Mountain Ideas 2

I had great plans to post every other day while in the mountains.  Unfortunately, Google decided it didn't like that I was posting from a new location ( though I've posted many times from there before) and would not allow me to log-in without phone confirmation of my account.  Traditional security check via email confirmation would have worked, but Google insisted on calling or texting my phone and there is no cell coverage where I was at, so posting to my blog from the mountians is no longer possible unless Google changes its policy.  Sucks, but I wrote down all my ideas I had while hiking around and I'll just give them to you all in one dump:

Wound Map
Cast this spell on a bare back and fresh wounds will raise up (1d6 hp) rendering a map of the surrounding paths or passages.

Failed Spells
Trying to think up new spells, I kept coming up with crappy ones.  Then I thought, what if a spell scroll might be some wizard's attempt at a spell they wanted, but they never quite worked it out.  So, a scroll found in a dungeon might have a sort of abstract with a title and what the spell does, but when the player casts it, it does something less.  Not horrible, more annoying and useless.  For example, a scroll lists itself as "Astral Arm: a third, ghostly arm appears that can reach through walls. Lasts a day"  But on casting it, it is more like "Arm Growth: A lumpy, flesh protuberance begins growing out of the casters back.  It takes until that caster reaches the next level for it to fully grow into a crude arm with a thumb and 1d4 fingers.  Not useful for much-- add 1/3 to encumbrance and an extra save when falling as it scrabbles to catch hold."

Chaos Blade
This one is pretty obvious, so you might have seen it before.  This weapon is +2, but shifts form each time you go into battle

1. 1d6 darts
2. Bow and 1d6 arrows
3. 2-handed sword
4. club
5. glaive
6. dancing long sword

The bonus and the possibility of it dancing are good, but the fact you might end up with darts when you are fighting skeletons hopefully makes it less powerful as well as unpredictable.

Telecanter's Cold Camp
This blue fire casts barely any light and no heat at all unless the caster says "heat this"-- all other objects are unaffected.  Allows for preparing food, lighting torches, or keeping warm even in a field of dry kindling.

Rune of Recognition I
Cast the spell, tell anyone you wish to know the shape of your secret rune, and then later, you can make the shape of the rune from stone or sticks, draw it in the sand etc., and anyone told of the shape before hand will see it but it will be completely invisible to others.

Fugitive Blood Ritual
This necromantic ritual of last resort allows the caster to cut their own throat and let their blood pour from their body and escape.  The blood flows across the ground, through cracks, and hides until a later time to come back and re-invest the apparently dead body.  If the casters body is destroyed in the mean time the blood can persist for years looking for a blood-drained body to inhabit.

Corpus Fungus Ritual
This necromantic ritual of last resort causes the caster to swell with fungal growths and explode into  a shower of spores.  Anyone breathing the spores (fail saves) will, over the next few weeks, slowly turn into the caster.  Multiple versions of the caster can thus result (treat as clones).

Keepsafe Lizard
A wizard casts this spell and whispers something to any normal lizard.  The wizard then completely forgets that information, it is excised from their mind and exists only in the lizard.  The lizard can be told to return in days, weeks, or years.  It will then disappear into the wild and find the caster again, wherever they are, at a random time within the time frame given.  Allows wizards to hide information that may be coerced or ensorcelled out of them.  They can't even tell an enemy when the lizard will return because they aren't sure themselves.

Bloodgift Swarm
A swarm of insects is summoned to draw blood from the caster.  The caster can decide how much or little (up to their HD -1 hp).  The resulting engorged swarm must be kept somewhere dark and protected, under a hat or in an empty scroll tube are common places.  A swarm can be kept thus indefinitely, but the donated life is slow to replenish (half hp regen).  Then, when needed, the caster can command the swarm to give their blood to any target-- restoring that same amount of life to them. 

Spell-Type Category Research
A wizard that knows 7 spells of a "type" can do research that, if successful, will improve all spells of that type.  Types could be spells involving a particular substance, like fire, be a particular effect, like a bolt, or affect certain creatures like, insects.  This is why the original wizards had so many spells in the same category-- Bigby's hand spells, for instance, because they specialized in them and became experts in that type of spell.
  
Rune of Recognition II
The caster draws this rune anywhere they wish, but usually in their spell book or in a forbidden area of their lair.  And any person that looks upon the rune will be recognized as such later by the caster.  Just by looking at their eyes, the caster will know they have looked upon the forbidden rune and been where they shouldn't have.

That's it for now.  Hope you are staying cool and having fun gaming with friends.

Ideas from the Mountains

I've had the privilege of getting to spend some time up in the mountains this summer (haven't really the last two summers).  Being up in the cool, clean air and the quiet always gives me tons of ideas.  Here are a few:

Class-based Maps for a Space Game
I've been interested in some non-D&D one-offs, or mini campaigns.  One that I think would be fun would be a space ship crew investigating a derelict ship.  In trying to figure out how to catch some of that genre flavor, I thought giving each player different maps of the ship being explored would work.  The idea is the ship itself is a familiar entity, a federation ship, or one from their own corporation, but their individual knowledge of the ship is limited to their field of expertise.  So the engineer knows where the maintenance access ducts are, the medic/science officer knows where life support air ducts are, ect.  Then let loose some alien threat and only allow players to share their maps by verbally describing them to each other: "If we get to bulkhead B, there is an air duct there."  "Yes there is a maintenance duct access near there too, I think we should head there."

Phoenix Balm
A magic item that you rub on and suffer great burning pain (1d6 hit points lost permanently) but allows you to come back after death-by-fire a whole level higher.

Spell Beetles
A rare beetle mages catch, whisper a spell to, and then send to a friend in need.  The beetle travels at normal speed to where the friend is, and if eaten, grants that friend the ability to cast that spell once.  Until they do, that spell slot is lost to the beetle-sending mage, though.

Yahtzee Mechanic
I've long been a proponent for using common parlor games in my D&D-- Jenga, cards, charades - both because if it is that common it is probably good at being amusing but also it is probably something players will have knowledge of, so reduces the amount I have to teach them.  I don't think I've  written about Yahtzee in this regard.  I think it would be perfect for a gambling type situation where you can take small gains that you know, or risk them to push for bigger gains-- two situations that spring to mind are spell research and social maneuvering.  Maybe getting to know the local politicians could be that player throwing Yahtzee dice and the higher the hand they end up with the better the relationship established.  Or, I was just talking about wanting some type of shopping mini-game, maybe this mechanic could work for that.