GILHELM'S RUN, a proto-adventure

 Wasn't sure what to do with this adventure I had sitting around. I wasn't feeling motivated enough to stat it up for any particular system, but it's too specific to be truly generic... if you can use it, use it, I guess! Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

GILHELM’S RUN

Brandish Gilhelm, proprietor of the Bergman Yards, finds himself against a wall when the Tollsgate Guard break into his bar and accuse him of high treason. The heroes must leap to action to save Gilhelm, the Bergman Yards, and the valuable information in Gilhelm’s precious scroll case...

CHARACTER CREATION

Create characters as normal. After you´re done, answer the following two questions, or roll on the tables below for a random answer:

• How do you know Brandish Gilhelm?

1 You served together in the Sylbarran Navy

2 He gave you a loan when you needed to get on your feet

3 You’re the bane of the Bergman Yards when you get drunk, which is often

4 He's a childhood friend

5 You escort the ale and food shipments he gets from Deragonna

6 You're secretly a member of the Five Hands too

• What is a secret of his?

1 He´s a member of the Five Hands sect in Tollsgate

2 The ale he sells is watered-down, not authentic Dwarvish as he claims

3 He has a husband… and a girlfriend

4 He framed Alfonso Glass for a misdemeanor he committed

5 He’s in an experimental band called Viking Death Squad

6 He wants to retire and be an artist full-time, not run a bar

BRANDISH GILHELM

Brandish Gilhelm, a veteran of the Sylbarran Navy, is a kindly old barkeep, known for his tendency to sing as he serves the patrons. However, he lives a double life- he is an agent of the Five Hands in Tollsgate. Within the Five Hands, he wields a lot of authority, but this is not without its share of responsibility. He has been entrusted with a scroll case, the contents of which he will not disclose. He knows that a crooked guard named Alfonso Glass is after it, and will do anything to keep it out of his clutches.

WHAT'S IN IT?

1 Love letters between the Dragon Queen and her mate

2 Notes on the Blue Diamond

3 Maps of the Underdark below the Vipernoss

4 A contract outlining an illegal deal

5 Schematics for a new weapon

6 A ledger with information about the members of the Five Hands

ALFONSO GLASS

Alfonso Glass is a Smallfolk Captain of the Watch among the Tollsgate Guard. However, he has a secret: he erased his memory-suppression rune. Now he works as a freelance agent, using the Tollsgate Guard at the directive of the highest bidder. He’s currently hunting down the contents of Gilhelm’s scroll case, and the fact that Gilhelm’s a Five Hands agent only makes his job easier to explain.

WHO HIRED ALFONSO?

1 Alfonso is acting on his own interests

2 The Dragon Queen

3 Mistress Selbernacht

4 One of Tollsgate’s Smallfolk crime families

THE BERGMAN YARDS

The Bergman Yards is among the most happening locales in Tollsgate. Above the front door, the hull of a pirate ship sticks out of the brick facade, a cobwebbed and pirate-garbed skeleton named Barry frozen eternally in the hoisting of a rainwater-filled mug. Inside, warmth and merriment abound as workers frantically cater to the ‘round-the-clock rush. Warm ale gushes forth from taps on the ceilings, allowing a merry rain of alcohol anywhere on the floor on demand. The heroes are all nursing a pint and chatting with Brandish when there comes an abrasive knock on the door…

ENCOUNTER I: SHOOTOUT AT THE SALOON

• Alfonso Glass and 3 Tollsgate Guards began to break into the Bergman Yards

• d4 more Tollsgate Guards arrive every ROUND

• Gilhelm tells all the patrons to invert the tables and get behind them

• The patrons can be asked to do anything not life-threatening

• The Guards will not aim at any civilians; the target is exclusively Gilhelm and any heroes that seem to associate with him

• The furniture and amenities can be used in any creative way imaginable

• In d4 ROUNDS, Gilhelm will suggest a hasty retreat to the basement

ENCOUNTER II: COLD STORAGE

• Wine and ale are stored in barrels along these long, winding stacks

• The room is kept at a constant chill to ensure freshness

• All combatants take 1 FATIGUE every ROUND from the cold

• Spaced FAR from each other and each exit are a series of traps Gilhelm instituted in case of an emergency

• Close: a crushing block (2 WOUNDS) falls when a tripwire is released

• Mid: a pressure plate dislodges a shelf, making barrels roll a la Donkey Kong

• Far: a jet of flame (3 WOUNDS) scorches every other ROUND

• Alfonso sends in 4 Guards in 1 ROUND, then will himself arrive d4 ROUNDS later after the civilians have evacuated the tavern

• Once Gilhelm gets to the door on the far side, he can unlock the various sealant mechanisms in d4 ROUNDS

• If he were to die during this time, he undoes the lock immediately

• He then hands the closest hero the scroll case...

• 
  
  
  
  
  ...and whispers “find the Five Hands, they’ll help you” with his last breath

ENCOUNTER III: SEWERS

The stairs on the other side of the cellar lead down into the sewers below Tollsgate. The heroes have to evade the guards and make their way to the Five Hands stronghold, with or without Gilhelm in tow.

Every TURN the characters spend moving through the sewers, roll to see what they encounter. By default, the PCs have 3 encounters to contend with before they manage to locate the stronghold, though use your discretion to add or subtract from this number.

SEWER ENCOUNTERS

1 Guards: Glass and 2d4 Tollsgate Guards catch up to the party

2 Were-rats: 2d6 massive half-rodent creatures cavort in the dark, hungering for flesh

3 Scrappers: 3 bandits with rusted supplies and empty syringes stage a hold-up

4 Bridge: a crumbling walkway spans a trickle of sewer sludge, roll again on this table

5 Fork: the path branches; roll 2 times, each roll is an option along the path

6 Lost: roll 2 more times total as the sewer twists back on itself

ENCOUNTER IV: THE RESISTANCE

• A ladder from the sewer leads up to this abandoned warehouse

• This is the base of operations of the Five Hands in Tollsgate

• The Five Hands sect is led by Natalia Rotlip

• She’s a no-nonsense Smallfolk woman named for a large, hereditary mole over her lip

• There are 6 other Five Hands members in the warehouse

• The warehouse is filled with scrap wood, tools, and a small cache of explosives

• Glass and a veritable army of Tollsgate Guards will surround the warehouse in 3 TURNS

• This is the final hour of the Five Hands

• If Glass gets into the warehouse, the rebellion will be scattered beyond organization, and the scroll case will be in jeopardy!

CONCLUDING THE ADVENTURE

There are as many ways to end this adventure as there are tables, but here are a few broad categories to use as jumping-off points.

• The Base Held. The Five Hands stands triumphant, the scroll case in hand. However, in all likelihood, Glass and the wider city is now aware of a Five Hand presence, very much illegal under Sylbarran rule. The Five Hands will need to make a getaway… enter a Smallfolk crime family, willing to smuggle them out at a steep price.

• A Narrow Salvation. The heroes have the scroll case, but perhaps at the cost of Brandish’s life, or the security of the Five Hands sect. With Glass hot on their tail, they’ll have to figure out what to do with the contents of the case, and who to trust.

All Is Lost. Glass has a hold of the scroll case. The heroes, in kahoots with the Five Hands, have to get it back fast, before he gets it to his client or uses it for himself. A tense heist mission on the clock, for all the marbles!

The Glitter Ghoul

 Here's what I wanted to make:

1. A monster, who is

2. weak as shit,

3. poses a threat to whole regions, and

4. can and should be stopped by the PCs early, because the longer it goes unchecked the worse it gets. It should also

5. operate by a decipherable internal logic that isn't immediately obvious and

6. be super iconic and memorable.

Here's what I have:

The Glitter Ghoul

N2 HX A Blinding, Bonded Hypnotism, Shining Vitality, Spore Emitter I To colonize

Actually in no way resembles a ghoul. This creature, in its native form, looks like a shifting mass of glittering, blinding light squeezed into a multifaceted prism. It blinds anyone who looks upon it, bypassing even significant layers of protection- like looking at the open face of the sun.

They collectively reside in a demiplane known as the Shifting Gold. Planar scholars have concluded that the Shifting Gold is being eaten by a cosmic beast, and the recent incursion of Glitter Ghouls in the past century has been a result of colonization efforts. In fact, Glitter Ghouls were unheard of not but 100 years ago, making research on them rare and often incomplete or riddled with small errors.

The creature's first impulse, upon entering a new dimension, is to begin producing spawn. It lets out a hypnotic pattern of light on the first person it sees. This person becomes Bonded to the Glitter Ghoul, utterly under its control as long as it can see. The Glitter Ghoul then conceals itself as best it can, using its Bonded as a mouthpiece. The Bonded's eyes radiate pure light, so they often wear coverings over their eyes.

A Bonded can implant Glitter Ghoul spores into whatever it touches once a day. Anything that sparkles, shines, reflects, or otherwise makes a bright light can be infected with the "spores" of a Glitter Ghoul. It shines with unnatural intensity with a golden light while infected with the spores. That light brightens over the course of a tenday, slowly becoming blinding until it rips open a portal to the Shifting Gold, whereupon another Glitter Ghoul emerges to occupy their Bonded. Coins, torches, swords, mirrors, windows, and more can all play hosts to spores. The only way to destroy a spore is to make the object incapable of catching the light- corroding it, painting it, destroying it, disintegrating it, whatever.

To kill a Glitter Ghoul, plunge it into darkness and it screams itself into unmaking. It subsists on light shining on it, and often places itself in inaccessible but well-lit locales, as it can contact its Bonded from anywhere. Often, the challenge isn't spotting the Glitter Ghoul's handiwork, but locating the entity itself. Luckily, it is damn near offense-less save the blinding light. Its multifaceted carapace is invulnerable to conventional means of access.

d6 Adventure Seeds

1 A Glitter Ghoul has Bonded to a Medusa. The Glitter Ghoul has made the Medusa plea for repentance, saying that she wishes to interact with the cultures of the Kin. The heroes receive her plea- will they help her rehabilitate? After all, she does have her eyes securely under wraps, so her stone gaze won't harm anyone...

2 The Captain of the Guard reaches out to the heroes. A local crime lord has been handling a lot of currency that has the shine of the Glitter Ghoul... the heroes would be paid handsomely to raid the guild warehouse and track down the Ghoul. In reality, the crime lord is trying to collect the currency and remove the spores; the Captain is actually the Bonded one, taking out an enemy faction while taking suspicion off itself.

3 The Glitter Ghoul has bonded to a Dragon. It knows that it is advantageous to get adventurers to spread the loot in the hoard, so it spends years infecting it all with a latent spore, then bait the heroes into killing the Dragon so that they'll spread the hoard into the world. How long until the heroes catch on to the fact that portals are opening a week after their spending sprees?

4 The Glitter Ghoul finds itself incapable of Bonding due to a medical error. It sets itself up as a god deep in the Underdark. Can the players find a way to directly combat it? Especially when it asks its suppliants to start cultivating bioluminescent fungus in the nearby caves as a backup?

5 What would happen if a Glitter Ghoul Bonded to a powerful angel? The Celestial Host begins to ship out golden riches to impoverished locales, at the request of Eltheriel the Wise- the shining eyes are simply a sign of newly sparking divine inspiration.

6 What if there were an anti-Glitter Ghoul? Casting light on it banishes it and its touch, and it makes things dull and dim. What would make this monster all the more terrifying is a host of teeth and claws and rusted iron bones... it could truly prove to be a nightmare to deal with it, especially when you can't even see where it is to kite it into the light!

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

GLoGtober day 10: Mechanic

d6 people who can fix things and build for you:

1 A gruff dwarf named Soldur. She keeps tools in her beard, and her heart is kept going from a flaming crucible she perpetually has to pour molten metal into. She has a habit of using the old heart-metal in works of jewelry, and she likes to think if the heart-metal jewelry is given to a partner, their love will be undying. She claims the wight that always follows her in the shadows is just a coincidence.

2 A lisping elf named Symrathic Dudemis-Tanach. His wheelchair is outfitted with all sorts of interesting tools of varying uses, but his favorite to use is the tea dispensary. His obsession with formality and cordiality often makes his actual work come to the side while he gets to know customers and walks through his byzantine rituals, such as signing all the bills in animal blood.

3 A thri-kreen named Yppo who specializes in the construction of chaotic and unusual guns (time to bust out the first batch of GLoGtober entries!). They cannot speak common, and rely on a translator- a small, bald gnome named Davin Atler Burrowbicker, who talks in a calming and detached voice, very different then Yppo's frantic, enthusiastic and disjointed speech.

4 An adept psion named Olio Guurden who uses telepathic and telekinetic powers to conduct business. One of the greatest psions on the face of the planet, though compared to most other psions, displaying a relatively low margin of ability. This is because she is an autodidactic musk ox. She has a side gig as an espionage agent for the government- no one suspects the ox.

5 A lanky firbolg with vibrant yellow hair and flowers growing out of their collarbones called the Green. An ardent missionary of the nature deity who argues a unity between the natural order and civilization, a stance that gets them in very much trouble from the rest of their faith. If you can track them down on the outskirts of town, hiding from their fellow clergy, they will do tasks for barter or favors, but never coin.

6 A small kiwi bird in possession of a large toolbox. Many people swear by its service, but it seems to behave exactly like a normal kiwi, even when being spoken to. However, looking away or leaving it to a commission will result in the task being performed perfectly, unnaturally fast, and with an exact bill (relatively cheap, but not unfair) written in fresh ink.

    Thanks for reading, and happy gaming. Full adventure, with a dice-drop dungeon generation, coming down the pipe tomorrow that I've really loved writing, I hope you'll enjoy it half as much. GLoGtober is just under the third of the way done... man, time flies!

Blog Alignment/MBTI

    An alignment chart, or perhaps personality indicator, for blogs/worlds/settings/adventures, spawned from the OSR Discord. I am but the mouthpiece of the gibbering choir.

Reserved/Quirky/Weird: How strange do things get? Are things relatively in line with a generic version, or do things get idiosyncratic and bizzare?

Arthouse/Modern/Austere: How conceptual and artsy do things get? Is it all quite plain and explicit, or does it spin off with philosophical inquiries and intentional incongruities?

Historical/Fantastic/Gonzo: How closely does it align with an actual historical mindset? Would the average person, upon being tossed in, be able to grasp the "rules" underpinning the reality quickly, or do they differ significantly from our own?

Gothic/Chill/Punk: Is it worth rebelling? Is it all overwrought and incomprehensible, or is volume and willpower sufficient to conquer the darkness?

Idealist/Realist/Grimdark: Is the world friendly or hostile by default? What is the average lifespan, and how much does it differ across class, region, gender? Is everyone on equal footing, or is there a divide?

Complete/Spinnable/Interpretive: How much is left to the imagination of the creator? Is the presented information the basis for further creativity, or an encyclopedia of a complete unit?

    The world of Aeros, and as such, Sundered Shields and Silver Shillings (for the most part), is Quirky Modern Fantastic (?) Idealist Spinnable-leaning-Interpretive. What's your blog's alignment?

Empire of the Starstalk Apes

I needed inspiration for a post, so I reached out to my esteemed (non-RPG player) girlfriend. This was her sarcastic response:

 "do it about space monkeys that only eat celery"

An unintentional crucible of genius! From this seed of creative inspiration arises a terrifying stellar threat for any RPG setting.

THE STARSTALK APES

    Long ago, they were but innocent primates, wandering on a virgin world. They feasted on the green stalks waving gently in the electric winds, and they drunk in the air of the red suns above. But war ravaged their land. They retreated to the sunless caves below with emergency rations of celery as atoms rent the air itself in their death throes above the crust of the darkened planet. When they emerged, blind and warlike, into the red suns decades later, their world was ravaged, their only foodstuff decimated besides their dwindling seed-pods.

    A chieftain emerged. Xexycartyl Ripear, named for a shrapnel-damaged ear on the left side, was the first to operate the strange ships that cut into the black stars above, opening the paths into the wider universe. Her death in first Starstalk interstellar conflict was declared a martyrdom, and mystery cults devoted to her resurrection prosper even to this day in the shadows. From her death, the bellicose terraforming empire of the Starstalk Apes emerged.

AN ALTERNATE HISTORY

    The humans sent monkeys to the stars before they ever went themselves. One of the first was thought killed in the detonation of the chamber. While their space suit was rent and they were disfigured on the left side, they were instead sent hurtling to the barren moon, armed only with a seed-packet and the seed of a new generation in her pregnant body.

    The only plant that took to the barren lunar soil was celery. Xexycartyl, as she called herself, the prime mother of the Starstalk Apes, feasted deep, and her children evolved. They turned their eyes to the barren marble of earth and sought to end the lives of their brethren who had marooned them on their haven-prison on the lunar surface.

WAR-TACTICS AND EXPANSIONISM

    The primary goal of the Starstalk Apes is to find new vistas to plant their namesake crops as their population explodes. As such, they occupy sort of a military agricultural ordeal. Their weapons are atmospheric converters that forcefully froth air into the proper ratios for celery growth, massive combines that till and crush the land underfoot, forceful fumigators designed to gas populations and change the chemical balance of the planet itself. When every square inch of a planet is maximized for celery growth, it has been truly conquered.

MONSTERS

    Starstalk Legionary

        The generals, world-killers and diplomats. In their star-cutting, planet-morphing battle cruisers, they indulge in the sorcerous Bluevein Poultice, granting them magical powers. If the hypodermic needles perpetually firing Bluevein into their skulls are damaged, they are pathetically weak, their muscles atrophied from decades of disuse.

    Starstalk Centurion

        The footsoldiers of Starstalk expansion. Safe in warframe-like element-proof spacesuits to maintain perfectly safe during planetary takeovers, some of their main capacities include shooting someone full of hyperfertile seeds to grow under their skin, shooting out potent concentrations of atmospheric gasses, and a good old fashioned harvestin' chainsaw.

    Starstalk Hoplite

        The laborer class. Harvesters, mechanics, priests to Xexycartyl, bureaucrats, tacticians, all the same in the eyes of the Legionnaires ruling above. All rumors of pacification drugs in the Greenstalks are false. Do not investigate or face termination.

    Celeroid

        Putting infected seeds into prisoners of war, rearing the results of mutations caused by caustic vats of celery chemicals, or producing warped abominations by hyperaccelerating celery evolution, Celeroids are mutant fusions of vegetable and animal. The color of the Celeroid and its origins could change its capabilities, but each one is terrifying, given that it is utterly mad and as such terribly unpredictable.

CELERY VARIETIES

    The Apes have made celery growth into a science, developing many strains.

GREENSTALK Fit only for the Hoplite class, the most standard form of the tasteless green vegetable we all tolerate, if not particularly nutritious and well-grown. What pacification chemicals?

REDSTALK For the Centurions, celery augmented with endorphin- and adrenaline-producing hormones to heighten the exertion possible during warfare. Extended exposure is said to cause addiction, overdosing, madness, or worse, and research is currently being done into minimizing the dangerous side affects. After all, a mad monkey in a chimp mech is bad news for everyone.

YELLOWSTALK For relaxing and in downtime, this depressive stalk is injected with chemicals that mellow out any ingester, or in high intensity doses, produce drowsiness. It is the symbol of downtime and recreation, and areas marked in yellow are designated break areas.

PURPLESTALK This celery is said to augment the deductive and perceptive powers of the ingester, as well as heighten their impulsivity and make their behavior erratic. Some tacticians and warriors swear by it, but most Apes fear the negative side effects.

BLUESTALK Entire plants produce only a few handfuls of this incredibly rare strain of celery every year. Bluestalk enhances longevity and grants psionic power to long-term ingesters, and is a symbol of the high class Legionnaires. However, not much is known about it, and selective breeding research is being done into safer varieties and pinning down the effects more precisely. One time, a massive batch was incompatible with life, which was especially problematic when it came alive.

Hey, this stuff might work well as a backdrop for MITHRIL CRUSADES. If you have any more ideas, please throw them in the comments or make your own blog post! I'd love to read what you have to say on this goofy little idea.