[Actual Play] The World of Tomorrow, Session 12: I’m going deeper underground / there’s too much panic in this town

Back to dungeoneering!

 

• Psamtek, the psionic Grey pilot (Halfling 4)
• Keteus, the dark prophet or something (Magic-User 4 with Space Age Sorcery spells)
• Ugazum, the gladiator (Fighter 3)
• Phireus, priest of the Mountain Mother (Cleric 4)
• + Rex, riverboat captain (Fighter 3, NPC follower)

 

The party waited for the next anti-light phase, then moved out. Rex led them up the south ziggurat. They just barely avoided a Black Sun paladin patrol and reached the top platform. Here, nestled between a bricolage of latter-era habitats, they found a large round concrete platform and a small concrete building (which looked like the creepy abandoned building where Demi Moore picks up her doses in The Substance). They forced the door, cleaned out some rubble, then forced another door (its code lock without power) and found an elevator. This too was without power, so they opened a hatch in its floor, climbed down and managed to reach the ladder in the side of the shaft.

The descent was LONG, at least 500’. At one point, they disturbed a flock of small flying creatures, and Ugazum fell off the ladder. Keteus saved him with a Wand of Flying (they had picked this up back in the Spire of Iron & Crystal, an ivory wind with wings carved into it, they thought it might be for flight, but weren’t sure…).

At the bottom of the shaft, they dropped into a concrete-walled complex. In the first room, they flipped a switch and restored auxiliary power (small red lights along the corridors and door keypads online), but decided not to bring on full power just yet.

They explored the west-bound corridor and ran into a closed door marked “Workshop”. They tried 1312 (ACAB!) at the keypad to no effect.

They turned around and took the stairs at the intersection. At the upper level, the north-bound corridor was closed off with yellow-black “Danger!” tape, so they went east to another door.

They examined the keypad to see if any of the buttons were particularly worn: yes, 1, 2 and 4.

[For the keypads, I generated the codes by rolling 4d10, one for each digit. For this door, I rolled 1412 :D So I handwaved it that if they put in 1312 again, it would be close enough]

They entered the room, a storage area for tools, equipment, spare parts, etc. The north wall of the place had caved in, opening into a moldy underground tunnel.

Psamtek picked up some weird psychic vibrations from one of the crates. He managed to commune with a hive-mind. They opened the crate and found a formicarium with psionic ants! They decided to leave them be for now and marched into the moldy tunnel.

[Actual Play] The World of Tomorrow, Session 11: Seriously, who needs a SIXTH ziggurat?

We’re back in the World of Tomorrow, baby! Can’t stop the science fantasying. 

• Psamtek, the psionic Grey pilot (Halfling 4)
• Keteus, the dark prophet or something (Magic-User 4 with Space Age Sorcery spells)
• Ugazum, the gladiator (Fighter 3)
• Phireus, priest of the Mountain Mother (Cleric 4)

Soundtrack: The Hologram People

So, back in Cryopolis (proud city of the five ziggurats, sixth under construction), the party found a lot had changed in their absence.

Investigating their storage container, they found that it was entered through a ventilation shaft, by a clawed creature.

They found a place to stable the Stegosaurus for a month.

They spent some downtime identifying magic items: Ugazum’s ring-mail shirt (with electric circuits) has actually bonded to his body, but at least it provides ample protection and DOUBLE healing rate. The crystal tablets found in the dragon cave have genetic sequences encoded on them, which can be fed into a machine to cause targeted beneficial mutations.

More Moebius! Because OF COURSE.

Next, they went to the market to find replacement armor for Psamtek (we blamed the loss of the previous armor on the draconic acid breath, but, turns out, it was lost in a battle with skeletons – stop blaming the dragons for everything!!). Luckily, the market had a shop with kids’ size flak jackets (which says a lot about the state of this world). While getting Psamtek’s measurements, the armorer was ready to engage in some light banter: rumor has it that Zalter made a pact with the Black Sun Cult, and convinced the cultists to get rid of his rival, Ayesha.

Ugazum was still in debt to Zalter, the zombiemancer crime-lord, so the party went over to Zalter’s HQ at the north ziggurat. Only Ugazum and Psamtek were let in (and only because Ugazum said Psamtek is his servant/weapon-bearer). They were led to Zalter’s office to meet the big man himself. And he is big indeed, and not just a man, but also a giant toad thing. Ugazum paid up the 100 sp. Zalter proved to be quite well-informed, and kept asking weirdly pointed questions about Ugazum’s recent exploits, where he is staying in town, and especially whether he works for anybody in particular.

At Zalter’s place, they saw one of Ayesha’s men – turned into a mindless zombie drone…

After leaving, the party suspected that Zalter will surely have them followed.

So, instead of going back to their storage/home, they went to a fancy hotel and got themselves two rooms. On the rooftop terrace, they chatted with incense-trader Ipy of the Purple Sea, who shared some tasty “Turkish delights” and more rumors. He also shared info on the two main caravan routes (the North and the West). When asked about any places with constant thick fog covering a caldera (this had been shown to them in a vision, as the hiding place of the arch-enemy of the god-computer ETERNAL 6000). Ipy ventured that this might be in the dangerous volcanic mountains to the north-west.

Later, to shake off any potential tails, the party used ropes to climb off this rooftop, instead of exiting through the main door.

And they went back to their storage container.

Here, a mysterious figure was waiting for them: Rex, river barge captain, one of Ayesha’s trusted men (see Session 3). Rex told them that most of the gang was captured and imprisoned – they are likely to be sacrificed to the Black Sun during the next great constellation. Ayesha evaded capture and is on the run. Earlier, she had told Rex about an underground tunnel system under the city, and that in case of shit going down, that would be the place for the gang to reconvene.

The party agreed to go and explore these tunnels.

To be continued!

Monster generator spark cards

I made a small 12-card deck monster generator today. Draw two and combine!

The contents as a d12 table:

1.     Ooze	acid, rust, pseudopod, subdividing, natural, lab-grown, medicinal, (a)morphing, mutating
2.     Skeleton	mausoleum, holding shit, bone weapons, femur, teeth, display, pirate, giant, monster, necromancy, skeleton key, grave robbing, tomb
3.     Fungus/Plant	flowers, seeds, pods, tendrils, roots, crawling, stationary, fluorescent, growth, poison, psychoactive
4.     Robot	laser, prosthetic, tracks, lights, hologram, armor, clockwork, steam, replicant, android, mecha, production
5.     Lizard	scales, amphibious, rainbow, reptiloid, swamp gas, thunder, toad, prehistoric, conspiracy, rending claws, running
6.     Ghost	immaterial, haunting, fear, hunger, bound, eerie, screams, want, swamp, chains, murder, fog, treasure
7.     Parasyte	symbiotic, infectious, mind control, autonomous, slow transformation
8.     Octopus	tentacles, floating, sepia, ink cloud, grabbing, reef, alien, weird, unsettling, slimy, suckered, jelly, genius, mastermind
9.     Elemental	air, fire, earth, water, outer planes, transformation, void, harmony, balance, alchemy, philosophy
10. Avian	wing, shriek, egg, flock, claw, migration, dive, beak, nest, sky, plumage, navigation
11. Beast	tail, sentient, cub, mythical, bipedal, fangs, armored, quadraped, uplifted, horns, tribal, magical, camouflage, mutated, hoofs, armed, nocturnal, centaur, cryptid
12. Psychic	mind blast, oracle, clairvoyance, hypnosis, telekinesis, voice, illusion, pyrokinesis, vision

 

Quick examples:

BEAST + ELEMENTAL = a tribe of fire-worshipping pigmen

PSYCHIC + AVIAN = giant bats that navigate using telepathy

OOZE + PARASYTE = jelly that replaces a humanoid’s brain and spinal fluid

FUNGUS/PLANT + OCTOPUS = a tree with lots of grabby roots

GHOST + ROBOT = a malevolent gremlin that possesses machinery

SKELETON + LIZARD = dinosaur on display in museum reanimated

And a drawing by my wife, a PLANT + SKELETON combo which she interpreted as a dried husk of a plant with teeth:

Just a random moth mutation thingie

Whenever you rest, you fall unconscious and cocoon yourself up. You are unable to wake up and others have to cut the cocoon open. Natural healing is enhanced by 1 point while in the cocoon. If you spend 48 hours in the cocoon, you automatically regain consciousness and emerge. Roll 1d6 to see in what form:

1 – yourself… but with absolute certainty that the Insect God is coming

2 – a flightless moth-person (6-in-6 Stealth chance in darkness)

3 – physically unchanged, but able to vomit up and control a moth swarm once per night, see through their eyes, taste through their proboscises

4 – a giant moth monster, ravenous, controlled by Referee (HD = your level + 2, Armor as leather, crawl as heavily encumbered, fly as twice unencumbered, 1 attack: bite, damage dependent on HD (1-3: d4, 4-6: d6, 7+: d8), Morale 8)

5 – a moth-person with functional wings (can fly only if unencumbered, at movement rate of unencumbered human)

6 – fused with whatever clothes, blankets, equipment you had on when you fell asleep

(I don't really have time to work on stuff nowadays, but here's a little chart to keep the blog updated at least a couple of times per month!)

[Monster] Spawning Spawns with Footprints #24

The January 2019 issue of Footprints (#24), the e-zine of the AD&D community Dragonsfoot, includes a random generator for Spawns of Shub-Niggurath, written by Marco Caravagna. I love creature generators, so let's see how this compares to the Spawns of Shub-Niggurathizer that comes with Carcosa.

The generator takes up 5 pages (21-25) and takes you through a series of tables, as usual. The author warns us that "due to the complexity of the tables, it is recommended that the DM prepare spawn well ahead of time," well, yes, this takes up some time to roll up and interpret. The Spawns generated are TOUGH. 4+ attacks easily, lots of special attacks... There is a nice variety, a wide range of possible stuff...

And even if you don't need a monstrous HD 17 aberration, you can always spice up one of your regular monsters with just a few rolls on select tables.

E.g., you have a simple, boring orc, but with just two rolls on the body features table, your orc now has an exposed skeleton (flesh appears partly melted from bones) and an extra sucker-like mouth (potential extra attack, but at -3 to hit due to inconvenient location, 1-4 damage; blood drain for 1-4 HP per round). Simple boring orc no more! And it smells like... *roll roll roll* Perfume!! uhh... (wonderful smell detected to 100’; 10% chance of pheromones: if save vs. poison fails, victim refuses to harm spawn (but will defend against it))

Anyways, here's a full Spawn:

SPAWN OF SHUB-NIGGURATH

FREQUENCY: Very rare (common near Shub-Niggurath)
NO. APPEARING: 1 (3-36 near Shub-Niggurath)
ARMOR CLASS: 4 [18]
MOVE: 3"
HIT DICE: 17 (!!!)
% IN LAIR: 10%
TREASURE TYPE: Nil
NO. OF ATTACKS: 6 (fangs / tusks / sucker / antlers / ovipositor / whip tail)
DAMAGE/ATTACK: Varies
SPECIAL ATTACKS: sucker, web spinneret
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Varies
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Non-, animal, or semi
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic
SIZE: L
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil
Attack/Defense Modes: Nil
LEVEL/X.P. VALUE: ?

Locomotion: Flopping, 3"
Integument: Exoskeleton (AC 4 [18 in LotFP])
Limbs: zero
Eyes: 1
 > Black hole!
Mouths: 3
 > Fanged, 1-8
 > Tusked, 2 tusks, 2-8, worth 200 sp each
 > Sucker (e.g. as lamprey or leech), 1-4; blood drain for 1-4 HP per round
Other sensory apparatus: zero
Head features: 4
 > Bald
 > Ornamented: startling when flared; spawn gets 1 extra segment’s worth of attacks if it surprises enemies
 > Crest or comb
 > Antlers, damage 2-8 total
Tails: 3
 > Spiked Ovipositor damage 1-4; lays eggs that kill host in 4-32 turns; cure disease kills larvae
 > Spinneret fling webs 20’ as spell every other round
 > Whip, damage 1-4
Body features: 2
 > Leaves any color
 > Exposed organs, suffers double damage in combat
No scent, secretion, infestation or immunity :(

Miscast table: Dislocation, Teleportation, Polymorph

The second installment of my custom miscast tables, detailing the unforeseen consequences of meddling with space, time, and matter! These are quite elaborate, with sub-tables inside some of the results.

Mechanical clarifications:

If an effect lowers hit die, re-roll the character’s hit points with the remaining and take the lower result as new maximum. If the current hit points are thus over the maximum, they drop too (but otherwise no damage is taken). Dropping to 0 or less hit dice automatically kills the character.

For these miscast effects, “one random target of the spell” means one of the following array: the caster plus all others targeted by the spell (friend or fore); or just the caster, if the target is inanimate.

Teleportation, dislocation, movement and polymorph type spells

1. As space folds and reorganizes, some body parts cannot keep up. Roll 1d6, one random target of the spell loses:
   1-2 an arm, 3-5 a leg, 6 an eye.
   This also means the loss of 1 hit die. Re-roll hit points with the remaining.
2. One random target of the spell disappears for 1d6 hours, then rematerializes – tired, hangover, dehydrated, confused, but also sort of euphoric. Treat this as failed Carousing (with no experience points awarded) and roll on the campaign’s harshest Carousing Mishaps table. If no such table is available, the affected character makes all saving throws and attack rolls at a -4 penalty for the next 24 hours.
3. The mind of the caster is displaced by an alien entity. At the end of the given duration the caster’s mind returns to its body, with no recollection of what happened during this period. The possession event causes a loss of [caster level times 200] experience points. Roll 1d4 to see what the alien entity does while in control of the host body:
   1 stays for 1d4 hours and wants to learn about humanity's weaknesses (this knowledge will eventually be used during the invasion of Earth by vampyres form outer space),
   2 attacks a random nearby target using the caster’s best weapon or spell for 1d8 rounds,
   3 behaves completely normal (and the character is under the player’s control), but then takes over when the character goes to sleep. Its goal is to assemble a homing beacon / teleportation pad / arcane gateway to bring more of its kind to Earth. It needs seven rest periods of work to accomplish this. The possession lasts 1d10 days. The character is always exhausted.
   4 casts all of the caster’s prepared spells, one per round, than leaves the body. If the caster has no spells prepared, the entity risky casts a randomly determined highest level spell form the caster’s spellbook. The entity’s behavior depends on a Reaction roll, it can use the spells to aid or hinder the host’s party.
4. The quantum disturbances cause sudden and irreversible changes in the body of one random target of the spell. No saves apply. Roll 1d6:
   1-2 the spell Enlarge is cast on the victim, their body ripples and grows to 150% its previous size, ruining all clothes and armor,
   3-4 the spell Shrink (reversed Enlarge) is cast on the victim, their body ripples and shrinks to 50% its previous size, rendering all armor unusable,
   5 the victim’s body is fused with a fly that happens to be in the spell’s area of effect; from now on this character is a hideous man-fly-thing, unable to speak, digestive fluid dripping from the mouth (1 spit attack per day, 20’ range, 2d8 damage), hideous compound eyes with a 270° field of vision. The thing, fortunately, is sterile.
   6 Janus! A second face appears on the back of the victim’s head. It duplicates the victim’s looks. All the organs are completely functional, but the victim still has only a single brain to process all the information. For one month, no benefits can be gained from the second face, and all actions are with a penalty (-4 on attacks, -1 on skills, etc.). For a full year, while they learn to coordinate their faces, they gain 10% less experience points.
5. One random target of the spell fuses with whatever material they are in contact with (standing on, wearing, holding – in this order, so a standing victim will fuse with the ground, a flying victim will fuse with their clothes, a naked flying victim will fuse with the sword they hold, a flying naked unarmed person is lucky (?)). The “depth” of the fusion is only 1d6 inches, but there is no harmless way to separate the two materials any more. The separation (amputation) will cause the loss of 1 hit die. Re-roll hit points with the remaining.
6. The caster falls into a relativity trap. For the following 1d6 hours, all their movement is halved, their attacks and saves are made with a -4 penalty, as their perception of the world doesn’t line up with the realities of outside observers. For each hour spent in the trap, they age 1 year.

1d8 spider mutations

From the creative duo that brought you the 1d6 things that happen when you lie to the skeleton interrogator... 1d8 horrible but also kinda useful mutations you can get from being bitten by a giant arachnid!

1. Eyes all over your forehead, unable to concentrate for a week (-2 on all rolls), afterwards 270 degree vision, only surprised on 1 if you can theoretically see it coming.
2. Your teeth fall out, and mandibles burst forth from your mouth. Your bite now does d4 damage, but you cannot eat solid foods.
3. You can cast a 10' x 10' Web once per day, but doing so leaves you exhausted and hungry and you gain 2 points of Encumbrance until you rest and feed. Also, it's a spiderweb, so guess where it shoots out from!
4. A new gland grows in your body and secretes 1 dose of a potent poison per day (effect: save or unable to move for 1d6 rounds). You are NOT immune to this poison. If you don't have the opportunity to drain the gland once per day, then save or be unable to move for 1d6 HOURS. Otherwise, you can use the extracted substance as weapon or food poison. The poison looses potency in 1 hour after coming out of your body.
5. Sticky body hair, can cast Spiderclimb once per day, but handling things is a pain in the ass. Manipulation of objects (including taking clothes or armor off) takes twice as much time, and you are unable to attack on the same round when dropping or swapping weapons (and attack with -2 on the next).
6. 1d3 +1 vestigial legs sprout from your buttocks. They are both gnarly AND useless.
7. According to a collection of 85 fun spider facts, "it is estimated that a human is never more than 10 feet away from a spider—ever". Awareness of this fact renders you unable to sleep peacefully - you need 2 extra hours to rest up properly. Once per week, you can call out to all spiders in the vicinity: a sizable swarm crawls out and fulfills one command.
8. Arachné's blessing. You become incredibly talented at weaving. During downtime you may spend a week to create a tapestry worth 1d6 x 100sp. On 6, roll another mutation.