I loaned my D&D 5E PHB to my brother-in-law several months ago. I've been meaning to ask for it back.
Now I think I'll phone him and tell him he can keep it.
Self-Defeating Devil
A petty and grasping fiend, the Self-Defeating Devil is always encountered as a single creature. It's cursed, although its innate arrogance prevents it from realising that, and the curse causes it to see its natural allies as obstacles between it and its money.
AC 5 [14], HD 7, ATT 1 x fangs (2d6), magic (see specials), THAC0 12 [+7], MV 120’ (40’), SV 8 9 10 11 12 (F5), ML 6, Al Chaotic, XP 300, NA 1 (1), TT None (the Self-Defeating Devil has very little to offer anyone)
The Self-Defeating Devil casts spells as a 5th level Magic User. It is only capable of memorising spells that target others. If the target successfully saves, the spell reflects back on the devil, doing double damage.
Incidentally, I think this makes quite a good holy symbol.
Back in the 80s, psychologists came up with what they call the Big Five Personality Traits model for describing people. Their feelings, motivations, methods, etc. I'm not sure it's a good enough model for describing a real-world person with all their complexities, but it seems fine for NPCs.
In this model people are described by where they fall on five sliding scales:
Openness to experience
A character high on the openness scale is going to be curious. A low score will make them cautious.
Conscientiousness
A high score means being prepared, a low score means being spontaneous.
Extraversion
A high score means being outgoing and sociable. A low score means solitary and self-sufficient.
Agreeableness
A highly agreeable character will go with the flow and co-operate easily. Low agreeability means being strong-willed and independent.
Neuroticism
A high score means always on the lookout for trouble, a low score means being confident.
I don't think that low scores are necessarily a negative thing. I've tried to present them here as being advantages in their own way. The diagram below makes no such attempt:
You, in a nutshell
I use a 10-point scale for convenience. I'm always looking for new ways to categorise NPCs for solo play. Tools to give me an idea of how they're likely to react under pressure, which way they'll jump. I think this one hits the sweet spot in terms of usefulness vs complexity. It also has two other things going for it:
It has a neat acronym, which makes it memorable. Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism: OCEAN. As noted before, I like to do my solo play tools-free. Anything that helps in memorising is a plus for that. (It would be better if the terms weren't multisyllabic words, but that's not how psychologists work.)
It's also broadly compatible with Traveller's planetary qualities model, with a single, simple tweak of stretching the scale to 16 digits. That means that some day a Traveller character may speak the words "Yeah?! Well I colonised YER MUM last night!" and be (mechanically speaking) correct.
Most NPCs aren't going to fall at the extremes of the scale, so for each category I make a 3M10 roll. I roll 3d10, then remove the highest and lowest scores, leaving only the middle one. Charting these rolls would give you a nice smooth curve like the one below.
For the full array that's 15 dice a'rollin', so you could also just click here:
0 0 0 0 0
For my first test I got a result of 7 3 7 4 10. This NPC is curious, spontaneous, sociable, likes to have their own way and is confident to the point of narcissism. I think it's this guy:
I would have liked to see the episode where they 'let him at it' and he gets punted into a canning machine
That 10 score is an extreme result, occurring in just over 2% of people. There has to be an interesting story in his background to explain how he turned out that way.
This spell conjures a house with bedrooms equal to the number of the party divided by two. If the surroundings are cold, a fire is lit and there is a an adequate supply of wood. If it's evening, hot food is set on the table. There's a pair of boots by the door. Coats hanging from the rack... children's toys scattered on the rug...?
Wait, did you steal someone's actual house?
Spells like Secure Shelter and Magnificent Mansion are useful, obviously. A safe haven in the wilderness when you need some downtime? Perfect. But there's so much interdimensional linkage to set up. Ethereal construction. Page upon page of calculations. Ugh. It's so much easier to just reach out across folded space and yank the nearest suitable dwelling to you!
And before it returns to its owners the following morning, you can loot it.
Urtell's Appropriated Abode
3rd Level Magic-User Spell Duration: 8 hours Range: level x 10 miles from abode
The spell will bring a building, but leave anything it recognises as a sentient mind behind. That means the characters will sometimes find themselves responsible for a demented grandparent or a blackout drunk tavern patron overnight.
If there are no buildings in range of the spell, it brings the closest thing it can find. A large animal's lair, an overturned cart, two big rocks leaning against each other. It's a co-operative spell and it does its best.
The abode is not in its own pocket dimension. Lights in the windows are visible from a distance. If the building gets attacked, the characters will need to defend it or escape out the back.
Once the abode begins to show signs of returning to its place, characters have one exploration turn to gather their things and leave. Stay too long, and they risk being transported back to the building's original location (3 in 6). There are probably people there who will ask difficult questions.
Roll to see what kind of building the spell brings:
House table 1 (1d6)
Peasant cottage
Peasant cottage
Peasant cottage
Artisan's house/shop
Artisan's house/shop
Special. Roll on table 2
House table 2 (1d6)
Wealthy home
Military barracks
Stables
Tavern
Granary
Jailhouse
Loot tables
Peasant cottage
Old but sharp kitchen knife
Fresh apple pie
2d6 rushlights (shed light like candle but go out if moved)
Woollen blanket
Corn husk doll (not haunted)
Fishing rod
Artisan's house/shop
Craft tools
Leather apron
Burlap sack
Grease
2d6 planks
Coal sack
Wealthy home
2d6 gold coins
2d6 candles
Haunch of venison
Quality cloak
Soap
Saddle
Barracks
Boot polish
Poor-quality helmet
Horse barding
Sack of unwashed tabards
Bedroll
Training dummy
Stables
Harness
Liniment
Hay bale
2d6 horses
Rake
Colic remedy (triple-distilled alcohol and some kind of herb)
This crown allows the wearer to summon every normal non-magical cat within level x 100 yards/metres. Familiars, awakened cats and other beings of a feline nature feel the summons, but aren't compelled to obey it. The cats take 10 - 1D4 minutes to all arrive.
It also allows the cats to understand the wearer's instructions. Roll a D6 either for individuals or the group:
1 - 3: The cats, having seen what all the fuss was about, wander off. 4 - 5: The cats watch the summoner with interest, but make no move to obey. Eventually they get bored and wander off as well. 6: The cats obey the received instructions provided they aren't dangerous, tedious, undignified or too much work.
If the crowd of cats number more than six, assume that at least one is co-operative at first.
+1 to the outcome if the orders are something a cat is inclined to do anyway, like chase a prey creature, bat something around the floor, or knock something off a high place.
+1 if the summoner is in favour with the local cats - generous with titbits and scritchies and space in front of their hearth.
For the benefit of the table, the player using this item should be encouraged to roleplay their attempts to persuade a crowd of cats to do anything at all useful*.
Crown of cats
Usage: All characters Charge: 1D10 charges Appearance: A circlet of braided leather studded with white opals. At the front are a topaz and an aquamarine.
Forston always enjoyed the romance of the sea in books and songs. It called to him in his dreams. Sometimes he woke thinking he could hear gulls. But the actual sea made him so sick he couldn't memorise spells. What's a wizard to do? Craft a boat capable of sailing on land, of course.
The sailboat is a small vessel, comfortably seating four or squeezing six. It has a single sail and a tiller at the back. One person can operate it. For movement, it treats land like water. It's the same for anyone touching the boat, as long as the contact is palm-sized or larger. You can even splash it, although it resumes its proper shape afterwards. Oars work.
All the magic is in the keel. You could remove it and fit it to another boat, so long as it would take a similar-sized keel. Too large and the magic won't trigger.
Using the boat
Level ground is like calm water. The boat moves at about 9/10 of the wind's speed. You can tack against the wind at about 1/3 speed. Broken ground is like choppy water. Features like trees are like sudden swells. The boat will go over them, but it's a strain on the timber. And the magic does nothing to keep passengers or goods inside. Forests or cities are like storms, packed with up/down inclines. You can tack against gravity and sail up a vertical surface. Once again, it's hard on passengers.
Forston only sailed his boat once. He passed over an unexpected ditch and lost his seat. He sank into the turf while gripping the sail line, but lost it - and the earth solidified around him. He was never found.
Usage: all characters.
Charges: permanent.
Appearance: a mahogany keel banded in copper and carved with runes.
The dwarven settlers at the holding of Dhurmak came to mine the copper veins. They made a modest living that way for years. An undistinguished minor clan with a small but tidy hall in the hills. But once they dug down underneath the ore, they found a surprise.There was worked stone down there. Crushed, as though the hill had shifted and sagged above it. And there were already-cut gems scattered in generous piles throughout the wreckage.
Each was a green or yellow crystal, cut with facets by an expert. And each gem's centre was a flaw that resembled the slit-eye of a hunting beast.
Not being fools, the clan leaders had the gems examined by sages before allowing anyone to touch them. The scholars confirmed there was magic on them but it was old, weak magic. Made to hold something fast. That made perfect sense to the dwarves. They understood the difficulty of cutting flawed crystal without cracking it.
They stopped mining for copper and started mining for gems instead. Stones with eye-shaped flaws became fashionable. For a while Dhurmak enjoyed a brisk trade.
Disaster fell the first time they entombed one of their own with his jewellery on him. Left alone in the dark with a corpse, the gem liquefied. It spread over the body, dissolved the flesh and draped itself over the bones. Like a slime with an internal skeleton and an eye swimming at its forehead.
It spent half of that first night oozing between the debris sorting room and the mausoleum. Dropping eye-gems into the other coffins. Soon there was a squad of slime-skeletons. They quietly took over the hold entrances and the mine, converting living dwarves as they went. When traders arrived in the morning, they found it sealed tight. Dhurmak had been the victim of a silent invasion.
Now the dwarves are slaves. Driven by the slime skeletons to dig faster, uncovering more and more eye-gems. There are more gems than dwarves. So far, they've been content to share skeletons between them. Each skeleton has three to seven eyes, and a thicker layer of ooze as the number goes up. They've said nothing about their plans, giving orders and threats using hand-signals. Even so, the dwarves know that they live until they dig the last of the eye-gems from the underground ruin, and not a day longer.
AC 7 [12], HD 1 (4hp), Att 1 x slam (1d8) or acid (see special), THAC0 19 [0], MV 60' (20'), SV D12 W13 P14 B15 S16 (1), ML 8, AL Chaotic, XP (see special), NA 0 (3d4), TT -
Specials: Acid: 1d8 damage + 1d4 per round until victim makes an appropriate save. Immunity: Unharmed by piercing attacks. Half damage from bludgeoning, heat, cold. Broken bones halve movement speed, but don't affect the use of limbs. Eye level: For each additional eye, the creature improves AC and THAC0 by 1 and gains 1 HD. It loses 5' from movement speed.
In the covert hours of the night, cut a branch from a tree you don't own. Saw a plank from that branch. Carve an empty circle on one side and an owl sigil on the other. Whisper a secret to it that you've never told anyone. Congratulations. Any table you place that board on is now an altar consecrated to the goddess of secrets.
Everyone has secrets they want to keep. You'd think the goddess of secrets would receive more worship. Truth is, not many people know about her. Those that do refer to her as 'our patroness' or 'our gracious lady' because they don't know her name. Most of them are thieves or assassins.
You can talk about anything at that altar. At the discussion's end, announce 'we dedicate these secrets to our lady' and let a drop of honey fall on your tongue. Spill the final drop on the carved board. Now no-one present can talk about what they've heard unless they're back together at an altar. Your voice will fail if you try. Sign language works, but she still might break your fingers for trying.
This is a obviously a tremendous boon to people who need to talk about their plans in private. It's good to know your partners can't spill the beans, even under torture. The lady might help them out there, by filling their mouths with acid or tearing their tongues in half to the root. She's serious about secrets.
But there's a price. The lady chooses one of the people at the altar to perform a task as her champion. It's usually an act of theft or violence. To keep something from coming to light, or shut a mouth forever. She sends her orders in dreams. Which are crystal-clear on the goal you've been set, but short on details like obstacles you might face. It's her nature to send you off, not unprepared exactly, but trusting you to work out the details on your own.
As you might expect, the penalties for telling anyone about this work are horrible.
If you succeed at several of these little tasks, there's a chance she'll select you for a great privilege. You'll become her priest. (No, you can't decline.) Then your job will be to move far away from everything you've ever known and found an organisation in her honour. A thieves guild or assassins lodge.
No need to tell the junior members why their order exists.
