Rumours from Stonestump

Just working on a list of rumours from the small town of Stone Stump.

1.  During a pilgrimage a local cleric contracted lycanthropy.  She was unable to be cured by priests.

2.  A group of goblins have been charging a toll to get thru the local woods.

3.  A merchant boat was sunk off the coast, under suspicious circumstances.

4.  The latest crop of wheat has soured, locals believe it is the work of the gods.

5.  Strange sounds are coming from the basement of the local tavern.

6.  Four babies were stolen in the middle of the night.  There are no clues as to their disappearance.

7.  A small crew of loggers have come back to town frightened by low rumbling sounds in the forest.

8.  The mayor of the town wishes to court a local elven maiden, he wants a rose delivered to her.

9.  An outright brawl occurred on the docks over "fake gold".

10.  The local taxman was found murdered in his home.

Older module design

The other night I was reading thru "Dwellers Of The Forbidden City" and I came upon an interesting enlightenment.  A lot of the early adventures left room for DMs to make them their own.  That's not to say that newer OSR releases don't do this as well.  It did however remind of something.  As a writer you cannot cover every possible outcome or idea that might crop up.  In the back of "The Lost City", "Isle Of Dread" and "Dwellers" there are sections called "Further Adventures", these little paragraphs give you a few ideas on how to continue the campaign.  I think there needs to be more of this in writing.  Another thing I read just latetly was the idea of leaving out NPC names, and just having their standard title "baker", "blacksmith", "king" etc.  The idea behind that is that it allows a DM to create their own names, to fit into their own campaign.  An example is "Keep on the borderlands" which is open ended as far as NPC names are concerned.  I'm also guessing that most of those early modules are at a very specific page count (I'd have to do some research, but my guess is 32).  When you consider the amount of content in them, it's pretty startling how much there actually is.  The caveat of course is that they couldn't cover everything.

Just something that was rolling around my head this morning.

Floor Nails - A Blueholme Spell

Floor Nails: 

Range:  10  Duration:  1 turn/level

When cast floor nails sprout from the ground immediately in front of the caster.  Anyone in the general 10 foot vicinity must save vs spell or suffer 1d4 damage.  At level five the spell causes 2d4 damage.  At level 10 the spell causes 3d4 damage.  The spell is remains in effect as long as the caster concentrates (1 turn per level of caster).

Old School Interviews Volume 2

I’m back with Volume 2 of “Old School Interviews”.  Detailed within this document are people of the “OSR”, old school publishers, role players, graphic artists, cartographers. It’s been my pleasure to read their responses, invest time in researching what makes them tick. I look forward to sending out more emails with the subject line “it’s your turn!”

Featured

• An Interview with Chris Gonnerman, Basic Fantasy 
• An Interview With Ms Gennifer Bone, Artist
• An interview With James George, Pits & Perils 
• An interview with Glynn from Monkey Blood Design
• An interview with Eric from Bloat Games
• An interview with Diogo Nogueira of Old Skull Publishing

Get it here for free. 

RANDOM CAVERN CRAWL TABLE #4

RANDOM CAVERN CRAWL TABLE #4

Roll 1D20	Result
1	A group of 1D4 plague victims, all coughing and dying.
2	Section of tunnel is flooded, 3 feet high.  -1 attack penalty.  Roll for random monster
3	A old ripped painting.  Worthless
4	Pieces of a broken wooden door.
5	Large growth of 3 foot tall mushrooms
6	A Axe with strange runes on the hilt.  (non-magical).  Runes are in Dwarvish.  “Slarrgh’s Slayer”.
7	Half eaten corpse of zombie.
8	Magical rune trap.  Save vs spell for half damage.  1D6
9	Smashed porcelain vase
10	Strange altar in tunnel.  There is a jug of what appears to be blood.  1D6 Gems worth 5 SP’s each.
11	Hissing noises that are becoming increasingly louder.
12	A group of Dwarven scouts (1D6 fighters)
13	The ghost of a wild eyed child starts to follow the party.
14	Bard desperately trying to carry all of his instruments.  Needs directions to a underground village.  Has gotten lost.
15	Cave in, turn around find another way, or spend time digging out the tunnel.
16	A pile of smoking carcasses.  Recently deceased.
17	A glowing purplish substance spots the ground, a trail of it leads into a dank tunnel.
18	Cavern is covered in blue moss.  Edible, heals 1 HP only, no matter how much is ingested.
19	A very loud gong is sounded off in the distance.
20	The hilt of a rusted sword is stuck into a wall.

Ghostly Warrior

The Ghostly warrior will sometimes appear in the dank places underground.  He/She was a veteran of many wars and armies.  Every round in combat, the warrior's visage will change.  From a young soldier to an old grizzled man.  As the rounds change, so will his/her armour.  Roll on the following table every round.  The ghost fades in and out from ethereal to almost real as the combat rounds move forward.  Trapped between semi life & death.

1d4	Armour Type	Armour Class
1	None	9
2	Leather	8
3	Chain Mail	5
4	Plate Mail	3

Random Cavern Crawl Table #3

RANDOM CAVERN CRAWL TABLE #3

Roll 1D20	Result
1	Buried to the hilt in the ground is a silver sword +1.  Strength Check at -2 to remove.
2	A broken wand (unusable)
3	A piece of parchment detailing a proposed raid on underground village
4	Stumble upon a merchant who lost his way trying to find underground village (has basic supplies)
5	A broken down cart, missing one wheel.  The cart has provisions for one week, a suit of leather armour, 12 arrows, 20 feet of rope.
6	An old book that details how to read an ancient language.  Intelligence check at -2
7	Bag of jewels (1D10 x 10 SP’s each)
8	A note from a lover “meet me at the usual place”
9	Runes written in Elvish – “A warning against disturbing the evil City”
10	Ground is quite rocky for 30”.  -1 attack penalty.  Roll for wandering monster
11	A group of badly injured NPC’s are camped out in the tunnel.  (3 Fighters)
12	A dark mass of energy appears out of thin air.  It rushes the PC’s.  Save vs spell for half damage.  1D6.  It disappears afterwards.
13	A grappling hook and 20 feet of rope
14	A group of 1D6 beatloids fighting off a scouting party of 1D6 Dwarves
15	3 half empty potion bottles (2 of which have nothing useable, 1 is a portion of healing that will heal 1D4 HP’s)
16	Sprung trap, a dead goblin hanging upside down from ceiling.  1D6 X 10 SP’s
17	A set of rusty keys
18	A keg of ale lying on its side, half full
19	Makeshift bloody bandages
20	A lost dwarven child who wandered away from underground village