Merriments and Festivities

Not much to report, here.  Chipping away at a solo-play module for DCC, in the vein of the old Choose Your Own Adventure modules.  A healthy sprinkling of Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf books, as well as the D&D B/X SOLO ones (which I am currently combing through very carefully for stylistic/layout issues).  I think I could manage a pre-release teaser of the wandering monsters portion of the book after some crowd-sourced editing and some place-holder art inserted.

We'll see.  It's coming along.  I just noticed that my fitbit account posts to my old wordpress blog, and it's also tied to my flickr account that my wife keeps putting baby pictures on, so I have a wee bit o' cleaning to do.

Also, as Tlaloc, I brought Horus and Sharee low in a game of Master of Magic.  I was most of the way through research on the Spell of Mastery and kind of just marched my Collossi and Dragon Turtles and heroes armed with death-dealing artifacts all through their cities.  Pretty tame for Christmas this year.

Raze?  Yes.  No worries, that way, of reconquered cities coming up behind me.  The Gods of Death and Nature must be satisfied.

Oh yeah. Merry Christmas, if you're into that pseudo-paganry.  My wife (and daughter) are of the chosen people and we need not celebrate Jesus of Nazareth's birth and then ascension into demigodhood, but we still partake of merriment.

tremulous anticipations

There is (almost always) something about the Autumn that makes me afeared.  Being from Miami, Florida, I was somewhat mystified and taken aback by the falling of leaves and the cool, brisk winds.  It made me take up smoking, once.  I'm done with that now, but when the winds blow I always have the urge to sit on the stoop and light up, and think about awful things.

In that spirit, I give you some ideas for a few monsters.  This is DCC format, since that's the way I roll these days.

I just submitted one to the Spellburn monster contest, shouted out in episode 12: Like a thief in the night.  I don't want to promote too much competition with me, but hey - get on it.  Details in the episode.

http://spellburn.com/2013/11/01/episode-13-like-a-thief-in-the-night/

Also, you should take a look at the adventure that's linked to in there (The Jeweler That Dealt in Stardust).  It is damn fine work.

Here is an autumn body/sex horror monster, burbling around in my psyche since I started to eat crabs after a long psycho-somatic period of pseudo-allergies

The Succubus Crab

Init -4; Atk Claw x2 melee (1d6) or fly bite +2 missile fire (range 120’, 1d3+1); AC 15; HD 3d8+12; MV 20’; Act 1d20; SP charm.  SV Fort +5, Ref -5, Will +6; AL N

The Succubus Crab requires, for its sexual reproduction, the transmogrified essence of a male humanoid host. It is a lumbering 10 foot tall semi-aquatic abomination, appearing for all intents to be a tentacle-mouthed pink crab-like being with a chitinous shell and razor-sharp claws.  These are the females. Buzzing around the giant clacking horrors are a cloud of males, smaller by an order of magnitude and winge'd.

In order to complete the reproduction cycle, the female sends a contingent of males to a likely victim, who is promptly stung should a succesful attack occur.  Those males that miss are not fit to reproduce in any case.  A small sting signals success, and the victim (usually a human male) must make a DC 15 Fortitude Save, else the reproductive essence of the male succubus crab wends its way (temporarily) into the host.  Aside from the walloping sting of a bite, no further effects are immediately incurred.  That said, biological changes are occuring on a cellular level in very specific tissues.

Any party encountering the female crabs are right to flee in horror and disgust - however, any stung and affected male humans are suddenly enraptured by a cloud of pheromones.  The tentacular and chitnous foreparts of the Succubus Crab female appear to be a desirable member of the female human sex, writhing in erotically charged agony and ecstasy.  The human male victim approaches, mates with the facial parts of the Succubus Crab, and is stunned for 1d3 rounds in utter sexual helplessness.  Meanwhile, his captor carves him up into piecemeal to sustain the egg-hatching process, for the young of the species need much in the way of sustenance - at least, the females do.  The males flit around like flies.

The chitin of the Succubus Crab can be shaped and worked into plates, and cured into light-weight and durable armor (AC 15, light encumbrance).  They are very succulent with a sprinkling of Old Bay seasoning and sprayed with lemon, but difficult to place entirely in a steamer.

The Santicore Approacheth

Gird your loins, polish your monomolecular swords and your iridium pistols, and go hence and do battle in the name of camaraderie and creativity, you goons.

My request is in but I am likely to be flayed and flensed since I made it somewhat system-specific.

You, too may request your thing before the Great Deadline looms and smashes us all into iron-tailspike and rummy egg-nog smithereens.

Bless You, Santicore, Bless You.

Some Brief Reviews of Dungeon Crawl Classics (and other) products.

I like to throw some DCC Patrons out every so often, the odd playable race, player aids.  I run a campaign that a couple of folks have played in.  It's fun.  That's what this thing is about, right?  So's I don't turn me and the ladies into paupers, I try to limit my RPG purchases to no more than 10 bucks a week...  It is vexing that there is so much high quality stuff from all corners of the DCC community.

In the interests of spreading around much love and harmony and constructive criticism, and in the hopes that one day others may do the same for me, I offer the following trio of reviews of some really amazing gaming products, shortly (after I get my act together) they will go to the product reviews of RPGNow/DriveThruRPG

My most recent purchase is a threebie (right around 10 bucks, together):

1.Crawl! fanzine #7 by Rev. Dak and the crew - in short, I love this whole run.  I can't get enough.  I only hope that my purchasing of these 'zines one at a time every so often somehow helps keep it (and the good Reverend Dak Ultimak) alive.  Criticals for traps, a nicely evil sword by a loose associate of mine, and some other good stuff.

2. CE04, The Seven Deadly Skills of Sir Amoral the Misbegotten, by Daniel Bishop, Published by Purple Duck Games.  In brief, an excellent adventure with some great hooks and cool moves to incorporate into your campaign.  I haven't ever been disappointed in any purchase I've made that has Mr. Bishop's name in it or on it - he's a quiet, guiding luminary of the DCC community.  The mysterious stone heads are worth the price of admission.

3. SC3, A Gathering of the Marked, by Jon Marr of Purple Sorcerer fame, published under the Purple Sorcerer label.  I love Marr's free works (c'mon, the Funnel Generator is a thing of beauty) and if I had a regular face to face group I would painstakingly make all the little included paper minifigs so that we could use them.  The adventure itself is clever and although I think some would object to linearity (not me), it culminates nicely with a bang.

(I note with some dismay that the first draft of this post sat in the queue quietly awaiting publication and since then I have purchased a couple other things that are almost uniformly awesome)

More later

The Treader in the Dust, now with more Dungeon Crawl Classics

I usually do projects like this in order to learn stuff, and I confess that writing this entity up was somewhat hypnotic.  Lots of Q's.  Good thing I didn't use an umlaut.  Also, InDesign has much, much juju.  Now that I have slayed it and eaten its bitter, black heart, I...  Sadly, I think that with the baby having come between then and now, I have forgotten many of the clever things I learned to put this document together.  Oh well, there's always the next project.

I offer you the Dungeon Crawl Classics patron Quachil Uttaus, an awful thing from beyond time and space that gives those who know of it extended life, a modicum of mote-y power, and a messy and dusty end.  If you don't know all this good stuff already, it's from this story by Clark Ashton Smith, which you can find over on the Eldritch Dark.

I hereby abjure you to drop it in to your DCC campaign, kill some players and NPCs with it, and let me know how it works out.

Next: more Eldrich Horrors, this time as PCs in Dungeon Crawl Classics