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Thursday, July 31, 2014

July 2014 RPG Blog Carnival Wrap-Up

It's nearly Midnight, but instead of turning into a pumpkin or whatever, here's the Wrap-Up Post for the July 2014 RPG Blog Carnival.

The theme this month was Invasive Species. We had nine excellent entries, not counting our own contributions; two of which were by Leicester. Thanks to all of you who participated in this month's RPG Blog Carnival. It was quite a lot of fun to read all the very well written and thought provoking entries.

Leicester's Ramble gave us four minor amphibious horrors that have shown up in the kingdom recently. The Rage Salamander, Thunder Frogs and Pustule Toads are bad enough, then you get the Bleeding Caecillian...ouch!

The Githyanki Diaspora blog provided a means of customizing a Githyanki Invasion using 6d6 to suit your campaign. The Githyanki are one of the truly classic Invasive Species to come out of gaming, and this is a fun set of tables just begging to be used.

The MindWeave Role-Playing Platform featured the Tulkem, a reptilian invasive species that aggressively take over territory by expanding swampland and flooding-out their neighbors and competitors.

Tower of the Archmage released their first issue of their brand-new RPG-zine The Archmage's Octavo and this inaugural issue happens to feature an invasive species! It's a free pdf, so you've got nothing to lose by checking it out, and besides it's really good stuff. There's also a map by Dyson Logos in this issue, so you know it has a great map to go with the new monster, and did I mention there are rules for handling Carousing as Magical Research for Wizards? Go Get it.

Leicester's Ramble featured a fun bit of flash fiction as a second-helping of invasive species goodness. It reminded me a bit of the old Twilight Zone and Outer Limits stories, in a good way. I'm still hoping to read another new installment of Farthing and Tig!

Over at the World Builder Blog they were Preparing for the Invasion and featured the half-devil/half-aberrant Morchia and the mind-controlling parasitic Mystauk, both statted-up for the new 5th Edition rules. Both are excellent monsters and worth taking a look at and could be converted over to another edition fairly easily.

Tales of a GM blog told us all about an intriguing invasive species...a giant albino leech that served a player character as an animal companion! I enjoyed this post a great deal as it would fit right in with Wermspittle in a heart-beat.

Eric's Gaming Pulse took on the task of presenting humanity as an invasive species in space. He raises some interesting points and postulates a setting where more highly advanced aliens hire-on humans as their preferred interstellar workforce since humans require less intensive life support systems than other species. There's some real magic to this premise and you really need to read his post if you're at all interested in a fun scifi twist on the invasive species premise.

Porky delivered a very sparse but effective set of rules for adding financiers into the mix at the table in The Rule of the Jungle and the Self-Invasive Species. It reminded me a little bit of Sir A.C. Doyle's The Lost World and similar stories along those lines where there is always someone with money getting involved, the rich investor who backs an expedition only to force their way on board and try to run things...this is another very well thought-out post well worth your time to read it over and consider how it might fit into your game.

As for ourselves, we posted about the Black Zones, a few Aquatic Terrors for Gus L., Six Nasty Things from the Black Zones, Sickly Yellow Phantoms, Killing Frost, our Third Sewer Encounter table, the Fleshwrought Servitors of Varug, a set of paper minis for the Rilligong, a set of paper minis including several very invasive species such as the Yelg Froth, Bugs, Stompers and there was a picture of a Mucoid included in the photo of our work-space that we posted for Jack. We also did a new robot T-shirt, but those 'bots aren't particularly invasive, so never mind that.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in this month's RPG Blog Carnival!
Next Month's Theme is: Devious Dungeons and the Host will be: Mindweave Role-Playing.

Everything you might want to know about the RPG Blog Carnival is available all in one place, including How to Participate, How to Sign-Up to Host a Carnival, as well as some handy advice for How to Host a Carnival if your topic gets accepted. You can also browse through the Archives of Past Carnivals and check to see what's coming next.

The RPG Blog Carnival is sponsored and supported by the RPG Blog Alliance. You can find out more about the RPGBA by clicking these links:

The RPGBA site
The RPGBA FAQ

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

July RPG Blog Carnival: Invasive Species

The Theme for this Month's RPG Blog Carnival is Invasive Species and it is being hosted right here at Hereticwerks. Through the month of July we will be presenting a few posts that feature a variety of Invasive Species and we'd love to see what you have to say on the subject. Have you introduced some sort of invasive species into your game or campaign? How did it go? Have any pointers or advice for how to handle invasive species in a particular game, setting or genre?

Whatever genre you like, however gritty or glittery you prefer your games or fiction, there's all sorts of ways you could address the theme of Invasive Species. Below we've provided a few questions, examples and possible suggestions to help you get started.

Please leave a comment below with a link to your post and we'll be sure to include it in the end-of-month summary/Wrap-Up post.

Last month's RPG Blog Carnival was hosted by Moebius Adventures and featured quite a few different answers to the question: "What's In The Hole?" Be sure to check out the Wrap-Up Post for last month's Carnival to discover a host of thing that might be waiting for your characters in that otherwise innocuous looking hole over there. There were some really great entries last month, so be sure to take a look at the Wrap-Up Post at Moebius Adventures when you get a chance!

Invasive Species

What are some of your favorite invasive species from books, comics, web-comics, or graphic novels?
We're big fans of The War of the Worlds. And we'd definitely classify M. P. Shiel's Purple Clouds as pernicious invasive species, even if they are mostly billowing toxic vapors with a bad attitude. The Daleks from Doctor Who and the the Eddorians from Doc Smith's Lensmen series are another two great examples of invasive species from classic science fiction.

What is your favorite invasive species from the movies or TV?
We're big fans of The War of the Worlds, Invaders From Mars, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Day of the Triffids, Critters, Gremlins, The Blob, Godzilla, and lots of classic sci-fi and fantasy movies. The aliens who show up in the Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man are one of the best examples of a really sneaky invasive species--they get humanity to voluntarily board their cattle-carrier ships. The xenomorph from Alien remains one of the all-time classic movie monsters and it is truly an invasive species in every sense of the term. Zombies are often treated as though they were an invasive species, especially in the movies and on TV...would you consider zombies to be an invasive species? If you have strong feelings either way, what are some reasons/examples you could point out? What are some of your favorite movies that portray invaders from beyond and how has this influenced your game?

Do you have a favorite invasive species that was featured in a game or campaign setting?
Anyone who has played through Expedition to the Barrier Peaks can list off several classic examples of invasive species that have gone on to take their place in later editions of D&D such as the Vegepygmies and the awesome Froghemoth. It's a classic mash-up of fantasy and sci-fi. Stephen Colbert fondly remembers this module, and so do quite a lot of other old school gamers. Some of us even had a character survive this adventure.

Going back to Supplement Three: Eldritch Wizardry, the Mind Flayers were first introduced into D&D as invaders from the Underworld while a host of other invasive species such as Brain Moles, Cerebral Parasites and a host of demons were also brought into the game. Is there a classic or new monster that you feel is the ultimate invasive species?

Here are a few more questions to help give you some ideas:

Did Owlbears take over the local forest? If so, what are your characters going to do about it?
Are dragons native to your game-world, or are they invaders from somewhere else?
Could the deities active in a fantasy milieu actually be invaders from another realm?
Are the undead actually invaders from beyond the veil of death?
Would you consider Mr. Lovecraft's various alien beings truly invasive if they preceded humanity be eons? What happens when the Mi-Go invade? John Snead might know...
How do you handle demons and possession in your game? They pretty much define 'invasive.'
What happens when a group of player characters introduce the equivalent of rabbits into Australia?
Have you created a great alien space invader to menace your Pulp Sci-Fi campaign?
Do you have some advice on how to handle the proliferation of unnatural horrors or terrible monstrosities that have been unleashed upon an unsuspecting world by irresponsible wizards?
What if a super villain succeeded in unleashing an unstoppable army of cybernetic-alien-zombie-wombat-chickens that took over the world and wouldn't let if go?
Do you have ideas of how humanity might cope with a far superior civilization--might we be viewed as an invasive species?
Do you have some version of jumping carp, zebra mussels, buck thorn, gypsy moths, or something similar encroaching upon the frontiers of the player character's domains? How would a wizard deal with a swarm of locusts before it destroyed all the crops? Can your paladin halt the depredations of those moths infesting the fabric mills before your liege goes bankrupt?
Has someone stirred-up a dragon-turtle that has now started terrorizing the near-by lake-towns? did they accidentally move the thing's eggs, or was it done deliberately as a form of sabotage?
What sort of invasive species might be proliferating deep within the darkest recesses of the WorldNet? Are they rogue AI, disembodied spirits, damaged algorithms or something else entirely?

Not all invaders need to come from outer space, dead ruins beneath the ocean waves, or someplace exotic; some might just be people from another continent or perhaps from a different time...
While one of your own ancestors wouldn't normally be considered to be an entirely different species, the weird transformations that Joseph Curwen underwent in order to gain power and knowledge as a wizard made him enough different from his unsuspecting descendant Charles Dexter Ward to count as far as we're concerned. We also would classify John Carter from Edgar Rice Burrough's classic Barsoom series as an example of a heroic invasive species; what do you think? The astronauts who crash-land on The Planet of the Apes find themselves in the role of being an invasive species. Morbius was an invasive species of one as he pilfered the secrets of the Krell in Forbidden Planet...just as you could make a case for Alice being an invasive species in Through the Looking Glass, or the Pevensies in Narnia, and even Flash Gordon is something of an invasive species during his adventures on Mongo. If you wanted, you could probably make a case for Captain James T. Kirk being something of an invasive species unto himself since it seemed like he might well have single-handedly produced more human-alien hybrids than any dozen secret underground government labs. Sometimes we are the invaders...which opens the door to taking a look at various examples of invasions that our own species has perpetrated against itself such as the Conquistadors in South America (or was it Tamoachan?), the various colonial powers in Africa & Asia, and a host of examples from history, military history, or alternate history.

So, what are some of your personal favorite invasive species?

How have you handled invasive species in your game?

We'd love to hear about it...

Friday, June 13, 2014

What's in the Hole? (Take Two)

The Theme for this Month's RPG Blog Carnival is What's In The Hole? and it is being hosted by Moebius Adventures. The Kick-Off Post for getting things started is right there at the Moebius Adventures blog. This is a great question. One rife with possibilities for all sorts of gaming goodness. So let's take a look at what might be down in a hole in Wermspittle...

What's In The Hole? (Take Two)

Someone's Been Digging-up Maggie's Garden. It may have been those pesky feral children rooting around after her potatoes again. Or it might have been someone after something buried on her property, possibly by a previous tenant or owner...in which case it ought to be hers by rights...

Maggie's Proposition: The aging Seamstress is too damn old to keep watch in the night and catch whoever is making a mess of her garden. You lot look young and fit enough, and hungry enough to help an old lady out. She offers you food and the services of a Seamstress, if you'll keep an eye on her garden and get to the bottom of what's going on.

A Dirty Deal: The holes all appear to be dug out with a shovel. Keeping watch over the garden will allow the party to catch a Somambulist's Thrall in the act of digging up the garden within the next night or two. The Somnambulistic Thrall is completely unaware of what they are doing and incapable of being effectively interrogated or questioned. If captured, they will attempt to escape, but if unable to do so, they are under a powerful hypnotic compulsion to destroy themselves before they can reveal anything. If their clothes and body are examined, there is a small grayish alloy medallion stamped with the image of a three-headed eagle grasping a thorny rose and flowering apple branch. If this item is revealed or turned over to Maggie, she will consider the job well done indeed and prove to be very generous. The characters gain a +4 bonus to the next Reaction Roll with Maggie or any other Seamstress they meet for the next couple of weeks. Not revealing the medallion to Maggie will leave her stymied as to who her tormentor might actually be, and as she remains uncertain and suspicious, she will start to think that perhaps the characters are not telling her everything they know...perhaps they are working for her unseen, unnamed enemies...so she will dismiss them and settle her debt to them with a coarse loaf of bread and some dried meat. The characters gain a -2 to any subsequent Reaction Rolls with Maggie or any other Seamstress for the next month or so. Whomever keeps the medallion will begin to suffer from recurring nightmares involving some wild-eyed old man in a tattered top hat and lots of pointy teeth and black velvet gloves...and they have to make a Save each morning to regain any lost hit points, as their capacity for healing seems to be a bit off...
A Hole in the Wall. Looks like some unlucky forager set off a previously unexploded bomb just down this next alley. The buildings on either side are badly scorched by Black Smoke and there are bits of half-melted shrapnel studding the walls all along the alley. The fire-escape on one building now sags dangerously and just needs a slight push to get it to fall. The debris has been cleared from around this hole and stacked off to either side to form a few rough benches and sitting places. You can smell the reek of brewing wafting pungently from the hole in the wall...

Inside: Three large vats are in use by a trio of brothers from one of the low-land farm enclaves who have decided to become independent brewers and distillers. They learned how to brew various types of beers and ales, as well as distill a number of infusions, spirits, dubious potations and liquors from their elders. The brothers are keen to experiment with some of their own recipes and ideas for innovations now that they are on their own, but they have run into some trouble from members of the Corruption Trade who don't want them moving in on their turf, or worse yet, offering people some sort of alternative to the toxic brews and black liquors that they specialize in. All three of the brothers are excellent shots with fowling pieces, prodds and short bows, all of which they have at-hand and are willing to use at a moment's notice. They have attracted 2d6 'regulars' who will also come to their aid, if called upon, but what they really need right now is someone to help explore the rest of the building that they have claimed for their base of operations. The forager they had only just hired to help them out just blew herself up, hence the hole in the wall. They need the four floors and attic above examined, as well as the cellar and possibly the buildings on either side and the one abutting their back wall--there have been strange noises from back there where there seems to be some sort of greasy black rot...

Not Just Black Rot: There is a patch of Brewer's Bane growing in the back end of the old dress-maker's shop where the brothers have set up shop. It was deliberately set loose in order to sabotage their operation before it can become any sort of competition or threat to one of the local brewers.
Hole in the Head. Massive, ancient and now tumbled-over into the square; the old statue of some forgotten general on his war mollusc has finally toppled due to the heavy growth of Red Weeds, revealing a hole in the statue's huge, hollow head...

Don't Mind the Weeds: Feel free to roll for an encounter with something lurking beneath the Purple Glow of the Red Weeds. These particular Red Weeds are fairly inoffensive vines, runners and lianas that have taken-over the square, converting it into a small, walled-in and rampantly overgrown vineyard of sorts. There are strange pink fruits and clusters of berries that can be collected from the underside of the larger leaf-clusters. The fruit seems edible. The berries seem to produce a highly flammable organic solvent.

What's inside: The hollow head of the toppled statue was once an excellent nesting space for a flock of Passenger Pigeons. Unfortunately someone poisoned the things with some sort of necromantically-tainted Spectral Brine and now there are 5d20 undead pigeons clustered inside the head of the general's statue. The mindless things just sit there. Silent. Staring. Until someone disturbs them...
Badly-Patched Hole. Someone went to a lot of trouble to fill-in or cover-over this hole with bricks, paving stones, rubble from across the street, rusty scrap metal, and the like. If you look closer, it looks like someone was trying to hold down some sort of heavy metal grate over the hole...perhaps this was someone's attempt to trap something down in that hole?

A Closer Look Reveals: (1d4) items from one of the Questionable Trinkets & Trash Tables mixed-in with the rubbish and debris. There is a heavy armored long-coat, spattered with blood and caught underneath the rubble that can be tugged free by anyone who might be curious. The coat has a patch on the right shoulder from the 'Pazguin Expeditionary Force,' whatever that might be.

There's a Gap: Poking around the patched-over hole, if only to collect a few shiny-bits from the debris, will make it clear that this was a rush-job and by no means adequate as there is a large, very unhappy White Beast down in that hole and it is riled-up and trying to dig itself out from under the hastily weighed-down grating...
What Was That Sloshing Noise? Over there. There's a hole. It leads down to a flooded cellar or private cistern. Something is moving down there...

Regarding That Particular Hole: There are a few Exotic Bivalves clustered around the inner surface of this hole that gets bigger and wider as it goes down. There's also a cumulative 20% chance each minute that the surrounding surface gives way underneath anyone investigating the hole.

Down Below: A Dreaming Nettle Jelly is floating in a flooded cellar down below. It is severely weakened by the continuous drain upon its vitality by a swarm of ochre-striped leeches that have fastened upon it. The leeches are huge, bloated and so distended with the Jelly's precious bodily fluids and vital juices that they can barely wriggle and are incapable of defending themselves. Destroying the leeches and freeing the Dreaming Nettle Jelly will leave it too weakened to escape unassisted, but very favorably disposed towards its saviors (+6 bonus to Reaction Roll). If the characters agree to defend the creature while it recuperates, it will make a gift of 1d4 dream pearls (treat as scrolls of 1d4 random spells each), or instill within a willing subject the ability to Lucid Dream--allowing them to become either a Dreamer or Oneirist. The creature can also awaken the telepathic ability of a willing subject, but it requires a three-day ordeal that inflicts 1 hit point of damage per day during which the subject is immobilized/paralyzed and helpless. Each day of the ordeal the subject rolls 1d20 and applies their INT, WIS or CHAR bonus to the roll. A result of 20 means they gain the ability to cast Telepathy (INT), Empathy (WIS) or Charm (CHAR) once per day as a special ability. If pressed, the Jelly can also attempt to teach someone one or more of their specialized, personal spells...but the subject runs the risk of temporary insanity, similar to the effects of a Contact Other Plane spell. Once the creature is back to half strength (roughly one week), it will thank everyone profusely then fade away.
There's a Hole in the Sky...Inside This Building. Inside this boarded-up old dress-maker's shop is a Weak Point that opens onto a lurid and glistening rain forest dominated by gigantic tiger-lilies beneath startling violet skies...

Who Is That In There? A Tremish scout from a party of private collectors has just returned from performing an initial survey of this Weak Point and the immediate area on the other side. She is groggy from the accumulated effects of yellow pollen. Her left hand is coated with a crusty purplish-gray fungal colony that has the appearance of sharp-edged barnacles. She needs to get word to Gnosiomandus and will attempt to negotiate with the characters if they are willing to listen to her...

Troublesome Things: She's no friend to the Academy, but Shumaligne knows that what she has discovered across the threshold of this undocumented Weak Point is too important to try and squeeze personal gain from it. There's a Purple Cloud back there and once it kills off that world, it is coming to Wermspittle...

What's In the Hole?
One Two

Next Month's Blog Carnival will be hosted here at Hereticwerks.
The Theme is going to be: Invasive Species...

Friday, June 6, 2014

What's In The Hole? (RPG Blog Carnival for June, 2014)

What's In The Hole?

A Section of the Street of the First Shell has collapsed. It may have been a gas-leak. It could have been a long buried and long dormant unexploded mine or aerial bomb (see: UXB Table) that finally went off. Maybe it was unlicensed tunneling by rat-things or something else. The Strand is always blaming minor disasters like this on werms. The Street Patrol is deputizing a dozen stout 'volunteers' to perform a preliminary inspection of the hole left in the middle of the street. They don't want to risk any of their engineers or specialists unless they have to...

Initial Situation: The hole extends down past 300' deep. The sides of the hole are sloping, tumbling masses of fractured and displaced cobblestones that have a tendency to slide when disturbed. Getting down without causing the stones to fall down upon your heads, possibly burying your team, is a real concern. The Street Patrol has complete confidence in your ability to get past this simple obstacle.

Going Deeper: This hole leads down into a closed-off section of an old Unterrail line that hasn't been disturbed in close to three hundred years. The tunnel is not noted on any of the current maps, leading some to suspect that it might have been deliberately stricken from the record. The tunnel contains a pocket of Soporific Aether covering the floor to a depth of about four feet deep. Anyone mucking about in the tunnel will be exposed to the heavier-than-air vapors and fall into a profound, deep slumber. They'll be completely unharmed, unless someone collapses the hole. After the first few explorers fail to respond, the Street Patrol will be forced to decide whether to close-off the hole as a hazard to navigation, or to keep sending down more 'volunteers.'
An unlicensed cess-pit in the basement of a mostly abandoned building has suddenly drained away over night. The Landlord is livid with rage and suspects one of his rivals of having sabotaged his cess-pit, or maybe they've stolen his shit. His low-level flunkies are looking into that aspect of the matter. He wants to hire-on a few stout souls to go take a look at how his cess-pit was drained. He has a few reasonably-repaired sets of armored waders that no longer bear any Sewer Militia markings or tags that he can loan to your crew if you can agree on how much this is going to cost him...

First: For obvious reasons, this all has to remain hush-hush. Your crew's discretion must be vouched for before the Landlord will approach you with the offer. Snitching to the Sewer Militia is an option, of course, but it will draw the ire of the Landlord who has some connections among the Unterkorps and elsewhere they can call upon to make life difficult for anyone who tries to rat him out.

Second: The hole at the bottom of the cess-pit appears to have been made by something digging into the pit from below. A twisty, foul-smelling burrow-sort of tunnel slopes down into the fetid darkness. All the surfaces of this tunnel are rounded, organic looking, and the floor rises and falls in random undulations as far as can be seen by torches, lanterns or whatever light-source is being used.

Third: Less than a hundred feet down, the tunnel is filled with the contraband sewage. Under the surface of the reeking stuff is a dead Reservoir Werm that is blocking the tunnel. It dug into the cess-pit by mistake, was forced back down its tunnel by the cascade of nastiness and drowned here where it got lodged in a sharp bend in the passage. Attempting to move the carcass could result in the thing sliding loose and continuing to slide down even farther along the tunnel, carried along on a torrent of filth...
There's a hole in the middle of the basement floor of the old Filby House. A group of street-urchins who took refuge in the basement last night discovered the hole and desperately want to know what's down there, but they cannot manage to lift some sort of grating that blocks their access. They want your help. They are willing to negotiate a split of the proceeds, as they are certain that there is some sort of treasure down there...

On First Glance: Someone dug out a well-like shaft in the old basement and placed a heavy grate over it. The yellow metal grating is pink with corrosion and has fallen away in two spots, so it can easily be removed. In fact the urchins who discovered the thing already have removed some of the bolts and made your task very simple indeed: lift the grating (it weighs six hundred pounds), and go take a look.

What's Down There: There is some sort of yellowish lump down there. About twenty feet down. There are rungs of yellow metal sunk into the side of the hole leading down, so climbing is fairly easy. The lump is a fossilized Philosophic Mold. It might be of some interest or value to a collector of oddities, or to one of the scholars at the Academy who specialize in molds of various sorts. Getting the thing removed and transported without breaking it or releasing residual toxic-spores is going to be a challenge, as it nearly fills the bottom of the hole and weighs several hundred pounds and is extremely brittle. It will be practically worthless if broken-up into poisonous debris by mis-handling. Getting it out of the hole and delivered to a buyer might draw the attention of the Sewer Militia who will swoop in and try to seize the thing by force if they catch wind of it, as it constitutes a clear and present danger, as they see things.
A hole in the wall. It's dark in there, but with a little light you can see that there's something shiny just a little ways back. Maybe it's someone's secret stash...

There are (1d4) items from the Sewer Salvage Table in there, mingled with a bunch of rotten rags, old burlap sacks, a tar-soaked length of rope and three finger bones.

There's also a small clutch of Gunpowder Grubs covered-up by the rags. They are mostly dried-out and will explode for 3d4 damage per grub if exposed to fire, sparks or excess pressure.
There's a hole in that bucket you just found. It's tagged with a red clover-leaf and looks to be something left behind by some Jelly-Hunter or someone like that. It could be a sample of some kind. There are people who pay for that sort of thing...

Disturbing the Bucket: A captured Gobbling Grout (small specimen of a Type I), has just about eroded its way through the cheap non-zinc-coated pail.

Gobbling Grout (Type I) [Small Attack Spackle, AL C, MV 6' (2'), AC 6, HD 2, #AT 1, DG 1d4, SV MU 4, ML 8, Special: Usual mode of attack is to suffocate sleeping victims they catch unawares. This one has been locked-away in a pail for weeks, so it is starved and more ferocious than usual, but even so, it's still about as scary as a lump of regurgitated oatmeal, unless someone is really stupid or careless...]
Not just any hole. That's a Pest Hole! Run!

What's the Big Deal: A Pest Hole is a Weak Point that opens into a location completely over-run by vermin. These things are mentioned by Foragers in tones of dread reserved for the worst horrors imaginable. Meddling with one of these things can lead to a near endless stream of vermin pouring across the Weak Point's threshold, a disaster that only the most insane cultist would even contemplate setting into motion.

If the Unthinkable Proves to be Inevitable: Should some character manage to stir things up, you could start with the Swarms Table, or try your luck with the Those Aren't Rats in the Walls Table, or maybe you'd prefer to try-out the Those Aren't Werms Table over at Dungeon of Signs. We have a few more tables of vermin-things coming along shortly, but those are all good resources to get you started. On the bright side, this might be a good time to try out Idravon's Fumigatory Vengance...

What's In the Hole?

Next Month's Blog Carnival will be hosted here at Hereticwerks.
The Theme is going to be: Invasive Species...

Friday, January 31, 2014

January 2014 RPG Blog Carnival Wrap-Up

January 2014's RPG Blog Carnival was hosted here at the Hereticwerks blog. The topic for the month was Transitions. Several RPG bloggers participated in the Carnival. Thanks to all of you who participated!

Here's a round-up of the ones we know about:

Alesmiter contributed a post looking Behind the Screen in '14.

Book Scorpion discussed some of the transitions currently taking place in her Endlands and 7th Sea campaigns.

Big Ball of No Fun shared recent revolutionary developments in their gaming group--the players are making the transition over to running games and becoming GMs, offering them a chance to regroup and experience things from the other side of the screen for a change of pace.

Grimnir talked about Feast and Famine in terms of how their group has been impacted by real-life commitments and schedules. Losing a particular character/player for a while can really shake things up.

G. K. Coleman has just made the transition to becoming an RPG Blogger. Welcome to the blogoverse G.K.! We're looking forward to reading about your blogging adventures.

Rick Hammell offered some very cogent thoughts about various real-world transitions that could be ported into an RPG environment and he provided a d20 random table as well!

Martin L. at Warehouse of Trinkets has also transitioned from being the GM to being a player for a while...and it looks like he might not like it. At least not yet. This can be a particularly tough transition for some folks. A lot of us get used to being the DM/GM, making it difficult to surrender the control, to step back from the screen, and let someone else take over for a while. For whatever it might be worth, I have always found it energizing and inspiring to switch-over to being a player from time to time. Even at its worst, no matter how badly a game session gets botched, you come away with ideas for how to do things next time, and it is valuable to gain some insight into what it feels to be on the other side of the screen. I've found that has helped make me a better referee/DM. But it isn't necessarily an easy transition.

Porky gave us Near Future Wor*fare; a look at a world where Zonetech has brought about a transition that has horribly mingled and mangled the boundaries between consumerism and violence in unsettling ways. This is also part of the ongoing From the Zones community project hosted by FATEsf.

Speaking of FATEsf, John Till's contribution 'Thursday Night Punctuated Equilibrium,' came in just under the wire. He wrote about some of the transitions his gaming group has gone through in the last year, and some of the exciting things in store in the months ahead.

NukeHavoc/Ken Newquist over at the Nuketown blog posted about the various and sundry transitions his gaming group is going through in 2014, moving into new systems, new roster of members, and a new venue--2014 certainly does appear to be a real Year of Transitions for these folks!

February's Blog Carnival will be hosted by Enderra, and the theme is 'The Icy Embrace of Winter.'

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

RPG Blog Carnival for January 2014: The Theme is Transitions

This month's RPG Blog Carnival is being hosted here at the Hereticwerks blog. The topic for the month is Transitions. What do we mean by 'Transitions?' Well, the established definition covers a lot of ground: "the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another."

What sort of Transitions will you make in your game or campaign this year? Will you be making the transition to a new game system, starting a new game, or picking up an old favorite? Are you going to take your first turn as a GM, or step back and be a player for a while? Or would you rather tell people about the kinds of transitions taking place within your game, the sorts of changes and transformations taking place among your characters or the game-world itself?

A blog carnival is a cross-blog event where a group of bloggers collectively post something on a particular topic or theme, last month it was 'Taking Charge,' this month the topic is 'Transitions.' Each blogger handles the topic or theme however they like. Readers can then click from one participating blog to another through the course of the blog carnival, sampling a wide range of writing styles and approaches.

To follow the blog carnival, check back regularly through the month and read the comments on this post where, hopefully, participants will be leaving links to their contributions. At the end of the month, we'll compile a wrap-up post here on the Hereticwerks blog [link due: January 30, 2014] that will provide links to all of the blog carnival participants for easy access. You can take a look at past blog carnivals over at the Archive, which is currently being maintained by the RPG Blog Alliance.

To participate in the carnival is easy. Once you have written a post on this month's topic, leave a comment on this page with a direct link. You can use the RPG Blog Carnival image on your post if you like. You can right-click and download it from here or any other blog displaying it, or it is also available at the RPG Blog Carnival page. Feel free to do more than one post, we just ask that you leave a link for each of your posts here in the comments as each one goes live. It's super easy and the blog carnival is open to anyone who wants to participate, you don't have to be a member of the RPGBA.

To Host a future blog carnival is also quite easy and fairly painless. Just click over to the handy How to Host a Carnival info at the RPGBA site and follow the instructions. Feel free to ask one of the former hosts for advice or assistance if you're considering it, but would like more information. The RPG Blog Carnival is always looking for new hosts and new topics, so feel free to jump right in!

Transitions...
Fiction, games, life; they are filled with transitions from one level to the next. Joining a new group or leaving an old one. Starting out on a path to adventure, leaving the service of a former employer, setting up your own stronghold. Voyaging past the edge of the map, delving deeper than anyone has gone before, exploring an uncharted wilderness...or simply changing places at the bar. Having and raising children, either in-game or in life is a major transition. Gaining experience, going up in level, growing in power, moving up in the world—or crashing down in flames and madness; these are all transitions.

Coping with the repercussions now that you've been infected with lycanthropy, uploaded your consciousness to a machine, or been bitten by a vampire (sparkly or original flavor), are all interesting transitions. Maybe a character has decided to switch classes or professions; perhaps they'd like to drop the whole spell-casting business and take up the exciting role of a cat burglar instead. How has the mighty fighter adapted to his new hand, the one they bought from that weird peddler from somewhere unpronounceable? Where will the thief go now that they've been blacklisted by their Guild? Traveling to a new city, journeying to a new country, shifting to another plane, visiting strange new worlds, entering a new setting...

It's a wide open topic. Feel free to interpret it any way you like.

We're looking forward to seeing what you come up with...

Friday, December 13, 2013

December 2013 Blog Carnival: Taking Charge

This Month's Blog Carnival is hosted by the Casting Shadows blog and the theme is 'Taking Charge.'

Taking Charge. A wonderful theme for the month. One of the most engaging aspects of table-top role-playing games has to be the way most games facilitate and empower the players to actively take charge of their destinies, to step up and take charge in the greater world around them.

I considered writing about something a lot of us old-timers wheeze and grumble about; the so-called 'End Game,' which back in ye olden times was basically still just part of the game. Building a Stronghold. Claiming lands. Settling a portion of the Wilderness. Building a safe-haven that grows from a crappy little pallisaded fort into a full castle or even walled town. Becoming a force to be reckoned with by the Powers That Be in the surrounding area. That sort of thing was, and remains, really taking charge. Becoming a Lord/Lady and establishing a lineage, founding a dynasty or establishing a legacy is fun stuff, but it comes at a price. Conan's crown rested uneasily on his brow. Those who come up through the world as adventurers and rogues swanning about like pirates aren't always well-suited to the life they've won for themselves. But that's another topic for another day. That sort of gaming experience isn't for everyone. Just the accounting alone gives some players hives. Instead, I thought that I would focus on one of my favorite old modules and how it gave players a chance to really Take Charge.

Click the cover to get a legit pdf!

Keeping it Simple
My personal favorite module is B2: Keep on the Borderlands. No surprise there. This is one of the most popular adventures of all time. It was designed from the ground up to train new players how to play the game and to take them from being a few rag-tag peasants with pretensions and sharp, pointy objects to becoming powerful adventurers with a very real and very personal investment in the surrounding locale.

The Keep serves as a well-protected refuge from the dangers of the wilderness and all those monsters and such prowling about out there. But it also has its own share of dangers inside the walls, like those evil clerics.

There's just a handful of NPCs, not a cast of thousands. There are only a few shops and they don't carry everything in the handbook--you'll need to make do with what they've got on-hand or go make your own, or loot it from some monster's horde. There are only so many opportunities for the player characters to get anywhere or to make something of themselves. It's a good, basic launching pad into adventure. Sure, it could be expanded in all sorts of ways. That's exactly why it works--it gets both the players and the DM thinking about other ways of doing things, how they might like to change things; how they can take charge of the module and make it their own.

Player characters can focus on clearing the dreaded Caves of Chaos and let the clerics subvert the Keep, or they can face off against the priests and try to foil their malevolent schemes. But in order to have the money, the prestige, the reputation and most importantly the sheer power necessary to do that, they'll need to go bash some of those monsters and loot those Caves. It's a nice balance between plots and options. There's no one 'right' way to handle things. It's open ended and if your group plays their cards right, you could wind up taking over the place. The last time I got to play in a game using this module, our group cleared and then took over most of the Caves and used that as a base of operations that allowed us to build a Keep of our own a bit farther out from the first one.

Keeping it Real
What really worked, for me, with this one module was how well it sucked players in and made them care about the location. At least it did that for our group of impressionable young gamers. Sure, it was entirely possible to just trash the place and move on like locusts with broadswords. Quite a few groups have done that very thing and bragged about it loudly and often. With all due respect, anyone can do that with any module or adventure. Slash and burn with the murderhobos isn't particularly demanding in terms of player cleverness. Without some sort of context, nothing really matters. It's just pointless violence. If that's your thing. Fine. Have fun storming the castle, by all means.

The Keep on the Borderlands offered an opportunity to not just seek adventure down in some muddy, bloody hole in the ground, it provided the skeleton of a setting, a context that added a little bit of meaning and a host of possible consequences and opportunities to explore and develop as things changed in response to the player's actions. It was a fertile seed-bed of potential adventures for players who rose to the challenge and seized the opportunities available. Even if you reject the entire provided set of plots, etc. a group could always join-up with a raiding band of barbarians who are determined to destroy the Keep. Or you could make a deal with the lizard-people who live out in the nearby swamps and foment a war between them and the Masters of the Keep, perhaps stepping-in at an opportune moment to serve both sides as a translator or negotiator, with an eye on your own aims and ambitions, of course. Joining the evil clerics and converting the Keep into a bastion for evil could be just as much fun as preserving it against the encroaching forces of darkness. Save it, wreck it, take it over or just use it until you can find a better place--the Keep on the Borderland was a great starting-out point and it was a good place to get the hang of taking charge of things with your characters.

Keeping it Going
When it first appeared, Module B2 was intended to serve as a jumping off point for kickstarting a brand new campaign. This was back when the term 'kickstart' meant to get a motorcycle going, not send money to strangers making promises. Ahem.

The Keep was meant to be a starting-out place. It was't necessarily a destination in and of itself. Though it could easily be fleshed-out and converted into quite a baroque and even Byzantine locale if one wanted to put in the effort. Once you run through the Caves, face off against the evil priests, and earn something of a reputation for your efforts along the Borderlands, everything opens up before your characters. The campaign need not end at the Keep, not by a long shot. There's a wealth of possible adventures to be had just conducting a hex-crawl through the wilderness around the place. There's no reason another group of clerics wouldn't show up to take the place of the bad ones. The people who built this place intended for it to fulfill a purpose and a mission. There's a road leading back to more civilized lands. Those who distinguish themselves on behalf of their ruler might find themselves in line for a bit of official recognition, possibly a land grant or title or the permission to go forth and build a Keep of their own.

It's a great place to get started. To build upon the foundation provided. To make it your own thing.

Given time, the Keep could expand into the architectural mess of a pseudo-Gormenghast or even a Hodgsonian Redoubt. It could also serve as the nucleus for a new frontier town, one that one day might rival Boot Hill or Deadwood, should the campaign extend itself into such a direction. Perhaps a group of mutants take refuge in the burned-out shell of the Keep and start rebuilding civilization from this venerable bastion of antiquity.

All that's needed are a few player characters to take charge of things...

Friday, November 29, 2013

Gunpowder, Treason and Plots! (November Blog Carnival)

This month's RPG Blog Carnival is being hosted by Nearly Enough Dice, The theme is 'Gunpowder, Treason and Plots!' How could we resist? Here are three short and bittersweet tables loaded with scenario-seeds, rumors and background details fresh from Wermspittle, just in time for the Carnival...

Gunpowder

Less than a dozen years ago simple possession of Green Powder was a capital offense in most civilized countries. Then someone figured out how to pack the stuff into artillery shells and all hell broke loose. Now ordnance officers are expected to set aside a portion of their green-brass shells in order to let the gunpowder inside 'age properly' into Green Powder from prolonged exposure to the Plattnerized brass. That used to be a court martial offense itself. Now it's standard operating procedure. Even in Pruztia and especially in what remains of Nagrothea.
Achromic Powder used to be bad enough, especially in Salted Shot. Now there's a new thing showing up on the battlefields. They call it Wermshot. The damned musket balls have been hollowed-out and packed with vermin-eggs. Sometimes they mix-in a little White Powder, just to make it that much worse.
Blackened Powder is a very nasty mixture of gunpowder and Black Smoke residue; corned, caked and then re-ground into a coarse-grained, almost gritty powder. The stuff is best used in grenades or petards. It'll ruin your rifle or musket worse than dropping it into an acid-bath. The Franzikaners use this stuff in their landmines. It isn't any good in the rain though. Small favor.
Dead Lead Shot was issued to all the regiments serving on both sides of the Trenches at Valdrume. Not that it did much good. The mindless hordes overran everything. You just couldn't shoot, let alone burn them fast enough. In the end it took a coordinated effort from both sides to finally salvage things. But it was too little, too late for the Coastal States. All those cities on fire. The screaming. That was the worst. Who knew the dead could make such a fuss? Pour me another shot of Black Liquor. There's things best forgotten; that's one.
Gunpowder Grubs can make a fellow rich, if they don't catch the blight or get set-off prematurely by a spark from a faulty lamp or anything like that. Quite a few enterprising souls set up grub-farms in the attics of their squalid tenements and refurbished old houses back during the days right before the Midwive's Rebellion. That's how there got to be so many blackened and blasted ruined places all over the place. some says that's how we ended up with the Burned Over Districts. That and the airship bombings...
Those foreigners, those masked ones with the thick accents and thicker robes; Fantomists, yeah, those guys--they've been making noises about some new sort of gunpowder that they're trying to fob off on the Wall Guards and Street Patrol. So far the Officers-in-charge aren't having any. But a few of the boys have accepted samples. No harm in a few freebies...

Treason

Six dead Puritans lie dead in the alley. All were shot from behind. their bodies were then mutilated in a manner clearly calculated to send a message to anyone who knows the initiatory secrets of the higher-ranks. Their commanding officer suspects it was one of their own that led her men into that ambush. But how can she find the culprit, let alone prove their guilt? Perhaps she will seek the help of a discrete investigator. But it will be difficult to get anywhere without her being able to reveal the inner secrets of her group to an outsider.
A group of Refugees from Yattrim were led into the Baffles and left for dead by unscrupulous brigands. They've been camping-out in the dead gray mud for weeks now, completely oblivious to the treachery of the false guides who took all their money. Only one of the Yattrimese knows the truth of the matter. They refuse to speak-up. this seems like a suitable penance for his people's treachery against the Sanctified King in abandoning their homeland to come to this place. Better they had all succumbed to the plague. Little does he know; they were infected by agents of the King before they were allowed to leave. Those yellow scarves each one was given were not just tokens of goodwill. They were a death sentence.
A pair of former freedom-fighters from Yudrabek make their way across the rooftops. Then the bomb converted from an old Yorish landmine planted at the rendezvous site detonates prematurely. Their old friend isn't much of a friend any more. Won't get any too much older either, if they have their way.
Five soldiers from the Wall Guards have abandoned their posts at the Western Ramparts. They are all under the influence of a Hasnamuss operating from behind a small steel mirror that the sergeant carries with him. The connection is tenuous and will be disrupted if the mirror is exposed to bright light. The Hasnamuss is working for an undisclosed foreign power. This is not the first group of Wall Guards that they've led astray as part of their behind-the-lines efforts. The Hasnamuss takes special relish in leading otherwise dutiful troops into the snares and pitfalls of misconduct and treason.
The Pruztian Ambassador Karlush Bezwenger has been having second thoughts about our young mister Dalazig (Takers, No. 8). Something he said recently just wasn't quite right. The Ambassador has tended to overlook a few things, here and there, military courtesy and all that, as Dalazig distinguished himself in battle. Or so everyone was led to believe. The young officer's story has shifted about in the re-telling a bit too much, however. The Ambassador is in poor health and dreads making a terrible mistake in naming Dalazig as his successor if he is i fact an impostor. Whom can the Ambasador call upon to look into the matter, quickly, quietly, carefully and set his mind to ease once and for all?
A young boy is trying to sell the secrets of his step-father's Low-Land Farm Enclave to anyone who'll help him find his way out of this place. The kid is getting nervous. He has no wish to spend another winter in this place. He says he knows the way past the lime-pits, deadfalls, and other taps and barriers. He's even offering to draw a map, if offered enough money. There are those who are keeping an eye on the child. Some may even consider paying him something for his troubles.

Plots!

Three Nagrothean Whisperers have been seen entering the bombed-out and gutted remains of the old Franzikaner Military Governor's Palace. What could they want in that place?
A Somnambulist has been asking peculiar questions of anyone they suspect of having anything to do with the last caravan out of Dukirzia. They were expecting a shipment of teak-and-ebony cabinets. A special order. The caravan-master he'd contracted with was killed on the Spring trip into Wermspittle. Their successor is proving uncooperative and unsympathetic, possibly because he's already sold-off the cabinets to one of the Comprachico Families who paid him a far better price.
A small, but select group of scholars from the Academy have imprisoned several Cacozombies in the attic of a deserted shop overlooking Plover Lane. They've been attempting to distill the psychic filth of these things into something usable as a weapon. Their leader, Professor-Doktor Kauzey is rumored to be in the pay of the Gruzikan Army, or perhaps one of the other City-states. One of the good Doktor's co-conspirators is working for Pruztian Military Intelligence. Another is in the employ of the Sewer Militia. The whole operation is under observation by a very old, very crafty Ungezheifer that is biding their time. A small shipment of Achromic Powder has just arrived...
The projected consciousness of a Philosophic Mold has been captured in a glass cage by an experimental investigator seeking to build a reliable defense against Predatory Projections. It isn't working, despite his best efforts. The Philosophic Mold sees what he's getting wrong, but hasn't decided whether to politely point out their error(s) or to just keep quiet and keep watching. Then an inquisitive Interstitial Insectoid discerned the peculiar emanations given off by the glass cage mechanism and decided to investigate...
Four Morlocks and a Grood are running away from some Abandoned Property. Nobody cares. Until the place blows up. They were looking for an old entrance to the Sewers, probably to do a little light salvage. someone had warned them about a Lesser Nosferatus that used to lurk down there. So they brought alone a galvanic torch. There was an old ammunition dump in the cellar. From back before the Five Winter's War. Someone slipped on a slick patch. They dropped the Torch. Dozens of crates and boxes of unstable old ammunition got set on fire. Boom. They still don't suspect that it was a friend of the Nosferatus that sold them the faulty Galvanic Torch in the first place.
Glindeng has been raising Stranglemasses in her spare room for years now. Ever since the nurses in the old sanitarium taught her how to take care of a garden...

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