Fiendish Friday: Queen of the Serpents

From the upcoming Crypts & Things Remastered, one of the Nemesis’ of the dying world of Zarth, from the Scourges of a Dying World chapter. Note this is an unproofed work in progress which may change before publication.

Siligra Queen of the Serpent People

While the Serpent Lords sleep, their concubine and Queen Siligra controls one of the remnants of Serpent society from the lost City of Tilcoa deep within the Jagmani Jungles. There she prepares for the day when the Serpent Lords awaken to retake what is theirs.

This ruined city full of columns and white stoned buildings, was once the capital of a human civilisation in ancient times, before a disguised Siligra and her followers arrived. Using all her charm and seductive abilities she quickly sowed descent amongst the various factions within the city, which led to a bloody civil war. After the dust settled she took control of the weakened survivors, who descendants over the years became a tribe of degenerate primitives who worship the Siligra as their blond and white skinned Goddess, knowing her only as “She who Should be Obeyed!”.

Siligra Queen of the Serpent People

Armour Class:0 Hit Dice:10 Hit Points:50 Attacks: Bite 1d8+Venom, 2 Claws 1d6, Tail 1d10 Special Rules:  Venomous bite (Test vs Luck or take 2d20 damage), Assume Human Form + Spells CR15 / XP 2900.

Silgra can cast the following spells once a day:

1st Level: Charm Person, Magic Missile, Hide Magic, Hex, Oppression,

2nd Level: Invisibility, Snake Charm, Web.

3rd Level: Dispel Magic, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Suggestion.

4th Level: Cauldron of Blood, Charm Monster, Fear, Sticks to Snakes.

5th Level: Commune with Greater Others.

Modus Operandi:

Both Silgra and her Serpent Men followers appear as humans of a fair and noble countenance who rule the savage tribesmen that shelter in the shattered city.  They will initially seem friendly and sympathetic lulling the characters into a false sense of security. Then they will either be imprisoned by force, or be fall foul of Siligra’s charm Person spells.Only powerful magic can strip away Silgra’s Human form and reveal her true Serpent Nature.

Outside of the city Silgra maintains a network of agents both human and serpentine, who gather information and seek to control the human cities.

Servants:

  • Personal body guard of 10 Serpent Warriors who are never more than fifty foot away from her.
  • A cadre of 5 Serpent Priests.
  • At least 5 Serpent Scouts (the feared Black Assassins who strike down those who disobey).
  • A group of human cultists who worship the Serpent Queen, no less than 30 strong.
  • A tribe of primitives, degenerate descendants of the original inhabitants of Ticoa.

To top it off here’s preiview of David M.Wright’s Serpent Folk picture that will appear in the new rule book.

serpent-man-preview-dmwright

You want Blood? We got it!

David M. Wright is a star! He sent me the following four complete pieces of art for Crypts & Things Remastered for the latest monthly backers update, and once again I’m blown away by the detail that he puts into his work. Defintiely getting the early Fighting Fantasy vibe , as seen in Death Trap Dungeon and Island of the Lizard King, in these pieces.

P25 - Severed Head - Ink (Lo-Res) - DMWright P39 - Scroll - Ink (Lo-Res) - DMWright P87 - Face Ripper - Ink (Lo-Res) - DMWright P103 - Primative - Ink (Lo-Res) - DMWright

In my intray the Empire of Ys!

Its official Dr Mitch (aka Paul Mitchener)   is an RPG Writing Machine.

In between top sekret work of for other publishers (and another seminal piece for D101 that I’m keeping the lid on for the moment) he’s submitted, the Empire of Ys

This is his tribute to D&D, which is inspired by a love of Planescape and a style of play that revolves around exploration for the Empire of the title and the machinations of the movers and shakers of the setting rather than simple dungeon crawling.  Its a self contained game of 12 chapters, 201 pages,including a starter adventure (but bear in mind you start at 3rd Level). Overall its got enough character of its own for me (and you) to give it time amongst all the D&D love letters out there.

Date of release, certainly not until the behemoth that is Crypts & Things is out, so cautiously early next year.

There will be a playtest, I will do a call in a couple of months once I’ve done my editorial pass 😉

The return of the Oubliette

UK based Oubliette fanzine is back after almost a three-year hiatus with Issue 9. Although it uses Labyrinth Lord as its rule set of choice, its compatible with other OSR rule sets. If you want the pdf its available via DriveThruRPG.com, discounted to the end of the month, and there’s also a bundle of the previous 8 issues. Highly recommended, its nice to see this one back 🙂

oubliette9coverAlso of interest to any publisher, or those curious about the publishing process, is Peter Regan’s follow-up post about why he switched to an A6 size and moved from Print on Demand to doing a print run.

 

 

12 Hours left on the Crypts and Things Remastered Kickstarter

We’re nearly at the end of the great month-long Kickstarter journey.  My latest update lays out exactly what we’ve achieved, and sums up the benefits of backing the game if you are still sitting on the fence.

Update 20 The Sands of Time are running out

We’ve got a couple of outstanding stretch goals, the last four character classes (Beast Hybrid, Serpent Noble, Samurai and Ninja), so its still worth backing the game.

Oh and you are thinking of backing the game but miss the deadline…I’ll be sending one of these round to your house.

Sketch of Face Ripper by David M. Wright

Sketch of Face Ripper by David M. Wright

Enter the Disciple

We’ve come along way since I last posted here. Stretch Goal 5 Scourges of a Dying World has funded. The evil schemes of the Serpent Folk have been revealed by funding Stretch Goal 6

I added a whole load of new add-ons, a couple of new backer levels and a final set of Stretch goals in the following Update.

I’ve left the best for last for those of you who’ve been wondering about extra character classes. The first two expand the ‘core’ set of Swords & Sorcery classes in the book, then the next three are Race-as-Clases and the final two reflect the fine tradition of mixing Oriental Classes with standard classes that British RPG magazines and gamebooks of the 80s indulged in.

  • Stretch Goal 6 Disciple (£7000) FUNDED!
  • Stretch Goal 7 Elementalist (£7500) FUNDED!
  • Stretch Goal 8 Lizard People (£8000) FUNDED!
  • Stretch Goal 9 Beast Hybrid (£8500)
  • Stretch Goal 10 Serpent Noble (£9000)
  • Stretch Goal 11 Samurai (£9500)
  • Stretch Goal 12 Ninja (£10000)

Shush here comes one of the new classes now…

“Into the Abyss the black cloaked figure crept. No common thief was this. The scaly Lizard men guards discovered this as their faces were shattered by a series of well aimed flying kicks. The Great Demon of the Abyss tried desperately to resist the Five-Finger Rose Mantra that the assailant drew in the air between them, but to no avail. It crumbled into ash under the blazing light of illumination. Barely pausing the Disciple of the Ruby Throne, bent down before the pile of ash, and picked up the Glorious Jade Staff of the Ancients that the Demon had possessed for millennia. Whirling in the air, the Disciple turned and headed back up the stone carved stairs from whence she came…”

Enter the Disciple, stretch Goal 6 funded!

Now onwards and upwards to Stretch Goal 7…The Elementalist!

Last three days. If you’ve backed many thanks for your support. If you are still sitting on the fence now is the time for action 🙂

Everything you wanted to ask about Crypts and Things Remastered, but were afraid to ask

I did a Q&A over RPG.net Chat on Friday night, the results of which are now up on Dan Davenport’s blog, who very graciously hosted it and gave me through grilling.

If you’ve been wondering about some of the finer detail about what the KS is delivering I’d recommend checking out.

We also smashed through Stretch Goal 4 Port Blackmire while I was doing the chat, and I awake this Sunday morning to find we are but £46 towards Stretch Goal 5 Scourges of a Dying World. I  wonder how long it will take to reach it today 😉

 

C&T Remastered, two new Stretch Goals

We are in danger of running out of stretch goals. Seeing as 1&2 are funded and 3 is well on the way to being funded. So I thought it best I add some more to the campaign.

Stretch Goal 4 Scourges of a Dying World ($6000)
Siligra Queen of the Serpent People, Krong King of the Battle Apes, Zilon the Terrible (who marches on his Hands), Ternon the Blind  and Iosk the Impenetrable…currently these names are but part of a list of twenty that are named as potential Nemeses for the player characters in Appendix N of the rulebook. If this goal funds I will give them full write ups in their own chapter.

Stretch Goal 5 Secrets of the Serpent People ($6500)
In my own explorations of Zarth the Serpent People crop up again and again. If this stretch goal funds I’ll reveal what I’ve discovered about their history, culture and dark magic, making them a fully fleshed out enemy race.

C&T Expanded Content Preview 2: Life Paths redux + Cultural Q&A

First off we met Stretch Goal 2 yesterday, and are currently 29% towards Stretch 3 🙂

Over at the Kickstarter page I’ve posted a full update, along with a link to a 2nd Preview of new content. This time the new Live Event system and the first of 8 Cultural Questions and Answers (RuneQuest fans will recognise it as being similar to the old “What my Father told me”)

C&T Remastered Expanded Content Preview 1

Over at the C&T Remastered Kickstarter I’ve posted the first of a series of previews of the extra content in the new version.

This one is from the new “Greater Others and their Cultists” chapter and details a cosmic horror in the tradtion of HP Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith….

Note the name was taken from the Displacer vs Nimon album of the same name, a downbeat unsettling piece of music which inspired this horror.