Monday 27 June 2022

d100 Absolutely True About All Murder Hobos Forever





































A nice depiction of Nergal from way after bronze age - region mix of roman, mesopotaimian and other culture. The dog is fascinating - is it three dogs or Cerebus?.

If your character hears these in a tavern it's a sign of disrespect best start stabbing them just in case.

Thanks to my FB group input - Dallas, Fergus, Luke & James

The murderhobo book 112pages on my Patreon now
will be some small revisions as ppl point out my mistakes

d100 Absolutely True About All Murder Hobos Forever
01 Murder hobos have dungeon parasites in their brains that turn them into stab-happy serial killers that need to be put down like a mad dog
02 Murder hobos I hear eat baby orcs and goblins just to save money on propper food
03 I heard a murder hobo in another village just stabbed a shopkeeper for not respecting him 
04 I heard of a king who rounded up all of the dungeon adventurers to a fake party and murdered them when drunk because they just stirred up troubles on the frontier
05 Adventurers hate paying taxes, yet use our roads and temples and stores
06 I tried to pay these young adventurers to scare off some goblins but they were the worse sort and they wiped out a whole village of them which was a bit much. Now the goblins are madder than ever!
07 Murder hobos are always drunk on rotgut which drives them insane and makes them foam at the mouth, have bad breath and red eyes
08 If an imp can touch a baby they will grow up to be a murder hobo in the service of hell
09 All murder hobos come to serve devils and demons which lead them to their murder sprees
10 I heard of adventurers who went to the ruined castle and only one came back and became a vampire
11 Old loner adventurers often may be werewolves or other shapeshifters
12 Sometimes when they are in the deep exterminating strange peoples they run out of food and eat their followers
13 When I told them the quest involved talking and investigation that said if there was nobody to kill in a hole in the ground they were not interested
14 I was on this ship to exotic islands but I didn't realise I was on a ship of the worst adventurers who killed and captured natives and stole their treasure. On the way home all that cursed treasure sunk us and only I escaped
15 They said we were explorers but then they started killing the mink people for their furs and golden idols. There are no more mink folk there now
16 I was told that I could make in one dungeon run carrying a pole for a bunch of old mercenaries than I could ever make as a butchers boy. It was awful and when we saw the light I deserted them and none of my friends carrying their baggage and lanterns were ever seen again
17 I was recruited by adventurers and on my way to a dungeon but then I overheard them call us meat shields and how we provided extra targets for the monsters and I ran away
18 Well old murder hobos are so bad because that's the sort of adventures people did back then and now we are in more civilised age. Modern adventurers just like to look cool and have pets and all wanna be bards and talk talk talk. All the old dungeons were looted and adventurers had to take on more ludicrous episodic adventures 
19 Then these guys we paid to save our village found out the lizard people could have been our allies versus the fish people and so we ended up with two monster species hating us and the adventurers just went to "help" some other town
20 Dungeon looters carry vile parasites from dungeon monsters don't let them on your land or near your  livestock with them bathing and burning their clothes and a man of learning examine their stools for dungeon threadworms
21 We had this adventurer survive some adventure and went to sleep but he brought on his boots baby slime creatures from an evil swamp and the creatures were a local menace. Then we had to get adventurers to get rid of the monsters. Its a racket I tell you. They want more work for their future
22 Now the kingdom has law and order and no rampaging unhappy barbarians or humanoids left alive in the kingdom do we really need drunken old monster hunters 
23 You talk to all the drunks in villages for miles, most of them are ex-adventurers, who cant handle work and have nightmares about their friends all being killed. They can barely deal with ordinary people 
24 The smart ones get some fame and get a job or marry some posh aristocrat for land. The old ones go crazy and are barely better than what they kill
25 I heard a village paid some wandering mercenaries to deter monsters but they just drank and ate up a huge bill and ran away when monsters came
26 These old murder hobos came and tried to sell us kobolds in a sack. They had no idea how nobody does stuff like that anymore
27 So these dwarf adventurers came to use the tavern and saw our goblin gardener working and they just killed him and stole his wedding ring. It was very sad but we have a new one now
28 My son for his birthday wanted to meet real dungeon adventurers and my brother found these reprobates in a tavern and my son now wants to be a priest. It's okay he means the rich kind of priest.
29 Mad old Elmo is a hopeless old drunken murderer who always bullies young adventurers to join them. Then he "saves" them all and takes most of the treasure. He even starts the fights and toys with them into conflict and deathtraps for a laugh. Eventually, they run away and leave him in the village again for the next adventurers. Nobody will sing songs about him
30 I heard these adventurers built an old shack to get drunk in and on the first-night kobolds, goblins and orcs all surrounded them and burned the house down and killed them all. Monsters are just like other folk and will even unite to get revenge
31 That was no lady, she was an adventurer and stabbed at least six men who tried to talk to her in the bar. Then the sheriff came and she killed him and the bailiffs and took their ears and some booze and she left
32 These old murderous adventurers came to our tavern and showed us all their orc ears they had collected. We chased them all out. Quite a few people in these parts get along with orcs nowadays and don't want maniacs bringing back old troubles
33 So these adventurers it turns out only go on quests just to kill and rob everyone and didn't get the nuance of a subtle rescue the king desired. They slaughtered everybody in the castle of the rival noble and started a war. They carried the princess away demanding his crown and treasury to get her back
34 So these adventurers started coming to the village to camp and several parties were operating then more came like a gold rush. The village was destroyed. Eggs became a gp each and locals couldn't afford to live there. Drunken lecherous adventurers with strange diseases were everywhere. Copper became worthless. Don't let the rot ruin your town
35 That dragon kept away the aristocracy from our valley for generations and finally, these adventurers came and killed it and we didn't get a coin for the generations of its lordship over us
36 Turns out this adventurer had kept a troll hand to make into a hat or something and that night a newly grown troll in the tavern killed six people and then ran away. Took us months to get it out of the swamp
37 So they recovered this relic of our town and then changed their mind and sold it in the city because they couldn't be bothered coming back here and didn't like our wine list
38 So these adventurers kept bringing back dead monsters with them for the poor cook who had to cook things he wasn't sure if they should be. Well they all died on the toilet that last night riddled with worm
39 So they took the artefact off the wizard and instead of taking it to the temple like they promised they started playing with the monster-making artefact and now they are the new dungeon bosses. What part of "don't use the artefact it is not worth the risk" do they not understand
40 When we had orcs nearby and wars with them having a bunch of easily pleased murderous simpletons we could point in the right direction and reward with beer had uses. Now, everybody, has children and monsters don't come this way they are just a sign of the bad old days and they smell like it too
41 So this evil wizard kept escaping the party for years and we had to keep these freaks in our village. After years of this somehow they teamed up and all just walked away after fighting some other evil. Was all those years of troubles for nothing? Was it just a grift all along?
42 So we explained the nuns were charmed and not to be hurt but one of them had a cursed sword and went berserk. They did kill the wizard and saved most of the nuns but many were injured and required time to recover the wounds of their bodies. As for their nightmares, we cannot say
43 So the adventurers went into the magic mirror and when they came out it was broken and they said some bull story about it being a prison for a demon
44 We looked for the sort of optimistic heroes to help us but made do with a collection of angry old drunks. At least lots of them died and got no pay and had no widows or legal heirs. They did kill everyone like they said they would and most moved away after. Some of the bandit's families claimed adventurers were cruel and unusual and went beyond the law 
45 So they were questioning us about funny people in robes at night that people might have seen and the magistrate sent two beadles to take the adventurers in for a talk. They killed the beadles and attacked people all over town convinced cultists were everywhere. It was just a common sleepy run-down fishing village, nothing suspicious at all
46 So this priest comes to see who is disturbing the dead and instead of a proper priest we got an adventurer and his drunken buddies. So the dead were walking and unhappy about someone disturbing them and threatening their legacy and the adventurers just burned them all to ash and left a mess. They even took the grave goods "to cover costs". We never found out who the necromancer among us was
47 So these adventurers come in with a prisoner and say they used magic to extract treasonous thoughts from him and demanded the law use this evidence to try and execute him. The magistrate declared he would use his own methods and things got ugly. The adventurers killed half the court staff and burned down several buildings as they fled. They even told officials in the next town we were all witches who needed exterminating 
48 So the old fisherman refused to rent his boat to the strangers who turned out to be adventurers and they bewitched him with malicious sorcery that made them seem like good friends who took his boat. Eventually, he came to town when the hex expired and told the story to the authorities
49 The smells adventurers bring from dungeons make cow udders dry up and stop hens laying and make sheep's wool go bad
50 Just find one of those old drunks, they all used to be murder hobos and have hidden treasure. If we could make one tell us we could be rich
51 After years in the dungeon battling chaos it takes a toll on the mind and body. Mot only are these old warriors insane and volatile but they have mutations and terrible diseases
52 So this wizard the lord hired wasn't a proper one with a hat and a tower and a toad, no he was some adventurer edge lord and he used all his fireballs in the first battle and killed some of our side so we knifed him and dumped him in a ditch
53 So they killed a troll and this guy wanted to search its guts and butcher it. Then we killed some goblins and he did the same. Who wants to eat goblins or use their skin? We left that maniac behind the first chance we got
54 We were in this dungeon and we got trapped and this guy started talking about canibalism just in case. He said he was a mystical monk but turned out he was just a weird sadist in it for the blood 
55 So we were on the borderlands on patrol and these mercenaries kept tallying scores based on what they killed. After every fight they would search everything and when we got home and wanted a meal all they wanted to do was count all the money and recorded these scores on scrolls they carried. Some argued over monsters or gold or both counted to scores. I think it was some cult but apparently all mureder hobos do this
56 One day I'm going to be a tavern wench! The waitlist for jobs at the local tavern is three years long but I heard an adventurer flipped Jenny a gold coin in her first week and she hasn't had to work since for a year! (thanks Dallas)
57 Poor girl slept with a adventurer bard and thought they would get married but he just lied every village and left a trail of offspring. So when he died in a dungeon by the time he was raised a massive lawsuit against his estate had taken everything from him and he was a laughing stock
58 So it turns out those famous rich wizards who got rich in the dungeon goldrush now all want people to pay them everytime they they use one of their trademarked "Name" spells. So now there are bootleg scrolls with silly names or similar sounding ones. A few are defective and dangerous. Anyway cast those famous spells and they will know and slap you with a invoice
59 I saw this old adventurer begging on the street and told him no because he would spend it all on booze and drugs and then he showed me his stab wounds and filthy bandages and I gave him a copper
60 There's always a dagger hidden somewhere on their person, in boots, cloaks, pants, beards, hair, hats even in gross places like ears, old wounds and bum holes (thanks Luke)

61 There is nothing a murder hobo hates more than imprisonment. They will fight to the death rather than be captured and pronounce it like its a personality trait.  
62 Old murder hobos best be wary of them laying drunk in the street, they always carry a knife and will even sleep stab passers by. Life in a dungeon is like hard time in the worst prison, the more time you live like that the less normal you will ever be. The lucky ones quit early and take a few years to get over it. They never relax and always have weapons nearby expecting someone wanting revenge on them at any moment
63 So there was this boat and it had these adventurers carrying a princess across a lake and as the adventurers just met, the older ones wanted to charge the king a reward fee. The younger ones complained and their was a scuffle and the younger idealistic ones were stabbed and thrown in the frozen river. They charged the king a fortune then said that was just a keep her alive fee and gave rates to save her body parts intact. They were all killed by the knights of the realm 
64 They carry all their riches and gems and coins on their person at all times and will always sleep in shifts in their armour to protect it (thanks Dallas)
65 So we were making these fake goblin erotic idols and selling them to posh toffs from the city and these adventurers came and looked at them and asked us questions. They went and killed all the goblins in the area that we sorta said were in the hills to make them leave. So we quit that business and went back to selling religious relics
66 We used to employ hobgoblin workers, work hard and cheap to feed as long as nobody swears around them cos they always take it personally and starts fights. Anyway some murderous heroes came and killed them all in our old barn. Do you think I could get new workers in the barn again with all the blood and ghost stories. Had to burn it down  
67 So this lord was making peace with humanoids and even hiring them for some unpopular jobs and adventurers came and started the toubles again and tried to frame the lord as some kind of traitor by living in peace with neighbors. By the time the mess was cleared up there were many unfair deaths and the adventurers had fled
68 So these heroes brought a dragon to town with a little rope around its neck and said it was subdued. The villagers were wary but got a gold piece each. That night the dragon ate every persona and beast the size of a dog and up. Dont believe it when adventurers bring monsters into town with stories of charm spells or that monsters are just pets
69 So these armed strangers asked us about local rumours of strange doings and we said as a joke the mayor was a werewolf. They went straight to hos house and murderd him. I cant help but be haunted occasionally by the feeling I was partly responsible
70 Adventurers with pets are the worse. They let them crap anywhere and do anything and if you dare shoo a familiar off a chair you get burned by wizard fire or turned into a tree by a druid
71 So we needed mercenaries to foil a plot against the crown and every castle we raided they wanted to search everything, smashing walls, dig up graves, remove architectural features. We tried to explain the haste of our cause and they threatened to kill us all for trying to rob their rightful plunder
72 Murder hobos always hide gems in their bungholes. If you get them drunk and feed them right you can steal their chamber pots and live like a lord for life
73 So people were dying and we knew the adventurers had a priest and sent a runner. He insisted they would only heal those who immediately converted to his cult and denounced their old gods. Then after saving them he demanded they pay thousands of gold coins and demandered the be indentured servants of his church to pay for healing. If the lord and his knights did not arrive we would have been killed. It was still pretty tense before they finally left and they accepted the sick belonged to him
74 So we had to declare found treasures are examined by a priest and certified in case they were evil relics. Next thing the adventurers bring in their criminal thief guild budies to sell the relics directly to evil wizards with smugglers. And now there are more monsters and cultist everywhere using them 
75 So we were in this tavern and in came some beserks who are pretty touchy and carry weapons. Then came some adventurers also armed and words were said. What a bloodbath. Ive seen some tavern brawls but that was more bloody than my action in the war. The fire burned down half a street. What a mess
76 We had adventurers stay in the inn and share a room but some invisible beastie from the dungeon came after them and the street was in flames before they killed it. Although maybe they were just mad or pretending to fight an invisible monster or on drugs
77 We saw this adventurer die and a few months later we saw them again! They claimed a church restored them. Its unfair my old granny who hurt nobody didn't get this treatment. I guess its only for nobles and the rich and murder hobos
78 So there was this secretive galley on a private rented dock and adventurers were working on. Turns out they had crewed the ships oarmen with zombies. Just to save money they tampered with forces of life and death. There was an angry mob and they sailed away forever
79 All of adventurers relly serve orcus - change my mind! If you think about it they murder monsters that drives them to join demon cults to get revenge
80 Never smile at an adventurer - if you have good teeth they'll follow you home and murder you in your bed to get them. Especially if any are made of gold
81 Our village made a deal with adventurers to clean out the dungeon. We took everything. Cooking pots, rags, straw, bricks, doors, beams, candles, rusty weapons or anything they could sell. But I was surprised even the bones of the dead were taken to grind into soil and even monsters teeth were taken for jewellery and dentures 
82 The worse thing they did was drive farm animals down coridoors to set off traps. What did those poor animals do to deserve that?
83 So they had a deal with the sheriff that a wizard would charm prison inmates and rent them to take to dungeons with an extra fee if the convict died. When the king found out he demanded his cut
84 That bard who sang "don't let your children grow up to marry a murder hobo", well he was found dead! His had been disembowelled and had his intestine hung in the trees. The investigating cleric says the poor man had been healed several times to keep him alive in pain longer. Local magistrate has declared it death by misadventure and the victims own fault. 
85 So these heroes came and wiped out the leaders of three local cults. They took their reward and left. Then the most powerful cult lord took over the whole region with other surviving cuts swearing fealty
86 After a while I the dungeon, adventurers are slowly change. Over years they become adapted to life in the dark and killing everything in their way. 
87 Once old murder hobos have become unfit for civilised lands they are like mad dogs who must be put down. There is nothing they are not capable of and cannot be left free to roam and kill as they feel. 
88 Murder is like breathing to seasoned adventurers. Anyone near them is in peril
89 All adventuring wizards are drug addicts and they are always buying strange things for "their spells". They are always recruiting youths into their service with temptations of arcane power
90 This band of adventurers had the gall to offer pay to take my children into a dungeon for the "experience" as polebearers. Huh in my day dad would rent us out and got paid gold
91 This whole region was once frontier until the murder hobos came. They ended all the once proud goblinoids and orcs and other creatures lived in their caves and underground villages
92 So these adventurers had been in town a while and were at a wedding party and one got a bit fresh and started a fight. Next thing these maniacs had killed half the guests and stolen the wedding carriage horses. A dwarf even shat on the cake
93 Used to be a old drunk round here who was a dungeon adventurer once and some soldiers passing through gave him a hard time. He killed all of them single handed and the squad sent after him in the mountains. Some kind of berserkerganger
94 They say adventurers to give them supernatural strength and magic have secret feasts of roast baby dedicated to demon gods. They leave orc babies disguised as human ones with a deceitful glamour. Look how hard they are to kill, it is not natural
95 If a adventurer has been corrupted by evil look for the signs! Hidden fangs and claws and horns and tails and extra nipples or a blowhole or extra eyelids. A strip search should be adequate or a direction if dead by a surgeon
96 Murder hobos have hollow legs to hold more beer, they can smell gold or blood and death arouses them to to murderous rages 
97 Murder hobos are highly flammable and a holy river will drown a bound one tainted by evil 
98 Left handed adventurers have been transformed by the evil mirror world and are now doppelgangers 
99 Bury a murderhobo somewhere isolated and alone so their undead form does not arise on death. They will only taint a normal graveyard with all the dungeon juices in them
100 When a murderhobo dies you see their true form with fangs and claws and a lust for human flesh. Some burst apart and are filled with bugs and salamanders and worms

Thursday 23 June 2022

12 Habits of highly effective Murder Hobos





























Some mood fluff im writing for book. One more session of work and will posting revised 100 page murder hobo manual on my Patreon shortly. This was a warm up I did to get me back into the mindset for advanced murder and mayhem.

d12 Habits of highly effective Murder Hobos
1 Take offers of just bounties and rewards for battle and lawfully sieze any valuables you can. If someone claims certain goods you recover have them pay you a share as a reward if they can prove their claim. The greater your reputation and the risk the more you must demand.

2 Shun company of other peoples outside your professional peers and don't even trust them. Relations always become complicated and make you weak if not for profit or brief companionship for pleasure. Only the fighting camaraderie of your band matters.

3 Avoid conflict with law and locals. Pay them off or flee if there is trouble you cannot possibly profit from. If the law is your enemy time to move to a new kingdom  

4 When you find an adventurers corpse, recover it to a temple for burial. If they seem worthy and omens are good have the priests call the miracle of new life to them. Then the adventurer owes you and must pay or serve you.

5
 Disembowel any beast that could have treasure hidden in its digestive tract, butcher and collect meat, skin, and anything of value if you can sell or use for raw materials or exotic ingredients.

6 If it can be profitable take captives as hostages, bounties, rewards or sell them but remember an enemy you spare or let flee may one day come after you and cause troubles.

Always loot, quickly grabbing any loose valuables on the battlefield. After danger is gone take everything you can . Even take the furniture, doors, clothes, firewood and leave nothing. Sell or settle the property if possible.

 Coins are for taverns and lodging. Jewels, ingots, artworks and magic are the best forms of wealth to carry, the more unbreakable and compact and rare the better. Magical things are usually all three and are the only things worth owning.

9 Shun hoarding wealth when you may die any day. Spend your money on vapid pleasures of the flesh fill your brief idle times when not at war.

10 Shun settling down and keep moving on. Stay with friends, rent a room, camp outdoors but move before something bad happens. Keep no home and dont settling down like some tree.

11 
Shun titles, offices, land take money as your just reward. Anything you build or love will be taken or robbed or destroyed. Serving kings makes you their slave for life. Only the power of your own self and what you can carry matters.  

12 
Shun the lands of peace and contentment. Go to the borderlands and wage war on the frontier humanoids and wild folk and bandits and outcasts. When farmers settle and priests build churches and kings make law its time to move on. 

Tuesday 21 June 2022

d100 More Goblin Peddlars


























Saw an old post of goblins and thought I need more goblincore. Maybe a d1000 goblin market stalls is needed. Above is my frog goblin who was bony and scrawny when I got him a few months ago. He is quite social and likes being out the most. He is the food maddest frog I have. 

d100 More Goblin Peddlars

01 Goblin knife and tool sharpener with grindstone hanging from rope around its neck
02 Goblin selling nice and pointy sling stones in pretty colours
03 Leak fixer goblin with bag of toolbelts and waist-high wader boots and several buckets
04 Goblin locksmith sells old keys and a few one-use knock spell keys for 300gp
05 Goblin fake eye maker and glass blower items made to commision
06 Goblin playing accordian while a genuine Imp from hell dances for coins
07 Goblin from swamp selling frog grog and frog weed popular in frog cults
08 Used hats selling goblin carries sacks of them and most colourful and fancy stacked on his head
09 Goblin brush seller with a sample case follows and pushes hard why you need a brush
10 Goblin selling mouse nose soup or rat anus stew from a pot
11 Goblin redsmith with a push cart of daggers, hatchets, shortswords and maces
12 Goblin clown selling itching powder, stink bombs and sneeze powder
13 Goblin selling diarrhoea medicine from a bucket with a ladle, bottles extra
14 Goblin artist selling and making ceramic ash trays and erotic pots
15 Goblins offering free faerie food to non faerie folk to try, its the best you will ever get!
16 Hobgoblin whistling footlong wood idols of goblin dancers or goblin spirits
17 Goblin offers you luck of draw from his magic card deck for a 100gp a go
18 Goat headed goblin selling milk from buckets on a yoke with a ladle
19 Goblin bard selling personalised insults but he just steals from famous insult jesters 
20 Goblin with luscious long beard offering hair growth potions
21 A sad elfmaid has come to sell her litter of goblin babies
22 Goblin selling pet spiders - only hand size now grow as big as you feed them so stop at dog size recommended
23 Goblin with magic shell game he cannot lose. If you lose three times he introduces you to an Imp who will sell you gambling prowess for your soul
24 Hobgoblin selling giant insect larvae popular with amphibian creatures and lizards
25 Bugbear and a collection of children's screams he keeps in bags with a goblin spell
26 Bugbear in over-the-top makeup offers the time of your life in a tent by a ditch on the side of the road
27 Norker cave goblins selling rocks and clubs and frustrated their goods not selling
28 Chaos goblin clown offers you to stab them for a gold piece per stab, laughs the whole time
29 Old witch selling detection potions that work well but save or go blind the following day, come in detect gold, detect enemies, detect water, detect invisible
30 Goblin selling griffon feathers but warns you only the bravest can wear this honour 40gp each
31 Ogre has a bag of halflings for sale and thinks he is very clever flipping them because they said they have diareah and flatulence and plague and worms so he is selling them for 15gp each. The bound and gagged halflings look pleadingly
32 A chaos crone selling cursed magic items at high prices
33 Grey skinned sad bald gnome selling nutritious long life canned mushroom based f
ood 1gp per can, openers cost 15
34 Fools gold for sale, lead coins temporary cold unless touch cold iron or dispelled, bargain price, the lead coins go from known human currency to having goblin monarchs and gods
35 Hobgoblin selling is dire wolf, it is one of the fully intelligent evil ones that can talk and it makes him feel bad
36 Werewolf selling old woman clothes and decore items
37 Dark elf selling sleeping drafts in the new less addictive formula
38 Orc recruiter looking for goblins to join the orc army as scouts and baggage handlers
39 Goblin Mystics of the Brazen Noon a brotherhood who look after goblin orphans and widows and perform bizarre rites in costumes in member only lodges. Selling second hand weapons, looted armour and used mining tools to raise money for goblin orphanage
40 Human carny offering goblins great jobs at the goblinarium where they perform for tourists under the care of a kindly goblin loving wizard
41 Goblin selling used bandages and dressings but will also buy them to lick and sniff
42 Goblin claims inside box is most wonderful smell in the world 15gp a smell, turns out its baby goblin nappies
43 Redcap gnomes selling blood covered clothes and goods from recently vanished merchants
44 Elf selling maps to a magical tree portal you can reach the cosmic world tree 
45 Two black cap gnomes selling a sad child bear folk abhuman in yellow and black check pants, a scarf and a jumper. The gnomes carry sticks to threaten the sad bear child
46 Sprites selling faerie sweet treat that cause temporary minor faerie mutations in humans
47 Goblin shaman selling goblins possessed by ancient spirits who know where a treasure is
48 Dark elf selling wolf form ointment that last for a night but save of get lycanthropy. It also is made by demons from children fat
49 Goblin selling prison escape maps for local prisons (especially ones for goblins like slave mines)
50 Goblin selling second-hand anti-masturbation gauntlets, two steel gloves fused together with lock and key 25gp Also stops many spellcasters from gesturing for spells
51 Goblin wizard amazes crowd with dancing poop golems and toilet humour
52 Ratfolk abhuman selling goods they found on plague victims in ghost town
53 Dark elf selling maps to a major underground metropolis under this region
54 Goblins selling flatbread covered in squshy bug juice and crunch bugs on top, cut into segments a new goblin cooking fad
55 Goblin selling mushroom sausages with buns and turnip mash
56 Goblin selling mutant fish, each one a surprise! magical side effects possible but no responsibility
57 Old goblin with spectacles selling ancient goblin lore scrolls
58 Goblin artist will sketch your portrait for a silver or a tiny painting for 5gp
59 Goblin alchemist selling reject potions of cowardliness and slow
60 Goblin selling his pet war boar so he can send his children to goblin wizard school
61 Goblin aprentices offer to swap cantrip spells usually forbidden by human wizard guilds and schools (but it happens)
62 Bugbear selling lovely scented soaps for lovely skin, also buys corpses and lard and urine to make more
63 Goblin with tiny mirrorshade spectacles and a coat offers the good stuff and winks, sells performance enhancing potions banned in several kingdoms with new formula and less side effects
64 Goblin with cart and a meat grinder frying up mixed meat patties with his secret sauce on a bun, delicious and causes flatulence with goblins and children find amusing
65 Goblin with a big bowl of custard and a spoon, claims it is magic custard. If you eat it you give birth to a d6 goblins in a month
66 Hobgoblin selling tiny cages with gremlins, available singly or breeder kits. Pets for kids or pranks for your enemies. Sells tiny accessories for their cage and scrolls about their care. The creatures are furious and vindictive killers who bring bad luck
67 Goblin offers magic eyedrops 25gp each dose, allows you to see in the dark and detect magic for 24 hours, every few hours he goes to his hole where he punches a basketball sized eyeball archon from the planes of Law to collect its tears. Some entity is judging the mortal plane poorly and can see through the floating eyball thing. Make d4+2 doses a day and the creature will after a month die and its spirit return home to report
68 Goblin experimental surgeon can give you extra fingers, webbed toes & fingers or pointy ears with simple surgical procedures with his bugbear nurse. A hobgoblin anethatist carries a bottle of rum and a club and a chains to help
69 Goblin selling comedic scrolls illustrating the human ruler as buffoon and idiot
70 Goblin matchmaker will find you your ideal partner who will be all that and an upstanding goblin citizen only 1gp for true love
71 Norker goblin selling stewed piercers & cave fisher meat with yak butter, mushrooms and spring onions. She don't speak no good
72 Goblin doctor offers to give you an examination and a certificate of fitness to join the goblin army, really its a army recruitment scheme aimed at tricking illiterate goblins who don't know their native script. The pressgang will kidnap them that night while in bed
73 Hobgoblin farmer selling small goblin ponies three foot high at the shoulder with night vision and hairless white skin and ratlike tails. They will graze on mould and fungus
74 Goblin tailor will make spectacularly memorable garish colours and fashion from strange fabrics at good prices. He wont make boring suits preferring loud and proud cluttercore
75 Goblin aprentice will draw your aura on a scroll and interprets from the colours how violent a life you are likely to lead or if you have any spiritual medical conditions
76 Goblin children have bound and gagged their parents and grandparents and selling them 1sp each
77 Goblin selling hand made pig-gut condoms in a tin 1sp each and ointment to make you safe from sexually transmitted diseases and cures warts and boils only 10gp for a jar with d4+2 uses, guaranteed by the goblin medical council
78 Goblin villagers selling a tied up shamans apprentice as they want a better one, this one knows a few cantrips and has a black eye
79 Goblin with assortment of toads and salamanders in jars 1sp a lick, if save you gain a d4 rounds of reality warping visions, if you fail violently ill for d6 hours and have fever visions. He sells a few poison darts also 
80 Goblin child with a blanket selling pretty rocks, marbles, bone dice and knucklebone sets
81 Goblins raising money for goblin orphanage offer you a luck dip from their magic planar cauldron for 1gp
82 Goblin selling erotic scroll calender of goblin fire fighters to help buy them buckets 1gp
83 Goblin selling a talking nannygoat. She wont talk now because she is a jerk but once she starts there is no stopping her
84 Goblin selling a blinkdog puppy 30gp, when he blows a whistle it blinks back to him and he flees
85 Goblin drooling with wild eyes offering you the best spores you can buy, he has some all over his face and noze and strange swirling pattern are visible in his enlarged bloodshot eyballs. If you save you feel amazing for a d4 hours, if you fail after you turn blind and lose your sense of smell and grow mould on your skin require remove disease magic
86 Goblin smoking large wrapped goblin-leaf cigars and selling them "rolled on the buttocks of barley legal goblins". Its like tobacco only smokier and makes you caugh more and doesn't burn so well. It does make really cool smoke rings 
87 Goblin offering lice removal only 1cp, also sells bug repellant herbs
88 Norker goblin selling shaved or cubed ice from a block tied to his head
89 Goblin has a chorus line of tiny gremlins in exotic costumes on a tiny stage and offers customers an adults only private show you will never forget for 1gp also offers shows for children's birthday parties
90 A goblin selling various types of monster dung in buckets, with various gardening benefits. Will taste test soil samples and dung to determine the best type and will discuss the taste and smell for hours
91 Goblin selling bags of farts from his assistant swallowing whole boiled eggs and baked beans without chewing 1sp, perfect for dinner party (1in6 are extra long and sloppy)
92 Satyr selling erotic statues of elmaids, dryads and nymphs
93 Centaur selling healing potions and manure in sacks, also tells fortunes
94 Goblin selling "big juicy carrots, throatgoat on my carrots for only 1cp!"
95 Goblin druid, offers to turn your family or pets into trees while you are away on business
96 Goblin wizard selling hats that change the wearers alignment, a great laugh at goblinmass family dinners
97 Stag man selling the remains of butchered human hunter and their property
98 Goblin magic wine dealer has one of four flavours a day for 25gp d4 1=courage resist fear one hour 25gp 2=heals d4 hp after an hour 25gp 3=speak goblin for a day 25gp 4=gain one permanent HP works only once per person 200gp
99 Goblin offers you the lover of your dreams in his tent where his doppelganger companion awaits, they eat only an occasional person they don't think will be missed and make good money
100 Goblin child selling a football sized egg for 15gp, he nicked it from a temple and has kept it warm and turns it daily like the cult did

Monday 20 June 2022

More Otherworldly Pod Classics



Almost through my pile of POD modules and have ordered some more and found a few originals locally. Also getting some star frontiers modules.

The best thing I have come across of late that I liked is here
Dragon warriors RPG free zines and solo adventures
I loved the 80s game and illustrations and maps and these remind me of them

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/17264/Red-Ruin-Publishing

The spooky vibe of this setting was a big influence and was my first seaside villagers worship a kraken in a cave adventure. More wicker man than dysney.

Today I'm looking at two BECMI D&D adventures featuring strange planar stuff.

💓💓💓💓 Best  
💓💓💓💥 Good  
💓💓💥💥 Average 
💓💥💥💥 Flawed 
💥💥💥💥 Forgettable


Skarda's Mirror X12 💓💓💓💥 Good  
This is a very cinematic and interesting adventure. A wizard inside a mirror pocket world plans to conquer the world and have thousands of slaves and 500 soldiers and is ready to expand. Heroes get tangled up by a mystery of who goes in the tower dies and fight a monster. The scenario does include capture but the section on escaping is so well done it's like a how-to script with options. The adventure has basic goals but lots of choices on the way and advice for things players might try which don't feel mean railroading. The mirror dimension is interesting and before you get your hopes up that players will use it to conquer the world it has some problems the DM can use to hinder or hasten players. Finally, the players with freed slaves gets to attack the wizard as he tries to take over a duke's castle. Great steaks, great ideas (like what about the other mirror gates? who built it? are they returning?) and great rewards as a kingdom is in your debt. Maps and Illustrations fine and no bad POD artefacts really. The text and ideas is stronger than the other elements and it was an especially interesting read. There are good escape procedures in here for beginning DMs and coaching them for rascally players' surprises from competent to foolish. You could possibly stage a whole campaign around players abusing this mirror and getting the curse that comes with it for conquest. This feels like it would be easy to drop in a game with minimal prep and reading so it came out higher than CM8 which has some similar ideas.

The Endless Stair CM8 💓💓💥💥 Average 
So this is by Ed Greenwood and an early publication for him. It has some of the great hallmarks including spellbook and spells and magic items in a smaller font. The monsters are described in a way for the module rather for common use and is a bit odd. Naming schemes are good also. It is dense and at times over detailed like explaining basic items as other modules do not. So while investigating a body players get wrapped up in a treasure hunt with a tavern, a hexcrawl of the local areas with above-average interesting locations. Following these locations gets you on the endless stair a magical circular staircase of force in a planar space with lots of traps and puzzles. There are things I like about this and it almost feels like a high-level trap and a parody of staircases in dungeon dramas. The pacing is flexible as to the progress and the stairs could be expanded with more weird obstacles and weird places (slip in beyond the crystal cave or castle amber or other weird magic locations like a magic faraway tree). The maps are adequate and a few illustrations of the locations. It almost deserves a three-star out of four but is sometimes overly wordy and feels a bit odd in format vs many other modules I have read like Ed was doing his own thing and the formatting/clarity suffers a bit for cramming in words. It is above average but I would give it some work. It does feel like it could be modified for lower levels without much problem. POD process seems pretty clean.

Using the mirror or a magic dimensional staircase for a campaign and new adventures sounds interesting and both ideas could be expanded. I always like magic painting gateways possibly I need a high-level spell for creating pocket dimensions or pinching off bits of dreamlands or nightmare kingdoms. Im glad both dealt with magic instead of boring monarch mysteries.

Sunday 19 June 2022

Tomb robbing near TPK





































Today's game we did 3 rooms and some shopping and spent thousands on healing at Ishtar temple. So did some de cursing from last adventure as one follower had 4 curses from tomb robbing. They were stealing the stone doors to sell as art also so it took four times as many people to get a curse from handling the cursed doors. So then it was time to head back to ancient elder tombs. Lowered down pit with a tomb robber thief gang and apprentices above ready to help and pull up ropes. Lamp light was a limiting factor but had two magic lamps at least on objects. This is all based on a vol 12 of my 3folds and I did not expect to take 3 sessions.  

Archery master barbarian warrior
- with a cleric, abhuman humanoid mastiff and a pet bird
A wizard with a bodyguard and a priest
- with a warrior guard and a ishtar priestess
A thief came along to help from their friendly nomad graverobber friends

Our snake changeling and his followers busy shagging local naga (player awol).

While walking through sand they awoke ghouls who sprung up among them and saw eyes of the ghoul queen on the edge of the lamp glow. She protected them from turning and was quite a menace and she called for more ghouls. Wizard targeted her and she was destroyed by spell blasts. The rest were easy to destroy with turning.  

Bird scouted the dungeon ahead and found a room with some undead in a room they had cleansed a week ago. So a priest follower tried to turn them and they were vapourised. 

Finally went to open a new tomb with nes burrowing spell and ignored cursed doors and burrowed into the next tomb. Tomb of mountain king and queen turned out to have a living bronze minotaur statue that absorbed arrow heads the barbarian used and a few people got punched. The monster healed itself with bronze weapons which kept it going. Im appreciating using BX monsters. Wizard summoned a wasp man that kept the monster occupied while party used missiles and spells to win. Found a bull headed bronze +1 mace and some more ancient copper and semiprescious stone crowns of early civilisation. 

Next crypt belonged to a fire cult and nothing detected for evil or undead. Did detect a magic gold brazier emitting a sweet inscence. So the wizard sent in a swarm of wasp people who smashe the crap out of it looking for a fire elemental which didn't exist. Destroyed a priceless magic item from paranoia. Crypt was full of urns with silver coins. Was a not so evil memorial shrine with only ashes of a ruling clan that tried to restore virtue to the lost kingdom.

Inside the next tomb of a witch queen they went to open the sarcophagi and as lid slipped open a wight grabbed the warriors hand. Everyone pummeled the wight into dust, Oh well. Next decided to dig from this tomb into the next and it was stated on the front it as a king and queen with symbols of underworld rulers Nergal and Erishkigal. A bit spooky but ok. Another crown silver and spikey.

The next tomb was dedicated to the king and queen depicted as lords of the underworld. So as burrowed inside and now more wary of having a spotter to watch the hole as it was dug through rock. So saw bunch of copper capped skeletons in kilts with spears. Priest used last turn as the hole was widened to fit a walkway and they crumbled to dust except one in the back that was a mummy. All who now saw it were mostly struck by fear and started a long running fight as most of the party fled in panic. The wizard did get a shot off first and the warrior who held on shot the mummy to find id didn't take as much damage from weapons. He got a smack in the face and mummy rot disease. Most of the party fled down the hall back to the well entry screaming and some started climbing up ropes held by servants above. At on stage the Abhuman dogman with his +2 poleaxe got grappled by the mummy and the priestess who last saw him as she fleds heard horrible screams and crunching sounds. The mummy lumbered towards them and enough people had their senses (d4 rounds fear each - not paralysing ad&d fear I know) to shoot and blast the mummy and a cleric finished it. Went back to the room and started to clean loot and found the torn up dog soldiers rotting corpse - cleric sent a message via a outside servant to the temple for help offering to pay a 5th lv healer to visit. Also found a fighter bodyguard of wizard who fled wrong way into a dead end in the dark. As they looked about the other sarcophago opened and out came the mummy's wife! She had a wand of paralasys also and immediately froze the closest adventurer. Another mess of fleeing victims to the exit began and most of the party ended up panicking and trying to climb out of the well screaming. Fighter ended up being paralysed by wand and the mummy lifted him, crushing him but a few temporarily unafraid people got close and hurt the mummy so it dropped the fighter almost dead (another round he would have been pieces). A follower started a fire on the mummy when advised by an adventurer. Amazingly a few brave followers got some hits and as the mummy swung at them in the bottom of the well followers above who had not fled threw burning torches at the mummy as instructed by screaming heroes and amazingly several hit and the mummy over three rounds went up in a ball of fire. 
Best mummy fight ever and near TPK

Was awesome bit of resource-combat and I'm pleased mummy so dangerous. I prefer flee fear to freeze flee which is would just result in lots of horrible deaths. Felt almost a bit call of cthulhu with most of party fleeing most of the battle. The priestess arrived to cure disease on the corpse of the dogman so it did not rot into slime. One bright side of battle was the same two people took the mummy damage. The corpses and sick were taken to the temple on streatchers. The party spent a week in the ishtar temple having disease cured, levels restored and getting the dog soldier raised from the dead. They also got good financial exchanges from Ishtar cult who officially declared the tomb a blasphemous site requiring cleansing lending legitimacy to their tomb robbing.
 
Returned for a final room after a week of rest and entered the tomb of the king and queen of heaven that came after the last two mummies. Dug inside a warm dry chamber and saw graves and two stone statues. Sent in a wasp man and the two statues and two more unseen next to the entry door blasted the wasp man with lava. The wizard blasted a cold ray and the warrior stepped inside to shoot a statue. It exploded and burned him. Others who had entered managed to get splashed and the four statues managed to do quite a bit of damage. 

Next game few more rooms then a trek to the City of Ikathon originally a city of fish-folk who invaded the coastal regions. There the party are to enter a ziggurat on new years day for a holy test. For a very good recent module KS last year. Chariot ownership a possibility.

Followers of zero to 4th Lv all deserve a level gain for surviving and helping.
Mummy fear is pretty nasty with my save system.

Tuesday 14 June 2022

More POD Stuff plus my rankings of the classics






















A couple more Companion and Masters reviews. Possibly I might purge a few after this. Some have big cinematic ideas and can be used. Others are railroads or have sections on domains and wargame scenarios which not everyone wants despite the story narrative possibilities. Some of the high level affairs (which are beyond what AD&D or 5th ed plays to are not huge risks, especially with wish and resurrection spells. The episodic formula means they can recover anything in between. I guess the wargaming and courtly roleplaying challenges became part of these stories more as part of the companion set emphasis on domains. The main thing I want in a module is better than what I could run improvising from a napkin of notes. Hints of big ideas, inspirational or inspiring content and even making me want to expand on it or rewrite it are all good. 

💓=love
💥=meh

for the record
💓💓💓💓 Best B4 N1 OA1 UK4 X2
💓
💓
💓💥 Good C1 CM3 GDQ1-7 I1-6 S4 T1-4 U1 UK2-3 UK5
💓💓💥💥 Average B2-3 B5 D1-3 Q1 S2 UK1 WG4-5 X1 X4-5
💓💥💥💥 Flawed B1 A1-4 B8 C2 G1-3 L1 N2 S1 S3 U2-3 X6-8
💥💥💥💥 Forgettable  

Feel free in the comments to question my ranking. 

The series had good bits but tournament stuff and killing players and railroad by the end but good cinematics. Probably A2 one of the best.

B series is what I set as my benchmark. B1 is a bit of mad wizard dungeon vibe while B1 has diplomatic challenges of factions and a classic sandbox. B is a memorable train wreck. B4 is awesome and great suggestions to expand and some good fan made content. 

X series is mostly good but I am a huge Clark Ashton Smith fan and lots of fun weirdos

C Lots of tournament mess but C1 blew my mind with extra art book

S3 has a spaceship and extra art and monsters but is poorly paced weak adventure,
if only robots and androids made MM2 instead of killer tree stumps with fake bunnies can be a  mimic in one situation. S4 offers a large campaign area, monsters, magic, demonology and a good cavernous mad wizard dungeon. S1 is mostly horrible but everyone should try it once. 

G1 climax in the first few rooms after rest seems like cleaning up. Players wanted to resolve rest of the campaign with wargaming rather than more giant dungeons last time I played. A druid sealed off their mountain passes with earthquakes. 

GDQ1-7 is improved for being a single huge adventure

N1 and U1 offer great village investigations and you could reskin them in call of cthulhu or modern era.

I series was a peak mid-80s episodic adventure with mini-episode locations.

OA1 was a fantastic expansion with sandbox hex generation - was very inspiring

UK series all well done with imagination, art and maps. All the TSR UK stuff had a great feel more like White Dwarf, Fighting Fantasy, Dragon Warriors and probably most inspired me lots.

Dragonlance I think has great art and maps but a nightmare railroad following a DMs novel feel too. The POD of DL1-4 would rate 
💥💥💥💥the individual modules are quite attractive and would rate better. Lots of those adapted from tournamets had lots of unwanted content


Deaths RideCM2 ðŸ’“💓💥💥

Evil cloud from the plane of entopy up to no good again (was plot in a several). Has a bunch of domain stuff and you are sent to check up on an isolated area that is late paying tax. So the evil cloud needs a magic thing to stop and it comes in pieces at several locations. Has roleplaying opportunities and time investigating at a castle then helping peasants with a dragon that has a bit of the thing. So here it is a bit like quite modern adventures with several under 10 room locations. The first is a dragons lair and it has some personality and can be dealt with and meet a nice giant. The dragon and possibly help from bad guys has some interesting defences. Then a tower with at least 5 floors and walls approaching plausible thickness made me happier than some I have looked at. It is a wizard tower so you get to kill a wizard. An area on map route has become an evil swamp with wandering iron-scaled bull gorgons which is atmospheric. Then possible mass combat with undead in as village and go to the temple to stop the evil cloud. The maps are above average for this era and survived the POD process mostly. There are a few bits of poor scans which seem amazing they were not fixed as scanning modules is easy to do well and these errors feel rushed. Some pages were not cleaned up well and some text got blurred a bit on a column. Most of it is fine though. The death leach monster is bizarre and I will mess with the lore on them as they are weird and interesting. I think with some good lore they would be more frightening. Has lots of NPCs also. There are plenty of ways to expand on this and make it more amazing and it's a good skeleton. I would totally have an evil lich riding a blue dragon-like on the cover happen more. It feels like it has lots of content, unlike some efforts I have read that feel lazy. It is odd that despite some poor scanning on this POD it has done well on all the maps. If you have run some of the earlier adventures battling the entropy plane effects this will seem a small local affair by comparison.

Five Coins For a Kingdom M4 ðŸ’“💓💥💥
So your in a town it vanishes. You get an exposition dump and coin then go to find magic coins to save this city and another on another plane. After recovering the awesome magic coins they lose their cool abilities which lots of high level story McGuffins do. Im fine with people having a memorable story relic at 28-32nd level so these always seem mean to me. Also I am a mean DM with treasure anyway I think this is mean. You then travel to the plane where 5 good wizards who made the coins are and try to save their Spelljammer like cosmos where you fly around space in giant goldfish to defeat the bad wizard and fly to the sun to save the cities. It is cinematic and epic and fairly dense. Very nice sensitive artwork more like Alan Lee than usual house artists. Maps are minimal and simple for the action scenes. You could probably spread this into a longer campaign and run it for under 20th level ok. While it is solid I don't really love it. It makes efforts to advise you to reign in players running off the script but it fairly linear. It does offer visits to amazing monuments, meeting mythical creatures and strange trale in other planes so lots of good ingredients.

Sunday 12 June 2022

POD Reviews & Recalcitrance




































I have been busy rearranging the house, emptying storage crates, building a to sell pile and rearanging 5 frog aquariums and other non writing stuff. I have made progress on some old projects and having a crack at them now. A new 3fold on my Patreon and a zine soon. 

Will be doing a large review here probably next post.

I have been re reading and looking at what happened to DnD adventure-wise after release of the Companion set. If that box was out earlier I would never have got into Ad&d possibly. One problem I do have with lots of them is how ingrained in the setting they are which is also a strength if you use the setting or can fit into your own world. Some are easier than others. Post BX dnd went very different places and while Ad&d talked about name level and domains they didn't do adventures featuring it while the companion era has lots of domain play, diplomacy with rulers of the world and even continental war you can play battle in. At least this version of DnD had adventures like this to show how domain play can be interesting. Also despite wilderness adventures being more built into expert than basic boxes they tried to slip into the low-level wilderness and of course had to explain basic concepts from the expert set.

So today we have a few adventures that explore these trends. While not exactly pendragon (I have a fat campaign hardback on way finally) these do give me thought for my next high-level game. As I am always playtesting post 10th level needs more trials.

💓=love
💥=meh

Test of Warlords CM1 
💓💓💓💥
So straight up an adventure where the party get offered new domains if they support a king. Lots of roleplaying, courtly caperings and wargaming are possible. Lots of factions, other nobles to deal with and a slower timescale than most adventures. There are some small mini-dungeons and dramas to play through. Lots of NPC, prophetic hags again and a seasonal invasion of 2000 frost giants. I'm giving it a bit more points for being one of the few published examples of domain play in-game. It would take work for me as I don't use the Companion mass combat rules. A whole dungeon is full of monsters made by the wizard Gargantua who wanders the world making Kaiju threats for reasons. It does tie into other modules well for high-level D&D also. I like with poor decision making local halflings can be crushed by giants. Making friends with demihumans is emphasized for gaining allies to which I have always enjoyed in game.

Puppets WG11 
💓💓💥💥
This does feel a bit like a two dungeon magazine adventure one a series of encounters you can drop in plenty of locations and the other a city investigation. Both are easy to relocate. It has the mid 80s slick design but less flair than some of the early denser adventure modules in the Greyhawk series.  I like the art in this but it feels a bit light for content. The first has dealings in a rural area of a sylvan being cursed to evil and the trouble it causes gathering non human followers. The second adventure is arriving in the city in midst of a crimewave. It has a few streetmaps possibly reusable and look like other TSR city maps of the time of various polygon outines arranged sometimes unconvincingly. Also a tower with only a few floors and thin walls. The whole thing can be played as a journey and arrival in a city for low level encounters and easy to slip in a game, each could be an evening game. Barley Greyhawk really. Levels required not on cover but detailed pregens which Greyhawk stuff does.

Journey to the Rock B8 
💓💥💥💥
So another Basic adventure with wilderness. Also instead of a railroad as the era was full of this gives you several choices and there is a good chance either of the other routes to the rock will not be seen (maybe a different route on way back). It feels poor to design an adventure players wont see most of it. Lots of magical handwavium of NPCs. It does a have a reasonable amount of content and you could use bits missed elsewhere. There are three trails each with random and set encounters after discussing how to hexcrawl not in the box set this was made for. I guess you could possible whichever route players choose you could add in other encounters missed. It has some new monsters that are interesting and a full page illustration of a chained slave princess which most players will be suspicious of. Once you reach the rock to fetch the McGuffin it goes a bit cosmic. There are notes on expanding the adventure too. Chameleon folk, winged folk, rock folk, ghostly horde and crone of chaos. The large map is of course mostly unusable as provided but it isn't very useful anyway.  Oddly my pod doesn't have B8 on cover. Horror on the hill is much better.

The Veiled Society B6 
💓💓💥💥
This adventure has village fold outs that TSR did a bit of and uses them in the adventure. They would print from PDF well and kids might like them. So the adventure is a bit short but is good. It is one of the better city adventures and starts as soon as you enter the gate. You can end up with different factions and regret your choices which is good. Its a mix of investigation, exploration and intrigue. The odds are even if you win you will gain enemies for life. If was longer or more of the book id rate it higher. You could throw the Puppets adventure above in with this fine. You could drop in any city but has a nice city map for the Mystara setting.
 
Hordes of Dragonspear FRQ2 
💥💥💥💥
A basically laid out 2nd ed adventure featuring a village in need of heroes from a horde of humanoids. Pretty basic genre fair stuff. You get some diplomatic and other actions and its for 10-18th level so the badguys have a pitfiend and some devils. Battlesystem was the order of the day. It has a town map and some diagrams and a maze under the castle but no castle. It didn't do much for me and felt pretty lightweight for a whole module. Honestly, I could improvise this from a napkin doodle. Its the sort of product in 90s that made me stop D&D for 20 years.

Sunday 5 June 2022

Game Log: A better class of Tomb to rob

So the party going on 6th Lv has quite a few fragile followers with them some recruited locally from the city of the Storm god on the barbarian frontier of the south. The barbarian hero wanted a chariot but had price scale and the large amount of experts required to maintain them. They did some shopping as they were not allowed into the noble magic item merchants and went to the common streets where you only needed to not look poor to get in. There was a street of alchemists, spell tablets and even cursed items. When they found something good someone would whisper they had a cheaper better one. Bought spiffy clothes and went into a nicer class of bath house than ever before. The wizard saw a state scribe taking money from a crime boss there and the barbarian disappeared for 3 days in baths. He was found in lock up and had been partying with a warband who had come back from fighting necromancer death templars in the wasteland.

Heardsome leads for adventure but the changeling character had a thief follower from a grave robbing clan and his local relatives needed help with a tomb complex uncovered from a early forgotten dynasty. So they went to the local village working with the grave robbers and stayed and only the changeling in his fancy new clothes got any local fans.

Finally with a group of thieves and labourers they marched to the pit and were lowered down into darkness of the 12m deep pit. The first smashed a door down and battled a skeletal chariot and skeleton troops and their cleric followers blasted the undead quite well. Got some loot. Each door was cursed but none of the symptoms were obvious. Barbarians dog-folk abhuman follower got about 5 curses. It took magic to work out what most were but the dogman broke all the work mauls and the wizards guard vomited at the slightest taste of alcohol.

There was a snake man mummy tomb with a wand, a bard tomb which had been robbed and sarcophogi filled with receipts for paid money owing left by previous robbers. No magic but cool story. One stage a wraith came and they managed to destroy it. A mummified minotaur with a huge bronze axe was a good find. A spirit scared a few members of the party so they called it quits and went to village for lunch.

Had a nights rest and returned. 

They had gotten skilled at removing carved stone doors to sell but it resulted in 4 people risking a curse instead of one. Oh well - they did have a pile of gold labelled property of the snake cult and as the Dragon changeling had slept with the local Naga was sure snake church would helpout with curses. 

The finaltomb they checked was already defiled and was dedicated to the sun god Shamash. There was a hole in the wall and the barbarian had a look in with his new magic lamp (continual light on a rod). Ghould dogpiled and paralysed him. The clerics tried to repulse them but a ghoul queen led them and made harder to turn. Most of the party was paralysed before the ghoul queen fled into a hole vowing revenge on the party.

So as it was a close call they went back to city to sell their loot and get curses removed. Only obvious one was the boils. Next time more tombcrawling.