Lone Knight

After you’ve gone and expanded your game’s toxic repertoire, what next is there to do?

Why not offer a broader palette of ways to avoid, lessen, or undo some of the various terrible things that adventurers manage to inflict on themselves and others?

In the name of balance, then (hee), here are a dozen treatments and tonics:

01. Crystal Cordial: Clears the mind of fuzziness and confusion.
02. Sunbalm: Protects against infection from undead-inflicted wounds. 4 hrs.
03. Winerose Elixir: Bolsters resistance against poisons (allows second save or equiv.)
04. Saintkiss: Maximizes next applied (or cast) healing ability. Expensive!
05. Silverfog Drops: Clears artificially-induced blindness or misdirection.
06. Heaven’s Hero Elixir: Boosts a single attribute by 1 for 1d3 hrs. Multiple doses not recommended.
07. White Wind Balm: Heals recent burn-related injury.
08. Golden Earth: Repels insects and similar small creatures. 8 hrs.
09. Rainmist Oil: Repels (most) jellies and fungi. 4 hrs.
10. Moon Tarnish: Protects against lycanthropic infection. 2 hrs.
11. Crimson Vision Elixir: Nerve tonic, allows test against paralysis.
12. Lightning Juice: Energy boost, wakes you right up; undoes sleep and sleeplike effects.

I don’t like 99% of poisons, venoms and similar dosings being save or die. Never have, never will — and it’s probably been fairly obvious from my own game stuff over the years. I’ve got better (and sometimes more deviltry-creating) things to do than wipe out a character with a single roll. On top of any other reasons I could reel off, it’s boring.

I’m sure it will aggravate any OSR Purists[tm] reading this the same way I’m sure it did when I cheerfully ignored save-or-die poisons posting on my old blog back in the vicinity of 2009. Didn’t care then, dont care now. Lol.

So in that vein, here are a dozen unpleasantnesses that do a variety of weakening, complicating things. They might lead to a (near-)death, but they don’t flat-out inflict one:

01. Pea-On-The-Skin: Skin hypersensitivity; silk feels like sandpaper. Concentration is virtually impossible, as is rest. 2d12 hrs.
02. Gravetaint: Cannot heal; curative magics instead wound horribly. 4d6 hrs.
03. Founder’s Curse: Inflicts a random elemental weakness, taking double damage. 4d6 days.
04. Greylily Tincture: Lowers physical abilities by one-third. 1d6 days.
05. Martyr’s Yearning: Mortifies the flesh; all injury is increased by one-half again. 2d4 hrs.
06. Moonsnail Venom: Sluggish, delayed reactions; always responds last. 2d8 hrs.
07. Wounded Angelcap: Paralyzes a limb. 2d6 days.
08. Skyjewel Essence: Confusion and hallucinations; cannot tell friend from foe. 3d4 hrs.
09. Crimson Kiss: Thins the blood; all injuries continue to lose minimum damage each action unless immediately treated. 1d4 hrs.
10. Palelily Tincture: Sprouts scaly growths, twisting visage into a demonic one. Diplomacy fails two-thirds of the time. 1d6 days.
11. False Flight: Appears dead; spirit is turned loose as a “living ghost”. 3d4 hrs.
12. Perfection Of Marble: Slowly petrifies flesh; one physical ability lowers by one/day. 4d4 days.

When an adventurous soul — or two, or eight — ready themselves to hurl headlong into a newly-found dungeon or maybe to chart unknown lands (maybe an island rose from the sea, even, or a cloud bank lowered enough to show the spires atop it), sometimes they want to hire on some extra hands before they go. Not even just to swing an extra sword, but to help with everything else that needs done on an adventure.

And then, of course, there’s the times when some hopeful helpful soul decides to offer their labours ahead of time … (now, don’t take advantage of that!)


For the times when an interesting new face is due amongst hirelings and helpers, there’s this little table.

All of these folks are, at start, Normal/0-level/however your game phrases it, and they aren’t trained for combat; with some encouragement, training, and maybe an ambush or two, though, maybe they’ll even pick up the rudiments of an adventuring lifestyle!

01. Tanare Pawsen — coil of rope, herding dog: adept at handling animals, domestic and merely tamed; claims he and they understand each other without words, and maybe they do
02. Vika Glaem — willow baskets, iron snips: seems to know every secret berry field, mushroom patch, and hidden spring within ten leagues of her hometown
03. Norwi Willoweve — pouch of flavourings, pot-in-a-poke: now here’s a rare and valued bird — they’re a virtuoso at camp cooking, making even iron rations into something actually pleasant to eat
04. Ren Dama — bark-paper scrolls, writing kit: delicate of fingers and fussy of details, recording absolutely everything with whatever means he has at hand, including attempting maps
05. Merry Duskr — hooked staff, spindle and roving: unschooled but eager to learn, and one would swear she has a sixth sense for weak structures and failing light sources
06. Bonra Curthi — shoulder yoke, leather pannier: they insist on carrying as much gear as possible, which is a lighter load for the party but perhaps just a bit of overkill — and yet, they don’t seem even winded
07. Vikren One-Eye — pouches of herbs, collection of linen squares: has a broad and prodigious knowledge of herbs, poultices and possets, and he’s happy to share them for the small comforts they are
08. Iilimani Foxfire — prayer beads, weathercloak: an acolyte at a local temple or shrine, she’s willing to vouch for any whom she works alongside and who at least listen to her words as she works
09. Acan Brighthorn — lacework iron lantern, trained corvid: actually a scion of a high family a cousin or two removed; they’re a little awkward on ‘common’ social graces at times but learning quick, and will remember those who take it all good-naturedly
10. Sefrit Duskwell — garlic drops, silvergilt pendant: can often sense the approach or presence of the unliving — or is good enough at reading signs to make it look that way — and he will not explain why that is
11. Janu Burran — pouch of whimsies, tiny whittling knife: perpetually making and then toying with little amulets, good luck charms and wardaways, hedge-lore really … but suppose she’s correct?
12. Kelvran Summer — sheaf of illuminated manuscript, hand-copied map: they fled a scholastic, monastic life and regret nothing; short on experience, long on surprisingly intriguing trivia and scraps of legendry

A terrible number of strange and lonely (or just lonely, or even just lone) towers seem to have wizards in them. If they don’t have a wizard in, they probably used to; if the tower’s a ruin, probably a wizard that ruined it.

What if you want a strange or lonely or lone tower that doesn’t have a wizard?

Got you covered —

01. The inside of the tower doesn’t have any distinct floors; it’s completely hollow, every speck of its walls and domed ceiling coated in slowly turning cobalt and gold, land maps on the walls and starcharts on the dome. No one seems to be present …
02. The tower is built over a fissure to the Scarlet Iron Hell. Its upper floors, attainable by corroded ladders, contain comfortable suites for visitors and a workroom for negotiating sentences; but the first floor is a burning blood-red inferno that matches the molten-lace maw to the hell, guarded by stern heavenly devils alert for those escaping purification.
03. The getaway refuge of a retiring faerie lord, this tower is forged from translucent, glowing ivy and clinging grapevines, faerie glass and compressed starlight. Inside, Jalailah the Twice-Moon Moth Marquis reclines on a bed of velvet fangs and is served by grey-pelted deer-goblins.
04. Shattered, tumbled, its stones scorched black from the heat of the flames that devoured its former inhabitants, the Wry-Falcon’s Keep is a hollow ruin — save for the night of a lunar eclipse, when its walls rise ruddy and ghost-like, and the echoes of heavy-treaded boots ring from its walks …
05. Alas for those searching for a great sorcerer, the tower changed hands when its builder failed in their bid to become a lich. Now the slim marble spire houses a co-operative of beekeepers; ground floor for trade and orders, middle floors for communal living, topmost floors dedicated to the homes of their giant tawny-furred bumblebee companions.
06. They say that Dancing Horse Tower — battered, moss-grown, perpetually changing hands as bandit kinds come and go — was once a motte, and that the long low hill it perches on was a bailey filled with otherworldly folks and their silver-shot village. But the bailey filled in as a barrow, and only the Tower stands proud … though Cesash the Wolf is claiming to hear a whistle from a crack in the earth outside, and …
07. Impeccable, of gleaming white marble — fitted so finely one couldn’t slip a silk thread between the stones — and prism-treated bronze, the Spire Of Wings At Rest has been a refuge and a shrine dedicated to the gentle Roui Of The Soothing Whisper. So why have there been so few pilgrims seen, and the doves are gone, and reports of colourless gargoyles circling the gleaming Spire at night grow and grow?
08. Grown from the earth itself, this nameless (it has been very important that it be nameless) tower spirals gently skyward, entwined limbs of rowan and hazel and pale ghost birch woven immutably together, walls and floor-platforms and handholds and all. The greenwychs who live within and without still offer blessings and balms in return for news and small favours done, despite encroaching villages.
09. One of the few remaining signal arrays left after the Twin Regent War, this hilltop tower is battered granite and oak reinforcement — and reinforcement is what its tired staff would appreciate for at least a little, both for maintenance of the great polished reflector that crowns their post like a metal sun and to herd away the misguided souls who think the gleaming thing somehow means a wizard lairs inside.
10. It sprang up overnight, it did; on the edge of the township, right next to the market gathering-grounds. It looks so quaint and unprepossessing, with its grey cobblestone walls and its rough wooden roof and frames; the greyhair who stepped blinking into the morning light, also unremarkable. A weaver, they said, and an accident of others’ magic. But the greyhair’s shadow speaks of strangeness, the strangeness of wings …
11. There is no tower. Or, at least, nothing that anyone has attempted so far has located a tower. But the shadow of a tower falls across the ground on sunny days, a grand fluted construction crowned with sub-towers, crenellations, and fluttering banners, and none have the answer. And now the shadow shows a door swung wide.
12. The dead are building a tower. The fleshless dead are building a tower from their own bones — three floors already, and rising, rising — and more are clattering, striding, crawling across the land to join them every night. They ignore the living. Their chattering rhythms speak of a great angel, ivory and burnished, awaiting their arrival. The tower rises.

Doors in dungeons seem to exist to get kicked in, picked open, or otherwise be just the briefest of speedbumps between adventurers and wherever they want to go next.

Which is fair enough, sure; but what if the occasional doorway was just a little bit different –?

01. A typical metal-bound dungeon door, nothing unusual, but the door frame is lined with holes on its inner surface. Hmm.
02. Pale and grey-tawny, weirdly fibrous and chitinous; is it grown from fungus? Is this a living mycelial slab?
03. In the middle of a grim dim dungeon is this door. A door of delicate, jewel-coloured, lead-framed, stained glass artistry. It seems to swing freely …
04. Pinned to the door itself is a tattered, tanned hide of some once-scaled beast with TURN BACK NOW scrawled across the spotty leather in scorchmarks.
05. The heavy wooden door lies wide open; hanging in the middle of the doorway is a slowly whirling orange-violet vortex. Which tugs ever so insistently, yes it does.
06. A steel grille, like those found in actual imprisoning dungeons — except the crossbeams are tongues of flame, and the bars are twining serpents that write if you don’t look directly at them.
07. If the door is as reflective as a mirror, what does that say about the other side? What about if you hand starts to sink into the reflection if you don’t open the door fast enough?
08. Oh. Oh dear. This black-stained door is almost entirely invisible beneath a dense layer of rusted chains and corroded locks running through massive metal loops on the door itself, on the walls, one to the ceiling, one to the roof …
09. Painted in painstakingly thin and precise pinstripes: yellow, pink, leaf green, white, robin’s egg blue, raspberry, fox orange, pale violet.
10. The door, all its fittings, and even its frame are all cast from rippled glass. And there are visible, hairline cracks.
11. Two door-leaves greet you in one frame: the left painted copper and fitted with blood-stained copper, the right bleached pearly white and trimmed with unblemished steel. The handles meet in the middle, talons clasping slender fingers. Which do you reach for?
12. As soon as anyone comes within three feet, the upper half of the door swings down — hi there, welcome to Gurruk’s Sandwich Bar, whadda ya like today?

Something I poke at on occasion is oversized (“dire”, “grand”, etc) weapons.

Because yes, sometimes I just want to play Cloud for a while, and I’m not even sorry.

So how to go about it with most of the games I’ve been poking at lately? (Exalted, of course, has this answer baked in already, so it can doodle in the corner over there for a while.) What needs to be covered to fit a sword that’s more like a sharpened steel ironing board into a game?

The way I see it, you need:

– the ironing-board-sized sword (or whatever)
– how its going to be wielded
– what it’s going to do
– what other results/effects

Now, the last thing I want is anything complicated, and while I could just try to bolt on Exalted’s reasoning, it’s fairly intrinsic to Exalts-as-existing-in-universe so that could get a little weird just about anywhere else. (but hold that thought for another time. lol.) I want something fairly simple, so I can apply it to OSE or Black Hack or Wandering Jewel Moons or whatever; sort of like my scratch rules for adding mecha.

So, I think I’ll tinker around with the following.

– A “grand” weapon adds a die of the appropriate type to its damage. Big chopper based on a standard sword in OSE? 2d8. This does still have a low end, but even slabs of metal can just graze.

– You cannot deal subdual damage with a “grand” weapon. (come on, now.)

So how to introduce these? Maybe

– If your system has any kind of class or other abilities, make “Grand Weapon Wielder” an optional choice. Replace one of the Warrior abilities in TBH; make it a selectable Trait in Wandering Jewel Moons; add it to the list of OSE Fighter combat options from Carrion Crawler #1 or let it replace a feature from the Cavalier or Paladin. You get the idea.

But what if your Fighter is a basic Fighter type, with no extras? Or if you don’t want someone to pay for the ability mechanically in quite that way?

– Then I suppose you can say a Strength/Body/whatever minimum is needed; say 17-18 on the usual 3d6 possibility. Maybe 16-18 or even 15, you want PCs to be able to do this or why put it in there as an option?

Yes, it’s a lot of damage. Yes, that’s the entire point.

What these behemoths will do, though, even if their wielder knows what they’re doing, is get in the way the rest of the time. Even if you can and know how to carry the thing, that slab is big, awkward, and intractible.

Which means they eat up encumbrance like a mofo.

Play a game with equipment/encumbrance slots? A Grand weapon eats at least two. Probably three. Definitely twice a normal weapon of its type, for sure.

Track encumbrance by weight? The thing weighs a shitton. This will vary by actual weapon of course, but come on now, the Buster Sword is surely easily comparable to a pile of armour in weight at the very least.

And if you want to be devilish, say if Grand weapons are enchanted (if they are enchanted at all) they have a high chance of being sentient if not sapient. And willful. Lol.

Not all dabblers in the arts of death confine themselves to flesh and bone, or even to the rarified essence of the restless unliving soul; a rare few find themselves enraptured by the rarest of manifestations, the unique intersection of death and soul and prayer and emotion that comes to a head when a beloved one is laid to rest on a funeral pyre.

Sometimes that pyre burns so fiercely — carries so much of its burden to mingle with the grief and the yawning finality of the afterlife — that its flames absorb all, and in the depths of the dancing fires something else catches alight.

That something is pyreflame, and its pale strange fires are valued and abhorred.

A strange substance, it is. Flickering like flames, it casts off a foxfire phosphorescence like a sheen across its bright blaze; and it blazes in colours of pale green, greenish golden, faint blue or a ghostly white. There’s an eerie solidity to pyreflame, a sense of clinging, syrupy presence, an almost jelly-like consistency that nonetheless slips through the fingers — and slip it may, without harm, because pyreflame does not burn living flesh. It feeds on bone, and only bone.

A swift harvester may count themselves lucky if they recover more than a thimbleful or two from any given fiery altar, gathering the clinging tongues of pyreflame into iron or crystal or stiffened silk. Of course, the gathered mourners may not approve of this behaviour …

But what does it do, this strange amalgamation of essence and prayer and spirit, of afterlives fair and foul?

– A dram of pyreflame will fuel any magic that involves the soul, the spirit, prayers or petitions or calls to higher (or lower) powers, instead of relying on the caster’s own reserves.

– Perhaps paradoxically, it will both fuel necromantic magic likewise, offering a greater animating spark to the unliving produced by such rites, and will cause any weapon smeared with at least a dram (more, for larger weapons) to cause critical and irreparable injury to the undead.

– A dram of pyreflame will also grant great restorative power to the healing arts, which will be cast at their maximum potential without fail.

– One may consume pyreflame, with unpredictable results:

01. Gain partial memories of the deceased
02. Gain one of the skills or talents of the deceased
03. Purge all impurities and weaknesses but be vulnerable to banishment or castigation as the unliving are
04. Attract the attention of one or more powers to whom mourning prayers were addressed (but sense the content of those prayers)
05. You now sense the presence of the newly and the restless dead
06. Develop the need to feed on at least a pound of human bone each week
07. You can, if you exert yourself, open the way to the underworld, but must pay in consumption of bone and blood
08. Burn out half of your allotted lifespan in a blaze of frenzied, aethereal enlightenment

Of course, there is also the rumour that, if enough pyreflame is consumed — and one is not overwhelmed or driven mad or mummified while living or any number of other whispered possibilities — one may catalyze the prayer-stuff and soul-stuff and lingering life-and-death and become a veritable small godling in one’s own right, capable of hearing prayer and snatching them the very air to, perhaps, grant, or to feed on as your rightful repast, or fuel your sorceries, or all of these things.

One does have to wonder what existing powers may think of such a thing.

Or, for that matter, the loved ones of those whose final travels you stole your quickening flames from.

Sometimes they fall.

“They” are virtually anyone. Grand holy knights and those sworn to higher powers, of course; the high hosts themselves and all their servant creatures, without a doubt; but also all those who try to reach for something better, something grander than themselves.

Sometimes, their reach exceeds their grasp, through their action or inaction or the one black moment when all one can do is lash out. Or fail to lash out. Or to act at all. Or perhaps act too much.

It doesn’t matter, really.

Sometimes they fall.

And, sometimes, they fall so fast and so deep that the act can never be truly hidden from sight.


Cast out, cast down, fallen, marked —

01. by Rage: blood-banner aura, burning eyes, mouth marred by bloodstained tusks
02. by Betrayal: crawling scars, bloody tears, crown of leaden horns piercing the scalp
03. by Oathbreaking: blackened mouth, smoke-haze aura, trailing phantasmal chains of bleeding gold
04. by Grief: corpse-pallor, black lacework scars, perpetual trails of thin black tears
05. by Temptation: cloven hooves, slit-pupiled eyes, golden nimbus shot with fissures and cracks
06. by Binding: thorn-chain brands, twisted bone-barbed limb, a collar of cold fire
07. by Corruption: ink-pool eyes, serpent’s tongue, patches of velvet scales upon the flesh
08. by Vice: whispering voice, satin skin, warm brassy antlers curving and baroque
09. by Ennui: unnatural soft flesh, burbling voice, a pale tattered trailing shadow
10. by Spite: bleeding mouth, blunt curving claws, a frozen fang-filled snarl
11. by Dishonour: phantom castigation chants, ashy touch, burning brand upon the brow
12. by Repudiation: clouded eyes, tongue of flame, flesh of marble seamed with ember’d veins

I like putting jellies in my games. Like, a lot. (they count as oozes! they do! the ochre jelly has been around forever! and the gelatinous cube is just a big square one! *lol*) Which means every once in a while I write up some new jellies, or give some old ones a fresh lick of paint, or both.

Not really anything fancy as a preface here, just jellies. Because jellies.

Jellies jellies jellies. Lol.


Blossom Jelly
1 HD
A translucent, creeping gelatinous drop, pale pink or deep rose or reddish violet, marked with petal-shaped patches of transparency.
– 1d4 + Evanescence: struck with delicate sorrow, test to take any action, 1d6 actions; dissolves organics

Dream Jelly
1 HD
An effervescent oval of perpetually flowing jelly, transparently amber-rose-violet and spangled with an oily iridescent sheen.
– 1d4 + Waking Dream: dazed and hallucinating dreamlike visions, 2d4 actions

Peacock Jelly
2 HD
What a surprisingly enchanting sight; who expected a jelly to be such a lovely blue-green colour, to have such a golden sheen, to shimmer so iridescently …
– 1d4 dissolve; Fascinate – all within 20’ stand staring at the jelly’s play of colours; Fission — when hp depleted, splits into two 1 HD jellies

Rune Jelly
2 HD
This rippling mass of translucent, flame-coloured cytoplasm sports glimmering runes and glyphs that flare to life on its surface and fade out again.
– 1d6 dissolve; consumes enchanted objects; Spellspawn — immune to spells, spells cast at jelly are absorbed, released as a 1 HD jelly next action

Crystal Jelly
4 HD
Transparent, colourless, glittering — like a great crystal orb, flattened slightly — sliding along the ground … and then suddenly sprouting shining blades.
– 2d4 pummel or gel shard; Volley — launches 1d4 blades of dense sharp gel ‘glass’, 1d6 each; dissolves crystal, glass, gemstones

Dracojelly
4 HD
This dense, gelatinous ovoid flows with purpose, and its slightly translucent mass is a single deep colour webbed with markings that make it almost look scaled.
– 2d4 rasping; Exhalation — blast of energy-infused gel, fire/acid/cold/electricity/etc, 3d6, every third action; immune to damage type dealt by Exhalation; consumes metals

Void Jelly
6 HD
Somehow, a mass of light-enveloping blackness and a translucent gelatinous shadow, simultaneously. Still faster than it should be, and very bad news.
– 2d8 entropic pseudopod; consumes everything; Engulfing Nothingness — two successful attacks engulf a target in the jelly’s mass, target is lost 3d4 actions later; immune to mundane damage

Sometimes adventurers are a little more organized than random rapscallions who threw themselves together in a tavern before looking for a ruin to plunder or bandits to, well, plunder. Or, maybe those rapscallions decided to make a decent go at the ruins-spelunking and the bandit eradication and the cleaning up of abandoned graveyards and their restless inhabitants — that sort of thing — and eventually passed along the tricks of the trade to younger, fresher faces.

Or adventuring is more of a cover for finding the ways and means to get the resources needed to push back against an iron fist. That’s also a possibility.

In fact, all these and more are the multi-threaded genesis of the Vine. Less an “adventurer’s guild” and more an interconnected web of chapterhouses, informal associations, whisper networks, chartered “adventuring parties” (where such exist), individual explorers and mysteriously maintained dropboxes, way-houses and gear caches, the Vine — once a budding adventuring sort, young or old, makes a connection — is your best source for weird gear, weirder rumours, tips and tricks, and suggested sources for anything from replacement travel spellbooks to friendly sources of healing magic to the best smith for silvershot weapons to nesting material for an angel’s egg.

Aid received for aid offered, of course. And vice versa.


Vine
“Give a little, get a little; we’re all in this crazy thing together, yeah?”
An informal collective of adventurers, explorers, rebels and similar roaming, delving types, connected by their spelunking through ruins and labyrinths and necropolei and trading around rumours, tips and news
– dark green, wine-red and violet; grape or ivy tendril (or related emblem)
– mess kit, scrollcase of scribbled maps and notes, reinforced backpack, lantern and oil or candles, “souvenir” from latest delve


This Vine contact knows of …

01. a deep-forest ravine where a strange blue portal appeared last week
02. a soon-to-arrive band of deer-goblins that make amazing mead
03. a rumoured location to the subterranean cult chambers of Iiifryth Of The Amber Hells
04. a newly discovered sublevel in the Sundered Castle
05. the hidden vices of Marquis Barran, the region’s new conqueror
06. the calculations needed to divine the next appearance of the Pearl Tower, and where
07. a grateful supply trader specializing in trail rations and camp gear
08. the location of Dagger Bright’s newest bandit hold
09. a formula for a balm said to blunt the agony of dragonfire
10. a fervent crusader looking to find a fallen temple to restore and reconsecrate
11. a sorcerer who wants an escort to the magic pool on the Underloft’s fifth marble level
12. what best to bribe the lord’s ailing seneschal with to gain access to The Books


This Vine contact is looking for …

01. a sorcerer who’s willing to take on a wilful apprentice
02. someone who can speak the languages of hobgoblins and unicorns
03. a party to retrieve a fallen friend in the depths of the Bone Cathedral
04. referrals for signing on with a mercenary company for a season
05. clues to the locations of the remaining Night Ruby shards
06. a good source for ingredients for lightning-magic scroll inks
07. the buried granite gateway of the Great Black Delve and its lost halls
08. advice on a source for healing that doesn’t require faith or (too much) charity
09. a body-double for a lordling’s son, just for one night
10. spellcasting strong enough to break the Eleventh Moon Curse
11. leads on iron rations that taste less like wood and have less mushroom
12. a dragon heart, or at least a dragon’s lair and companions to travel with