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The Dry-Rotted Archives of 2013

Horrors of the Unknown: A Familiar Face


Time-worn faces adorn the surface of a clay relief set into the wall like a door. It cannot be moved, it cannot be broken, but something in its centre gleams in the torchlight. Thin layers of clay have fallen away over time, exposing a blood-red gem the size of a man’s fist. The sculpted faces seem to be twisted towards the gem in sorrow.

 

If a character removes the gem, ask about those they hold most dear, of friends, of family, of lovers. Make a list of 2d6 of them. The clay seal soon crumbles and falls without the gem to bind it.

Long limbs that emerge and contract carry a bulbous mass of flesh from the space beyond in a shambling riot of locomotion. The whole surface of its skin writhes with the faces of the only people the character cares about, they moan and cry and beseech as it crashes forward with grasping appendages.

If it catches hold of a character it will pull them in towards the distending mouth of the person they care about most. A lover, their mother, a mentor, the quivering lips wrap around their body while the creature’s gnarled hands struggle to push them further in until they are gone.

Once someone is within it, the creature will flee if it can.

 

The creature’s limbs constantly wither and re-emerge, removing them does nothing.

Successful attacks against the creature’s body will instantly destroy a random face, cutting deep and silencing their pleas, black muck spilt from limp hanging skin like a burst blister.

The amount of damage caused determines the affect on the person whose face was imitated.

 

1They disappear in the night and are never seen again, though the PC hears whispers in the darkness when no one else is near.
2They develop an unrelenting irrational hatred for the PC.
3They grow pallid, their hair falls out and their limbs atrophy.
4They become zealously devoted to the Ninth Cult of the Black Dawn, plucking their eyes from their head, seeing life anew.
5They lose all memory, left with the mental state of an infant.
6They fall deep in lust with one of the PC's most hated enemies.
7Their belly swells as if pregnant, but in the 8th term their stretched skin grows sour, sores open and putrefy, after another two weeks they birth a brood of black hounds.
8They dissolve into a pile of reeking filth. They keep appearing in the middle of the PC's dreams, off to the side, unrelated, their back turned and weeping. They want to find a way back.
9They are murdered and cannibalised by their closest relative.
10+They go out late at night. Local children disappear. They refuse to be seen without clothing. Their body is not what it used to be.

When the last face has been destroyed the creature will instantly collapse, devoid of life. Anyone that was swallowed in the last hour can be cut out from its mass, apparently unharmed, but over the coming weeks the lesions on their torso come more and more to resemble the faces of people dear to their companions.

If no one was swallowed, the person whose face was last destroyed grows ill, their body swells, they constantly ask after the family of others, and their limbs grow spindly, disconcertingly long..


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Let’s See What’s Been On Your Mind


All body parts of dead Maleficar are valuable for use in creating Fetishes, but the true wealth resides within their skulls.

Every day of their lives the Maleficar’s void-touched brain etches patterns into the inside of their cranium, like moth larvae burrowing through the bark of a tree. The longer they live the more ornate and extensive the pattern, which, if deciphered, bears the formula to hitherto unknown magic.

 

When a Maleficar’s head is taken, the inside of their skull will contain an unknown spell of level equal to the highest level spell a traditional Magic-User would have been able to memorise.

This will require you to make some shit up.

 

 

Some spells rumoured to be contained within the lost Cranial Stacks of the Bibliothèque Verrotten:

 

Larval Pit of the Cosmic Hive

Maleficar Level 6

Duration: Instantaneous

Range: Infinite

Components: Fingernails from the intended victim, amniotic fluid, a live wasp.

 

Take the amniotic fluid from one who has not yet birthed, heat it in a copper bowl over an open flame, add the fingernails without ceremony, the aroma will draw the wasp.

When the wasp settles within the bowl drink deeply, and incant the words when you feel its final dying sting.

 

Within the victim’s belly the larvae begins to grow. Within days the nausea turns to debilitating pain, within weeks their belly distends to hold the larval girth, within two months their withered corpus breaths its last.

At the next full moon the cosmic chrysidine digs its way through flesh and gravedirt to unfurl its terrible wings under black sky and knowing stars.

 

(It still remembers the first belly that brought it into this world; yours. It will seek you out, whether to serve you or to lay its own brood within you is yet to be seen.)

 

 

Black Colossus

Maleficar Level 9

Duration: 1 Turn/level

Range: 30′

Casting Time: 2 Rounds

 

The Black Colossus manifests as an oily mass of shadow, crawling up walls, creeping through cracks, digesting flesh with its touch.

HD equal to caster level, it can only be harmed by flame or sunlight.

The Colossus will follow its last command until the duration ends or the caster spends a Round to mentally implant a new instruction. It will destroy anyone who directly tries to harm it, but can be commanded to place itself in harm’s way.

When the duration ends so does the caster’s control over the Colossus. It holds nothing but hate for you.

 

 

Interloper of the Flesh

Maleficar Level 3

Duration: 1 Turn/level

Range: Special

Casting Time: 1 Round

 

The Maleficar swaps bodies with a chosen target. To do this they must either be able to see the target, or be in possession of something that belongs to them.

If one of the bodies is killed, the consciousness it was carrying is destroyed.

When the spell ends, each surviving consciousness is drawn back to its original shell. If the body is dead they are not drawn back alone. Effect as Summon.

 

 

Protoplasmic Seed

Maleficar Level 4

Duration: 2 Rounds/level

Range: 60′

Casting Time: 1 Round

 

A seed of thought-stuff is implanted in the target’s head.

Deep-held terror of something physical seeps into the seed, which quickly swells to merge into the target’s brain matter, cracking their head open like an egg and pouring out in a translucent pink manifestation of their fear, dragging the body along by its spinal cord.

The manifestation will turn on the target’s allies first, but once they are gone it will seek the destruction of every other living thing until the duration ends and the jellied brain matter slops to the ground.

The Target Fears..
1d10
1A pile of melding horses, shivering and snapping their teeth.
2A starving two-headed she-wolf, her dead young still hanging from her womb.
3A great winged thing from beyond, its body hidden beneath a mass of writhing parasitic worms.
4Seven tentacles lined with the emerging seeking hands of children.
5A frog god, its tongue ensnares them to be torn apart by the humanoid amphibian horrors growing from the flesh within its mouth.
6A broiling mass of polyp-like cells, growing ever wider to smother and digest them.
7A twisted tower of gnarled stonework, siren songs from within call them one by one to climb its sides and enter it from above. (Target may save vs. Magic, if they succeed move on to the next target, someone must enter every Round.)
8A giant fish. In the first Round it splits open and turns inside-out, in the second Round 2d10 venomous lampreys emerge from its organs to seek prey.
9An amorphous mass of flesh carried by the deformed legs of children. Arms and mouths and eyes and parts unknown emerge and retract from its bulk as it lumbers towards them.
10A young woman in a heavy hooded cloak, clasped at the throat. When she opens it there is nothing but darkness within apart from the dozens of thin tendrils that slosh out and penetrate their flesh, draining them to a husk.

17 comments



Cunning Linguists


Every Magic-User develops their own method of writing magical formulae, like some kind of sorcerous cipher, preventing their knowledge from being read by the plebeian unworthy.

Every other Magic-User knows the spell Read Magic, which they can cast and read anything they want.

 

Wait what? When did deciphering a madman’s work become such a throwaway bit of bag of tricks nonsense? If I was a wizard my spellbook would be overflowing with false passages and curses and traps like some kind of nightmare word labyrinth of doom, not presenting itself on a podium for the next first-day-of-magic-school Johnny that comes along. Read MY magic? I fucking think not.

So sure, Read Magic allows you to read magical writings, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to read it right.

 

When Reading Magic, save vs. Magic. Your Referee will probably apply penalties or bonuses depending on what you’re trying to read, and you can apply bonuses by concentrating really hard and using additional Cataclysm points before rolling. The number by which you succeed or fail is applied as a bonus or penalty to the 3d6 roll your Referee now makes in seeecret.

 

 

3d6Cunning Linguists
14-18Success
11-13Success/Librarian's Lament
8-10Librarian's Lament
5-7Chaos Reigns
1-4Tome of Terror

 

Librarian's Lament
1d20(d10 if the writing isn't in a book)
1You birth a wriggling pink rat with a young version of your own face out of your mouth. It scrambles away and out of sight. It will grow to about the size of a pug, it develops translucent flaps of skin to glide on, it keeps showing up to foil your plans.
2Tiny hideous mouths split open over the surface of the object and begin to scream.
3Cold pink mist swells up from the object and wafts out in a 30' radius, save vs. Poison or lie down to sleep in a blanket of fog.
4You read the writing as something utterly different, you have no reason to believe that it isn't right. If it is a spell, the first time you try to cast it a Chaos Reigns roll is triggered.
5The object bearing the writing bursts into flame like a pile of magnesium.
6Your eyes snap open wide and fill with churning pink clouds, black at the edges like a storm, dim flashes of light perceivable in their midst.
You find yourself blind, groping in lurid darkness, until your eyes settle back on the page. Your eyes are permanently ensorcelled, unable to see anything but writing, but able to decipher any written language or cipher without aid of any kind.
You may find that there is a kind of poetry in the fibre of the world itself, but learning to read that will take some time.
7Get up from the table, go to the nearest bookshelf, close your eyes, pull down a book, flip to a random page, scan down and read the first few lines that catch your eye. For the next 2d4 days save vs. Magic whenever you want to start a conversation or cast a spell, if you fail the only words to come out are those lines over and over again.
8Vow of Poverty. You just cursed yourself. Precious metals and gems rot within your presence, visibly deteriorating every day, leaving nothing but discoloured muck after a week of being within 15' of you.
9Five trails of gently floating green lights appear, wafting into your lungs as they reach you. The lights are leading demoniac hounds with the hands of men and voices of children to you from various directions.
Every 8 hours roll a d4 per remaining hound, on a 4 they have come to collect you.
10Your nearest companion compulsively stabs you with whatever blade is closest to hand. A copper serpent slithers from the wound and into your hands, its blood-slicked scales are carven with arcane knowledge.
(Hand the player the Magic-User spell list, they gain any spells they can legibly write down within 10 seconds. To cast the spell they must ingest a number of copper coins equal to spell level. The spells use Cataclysm as normal but do not need to be written in a spellbook or memorised.)
After 10 seconds the serpent will strike out at whoever is holding it, pumping black venom into their veins if its fangs find flesh.
11Heat emanates from the page and you absent-mindedly place your hand against it to feel the warmth.
The ink burns into your skin like a tattoo.
The first lie you tell will become true, and the writing on your hand will change to remind you of that for all time.
12The book's cover grows course and hairy, legs sprout from the spine and it leaps from your hands, running across the room and up the wall. It points a strange cloaca at you from the base of its spine and expels clumps of bright green mildew at you that burns the skin, flapping away to the other side of the room if you get too close.
13The edges of the book slice your fingers open before it drops to the floor, leaving tiny rows of perfect bloodless papercuts.
They will never heal, and from this moment forth you will bleed prose.
It is not for me to know what secrets may be found in your blood.
14The book decomposes into hundreds of tiny paper mite crabs, they swarm over your arms, digging into your flesh, searching for orifices.
If more than 50% of them find their way inside you, gain a spell of a random level, but you can no longer eat anything other than paper, mumbling incoherent script when you are hungry.
15The page splits horizontally and unfolds, then vertically and unfolds, then horizontally.. again and again until the page is 15' wide. In the centre is a sketched doorway, the handle is so realistic you feel that you could reach out and grab it. If you open the door roll 1d6. The door leads you..
1. Into the chambers of a disrobed person of note who does not take kindly to the intrusion.
2. Into a room piled high with glittering treasures. Anything you take will immediately adhere into your skin, and it will take part of you with it if torn away. Opening the door will lead you back into the room where the book lay.
3. Into the lair of a great black serpent, slumbering after feeding. Shapes like hands push out the skin of its distended belly and you hear far-off whimpering. If it wakes, its yellow cut-glass eyes flash with hate and it will regurgitate its meal before attacking, bathing them in a hot flush of digestive juices that melt their limbs and prevent escape. Otherwise, it intends to digest them slow, they may yet survive, you have but to release them.. (Within the snake's belly is: 1-2. The person who originally wrote the words. 3. A buxom lass sacrificed to the serpent, sacrificed for consorting with devils. 4. A foolhardy adventurer brought here in search of a sacrificial hoard, collected over centuries. 5-6. A mewling litter of children, they imprint on the first person they see as their mother with animal intelligence, they are stronger and more agile than they look)
4. Into a dimly lit subterranean room, connected by secret stair to the lavish home above. Yellow wax drips from walls and altars, icy fingers caress your spine as the light flickers over strange stains, a hand-written tome rests on a dais, dedicated to the glory of the Yellow Queen.
5. Back where you just came from. You watch yourself move towards the book, attempting to read its secrets, watching it unfurl into a doorway, stepping inside.. The more you allow things to progress as they were the more of you there are, watching yourself watching yourself in neverending sequence until you stop yourself from reading the book, at which point every you that stepped through the doorway is un-happened, sucked back out of reality in pockets of agony.
6. Into your chrysalis deep below the earth. There you will sleep for years to come, until the changes are complete, until your terrible maniacal glory can be loosed upon the world.
16The book shrieks and tears itself in half, blood falls to the floor instead of paper fragments, the missing half regrows, the books tear themselves in half, blood falls to the floor...
The books continue to replicate in this way until there are several hundred, shrieking in a pool of blood.
The blood tastes like learning.
17Tendrils snap out from the crease of the book, penetrating your chest and belly, churning as some drain and others pump.
Your organs liquefy and drain out with your blood, and in its place your body fills with fluid like liquid golden light.
You glow like a pinkish-gold beacon, and take a -5 penalty to saves vs. Magic, but cannot be poisoned and gain a d4 bonus to Cast the Bones and Conduit of the Cosmos rolls.
18You read the words aloud and all who hear them age d20 years. Save vs. Magic, if you fail you continue to read. Repeat.
Anyone who reaches the age of 90 during this time falls apart like disintegrating paper.
19Violet light flashes from the pages, in your temporary blindness you can hear the resonance of your own thoughts. When you look back at the book you are staring at your own placid face, when you cry out it is the face in the book that opens its mouth and screams, not the featureless mess of words plastered around your swollen eyes.
20The pages of the book begin to flip back, growing faster, pulling at the air around you, the flurry of paper flipping between the covers of the book consists of more pages than the book could possibly have contained.
The pull at the air around you grows stronger, small objects begin to lift from the floor and disappear between the pages, your feet begin to shift..

 

Read the rest…


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Tales from Cörpathium, Chapter One: Dick Puncher


Last weekend we took our first foray into Cörpathium as a small-time mercenary band looking to gain some coin and reputation. I didn’t have much time beforehand so I came up with a few jobs they could take and the main preparation was keying a map for the only job that required crawling through a building.

They did not take this job so I ended up winging the whole session.

Other things I learned? The city tables that I made work great in having the city and the player’s experience grow in a natural way, but are a bit much to be happening all the time given how many boroughs they’ll be constantly travelling between, and I also want the city to feel more full, I want the different boroughs to have their own atmosphere without me just constantly making shit up, so I can concentrate on what’s going on in the game instead of worrying that I’m making the environment interesting enough.

So, I’m probably going to do up a document that sets out each borough with common sights and sounds and smells, common activities for different parts of the day, major landmarks (“Oh you want to go to a brewhouse? The biggest one in this borough is the Thirst of the Leviathan. whispering inaudibly: and down a hidden staircase they drain vagrants of blood into a grate in the floor.”), and a table of mundane encounters specific to that borough, then likely make it a 50/50 chance when travelling between boroughs of rolling on the city encounters, or that borough’s encounters.

 

Drink of the day was a Marquini, using Regal Rogue Vermouth and Earl Grey infused No. 3 London Dry Gin.

 

Rose: Octavius Goldenloins (Fighter Lvl 1) – Overconfident tinyman with an oiled moustache and a feather cape.

 

Michael: Ballmar the Girthy (Mystic Lvl 1) – Oblivious Lover of Bakhri, the only healer, probably the greatest liability. (I let Michael re-roll his Ability Scores twice and he still ended up with an Intelligence of 5)

 

Roy: Gravelax Bowel-Shatterer (Maleficar Lvl 1) – Wearing spell-inscribed leather armour decorated with jaunty shrunken heads and teeth. On the lookout for more teeth.

 

Ellen: Madame du Lumpé (Specialist Lvl 1) – Ex-madam of the Black Rose whorehouse, her black left hand is still full of the poison that was meant to kill her.

 

 

The mercenary band, the Gilded Loin, receives messages regarding several jobs.

Sister Nektaria Siourthas of the Cathedral of Lost Virtue needs help finding a missing Whaugur, Octavius’ old friend Holt Brueghel is trying to organise protection for a merchant caravan headed to the Möndfels, bibliophile Ryszard Schmaler is looking to recover stolen property, and Cordell van Heerden wants help reclaiming a derelict library.

They head straight for the Cathedral of Lost Virtue.

Let’s do this in bullet points.

Read the rest…


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Paws for Effect


Sometimes in games as in life there are going to be cats, and those cats needs names.

So here’s a d100 table! Roll once for a complete name, roll twice to mix it up, roll twice in reverse, just keep rolling until you have all of the cats.

 

 

What Is This Kitty Called?

d100
1CanklesFarnsworth51BabelBarbsmith
2Hook-EaredPickens52BlackNancy
3GinnyRathbone53RawkusGrikksmarc
4CardinalPickles54RupertWigglesworth
5ButtCrumpet55ItchyLeperflesh
6PuffyHampshire56BorisRanklefoot
7SilkyStraussgard57VeraWrinkleface
8BrownPumpkinickle58FleabitGrumbleguts
9SharpieLittlethroat59TonyFoamspittle
10DelftPondarker60MisterMilktooth
11BlackenFiretitts61HubertHaagendaas
12LittleArsehole62PreciousMangle
13VodooHaaskikur63GregorKittenpants
14PillowPudding64TalbotRumplestein
15ButterKnuckles65GummyDewclaw
16SirCreamyclaws66GafferRawhide
17FluffyTinklebottom67TwinkleButternuffer
18WretchedSwallowtail68MarvinMusklord
19ScabbyFleckenhole69NittieMattfur
20ScruffyMcTavish70ToughyMcknickers
21AnchovyBrughelbraun71RowenaRufflebottom
22FlakySandtongue72TinaFurlips
23One-EyedNipples73MarciGloomhouse
24Pinkythe Conceiver74Marquisde Rumph
25Mad EyeDockbane75PrincessPillowpush
26MuffinSoftycheeks76MarthaPoot
27PimpleViscossi77PussywillowFartlord
28PouchySaagenbutt78CreampuffOnionbreath
29UglyBalls79DeonSugarcrust
30PuslordStitchface80CherryDemonsplooge
31ColinNeedlenose81SneakyWrinklecreeps
32PossumHangnail82Brushbottlethe Third
33Clawdthe Cat83ViscousWhiscous
34MittensBabysmother84Stabbythe Tabby
35IronshodPhillips85CommitmentIssues
36AbsentAbsent86HobbleGobble
37ChudDeBalzac87BlessedMilkiface
38MadameNeglect88ScrumpleRavagelord
39WhiskyWaxlips89SpittyLincoln
40RotgutMorrigan90Round4th Duke of Cuddles
41FuckfaceMalone91LavenderBestfriend
42KittenSaltywhiskers92FatfaceMcNeill
43ScreechyShitfur93ButterballsO'Malley
44AlanGrosgard94SandyRatlover
45TheodoreYellowstain95DiscoGlitterhammer
46Geraldthe Shitcunt96ShelbySloane
47JonesyBlacktongue97Ladythe Indecent
48BellafurKrakenbush98MilkeyeHurtsville
49ThornyNotail99CottonmouthPoundcake
50AmmoniaPotbelly100SprinklesHellduke

 

Download the table from Penny Pamphlets.

Combine with Goblin Punch’s Catbooks for maximum cat action.

Also here’s a curse:

 

Curse of a Thousand Cats!

 

You can suddenly see cats everywhere you go, but nobody else seems to notice. They appear to be friendly, mewing and milling about, rubbing up your legs with a friendly pur. All the time. If you threaten one it will hiss and run away while the others sit and stare. That night you will wake up with hundreds of them piled upon your chest. If you accept this without too much fuss they will hop down and pur while they groom themselves on your bedroom floor. If you struggle they will suffocate and crush you under their fluffy bottoms.

If you continue to threaten them after this, or if your original threats were too violent, their fur turns black and static and they will gut you in the street. Onlookers will stare in amazement as you scream and claw at the air while chunks of flesh are torn away and your innards spill onto your feet.

 

Preparing this curse requires a pot of new milk, catswort grown on a spinster’s grave, nine furballs of varying age and density, and at least twelve cats need to be present of their own free will during the four hour ritual. A ball of yarn is soaked in the concoction for the duration of the ritual and thrown at the intended victim.


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Welcome to Cörpathium


Greatest city of the new and ancient land, the overhanging levels of jettied houses stacked atop each other shadow the sprawling streets, solid stone architecture unknown to any of the old countries nestles behind shouting waremongers in the morning mist, birds sing from a neighbouring rooftop and something scuttles from under your bed. It’s another beautiful day in Cörpathium, watch your step.

 

When entering a new borough roll below.

 

3d6Boroughs of Cörpathium
14-18Well, You Don't See That Every Day..
4-13Another Day In Paradise
3End Times Cometh

 

Another Day In Paradise
1d20
1A young woman bumps into a random PC as they push through a crowd, she blushes and apologises and continues on her way.
Further on into the neighbourhood the PC will find an old man hawking something that looks very much like something important to them, something they no longer seem to be carrying. There are already several interested buyers standing by his stall.
2A shrieking man falls to his knees in the street, clawing at his skin.
1. He is the son of a Corvuscult family, prone to fits of madness. Discretion would be appreciated.
2. A wasp has crawled under his skin to lay her eggs.
3. He's just a plain old loon.
4. He is a Haruspex, suffering a vision of locust plague, harbinger to the coming of the Locust Queen.
3A young woman is bitten by a dog.
4A Speaker of the Godless announces a curfew in light of unnatural maulings in the neighbourhood the past few nights.
5A couple of inherited wealth dandies sitting at a coffee house laugh at a random PC's attire.
6A vendor of fig pies scrambles to collect the contents of his upturned cart before the crowd consumes it all.
7A rat the size of a terrier emerges from a nearby sewer and slumps back on its hind legs in front of a random PC, scratching its bloated stomach.
Roll Loyalty. It won't be pretty if you roll low.
8A young girl hawks her services as an assistant in dangerous and foolhardy ventures.
She can't be more than 14, she's an exceptionally skilled thief, and she can fit into places your fat old arse never could.
9A street urchin attempts to snatch a coin purse or other item from a random PC.
10A woman with old letters sewn into the folds of her dress glides through the street. Her sunken eyes are the colour of despair and she fawns over every man she meets like a whore, murmuring and cooing through full red lips.
11A bucket of innards and vomit is dumped on the PCs from an overhead window, it is unclear if it was accidental.
12A gaunt man with stretched hanging skin stands on an iron stool preaching to 2d10 onlookers about the evils of the Corpulent One.
13A Mother of Silence strides through the street, her footfall would crash in your ears if her presence hadn't stolen every sound within 30'. [Mothers of Silence will be another post]
14A spruiker in a jaunty hat proclaiming himself to be the originator of Cuckold's Courage sells bottles from a cart on the street corner. The bottles are full of:
1. Urine.
2. Fermented onions and cat faeces.
3. Putrefied fishguts.
4. Curdled milk and rubbing alcohol.
5. River water and silt.
6. Crushed lice and dust. "Just add water!"
15An elderly woman drops the fruit she was carrying and four young men in ostentatious clothing start dancing a jig, stomping it into the road.
16When they return home a random PC will find something important missing and a yellow feather on their bed. Hagatha Gloom of the Golden Harpies has taken a liking to them.
17A burly drunk emerges from a brewhouse and shoves his way through the PCs.
18A woman in obvious Toad-Dropping withdrawal pushes her way past the PCs and into a nearby alley.
19A man wearing a large stitched leather top hat and a coat embroidered with images of vicious rodents hawks bottles of Verminbane. Caged rats are piled behind him for demonstration and several greased tame rats climb over his shoulders and crawl about his feet, leashed to his belt by string.
20Seventh Goat mercenaries jostle the PC with the highest Strength as they pass. If offence is taken they invite you to settle the matter in the Viper's Nest fight den tonight, they've been in need of an opponent anyway.

 

Read the rest…


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Class: Void Dancer


Void Dancers feel hear and see the music colour and flow of the energy all around them. They’re practically magic idiot savants, they can’t Read Magic, they don’t understand it, they just feel it. Void Dancers don’t memorise or read spells, they just need to be able to dance.

They can only learn spells that have been cast around them, be taught by another Void Dancer, or interpret their own. Learning a spell doesn’t cost them anything, but takes twice as long unless they’re alone in the wilderness or somewhere intensely magical. Decrease the time by a day for every time the spell has been cast around them.

They can’t use or make their own Fetishes, but they’ll wear them, they think they’re pretty.

 

Saves as Magic-User, d6 HP.

Starts with d4+Wisdom mod spells.

Always roll for their own Cataclysm limit.

 

They’re like this.

 

 

Spells

 

Between the Walls

Void Dancer level 2

Duration: Instantaneous

Range: 30′

 

Smoky tendrils and hands emerge from the walls or floor, seizing the victim and dragging them back within the wall/floor. This in itself doesn’t hurt them, they find themselves somehow squeezed within the matter of the wall, and they can free themselves with a successful Strength check.

But something inside the wall gnaws and invades their flesh, causing 1d4 damage every round until they escape.

 

 

Danse Fièvre

Void Dancer level 5

Duration: Until the Void Dancer stops

Range: 10′ radius/level

 

The Void Dancer’s movements become frenzied and infectious, 1d4+caster level beings must save vs. Magic with a penalty equal to caster Charisma modifier or shudder and shake in cavorting delirium until such a time as the Void Dancer stops.

The Void Dancer can drive another 1d4 beings to save or join the rhythm every round until an attempt fails to lure new dancers.

 

 

Plague Toad Monsoon

Void Dancer level 3

Duration: Turns equal to caster level

Range: 200′

 

The heavens darken and break open, spilling a flood of noisome rain and misshapen toads in a 50′ radius. The toads leap onto anyone they can find and gum at their flesh, causing deformities to sprout wherever their awful mouths have touched. The toads will die and rot after an hour.

 

 

Song of Sinew

Void Dancer level 2

Duration: Instantaneous

Range: 30′

 

Knit or unravel d4hp of flesh. (Heal or Hurt)


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Pull Back The Sheets


Fold-over Lamentations of the Flame Princess character sheets are available in Penny Pamphlets, as well as some simple henchman sheets for the guy you’re going to be after your current character swells and explodes in vibrant fungal agony.

 

They’re designed to use my house rules, but if you don’t want to use those rules, uh too bad?

 

Last Gasp Character Sheet frontLast Gasp Character Sheet backLast Gasp Henchman Sheet


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This Is Weighing Me Down


Encumbrance should be a measure of not just how much weight you can carry, but how easily you can manoeuvre whilst carrying different things, we’re adventuring here after all. Besides that, there’s also the fact that most of the time there’s going to be some things that you want to be a bit more accessible than just sitting somewhere in the big pack on your back.

 

[Edit: there’s a much better version of this in The House of Rules, thought it doesn’t have a pretty picture.]

 

The encumbrance system I use requires a touch more maths at character creation, but is a hell of a lot more interesting than a shopping list of crap in a sack. It’s built off the existing LotFP “different items” list and Rotten Pulp/Evil Baboon’s Anti-Hammerspace Item Tracker, and probably a couple of things that have been discussed by Brendan over at Ultimately (now of Necropraxis). It adds a touch of reality and management to the important things, differentiates between characters, but isn’t so complex or restrictive as to make it boring.

 

So you’ve rolled up a character and you’re going shopping. Excellent. Let’s start at the top (or skip to the summary if you’ve a short attention span):

 

What Has It Got In Its Pocketses?

 

– Everyone is able to wear leather armour and carry a normal weapon without it counting towards anything, because otherwise an adventurer might as well be naked. Maleficar will normally pick up their spellbook before a weapon though.

 

– At any time an average character can carry 6 other Significant Items in an immediately accessible place. The location of these items is noted on your character sheet. Specialists automatically carry their Specialist’s Tools as one of their Significant Items.

e.g. Your 50′ of rope is coiled across your chest and you’ve tied a lantern to the end of it, you have a short bow across the opposite shoulder, a quiver of arrows secured to your thigh, an iron-clasped Book of Pestilent Proverbs suspended from a chain attached to your belt, and a sheathed dagger strapped to your left forearm. In addition to that you’re gripping an axe in your right hand and holding a map in front of the lantern light with your left. You’re carrying a normal weapon and 6 other Significant Items (the map doesn’t count), which doesn’t affect your ability to explore or fight because hey: adventurer.

 

Notes on weapons:

A “normal weapon” would be a d6-d8 melee weapon or a d6 ranged weapon. If you use a weapon that deals d4 or less damage you can carry 2 in place of a normal weapon. Each additional weapon carried on your person counts as a Significant Item, with two-handed and heavy weapons counting as 2.

 

For example:

 

Feargus the Fanged, assassin for hire (Specialist), carries out his contracts with two daggers sheathed in a small poison-filled bladder on his back. They count as his normal weapon, so he can carry 5 other Significant Items after equipping his Specialist’s Tools.

 

Magnus, Mouth of the Ever-Present (Cleric) carries a two-handed mace to enforce the will of his god. He doesn’t carry a normal weapon so the two-handed mace takes up both that slot and a Significant Item, after which he can carry 5 other Significant Items.

 

Elsbeth Copperbound (Fighter) prefers to use a long sword, but carries a heavy crossbow on her back to even out the odds from a distance. The sword is her normal weapon and doesn’t count as anything, but the heavy crossbow she carries on her back counts as 2 Significant Items so she can only carry 4 other Significant Items rather than 6.

 

– Your Strength/Dexterity modifier affects how many Significant Items you can carry. If they’re both positive/negative the highest/lowest applies, but if they’re different add them together and that is the number that applies.

 

For example:

 

Strength +2 and Dexterity +1 means you can carry 2 more Significant Items than normal.

Strength -2 and Dexterity -1 means you can carry 2 less Significant Items than normal.

Strength +2 and Dexterity -1 means you can carry 1 more Significant Item than normal.

 

– Wearing Chain or Plate armour decreases your Significant Items by 1 and 2 respectively unless you’re a Fighter.

 

– You can carry additional Significant Items on your person, but each one adds a -1 penalty to your physical rolls including Attack Bonus.

 

– In addition to Significant Items you can carry any number of Insignificant Items on your person as long as you can explain where it is. The location of these items is noted on your character sheet.

e.g. In a small leather satchel attached to the back of your belt you’re carrying a pipe and tobacco, 5 copper coins inscribed with your own face are in a pouch hanging from the hilt of your sword, 3 vials of spider venom are tied around your ankle with string, a bronze whistle hangs from a delicate chain around your neck, and a map said to lead to the underground chapel you were born in is tucked into a fold of fabric inside your left sleeve.

 

– The things you’re carrying on your person count as your first point of encumbrance if you’re carrying at least 3 Significant Items in addition to your weapon, which keeps you Unencumbered within LotFP rules. After that, you can start shoving things into your backpack.

 

 

We Should Get a Mule..

 

– Things carried in packs are considered dead weight. An average character can carry 4 different kinds of items in a pack before gaining a point of encumbrance. Insignificant Items don’t count.

 

– Your Strength/Constitution bonus affects how many different items you can carry before gaining a point of encumbrance. If they’re both positive/negative the highest/lowest applies, but if they’re different add them together and that is the number that applies (minimum 2 items per point of encumbrance).

 

– There will come a point where the Referee (I like to be called the Lamentation Princess) will rule that your set of items is taking up more than one slot. Heavy items always count as separate items.

e.g. The 3 flasks of lamp oil you were carrying up until you pulled them out of your pack and started throwing them counted as a single item, but the twin metallic meteorites you just stole from that cult count as an item each. After escaping, your coin pouch held 12sp and counted as a single item, but after selling the meteorites it holds 190sp and counts as 2 items.

 

– If it can’t realistically fit in your backpack, it’s not going in your backpack. Therefore ‘oversized’ items like 10′ poles are strapped to you and treated as Significant Items. This means that if you’re already carrying your limit of Significant Items, strapping a 10′ pole to yourself counts as 2 additional Significant Items (like a two-handed weapon) and incurs a -2 penalty to your physical rolls including Attack Bonus.

(This takes the place of the +1 encumbrance imposed by LotFP rules, which makes more sense to me. If I start carrying a 10′ pole I’m not going to say “Oh crap you guys wait up I don’t think I can walk so fast anymore”, I’m going to say “Oh crap having this pole tied to me is really awkward, I hope I don’t get attacked because wow, feeling clumsy.”)

 

– Finding something in your pack during combat takes d3+1 per encumbrance level rounds.

 

– Becoming Lightly/Heavily/Severely Encumbered incurs a cumulative -1 penalty to your physical rolls including Attack Bonus, in addition to movement penalties. If the encumbrance is due to wearing Chain or Plate armour Fighters ignore the roll penalty.

e.g. You decided you just HAD to pry that last golden lion from the alter, but after stuffing it into your backpack you’re carrying so many things that you’re Lightly Encumbered, and now scuttering sounds are rushing across the ceiling. Until you lose some items you’ll only be able to explore 90′ every 10 minutes, and you’ll be at -1 to hit if you have to fight. (Of course, you can dump your backpack before starting to fight, but heaven knows who might try to take it while your back is turned…)

 

SUMMARY:

  • Everyone can wear leather armour, carry a normal weapon, and carry 6 (modified by Strength/Dexterity bonus) Significant Items on their person for their first point of encumbrance. Tell me where they are.
  • Additional Significant Items carried on your person incur a -1 penalty to physical rolls.
  • Everyone can carry any number of Insignificant Items on their person. Tell me where they are.
  • Everyone can carry 4 (modified by Strength/Constitution bonus) different items as dead weight in a pack on their back before gaining another point of encumbrance.
  • Finding something in your pack during combat takes d3+1 per encumbrance level rounds.
  • Levels of encumbrance incur a cumulative -1 penalty to physical rolls in addition to movement penalties.
  • Chain and Plate armour decrease Significant Items by 1 and 2 respectively. Fighters ignore both this and encumbrance physical roll penalties caused by armour.

 

 

Bonus rule: Wardrobe Malfunction

 

Like Shields Shall Be Splintered! or Oh Crap, My Hat! but for everybody.

If you are hit in combat you can choose to sacrifice a Significant Item or other piece of equipment before damage is rolled.

If you can explain how the attack removed or destroyed that item instead of injuring you, it happened.

If your explanation is stupid or you take too long not only do you lose the item but you still get stabbed.

 


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Always Carry Protection


First of all, Gus L has mentioned getting rid of leather, chainmail, and plate in favour of Light, Medium, and Heavy armour over at Dungeon of Signs a few times now. Which happens to be one of the things I really liked in the one game of Gamma World I played. I’d much prefer players to make up exactly what they’re wearing and apply an appropriate armour class than say they’re wearing chainmail and leave it at that. It also links in well aesthetically with LotFP’s existing weapon list.

 

Speaking of, in general I’m pretty happy with the LotFP weapon list, being that it consists of a few specific weapons and then Minor Medium Large Great make up what it is it does this much damage okay. No fuss, no muss. But. I’d still kind of like for the choice about what your Medium weapon actually is to make a difference beyond flavouring, without turning the weapon list into a 10-page section.

 

So, the size categories stay, that’s your damage, but depending on what the weapon actually is you also get this..

 

Sword: If you haven’t been hit this round roll twice for damage, take the best.

 

Hammer: When you attack choose +1 vs. Medium or better, or a normal attack which

reduces Heavy AC by 1 but deals half damage.

 

Axe: Minimum half damage vs. Light or less.

 

Flail: +1 vs. Medium or better, ignores shields. Can choose to attack weapon, Strength check

to disarm on hit. On any miss roll under your AC or hit yourself.

 

The reasoning being that swords are versatile, hammers can punch through with spikes or crush joints to reduce mobility, axes are built for chopping right into things (my thumb can attest), and flails.. well flails is flails.

 

[Edit: these and the Notch rules have been updated in The House of Rules]

 

 

That’s Not A Knife..

 

I use group Initiative, but would also like characters who have an Initiative bonus to get some kind of benefit from that. So, different kinds of weapons have benefits in different situations.

At this point I’d like to mention that this and the weapon categories were inspired by a couple of things mentioned by Brendan Strejcek, now of Necropraxis. In fact the dagger part is stolen directly from him and Gus L.

  •  If you successfully hit someone with a dagger you can choose to grab hold and keep stabbing, automatically hitting Flesh in subsequent rounds every time you win a wrestling roll (contested d20 + AB and Strength modifier). Anyone wielding a Medium or larger weapon will need to kick you away before attacking with their weapon.
    (Daggers should be deadly and useful, if you manage to get in close to someone you can cut straight to the meat, bypassing Grit and damaging Flesh. Finesse isn’t worth a damn when someone has a knife to your belly)
  • While wielding a Medium or larger weapon you may make a contested Initiative roll to attack first when someone with a Minor weapon closes into melee range.
  • While wielding a weapon with reach you may make a contested Initiative roll to attack first when someone with a smaller weapon closes into melee range, and automatically attack first and cause double damage to anyone that actually charges you.

 

Another Notch on the Axehaft

 

I find it really boring for characters to be able to pick a weapon when they start out and then hold onto it forever unless they find something magic or wake up naked in a pit. I mean sure, it’s nice to have a weapon with history, but don’t you want that history to actually mean something? I also want some kind of indication that all this murdering necessitates equipment maintenance, but I don’t want that to be a gaping pain in the arse.

 

So, Notches.

 

Every time you roll a 1 or 2 to hit in combat your weapon takes a Notch, this doesn’t necessarily mean it was damaged just then, more a simple way of quantifying wear and tear.

 

Each weapon can take Notches equal to its damage die (so a dagger can take 4 Notches, a long sword can take 8, Lumpy Space Princess’s knifemace can take 10).

Once the weapon has 2 Notches, roll 2 of the weapon’s damage die after every attack, if the roll is equal to or less than the number of Notches, the weapon breaks. So you might embarrassingly break your axe with a wild swing against the wall, or you might snap your dagger off in the merchant priest’s chest.

If the weapon takes another Notch after it has reached its limit, it breaks.

 

Now, armour makes it harder to hurt your squishy parts, fair enough, but what about the armour? Every time an attack against you rolls 19 or 20 your armour is damaged, reducing your AC by 1.

 

The standard rate for repair is a tenth of the item’s full cost per Notch or AC point (so one Notch on a Medium sword costs 2 silver groats to repair, and it will set you back 100 silver groats to repair the point of damage that drugged-up Nun of the Lotus caused to your Heavy armour).

Prices are subject to review and gouging.

 

 

[Edit: Go read Brush of Fumbling’s excellent post that works weapon quality into Notches if you’re tired of brooms being as durable as battleaxes and all of your blacksmiths being the same guy with a different moustache. I’m using it effective right now.]

 

 

If You Liked It Then You Should Have Put a Pistol On It

 

When you have to walk around with everything strapped to your back, economy of utility can become pretty important, and getting hold of something that actually performs more than one function may just make you fall to your knees for a bit of an ugly joy cry. Credit for sparking this particular thought fire goes to Tom at Middenmurk.

Fuck your +1 sword, give me a shield with a lantern in it and big spikes sticking out of it.

 

Basically, coveted equipment doesn’t have to have some bullshit charm on it, it just needs to be uncommonly useful for the kind of foolish things you’ve chosen to run around doing.

 

I’d rather carry an iron cresset than a torch, it burns just as long, using pitch, rosin, or pine knots, and if someone jumps out of the dark I can beat them with it for d6 damage. As a bonus on 18-20 they also catch fire.

10′ poles are useful but DAMN are they unwieldy to just lug around. Why not carry a 10′ spear or polearm instead, with several interlocking foot long sections at the end that can be easily removed if damaged? Hell, while we’re at it let’s make the top section removable as well so that it can be used as a weapon in close-quarters. Like Tom said, “As is often the case with historical reality, similar business ends are applied to different lengths of wood for different purposes.”

Check Tom’s other article and follow the link to My Armory at the end for more examples. Sure, a lot of them are just things with pistols jammed onto them, but you get the point.

 

For seriously though, fuck your +1 sword.

 


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