Deed die. A result of 12 or greater means Wild Healing has been successful. A result from 2-11 means the healing attempt has failed and the extract has been lost. A roll of a natural 1 means the extract has actually caused damage, equal to the amount of potential healing (so a roll of a natural 1 by a 3rd lever Fater causes 1d5 damage to a victim, instead of 1d5 healing). Due to the Faters’ specialized knowledge of the methods by which their extracts are made and applied, other characters are unable to use their concoctions to perform healing. 

The Hand of Fate: 

The Fater is not simply a powerless pawn in the game. Through years of mindfulness, he has developed insight into the most effective manner to complete any action and the consequences this will bring. By understanding cause and effect upon the loom of time, the Fater is able to weave the strands of fate and destiny. Beginning at 1st level, the Fater rolls their Deed die every morning to determine how many re-rolls they can make that day. This resets overnight. They may spend this to re-roll any single attack roll, damage roll, saving throw, luck check, Wild Healing roll and DC check. The roll can be something they attempt, and also something that directly affects them. For example, the Fater can re-roll a failed attack roll they make, or if an opponent has successfully hit them with an attack, they could force the foe to re-roll the attack or damage result. Regardless, if they choose to re-roll, the results of the second roll must be kept. Fate can rub off on those around him, and like the Halfling, the Fater can aid his allies. The Fater can spend d3 re-rolls for an ally to make 1 re-roll. The ally in question must be nearby and visible to the Fater. The ally can re-roll attack rolls, damage rolls, saves, spell checks, DC checks, thief skills, and so on. The ally can also force a foe to re-roll an attack or damage result. Luck can be added to any re-roll. Critical hits, or a roll of a natural 1 however, cannot be re-rolled by a Fater, his ally or foe...such is the hand of Fate, as some things are just meant to be.

The Will to Live:

The Fater does not believe in an afterlife, and therefore has no fear of meeting Lord Death. The universe is without meaning, there is nothing beyond his glorious life on Áereth, judgement by his maker is not forthcoming, so he has nothing to lose when he passes. He will simply turn to dust and cease to exist. If a Fater dies (and after attempting to heal or rolling the body) he is permitted a DC 16 Will to Live save (with no attribute modifiers permitted) on a d20, to reflect his resolve and attachment to this mortal coil. On a successful save, he is granted a reprieve from Death and miraculously survives with 1hp, but suffers 1d3 points of permanent Strength, Agility or Stamina damage (Judge decides, the loss can be distributed amongst stats). This can be attempted once per day. The Hand of Fate re-roll or Luck may not be spent on this save. 

Titles (all alignments):

1. The Skeptic

2. The Theorist

3. The Logician

4. The Thinker

5. The Enlightened

6. The Philosopher

7. The Seer

8. The Wise

9. The Knower

10. The Prophet

Level	Deed Die†	Crit Die/Table	Action Die	Ref	Fort	Will	Unarmed Damage*	Wild Healing (per day)
1	d3	1d8/III	1d20	+1	+0	+1	d4	1d3 (x2)
2	d3+1	1d8/III	1d20	+2	+1	+2	d6	1d4 (x3)
3	d4	1d10/III	1d20	+2	+1	+2	d6	1d5 (x4)
4	d5	1d12/III	1d20	+3	+2	+2	d8	1d6 (x5)
5	d6	1d12/III	1d20	+3	+2	+3	d10	1d8 (x6)
6	d8	1d14/III	1d20+1d14	+4	+2	+3	d12	1d10 (x7)
7	d8+2	1d14/III	1d20+1d14	+4	+3	+3	d12+2	1d12 (x8)
8	d10	1d16/III	1d20+1d16	+5	+3	+3	d14	1d14 (x9)
9	d10+2	1d16/III	1d20+1d20	+5	+4	+4	d14+2	1d16 (x10)
10	d12	1d20/III	1d20+1d20	+6	+5	+5	d16	1d16 (x12)

* add Strength modifier +Deed die

† Applies to Polymath knowledge checks, Thief skill checks, Wild Healing checks, attack and damage rolls using bare hands. Does not apply to attack or damage rolls using weapons.

Illustration by Shawn Brewer. This class appears in the 2019 Gongfarmer's Almanac.

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Whoever Eats my Flesh

The PCs enter a damp, room with a thick fog covering the floor. The walls and ceiling are covered with plants. From the dense foliage at the furthest part of the entrance, a figure will walk forward towards the PCs. He is human in scale and is completely made of vegetation and looks to have long hair and a beard. He appears old, messianic, wise, joyous and friendly. The plant man is a former wizard that experimented with travelling between planes. Something went awry and now he is here. He will stop at least 30’ from the PCs. If the PCs speak, the plant-man will answer back. He tells them he has a gift for all journeymen entering their structure. The gift is a part of his body which needs to be ingested. He answers no questions and insists that investing his body will provide the answers the PCs need. If the PCs agree, he will move a small part from his body that looks like a yam and hand it to each PC. This vegetative matter is a hallucinogen which will cause various effects. Roll d12:

1. PC hallucinates and remembers their childhood. Begins to mindlessly sing lullabies. Is overcome by feelings of compassion and will be unable to attack another living being for 1d4+4 turns. 
2. PC falls to the ground and goes into embryonic position. Has intense hallucination which is ecstatic, with numerous profound insights into their own life. Hallucination lasts 1d4 turns. Add 1 permanent point to Intelligence. 
3. PC takes off all their clothes and begins rubbing themselves into sexual ecstasy. Add 1d3+1 temporary luck
4. PC sees time and space vibrating simultaneously. Judge can randomly determine 1d3 rooms in the dungeons which PC can have prior knowledge before entering.
5. PC develops telekinesis and can read thoughts of all living things. Lasts 1d10 + 2 turns. 
6. PC becomes disembodied and turns to spores. They regenerats in the garden and are now part plant for the next 1d10+10 hours. The plants will fall off their body after that time. Add 1 to Intelligence. 
7. Hallucinogen is poisonous to their system. Fortitude save (DC12), or 1d4 damage to HP and permanent loss of 1 to Stamina. If save is successful, then PC is so terrified and will suffer a -1d8 on all DC checks, initiative and attack rolls for the next 1d10 +2 hours.  
8. The plant man will answer 1 question in great detail the PC asks. 
9. The PC develops a third eye in the middle of their forehead. Add permanent 1d4 to Luck. 
10. The PC communicates with a greater god and switches to the opposite alignment. If they are neutral, they have a 50% chance of becoming Chaotic or Good. Effect is permanent. 
11. The PC sees such incredible and overwhelming visions. Will save (DC13) or they begin to poke one of their eyes out with either their fingers or an implement they have on them. Take 1d3+2 damage. 
12. The PC becomes ecstatic and splits into two. They now have a doppelgänger with exactly the same stats which they can control for 1d3 days, after which time the doppelgänger dies. It can be kept alive by dark sorcery. 

The plant-man will not attack the PCs. He is a wise guide. If he is attacked, whatever is cut by an implement will regenerate in 1d4 rounds. If he is burned, he will regenerate in random part of the room. If the entire room is burned, he will regenerate from a microscopic piece of vegetation in the room. He is impossible to eliminate completely and will always be friendly if he regenerates.