Month: November 2016

Stone Halls & Serpent Men: Curses and Shrines

A small update for missing details.

  • Updated encounter tables to split low-level 1-12, high-level 13-20, merged in psionic encounters.
  • Curses. Following d20 SRD’s model of very simple curses, because I can’t figure out how to table-ize more complex curses.
  • Radiation area of effect
  • Finished mutations. Egg-Laying clones should be played like Gremlins from the movies, or Miji’s clones in Dark Legacy comics.
  • Shrines. There’s always a balance with religions between putting wealth & power in the hands of possible allies, and tempting murderhobo players to sack the temple.

Doomed

You may be feeling a little down right now. It can always be worse.

  • Black Sun Deathcrawl

    Nameless husks fleeing downwards in dungeons forever, watch everyone you ever meet die. Is this any worse than normal D&D? No more pretense of heroism or money-grubbing, the only excuse for levelling is escaping death a little longer. 

    you are the Cursed, remnants
of life in a universe of decay
cannibalistic parasites you
suck a meager existence from
the corpse of a long dead reality
once you had nations, races, goals
now you are one, united at last
in the unending struggle for
survival in a reality that abhors you
once you had love and happiness and light
now there is only the crawl
  • Qelong

    Scavenging a lost weapon from the sidelines of a massive war you cannot understand or affect, doing nothing but spreading more misery among people you’ve decided are less important than your own profit.

  • Deep Carbon Observatory

    After natural disaster, and unnatural pollution and predation, you travel through an increasingly horrifying world and fail to prevent worse disasters, before plunging into darkness and horror forever.

  • Death Frost Doom

    A forbiddingly large graveyard, a creepy cabin on a mountain, a book of dead names. And a dungeon, there’s always a dungeon. Anything you disturb may be hard to put back down. What is it about these things that’s so hard to resist?

  • S1 Tomb of Horrors

    A tomb of an ancient wizard, full of death and just enough rewards to be worth going in, right? At one time, you could be that delusional. But you know now what it is, everyone in gaming’s heard enough about old Acererak’s lair. It’s in Ready Player One, it can’t be that scary. And still you’ll lose if you go in, and you have to go in.

I don’t usually run these kind of adventures, except at the end of a campaign when it seems like attention is flagging. But they’re among my favorite to read, and contemplate running, and steal bits of. The Crow siblings from Deep Carbon Observatory are of course to be found somewhere.

Life in Stone Halls & Serpent Men

A rather long time since the last post, which wasn’t even on-topic. I was working, made some web-based CRPGs as well as updating my iPhone games. But I’ve also done some gaming, and wrote a ton in SH&SM.

The what’s new for this update is very long. Some of it’s tested. The psionics & mutations have been used very lightly, so I’m sure they’re unbalanced, but do accomplish their goal, giving high-level abilities at high risk. The random dungeon/community tools are well-tested, but by their nature can produce surprising results.

I’ve decided that my older fantasy RPG projects should be mostly scavenged for material for SH&SM, so a bunch of that went into this update, and more will be added later. I still don’t love the d20 mechanics, but I love how Professions have made character creation fast and flexible, and my style of swords & sorcery fits.

What’s New:

  • How to Play the Game
  • Characters:
    • Beastmaster
    • Psionic
    • Hero brought in line with Prestige Professions
  • Social Status
  • Equipment:
    • Material & Repair
    • Lifestyle & Maintenance
    • Dwarf tech
  • Combat:
    • Slight increase to Untrained combat table at mid levels
    • Swimming & Underwater
    • Throwing flasks & grenades
  • Psionics
  • Radiation & Mutation
  • Bestiary:
    • Changed Incorporeal to Ethereal, for consistent mechanics
    • Added Faerie trait
    • Ape-Man
    • Crab, Giant
    • Dolphin
    • Eel, Giant
    • Elemental
    • Elf, Sea
    • Golem (Theurgist ability)
    • Homonculous (Alchemist ability)
    • Imp
    • Intellect Devourer
    • Medusa
    • Merfolk
    • Nymph
    • Octopus, Giant
    • Phase Spider
    • Psychic Parasite
    • Sea Devil
    • Sea Monster
    • Shark
    • Sprite
    • Squid, Giant
    • Star-Hound
    • Star-Spawn
    • Whale
    • Wolf reduced to Normal (but tougher than average)
    • Wolf, Dire
  • Treasure:
    • Trade Goods
    • Treasure Maps
  • Referee’s Tools:
    • Escaping the Underworld
    • Fortune Cards: TODO: find inspiration article
    • Wilderness Features
      • Chamber
      • Trap
      • Trash
      • Campsite
      • Tomb
      • Castle
        • Very simple siege mechanics
      • Community
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