Friday, 15 November 2024

No Man's Land Trek Prep Nov Pt 1



Rolling some stuff from Chagrinspire Vol1-3 & My Great Weird War book as session prep

I went through a bunch of tables and made these specifically for this session.
There are plenty of other encounter tables in all the books

Really these are more checklists of pre-generated stuff ready for exploring an area
id rebuild from scratch in a different hex

No-mans land is technically the area in between the two enemy lines of trenches
Mudlands includes most of the lowlands in between the allied near ring around chagrinspire and the starfort walls and hills around chagrinspire, Mudlands is obvious and immediately 

Its a 30 min walk on a muddy trail from the Players Outpost to the Allied Telecommunications Centre base. Then over hills x1/2 or x1/4 speed through mountain (possibly could use the underground fort as a shortcut as they have a pass the undead soldiers accept. Once walking down the lower frontline hills with grassy tufts and wooden stakes and barbed wire 1/4 move rate.

The trenches are mostly horrible often flooded and booby-trapped and inhabited by horrors and spirits of war dead. Poltergeist are common. The zone in between the trenches has an enhanced likelihood of weird phenomena, more powerful hauntings, and encounters are weirder and more aggressive. The movement here is x1/16th if your slow quiet and looking for traps and ambushes. Once you know a route you can be faster to 1/8th. Veteran scavenger guides know route and 
are available to hire but outlier wierdoes of the guild. A professional scout here for first time will likely find safe paths.  

d12 Scouts For Hire 
(roll d3 or d4 or d6 depending on how they deal with the guild)
All scavengers wear bandages or wrappings all over with belts, bandoliers, long coats, gas masks, hooded cloaks and lots of pockets, sacks and bags. Many wear cammo cloaks made for the terrain they visit most, some are reversible, its just paint and glue and garbage 
1 Malakana Manoptera - uses two scimitars and a composite bow with a magical hooded cloak that repels mud and blends into shadow. He whispers from under his face bandages and is uncannily thin with long gloved fingers. Seems aloof and always watching. Sniffs the air, corpses and other travellers (is it human or demon or mutant?). As four goblins and a bugbear follower wearing hoods and pointy shoes
2 Erobu Muckraker - she has a magical muck-rake polearm and seems to be a member of some mystical order. She loves to drink, eat, fight and rake for treasure in the alluvial runoff
3 Argus Rockape - an ape folk abhuman hunter with a spiked blub and a musket. He is a brute and likes to take side treks to hunt or loot treasure. Likes to lead adventurers to dungeons and acts like how its some amazing discovery so they are willing to be cannon fodder. Might have four male mandrils as pets  
4 Vala Grimbone - barbarian turned scavenger, she is also a werewolf. Charming, flirty, musclebound and wants a lycanthrope lover to join her or perhaps several. Has two follower wolves with her
5 Keelar Garrotten - shifty looter who helps cultists, bandits and slavers and maybe others. Has six scavenger scout assistants. They might decide the party is easier to rob. He smiles and looks excited. Uses lots of gibberish rhyming slang and banter, is fidgety, flips coins especially when leading victims into peril
6 Emil Crestfall - former elderly butler of an evil wizard. Has adapted and learned own occult secrets in the tunnels under the wasteland. Has a mutant old hag wife and three gangly youths they adopted. Slow and wise but avoid violence
7 Porky Crumbles - boar abuman is jolly, likes beer and accordion music. Quite confident and nimble-footed has two dimmer more accident-prone brothers he manages to replace
8 Mourin Greenbean - a tall woman barbarian turned scavenger still songs to kill some wizards but not all of them right away. Willing to take clients with her four tribal sisters. They might like to kill some monsters on the way for the common good
9 Lochbar Crantree - with his four sons Florin, Borrin, Korrin and Bob will guide people across the wastes at a low low price and will guide people to their worm god pit, then blow the trumpet to call the worm spawn
10 Nirras Pumpkinherder - makes extra money for her clan farm by guiding travellers. Quite cynical and knows many local spirits and how to appease them. Her clan grow crawling jack-o-lanterns with vegetal tendrils that make magic pumpkin spice beer
11 Kreebly Wisecheese - rat folk scavenger from generations of no mans land dwellers. If employers treat Kreebly and rat folk fairly they will be a loyal ally 
12 Pandakar Manlual - scavenger converted to the bright gods from farming settlers. Will help the good find what they seek in the waste

Weather
Roll this every d4+1 hours

d12 No-Mans-Land Atmospheric Hazards
1
 DIstant artillery, flares and smoke clouds, explosion sounds
2
 Fog clouds, a thick lilac pea soup smothers the land like some dreamy haunted landscape
3 Fog clouds, a thick green pea soup smothers the land and strange lights are seen within
4
 Great sinking miasma floods over lowlands of No-mans-land.came from a ruin
5 Vast clouds of black in the distance are swarms of flies
6 Acid Rain stings and ages equipment
7 Rain or snow if cold enough, mud everywhere
8 Luminous spirits fly about screaming
9 Sparks shoot around the sky, and some stars seem to be chasing each other 
10 Ghost Wind awakens spirits and poltergeists
11
 Red aurora around Chagrinspire enrages every living thing
12 Violet aurora all spells require a Will save to cast

Encounters
1 in 12 Chance of an encounter per hour
2 in 12 Chance if noisy of firearms discharged

Vol 1 and 2 encounters usable
Weird War 1 encounters usable

d20 Encounters
1 Slavers chased escaped slaves into barbed wire and minefields then shot the ones who were wounded or frightened to move
2 Scavengers who live in no man's land point out a slaver camp
3 Worm cultists communing with a carrion worm outraged by non-believers witnessing them (some, after their hoods are pulled off corpses are known scavengers guild members)
4 Scavenger mutant gang hungry for meat and hate plump outsiders
5 Wild dog pack d4+8, most have minor mutations like skinless and leader has wolf attributes plus a dangerous tails d4 1=lam[rey tail 2=scorpion tail 3=snake tail 4=tentacle
5 Zombie or skeleton soldiers arise to attack unfamiliar strangers
6 Ghouls hunting d4 - if at risk flee and each who escapes returns with a d4 each and tracks party
7 Barbarians of human or orc tribe hunting wizards or burning books d4 1=mounted on ponies with bows 2=adventurers or mercenaries for hire 3=led by shaman 4=all bersekers 
8 Kobold or ratling soldiers led by a champion hunting humans
9 Rust Monster digging up a cache of valuable metal goods
10 Giant beetles digging up corpses to eat or rolling giant balls of dung
11 Swarm of d4 1=rats 2=flies 3=leeches 4=worms 
12 Wight soldier with a d3 half-strength thralls
13 Poltergiests d4 of dead soldiers
14 Giant two-headed birds d4 1=eagle 2=vulture 3=pteradactyl 4=owl
15 Terror bird pack out hunting, these are experts at dealing with traps
16 Lycanthrope soldiers (wolf soldiers) with swords insist you accept the mark of the beast (a bite) and join their lycanthrope force to rob and eat people (deserters from a secret experimental weapon lab - they got idea from elves
17 Wraith arises from the dead here to reap souls, moan and point menacingly
18 Lesser trench spirit often invisible or some small animal form or humanoid,  d4 1=enraged easily by poking around 2=benevolent 3=sadistic trapper 4=prankster who rewards survivors 
19 Small fungal or vegetal humanoid folk and their strange non animal pets hunting for meat animals they want to keep in pens
20 Nega Toads - giant toads that can eat undead as immune to all their attacks, will eat living prey but prefer a zombie for some reason Their dung has alchemical and spell component values

Hexploration
Moving carefully in unfamiliar hazardous in one 750mtre/yard terrain hex per hour
You can double this but less quiet and spot hazards with lower chance
Once you know a route that can be doubled.
A professional scout speeds the whole party

Dunn, mauve, white and grey mud in this hex

d12 Hexploration
1-3 Encounter a hazard obstacle to face or turn back
4 Safe passage to one adjacent hex
5-7 
Good trail d3 paths to other hexes + extra encounter check
7-8 Haunted d6 1-5=Minor 6-Major
9-12 Weird Wonder

d12 Terrain Hazards
1 Trenches dug in here but occupants killed by d4 1=gas 2=killed by undead now haunted 3= 4=death guard flesh golems tore apart and ate them 3=
2 Pit Traps with common over area with extras d6 1=rat swarm 2=flooded with diseased water with bobbing corpses 3=spikes in the bottom 4=landmine in bottom 5=zombie in bottom 6=poison spore releasing mold 
3 Toxic Fungus fields release spores d4 damage if saved, 2d4 damage if fail and if die before washing off spores will arise as a fungus spore zombie 
4 Unexploded Bomb, craters and an intact ticking shell or bomb
5 Giant nega-toads lurk around a crater filled millitary graveyard, immune to the touch of undead and eat them which could be handy but also eat people
Minefild around an intact looking bunker with trenches d4 1=undead necromancers black lab 2=mutant cannibal clan 3=demon cultist living as the ancients 4=gnome sappers and experimental weapons unit with automated guns
7 Pits of mud full of wooden steaks and rotting corpses 1in6 chance a d4 zombies arise
8 Garbage pits full of rat swarms and war garbage
9 Trench of broken self-repaired automaton deserters sick of fighting for humans. Might accept humans passage in return for parts, oil or weapons
10 Dugout ant trenches home to a family of ghouls
11 Barbarian burial ground d4 1=cursed 2=spirits 3=undead 4=angry barbarians having a funeral
12 Mechanical crab mines that will chase people and hide under mud

d20 Weird Wonder Locations
1 Mechanical pillbugs salvage scrap and corpses they carry into train tunnels and load onto trains that go to Chagrinspire.
2 Rows of telegraph poles with crucified wizards and black sphere clone troops
3 A Sinkhole into some ancient fungus-overgrown apartment complex dripping with water and tiny streams. The sinkhole cuts through multiple floors of an ancient experimental underground housing complex. Plague mutants worshiping a demon slime god they believe is imprisones in the hills around Chagrinspire
4 Shack built from crap d4 1=mutant scavenger gang live here 2= 
5 Gargantuan flatulent toad eats any who bothers them or hops on them, smells of sulphur and methane and creates a local flammable miasma. Alchemists see value in this 4-ton toad
6 Camp with a crew of a black sphere golem tank fixing their moaning vehichle and cooking some rations. Gnome sappers and mechanics with the manufactured squad 
7 Small scrap shack with a team of vulture men led by a magician. They are eating bog corpses and cleaning up and testing some muskets 
8 Dugout occupied by a pack of hideous mutant dogs with piles of broken bones and a d6 puppies
9 Ruined foundry occupied by seven-foot-tall muscle-bound iron folk. The leaders are polished and lower ranks who scavenge outside are rusty all over. They are refining and melting metal into ingots and have a few items that don't melt properly probably magic
10 Wanted bandit begs to join any expedition. Pretends to be poor honest worker. Chased by something horrible tin a tomb that killed their gang 
11. A crashed airship with an exposed metal frame, a gondola hangs precariously over a crater and has been fortified. Inside is a suave deco bar and a flamboyant mutant community in theatrical costumes of the ancients
12 
Collapsed train tunnels and subway station left a trench of garbage and a buried train
13 Goblin-infested underground barracks
14 Army ant nest with tin helmets and muskets with bayonets (ant abhumans)
15 Orcs dragged wrecked vehicles here and buried them with tunnels as a home, riding dire boars
16 Wrecked golem tank quite friendly if not enemies, can't move or shoot
17 Cave with campsites and wooden fortified gate. Inside underland gnomes trade mushroom beer and fungi bread for scrap metal. Know nothing about affairs of the surface world 
18 Mine entrance full of kobolds mining bricks and scrap, connected by tunnels to distant clans
19 Trench goblins having a fair in a crater will trade with any who obey their rules. There is a turnip eating contest and the winner gets an old crate of potions. New specials and contests every visit
20 Broken crystal machines fell from sky, broken glowing crystal chunks scattered and have a sickly unnatural glow. It fell from the sky and was inhabited by moon goblins who stole this from some celestial star fairies. There is a dangerous moon creature in the hold trying to break out the ailing force screen. Lots of weird stuff inside

Pregenerated Small Hexes
Derived from tables with a few changes just to be ready for every 375m hex
Ready to place as needed for non numbered locations

Feature
Haunting


Feature: Crate of explosives, fragile and unstable but usable
Haunting: Ape like beast with spiked helmet carrying woman, a spirit has assumed form from ancient propaganda to lure victims into its trench dug out
2
Feature: Automaton sniper covering area
Haunting: Wounded soldier with bandaged bleeding eyes begs for help fades if touched
3
Feature: Stray Kitten
Haunting: Screaming spirit soldiers chasing and killing clergy will turn on witnesses
4
Feature: Shuttered wagon
Haunting: The sun seems to set with red light and see thousands of skulls and poppies
5
Feature: Stray boot with a foot inside
Haunting: poltergeists of angy dead soldiers punch and hurl objects at strangers
6
Feature: Hole collapsed into a basement with wine guarded by a ghoul
Haunting: Spirit signals and shows a hidden shack, inside is a grenade booby trap
7
Feature: Creek reoded a trench has revealed an ancient brick tunnel of a previous age full of kobolds
Haunting: Wounded muddy soldier hands a letter to mother then dies and fades away
8
Feature: Wrecked ambulance
Haunting: Vision of soldiers bayoneting a wounded angel, if you dig fid some glowing molten gold glowing angel blood
9
Feature: Notebook of poems and trench maps showing dugouts
Haunting: Phantom soldiers chasing at phantom peasants
10
Feature: Fied pack half buried in mud 
Haunting: boy soldiers in baggy uniforms crying, will look at adults accusingly then vanish 
11
Feature: Sandbag position
Haunting: Phantom officer investigating war atrocities questions strangers
12
Feature: Creek worn through layers of mud over the ages
Haunting: Phantom soldiers being machine gunned down but a line of angels appear to shield them as they march and kill the machine gunners, all fade leaving skeletons and bunker foundations
13
Feature: Ruined farmhouse, inside a devil swine is served human dead from the mud by zombies 
Haunting: Ghostly flames on a burned house with fiery spirits dancing in them before all fade
14
Feature: Dead soldier with a wallet of maps and a revolver
Haunting: Poltergeist groper gooses people and laughs and throws mud
15
Feature: Abandoned canteen with 2d4 HP healing potion
Haunting: Sounds of digging underground, buried sapper skeletons crushed in a cave in
16
Feature: Blasted crater with crawling undead body parts
Haunting: Hear a creaking sound stalking you
17
Feature: Collapsed cave deliberately sealed, inside is shaft to stoneage temple with undead from thousands of years trapped here with undead Pleistocene animals like sabre tooths and terror birds. Cave art depicts the horned lord of beasts in the underworld 
Haunting: Nurse smoking with heavy makeup, winks at you to join her in a foxhole, turns out she is a succubus
18
Feature: Broken trench ladder
Haunting: Smell of sulphur and smoke temporary and just a phantom scent
19
Feature: Ruined church with catacombs of undead below where local undead sleep
Haunting: Ghostly ambulance runs over the party (save or fear d4 rounds and slimed) 
20 
Feature: Freshly dead men in uniforms (clones) allied or black sphere
Haunting: A great monstrous 2-headed vulture picks corpses nailed to telegraph poles, they become skeletons and the monster bird is puzzled and sees intruders

Next Post on this will have specific locations and some extra tables for between trenches zone









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