Posts

Fine DIEning

a high-pressure adventure module for Motherhip  Water world Tethys 32b's deepest spot, the Ekman-Ato Trench has captured people's imaginations ever since it was first discovered. The simple fact of its existence seemed to taunt men to come and conquer it. And, like a moth to a cold, cold flame, many were those that heeded its siren’s call. First in line was the WSS Albatross, a luxury submersible cruiser that proposed to take its well-to-do passengers on a once-in-a-lifetime tour of the cursed moat. It sort of delivered on the promise, since it turned out to be the ship's last and final voyage, along with everyone aboard. The Albatross instantly became a cautionary tale against Man's Quixotic charges against nature. It also became positively crawling with thrill-seeking gazillionaires. FOR SCIENCE! Subsequent expeditions, like the ASV Hybris and the DEV Basically Unsinkable, met with a similar fate, littering the sea floor with the debris of their fatal arrogance, while...

I Have No Maus, And I Must Scream

Here's how you can run a Mausritter/Harlan Ellison crossover game. It's more of a thought experiment than anything, so don't come tell me how it's broken. We're here to have a bad time. Remove all starting equipment. Mice may have a trinket from the bric-a-brac table . Give mice an Ironic Punishment based on their background. Take the Hungry condition. Use the random room stocking procedures to generate spaces. Roll only Room Types and Treasure, re-rolling whenever "Lair" comes up. Use the Treasure table below. Mice cannot escape and cannot kill themselves, but can take damage. Last mouse standing is turned into a gelatinous blob by AM. Ironic punishments Test subject. Born here, bred to be AM's plaything. Horribly disfigured. -1 WIL. Kitchen forager. Cannot stand the sight of food. WIL save to make yourself eat anything no matter how starved. Cage dweller. Deathly afraid of open spaces. Hedge witch.  Take the Drained condition. Leatherworker. Ski...

d20 Businesses

The Throne Room — Toiletries House of Shit on a Stick Petri's Culture Ribs Oceanic eStore Bateman & Gecko Capital Your One Stop Pot Shop Ningyō Automata Planet Babylon Cafe Abramelin Occultic Wares Hell & Back Travel Agency Totally Not A Front For Something Else Florist Carbon Self-Service Genomics Bateman & Gecko Capital Guy Llotine Couture Ad Nauseam Perfumery The Official Lawn Flamingo Store Exegetics Diagnostics Clinic VR Confessionary Booth The Epic Meme™ Store A Mighty Wind! Vapeware

The Algo Rider

So it was foretold: someone will come that can so freely surrender their conscious will to the fickle whims of the algorithm—that they shall become known as the Algo Rider. Whatever the machine feeds you, you lap up. You wouldn’t consume anything that didn't come out of a Facebook ad. Like & Subscribe? Yes, please. Recommended For You Based On Your Preferences? Don't mind if I do. Turn On Cookies? Om nom nom! You scrolled down to the ends of the internet and found Valhalla. The machine shows you the world for what it is: content all. In the beginning was it. Consume it, become it. Content in, content out. You're the algo's little bitch. Possessions  - A Smartphone, Smartwatch, Smart Ring, Smart Underpants - 30m of Jumbled Electric Cables and Chargers - An Extremely Online Cult Following - Staff Advanced Skills - 4 Search Engine Optimization - 3 Influencing Special You have a preternatural sense for what gets picked up by the algorithm. A single post from you can sen...

Cairnish Spelljammer

Once upon a time I ran a I Can't Believe It's Not Spelljammer!  campaign using a Cairn hack of my own device. The main thing was tweaking character creation to fit the setting (I drew from the AD&D ed. primarily). I also wanted to give players some customization options and hopefully strip it of some of the less savoury racial elements. The way I went about it was to decouple race/ancestry from ability, instead going for a ancestry/vocation match, with the former providing equipment (thus pointing at more of a cultural, not biological, determinism) and the latter some special ability. Now, I know what you're going to say: but Giff can't be spellcasters! Shut up. Of course they can. It's all made up. ANCESTRY  Krynnish Gnome - [Sword, Hammer, Grease Can, Jar of Pickled Spaham] Giff 1-2 Enlisted 3-4 Officer 5-6 Discharged - [Chest Plate, Arquebus, Fancy Uniform] Scro - [Studded Leather Armor, Handaxe, Pistol, Prize Skull Of A Vanquished Foe] Elf - [Longsword, ...

Hell Is Where The Heart Is

Pioneer! The Company has given you a once in a lifetime opportunity. To stake your claim on a rugged new world. To bring order to the great black yonder. To make a home for you and your own. Begin anew! Step up to the slipgate and make destiny manifest! Onward Unto the Breach When slipgate technology was first discovered, and we happened upon the Hell Dimension, there were some who feared that this would open Earth up for demonic takeover. The discovery that Hell natives cannot go through a slipgate without being annihilated put these fears to rest. The additional discovery of Lapis Infernicus, the long sought answer to the ‘free energy’ question, sealed the deal. Your travails are the scaffolding that shore up our utopia. Now you know! Paradise Found You have a great task ahead of you, pioneer. You are the advance party of a mass colonizing movement still in its infancy. You have the sacred honor to be spearheading humankind’s hellward expansion. And thanks to the tireless work of our...

Running John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) on a medieval abbey

I'm running a The Thing scenario (I expect it to be fairly short, 2-3 sessions) set in a medieval abbey, using Ruination Pilgrimage . Lazy GM that I am, I figured out a way to do it with as little prep as possible. First: Find your monastery I searched the webs for a suitable floorplan for my abbey. I went with the one on this site , complete with legend and all. As per the movie, set it in an isolated location (made it a river tidal island during heavy rain season). Make up a bunch of monks Instead of fleshing out each individual NPC, I made a bunch of tables to generate them on the fly 1d20 NAMES 2 Merrick 3 Kasper 4 Girald 5 Bertran 6 Nadal 7 Bidallac 8 Johannes 9 Helias 10 Andreas 11 Jacobus 12 Guido 13 Matheus 14 Alonso 15 Bernal 16 Amis 17 Enguerran 18 Giles 19 Guiscard 20 Agnolo 1d20 OCCUPATION 1 Butcher 2 Scribe 3 Scribe 4 Abbot 5 Prior 6 Cellarer 7 Cook 8 Brewer 9 Herbalist 10 Novice 11 Novice 12 Novice 13 Novice 14 Librarian 15 Physician 16 Blacksmith 17 Anchorite 18 Cook...