Lair of the Beast Men

I made a one page dungeon:

I find that I can rarely run an adventure exactly as written. I made my dungeon pretty spare so that anyone can skin it to their own taste.

I will be running it as a lair of Khorne worshipping beast men in the ruins of an ancient building.

• The alarm trap will be an enormous vulture in a cage, covered in a blanket. Making to much noise or removing the blanket will wake the bird and cause it to raise a tremendous ruckus. 
• The Frenzied Beast on the map will be a flesh hound. 
• The Boss Brute will be an enormous Gnoll with a peg leg, burn scars and a magic chaos dagger that causes a geyser of blood at the tiniest scratch. The wielder of this dagger takes damage unless they kill something every day. 
• The Armory is filled with crude, battered weapons. Lots of farm tools reforged into weapons. There is also a small forge and a sharpening wheel (with an enormous bloodstain under it). Pile of mismatched armor pieces: 20% it fits any of the players.
• Shrine & abattoir are both clearly used to dispatch prisoners (there are no cells in this dungeon).
• A secret door from the courtyard conceals an as yet undisturbed, ancient part of the structure. A sealed chest contains high-tech medical kit and a prehistoric shotgun with 8 shells.
• The priest of Khorne is engaged in self-flagellation. 

The hazard die is my crude, fragmentary adaptation of Brendan's Hazard System. A d6 is rolled every dungeon turn and there is always a result. 

Feedback is welcomed.

A Gallery of Scum

Not terribly original, I fear, but you can never have too many simple humans to feed into the thresher.




*I replace the base attribute Wisdom with Alertness since that's what I always used it for.

**I use an Apocalypse Powered, 2d6 skill system where 2-6 is a dismal failure, 7-9 is a success with complications, and 10+ is success with bonus.

***A la Zak S

Stutterheim

I am taking a stab at a city campaign. It will be built on the bones of Logan Knight's fabulous Corpathium, and Zak's Vornheim with a mechanical structure cobbled together from Justin Alexander's urban crawl musings and Brendan's Hazard Dice. Giants, shoulders, etc.


To the west is an endless, ruin-studded wilderness (the Old Town of Yoon Suin). The mountain to the west is Death Frost Doom. To the east, a sprawling, fragmented megalopolis. Beneath, a dense labyrinth.

The above map fragment shows the party's starting position.

West Chapel is a neighborhood dominated by the Church of the Grey God, an anthro-supremacist religion: a delicious filling composed of equal parts Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany, Dune's Bene Gesserit, and WH 40k ensconced in a crust of paranoia, prejudice and Gothic architecture.


I'm a rank novice DM, so this might be a bit over-ambitious. Wish me luck!

The First Foray: The Worms' Turning

I am brand new to dungeon mastering OSR-style D&D. 

For my inaugural session in the DM godthrone, I ran Logan Knight's fantastic adventure "The Sleeping Place of the Feathered Swine."

Spoilerish play report:

Cuddles

In the jumbled corridors Below, a multitude of vengeful spirits writhe in the darkness, longing for the tactile satisfaction of physical form. They ache to fill any vessel no matter how meager.

The dangers of the twisted halls yield a battered bounty of broken bodies, void of their original inhabitants. No corpse lies still for long.

Even so, the sea of silent spirits seethes. No matter how many jars are spilled, there are never enough empties to  bottle the horde. There is always a remainder, waiting and wishing for teeth to gnash.

Every scavenger knows better than to turn his back on the deceased but deep in the maze of abandoned rooms, the spirits are taking up new forms.

Possessed Teddy

 

When the  glint of an eye belongs to the cast-off toy of a long absent child, a delver is likely to sigh with relief but Below, even the most innocent forms are often possessed by malevolence.

A teddy bear makes a poor vehicle of vengeance, and even filled with an angry spirit, the boneless toy can barely flop its way into a fray, and when it arrives, pillowy arms are incapable of piercing armor or rending flesh.

After initial surprise wears off, jerky movements and frequent tumbles may seem comical but these creatures are not harmless. It is not a deficit of strength that draws a spirit into such an inferior form, rather a surplus of desire. If a possessed toy can touch an open wound, it's inhabitant may enter the wound and claim the stronger body.

Hit Points: 1

AC: None. Cutting weapons, fire automatically successful. Immune to blunt weapons, bullets and mind effects.

Attack: 1d20 - 4 (stuffed limbs suck)

Damage:  On a hit, save vs. will or become possessed by the toy's spirit until you make a successful will save

Speed:  50% human

The Chessmen

This is my first entry for the Hack Vornheim Contest. I am running a little late (contest deadline was July 27, 2011) but since I don't actually care about winning anything, I think that's ok. I'll be attempting option #3, "expand something."

Without further introduction:

The Chessmen

In Vornheim, Large Chess is "A bizarre and repugnant indulgence," in which specially bred halflings act out a game of chess, dressed as the pieces they represent. In my campaign, these are the only halflings in the world.

Large Chess is a brutal blood sport. When a piece is captured, the capturing chessman delivers a single blow to the chessman being captured (who must accept the blow passively). If, after the blow, the captured piece is still able to stand, he can re-enter the game from the back rank.

The chessman are bred and trained to deliver a blow that is as debilitating as possible. Each piece has their own capturing move.

Pawns (Punchies): When capturing, a pawn throws a punch. One arm is disproportionately large and overdeveloped with an enormous bony fist. HD1, AC10, Damage 1d4, Speed 75% human.

Knights (Jumpers): These chessman must be able to jump over the heads of other pieces and so they have grotesquely muscular legs. For making captures, they wield a wooden cudgel. HD1, AC10, Damage 1d4, Speed 75% human walking. Can make 15' lateral or 8' vertical jumps.

Bishops (Kickers): Bishops deliver devastating kicks but their feet are broken and fused so often during training that they find it difficult to walk. HD1, AC10, Damage 1d4 (if using hit locations*, Bishops get a +2 bonus instead of a penalty for targeting an opponents legs) Speed 25% human.

Rooks (Splats): Rooks must hold a large stone block above their heads throughout the game. When making a capture they bring this block down on the opponent's piece with tremendous force. If a rook lowers his block for any reason other than a capture, he is removed from the game. HD1, AC10, Damage 1d8 but terrible at hitting moving targets, Speed 75% human.Can carry 150% what a normal human can.

Queen (Widow): Queens walk on 5' stilts and capture with polo mallets. If a queen falls from her stilts, she may be attacked by all opposing pieces until she regains her stilts or leaves the board. HD1, AC10, Damage 1d6, Speed 150% human.

King (The Coin): Kings walk on arm crutches and deliver powerful double legged kicks when they capture. When a game is lost the losing team's king is literally captured. Often, a king will be redeemed for a large ransom. HD1, AC10, Damage 1d4, Speed 50% human.

Chessman are born in pairs. It is considered disrespectful to your opponent to play with unmatched pieces and most leagues forbid the practice. As a result, any chessman whose twin is debilitated becomes unplayable. These leftovers can be purchased very inexpensively at the slave market.

Chessmen know nothing about the world outside of their game. If they are freed or if Large Chess is banned, they are sure to come to wretched ends.





*I use a hit location similar to Zak's except that I allow players to target specific locations with a penalty to hit.