B/X monster: Intruder undead

Art by OpenClipart-Vectors on pixabay

A B/X-compatible monster.

Ghosts are always unsettling and the stronger ones can be dangerous, but there's an even better reason you don't want them hanging around. Ghosts are an open channel between the living world and the afterlife, and sometimes that channel provides a way into the world for things that don't belong to either.

Intruder undead come from a third place which wizards have named the Plane of Restless Flesh. It's a place without structure, where boundaries constantly shift and there's no clear separation between the world and the creatures that live there. Apprentices less mindful of their dignity like to call it the Plane of Screaming Meat.

Some of the beings there have the power to possess ghosts and wear them like environmental suits that let them function in our world. They're not hostile in the way we understand it, but they have a destructive curiosity. They'll smash, rend or tear things (or people) just to see what the pieces look like.

From a combat point of view, once the characters have defeated and dismissed the intruder, they still have the ghost to deal with.

Minor intruder undead

AC 7, [12] HD 1-3* (4/9/13hp), Att x 1 (see specials), THACO 17, MV 90' (30'), SV F3, ML 12, AL Chaotic, XP 13/25/50, NA 1, TT none

• Undead: Soundless until attacking, immune to effects that require a living target (eg poison, disease), immune to mind-effecting and mind-reading spells.
• Mundane weapon immunity: Only harmed by silver or magic.
• Poltergeist: Can lift or throw items up to the size of a backpack. Items moved this way transform partially to flesh.

 

Regular intruder undead

AC 5, [14] HD 5-6** (23/26hp), Att x 1 (see specials), THACO 15, MV 90' (30'), SV F5, ML 12, AL Chaotic, XP 425/725, NA 1, TT none

• As minor intruder
• Fear: Instead of attacking, the intruder can project a fear aura that causes up to its HD in opponents to develop a sudden hysterical fear of their own bodies. Save vs magic negates.

 

Major intruder undead 

AC 3, [16] HD 7-8*** (32/36hp), Att x 1 (see specials), THACO 12, MV 90' (30'), SV F8, ML 12, AL Chaotic, XP 1650/2200, NA 1, TT none

• As regular intruder
• Possession: Instead of attacking, the intruder can attempt to possess a living being. Save vs magic prevents. They gain complete control and can make use of the following powers instead of an attack:
  Blood spray - can spray scalding hot blood from an eye socket. (2 x only, eye is destroyed in the process. Vision unaffected.)
  Crackbones - can break host's bones and extrude them through flesh to make an attack on anyone in 5" range. 1d6 damage.
  Tentacles - can extrude host's intestines through a slit in the stomach and control them like tentacles to grapple anyone in 5" range.

Body-based powers do 1d6 damage to the host each time, but the hp loss is only inflicted when the intruder leaves the body.

World turtle immobilised part 2

Further exploration of the thought experiment in which we have a world carried on the back of a turtle crash into a spherical one.  This time, the landscape underneath the turtle.

In this post I talked about a full-sized globe planet which has had a second planet, a flat one carried on the back of a juvenile world-turtle, land on its surface with minimal damage.  (IE. we still have two worlds, but they're not in great shape.)  Generations have passed, civilisation has more or less recovered from the turmoil and they're in a position to start looking around and wondering what actually happened.

What's known is that the weather is wetter, there are vast salt marshes forming to the East where the a new geographical feature blots out the sun for half the morning, and strange new animals have been seen in those regions.  And the sages, who have read the antique writings, say the winters are now milder, the summers are hotter and the year is two days shorter than it used to be.  Gods were probably involved, but there's no consensus on who they were punishing or for what.

Expeditions sent by the new empire to explore the area don't actually see the turtle with any kind of clarity.  It's too vast.  On a clear day, from a hundred miles away, you might see a hint of a head or a flipper, with a titanic disc above.  The water pouring off the disc falls into vacuum, which instantly converts it to a fog.  It drifts down, where the jet stream helps by pushing it away to the West.  There's still enough water in the air around the turtle to surround it with clouds.  They figure out it's turtle-shaped by mapping it.  On horseback by land, and by ship where its hindquarters overlap the ocean.  In the process they discover The Bite and the curious effect the blood which is still oozing from it has had on the local wildlife, but that's for a later post.

(I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation of how much water is pouring off the disc if it has the same flow rate as Niagara Falls.  Then I decided that that magic which recycles that water back onto the disc is still working — otherwise it would have doubled the amount of water on the planet's surface in the first five minutes.)

What the explorers actually see is cloud-covered lands with a strange top-heavy mountain at the centre.  It's never truly dark here  There's a bright point in the fog, lighting it from the inside.  Sometimes it's above the mountain, far away and dim, sometimes it's close and the cloud glows with a diffuse light.  (One explorer described it as 'akin to being shrunk down and standing at the centre of a cold candle flame'.)

The turtle is ringed with concentric circles of volcanic chasms because it's slowly crushing the continental plate under it (its magical nature gives it some buoyancy even in death, otherwise there'd be no slowly about it). If you remember the first post, the turtle world is the size of Ceres, which is shown on the left here compared to Earth. Its weight has created a depression around it which has filled with brine, making an inland sea a few dozen miles wide.

The area around the turtle was damaged so badly in the cataclysm that none of its life survived. The landscape is slowly being recolonised by hardy plants and a few animals that would be equally at home in a desert. The only intelligent life is a few small, migratory clans of orcs and gnolls.

One page game: Green Card Demons

A free one page game about demons trying to make it in today's economy, integrate socially and also cover it up when they slip and commit horrible crimes.  Semi-random character creation, 2d6+mods vs target number. Get it here.

Thanks to Reddit users Don_Quesote and HeadWright for commentary and layout advice and ThornyJohn for sourcing open license fonts.

I love one page games.  They're perfect for those evenings when your regular GM can't be there or there aren't enough players to make a serious attempt at carrying on the adventure.

Wizardly Traveller tech chart

I've never played Traveller, but I do own a core rulebook for it that I picked up on spec.  It was on the bring & buy table at a small local wargaming tournament.  I was there because the website said there might be a couple of RPG sessions running, but that side of things didn't work out.

It turned out to be a fun system just to play with on my own, following the lifepath system to generate unexpected characters, designing ships and the like. Of course, me being me, even before playing a session RAW I had to start tinkering with the rules.  I wanted to add magic and generate a galaxy where Alien, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings could all happen at the same time.

This is the  tech  magic chart add-on I came up with.  It's surprisingly hard to find a title for each rung on the magic ladder. English just doesn't have that many words suitable for quantifying the mysterious and ineffable. 

ML 0: (Primitive) 

No magic.  This world has no active gods, no awakened spirits, no natural sources of mana and no afterlife.  It is not possible to reincarnate here, or from here.  Spells cannot be cast.  Any open-ended spells or artefacts that rely on local mana resources will fail to operate. 

ML 1: (Primitive) 

Magic is mostly superstition.  A few meditation techniques are in use to improve concentration and memory.  Gods are unresponsive.  Local conditions prevent spirits from being contacted or summoned.

ML 2: (Primitive) 

Magic is limited to a few adepts or institutions.  There are a few unsophisticated techniques for contacting spirits.  Invoking spirits or elementals is done through rituals requiring large-scale sacrifice or the participation of entire populations.  The number of spells available to learn is severely limited.  Alchemy is not distinct from normal chemistry.  Enchantment is not understood.  Gods can only be contacted after long ritualistic preparation and their communications require interpretation.

ML 3: (Dabbling)  

Cantrips are available to the educated.  A few low-quality alchemical materials are available.

ML 4: (Connected)  

Low-powered spells are available to the educated.  Gods offer minor blessings in exchange for a suitable sacrifice.

ML 5: (Involved)   

Low-powered elementals and spirits can be bound.  Divination is possible, but unreliable.  Cantrips are available to the average citizen.  Spells are understood  among the educated.  Medium-powered spells are available.  Reasonable alchemical materials are available, but resource-intensive to produce.

ML 6: (Practising)   

Divination is common, but inaccurate.  Small, isolated industrial use of magic.

ML 7: (Arcane)   

Godly activity is often erratic, with poor understanding of the gods' motivations and reasoning.  Small-scale blessings and curses are available without godly involvement.  Moderately powerful elementals and spirits can be bound.  Bound low-powered elementals and spirits are common.  Enchanted items are available to the wealthy or politically-connected.

ML 8: (Far-sighted)   

Gods manifest signs and portents.  Divination is trustworthy.

ML 9: (Adept)  

Gods send visions.  Visions can be accurately interpreted.  Bound moderately-powerful elementals and spirits are common.

ML 10: (Learned) 

A well-defined pantheon of gods with clearly-marked domains.  Gods may be spoken to in their temples.  Magic is widely available, with golems in use for dangerous work and access to informed spirits through government and private institutions.  Many citizens use health charms for minor beneficial effects.  Physical immortality is available to the wealthy or politically connected.  Divination can be verified with a high degree of accuracy.  High-powered elementals and spirits can be bound.

ML 11: (Wise) 

Elementals and minor spirits are bound to power and operate common machinery or mystical engines.  Blessings and curses can be performed at interstellar distances.  High-order artefacts can be created (eg. "The Sword of the Prophecy").

ML 13: (Masterful)  

Widespread use of tutelary spirits in education.  Frequent consultation of ancestral spirits.  5 - 10% of citizens are physically immortal.  Gods may be invested to manage specific small domains.  Average citizens have the use of bound elementals.  Divination is well-understood and probably highly-regulated.  Bound high-powered elementals and spirits are common.

ML 14: (Transcendent) 

10 - 15% of citizens are physically immortal.  Reincarnation is a controlled process and may be used as a criminal punishment or to schedule the re-emergence of great heroes.

ML 15: (Celestial) 

Most or all natives are born immortal and have innate spell-like abilities. Elementals and spirits are invoked and bound for trivial purposes.  Godly activity can be regulated.  Destinies can be altered.