Phlox's Triumphant Tri-Stat Challenge

I’m gonna go to Phlox’s wondrous tri-stat system generator and hit the button a bunch of times at random, then make a quick system from the top result.

NEW TESTAMENT, FREEDOM, VICI

Oh man, this is gonna be fun.

NEW TESTAMENT: Rhetoric, amiability, stealth, religious and medical lore

FREEDOM: Individual expression, art, skill, resisting

VICI: Fighting, joining the masses, rallying allies, menacing

The Empire has lived for a cosmic century. Their mines shatter virgin planets to oblivion, seeking MITHRIL. The Pontifex rules the Empire, keeping the genetically engineered masses down with rapturous drug-scripture. A messiah has risen on a backwater rim planet. The Empire thinks they are dangerous. The Empire sees all, has almighty power. Why are they afraid?

You are the resistance elite. All hail the Messiah.

To make a character, put 9 points among your stats. Roll under your stat on a d6 to succeed on rolls concerning it (so max 6, min 1). Your possessions include one weapon, one contraband item that expresses your individuality, a name you are afraid of speaking, and a shit-ton of weird-ass drugs.

When you fail an NT roll, mark a point of Frustration. The Messiah frowns on you- is this your mission? Remove Frustration upon reaffirming your faith, often with the help of opiates. If your Frustration exceeds 10, you rebuke the Cause, joining the Empire’s intoxicated slave armies.

When you fail a FR roll, mark a point of Collectivism. Your genes rebel against you, compelling you to join the herd. Remove Collectivism upon creating a work of art. Doing so on Empire technology is a bonus. If your Collectivism exceeds 10, you become a Husk, reverting to a tabula rasa state and following any order you are given by anyone, unable to speak.

When you fail a VC roll, mark a point of Wrath. You yearn to bash in skulls, be they the skulls of the Empire or even your allies under the Messiah’s Cause. Remove a point of Wrath by washing blood off your hands and popping a sedative. If your Wrath ever exceeds 10, your bloodlust cannot be satiated, and the Empire turns you into one of its JUGGERNAUTS.

When you destroy a chunk of MITHRIL, increase a stat of your choice by 1.

Fight until the Pontifex falls. Or you do. It’s all the same, in the end.

Potions as Drugs

POTIONS AS DRUGS

MARROW needs something unique. Something built into its mechanics to insinuate some larger, cooler world. Something stolen from Goblin Punch. To that end, I present Potions as drugs.

There are no more potions. Anything that would have been a potion, like a potion of healing or flight, is now some strange type of drug. When you take a drug of any sort, magical or mundane, make a CON roll. (Mundane things like a smoke from a pipe or a pint of ale don’t really count, though one could track that as benefit-less Addiction if they’re an evil DM like me.) If the roll fails, you get a point of Addiction to that drug (track each separately). Take a penalty to every roll you make to take drugs equal to your current Addiction to that drug. That point occupies a DEX slot. Then the effect takes hold, whatever it may be. To remove a point of Addiction, you have to spend a tenday doing nothing but trying to get clean. At the end of that time, roll CON, with ADVANTAGE if you had help (a counter-drug, friends encouraging you, a promise to a dead relative, something significant like that). If you succeed, you remove a single point of Addiction.

Here are some common magical drugs:

SIGHT-ROOT. This thich grey powder is made from dried and ground leaves that grow near beholder lairs. Upon ingesting, the user can see through illusions and magic for an hour.

FAIRY DUST. Take a guess where this thin white powder comes from. Upon ingesting, you gain the ability to fly for a TURN.

DWARVEN GAR. Some say the Bearded Folk slip the oils of the earth into their rich mugs of mead. Upon ingesting, you gain ADVANTAGE on all STR, CON and CHA rolls for an hour, but DISADVANTAGE on all DEX, INT, and WIS rolls for that same hour.

WIZARD’S TOBACCO. This bright blue leaf is truly unnatural, being harvested by mad horticulture-mages from the backs of moon beasts. Upon ingesting, you gain the ability to see magical auras for an hour. However, you have DISADVANTAGE on all WIS rolls, as the auras shimmer and disorient.

SYRUP. This thick, molasses-like red elixir is made from coagulated blood and fairy dust. It stitches the skin as you drink it, but its sway acts quickly. Effect: When you ingest this drug, wager up to 5 Addiction. This drug heals you a number of WOUNDS equal to the Addiction you wagered.

1 Addiction: You’ve tried it, but you’re not quite hooked. No negative effects… yet.

2 Addiction: It’s starting to get the hang of you. If you go a tenday without ingesting this drug, you get DISADVANTAGE on all rolls until you secure a dose.

3 Addiction: You’re hopelessly head-over-heels. You have DISADVANTAGE on all rolls when you or one of your Friends does not have a dose of the drug on them.

4 Addiction: Its hold deepens. If you go a day without ingesting this drug, you get DISADVANTAGE on all rolls until you secure a dose.

5 Addiction: You’re an addict through and through. If there are any doses of the drug in your line of sight, you must attempt to secure them and ingest them as fast as possible. If you fail a WIS roll, you must do this heedless of your own safety, as well as that of anyone else.

6 Addiction: You are a slave to this substance. DISADVANTAGE on all rolls when you’re not under its effects.

Now I want to make a System Shock table for when DEX slots get overfull. Darn, that reminds me I need to write my scar location table in the MARROW doc. Well, expect an update to 0.2 soon. In the meantime, I’m gonna be looking up lists of fantasy drugs to steal.

If this post makes no sense, don’t worry. I plan on cleaning it up before it goes into MARROW. Just needed to get the idea on the internet.

The original post: http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2013/12/drugsdrugsdrugs.html

Xian Yang

I will, in all likelyhood, be running a feudal-japan/chinese sort of campaign soon. Here is a copy of my lore pitch to the player who requested it. Hope it inspires someone. You may see more content for this campaign in the future.

The pace that blankets verdant plains and vibrant forests of Xian Yang is about to be shattered, perhaps forever.

   

    An ancient enemy spearheads a terrifying political takeover, while a fractured history’s unfinished story is reopened and relived. Now it’s up to you to save the island nation before it crumbles to the forces of chaos.

    Are you ready to restore order to Xian Yang?

THE ISLAND

    Xian Yang is a small place. A month (4 tendays) of travel and you can circulate the mainland, two tendays and you can sail about the coast. The Jade Court virtually rules it all, and most of the plain are conquered by farmland. However, monsters still dwell even in the most civilized of spaces (not to mention the places yet untamed), and the malice in the heart of the Kin may be an even more dangerous poison to Xian Yangi civilization!

    On the southern edge of Xian Yan, bordering the Arabus Ocean, is the city of Yokishiro, the biggest city in Xian Yang. Spanning both sides of the Shui River, Yokishiro is the hub for trade coming into and going out of Xian Yang. The Blades of Wheat stand to protect the city from the goblinfolk Kuzgol to the north and the naval raiders from abroad.

    North of Yokishiro and east of the Shui River are the Xianduo Fields. These massive plains of waving grass are yet unconquered, and the horse-riding tribes of the Kuzgol flourish in these places, unbothered by the mandates of the Jade Court and fiercely independent (yet not hostile to Xian Yangi). Stone ruins dot the fields, some holding ancient secrets…

    West of the Shui River is a wide, grassy plain known as the Hills of Yun. This is the seat of farming and trade on Xian Yang, and along the sides of the Stone Ox Road stretching across the length of Xian Yang, manor houses and agricultural hamlets engage in complicated networks of trade and output to make sure that Xian Yang stays fed and economically afloat.

    To the north is a great and mystical forest known as the Toshiro Glade. Dotted by secluded monasteries, gnomish enclaves, and vine-choked ruins of a forgotten age, old adages warn against wandering the Toshiro at night. The Yokai Courts (fey) hold sway over the dark spaces, and even their chaotic malice isn’t the worst of what trror you may find in the depths of the eldritch forest.

    Smack-dab in the middle of the Toshiro Glade are some mountains jutting up from the foliage. Called the Hirigana Peaks, the southern shadow of these mountains harbor the second largest city on Xian Yang, called Wudoshi. Wudoshi is the end of the Stone Ox Road, and cuts logs and paper from the woods, exporting them in exchange for crops from Yokishiro. Since they trade in so much paper, Wudoshi is a great seat of knowledge, containing the majority of Xian Yang’s libraries and map stores.

    Higher up the Hirigana Peaks from Wudoshi is the Jade Palace, the seat of the Jade Court. Difficult to get to and protected by illusion, the most esteemed members of each clan gather here (and oftentimes live here) in order to pass laws and maintain order in Xian Yang.

    A fair number of moderately large islands surround the mainland of Xian Yang, containing fishing cities and unexplored ruins of a bygone era, but those are mostly uncatalogued by the Jade Court. This mini-gazetteer is far from comprehensive, and many wonders exist on XIan Yang that remain uncatalogued here.

   

THE CLANS

    Those who don’t belong to a clan, who don’t have clan honor to maintain, are called “shinokosho”. It is possible to marry into or be knighted into a clan, and this is a great goal to have if you start a shinokosho. The samurai tradition from Godswind Bastion is exclusively  taught to shinokosho in order to keep the clans from having ultimate martial power, and being a samurai or a shogun is one of the highest honors a shinokosho can seek to gain without c;an affiliation.

    The Horse clan are those who put their nose to the grindstone, who work tirelessly in pursuit of their loft goals. The quality of work and perseverance of a Horse clan agent is truly remarkable. Messengers, artisans, daredevils and mercenaries are all typical Horse clan professions.

    The Raven clan know the old ways. They are the closest thing to an indegenous tribe remaining, and as masters of wind and wood are able to utilize their deep connection with nature to great effect. They are apothecaries, shamans, wanderers, and archeologists, and their intuition is practically unmatched.

    The Monkey clan are tricksters, entertainers, those who thrive in chaos and invention. Cutpurses, jesters, tinkerers, and artists all might feel at home in the Monkey clan, which operates on overt sensation and approaches problems with the subtlety of a brick through a window.

    The Tiger clan are those who seek valor, to write their names in the history books. Aristocrats, warriors, generals, and arcanists are all common members of the Tiger clan.

    The Mouse clan are mostly Smallfolk. They are those who hide in the shadows, make things run smoothly, make a push from behind a thick wall. Craftspeople, bureaucrats, labor managers, and demolitionists are common Mouse clan members.

    The Snake clan have little patience for politics in courts. They deal in knowledge, be it common, ancestral, long-lost, secret, or otherwise. Spies, librarians, collectors, and storytellers are all common Snake clan members.

    The Dragon clan was decimated in years of yore, or perhaps they went into hiding. They were demigods, masters of a magical herbal concoction the recipe to has since been lost through the centuries. Their deeds were the things of legend, and their sudden mass disappearance shaked Xian Yang to the core all those decades ago.

    The Jade Court is composed of a council of Jade Consulars, the leaders from each clan, who make Xian Yang’s legislative decisions. The shogun, general of the Xian Yang militaries and the dean of the elite samurai academy known as Godswind (Kamikaze) Bastion, attends the council as well. The shogun is currently a human woman named Sen Dao (Threeblades), a naval veteran well into her 50s. The clans hold much power (including knowledge of the ninja traditions), but most of it is built off reputation, which is why honor is so important to clan members. If a clan loses sufficient face or decorum, it literally loses its power.

A HEAVILY ABRIGIED TIMELINE OF XIAN YANG HISTORY

0-1673 A.S.: All of Xian Yang was composed of tribal structures competing for influence on the newly-risen isles of Xian Yang, called Oshitawa back then.

1674 A.S.: The 13 most powerful tribes became the first clans. The first recorded Jade Court meeting was held in (long ago). Over time, more and more clans were destroyed or merged, and the population of the Jade Court changed to suit that.

1984 A.S.: The Mukashi-Banashi, a set of scrolls detailing the most potent knowledges of the wisest sages under the Court’s dominion, were penned by a scribe-cabal.

2017 A.S.: The Jade Council stood at 7 clans strong, virtually resembling the modern arrangement. Systematic farming, surplus, and trade proceeds to be instituted, beginning a golden age of Xian Yang advancement.

2026 A.S.: Doorfall. Across all of Aeros, the living portal network known as the Doors grew cancerous and mutated, and its crash wiped out entire civilizations. This ended the golden age of Aeros, the Age of Kings, and marked the beginning of the present age, the Age of Heroes.

2028 A.S.: The Dragon Clan vanishes shortly after Doorfall, and with them the Mukashi-Banashi. This is generally regarded as the end of the Age of Kings in Xian Yang.

3672 A.S.: Godswind Bastion established under Togigara Umishatu, and the samurai came into being. Shogun Umishatu led a hostile takeover of the Jade Court upon building a private army of samurai.

3685 A.S.: After suffering from a wasting plague, Umishatu dies at the hands of Jade Court ninjas. The shogunate becomes a position on the Jade Court, however, to prevent further conflict.

4168 A.S.: Within an elf-generation of the present day, the current economic system was set up. The lords, daimyo, operated in the economic and political circles, while the jito oversaw the runnings of their property and the shinokosho labor on the daimyo’s land. Clan members and samurai were generally excluded from this system.

4196 A.S.: A messianic figure named Lenushi encouraged the working class rise up for a cut of the land for their own. Lenushi was quickly put down by the Jade Court, a liability to their system, but the deed was done, and the shinokosho began to whisper of a different way of life called “capitalism”.

4199 A.S.: After a wave of unrest and threats of rebellion, the Jade Court issued an unprecedented event called a “sword-hunt”. Imperial agents forcefully entered homes and confiscated bladed weapons from the shinokosho population. This caused great uproar, so the Jade Court retracted their mandate, but the shinokosho remain ill-equipped for war, and more vitally, rebellion.

4220 A.S.: The present day. The Jade Court remains strong, but threats to their power continue lurk in the shadows. Unrest stirs in the wilds, and civilization becomes wary of its continued safety. Heroes needed…

Timeline of Aeros

This is one of those posts that’s for me, recording things about my world no one needs to know. Sorry about that. Gameable content coming soon.

0 A.S.: The Iron Treaty is signed. The Godswars are over.

0-729 A.S.: The cosmos is organized and stabilized. Ragnarok is created as a demonic prison, Inferno as the panopticon of Ragnarok, the dead souls congregate in Hades, and Olympus and Valhalla are the homes of the “good” gods and their virtuous chosen.

729 A.S.: Meanwhile, as the mortals are left to their own devices, the giants assert supremacy on Aeros, creating the Osterhaargen Empire.

1243 A.S.: In Kaz, the Dracophaerus Pact is signed. The humans ally with the dragons, and the Giant-Dragon-Human wars begin.

1346 A.S.: The giants, in fear of rekindling a war so great as the Godswars, meet with leaders of the Dracophaerus Conclave to arrange a treaty. The Ordning is created, codifying the terms of the treaty between the giants, dragons and humans. (Over time, Ordning has become synonymous with giant law.) This includes non-hostility between human nations and giant nations by default, the stipulation that dragons and humans cannot reunite against the giants again, and the constraint of giant-only lands to specific regions.

1347 A.S.: After the threat of the giants dissipates, the Age of Kings begins. Humans, elves and dwarves begin constructing empires and arcana that will last millenia, including a massive cross-dimensional biomachine called the Doors that connected the world in cheap and easy portals.

2026 A.S.: Doorfall. The Age of Kings comes to a close as the Doors shut down, reason unknown. The world stops being connected, and spends the last of its greatest magics fighting off the creatures that tried to hijack the Doors to enter our reality. The Age of Kings is over, the world is no longer united, and empires have fallen with the Doors.

2029 A.D/3 A.D.: The Free North is the first nation to fully reconstruct from Doorfall. This empire is hailed as the “greatest triumph of the Age of Heroes”.

4220 A.S./2194 A.D.: About the present day.

Fire and Life and Magic

Fire and life are linked, in an intrinsic and peculiar way. Fire is life, shimmering and dancing and vibrant and energetic, but ultimately destined to peter out and grow cold. Fire grows and spreads and dies. Life destroys and creates entropy. But the connections grow deeper than that.

The Elemental Plane of Fire is said to be the crucible of souls. When a soul needs to be drawn out of the ether to be breathed again into a new life, it passes through the Plane of Fire to be scorched anew into a Tabula Rasa. Or perhaps Charon, ferrier of the souls, likes to warm himself by the fire before delivering new life into the flesh. Either way, superstitious locals always hold a bonfire before a birth, to avoid miscarriage and strife, and somehow it always seems to work, and it always seems to fail when left undone.

Fire is magic. Magic burns away at a person’s mind, a person’s body, a person’s soul, a person’s fire. It consumes, bit by bit, with each destructive and powerful use, a barely contained chaos. Magic is a background energy, like heat. It is constantly present in some form, as reality itself is incompatible with a void of magic. Magic made manifest into effects or Spells or objects is pulled from this background, these ley lines, fashioned and shaped like molten-hot metal into the cast of conceptual understanding.

Souls are magic. When the Kin die, their souls proceed to afterlives into forms like ghosts, devils, celestials, and petitioners. When those die, they are said to fade into the ley lines, becoming part of the magical background energy of the cosmos. New souls are ripped from this background and purified through fire. New fire is conjured from magic and ends the cycle of life. Life spawns and shapes magic, creating fire.

Golems are creatures between things… they are powered with and by fire, they mimic life, and they are born from and breathe magic. Which are they? Which are they not? Which in them are one and the same?

Magic and fire and life. They are different, and yet they are one.

Hadaar

HADAAR

Long ago, a cataclysm of an enigmatic nature wracked the green lands that would become Hadaar. The ley lines were dragged ham-fistedly into the Shadowfell, and the land became wracked and destroyed. The bone plains, the fields of darkness, droughtsblight, all of these are names for the wastes of Hadaar.

XAL NEVAR

    The capital city of Hadaar, and the site of the Jagged Tower, the spiraling palace of black glass that Queen Xana Malhalvoc rules from. Attended by the Hierophant of the Sun, Pontifex Mathris Brightburn, her rule is growing more and more despotic as the city and palace guards, the Lightscourge Company, are being given more and more power and laws grow ever stricter. However, nearly all Xal Nevari residents would claim that this rulership is entirely better than being left to fend for themselves in the Hadaaran wastes...

THE FOUR SISTERS

    The Four Sisters are the four largest cities in Hadaar, as well as the only ones formally recognized by imperial cartographers. Fort Thormadara was the first city, constructed by Mastican colonizers along the Desolate Coast. Fort Hellmask was the second, the first inland city. Fort Blacksoot was third, built in the shadow of the Drakshadow mountains, but the name was quickly changed after Xaggaveldar’s attack and its rebuilding. Finally, Fort Phlengaros was set up near the far Easter frontier of the Hadaaran waste after Xal Nevar was established as the capital of Hadaar.

Fort Thormadara

    This port-city is perhaps the most lively city in Hadaar. Crime guilds compete under the purview of the half-elvish thief known as the Finger. The Court of Sol is the biggest collection of temples in Hadaar, drawing pilgrims every year. The bumbling and incompotent Seaspears watch over the place, helpless to stop the rampant smuggling and contraband trade. Fort Thormadara imports black glass and ships it out in exchange for vital goods unavailable in the waterless waste.

Fort Hellmask

    Fort Hellmask lives up to its infernal name. Imps cavort above the ever-burning rooftops, and conclaves of Monsterkin and Goblinfolk compete for seats at the parliamentarian Ashen Court, the only thing standing between the city and utter anarchy. The streets are practically trenches, and the residents are locked in a war for conclave supremacy. The most numerous and powerful conclaves include Kuuldak’s Travesties, the Tenebrous Mantle, the Nightmongers, the Ratcatcher’s Guild, and countless other small gangs vying for seats at the Ashen Table.

Fort Phlengaros

    Fort Phlengaros is perhaps one of the safest places you can find yourself in, as far as Hadaar goes. That is, as long as you mind the ghosts. Fort Phelngaros was built atop a hill containing the ruined rubble of some previous civilization. Unfortunately, after construction of the preliminary settlement was built, archeological digs uncovered the fact that the structure wa actually an eldritch mausoleum, and every night under the light of the moon, the withered ghosts come into focus and stalk the streets of Fort Phlengaros. They are harmless unless you make eye contact or touch any of them, in which case it flies into a rage and attacks. More archeology and study is being conducted every day to answer the countless questions concerning the Moon Ghost’s presence (do they return after being slain? Why do they persist? Can we stop them from appearing? Why was the crypt built? What civilization was here before, and why did they build this?), but answers are very few. Many suspect that they lie in the zombie-choked inner sanctums of the mausoleum, speculating of a Moon Vault that opens once every lunar year...

DRAKSHADOW MOUNTAINS

Not but 30 years ago, Xaggaveldar the Nightwing swooped down from the Drakshadow mountains, nearly destroying Fort Blacksoot in one fell swoop on a day that would later become a Hadaaran holiday known as the Day of Shadow. Since Xal Nevar and the Jagged Spire sit in the shadow of these massive black stone mountains, the city is constantly on high alert for another cataclysmic attack, and is constantly fortifying with the most advanced anti-dragon tools and weapons available.

Xaggaveldar dwells in an ancient wizard’s laboratory in the Drakshadow mountains that predates modern Hadaaran settlement called the Fane of Shadow. Inside is rumored to be a clutch of eggs and a portal to the Shadowfell, among other things. If Xaggaveldar were disposed of, many scholars speculate that the Fane of Shadows could answer why Hadaar was wracked by the shadows so long ago.

A bonus: LEADERSHIP OF THE CULT OF THE BOUND ONE

Jellicoe, the Beggar-Priest. Joined the cult after mental illness issues caused his homelessness and his partner to leave him. As an unsightly and uncharismatic fellow, the homeless community didn’t readily accept him, so his struggle was great, coupled with terrible addictions, diseases, and mental issues. This mad, toadlike man was a natural candidate for conversion to the doomsday cult, and quickly showed great devotion and bloodthirst. The world has wronged him and people like him so grievously, perhaps it’s time to start over.

The Red Hand, the Gunslinging Goblinoid. This hobgoblin’s genius made him an enemy of his people, as many hobgoblin governments tend towards facism, the natural enemy of which is intelligentsia. He attempted to integrate into human society, but they saw him as a hobgoblin and shunned him. His craft turned to war, forging weapons against those who had scourged his technical might. The cult saw this power and the potential within him, and swiftly took the egomaniacal Red Hand under their wing with placations and admissions of his boundless intellect.

Savrya, the Macabre Megalomaniac. From an early age, Savrya was obsessed with that which was twisted and dark. Her parents were rightfully concerned when she proudly showed off her collection of rodents, killed in every manner she could think of and dissected to high heaven. Since then, her psychopathic journey into that which is forbidden and vile hasn’t stopped, leading her to disfigure her face and hide it behind a metal carapice. She is by far the most magically adept of the cult, and leads it with a calculating and iron rule. The ritual is her doing...

I know, I know, I should do things that aren't MARROW

...but I can't resist. Hacking is an addiction.

Marrow 0.0.9 is here in time for my playtest Saturday and Sunday. I've folded the DM section into the player section because I felt that it would be easier and more efficient. I simplified the Friendship rules to taste. I've changed how opposed checks and DEFENSE work. Now I have to let it sit and not poke it so much I start to hate it before I even play it.

Oh, I also created a massive pile of classes.

Check it out. Credits listed at the bottom from who I stole from. It's SUPER rough and incomplete, I'm gonna do a LOT of formatting and addition and organization, but I wanted to get it out now. Just for kicks.

Other posts coming, I promise. I have a couple of neat setting and NPC tidbits in the works, so stay tuned.

Thanks so much for reading, it means the world to me.

Envelope Musings

Sometimes you get that creative bug. For me, it struck at about 11 a couple nights ago. I grabbed a miniature manilla envelope I had gotten from the dentist’s office months prior, ripped it open, and began sketching the art for the Duelist class. About an hour later, the whole envelope and then some was filled with sketches, class ideas, and musings. I give you the Envelope Musings, a sequel-in-spirit to the Orb 18 (thanks again to the almighty Phlox, whose genius and madness knows no bounds!).

DUELIST CLASS

You have created, received, or stolen an epic weapon. This weapon defines you, and thrusts you into the role of an epic hero. What is King Arthur without Excalibur? What is Thor without Mjolnir? Damocles without his Sword? And you too join these mythological ranks.

DUELIST SKILLS: Standing your ground

1 Name one of your weapons. It occupies CHA slots now, being so legendary it is a facet of your personality and reputation. You gain a +1 to hit with it per Level, and it counts as magic.

2 Your weapon becomes truly mighty. Scribe an elemental rune of your choice into it, damage it deals will be of that type.

3 When openly brandishing your weapon, you have advantage on CHA all rolls except to calm creatures down or convince them of non-hostility.

4 You can never be disarmed of your weapon, and it can never be destroyed. In addition, it gains a unique and epic property.

CLASS IDEAS

Halfling Bear-Rider (an observation: any Class can be made cooler by adding an ancestry to it, particularly a juxtaposition)

Drug-Wrestler (an example: Elvish Drug-Wrestler makes this a LOT cooler-sounding)

Whistler (Orcish Whistler? Hell yeah! Give it to me! Okay, I’ll stop now.)

Shitty Bard (with a recorder or a slide whistle or kalimba or something)

Landlord

Roofer

Maintenance Person

Mural Artist

Space Pirate/Star Commander

Kalidescoficer (make projectors! Throw swirling beams of rainbow! Disorient with holographic illusions!)

Anti-Prospector (you go into the mines to see if you should STOP digging. You sense when the earth is angry, and what dwells in her veins...)

Mortician

Tentacle-Priestess

Jury-Rigger (quick! I need a rubber band, two paper clips, and the deed to the castle!)

Laser Druid (you found a vine-choked laser rifle in the woods and just assumed it was a gift from the forest. Now you have a laser gun and the power of nature on your side!)

SETTING TIDBITS

INSeCT-sANTA

From your diamond chrysalis deep within the earth, you emerged. You know the black sands and thin waters of the ocean below, but the light above hypnotises and enthralls you. The infants above celebrate the cold with rituals you seek to learn and assist with, so the cold may be kind to you when you devour them.

Coal you do not know, but diamonds you do understand. Toys are strange, but maggots are close. They speak of elves, and you have met the drow from deep below, so you understand what you must do. Sand and claws you both know, so you ritualistically bathe in the black glass sand on the shores of your chrysalis before you emerge onto the surface, silently bestowing your charms with the help of your thrall-elves and bearing your claws to anyone that sees you. Soon, the cold will learn to love you, and you may eat them all.

ADVENTURE HOOK: A small hamlet is plagued by Insect Santa and their dark elf thralls. The PCs must piece together the mystery of what is happening and stop Insect Santa from finding a magic artifact that would blanket the world in ice and snow. A terrifying parody of christmas explodes into nightmarish horror all around, alone in the blizzard...

CLASS IDEAS: One of Insect Santa’s drow minions, either one currently connected to Insect-Santa or a defective reject. Perhaps even Insect Santa itself…

MAKE SOMETHING: A roll-table of Insect Santa’s gifts. Insect Santa’s lair and stats.

tHE WOOdS ARE ALiVE

The mountains and the forests were always enemies from the beginning. Their tectonic battles wage over eons, so slow that only the Elves have any hope of tracking the progress of battles and skirmishes.

Deep below the forest, stone from the stars shatters and blooms outwards. The particles condense into cells condense into fungal clusters condense into the folded fractal forest above. The startstone is the home-hub of the greatest tactician of the forest-mountain wars ever. And the Claws grow from the wet soil, and the mountains quiver in fear.

ADVENTURE HOOKS: Perhaps the characters see the fungal meteor fall from the sky, and hear of the mountain’s rumbles following. Perhaps the characters see the great and foetid Claws, reaching into the tortured sky, eagerly waiting to taste the blood of the stone. Perhaps they are drawn to the startstone below the forest, and hypnotized into joining the great battle. Perhaps the forest seeks to conquer the cities next...

CLASS IDEAS: A druid, in fearful worship of the Claws. A fungally-corrupted soldier of the forest. The mountain’s retaliation. Perhaps you could even play as a Claw…

MAKE SOMETHING: Describe the Claws, what they do, how the common folk interact with them. Write up a forest/mountain battle report, either from the perspective of the forest, the mountain, or the elves watching onwards. Describe the home planet of the fungus, and why it’s helping the forest.

“As the stars churn in the unblinking velvet sky, a dead man walks the earth.”

Lamplight in the Dark

An adventure set in Victorian London. I’m gonna use Old Skulling’s adventure design schema (https://oldskulling.blogspot.com/2020/07/sharp-swords-sinister-spells-2nd_9.html) to outline this one. It’s system and setting neutral- I was gonna run it with the Doctor Who RPG, but you can do any system, game, or assumed setting you see fit, just so long as there’s space for a multidimensional psychic entity that seeks to dominate the cosmos.

WHO?

    The Vast, an intangible psychic entity that wishes to enter our reality. It can’t manifest a physical form (yet?), but it can project psychic manifestations so strong they are perceived with and interacted with as physical beings. These entities are called the Whisper Men, looking like identically-dressed, faceless, paper-skinned morticians.

    Phillip Zachary Menlo, a down-on-his-luck “medium” who’s actually using the superstition of the times to profit off of his charlatan abilities. He’s just trying to get by day by day, and he’s oh so tired. His “crystal ball” is actually a focal point for the Vast’s dimensional incursion.

    Colonel Hubbinsley, the foreman of Hubbinsley Coalworks. A pompous and rich bastard who cares for nothing and nobody else. The Vast has shattered his mind, and he seeks to build it a body.

WHAT?

    Phillip Zachary Menlo is being watched, guarded by Whisper Men. He knows they’re there, he knows they’re unnatural, but he doesn’t know why they’re watching him.

    Workers are dying, their overexerted bodied being unceremoniously disfigured beyond recognition and being dumped into the garbage. They were all previous employees of Hubbinsley Coalworks.

    The Whisper Men attack anyone who gets too close to the heart of the Vast’s conspiracy. That includes picking up PZM’s crystal ball, investigating one of the worker corpses, or entering the basement vault of the Coalworks...

WHERE?

    PZM’s grungy flat, the streets of London, the floor of Hubbinsley Coalworks, the Colonel’s office, the secret vaults below...

WHY?

    If the Vast is not sent away to its home dimension, in 3 days, the Colonel will finish its new body. The massive flesh-mech will shudder and rise. The living will become as the Whisper Men, and the Vast will conquer this world as it had conquered its home world. Perhaps if the PCs fail, there is still some hope to destroy the titanic body before it rampages on a conversion-crusade.

HOW?

    The Vast can be sent home with any particularly ingenious or appropriate plan. Perhaps it can be stopped by shattering the crystal ball against its proto-body. Perhaps it can be stopped with the betrayal of the Whisper Men. Perhaps it can be taught the nature of love, or perhaps it fears kindness. Perhaps Colonel Hubbinsley is the key, and if he can be redeemed, the Vast’s foothold crumbles.

    Any way you slice it, the crystal ball is the key. If the crystal ball is intact, the Vast has some hope of returning to conquer this dimension again…

THE PCs ENTER THE ADVENTURE…

… after getting contacted by PZM, telling of the Whisper men

… as workers at Hubbinsley’s Coalworks

… as private investigators looking into the murders and disfigurations

…coming together. They’ve all been hunted by the Whisper Men. Why?

Also, my two cents on adventure design: always think about what might happen if the apparent enemy actually has some hidden beneficial component to them. They’re an ally who can’t communicate, they’re keeping something else that’s very much worse in check, they are in charge of a trade network that keeps the economy afloat, something that might make the PCs regret treating them as straight enemies. Even doing this once or twice in a campaign will make the PCs wary, always seeking more information about who is ACTUALLY an enemy and vaping consequences a lot more.

Make a Game

Find a game you really like, one that every time you flip through it fires a different creative neuron. Could be OG GLoG, could be a GLoG hack (for me it was the wonderful BONES), could be something like LotFP or DCC, hell, could even be DnD 4e.

Go through that game closely. Take notes on specifically what you like and why you like it. Take notes on what you don’t like and why you don’t like it. Figure it out, get an intimate knowledge of what it is and what caught your attention. Perhaps play it (though if you’re an experienced DM/mechanics wonk, this may not be necessary).

Take the system and rip it apart. Take out every little chunk that annoys you, that you don’t like. Treat the game book like a broken watch. Salvage the good parts, replace or refurbish the bad parts, perhaps with parts from other watches. Make the game you’d most like to play. Make the game whose philosophies fir your DMing style.

IT’S OKAY IF THAT CHANGES OVER TIME. It’s okay if there’s no “canonical version” of your new rules, it’s okay if it changes every campaign, or every month, or even every session. It’s okay to have multiple hacked games going on at once, to have many projects and many styles and many frontiers of exploration. Go and play.

When all that strange warping is done (but it’s never really done, is it?), you’ll have something of your very own. Maybe it’s not a full game, maybe it’s three full games, maybe it’s something so unique that it can only exist in you and your player’s minds, but that’s YOUR SPECIAL THING. That’s a type of RPG magic you can make sitting in a room by yourself. That’s something to treasure, to always be working on, a masterpiece in motion.

Is it a GLoG hack? Probably not. GLoG is a very specific genre, honestly speaking. When many people say GLoG hack, they’re using a shorthand for “hey, this magical little game thing I made is vaguely compatible with similar other magical little game things on (insert grounds here)”. GLoG hacks aren’t a genre, they’re a shared language you can pull from. Just like 5e class options and archetypes are a shared language you can pull from. Just like generic, fluff and lore based game ideas are a shared language you can pull from. Your thing cannot, by definition, be defined by something else. What languages and resources you choose to make vaguely compatible with are entirely up to you. Don’t feel restricted to calling your thing a “GLoG hack” if that’s not a title you like. Hunt around or make one that you do like.

Play around. Make something. Inspire someone. Contribute something new. Mash things together. Think about your game. Allow things to happen organically, but don’t be afraid to throw a wrench in the bicycle tires. Don’t be afraid to make it vague or mechanically incomplete. (“You turn into a creature of metal and bone” is enough. Figure out the rest at the table.) Start simple and flower outward, or start big and work your way in.

Make a game. Make it yours. That is the spirit at the core of GLoG, and SWORD DREAM, and FLAILSNAILS, and OSR, and RPGs, and life. Defy labels. Make something. It will be phenomenal, I promise.

Relevant LINKS throughout this sentence, most of which are GLoG-geared, but don't feel compelled to hop into the Cult of GLoG if it ain't your jam. Also, here are BONES and MARROW for reference.

Have fun storming the castle.