Month: May 2020

Failed Career: Alchemist

You Get

A lantern, a flask of lamp oil, a quarter staff.

Why Did You Stop Practicing?

  1. Lack of Talent: The most advanced concoction you could come up with was salt water.
  2. Heresy: Local clergy found your theories and practices to be blasphemous. They confiscated your works and now you owe a minor indulgence to the church.
  3. Exiled: You accidentally brewed a love potion instead of the request routine salve. The subject was an heir to a local position of nobility, and their parent would rather see you dead than their offspring end up with you.
  4. Hunted: Somehow you created a homunculus, a small 6-inch replica of yourself. This creature hates you with every fiber of its being.
  5. Betrayed: You’re pretty sure your mentor was slowly killing you with arsenic. Every once in a while you’ll find yourself in a vomiting fit.
  6. Accident: The last concoction you brewed resulted in a massive explosion, scarring you horribly, and burning down a significant portion of home village, many of whom will never forgive you.

What Were You Able To Make Away With?

  1. Alchemist’s Fire: a clay bottle filled with sticky green fluid that catches fire when exposed to air. Counts a bottle of burning oil without needing to lit.
  2. Bomb: Head-sized iron ball filled with explosive powder with an attached wick. Deals d12 damage to everyone nearby it, and can cause noteworthy damage to structures it is placed nearby.
  3. Vial of Acid: Can disintegrate 1 cubic inch of any kind of metal. If used as a splash weapon, the target must pass a save or suffer -1 to Charisma if applied to the face, -1 Dexterity if applied to a limb, or -1 Constitution if applied to the torso.
  4. Tincture Of Truth-Talking: Only a few drops remain, enough for one dose. This tasteless clear liquid will compel whoever ingests it to answer questions truthfully for d6 * 10 minutes.
  5. Magnesium Shavings: A pouch containing d6 uses that will easily ignite and burn intensely.
  6. Basic Alchemist’s Kit: A wooden chest filled with four corked glass vials and stand, a small bronze weight scale, pestle & mortar, stirring rods, a bottle of solvent, and a pouch of salt.

Inspired by Electric Bastionland, Knave, and Ten Foot Polemic.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Gods’ Isle Brainstorming

Dark Souls 3: The Ringed City DLC – Beating Slave Knight Gael ...

For thousands of years the Gods reigned. Having formed creation out of the primal waters of chaos, breathing life into mankind, and blessing us with their gifts they ruled over use for a multitude of generations, a true golden age.

As the years waned on the Gods bestowed upon us civilization and the rights of kingship. They showed us how to conquer the wilds, build tools, raise cities, and even how to shape reality with powerful magics. After fostering us the Gods departed for their home, a gleaming city on the Isle in the Center of the World.

Mankind gave thanks to the Gods in the form of offerings, and would send their dead in boats to live out the afterlife with their Creators.

But something changed eons after their departure. The sun hung low and red in the sky, and the moon slowly faded into the black of night. The dead were found listing the coasts in the wasted vessels they were sent out upon. Those few that retained any semblance of speech told of a massive, tarnished city hidden in the fog. No gods found in attendance, only ravenous ghosts.

After the dead returned, so did the first adversaries. A multitude of beings whom the gods wrestled and bound, the unmakers of reality tore through fissures in the veil, setting themselves upon humankind.

City after city fell the unearthly incursions, and those from within who believed us lost in our ways, deserving of damnation. You are one of the many sent on an arduous voyage, to find the gods and plead for their aid, or to find the tools they used against the demons in the time before humankind.

Primeval d6 Rough Draft

I’ve been getting more and more into what people are calling “pre-D&D” or Ancient School Roleplaying, basically something along the lines of Braunstein and Blackmoor.

If you want a primer on the details I recommend Norbert Matausch’s excellent Play Worlds Not Rules series.

I’ve seen several systems in this style, three of my favorites are:

I love all of these, and have even ran a two hour one shot of Landshut in Hyboria that was a lot of fun. Like any tinkering geek I have my own way of running this style of game, which I am currently calling “Primeval d6.”

I want to put together a standalone pdf of my rules, but I wanted to type up the current working set as I think about what I would add or take away.

Primeval d6 Below