Eclectic Bastion Jam Entry: Ghost Impersonator

My first entry for the 2020 Eclectic Bastion Jam is up, it’s a failed career – the former Ghost Impersonator.

If you take a look definitely let me know what you think, and I absolutely recommend contributing to the jam – Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland are two of the best games out there and are great foundations to hack from.

Music to roll dice to: lookfar

full album on Dungeon Synth Archives youtube channel

It should be no surprise that I’m the kind of dork who loves the musical genre of dungeon synth. Really I love all kinds of music, but the overall tone and sound of most dungeon synth gels together for me to be a nice bit of ambiance to put on low volume in the background of a game, if everyone likes playing with music.

I recently stumbled on this album by lookfar, which seems to be the dungeon synth project name for Louie Zong, a really talented person.

This is becoming one of my favorite albums to put on while doing game prep, hacking system docs, typing up campaign ideas or reading fantasy books.

I’m not really a music critic but I love the specific effects that Louie has chosen, to me it really gives the music an otherworldly feel, and I really love the guitar work on songs like the Far Reaches to accompany the synth work.

Barrowmaze Open Table Session 3

Sunday was a continuation of the open table game I’ve been running on the OSR Pickup Server, and I had the pleasure of gaming with:

Barkface the Druid, played by EvilTables
Bolo the Illusionist, played by Misha
Donnie the Bard, played by Malley
Sky the Druid, played by John/Captain Caveman
Uriel the Ranger, played by Dante
Vermund Borgarsson the Barbarian (deceased), played by Graytung

Session Report Below

Failed Career: Herbalist

You get

A hand rake, one floppy hat, a small watering tin.

Why did you leave your job?

Tormented: Thinking you were ridding yourself of a garden-variety pest, you poisoned the pet mole of a particularly cantankerous gnome. They have since defiled your gardens and wilted your herbs whenever they could.
Haunted: When you were a child one of your village playmates drowned while you two were playing in a lake. You never told their parents, and for the past several years you have been seeing your friends face in the mounds of dirt where you go to pick herbs.
Allergies: You thought if you just searched long enough you would find the cure to the sneezing you suffer when encountering most roots and leaves. Unfortunately this never happened.
Assassin: Every time you went looking for new plants, you were always assaulted by murderous strands of sentient vines, intent on using your body for fertilizer.
Competition: A shroomfolk found their way to your village, and would offer spores of itself to the locals. It seemed to cure most ailments, and the being disdained being paid for its services, rendering you out of work.
Poisoned: Stuck by the thorn of a corpse-thistle, you were bed-ridden for several months. While fighting for your life, you called to one of the many goddess of gardens, and promised you’d pick flourishing vegetation no longer.

What did you take with you?

Amadou: A peculiar kind of fungus that catches flame quite easily. You have about 6 uses worth.
Cat’s Nip +1: You keep this in a tightly-sealed bottle, but when you sprinkle even a pinch of it, a dozen or so local cats will find their way to it, and nearly any feline will be rendered catatonic for nearly an hour after getting a taste. You have about ten pinches remaining.
Tacky Stalk: This woody reed contains a fibrous, chalky interior that may be chewed into a gummy mound. After a few minutes this mound will harden entirely, becoming a permanent adhesive after drying.
Artificial Flowers: You’re not completely sure what this is, but it seems to be a bouquet fashioned out of felt, wax, wire and other materials. It looks real as long as it is not closely observed, and is rather resplendent.
Seed Bomb x3: You have three dirt clods held together in small canvas sacks. Their contents will explode on impact, showering whatever they strike with dirt and a multitude of seeds, dizzying anyone struck, and with a bit of rain will produce a patch of wildflowers in a week or so.
Jovial Mandrake: A small root that looks somewhat like a tiny human. This being follows you about, telling you jokes and laughing in its shrill, high pitched voice. After spending months with the thing you’re not sure its so bad that you cannot speak Mandrake.

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

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

Barrowmaze Open Table Session 2

Yesterday I ran the second session of an open-table Barrowmaze game on the OSR Pickup server. Six gracious players joined me:

Aed the Thief, played by K_Moon
Barkface the Druid, played by EvilTables
Donnie the Bard, played by Malley
Nanko the Fighter (deceased), played by Graytung
Sky the Druid, played by John/Captain Caveman
Uriel the Ranger, played by Dante
Vermund Borgarsson the Barbarian, played by Graytung

Spoilers for Barrowmaze follows

Barrowmaze Open Table Session 1

Today was the first session of my open-table Barrowmaze game on the OSR Pickup server. I was honored to run for the following five players:

Dante, playing Uriel the Ranger
Hans, playing Heinrik the Thief
Jesse, playing Wangat the Magic-User
John, playing Sky the Druid
Malley, playing Donnie the Bard

Summary of session contains some barrowmaze spoliers

Gaming Update + Mapping Tools

Slow going on the blog front mostly because I have been prepping to run an online, open-table Barrowmaze game using Old School Essentials + Advanced Genre Rules. This is a roll-over another game I was running, also using OSE. This was initially set up to be an in-person open table game, but account of the whole Pandemic was shifted online right as we were getting ready to get together. Life stuff made it difficult to get the required number of players, so we chatted and decided to shift the game to the OSR Pickup Game Discord server, in the hopes of getting new players. We also decided to pitch a new game, as it seemed people were a tad shy joining an existing game that had been running for months now.

Most of my time has been spent mapping Barrowmaze. I have a few issues with mapping over voice, I find I spend a large portion of the time either mapping myself using Roll20’s terrible tools, or I force that on my players and then spend a significant amount of time checking and correcting maps. So I decided I would just map out Barrowmaze, which is no light endeavour.

I’ve tried three different tools to come up with the maps, all of which have their ups and downs.

Dungeondraft: This is by the developer of Wonderdraft, a highly regarded mapping software, except the focus on Dungeondraft is on the dungeons, obviously. It’s the most featureful of the tools I used, but its still in Alpha, meaning that its a pain to use. Frequently the application just hard quits, entire segments of walls disappear, random cave explosions appear on your map – its really, really frustrating. It also deleted one of my major map files, which would have lost hours of work had I not used version control.
Dungeon Scrawl: Probably the most aesthetically pleasing mapping software to me, this looks like it will be a great tool once its developed. But as of right now there’s no easy way to delete walls within a room, and to place in-room walls or stairs you have to unintuitively place them in “erase” mode. I also find that the “join rooms” option doesn’t operate on the principle of least surprise. It joins rooms only if you intrude upon one room. If you just place rooms adjacent to each other, it doesn’t actually join them. I’m waiting until this develops more before I look into it again.
Dnd Map Sketcher: Gorgeous isometric mapper written in Unity that also seems to want to be a VTT. Its fairly barebones at the moment, but looks great. Unfortunately for me while isometric maps look great for dungeons designed for them (check out all the Trilemma Adventures stuff, for example), they became extremely difficult to read for compact dungeons. Also since this does not have have a cave tool its doesn’t fit my use case.

I didn’t try any of the other standards, I ended up sinking too much time into Dungeondraft to justify it. Overall I can’t say I’m that happy with it, looking at the subreddit for the tool it seems the user base is more the kind of player who is looking for typical 5e set-piece encounters, instead of mapping out actual dungeons, but I do have my fingers crossed.

I am hoping to get back to the Failed Careers and my Gygax 75 setting once I have a session of this open table game under my belt, and I have been working on a few system hacks I want to playtest and put out there.

Gygax 75 Challenge: Week 2

Here is a rough description of the environs I have came up with for my Gygax 75 setting, Umborea.

I have a map, but would prefer not posting it so my players can hex-crawl through the region.

Settlements

Stride (starting village)

A village resting on God’s Heart lake, just under the gaze of the Shaper’s resting head. Whether this is truly part of the buried Old God, or just one of his artifacts is unknown – no one dares approach it or the monastery in the mountains, fearing the dooms that cast the gods down during the last aeon.

Ember

A massive city state near the meeting point of two rivers. Once the furthest east city of the Phoenix King’s Empire, it is now ruled by the defiant war queen Tannia who burned half the city in her rage. She seeks to unify the peoples of the land and discover the truth of the last age’s destruction, sending knowledge-seekers into the labyrinthine crypts below the city.

Wax Knights’ Keep

A fortress looming on the Sea of Storms to the east. This knightly order traces their lineage back before this valley was flooded. They vigilantly watch the sea from their towering lighthouse. Members of this order have been scene transporting captive monsters back to their fort.

Terrain

Shaper’s Reach

A low mountain region in the northwest vale, noted for having a massive stone head and hands jutting out of the stone. Said to either be a relic made by the Shaper, or may actually be his resting body.

God’s Heart Lake

A massive swell of water just below Shaper’s Reach, said to be a spring reaching down to the Shaper’s heart itself, and many seeking truths of the old age come to drink from it.

The Teeth

The mountain range occupying the southwest portion of the vale, surrounded by a rocky stretch of dust and sand, people fear this region for being a home of the Gods’ Forsaken Children.

Sea of Storms

A tumultuous sea to the east of the vale, watched over by the Wax Knights, rumors of creatures dwelling below, and mystical isles being hidden out beyond the horizon.

Dungeons & Places of Interest

Monastery of the Shaper (main dungeon)

An ancient stone monastery on an open palm in the Shaper’s Reach. Its true purpose is unknown, although many people believed that the chosen of the Shaper dwelt here amongst their god, worshipping and reveling in his mysteries. None dare return here fearing curses, and fear the squat, rough figures seen patrolling the reach.

The Smolder/Labyrinth Below

The half of the City Ember that was burned by Queen Tannia in her conquest. Although rumored to hide many riches, people dare not tread her for rumors of dread spirits. There are also many access to the crypts below, and Queen Tannia rewards handsomely for relics and tomes of the past aeon retrieved from there.

Shattered Academy

In the sands just before reaching the Teeth lies an ancient academy. Once home to a wizened collective, it is rumored that they discovered something horrific, causing terrible beings of light and fire to descend upon them, scorching the valley and casting all into who lived out into the sandy wilds.

Encounter Table

Winged Wheel of Light and Fire: An alien and awe-inspiring massive being, said to have brought judgement upon the Gods during the past aeon.
Barbed Serpent: A wyvern from the roosts of the Teeth
Jackal-Folk: Nomadic creatures of the desert, one of the many Forsaken Children of the Gods.
Wax Knights: Vigilant warriors, on patrol searching for creatures.
Ravenous Dead: Nightmarish shambling creatures, seeking to sate their hunger on the blood of the living.
Bandits: Looking to take advantage of weary travelers and wealthy caravans.
Caravan: Seeking the best route to the Merchant Kingdoms of the west, or any of the Defiant City States.
Gargoyles: Winged creatures, said to be one of the many foul descendents of the Shaper.
Lion: A pride of lions ranging or hunting over the arid grasslands.
Stone Man: A massive stone being, carved in ancient script, following some unknown purpose.
The Blind Sage: A cursed being of shadow, said to be one of the professors from the Shattered Academy.

Failed Career: Gambler

You get

A obviously weighted pair of dice, a wide-brimmed hat, a stiletto hidden in your boot.

Why made you decide to stop being dealt in?

Blessing: You sold your soul to a Fortune Demon to never lose a bet, and its unfortunately looking for you to return your end of the bargain.
Luck: You don’t know if you were cursed or just born without luck, but routinely lose every big bet you make. You did gain a crew in your hometown who always invited you to their games, though.
Sorrow: After Ol’ Major died in that last horse vs. pugilist boxing match, you decided you could never return to gambling again. And you’ll never forgive that horse who trampled him.
Addiction: Realizing you hit a low point when you started participating in Ooze Breed Shows, you called it cold turkey. You still feel bad for all the agility coursework you forced on Lil’ Ochre.
Vengeance: In a completely unfair turn, the Warlock you won the pot from cursed you to never be able play another hand.
Boredom: You find no thrill in cards, dice, races or anything of the like. You hope the dungeon can provide your kicks.

What was your grandest prize?

Witch’s Tooth: It was the last thing the bog hag could match you with, her divining tooth. She said if you rattle it around in your mouth, when you spit it out the patterns in your phlegm can be read by a seer.
Foreign Currencies: Over the years some coins not Realm-minted snuck their way into your winnings. You’re not even sure this stuff is real copper, silver or gold, and it bears peculiar visages on each coin.
Marble Wolf: Under the direct light of a full moon this miniature wolf statue will prowl around and follow your commands.
Fancy Darts: Oiled rose wood and polished brass adornments, you have a nice box with three extremely precise and impressive darts.
Cantankerous Beast: The local cat lady had a few to spare, and you were feeling generous so you agreed it matched your bet. Unfortunately the feline never ended up taking to you. It does seem to always become alerted when anyone tries to sneak up on it, though.
Circlet of the Dwarfs: When placed upon a non-dwarf’s head, this slender silver circlet causes the wearer to grow a massive, stately beard. After removing the circlet the beard proceeds to fall out in a fairly scratchy fashion over the course of a week.

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

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

Gygax 75 Challenge: Week 1

Where I follow a popular challenge for developing a Dungeons & Dragons setting in 5 weeks.

Following along with Dragons Never Forget and the Gygax 75 Workzine I decided to do my own take on the challenge.

If you don’t have the time or desire to check out the links, the Gygax 75 Challenge is look at an article Gary Gygax wrote detailing a method of developing a campaign setting for D&D in 5 weeks.

Week 1 is a collection of bullet points serving as the setting’s pitch, and a list of a few inspirations.

Pitches

A world recovering from an apocalyptic flood, people have just began to start exploring the changed world around them, abandoned by the Old Gods who watched over them.
The land is covered by the ruins of an ancient civilization, one in which the Old Gods walked the Earth, coupling with humans, producing monsters as offspring.
Many have begun looking for answers below these ruins, discovering revelations and insights that show them the true nature of reality, and how to reshape it.
Others believe monsters carry aspects of their divine lineage, and study, fashion artifacts from their horns and teeth, or even consume their flesh and blood in attempt to become closer to the Divine.
Technology is roughly late bronze or early iron age, although with the typical D&D anachronistic view of technology – its more for tone than actual restrictions. Also horrific bio-technology built out of monster parts.
Only human player-characters to start, and no Clerics. I am debating on either having only Fighters & Magic-Users, or allow everyone to cast magic based on utilizing monster parts in ritualistic blood magic or horrific Cronenberg-esque “gadgets”, or through grim insights that allow casters to rewrite reality, but threaten to tear their essence from their body.

Inspirations

The Book of Enoch, and associated texts – pretty much the setup for the setting, in inspiration only, not a literal take on the texts
Monstress – visually, monster inspiration, and the war between the Arcanics and the Cumaea
The Dictionary of Mu – an amazing pulpy sword & sorcery setting that has a tone similar to what I want, as well as being a great example of using Biblical influences
Bloodborne – storytelling, Insight, the Healing Church, Pthumeria
Hollow Knight – storytelling style, tone, environmental inspiration, and especially the Radiance
Various “Near East” (I need to find a better, less Eurocentric term) and Mediterranean mythologies – a constant source of joy and inspiration for me
David Cronenberg – body horror + unnerving take on technology

Mood Board (work in progress)

I don’t really know how to use Pinterest so the sections/dates etc. may be weird. I also realize I grab a ton of material. I should probably start sifting through to get a more consistent aesthetic.