Fiendish Friday: Dangerous Cities

Recently I wrote the City Adventure chapter of Crypts and Things Remastered, which centres on the Demonic Pirate city of Port Blackmire. I wrote it pretty much in a couple of intense sittings, and after completing it I reflected on where it had come from.

From the introduction to the chapter:

Magnificently vast ancient crumbling cities are such a staple of the Swords and Sorcery Genre that they become characters in their own right. They are the back drop to many a caper, such as magical heists, murder stories, clashes with dark robed cultists who have set up murderous shop just down the road from the character’s local tavern. With this in mind I present Port Blackmire, a city straight out of the British Grimdark tradition of the 1980s, of dangerous city states where all residences within the city walls are trapped to keep out not only the thieves but the dark things that prowl the streets, either openly or in human disguise, and the city’s ruler is the most evil thing in the city. A place where even the good pay tribute to the city’s vile old temples to keep misfortune from their door.

This is the playground for the characters, whether they are blowing their misbegotten gains in the taverns on grog or on some high stakes game of chance or earning some extra coin by locating missing persons or burgling some fool with more money than sense. Sometimes it’s the place where adventure comes straight at them, dragging them out of their comfy beds when they most need to rest up and heal from their last venture.
Welcome to Port Blackmire.

Much of the inspiration came from the Fighting Fantasy books of the 80s and their spritual descendants, the pages of White Dwarf Magazine and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay First Edition.

Port Blacksand (City of Thieves) – was a principle inspiration, heck the name is a clue here 😉 Black Sand is the star of the Fighting Fantasy book City of Thieves, a character in its own right, a dangerous port controlled by a mysterious Pirate Captain Lord Azzur. The place is filled with traps and monsters, and is an active risk to the heros life.

Khare (Sorcery book 2:Cityport of Traps) – My memories of Khare are slightly less well defined, but it carried on the theme of the Dangerous City as a character in its own right. Here the traps of the title are set by the Lawful members of the city to stop their Chaotic neighbours from helping thierselves to their treasures.

Irilian (White Dwarf 42-47, Best of White Dwarf Scenarios III). This high medieval city state in decline is the star of a 3 issue mega scenario from the early days of White Dwarf. So much detail was crammed into it that they used a slightly smaller font to keep to the alloted page count. The city, orginally rich from the jem trade, is well past its best. Yet it has all the Guilds, Temples and monestries from its hayday. It’s state of social torpor makes it the target of attack from ancient evil, that is more an impersonal force in the tradition of Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising Trilogy. In fact its the city and its institutions, possesed by this force, that is the opponent in the scenario.

Middenheim (Warhammer 1st Ed, City of Chaos). On the surface of it Middenheim is a massively bigger rerun of Irilian set in the Warhammer Fantasy Old World. Its a high medieval city undersiege by the forces of Chaos and the players must interact with the city’s instituions and power players to win the day. What makes Middenheim interesting is that it focuses on Politics as well as the nitty gritty of the city encounters.  That and the scale of the city, which magificiently sits atop a mountain with a flat top rising up from the forest floor.

Fiendish Friday: Come Visit Bloodstead and Die!

An excerpt from the upcoming Crypts and Things Remastered ( latest update on progress on kickstarter), which is part of the Crypt Keeper’s Secrets of the Contient of Terror chapter.

Blood Stead

The power base of the Sorceress Rula and her berserker followers. At first a  typical Wolf barbarian city , with long houses, drying fish nets, until you notice all the dead bodies hanging from masts, skulls and heads on stakes,  and red banners hanging above every building entrance.  Rula claims to be the Wolf Mother come to Zarth in a bloody form,”the Red Wolf Mother”, seeking to purge the unclean and destroy Khaos once and for all, but in reality in secret she and her followers are devotees of the Blood Throne.

Adventures

Sneak into the city and out again to rescue people taken as slaves in a recent Blood Berserker raid.

Two seasons ago a local Chief from Longren was killed by Blood Berserkers and his head taken by them. The characters are hired to regain the dead chief’s head ball, which is now being used as a drinking cup by the war leader of the Berserkers.

Find out what is really going on In the Temple of the Red Wolf Mother, so the priestesses of the Wolf Mother temple in Longren and Bulwulf can stop arguing amongst themselves and unite against Rula and her followers.

Notable events

Roll d20

1-8 One of the Berserkers, backed up with 2d6 of their mates, comes up to the characters and starts a fight.

9-14 A bone seller comes up to the characters and tries to sell them a dead body (“Its dead good its got a complete set of teeth, you can use it for offerings or hang it over your hall to drive off evil spirits”)

15-18 A Blood Priest asks the characters to causally go and murder someone (50% of being an errant Berserker who has threatened the Priest) saying that it will bring them great glory with Rula the Red Wolf Mother.

19-20 Rula appears in public to whip the population into a blood-letting frenzy, in advance of some great raid against the city’s enemies or a magical ceremony to summon a Greater Other.

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

Fiendish Friday: New stretch goals for C&T Remastered

We are currently 65% towards the Stretch Goal of More Fiends on the Crypts and Things Remastered Kickstarter.

As promised here are some of the stretch goals if the Kickstarter continues to go up and up 🙂

NEW! Stretch Goal 2: The Haunted Lands (£5000)
Visit the mysterious village of Wimble on the edge of the Haunted Lands, then explore this small section of Weirdlands, inhabited by scheming witches, undead horrors and other sinister fiends best left alone. What is the secret of Windy Mildark’s Windmill? What happens if you touch the Black Stone Monolith that stands on the edge of Wimble? Are those White Pyramids I can see in the distance and who was Ef and why does he get a statue? All this awaits you in this example Weirdlands crawl.

If we reach this stretch goal I will write up this short Weirdlands adventure to show how you can run adventures beyond the crypt.

NEW! Stretch Goal 3: Port Blackmire (£5500)
“This is an ancient and vile city, ruled by the Pirate King Xanos. Corruption is rife, murder is common, and only Xanos’ blood chilling pacts with Demons keep the numerous gangs under his total control. It is surrounded by “The Black Mire”. This vast and festering swamp is choked with the ruins of a civilisation that predates even that of Myrindor. It is said the gods choked it with its own bile for some slight against them. It is home to pirates and gangs of cutthroats, who use the swamps to mount raids against the rest of the Free Territories.”

Every Swords and Sorcery setting needs a city, where adventurers can rest easy and squander their ill begotten gains between adventures, or perhaps get  dragged into unexpected capers in their home town. If we reach this goal, I will detail and map a living city that can be used for city based adventures and as somewhere for the adventurers to call home.

Fiendish Friday: Stretch Goals and Add-ons for the Kickstarter

OK here it is the final FF before the Crypts and Things Kickstarter opens this Sunday March 1st.

Last time out I said that I would talk about the stretch goals.

Stretch 1. More Fiends
About 40 or so, depending how excited I get. This really was my favourite bit of the book last time round, so I’m revving my self up to do this 🙂 I’m looking to add a few more subtle horrors as well.  Things that once the players rush in to fight them, they wish they hadn’t afterwards.

Stretch 2. Spells and Magic items
I’ll still be keeping the familiar vanilla spells in there, since it’s a big design goal that if you are familiar with Old School D&D (or any D&D for that matter) you can easily pick up and play C&T. However there is room and scope to add more spells that really bring White and Black Magic into high-definition, without sacrificing this familiarity. I’ve also 25 or so magic items that didn’t make it into the final cut last time out. They aren’t bad by any means but I had run out of development time. So if we hit this Stretch goal I’ll finish this off. I also want to do intelligent weapons, the right way ! So we are talking Demon Swords and the like, the siblings of Stormbringer.

Stretch 3. Greater Others and their Cultists
These are the big bads of Zarth. These will be presented as a write-up of the warped and twisted religions that follow them, which if relevant will give stats not only of the Greater Other itself, but also the creatures and Cultists that follow it, and associated Magics that come from it.

Stretch 4. Zarth Revealed
I purposely kept the setting, Zarth, light in the original release. Its flavoursome enough to give enough inspiration, but I got a lot of feedback asking for more detail. If we reach this goal, I’ll add a layer of details, such as adventure seeds, important NPCS in a nice Gazeeter.

Addons
As well as the existing Adventures (Blood of the Dragon and Tomb of the Necromancers) I’m also offering up a conversion of the existing OpenQuest adventure Life and Death as an add-on in both pdf and print. This is a four-part epic where the adventurer’s actions decide the very fate of the world. It’s a bit more of a story driven experience than a standard Dungeon Crawl, but there’s lot in-built into the structure to prevent this from being a railroading experience.  Also its much bigger than the previous C&T adventures releases clocking in at just over 100 pages.

So that’s it until the Kickstarter starts this Sunday….

Oh except these two character pieces by David M. Wright, the Fighter and Barbarian respectively 🙂

C&TBarbFighter

Previous posts about Crypts & Things Remastered

Test Your Luck – A preview of a new mechanic that should be familiar to fans of Fighting Fantasy 🙂

Art Preview – I show off some of the awesome art already done for the new game by David Micheal Wright.

Why Crypts and Things Remastered?  –  a bit of the history of the game’s intial development and why I’m redoing it, the scope of the redevelopment and what’s going to be in the stretch goals.

Crypts and Things Remastered Kick Starter opens March 1st The cover in all its glory.

The Sorcerer The revised Magician class (because one of the biggest bits of feedback I got was that I should change the name to the Sorcerer). Look close and you’ll see some of the system changes in the class description.

Magicians of Zarth. Other types of magic users in the setting. Note these are non-player character types, and will be written up as monsters.

Fiendish Friday: Test your Luck!

Ok so it’s not actually Friday, but I’ve asked the Sorcerer to bend time and space so we can have another preview of Crypts and Things Remastered, this time of a new ruling: LUCK.

One thing that began to fall flat with me after a while was having a single Saving Throw Number (as per Swords & Wizardry which C&T is based off). When I was doing my ‘literature review’ for C&T remastered I reread some of the early Fighting Fantasy books, I suddenly remembered Testing Your Luck and how it was a very British way of doing Saving Throws. It also fits nicely with the whole Swords and Sorcery genre. So here’s my expanded version which also allows for Class Based Luck Tests, which gives yet another layer of things that the classes can do.

Note this is a prototype that is going through playtesting with external playtesters at the moment. While feedback so far is overwhelmingly positive, it may get tweaked for the final version.

LUCK
This is a measure of the character’s innate quality to avoid trouble, stumble across useful items and have just the right thing happen at the right time. It is tested over the course of the adventure and decreases as the character gets fatigued and tired. Eventually even the most Lucky character will run out of Luck. To generate Luck roll 1D6 and add six (giving starting range of a range of 7-12). Every three levels add one point of Luck.

TESTING LUCK
During an adventure a character may be asked to “Test their Luck” by the Referee by rolling a 2D6 and getting lower or equal than their current Luck score. If they do so they get Lucky, deduct 1 point from their Luck. If they fail their roll they suffer the consequences of being Unlucky, but do not lose any Luck.
Example situations for Testing Luck

  • Avoiding or reducing the effects of a spell.
  • Dodging falling masonry, sweeping blades and other traps.
  • Avoiding suffering the effects of Poisons or Disease.
  • Just happening to have an item that the character could reasonably have on their person due to wealth, class and skills.
  • Slipping away unnoticed from a fight involving multiple combatants unnoticed until the fight ends.

Luck can also be tested to avoid the adverse effects of a failed skill roll.

For example a character fails a Skill check while jumping a deep ravine. If they succeed a Luck Test they narrowly catch a nearby ledge. Or a Thief misses their Hide roll and is potentially spotted by a passing guard, but on a successful Luck Test the Guard grunts dismissively and moves on.

CLASS BASED LUCK TESTS
Each class has unique ways of using Luck. Unlike usual Luck tests if the character is Unlucky they do not suffer any consequences.

FIGHTER
Cleave. When a fighter kills an opponent in combat, they can attack an adjacent foe on a successful Luck Test the Fighter has hit the next target. The Fighter can carry on Testing Luck until they fail or run out of adjacent opponents.
Maximum Damage. On a successful hit and the Fighter may Test their Luck. If successful then they do Maximum possible damage with their weapon.

THIEF
Thieves are renowned for their lucky nature and they have a very powerful luck that can almost magically bend reality.
Improve their situation. Luck can be tested to improve the situation that the Thief is currently in. For example a Thief finds himself manacled in a dismal dungeon cell. On a successful Luck test the Thief finds that the jailer has accidentally forgotten to lock the manacles properly. A Thief can continue to test their luck to improve their situation until they fail.
Friends in low places. On a successful Luck test one of the Thieves contacts, either from previous jobs or the communities they work in, appears on the scene to help the Thief out.

SORCERER
Retain Spell. The character may test their Luck immediately after casting a Spell. If they are lucky then the character does not forget the spell.
Lucky Knowledge. Sorcerers are so steeped in learning lore from dusty old books and obscure sources, that on a successful Luck Test they just knows a fact pertinent to the current situation or can speak an unknown language with just enough linguistic phrases to quickly converse with a creature or decode a piece of writing.

BARBARIAN
Blood Rage. When a Barbarian takes damage they may Test their Luck. If succeed gain +1 to hit and damage. This bonus adds to other modifiers and can be taken more than once (I.e. each time the Barbarian gets hit they may Test their Luck and a get an additional +1). This means that if they are consistently Lucky a wounded Barbarian can quickly get a large bonus and become quite deadly when hurt.
One with the Wilderness. Barbarians are most at home when they are in the wilderness. If they successfully test their Luck they find their way (i.e. stop being lost) and find enough food and water to sustain themselves.

REGAINING LUCK
Luck potions/magical effects. Certain magics can restore Luck when activated.
For example: A Potion of Luck (a pale blue liquid in a small glass vial) restores 1D6 Luck when drunk. The Amulet of Skarlos the Slippery (an ancient bronze medallion that only works when worn over a bare chest) can be called to restore 1D4 Luck twice a day.

Through resting. Each full hour fully rested without any interruption restores 1 Luck Point.

After the end of the adventure, all Luck points are restored in time for the next hazardous exploration.

More next Friday…when I preview some of the stretch goal material.

Previous posts about Crypts & Things Remastered

Art Preview – I show off some of the awesome art already done for the new game by David Micheal Wright.

Why Crypts and Things Remastered?  –  a bit of the history of the game’s intial development and why I’m redoing it, the scope of the redevelopment and what’s going to be in the stretch goals.

Crypts and Things Remastered Kick Starter opens March 1st The cover in all its glory.

The Sorcerer The revised Magician class (because one of the biggest bits of feedback I got was that I should change the name to the Sorcerer). Look close and you’ll see some of the system changes in the class description.

Magicians of Zarth. Other types of magic users in the setting. Note these are non-player character types, and will be written up as monsters.

Fiendish Friday: Art preview

So its week 2 of 4 of the Crypts and Things Remastered previews and here’s a sneak peak of the art.

First off here’s two flavors of Sorcerers (the revised Magician class)

Grey Sorcerer by D.M.Wright

Grey Sorcerer by D.M.Wright

Sorcerer by David Micheal Wright

Sorcerer by David Micheal Wright

These typical of the black and white pieces that will be the majority of the internal art.

But every once in a while there’s going to be a full page grey scale scene, like this…

crypts-and-things-scrolls-Web

Section page for Player’s Section of Crypts and Things by David M. Wright

More next week…

Previous posts about Crypts & Things Remastered
Why Crypts and Things Remastered?  –  a bit of the history of the game’s intial development and why I’m redoing it, the scope of the redevelopment and what’s going to be in the stretch goals.

Crypts and Things Remastered Kick Starter opens March 1st The cover in all its glory.

The Sorcerer The revised Magician class (because one of the biggest bits of feedback I got was that I should change the name to the Sorcerer). Look close and you’ll see some of the system changes in the class description.

Magicians of Zarth. Other types of magic users in the setting. Note these are non-player character types, and will be written up as monsters.

Fiendish Friday: The Sorcerer

A rough draft (warning there may be typos) of something that will be revealed soon 😉

Sorcerer

Grey Sorcerer by D.M.Wright

Grey Sorcerer by D.M.Wright

Sorcerers are characters who use Magic to bend reality to their will. They cast spells, memorised from dusty tomes, to perform such wondrous feats as summoning demons, healing wounds through the words of the kindly ones, fly through the air and throw fireballs from their hands at their foes. Normal people shun and fear them, even if they practice only kindly White Magic, because of their ability to weave magic which is misunderstood and much maligned.

They’ve seen the Other Side, what lies beyond what their mentor calls the Shroud. They’ve seen the unnatural things that would tear into this reality and suck out its life force. They’ve dabbled in the dark arts, summoning these things for your Master’s ‘profit’ and gain. They’ve played the Dark Game either willingly or through force. Finally they escaped their Master’s suffocating influence, and found Freedom. Sorcerers express this freedom by being able to learn a wide variety of spells that fall into three colour categories: White, Black and Grey.

Continue reading

Fiendish Friday: The Tale of Ged the Mother

“Once upon a time the land was flowing with beauty and love. Ged was its Smiling Goddess, and she bore all things edible for her people the Hu Pi. Her animals and plants fed and clothed the people in great abundance.

One day the Serpent King arrived in the land, and presented her with a present. A Green Scaly Egg. He said “Ged sit upon this egg and warm it with your womanly hips. For I am cold and can not breathe life into it. If you do this thing you will birth a God like yourself and he will bring you great joy!”.  So Ged who was loney sat sat upon the scaley egg that the Serpent King had presented. She sat a long time.

Then suddenly one dawn the egg cracked open and out jumped Nar-Garum! Ged was amazed! Then she was amazed a second time as Nar-Garum jumped up and bit her womanly parts, causing warm blood to pour into the land. The Serpent King did a swirling dance and mixed the mud of the land with the blood of wounded goddess and turned it into poison. In her pain her smile turned to a grimace as she saw how the Serpent King had used her own spawn against her to poison her land. Worse was to come as she started to birth grey mewling spawn. “What is these weak and pathetic things” she cried in disgust. “Why mother they are the product of our painful incest. I will take these Cruns into the dark and teach them such pain that they will plague the land!” And Nar-Garum so he did, and the Cruns and the other poisonous things that the land now begat meant that Ged and the land of Honey were truly befouled. “

Ged is a fertility goddess from the time of the Hu-Pi (see Blood of the Dragons for more details). Pre-Serpent War she was known as the Bounteous Smiling Goddess. The locals of Gont still worship her although these days she requires blood sacrifices to ensure her Bounty, as a replacement for the blood she lost from Nar-Garum’s birth.

The Cruns

A  sub-human group who originate from Serpent Men experiments in crossing Humans with lizards in ancient times. They appear as semi-naked humans covered in hard grey scales. They are usually feeble of intellect and of average strength and their only way to improve themselves is through worship of their Father-God Nar-Garum the Pain Giver.  They  live in small communities on the stink rivers, treated as vermin by all that encounter them, but occasionally one of their number will return from the Other World as a Pain Giver and they become are a plague upon the Stink River pouring out from their lairs..

Crun Ac 7[18] (Scaley skin) HD1-1 HP 4 ATT 1 Dam 1 Stone Club (1d6) of Claws (1d4) SR Immune to Poison Save 19 CR/XP B/10

Fiendish Friday: The Bone Collector

The Tale of the Bone Collector
“You see Ulmak just had to collect them all. Tall ones, short ones, skinny ones and just plain odd ones. Skeletons of all shapes and sizes. Said it helped him in his healing. See Ulmak was a ‘kind’ sort, wouldn’t hurt a fly and gave healing to anyone who came to his hut. That was his undoing. You see one day those bad Bonedancers came, with their wounded leader. Wasn’t Ulmak’s fault that mad dog died right there and then. Even the Kindly Ones have their limits. So the remaining Bonedancers, tie him up, torture him some, and send him just plum crazy. Then bad things start to happen. He made his bones ‘dance’ and turned them Bone Dancers into that sack he carries with him. Then he left Bone Guard, and started stalking the bone fields building up a collection. Some say he’s building an army, but I reckon he’s a shadow of a man whose just following his habit.”

A Sorcerer in a dark black robe, who is busy collecting the bones of the dead, which he places in a bulging sack made of human skin which he carries over his shoulder. Occasionally the bag stirs as if there is a live animal within. He prefers complete undamaged skeletons and will pay handsomely, at 10 GP a complete set of bones. This deranged and insane individual is collecting the bones to make the ultimate skeleton army. He has 3d6 Skeletons in his sack, which is magic and animates the bones of any complete skeleton placed within. The only drawback of this bag of bones is that the skeletons are not under the control of the owner and attack any living thing once released from the bag. The Bone Collector usually tosses the opened bag at any one who physically threatens him

The Bone Collector
Crazy Magician

AC 7 [13] HD 5 HP 20 Attacks: 1 Dam: Bone Wand Dam 1d10 + Save  or suffer Necrosis (additional 1d10 damage from flesh death). Special Rules: Knows Raise Dead, Can animate any skeleton, 1d6 per round, also Cure Moderate Wounds (old healing power that uses if character can touch his buried humanity)   CR/XP 7/600