MM3: Chitine to Devil

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Chitine

Chitine grunt, chitine warrior, chitine scout, chitine marauder, chitine web crafter, choldrith

“The chitines are a failed attempt to create the perfect slave race.” That’s pretty fucking raw. They’re Drow-Frankenstein’s spider-monsters who rebelled and now have their own society, which has some similarities to drow society. They worship Lolth, and they are ruled by a caste of priestesses (choldriths).

That’s pretty good: The drow empire brought down by their own creations. The chitine now rule the fallen cities, a twisted reflection of the long-gone elves.

Cloaker

Cloaker ambusher, cloaker lord

Flat flying creatures that live underground and envelop people to eat them. It’s fine, but not that exciting.

Then the text drops the fact that cloakers gather in conclaves where they join together in a big sphere to communicate! Now we’re talking! Take them out of the underdark and put them in the air, a giant balloon made up of scores of cloakers, floating high in the sky. Individual cloakers drop off to hunt, and to carry the conclave’s demands to the towns they hover above.

Craud

Craud impaler, craud crusher, craud king

Crauds are basically giant lobsters, and I would use them as such. Big dumb shellfish, potentially dangerous, but easy to catch if you know what you’re doing. Hardworking fishermen bring them in to sell as delicacies.

Until one fateful day, when the craud king calls his subjects to war, and the shorelines are swarmed by hundreds of rampaging giant crustaceans.

Dark one

Hex knight, shadow bolter, shadow speaker

Small people who live in the Shadowfell and come to the mortal world to steal stuff. The lore speculates that they are descendants of halflings who went to the Shadowfell, but the other way around is much better: Halflings are dark ones who left the Shadowfell and lost the dark half of their selves, and that’s why they are called “halflings” now.

“Hex knight” is a cool title. “Shadow bolter”, eeeh... We are told that shadow speakers lead raiding parties into the mortal world, and they carry small clay jugs filled with Shadowfell soil. Of course! They take a piece of the Shadowfell with them, to prevent the dark ones from losing their darkness and turning into halflings.

Demon

Babau, klurichir, maw demon, greater maw demon, molydeus, nalfeshnee swine guard, nalfeshnee tyrant, quasit, ultrodemon schemer

Demons dwell in the Abyss, where eternal war rages. I imagine it much like the hell of the Doom games, all ruins and wastelands, full of demons locked in constant battle.

Babau: Demonic spies and assassins. They were born from the blood of a demon lord wounded by a devil’s sword, and they combine the qualities of demons and devils. I think these guys may be more free-thinking than both demons and devils, doing mercenary work for the various powers of the Abyss.

Klurichir: Klurichirs are spawned in the lowest depths of the Abyss, take command of demonic hordes, and start conquering. As one demon’s realm crumbles, a new one arises. A good way to keep things fresh!

Maw demon: Just a mouth on four legs that is always hungry. Simple but effective. They can be Abyssal “wildlife”, or maybe some evil guy has a big one in a pit to feed prisoners to.

Molydeus: There are seven molydeuses, who were Tharizdun’s angels tasked with protecting a shard of pure evil, and then they got corrupted. I don’t know, I don’t really care for “evil” as a tangible substance. How about: Tharizdun tried to conquer the Abyss, with the aid of his seven archangels. Tharizdun was defeated, but his angels continue the war. Now they are just another faction in the neverending conflict, albeit one that claims their goals are divinely ordinated.

Nalfeshnee: Swine-things, huh? Gotta pull from House on the Borderland here. The lore says the nalfeshnees’ demon lord father was killed by the gods, and the nalfeshnee devoured his body. I can see it, the great fortress of the demon lord on a bleak plain in the Abyss, its master long gone, swine-things waddling through its corridors. Should they find their way to the mortal realm, they will dispassionately kill and devour all they encounter.

Quasit: Tiny demons who are familiars to wizards. The text describes them as tempters, but I think that should be a devil’s job. Here’s my take: a quasit familiar lets a wizard draw magic from the Abyss to empower their spells. The “summoning ritual” for a quasit in fact creates a new demon from scratch. As the wizard channels power through the quasit, the tiny demon grows bigger and stronger...

Ultrodemon: This demon wants to get rich, for the sake of it. Number go up; capitalism incarnate. A villain that schemes not to destroy the world, but to funnel as many gold pieces as possible to their personal hoard? Sounds similar to a dragon, but I feel like a dragon would just steal or extort gold. An ultrodemon would run a business empire. They don’t really seem at home in the Abyss, the mortal world is a better place to make money. What if an ultrodemon is actually a mortal rich guy who turned into a demon to become immortal? Like with a lich type ritual, but for billionaires instead of wizards.

Derro

Derro warrior, derro thug, derro fanatic, derro harvester, derro ironguard, derro savant, warped slave

Look, are derro supposed to be evil dwarves or not? The duergar already fill that niche. But I don’t really care for duergar. And they don’t appear in this book anyway. My decision is, derro are dwarves. Moving on.

Derro are described as corrupted by the Far Realm, the cosmic horror place in the D&D cosmology. To me, the Far Realm is just outer space. I would say the derro have learned to use certain “cosmic rays” to travel between the Underdark, the surface world, and the distant stars. They now understand the insignificance of their home world in the grand scheme of the cosmos, and how the true powers among the stars could at any time end all life on the planet through their mere presence. But the derro have a plan. They will transform the world and all its lifeforms, making it compatible with the Far Realm. To this end, they kidnap people and animals using their cosmic rays. The derro expose their victims to the warping energies of the Far Realm, and take note of the effects. Subjects who survive are released, transported back to the place they were taken from. Few will believe their wild tales of being abducted and experimented on.

Devil

Corruption devil, sire of corruption, corrupted followers (lecher, glutton, monger, idler, lunatic, craven), hell knight, hellwasp colony guard, hellwasp devil, passion devil, rage devil, slime devil, swarm devil, vizier devil

While demons get the Doom hell, devils get the Dante hell (and theirs is actually called Hell).

So, the Blood War, the giant war between demons and devils, is a big thing in D&D lore, but I don’t like it. It makes the gods look lazy, like why aren’t they getting stuck in? But if they did, the whole conflict would make whatever the PCs are doing seem inconsequential. No, I don’t think gods, devils, and demons should fight each other, at least not until the seals are broken and it’s time for the final apocalypse.

Corruption devil: The essential devil, one who tempts mortals into sin and vice. The rules give them a bunch of corrupting powers, but I think forcing player characters into sin through dice rolls is cheap. Corrupt them for real! Figure out what the characters want, then offer it to them for the low low price of their eternal souls.

Corrupted follower: Mortals who took the corruption devil’s deal. I would make these the souls of the damned, trapped in Hell for eternity. Each type of corrupted follower is tied to a particular cardinal sin, but notably, there’s no Pride or Envy, and instead Cowardice is represented as a cardinal sin. Well, it would make sense for Cowardice to be a sin in D&D, what with all the gods of battle running around. In fact, let’s look at the 4e pantheon and see if we can match gods to each of the cardinal virtues and sins.

• Avandra, goddess of change. She exalts diligence, and condemns sloth.
• Erathis, goddess of civilization. She exalts temperance, and condemns gluttony.
• Ioun, goddess of reason. She exalts chastity, and condemns lust.
• Kord, god of battle. He exalts courage, and condemns cowardice.
• Pelor, god of the sun. He exalts charity, and condemns greed.
• The Raven Queen, goddess of death. She exalts patience, and condemns wrath.

These six gods would form the pantheon of the big Catholic-church equivalent religion, with the other gods having their own churches and cults.

Hell knight: Yeah, here we go. A devil knight in full armor, mounted on a burning horse. Badass. Now I said there’s no Blood War, but that doesn’t mean Hell has no army. It has legions, and the hell knights are its elite, waiting for the final battle on the day of judgment. In the meantime, they may be dispatched to deal with any intruders into Hell.

Hellwasp devil: These insectoid devils were once demons, we are told. Wait, what? How does that even work? Devils are fallen angels. So the hellwasps are fallen demons? Angels fall when they rebel against God. Demons fall when they... stop fighting each other. Yeah, that makes sense, the hellwasp are said to live in colonies after all. I think hellwasps would be outsiders in Hell, other devils looking askance at these weird bug people who just want to build their hives and stuff.

Passion devil: These devils are kinda vaguely described as seeking to inflame passions in mortals to trick them into sin. To distinguish them from corruption devils, I’ll say that while corruption devils make mortals take their sins out on the world, passion devils tempt mortals to engage in sin with the devil itself. Whether that’s by seducing mortals into lustful devil-sex, taking a terrifying guise to frighten cowards, butchering itself for delicious meat to encourage gluttony...

Rage devil: Devil soldiers who make up the brunt of Hell’s legions, and by extension, the majority of all devils. What are they raging against? The gods, of course. Rage devils might be lent out to mortal conquerors in exchange for their soul.

Slime devil: Not actually a devil, this is an amalgamation of corrupt souls. I like that. As the aeons go by, if a damned soul forgets the very sins that condemned it to Hell, it loses hold of its form, turning into a black sludge. Vast bogs of soul sludge can be found throughout Hell, and from there, slime devils emerge to drag down and dissolve any souls that come near.

Swarm devil: A devil split into a swarm of evil flies. These would make great spies and messengers for Hell’s operations in the mortal world. Singular flies can keep an eye on enemies, or carry information between devils and their allies... A terrifying communications advantage.

Vizier devil: Hell’s emissaries to the mortal world, who worm their way into the halls of power. I would say these devils masquerade as mortals, and try to influence politics in order to create conditions where many mortals can be tempted into sin by other devils. Poverty, famine, corruption, war: all can make mortals desperate enough to sell their souls for relief.

MM3: Ape to Cave Fisher

Okay, I'm going to read through the Monster Manual 3 for D&D 4e, and write down my ideas on how to use the various monsters for games and worldbuilding. I'm not going to stay 100% beholden to the lore as written in the book, though. I'll pick out what seems interesting, add or change stuff as necessary, and see if I can get things to fit together.

Why the third monster manual? Well, in the first monster manual, you have to put all the staple monsters that just need to be in D&D. In the second monster manual, you put all of the classic monsters that coudn't fit in the first book. But when you get to the third monster manual, you can start getting weird.

Plus, it makes for a fun exercise if you imagine that the setting only has the monsters that appear in this book, not the basic ones from the previous manuals.

Ape

Great ape, silverback ape, ape temple guardian

The first monster of the book is the ape! Who doesn’t love apes? The lore says apes “have lived in jungles since the dawn of creation”. If that’s a Biblical-type, everything-gets-created-at-once kind of creation, it’s nothing special. But if the creation myth is more of a process, then it gets more interesting. The apes were here first!

Apes being temple guardians ties in nicely with that fact. If apes lived in the world since the beginning, perhaps they made a covenant with the first gods, taking the responsibility of guarding their holy sites for all time.

Apocalypse spell

Prison of Mual-Tar, herald of colorless fire, shard of Uralinda, godslayer inferno, light of Amoth

These are various creatures formed from the leftover essence of super-powerful spells. Maybe high-level wizards can summon or control these, if they study the ancient spellcraft.

Prison of Mual-Tar: Fragments of chains used by the gods to bind a primordial. Nah, make them the actual prisons. Mual-Tar is cut into many pieces, each held in its own prison-being. If you kill the prison, the primordial piece escapes. Kill all of the prisons and Mual-Tar is back, baby...

Herald of colorless fire: An empire was turned into a sea of dust by a rain of colorless fire. (Yep, it’s straight out of Greyhawk lore.) And then colorless fire-monsters arose from the dust, and they want to destroy everything. That’s kind of boring. What if the knowledge and secrets of the lost empire remains in the heralds? And now they are colorless fire-monster sages, sought after as masters and scholars?

Shard of Uralinda: An archfey got rejected, so he blasted an eladrin city with ice and killed everyone. The souls of the dead eladrin were trapped in the shards of ice. I’m getting Snow Queen vibes from this. The shards should be able to stick in people’s hearts and freeze them, removing their capacity for love.

Godslayer inferno: The remains of a fire used to kill gods. Hey, it’s an answer to the question “How do we kill a god?” You get a godslayer inferno to do it. Or you infuse your weapon with its essence or something.

Light of Amoth: A god blew himself up to destroy a demon prince. Their essences fused into creatures made of living light that hate both gods and demons. The ultimate enlightened beings? Supreme atheists? Yeah, “Light of Amoth” should be the name of an antitheist cult that goes around annoying clerics, and the top leadership are these weird light-people who consider themselves superior to gods and demons alike.

Arcanian

Green arcanian, blue arcanian, red arcanian

When a wizard tries to cast a spell that is too high level for them, it can backfire, kill the wizard, and turn them into an undead creature animated by the energy of the spell.

A zombie with powers and motivation derived from a particular spell is interesting, there are so many possible variations. A fireball arcanian, for example, would be straightforward: it has fire powers and it wants to burn everything. But other spells might make for stranger arcanians. A hallucinatory terrain arcanian that creates illusions. A scrying arcanian that sees all... can the party figure out how to extract knowledge from a zombie?

Banderhobb

Banderhobb warder, banderhobb filch, banderhobb abductor

A huge monster comes out of the shadows under your bed. It snares you with its long tongue, and its gaping maw swallows you whole. Then it returns to the shadows, and you are never seen again. Perfect, 10/10, no notes.

What happens to the people swallowed by the banderhobbs, though? The speculation given in the book is that they are regurgitated in the Shadowfell, and toil as slaves for the banderhobbs’ ancient master until they transform into more banderhobbs. Not bad. But maybe... Instead of putting the prisoners to work, they are simply starved. Their hunger turns them into banderhobbs, and they are sent to feed in the mortal world. But anything they swallow there, they must throw up and give to their master, and their hunger is never sated.

Behemoth

Bone crown behemoth, skinwing behemoth, spirehorn behemoth

“Behemoth” is 4e’s name for dinosaurs and dinosaur adjacent reptiles. In this book we get pachycephalosaurus, pteranodon, and triceratops. They are all used as mounts and war beasts, which is great. An army with pachycephalosaurus cavalry, scouts riding pteranodons, and a triceratops carrying a small fortress on its back, is a great image.

That word though, behemoth... In the book of Job, God rhetorically asks if anyone will domesticate the great Behemoth. Well, apparently some people do! That’s some big hubris then. Only godless warriors would dare make themselves masters of the behemoths. Followers of the Light of Amoth, perhaps? (See “Apocalypse spell”, above.)

Beholder

Beholder spawn, eye of shadow, ghost beholder

Beholder spawn?! This is the orc baby dilemma on steroids. “You’ve defeated the beholder, in the next room you find twenty beholder babies. What do you do?” Kill them all before they start shooting tiny eye rays at you, is 4th edition’s answer.

The eye of shadow is a beholder that has been warped after spending time in the Shadowfell. Beholders being transformed by the environments they look upon makes a lot of sense, actually. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - the beauty that is beheld takes up residence in the eye.

Ghost beholders seem like a contradiction in moods to me. Ghosts are subtle, mysterious, quiet, haunting. Beholders are frantic and entire unsubtle. They draw your attention immediately, ranting and shooting eye rays wildly. I think a ghost beholder would work best as a poltergeist, unseen but possessing the location it spent its life beholding, always watching. And maybe shooting eye rays out of mirrors and stuff.

Cambion

Cambion wrathborn, chained cambion, cambion infernal scions

Children of devils and mortals. Classic stuff.

Chained cambions are wrapped up in chains, forever, and walk around using animated chains as legs. But why are they in chains? The mechanics say they get stronger if they are immobilized or restrained. I guess they enjoy being chained up. The opposite of the Satanist freedom imperative... These guys must be on the side of God, binding themselves to reject their infernal parent’s rebellion.

Infernal scions on the other hand, “covet Asmodeus’s position... and plot to supplant him”. The results of Asmodeus’s dalliances with mortals come back to daddy, and start scheming against him and against each other. A Princes of Amber scenario when Asmodeus dies/disappears/starts getting out of touch.

Catoblepas

Catoblepas harbinger, catoblepas tragedian

Love catoblepas. Long-necked, sad buffalo who breathe poison and destroy all life wherever they go.

The lore says knights and fey alike go on ritualistic hunts for catoblepas. Getting Questing Beast vibes... Perhaps the blight of the catoblepas spreads far and wide, tainting an entire kingdom. Heroes quest for the elusive beast, as the land dies. A cyclical tradition? The catoblepas must be slain every winter, or spring will not come.

Cave fisher

Cave fisher spawn, cave fisher angler, cave fisher spiker, cave fisher line spiker

These guys are fun. Big bugs that go fishing underground by throwing strangler lines down a precipice and hoping something gets caught on it.

They might be a little tricky to use in a game without just turning into gotcha traps, though. But if the characters are aware of the lines hanging down from above, they can make for a neat field hazard in a fight, as combatants try to push each other into the lines.

The cave fishers should obviously have a stereotypical angler culture, laid back, boastful, somewhat sleazy. Gynes want me, dwarves fear me.

Next -> 

Landlords for WFRP

Started a campaign of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1e), set in the small town of Osburg. I figured the characters might want to rent rooms long-term instead of just staying at an inn, so I prepared a few landlords.

Characters in WFRP have different social levels depending on their career, and each landlord is suitable for a particular social level.

• A: Nobility
• B: Professionals, academics
• C: Craftsmen, tradesmen
• D: Laborers, criminals 

 

The Horn of Plenty (A)

Inn quarter, 400/- per month.

Luxury inn that offers long-term rooms. Servants and courtesans on staff can be hired by guests. Owner Grunhilda Kruger controls several inns, taverns and brothels in Osburg. 

Berthold Heinemann (B)

Castle quarter, 100/- per month. No elves, dwarves, or halflings.

Retired university professor from Altdorf. Can teach the skills Read/Write and History.

Etelka von Borgenschlag (B)

Castle quarter, 100/- per month.

Rich widow. Donates to artists and temples, has influence over the burgomeister Albrect Adelich. Wants to improve Osburg's reputation and attract sophisticated people to the town. Manipulates her tenants in this aim, if they seem useful.

 

Apprentice House (C)

Hammer quarter, 60/- per month. 40/- for apprentices of local artisans.

Big and lively house, overseen by retired blacksmith Gottolf Schmidt. Monthly 10% chance that non-apprentice tenants are run out to make room for new apprentices.

 

Pierre & Louise Grimain (C)

Bretonnian quarter, 50/- per month. 40/- for Bretonnians.

Married Bretonnian couple. 7 children who often bring friends over. Daily 10% chance that children investigate a tenant's room. 

Wilfrieda Kurst (C)

Schauplatz, 50/- per month.

Talkative middle-aged woman. Always knows the latest gossip. Spies on her tenants and spills anything juicy to her many acquaintances.

 

The Bad Badger (D)

Golden quarter, 30/- per month.

Hole-in-the-wall tavern run by Anna Pflugerbach, a woman in her thirties who is friendly with the local footpads. Rooms are above the tavern, and measure about 2 square meters / 20 square feet.

 

Gitta Fleischer & Johanna Gräber (D)

Axtstrasse, 30/- per month.

Young women, sickly looking, scabs. House built on the hillside up to the Garden of Morr (graveyard). Secret tunnel leads to the graves; Gitta and Johanna steal corpses to eat. Nightly 10% chance of graverobbing. Their feast can be heard in tenants' rooms. Every feast there is a 10% chance that Gitta and Johanna fully transform into ghouls (permanently).

 

Holger Spitkopf (D)

Hammer quarter, 30/- per month.

Grouchy, impulsive old man. Basement rooms with minimal windows. Monthly 20% chance that rent increases by 1d10/-.

 

Malina Erkendorfer (D)

Old town, 30/- per month.

Elderly woman, almost deaf. Interested in potted plants. On the top floor lives Zacharias Erichsen, who plays violin nightly, calling upon the power of Malal to protect him from Tzeentch's attacks. Nightly 20% chance that music disturbs sleep of other tenants, preventing wound and magic point recovery.

Ghibli-esque RPGs

I saw some discussion about Ghibli-esque RPGs on the NSR discord, and it made me think about what systems I would use for games inspired by the Studio Ghibli movies. Of course, the Ghibli movies are quite different from each other, so I picked out a system for each one.

And it's only the Hayao Miyazaki movies, because those are the ones I've seen.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

There's dynamic action and big weird monsters. A girl gets shot with a machine gun and keeps going. Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition should work great!

Castle in the Sky

I think there's like three dungeon crawls in this movie? Any old-school D&D would be fine, but I'll go with Tunnels & Trolls. Pazu would rack up a lot of AP from all the stunts he has to do.

My Neighbor Totoro

So the kids are doing a bunch of esoteric stuff with the spirits and the adults don't notice anything is off, but the magic is real because the mom got that corn in the end and it did cure her illness. Sounds like Mage to me! Adults = sleepers.

Kiki's Delivery Service

Cargo delivery, patrons, random encounters, desperately trying to stay afloat in a harsh gig economy - Traveller is a perfect fit for this movie, if you replace the spaceships with broomsticks. I do want to add some Call of Cthulhu mechanics though: if you run out of SAN, you can't fly anymore.

Porco Rosso

Your life is a failure, you're out of money, the secret police is looking for you, and you're a pig for some weird reason. Yeah, you're in an Electric Bastionland game.

Princess Mononoke

There's a lot of fighting in this movie, with lots of body parts getting slashed/shot/bitten off. Also a demon infection disease. I think Rolemaster is the right system for this one.

Spirited Away

This movie is all about working a shitty job while dealing with dangerous otherworldly entities. It's Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay! Just need to write up a Bathhouse Worker career.

Howl's Moving Castle

A small team of weirdos try to save the world from devastating war. F.I.S.T., right?

Ponyo

So the whole world gets imbalanced when Ponyo leaves the sea, and that causes a series of apocalyptic events. MÖRK BORG has a good mechanic for that!

The Wind Rises

Yeah, this is just a dude who makes planes and stuff, and then his wife gets sick. For games set in contemporary times with little to no combat or supernatural stuff, I like to use GURPS. Bonus: If the Jiro player actually wants to design those planes, I'm sure GURPS has extremely detailed rules for that.

The Boy and the Heron

Now this movie is far out. The boy moves between a number of strange locales with strange people, and it's probably an allegory for something or other. I will choose Between the Skies for this one. It's very good at strange.

And that's all of them!

Until Miyazaki makes his next final movie

Taken by the Blood-Men

I made Taken by the Blood-Men, an entry for Idle Cartulary's Zungeon jam!

It's a 1st level dungeon adventure, statted for old-school games, 5th edition, Into the Odd, and Tunnels & Trolls. Captured by horrifying Blood-Men, can you survive and escape?

You can download the adventure here, and you can read more about zungeons here.

Using Chainmail for Multi-Character Gaming

I ran a game using a combination of Chainmail and OD&D rules. It was a lot of fun!

The OD&D actual play by Bandit's Keep was a big inspiration, and Marcia B.'s Fantastic Medieval Campaigns was a great resource for the OD&D and Chainmail rules.

 

Points values from Fantastic Medieval Campaigns

Here's the basic gist of how I did it:

- Let each player build a band of characters with a total value of 10 points, using the points values from Chainmail. I disallowed those creatures that cost exactly 10 points.

- New characters can be recruited by paying gp equal to the points value times 100.

- Basic infantry and cavalry can be recruited in towns, but you can also try to recruit any creature you meet in the wilderness or in the dungeon, using the recruitment rules from OD&D. If your party is worth less than 10 points total, you can recruit for free in towns to get to 10 points.

- Make reaction rolls when encountering NPCs (2-5 attack, 6-8 uncertain, 9-12 friendly). If they are uncertain, roll again next round.

- Resolve combat using Chainmail's mass combat rules. Don't use the "Combat between special units" rules. For creatures that lack a defense value, use the same value as for attack. No creature is immune to normal attacks.

- Wilderness movement and encounters work as in OD&D.

- In dungeons, track movement round by round as if the dungeon crawl was a continuous combat. Roll for random encounters at the end of every round. Cavalry have to dismount before going into the dungeon!

- XP is awarded for gathering treasure (1 XP per gp) and for defeating enemies (XP equal to points value times 100). XP is divided equally among all characters.

- Characters level up using the Fighter XP progression from OD&D. Every level gained means they count as one more fighter in combat (make one more attack, survive one more hit), and also improves their morale by 1 point.

- You don't need to track or pay for basic equipment, food rations, inn rooms etc, but at the end of every month, you must pay gp equal to 1% of each character's XP total (as per the OD&D rule).

* * *

The game was set in the Land of the Winterwind, the great northern wilderness. I was going to have three players; two called in sick but me and the last player went ahead. I let him spend 30 points on his starting band. He went with 1 great orc, 2 orcs, 2 elves, 5 goblins, and 2 fairies.

Having heard a rumor of an underground ruin full of shining gems they went north. On the way they met a few ents and a werebear; fortunately they were friendly. They reached the dungeon, went inside, and the carnage began.

The party killed goblins, slime folk, and crystal beasts in the cramped tunnels, but also saw their own members fall one by one. They rescued a captured human but he got killed later. In the end only two characters were left: the great orc and a fairy. They ran into 7 archers as they were about to leave, and gave them most of the treasure they had found to not have to fight them. The orc and the fairy made it out with a few gold pieces and gems, a +1 extendible claw staff, and almost enough XP to level up.

Filthy and bloodied they made their way to a nearby dwarf hold, where they could finally relax, and try to take in what they had just experienced.

Then they recruited a couple of rookie dwarf fighters, and prepared for the next expedition.

Encounters: Highwaymen

<- Encounter index

Roll 1d10. After using an encounter, remove it and write a new one.

Wilds

• 1 rookie highwayman in need of robbery experience. Wants to apply to a highwayman company.
• 2 servants of highwaymen interview the party to determine if they are worthy of being robbed.
• 3 highwaymen and their dog on a picnic in beautiful landscape, discussing the finer points of highway robbery.
• 4 fans looking for their highwayman idol, Danil the Dagger-Demon.
• 5 highwaymen ride up to the party and congratulate them on the honor of being robbed by the Crimson Crossbows.
• 6) Insolvent noble tries highway robbery, along with 5 servants. Dislikes the uncomfortable wilderness.
• 7 dwarven highwaymen. Methodical and professional. Ask for an inventory of the party’s valuables to calculate whether they are worth stealing.
• 8) 3 highwaymen meeting 5 aspirants hoping to join their company, questioning them and testing their skills.
• 9) 5 highwaymen robbing 4 traders. One trader secretly in love with the highwayman leader.
• 10 highwaymen of the absolute elite. Will only rob royalty and high nobility. They laugh at the party’s poverty and raggedness.

 

Rural

• 1 noble was rude to a highwayman company, who took his money, his horse, his servants, and his clothes. Furious, wants revenge.
• 2 highwaymen visit the village leader to discuss buying intel on passing rich travellers.
• 3) 2 lovestruck youths compete for the affectations of a visiting highwayman.
• 4 highwaymen ride through the village with great pomp and circumstance. Villagers fascinated.
• 5 highwaymen hiding from pursuing soldiers in a friendly farmer’s barn.
• 6 highwaymen arrange a dance at the village green.
• 7 highwaymen forced to stay at cheap inn. Disgruntled.
• 8) 5 highwaymen meet 3 fences to sell stolen goods.
• 9 highwaymen crash the local economy through excessive spending of stolen wealth.
• 10) Two companies of 5 highwaymen in the street with weapons drawn, arguing about robbery rights in the local area. Villagers hide indoors.

 

Town

• 1 highwayman in jail. Mob of angry fans demand their release.
• 2 concerned citizens speaking in public about the dangers of glamorizing the highwayman way of life. Townsfolk mostly disinterested.
• 3 incognito highwaymen spying on merchant company.
• 4 elven highwaymen on decade-long break from robbery, overheard talking about their hidden treasure.
• 5 highwaymen daringly rob the party in the middle of the street (after bribing the guards). It’s mostly a publicity stunt.
• 6 highwaymen hiring porters for an extravagant clothes shopping trip.
• 7 highwaymen, the Regents of the Road, have massive bounty placed on their heads by town officials.
• 8 actors making a play about legendary highwayman “Perfect Johnny” said to operate in these parts. The script writer would love to meet him.
• 9 drunken fans debating which highwayman is the best. Brawl will begin soon.
• 10 highwaymen holding a ball at the fanciest tavern in town.