Appendix EN!

Been thinking about the original appendix N, and how independent game designers include their own skewed versions of "Appendix N".  ie "this is what I was reading whilst working on my adventure!".  So without further ado, this is what I have so far.....

The Heritage Of Shannara Series By Terry Brooks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage_of_Shannara

The Tree Of Live - Weird Tales - C.L. Moore 

Swords & Sorcery Compilation - Various Writers 

Age Of Zeus - James Lovegrove

Age Of Shiva- James Lovegrove

Age Of Odin - James Lovegrove 

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams

And throw in a bit of Skyrim & Fallout 3 for good measure. 

Classic Blue Map

Had a bit of fun with pyromancer this morning.  A bit of random.

Quest:  A bunch of halflings have gone missing from the local town!  They descended into an old dungeon beneath the river, in search of a lost recipe for mead! Their wives are worried sick!  100 GP's for the safe return of the halflings.  Get er done.

1  Empty 70' x 40'  the room is flooded

2  Wolf 2D6 30' x 30' AC7 HD2+2

3  Empty 20' x 20' A huge black spot on the floor and a smoking pair of boots
 4  Strange portal that transports the PC's to room 12.  40' x 20'

5  Orc 2D4 20' x 20' AC 6 HD 1

6  Giant Gecko 1D6 50' x 50' AC 5 HD 3+1

7  Empty 20' x 20' 4 Dead Orcs, all beheaded.  No armour or weapons

8  Empty Locked Chest with 300 SP's, 100 GP's 20' x 20'

9  Empty 20' x 30'

10  Dwarf  1D6 20' x 20' AC 4 HD 1.

11  Statue of Unicorn, horn is worth 30 GP's.  30' x 30'

12  Empty 40' x 40' Creaking from above, dust falls on PC’s heads.  1 -6 chance of cave in.  2D6 damage. 

13  Giant Killer Bee 1D6 20' x 20' AC 7 HP's 1D4

14  Trap bricks fall from ceiling 2D6 Damage 20' x 20'

15  Empty 30' x 30'

16  Halfling  3D6 30' x 30' This is where the lost halflings are, they are fairly drunk having found the recipe they were looking for and a bunch of leftover mead!

17  Giant Toad  1D4 20' x 20' AC 7 HD 2+2

18 Empty 30' x 20' Buried to the hilt in the ground is a silver sword +1.  Strength Check at -2 to remove. 

19  Empty 50' x 50'

20  Trap rigged arrow trap 1D6 damage 20' x 50'

21  Empty 600 SP's, 100 GP's, Cursed Scroll 30' x 30'

22  Zombie 2D4 40' x 40' AC 8 HD 2

23  Empty 50' x 50'

24  Kobolds 4D4 30' x 30' AC 7 HPs 1D4 each

25  Trap pit trap 20' 2D6 damage 20' x 20' 3 half empty potion bottles (2 of which have nothing useable, 1 is a portion of healing that will heal 1D4 HP’s)

26  Empty 50' x 40' Sprung trap, a dead goblin hanging upside down from ceiling.  1D6 X 10 SP’s

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Throwback to Basic rules

I've been toying with the idea of leaving the enormity project for abit, but I came up with a good solution on how to finally finish the book.  Looking thru the basic rule set from Moldvay (and of course in Lab lord as well).  There is a section on creating your own dungeon with a nifty table on how to fill rooms.  Roll 1d6 I believe, and you get on of the following.

1 empty
2 monster
3 trap
4 gold no monster or trap
5 trap and gold
6 monster and gold

I think it goes like that.  A "special" area may also be included within that table.  I like the idea of writing out a bunch of stuff for the adventure but it is becoming slightly time consuming.  After checking out Dyson's drop tables (which is a source of inspiration) and a post from Playing D&D with pornstars on hacking Dwimmermount , I think I have a better idea on how to finish it up.

The story is in place currently, although there is going to be a few tweaks before its finished.

Another thing that I'd like to try for giggles is to create a mini dungeon adventure based on the creative commons maps found here - http://www.paratime.ca/cartography/index.html

using the exact same table from basic.   I may go and try this tonight for giggles and see what I come up with.

Re-post from Draconic Magazine

Re-posting an article I wrote for Draconic Magazine a few months ago.

A relatively renowned wizard once said, “Death is just another path that we all must take."

Your player’s beloved character dies, he scrunches up the sheet after desperately attempting to be resurrected. After the gaming session, go and grab that sheet, un-crinkle it and put it away for safe keeping.

Once you have a handful of dead player characters, wait for a quiet gaming session. Let’s say the current PCs are in the usual tavern drinking mead and regaling the local populace with tales of adventure. In a dream, a voice from the past enters the PC’s heads. Next thing they know, you unfurl their old character sheets, resurrecting previously dead PCs. Or have you?

The dead PCs might be stuck in purgatory or hell! Whatever comes to your devious GM mind. This could be a great one-shot evening; the PCs have to find a way to their specific version of the afterlife. Maybe a demon or evil god trapped their soul when they died. Maybe the dead PCs are on a different plane of existence and are desperately trying to get back to the prime material plane.

Another idea that crossed my mind is bringing back PCs that everyone detested or the guy that was always the comic relief but died horribly in a dragon-taming accident. You could even change your usual gaming system for this, take the old sheet and convert it. Whatever you come up with, this could be a fun way to breed new life into long dead player charcters.

Wish you had one or more of your old character sheets from 20 years ago? Me too. Now's your chance to put them into a collage, frame it, and hang it on the wall of your gaming area 20 years from now.

The original article was published here http://draconicmagazine.com/articles/save-those-character-sheets

Check out Draconic Magazine for all kinds of OSR/O5R Goodness

WHAT THE MONSTER’S ARE DOING?

WHAT THE MONSTER’S ARE DOING

Roll 1D20	Result
1	Sleeping
2	Eating
3	Gambling
4	Fighting another monster
5	Dead
6	Torturing a prisoner
7	With young monsters
8	Drunk & groggy
9	Cooking
10	Sharpening Weapons
11	Sparring with each other
12	Arguing with each other
13	Praying to a deity
14	Stricken with the plague, all monsters are dying.  Adjust HP’s
15	Monster treating their wounds
16	Disorientated/Lost
17	Trapped in a simple rope trap, if more than one monster the other ones are helping to release it.
18	Smithing new weapons
19	Mining
20	Building a new lair

Random Traps

Random Traps

Roll 1D20	Result
1	Covered pit trap, 10” hole 1D6 damage.
2	Noose trap rigged to a tripwire 1D4 damage.
3	Large wood log attached to ceiling, tripwire 1D6 Damage, Save VS Breath For Half Damage.
4	Poison Trap, spray from rigged canister in wall.  Step on concealed piece of flooring to trigger.  Save VS Poison or die.
5	Portcullis triggered by false floor.  1D6 Damage.
6	Illusion trap (looks like regular cavern).  Save Vs Spell or fall into 20” pit with spikes 3D6 damage.
7	Fake door in wall.  Save Vs Spell or suffer electrical damage 2D6.
8	Rigged Crossbow triggered by tripwire.  1D8 Damage.
9	Spikes embedded in cavern wall.  Tripwire triggers.  2D6 Damage.
10	False plate in floor triggers thick mist covers 40” section of cavern.  -4 attack penalty.  Roll for random monster.
11	False plate in floor triggers 30 skeleton heads in bucket that rain down on PC’s.  1D4 Damage.
12	Tripwire triggers large bell in ceiling.  Roll for random monster.
13	Tripwire dumps a bucket of Oil on player.  No damage unless carrying a torch.  2D6 in that case.
14	Beartrap on floor.  1D6 damage.
15	Magic Mouth spell triggers loud alarm.  “Asks for password”.  Roll for random monsters.
16	Cave in!  Save Vs Breath weapon for half damage 2D6 falling rocks.
17	Cavern fills up with water 15” by 10” deep.  False plate triggers trap.  Dexterity check at -2 to hold breath and swim out of cavern area.  If failed Save Vs Spell or die.
18	Dead magic area, any spells cast in the 30” section of cavern will fail.
19	Floor covered in super sticky substance.  -2 to attack rolls until cleaned/bathed off.
20	Cavern walls close in.  Save VS Spell or risk crushing damage 2D6.

Moving Forward 2015

Well the writing for the enormity project is still coming along (and I know your getting bored of these posts already, give me the damn module already Shane!).  So there's that, but the other thing I've been thinking about is what's next after the enormity project.  Obviously once its written I am going to print the whole thing off and hand it to my wife to edit, and a friend of mine who's edited a few books as well.  From a lot of the reviews I've read of independent modules/adventures it appears that a good editor is something that is missing!  So that'll be the plan, and I won't try and get ahead of myself.   ie finish the module and upload it like a tool.  *smacks wrist bad shane don't do that.

Onto other things, I have 2 other ideas that will hopefully come to fruition by the end of the year.

Gloomwood - A high fantasy hex crawl, for low level PC's, specifically for Labyrinth Lord.   Some of the bad guys from the Enormity Project will make an appearance within this module.  I have already started writing this one.   Obviously we don't need another Keep On The Borderlands, or Secret Of Bone Hill in the OSR Community, but this is something that's been weighing on my mind.  The trick of course will be to make it different and weird enough that it will stand on its own.  I am taking a bit of inspiration from +Dyson Logos  Challenge Of The Frog God Idol & +Tim Shorts "Starter Adventurers" here.  As well, the 3 modules I've released already will easily fit into this hex crawl.  The module is based on a few adventures I wrote with +Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game for my home game.

Goblins Greed Isle - I've finally come up with a super awesome twist for this, that's going to make it a lot different than other awesome island hex crawls like "The Islands Of Purple Haunted Putrescence" & "Isle Of Dread".