Thurstle Island: Oozes of the Undercity

Jared Murphy (King328)

In my Thurstle Island campaign, oozes in their many varieties are the corrupted remnants of the Ancients' servitors. Their minds were poisoned by the malign influence of the Twisted Wyrm, buried nearby. This is not an original idea. It is drawn directly from Lovecraft: 

They had always been controlled through the hypnotic suggestion of the Old Ones, and had modelled their tough plasticity into various useful temporary limbs and organs; but now their self-modelling powers were sometimes exercised independently, and in various imitative forms implanted by past suggestion. They had, it seems, developed a semi-stable brain whose separate and occasionally stubborn volition echoed the will of the Old Ones without always obeying it.

The oozes, slimes and jellies overthrew their creators but lacked the sophistication to form a society of their own. Effectively immortal, they have roamed the decaying city for centuries, some are maddened and consumed with hatred, others are merely bewildered and frustrated.

I don't want oozes to be just another sludgy slurry of hit points. Consequently, ooze-type creatures take no damage from weapon attacks. Deciphering their other vulnerabilities is what makes them fun. Each type of ooze is it's own mini-game.

Oozes do share a few things in common: 

• They hate the cold. It slows their movements and their minds. Even minor chilling magics will dramatically reduce their mobility and power. Freezing an ooze solid then shattering it, is one of the few methods that works on nearly every type.
• They are often disrupted by admixture. Dirt, salt, water. It depends on the variety of ooze what bothers them most.
• They can climb vertical pipes and shafts if the concentration of their bulk is large enough to fill the space. I.e. a 10' Jelly Cube can ascend an 8' wide shaft but not a 15' diameter pipe.
• They can squeeze through cracks and small spaces though the process is usually slow. 
• They cannot cross a grate without dropping through.

Fortunately for the players, rods of ooze control are not too uncommon in the Ancient City.

Thurstle Island: City of the Ancients

The metallic ink just doesn't translate on screen.

The City of the Ancients is Thurstle Island's mega-dungeon. A glaciated urban husk, long abandoned by it's starborne builders. Like an iceberg, the portion visible above the surface is merely a fraction of the whole. 

This is largely inspired by John Arendt's Black City and H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountain's of Madness (full text). It will also borrow lots of elements from the new edition of Deep Carbon Observatory (incredible, buy immediately) and Roadside Picnic. 

Unlike Cove Town or the Old Forest, I'm not ready to nail down all the specifics yet. I have the skeleton and plan to flesh it out while the players begin their exploration. They'll probably start with one the mini-dungeons (like this or this) anyhow. 

That said, I want to think aloud as I put it together.

Nodes are significant buildings.

Thurstle Island: Cove Town

Rather than a street map, I opted for a relationship map.

I want Cove Town to be a place for scheming. In contrast to the traps and monsters of the island's dungeons, the conflict and maneuvering in town is primarily social. Different groups control access to critical resources. Supplies, information and opportunities to hire help require making friends with the right people. 

How it Works

I recently solicited the advice of the OSR subreddit on what makes a good starting town. My favorite suggestion was to use the guidelines formatted as the "Gygax 75 Challenge" by Ray Otus based on an old Gary article. The challenge recommends the following components: 

• Town Map: Since politics are more important to me than geographic proximity, I drew mine as relationship web. I'll also give them Kevin Campbell village cards as a visual reference on what shops and services are available. 

Kevin Campbell via Dyson

Zine How-to

My wife works for the Smithsonian's design museum and recently produced a video on the history of zines with a brief tutorial on how to make one (using a pocketmod template).

While the video is focused on zines created by various social movements rather than gamers, I think it may be of interest to folks in our community. 

Check it out, let me know what you think!

DM Tool: Location Table

A couple years ago, I was working on a campaign map and in my brainstorming process I started writing down every interesting location that I could think of. Some basic (city, bridge, gallows etc) others more obscure (tallow mine, petrified forest, leper colony). I filled an entire page.

Ever since, this has been one of the pages in my DM notebook that I use most. Whenever I need to think of a site for an encounter I just scan the list to find an interesting+fitting option. I've populated maps by adding coordinates and rolling for locations.

It's a basic tool, but when I hear other DMs talk about the resources they keep handy, this one never comes up. Are other people using something similar? If so, would you share a copy?

Anyhow, I just migrated to a new notebook, and I took a couple minutes to re-create the list. It's got 250+ entries but I'd love to fill another page or two. I'm posting this to reddit in hopes the hive mind will help me populate another page or two.

What are some places it would be fun to go in an RPG?

Thurstle Island: To the Lighthouse

To the southeast of Thurstle Island, on a little spur of rock, a lighthouse spears out of the sea. Its beacon went out years ago but as Gothic colonization accelerates and the Northmen thegns smuggle more contraband, its strategic importance is growing. 

The Situation

Many years ago, after the earthquake, when the Templar were abandoning their fort, the supply packets to the lighthouse stopped. Trapped at his post, the miserable monk who tended the light starved to death and, soon after, so did the lamp. 

Some time later, en route to an island prison further out to sea, a Gothic ship smashed on the unlit rock. An ebony coffin, containing the vampire Drusilla, bobbed ashore, and the lighthouse found a new master. She enthralled the few sailors who came ashore and now feeds on them just a little every night. The sailors have all gone mad.

Drusilla is trapped on the island. She cannot fly over water and though she needn't breath and could walk to shore on the seabed, she has no way to bring her coffin with her. She will seek to threaten or negotiate anyone arriving on the rock to take her to Thurstle Island. Her husband was also on the ship that stranded her here, but his coffin was made of iron and chained closed. She desperately wants to rescue him.

Karl Alexander Wilke from Die Muskete magazine 1926

This is intended as a low-level dungeon. The grunts are not very threatening. The boss almost certainly outmatches the player characters but wants to negotiate. Gaining control of the island could be a major boon to the players.

Thurstle Island: Old Forest

The Old Forest fills the lowland interior of Thurstle Island. Travel between the clifftop locations around the perimeter of the island usually has to pass through the forest. 

The trees of this wood are crowded, gnarled and tired. Their creak and rustle hide other noises and it is easy to be surprised when moving along the paths. The trees are not friendly to visitors and many of the plants (from an older post) that live under them are deadly in their own right. 

How it Works

This is the central "blob" of the Thurstle Island map. It is a pathcrawl maze. Player characters will need to find routes through the wood in order to reach other parts of the island. 

• Most of the nodes are features of interest that are useful or interesting rather than dangerous.
• Conflicts and obstacles are concentrated on the paths. The first time, player characters travel across them they will trigger the keyed encounter. 
• If they find a way to placate the Druids, many of the more dangerous encounters will be avoided.
• Once the PC's have visited a node, they can "fast-travel" there with a single wandering encounter role
• DM Note: When moving over paths that have already been explored, any encounters that come up will be designed for quick resolution i.e. Druids throw javelins then flee into the woods. I don't want to bog down our gaming time re-hashing the same territory. 
• Many of the node locations contain stele (drawn in on the map) . These will reveal useful parts of the island's history and give clues on how to defeat the boss enemies. They will also grant XP bounties when discovered.

Over the Garden Wall