The Circlet of Fungal Power

A new magic item for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.

The Circlet of Fungal Power presents itself as a typical golden crown with a velvet lining colored purple with white spots. If worn, it transforms the wearer into an Amazon warrior woman with the following attributes:

Height: 6'2, Weight: 170
STR: 9, DEX: 17, CON: 11, INT: 11, WIS: 11, CHA: 18

All other characteristics, including class, remain the same. Upon removing the crown the wearer reverts to his previous appearance and attributes, but there is a cumulative 1% chance the wearer must make a Save Vs. Transformation or have one attribute (rolled on a d6) permanently altered. The accumulated chance resets with each save, but the seventh failure results in the wearer completely transforming into Amazon form (as per the Polymorph Other spell), in addition to gaining the firm conviction that they are the heir to the throne of a far-off kingdom of intelligent toadstool people.

Inspired, of course, by this. I'm not even sorry.

Swords For Wizardry (S&W Appreciation Day)

Art by RenMoraes

About a week ago, I was struck by the way that the title of Swords & Wizardry echoes the naming conventions of Fritz Leiber's classic sword-and-sorcery tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Indeed, the title of the fourth collection is Swords Against Wizardry, and both feature prominently in the adventures of Lankhmar's most famous adventurers, possibly second only to Conan himself in fame across the entire genre.

Naturally, such icons will have been adopted to RPGs before, and are indeed about to experience something of a renaissance, with versions on the horizon for both Dungeon Crawl Classics and Savage Worlds.

But today is not the day to appreciate those systems - today is Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day!

Happily, like most retroclone systems, Swords & Wizardry is pretty much built for running the sort of picaresque sword-and-sorcery adventures Fafhrd and the Mouser get up to. Really, the only thing that comes to mind that might need adjusting is the multiclassing system.

Fafhrd and the Mouser, you see, quite obviously go back and forth between being thieves and fighters, and of course Mouser started as a wizard's apprentice (Fafhrd, in one story, also took a level as a Cleric, but nothing much came of that). Timothy Brannan at The Other Side just posted some thoughts on multiclassing Swords and Wizardry characters, but I wonder how much would break if you simply removed the minimum ability score requirement and disability to advance in both - or all - classes from the as-written dual-classing rules. I'm sure it could result in slightly overpowered characters, but such things are not out of the ordinary in Lankhmar.

Anyway, slightly overpowered characters need slightly overpowered enemies, and recently I was inspired to recreate the titular creature from the Leiber story "The Cloud of Hate":

Summoned by dark cults lead by evil magicians, Hate-Clouds take the form of a silvery fogbank with a reddish tinge. Attacks made directly targeting the red tinge gain a +4 to-hit bonus. For each Hit Dice, it can ensnare one creature (as the Charm Person spell), which it directs to attack any and all passersby. The Cloud can also manipulate weapons directly. When defeated, a red and silver trail leads back to the summoners.

Hate-Cloud HD: 1- 6 AC: 1(18) Atk: Per Weapon, 1 for each HD not currently ensnaring somebody, Save: 9 Move: 9 AL: E CL/XP: 3-9/60-1100  Special: Accompanied by up to number of HD of ensnared victims (treat as Berserkers).

I hope you enjoyed this little Lankhmar-themed addition to Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day 2015 - a big shout-out to RJ at Gamers and Grognards for hosting this year!

The Return of Monstrous Monday - Mushroom Kingdom Edition

Some of you may recall that last year about this time there was a big blogfest organized by Tim Brannan to post a bunch of monsters on October 29, as well as on the Mondays leading up to that date. Well, Tim's too busy to host a sequel this year, but when I came up with the idea to do Mushroom Kingdom Monsters I couldn't pass it up.

Art Via AdamsPinto

The genesis of this idea was a thread on RPG.Net titled "Hyboria + Mushroom Kingdom = IT WON'T GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"  True to the title, the idea has stuck with me ever since, occasionally inflamed by finding a neat piece of artwork to go with it. All sorts of different rulesets and play-styles have been suggested - there's a particularly nice Savage Worlds netbook by Jeremy Puckett that plays things fairly straight, for example - but the mode that most interests me is the slightly gritty, D&Dified sword-and-sorcery take on it. What, after all, is the difference between Mario and John Carter except that one landed on Barsoom and the other in the Mushroom Kingdom?

OK, that might be a bit of a stretch. Still, the setting has the idea of extra-dimensional visitors built right into it, and they might as well be a motley band of fighters, barbarians, and wizards as a family of ethnic handymen. Either way, they're going to need something to fight, which brings us back to Monstrous Mondays. Each Monday this month I plan to stat up a few iconic Mushroom Kingdom Monsters for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperboria, that being the particular flavor of OSR I think fits this take on the setting best.

To begin, then, we'll start with the Goomba and the Koopa - not very impressive individually, to be sure, but a hoard of them is perhaps a different matter.

Goomba: An intelligent, ambulatory fungus at home in many environments, from deep caverns to scorching deserts.

Art Via D-MAC

Encountered: 1d4 (1d6+3)
Alignment: Neutral
Size: Small
Move ment: 10
Dexterity: 5
Armor Class: 10 (9)
Hit Dice: 1
Attacks: 1 (bite)
Damage: 1d6
Saving Throw: 16
Morale: 11
Experience Points: 10
Treasure Class: M
Special: 1-in-12 chance per encounter that one Goomba will be piloting a Goomba Shoe (see below).

Koopa: This humanoid turtle is often found serving as the main trooper in the armies of the King Koopa.

Encountered: 1d4 (1d8)
Alignment: Neutral
Size: Medium
Movement: 30 (Swim 20)
Dexterity: 9
Armor Class: 6 (13)
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: 2 (bite/claw)
Damage: 1d6/2d4
Saving Throw: 16
Morale: 8
Experience Points: 20
Treasure Class: M
Special: When reduced to 50% Hit Points, the Koopa must pass a morale check or retreat into his shell for 2d6 rounds. Once killed, the Koopa's shell can be fashioned into a suit of AC 7 (12) armor or an AC -1 (+1) shield.

Goomba Shoe: This strange device of unknown origin resembles nothing so much as a giant green boot with a windup key. If piloted by a Small or Medium creature, it provides an AC of 8 (11) and a 1d8 Jumping attack within their standard movement range. All known examples were originally discovered being piloted by Goombas - where they got them from remains a mystery.

Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day Roundup

Wow.

The vast outpouring of support for Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day was remarkable to behold. I'm not sure if anyone has a complete listing of everything that everyone posted - though Erik Tenkar has surely made a heroic attempt - but here's some of the offerings that particularly caught my eye:

I'll start this off by mentioning Gothridge Manor's "Mini Manor" adventure Screams without Faces. It is noted to be a "mature" adventure, and truth be told it's a bit more so than I usually prefer. That doesn't stop it from being very well put-together, not to mention filled with interesting ideas. Other adventures worth checking out are Call of the Xul from Lost In Time, Harnly's Hole from Rended Press, and The Vile Worm from Arcana Creations.

From No School Like The Old School we get a workup for a Lovecraft-inspired Sword & Sorcery setting, plus Swords & Wizardry versions of two races iconic to 4th Edition D&D - the "Chaos-born" and "Dragon Kin". Another new race, the Brokkans, comes to us from the appropriately named tehbadger, who has a free copy of Swords & Wizardry Complete to bestow on someone who shares a badger-folk character sometime in the next few weeks.

On the class side of things, over at Fear No Darkness we find rules for a Werebear (along with a variant Thief and a handsome-looking character sheet), while Tim Brannon shares some S&W-compatible updates for his Witch-class project.

Of course, tricked out new adventurers need something to test themselves against, and many S&WAD contributors were greatly obliging in this regard. One of my favorites is from Semper Initiativius Unus, which gives us stats for (among others) the Vespertilian, or Lunar Bat-Man. And just in case you find your character in that most annoying of situations - a grapple - Hex Generation has some very lightweight grappling rules just dying for a playtest. 

Last, but not least, iDungeonCrawl brings us a S&W GM screen that condenses various useful tables onto just a few easily-referenced pages.

And this was just a small selection of the mass of creativity and generosity revealed by Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day. Personally, I think a huge thank-you is due to all who participated, especially those mentioned above.

FATE of the A-Team

So, the FATE Core Kickstarter ended late last month, easily hitting the last stretch goal and ensuring that the Fate Accelerated Edition of The Dresden Files will be added to Evil Hat's already crowded development queue. With nearly 14500% of the initial funding goal to play with, the only thing they need now is time.

While we're waiting, then, here's the rest of the A-Team, built using the Fate Core Preview. First off, it seems in my last post I left off Hannibal's Physical ([] []) and Mental ([] [] [] []) stress tracks, so there's that. Next, the rest of the team:

Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck

High Concept: Scrounges Anything Anywhere from Anyone
Trouble: Weary of the Mercenary Life
Aspects: Ladies' Man, Keeper of the Checkbook, You Just Hired The A-Team
Skills:
- Great (+4) Deceit
- Good (+3) Burglary, Rapport
- Fair (+2) Contacts, Resources, Shooting
- Average (+1) Athletics, Fighting, Investigation, Will
Stunts: Lies Upon Lies (Deceit), Best Foot Forward (Rapport),
Physical Stress [] []
Mental Stress [] [] []
Refresh: 2

Captain H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock

High Concept: The Best Chopper Pilot In Vietnam
Trouble: Home is the V.A. Pysch Ward.
Aspects:  Zany Fantasy Life, Improbable Linguistic Skills, You Just Hired The A-Team

Skills:

- Great (+4) Drive

- Good (+3) Will, Athletics

- Fair (+2) Deceit, Fighting, Shooting

- Average (+1) Burglary, Investigation, Physique, Stealth

Stunts: If It Has Wings I Can Fly It* (Drive)

Physical Stress [] [] [] 

Mental Stress [] [] [] [] 

Refresh: 3

The "Grappler" stunt in action.

Sergeant Bosco "B.A." Baracus

High Concept: Bare-Knuckled Mechanic

Trouble: Named for his Bad Attitude
Aspects: Hot Rod Panel Van, Scared to Fly, You Just Hired The A-Team
Skills:
- Great (+4) Physique
- Good (+3) Drive, Fighting
- Fair (+2) Crafts, Shooting, Intimidation
- Average (+1) Athletics, Notice, Rapport, Will,
Stunts: Pedal to the Metal (Drive), Grappler (Physique), Take the Blow (Physique)
Physical Stress [] [] [] []
Mental Stress [] [] []
Refresh: 1

One thing I hope you'll notice right away is that all four Team-mates share an Aspect, a trick I borrowed from The Dresden Files RPG to provide coherence mechanically. I'm pretty sure it was tagged several times during the run of the show itself, usually to convince reluctant team-mates to take a particular job. Another thing that all four team members have in common is that their "Shooting" skill is only at Fair - this, too, was intended to simulate the show.

Something that surprised me during the process was how non-restrictive the limited number of Aspects and Refresh was. Coming from Dresden and Spirit of the Century, five Aspects and three Refresh - even with one free stunt!- doesn't sound like a lot, but it turned out to be plenty. I suspect that genre has something to do with this - one of the reasons Dresden has such high Refresh rates is that all those nifty mystic powers are paid for with them. Something relatively lower-key, like The A-Team, can work with the lower rate.

Anyway, this was a fun exercise for trying out FATE Core. For an actual game I would expect the skill list and stunts to be more heavily customized (the most recent addition to my blogroll, Fate of the Drowning Woods by Murder of Crows, has been playing with this quite heavily recently - go check it out!), but keeping the A-Team (mostly) within the draft rules was an interesting challenge, nonetheless. And hey, even if you didn't get in on the Kickstarter, word is that the Fate Core book will be coming out as a pay-what-you-want-including-nothing PDF - I'll be sure and mention that when it gets released!

*New Drive Stunt, If It Has Wings I Can Fly It: +2 to Drive whenever the vehicle in question is capable of flight.

Look! Content!

(With apologies to XKCD.)

Ahem. I've been playing around with the character generation rules in Evil Hat's Dresden Files RPG recently, testing some of the boundaries of who and what can be replicated. In doing so, I found that one particular power seemed to be absent. Naturally, I had to whip up a custom substitute:

Invisibility [-2 Refresh]

Description: You cannot be detected by sight. This ability is always in effect.

Skills Affected: Stealth

Effects: Your body is completely transparent and cannot be perceived by visual means. This does not extend to your clothes, undigested food, or other unabsorbed material, such as anything that might be splattered on you. +2 to Stealth against visual Perception rolls.

I drew from a couple different area of Your Story for this, especially the discussion of veils and the admittedly-similar Cloak of Shadows power (YS169). I bumped the Refresh cost up to reflect the more overwhelming potential, and I suspect you could bump it up even more by adding some variations - perhaps another point would be worth the ability to turn the invisibility on and off? I also tried a couple different ways of phrasing the restrictions on the increase to Stealth before settling on the above.

Anyway, I haven't tested this one out yet, but I thought I'd throw it out there as a preview of something I've (slowly) been working on. Perhaps when I get to the reason why I needed it, I'll work out an example of it in play . . .