OPD 2017 - "You have acquired the deed to a ruined tower..."

In spite of having to overcome insurmountable obstacles between me and my drawing tools...

and simultaneously writing three competing dungeons over the last couple of weeks (leading me to put up a poll on G+ to help in my selection process), I sent in my One Page Dungeon entry this afternoon. 

Donjon's Random Pickpocket Loot generator (among others) will occasionally spit out, among the small coins, sets of false teeth, and "blob of iron" is the "Deed to a ruined tower." I always thought it was a bit of an evocative device, ripe for a side adventure, or for use as a base for clearing an area and carving out one's own place in the world.

So I wrote one up this year. Come on down and meet the neighbors.

Download link

I'll post the runners-up over the next couple of days.

Still not helping...

Monster: Bog Mummies

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Victims of sacrifice, the condemned, the shunned... many of these souls were fated to end their days immersed in the ooze at the bottom of a bog, their remains interred into the mud.  As more doomed souls join these increasingly restless dead, the bogs preserve and give un-life to these corpses.

Given time, the bogs accrue the negative and tragic energies of these dead, transferring these energies to those sunk into their muck and ooze.  And eventually, a tipping point is reached, and the bog mummies may arise to stalk from the muck in search of some retribution.

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Bog mummies are characterized by their tough, leathery flesh, well-preserved in the anaerobic and acidic environment of the bog bottoms.  The mummies will be tannin-stained to a dark red-brown.  Many will bear evidence of their means of death or maltreatment and torture prior to death - nooses, manacles, lacerated flesh. Well preserved, the bodies may appear fresh-dead, but for these ghastly features.

An individual mummy, upon arising, will have a target of its revenge - typically the source of its misery and death, whether it is a magistrate, shaman-priest, or members of the lynch mob.  For those who have been interred long enough, their original tormentors may too have crossed the veil.  For these, they will seek a member of the same class, or perhaps a descendant of their original killers.  The mummies will resolutely seek out their condemners, and are a bane in areas where sacrifice and justice are meted out in the bogs.

Sunk into the anaerobic, acidic environment of the bog, the body is preserved, and the tragic energies distill the hate and pain of the victim's death.  The skin is toughened, yet still pliable.  In addition to clubbing or clawing damage, the touch of the bog mummy causes acid damage, corroding armor, degrading clothing, and dissolving flesh.

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Bog Mummy (Generalized OSR Stats):

No Encountered: 1d3
HD: 6
AC: 4/16
Attack/Damage: 1d8+Acid Touch (1d6 1st round, save or addtl 1d6), +2 to hit vs 'favored' opponent
Save: as Cl5 or equivalent
Move: 6
Special: Hit only by magic weapons.  Individual mummies will pursue either individuals or equivalent classes of their original condemnation and death and receive a bonus in attacks against them.

Mini-Review: Off the Beaten Path

So, this arrived a few days ago....

I supported +Thom Wilson's Kickstarter for the project, opting for the system-neutral version of the book.  The book also has a variant printing published with adventures statted out for Swords and Wizardry Light.

The setup for this book of encounters and mini-adventures is to fill space and opportunities in case the pesky PCs wander off the map, need a small side-challenge, or a light on-off is necessary.  Thom prepared 23 one- to two-page adventures, typically with a single challenge or objective.  The encounters are classed as 'Easy,' 'Moderate,' and 'Hard' for a range of levels up to around 6.

Of course, with the un-statted nature of the system neutral version, modding critters or challenges would be achieved fairly readily.  Likewise, although some treasure or magic items are fairly clearly delineated, plenty are left blank, such as the 'Magical Short Sword' shown below:

Which allows the GM to craft an item appropriate to the level (or perhaps needs) of the party members.  I appreciate this format, and mentioned it before in my review of The Staff of the Last Hill Chief.  Coincidentally, Monkeyblood Design crafted several of the maps in OTBP, so may have had a hand in influencing this open concept.

Speaking of maps, due to the single encounter-area or mini-dungeon typical of the scenes, most are fairly simple and brief.  Thom and Monkeyblood shared mapping duties.

The adventures provide a variety of baddies to combat,as well as a few traps and puzzles to worry out.  Per its title, all of the OTBP scenes take place in the wilderness, to be encountered along the road, or in the boonies if the PCs wander off the road to check out something curious, camp out, or otherwise stray from the path...  Thom reports that he is working on a follow-up desert-themed collection via his Patreon.

While most of the encounters are standalone, four of the adventures can be linked through items found in individual scenes (maps, clues, etc.), which could either drive a few sessions of play, or pop up in later adventures.  One quibble - the linked scenes are referenced by Excursion #, but neither the page headers or table of contents number the scene titles.  Edit:  Thom pointed out that the Excursion numbers are printed along the footer of the pages - I hadn't noticed them in my read-through.  Doh! Thanks for the correction.  That said - adding the #s to the TOC will be a help.

From my read-through of the collection, the scenes are well-written, with sufficient but not too elaborate descriptions.  Because of Thom's one to two-page limit per scene, even the 'largest' areas have no more than 10 encounter areas.  

Thom did also fall victim to box text (shaded in this case) but we'll forgive him this.  

The product was delivered promptly after the end of the project.  Thom planned ahead well, with the majority of writing (and booklet cover) pre-prepared, leaving him only stretch goal additions (adventures, mapping) to create at the end.  

Overall, this looks to be a useful resource and inspiration for keeping the party from wandering aimlessly in the woods!

The Village of Devsay-Hough

Haven't done a village for a while....

The Village of Devsay-Hough stands at an almost-literal end of the road, overlooking the River Igleri gorge. The bridge crossing the gorge collapsed nearly five years ago, and the powers that be can't be bothered to engineer a replacement. Prior to the collapse, Devsay-Hopugh was a moderately successful border village overlooking a river crossing to West Lien. With the bridge loss, traffic moved to a ford to the north, and an intact bridge to the south.

The village was originally home to nearly 500 citizens, but is slowly dwindling, as travel through the area has dried up.  Approximately 200 people remain in the core area of the settlement, with houses and farms in the surrounding area abandoned and left to be reclaimed by the woods.  With the loss of the bridge and its associated administration, more questionable souls, who are fine with being off the beaten path, have arrived.

The village has struggled to remain self-sufficient in its impoverished state.  However, it still maintains a several trades-folk and professions to serve both citizens and those few travelers who pass by on the Marginal Road.

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RPG Blog Carnival: Things in the Dark

Moebius Adventures opened up their figurative doors to host this month's RPG Blog Carnival, with the topic of 'Things in the Dark'...

...whether they are critters, environments, or just making one's way around in the dark places that PCs have a bad habit of exploring.

So, I will, as I often do, grab a bit of real history and bend it a bit for a little gaming goodness...

Mining.  Deep underground, dirty work in the darkness.  Personal illumination to safely and effectively work was important (well, effectively, safely came later...)

Trouble is, mines and other similar confined spaces can have a problem of atmosphere - Not enough oxygen, too much oxygen, explosive dusts or gasses, or poisonous atmospheres.  These so-called 'damps' (from the German dampf, or vapor) were a constant hazard.

And open flames can exacerbate those problems - especially in the cases of explosive environments or oxygen-enriched environments (where combustion can accelerate or spread rapidly).  Since miners often relied on open flames, such as helmet-mounted oil lamps (below), there was an incentive to find a less dangerous alternative, or at least methods to assess an atmosphere before working in an area (the fabled canary could only do so much, after all...).

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