Elemental Reductions

One of my submissions for Santicorn 2026 was for Cold Waste Encounters.  It's here . I'm not happy with it, so here's some additionally brainstorming for this.  There are numbers here, but I haven't had a chance to game them out.   Time The cold wastes are at the ends of the world.  Days pass differently there.  In the middle of summer, a day lasts for weeks.  Similarly, in the middle of the winter, a night lasts for weeks.  Those times are close to normal during the equinoxes. Body Heat In the extreme cold, characters have a freezing track.  It starts at 0, meaning they are kept warm, and goes to 6.   Lose Freezing by Gaining Heat During combat, characters actually get warmer from the motion. Eating a warm cooked meal that fills the belly and carresses the spine as often as once a turn. Drinking a pint of a hot beverage as often as once a turn. Sitting at a warm fire or a stove for an hour. Staying in a winterized shelter. Gain F...

I spent too long looking trying to generate a random horse system.  After taking a break from it, I thought about how to handle dogs (war, riding, hunting, and tracking), guard geese, hawks, elephants, and riding apes.  I decided I wasn't smart enough to get too into the weeds with them, and came up with this, which is far too simple for what I want it to do, and is probably still too complicated, but kind of gamifies shopping. Pets & Service Animals This is for every kind of animal Tricks Dumb animals can learn 2 tricks, smart animals learn 4.  They either follow a visual signal or a sound.  Each trick takes 1d6 weeks to learn. Most useful animals are already trained. Here is a sample listing of tricks: Attack : Move and attack on their own when opportunity arises. Battle Trained : Does not check morale at the start of battle. Defend : Attack hostiles that get too close. Guard : Make noise when creatures it doesn’t know well gets too close. Hunt : Predators hav...

Item Quality Items come in three grades: Superior: masterwork items, four notches.  They usually cost ten times the normal cost of such items.  Most magic items are always made from masterwork base items.  They may provide a minor intrinsic non-magical bonus (+1 to hit for weapons, a reduction of 1 to armor item penalties, or a +2 on tool use checks). Standard: a typical item, three notches. Poor: a poor quality item, two notches.  They have a -1 penalty (-1 to damage for weapons, -1 AC for armor, or -2 on tool use checks for items). Notches Notches represent wear and tear equipment has taken.  They affect performance in the following ways: Weapons Odd notches (first, third, etc.) inflict a -1 penalty to damage. Even notches (second, fourth, etc.) inflict a cumulative -1 penalty to hit. Armor Odd notches inflict a -1 penalty to checks due to damage. Even  notches inflict a cumulative -1 penalty to AC. Items This requires some interpretation by the GM. In...

This post is part of October's Blog Carnival theme of Horror and Fantasy , hosted Timothy S. Brannan's The Other Side Blog Trigger warning: this article talks about horror and how to evoke it.  It covers evoking horror through disasters, monsters, and psychological tension.  While it doesn't go into detail in any of them, they come up.     Along these lines, before using any of this at your table, make sure your group is accepting of content of this type by using safety tools like Lines and Veils and The X Card, especially if you don't know the players at your table really well .  Information for these and other social safety tools is available here .     Or don't use them, I'm not your father, and you presumably know your table. Das Geisterhaus by Harald Hoyer, under CC BY-SA 2.0     Old school Dungeons & Dragons and the games that sprung forth under its cultural umbrella generally assume your charac...