R is for Reflection. Thoughtful consideration, a look back on what went right and what didn’t.
Plus a little digression into Retirement. Yup, we’re looking under the hood at what I do for PC progression and development.
I don’t award XP for gold. I don’t award XP for monsters defeated. I know these are standards, and I respect that, but I also know that PC progression is a major player goal, and that the means to achieve that becomes a major driver of player actions.
So I reward them for taking risks. And for succeeding, most of the time. Playing it safe is for real life.
I credit The Black Hack for this, from which I have shamelessly swiped the idea. The idea, in brief, is that significant Experiences add up to changing a person, and that’s the foundation on which they grow into, I dunno, a more effective murderhobo. TBH also requires PCs to return (alive!) to civilization, where they “share” their Experiences by carousing and sometimes inviting more trouble through excessive drinking. Been there, done that. Got the stories out of it.
So that’s what we do at my table, mostly. It’s pretty hand-wavy, yeah, but hear me out.
Assuming you’re advancing PCs based on performance, however it’s defined, there are a handful of interlocked and murky variables to mangle a referee’s attempts at planning. Be it treasure recovered or monsters defeated, there’s a hiccup with how much is in the dungeon to acquire/murder. A lot of blog pixels spilled over the ideal amount. Over the total in there. Over how much extra should be squirreled away for clever players to find, but most likely will be missed. Over the pros and cons of small, high-value bits like gems and jewelry versus Scrooge McDuck-worthy piles of coins versus stupidly awkward and delicate super-valuables that require special effort and planning to recover. Like that grand piano made of lead crystal and mercury cold enough to stay solid.
Because all tangled into that mess is the table’s expectations of progression per session. If you, as referee, create your own dungeons, it’s on you to plan/guess this right. If you’re running modules, it’s on you to check if they’re right and make corrections as needed. Those numbers may give the impression of care and calculation, but you might as well consider them arbitrary until you develop a good intuition for it. Even then, it’s too easy to make mistakes.
Sounds like hand-waving obfuscated by a lot of digits, honestly. And knowing the variety of players and referees and combinations of expectations, I’m skeptical that there’s anything resembling a one-size-fits-all solution to this.
So, yes, there’s a degree of arbitrariness inherent in what I award. I only hope I’m more consistent than Clive Anderson was on the old Whose Line Visit Anyway?
I award a PC an Experience (or several, or a wee half) when they do something risky and of substance. More significant, bigger reward. Recovering dungeon treasure? Yup. Mapping out a substantial dungeon area? Sometimes, assuming it’s a nontrivial effort. Fighting monsters? If they’re a genuine threat, or if they took clever actions to deal with the threat while avoiding harm to life and limb.
Making an unbelievably boneheaded error and still, inexplicably, surviving? Oh hell yes. Hands down the best method.
Accumulate enough, return to the relative safety of town, and they can cash ’em in to level up. It doesn’t take much, a number equivalent to the next level. Easy to remember, and emphasizes a few impactful actions over a drip-drip-drip of unremarkable mundanity.
Here’s where we get to the “story” part of this arrangement. This is story as it should be, the organic and unplanned and honest to human experience. The characters reflect on their Experiences to grow, advance, change, whatever. Get better at what they do, which translates mechanically to gaining a level.
This requires a suitably safe location, a few days of downtime, and writing. I maintain the session reports, like meeting minutes. The players tell the story of what happened. From their perspective. Then they read it – or give a synopsis – at the table. I call it homework, which entertains me as most of my players are university professors who are accustomed to giving homework, not being assigned it. (I am a university basement behind-the-scenes person, responsible for quiet organization when no one’s looking, which is remarkably good practice for TTRPG referee shenanigans.)
I’m not particular about how much or what gets covered. A few sentences for an Experience is enough, a consideration of the event with the benefit of hindsight. If they want to write up a ten page essay, also fine. (Has happened. Was hilarious.) We collect them all in a shared document, which becomes the history of the campaign.
Sometimes their stories are misleading. Sometimes flat-out wrong. Doesn’t matter. These are the tales of adventure they tell in the dive bars, buying rounds for the barflies and future fools. They’re the stories and jokes we talk about later, the ones that stick with us, more meaningful to the actual humans around the table than any other aspect of the game.
I try to run a game where PCs of different levels can work well together. When a PC dies, their replacement starts at level 1, no matter the rest of the party’s composition. If they can’t contribute in a meaningful way, it’s not going to be enjoyable for anyone.
This also puts a few guard rails on things. A low-level PC not only advances more easily, needing fewer Experiences per level, and also picks them up for lesser actions. What’s risky at level 1 might not count for anything at level 5. We’ve already been through the shift where a monster which was terrifying and Experience-worthy early on has become a more-or-less nuisance several dungeons later.
Whitehack also works with a limited level range, only up to 10, and while a 10th-level vice president can do some pretty impressive things, it’s all still relatively grounded. One of the house rules in this campaign is mandatory retirement, to cycle powerful PCs out, with at least a notional possibility of bringing them back for Just One Last Heist. I feel like this needs to be prohibitively expensive for the active PCs; seems like what Gygax would have done.
Upon reaching 10th level, the player and referee decide on a final, substantial quest or goal that the PC will attempt in the near future. Regardless of success, once it’s done, they retire from the campaign and the player rolls up a new character. The cycle renews, the campaign continues, we keep playing the game. Guess I’m just not a domain play kind of guy?
Next: S is not for Stab Stab Stab. Combat can be a lot of fun, exciting and uncertain and a convenient means to introducing new PCs. But if it’s all the time, and things get rules-crunchy, be sure that’s the kind of session you like having.
Here we are: final entry of the undead! Back to the classics after a weird detour into the land of campaign-specific monsters. It’s high time we explore the vampire. This sort of vampire, anyway. Okay, it’s a detour. And, apologies, a very long one.
Because the idea of the vampire adapts to the society its tales inhabit. Undead embody our fears, our taboos. They are that which is wrong, inherently.
What provides contrast between the vampire and the rest of the undead is their desire to be almost as living, an immortal without the rotting form of the lich, without the inflexible pride of the wight, without the incorporeal form of lost spirits and wraiths which would deny the pleasures of the real world worth suffering this curse for. For it is a curse, its burden terrible.
What follows explores one possibility of the vampire, one which emphasizes the cruelty and fearsome strength such a monster could embody. They are rare, not the sort to make more of their kind, and a dangerous threat far beyond that of a shapeshifter with fangs.
The Living Shall Suffer
There are several common threads running through our list of the undead, including the necessity of forcing others to suffer that the undead may continue. Typically this functions as a sacrifice, feeding innocent souls to the Land of the Dead that our wraith or lich might defer the same fate. Death of victims to forestall one’s own, a pyramid scheme precariously balanced for as long as can possibly be.
In contrast, the vampire thrives not on death, but on the remaining life of their victims and the suffering dealt to them. Vampires continue their existence at the expense of the innocent, with many options for being an utterly reprehensible monster. No need to pigeonhole yourself into the “romantic blood-drinker” role if that’s not your particular kink. But you can, of course, and we’ll start there.
The varieties are only limited by your imagination, but here we flesh out six vampire options. Through each section, as we explore the aspects of the monster archetype, we’ll include more detail on each one.
The Aesthete
The vampire of the Romantics, steeped in wealth and power, almost always of the aristocracy. Accustomed to the trappings of their station, believing them well-deserved, and that laws are a hindrance intended only for lesser folk. Of great appetite for the exquisite and rare, known for taking and discarding many lovers. Wary and knowledgeable and forever with cards held tight to the vest.
To maintain their persistent appearance of youth, the Aesthete uses their station to visit a multitude of cruelties upon those around them. Peers suffer political humiliations, outmaneuvered by one with long experience and cutthroat desire. Lesser nobles and common folk become pawns, objects, suitable for indignities and atrocities that would make the Marquis de Sade blush. Forcing others to debase themselves in the vampire’s presence is the true goal, with as much public shaming as the Aesthete’s position can endure. Young and beautiful people, used and turned out into the streets with nothing but smeared makeup and burning embarrassment. A rival’s missteps announced before the luxurious feast table, surrounded by high society. Whispers of a noble who delights in drinking the still-warm blood of their lovers.
The more terrible deeds happen within the walls of the estate, far from prying eyes. In the cellar where sounds do not carry outside. The victims are those who will not be missed, or those left so scarred and broken that none would believe their tales.
The Beast
A savage vampire, in temperament but not always appearance. Their methods are violence in all its forms, be they an unrelenting warlord or a serial killer snaring victims from fogbound alleys in the middle of the night. Brutality suffuses all they do, and they will position themselves in society where bloodshed is ignored or, better yet, rewarded.
That the Beast might never waver in vigor and strength, they seek out places where they can exercise their brutality. In battle, they ride at the front of the army, seeking to main and injured and, with great focus and practice, to leave each opponent crippled and suffering yet shy of death. They leave a trail of broken bones and blinded soldiers, reveling in the cries of agony. Gladiators and underground fighters who find themselves fighting a vampire end their matches with injuries targeted to cause the most pain and slowest recovery. Victims of a serial killer languish for what seems an eternity, only for their remains to be so broken that the vampire drinks in the terror of the poor soul who first stumbles across them.
Those with a following are endlessly cruel to their servants, whipping up fear and hate, pulling them into atrocities and permitting no means out. The ones who crack beneath the strain become examples before the others, a rich taste of suffering for the Beast and a threat to keep the rest in line. Favorites whip the underlings and goad them into savage and bestial acts.
The Gaoler
A vampire of order and structure and the utmost caution. Humans are callous and cruel to each other, and the dispassionate observer identifies the cracks to exploit. When pain and despair arrive on orders of the state, who better to stand at that intersection than the vampire? Tasks which erode the humanity and compassion of ordinary folk are sustenance and delight to a true monster.
For the Gaoler to thrive, they wear the mask of a monster, terrifying to their charges yet a paragon of the system’s efficiency to those in power. They oversee the organizations which reduce humans to less than beasts, the prisons, the torture chambers, the concentration camps. Pain and misery for the poor souls under their watch, much of which they deliver personally. Guards and prison workers find themselves drawn in, complicit, as the foul rot of torture clings and follows them out into the wider world. And still, the most abhorrent acts take place in the darkest recesses, unseen by the living, with only screams and echoes filtering into the prison cells.
Given the opportunity, the Gaoler will swell the population of their prison, coaxing princes and judges and constables to punish lesser and lesser infractions. Speaking of the power of rehabilitation, of their special touch to reduce recidivism. Eventually turning the prison into its own, inescapable city.
The Warlock
One who makes a Faustian bargain with demons, gaining the vampire’s power and immortality in exchange for sowing Chaos throughout the living world. The motives and goals of demons are forever opaque to the human mind, wheels within wheels within wheels. The collateral harm drives and sustains the vampire as they further plans to bring about an unknowable future.
The Warlock has decided to obtain an endless life at any cost, to spread madness and suffering. Every demon is unique, its desires and methods all its own, though only those standing to gain from a servant vampire will grant the supplicant their wish. Driven, crafty, and resourceful, the vampire builds a cult, an organization to serve as the demon’s hands in the world while fostering a zealous devotion. Secrecy, abuse, and shame press the faithful onward, drawing in the lost and disaffected with dark promises. Revenge and power, freedom and license to engage in forbidden acts. A society who dare not speak of what they know outside the circle.
At critical mass, the cult of the Warlock becomes a political force all its own, even while concealed in the shadows. The demon’s whispers guide them, strange prophecies revealed through the vampire’s sadistic rituals. Change can come at any time, for Chaos is forever inscrutable.
The Sorcerer
Not all channelers of the miraculous seek immortality through lichdom, for that path demands time and skill and mastery, an eternity ahead of greater study of the un-structure of Chaos. One who aspires to the longevity of the vampire, that eternity of false youth, but still nurtures the magical spark, may carry that into undeath.
With many paths before them, imagine that the Sorcerer builds both mystery and renown, developing a school to attract young pupils in search of arcane understanding. Those with and without promise, but with the funds to sustain an academy, spend long hours in study, with punishments meted out for the most minor of transgressions. Hazing becomes a wretched badge of honor, where boundaries of exclusion and shame permit cascades of cruelties. The vampire headmaster encourages a social hierarchy, rewarding the ambitious who deny their weakness with vicious acts upon the helpless in nearby villages. As the cruelest make their intentions known, they are recruited, ensnared, brought into the fold to perpetuate the system.
Magic is the impossible bent to within reach, and those desiring power are drawn like moths to a flame. Relentlessly driven toward advantage, the competition turns savage, and the Sorcerer encourages all of it. The playing field has no bounds, and the only rules are that the winners never get caught. That they are forever tormented within the system rarely rises to the level of awareness.
The Wanderer
For even the disaffected murderhobo has the potential to become something worse. Age and senescence take even the longest-lived, unless one is bold enough to take decisive action. When the ends justify the means, and it’s survival of the fittest, a suitable sociopath can wander the worlds forever.
Roaming without end, the Wanderer drifts across the realms, an antihero ronin of sorts. Services offered in frontier towns where violence gives resolution, where the slow deaths of bandits go unnoticed and unmourned. Adventurers brought on expeditions, for their cut of the treasure, only to be tortured and maimed if they balk at the remorseless methods used to cleanse the dungeon of goblins. Small villages and farmsteads occasionally emptied in their wake, as much for the sustenance as to prevent word from spreading.
As they continue onward, they cycle through companions and fashions and names. Those who know too much, or who suspect the menace beneath the mask, become the new victims. Unmoored from any one place, the Wanderer has less need to leave victims alive, instead gaining a long and thorough education in all the ways one can disappear a body.
Each of these has a method, an organized means of acquiring victims and concealing their deeds, but all are opportunists. Vampires also depend greatly on their networks and followers, and will do many things to keep them near. Many will become complicit in terrible crimes, for blackmail is both a means of control and of feeding. Only the lich can rival a vampire in the complexity of plans and schemes and logistics supporting their existence.
Becoming a Vampire
None make the transition without desire and deep effort; one cannot become a vampire through accident or misfortune. There are dark rituals, the summoning of demons, rare and dangerous materials. An essential step of the process is the death of the aspiring vampire, a change which brings it all to an imminent halt if an error occurs.
In most cases, one prepared to undergo the transition to undeath must first locate one of the few existing and forbidden manuscripts detailing the ritual. Vampire hunters devote great efforts to locating them, to destroying them, and to creating false duplicates laced with curses and traps. The true rituals are innumerable, and those who cannot discover the means in the dusty grimoires of an abandoned library may still beseech powerful demons for aid. Thence, the common features.
The ritual is long, beginning beneath the noon Sun and droning until after nightfall. There is blood, of the aspirant and of animals sacrificed. Soil and stone turned over at the place for death. The act itself, though the means and perpetrator are ever inconstant. Death follows, and the vampire is but a corpse for a year and a day. Thorough, careful preparation is critical to success; almost all vampires will have developed allies and a means of protection for the coming year of incapacity.
Upon rising, the vampire is bound to that place, to that soil. They will be forever shaped by the ritual and their place of power, defining the contours of their strengths and weaknesses.
Strength and Abilities
In this version of the vampire, there are common traits and others unique to the individual. Every folk tale and rumor of these monsters rests on a kernel of truth, that once upon a time, at least one vampire was this way. But folk tales change with place and time, and no vampire can embody every strange feature.
First, the common traits of the vampire:
Undead. No need for food or drink; no need to breathe air; no need for sleep; no susceptibility to poisons or diseases. Body is at ambient temperature, feeling cold to the touch of a living human and unlikely to register visually in those who can see in infrared.
Ageless. Appear as young as they were at death, with no physical weakening or decay.
Feed upon suffering. Essential to continued existence, vigor, and strength.
Resistance to harm. Enchanted weapons, silver, and fire necessary to harm them.
Regeneration. Rapid healing and physical restoration, but only in their place of power.
Now, continuing our examples from above, some potential abilities:
Heightened senses, with vision to 60′ even in total darkness.
Hypnotic gaze, victim looking into their eyes must save or be charmed for 24 hours. (2 HP)
Superhuman strength, treat as an ability score of 20, with +2 damage on all melee attacks.
Bestial aspect, of an appropriately savage animal; may assault any within 30′ with a supernatural fear, save or drop objects and flee. (1 HP)
Shapeshifter, can assume the form of a human they know, or of a single beast, such as a wolf. (2 HP)
Telepathy, can communicate with the mind of an intelligent creature they can sense within 120′; can send and receive thoughts.
Flight, magical and without need of wings; can hover in place. If struck in flight, must save or fall.
Add more as makes sense in individual circumstances. Transforming into mist, or summoning hordes of bats, or magical teleportation through mirrors. Powerful foe, powerful abilities. I’m going to suggest two for each type:
The Aesthete. Heightened senses, hypnotic gaze. Heightened situational awareness and a mystical ability to persuade others to do as they ask.
The Beast. Superhuman strength, bestial aspect. Brawler intent on causing injury and terrifying foes into inaction.
The Gaoler. Superhuman strength, shapeshifter. Skilled at tortures both physical and emotional.
The Warlock. Telepathy, hypnotic gaze. Duplicitous and manipulative.
The Sorcerer. Heightened senses, flight. Reliant on their miraculous abilities, with senses and mobility that would otherwise be the domain of wizards
The Wanderer. Shapeshifter, flight. Always on the move, if not on the run, with a need to evade pursuers.
Note that the Sorcerer will also have miracles from their previous life; other vampires may carry over such skills, as well. When developing unique and powerful monsters, maybe it’s for the best that they don’t ever quite fit a clear template.
Of course, every folk tale tells of ways to ward against vampires, too. A few are universal, but others are entwined with their strengths.
Flaws and Weaknesses
All vampires have weaknesses, constraints which hinder them in specific ways. The common ones are consistent with their undead nature:
Silver weapons deal harm. As does magic, but that’s because it’s magic.
Salt slows but does not bar passage.
Fire burns because they are still flesh and bone.
Every vampire has particular weaknesses that tie into their nature, with a few suggestions here. Remember, of course, that a vampire is well aware of the chinks in their armor, and will work tirelessly to avoid ending up in a disadvantageous situation.
Sunlight weakness. The direct glare of the Sun, even as reflected in a mirror or focused through a lens, penalizes all task rolls and saves by -4. No effect if blinded.
Susceptible to strong odors. With exquisite senses, the vampire is quickly unmoored by scents such as crushed garlic, penalizing all task rolls and saves by -2 for 1 hour following exposure.
Lunar binding. When the Moon is new, the vampire is weakened, with only 1 HP per Hit Die. Likewise, beneath the light of the full Moon, they gain an additional 1 HP per Hit Die.
Ritual obsession. The vampire is unable to perform an otherwise ordinary task without gaining the permission of a living person or going through an elaborate ritual. Manifestation may be an inability to enter a private residence without the permission of one who lives there, or a compulsion to follow complicated rituals for specific tasks.
Fixation. Certain people or things are almost impossible for the vampire to ignore, drawing their focus even when more pressing matters demand attention. In such a case, a save is necessary to ignore the fixation.
Animal fear. Most animals can sense the undead nature and react with fearful aggression. Dogs bark incessantly; crows gather and caw; livestock become restless.
Bloodlust. In the presence of violence, the vampire feels an overwhelming desire to join. Save or race into melee, targeting the weakest, always taking an aggressive stance.
Include anything that makes sense in your situation. Perhaps the vampire can’t cross running water, and remains imprisoned on a remote river island? Here, our six examples with suggested limitations:
The Aesthete. Ritual obsession, bloodlust. Observes the formal etiquette of high society with compulsive rigor, an outdated chivalry bordering on the preposterous. Rarely in violent situations, but explodes into wild ferocity when blood is spilled.
The Beast. Lunar binding, susceptible to strong odors. A more savage and deadly werewolf, whose hunts wax and wane with the Moon. Old superstitions bid the villagers to place wards of garlic and pungent herbs on doors and windows.
The Gaoler. Sunlight weakness, fixation. Rarely leaves the fortified dungeon, except at night and only when they can return before dawn. Obsessed with an appearance of strength and control; taunts and disorder will draw focus and aggression.
The Warlock. Lunar binding, animal fear. Bound to the Red Eye, the inauspicious Moon of Chaos, with power that fades into weakness when it vanishes near the Sun. Rarely approaches civilization, for the local folk distrust any who spook their animals, and so must work through a network of proxies to build their cult.
The Sorcerer. Ritual obsession, susceptible to strong odors. Thrives on rigid order, such that disorder in behavior, dress, or the state of a room may cause an outburst of emotion and an immediate urge to correct things. Overly sensitive to numerous alchemical reagents and distillations, with the pulsing headache prone to incite a fiery rage.
The Wanderer. Fixation, animal fear. Easily distracted by the glint of gold and gems, to the point of trailing off mid-thought at the sight. Travels on foot, as no horse will bear them, and snarls back at the street dogs which bare their teeth.
The flaws of a vampire are a looser set of traits, the fractured pieces of a personality drawn to an undead immortality and warped over centuries of disguises and lies. Memories fade and bleed into others. Their humanity weakens; they perceive humans as simple beasts; they forget what the living think and are capable of. Plans grow in complexity, to cover ever-extending stretches of time, losing the flexibility to accommodate the organic disruptions that were formerly expected. In time they become more ruthless, more willing to accept collateral damage, in order to maintain their power and station.
None of this could happen without the aid of others.
Accessories and Enablers
Like the lich, a truly fearsome vampire commands a network of others to expand their reach, to insulate them from threats, to make defeating them an unrelenting struggle. The foundations of this system begin well before their transition into undeath, enlisting servants and allies to protect the would-be vampire’s corpse for year and a day between their death and rising. With rare exceptions, these are ordinary humans, their loyalty kept by a masterful emotional manipulator. They may desire money or power. They may owe a life debt, have served a noble lineage for generations, or simply see the protection of a powerful individual as their best hope in a hostile world. It can be difficult to take the full measure of one’s actions when one’s perspective is limited.
For a vampire, of course, it’s useful for servants to have a limited understanding of their true nature. Money goes a long way. So do lies.
The Aesthete maintains many layers of staff, regularly shedding those who give even a whiff of suspicion. Wages are good, so churn causes little disruption, and only the innermost circle is constant and loyal. Long-standing family ties and a constant trickle of wealth keep them close, as does the understanding that a betrayal portends an extensive, agonizing death. Many have come to enjoy the cruel decadence, and harbor dreams of immortality alongside their liege.
The Beast nurses a culture of savage competition among their followers, a mercenary company whose effectiveness keeps them in great demand among the houses of nobility. Commanding obscene wages, they have little trouble gathering new recruits, and none have ever left the company alive. The elite and battle-scarred may dream of a retirement one day, may even be seen one day stepping down, though a lifetime of violence and the vampire’s need for a certain secrecy means none live to tell tales.
The Gaoler has many servants, faceless workers in service of the state’s need to keep their undesirables under lock and key. Truly terrible acts, perpetrated on their prisoners in the name of justice, come down as enforcement of the law. The true servants, it would seem, are the minor nobles and the judges, the humans of station in search of greater, who provide the vampire and their carceral system with the tools and the victims to keep them sated for generations. Should one ever prove worrisome, their political opponents will easily send them to a fate worse than the oubliette.
The Warlock builds a cult of the disaffected and desperate, of those whose need for faith mixes with something more rotten and corrupt. The most reliable are those who relish the power they gain, the forbidden urges they can indulge, and who have little alternative in the society they have shunned. None truly understand the nature of the vampire, and gaining such knowledge can only bring about their doom.
The Sorcerer plays upon the vanity of the wealthy, letting nobles in search of mystical power for their children bankroll their corruption. Employees who cannot be trusted remain in roles with formal limits, paid well in coin and prestige and letters of recommendation. Those open to the cruelty of the vampire’s needs and desires receive compensation in both wealth and access to power.
The Wanderer brings fools into the wilderness and the dungeon, promising and rewarding with wealth commensurate with the risk. Everyone knows that not everyone returns from such an excursion, and sometimes none do. If ever the rest of a vampire’s party perishes in the effort, they simply move on, for there is always another tavern in the next town.
Should willing humans not prove enough, a motivated vampire can transform a broken and desperate person into a thrall. While still a rarity in the world, these wretched creatures are what most imagine the vampire to be: a wild-eyed ghoul, mad and murderous, fearful of light and attention. A thrall often believes they are a vampire, gifted immortality by their master and forever in their debt. (A more detailed look at the vampire thrall deserves a separate post.)
Any who fall under the vampire’s sway understand their precarious situation, the danger that their master represents and the protection they provide. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, but always better the devil you know. They will go to great lengths to keep threats to the order of their existence safely distant.
Slumbering in a Place of Power
The location and the soil – for every ritual demands freshly turned soil into which the dying aspirant’s blood seeps – of the vampire’s place of power retain great magic to sustain them. Most build a hidden fortress about this place, a secret tomb forever guarded and trapped against threats. When resting here, one undisturbed night is enough to restore their lost vigor; a week restores a body injured and broken; a year returns them from even the smallest fragment of flesh or bone. The truly paranoid and prepared may cut off the tip of a finger or small toe, bury it in the soil like an acorn ready to be reborn a mighty oak.
The Aesthete might keep such a place in the winding cellar beneath their estate, hidden behind secret doors in the wine cellar. The Gaoler might find a suitably dank and foul cell, far below the surface, indistinguishable from the rot-stinking ones that surround it. The Wanderer, forever without home, proves an exception, and carries a burlap sack of blood-soaked soil with them at all times. For if a vampire must travel or relocate, they endeavor to take their precious soil with.
When in rest in contact with this soil, a vampire enters a deep slumber, becoming like an ethereal spirit loosely tethered to their body. The burning hunger, the endless compulsion to feed on suffering, abates. Those who linger here, by choice or necessity, no longer need attend to physical needs and instead stretch outward into the somniferous aether of dreams.
A vampire in slumber can touch the minds of those with unmet desires, following them like a bloodhound on a scent as their unconscious minds brush against the Spirit Realm. Whispering suggestions, the vampire plants the seeds of dream. These grow into vignettes of imagination, filtered through dream logic, pointing to places and people and events, none of which need be real.
Slumbering, the vampire need only tease out potential agents by broadcasting temptations. Those willing to court risk and danger in pursuit of wealth and more (read: adventurers, the desperate, or both) can prove invaluable to advancing a hidden agenda. What could be a more effective means of removing one’s antagonists than by sending in a group of murderhobos to kill them and claim their valuable property as compensation?
Destroying a Vampire
Despite the rumors and folktales, the destruction of a vampire is relatively straightforward. No stakes necessary. Beheading is optional. Feel free to bury them at a crossroads if it’s convenient.
Kill the vampire with silver or fire. Incinerate the body into ash; be aware that this takes a great deal of fuel. Mix the ash into the vampire’s blood-soaked soil with an equal quantity of salt. What remains is dead and nothing more.
Be certain you have collected all of the body, for any fragment which eludes you, which a stealthy agent might whisk away to an emergency pocket of grave soil, could bring them back.
Not that an experienced vampire is going to make any of that easy.
Vampire HD 8 – 12 | AC 7 | MV 30 | undead, mundane weapon immunity, superhuman powers, inhuman weakness, dream slumber, grave regeneration, feed on suffering
So you want to kill that vampire? Noble cause; good luck. Keep in mind that they have immense resources at their disposal and have made horrific sacrifices to gain immortality and a compulsion to do truly monstrous things to maintain that. Resistance will be relentless.
Obligatory note: every worthwhile vampire, being a unique flowery snowflake, calls for lots of prep and zero random appearances. One only becomes a vampire by doing everything to 110%. Always doing their homework. They are prepared for everything.
Once we’ve gotten past the “identify the vampire” stage, their first efforts are always to deflect. Use underlings as a first barrier, to delay and dissuade; violence only when negotiations fail. Promises made, only kept for as long as it’s advantageous. Bribery if that seems effective. Buying time for the vampire to prepare.
If it comes to a head, the vampire will tip the scales to their benefit, knowing that their deadliness in combat has limits. Keep allies near. Pick an environment to weaken foes and offset their strengths – from architecture which constrains movement to filling a room with toxic gases – and lure them in. Always keep an escape route open. Sacrifice minions as necessary.
Vampires do not shy from melee, though they will target magic-users and any others who appear weak, intending to eliminate foes quickly. They’ll play to their strongest abilities – fight in darkness for those who can shrug it off; hypnotize the weak-willed to reduce the threat; tear opponents limb from limb with superhuman might to strike fear into the rest – and attempt to eliminate any risk of others exploiting their weaknesses. Clever players should be able to find ways to work around, anyway.
When outmatched, a vampire will always attempt to flee rather than fight until destruction. There’s a hell of a sunk cost in this vampiric immortality schtick, and the worst-case scenario puts them on the run, hiding and rebuilding over years and decades and longer. After all, meddlesome adventurers age and weaken, but a vampire stays young forever. Do they forget things over the centuries? Of course. But never a grudge, or an opportunity for revenge.
If you read this far, you’ve likely noticed I didn’t give any mechanical specifics for how much suffering a vampire needs. Mostly because I don’t know how to quantify that effectively, and in the case of an exceedingly rare monster, I’m inclined to handwave it away. An established and powerful vampire will have this figured out, in the same way I don’t bother with the finer points of income and expenditures for noble houses.
They’ll make it work.
Top image is a self-portrait as a vampire. Eyes colored with homemade ink made from toxic pokeberries. Because what could be more appropriate than something bloodlike, poisonous, and with a smell both vaguely sweet and curdled with death?
More stuff I read and want to share. About as straightforward as can be. Busy month around here; I should link to more, but the time keeps getting away.
D100 Places to Stay that Aren’t Generic Fantasy Inns at cryptickeyway. From the mildly ridiculous to the utterly ridiculous. At least one of these fits your campaign like a glove. “93. The dump. Raccoons run it. They will accept visitors, but are extremely raccoons.” Wouldn’t be the first trash panda encounter.
A New Age of Storytelling at Monsters and Manuals. Books are amazing! Reading and writing continue to be immensely rewarding pursuits, even if Socrates was never sold on the whole idea. (I hear he was really annoying.) As much as I love a good film, a good book invites you in, and the experience of reading demands engagement, imagination, and thoughtful interpretation from the reader.
B.U.R.G.L.A.R.s at Rise Up Comus. The Desolation of Smaug as seen through the Strugatsky brothers’ Roadside Picnic. Which, of course, you all should read. Then watch Tarkovsky’s film adaptation, Stalker. Then make note of the toxic locations where they shot the film, of the illnesses and deaths that followed, and weave thoughts of such tragedies into the dungeon. (There are follow-up posts, too, but you gotta go there and read!) Desperation and tragedy, the pursuit of impossible magic, a realm of dangers that can only be overcome through wits and luck and willpower. True dungeon stuff.
Incidentally, Stalker is one of my favorite films of all time, one which haunted me for over a decade from my first viewing until I could score a Criterion copy and rewatch it. The ending, oh. Poor girl. And poor Porcupine. I think of Porcupine often.
My favorite ending to a film is the Coens’ A Serious Man, by the way. I could list so many with nigh-perfect conclusions, but what else can compare with the juxtaposition of bleak and funny and encapsulating the entire film in a moment without dialogue? Whoa, digression… where were we?
Animal Reincarnation Table at Gorgon Bones. What if the reincarnation spell worked on animals, and could regularly get out of hand? I know most will focus on the “what if my beloved goldendoodle returns as a wyvern?” problem, but I’m more concerned with the downstream difficulties of them coming back as a human with an animal brain. Because there are some serious ethical knots, no doubt, and we’d definitely have to play that out.
Fix 5E Fights By Turning Monsters into Glass Cannon Puzzles at cryptickeyway. So much more interesting than the slog that 5e combat wants to devolve into. Probably also a ton of referee work, and I’m all done with 5e (except for an upcoming one-last-job session), but worth consideration outside 5e, too.
Before I meander through some ill-formed thoughts on the desynchronized nature of the game versus real-life time, I’m going to discuss a book that might as well be in my own Appendix N: Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman. Skip on down to the last section – A Time of One’s Choosing, in a big ol’ heading – if you must. I’ll try to keep it brief.
Einstein’s Dreams
In brief: Einstein’s Dreams is a work of fiction which imagines thirty different conceptions of time, presented as vignettes seen in the dreams of a young Albert Einstein in April through June of 1905. Einstein – you’ve heard of him, yes? – spent a great deal of effort thinking deeply on time, on how to describe what was known of the physical world in a way that would be philosophically and mathematically consistent. To say that his work to structure a theory of general relativity was unintuitive is, perhaps, an aggressive understatement. The whole notion of general relativity is, I think most would agree, genius.
Quick aside: I’m firmly of the opinion that genius is a word poorly applied to individuals, and instead better suited to ideas. A person need not be brilliant to have a genius idea (even if it probably helps), and the lightning-in-a-bottle of a genius idea in no way ensures that the future bears more.
I find this a means to more easily separate the art from the artist, as it were, particularly in cases where the idea – the scientific insight, the work of art, the clever solution to a vexing problem – is of immense value, yet the originator is a total dirtbag. It also brushes away the tendency to elevate humans to heroes, which I personally dislike, but hey, you do what works for you. Life’s short, so try to do the best you can in the time you got.
I read the book in the late ’90s, as part of a course on architectural design theory. Other texts that I recall included Why Buildings Stand Up by Mario Salvadori (obvious applicability) and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig (less obvious). This was also the course where our professor encouraged us to sketch in ink, rather than pencil. Almost thirty years later, it’s an enduring lesson. Pencil erases, if not always well, and primes you to focus on errors and, even worse, avoiding errors. Ink encourages you to be bold, make mistakes, and to work with them. What seems like a mistake could be serendipitous.
And, really, it’s a sketch. Quick, exploratory. You can always make another. Iterations and improvements feel like progress instead of being all precious about it.
The dreams, each only a few pages, are quick sketches of ways that time could be. At their best, poetic observations not of the physical world, but of human interaction with it. Some are rooted in details of Einstein’s relativity; others are more fanciful. For example:
14 April 1905 – Time is a circle, in which all actions and events will repeat again and again and again, for eternity. At its worst, everyone becomes haunted by the mistakes of a lifetime, aware and powerless to avoid them.
26 April 1905 – Time runs more slowly, if almost imperceptibly, at higher elevations, so humans have relocated all civilization to the mountains. Higher and higher, with houses on stilts, among the thin and cold air. Except for those few who embrace the warmth and worldly pleasure of the valleys, forgetting time and why others might care. These latter are like Sisyphus, briefly freed from the underworld, recognizing the value in life of sunlight, of a gentle breeze, of the birdsong at the dawn chorus. (See Camus.)
3 May 1905 – Effect precedes cause. Don’t overthink it.
14 May 1905 – There exists a center of time, a point in space, the nearer to which one is, the slower time progresses – as observed by others. It’s stepping into the fairy circle, rupturing lives and human connections through well-intentioned efforts to preserve that which is most precious.
29 May 1905 – The faster one moves, the slower time passes, and all the world lives on rails, in constant motion. Of course, one always seems to be still in comparison to others, so as you zip past them and they past you – for which frame of reference is absolute? – they are the ones seen to be going slower, gaining precious seconds, such that one is forever losing in their efforts to cheat time.
28 June 1905 – Time manifests physically in the real world; I’m fond of this one. Pick up a copy of the book so you can read for yourself.
Aside from recurring themes of good intentions giving rise to alienation and regret, and of small happinesses that await in letting go of control – very Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer – it’s instructive in taking a simple idea and carrying it forward. I can’t necessarily recommend this for reimagining the passage of time in one’s campaign, any more than I’d suggest you should invent alternative means of gravitational interaction and then huck ’em at your players. As enjoyable as the fantasy aspects are, rooting the game in a firm and mutually-understood reality basis strikes me as essential to let the fantastical shine.
Take Einstein’s Dreams as a guide for altering that which you can. The life of a city. A wild landscape to explore. Monsters and factions and made-up people to interact with. It’s your campaign. Say “what if?” and take the next step, and the next, and continue until it works or it doesn’t. If it works, and it improves the campaign, great! Add something new; enrich the game.
If it doesn’t? It’s a sketch, one quickly done, drawn in ink. Try again and see where the next idea takes you.
A Time of One’s Choosing
“10 June 1905
Suppose that time is not a quantity, but a quality, like the luminescence of the night above the trees just when a rising moon has touched the treeline.” (p. 123)
I have but a small insight to contribute here, an observation without any quantitative substance. I’m not going to weigh in on the challenges of maintaining a stable group for a long-term campaign – other than it’s like exercise in middle age, you’ve got to set a regular schedule and stick to it, even when days are overstuffed and exhausting – because yeah, it’s hard, and the advice out there is solid. I don’t have much new to offer, aside from encouragement. The sort of thing that, when offered both personal and heartfelt, can really mean something. Come by, hang out, and we’ll help each other through.
Look: we perceive time as a sequence of things, a one-way, one-after-the-other this, and then this, and then this. Most often they are moments, experiences, significant or not. Generally speaking, the good ones are meaningful. Even a moment of calm rest can be meaningful in the proper circumstances; so much depends on context. Consider what this means in the context of the TTRPG experience as compared to ordinary life.
In regular life, you could argue that time moves forward in regular increments, second by second, hour by hour, mostly ignoring the imperceptible weirdness of relativity. Which it does, but that’s not the lived experience. We all know how time can race outside our awareness when engrossed in a good book or an engaging film, yet how it can drag when we’re stuck in a tedium we’re unable to escape. The line for the roller coaster is long, sure, but it feels triply so on a summer day. And sometimes, even though the time drifts past with a casual, meandering pace like a woodland stream, if you’re with good company and in a mood to let it ride, those moments can’t linger long enough. We don’t mark them by the seconds as they pass (unless you’re bored senseless), but by some emotional intuition. At their best, the moments pass regardless of the time, because the time isn’t what’s worth remembering.
There’s stark asymmetry in the way the game plays out over time, where real-life moments and in-game moments rarely match in scale. Scot at of Dice and Dragons picks two common examples, uneventful overland travel and detailed combat, to point out the extreme variation. Long-distance travel, without much of interest, might pass with little more than a comment in the notebook that months have passed. By contrast, six or ten seconds of furious combat – especially as the system gets crunchier and the decisions weightier – can take long enough that someone’s going to get up and grab another beer before it’s over.
The increments in this sequence aren’t six-second rounds or ten-minute Turns or six-hour Watches. Those don’t matter except for accounting, strict time records being kept and all. The increments that matter hinge on decisions, on choices to be made or the lack of them. Good time is meaningful time is the opportunity to be engaged and to choose one’s actions and to have it matter. Sitting idly by while the fiction “happens” without having any input, well, that’s about as thrilling as waiting in line at the DMV when the tail stretches outside the building.
A good game session is one where player decisions drive the progression of time, a nontrivial challenge for the referee. If you’re offering them agency, sometimes subject to the whims of the dice, it’s beastly to plan for. It’s an essential skill to react to the pace at the table, stretching and compressing the clock to keep things moving at a level of pressure everyone appreciates. Depends on the individuals and their interpersonal relationships, on the day and energy levels, on the stress of the in-game moment and how it’s radiating outward. In the coarsest sense, the entirety of the D&D-and-adjacent game is about managing scarce resources. We scale the clock to smooth out the trickle of resource attrition.
Combat can be exhilarating, but becomes borderline terrifying when it’s imminent and the party’s resources are worn thin. No matter the specifics, precious necessities are lost within seconds of game time: hit points, spells, even allies. Any change in the state of resources may affect a player’s choices; the whipsaw-rapid shifts in battle may completely upend a player’s intentions just as their turn arrives. If we’re engaged in the fiction, in the process, the sudden arrival of weightier concerns brakes the clock. Done well, the moments of consideration scale with the intensity of the situation.
Crossing hexes runs to the opposite. Long days of travel can drag. Maybe six weeks’ worth of sailing pass with the merest mention. Perhaps it’s a slightly slower process, describing each hex explored, the adjacent sights, the rations depleted. Press onward or delay and forage. A random encounter or the discovery of a point of interest alters the time increments, but not the tick-tick-tick of information and choices. Time slows because the situation demands more.
Could this be quantified, set into hard recommendations for dungeon rooms to be explored per hour, combats managed per session, maximum time allowable to spend futzing with the polished marble orbs and the bird-themed pedestals and the the mangled goblin corpses in the corner, still crackling with electrical charge, that no one’s going to touch? At my table, probably not. If you’re planning to run a module at a convention, then maybe, but I’m skeptical. Suppose that it’s not a quantity, but a quality. Something that takes an intuition to understand, practice to gain skill with, and a dose of humility to accept when it goes pear-shaped and could go better next time.
The passage of time within the game is just another fiction, at best a tool to facilitate an ever-evolving series of interactions, quandaries, decisions. When those capture our focus, and when granted the time-distorting luxury of thinking upon vexing problems without the deadly time pressure of the dungeon. Or of bypassing the decision-light tedium of long-distance travel. When we pack it in for the night, does it matter more how many dungeon Turns have passed, or how well we have passed the hours of an evening?
Q is for Quandary. Tough decisions and compromises. The lesser of two evils. Trade-offs.
You can have a fun game on a railroad, no doubt. I don’t believe you can have an interesting game without meaningful freedom of choice.
The TTRPG experience mostly goes like this: we all sit around a table and have a conversation. There are rules governing the game, and a referee who has all the information the players are trying to gain, on which they can act. Constraints limit options; there are elements of risk; much of the players’ efforts revolve around how much information to pursue before choosing to act. Rules and dice resolve uncertainties, yes, but so much depends on making decisions without knowing the outcome in advance.
When the conclusion is foregone, what might seem like a decision isn’t one. No surprise there; it’s the trivial case. A decision made with no real information is only slightly better, like picking from three identical doors to open on Let’s Make A Deal. (If you get a goat, slaughter it and save some rations.)
Information is good, or at least something to make distinctions. Perhaps listening at each door provides subtle clues; maybe one is locked, or stuck, or bears marks of recent use. When players can do anything – or, more realistically, can inquire about doing almost anything – we put the ball in their court. As it should be, right?
It’s not enough, that. Having choices to make is essential, and some of them need to be weighty. Not all – the entire experience would grind to a crawl – but some should really force thought. Consideration. Trade-offs and nothing obvious and at the very best end of the scale, inter-party discussions for resolution. Because we all bring a lot to the table, and none of this exists in a vacuum, and when everyone’s acting in good faith?
Like, when you’re trying to balance the good of the party (essential) against the good of your particular PC (feels even more essential) against a situation where you’re just not holding a lot of cards, wow. When it feels like the decision matters, really matters, it’s as good as the game gets. As the referee, you can’t engineer these situations. You just have to toss out the potential for conflict and hold strong when the tension builds. Set out toys and the potential for trouble, and players will find it.
I think that one of the best things you can do to set up your sandbox is to embrace the complicated and messy tangle that is human nature. Everyone has goals, limits, and will eventually start breaking eggs to make that omelet. The nature of the game is that everything is amped up. Stakes are higher. Violence is way more common and acceptable and non-PTSD-triggering than it actually is in real life. That’s the game, the escapist fun of it. You can be a successful and wealthy dirtbag; PCs don’t gain XP from being happy and fulfilled.
Do you remember when Tony Soprano became a cultural sensation? When the antihero became a popular concept?
Not that the archetype hadn’t existed before, as anyone with a familiarity with pulp novels and Appendix N already knew, but The Sopranos meant that we were all rooting for a complex monster, not just the weirdos who read uncool books. (Remember when playing D&D was enough to trigger the bullies at school? I sure as shit do.) Now I’ve got shelves of movies with terrible protagonists, endless examples of antiheroes well back decades before Tony, but they’re hardly pop culture touchstones. The Wages of Fear. The Battle of Algiers. The Third Man. Rififi. Yojimbo.
When setting up your NPCs and factions, think of Tony on Dr. Melfi’s couch. A sociopath who will murder in cold blood, who will plan and double-cross and do anything to stay ahead, who can be funny and charming and pivot on a dime, who has panic attacks and is entirely human. Monstrous, but very human.
There are many Tonys out there, each with their own goals. Each one with questionable motives; each with resources that could make an adventurer’s day so much easier. And that’s the situation worth having.
This tomb-robbing gig is a slog, and a dangerous one at that. Death lurks around every corner, and clever adventurers take every advantage on offer. So why not freight every upside with a complication? Everything worth having costs something. It’s not merely the question of what do I get, but what am I willing to give up?
Players are loss-averse. We all are. So keep this in mind, that a dispassionate analysis of trade-offs can be a no-brainer on paper, a gain which outpaces the loss, and players will still hesitate.
If they’re smart, if they’re playing well, they’ll figure out when each trade-off minimizes their risk and exposure. And if they’ve misjudged, there’s a lesson in calibration coming their way.
Costs can be anything. Coin works. So does time, encumbrance, hit points, consumables like rations or item charges, etc. Any and all resources are fair game. Set the price. Be prepared to negotiate.
You can haggle or hold firm. I suggest the latter, but you’re running your table. At least stay consistent.
Consider intangibles, too. Things to guide decisions which lack direct mechanical outcomes. Tony wants things, and will gladly make a deal to get what he wants. But are you prepared for the reputation that comes with that? For the risk of running afoul of the authorities? For the possibility of blackmail Tony might hold over you when he needs another favor?
And will he be incensed if you turn him down, or ally with a competitor? He’s a charmer, really, but he’ll kill you himself if he deems it necessary.
These are the quandaries which make for interesting situations. No specific right or wrong, no obvious answer. A weighing of risks, a discussion among players, and because everything is open-ended, they can always seek out other options.
Dealing with NPCs should force consideration, and I hope it’s apparent that navigating the dungeon should, too. Any decent dungeon allows for choices, risk assessments based on limited information, resource drain, and all that. (Otherwise, what game are you playing?)
I’m also of the opinion that equipment should give players reasons to choose, as well. Not merely for encumbrance reasons – though there is that to manage – but also in what they can do. After a long period running 5e, I got burned out on magic items (and magic spells) which eliminated any interesting choices for players to make. I resorted to odd situations where the default “use the best and obvious thing” no longer applied, but it was an escalating series of patches on a janky frame. Not worth the effort.
So I let stuff be as cantankerous as people.
No indestructible +1 swords; they’ll break like any other blade, the enchantments failing when they do. Consumables run out of uses; those which can be recharged demand effort and expense. Like Whitehack miracles, those with spell-like effects usually draw HP to function. Can you do amazing things? Of course! But it’ll cost you.
Drugs are cheaper than potions, at least in terms of coin. You’ll just have to roll with the downsides, including the possibility of addiction. Silvered weapons deal harm to monsters which resist mundane weapons, but they’re delicate and can be rendered ineffective. Certain monsters sunder shields and corrode armor, so don’t assume that suit of shiny mail is going to make it through your entire career.
Work with what’s at hand, rummaging through dungeon rubble and the pockets of dead guys, and you’ll get through. Probably. At the very least, it keeps us all in the spirit of dirtbags grubbing for quick riches.
Magic items: they’re good fun, break the rules of common-sense reality, and are (in my personal opinion) best when they’re a little bit weird and situationally useful. Or when a powerful effect pairs with unavoidable unpleasantness. Throw out any notion of permanence in the campaign, and you open up the possibility of more, of newer, of keeping out of a rut. In that spirit, one little magic item in line with today’s theme.
Coin of Confidence
A hefty coin, forged of brass, imprinted with an eye and seven stars on each side. Heads open; tails closed. No-size item. Ud4.
When the truth of a statement is uncertain, the bearer may flip the coin to sense whether the speaker (or writer) is being honest. The coin will show heads for honesty or tails otherwise, but has a 1-in-6 chance of judging incorrectly. Note that the coin cannot judge truth, so a misinformed speaker may offer bad information in good faith.
Next: R is not for Rust Monster. But aren’t they great? Cuddly as a pangolin and strikes deep fear into the formerly invulnerable fighter draped in steel!
Today’s theme: Fire. It’s sweltering summer in this hemisphere, so let’s go with a classic while it’s too hot to think.
Flame Beacon Glaive
Glaive with a curved bronze blade on a flexible pole of heartwood from the wax tree, lacquered in a diamond pattern of red and black. The blade bears decorative grooves in patterns of stylized flame. Forever warm to the touch. 2 slots.
The glaive’s bearer may meditate with the weapon for an hour and grant it a secret name. Whispering that name, the bearer may call upon its inner flame to produce a miraculous effect, with the wording Flame Burn Bright. Effects are limited to the glaive itself.
Suggested miraculous effects:
Cause the blade to glow with an intense light, as bright as a torch, for 1 hour. Once per day for 0 HP; subsequent uses cost 1 HP.
Heat the blade to red-hot, increasing both AV and damage by +1 for 1 hour. 1 HP. Amplify the effect to +2/+2 for 2 HP.
Touch the blade to the barest flicker of flame, be it candle or glowing ember, and cause it to flare in intensity. With sufficient fuel, the fire may continue to burn on its own. Close to one’s eyes, the effect may be blinding (save or suffer blindness for 10 minutes). Lasts 1 minute. 1 HP.
Seafire Resin
Irregular, fist-sized lump of orange-brown resin, moldable as thick clay. Usually wrapped in waxed parchment. Gathered from secret underground sources by the dwarves of Boru Mogar, who appreciate its ability to provide light even in wet caverns, and relative safety around flammable vapors. Single-use. 1/2 slot.
When ignited with a flame – sparks from flint and steel prove insufficient – it burns for 1 hour, even when deprived of oxygen, including submersion underwater. Glows as a torch. Heat insufficient to ignite other flammable materials, but hot enough to cause harm. Contact for a combat round deals 1 HP damage.
Explorer’s Candle
Simple taper candle, in charcoal-gray wax, set in a ring of dimpled brass. Typically found in sets of three. Single-use. Three per 1/2 slot.
When lit, glows as an ordinary candle, but hovers in place when released. With a whisper and blow of breath, the bearer may cause the candle to teleport (d6 + 3) * 10 ft. ahead, gently illuminating as it hovers and waits. If a specific distance is desired, the bearer may concentrate and make a Wisdom task roll. On a failure, the teleport distance is random as above; on a fumble, the candle extinguishes, its magic spent.
Rainbow Salts
Coarse crystals of various salts contained within a violet silk pouch. Nontoxic in small quantities, but the taste is fiercely bitter. Ud8. 1/2 slot.
Toss a pinch into a flame to alter its color and other aspects, determined randomly on the table below. If both d6s roll the same number, the flame’s brightness doubles. Effects persist for 6 hours, or until the flame is extinguished.
d6
Color
Effect
1
Red
Brightness pulses rhythmically, between full brightness and near-dark, in a minute-long cycle.
2
Orange
Flame emits a pungent and fruity odor, redolent of overripe tropical fruits.
3
Yellow
Flame loses all heat, becoming a photon emitter in the visible spectrum only.
4
Green
Flame emits a low hum, with pitch determined by brightness. A candle is a piccolo; a campfire is a contrabassoon.
5
Blue
Flame burns cold, with an equivalent degree of pain on contact (subjective to bearer).
6
Purple
Light emitted includes a strong UV component, causing distracting headaches among those who can see it and potential sunburn from overexposure with bright-enough sources.
Burn Hazel Salve (Drug)
Rich cream in a porcelain vessel, fragrant with herbal additives. Often minty, always grassy. Ud6. 1 slot. Minimally addictive.
Applied to to skin shortly following harm, this salve can subdue pain and encourage healing. Initial application brings a sharp pain which fades within minutes. Requires 1 Turn to apply, and restores d6 – 1 HP. Especially effective against burns – by heat, cold, or chemical sources – granting double the HP recovery.
No side effects occur with a single dose per day, but addiction sets in with more. On the day following multiple uses, a user suffers -2 to all task rolls for each extra dose. Save at day’s end to end the effect.
Firewisp Mask
Mask of thin and delicate marble, cream with swirls of crimson, of a neutral and smooth human face with open holes for the eyes; ties on with a red silk ribbon. Warm to the touch, and bears a weight beyond its size. 1 slot.
The wearer feels charged with an inner fire, and gains an active miracle wording, Searing Fire Shall Pierce the Darkness. By invoking the wording, they may channel that inner fire outward. Example uses:
Ignite something flammable with a touch. 1 HP.
Heat a metal weapon or object in hand to glowing hot, granting +1 to AV and damage, Burns all who touch it save the wearer. Lasts 1 hour. 2 HP.
Dispel a patch of magical darkness permanently. d6 – 1 HP.
While worn, limited visibility causes -1 to all saving throws. The wearer must make a Wisdom task roll to remove the mask, limited to one attempt per day. On a fumble, the wearer must save or the mask cracks and the magic fades.
The mask itself is creepy and unsettling, which may prove a hindrance in social interactions as the referee sees fit.
P is for Plains. Another environment to explore, after the sweltering jungle and remote islands, and near and dear to my heart like the Upper Midwest. A little bit of Wisconsin, shades of Illinois, some South Dakota I’ve heard about but never quite got to see. And on the edge of the badlands, of course, for the prairie can’t stretch on forever.
Another landscape, distinct and open for exploration. Aspects both familiar and strange. In contrast to the jungle, you’ve got sightlines. Unlike the islands, you can get around without needing a navigator. Landmarks and wayfinding might be an issue.
Vast stretches of tallgrass prairie extend like a sea of green and gold to the horizon, giving the impression of a landscape with nothing to hide. Little could be further from the truth.
Compared to the tight confines of the jungle, where progress is slow and encounters occur with sudden immediacy, open plains offer extensive views where prominent landmarks – not that there are many – and a substantial number of potential encounters can be spotted well away. Burrowing horrors are as much an issue as anywhere, and the “can be spotted at distance” feature may well be of detriment when one is seen by a hungry wyvern. Not to mention that those well-adapted to a tallgrass ecosystem readily take advantage of the, uh, tall grass to hide and ambush prey or lay concealed from predators. Beware snakes. Not so different from the jungle, I guess.
But, hey, at least it’s possible – and probably essential – to travel on horseback. Helps with avoiding snakebites, outrunning wyverns, and having something meaty and filling to distract said wyvern. Until that awkward point, enjoy the extra carrying capacity and a landscape that’s literally made of horse feed. If we’re playing the game of resource management (we are), this bears more pros than cons. Stock up on arrows. Invest in a compass.
If this extensive landscape hasn’t been overtaken for agriculture, be assured there are reasons.
Across the world, there are many varieties of flat, treeless landscapes, and we’re looking at just one sort here to represent the Plains of Dzeh. The North American prairie became popular with settlers expanding westward in no small part due to the ease of plowing the land for agriculture. Hills become challenging for more than grazing land once they grow too steep. Trees might be great for a woodlot, or for letting the hogs forage for oak mast, but if you’re going to plant crops, it’s no small effort to clear them out. And rocks? Whether you’re going to pull them free and stack walls depends on your available plow technology and general patience for back-breaking labor.
Prairies, of course, aren’t known for steep slopes. An ecosystem with large herbivores and fire – natural or human-induced – keeps trees from gaining a foothold. After many thousands of years of perennial grasses setting deep roots can build phenomenal layers of rich, black soil full of nutrients. But rocks. If those rocks are stubborn enough, like in the Flint Hills of Kansas, ranches will be preferable to farms.
Imagine this land as an ocean in ages long before even the elves, the seafloor accreting layers upon layers of tiny creatures protected by calcium shells, eventually compressed into strata of limestone. Now these rocks emerge to be weathered by the winds – for the winds here are fierce, relentless – and to be dissolved slowly beneath the surface into myriad cracks and caves. Rivers run through this land, beneath the surface, only pooling into temporary ponds following the intense bursts of rain in spring and summer storms. Keen readers of the plant ecosystem can trace the waterways, a necessary skill to find fresh water on long journeys.
Storms on the prairie are something to be respected, even feared. Nothing to soften the howling winds, and thunderstorms bring torrential rains, fire-starting lightning, and the ever-looming threat of a tornado. Mobility is important; shelter is precious; awareness is essential. Just because you can see the charcoal clouds on the far horizon doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take action now.
Summer heat burns with intensity, beneath the Sun with no shade for as far as one can see. Winter’s bitter cold only grows worse when the wind howls, and in deep winter, the snow falls deep and blows into great drifts defying easy travel.
Even without great mountains, tall forests, and vast expanses of water, the wind and sun and sky of this place make you feel small.
Never forget that in this world, where the great and monstrous encroach upon the edges of civilization, terrible beasts keep the wilderness wild. The Plains of Dzeh resist the expansion of the human realm with ferocity.
Native beasts in a hostile environment know how to survive, and may prove dangerous even when not actively hunting humans far from safe places. Daggerjaw lions coordinate hunts with their pride, capable of taking down large prey with careful tactics. Helmeted muskoxen roam in herds, half-ton adults guarding their young with horns like armor. Great herds of mammoths sometimes pass through on their migrations, their size alone sufficient to strike fear into those nearby. Coyotes prowl through the tallgrass, clever and opportunistic and resourceful. Not all threats harm with claws and fangs; some steal a pack beneath the moonlight, disappearing with rations and waterskins when it’s impossible to pursue.
Even the plants here can be deadly, from the toxic ivory flag iris to the yoruga moonflower, whose night-blooming flowers exude a bewitching fragrance from sunset until the morning dew triggers them to close. Those foolish enough to make camp nearby may become overwhelmed, lulled into a long and insensate slumber, unable to awaken for days as the plants’ shallow roots grow upward to drain nitrogen and other scarce elements from their bodies. Once worn and exhausted, most prove too tempting a target for hungry predators.
This was also once a place of elven experimentation, and of great battles waged where wide lines of infantry and cavalry could meet in bloody combat. Elves, for all their stealth and caution, always preferred open fields for battle – at least for their slave armies – with none of the chaos and uncertainty of guerilla warfare. Descendants of their creations still roam the plains. Great giraffids whose wide ossicones spark with electrical energy and glow blue in the darkness. Battle steeds drawn from rhinoceros stock, huge and armored and suitable for giant riders, whose lineage persists in the far reaches. Rumors tell of enormous elephants, still extant, capable of bearing an entire company of orcs across the leagues of tallgrass.
Stranger remnants, too. Rumors of a giant wolf who moves as the wind. Points of light like stars come to earth, which beckon the weak-willed to their doom. A landscape of boiling mud which, when offered a bit of lead inscribed with a desire, comes alive to grant a wish and seal with curses. Ghosts of elves long dead who wander when the Black Cinder rises full.
The Plains of Dzeh may be short on conventional landmarks, which makes the sight of Boru Dzeh, the Walking City so stunning. Nearly 1,000 feet to the tip of the spire, it can be spotted three dozen miles distant, and the visible breadth of the city only grows with every mile as one approaches.
The great, central fortress of the Wind Rider, the ruling sorcerer-king, hangs from massive, shimmering cables far above the earth below. A small army of shell-spiders maintains this support web, anchored to six helical spires arrayed around, each gleaming with the red, brown, and cream mottling of their seashell-like structure. Relics of the elven war machine, these six colossal shell-spiders are what grants this city its mobility. A dedicated company of yohtar, themselves once servants of the elves, feeds and grooms and coaxes these enormous creatures to move.
The rest of the city is either mobile or stationary, which lends it a strange character to newcomers. By nature, it is ever in flux, different from season to season. Constructions balance atop massive tortoises, which settle in for long naps between walks. Nomads of many sorts pack up tents and gers and other portable structures on their pack animals, ready to set a new camp at the next stop. Some itinerant souls make temporary homes in nearby caves, often racing ahead of the pack to secure the choicest spots.
Others set up small outposts, circling the fortress’s stops, eventually becoming small villages in their own right. Isolated and incomplete on their own, they serve as stopping points for most of the year until once more integrated into the fabric of the city. As the Wind Rider’s miracles coax bounty from the plains, these dozen villages form a backbone of reliable industry, handling those works which struggle to travel. Each has a specialty, be it metalworking or glassblowing or putting up pickles and preserves.
Each of these takes its name from the constellations of the zodiac, of the sign that tells when the city settles in. One dozen, each a day’s walk apart, provided you don’t get lost on the way.
And now for a little something to tide y’all over until I can write up stats and details on lightning giraffes, murderhinoceri, mudling wish-monsters.
Shimmerscale (Drug)
Coarse powder, a dull steel-gray becoming iridescent when sunlight hits at the right angle, often sold in silken pouches. Snorted by a hefty pinch, invariably inducing a sneezing fit. Sensation unlike other smells, a synesthetic cascade of color ported through olfactory and tactile channels. Ud8. 1/2 slot. Addictive.
Scraped from the wings of the ivory web-wing butterfly*, tiny amounts ingested cause a mild euphoria and insomnia. A proper pinch, snorted (or otherwise applied to mucous membranes with substantial adjacent bloodflow), brings a wild and unearned enthusiasm for life. While high, a user may shrug off a measure of harm as if they were impervious to it, taking half HP damage (not less than 1). At the end of Turn (or significant time event, such as combat), a user may save at a -2 penalty to regain HP lost during that time; on a failure, they gain 1 fatigue; on a fumble, they immediately lose the HP reduced by the drug’s effect.
Effects last d6-2 hours. At day’s end, save or become addicted to the number of doses snorted that day. Abstain and save 3 days in a row to get clean.
When in withdrawal, the user must save against any loss of HP or take the maximum possible.
*The ivory web-wing butterfly is an unremarkable white butterfly to human eyes, easily mistaken for other white lepidopterans across the plains of Dzeh. Those with visual perception in the near ultraviolet can identify them by the delicate lace patterns on their wings at the 348 nm wavelength; this includes orcs (only female) and the rare human tetrachromats. Otherwise, the ivory web-wing can be identified by proximity to key host plants in the environment.
Beware unscrupulous sellers, whose wares may be adulterated by scales of the satin moth, the cabbage white, the Spring faerie, or other visually-similar white lepidopterans. These may dilute the effect to little more than the mild euphoria chased by casual users. When sourcing is in doubt, there is a 2-in-6 chance that any batch is weak.
Next: Q is not for Quest. A pretty standard structure to hang an adventure on, not essential but awfully useful. I think we can come up with a Q word that’s more interesting.
Part fifteen, adapting the B/X spell list to Whitehack. Magic-User/Elf, 3rd level.
Is it just me, or are we veering into territory where spell effects are powerful and not super-useful for unusual applications? I mean, off-label uses are what magic’s about. Should be, anyway.
Infravision
Possible wording: See Through Darkness
Typical use: Grant a sighted creature the ability to see clearly in the absence of light. Monochromatic vision up to 60′. Lasts 8 hours. (2 HP) If a physical model helps, consider either a sensitivity to near-IR photons or a discredited notion from antiquity where the eyes act like both emitters and receivers, kind of like Lidar.
Off-label use: Embrace one trapped in despair, washing away their layers of emotional weight to offer hope and courage. Temporary relief of symptoms, hardly a cure. (1 HP) When you just don’t know what to say, let magic do the heavy lifting. Consider a thoughtful card, while you’re at it.
Cost reductions: Optician or night watchman vocation. The preserved eye of a tiger. Painful sensitivity to light levels for normal vision while effects last.
Possible wording:Echolocation
Typical use: Grant a creature the ability to identify their spatial surroundings through the reflection of audible clicks, regardless of light. Attack rolls and others reliant on this specific awareness made normally in darkness up to 15′; for each additional 15′, apply a -2 penalty, until -10 as equivalent to blindness. Lasts 4 hours. (2 HP) Clicking will be audible to other creatures.
Off-label use: Identify the source location of an audible sound, even if out of sight. Range up to 300′, with details of direction and distance only. Lasts up to 1 hour with concentration. (2 HP) Don’t tip off your quarry, lest they go quiet.
Cost reductions: Chiropterologist or bat-themed superhero vocation. Fresh, uncongealed blood from a creature preyed upon by a vampire bat. Blindness for the duration of the effect.
Lightning Bolt
Possible wording: Electric Charge
Typical use: Select two objects or individuals within 60′, summoning an enormous voltage spike and collapse between them. The sudden electrical discharge deals d6* damage to anyone in its linear path, or half that on a save. (d6 – 2 HP) Reduced cost reflects risk of combat miracles. Expect the bright flash and loud noise to attract nearby monsters.
Off-label use: Infuse oneself with a massive electrical potential and launch toward a visible point within 120′, reaching it in a flash. Any creature caught in the charge takes d6 damage, or half that on a save. (d6 + 1 HP) If passing through an aperture smaller than the caster’s body, save or suffer d6* damage from diffraction effects. Referee may apply a save penalty for extra-small passages.
Cost reductions: Fulminologist or electromancer vocation. Crumble a fulgurite during the casting. Caster must save or suffer harm as if struck.
Possible wording:Skyfire Bolt
Typical use: Hurl a bolt of crackling electrical energy at a target, making an attack roll to hit. Range 60′. Deals d6 damage if successful. (1 HP) Low-cost magical ranged attack, but still costlier than an arrow. Attempting this while in melee range of a foe grants them a free attack.
Alternate use: Beckon the light and thunder of a bolt from the sky, visible and audible from miles away. For a brief instant, place a marker of your position on the minds of friends and foes alike. (1 HP) For best effect, let your buddies know the signal ahead of time.
Cost reductions: Priest of Thor/Zeus/Set or electrostatistician vocation. A fresh main organ from an electric eel. Caster collects a substantial electrostatic charge, resulting in an extended period where picking up and setting down objects becomes an immense nuisance.
Protection from Normal Missiles
Possible wording: Deflect Missiles
Typical use: Surround a chosen target, individual or object, with a field of magical energy which causes ordinary missiles, such as arrows or sling stones, to veer away without harm. Critical hits still land. Lasts 2 Turns. (2 HP) Also effective at shunting rain off to the side.
Alternate use: Generate a force field, emanating 15′ from the caster, which deflects missiles from their intended path. All attack rolls for mundane missiles made double-negative. Lasts 2 Turns. (2 HP) Applies to friend and foe in the area.
Cost reductions: Shieldmaiden or abjurer vocation. Crush a delicate and expensive crystal bubble. Targeted creatures make a save to avoid missiles instead of automatic effect.
Possible wording:Slings and Arrows Bring Outrageous Fortune
Typical use: Bless an individual with exceptional accuracy, granting +4 to all missile attack rolls. Lasts 2 Turns. (2 HP) Alternately, grant them the ability to fire into melee without concern of striking an unintended target.
Off-label use: Enchant oneself such that bad luck brings good in its wake. When a nonmagical missile attack hits the caster, they may save to reduce the damage by d6. Regardless of save success, every HP lost to the hit results in a small shower of d6* silver coins about the impact. Lasts 1 Turn, with concentration. (2 HP) See if you can cover the deductible for your medical bills!
Cost reductions: Sharpshooter or thespian vocation. A consecrated rabbit’s foot. A fumble inevitably leads to excess harm.
Next set: Water Breathing, Cure Disease, and Growth of Animals.
Dungeon Glyphs at Idraluna Archives. One possibility for dungeon communication which bridges languages, and yet another reminder that I keep intending to develop a set of goblin graffiti for use in my game. And to write up for some vague future post. For an extra level of interesting, consider using these glyphs with a mirror, as left-right swaps could be a useful distraction for those not in the know.
1d10 Randomized Goblins at Blog of Forlorn Encystment. Because interesting NPCs are always better than faceless mooks when real interactions are part of the game. Assuming you can put in the time and effort, of course; put your efforts where they matter most.
Venetian Bridge Brawls in 17th and 18th Century Art at The Public Domain Review. Neighborhood rivalries settled with fists and clubs on the bridges of Venice, between the Castellani and the Nicolotti, as much entertainment as a means of exacting retribution of grievances. Suddenly, this previously unknown-to-me spectacle seems like the perfect centerpiece of a city festival to engage the players.
Deus Ex Verbum: Interesting Religions, Dogmas, Sects and Philosophies via Wiktionary at Beneath Foreign Planets. Turn an ordinary (or not so ordinary) verb into a functional faith group! This is so cleverly geared to how the players are actually going to interact with religious groups in the game that I’m starting to wonder why one would bother with another approach. Just distilled down to pure usefulness.
Shinala, or Amazons at Advantage on Arcana. I enjoy reading up on other folks’ campaigns and settings – fair enough, given how much I post about mine – even when there’s not much to crib when theirs is personal and mine is personal and we’re (presumably?) different persons. But I have to point out the bit I love love love, where the Trouble Aspect of a character is “All Work, No Play,” because if you’re not on board with that assessment, we’re gonna struggle to hang out.
OSR Wisdom Distilled at Submystical Aquifer. Respect for laying out the good advice you’ve received, both for your own records and for others to know where you’re at.
1d10 Halflings and their 1d4 Dogs at Blog of Forlorn Encystment. Despite the deep Tolkien love among my regular players, I don’t really care much about halflings, but dogs? And 1d4 per halfling?! Even being a dog person, that’s an alarming number of dogs. My current dog, incidentally, is pretty darn close to Willow.
Ogre & Ogre-folk at Advantage on Arcana. Not only the Carnival post from the June organizer, but a glorious exploration of an extreme drug in an RPG setting. One dose is hardcore; the second dose kills without extreme intervention, and even then… you’re an ogre. Looks like I need to consider some hardcore drug options at my table.
Bad Ideas (d10 Curse Akhs, d10 Disease Akhs) at Whose Measure God Could Not Take. Curses and diseases! Which, in the way things play out the table, are awfully fuzzy about the boundaries as is. Akhs are toxic ideas, in the same vein, with weird and sometimes just plain funny effects. I have a particular fondness for Furnezhard’s insistence that one save to avoid picking up obviously cursed objects, just for the noisome complications downstream.
Wildfires in A Hexcrawl at Idraluna Archives. Modeling wildfires in a fantasy setting and why, probably, you don’t have to. But you could, and some tables that do a far better job than I can manage, being that my experience is to check the fire danger sign on my way to a hike but not do more than make a mental note. (Not like I’m making a campfire for an afternoon hike.)
What I Like About Orc Babies at Blog of Forlorn Encystment. Clearly a blog I enjoy reading, judging by this month’s links. Not going to do justice to such a long piece in a sentence or two, but a worthwhile and thoughtful exploration of people-shaped monsters (and noncombatants, and children) as people, not monsters.
Grandma has left us alone but little yellow flowers sometimes grace the corner of our rooms (Ancestor Worship) at Lonely Star. You had me at the unmistakable reference to A Silver Mt. Zion, and, man, I haven’t thought about that band in probably 20 years. Still fondly recall the tour where godspeed you black emperor! opened for Mogwai; easily the loudest show I ever attended. Could feel the echoes in my viscera the day after. But, nevermind that: though it’s not the approach I would take – I don’t like to limit player agency to this degree, especially when it’s a dice roll – the idea of mechanics to guide ancestor worship and the supernatural effects it might have is worth exploring.
Diagrams for Travel from the Qanoon-e-Islam (1832) and Archie G. Norcross’ Maine Forest Fire Maps (1918–22) at The Public Domain Review. Two intriguing takes on maps. The latter a set, specialized for fire lookouts, showing not only the bird’s eye view of the land but the 360 degrees of mountains that ring the horizon. The former less of a map than a set of guidelines for traveling when the signs are auspicious. Remember: traveling south on a Saturday or Tuesday is unprofitable; best lay low until Friday.
Learning to Draw and Not Feeling Like Crap About It at The Weeping Stag. Lots of advice on picking up a new art form. Key points: practice more (and, yeah, even more), and stay grounded. Be honest with yourself and let the slog be its own reward.
The Living World Sandbox Campaign at Bat in the Attic. Solid advice from Rob on making a sandbox breathe and take on its own life. A lot of real experience distilled into this one post.
O is for Orcs. Those lovable, cuddly monsters who descend upon the civilization of humankind in relentless hordes to pillage and burn everything that is beautiful.
Or maybe not. Orcs can be many things, from anthropomorphized evil burbling up from the darkest and filthiest dungeon puddles to just some other species option for players. My impression is that almost every campaign uses a handful of standards – orcs, goblins, miscellaneous undead, dragons – and it’s these which offer the best opportunities to give one’s own fantastic location a unique character. I’ve written a bit on orcs before, and now it’s an excuse to flesh them out further.
If they’re the sort that you could readily imagine in a space campaign – space orcs, space goblins, miscellaneous space undead, space dragons – you can make them your own anywhere.
First, a brief bit on elves. In my experience, the gravity of Tolkien pulls greatly on the notion of elves, and the idea of them being a playable species that’s mostly humans with a long-ass life grates. Their umwelt should instead be alien to that of humans, their perspective wildly different, their patience enormous. Why they’d stoop to the get-rich-quick risks of dungeon-looting is beyond me. Maybe the adventuring years are the elven Rumspringa?
No elves in my campaign. They’re extinct, unmade by their own magical creations, with their legacy remaining in crumbling texts, magical objects, lost ruins, and the species they broke and remade. Elves were what resulted when an ascendant civilization combined a centuries-long lifespan, magical aptitude and intense study, and a worldview where almost all over living things were no more worthy of respect than worms or insects. Everything was fair game for experimentation, for exploitation.
Much of the weirdness that exists in the campaign world could be explained by “a wizard did it,” and while that’s sometimes reasonable, sometimes not, there’s a zone of inexplicable things that are seemingly made by magic, but without sensible purpose. We can strain to make sense in some cases – owlbears? – and otherwise shrug at wizards being wizards.
The elves undertook their efforts with focus and purpose. If they made owlbears, it was to populate the deep forests with hungry, nocturnal predators to deter and devour nosy interlopers. That they might breed and evolve over time was of little concern, or even a bonus. A low-maintenance option for long-term operation. Ecological collateral damage? Who cares?
For reasons left in the dust of history, elves had very few children, and the loss of a life felt as a world-sundering event in their culture. Few of them dared put life at risk, especially in battle where even the greatest warriors could perish from an errant arrow. Instead, they sought others to make war in their stead. Mercenaries paid with silver and gold and precious jewels mined from the depths of the earth, at first, though these would prove expensive and, at times, unreliable. When a force proved victorious on the field of battle, there was ever a risk that they might turn back and demand more of their employers, those who kept far from the bloodshed.
Elven magic was powerful, and patient, and their scholars studied the ways of many sciences. Realizing the worth of domesticated beasts, they took in wild humans, the hunter-gatherers who spread across the many lands. Bred them, raised them, infused their development with subtle enchantments to make them into living tools. Many generations over a single elven lifetime, teasing out desired traits, suppressing others, and on occasion grafting fragments of things not human. As a dedicated human might develop cabbages for varied purposes, the elves made humans into what they needed.
Among these species were the orcs, the fearless infantry of the elven armies. Larger and stronger than their forebears, they were raised to obey, to fight, to feel no more qualms about killing than their masters. Spear and shield were their kit, marching across the lands to wage war. At their height, the armies were great conglomerations of warriors and terrific beasts, aided by great elven magic, but always with companies of orcs at the head of the column.
With the collapse of the elves, their slave species went free. The dwarves and yohtar found their place in the ascendant empires of humanity. Many of the great beasts vanished into the dark wilderness, some to thrive far from civilization, others to be hunted to extinction. The orcs, so well bred into hardy warriors capable of living across many climes, readily transitioned into nomadic hunter-gatherers.
For untold generations, they lived off the land, traveling with herds of varied livestock for meat and milk. When pressed on the warpath, they raided farms and granaries along the way, but had always relied on foraging to supplement their animals, and hunting for variety and practice. Their company structure had order and hierarchy, such that they could be autonomous without direct orders from above. And noncombatants trailed the warriors and kept camp, of course, so they were always prepared to move. When their masters never returned, they kept as before, tending to their own.
In the thousand years since, the orcs have evolved as societies do. Most remain nomadic, moving as the seasons and the landscape dictate, guiding great herds as they remain fiercely independent of human settlements. Reputations of battle prowess precede them, such that combat and casualties are rare. Life in the wilderness is harsh, and every able-bodied orc lost in combat is one who cannot hunt and provide. A company is never so large that the elders do not know each member by name and face.
Long centuries of manipulation by the elves leaves traces of the miraculous for many generations, an innate knack for magic woven into the bloodline. Their independence from the restrictions of human civilization beneath the sorcerer-kings lends no cultural taboos against magic. Together, this creates societies with a greater proportion of members who can perform miracles, and a respect for their gifts.
As nomads bound to the landscape and its seasons, orcish spiritualism tends to animistic beliefs, in which spirits both large and small dwell in special places, in rivers, in trees. (In many but not all cases, such spirits are demons.) This becomes a guiding principle for shamans with miraculous power. Magic flows through time and place, and proper practice demands respect for the spirits inhabiting and overseeing. Offerings make the impossible more reliable.
While the gift can touch anyone, and its contours may take any shape, the miracles of the orcs tend to several key types, ranging from healing injuries to bolstering courage to manipulating the natural world to that most ancient of magics, divination.
Healing and recovery: Soothe Injury. Restore missing HP, remove an injury occupying a Group slot, or speed natural recovery.
Courage and resolve: Wolfpack Bravery. Boost morale, remove and/or guard against fear effects, or grant attack bonuses for allies fighting side-by-side in combat.
Plant growth: Vigor of Spring. Boost the growth of a plot of plants, encourage a bloom of flowers out of season, or grant an ally a second wind.
Animal communication: Tongue of Beasts. Speak with wild animals, command a loyal dog with complex directions, or enable a group to communicate in a secret code.
Weather control: Call the Wind. Create a gust of wind, alter the direction of the breeze, or alter the course of a storm.
Divination: Read the Future in Clouds. Trace along the clouds to reveal information about what has yet to come to pass. Cost pegged to difficulty of inquiry and specificity of answer desired.
Orcish bears enough similarities to be considered of the Common family of languages, a spoken tongue with no written tradition. As warriors in service of the elves, their masters denied them writing lest it make them more difficult to control. In this era, some use a phonetic transcription using the Common alphabet, particularly for trade, though usage is inconsistent and often particular to the writer.
The language itself is rich and melodic, multitonal with a great capacity for poetry discussing even the most mundane of topics. Many tribes practice throat-singing as well, and their tongue is often playful, expressing complexity through clever combinations of words. Humans unaccustomed to the subtleties require long practice to both understand and produce the proper sounds, even as they have the proper anatomy to do so.
A truncated version of Orcish is known as Drumsong, a drum-based code first developed for long-range communication across the battlefield, and now used to great effect when coordinating groups across the vast plains of Dzeh. Prioritizing speed over depth, Drumsong makes do with a small vocabulary, but clever drumsingers use their poetic gifts to lace missives with greater meaning. While not overly protective of it, few tribes willingly teach Drumsong to outsiders, and even then only those so close as trusted as to be effective members already.
Those competent or fluent in Orcish find Drumsong easier to learn; its low complexity implies that one achieves full understanding at language competency.
Next: P is not for Privateer. But who wouldn’t welcome a bit of government-sanctioned piracy in their campaign? Pirates with a more complex political apparatus behind them?
52 Monsters 
