Mongar's World

Here's a random thing from 2017 I found on the hard drive. I believe it was meant to be a 200 word RPG entry. "Superirorium" is pretty damn lame, JV.

Mongar’s World

It is 1955. You are on a secret mission to space to find a better source of energy before the Communo-Nazis. Your ship is caught in a weird portal and crash lands on a verdant world of dinosaurs and robots. The planet is ran by a madman called Mongar who collects alien bodies for his wretched experiments.

The planet has a Soviet base, violent talking apes, flying snakes, and sub-zero nightly temperature. Mongar has captured rockets and flying saucers that might still work.

Mongar’s power comes from Superiorium, a liquid energy source from the heart of the planet. It is yellow, acidic, and burns hotter than jet fuel for 1000 hours per ounce.

There is a 2-in-6 chance Mongar will fall in love with a random PC.

Roll 1d6 for each to determine your Smarts and Fitness. Swap them if you want. Roll 1d12 + ability score vs. a target of 9 or 13 (hard tasks) to perform actions. An injury requires a survival roll (9). Further injuries are 13 (hard). You heal 1 injury per day.

Can you survive Mongar’s attacks, avoid the apes and snakes, and escape the planet with the Superiorium?

B/X Character Sheet

Here's a new B/X D&D style character sheet. This will end up on the back cover of Black Pudding #6, most likely. For this one I was going for a cleaner look with only what I think are the bare essentials.

G+ Running Out of Hit Points

My G+ feed has been dwindling for a while thanks to Google's announcement that the platform would be shut down very soon. Now shit got real because if you'll notice there's no longer a G+ button below my blog posts. Also, can no longer leave comments on my blog via G+ and all previous comments left in that fashion are going to magically disappear in a puff of vaporous nothing. I did run the takeout download to get all my G+ stuff so it's sitting in a zipped archive on my hard drive. I'm not really sure what to do with it, to be honest.

And yeah, this all makes me sad. I know it makes a lot of people sad. G+, for me, has been a hub of creative fun for a good run of years. I also realize that some people didn't love G+ for various reasons, including the fact that the OSR, which was very strong on G+, includes a lot of politically right wing individuals. For some people on the left, a right wing person is a threat to their actual physical safety and having one hosted on a platform sends an unwelcome message to them. It's complicated. Not everyone agrees about it. It's a thing.

I have started using this blog more since the announcement and I plan to continue doing that. I'm also on Instagram and Facebook. I do have a Twitter, but I barely touch it. I also have a MeWe and I'm trying to use it more, but I just haven't gotten the habit of it down and so far it doesn't feel quite as cozy as G+. Maybe in time it will. I don't know.

The bottom line is that G+ is going away very soon and there's nothing to do about it. So no sense whining and wishing, I'm just going to move on and try to find a new groove. After all, Google isn't shutting ME down. Right? Right?!

Void Panther

I used these on the PCs in the first session of Lost Land of Zkoth. They faced 6 panthers in a foliage-dense area in daylight. One of the PCs had a magic eye that allowed him to see the creatures, so there was no surprise roll. They also had a lot of retainers and a couple of beefy NPCs, so I probably should have chucked a lot more panthers at them.

Still, one PC was voided from his left hand all the way to the neck, barely avoiding the torso and head. He yet lives, so don't get out the tissues.

I think these summoned beasts are utilized by the primary enemies of the campaign... a race of strange people from a world far away. They haven't made an appearance yet. I figure more void panthers are on the horizon.

Void Panther

Armor Class: 4
No. Enc: 2d6
Hit Dice: 2+1
Save: F2
Move: 150' (50')
Morale: 11
Attacks: 3 (2 claws/1bite)
Hoard Class: Nil
Damage: 1d4/1d4/1d6 + special
Alignment: Chaotic

Negative space, black as the cosmos, takes panther shape in these sinister summoned predators. No light plays off their form, no glittering eyes or shining teeth - only blackness. They form a pack and hunt their quarry with pack coordination, preferring open landscapes where they can surround or divide the enemy. Moving with great speed and silence, they surprise on 1-3 in 6 in daylight or 1-5 in 6 at night or in darkness. They are able to hide in shadows or darkness with perfect skill, becoming visible only when attacking.

Non-magical weapons hitting a void panther will vanish after dealing damage. A Light spell cast directly upon a panther will destroy it. If the spell is cast in the area, the creatures will suffer 1d6 points of damage, but they will not suffer damage from simply entering a lighted area.

If the creature's attack is successful, the target must save vs. Spells or else the body part that was struck takes on the blackness of the void and cannot be used. Each combat round thereafter, the PC must save vs. Spells or the void spreads to the next adjacent body part. If the chest or head are voided, the PC must save vs. Death or instantly die. Passing any of these saving throws negates the panther's magic and returns the affected body parts to normal. A voided body part is like a ghost and cannot physically interact with the world.

To determine which body part is hit, roll on the table.

2d12 ROLL	BODY PART AFFECTED	SPECIAL EFFECT
2	Torso	Incorporeal, save or die
3-4	Right hand	Incorporeal
5-6	Left hand	Incorporeal
7-9	Right arm (including hand)	Incorporeal
10-12	Left arm (including hand)	Incorporeal
13-14	Right foot	Incorporeal, move slowed
15-16	Left foot	Incorporeal, move slowed
17-19	Right leg (including foot)	Incorporeal, cannot walk
20-22	Left leg (including foot)	Incorporeal, cannot walk
23	Neck	Incorporeal
24	Head	Incorporeal, save or die

Being a Wizard

I often say it's "the process" that really matters in any art. Drawing, writing, comics, RPG design, music, whatever. The end result is just a token or snapshot of what you went through on a journey. To put it in motivational poster cant: it's the journey, not the destination.

But to say "the process" is what matters isn't exactly right either. The process is whatever steps you take in order to put one foot in front of the other to DO art. And that is very important, no doubt. But it's not exactly what I mean when I talk about DOING art.

It's the doing that matters most. My good friend Jayne and I have this mantra we've screamed at one another for decades: FINISH IT. And it's a motivating mantra. But of course while the goal might be to finish something, that's not the real goal. The real goal is to be doing something. Because, at least for me, an artist who isn't doing is going to feel dead inside.

The process, on the other hand, is whatever craft you devise to keep the doing alive. So process does include brushes and paints and pen tablets and software and how you use those tools. But also, what rituals do you perform to get into the creative zone? Coffee in a particular cup? Sitting a certain way, listening to certain types of things? Clearing the room of distractions? These are all part of your process, which should lead to doing art.

I have struggled my whole life with getting to the doing part. I can think and prep and worry all day long and never actually do anything. I cannot express accurately how much time I've spent thinking about doing instead of actually doing. In fact, easily the overwhelming majority of all the thousands of hours I've spent in my 48 years in "creative mode" have been hours spent thinking about, preparing for, and worrying about the thing I want to do instead of actually doing the thing.

I get sick to death thinking about doing. I long to be doing. I long to be elbows deep in working on a thing, to see the thing taking shape before my eyes. I feel powerful in that space. I feel like my existence really matters. I feel like I'm part of the whole god damn universe and not just a nameless speck that will be forgotten. I feel like a wizard.

Lost Land of Zkoth 1

In October 2017 I started a campaign for my local group wherein they were in the service of the Jade Prince, consigned to go on a 7 galley sea voyage to explore a lost land known as Zkoth. We played a few sessions then the schedule fell apart, as it often does, and the campaign went into hiatus.

Recently I was given the chance to run public games a local brewing company called Jarfly. Last night the new campaign began, mostly with the original players, but also open to the public as a drop in/drop out game.

The venue worked out very nicely. It wasn't nearly as noisy as expected, probably owing to the frigid temperatures which kept the crowd down. The proprietor Daniel, also a part time player, and I agreed to do the game every other Wed.

It's a clip art panther!

In this session the players took on new roles, following up on an interesting quest their original PCs discovered. They set out around a large salt lake in the humid, warm country to find a doorway at the base of a low, bald mountain. The creepy lake was still as death, with no telltale signs of fish or other life... except the ubiquitous serpentine form the cleric, Clarus of the Eternal Eye, spotted 100' offshore. But it wasn't from the lake that danger arose. Instead, they were harassed by six jet black panthers. The attacks of the panthers caused "negative energy" to invade bodies and non-magical weapons to be destroyed. The battle was fierce and one of the fighters, Mongore, was badly wounded. But they triumphed in the end, thanks largely to a level 3 NPC who was slated to be played by a random patron of the bar who had to leave early.

They found their secret door and, after dispatching an owlbear sentry (the only monster so far encountered that they recognized as being native to their homeland), they entered a seemingly abandoned rough-hewn temple complex. This lead to a pool of lava, a strange goddess statue, and a black pudding (yay!).

The session ended with the PCs banged up and out of magic power, resting near the temple entrance, plotting their scheme to re-enter and explore the 13 mysterious doors they didn't dare touch while avoiding the black pudding along with whatever thing created the burnt footsteps leading out of and into the lava pool.

Fun times!

Rule set is B/X D&D using B/X Essentials and house rules. All PCs started at level 3.

B/X and Labyrinth Lord Sheet

Blank character sheet for B/X and Labyrinth Lord games, as posted earlier. Hopefully no dreadful spelling errors.

Some of these elements were lifted from other sheets, such as one I did for Andy Solberg's Iron League. So it's a bit of an amalgam. But I really like the balance here. It's not too busy and it's nice and clean. Some things are not represented, such as alignment, but that's easily inserted ("chaotic magic-user"). I added "willpower" to the Wisdom uses because I use the standard modifier in my games for certain on-the-fly tests of willpower.

Hey, I fixed it!

EDIT: I corrected the sheet due to a few errors. Thanks for pointing them out, everyone!

B/X Ho!

This Wed at Jarfly, a local brewery, I will be running some good old B/X D&D. With house rules, natch. What house rules, you ask? Not too many. In fact I'm keeping the system-wide house rules to a small number that I just can't live without. Crits, luck, death saves, some stuff about magic-users, fighters using monster attack roll table, and of course THIEVES.

I will be employing Necrotic Gnome's lovely re-indexing of B/X D&D called B/X Essentials. I shall put those little books to the test.

Also, here's the character sheet I'll be using. I'm taking about 20 pregens to the table. Several fighters, magic-users, and thieves. A couple of clerics. And some oddballs like swineriders, neanderthals, witches, and summoners (some from Black Pudding, others not). Stoked!

Attack rolls: Those of you paying nerd level attention will note that a level 3 dwarf in B/X should hit AC 0 with a roll of 19, not 17. I decided that fighters and fighter-based classes such as dwarfs should not be hitting at the same rate as god damned magic-users for three levels. So they will be using the attack matrix for monsters instead.

Character sheets: These sheets are a combination of a few different sheets I have worked on in the past. They combine elements of a sheet I did for Andy Solberg's Tales of the Iron League with some other sheet elements I have used here and there. You'll also possibly note that the "special abilities, skills, and spells" type headers are copy-pasted straight from a Dyson Logos character sheet. This is because I had a whole other set of level 3 pregens that were on his sheets. I wanted to transfer them to my own sheets but I was too lazy to redo those bits so I just copied the necessary stuff. It's a Frankenstein's character sheet!!

EDIT: I swapped out the images on this post because the originals had the ability score list screwed up.

Once Again with the Thieves

In a couple of weeks I'll be starting a regular game at a local brewery. I plan to run B/X using B/XE at the table. I want as few house rules as possible. One rule is regarding thief skills... because as written, they really do suck the big one.

This is just a refinement of an idea I've ranted about for years. I believe this is a very simple way to handle thief skills and goes a long way toward correcting the (IMHO) poorly-designed thief skill set without changing the stats or adding too many fiddly bits.

-Thieves roll their skill on percentile dice + an ability check at the same time. If the percentile roll is good, ignore everything else because they have perfectly executed their subtle craft and cannot fail. Otherwise, go with a simple ability check.

-Non-thieves do sneaky stuff on an ability check, usually with Disadvantage. They cannot do super-secret stuff like climbing sheer surfaces or disarming complex traps (unless the player has a terrific plan).

The idea here is to say that thief skills are special. The thief isn't merely trying to be very quiet or trying to find footholds on a wall. They have been trained or have discovered lost secrets or have tapped into natural talents that normal people cannot access. The thief doesn't simply "hide" in shadows, they fucking disappear. If that percentile roll is a good one, the thief cannot be detected. They are as good as invisible, though not in a magical way.

Failing the percentile roll means they have not executed their subtle craft perfectly and they can be detected or they can fall to their doom. At that point, an ability check tells the story. But note that while non-thieves make their sneaky ability checks at Disadvantage most of the time, thieves do not.

And that's pretty much it. I think this method is intuitive when you describe the thief skills as being esoteric and carefully developed. It has logical consistency and definitely helps mitigate those god awful 10% skill rolls.

Bushido!

Here's a thing I picked up recently on a whim. Here's how it happened:

1. I saw a post on G+ where someone was selling Bushido RPG books.
2. I remembered owning Bushido in high school. It means something because it was the first time I got a money order and mailed off for a book. Special!
3. Noticed the books were not in original box. Nerd mind kicked in.
4. Found complete box set on eBay, sans the wacky tiny d20 that my original set came with.
5. Bought the damn box set.
6. Spent some time looking at it, flipping through the books, reading some bits I remembered from long ago. Smiled.
7. Posted about it.

The box is beat up but it's been 37 years so...

This isn't actually the printing of the box set that I owned back in the day. Mine was all black. I ordered it via a Dragon Magazine ad. I think it was $8 if I remember correctly. I was so excited when that package arrived! I do remember this stuff being in my box, but also a tiny tiny d20.

The good stuff inside!

The box may look like shit, but the books and other contents are in excellent condition. There is some wear on the books, but not much. The map and reference sheet are perfect. Almost as if they were never used... hmmm.

Thing is, I never played this game. I never even fully read the rules. I skimmed it, read bits, stole bits, and got inspired by it. I remember especially being fond of stealing the weapons table and using it for D&D. I even wrote up a budoka character class for D&D and rolled up a few PCs that I never used.

So the thing about Bushido is that I'll never ever run it in a hundred years. I'll keep this box set, mostly on the shelf, and I'll pull it out now and then to look at it. I'll maybe eventually read the whole thing. I'll steal from it and be inspired by it. But I have no illusions about running it. Not gonna happen. And since this is an FGU game I probably would not like the way it plays anyway. The presentation is crunchy and I'm not a big fan of crunch.

Of course if I found a group playing it I might join in at some point. That much is for sure.