Talk Like a Pirate Day: d20 Seas Encounters & Events!

 So hey today it's Talk Like a Pirate Day, so here's 20 sea-themed encounters and events for your OSR campaign, straight from Lands of Legends Grim and Lands of Legends Mundane!

click on the flag for DTRPG pirate-themed bundle sale (today only!)

Roll a d20.

1. The Lost Merchant. A middle-aged man floats on the waves, clinging to a splintered mast. He screams for assistance as soon as he sees the heroes' ship. Hailing from some distant land, he may or may not speak any of the languages known by the group, but his fine jewels and his patronizing attitude speak for some wealthy origin, and a possible reward for bringing him back home.
2. Message in a Bottle. Heroes spot a corked bottle floating on the waves. It contains (roll a d6): 1: a pirate’s last will and treasure map; 2: a nautical chart; 3: a love letter; 4: a madman’s ravings, 5: a shipwrecked or slave’s plea for rescue; 6: a spell or cursed scroll. Roll another Sea Encounter or Area for further details, if needed.
3. Floating Coffer. This damaged wooden coffer floating on the waters contains (roll a d6): 1: d6 bottles of excellent wine; 2: some minor treasure; 3: common tools; 4: a partially deteriorated spellbook; 4: a collection of bizarre trinkets; 5: a set of medial tools; 6: whatever comes to your mind, as long as it’s lighter than the box.
4. Dolphins. A school of dolphins or narwhals approaches the ship and follows it for d6 days.
5. Sea Giants. Large fins and flat tails can be seen emerging from the waves: 2d6 huge cetaceans (whales, narwhals or blackfish) seem to have gathered here, or are migrating together (roll for a random direction). Sailing away from these behemoths might be a smart move, but trying to fish some might be more rewarding.
6. Ships! Two ships appear on the horizon. They are very close to each other and smoke rises from one: it’s a pirate attack. Will the heroes rush to help the assailed sailors or mind their own business?
7. Broken Ship. A partially destroyed merchant ship is carried by the waves. Its passengers (2d12 survivors) scream for help as soon as the heroes’ vessel comes into view. The ship might have been damaged by monsters, a fire or a storm.
8. The Mighty Remora. Suddenly the ship on which the heroes travel becomes much slower and difficult to maneuver. A huge fish called Remora has attached itself to the keel with its strong suction cup. Its presence can be hinted by the risen waterline on the ship sides, as if an extra weight were on the ship. If the Remora is not removed, navigation will proceed at half speed. If they decide to get rid of the monster, the heroes will have to face a sort of large whale-shark.
9. Wood Limpets. The hull of the ship is attacked by a swarm of wood-eating limpets. If the sailors do not remove and kill them one by one in 24 hours, the ship will be “holed” in a hundred different places and begin to sink.
10. The Lost Hideout. This uncharted minuscule islet features a small rocky hill rising over the lush vegetation. The hill has a small, partially hidden cave, where a long dead pirate’s 2d4 trapped treasure chests can still be found.
11. The Oldest Ship. A bizarre ship appears, crafted in a very exotic fashion. It seems to have been mended and repaired endless times and to be now a mosaic of different parts, from all the seas and all the times. The crew is dressed in rags, and also seems to come from every age and place. The crew is cursed by the Sea Gods for being the first people challenging the sea, in the dawn of navigation. They can never disembark and the ship is constantly repaired and the crew kept fed with offerings made by other seafarers. Denying something to the crew unleashes a curse: the captain (or those who refuse to help) is forced to embark on the ship forever (all sailors have a chance of having heard the legend of this ship and might recognize it).
12. Murders on Board. A ship appears on the horizon. Its crew has been killed and dismembered. Blood is everywhere and there are signs of claws on the wood. The murderer is still hiding on board: it is the figurehead! This is a species of marine gargoyle, wingless, with wooden-looking skin and capable of swimming and crawling from ship to ship. Variant: the gargoyle is on the heroes' ship and the murders take place one by one during the night. Its presence on a ship can be the result of a curse, or the gargoyle might have taken the place of the original figurehead without the crew noticing.
13. The Wrong Timber. This ship is cursed: strange accidents occur to the sailors, wood seems to moan and blood drips from the masts. A recent repair to the ship has been made with the remains of a Treant (or a tree inhabited by a Dryad) and now the restless spirit will not subside until those who have committed this sacrilege are punished.
14. The Rainbow Swarm. A bright-colored cloud is transported by the wind. Examination might reveal its true nature: it is a swarm of flying jellyfish about to attack. Probably the best way to avoid their attack is to find a shelter and wait for the swarm to pass, as it lands and takes off again with a popping sound. Those who can’t find a shelter and fail a Save are hit by d6 jellyfish, each inflicting 1d4 acid damage, before jumping off again and continuing their mindless journey.
15. Dragoning Ship. A sailing vessel covered with horn spikes, with scales along the bulkhead and the head of a bronze dragon as figurehead appears at the horizon. The ship is armed for the hunting of sea serpents, with harpoons, tools for skinning, and a crew of the roughest sailors of the seas. The Captain asks if anyone has seen a great white sea serpent, but the monster actually follows the trail of the ship and attacks all those who come in contact with it.
16. Those are Pearls that Were His Eyes. A derelict man emerges on the waters. He floats on a tortoise shell decorated with coins, his horribly skinny body is encrusted with corals, jewels and gems. As he approaches, he asks “please, an offer for the treasury of the sea”. If refused, he will just spit and sink back underwater. But those who don’t give him at least a coin, will suffer his same fate: their body will start to wither and turn into coral, starting from a random hand or feet. The metamorphosis will be complete in a lunar month and the character will have to leave the earth and join the cursed man in his wanderings, unless he can find him again and give him his due.
17. Boon from the Dead. A small wooden coffer floats on the waters. It contains a random magic (but alas cursed) item.
18. Marauders! A fleet of 2d6 warships appears on the horizon and approaches quickly. Each is manned with a crew of twenty warriors and twenty slaves at the oars. Unless the heroes manage to outmaneuver them, the marauders (vikings, savages or pirates) will be on them and their fierce captain will decide to confiscate their ship, rob them of everything, capture them as oars slaves or enlist them as fellow marauders under his orders depending on their numbers, reaction and type of vessel, as their plan is to ravage and pillow the closest villages and then return home.
19. Triton Patrol. A squad of 5d6 tritons riding giant seahorses approaches the group’s ship. Their leader, a proud knight in seashell armor, politely but firmly asks for a tribute to the Sea King: 100 gold pieces per voyager.
20. The Sargasso Ogre. The waves have accumulated hundreds of tons of fibrous seaweeds, on which explorers can walk. This place is inhabited by birds and other harmless animals. But also by a terrible Sea-Ogre (or a similar monster, like a troll or a scrag)! The Ogre attacks anyone who walks on “his island”. Or worse, it can try to sneak into the ship while the crew is distracted, and butcher all the sailors one by one.

Want Cthulhu? Stay Away from Cthulhu

A couple days ago a friend of mine recalled a conversation we had in the '10s or something, about how, if you want to run a game of lovecraftian horror, you should stay away from Lovecraft.

The idea is not original, and probably came from some blog that we read at the time. Let me expand on that.

Running a horror campaign (whatever ruleset you use) with Deep Ones, Mi-Go, Shoggoths, and the other canonical creatures and gods of the Cthulhu Mythos, is not going to make your players experience lovecraftian horror at all. All those entities have become pop culture icons, so widely known and, in the nerdsphere collective imagination, they are domesticated to the point of becoming the subjects for plushies, funkopops, cool t-shirts, mugs, political satire ("Vote Cthulhu"), board games and comical stories.

They are, quite literally, a comfort zone, which is quite literally the opposite of lovecraftian horror. 

If you achieve to have your players experience even just a bit of lovecraftian horror with such set pieces, you probably are a great GM running a great scenario.

The point is, the canonical pieces of the Cthulhu Mythos can't surprise. Cosmic dread, madness, and the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible is gone.

The only way to truly make an attempt is to create your own Mythos. Your unique creatures, entities, gods, and books. Or even better, no creatures, gods and books at all. Go for unprecedented, or at least less abused, categories. One of the points of lovecraftian horror should be: facing something that can't be fully understood, and being able to categorize it is a big step towards understanding... The other points should be: something that threatens you, and that the more you understand it, the more it questions your understanding of reality itself.

I know, it sounds daunting! Even if what you come up with is a half-botched attempt, it still has much better chances of disturbing your players' imagination a little bit.

And potentially, there's more. If you propose your group to play Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, Tiny Cthulhu, The Cthulhu Hack, Realms of Cthulhu, Cthulhu in Space, Cyber-Cthulhu (and the list could go on and on AND ON), well, you've already lost them. You are already telling them "We are going to play a game with the cliche of cosmic dread, madness, and the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible, so play along".

And they might. I mean it will be a game of lovecraftian horror, except the horror.

What to do in order to pull it? In theory, the best way would be to let that horror seep into something else, just like it crawled into the lives of Lovecraft's protagonists without a warning. Let those themes (and your own cosmic Mythos) creep into another game. In theory, the further away the starting setting is from lovecraftian horror, the more impactful it becomes.

That's what they did with True Detective season 1 or, to a lesser degree, with Archive 81,  or Annihilation.

But is that ok, ultimately, with RPGs? There is a final, and not trivial, conundrum.

In my opinion, players should not be sold an epic fantasy campaign, only to see it slowly become a horror campaign. Not fair at all. They signed in for A, not for B. They might hate it, and lose trust in you as a GM. The campaign might feature themes and topics some people don't want to see in a game: body horror, mental illness, religions, you name it. Not fair at all to have those things dropped on players who expected to play college drama, space opera, western action, or whatever.

So what? Probably, the best way is to inject lovecraftian horror into games that already are supposed to be horror, but belong into very different horror niches. Zombie apocalypse games. Vampires. Gothic horror. Heck, even most Sword & Sorcery rpgs might do. You'll avoid pulling a very bad trick to your players, but may still have a chance to go lovecraftian. An Apocalypse World game starting with zombies and slowly turning cosmic horror sounds like a great campaign to me.

So am I saying all those Cthulhu-branded games are worthless?

Naaa. They are fine, good games in their own way. Just know that horror, the way Lovecraft tried to convey it, will hardly be part of your campaign. You're still in for a lot of fun, with so many great adventures and campaigns available.

I'm absolutely in favor of playing within one's comfort zone. I even enjoy vanilla fantasy and will probably write a post about its merits soon!

I think most of the times gamers just want to have fun, not to experience negative emotions such as actual fear, inquietude, uneasiness, doubt. Let alone questioning their understanding of life! Sometimes it's fun to just blast your shotgun into a Deep One's face, and send the inhuman temple into orbit via dynamite... or end up squished to bits or locked at the asylum for trying.

About Ominous Crypt of the Blood Moss

 Ominous Crypt of the Blood Moss is a third party Old-School Essentials dungeon crawl adventure for characters of 2nd to 4th level.

It is written and illustrated by Frederick Foulds and published by Oneiromantic Press and was published in 2020.

In short: a quick adventure (one or two sessions), with a horrific (almost cthuloid) theme, and lots of stuff to interact with.

I've grabbed the hardcover print-on-demand version on DriveThruRPG which is a nice A5 book, counting 60 pages cover-to-cover (the actual adventure, if you don't count the credits and the OGL license, is 43 pages).

The Ominous Crypt itself is a 10 rooms dungeon. Before the dungeon description, you get an introduction, 3 pages of background, 2 pages describing the Blood Moss from the title (which is a creature of sorts), a page with 3 possible hooks to the adventure, and 3 pages describing the village near the crypt, including a map, one NPC and an event which introduces the adventure. 

The (beautiful) dungeon map appears non-linear at first look, but once you notice where the secret doors are, the map actually is a straight line, with just three one-room branches, and the secret room which conveniently reconnects with the entrance room.

At page 21 begins the dungeon proper. As I said, the dungeon is only 10 rooms. Each room is described in 1 to 3 pages, and all of them have a lot going on, with stuff the characters can examine, loot, interact with, and fight.

The room descriptions are structured as bullet points, with colored and bold text where needed. As I said, there's lots of details, but the presentation makes it easy to navigate and find out all the important stuff.

The dungeon has a detailed backstory which involves a (very) holy crypt, now defiled "from the inside" after the corrupted body of a mage was buried in. The defunct mage hosted a fungal being from the void (the titular Blood Moss), which has spread on the floors and reanimated some skeletons. The "alien" moss initially appears as part of the environment, but actually is the "final boss" of the dungeon, with its main node rooted in the mage's corpse.

Some personal considerations.

I like that "solving" the adventure has visible consequences for the village outside the dungeon, and the presentation is top notch, making it very easy to run. I also like that among the treasure is a very good example of a sentient sword, a type of magic item I struggle with. This one, it is well detailed and makes sense within the scenario.

I'm not sure about the treasure. Magic items are more than enough for a 10-room dungeon, but considering the risks, the amount of gold seems a bit low.

Some of the "tricks" (the one that opens a secret door, plus a sort of riddle) aren't perfect (i.e. there aren't many clues for the players to figure them out) but I think it's ok as they are "only" required to get to the big treasure room and to avoid a sort of trap.

So, all in all I like this scenario and actually plan to run it in the next weeks. What I think I'll do is keep the treasure as is, but lower the HD of most creatures by 1, so as to (probably) make it suitable for level 1 characters. Considering the deadliness of the adventure, the degree of player skill it requires, the fact that it's fairly short, it may very well be a valid alternative to the more famous Tomb of the Serpent Kings as an introduction to Old School games!

About a Groats-Worth of Grotesques

 A Groats-Worth of Grotesques is a big bestiary for OSR games.

I've received a print copy for review from the author George Edward Patterson. The DrivethruRPG print-on-demand version is a nice big A4 softcover book, counting 251 pages. It was released in May 2021.

From the DrivethruRPG blurb:

Being a SYSTEM-AGNOSTIC Role Playing supplemental treatise ON MONSTERS; which is to say a BESTIARY for your Tabletop Games of Fantasy. Styled in the manner of the Baroque Period; a Curiosity Cabinet of Creatures for enlivening the table!

The over 100 entries were gathered out of sundy authors, philosophers, physicians, and poets; sacred and profane. The illustrations are collages of diverse prints and emblems. From the lowly ant to the earth shattering Behemoth, the mundane dog to the alien Ch M G, this collection is a rollicking gambol through history and myth.

The blurb itself shows the (awesome, to me) baroque, anachronistic language style of the book, which aims at making it an in-world bestiary collecting information and rumors as they would be reported by sages and chroniclers of your fantasy world.

While the blurb describes it as system-agnostic, each creature entry includes simple game statistics (AC, HD, damage, and special features) which make them easily portable to most OSR games.

Things I liked:

• Art. Lots of it. Each creature entry is accompanied by at least one public domain image (engraving) which has been, in most cases, artfully photoshopped to better match the author's idea. Public domain engravings have a long tradition of cheap (and fascinating) art for RPGs, so this might sound as nothing new. But what's here is stunning: the quantity and variety of images is insane, and the quality of the alterations is stylish and serves the author's ideas very well.
• The baroque textual style. The book is presented as a XVI century bestiary: The book title and general introduction, and the first description of each entry feature a marked and remarkable baroque style, which obviously matches the art. The creature descriptions are particularly fascinating as they weave bizarre observations by a writing persona that is implied to be from the implicit game world.
• The general theme of the grotesque. The creatures presented can be divided in thee groups: ordinary creatures, "classic" fantasy creatures, and unusual creatures. The first groups features creatures such as ants, camels, bears and so on, and imaginary creatures. The trick in the book is that all of them have at least one unusual feature which makes them interesting and subtly weird. The same applies to "classic" fantasy creatures (these include Dragons, Hell Hounds, Leucrotas, Mantichoras, Giants, Griffins and others): all have a twist, a unique take, and often a series of variants which are often all you need to make your classic fantasy game feel fresh without turning its monster fauna into an all new, completely unfamiliar, world. The last group is made of creatures that are new. A few examples: Bishop Fish, Vegetable Lamb, Filth Licker, Haunted Umbrella, and the Wonderful Two-Headed Girl. These are brilliant and and are the incarnation of the grotesque theme. Surreal, otherworldly, somewhere between nightmare and fairy tale, and yet somehow with a very real feel to them.

In short: I'm impressed with this book, which deserves more attention than it's had so far.

I can see this book as an excellent resource for a series of OSR games: Old-School Essentials, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Sword & Wizardry, and any other post-clone like Knave or Maze Rats. Especially if you want to inject your "classic" fantasy campaign with bits of unusual, surreal, fantastic, horrific, surprising creatures, and even more so if you want to completely put aside classic creatures for new ones.

A final note on price. At the time of writing this, the A4, 251 pages softcover is priced a mere $13.99, which is a lot of bang for your buck, when compared with many other products with a much lower page count, and the PDF is $4.99.

Grim Jungles for OSR Games

  New weekend, new table from Lands of Legends!

A bit of a boring Saturday morning here, dreaming of upcoming holidays but still having to deal with work & everyday chores. Time to plan my next Kickstarter! There will be time to write about that in the next weeks...

For today, I offer a d10 table with ten Grim Jungle areas for your OSR sandbox campaign with simple stat references for your classic game of choice, wether is Old-School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord, Sword & Wizardry, or any other clone of OE, B/X, or BECMI Dungeons and Dragons.

Use them to spice up your sandbox!

These are straight from the Areas section of Lands of Legends Grim. Check it out for hundreds more!

So here's the table:

Jungles - Grim Areas

1. Geese Graveyard. Natives of the region say that in the heart of this jungle lies the fabled “golden geese” graveyard, where these birds go to die and become solid gold statues. Following the natives' directions is relatively easy and, indeed, golden geese can often be seen in the sky, heading to a precise location. It is a lost temple, surrounded by a village of cannibals and all the natives are their accomplices, trying to keep them at bay. Explorers who reach the village are brought to the "graveyard", surrounded and killed. Their remains are then given as food to cruel golden geese, who fly from across the region to feast on human flesh.
2. City of Tigers. Cruel man-eating tigers inhabit this impenetrable jungle and often make forays into the neighboring villages. Legends say that in the middle of the jungle lies the terrible City of Tigers, whose pavilions are built with human bones and skins. Cruel Rakshasas and weretigers rule it with an iron paw and their envoys are everywhere, hidden among men, in order to send more and more victims to the jungle. These emissaries (and all the tigers disguised as men) can be recognized because they have reversed hands and feet, with thumbs and toes on the outside.
3. The Invasion of Impossible Things. A mysterious skull-shaped green asteroid has fallen in this jungle, and now its deadly radiation contaminates the whole area. Those who spend more than a week and fail a Save vs Paralysis become a kind of reptilian creature within a few days (1d4). Leaving the area before the transformation is complete reverses and cancels the phenomenon, but leaving later causes the victims to explode in a burst of bloody pieces. If the transformation comes to completion, the victim's skin rips and a mindless lizard-man emerges trying to bite and devour everyone. The creature's bite is contagious like a werewolf’s and produces the same effects, but a Save can avoid the transformation.
4. The Real Living Death. A terrible curse affects those who die in this jungle. Bacteria keep the corpses together after death and allow smaller organisms to take part of it: the dead bodies are eaten as usual by bugs, worms, centipedes, fungi and molds, but they still maintain their structure and mass. As time goes by, all these beings "become" the corpse, which ultimately consists of a mass of plants, fungi and parasites and behaves as if it were still living and sentient. And it moves in search of food.
5. Cannibal Holocaust. This jungle is inhabited by tribes of cannibals who are accustomed to eat their dead, enemies defeated in war, the diseased or elderly ones and those who commit grave crimes. Despite these habits they act very politely with visitors, treating them with the utmost care and attention and inviting them to their special banquets as honored guests.
6. Death Valley. In this lush forest all predators, including reptiles, fish, mammals and birds, have poisonous attacks with teeth and/or claw!
7. Head Hunter Trolls. This jungle is the kingdom of a peculiar kind of trolls: they are about as tall as a man, and as nimble as monkeys. Primitive and savage, divided in several scattered tribes, they collect the heads of enemies and preys, both humanoids and animals, and then cut gashes on their shoulders and stick the severed head inside. Most heads just attach and become simple living tissue, slightly shrunk in size and slowly sliding down the chest; about 1 out of 6 is assimilated with better functions so that it can breath, eat and see, though it will become mindless; about 1 out of 6 of these breathing heads will be fully functional, retaining its knowledge and mental skills, though its will won’t be free unless the troll’s head is severed. The oldest and fiercest tribe leaders and warriors are covered with heads, many are shrunk, some are crazed and horrified faces, and a bunch are there, staring, thinking and serving the troll’s will.
8. Wooden Death. This jungle is dotted with the remains of long abandoned villages: rotting huts, broken wooden walls and canoes, stone totems. Amid the ruins, inside small holes, broken pottery and baskets, as well as in the shadows of the nearby vegetation, hundreds of murderous wooden dolls, with big horrible heads, topped with human scalps, stand vigil and are ready to assault anyone entering their territories. The dolls are possessed by the maddened souls of the dead natives, who were tricked into this undead slavery by evil spirits. Clerics may attempt to turn these 3 HD undead, while wizards and necromancers might be tempted to capture one and make an enslaved familiar of it.
9. Grim Scales. This jungle has no mammals nor birds. Equivalent creatures are all reptiles and all are ferocious predators: scaly monkeys, bat winged lizards, slinky, cold blooded scale tigers.
10. Termite Forest. This jungle is infested with carnivorous termites, whose territories are avoided by most animals. If explorers get close to their mounds (bizarre towers, up to 30 feet high) to examine them, it is already too late. The swarm comes out and attacks, dealing 1d6 damage with tiny bites and toxic saliva every round. In order to save their lives, heroes must stand very close to a flame, dive into water, or pour great amounts of oil all over them.

If you enjoy this type of content, check my other random tables posts, and my OSR stuff on DrivethruRPG: the Land of Legends series and my pwyw e-zines for Old-School Essentials: Wondrous Weavings Warped and Weird and Mysteriously Missing & Merrily Met!

My next pwyw Old-School Essentials e-zine will be released next month! To find out what it'll be about, and grab it as soon as it's out, follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Telegram!

About the "Deadly Dungeon Hosts" Adventures

This post is the follow-up to the one dedicated to the Gold & Glory - Seven Deadly Dungeons book and its basic supplements. 

This time we'll take a look at the line of "deadly dungeon hosts" adventures: dungeon scenarios designed by special guest authors, based on the Gold & Glory Dungeon Template. Let's see who they are and what they've come up with!

Diogo Nogueira: Garden of Bones

The Garden of Bones was created by a powerful necromancer to be given as a present to a love interest of theirs. Once the gift was rejected, the necromancer turned the garden into a place of nightmares and horrific creations they built to externalize their frustration. It fell into obscurity after the ages passed away, and it became a myth.
Now, a scholar with sinister interests has located a map they believe to lead to this mythical garden and desires to be taken there to admire the garden and possibly collect the legendary Ghost Lotus.

The Garden of Bones is a legendary place covered in mystery and peril, full of dark wonders and incredible treasures. Sages have talked about it for centuries but very few have ever discovered its location. But now an expedition to this mystic place is being organized.
This Gold & Glory dungeon adventure features unique rewards and a very dangerous environment, a worthy challenge for truly Heroic characters!

Diogo Nogueira is the acclaimed author of neo-OSR games such as Dark Streets & Darker Secrets, Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells, and Lost in the Fantasy World.

Due to its theme and features, The Garden of Bones can be dropped into any fantasy, grimdark, or sword & sorcery campaign, including settings such as Lankhmar or Beasts & Barbarians.

The art for this one was made by Matteo Ceresa, who tried to homage Mike Mignola's style.

Richard Woolcock: Hightree Warren

Families of grubby little goblins frequently make their homes in the mountains to the west, where they breed like vermin, and hoard stolen treasure in their deep, dark caves. Brave adventures sometimes seek out these underground warrens, purging the goblin infestation and reclaiming their ill-gotten riches.
Several weeks ago, the famous paladin Molgrim Silverblade led his companions on a holy mission to root out a large band of goblins. Only one survivor returned from the doomed expedition, and he had been hideously mutilated and driven half-mad.

Hightree Warren is a perilous dungeon, populated by vicious goblins, and filled with traps and other nasty surprises. Set in the world of Saga of the Goblin Horde and written by Savage Worlds guru Richard Woolcock.

Richard Woolcock: Ebenezer's Gold

“It’s my gold, I tell you! All mine! I will never give it up! Never! Bah, humbug!”
—Ebenezer’s last words.

The cruel, wealthy money-lender Ebenezer has passed away. Somewhere inside his mansion, or below it, there must be treasure beyond imagination! Who cares if people speak of ghostly apparitions and other strange events...
Ebenezer’s Gold is a festive-special dungeon adventure, and the second written by Richard Woolcock!

Andrea Mollica: The Halls of the Damned

Don’t you dare to walk alone

in that ghastly, cursed dome.

Family blood drops down the tree,

tears are there where hope should be.

Be life spurned, be light banned

from within the Halls of the Damned!

A fallen Strider, a shameful secret left buried for centuries, and a party of heroes who dare enter a long-forlorn castle on a solitary mountain peak in search of the fabled Ring Of Yore and, maybe, the truth.

The Halls of the Damned is a Castlevania inspired dungeon adventure written by game designer and novelist Andrea Mollica, the same author of Guardians of Sol-Tau. The adventure has a strong horror/gothic theme, and can be adapted to any Gothic Horror setting where you may have heroes storming a castle infested with goulish monsters, werewolves, ghosts and vampires!

Courtney Campbell: Cravenpeter's Dream Auction

Maximillian Ernesto Cravenpeter Esquire the Mediocre, a powerful archmage, is publicly retiring and is holding an auction for his eclectic and exotic items. Maximillian, a powerful wizard in no way overcome with paranoia and petty concerns, has always had little trust or respect for anyone who would covet his things. As a security measure he has contacted the Green Feather agents—fae mesmerists, who have agreed to hold the auction in a dream within Maximillian’s psyche. This works flawlessly, protecting both the clients and the auctioned objects, as long as no deep psychic disturbances exist. A renowned wizard named Max the Mediocre has no psychogenic trauma, obviously.

Cravenpeter's Dream Auction is a special adventure written by OSR master Courtney Campbell that can be played as an alternative to the usual Carousing, Magic Research, and Offerings to Solis... assuming the heroes have enough gold to make bids at Cravenpeter’s Dream Auction!

For those who don't know, Courtney Campbell runs one of the most interesting OSR blogs out there: Hack & Slash, and is also the author of the cool Megadungeon 'zine.

The art in this one is by Courtney Campbell himself, with some coloring by our usual layout artist Matteo Ceresa!

About M. R. James's Ghost Stories, and Investigation RPGs

 I'm stuck home with a cold, and I've been reading an old book I found in my library, probably belonging to a friend who left me a several boxes of books about eight years ago, as he hurriedly left town to pursue a career opportunity in Denmark.*

It's a collection of M. R. James's ghost stories, which I had never read before (I know, shame on me!).

Mine is a cheap edition and probably not the best translation around (or at least I hope there's a better one!), but still decent for a few evenings' entertainment. It also gets (dubious) bonus points for being yellowed, old and stinky, like the ancient manuscripts featured in most of its stories...

I'm finding the stories quite enjoyable, and a perfect match for the early autumn weather.

I'm also finding they are very good for reaping ideas for certain types of horror RPGs!

Eldritch Tales is one of many intriguing alternatives to the obvious Call of Cthulhu...

Each story has a mystery going on, and such mystery involves a cursed object, manuscript, book, piece of furniture, architectural element, etc, and the background of the thing is discovered by the protagonists by investigating ancient libraries, diaries, letters, archives and local superstitions. In most cases, the protagonists are professors, antiquarians, scholars who discover (and occasionally re-awaken!) horrors that took place one or two centuries before. Does that sound familiar?

Several stories even include some kind of puzzle (the most famous probably is the FUR FLA FLE BIS latin gimmick on a templars' dogwhistle) ready to be stolen by GMs.

What got me thinking they could be good inspiration for horror RPGs is that the stories are simple. To the point that they occasionally are too simple to really be an interesting read.

But playing horror/investigation RPGs for years has taught me something: you don't need complex mysteries, you need simple ones. Your players aren't detectives, they are just your players!

Two pieces of advice for horror GMs I read years ago have stuck in my head (I'm sorry to say I have no idea who should be credited). EDIT: a reader pointed me to the source of the following "rule of three", this post from The Alexandrian blog.

The first is the rule of three: prepare three different ways for the players to find a clue. They are not detectives, they are probably going to miss one, and misinterpret another. Having a third one should be enough... So for example if the players should investigate the missing person's uncle, you should have his name pop up into three different ways, not just one.

The second advice is, well, good for when even the rule of three fails! If players are stuck and don't know how to proceed with their investigation, that's the time for the bad guys (or the supernatural thing) to strike... and leave a new clue behind. To continue the example: they missed uncle Bob? The next day, he's on the news as he's disappeared too, in similar circumstances!

Both these tricks seem to be at work for M. R. James's protagonists. They are not detectives themselves. They are just curious people who stumble upon some inexplicable events, and spend some time investigating documents and places and making questions... sometimes to their own demise.

I can certainly recommend James's stories to any horror fan who's never read them, and even more to GMs of horror/investigation games in need of fresh ideas.

Update:

Readers have pointed me to Casting the Runes, a role playing game based on the GUMSHOE engine and "set in the worlds of M. R. James", developed by The Design Mechanism.

It has been successfully funded on Kickstarter and is available for preorder, and a free preview is up on DriveThruRPG!

*I just realized with amusement, rereading the post, that this incipit itself sounds quite Jamesy!

10 QUESTIONS TO: Marco Arnaudo

Marco Arnaudo has recently released Four Against the Great Old Ones, a pen-and-paper solo game that pits intrepid investigators against Lovecraftian cults and entities in the 1930s.

But who is Marco Arnaudo? Marco is a scholar of history and culture, a family man, a martial artist, a carnivorous plants enthusiast, and a big time solo-player!

Now, let’s see how good professor Arnaudo is at answering questions.

1 Hello Marco. Tell us about Four Against the Great Old Ones as if you were trying to sell it to your aunt!

My aunts are all dead or insane, so it’s perfect; it’s like they played the game already. FatGOO (also known as “Fat Goo”) is a solo and cooperative narrative game set in the world of H. P. Lovecraft. It is based on the core engine of Four against Darkness, but it is a standalone game, and contains significant deviations adopted to fit the theme. The players start controlling a party of four investigators, and may recruit many helpers along the way. A great ritual is rumored to take place in 40 days to summon one of six possible cosmic horrors. The players must discover the clues to identify the location of the ritual, and must rush there to prevent the completion of the ritual. Happy now, aunt Pina?

2 Let’s talk about design. How long did you work on it? Was it a night job? How would you describe your creative process?


I’ve been playing FaD for a long time, and I had been toying with the idea of a Lovecraftian version for almost as long. Originally I thought of a dungeon crawler in which you’d explore a modular temple, but it felt too derivative, and did not really capture the spirit of Lovecraft’s cosmic dread. In the last year I reread basically all of Lovecraft’s works (including the collaborations), and made notes about the elements I wanted to include. Once I did that, and I was inspired by Four against the Titans to use an outdoors map, I started filling up encounter tables for different locations using my notes. I probably started doing this last January. At that point, I playtested it furiously to tighten and smoothen all parts, create connections between locations, ensure that it was balanced (by which I mean: lethal), and most importantly check that it was fun. By May I had a solid draft, which I sent out to external playtesters. They gave me further recommendations but overall said they really enjoyed the game. And here we are!!


3 Let’s get deeper into design. Four Against Darkness is a dungeon crawl game, and you adapted it to become a more story-driven game. Which was the hardest part of designing FAtGOO? And which was the easiest?

A big change I implemented from FaD to increase the narrative sense is that most events can be resolved only once per game. In FaD you can encounter hordes of goblins over and over again, and that’s ok, but how does it make sense to keep meeting Herbert West or Keziah Mason multiple times, always as if for the first time? I think by making most encounters unique I vastly increased the narrative element of the experience.

The hardest part was to fit all the most fascinating locations from Lovecraft’s world in a single map. I could set the story in the U.S. only, but then how would I include the settings of At the Mountains of Madness, Under the Pyramids, or The Temple? or I could use a world map, but then I would miss the original focus, which still is the U.S. The solution I found manages to hold together these two perspectives (I think!).

The easiest part was where to place most of the content. I wanted to be as faithful to Lovecraft as possible, so things generally speaking are in my game where Lovecraft placed them in his works. In some cases the location is undefined or underdefined in the original works, so I adopted my personal interpretation, and that was fun to decide.


4 Let’s talk about the publishing side of it. How did you get to publish FAtGOO with Ganesha Games?

Since my game was based on FaD, it was a natural choice to approach Andrea Sfiligoi and ask him if he’d be interested in publishing it. Which he did, hooray!


5 Are you satisfied with the reception it got so far?

It has only been 2 weeks or so, but all the reception has been very positive. Early players have spotted some mistakes that had escaped proofreading, and that we were able to correct before we produced the first printed copies. People seem to be having a good time with it, which is the point of course!!


6 Are you thinking of making more games? Are you already working on something game-related?

I am working on the first expansion for Fat Goo, Carcosa Rising, based on elements of the mythos coming from Bierce and Chambers. I also recently had a skirmish miniature game accepted by a major publisher. It is called Pulp!! and it is set in the fabulous world of the pulp fiction of the 1930s. It should come out in 2021, or 2022.


7 You are quite fond of solo and of historical games. Can you suggest a beginners-friendly game, and one for expert players?

For beginners, any game in the States of Siege system. For advanced players, D-Day at Omaha Beach.


8 You frequently play with your kids. How old are they, and what games have engaged them the most? Any tips for playing with kids?

They are 8 and 10. They both like fantasy games and eurogames, and the 8yo also likes historical wargames. The trick to playing with kids is: let them win the first game, to get them hooked, and then play honestly. Also, get them started ASAP, and ignore the age indications on the box. They have zero value.


9 Now let’s get back to your aunt. Please explain to her your book, Storytelling in the Modern Board Game: Narrative Trends from the Late 1960s to Today!

Ok aunt Pina, you haven’t read a single book in your life, and you only speak Piedmontese, but you are really going to enjoy this book in English. Also you hate games, so this is really an opportunity for you to branch out and discover how games learned to tell stories between the late 1960s and now. First wargames influenced the invention of role-playing games, and RPGs in return lent their narrative perspective to board games. The book tells the development of narrative trends in tabletop gaming in the constant interaction between board games and RPGs.

10 RPGs. What are your favorites?

Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder. It may make me sound basic, but it is what it is.


11 I know, they were supposed to be 10, but I have one more question before we say goodbye. Please point us to a song you think we should listen to.

Too Many Friends by Placebo!

Great song. Thank you Marco! Bye!

Stay tuned for more interviews! Hit me on the Axian Spice Facebook page, on Twitter or even on Telegram to never miss one! 

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About Four Against Darkness

Four Against Darkness is a great game by veteran designer Andrea Sfiligoi, author and publisher of an enormous amount of RPGs and miniatures games such as the hugely popular Song of Blades and Heroes, or my personal favorite Battlesworn.

4AD is a pen and paper solo dungeon crawler, which can also optionally be played as a gmless group game. It is a WILDLY successful game (see that MITHRAL badge on drivethru? Now check those 242 ratings on Amazon...), and has received a rich line of supplements, and a few spin-offs into other genres and play styles.

What I like about it is that rules are simple and straightforward, with the level of crunch and detail that I find enjoyable for a solo game! 

The core book contains all the basic rules which are needed in order to play, and a  dungeon which, probably, is the weakest part of it, as it feels too generic to really be engaging. This very problem is fixed with the expansions, each of which offers a focused story or dungeon, with full flavor, and story events triggered while you play.

The spin-off games derive from 4AD, but include all the rules needed to play, and usually expand them to fit different themes, settings and narrative structures, and as such are stand-alone products. They include titles such as the atomic age sci-fi Four Against Mars, or the survival horror Alone Against Fear.

The latest spin-off, one that looks VERY interesting (and I'm definitely going to grab soon) is the stand-alone game Four Against the Great Old Ones. Designed by Marco Arnaudo, it is an adaptation of the 4AD "engine", turned into a Cthulhu themed game where investigators must find clues and foil the plans of insane cultists in the 1930s US before doom happens.

As I said, Four Against Darkness is an ever-growing line. I hit Andrea for some sneaky preview of the an upcoming supplement, and he passed me a succulent preview!

The next 4AD product is Labyrinth of the Lurking Lepidopterae, an adventure written by Erick Bouchard who's already authored Warlike Woes and Greedy Gitfts of the Guildmasters, with illustrations by Andrea Sfiligoi.

Here's the description Andrea gave me:

Labyrinth of the Lurking Lepidopterae
This adventure occurs on the western continent of An-Mòr, north of the fungi-infested land known as the Sun-Kissed Vale, and to the west of King Ven’s dwarf kingdom of Kestar Kell. A merchant family from the southern isle of Enotria, the Van Pontoretto, is trying to cut the grass under their Dorintian rivals by finding new trade routes between the realms of Man and the dreaded Sun-Kissed Vale, rich in fabulous alchemical ingredients and delicious edibles. The safest path goes through Kassar Du, the mythical Green Door to the underground kingdom of Kestar Kell, but unfortunately it is forbidden to you. Maestro Van Pontoretto (that’s his actual name) has run afoul of Lyonette of Midlands, king Ven’s Guildmistress of the Armorers Guild. Rumors speak of crookery and romantic entanglements. Whatever the cause, the miner dwarves will not let the Enotrians nor your agents enter their lands, nor will they tolerate armed soldiers at their frontier.

The Labile Labyrinth

Fortunately, there still lies a path the Dorintians dare not thread – the Labile Labyrinth, a shimmering canyon between harsh mountain fangs inhabited by the sinister moth people and their insane queen. Ever since the gods cursed the moth folk to lose their flight, they have become vicious, forcing captives to obsessively collect insect wings when they are not killing trespassers outright. If a safe path could be established for caravans, the lucrative trade with the fungi folk – for they are not all dangerous psychopaths – would drive a hard blow to the Dorintian traders, and especially the Orfeld Company which has been denying the Von Pontoretto for far too long. All that’s needed is to establish a beachhead by having a first convoy arriving safely at the Outpost, the only known passage from human lands to the Sun-Kissed Vale. In the name of profit, free trade and maybe Enotrian patriotism, your party has been tasked with escorting a caravan of four chariots, half a dozen workers and as many llamas across this wicked and treacherous land.

Will You Survive the Labile Labyrinth? Four hundred gold pieces for escorting a caravan across a valley populated by butterfly people. Who could refuse that? Of course, it won’t be that simple. The moth folk fiercely defend their valley with treacherous traps and bruising brigades. Not to mention the menacing mushroom men, weird temples, shape-changers and the ominous Tower of the Screaming Virgins. Things wouldn’t be so bad were it not for the quarrelsome, alcoholic, lustful and dishonest crew members who you will have to keep an eye on. Add the bad roads, broken wheels, stolen cargo, tactical ambushes… and the llamas. Oh dear. Requires only the core Four Against Darkness book. This book contains adult humor, flamingos and lecherous llamas.

And here's also a preview of the cover, with art still not finalized, but nice to see!

 

Designing Curse of Aufgartz

My current project is Curse of Aufgartz - A Savage Worlds Solo/GMless Game.

It is a dark fantasy story with a heavy Diablo 1 feel, offering several quests that you can tackle, and that will keep you busy for about one to four hours, depending on which optional rules you use.

Here's an early sketch for The Chainer, one of the agents of the Curse that you'll have to face in the game. Looks familiar?

Curse of Aufgartz builds on the experience I developed from the Gold & Glory solo rules, as well as from reading and playing the recently released Deadlands - Crater Lake Chronicles.

The design goal is to make a game that you can play with no GM, alone or with a group.

It works a bit like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, because you make story choices and go back and forth through the book, and also a bit like a board game.

You choose which quests you want to tackle, in a structure that resembles a typical Savage Worlds Plot Point Campaign, with Plot Points and secondary quests.

Each quest is a two-page spread, and it does not ask you to flip the book back and forth. All the options, events and game contents are there in that two-page spread. You finish the quest, you return to Aufgartz (the "home base" chapter), and select a new one.

I'm so excited about this project because it involves more than writing a standard adventure. It needs a structure and and a set of procedures that will allow the book to function as a GM, using some tokens and trackers.

The current iteration of the game includes a single-sheet printout called Adventuring Journal, which features: 

• A Time Tracker, where you mark the passing of time. You mark boxes when you solve a Quest or as a consequence of some events. As time passes, more quests unlock, but the Curse also grows stronger.
• A Quest Log, where you mark which quests are available and which you've already solved.
• An Advancement Tracker, where you mark boxes as you complete certain quests or events. After a certain number of marks, you gain an Advance.
• A Clue Tracker, keeping track of your success at unveiling the secrets of the Curse.
• A table to roll random Curse Effects, which are triggered as you advance in the game and Evil spreads in the land.

All these bits work together fine... so far! But I'll sure need a group of playtesters to check how it works for good!

About Gold & Glory - Seven Deadly Dungeons

 Gold & Glory - Seven Deadly Dungeons was my first project I designed completely by myself, crashing together my love for Savage Worlds and OSR games.

From the blurb:

Welcome to a world of legendary heroes and daring feats or, more probably, to a dishonorable story of ill-fated treasure hunters who’ll soon bite off more than they can chew… unless they manage to return home with enough gold to carouse wildly until their next expedition!

Gold & Glory is  a toolbox, to enjoy the Fast, Furious and Fun rules of Savage Worlds in a game of classic dungeon exploration, in the spirit of the Old School Renaissance, with no other book needed besides Savage Worlds Adventure Edition.

It is ideal to play one night games as well as longer campaigns and allows you to play with no preparation at all.
Gold & Glory: Seven Deadly Dungeons includes:

• A random character generation system to start playing in no time
• New equipment for dungeon delvers
• Magic and Miracles Arcane Backgrounds to create classic arcane characters in the FFF spirit of Savage Worlds
• Downtime activities such as Carousing and Magic Research, tied to the Experience system, to keep your heroes busy between one expedition and the next
• The Dungeon Deck system to generate your dungeons while you play
• Seven deadly self-generating dungeons for your heroes to explore!
• More than 30 new monsters to face and a heap of magic items to loot!

All Gold & Glory interior art and covers are by ink master Francesco Saverio Ferrara (check his works on Facebook!), and we also used some maps by acclaimed map artist Dyson Logos to complement the layout.

Gold & Glory has received a widely favorable reception, with several dozens of five-star reviews, both for the SWDeluxe and SWADE version.

Even now that two years have passed since release, I must admit I'm really happy and satisfied with how the random character creation system works. That, and the Dungeon Deck that generates thematic dungeons while you play, are two of my most accomplished designs, in my view.

Design aside, I'm also happy with the variety of the seven dungeon adventures I squeezed into the book, a mix of vanilla fantasy, dark fairy tale, and horrific visions. They range from the rather classic swamp temples of the Serpent Shrines and the abandoned dwarven city of the Dwarf Prince Demise, to the Moldy Caves, infested with undead bandits and moldy abominations, to the non-euclidean Witch House with its grim fairy tale vibes, to the verdant, puzzling nightmare that is the Green Maze, to the steampunkish, ooze-infested Iron Vat, to the Hellraiser tribute that is the Halls of Pain.

And thanks to the Dungeon Deck system, each of those will play different every time, with a unique map and always new combinations of events, hazards and rewards.

The Gold & Glory book is also expanded with the following:

Solo, GMLess and One-on-One Adventures: A supplement with rules, options and suggestions to play with no GM. The obvious complement to a system that is already prepless on its own! It also features an Abstract Clues system and options for hired Allies, which can be used in any type of fantasy games!

The Old School Gaming Guide: A guide aimed at explaining the core concepts of “Classic Dungeon Games” and how they interact with the Savage Worlds rules through the Gold & Glory book!

The Dungeon Template: simple empty form organized with all the infos and tables of the G&G dungeon format, which you can fill with your own unique creations.

The Character Sheet Pack: A character sheet specifically designed to make character creation ultra fast, with checkboxes for all the main results of the G&G random creation system.

And then there's a whole lot of dungeon adventures written by guest authors such as Diogo Nogueira, Richard Woolcock, Andrea Mollica, and Courtney Campbell... but the "deadly dungeon hosts" will be the subject of another post!

          

Ultima Forsan: Some Sparse Recollections

A few days ago on Official Savage Worlds Facebook Group there was a nice post about Ultima Forsan, and I felt like telling bits of its design and publication history and background, so here's what I shared, mostly copied and pasted here, for the curious.

Ultima Forsan was my first published setting, written by my good friend Mauro Longo and me.
It is based on Mauro's original novel "Decameron of the Dead", which recounts the first outbreak of the Plague Florence during the XIV century.
For the setting, we decided to forward the time line by about 150 years, and imagined a world where medieval men and women learnt, after much of the world's civilization was destroyed, to live under the threat of the Plague of the Living Dead, and even begin to thrive, starting the Macabre Renaissance.





We reimagined the Renaissance customs, institutions, states, etcetera, as they would adapt to a different world, more dangerous, less populated, ripe with opportunity... but also full of cultural, religious and political differences and conflict among the living.
After the Savage Setting was released, Mauro also wrote a novel, "Unglorious Guiscards", and five different Choose Your Own Adventure books. All of them are set in the same period of Ultima Forsan (and are not available in English, sorry!).
The setting itself was published in Italian, then in English, and after that it was licensed for Spanish and Russian editions (all of them can be found on drivethru). At the time, it was a bit of a record for an Italian RPG book!
What really makes me proud of Ultima Forsan is that, while it probably really is the grittiest Savage Settings, it is also a statement of the value of the human spirit, the courage to put aside differences and work together to face adversities and fight for a better future for all.
Ultima Forsan can be found on DrivethruRPG!