Homebrew, Classes & Clerics

Dolemwood and other clones have a less combat, more magic cleric type class and the familiar versions. Oriental Adventures had a less combative priest and a warrior priest, which was great. I like idea that regular clerics are templars or a millitary but im not sure if every priest in the world would look like that. When I typed up my classes last time cleric kept going over because i wanted the trad cleric but to make specialist cult ones so two classes will help me divide these ideas.

So a templar type fighting guy and a more non combat more magic priest. After working on how this change would fit in with all my other classes i was hit by thought do i have to mirror this with my Druid class too. So im back to drawing board. Mostly working on my homebrew for next year and my 2 games have enough content done for the year at this stage. Im mostly writing stuff for my homebrew now which is more revising than new stuff. This work is slow and too boring to post.

5th Ed
I doubt we will get a new legends & lore book. They do need a subclass for each divine sphere/domain. Hearing rumours d&d6 will be out in a few years and to go back to ad&d in style(?). I still say they need a basic more RPG-oriented version and a tactical battle advanced one that might interlock. They need mass combat and domains built in more too like BECMI had. Im only using 3x 2024 books and theros book currently. I may dump some 5th ed books - i got lots recently for cheap, half price or less. Some surprised me. I think ravenloft and Beyond Witchlight would be fine with a simpler system like Cairn. These stories are not about constant combat or war. I do like you can choose a more combat or magic cleric in the current 2024 version. It solves lots of issues for me and is pretty elegant vs what I am doing. 

2nd Ed
Just looking over 2nd ed Legends & Lore book and most specific priests are uneven and clumsy. Rune Quest has the best religion mechanics, really and easier to record different types without. I remember trying to detail religion in 2nd ed and it was lots of work to make one religion and so i went to play RQ for 20 years.  D&D5 has same issue why most domains/spheres remain not detailed when it should be a core book ASAP. I really liked the 2nd ed brown class books - they kept me playing d&d a few years longer.

 
My Homebrew Origins
My games has always had lots of influence from 1985 BX & 1st ed (1.5?). Especially the oriental adventures and Dungeoneers Survival Guide. There are also ideas folded back in from 2nd & 3rd ed. My Third ed play was mostly playing the PC Atari game of Temple of Elemental Evil, which i play yearly. I had played BRP and TSR marvel for 20 years and did not keep up with D&D till about 2012 when i wrote a bx clone while sick.

I like some modern ideas and takes on old ideas like Dolmen Wood. The game hit me that the DnD Templar knight crusader is a bit over the top for other religions or all priests. Monks as a kind of cloistered cleric doesnt fit most people's idea of a western monastic life but it might work as a feature in some games. OA for AD&D had two cleric classes, one a blood shunning priest with more interaction with spirits, dreams and greater curses but not really armoured or anti undead. Dolmen Wood has cleric like the old BX one that has armour and sheild and is the next best combatant in the game to a fighter type. Old d&d they dont start with any spells at first level but can turn undead as many times as they want (as long as not on same ones already failed to turn in the same encounter).

Many argue more BX style games dont need a paladin and that clerics sort of were a religious warrior already. In my game anyone can lean into cultic oaths and become more alignment extreme so you could sort of make a basic fighter a sort of paladin if you wanted to or a wizard or anyone. The existence of the paladin maybe pushes cleric into a less melee more magic role.

OA also had a more combative war priest class with fighter type HP and slower spell progression. Dolmenwood has a distinct cleric and a friar class and the latter is more humble and has improved herbal treatments and starts with spells straight away. so they are nicwe and distincty. I like the idea their are different orders of priests and maybe other weird things could come out of this. Conceptually Id not thought of enough solid classes to add to my own game. Theives have become jacked over various editions from d4 hp and used skills instead of spells and were both pissweak. Nowadays, thieves are backstabbing constantly and often up front. Old thieves went ahead, which seems bad if your a human without night vision vs every species that has. I'm all for thieves, more like the Grey Mouser but less tanky than people who do frontline war. As thieves had low hp but went up level twice as fast, killing old xp systems harmed them. I prefer 5th ed where every class has same xp cost but id rather xp die as a mechanic.

There was a cloistered cleric in Dragon magazine to be the ecclesiastic, bureaucratic & scribal priests which I thought was a good idea. It was also a NPC class and i speculate made to be as dull as possible. Priests as scholar experts and investigators is a well-established trope.

My Next Homebrew Update
Ive been running my game with 8 classes and 8 species for 12 years and have played with mutant and robot class. No species levels capped. Anyone can change class a few times but it often will cost you the awesome powers of better spells. In my current two houses have done this. Changing your species is possible; perhaps a wish or some weirdness will help. I had a player get made into an orc for his wife, despite the ages of orcs in books at the time.

So I kinda wanna a new priest and a separate templar class, which makes me think what about druids, which are built similarly.

While writing this, I have revised and rewritten a dozen different class lists.

Id wanted a shaman class before and hoped it would use my mentalist spells and could be an exorcist or medium in a more Victorian setting. As it turned out i can use it to build something lilke the dnd warlock also but simpler. Will be dropping that soon.

Some ideas
Templar - keep as my cleric but wind back spell progression a bit - will be the modern fighting priesthood of a duelistic religion and will focus on reversible spell possibilities a bit.  Evil templars are subversive heretics who will command undead. Neutral Templars are more into halting or banishing undead than destroying them and maybe they fight extremes of good and evil as centrist jerks fighting for a status quo.

Priest - for soft eclesiastic, more magic priests with more spells and bonus non-divine spells for the weirder, older pantheons of the ancients and non-templar lands. 

Holy power might end up a list of choices where the priest can swap out what they turn and some other choices or priests will have other specific sphere-type powers. Possibly non-adventurous rituals like sanctification or protection from evil.

If I extend this logic to a fighty druid and a ceremonial druid, holy power might include animal form, but other hunting power (one target being selected +4 to track and +2 to hit and damage) and non-adventurous powers like fertility rites and charging standing stones. Animal friendship?

Spells known and progression will be changed, too. 

I do like people making bonus spells for wizards and cleric types normally not available or they can swap known spells for at the time of casting. I might add some identify and detect magic abilities to wizard but make them time-consuming.

Spells can suggest wildly different religions, maybe better than custom holy powers.

Ive not needed a paladin under my scheme

XP as a mechanic sucks and nobody needs it

xp sucks as a mechanic

It's unrealistic, turns game into accounting that consumes game time and needs spreadsheets to calculate

Heroism is suffering for the benefit of the community and power to overcome enemies not grubbing for cash or murder heists

Gold and murder xp are just creating colonialism and making murder hobos more likely

Runequest and pendragon does it better - levels as a game idea do suck a bit

I like in 5th ed has classes with same xp table which is better than separate ones. Id rather classes be balanced so thieves got more hp than double level ups of other characters.

Ive done fine with no xp for 35 years - im in a game now thats first to use xp since 80s it sucks. Does the dm need to audit everyone's xp accounting too? It opens doors for cheating and error when everyone has different amounts.

I liked Rolemaster gave xp for dying and some other stuff.

2nd ed tried to have class-specific rewards but players grasping for a few extra xp is painful. If you do have xp id rather it be in a few points not tens of thousands like DCC or Star Frontiers so the accounting phase is simpler. Money records are bad enough. The higher level you go the more xp and gold accounting and spreadsheets you need. Games are simplifying maths but still use huge xp scores.

Milestone levelling makes you achieve stuff in the setting. Its clear - break the dungeon, you get a level. Saking the kingdom is a better goal than wealth or muscular power fantasies. Some games force you to carouse for xp but what if your hero does not drink or party and wants to study instead? All systems of reward are also of systems of punishment to some degree. Why not reward exploration? Or the damage you took? Or how close you got to death? If you did do something cool or funny? XP is a waste of time at the table. Im fine with horror resourceism based on goods to survive. I dont think xp helps that do that convincingly. I'd rather advancement be a reward for bringing about campaign setting changes, not just accounting for robbery and murder. I could just have a shop and rack up xp with less risk because we all know old businessmen are the most physically powerful people in the world.

I mentioned RQ experience, but I also liked TSR Marvel, where you could get spot rewards for meeting your aunt for lunch in play, which often meant you had to save her when some villain turns up and keep your identity. We gave small instant spot karma points for cool dialogue and the game discourages bean-counting for money. Money is best when you spend it on charity for karma. Yes it simulates comic code ethics if 80s and Wolverine killing ppl made your whole party lose karma. Other in game rewards like inspiration in 5th I disliked but under 2024 version its a bit better and players can make them other ways and use for teamwork. Some games you spend xp on character buff by points but some you can spend xp as a in-game resource, which is more interesting. 

Feel free to fight me below in the comments below

Dungeontube Panic and calling my human readers

This is a long winded post about the click based environment on blogger and yoiutube and the larger post ai world. If its not your bag skip to the end where I ask readers questions. 

Ive seen 2 vids on the decline in views. I'm wary of YouTube and Google's counting and even paying creators transparently. The first vid was a rambling livestream and i didnt finish. Then I found another more scripted piece questioning this. They mentioned 2 creators id not seen. Then I found this.

48 creators rate best modules
id like more tag team vids like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3PCUadXFAg&t=970s

A great resource with all kinds of D&D fans and editions.
Some rated my least favourite products and makes me want to reconsider them.
I'm going to hunt some of these and rewatch it and follow lots of the creators.

So in one day of ppl telling me about death of dungeontube i found 60+ creators id never seen. 

Im seeing more variety in games and editions. 
I have youtube running most of the day im home like tv or radio used to be.
And none of these ppl were recommended to me before by youtube. 

Feel free to recommend creators you like in the comments below to share.
I've heard babies in prams asking ppl to like and subscribe while on the bus.

5 years involved in archaeology online and googledubunker vs crackpots and today FB recommended me a history page with no AI, no racists, no ufo/giant/angels/fantasy global civilisations with no evidence. I read journals and have a degree in archaeology and have friends in field (some say it shows here). 5 years to recommend a page just showing work as art with no BS speculation as fact. So dont trust AI recommendations because they can steer you to garbage or worse.

As im not really motivated by money or being in business at this point Im a bit biased but its best to make stuff from the heart and not worry about numbers. PPL said craft videos dont score but some guys make a living making craft vids very well. Actually watching them got me building and then aquariums and now i have 50 frogs and 2 bluetoungue lizards and a bunch of friends in this new hobby.

Having been into lots of hobbies and fandoms im in that have come and gone over 35 years like d&d, graffitti, drwho, comics, music you see things come and go. Sometimes a quiet spell gets rid of the biggest posers and grifters so it isnt always bad. Also lots of creative weirdos go pro. In Graffiti, we used to sit around drinking and drawing in each others black books. Some were sent around the world and then ppl did as a cash cow not love. A few years later people would be shy with their books secrets, become more competitive and only stay friends with ppl who helped their careers. I guess wizards do this with spells too.

G+ was amazing and many of my peers from then have gone pro and ther have been rifts. At its peak I could read all day and not keep up with output of creativity. Actually, my oldschool gamer scene split ups ended up including the rest of the world. I first heard many of the leading shitty biggot pundits in politics now from G+ game nerds first. By years. The splits are probably for the best. It possibly helped inoculate me against the wider world pop bigots.

Ive seen a few bigoted D&D channels preaching against human rights and kindness (woke stuff) and they wear it on their sleeve mostly and are obvious. The worst one subverted the Golem of Prague into an vile act against god, gave advice on manliness and bullied woke ideas in games like treating disabled ok. These anti empathy goons are rare or restrained from saying what they really think. Im finding ppl who are wonderful or just talking about a game and not the wider world if they are smart enough to hide it.

So there is lots of great stuff and lower hits are not always bad. Australia's biggest videogame store chain dumping d&d lifestyle brand stuff might be better for the planet. Did anyone ever make D&D toiletpaper? I guess we need something for kids to give their D&D dads. I have D&D socks. I got most of my 5th ed books on sale this year as chain stores dumping 2014 compliant stuff under half price. I am only a DM for 5th ed now because the older version had an index i coulnt read even with glasses. New one got me more into modern D&D while others crying about it. Possibly I dont fit markets well, im poor, im not a fanboy or a hero worshipper. So me liking stuff isnt a sure bet on hits and numbers. I will keep making shit despite other ppl for me first rather to farm clicks. 

Clicks in the age of AI and the non-transparent goal posts of algorithms have devalued. Zac Snyder got to do a 4 hour film with a fake social media campaign with overseas-based bots and hacker scam sweatshops. Politicians are making it normal. I played with AI for under a year and honestly, I've not seen it improve since and im still seeing stuff look like what I did then. These automated plagiarism systems are in fact mass mass-producing cliches which will age badly. Im sick of certain rendering styles. AI Images makers derivative cartoon meme styles flood and they become passe as they are used by too many people. Averaging cliches is not art its the opposite. in memes for a few weeks. Their use by the cheapest businesses (that are shit artist clients often too) is inherently an inauthentic grift. AI Images use in fraudulent science and history make it more inauthentic. Im slightly more understanding of non profits using it but the data centre drama makes it terrible for the natural world, and makes our power, water and computer chips go up in price.I tend to avoid pages and vids using it in thumbs. Ive become sick of a whole style of rendering in a short time from AI. It has a much smaller half-life than well made human work. I will be revising the handful of pdf works that I used it.

Our tech and hobby landscapes are always changing.
Im happy not everyone does the same or thinks the same as me in a diverse world.

So I have the opposite problem here as dungeontube
I get more hits and less engagement now and it feels more meaningless.

year and top views per year (not total) 
2012 804 views
2013 17542 views
2014 21178 views
2015 15944 views
2016 60296 views
2017 30582 views
2018 35362 views
2019 26052 views
2020 29324 views
2021 26436 views
2022 39647 views
2023 80293 views
2024 55813 ciews
2025 192793 views - also had 178k and 181k since then

Comments and engagement has been decreasing the whole time.

Spam has been consistent but offers of wizards, vampires and Illuminati are mildly amusing. New style of spam is ai written to appear more personal and reflecting on content but not quite right then promotes plumbing on the other side of the planet.

Google ads, when i had briefly, would tell me some post had said a bad word - but not say which post or 50k words a month were forbidden. So I quit Google Ads, grift economics and monetisation of hobbies is another topic.

Hits are nice. Money is handy.
But id rather know im not just being scraped by ai for those hits
Id rather not feel like im screaming into an enlarging AI void.

So if your a human please comment occasionally
Conversation and suggestions help me make more posts more often
Especially when my games are not driving new content

What YouTubers do you like?
What did you like most on this page?
What old stuff I did would you like to see come back?
Did anyone like any adventures, zines or 3folds?
Any of my PDF on my downloads page do people like to use?
Did anything weird happen in a game because of my tables?
What games do you want to run 2026?

I could make a survey perhaps

Have a good holiday and take care of yourselves and your loved ones or else


oh and bob on this topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23DldCQqjKs

Holiday Post

 
A wizard tower on planet Psychon from a con game where this cloacacola came handy

Had last game for year 

Was my Theros game where one player of three was sick and two drop ins turned up who had characters only a few levels to adjust. So we had a centaur monk, minotaur paladin, centaur bard and a satyr priest all 7th Lv. Players debated best option for adventure from: Triton sea folk offered to help kill an evil immortal sea lord who ruined undersea peace, the cursed labyrinth where monsters are working on resurrecting the evil monsters part of the curse to ensure their immortality, explore islands like the ice giant and dragon glacier or visit the northern giant kingdom of Geryon. They cleared the last mountain volcanic pass of a Chimaera, and after a god, Kruphix turned up to warn them that the mountain pass monsters protected the colony of humans in the south. Returned to town with the remains of a hero and a petrified satyr ancestor of a character. Declared heroes, told their story with outrageous performance rolls and illusions. Followed by a growing mob, who carried the party to the king declared a feast day. The artisans measured the party for statues of the polis. They bought some magic loot and departed to the north. Came across a blasted valley and a stone building. From metallic hoof prints and spells saw a bronze gorgon was inside. Also, ancient inscriptions and treasure and stone doors added to the temptation. Possibly it was related to a smith god. Lucky for me Theros book has temples of all the gods ready to play. So they slew the gorgon and during battle set fite to braziers that opened the goors. They wanted to crushed the beast but it didnt last long enough. Inside the temple seemed to be of a craft god and the players had townsfolk interested in new mines and wild horses in the north as amazons only sell male warhorses. As the party bastion has smiths and masons they were interested and had a peek inside.

Chagrinspire feels more and more like diplomacy now heroes own a kingdom. Maybe the followers will go on a quest as they are now troubleshooters. Im trying to make a list of options to end the campaign next year. We are playing one offs next 6 weeks. TSR marvel brit spyfy continuation of out Golden age hero game went from 40s to coldwar 50s.

Id like to run midderlands and/or Dolmenwood too.
The Gaslight Cthulhu books have me interested in that setting too.
Id like to run my last Cthulhu in space game sometime.

I have been mostly playing fallout 76, reading ROM & Alphaflight hardbacks and piles of rulebooks i will review some time. Enjoying moonknight, supergirl and absolute martian manhunter comix. All my KS games in (ive never got my Smork Borg KS book due to my slackness but im glad it exists). Dolmenwood, DCC Purple Planet, Grim Hollow and some other stuff. Also got the oldschool essentials box sets as i was robbed getting advanced dm book. Has been making me rethink stuff.

Doing some frog and reptile rescue stuff and trying to make a band video.

I might resume study if i can look at my notes or anything about trauma without feeling ill. Possibly restarting with all orientation stuff not being missed I might cope better. Worst operating system of any institution I've ever seen which doesn't help.

I hope to resume some book comps of stuff and my Patreon but wasn't really inspired or interested in money. Id consider it for charity but unclear how to handle payments without me being taxed. I dont think im capable of producing finished well well-resolved anything anymore. Not by myself anyway, as my artist and editor retired over health stuff.

I do welcome ideas for blog posts, tables or suggestions of old stuff to finish.
Mostly comments i get now are about who to send money to for joining the Illuminati.
Most of my exploding viewing numbers here i don't believe are human.

I do plan to update/complete:

Chagrinspire Vol 4 (maybe will re-edit into one book later)

Ethyria - extra level and maybe a hexcrawl map

Auldwood - replace all art as i was briefly playing with AI but quite over it now and will remake everything i did with it (i did some sf stuff using it too but harder to replace with clip art)

My Broken hill stuff had thousands of dollars of art ready and most not used. I could expand that work and id like to run it again.

Project X with most assets for publication ready but needs playtesting

Have a great holiday season and have good games or else

Quantum Ogres vs Shrodinger's Quiver, a 2025 Cliche Wrap Up

Ive been chilling with Fallout76 mostly and writing homebrew stuff on paper, and nothing set enough to blog about. Patreon is in a freeze, but will try a non-charged release this year. 

In my 12th Lv game players are more like a game of Diplomacy now, where they deploy troops, teams of followers and personally do some raids on specific enemies. Its quite good really. Players trying to recover a golem-powered industrial potion factory. Finally got a deal for 12 ton of pine resin they needed.

Revising my classes currently and rethinking stuff in light of new ideas in gaming. Ive been trying new modern games and reading OSE and DCC retroclone stuff and Dolmenwood. The latest D&D5 books have not interested be much, but i might get the Artificer book so i can use with my Theros game a setting full of mechanical monsters. I played D&D5 about  6 years and mostly didnt get it and found it overly complex. Then I started getting rules in last year and playing better and the new books i found easier to read and use with a superior index (2024 is unreadable index-wise wise even with glasses). More and more I think D&D needs multiple versions like a hardcore adult metal version, a tactical battlegame and solo game and simpler one for furries and social interactions and combat simpler than Fighting Fantasy. Cairn would be fine for Ravenloft and Witchlight. These adventures only suffer with over complex combat characters, necessary for boring and tedious combat event chores.

I would like to run Midderlands and Midderlands in 2026. Ive got my last games for year this week and will only run one shots till early february. I was playing OSE online but over now but I finally got the two box sets and advanced players book. I never got my advanced DM book from USA. My first postal fail drama in years. Now very hard to find here. Lots of games barley available in Australia. Shadowdark won't sell to dealers who supply shops here only shops which are small and only want a few copies so the line here is 130 a book and hard to find. Quite a few game companies I can't touch over the postal price. Amazon. Drivethrough and NobleKnight, but I mostly use the latter for bulk items. So I finally chose Oldschool Essentials (and possibly Dolmenwood later - the best KS I ever got).

I had a few licensed adventures I liked already, and their information design is superior. I got some DCC adventure comps and they are a bit all over the place. Ive been told best way to run is print copy and highlighter basics. The "Hole and the Oak" and "The Incandescant Grottoes" are some of the fist adventures. They do look good, they are a bit weird despite the walking cliche classes and are settingless. They possibly could with some extra flavour fit in dolmenwood or midderlands. Those settings have great easy to use villages for a basecamp. I think next time I write an adventure it should be about my design and my game as examples of the tone I want. I think every dungeon needs some wilderness and a home base with npcs. I did like old adventures with new monsters, magic, etc at the back. So I might try something. I like these 2 OSE adventures named above but to me lack good hooks. Despite no explicit setting it has implied weird stuff like an empire that might come up again later. I like it if everyone has a personal sidequest in a dungeon and a personal rumour. Despite the bullet point dungeons sometimes the format a bit cold.

The DCC stuff is fun, large print and imaginative and i will nab the tomes of adventure. The art is great but information design is a bit of a mess. Purple Planet is fascinating vol 4 but no suggested play order or advice on how to build into a single campaign other than one-offs with new characters each chapter. I want a few more volumes and would love to run their Hollow World adventure in one book. Some of their adventures are genre classics. I prefer purple planet to the implied world of MCC. They love the 6-room dungeon format, which to me is a lair. I do like some of the mega dungeons with towns and wilderness.

 I have been trying various other fantasy games. Some are fake OSR. They use aesthetics and pretend to be about dungeons or giving players a choice. Firstly, a dungeon isn't just scenery to act in front of like a stage set. Its not just visual aesthetics. It needs to imply risk and use a set of physics where players can use their character to solve problems like managing resources. Dungeons are horror survival. If mechanics skim the very elements that makes genre fun its a bit tame. If you visit a ruined city dont just give people a six room lair, let them explore the city. Let them struggle to get their loot home. A ruin city isnt just a cool stage set for a cool boss fight. I did like 

At least one game I thought would be better for simple rpg like Cairn instead skipped all towns and motivation and stuck you in dungeon straight up which was a shame. As the system just does not duplicate oldschool dungeons. Games that claim to simplify narrative and roleplay with mechanics i often find limit it. D&D or BRP I generally know odds of activities my character tries.     

A quantum ogre is an encounter where the DM fudges the monster stats so it basicly dies when the characters are almost finished to be dramatic. This makes most character and combat rules a bit of a joke and window dressing. It can such for the big bad to die.If players bring flunkies and have a good plan or good luck mostly i let them as a reward. Games now exist where I would instead roll dice if plan works. Maybe a referee might give me a bonus dice but I could roll a bad result and the difference between a good or bad plan is irrelevant. This destroys agency. I dislike heist games and films, especially where criminal characters are always betrayed. So quantum elements and games based around them are increasing in popularity. There are problems with this and the novelty game mechanics they often use. You can let players influence a story and setting or say what kind of adventures they prefer in a setting. I'd rather seek the secrets of the ancients in a traveller than be a mercenary crooks who just heist lots. Id rather a GM write adventures for us or modify stuff for us than follow a mechanical game mechanic narrative formula that makes our choices irrelevant.

Quantum dungeons where you generate stuff ahead of them and every door or path is generated when seen by adventurers. This could work for a vast complex or ruin sandbox. Now i see mapless adventures which choices dont matter and it always leads to where the GM wants because choices are illusory. Id use randomeness to fill a hex or dungeon as you go, but id try to decorate them a bit. I use random elements because players go off the maps with their choices. Some factions and some world-building, especially involving some personal reasons fpr characters to do stuff is good. But if its just the same encounters no matter which way you choose to go its a railroad pretending to be a sandbox. The point of a good quantum dungeon is to give choices and provide scale while a bad one would generate say a few rooms that would provide some encounters, in order no matter which way they go is the bad kind.

Games where, instead of the tediousness of shopping or carrying specific amounts of resources, you roll a dice bug me too. If I have arrows I want to know how many I have to plan what Im doing. I dont want a random roll to see if I have ammo. Counting is a pretty non-controversial game process.  I did in a TSR Marvel game like the resource mechanic, because money rolls and non-specificity of wealth is a good way to take gold hoarding out of a game. Also money can be a sort of power and a few games break down with money. If players could legally buy certain stuff to solve a problem, go for it. Changing reality in a history game is a bit lame to make a dangerous weapon hard to get when it wasn't. Money is a game mechanic we know from reality, we dont always need to gamify it. We just need shopping lists. Even though I like dice games I'm not really into gambling, and i like to be able to play the odds. If too much physics is loosey goosey, I dont feel risk or feel I can plan effectively. I do like longer, grittier campaign games vs one of simple games. Quantum money and supplies as an ability to roll rather than a list is mostly bad. I did like RQ where weapons and sheilds had HP and were important for blocking as HP rarely improves.

Games where players hack the narrative control I find reward some players and hinder the less in-your-face gamers. I did use a card system in my old BRP game, but they were less durable than D&D, so some cards with specific effects they could deploy or stack was a nice mechanic.

Time is another resource in old-school style neglected and irrelevant to modern mini dungeons with as many rooms as a house. Nobody will consider eating monsters or trying cannibalism in a house-sized lair. Time = more encounters with low reward and high risk. Rest is a valuable commodity. How many HP as a % would you quit and go home from a dungeon? Editions matter and have wildly different risks and skills to mitegate them.

So a downside of d&d campaigns is increased complexity and accounting, but a plus is that early dungeon resources like food, light and even encumbrance become reduced problems. I have some skills players use for people who hate recording encumbrance. I like new retroclones giving encumbrance system choices. I think you could have adventures where recording it matters more. I'm fine if players improve foraging and use magic for food and light. Its a reward for reaching higher levels. I think some minigames or a tabletop wargame with tiles on a map might work better than your everyday dungeon mechanics. You may not want to go full Pendragon, but everyone should play this game at least for a few game years (so 2 sessions). A benefit of my high-level game we all look at maps to discuss events and plans, and less likely to go in cursed holes. Absent player characters are assumed to be exploring or on a mission. Now every king on the continent knows their name. They mostly respond to problems that arise over their domains.

Managing oldschool followers is another resource. At low level a few hirelings, a follower even a dog might help. At high level they get numerous and complex enough you shouldn't bring them all with you. Although a large gang of followers could erect a prefab fort on a dungeon rapidlyy as a base. I'm finding there is a point a name and level is all that is needed while some stages of the game some have details like stats and skills and items. At low level they are meat sheilds to up your numbers. At high level they can manage your land, have jobs, go on solo or team missions off camera for the party. Followers are also backup characters and players could play followers instead for a job. Followers help round out a 6-8 member party numbers and get skills the team is short on like a healer and a thief. Or maybe some thugs up front. 

HP wildly vary in editions due to more powercreep. This made modern bugbears a nightmare vs those 3d8+1 versions. I do like using some modern statblocks for high level oldschool games. More HP slower fights. Spell damage also has been capped more. Combat is so slow and complex the idea of missing a 15min+ to play round is terrible. Many vids on stun as bad because players miss actions. While in many game you go from doing anything well to unconscious with wounds having no effect then your dead. Unconsciousness is ok in games and people should be able to k.o. or subdue more not less. RQ did this stuff nicer and you never escape fear a duck with a sling kills you with one rock. Even old D&D more heroic than that realism wise. RQ has versimilitude but huge statblocks and prep vs the basic old d&d stat block and won out.

Reading oldschool and newschool games simulation them has inspired me to do a few things in my homebrew.

Upcoming
I have a thing on cleric class
A mystic class im using in 26 but i need more polish like lots of other ideas
Orc backgrounds for some reason

A slight problem of my sandbox systems is I write them as required so players doing own thing might not be what i planned to write or finish.

Ive kinda wanted my basic rulebook done and then finish other splatbooks based on it. Im increasingly thinking a cut back version might be better and more achievable. Im a crazy completist on some things.

Id like to try some new media next year and have finally played online now with a minimal approach. So i might try and see if ppl want to playtest some stuff on discord or some video.

Thanks for reading.
Have a good holiday and please make it to next year.

Itty Bitty Gnome Comitee

will be a chagrinspire 4 this year, but I'm freezing my Patreon acc currently. Got a pile of DCC adventure compilations at a good price and the monday monster book for mutant epoch.

Continuing from these
https://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com/2025/02/d12-more-deep-gnome-philosophies-spies.html
https://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com/2025/07/d12-what-your-secret-gnome-mastermind.html
https://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com/2025/07/secret-gnome-agent-teeth-troops-air.html

Rielly Ace of Spies tv show seems slightly relevant

The gnomes have spied on the party, sent them warnings, tricked them into destroying an empire, got them to stop Chagrinspire guns from reaching other continents and most recently sent them to a moon simulation.  The party have avoided gnome conflict since day one where they avoided a gnome mechanised artillery golem in the mudlands. So the players spent more time in the wilderness spreading influence and attacking slavers. They did make peace with the gatehouse faction and on first exploration, brought back awful stuff from labs. When they split loot with orcs who let them access the gate as per a deal, the artefacts killed their holy folk and created a vampire tree cult. So a year later, they have been visiting more of the higher levels and have become aware most of the upper levels still operating.

Even finding Balzac an unformed flesh golem released from his vat early might be an experiment. Not all gnome ops are to nobble the party some are experiments and some fiot into their plots of continental politics.

It also seems that many invading forces over the last thousand years were wiped out, their souls used in Chagrinspire machines and their bodies turned into monsters to defend the tower. Even gods are imprisoned for fuel and the Spire and the apocalypse war that made the wasteland is why the gods dont come to the mortal world or go anywhere near the grrat gnome tower.

So one gnome spy master has been dealing with them and most recently gave a follower a moon portal mirror that was fake. They dont really know why.

So the gnomes have established a committee to monitor the party and their kingdom they built on the gnome doorstep. I'll probably be putting the tables of the above links in my folder for handy access. Its probably fair to say their are spies, shapechangers, invisible spies, scrying magic and rooms of divination casters. All my big kingdoms and churches run divination sweatshps. Every adventure i run players do divination a few days before they set off. D&D5 nerfed divination and charm and gave clerics fireball sigh. 

I spent prep session rolling up a committee of gnome factions in a star chamber committee set up to monitor and manipulate the party who have become the major faction around Chagrinspire. Used tables in links above and came up with this.

I wil reorganise these tables and add to them in future.

Starchamber Committee #2074452
These are secret committees that act as security advisors and judges appointed to monitor certain factions and individuals of importance enough to not wipe out. Once a committee is appointed, they are responsible for decisions about the target. Other factions might weigh in or request the committee act if the targets infringe on their interests. Each of the six committee members are appointed from different factions who often hate each other. Gigantic cognitive golems help the appointment system with oversight from a higher council of starchambers who also audit their success.

Each member has own agenda, faction agents and methodology.

No member is in charge officially.
Sometimes they vote for the majority or must all agree to act.
Each has own resources and methodology.
Factions often disagree and undermine and plot against each other.

This committee has these main goals:
Prevent humans from advancing beyond black powder guns
Kill wizards plundering critical technologies
Destroy two international bank cartels supporting slavers

#2074452 Members
Arben Gloomspear - likes to place close spies to party and uses spy golems that resemble rats and tiny birds. Wants any rival civilisation ruined, especially the underland species generally more advanced and ancient than surface humans. Has monopolist faction leanings and greedy for gold. 

Lupus Greyspider - wants to hire and bribe party with gold which he steals from the bankers supporting the slavers. Concerned by human wizards, technology and civilisation and how it can become a threat in only a human generation. He is an elementalist heretic which is mostly irrelevant in the current world. Has automaton spiders with eyes on long, thin tendrils that can pop up in drains, toilets or cracks in floors.  

Strata Slatebrow - wants to keep useful idiots between gnomes and enemies including adventurers. She would like to see humans wiped out but she has word from above nope. She manages the agent Gloomia and they contrive to use undead to avoid schemes being noted by others.  She thinks undead are better than automatons and golems as cheaper. She has no interst in necromantic cults or aesthetics of death its just about money. She is also a monopolist, friendly to the gold cube gnome cult who are interested in making all matter gold instead of destroying reality. She doubts the unmaking of the world will ever finish in her lifetime. 

Flyntmac Carbunkle - Agents plant spy eyes and was first to notice the party why captured first outpost and dared to pull up rail lines. The party dealt with some invisible gnome agents using sleep spells. Scavengers warned them to not mess with gnomes or rail lines and they stopped. An elemental heretic but uses crystal balls and spy-eye gems to track the party and their followers. Mostly wants party to not mess with gnome infrastructure and work with it. If they dont threaten gnome systems they are no threat. He frst deployed the Agent Unas to monitor the party and he went beyond his mission. Flyntmac is wary of Unas now,

Lucia Borgenstone - Likes shrunk agents and gremlins to spy on party hiding in rat holes. These agents spread gossip and slander among the scavengers of the wasteland using implanted memories. She trusts agent Gloomia to Unas. Her interest in undead is in her personal immortality and she hopes more undead gnomes will be better at long term planning. Other gnomes think this is just increasing the torturous unpleasantness of existence. She wants to promote vampirism but her peers would destroy her if she said it.

Borgia Lux - She is satisfied human Empire is gone and warns others that giants are secretly plotting against gnomes and has nightmares about being eaten by giants. Humans are under 10 foot tall so less dangerous in her mind.  She is a machinist and likes Automatons. She thinks this assignment is pointless and boring and hopes to climb higher up so she can help automaton production to just wipe out pesky non-gnomes. Her automatons also place listening devices and clean up damage to gnome infrastructure.

Assets

Psion Comando Squad for data retrieval, espionage and assassination. The Leader Codpur Greyglorp is a trusted adviser who refused to be promoted to being on the committee, preferring to just do his duty. They travel in an airboat able to turn invisible with a paranoid golem engine. Specialise in  

Gloomia Doomshade a necromancer wizard agent who interrogates the dead and sends undead hit squads or saboteurs to enemies. She tends not to be very subtle in her plans but most targets don't recognise gnomes involved so she keeps her job despite using her undead as a hammer vs any problem. She will establish a tomb or tower to observe adventurers,

Unas Obsidian is an agent who actually has met party when he was sick of hearing them plan and appeared at a planning meeting when they were planning wrong by his view. He over reaches his authority and had the party kill the Emperor thus ending the Third age of humans since Exilon. He has supported the party exterminate the slavers guild also in part because gnomes are cloning slaves again so dont need international human trafficking rings. Some gnomes dislike these events like Gloomia and the new comitee. He has various magic ciggarettes so you might find ashes and butts. Smoking is a terrible habit for magic invisibility.

Panic room portals used by agents in contact with adventurers can open a portal with an invisible entrance they use to escape problems. Only named agents use these as they cost lots. Really not unlike a back of holding but when occupied the sack turns invisible but the occupant needs to be under 1m or yard.

Final Notes
Unas is being watched by agents and higher-ups and is being more careful. He has weirder plans for the party, including sending them into Chagrinspire and releasing gnome heretics from their lunar prison camp.

Gloomia is getting more work and planting undead eyeballs around she can question later with magic. Gloomia worries the adventurers' gateway kingdom is bringing in more priests from south who want to harm her undead minions.

Other agents might be called in.

I use these to nudge players a bit into the Gnome world or in other cases as a distraction.

Might do a d100 gnome plots table
probably working on cleaning house for visiting relatives and go back to my ethyria pdf 

Gnome Muderdomes

So while plotting gnome eco domes possibilities, i came across this terrible idea.

I did play a session where players where given a moon portal mirrie and it instead sent them into a biodome where they soon figured out it was not quite the moon but did find pyramids, a prison, moon toads and met crystal star sprites. Took out a security checkpoint and met fish people living in the works of the platroom they had flooded. The players solved the simulation quickly but appreciated the effort of making a 1km wide moon simulation. 

So another level of Chagrinspire with 5x 1km domes but instead of science and education and a bit of bloodsport fun for elites, these are for simulated battle.

Also known as gnome battledomes but the murderdome name is used by more corrupt gnomes. In theory, they are operated for training and millitary research but a corrupt faction are just exploiting Nullist Black Sphere resources to destroy reality to just make money and enjoy bloodsports. Gnomes working in this area may be corrupt, sadistic capitalists subverting the benevolent plan to erase all history and reality. Like the gold cube cult who want to turn all nass in the universe into gold, which they will admire from a 2d adjacent plane.

The victims of the murderdome are sourced by various means, and most dont know they are in a simulation with an illusory sky and distant scenery. Lots of specialist illusion magicians work here. Once held, victims may be sent straight to a dome or may be made unconscious so they can be studied and cloned before release. This allows interesting ones to be reused again and again. Gnomes might snatch interesting subjects who are otherwise about to die so as not to waste them. Maybe a party start as clones in a dome, unaware they are in a simulation.

The workers in structures around the dome are similar to eco domes with labs, technicians, offices, observers and planning rooms. Information on doors and observation are the same, except it may have a spectator's seating for possibly hundreds or thousands of gnomes arrived by train.  

Sides are usually capped at 100, and the planning offices have an elaborate point buy system operated by Golem cognitive engines to set various odds. Everything is documented, and information of factions has a section in their vast library stacks. You could allocate 100HD per side to simulate this. 100HD kaiju are fine, but handling them is difficult and they may have bombs implanted in their brains. Some exercises are intended to by unfair in numbers-wise or might have other benefits like fortifications, resources or technology. 

Each dome has subsurface areas for underland warfare drills. Sometimes, a vast illusion can project the dungeon levels to the observers while the inhabitants need never know.

1 Wasteland dome - simulates the wasteland during or after the apocalypse* 
2 Savage dome - simulate tropical prehistory, lost islands to plunder and monster island 

3 Sea dome - simulate marine battles and colonial control

4 Auldwood dome - simulates temperate woodland a vast frontier with elfland

5 Arena dome - a sports field for gnome entertainment

* and sometimes hell just ad fire, lava, undead and devils

Wasteland stuff see DrWho The Wargames and Genesis of the Daleks
For savage stuff see land of the lost TV show
The Prisoner tv series might be possible in a secret psyop minidome
The Starlost has isolated domes ignorant they are on a ship
I considered a section of Shadelport in a simulation or Exile Island

You could make ruined versions with surviving inhabitants.

Players best in the wasteland dome and to not be aware it is a simulation. Then let them break into other domes and finish with them in the Arena dome where they might be welcomed as contestants or thrown in prison. This could make them famous in gnome civilisation.

d12 How Was Subject Kidnapped by Gnomes?

1 Found a portal in a ruin

2 Went through a door in a dungeon

3 Found a magic pool in a strange wood

4 Activated a teleportation trap

5 Found a tiny door in a tree

6 Falling from a cliff

7 Sunk in a ship or sucked into a whirlpool

8 Hired mercenaries take on the underground train

9 Gnomes led into a cave to escape enemies

10 Gnome kidnappers came in the bedroom by night with a paralysing ray

11 Gnome airship fired teleportation trays

12 Snatched from certain death by planar beings serving gnomes

d12 Scenarios
1 Two entrenched factions battle 
2 Invading force vs entrenched faction
3 Fortified faction with two rival invading factions
4 Two invading factions battle over an objective 
5 Fortified faction besieged by an invader
6 Extermination, faction wipes out a weaker defender as fast as possible
7 Round up and capture, and imprison civilians
8 One faction invades and builds defences, then the other invading factions enter

9 One advanced faction vs a larger, less advanced faction

10 One faction vs a horde of monsters

11 One faction vs a single huge monster

12 Gnome forces crush d3 factions for training (no public viewing)

d12 Battlefield Objectives
1 Food cache
2 Armoury
3 Civilian village
4 Bridge or road
5 Resources like wood or minerals
6 Millitary bunker
7 Laboratory bunker and staff
8 Transit hub (rail, docks, canals)
9 Water supply
10 Relaxed defending faction raided by an informed enemy with planning
11 Monsters lair with vast treasure
12 Super weapon or relic

d12 Complications
1 Extreme weather
2 Limited food or water resources

3 Limited equipment (ammo, fuel)

4 Obstacle (river, canyon, lava)

5 Wild humanoids know terrain well, hostile to all 

6 Supply cache at various locations

7 Undead arise from anyone killed

8 Dangerous monsters live here

9 New alien faction hostile to both arrivals

10 Gnome spies meddle with both factions for training

11 Underground structures d4 1=bunkers 2=tunnels 3=dungeon 4=caverns 

12 Reinforcements are called in if a certain objective is taken

Each dome has its own faction, encounter and terrain tables.

Factions might be somehow from the past and stored in stasis or cloned or recently kidnapped.

Dome 1 Wasteland Zone Dome
War torn battlefield and ruins modelled on the trenches and ruins around chagrinspire. It can simulate battles of the apocalypse war, current warfare and secret exercises for invading lower levels of Hell. Mostly gloomy skies, mud, trenches and ruins. There may be train tunnels and bunkers underneath.

d12 Wasteland Dome Terrain

1 Trenches and dugouts

2 Bunker
3 Ruined village

4 Ruined church

5 Ruined factory
6 Ruined fort
7 Abandoned military camp
8 Abandoned prison camp
9 Muddy flats

10 Minefield
11 River with floating corpses 

12 Craters from bombardment or shells, possibly unexploded ordinance buries

d12 Wasteland Dome Factions
1 Ancient allied soldiers (ww1 or Napoleonic tech)
2 Black sphere clone corp infantry (ww1 or Napoleonic tech but clones)

3 Crusader knights (1300s crusaders)

4 Templar priest order (1300s crusaders)
5 Chaos warband (mutated templar heretics)
6 Undead crusaders (as above, but hungry, vindictive undead)
7 Dwarves army with blackpowder muskets and muskets (1500s tech)
8 Elves and goblins skirmishers (no guns)
9 Barbarians abhumans (human, beast and elemental)
10 Ancient Exilon City State with chariots

11 Scavengers, an irregular skirmishing force (mostly criminals, 1in6 mutants)
12 Alien minions of the outer void (old ones spawn)

d12  Wasteland Dome Encounters
1 Mines or boobytrap with bait 
2 Area slioppery with mud 
3 Muddy obstacles like a sucking bog
4 Undead soldiers arise from mud (or swarm undead body parts)
5 Scavengers hungry for loot and meat
6 Landshark
7 Giant carnivorous beetles
8 Giant maggots or flies
9 Giant worms burrowing and eating dead
10 Giant mosquitoes
11 Swarms of rats, giant rats or gargantuan rats size of cavebears
12 Feral automaton or deathguard flesh golem

d12  Wasteland Dome Events
1 Thunderstorm and darkness

2 Fog covers the battlefield
3 Hear distant sirens

4 Hear distant thundering of artillery or fireballs

5 Rain makes everything muddy and treacherous

6 Snow and cold, mud and pools freeze 

7 Hot and stinking, millions of flies choke air  

8 Stinking miasma or gas

9 Rat stampede of many swarms fleeing something (flood, gas, hunger, monsters)

10 Flying machines fly overhead 

11 Bombardment from artillery or airships

12 Helish giant flaming pools appear, smelling of sulfur, resembling parts of hell

Dome 2 Savage Zone Dome
Steaming tropical jungle with sinkhole caves, carnivorous plants and dinosaurs. For training in jungle warfare against mostly tribal peoples for their airship raiding expeditions around the world. Popular for gnome spectators wanting to see people fight dinosaurs. Their are caves beneath, crawling with monsters. Ruins and treasure here are a distraction or bait for traps. Their is lots of streams, lakes, pools, wetlands and some beachfronts that look nice to land on.

d12 Savage Dome Terrain

1 Rough cliffs
2 Thick foliage
3 Monster lair
4 Ruined shrine
5 Ruined rubble or shattered pyramid
6 Huge skeleton
7 Pteradactyl nesting rocks
8 Quicksand bog
9 Carnivorous plants
10 Ritual ground
11 Occupied humanoid village
12 Volcanic vent

d12 Savage Dome Factions
1 Reptilian folk war band with dinosaurs
2 Sepant folk wizards with cultists
3 Shipwrecked human sailors

4 Jaguar folk tribe
5 Human tribal cultists who need sacrifices to feed the gods
6 Jungle goblinoid tribe with goblins. hobgoblins and 
7 Bat folk serving their vampire goddess
8 Amphibian folk war band

9 Fishfolk and human cultists
10 Treasure-hunting adventurers tricked into the simulation
11 Barbarian abhuman tribe or invaders via sea d4 1=human 2=orc 3=beast 4=elemental.

12 Alien minions of the outer void (old ones spawn) and cultists

Grey gnomes of the black sphere can make any type, even plant or bug, and will experiment a bit. They might also make halfling-size versions. 

d12  Savage Dome Encounters
1 Sinkholes d4 1=pool 2=overgrown 3=pit into cave 4=pit into pool
2 Choked in rapidly growing vegetation or carniverous plants
3 Muddy obstacles like a sucking bog or boiling mud pool
4 Giant amphibians d4 1=frog 2=toad 3=salamander 4=caecilian 

5 Giant insects d4 1=beetle 2=dragonfly 3=carniverous fly 4=bee or wasp 
6 Giant reptiles d4 1=tortoise 2=snake 3= 4=

7 Giant reptiles d4 1=fire skink 2=cave lizard 3=gecko 4=chameleon

8 Giant mammals d6 12=bats 2=rats 3=sabretooth cats 4=glyptadon 5=dire wolf 6=ape
9 Giant birds d4 1=gull 2=moa 3=hawk or eagle or owl 4=vultue 5=terror bird 6=dodo

10 Swarm d9 1=flies 2=mosquitoes 3=leeches 4=ants 5=bats 6=tiny monkeys

11 Synapsids 4 1=dimetradon 2=gorgonopsia 3=moschops 4=edaphosorus
12 Dinosaur d10 1=raptor 2=ceratosaurus 3=allosaurus 4=tyranasaurus 5=saurapod 6=ceratopsian with d6 horns 7=pachycephalasaurus 8=stegosaur 9= ankylosaur 10=iguanadon

d12  Savage Dome Events
1 Earth shakes from quake
2 Volcanic vents flare up
3 Swealtering heatwave
4 Tropical storm
5 Invaders from the sea arrive
6 Inhabitant spell user meddles with controls

7 An imate magician knows its a similacra and tries to lead others to revolt

8 Airship passes and shoots some monsters for science or fun

9 Bloodred sky evokes violence and anger for a period

10 Cultists arrive to imprison or seal a primordial entity in a ceremony

11 Mutagenic storms rage creating new monstrosities 

12 Slimey horror from the outer darkness released from an arcane vault

Dome 3 Sea Zone Dome
A salty sea with islands and the water levels can be raised and lowered allowing for sea battles, sea monster, underwater species and maritime or flood scenarios. Also to train Gnome naval and air operations over the sea. Service staff will have a invisible submarine pen to maintain and stock the dome. Weather can be tested also. Ocasionaly some elder maring demon or god is trapped here for sport then harvested by industrial scale alchemy to fuel the Black Sphere operation nullification. The islands also have caves possibly connecting them or tidaly flooded. The gnomes snatch ships world wide but the straits between Exile Island and the Continant like Scar Reef islands are especialy chice grounds for a thousand years..

d12 Sea Dome Terrain

1 Tiny hilly Island
2 Rocks with seabirds and guano
3 Dangerous reef 1in6 with monster lair or aquatic people fort
4 Whirlpool
5 Tiny island with meadows and some woods

6 Tiny island with a cannibal tribe who hate outsiders

7 Tiny island with peaceful, friendly tribe vulnerable to exploitatio

8 Tiny Island with monster lair

9 Sargassum of gigantic seaweed

10 Dark trench where monsters of the deep battle

11 Sunken ruins of city

12 Underwater tribal folk d4 1=mermmaids 2=sea elves 3=fish folk 4=sea grass spirit folk

d12 Sea Dome Factions
1 Barbarian islanders with huge war canoes and martial culture (or any abhuman)
2 Pirates (likely from Shadelport)
3 Explorers ship from another continent 

4 Colony ships from another continent
5 Fish folk and cultists island folk

6 Trireme of mercenaries from age of exilon

7 Ship of adventurers

8 Undead ship and crew led by d4 1=vampire 2=lich 3=mummy 4=

9 Sea elves 

10 Vikings from the frozen north 

11 Tako octopus folk in giant nautilus

12 Sqid folk serving a kraken of the deep

Grey gnomes of the black sphere can make any type, even plant or bug, and will experiment a bit. They might also make halfling-size versions. 

d12  Sea Dome Encounters
1 Hidden rock or reef

2 Shipwreck or pirates
3 Sea giant or sea ogres or  sea trolls, shambling seaweed and barnacle-covered

4 Psionic dolphins
5 Sharks
5 Sea serpent
6 Marine people d4 1=sea alves 2=fish folk 3=mermaids 4=marine iguana folk

7 Giant cephalopod d4 1=squid 2=octopus 3=nautilus 4=kraken warlock

8 Angry whale covered in wounds and rusty harpoons, people live inside

9 Vampire kelp or giant strangling kelp 

10 Sea wolf or other marine lycanthrope

11 Marine Reptile d4 1=plesiosaur 2=kronosaur 3=tylosaur 4=ichthiosaur

12 Dragon turtle or marine dragon

d12 Sea Dome Events
1 Sea level drops or rises 
4 Tidal wave
3 Fog cloud

5 Severe storm

6 Dead calm

7 New factions arrive by sea

8 Undersea factions fighting

9 Two new factions arrive to fight each other 

10 Sea choked in sargassum

11 Snap cold with glaciers

12 Gnome submarine trains secret manoeuvres

Dome 4 Auldwood Zone Dome
Temperate woodlands across the kingdom which overlaps frontiers of many coastal kingdoms, the great barbarian plains and elfland. It is divided by rivers, lakes, hills and open grassy areas appealing for human settlent. It is more used for training excercises and secret plans against faeriekind and every human kingdom on the continant (but mostly upper half frontier they share with Auldwood). Underground are caves and dungeons used for dungeon raiding expeditions. There are often ruins from the ancients and prehuman peoples. 

d12 Auldwood Zone Dome Terrain
1 Pine forest

2 Oak forest
3 Mixed forest
4 Haunted forest
5 Fungusforest
6 Sylvan forest
7 Open grassy area 1in6 with a village
8 Stream, river or lake
9 Knight;y Castle d4 1=haunted 2=cursed 3=robber knight 4=ocupied by humanoids
10 Ruined village & graveyard
11 Rocky outcrop with cave lair 
12 stone circle or monolith

d12 Auldwood Zone Dome Factions
1 Goblin kingdom d4 1=goblin 2=hobgoblin 3=bugbear 4=all types
2 Goblinoid mercenaries d4 1=darkling creepers 2=norkers 3=kobolds 4=nilbog
3 Elves bright overworld or night underworld types with goblin skirmishers and pets

4 Wood elves and sylvan forest friends and forest changelings

5 Orc soldiers of the dark lord thought log ago destroyed and made by wizards

6 Undead army d4 1=serve a underworld dark god

7 Faerie army with all kinds of spirits, talking animals, fey folk and sylvan beings

8 Giant or troll army with pets and minions

9 Abhuman barbarians d4 1=human wild folk 2=beast folk 3=orc 4=elemental

10 Human army with knights, archers and infantry

11 Dwarf kingdom d4 1=berserkers 2=black powder tech 3=forest dwarf 4=wicked underland dwarves

12 Wee folk d6 1=greencap wood gnome 2=blood lusting redcap gnomes 3=grey gnomes from underland 4=halfling folk 5=beastling (small beast folk) 6=sprites or brownies

d12 Auldwood Dome Encounters

1 Deer
2 Auroch
3 Wolves

4 Boars

5 Bearl
6 Lion
7 Unicorn
8 Satyrs

9 Centaurs

10 Beast abhumans

11 Lycanthropes

12 Faerie folk, elves or demihumans

d12 Auldwood Dome Events

1 Storms and rain batter the woods

2 Huge herds moving through the area
3 Sunny lovely day
4 Snow and fog
5 Witches coven comes from hiding in shadows
6 Underland fey corrupt a region

7 Giant fungus zone erupts full of giant bugs and goblins
8 Changelings offer food, wine or parties as a trick
9  Undead arise from ground

10 Animals all talk briefly

11 Tree spirits or tree folk highly ambulant

12 Faerie army arrives from outside simulation, to cleanse everyone from woods or underland, Black Sphere troops sent in. Science teams working to capitalise on faerie presence as some kind of power source but results poor so far

Dome 5 Arena Zone Dome
A vast stadium surrounded by ruins and criminal slums. Underneath is a prison and a cursed labyrinth. This is used for sport, training, exhibitions of athletics and violence. Fights from any area might happen here and at times it is restricted for secret millitary exercises. There are race tracks around the outer edge and then fields for various sports within. A central gladiatorial ring has stadium seating for 10000 gnomes. Forces from any zone might appear here, usually facing other factions or to test deathguard flesh golems or automatons. It can be flooded for marine battles. The prison houses factions from various zones, and observing the prison is also entertainment for some gnomes. Prisoners may also be sent into the monster labyrinth below. Lots of ancient architecture celebrating aeons of deathsports.

d12 Arena Zone Dome Terrain
1 Track or sports field
2 Columns commemorating past victories
3 Statues of heroes of arena
4 Cages with monsters or prisoners
5 Shrines to deities
6 Podium for awards
7 Barracks for athletes and gladiators
8 Fighting pits
9 Trapdoors
10 Walls dividing up districts
11 Stadium seats for up close VIPs
12 Illusionary projections d4 1=propaganda 2=upcoming fights 3=past battle scenes 4=cheering crouds

d12 Arena Zone Dome Factions
1 Gladiator school
2 Mixed prison population, fight together or die
3 Clone Corp human infantry with Napoleonic or ww1 kit 1in6 in bicycle corp
4 Mutant chaos warband 
5 Athletics team 
6 Adventurer party
7 Crusader knights and cleric templars
8 Cultists with a summoned entity or petty god
9 Abhuman beastfolk in barbaric finery
10 Scavengers from wasteland, cowardly but sneaky scouts and irregulars
11 Mercenary land knights of the warring lands of the east
12 Barbarians from some harsh region of the world, hostile to all strangers

d12 Arena Zone Dome Encounters
1 Trainer and athletes
2 Gladiators training or on way to fight 
3 Tourists from the underground city
4 Gamblers d4 1=making bets 2=selling drugs 3=eyeing off force odds 4=rigging an event
5 School teacher and children 
6 Screaming gladiator fans want souvenirs and signatures
7 Children collecting war debris like shrapnel, bones, weapons
8 Cart selling snacks
9 Referees having a debate about rules and club financial scandals
10 Clowns who help handle monsters and finish off unwanted wounded, test corpses dead
11 Dancers who perform mid event shows and act as cheer squads 
12 Gnome mentaliss here to bully athletes and anyone with muscles

d12 Arena Zone Dome Events
1 Mid match show with d4 1=dancers 2=cheer squad 3=singer 4=propeganda rally
2 Closes for the cleaning crew to mop up blood, paint and patch  over battle damage
3 Millitary exercise d4 1=training 2=officer school graduation test 3=weapon test 4=millitary  games
4 Great Gnome Games with gnome athletes and sports from across the gnome world
5 Giant political rally with millitary parade
6 Youth games for the next generation who will get a say in a few hundred years
7 Celebrity and commoners compete in a humorous but deadly obstacle course widely reported in the grey gnome civilisation (think old cartoons + bloody consequences or platform video games
8 Mass execution for cowards and traitors, death by d4 1=dinosaur 2=machineguns 3=automaton 4=steamroller driven by lottery winner
9 Automaton events d4 1=amateur killbot builds 2=ballgame between different automaton guilds 3=collosus fight 3=obsolete automaton demolition derby
10 Children's program where gnomes bring their kids and special shows d6 1=princesses on ice 2=life size golem toys toy teams battle to the death 3=candy golems fight to death and luck select children eat the remains, 4=dramatic reenactment of a Black Sphere crushing some primitive foreign humans from beyond this continent, presented and humour 5=clown gladiators, 6=reject gladiators mutated into horrors and chased by gnomes in tiny battlecars
11 Turkey Shoot, where rich gnomes and followers hunt various captives and monsters as a team sport. Some might be guild or school teams. An amateur event selects audience members to hunt or be hunted
12 Vehicular and mounted combat

Black Sphere Forces
Most forces have 100 fighters from the below table, and 2 or 3 branches might cooperate on bigger operations. Most will have a support unit. These can be used anywhere.

d12 Black Sphere &Grey Gnome Forces
1 Clone Corp human infantry with Napoleonic or ww1 kit 1in6 in bicycle corp
2 Orcs Corps made in a factory by alchemists with Napoleonic or ww1 kit 
3 Abhuman beast folk clones with Napoleonic or ww1 kit 
4 Gnome Infantry with Napoleonic or ww1 kit but slightly better than non-gnomes, 1in6 in bicycle corp

5 Gnome Marines for amphibious assaults with better (ww2) heavy weapons but also use submarines, canal barges, paddle steamers, ironclad warships, inflatable rafts and patrol boats. Mostly work from rivers, canals, swamps and the lake 

6 Giants, ogres and trolls with head scars and antenna installed and gnome handlers with control devices

7 Gnome Secret Police Deathsquads with automatic weapons and stick grenades

8 Gnome Tunnel Fighters are sappers who use gas, explosives, trench guns, rigid armour and spiked clubs. Notoriously violent and with brutal improvised weapons and armour 

9 Automaton Corp with humanoid infantry

10 Deathguard flesh golem 1in6 chance go berserk any action

11 Air Corp with aerial bombardment from golem planes. Airships deploy death rays, gas or paratrooper infantry. Spotter balloons and even kites with gnomes for surveillance and to distribute propaganda

12 Tank Corp with mini tanks with cannon or machine guns (Reault WW1 style)

d12 Black Sphere & Grey Gnome Support Squads
1 Trained carnivorous war apes with handlers
2 Cave lizard supply train with ammo, food and supplies
3 Automatons like spiders or pillbugs
4 Gnome snipers, invisible with anti-tank rifles or silent pneumatic needle guns
5 Mole machine is good for surprise moves and moving reinforcers
6 Artillery, black powder drawn by ponies or shell-based artillery drawn by trucks
7 Gnome infiltration corp is are invisible saboteur and spies using dirty tricks

8 Undead human and orc infantry stitched together, controlled by necromancers. Includes d4 1=skeletal cavalry 2=flesh colossus 3=swarms of body parts 4=draconic lich
9 Alchemist Guild with lab wagons safely behind lines. Make ammo, rockets, explosives, incendiaries, slimes, germ weapons, gas weapons, drugs and even living troops with a factory 
10 Iron colossus 50HD+ golem operated by gnome crew 
11 Mentalism Guild squad of militarised gnome psychics 
12 Magus Corp, with some bound planar beings, undead spirits, elementals or lesser outer gods bound in a chest to deploy