Lamentations Of The Dogs In The Vineyard

G+ is on life support, so a few weeks back I trawled through every post I'd made in my 6+ years using it to see if there was anything that I wanted to archive.

I found about a dozen posts that were effectively blog posts I'd misplaced. One was an idea I'd loved but done nothing with. I think over the coming weeks/months/however-long-I-maintain-a-regular-writing-habit I'll expand on this concept and flesh it out as much as I can.

From a November 6th 2014 G+ post:

Prequel to Dogs in the Vineyard; early 1800s sandbox campaign in a largely unsettled counter-Utah; party are not-quite-Dogs; sent off by the church to convert isolated communities, make contact with the Mountain Folk and look into those odd reports of weird caves in the Border Hills.
BUT play with LotFP as base system (plus guns). Clerics are true believers, magic-users are the church's investigators into other stuff who are now a bit tainted, fighters and specialists are the useful novices.
And the weird caves are filled with things out of Lovecraft.

I'm a fan of the setting for Dogs In The Vineyard, and in the G+ circles that I used to read and the blogs I currently read I see barely a mention of it. I LOVE what the game is about, I love the idea of the Watchdogs and I think that Dogs is possibly Vincent Baker's best game - at least out of everything of his I've read. The game-setting-making process he leads the reader/GM through is magical. Going from simple prompts it steers your creativity without being prohibitive.

But while I like the basic stats and skills setup for Dogs, I found it really bothersome to keep on top of the dice pools. The rolls and re-rolls, the escalation. It could be tense sometimes, but at others it was just eight or nine dice on each side clattering and trying to find an exception as no-one backs down.

So why not mix a little Old School goodness in to the blend to simplify some of the mechanics? Why not use D&Dish stats? And since LOTFP has a system that uses equipment and assumptions about a similar background period of history, why not "simply" perform an RPG transplant operation?

Why not write about this in bits and pieces over the coming however-long-I-maintain-this-blog-yadda-yadda-yadda?

Why not.

Vacant Ritual Assembly and Something Stinks in Stilton

Or: Nathan does quick reviews of two zines to remind you that he has a zine of his own coming out this month...

I think the idea to do something like a zine first came in to my head when I saw Vacant Ritual Assembly, the zine that Clint Krause produces under his Red Moon Medicine Show banner. I've picked up all five of the issues from this volume and loved them all. There's a good amount of playable material in every issue and the latest was no different. Combine that with short interviews with other creators, artwork, news and ideas about Clint's future releases - every issue is a great little package. And it's only $4 in print including postage! Go check it out. (issue 1 is PWYW on DriveThru)

Something Stinks in Stilton arrived through the letterbox yesterday. I've not bought The Undercroft by Daniel Sell before, but I'm going to pick up some of the back issues when I have a little spare cash. Stilton is kind of a special issue, and Oli Palmer's adventure is statted for LotFP, but it wouldn't take much to run in another system. Adventurers are asked to go and investigate mysterious circumstances, which will lead them to a horrific situation in the cheese-making town of Stilton. The adventure and description resonates with the themes and horror in so many of LotFP's official releases. It's creepy and unsettling - as is the cover, in a good way - a feature I particularly loved is the possible timeline of events: nothing binding or railroad-y, just super-useful to the DM. The art supports the text pretty well and it was interesting that the zine was printed full colour throughout: important adventure details are picked out in bold red text. The cover has a real tactile quality with slightly raised print, and it feels special. You can find it here.

For a prospective maker and publisher I haven't read many zines before: what others should I check out?

AP: Doom-Cave of the Crystal-Headed Children

Finally got a game in! noisms was visiting, Patrick was around and so was David W, so finally after many long months we sat down and played something.

The guys all knew that they were playing DCCHC, but hadn't read it. They rolled up new characters, two each (ending with a party of six, two fighters, two MUs, a cleric and a specialist) and then found themselves a little way out of the town of Rookwood (there was a steakhouse out of the window of the cafe we were playing in with the same name, and it sounded good). A series of women of all ages approached and *SPOILERS* (if you've not read or played DCCHC and don't want to spoil anything, then don't click through; I will try to refer to things as sensitively as possible to avoid spoiling, but cannot promise I won't miss something).

Click through!

Spell: Pause

Found this in my Google Keep folder and thought it might be worth sharing; there is half a thought somewhere in my head that I have seen this already in an LotFP book - if I have, will someone put me out of my misery and let me know please?

On the one hand, this looks a little bit like a blanket way of halting magical effects. It did get me thinking though, that if a group with a few MUs spent a few rounds casting targeted spells at some great monster or something while a couple of Fighters/meat-shields held things back, there could be some tactical value - as well as a magical protection/deflection spell.

Of course, time has to catch up at some point...

Pause
Fourth Level Spell
Distance: A sphere of radius up to 30'/caster level (can be made smaller at MU discretion)
Duration: Caster's level in rounds
While this spell is in effect every spell subsequently cast by any Magic User or Cleric, and even any charge used in a rod, wand or other item, will be suspended. The caster must roll a d20 for each spell to determine the order that they resolve in after the Pause ends.
Spells in effect before Pause is cast are not effected (e.g., an invisible person is still invisible) and magic that is bound to a particular item or location still works (e.g., a flaming sword) so long as the power of that item was active before Pause was cast. Any power that must be activated is paused as well, unless the boundary of the spell is crossed, the power activated, and the boundary recrossed.
A spell "fired" from outside the boundary into the area may have unexpected effects (GM's discretion).

Game Idea: A Year Of Festivals and Special Dates

A few days ago I spotted a small hardcover address book (the kind with A to Z running down the edge of pages and little bits cut out etc) for 68p in the supermarket. I guess it was reduced to that price because no-one has these anymore, all your numbers are in your phone and people don't send letters - at least, that's what the news says.

But anyway, I picked it up because I thought "Hmm, for things like my various LotFP games I could come up with a book of NPCs..." The idea being that I wouldn't just default to random tables as I typically do, but I would have a book of people. Maybe I would take one randomly, maybe if a player says "Do we know any journalists?" I could think Ah-ha! and look up Reg Cutter, the sleazy journo for the Wetham Herald... It might be fun.

Today I spotted a marked down diary. I didn't buy it because it was a pretty poor looking little thing, but afterwards it got me thinking: there are always events and festivals and special days in cities. When you add in religions and organisations then there are feast days and observances and so on and so forth. There is always something happening in the background.

So: how about a book with 365 days of festivals listed? Some religious, some street things, some business, some cultural. Potentially adding nothing more than a little flavour ("On 9th December, watch out as children run through the streets with strings and ribbons to try and create a trap for Santa!") or maybe having mechanical effects ("17th July is the god Honarius summer feast day; Honarius is the god of winter and daggers, and those who make an offering before sunrise in his name will find that their short blades strike cold and true until sunset (+1 to hit for daggers, on a 3 or 4 re-roll as the blade freezes the wound)").

Perhaps this is something else to add to my Big List O' RPG Projects... At the minute it is just a little idea.

Encounter: The Dead Five

(no night idea, another peaceful night, but looking through my drafts folder I came across this, which needed one or two sentences to finish, hurrah!)

Rolling on another of Patrick's marvellous creations gave me the following:

"Black Ops Ghosts, possessing as they go, have orders to outflank an apparently empty fort but have no idea they are lead by an incompetent fuckwit."

Fleshed out, there's a damn good hex or encounter in that. Heck, there could be sessions in it depending on how you wanted to run it, develop it or portray it. For now though, how about the following?

It's a Puppet!

The baby pretty much slept through the night, hurrah! A victory for sleep, but no night idea. Today, however, is my regular day for childcare while my wife works on her various Masters' assignments. So up in the nursery with the baby and what do we find but PanPan, the red panda puppet that we got at the zoo last week (post about captivity and role-playing games still coming).

And seeing PanPan gets me thinking...

For a special sort of kami, it is not enough that you make offerings and say prayers to them. If you wish to appeal and gain favour you must carry their likeness - and more than this, you must allow them action.

Puppet of PanPan
Can be purchased from any shrine to PanPan with an acolyte. PanPan offers blessings for tracking and foraging, and also offers an awareness of animals of animals in forested areas (very rarely surprised). Simply putting PanPan on for a moment and making him act as a red panda (to the best of the operator's knowledge) will be enough to get a +1 to tracking and bushcraft. For every hour up to three hours, gain an extra +1 to these traits. After one hour, the operator gains the awareness of animals in forests such that they are unsurprised.

PanPan will not confer favour if the operator is wielding any kind of weapon, or any item in a weapon-like manner. If an operator harms an animal while the puppet is in use they will find that PanPan is angry. the puppet will make the operator especially attractive to wild animals for 24 hours.

Kait Legendary - a Kamikaze Librarian

Later today I'm playing in my first game in months (wife's online Masters is cancelled for tonight and am FLAILSNAILing for the first time into a game I've heard is good). I've also wanted to play as a Kamikaze Librarian ever since I saw Patrick's post last year.

Kait Legendary ("KL") was in a knowledge cult for a little while - the Burning Order - but realised that they were deliberately hoarding to deprive others. The name Burning Order comes from their imperative to rule and to destroy the scholarly treasure troves of others (after making sure they have a copy for themselves). Anywho, KL left before she took her novice exams, but was seriously bitten by the scroll-bug, and loves to collect scrolls, parchments, maps and books for her own personal library. When she has enough she plans to exhibit and set up shop in the University District of Wetham.

Until that time she adventures! Either she finds interesting and useful things on her travels or she finds the means to buy interesting and useful things on her travels. It's all the same to her. She looks like a hulked out Scarlett Johansson (because why not).


(stats below the fold)

Magic Item: Nena Bleeve's Journal

Nena Bleeve was the niece of Arvik Bleeve. Like her uncle she was interested in making items of magical value, but she had not reached his heights of creation (nor the depths of his madness). Nena had few friends, though occasionally played doubles Flaming Chess with aristocrats. Her distinguishing feature was the journal that many observed her writing in; compulsively some said. Writing walking down the street at times, writing while meeting people, making endless notes...

Described as bookish by everyone who met her, she was nevertheless a ruthless killer. People who survived her attacks spoke of incredible grace, speed of attack, and how sometimes she seemed able to shrug off what should have been horrific life-ending injuries. And after that she would write in her journal.

Nena died, surprised by an elven assailant who disintegrated her with a wand firing a rainbow bolt... Her journal was not recovered after the attack, and Wethamites who knew it for what it was have been unable to locate it. It is possible that it was destroyed in the attack, but who can say for sure?

A Ghost: Hanna On-the-hill

Hanna On-the-hill (a ghost generated by noisms' table)

Olpek is the oldest man in the village. He has been making furniture and wooden toys for over sixty years. When he was eight years old, his grandfather told him about the terrible girl who lived on the hill past the Red Forest. Legend said she was a beautiful princess. After angering a necromancer by refusing his marriage proposal, she was cursed with eternal unlife and a terrible hunger. Bound to the hill where he proposed, Hanna feasts on flesh when she can get it, preserving her body and regenerating when she gets enough.

Monster: Spiky Slugs

In the private workspace of Hirgon the Shapeshifter sits a large stone chest which cannot be moved. It came from Somewhere Else, and is held in our universe by forces beyond anyone's understanding. The contents of the chest hunger, but are thankfully sealed by the stone tablet on top. If it were removed or broken they would be free...

Wizard Matchbooks

You're a wizard. You're really well-established in the magical arts. You can create life from non-living material, fly and shoot lightning out of your eyes. It gets to be that you think: "Hey, I'd rather spend my headspace remembering spells to shatter the boundaries between reality than how to illuminate stuff or detect an invisible something..." So you make wands or a staff and then one day it hits you. What can you carry in your pocket, with a little one-time shot of magic, easy, handy and convenient. A book of matches. Strike one, and your spell's done.

You start making simple stuff and then realise, "Hey, I could do a lot with this..."

Monster: Spellbook Golems

Some tomes in magical and rare libraries are cursed. The unfortunate reader, if not properly prepared, may go blind from reading the title page. A careless peruser may go mad from touching a hellish travelogue. An unwary thief may find that they are trapped within the pages of a magically charged Who's Who.

None of these fates compare to coming face-to-face with a secret library's secret guardian. No, not a Kamikaze Librarian (thought for later: run a game where people can only choose from extraordinary classes created in that style). A golem made of magical texts...

You run your fingers along the wrong shelf. You open a locked cabinet. You don't pay your fine. Any one of these might trigger a cascade of leather bound books of all shapes and sizes, spilling on to the floor and forming into a humanoid shape - or perhaps into a vaguely houndlike body. If it has been activated it is because you are not supposed to be there, or because you have taken something it is bound to protect. A Spellbook Golem will follow you, attack you, attempt to restrain you - but usually it will not try to kill you. The Librarian who finds you afterwards will do that...

Somewhere South: The Plots Thicken

Previously: Patrick and David's characters hired some new staff for their bar, The Grotesque Cudgel, and spotted someone tailing them. Gorble of Corg, who is also blackmailing them, says he needs them for a job, and that he will be in touch. Orchard the magic-user kills a man in the street, but the party evade consequences by turning the dead body into gingerbread and distributing it to people... Later, they magically disguise Rowntree the Elf as a gingerbread man and sneak him into the house of a rich immortal. Destroying the painting that keeps the man eternally young, they then throw him out of a window with a fake suicide note in his hand, and "rescue" a former guest at their inn.

Somewhere South: Two Uses for Gingerbread Curse

Previously: the party (Patrick and David) killed Arvik Bleeve, the thorn in their side, and dumped his body in the river. Bleeve's relative attacked others in the party, but were then killed themselves. A retainer of the party ended up dead, and so they held a great wake in her honour. Towards the end of the street party an urchin approaches one of the party with a note from someone who saw the party dump Arvik Bleeve's body into the Weth...

Somewhere South: Living, Dying and Mourning in Wetham

The last few months have been quite patchy for gaming; fortunately I have only one week coming up when I won't be around to run/play something - until I become a father in September, and who knows how that will effect things then. But 'til then, let's see what sort of things have been happening recently in Wetham, shall we?

Patrick and David went to sleep after their trip to the warren of the Dread Rabbit, and woke to find themselves in a strange sugar-coated nightmare world - Lamentations of the Gingerbread Princess. Despite the machinations of evil stuffed toys and dastardly cherubs they were able to escape, bringing back some items with them that would probably prove useful...

Setting Idea: Yippee-ki-yay!

On Sunday I saw Olympus Has Fallen, which was good in a pulpy, ridiculous sort of way. Good actors making the most of an overblown plot. It has been described as "Die Hard in the White House" which is a description that totally fits.

Last night I was watching an episode of Lost (don't worry, if you've never seen it I won't spoil anything) and there came a point where a character was crawling through a ventilation shaft. Something connected back with Olympus Has Fallen and the "Die Hard in the..." summary. Which in turn lead me to write "Game/Setting Idea: Die Hard in an abandoned castle/wizard's tower" over on G+.

So...

Monster: Weaves

Art sometimes get a bad rep. On our world people look at graffiti and wonder if it has merit. They look quizzically at a shark in a tank of formaldehyde. And they just don't get why Picasso couldn't get perspective right.

In other places, people look at a bizarre statue: a creature supported by a dozen piglegs, stitched to a cow's body, the head of a gargoyle, creepers growing out of all of the orifices and tree limb arms ending in scythes. "How is that art?" they ask. Then they run screaming as it stirs into life and chases them.

They didn't hear the story about the adventurers excavating under the hill of the Dread Rabbit who found a similar composite creature: a tripod of metal, stone and flesh (a bent broadsword, a three-foot stone column, the leg of a grotesquely fat person) carries a great dead horse head, mouth held shut by nailed bands of metal. A sword spike juts out of the top of the head, tentacles that sprout rosebuds spill out of the eye sockets and nostrils. As the adventurers walked past it shuddered into movement and pursued the group.

These are descriptions of Weaves.

Games Night: Veins of the Earth

So last night I rolled up a couple of characters to take through a dungeon based on Patrick's Veins of the Earth setting/sourcebook. This was kind of a playtest I guess - I don't know if I'm the first person to encounter some of these creatures and situations in the wild - but it was all new and different and weird to me.

Creature: Wilizards

Someone from another universe, perhaps a universe like ours, would see a saurian-like creature such as the Wilizard and think "that's a chubby sort of little velociraptor without the sharp claws; a bit fatter like a T-Rex but definitely a smaller dinosaur." As the Wilizard is not native to these parts, and is more readily found in the lands around Wetham, the chances of you seeing one are slim.

And probably just as well.

People who study such things don't know what has happened; a few hundred years ago Wilizards were simple pack predators, hunting, sometimes scavenging. They were nowhere near the top of the food chain, but at around four feet in height, with sharp teeth and a tail to help them balance running on two legs they were at least on the middle rungs of the ladder.

No longer.

Recently Wilizards have been showing greater levels of intelligence than simple pack-hunting animals. They track prey and wait until nightfall before striking. They pretend to play dead so that others investigate. They - somehow - construct crude pit traps and lie in wait for the unwary to fall in. Not all of these tactics are well executed, but more often than not they allow the opportunity for a Wilizard to bring something down, be it a man or beast. Scholars are trying to determine from old museum artifacts whether they have always had opposable claws...