Under the Floorboards

 "I fell through the floor, and there I was..." for GLoGtober 2024.

Alan Lee

If you look at floorplans of centuries-old palaces and temples and castles, there's all these gridded webs that seem like they must be pure support, not normal rooms. What's going on in there? I have fair guesses, but it's hard to investigate online.

That structure in the middle of the courtyard. Who is she?

wtf?

I'm sure this is clear and obvious to many people, but it's the sort of thing that's hard to google.

Peripheral structures, supports, and architectural necessities can create interesting spaces in otherwise mundane areas, just because they were not designed for people to enter or scale them. They're natural obstacles, fine hiding places, and when destroyed might trigger a suitably impressive chain reaction.

Prince With a Thousand: City Infiltration Procedure (GLoGtober 2024)

Alan Lee

This is a procedure for that early Assassin's Creed-ass situation where you must carefully navigate a city controlled by an antagonistic force, one where thousands of people live and provide cover for your activities on accident, while guards are on the lookout for you in particular.

 Every public place is potentially hostile. A patrol of guards is less like a normal combat encounter and more like a trap or puzzle-- how do you avoid a confrontation that mobilizes the city against you. If their notice is brought down on you, how do you escape and hide?

In theory, every antagonistic city should be mapped out with routes between all the landmarks. In practice, I'm personally more likely to realize partway through a session that I'd like to use this procedure, and would like to be able to adapt it on the fly. So, here is a route type table:

d6 Route Types

1. Empty Streets. No native opportunity for stealth.

2.  Checkpoint. Guaranteed static encounter.

3. Cramped Alleys. May be underground or interior passages.

4. Vertical Intersections. Bridges, different levels, roofs. etc. 50% of encounters having no good way to reach you right away.

5. No Man's Land. Residents move in small groups. Many oppose the ruling powers.

6. Busy Boulevards. Won't be noticed until you draw attention to yourself.

Encounters
Encounters should occur at a comparable rate to dungeon encounters. To me that's a 1-in-6 chance per route and location, but I might increase that if I didn't design the rest of the city to be likewise dangerous. It makes sense to curate an encounter table for each antagonistic city. Again, think of these encounters as being like traps-- with signs the players can pick up on, triggers, and effects.

Sample Encounters

• Pair of wandering guards with halberds, lanterns, and horns.
• Dark riders, literally able to pick up the PCs' smell. Normal people don't get near them.
• Bullying bravos. Harass people rather than earnestly search out enemies. Seeming like a victim might be safest.
• Squad of counter-insurgents. Not necessarily seeking the PCs, but locking down the area to arrest other enemies.
• Spies-- something's off about these civilians.
• Aerial observation. Large, clumsy, perceptive forces overhead.
• Politicized animals. Their eyes are spies for Sauron.
• VIP and entourage.
• Elephant-sized mount, essentially a clumsy and fearful APC.
• Collaborators. Bureaucrats, but knowledgeable of the city and how you may abuse it.
• Inspectors. Papers please!
• Cordoned-off perimeter. Line of soldiers, no bypass without proof of rank.
• Overseers. May conscript passers-by for a day's labor.

Like you would do for a standard hazard or trap, let players describe how they (if needed, detect, then) avoid encounters. Good ideas don't need to roll here, but try to vary the exact disposition of encounters so that their tactics must always be sensitive to the particular situation. Characters with powers of stealth may be able to roll those even after a plan fails to pan out. That's like their saving throw, to continue the comparison to bypassing a trap.

Penalties for Notice

In antagonistic cities, the enemy force is aware of the PCs and opposed to them. If guards notice who they are, they might have only a few seconds for a hail-mary, then the situation turns deadly. They have the option of running it as a combat, but this is a bad idea in an enemy city. Let more reinforcements arrive, let escape routes get cut off, let chaos ensue. 

It would be wiser for the PCs to flee. In that case, let them make a save to avoid damage or other effects as their enemies pursue them through the streets. If they survive, then they've made it away. The amount of long-term heat they draw is based on how important they are as enemies. If the antagonistic city is just opposed to them as thieves, upstarts, or unpersons as a matter of course, they might be able to get away with hiding in an alley for ten minutes, then carrying on. If the party is prophesied to slay the tyrant occupying the antagonistic city, they'll have to navigate to another sector of the city, deal with increased chances of encounters, and possibly get tracked back to their hideout.

Example
For your consideration, here is an encounter table for the city of Nevermore.

d6 Encounters
1. Pair of Wandering Guards with halberds, lanterns, and horns. Notice: save vs death or take 1d6 damage.

2. Doctore, several Orderlies, and three Judge-Executioners. Curtly seeking signs of plague. Notice: 2d6 damage, save vs wands for half.
3. Riot Court. Torches, yelling, an angry mob but not the cool kind. Notice: save vs breath. On failure, you've been grabbed and dragged off to the Vigilante Jury.
4. Quarantine. Line of guards turn everyone away. Notice: save vs death or take 1d8 damage.
5. Two Plague Birds, man-sized, perched in a vantage point. Notice: save vs death. On failure, 1d4 damage from the King's Plague, +1 for all previous contact with King's Plague. +3 encounter chance on next encounter roll, due to squawking.
6. Suborned Gangsters with brutal blades. Forceful "requisitioners" and peddlers of protection. Notice: 1d4 objects snatched and 1d6 damage, save vs paralysis for half.

-

 "A procedure relating to a city" for GLoGtober 2024.

Temple of Four (Location)

 After reading this goblinpunch post, I was inspired to make a dungeon with many secret areas. This has been a long-time fancy of mine, so I decided to combine that fancy with another, the desire to make a dungeon with a "four elements" theme that I didn't find boring as hell. They're often too one-note, you know?

Thesaurus of Alchemy

Click on the picture above, or the link >>> here <<< for the dungeon. For your titilation, here are some excerpts out of context:

Eating the wet organ within serves as a second dose.

... inspecting them for signs of green chalk and replacing any body parts, items, etc. with mechanical alternatives...

... you can't see if you're stupid, and if you're really really thick you can't even feel it

... each one with colorful streamers pasted onto its pudgy abdomen.

Air blasts from floor vents, totally negating gravity.

... leaving white lime-streaks wherever it slithereth.

... a 1-in-6 chance that the octopus either attacks or investigates the party...

... so many bottles of piss ("for experiments").

... and if someone reads it the talisman explodes...

Empty

... its contents ruined by hunger-maddened scrawls.

The skink is likewise trapped...

... is horrifically cursed. It cannot be removed except if a Remove Curse spell is cast while the wearer's blood courses with deadly venom, and it slowly transforms the wearer into a snake. This process takes seven years, but...

Our Journey Now (GLoGtober)

 Romance for GLoGtober 2024.

Howard Pyle

When I think about romance in adventure games, I immediately consult Udan Adan's Romance Plots in RPGs, which provides a great framework for creating "romance-ready" NPCs. They're pretty broadly useful, since using simple character tropes to evince depth can come up in romances, intrigues, persuasions, or other common PC activities. If the GLoGtober season calls on me to write on romance, it really behooves me to simply expand on the list provided at the end of that post, as I'm sure to have want of that at some point.

17. Workaholic Tyrant: Possesses rare executive abilities and runs their powerful organization well, but utterly neglects their interior life. Has no sense of themselves outside of the commands they issue and the hours they work. At risk of succeeding their soul out of their body.

18. Exploited Loyal: Servant of an unjust master. Often transmutes unworthy orders into humane ones. Beneficent and capable, they have no idea how little they are valued or how close their master is to expending them.

19. Widower: Nominally single, but as of yet incapable of moving past the notion that they must not love again. Warm, mature, and just a hair too committed. 

20. Devotee: Someone for whom emotional unavailability is the sign of a compact. They think that love is a distraction from what they, in fact, can only get from love. They are a perfect romantic, focused on the wrong object.

21. Wary Heir: Expect to come into their power soon, and excited to use it. Dynamic, altruistic, capably navigating between the Scylla and Charybdis of responsibility to their parent and opportunity to do something new. Gives mixed signals because they fear others will try to manipulate them to get at their birthright.

22. Monster: Fascinated by the world, but barred from normal participation in it. Possesses inhuman capabilities, but must constantly bend them toward preserving their own freedom. Engaging, earnest, hurt.

23. Bright Addict: Confident and self-directed, with a good head on their shoulders. Constantly drained by some singular exception, a chemical, relationship, or glamour that they cannot resist. Bravely insists on forging ahead with a relationship despite constantly being led to undercut it. Require an outside perspective.

24. Client: Someone at everyone's disposal. Perhaps a servant, or an envoy who is not at their own liberty. Utterly starved for personal connection, but lacks the legal or social means to protect themselves from abuse or misuse. Consequently, their amore resists their mutual feelings out of apprehension of taking advantage of the client.

25. Compelled Paramour: Either by curse or mundane wager, someone bound to act against their nature. This compulsion made be odious, or simply a clear indication that they aren't being straight-up. If it's possible to act against the compulsion, they hold back out of fear that no one would love the "real" them.

26. Dragon: Grim, habitual, stubborn, and out of touch. In many stories, an unstylish villain. Is it really so surprising that they yearn for one good thing, something they can safely treat well, and know love instead of just fear? I promise this will be romantic if they're a stony-faced malefactor.

27. Perceptive Wit: Discerning and practical, but unable to keep their mouth shut. Wants to be well-liked, but wants blowhards to be punctured just a little bit more. Just slightly too reasonable to believe anyone would fall in love with them, and ready to help all their friends find a decent mate before they realize that they want an honest equal for themselves too.

And just for ease, these + the original descriptions in one random generator:

d20 Finds in Death's Apartment (GLoGtober)

 "Death and Divinity" for GLoGtober 2024

💀

d20 Finds

1. chess set, but all the black pawns are knights and the black king has a skull instead of a crown
2. hand mirror. Shows all the bad things likely to happen if you survive an incipient brush with death
3. the oldest dog in the world
4. very, very long checklist
5. hostage kit: whistle, vial of acid, cuff-slipping gloves, razor-edged shoes
6. pot cigarettes, a gift from the Devil. Take a puff and make a save vs. death!
7. Magnus, his godson (Magic-User 3). Waiting around to see if his godfather remembers it's his birthday
8. cross, for sale, barely used
9. box of old needles, each containing the life of otherwise immortal personages. Can't deduce how to get em out of there
10. a posthumous Van Gogh painting of a lady in the shade of a tree
11. old record, "Swansong", worth its weight in platinum
12. weights set, but all bones
13. a canary in a cage
14. Death's address book. Highlights include Dracula, Acererak, and God
15. several half-drunk bottles of very poisoned wine
16. jar of bird blood. Attracts ghosts
17. anti-gun. Brings things to life. Six shots.
18. bag of hand bones. Functions as a wand of finger of death, with five charges. The bag lightens with each casting
19. portrait of the master of the house with an artist friend
20. many, many candles, your own burned down nearly to the end.

In Praise of Acquisitiveness

 I want to describe an aspect of some games that I really like, and I want to give a bit of advice about how to play into it. I don't want to make a formal argument for why I think it's good and I certainly don't want to argue it's the exclusively best way to play. If I get emphatic, take it to be part of the spell I'm casting so that you might be as enchanted as I am.

Matt Morrow

In many old-school games, experience points are awarded for gold and other treasures pilfered from the dungeon. I've played with some people who don't really vibe with this. They're not greedy people in real life, and often all to aware of the connection between wealth and the cruelty often deployed to keep it. They're not motivated by in-game rewards, preferring the intrinsic reward of enjoyable conversation, or problem-solving, or other (perhaps even more central) goals of play. 

"What is there to even spend all this gold on?" they say.

Dog, you are so valid. But I really think you're missing out if you aren't aware of how fun it is to go gold-mad, greedy of gain, ready to risk your PC's life for the chance that they might be rich beyond their wildest dreams. What if the mechanical incentive of getting to the next level was matched with the emotional incentive of acquiring that ruby, shining luridly in the torchlight?  What if every financial step towards achieving your goals was as sweet as anything you ever felt? 

In the real world, a windfall feels weighty-- it conjures anxiety over how it is spent or kept, exhilaration at what can be done with it, the sense of total miracle as your most pressing concerns now seem solvable. The right mindset can realize those feelings in your play. 

Personally, in mainline dungeon games I think almost every PC should be on a scale between reasonably acquisitive to unreasonable acquisitive. They don't even need to be greedy. But they should have goals they can address with funds, and should be hungry to do so. Do not be afraid of being rich in this fictional world. Wealth cannot corrupt nearly so easily in the game as it can in real life. Money is power-- it does what you tell it to-- it is your vote in the absolute democracy that is the warring market. 

Food, shelter, clothing, dignity, warmth, friends, games, pets, homes, the starving masses, vengeance, vengeance, blood-thirsting vengeance, finery, honor, scholasticism, patronage, passing on good luck, risk, ruin, political change, proximity to power, fine mounts, the means to seek truth, the means to collect disparate information, to prevent what happened before from happening again, big hats. What do you, the player, care about in this game? Use gold pieces to expand how you can interact with it. What do you, the character, care about in this game? Use gold pieces to expand how you can interact with it. And when you care about what money can do, try to care a little bit about money itself. Let it be a token, then a totem, then a fetish. If you want to level up, you already want power. Seek power in money!

Dungeon masters who use gold-for-XP systems should conversely be ready to allow for means to address broad problems with cash, to see all those thousands of silver pieces spent on constructions, formation of a company, uniforms, swag, and everything else that can be done, responsibly or irresponsibly, by chancers. 

Here I formally poo-poo those who require PCs to spend their gold on training or carousing in order to level up. If there's some way to spend gold for extra XP, that's okay, but the players shouldn't be making a trade-off between normal advancement and extrachartal advancement. If you do that, they're sure to spend at least some of the XP on normal leveling up, which is way less cool than the incorporation, research, and in-world advancement they could be doing with that cash. 

Furthermore, it should never be the job of the DM to separate the PCs from their treasure by contriving stupid taxes and similar means to ensure that money spent has minimal impact. If you want to use financial travails as yet another gameplay obstacle, that's perfectly virtuous. It's just the bass-ackwards problem of giving the PCs too much money and then taking it away that I find unmeritorious.

"But Phlox," you say, "my heart simply does not ache for gold and silver. I see how it can bring me to the thoughtful caterpillar and the prancing springbok, all my heart desires, but I cannot choose to love what I do not."

Gentle reader, I had no idea you felt so keenly, nor that you were so open to a change that must to you seem so alien and distant. To change a heart, you cannot reason with it. You must nourish it with fine words, and give it time.

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;

   I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.

Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it;

   I hurled my youth into a grave.

I wanted the gold, and I got it— 

   Came out with a fortune last fall,— 

Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,

   And somehow the gold isn’t all.

No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)

   It’s the cussedest land that I know,

From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it

   To the deep, deathlike valleys below.

Some say God was tired when He made it;

   Some say it’s a fine land to shun;

Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it

   For no land on earth—and I’m one.

You come to get rich (damned good reason);

   You feel like an exile at first;

You hate it like hell for a season,

   And then you are worse than the worst.

It grips you like some kinds of sinning;

   It twists you from foe to a friend;

It seems it’s been since the beginning;

   It seems it will be to the end.

- Robert Service, The Spell of the Yukon (excerpt)

-

Here is a poem by a player in Loch's Ashes to Ashes game:

Dead cities are like chestnuts,

Crack them open! Crack their shells!

Slurp out their golden darics,

And forgotten lores as well!

Send scouts out before you!

Keep the linkboys close behind!

Spring the bolts and jump the pits,

And valuables you’ll find!

Heft the shining blades and

Gleaming treasures of the past!

Give tongue to long dead magic words,

That long to writhe at last!

Break the traps that guard them!

Break immortal guardsmen too!

I came here to enrich myself,

There’s no riches left for you!

What gods are looking on here,

At what merry sport we make,

Of their temples and their grave goods?

That we nab, acquire, take?

Well you idols, keep on looking!

To that old god we heed!

Sanctifying our ablutions,

To that giddy god called Greed!

“Transgression”? “Violation”?

These are just words to me!

I’ll buy the corpse-king’s entire stock,

For the low, low price of free!

Emerald, ruby, sapphire!

Jade and jasper, myrrh!

Diamond, mithril, osseum!

Silver perfect, pure!

Chip the golden filigree!

Pilfer princely prizes!

Be a buzzard growing fat,

From ghoulish enterprises!

When I, myself, am dead and gone,

Crack the coffin! Crack the lid!

I’ll make it worth your time, my friend,

You’ll be so glad you did!

- Regalia, Song of the Tomb Robbers

Let Me Hear You Say (GLoGtober 2024)

 "Feuding poets and their ruinous verses" for GLoGtober 2024. Some people say 5e strongest build 2024 phb crypto bitcoin osr dice set. Me? I say D&D dungeons and dragons best purchase starters shadowdark dolmenwood reddit worlds without number.

Arthur Rackham

1. Poetaster (1/2 HD) Tin ears (as chain). Small, self-amused. A round of verse deals 1 damage to all but the shallow. Kindred spirits to polemicists, various mongers, and marketing departments.
2. Parodeer (1 HD) Easily enraged. Can copy the abilities of opponents, barely. If they flee, will always return later.
3. Odist (2 HD) Wise. No one ever wants to really hurt them. Parties that include them get +1 morale and loyalty. If you have some kind of rules for funerals, they make them a little bit better.
4. Balladeer (4 HD) Really will get out a guitar and start improvising lyrics in the middle of a gunfight. Those who go against their chosen side have double the normal fumble chance when they serenade, but if they get a natural 20 on a die roll, the balladeer will switch sides immediately. This always breaks their heart.
5. Sonnetist (4 HD) Ether wears a neck ruff (as leather) or hidden blade (surprise attack for 2d4 damage). Can woo anyone's heart on your behalf after [target's WIS] nights of verse, but there's a 2-in-6 chance they'll steal your girl.
6. Bard (8 HD) Thick-skinned (as leather). With a Turn of composition, can inscribe a Shame of Shames that turns the common man's heart, activating that often-sleeping spark of life. This can depose a king, provide for neglected heroes, and otherwise knock the public towards the right.
7. Anti-Bard (8 HD) As above, but thin-skinned and opposite.
8. Lion Addict (10 HD) May fire bow at up to ten targets per turn. Can only say their own name.

Those Things Which Happiness Distract Us From (GLoGtober 2024)

Acrostic GLoG class for GLoGtober 2024.

Edward Penfield

Bought Death

Commencing Skill: 1. Archaeology, 2. Glassblowing 3. Camels
Devices: gauzy cloak (as leather), worn staff, necklace of ineffectual charms, and a Nameless Wonder.

• 1: equipment slots +1, Intentional Hostage, Jacinth Eyes
• 2: find secret door +2-in-6, Kismet
• 3: grapple +2, Lacuna
• 4: HP +2, Mirage

Intentional Hostage: As long as you serve him, you are immune to other charm effects, suffocation, and swarms. Whenever you find a magic scroll, potion, or similar item, there is a 2-in-6 chance he will claim it and give you a different one, of similar power. All blunt weapons are loyal snakes in your hands, and magic blunt weapons are venomous.

Jacinth Eyes: They itch. You can glimpse fortune and misfortune. With a round of careful staring, you can sense if someone is cursed, or it they've hidden valuables on their body. If an ally would be the target of a critical hit, you can anticipate it and take the blow for them.

Kismet: In the wilderness, ask for an object and throw away valuables worth ten times what you ask so that no one will ever find it. Then, dig a hole. Your request will be granted.

Lacuna: With a minute of quiet begging, you can turn into [level] slots of red sand for any duration that you specify. After the specified duration, a random mote of sand grows back into you. Your belongings all transform with you, except for sufficiently powerful magic items or banes of your master.

Mirage: In the wilderness, ask for an oasis (50 gp), a village (100), a city (300) or other negotiated point of civilization and throw away the proper fee so that no one will ever find it. On the horizon, your request will be granted. Any inhabitants are his servants as well, but though most are less powerful they consider themselves of a separate and higher order than you, and always will.

Nameless Wonders (d12)

1. Opalescent belt. Converts sunlight into nourishment through pins along your waist.
2. Proven blade. Always lands blade-first when thrown. 1d4 damage, and attack with advantage if thrown while charging.
3. Quiver of sandstone arrows. Six. Utterly shatter against stone or metal targets, releasing the acid-jaw beetle within.
4. Red sash. Magic projectiles fired at you stick harmlessly to the silk, transfixed like stars in the heavens. Wizards will be able to identify your allegiance on sight if they spot the sash.
5. Secret name. Overheard when your death was paid for. Can be used to intimidate his other servants.
6. True death mask. Half-finished clay. Those who don it resemble you. When you don it, resemble a freakish (but anonymous) beetle-dame.
7. Unproven blade. Always lands handle-first when thrown. 1d4 subdual damage, and can be tossed to allies with no risk of harm out to 30 feet.
8. Vicious dog. Floppy ears and lanky build. The only one who may ever tolerate you.
9. Wax seal. The first thing you attach it to belongs to him. A most complicated sigil, but you can draw it without lifting your pen from the page.
10. Xenomorphic idol. When upended, makes a constant rainmaker sound. When fed, dances around.
11. Yellow cloak. Glistens in the midst of riches, and becomes powerful camouflage in treasuries, including inside dragons, fine coffins, and the Unsinking City of Altunsehir.
12. Zombie shoes. The first time you die, after 1d4 Turns you awake, mental stats halved. Slowly, slowly rot. At that point if you remove the shoes you shrivel up and fully cease.

Is There Then No One? Is There Then No One? (GLoGtober 2024)

 Spooky Halloween monsters for GLoGtober 2024.

Skara Woundbite- party attacked by four 1 HD orcs. After the battle, one is still alive but in pain. You gotta put her out of her misery. Every 1d4 days, she comes back, with +1 HD and a new ability based on method of dispatch. Slit her throat? That cut becomes a second mouth. She believes that killing the party will end her curse.

• Final death: buried with funeral, Remove Curse spell, or complete destruction of the body.

Grumbler: random PC dreams that a nonexistent party member, a scraggly soldier in a bright blue and red coat, sits around their fire, making a lot of petty complaints about the PCs. Why does she get a full share? She didn’t help at all when those hellhounds attacked. How come you get to pay for your rations out of the party fund? I told you guys that room was trapped and you didn’t listen. The next day, at the worst possible time, they’ll turn and see the Grumbler make some decisive action— triggering a trap, spoiling an ambush, etc. Every night a new dream, and each day more frequent interference. If challenged, will aggressively defend his actions as simply being his nature, and will claim he’s a good man, just a little chaotic.

• Final death: exorcism (counts as 6 HD undead for Turn attempts), pour holy water in the afflicted’s ears, or one-shot the grumbler when he appears.

The Bonelicker: reptile-like, muscular demon. Preferentially attacks women. (People don’t like it when the monsters are sexist.) Lair (multiple chambers in a dungeon) covered in woman bones, sucked dry. Final death if slain by a woman. Otherwise, will hatch from the next problematic book read by the person who delivered the killing blow. (There will be several in the lair.)

Needle Master: body of a bear, quills of a porcupine, legs of a horse, head of a skunk. Whenever PCs damage it, explain that you’ll be really upset if they kill it, but keep having it try to kill them.

Bellumundi: A complex creature. Resembles a naga, but the tip of its tail is connected to the heel of a warrior, gentle and bold both. Where they fight, bystanders die. Banks empty. Crops are carried away by the wind. Each has 7 HD, and if one wins their fight, the other is nourished to new life after about a week as the victor gloats and feasts.

Sirens: 3HD. Unaccountably strong for their famine-ruined frames. Not beautiful. Voices cracked with salt-pang. Can weep but never sing. Beg for rescue from war’s unjust prison, shout quick claims that the sailors’ tales are fiction and cruel lie, throw themselves on the beach in despair. Help us, help us, help us. You are killing us. On a successful bite attack, lobster antennules emerge to automatically grapple.