Hex 16.23 -- The Doom of Cthedrak

I've finally finished up the first seven hexes of my Populated Hexes Patreon, albeit at a much slower pace than I would have liked. The next step is to combine all seven hexes into a single document, polish it up, add some additional stuff, and publish it. My Patreon can be found here. This hex features an orcish outpost, a nest of angry giant hornets, and an oracular spirit naga unearthing a mysterious artifact.

1d8 Weird Environmental Encounters

Can be used in almost any terrain. Roll 1d20 to determine the area affected:

1-8 sphere with radius of 1d10x10 ft).
9-13 1 subhex (assumes 1.2 mile subhexes)
14-17 1d4+1 subhexes
18-19 3d6 subhexes
20 The entire hex (assumes 6 mile hexes)

1. The land within a given area is dead and devoid of life. No plants, no animals, no insects dwell within it. Creatures with animal intelligence or lower will instinctively avoid the area; those with higher intelligence feel no such compulsion, but will lose 1 hp per day they remain within the area. There's a 1-2 in 6 chance the area affected is a perfect geometric shape other than a circle.

2. The land within is filled with crystalline life; plants and native animals are composed entirely of living crystal. There's a 1-4 in 6 chance such creatures are valuable as treasure. If so, they will be more dangerous than normal varieties.

3. The ground itself is composed of an unnusual substance, such as glass, spongy vegetable matter, living tissue, etc. There's a 1-2 in 6 chance that the plant in animal life in this area is normal, but otherwise it has adapted to its environment.

4. The area is phospherescent, glowing with a strange, eerie light at night.

5. The area is sentient, and communicates via strange and potent visions that haunt the dreams of any intelligent creatures that sleep within its borders. Druids may be able to communicate directly with the locus genii.

6. The area is radically different from the surrounding terrain. A clearing filled with small sand dunes in the middle of the forest, hundreds of miles away from the ocean, for instance.

7. The area is in constant shadow (1-4) or darkness (5-6). This is visible from the outside, although there is no apparent means of blocking out the light.

8. A strong wind blows in a consistent direction within the area. Any plant life within is twisted and bent in the direction of the winds. There's a 1-2 in 6 chance the winds are strong enough to actually impede movement, and weak or light characters may be blow over.

1d8 Strage Environmental Magical Effects

There's a 1% chance that each hex the adventurers enter will contain some type of passive magical effect. Roll 1d20 to determine the area of effect:

1-8 sphere with radius of 1d10x10 sq. ft).
9-13 1 subhex (assumes 1.2 mile subhexes)
14-17 1d4+1 subhexes
18-19 3d6 subhexes
20 The entire hex (assumes 6 mile hexes)

Roll 1d8 to determine the effect:

1. Spells cast within the area are doubled in potency (1-3) or halved in potency (4-6).

2. Certain magics cannot be cast within the area (healing spells, fire-based spells, etc.).

3. Beasts that dwell within the area gain the ability of speech. They can speak Common 50% of the time, or whatever the predominate language of the area is the rest of the time. There's a 1 in 6 chance that any beast passing through the area gains the ability of speech; the rest of the time it takes one month of living within the area for the ability to manifest. There's a further 1-4 in 6 chance the ability fades 1d8 days after leaving the area. The ability of speech only comes with an increased intelligence 1-3 in 6 times.

4. Living beings that die a violent death within the area 1 are animated as lesser undead after 3d4 days, 2 gradually turn to stone over a period of 1d4 days, 3 are returned to life with 1 hp 1 round later, dying permantly if slain again within one day, or 4 have a tree sprout from their corpse in 1d4 turns. Corpse wood is especially sought after for use in crafting magical items.

5. Divine (1-3) or arcane (4-6) spells require extraordinary mental effort to cast. The caster must roll their primary Attribute (Wisdom or Intelligence) on 4d6 in order to successfully cast a spell. Failure indicates the spell slot is still used.

6. Undead within the area are resistant to being turned (1-4) or are turned with greater success (5-6). Clerics roll twice to both determine their chance of success and the number of HD turned (if successful), taking the lower of the two rolls in the first case, and the higher of the two in the second. Free-willed undead instinctively avoid the area.

7. The gravity in the area is strange. It is either stronger than normal, reducing movement and missile ranges by half, or less than normal, increased movement and missile ranges by 2.

8. Any spell being cast within the area has a 1-2 in 6 chance of being miscast. Use your preferred wild magic system to determine the result of miscasts.

1d8 Things to Find in Barren Hills

1. The downward slope of a hill is loose. Adventurers traveling down it have a 1-4 in 6 chance of starting a small rockslide. If the ground does shift, each must roll their Dexterity or less on 4d6 to remain standing. Failure indicates they fall and roll to the bottom of the hill, taking 1d6 points of damage.

2. A tribe of aggressive goats grazes on grass. Make a reaction roll with a -2 penalty to determine what they do. There are 3d8 goats.

3. The ruins of an ancient tower sits atop a hill. Nothing remains but a crumbling foundation, made of flat black stones, each inscribed with the same curious rune.

4. A lonely shepherd's hut. There's a 1-4 in 6 chance it is occupied by the aforementioned shepherd and her flock of sheep. Otherwise, it looks as if it hasn't been occupied for 1d6 months.

5. The remains of a great battle can be found, spread out over several hundred square yards. Bones, rusty armor and decaying weapons litter the ground. Searching for one hour will yield Treasure Type VII (using Labyrinth Lord).

6. A ring of standing stones, thirty feet in diameter, with each stone about eight feet in height and three to four feet in diameter. A flat slab of stone sits in the center of the ring, and it was once used as a sacrificial altars to dark gods. Now the ring stands abandoned, but those who enter feel a strong sense of forboding as they do.

7. Three twisted pines grow in a straight line atop a hill, running from east to west and spaced twenty feet apart. If one were to walk thirty paces west, along an imaginary line created by the trees, and dig, one would uncover a hoard of Treasure Type XIX (Labyrinth Lord).

8. A single human skeleton digs relentlessly into the side of a hill. Its shovel long since broken, the undead creature digs with worn fingers at the end of a shaft that runs in and down some fifteen feet. It ignores any attempt at communication, focusing solely on excavation. Otherwise it is a normal skeleton.

1d8 Things to Find in the Mountains

1. Somewhere, off in the distance, the adventurers hear the low rumble of an avalanche. It lasts for 1d6 rounds before subsiding.

2. The party finds a rope bridge spanning a deep gorge. The bridge looks old and in poor condition, but it is actually quite safe. The gargoyle perched on the other side, however, does not let just anyone cross . . .

3. A peaceful alpine meadow, some three hundred yards to a side. There is a 1 in 6 chance the meadow is not what it seems.

4. An abandoned mineshaft, boarded over, with the words "Danger, goblins!" written on it in the Common tongue.

5. Embedded in the rocks on either side of a narrow pass can be seen images, impressions, fossils of animals long extinct. These fossils can be used as potent components in certain spells.

6. A dead grizzly bear, its hide pierced by what numerous small arrows. No sign can be found of the archer or archers that slew it.

7. A spring exits from a steep cliff face, forming a small waterfall that trickles down the rocks. There's a 1 in 6 chance the water is magical.

8. On a mountain peak far off in the distance the adventurers spy a pair of enormous bird-like creatures take off and land, one of them carrying what looks to be an elephant in its talons. But that's ridiculous; no bird could be *that* large.

1d8 things to find in Grasslands

While traveling through the open plains, the adventurers stumble upon . . .

1. An abandoned sod hut, built into a low hill. It contains two rooms, the bones of its former inhabitants, and there's a 1 in 6 chance whatever did them in still lurks within.

2. A large spur of stone, fifteen feet tall and eight in diameter, stabs up through the ground. Tall enough to be visible for miles around, no moss or lichen grows on its surface. Those familiar with geology recognize it is a type of rock foreign to these parts.

3. A wooden wagon wheel, banded in black iron, and apparently completely intact. If the adventurers have a wagon it could be used as a spare.

4. A dry creekbed, running 1-3 in the same direction as the PCs are traveling or 4-6 in a different direction. After heavy rains the creek runs for 1d4 days before drying out again.

5. A small spring, surrounded by verdant grass. It's small, and will run dry after filling 1d6 waterskins.

6. A small grove of box elders can be seen for several miles away, no more than one hundred feet to a side. A lonely dryad dwells within the grove, which is populated during the summer by a flock of colorful songbirds.

7. The bones of a giant can be found, half buried in sod, with grass growing in the eye-sockets of the skull. The bones are old and fractured, having been gnawed on by coyotes and wolves.

8. The adventurers startle a covey of grouse from their nests as they pass by. 3d4+12 birds take to flight as one. Quick thinking adventurers may be able to shoot one or more, food for the evening's meal.

1d8 things to find in the woods

Here's a quick random table:

1. A dead treant, branches brittle and bowed as if in agony. A family of raccoons has made a nest in the treant's mouth, frozen forever in a cry of agony.

2. Buried under a drift of leaves can be found the remains of an adventurer, little more than bones. The only thing of value to be found on the body is a silver ring, non-magical, but engraved with the intials ES on the inside of the band. The ring is worth around 10 gold.

3. A totally intact deer skull. This one has a third eye-socket, in the center of its forehead.

4. A small stream flows through the woods at this point, barely a foot wide and several inches deep. Running swiftly down an incline, the water plays a gentle melody on the grey, egg-shaped rocks that line the stream-bed.

5. The bark of a large oak tree has been scarred, as if by the claws of an enormous predator. The gashes are nearly fifteen feet off the ground.

6. A wooden chest, one side stove in as if by great force. 1d10 gold coins can be found nearby, if the adventurers spend a turn looking. It looks as if the chest has been opened recently, within the past day.

7. An enormous mushroom, three feet tall and a foot in diameter, grows in the shade of old crab-apple tree. Even a single bite is poisonous to eat, causing 3d4 points of damage (half on save v. poison), but those who do taste its flesh are the subject of an enlarge spell, as if cast by a 9th level magic-user.

8. An old, neglected dry laid stone wall, exactly one hundred and one feet long and two feet tall, running as straight as an arrow and covered in moss and lichen.

Compiling Information in a PBP Game

One of the strong points of pbp gaming is the manner in which information is recorded, both in the active play medium (the IC and OOC threads) and in tangential storage centers (other subforums for a multi-thread centered game, or a wiki). The first is easy to archive and access; it happens automatically as posts are made, the second requires engagement from both players and DMs.

Every post made during play is recorded in either the IC or OOC thread. If you're using a forum with search software (highly recommended) it's trivially easy to search through a thread for mention of what you're looking for -- be it a place, an event, or something else. Can't remember how many XP your character got after that last adventure? It should be right there, in the OOC thread. Can't remember how much treasure you got after slaying the dragon, or the name of that NPC you met in the villlage three months ago in game? Going back through the relevant thread is an excellent way to find out.

The more time consuming, but ultimately more rewarding, method of record-keeping involves using a wiki. Ideally the players will be largely responsible for maintaining and adding to the wiki; in reality the minimum I ask for is that each player maintain their own character sheet and a record of the treasure they are currently carrying. At least one player will typically be motivated enough to add other important information to the wiki. Some of what can be added includes:

1. Maps. Both overland and dungeon maps. These can either be loaded directly onto the wiki or, if you're using something like Google Draw to create battlemaps, can be linked to.
2. Rumors. It is helpful having rumors and plot hooks added to the wiki so they can be referenced later. Again, given the slow pace of pbp, when it might take a month or more to play through a week of game time, a rumor may still be active but forgotten by the players. It's nice for all of the rumors and hooks to be in a central place where they can be crossed off as they either "expire" or are completed (by the PCs or rival parties). 
3. Encumbrance and Current movement rates.
4. Mounts.
5. Hirelings, retainers and mercenaries.
6. Inactive or dead PCs.

The key to using a wiki is to keep it updated on a regular basis, as events unfold, otherwise you end up with a month's worth of information to upload and it just becomes daunting (this is, a of course, a key to managing life as well).

If you're using a multi-thread forum without a wiki you can set up separate threads to manage all these things. I'll typically set up one thread for PCs, one thread for hirelings, a thread to track treasure and XP, and so forth. I find it also helpful to have a Calendar thread, maintained by the DM, that can be used to track events. Ideally the PCs would reference this thread as well.

I'm linking to two examples of the different kinds of pbp record-keeping:
1. Here is the wiki for an ambitious, high-level game I ran where the players were getting into establishing their own domains.
2. Here's a game I ran years ago that used multiple threads to track information.

Both wiki and thread based record-keeping offer roughly the same degree of infomation handling. The advantage to using a wiki is that anyone can edited, as opposed to thread-based forums where only the poster can edit a given post. The advantage to running a thread-based game (here I refer to a game with multiple threads beyond the IC and OOC threads) is that everything is in one sub-forum and is easy and quick to reference. Some forums also offer integrated dice rollers and character sheets.

Standards of Posting in a Play by Post Game (The Players)

After having discussed some uesful standards for posting as a DM I'm going to take a look today at standards of posting as a player.

The biggest thing a player can do to meaningfully contribute to a play by post game is to post in a clear, concise manner and make sure that every post you made contributes to moving the game forward. There's a lot of reading that goes into a pbp game, and as a DM my eyes glaze over whenever I'm confronted by an enormous wall of text, or a post populated with grammatical or spelling errors. It's also a huge pain in the ass to try and decipher what a player actually means or is trying to do. I'd much rather have a short post that presents a clear action than a long post filled with interior dialogue, flowery descriptions, and so forth. I always prefer a post to the effect of:

"Ejemplo swings at the goblin nearest to him with his blade." It's short, it's sweet, and it tells me exactly what I need to know.

Hypotheticals or variable actions should go in a spoiler or OOC text at the bottom of a post. I like seeing extended OOC posts in the actual OOC thread, rather than in the IC thread. Questions, too, should go in the OOC thread, if possible.

It is also helpful to designate who is posting, especially at the beginning of a game where I'm trying to learn everyone's name. I ask that my players start each of their posts with their character's name and class in bold at the top, like this:

Glaarg the Glamorous, Fighter

Some people prefer to indicate dialogue through colored text, with each player selecting one color to use for themselves. I find colored text jarring and prefer my players use quotation marks to indicate dialogue. Whichever you chose, make sure that you are consistent and that all players observe the same standards. It can also be useful to bold the names of other PCs in your text, especially if it is a long post.

When I post as a DM I will do so in third person, present tense. I ask my players to do the same, referring to their character by name. If the players are not rolling, actions should be stated as intentions, without assuming success or failure:

"Glaarg backs up and runs at the door, leading with his shoulder, in an attempt to break it down" rather than "Glaarg runs into the door and breaks it down" (since you don't know if you're successful until the DM resolves the action). Along a similar vein, players should never post what other PCs do, feel or experience, or what NPCs are doing, feeling or experiencing. It is up to the other players and the DM to react to the PCs actions. Glaarg's player should not post, therefore:

"Ejemplo is impressed as Glaarg struts, flexing his panther-like muscles." It is up to Ejemplo's player to determine if Ejemplo is impressed by Glaarg's display of masculinity.

Finally, everything a player posts should contribute to moving the game forward. If the players are discussing what their next course of action should be each post should either a) support a course of action or b) suggest an alternate course of action, as opposed to just saying no.

Glaarg the Glamorous: "I propose we venture to the Forgotten Fane of Vidmar and plunder the treasure that surely lies within!"

Ejemplo the Erudite: "I've heard terrible tales of the Fane of Vidmar, of the deadly undead that lurk in its shadowed halls. I say we travel east and attempt to drive out the brigands that lair in the Granite Pass, and claim the reward the Baron is offering for re-opening that road."

Each player that contributes after this point should do so in a manner that supports one or the other proposals, or to put forth a third plan of action. The idea, though, is to resolve decisions as quickly and efficiently as possible so play can continue.

What's he Building in There?

Now for a non-gaming post: I own a small cabinet shop in real life, and this year we will be participating in our local Artisan's Studio Tour. There are about twenty-five or so studios open to the public on a weekend in November, with about forty artists and artisans -- woodworkers, potters, jewelers, etc. -- exhibiting and giving demonstrations. I've got a couple of furniture pieces that will be on display, and am also building a new piece.

Importantly, this year I am giving my four guys that are the cabinetmakers (as opposed to the finishers) the chance to build a furniture piece each to exhibit. I'm giving each of them 16 hours, which they will be paid for, to come up with a design and build their pieces. If they sell during the Tour I'll split the sale price with them, otherwise it is theirs to do with as they want.

Since I'm building a piece I'm sticking to the same 16 hour deadline I've given my guys (16 hours is, btw, plenty of time to build a relatively simple piece such as a coffee or bedside table, a simple credenza or desk, etc.). I've suggested they build something smallish that has a good chance of selling (big pieces don't, since people are less likely to buy big, expensive pieces at shows). Anyway, I will be posting progress pictures here on occasion (both mine and others).

Standards of Posting in a Play By Post (The DM)

All DMs are going to have different standards that they'd like their players to follow while posting, as well as standards that they use. I'm going to go over some basic standards.

Time/location Stamp. Because of the slow pace of pbp games, I find it helpful as a DM to head every post I make with the date, time (or turns elapsed, for dungeon exploration) and location. Additionally, if the post is not for everyone in the party I will indicate in the header *who* the post is directed towards. This lets me make a single post that covers multiple independent actions or actions occuring over multiple days. Because I'm lazy, my months are simply a number one through twelve with the suffix "month", and the days are one through twenty-eight with the suffix "day". Twelfthmonth through Secondmonth is always winter, the 14thday is always the full moon, and the 28th day of each month is always a festival/fair day (I increase item availability on the 28thday, and there's an increased chance of encounters with lycanthropes on the 14thday). A sample timestamp might look like this:

Thirdmonth, Fifthday

Hex 14.23

9:00 am

or

Thirdmonth, Seventhday

The Fane of Vidmar

Twelve Turns Elapsed

The Hall of the Conjoined Serpents

By providing a time stamp it is easy for my players (and me) to see what day it is, where they are, and how much time has elapsed or how much time they've got left.

Because we're playing online it is trivially easy to link to images, videos, music, or files. Since I run a lot of hexcrawl style games, I will often include a map of their surroundings or their current location at the end of a post in a spoiler box. Likewise, if we're using an interactive map I'll try to link to that in each post.

I have found that the easiest way to handle battlemaps is by using Google Drawings; it's easy to use, access, and can be manipulated by everyone. Typically I'll place everyone initially, and then request that players move their characters at the same time they post their actions. Here is an excellent map created by the DM running a game I'm playing in.

Otherwise, my standards are pretty straightforward and applicable to both players and DMs. Some people use colored text to denote dialogue, but I find that jarring, and usually just rely on quotation marks like the gods intended. I always post in third person, present tense, and never refer to the players as "you", instead calling them by name: "Blargo creeps down the hallway and listens to the door at the end. He hears nothing." as opposed to "You creep down the hallway and listen at the door. You don't hear anything." But that is totally a personal preference. 

Tomorrow we'll get into posting standards for players.

Peaking Behind the pbp Curtain

I've had some questions about how I handle dice rolling, so I figure the easiest thing to do would be to post from the game I'm currently running. As I said in an earlier post, when I'm running a game I make all of the rolls. Players state their intentions, and then I resolve the round based on those. I am a believer in transparency. At the end of each post (or round, if I'm posting multiple rounds within a single post) I put all of my rolls, notes, etc. in a spoiler. Some of my players don't look behind the curtain, some do. It doesn't matter to me. We're all experienced gamers, and I trust everyone to separate in game and out of game knowledge. I find that it is helpful when my players *do* look, because they often spot mistakes that I have made. Plus, from a player's perspective, I think it is pretty neat to see how different DMs resolve things differently. So, with no further ado, here's a post from a random combat I ran recently:

Round Two
Cyr fires another arrow, but it clatters off a breastplate harmlessly as Malgrim withdraws and Konrad moves forward to take his place. Konrad and Jack wait for the skeletons to advance. Jack destroys another one, but both he and Konrad suffer minor cuts from the spears. The skeletal knight steps forward, raises its flaming blade, and in a hollow, sepulchral tone intones several words. A wave of green energy emanates from it, and the adventurers are suddenly aware of the almost overwhelming oppresion of the grave. "I can't deal with this," Brugar says, backing up down the hallway, "its my dream, brought to life! We're all going to die here! I'm too young to die!" He doesn't turn and flee, but he's definitely backing the fuck out of there.

The rest of the post is hidden behind a spoiler (note that the forum where I'm running this formats the bbcode automatically):

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/634911]Initiative, PCs first, then skeletal knight:[/url]: [u]3#1d6[/u] [b]4[/b] [b]2[/b] [b]3[/b]
Cyr fires arrow: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/634912][/url]: [u]3#1d20+4[/u] [b]15[/b] [b]15[/b] [b]17[/b] [u]3#1d8+2[/u] [b]6[/b] [b]8[/b] [b]7[/b] That just misses.Malgrim retreats, Konrad advances (I'm assuming you'll want to do this as Konrad has a better AC.Jack: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/634914][/url]: [u]2#1d20+5[/u] [b]17[/b] [b]7[/b] [u]2#1d8+3[/u] [b]6[/b] [b]4[/b] Jack destroys another skeleton!Konrad: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/634915][/url]: [u]3#1d2+4[/u] [b]5[/b] [b]6[/b] [b]6[/b] [u]3#1d8+3[/u] [b]11[/b] [b]8[/b] [b]9[/b]Since Jack and Konrad held their actions, the third skeleton still gets its attack:Three skeletons: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/634917]First attacking Jack, second attacking Konrad, third attacking one or the other:[/url]: [u]3#1d20+1[/u] [b]6[/b] [b]20[/b] [b]17[/b] [u]3#1d6[/u] [b]5[/b] [b]3[/b] [b]5[/b] [u]1d2[/u] [b]1[/b]
[B]Konrad takes 3 hp, Jack takes 5 hp.[/B]
Skeleton knight casts a reversed [I]bless[/I] spell. Interestingly, it doesn't state if those affected have a Save, so I'm going to go ahead and say they don't. The adventurers are at -1 to hit and damage, and Brugar must make a morale check: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/634919][/url]: [u]3d6-1[/u] [b]7[/b]

As you can see, I've linked all of my dice rolls, and explained what's going on with each roll. If the players are curious (or wanting to check my honesty) they can follow the link back to my orokos account and see all of the rolls that I have made. If any PCs are injured I summarize those injuries and then call them out in bold. Typically what I will do is compose the second post first (the mechanical stuff) and then use that information to flesh out a description of what happens during the round. I used to post much more detailed, flowery descriptions of combat, but at this point I've kinda ended up shooting for simplicity rather than a description of each dodge, parry and riposte.

PBP -- Open to the World

Another benefit to play by post gaming is that, in a manner similar to live streaming a gaming session, it is most often open and available to others interested in following along. I got interested in the medium simply by starting to read through some old IC (in character) threads that had been run on a forum I frequent, and was quickly hooked. It helped that at the time I didn't have a face to face group, nor the time to join one, and was looking for some way to game. Play by post gaming was perfect for my needs; I was unable to commit to a four-hour chunk of time on a regular basis, but was able to find thirty minutes a day to participate in a game or two.

Assuming that a game is being played on an open forum it is open to anyone who browses the forum. Because of the archival nature of the internet, you're just as likely to stumble across an old game as one that is currently being run.  And, unlike streaming, pbp offers certain benefits for people like me who are not comfortable being filmed. I also learned years ago that I am not a particulary effective DM in real life: I don't do accents, I'm not very spontaneous, and, because I'm somewhat lazy, I don't do a very good job of prepping for games, which leaves me often unprepared. Play by post allows me to ignore all of those defects; for those playing in my games or following along at home, it's impossible to tell if I've been winging something or have an elaborate plan that I've spent years crafting (hint: it's mostly the former).

Because both current and former games can be found throughout the internet, it's easy to stumble across and become engaged in the medium. I would recommend logging into your forum of choice (most gaming forums are going to have a play by post sub-forum) and taking a gander at the gams currently being run. If you're interested in finding more about it, look for a game that both seems interesting to you (based on system, genre, etc.) and has a high post count (this indicates engagement). If there's a recruitment thread you might want to check that out first, since it will introduce you to the type of game being run, the theme (dungeon crawl? Sandbox?), the players and characters, and the DM. Start at the beginning, at the first post of the IC thread, and start reading.

This, for example, is the first post of a game I am currently running:

Thirdmonth, Firstday, Firstyear of the Fifteenth Cycle*
Junction

The final snows of winter have melted, leaving the ground wet and soft with the approach of spring. The sages all say that the Fourteenth Cycle is officially over, the Fifteenth Cyle has just begun, and with the coming of spring the forces of civilization are once more looking outwards. The world is new and ready for a new generation of adventurers.

The village of Junction -- little more than a hamlet, really, with a population of nearly 400 souls -- is notable chiefly for providing the ferry across the River Sarn from those traveling from the eastern Variegated Kingdoms to the vast and sprawling Basilisk Kingdom to the west. Or, more accurately, the decaying remnants of the Basilisk Kingdom. Ever since the last true king, Zaphisdreal the Magnificent, died at the beginning of the Fourteenth Cycle the Kingdom has crumbled as his many children scrabbled and fought for control, until at last it was no more than a half dozen or so petty Baronies. Up until fifty or sixty years previous Junction had still paid tribute to the nearest Baron, one Naldruth the Mad, but eventually his tax collectors stopped visiting. Junction is now an independent village, subsiding on the little traffic that passed from east to west, a small amount of ore mined to the north, and what the inhabitants can take from the river and surrounding forests.

The River Sarn, shallow and slow, flows to the south and the city of Zizdul, the once great port on the banks of the Silver Sea, but the bulk of the river traffic south goes through Rhea's Ford, a small city at the very western edge of the Scarlet Principality, a day's hard ride to the east of Junction. The adventurers have come to Junction from all over; some were perhaps even born in this small settlement at the edge of the civilized world. 

Now, with the ending of winter, and the beginning of a new Cycle, the adventurers begin plotting their next course of action. The following options have come to their attention as being potentially lucrative:

*The Fane of of Vidmar is rumored to hold the burial treasures of a long-forgotten bandit chieftain, to the north of Junction in hex 43.23.
*The Shrine of Sabeth has been abandoned since the middle of the last Cycle, on the road east to Rhea's Ford, and held several holy relics before all contact with it was lost. It lies in hex 39.25.
*To the south of Junction, on the banks of the River Sarn, a group of fishermen spied a curious round door set into the western bank, exposed from erosion caused by snowmelt. It is found in hex 42.28
*The few travelers who've made their way west from Rhea's Ford have reported attacks by a band of goblins, preying on those foolhardy individuals who make the trip through the thick woods. From the tales, it sounds like most of the attacks have occured in hexes 46.27 and 47.27.
*A small village to the west, Cyndun, is reported to have been taken over by bandits. If true, surely it is but a matter of time before the bandits venture east to raid the larger and wealthier village of Junction. Cyndun is a day's walk west, across the Sarn.

Don't worry, there's plenty of time

Since we've delved into some of the issues of play by post gaming, let's take a look at some of the positives. The first thing I really like about running pbp is that the slow pace actually works to my advantage: it reduces prep time and allows me to be improvisational (I'm not great at running games on the fly IRL, but am much better in pbp).

I run very sandboxy games, which can be difficult to do in face to face; they either rely on the DM preparing a massive amount of stuff beforehand (which I find difficult to do, because of IRL time constraints) or be an excellent improvisational DM (which I'm not). Because pbp games take an inherently long time -- it might take 24 hours or more for the party to reach a decision on what to do -- it gives me time to work on the game in advance.

For instance, at the beginning of a game I might throw out a half-dozen plot hooks for the players. None of these are fully developed, but are instead just broadly sketched out. If I give them four dungeons, a band of brigands preying on travelers and a fearsome man-eating beast roaming the woods I can get a basic idea of what each entails. I'll determine the size of the dungeons, what each contains, etc., but I don't actually draw them, or place treasure, or anything. I roll to determine the number of bandits, and what kind of beast it is (these two, btw, are placed on the Random Wilderness Encounter table for the nearby areas, and may be encountered independently). Then I let the players loose, and pay attention to what they're talking about. They'll spend a day or two discussing their plans and what to do, and if it seems like they've decided on a specific course of action I'll go ahead and draw up that dungeon, or bandit camp, or whatever.

It's at this point that I start to develop whatever it is they're going after (ignoring the other hooks). You can safely assume that whatever course your players decide on will take at least two to three weeks of real time to play through -- often longer. That gives me plenty of time to develop the dungeon they're exploring as well as work on other aspects of the game.

Since I'm a pretty lazy DM I rely largely upon random encounters to build my world. They're quick to roll-up and they require little thought on my part to drive things forward. I've found that, looking back through the games I've run, some of the best and most memorable encounters and NPCs have been those generated randomly. Again, because I've got time from when an encounter is first made to when the players react to the encounter I can fully write up and develop what the encounter is and how it integrates into the world. From the players' side of the screen they can't tell if I've just made something up or if this is an encounter that has always been there.

Given that it takes time to play out, I'm never caught flat-footed by what the players chose to do, and I never have to worry about them changing course mid-stream and chasing after something else, because I've got the time to figure out what needs to happen. From the players' side of the screen it seems flawlessly integrated. This works well with my personality (slightly lazy) and DMing skills (not that great at improvisation IRL).

Modifying Missions

The last aspect I work on to try and deal with the slow pace of play by post is adjusting the kind of adventures I run. As a general rule I run pretty open-ended, sandbox-style games, but the below applies to more linear, plot-driven games as well. The type of adventure is less important than how it is constructed.

The first thing I try and do is include smaller, self-contained dungeons. I have tried running mega-dungeons in the past, but have found that my players either eventually get bored after several months of the same thing, or get distracted and wind up doing something else, or simply forget stuff they did a few months prior in real-time. A pbp game is going to move forward much more slowly than a face to face game and mega-dungeons have the tendency to draaaaaaaaaag. When running dungeons I try to keep them to a dozen or so rooms, at maximum, and maybe have that number of encounters. I'm not always successful, of course!

I tend to include fewer traps than would ordinarily be in a face to face game, as well, so play doesn't get bogged down in paranoid searching every square inch of a dungeon. I will often make traps or hidden doors somewhat obvious, and will be honest with my players when there's nothing to find (I'll come right out and tell them there's nothing to find, since I don't want them wasting days of real time searching a room that is literally empty).

Along those lines, I don't provide false plot hooks. I'll happily feed my players false information about the game world, but I'm not going to give them false hooks or rumors that cause them to spend months of real time chasing after false leads. It's just not fun for them to invest all that time and then not result in anything.

A lot of these solutions require some suspension of disbelief, but I've found that I'd much rather deal with that and have happy, motivated players than those frustrated by a slow pace of play.

Next up, we'll start discussing the positive aspects of play by post gaming!

Streamlining Mechanics, Part II

I had left two items off my previous post about streamlining mechanics in play by post gaming, and am adding them here:

4. Eliminating Save v. Uselessness. There's a fair amount of complaining in face to face games about effects that remove a player character for all or most of a combat's duration. This is for a combat that might take a half hour to a couple of hours to resolve in real time. Imagine what that would be like in a play by post game, where a large, involved combat might take a week of real time to resolve. Now imagine that your character was, in the first round, targeted by a Hold Person spell, or paralyzed by a ghoul, and they've got to sit around for a few days and wait for everyone else to finish up. For this reason I try to cut back on effects that take player characters totally out of participation: paralysis, fear effects that cause them to flee, etc. Sometimes it is necessary (or when a character dies) for this to happen, but when it does I make my best effort to wrap things up as quickly as possible so that everyone can get back to participating. Additionally, since I'm running OSR games, there are typically some henchmen around, and if it looks like a PC will be out for awhile I'll let the player run a henchman.

5. Fast leveling. Because it is so slow it takes much longer for characters to level, so I typically increase the amount of XP characters receive. My standard is to double the XP from defeating monsters and increase the XP from treasure by 1.5. I ran one game for about two years where the rate of advancement was about 1.5 levels per year.

Streamlined Mechanics Make for Quick Resolution

Before you're going to want to start your game you're going to need to pick your system*. I prefer OSR games as a general rule, both face to face and in pbp, which help to streamline play. OSR games tend to have easy mechanics as well as few character customization options. That makes it really easy to run the game with all of the mechanics "behind the scene"; with the way I run things, making all the rolls, someone without any grasp of the game can play a fighter or thief easily enough.

I also recommend that you go with a system that doesn't require a lot of back and forth to resolve actions, opposed rolls, etc. Given that a single round of combat can take 24 hours to resolve, if you start adding complicated mechanics, back and forth options, and so forth it can really stretch conflicts out.

There are a number of other things I do to help to make the game flow more smoothly, some of which are:

1. Cost of Living. I assume that there's a lump sum of money, paid at the beginning of each month and increasing in amount as the characters increase in level, that covers all of the small, incidental costs (level appropriate). That means the PCs don't have to pay for food and lodging in an inn, or tolls to enter a city, or taxes on their wealth, etc. It's a small thing, but the fact that my players don't have to spend time (ie make posts) asking how many coppers it costs to buy an ale helps to move things along.

2. Standard Operating Procedures. Before we begin play I try to establish some standard procedures that we'll follow when adventuring. The big ones that I can think of right now deal with exploration: whenever the party comes to a door we make the assumption that a thief listens at the door, then checks for traps, then picks the lock, if needed. Chests are always searched for traps before opening. Depending on how combat is going, I will often roll out multiple rounds of combat until something drastic happens (a PC is reduced to low hp, a new enemy joins the battle, etc.).

3. Transparency of Rolls. Since I make all of the rolls in the game I post the rolls for each round in spoilers at the end of each round of combat. I use an online dice roller that lets me post the link to each individual roll. This lets me easily track what is happening in a round as I'm working through it, and gives the players an easy way to double check me in case I make a mistake.

All in all, play by post games work the most smoothly when using games that have simple mechanics and a limited number of character options. Systems that require opposed rolls, have some sort of back and forth resolution system, or otherwise rely on multiple exchanges often slow down play and add to the complexity of running it. This doesn't necessarily mean that crunchy systems are bad and rules-lite systems good, since what is important is the amount of back and forth required to resolve a conflict. A crunchy system could require multiple rolls while a rules-lite system might require multiple back and forth exchanges; both could slow the game down to the same degree.

*Note that I'm making some pretty broad, sweeping statements here that reflect what I have found to be *generally* true. I've seen pbp games that use very complex systems last for years, so it is certainly possible.

Establishing Momentum in PBP Gaming

I talked yesterday about the main pitfall in pbp gaming -- the slow pace -- and identified three key areas that can be addressed to make it less of an issue. We're going to look at the first of those areas today: momentum.

So, you've decided you want to run a play by post game. You've found your venue (either forum or a chat server like Discord or G+ Hangout). The first thing you want to do is recruit players and get them to make characters. The instant you start your recruitment thread you want to start thinking about momentum. As a general rule you want to get through the character creation process as quickly as possible and into the actual game. If you are able to do this quickly -- within a week, say -- your players will be enthusiastic about their new characters and excited to get started. The longer the character creation drags out the less excited people become, the more shiny things they see other than your game to distract them, etc. I set a firm deadline for starting play once recruitment begins, and will start play even if I don't have my ideal number of players or some are still working on their characters. It's easy enough to add folks in, but harder to rekindle excitement lost if the rest of the players are twiddling their thumbs waiting for one person to finish their character.

Also, during the recruitment phase is the best time to set posting expectations. I typically shoot for all my players to make a minimum of one post per day. If this doesn't happen all the time that's fine, as long as there's a majority of players to make decisions, but it is ideal. Especially during combat or individual actions, the one post per 24 hours is ideal.

Now that all of your characters are created and you're ready to jump into the IC thread there are some things you can do as a DM to establish and keep momentum up. One of the biggest things to keep in mind is you should never slow down a game waiting on input from one player, and try and set things up in such a way that you are never relying on input from a single player. I try to discourage individual actions (such as scouting ahead) even though it somewhat breaks immersion, but if players insist on taking those actions I make it clear that the player needs to be able to respond quickly to posts, usually multiple times within 24 hours. I don't want the rest of the players sitting around with nothing to do for a week while one PC takes their time responding to posts regarding their scouting attempt.

Tangentially to the above, I usually run games on a majority rules basis: as soon as the majority of players decide on a course of action (do we take the left or right corridor?) that is what happens, even if not everyone has weighed in. This rule favors frequent posters, but so be it. I'd much rather keep things moving for the majority of players than get input from one or two slower posters. Additionally, stress how important it is to make posts that drive the action forward. I frequently see posts to the effect of "My character is happy to go with the majority" or "My character doesn't care which corridor we take". These posts are, in my mind, literally worthless, as they don't do anything to drive the action forward. Insist that your players care which way to go, if only to reach a majority; if they don't care, then why are they playing in your game? Everything that is posted should drive things forward. If you're running the game, make sure that your posts give your characters things to act on.

If you can start off strong, and continue the momentum of regular posting for a good two or three months, chances are you'll have interested, engaged players who will both carry the momentum going forward and be better situated to weather the inevitable slow downs.

Pacing, the main drawback of pbp gaming

I'll start of by discussing the main, in my mind, drawback to pbp gaming: pace. Play by post gaming is, in the best conditions, slow. In the worst conditions it can be sloooooooooooow. When it starts to get really slow, people start to disengage, which means they post less frequently or even at all, and it becomes this sort of giant snowball that eventually kills a game. There are several aspects that drive the slow pace of the game, but what it basically boils down to is the medium itself: someone makes a post, and people respond to it. This can take time. People in a single game can be across an entire country, or even on different continents, and don't respond right away once a post is made. It can take a week or more to resolve a single combat, and months to clear a standard size dungeon.

I've learned some strategies for dealing with the slow pace of pbp gaming, which can be broken down into the following three "M"s (I just thought of that):

1. Momentum. The first two months of a pbp game are critical. If you can keep up a good, engaging pace for that time the players will become invested in their characters, you'll become invested in the world, and it makes it much easier to maintain that pace.

2. Mechanics. This is two-fold. Play by post games work best, I think, when using games that have simple, straightforward mechanics, that don't rely on a lot of back and forth (such as opposed rolls). It also helps if the DM is the one making all the rolls. This removes some player agency (at least, it does for some folks), but really streamlines action. The players post what they want to attempt, the GM makes a bunch of rolls, then posts the results.

3. Missions. As I've been running games I've been leaning gradually towards smaller and smaller dungeons. The pace of pbp gaming is just too slow, I think, to realistically tackle megadungeons, without losing momentum. Because I roll all the dice, and because large combats can get overwhelming to run, I've been adapting some stuff from newer games, chiefly 5e. Giving solo monsters lair or legendary actions allow you to run encounters with fewer numbers, which helps keep the DM workload down.

In my next post I'll explore the specific issues of slow game play and how the three Ms can be used to speed things up.

Back to Posting

Work and the real world blew up on me over the summer, but I'd like to make a concerted effort to get back into regular posting. I think a good place to start would be to discuss my main -- and at this point in my life, preferred -- method of gaming: play by post. While slower than face to face (or chat-based) gaming, it is more flexible and allows me to game by only spending a half hour or so per day, as opposed to several hours at a time, which is difficult for me to find time to do.

Generally speaking, play by post gaming is accomplished on a forum. There are some forums dedicated soley to play by post gaming (Unseen Servant, RPOL, Mythweavers) while other forums have subtopics devoted to pbp (rpg.net, Giant in the Playground, Dragonsfoot, etc.).

If the forum is devoted to pbp gaming, each game typically gets its own sub-forum, which can then be set up with multiple threads for the game. In these cases there are typically threads for character sheets, IC (In Character) action, OOC (Out Of Character) chatter, and other threads as needed (I'll usually set up one thread for treasure tracking, one to use as a calendar, one for house rules, and so forth).

If the pbp gaming is part of a larger, non-dedicated forum each game will typically have one or two threads: one IC and one OOC. I find that if playing on a non-dedicated forum it is helpful to use an online wiki to keep track of character sheets, maps, treasure, etc.

Regardless of where the game is taking place they will share similar features, and, in general terms, are not that different from a face to face game: there's typically a DM who runs the game, a number of players who run their own characters and go on adventures, etc. However, the slow pace of pbp gaming creates some interesting hurdles and some opportunities, which I'll go into at a later date.

New Patreon Hex is up

Hex 17.22 -- The Valley of the Sunken Sun

I've been so overwhelmed with work in the past two months I haven't had a chance to post here, which is not what I was hoping for. However, my new Patreon hex is up, detailing a goblin village worshipping a semi-deified carrion crawler, a goblin mage character class, and rules for combat maneuvers and lesser magical item creation that can be bolted on to Labyrinth Lord or other clones.

New Patreon Post is up

New hex is up, featuring a giant snail on the brink of sentience, a gnoll village, two playable gnoll classes and a simple skill system to bolt onto your Labyrinth Lord (or other OSR) games.

The Shrine of Sabeth

In lieu of another monster today here is an encounter location, the Shrine of Sabeth.

An abandoned and ruined temple in the woods fronts an underground grotto holding a statue of a satyr the size of an ogre. An iron crown, shaped like twining thorns, crests the statue's head, and in its hand it holds a set of pan pipes. There is an open shaft in the ceiling above the statue, and every month on the full moon the statue comes to life at midnight as the Spirit of Sabeth possesses the statue. It will not animate without both the Crown and the Pipes.

Upon animating, the Spirit of Sabeth begins to play a tune upon its pipes, and all mortal creatures within the grotto must Save v. Spells or start dancing. The dancing lasts until dawn, and all who dance are exhausted and must rest for either one or two days. Occasionally, those who dance recieve a boon from Sabeth, as follows, by rolling on 1d100.

1-85. No blessing

86-88. The animals of the forest react positively to the adventurers. Any time the adventurer encounters a normal animal in the woods they add a +4 bonus to their reaction roll. This ends once the adventurer kills an animal, normal or giant.

89-91. The next roll the character makes automatically succeeds.

92-94. The character gains knowledge of a 1st level druid spell for one week. If they are not a spellcaster they may cast it once before memory of it fades. If they are a spellcaster they may cast it in place of another spell during this time period, as often as possible, and if the spellcaster is a cleric or druid they have a 1-4 in 6 chance of remembering it and adding it to their spell-list.

95-97. Character gains 1d4 extra hit points, permanently.

98-99. Character gains 1d6x100 XP

100. Character has one randomly chosen Attribute increase by 1.

No individual may recieve more than one boon per year, and they may not receive any one boon more than once. In addition, those who receive Sabeth's gift find the cities and accoutrements of civilizations distasteful, a feeling of mild revulsion which lasts for 3d4 days. They also glow faintly, ever so faintly, in the dark.

If attacked or threatened, Sabeth may gaze upon the interloper, who must make a Save v. Spells or be polymorphed into a random forest animal, as per the spell polymorph others. A Remove Curse will change the target back, or a Dispel Magic cast by a magic-user of 9th level or higher.

When first encountered both the Crown and the Pipes are missing. The Pipes can be found hidden under the floorboards of the temple above, along with a liturgical guide that details some of the practices of the now defunct Cult of Sabeth. The Crown has been tossed into a pool of water in the forest outside of the shrine, and is now guarded by a water weird (can be found in B7, Rahasia). There are two goblins lurking in the ruined temple as the adventurers approach, and a dead goblin at the edge of pool of water.

Day Twenty-eight -- Dream Spider

Day Twenty-eight is another Horror, with a roll of 48. It hails from a realm of nightmares and dreams (79) and is barely intelligent, but can be trained over time. Its base form is that of a daddy longlegs (91), with fish-like attributes (39), spongy skin (81) and eats abstract food (6). Since it hails from a land of nightmares and dreams let's assume that it feeds upon the fevered nightmares it induces in its victims.

Dream Spider
# Enc.: 1 (1d4)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 120' (40')
AC: 4
HD: 4+6
Attacks: 1 bite
Damage: 1d6 + special
Save: F8
Morale: 9
Hoard Class: None
XP: 215

Dream spiders are long-legged horrors that dwell in the Dreamlands, entering the Material world at certain times when large populations of creatures experience mass night terrors as a result of war, great tragedy or magically induced dreams. They are about three feet in diameter, with more than a dozen long, spindly legs, and bloated, many-eyed bodies that are covered in irridescent, shimmering scales.

They are stealthy, moving silently and hiding in shadows as a 9th level thief, and prefer to approach sleeping victims. They have the ability to cause the victim to have unusually terrifying nightmares, but can only feed on one target per night, although they may target more than one victim per night! The targeted victim must Save v. Spells or have their slumber deepened into an almost unwakeable sleep lasting 2d4 hours, during which time they suffer intense nightmares that prevents full rest. The dream spider must remain with 30' of their victim during this time. The nightmares are exhausting, and a target dies after a number of consecutive nights of dream spider induced dreams equal to their Constitution score.

Dream spiders can also attack with a powerful bite, causing 2d4 points of damage and injecting their target with a powerful poison that puts the victim to sleep (automatically forcing them into the nightmare dreams described above, without the Save v. Spells). In this case the victim remembers being attacked by a multi-legged horror, and is usually aware when they wake up that something is amiss. Sunlight (or magical spells that recreate sunlight) will automatically slay a dream spider, so the creatures usually lurk in dank cellars, sewers, etc., typically anywhere with a high concentration of potential dreamers.

Day Twenty-seven -- Hydrochoer

We've been having some intense storms sweep through the area, and our internet connection has been spotty the past few days. For Day 27 the first roll is a 97, for a verminous creature. It's a slightly venemous (89), rodent (larger than cats)(83), that is amphibious, nesting in the water but coming out to hunt on land.

A little quick googling for information on large rodents reveals that the latin name for capybara is hydrochoerus, which means water hog. I think we've just found the name of our vermin.

Hydrochoer
 # Enc.: 1d6 (2d6)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 90' (30')
AC: 7
HD: 1
Attacks: 1 bite
Damage: 1d4 + poison
Save: NM
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: VI
XP: 13

Amphibious rodents larger than cats, hydrochoers nest in still underwater grottoes, both in the wilderness and in dungeons, venturing onto land to hunt. They are attracted to shiny things, which are brought back to their nests, but it is often difficult to retrieve the treasures of hydrochoers, both because they lair underwater and often in tight spots that creatures larger than them find difficult to access.

Hydrochoers attack by swarming their prey and biting them with their large teeth. A living creature bitten by a hydrocchoer must make a Save v. Poison. Those failing are nauseated for 1d4 turns after being bitten, suffering a -2 penalty to all rolls and having a movement reduced by 10' per round. The penalties are not cumulative. Hydrochoers fear fire, and being in the presence of any fire larger than a torch forces an immediate morale check. Their favorite tactic is to swarm their prey, biting as many as possible, and then retreating to shadow their victims, picking off those who are already affected and moving more slowly.

There is a sub-species of the hydrochoer that dwells in salt or brackish water. They are identical statistically to the normal version, except they have 1+1 HD and a morale of 9.

Day Twenty-six -- Cycadian

Towards the end of the stretch, and today's monster is a plant monster. A roll of 10 gives us a basic form of "broad leaves", and a second roll of 49 tell us that it is mobile. In addition to fighting with limbs (Table 2-74) it has a pulling attack *and* an augmenting attack, both from Table 2-61.

For movement the result is a 9, meaning that it glides or flies using wing-like growths. For pulling attacks we get a 56 (organ, functioning as a gaze attack, with those affected moving towards the plant) and augmented we get a 77 (substance, coated on the body, that causes targets to become "plant zombies". Finally, for limb attacks we find that it uses a wing buffet. So, that goes well with its mode of action.

Cycadian
# Enc.: 0 (1d8)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 30' (10')
AC: 3
HD: 6
Attacks: 2 leaf buffet + gaze
Damage: 1d6/1d6 + special
Save: F6
Morale: 9
Hoard Class: None (see below)
XP: 570

Millennia old, from an age when the world was new and much hotter and humid than it is to day, the mysterious Cycadians ruled the lands. Now their numbers are much reduced, with many of the surviving numbers lolling in a stupor of lethargy. Those awake Cycadians haunt the tropical zones of the world, floating menacingly through the forests in search of prey, as their leaf fronds ripple slowly, propelling them forwards, roots trailed behind above the ground. They stand between around eight feet tall.

When confronted with sentient beings the Cycadian fronds part, revealing a large, pupiless eye. All those meeting the gaze of the eye must Save v. Spells or be affected as per the Spell Charm Monster, and feel a deep-seated desire to advance towards the Cycadian without caution. Once within range the victims are pressed to the creature's trunk and implanted with seeds into their brain. They will lose 1 point of Intelligence per day afterwards, unless the seeds are removed via a Cure Diesease spell. When the victim reaches 0 Intelligence they are rendered immobile and do nothing but drool, and the newly formed Cycadian saplings sprout from its body. Unfortunately for the Cycadians, the centuries have rendered most of their seeds inviable, and only 5% ever sprout. Those victims infected with inviable seeds die after 1d6 days of insensate drooling.

Occasionally, rather than implant a victim with seeds the Cycadian chooses to feed upon a charmed creature, and will send their roots into their chest, doing one point of damage per hour until they are sucked dry of nutrients. Charmed victims will not resist this feeding. Cycadians can also buffett a nearby target twice per round with their fronds, but they must be on the ground in order to do so and cannot move while buffetting.

Cycadian communicate via a strange rustling and susurrus of the leaves, a mode of communication lost to Man, although it is rumored there are some elves who still understand the language. Cycadians are immune to all Charm and Hold spells. The timber that can be milled from a felled Cycadian is rare and valuable, worth 100 gp per hit point the creature originally had.

The Darkness Beneath Dalentown, a Review

This is an unsolicited review of The Darkness Beneath Dalentown, an adventure for 4-8 characters of levels 8-12. It is written using the Swords and Wizardry ruleset. There will be some spoilers in this review, so players beware! It is written by brothers Tim and Matthew Bannock.

The cover is by Dean Spencer and shows an elf fighter with one leg partially encased in a gelatinous cube. The elf is in the process of swinging a sword, and to me it looks like she is trying to cut off her leg to escape the cube rather than attacking it. I will admit that I've got a soft spot in my heart for oozes, jellies and gelatinous creatures, and was attracted to this module both because of its contents but also because it is a higher level adventure, which are relatively rare.

From introduction to Appendix it is 30 pages. The introduction starts out explaining the premise in broad strokes -- an urban expansion project in the sewers of Dalentown has opened up a passageway to an ancient dwarven mine tragically abandoned. It is recommended that at least one character be a cleric or paladin, for access to magics that can deal with various ooze related conditions.

The module is organized in logical fashion: there's a brief introduction to Dalentown and background explaining the events that led to the staging of the module, followed by a summary of the adventure itself and a listing of what books are needed to play (both the S&W Monstrosities book and the Tome of Horrors Complete), although it is noted that all monster stats are given in the back of the book.

Briefly, Dalentown was settled unknowingly above an abandoned dwarven mine. The dwarves were mining an especially hard crystal, and decided to take a shortcut by hiring a wizard to help them out. The magic-user, named Sedeen the Conjurer, decided to conjure some oozes to dissolve the softer surrounding stone to make the mining got faster. Needless to say, hijinks then ensued with the demon lord Jubilex (spelled that way in TOHC) interfered and sent more oozes than could be dealt with. The dwarves blamed Seldeen and threw the magic-user into a pit of oozes, where the demon-lord transformed her into a demon!

There's a map of Dalentown, a brief overview of the town itself with some notable NPCs and locations noted, including some plot hooks that could be used beyond the adventure itself. When the PCs arrive in town they find out that, upon discovering the ancient dwarven ruins a team of adventurers were hired to explore; they were routed and almost all were slain, with their being only two survivors. These two can be pumped for information about what they saw, which isn't much, although one of them swears to have encountered a ghost. The adventurers are low level, so it comes as no surprise that they were slaughtered. Dalentown itself is fairly generic and designed to be placed as desired in an existing campaign world, and can be expanded upon as needed.

There are four hooks given to get the adventurers interested in the adventure, and a neat timeline that spells out what happens the longer the infestation of oozes goes unchecked, including a timetable of events that occur over the period of a couple of months. It's a neat touch, and as the timeline advances there are mechanical increases to the sewer random encounter rolls to include greater threats. We're given a map of the sewers and told to place the entrance to the dwarven stronghold as desired in the sewer, and to limit the number of entrances to the sewer itself, so it allows for some customization.

Once the adventurers travel through the sewers -- where they risk only random encounters -- they enter the dwarven stronghold itself. The maps are fairly basic, created using Inkwell Ideas Dungeonographer, and easy to use. One nice touch is that the remains of the previous adventuring party can be found throughout the upper levels in different places as they meet their demise. I won't go into too much detail about the adventure itself, but will note that the primary monsters in this dungeon are oozes, with a golem, ghost, ratlings and some cursed dwarven lords making up the rest, in addition to Sedeen, the Faceless Demon Ooze. The dungeon itself is relatively small -- which I actually like, as I've gotten a bit tired of enormous megadungeons -- but there are a couple opportunities for the DM to expand it beyond its current borders.

Defeating Sedeen is not enough to prevent the oozes from eventually making their way up to the surface, so the players should have to come up with a way to end the ooze threat, or they might jsut assume that defeating Sedeen is enough to end the threat, leave town and then receive news that all is still not well in Dalentown.

The Appendix lists a couple of unique magical items and the stats of all the monsters encountered in the book, with a brief listing of their abilities, which is nice. The second section of Appendix gives some options for placing specific books within the dwarven library and presents 20 different tomes that can be found, some harmful and some beneficial. I'm a big fan of handing out books as treasure, especially those that can have game benefits down the road (for research or whatever).

Overall it is a solid adventure, but I feel that it could benefit by including more material. Not by increasing the size of the dungeon, but by fleshing out Dalentown and the surroundings a bit more, and Sedeen herself. Her long-term plan is somewhat limited in scope -- she's driven by vengeance against the dwarves who slew her and wants to unleash a plague of oozes upon the surface world, but that's about it. She feels kind of shallow and undeveloped as a rather potent demon, and I think could use some work to expand on. She is explicitly given the ability to speak through oozes, and we're told that she will mock and rage at the adventurers through her jellied mouthpieces, which seems rather petty and shallow to me. Mabe it is meant to be that way? I would much rather have her silent and inscrutable, with the only clues the adventurers recieve to her presence is the strangely intelligent behavior of the oozes they face, as the seemingly mindless creatures act with cunning and guile far beyond what is expected.

One of the things I like about this adventure, though, is that it can be utilized in different ways; it could be run as is, or it could be run as an isolated dungeon, sealed off from the rest of the world that the adventurers encounter during their travels: at the back end of the cavernous chamber you discover a locked door of what looks to be dwarven manufacture, locked and untouched for centuries. Runes above the door warn in dwarfish to beware the Magician's Folly!

Day Twenty-five -- The Odobenus, a noble water elemental

Day Twenty-five of 30 Monsters in 30 Days. For those of you just jumping in, I'm using Matthew Finch's excellent "Tome of Adventure Design" to randomly generate a monster a day. I haven't quite hit my goal of one per day, but have kept things going, so that's good, I think.

Today the result is a 26, an elemental. It's nobility, similar to a powerful djinn. Mammalian in appearance, it originates from the plane of water. It can be bound through a sacrifice.  Hmm.

Odobenus
# Enc.: 1 (wilderness only)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 180' (60') Swimming
AC: 4
HD: 8
Attacks: 2 (bite, tail) or special (see below)
Damage: 3d4, 2d6 or special
Save: F8
Morale: 12
Hoard Class: None
XP: 2060

Powerful, walrus-like elementals from the plane of water, Odobeni only appear on the Material Plane when summoned by a powerful magic-user; doing so requires a sacrifice of 20 HD of sapient beings, drowned in ocean brine. If the sacrifice pleased them (make a reaction roll, modified by +1 for every additional 20 HD sacrificed) they will serve the conjurer for a period of 13 days, although they primarily serve their own Chaotic agendas and may subtly twist orders to fit their desires.

Odobeni are only affected by magic and magical weapons. In addition to their powerful melee attacks, they may use the following special abilities, thrice per day:

1. Become invisible, as the spell.
2. Create an illusion, as per the spell Spectral Force.
3. Lower water, as per the spell, as a caster of level 16.
4. Cast Water Breathing, as the spell, on up to 8 targets.
5. Once per week they may control weather, as per the druid spell Control Weather, greater

Odobeni rarely leave the water, although they can survive both in and out of it, and when in the water suffer automatic half damage (save for 1/4) from fire-based attacks. Once per day they may create a whirlpool 120' in diameter and up to twice that in depth, capable of sinking all but the largest ocean-going vessels.

Day Twenty-four -- Wobbly Sphere

We get another ooze or macrobiote for day 24. This time it is a macrobiote, which means that it may have limbs. It appears as a sphere and can extrude limbs, is completely immune to cold,  and attacks via a spray or spit (roll on the special attacks table).  It splits to reproduce.

Its touch causes paralysis.

Wobbly Sphere
# Enc.: 1d4
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: Rolling: 120' (40')
"Walking" 30' (10')
AC: 6
HD: 4
Attacks: Tentacles (4)
Damage: 1d4 + paralysis
Save: F4
Morale: 12
Hoard Class: None
XP: 80

Wobbly spheres are 6' diameter spherical balls of translucent jelly that typically travel by rolling. They are carnivorous, and when in the presence of potential prey sprout 10' pseudopods of flailing jelly, taking a full round. When their limbs are present they can only move at 30' per round. They may attack with 4 pseudopods, each inflicting 1d4 points of damage and causing the target to Save v. Paralysis with a +2 bonus on a successful hit. If failed, the target is paralyzed for 1 turn. When all threats are gone the wobbly sphere draws their meal into their bodies, distending incredibly if needed in order to fit their victim inside. Once inside the wobbly sphere flesh and organic materials are dissolved in 6d6 hours while metal and stone are unaffected and eventually ejected from their body and ignored.

Wobbly spheres are completely immune to cold, either natural or magical. Attacks by magical cold (such as the breath weapon of a white dragon, or cone of cold) cause the sphere to split into two smaller spheres with half the number of HD as the parent. The smaller spheres gain 1 HD per month until they reach full size.

Day Twenty-three -- Cynoms, the prairie-dog people

Next up for Day Twenty-three is another humanoid. This one is bipedal with arms and opposable thumbs, rolling on the Beast form table to determine the base shape. This one is prairie dog/meerkat. The race contains spellcasters that are not necessarily leader types, and are willing mercenaries, serving other races and cultures. They're not mastermind races.

One of the things I like to do when naming monsters (or other campaign aspects) is, if they're based on real-life creatures, use some portion of the scientific name. The basic monetary system in my Absalom setting is the alcedes, named after the kingfisher. The owl-folk race are called strigi, after the owl. Looking up meerkat, it's scientific name is Suricata suricatta, which isn't super interesting, but prairie dogs are Cynomys, which is better. Let's call this race the cynoms.

Cynom
# Enc.: 2d4 (6d10)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 120' (40')
AC: 9 (base, plus armor, if worn)
HD: 1
Attacks: By weapon
Damage: By weapon
Save: F1
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: XXII
XP: 10

The cynom are a race of meerkat-folk, dwelling in prairies and savannahs in large communal groups. They are humanoid and human-esque in appearance, and average around five and a half feet tall, but are incredibly skinny, giving the appearance being much taller.

They live in underground dwellings connected by tunnels, the dwellings piercing the ground every so often to let light and air into the community. Cynoms are hardy and excellent archers, gaining a +1 bonus all missile attacks. They are also constantly alert, gaining a +1 bonus to both avoiding surprise and on initiative rolls. Cynom communities are ruled by chieftains -- 3 HD individuals that deal an extra +1 damage on attacks -- who have 2d6 lieutenants that serve to oversee and guide the community.

Each cynom community has a 40% of having a cleric of level 1d8 or a magic-user of level 1d6. They are largely vegetarian, and tend large fields of grain and vegetables that cover the ground above their settlements. They speak Common and their own language, which is capable of conveying information over great distances; a single cynom call can be heard by their fellows up to two miles distant and still be understood.

Day Twenty-two -- Heswil's Haze

Today is another mist creature. It . . . sucks away magic (58), siphoning it into another object, and can only be damage by a particular item linked to the creature.

Heswil's Haze
# Enc.: 1 (unique)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 120' (40')
AC: 6
HD: 4 (20 hp, see below)
Attacks: Magic drain
Damage: See below
Save: F10
Morale: 12
Hoard Class: None
XP: 135

Years ago, an eccentric wizard named Heswil the Hirsute stumbled across the idea of building a machine that he dubbed the Abditive Collector, a machine the purpose of which has been lost to the ages. Needing a power source to run the thing, he created a mist with the function of siphoning off magical energy from the surroundings and shunting it into the machine. The Abditive Collector has long since turn to rust, its creator mouldering dirt in the ground, but the collecting mist lives on, haunting the empty halls of Heswil's remote tower.

Heswil's haze appears as a shifting cloud of greenish vapor about ten feet in diameter. All spells and spell-effects within its radius are sucked up, immediately ended, and siphoned off into space, since the Abditive Collector is no more. This siphoned off magical energy appears as bright purple flashes of light emitting from deep within the haze, the bursts of which as somewhat lethal. Any living creature within the haze takes 1d4 points of damage per level of the spell absorbed, saving against Breath Attacks for half damage. Those within 10' of the haze gain a +4 bonus to their Saves.

The haze can absorb one ambient spell per round, and gravitates towards the highest level spell effect within 60'. Any spells cast *at* it are immediately absorbed, regardless if it has already absorbed a single spell level, and cause the same amount of magical backlash. The haze is virtually immune to all attacks, except for the effects of another one of Heswil's invention: his Marvelous Margaric Mace, a pearlescent rod some two feet in length and an inch and a half wide. The Margaric Mace can emit a beam of energy once per round that causes a single incorporeal being within 60' to become corporeal and vulnerable to physical attacks. The effects last 2d6 rounds and can be used once per day. It is found in Heswil's workshop, which has remained locked and inaccessible to the Haze.