Castle Blackeagle Sessions 1-3

 

Never finished the writeup, but here's the take for the first expedition to the Dolmen of the Hounds: 

Foes Defeated

3 death-hounds, 3 berserkers, 1 adept of the horned ones

Treasure

Adept's 'spellbook' of rune-scribed bones (requires decoding), gold-trimmed red cape of elven make (180 gp), chiton-style blue dress with rose-gold trim also of elven make (240 gp), white tunic of elven silk (120 gp), reddish-gold and silver bracelet (700 gp), silver zoomorphic brooch with an emerald gem eye (210 gp), figurine of a songbird wrought in silver with gemstones (450 gp)

XP per person

266 XP

New Monster: The Schreckenkatzen

Spooky cat by Evlyn Moreau

Also known as a Cait-Scairde, the Schreckenkatzen is a lesser demon of hell which roams the dark places of the world, causing mischief, knocking over jars, stealing food, and devouring solitary travellers who they meet on lonely roads. While it may not be itself sighted often in the places it haunts, its presence is known through claw-scratches upon the doors of temples, hideous night-yowling, and the acrid scent of its oily vomitus spewed upon graveyards and other sacred places it seeks to defile. 

Armour Class: 3 [16]
Hit Dice: 6**
Attacks: 4 x claws (1d4) or vomit flames (3d6 + oil)
THAC0: 14 [+5]
Movement: 240' (80')
Saving Throws: D6 W7 P8 B8 S10 (10)
Morale: 5
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 850
Number Appearing: 1 (1)
Treasure Type: I

• Size and Reach: More liquid than even mundane cats, the Schreckenkatzen can fit through holes a mere 3" wide, but can also reach up to 10ft away with its claws.
• Mundane Damage Immunity: Can only by harmed by magical attacks or weapons coated in silver.
• Invisibility: When alone, or within an area of darkness, may become invisible (as the spell). May speak, interact with unattended objects or make a single claw attack without ending the invisibility. Rendered visible if damaged.
• Disguise: May change appearance to resemble a normal black housecat, with the same conditions as Invisibility.
• Purring Voice: Can attempt to charm any person who hears its voice. Targets must save vs spells or treat the Schreckenkatzen as they would a normal housecat. 
• Fiery Hiss: Flare of yellow-green fire from its eyes and mouth causes fear (as the spell) in a 120' cone at will.
• Coughing up Fire: Vomit up eerie yellow-green flames in a 90' long cone (save vs breath for half). Area covered with burning oil for 1d4 rounds after. 1/day, also recharges they eat a person.
• Plays: Stalks victims and waits until an opportunity to strike. Captures unconscious victims to torment them later.
• Catcher of Shadows: Any person of 2HD or more that the Schreckenkatzen kills whose remains are left unblessed by the next sunset becomes a Shadow in its entourage. Burning obviates this effect.
• Lair: Also contains 1d4-1 Shadows. 

New Monster: Steel Snails

(Picture from a post on Britain in detail: quirk, charm and craft in the built environment on facebook.)

 Steel Snail

A swarm of small, metallic snails that consume metals. Despite their name, their bodies usually resemble some patchy iron, but their actual composition depends on the specific metals they've been feeding on. They implacably slither towards any metal they scent, whether worn, held, or unattended.

They exude heat from small furnaces within their shells (where they digest the metals), which a whole swarm may release at once in response to danger (the equivalent to a heat metal spell applied to anyone within 10 feet of the swarm). They may do this once per day. 

A swarm that inhabits an area for a long time will gradually coat surfaces in a metallic patina with their slime trails. Fanciful tales from the East have wizards feeding them diets of precious metals to gild sculptures and scrolls with unique alloys. (And providing a smokeless source of heat.)

Given their composition and behaviour, most sages ascribe their origins to one of the paraelemental planes of existence, although this has not been satisfactorily proven in the Collegia Magna and a significant minority assume them to be sorcerous constructs. 

Armour Class: 5 [14]

Hit Dice: 2 to 4 (9 / 13 / 18hp)

Attacks: Special

THAC0: NA

Movement: 5’ (1’)

Saving Throws: D13 W15 P16 B17 S18 (NH)

Morale: 12

Alignment: Neutral

XP: 20 / 35 / 75

Number Appearing: 1 (1d3)

Treasure Type: Special

Size: 10’ × 10’ area, typically.

• Immunity: Unaffected by sleep spells or damage from fire. Intense cold slows them as the spell. 
• Swarm attack: Anyone wearing or carrying a metal object within the swarm must make a Save vs. Petrification. If they fail, they automatically take damage — 2hp if wearing armour, 4hp without — and the snails latch onto them, doing damage automatically while still attached. This damage is magical.
• Heat Vent: Once per day, may vent heat en masse: as heat metal applied to everyone within 10 ft of the swarm. 
• Consume Metals: Metals left in the swarm’s area over time will be consumed by the swarm, with small objects (e.g. thieves’ tools) consumed within 1 turn and any armour or swords consumed entirely within 1d6 hours. Magic items may save to resist as with Rust Monsters. 
• Escaping: On exiting the swarm, characters continue to suffer half damage until a round is spent swatting off attached snails.
• Pursuit: Snail swarms that scent metal within 60 ft will pursue it relentlessly.
• Raw Materials: The snails’ value as metals depends on the metals they were consuming, but an “average” swarm is worth GP equal to its HP.

Free Hexmap Templates

Hey, with the #hexplore stuff going on I figured I should clean up and post some hexmap templates I've had sitting around for a while:

Hex Map Templates

If there's any hexmap templates (or variations on existing ones) you'd like to see added, please let me know!

Two OSE Spells

A few years ago, when a Wilderlands campaign was being converted from 5e to OSE, I had written up two versions of spells my 5e character (a Tempest-domain Cleric) used a lot. It seemed weird to me for him to just stop casting the spell, so using existing previous-edition spells as benchmarks I converted them to this:

Thunderwave
1st Level Spell
Duration: Instant
Range: 15’ cone
A wave of thunder blasts creatures and objects in a 15-foot cone originating from the caster. Any creature in the area of the wave takes 1d4 points of thunder damage per caster level (maximum 5d4), with a successful save versus spells indicating half damage. Unsecured objects and medium or smaller creatures who failed their save are hurled 10ft away from the caster.

Shatter
2nd Level Spell
Duration: Instant
Range: 60’
An implosive wave crushes things within a 10’ radius sphere originating at a point within range.

• Damage: Creatures and objects caught in the sphere suffer 1d4 damage per level of the caster (1d6 if they are made of inorganic materials), with a successful save versus spells indicating half damage.

Disconnected Thoughts on Running Medieval Settings

Reposting a reply to someone who asked for tips and advice running a Cthulhu Dark Ages game. These were written with the idea of a medieval mystery game in mind, but I think they apply equally to pretty much anything trying to capture a medieval vibe.

1. All institutions are persons. The level of bureaucracy and institutional inertia we're used to in the modern era could only be *dreamed* of. The rules are *never* blindly enforced, and the systems in place to argue about them are incredibly complex compared to our expectations. 

2. Labour is expensive, and preserving it is everyone's reflexive top priority. As much as the life of a peasant seems degraded to us, the entire system exists to keep people able to make food, and the margins for error for even a king are razor-thin compared to now. 

3. Points 1 and 2 mean everyone is very aware of their debts and obligations in keeping everyone around them alive, and their reliance on the fulfillment of those debts and obligations by others. If one person in a village dies, it's everyone's business.

4. The world is alive. This might seem odd, since we're not used to the idea of medieval Christianity as "animistic," but the reality is that the medieval mind treated the entire cosmos as hylozoic — they describe physics, geology, weather, everything in terms we would reserve for plants and animals. 

5. Life is mysterious, and mysterious forces surround everything. A tree grows from an acorn; a child from its mother; a corpse births the worms and flies of corruption. It is not weird to assume that a child born under a particular star-sign will have some traits, for the fixed and wandering stars scribe the cycle of the seasons themselves upon the heavens.

Space23 Table Ideas

Someone was talking about alternatives to 'rooms' for an SF-based version of the dungeon23 project, so here's a table of options when you're out of obvious ideas:
 

Roll 1d6:
1. technological item. (not necessarily a new technology, but an existing technology used in a setting-specific way. example: ferengi tooth-sharpeners.)
2. ideology. (a belief, either a whole structure or a common opinion or narrative about something in the setting, with an idea of who holds it and why)
3. accident or sudden event. (industrial accident, vehicle crash, disease, toxic chemical release, or just the result of systemic negligence.)
4. minor NPC. ('person-on-the street' npcs for various common locations --- starports, colonies, underhives, ancient low berth colony ships, etc)
5. cargoes. (something carried from one place to another, i.e. *why* a spaceship exists).
6. roll again: 1-4 non-intelligent life form and it's environment adaption/niche; 5 non-generalized robot (like an automatic checkout, roomba, or car assembly robot); 6 specialist program in starship/starport/local planetary networks.