There is No Such Thing as Efreet Beer

Efreet Beer has restorative properties the same as a potion of Extra Healing, but also conveys Fire Resistance (immune to normal fire, +2 saving throws against fire attacks, half damage to magic fire attacks that do not permit saving throws), as well as Giant Strength. Stored in kegs, each of which will contain d100 “doses”, but which will be rendered useless if decanted from keg and not drank within 2 days. Non-efreet drinking more than one pint (dose) must save versus poison or take d4 damage each time they do so, with no further magic benefits to be had. Badass dungeoneers love this one for their drinking/gambling games.

Gnomebucha is a fermented gnomish tea made from mushrooms which will Cure Disease or immediately counteract any poison. Ever present in the homes of gnomes, 10% of the time it has been brewed incorrectly and will be poisonous to non-gnomes causing d6 damage.

Tincture of Halfling Pipeweed will double normal hit point restoration due to rest but will stop normal restoration if used for more than three days in a row. It is mildly addicting and beer or wine consumption will nullify its restorative abilities. The small bottle it’s stored in usually holds about ten doses.

Boccob’s Wort is another tincture, generally stored in a small bottle holding ten doses, this herbal concoction will change the alignment of the imbiber to neutral for one day.

Landlubber’s Juice is a foul tasting beverage made from seaweed and herbs given to those unaccustomed to travel by sea. Those who fail their saving throw (against poison, or roll under their Dexterity) every twelve hours of such travel are at a disadvantage (DM's discretion) in combat and spell casting for an equal amount of time without the inner ear balance provided by the Juice. No further rolls necessary per journey once a Saving Throw has been successfully made.

Civilization: Video Installation by Marco Brambilla

This video has been around for awhile and most visitors here will already have seen it, but if you haven't I highly recommend you view it full screen - it's really an amazing work. Though obviously rooted in a western religious perspective, I found it to be really suggestive of Hindu or Buddhist cosmology or art somehow, or of a kind of mandala. I wish I could reproduce something more personalized like this to give to players as a kind of vision or overview of the planes, splicing in monsters and our own deities.

Real Village Maps

I stumbled on this page a while back and bookmarked it as a future source of free village maps or inspiration for creating my own. These are all maps of real villages in the U.K., made for the purpose of being of possible help to "emergency services, delivery men, or indeed anyone trying to find a house by name." Maybe they'll be of use to your game too.

De Profundis: A GM-free RPG

Michael Oracz’s De Profundis initially caught my eye on Chaosium’s catalog because of its Cthulu theme (though it's not related to Chaosium’s own Call of Cthulu game) and because it described itself as “GM-free”. To me, this marks it as an even more direct relative of the Exquisite Corpse than other role playing games.

It’s a softcover book of about 30 pages, and in many ways is really just a primer of psychodrama, although as the author points out, one intended for fun, rather than as therapy. Indeed, the back of the book carries the warning “This game is intended for mentally stable adults” which itself evokes the Necronomicon’s sanity stealing power. The game is meant to be played via postal correspondence, and though I can see some subtler aspects of play being lost by not following that format, I think it would work very well in a web forum play by post format or even just by email. An example of solo game play is described in the book. Here though, I believe the notion of De Profundis as a game is probably stretched to the breaking point, and perhaps better described as method acting or rather, method writing.

Oracz best summarizes psychodrama as game in an article which previously appeared in the (Polish?) gaming publication Portal (#3), which he includes here in the appendix. There, one can find examples of play, descriptions of typical features of psychodrama, and examples of useful devices. This appendix is probably the most lucid part of the book - the rest of it is itself an example of game play and a bit surreal, moving from description of the game and its elements to personal accounts of creeping madness and Lovecraftian horror and then back again.

I plan on setting up a forum for purposes of playing this game if anyone’s interested. The setting will initially be an island with several isolated research stations, though of course you may enter play and locate yourself in the world wherever you choose and in whatever capacity you like.

Worling's Magic Items

For fans of the famous wizardess of the British Isles:

Hand of Pilfering

Any lit candle placed into this dried, shriveled, and clenched humanoid fist will provide illumination as would a normal candle to only the person holding the hand. Anyone else will see the candle go out and no illumination provided. Prized by human thieves and owlish wizards and alchemists.

Mirror of Enemy Detection

This mirror will show its owner’s possible enemies (oppositely aligned creatures) within a 100’ radius. The images will be blurry or sharp depending on how far away the enemy is - in the case of multiple types of enemies, the images will rotate through a gallery of them, pausing a few seconds on each.

Light Snuffer

A candle snuffer that can extinguish sources of light at a distance, it's used as a wand, has a range of 100’, and can effect up to one dozen separate non-magical (ie. torch, lantern) light sources at a time once per day.

Teleportation Powder

Effects per the spell but usable by up to three individuals simultaneously, this powder is thrown onto a large fire which is then stepped into as the powder causes the flames to momentarily shoot up and produce a prodigious amount of green smoke. Often a magic item of last resort, in order for the teleportation to work, a saving throw must be made. Those who fail will not teleport and will take fire damage accordingly.

Homegrown Chinese Monster

The Telegraph reports:

Stunned farmer Zheng Dexun dug up a crop of fleeceflower, or Chinese knotweed, and found one shaped like a person, in Langzhong, China. The eerie-looking plant, measuring 62 centimetres tall, has clearly defined arms, legs, and head. Zheng said: "I don't know whether it is good or bad to dig out a Chinese knotweed that looks like a human. I'd better put it back in the earth!"

Just another few weeks and I imagine this thing would have dug its own way out.

S&W Index Card Sized PC Sheet PDF: Latest Iteration

I'm always messing with these, here's the latest version, which I'm too lazy to reformat from the 3x5" index card format to a proper 4x6" (we just zoom the image when printing to 4x6's)... Get it better quality PDF (with reverse side equipment etc.) here.

Street D&D: Market & Powell in San Francisco

King of RPGs posts pictures of their recent street D&D game. There's a slideshow here.

Game Play Journal: A Shell Game

Tonight was the first time Nick and I have been able to play our one on one game in weeks due to illness. Since we haven't played in so long and have a new party, we figured we'd test drive Swords & Wizardry instead of playing Labyrinth Lord. His party of a thief and dwarf met up with three others (including the chaotic cleric Agnal) outside of a town's pallisade entrance and agreed to join each other. The other two with Agnal were Snits, the beautiful female elf, and Berk, a very unremarkable fighter.

There was the usual wandering around a new town, getting their bearings, finding the fletcher and arms shop, grocer, general store, tavern, etc. It dawned on the thief that he was at the lowest point in his life, as he had only 5 silver pieces, no job, no real friends, and no prospects in this strange town. He enthusiastically brought out three nut shells for a quick attempt at some gambling/swindling by sleight of hand in the tavern - perhaps a bit naively considering it was breakfast time, and the tavern consisted of a total of nine individuals (five of whom were party members, one of whom was the serving woman/wife of the proprieter, and the others were travelling merchants with whom Agnal, Snits, and Berk had hitched a ride the night before).

Nick's role playing can be very entertaining to listen to, particularly his high fantasy speech, and he's very content to converse at length with NPCs. However, today the merchants avoided eye contact upon recognizing that they were being solicited. Fortunately the dice ruled that Berk was suckered into Wagstaff the thief's shell game.

At this point, I realized that Nick thought that this sleight of hand thievery ought be very easy for him to accomplish. He let Berk find the nut the first time, then tried to double the money and secret it away - my problem was in trying to determine the probability of success here and I didn't want to just rule that he succeeded, lest an easy money precedent be set. We're using a combination of Skathros' thief and Dyson Logos' 2d6 thief skills. As there's no sleight of hand skill, I thought of using a DEX check but figured this was more complicated than that (it would have required training to perform as an adequate illusion on a regular basis). The closest thing seemed to be pick pockets, but even that didn't seem right since in the case of picking pockets, you are (hopefully) not being directly observed and scrutinized. I decided to offer Nick the option of trading his pick pockets skill for this shell game business, assuming that he'd have had to practice it and that it was a general sleight of hand skill and not just moving shells. He was fine with this, and using his DEX modifier, was able to successfully hide the nut and earn a single silver piece from his comrade in arms. Eesh.

He has a job prospect as a rat catcher though, so the thief's upbeat for the moment.

A God for Agnal?

As I mentioned earlier, I've asked Agnal's player (Nick) for an idea for a potential deity for his chaotic cleric. We've decided that as we're playing that clerics get no spells until 2nd level, they haven't committed to a deity before then and are really more like mystics. Achieving second level, they have an epiphany, choose a god, and are given magical ability. I like this approach as it allows players to immerse themselves in the campaign setting before fully settling on a religious identity for their characters.

While waiting for a response I came up with the following option for Nick if he prefers not to devise his own at this time. Some broad brushstrokes here, but I like the idea that it could lead to a tie-in with Mutant Future at some point in the future.
--
Skapeses - (skāpˌsēz) “The Anti-Shepherd”

Appearing as a wandering, diseased, or malnourished goat shepherd, Skapeses moves back and forth between a possible future Zirthus and the present. He is always accompanied by what appear to be (2d12) goats - These goats have had a permanent illusion spell cast on them to appear normal, but are actually a more intelligent variation of spidergoats (a la Mutant Future) - [AC 6, HD 4, ATK 1 (Gore, Kick, or Bite), DMG 2d4, 2d6, or 1d4, Save F12]. In addition, each of Skapeses’ attendant spidergoats can daily cast Bestow Curse as well as Web.

Skapeses and his followers sow confusion, doubt, and chaos. To amuse himself, he will often sell his goats to shepherds and farmers, or to travelers on the road as sources of food. These goats will always try to first secretly kill and eat other livestock and eventually move on to do the same to their human or demi-human keepers. If they accomplish this, they’ll then call upon Skapeses for their return via Teleportation.

Clerics who choose his worship are expected to follow the example of Skapeses’ spidergoats - Their ultimate goal should be to gain the trust of a community (especially a religious one) and subvert it in every way, eventually murdering the leaders and ideally making it look like the work of someone else.
--

The Most Halloween Appropriate D&D Monster, Lest We Forget

I would offer this pumpkin headed depiction of the venerable Bugbear, from the 1975 Greyhawk supplement (page 67), as my suggestion for the most "Halloweeny" D&D monster. A far cry from the creature depicted in the 1e Monster Manual.

Chaosium Releases "Classic Fantasy" Supplement to BRP

"Classic Fantasy" is a return to the dawn of roleplaying, when you would gather with your friends in your parent’s basement, bashing down doors, slaying hordes of orcs and goblins, and throwing yet another +1 sword in your bag of holding. In these early days of roleplaying, what eight giants are doing in a 10’x10’ room was less important than what their treasure rating was, and rescuing the beautiful princess isn’t something you did because it was morally right, but because of the 1000 gold piece reward. And finally, the adventures that didn’t have to be anymore detailed then “some giants are raiding the border settlements let’s kill em”, are the adventures you and your group still talk about to this day."

I've never played any Chaosium games and only bought the Basic Role Playing and Call of Cthulu rules books in the last year, but based on these two books I have a lot of curiosity about this new Classic Fantasy "monograph". Chaosium's having a 30% off sale, and if I hadn't already exceeded my monthly RPG budget I'd probably jump on this...Seems like it might be a good deal at 196 pages and the sale price of $20.97 (sale ends Nov. 1st).

If that interests you, there's also the two free FRPG's at basicroleplaying.com - Fire & Sword and the SRD edition of the Mongoose Runequest rules.

Old School label? Well, it's described as "...An homage to the classic dungeon delve and the following games were inspirational in its design, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition, The Fantasy Trip, Tunnels & Trolls, and of course, RuneQuest 1st and 2nd edition."

Wherein I Discover Some Nice Maps Hiding Inside A Rolled Up Battlemat

So there were a few mostly unexamined items I acquired as part of the Craigslist find some time ago. Some of these were large battlemats (something I’ve never used before). These were rolled up, and now that it’s been nearly two months since I got them, the other day I unrolled one and discovered to my surprise the following:

The World of Greyhawk Box Set’s two maps, very carefully lined up and laminated by the previous owner. There aren’t even any thumbtack holes in the corners.. Nice! Funny thing is, I had opened that box, and was disappointed to discover that the maps were missing. I then went and bought a complete box with maps, combined the best parts of the two boxes, and sold the one with missing maps. Then I find this. Still, very pleased and am slightly tempted to use them even though I’ve been plotting out a homebrew campaign setting for some time now. What to do. Maybe I should just put them up on the wall in the office...seems a shame to keep them hidden away somewhere all rolled up.

iRobot's ChemBot

I saw this on Slashdot the other day and immediately thought of various slimes and jelly monsters in D&D, as well as something that one might encounter in Gamma World or Mutant Future.

Check out this video (shown "walking" towards the end):

Obviously there's a long way to go before this thing matures to the point of being useful...but the possibilities are kind of scary. The shapeshifting Terminator comes to mind among other things -it's not surprising that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Army Research Office are funding its development.