npcs – hex culture

August 9, 2018June 26, 2019 jacinto clerics, demon, elves, encounters, fairy, idyll, magic, monsters, npcs

watched by the waters, watched by the sky

Been playing around with Mageblade, and I quite like it. Working on more monsters for that community-building game, and the system has been a good fit.

I made these with their relationship with a community of people in mind–the kingfisher spirits might steal fish from the players and their village, but they could also be bribed into helping them sail, for example. The monsters are also the source of potential local taboos–ringing bells in the woods might attract moon beasts, for example, or gutting fish might lead to the local deities noticing and stealing them. I also designed them so that they could be plugged into the magic system, Pokemon-style, but that’s another post.

Major inspirations are Mushishi, Shin Megami Tensei and Bloodborne.

from shin megami tensei IV apocalypse

Two house rules to keep in mind:

If a monster does something they’re good at, roll under their Aptitude. If they do something they’re bad at, roll under half their Aptitude. Use the tags in their stat blocks to help you decide what they’re good and bad at. Unless otherwise stated, monsters are always good at fighting.
Spirits appear as a mirage-shimmer to people with +1 Wisdom modifier and can be fully observed by people with +2 Wisdom modifier or more.

Wind Spirits

Wind spirits can raise, banish, strengthen, weaken, or redirect wind in line of sight. The maximum strength of the wind they can control depends on their level.

sylphids

Level 1 (4 hits), Defense 0, Aptitude 10, Damage 1d4

Ability Magnitude Gentle breezes

Young wind gods, cat-sized and blue-green, singing with a voice like a panpipe. They are like the glimpse of a kingfisher out of the corner of your eye, even when you manage to look at it directly. They love gifts of ribbons and fresh fish–they congregate in a great viridian haze when the scent of fish blood is strong in the air.

sylphs

Level 3 (12 hits), Defense 1, Aptitude 12, Damage 1d6

Ability Magnitude Stiff breezes and lesser winds.

Minor wind gods, hound sized, a confusion of emerald-blue wings, calling out in a clear contralto. They are like the reflection of a great kingfisher in troubled water, an elfin face peering out of its mouth, sometimes walking like a bird, sometimes walking like a human. They love rare flowers, jewelry of any sort, and the flesh of fish from the deepest sea. They can be seen whirling around leviathans that have risen to the surface, looking for a chance to eat.

greater sylphs

Level 5 (20 hits), Defense 2, Aptitude 14, Damage 1d8

Ability Magnitude Powerful gusts and lesser winds

True wind gods, human sized, wings unfolding like petals on a blooming flower, watchful eyes peering from the center. They can take the shape of a beautiful human of indeterminate gender, or else a tempest of cerulean and green wings and flashing beak and claws. They desire the true names of islands, exquisite treasures, and the flesh and blood of sacred fish. They appear singly when artifacts are excavated or when sea-gods make themselves known, looking for a chance to steal or feast.

high sylphs

Level 7 (28 hits), Defense 3, Aptitude 16, Damage 1d10

Ability Gales and lesser winds.

Elder wind gods, bigger than a draft horse, like a dream of a kingfisher in flight, a corona of wings and feathers that recalls the motion of waves and the arc of sea-spray. In human shape, they are gorgeous giants, but they can also take the form of a flock of brilliant kingfishers or an enormous kingfisher crowned and jeweled.

Ora Marin, the Kingfisher God

Level 10 (40 hits), Defense 4, Aptitude 18, Damage 1d12

Ability Whirlwinds and any lesser wind.

The God of Wind-Over-Water. His wings are beyond counting. He moves like a stormcloud of azure feathers or a wave of green iridescence through the sea or a golden-crowned kingfisher with wings to block the Sun. As a human, he is a crowned dancer, raising fair winds with his fan of blue feathers and sea-oat, whipping up foul winds with his fan of green feathers and palmetto frond.

Moon Spirits

Moon spirits can shed soft white light or summon a pall of darkness. The intensity of the brightness or darkness depends on their level.

elvers

Level 1 (4 hits), Defense 0, Aptitude 10, Damage 1d4

Ability Range As far as light shed by a candle

Larval moon gods, small enough to fit in your cupped hands. They are something like a white-furred moth and something like a flower blossom, always reduced to a milky silhouette as if occluded by mist. They are delighted by the ringing of bells, the scent of burning incense, and warm spilt blood.

elving-children

Level 3 (12 hits), Defense 1, Aptitude 12, Damage 1d6

Ability Range As far as light shed by a torch

Moon god nymphs, the size of a small dog. They are gracile, fronded, petaled, and winged, with wet human eyes concealed in their folds like pearls in a mound of silk, everything blurred as if by a haze of water. They adore the pealing of bells, the scent of burning sacrifice, and spilt lifeblood, which they lick with deep red tongues.

elves

Level 5 (20 hits), Defense 2, Aptitude 14, Damage 1d8

Ability Range As far as light shed by a campfire

Imago moon gods, the size of a child. They are thin, pale, sharp-toothed, four-armed, moving as easily on all limbs as their hind legs, and human-like when standing, with a ruff of white hyphae on their heads and necks, a cape of flower petal wings that unfold from their backs, revealing wet raw flesh like the meat beneath a fish’s gill. They are attracted to the tolling of great bells, the burning of the living, and those near death, who they kill and drain of blood if they are able.

from bloodborne

elving-beasts

Level 7 (28 hits), Defense 3, Aptitude 16, Damage 1d10

Ability Range As far as light shed by a bonfire

Elder moon gods, the size of a stag. They are pale creatures of gossamer and bone, their many thin limbs concealed behind luxurious effusions of white hyphae, their fronded flower wings trailing like a veil, concealing the gills-slits on their back. They swim as swiftly as they fly and run, but wherever they are, the sounding of old ritual bells, the sudden deaths of many, and living sacrifices prepared in accordance with the ancient agreements draw their attention without fail.

Moon Orphan, the Abandoned God

spirit | huge | graceful | wise

Level 10 (40 hits), Defense 4, Aptitude 18, Damage 1d12

Ability Range A light like the full moon or a darkness like the new, as far as the eye can see

The terrible God of Moonlight, luminous, fronded, billowing. It drives its immense and delicate body through the deepest waters or celestial heights with uncountable limbs, shedding gently glowing clouds through its blue-lipped sporangia, singing lunar hymns through uncountable mouths in communion with the Moon, guiding it through its course in the sky and the cycle of its phases.

April 27, 2017 jacinto adventures, afternoon espresso, flowerland, monsters, npcs

The Bode

Very quickly wrote a brief adventure for Flowerland/Horror Florida using a Monsterparts-y hack that I will run this weekend, or at least offer as a hook. There’s not a clean way to resolve the situation besides “rolling a huge boulder in front of the dungeon”, but that’s okay I guess.

There is a hill north of town where the pine trees grow and nothing else. It’s dark there, and too quiet, and too cold, even in the thick of summer.

If you are playing close attention, you might notice that all traces of the most recent wildfire stops short at the base of the hill, where the pine forest begins. If you have spent a lot of time in the woods, you might expect there to be palmetto scrub under these pine trees, not just the dead needles heaped there now.

At the top of the hill, where it is darkest and coldest, where the trees grow so dense your shoulders always brush their trunks no matter how you turn yourself, stands a temple built from roughly hewn basalt, furred with moss and crusted with lichen. There is no light inside, and the faint draft blowing from its low entrance smells foul and mineral, as if the earth started to rot like flesh. Water dews continuously on the interior walls, making the steps down to the inner chamber slick.

At the bottom you’ll find a circular room, maybe twenty feet in diameter, spiderweb cracks radiating from the jagged-edged pool of water punched into the slab floor at the center. Arranged in a circle around it are twelve deformed animal skulls: too many eye sockets, two or three mandibles fanning out from a twisted jaw, melted-wax contours and clusters of horns. These skulls are cursed, they are a curse, they are best left untouched, they are called The Bode.

IN THE TOWN OF VER
Pretty much everybody in town is talking about a bunch of messed up stuff happening in the wilderness to the north of Ver, known locally as the Old Church Wood. It’s always had an unsavory reputation, but there’s has been a spate of disappearances and bad omens associated with it.

Shrinekeeper Trinidad, the town’s cleric.

Despite his warnings and the Woods’ ominous reputation, a pair of hunters–Trinidad’s friends–pursued a deer into the pines to the north. They haven’t returned, and that was a week ago. That was the start of the trouble.
Every sunset, Trinidad lights the ritual lanterns along the perimeter of Ver. The northernmost ones have been blowing themselves out by midnight, when they should last until sunrise.

Rudriq, hunter.

Rudriq stopped hunting around the Old Church Hills when he found animal skulls wedged between tree branches there.

Pilar, witch.

Distrusted by people of Ver, considered possibly to blame.
She claims she saw an oddly proportioned creature–something on all fours, like a deer or a coyote, it had a pale face and an awkward gait–the night after the hunters should have come back.

Odesa, the town’s mayor.

She had mediated a fight between the two hunters over the game they caught a month ago, and believes they got into some sort of fight out in the woods, or else it’s bandits. She’s dealt with a lot of bandits over the years.
Odessa thinks everyone is seized by superstition and is ready to led her band into the Old Church Wood to solve this once and for all–but has been so far dissuaded by Trinidad’s pleadings.

Katarina, general store propietor

Her caravan hasn’t come back since this whole mess started. See if her idiot employees got eaten by a ghost or not.

Luis, farmer

missing from his farm since yesterday. He had been complaining that something had been going after his livestock, but not like most predators–they were killing for sport.
His farm is to the north, a few minute’s walk past Trinidad’s torches. If the players investigate, they will find his house unlocked, but his barn locked from the inside. His goats are cut apart–like they unraveled off of their own bones–and all of their skulls are missing.

THE OLD CHURCH WOOD
Dense pine trees on a steep hill. It’s dark and chill.

Encounters.
1-2: Mutilated… 1-deer 2-coyote 3-bobcat 4-black bear
3. Abandoned caravan, horses beheaded and cut to pieces, goods untouched. This is the only treasure in the whole adventure, now that I think about it.
4. Tree laden with animal skulls wedges between branches
5. Body of Luis or caravaners
6. Brood of Bode

Brood of Bode

HD: d8
10 EP
Defense 14
Naked, wiry man, running on all fours far faster than a person should be able, wears a filthy deer skull over his face
Spells: Can cast one spell per encounter from its list:

Fog Cloud
Phantasmal Force (a dark presence like a passing cloud, moving through the trees like the first cold blast of wind from an approaching thunderstorm)
Snuff (extinguish all torches, lamps, etc within earshot of its scream)
Inflict Light Wounds (what it’s been using to cut its victims apart),

THE OLD CHURCH
Brood of Bode will not enter, at least at first. One of the hunters is in this chamber, his head and torso submerged in the central pool. If approached, he will slide all the way in.

The Bode can speak in this chamber. Their voice is subaudible, like something half-imagined. They will offer their power to the strongest fighter in the party in return for a sacrificed comrade, and they are not lying: the sacrificer will become another Brood of Bode.
The skulls of The Bode are cursed. Anyone who breaks their skulls will never be able to recover from their wounds. The skulls come back when nobody is looking, anyway.
The Bode can see anything in the pines of Old Church Wood.
The Brood is the other hunter, who sacrificed his friend. His mind is lost to The Bode. The Bode will tell a PC what the hunter did if the PC keeps them talking.
The pool is cursed. Anyone who tries to swim in it will sink to the bottom and drown, and all attempts to haul them out have disadvantage. The body can be retrieved by any other method.
Anyone left alone in the Old Church must make a save or vanish. This increases the Brood of Bode’s HD by one step
The Bode want more Brood, they want more skulls in the pines to see out of, they want the wards on Ver destroyed so they can claim its inhabitants.

January 6, 2017 jacinto clerics, demon, encounters, flowerland, intro, LotFP, magic, monsters, new barbary, Not Dead Yet, npcs, san serafín, witch

the earth does not want you

hey guys. it’s certainly been a while. i’ve been thinking about a weird fantasy florida, recently, out in the palm scrub, where everything is mean and sharp and unfriendly and unnavigable and really kind of beautiful in a careless sort of way.

sinner
her flesh moves like fire on her bones, her hair roils like a plume of smoke from her head, her feet barely touch the water as she strides across it and you smell the black magic in the air: hot metal and raw meat and ozone.

Each sinner knows a random cleric spell with a level equal to their HD. They can cast it at will.
Sinners cannot cross lines of salt or enter holy ground or consecrated buildings like churches, and they must flee the sounds of church bells and calls to prayer as if they had failed a Morale check.
Sinners can walk on water, walls, and ceilings; they are supernaturally light when it suits them, and any surface or structure that can support the weight of a crow will also support a sinner.

corpse
they are pale, luxuriously dressed in black veils and black lace, they move in groups of two or three, they dart about close to the ground in the edges of your vision. they never seem to be what they should, seeming to be very large and very far away, or else very small and very close; you always have to reach farther than you think to strike them with your weapon, but they can just raise their hand and touch you all the same.

Each corpse can cast a random magic-user spell with a level equal to their HD. They can cast it at will.
If a corpse sees an open grave (dug for the purposes of burying someone, at least 6 feet deep, a burial marker at the head of the grave), it must climb inside and lie down. If it hears properly recited funeral rites (INT check and a round of effort), it must make a Morale check. Corpses cannot cross lines of salt.
As long as nobody can see its point of departure or arrival, a corpse can teleport to any location in 120′.

palm devil
a figure standing at the edge of the pines, a little too tall to be human, the contours of its body beneath its ragged coat too long and slender, it’s holding a palmetto frond in front of its face, and when it turns to you, all the leaves on all the trees as far as you can see rattle, malicious and filled with volition

a palm devil’s face is indescribable; should anyone see it they must Save vs Magic or become Feebleminded. They will transform into a sinner by midnight of the following Sunday unless restored by Remove Curse.
Can cast Gust of Wind, Move Earth, and Plant Growth twice each per fight.
Can fly by riding its palm frond.
In a palm devil’s hands, a palm frond functions as a vorpal axe and can easily cut through any mundane substance.

venomous augury
someone has nailed a huge rattlesnake to the trunk of a dead pine tree at regular intervals, tied lengths of red silk to each nail head. it looks at you with wet human eyes and tells you something horrible.

the venomous augury knows everything, probably. A player can ask it anything and it will give them the true answer. This can amount to a wish–ask it where the elixir of eternal life it, and it will tell you, whether or not there was an elixir before you asked. However, every answer introduces an evil equal in influence or power to the wealth or knowledge being sought. Ask “where is the woman who will save the world?” and the augury is liable to answer “in the house of the man who will one day destroy it”
once someone has asked the augury a question, it forevermore appears to them as a stinking dead rattlesnake grotesquely nailed to a tree.

prophet of mud
a huge hairless face emerges from the muck in front of you. it does not bother to turn its head, but swivels its bulging yellow eyes towards you as it begins to hum a hymn

the prophet of mud is a third level cleric and knows Bless, Command, and Augury and can cast spells from its head or its hands.
the prophet can emerge from any body of mud. it can reach its hands up from any body of mud or murky water that is contiguous with the mud it head is in.
the prophet’s head and two hands get their own turn in the initiative order. it can only see what its head sees, naturally, but will feel things out with one hand to help the other.
the prophet can spend a round singing hymns to cast Rock To Mud at will.

mother
there is a mother deep beneath the earth, she once had a shell of many hard plates and swam with many sharp legs and saw with a constellation of many watchful eyes. she died long ago, when this land was still a sea, but she is still here, she is a hollow in the bedrock far below, a long spiral in the dark. sometimes she tells the land what it used to be, and when she does it listens.

photos by me

August 6, 2016 jacinto adventures, classifieds, djinn, new barbary, npcs, san serafín

things to do in La Habana

It occurs to me that jinetero is a perfect term for adventurers, even if it doesn’t perfectly match the real-life contemporary definition. Anyway, here’s the lowdown on some of the player-adjacent factions in La Habana.

Red Hibiscus Society
A social club/trading consortium/gang based in La Habana. Their affinity for bypassing the Emir’s taxmen has made them natural allies of the Castilians of La Florida.

The chief of the Red Hibiscus Society is Yusuf, a colossal ex-bandit who has given up direct robbery for the relative ease and comfort of running a medium-sized crime syndicate. He always smells of violet water, and is rarely seen outside of his bath–he’s had a porcelain clawfoot tub installed in the Red Hibiscus Society Hall where he conducts most of his business so he doesn’t have to get out even as he works.

The Society regularly employs vagrants, vagabonds, and soldiers-of-fortune to carry out its interests, both legitimate and illegitimate, with at least one layer of plausible deniability.

Deliver a sealed cask to the bar next to the Castilian embassy by the Docks. Expect trouble on the way, and do not open the barrel.
Retrieve a package from the House of Honey and Salt, and deliver it at a dead drop location at the Royal Park. Wash your hands thoroughly with hot soap and water afterwards, do not breathe heavily around the package, and do not get it wet.
Yusuf’s step-daughter is attending the Emir’s birthday and he suspects some pencil-necked egghead at the College is going to ask her to attend it with him. Explain to him why this is not a viable decision, but don’t do anything worse than breaking his knees.
That bastard Admiral is holding out on Yusuf–the Castilian has, through various semilegal channgel, acquired Gran Morado, violet water made from the purest and most fragrant violets, said to restore vigor lost to age, bring good luck, grow your hair back, whiten your teeth, dispel melancholy, etc etc, but now he won’t sell it to Yusuf as promised. Help the Society seize some La Florida-bound shipments of fine liquor to help the Admiral see reason.

Saints of Honey and Salt
A religious order of sybaritic assassin-surgeons who operate out of hospital-brothel-temple-laboratories called Houses of Honey and Salt. They’re the best doctors in town, but also the best murderers-for-hire, so everybody needs them and nobody trusts them. Their influence is mostly a network of debt and favors–if you don’t owe something to the Saints, you owe something to someone who does. Everyone agrees they are Up To Something, but nobody really knows what it is.

The Saints need a jaguar for their experiments. Definitely healthy and whole, preferably alive, but with a minimum of injuries if that isn’t possible.
One of the Saints makes weekly rounds in Old Habana, giving free care to the sick. An upstart guild of sawbones have begun to threaten her and interfere with her work–guard her this upcoming Sunday.
A deliriously ill patient undergoing an experimental treatment has broken out of the House of Honey and Salt. Find them before ~~the metamorphosis completes~~ their illness gets the best of them.
There was a pirate raid out east two days ago, and the Saints are expecting an influx of patients. Secure an emergency shipment of bandages and laudanum from the Castilians–and you don’t have to be friends with them afterwards.

The Klatch
A loose society of brujas, brujos, shamans, sorcerers, exorcists, theologians, and philosophers who frequent La Habana’s coffee houses and salons and who maintain correspondence with practitioners across New Barbary. They tacitly and informally police the supernatural community (such as it is) of La Habana, ensuring that devils, the dead, and hostile gods cannot hunt unchecked by more mundane authorities.

The La Habana chapter of the Klatch believes a devil has taken up residence in the city. A reward of 50 pesetas to anyone who brings information leading to its banishment.
The Emir’s favorite dancer has been possessed by a malicious spirit, and it’s taking most of her caretakers’ efforts just to keep it under control. Take a trip out to the Hungry Grandmother’s shrine and ask her for a purgative.
An ambitious young thief has found a a djinni (again). His first wish was for a king’s fortune and his second was for 100 wives. Since you can surely imagine how well that’s going, get that brass ring off of his finger before he causes another international incident.
The New Barbary Trading Company of Castile wants to build a warehouse and offices on what the Klatch believes to be the tomb of Blood Dews Upon The Lilies, a sainted ancestor liable to wake up again if disturbed. They aren’t listening to a bunch of witches, but perhaps you can find a way to be more persuasive?

The Souk
Almost any merchant in the Souk will part with goods or services in return for a favor. You can buy most things there, but here are a few of the odder services you can get:

FOOD

a nice hot meal. 10 pesetas. A hot meal and a rest fully heals your HP, though you might have lingering injuries, depending.
ingredients. 5 pesetas. If you have the skills, you can cook a hot meal without paying a premium for it, and you can do it out in the jungle or bush if you bring the right equipment.
snack. If you take 10 and eat a snack, you recover 1d6 HP. You can only do this 1/day OR 1/genuine hazard faced.

TRANSPORT

emperor ghost spider. The most reliable form of transportation in New Barbary, these colossal spider spirits are bound and trained to carry passengers and cargo. Their castle-sized carapaces are hollowed out: the abdomen holds lodging and cargo storage, while their handlers work in the thorax and head, where the blood of their animal sacrifices propagates through channels carved into the spider’s chitin, and where the handler’s soothing prayers can more easily heard. The largest emperor ghost spiders can traverse across the shallower parts of the Caribbean, their legs long enough to reach the sea floor.
magot porter. New Barbary macaques are big enough to stare a draft horse in the eyes without getting off all fours. They aren’t particularly fast, but they are strong enough to carry a person and all of their gear, and can traverse dense jungle and mountainous terrain. Overall reliable, handy, and peaceable, but if you do manage to anger or spook them they can pull your arms off without trying very hard.
sedan chair. Mostly used in the city of Otra Tétuan. They have a faintly sinister reputation, since devils and the dead can use them to travel unseen, and powerful brujas will travel on sedan chairs carried by zombis. The spouses of Dead Ixe are infamous for being carried by their husband’s mummified servants. Normally, though, it’s old money, D-list royalty, and regular joes willing to pay a little extra for some swift and discrete transportation.
cars. rare, expensive, loud, smelly. They drive spirits crazy, and most cars require apotropaics from front bumper to back just to keep ambient divine rage from shutting it down. Beloved by the nouveau riche and Flowerland industrialists. They can be rented.

HELP

Competent mercenaries and guards will work for 50 pesetas a day, plus danger pay.
Hooligans, desperados, and ne’er-do-wells will work for 15 pesetas a day, and might try to squeeze danger pay out of you if they think they can get it.
Minor ghosts and spirits will work for 50 pesetas in sacrifices a day, though they are more erratic than the living and might demand further favors.
Godlings, loas, orishas, and the like don’t really have a pay rate–you have to negotiate on a case by case basis, and you usually have to find a medium in good standing with the entity to want to call on first.

June 18, 2016 jacinto encounters, idyll, intro, is this gonna work, items, monsters, npcs, table

playing cute

My players tend to be murderhobo-y because that is the game they want to play and that is the game I run for them. However, I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to run a game that is still about digging around in strange places underground, still about fighting monsters and taking their stuff, still about most of the things that makes Dungeons and Dragons what it is, but is centered more around community and building stuff. I’ve been chewing this over since I read Ryuutama, which has a lovely aesthetic and a lot of good ideas, but isn’t something I’d probably want to play. Scrap Princess’s G+ post here had me digging up my old notes and thought on the matter.

Anyway, here are a handful of systems you can graft onto most editions of Dungeons and Dragons to make it a little more Miyazaki and a little less Leiber.

~MAKING FRIENDS~

from riviera: the promised land

Families
All characters get a family name, and 6-7 family names make up the majority of the random table. If a PC shares a family name with an NPC and can explain how they’re related (Oh, your mom is Anabel? She’s my aunt’s favorite cousin), they get a +1 or +2 bonus to their Reaction Roll.

Monsters
Each monster gets a table of Sentiments, things that trigger Morale checks and make them want to talk instead of fight. Each Morale check requires a novel appeal to a monster’s Sentiment–if your display of bravery didn’t win the dragon’s respect, you have to prove your bravery in some other way. Monsters of the same time within an encounter/lair share the same Sentiment, though appeals to a group’s Sentiment is mitigated or temporary unless you successfully appeal to the group’s leader.

Goblins

Their parents have gone missing, and they’re afraid and angry. They make a Morale check when confronted with kindness and authority.
They don’t have any food and they’re half-starved. They make a Morale check when given a gift of food.
Humans desecrated the Goblin Shrine. Make a Morale check when greeted with a sincere apology and display of respect.
Something has been disturbing their sleep. Whispered condolences and a promise to look into the problem trigger a Morale check.
They have a new leader who has driven them to the life of the marauding monster. They make a Morale check when sternly admonished or told to stand up for themselves.
They have been cursed into a frenzy. Make a Morale check when blessed with a prayer to return them to their senses.

from etrian odyssey

~EXPERIENCE~
You gain XP for spending you gold or using goods you retrieve, loot, or steal on your adventures.

For every gold piece you invest in your village, you gain 1 experience point. Constructing new buildings, improving existing ones, paying villagers to plow fields all count. You only need to invest value, not actual gold coins; if you retrieve 500 gp worth of lumber on a logging expedition and use it to build a house, you gain 500 XP even though coins never changed hands.
For every gold piece you spend on behalf of villagers, you gain 1 experience point. Buying medicine, purchasing gifts, hiring tutors, going on dates, throwing parties and festivals all count. Again, you get XP for value, whether it is in gold coins or goods; hiring a doctor for Auntie provides XP, but if you steal 500 gp worth of feast supplies from the Bandit King and throw a party, you get XP, too. (Credit to +Alex Chalk for this idea)

Buildings
It costs 1,000 gp to upgrade a building for the first time, and doubles every time thereafter.

General Store

Only sells rural area items on the Miscellaneous equipment list from the LotPF handbook. 1 in 6 chance of a given item being in stock, and only 1d4 will be available. Their stock changes every week, since the caravan arrives each Monday and villagers buy and sell goods there. You can put in a special order for 1 item each week and they’ll have it in by the next, but it costs double.
Each upgrades improves the chances of stocking a particular item by 1 in 6.

The Inn

Staying at the Inn during downtime lets the party reroll their maximum HP.
Each upgrade allows a player to reroll one of their character’s hit dice.

The Tavern

A night of drinking at the Tavern allows players to attract 1d6-4 potential hirelings. Use the LotFP process to determine interest and loyalty.
Each upgrade gives a +1 bonus to the number of potential hirelings.

The Farms

As the village prospers more and more, villagers can give more more stuff without needing payment. For each upgrade to the Farms, you can get an additional free use of a service or facility.

Blacksmith

The blacksmith only makes weapons and armor on request, and each piece takes a week. Initially, the blacksmith can only forge weapons that deal d6 damage or less and make armor with 14 AC or fewer.
Each upgrade allows the blacksmith to forge weapons that deal 1 die step more and make armor with an additional point of AC.

Witch’s Cottage

The witch has a 1 in 6 chance of curing a disease, poison, or curse per week of care. Some particularly dangerous poisons, diseases, or curses will also require rare or expensive ingredients.
Each upgrade improves the witch’s chance of successully curing a poison or disease or lifting a curse by 1 in 6.

The Wandering Devil Merchant

The Devil Merchant has a 1 in 6 chance of being in town each week. He has a 1 in 6 chance of having a scroll of a given magic-user spell, with a penalty equal to the spell’s level. his stock changes out every time he visits town.
Each upgrade improves the Devil Merchant’s chance of being in town and having a given scroll by 1 in 6.

from final fantasy tactics a2

~DOWNTIME~
There is a 1 in 6 chance that a Downtime Events will occur each week. Should probably be d100, but this is just proof of concept. Based off of the Hazard System.

Downtime Events

A random villager becomes very ill, beyond even the curatives of the town witch. Their cure requires an herb found only the peak of a nearby and monster-infested mountain.
The River God has become restless, and the stream that runs through town has been flooding worse and worse. Venture to his shrine in the nearby Caverns to find out what troubles him.
The Lunar Festival approaches and bandits attacked the caravan that was bringing goods for the sacramental feast. Retrieve the ingredients before those slobs eat them all and anger the Moon Goddess.
Harvest is almost here and the goblins know it. See if you can prevent them from attacking so that the village can get its crops harvested and safely stored.
A random villager has gone missing, with evidence that they were taken by the local gang of werewolves. Save them!
The local bandit gang has sent a messenger, hat in hand. Quite a few of them are frighteningly sick, and they wonder if you’d be willing to send help?

January 31, 2016 jacinto adventures, classes, garden, is this gonna work, LotFP, monsters, npcs, occult, san serafín

that old time religion

“Later he saw Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark where he was not sure of his footing, where he might be walking on water and not know it and then suddenly know it and drown.”

from Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood

Thinking about this post. Also thinking about Mononoke. The standard old school D&D cleric worships an impersonal, benevolent god. That’s an okay model, but I like the idea of deities as more present, dangerous, and visceral. A little more animist, I guess. Clerics can befriend gods, or form grudging alliances with them, or press them into service. Sometimes, clerics have to kill them. In this model, gods are NPCs and spells and adventures in one, and they influence clerics (shamans really, I guess) in direct ways.

Anyways, here’s a sketch of what this would look like:

She rebelled against her masters, so they tied her to a tree out in the scrub and left her there to die. When she finally became too tired to kick away the coyotes, when she had nothing but three days of hunger and three days of thirst, when her will to live exceeded anything her body could do, she swore by the blood in her mouth and then sun in her eyes that there would be a reckoning.

There is a tree in courtyard of the mayor’s house in the village of Segundo. It grows the most remarkable red flowers and draws the most remarkable red butterflies. The mayor ignores them, but every morning he pours a bottle of excellent red wine on the tree’s roots, and girdles its trunk with another red sash. He is a fine man, the nephew of the old lord, so the Segunderos ignore these eccentricities, but they wonder why he would lavish so much attention on a tree while ignoring the fruits of his labor, or why he would grow so fearful when he found out the merchant wouldn’t be bringing any shipments of wine for the second season in a row.

La Dama Roja, Goddess of Blood and Sunshine
AC 16 HD 3+1 MV 90’ (30′) ATK Spear DMG 1d8+1 ST Fighter 3 AL Chaotic
Spells, at will: Light, Command, Cure/Inflict Light Wounds

The true name of La Dama, the one that will let a shaman make a pact with her, is carved into the trunk of the tree in the mayor’s courtyard, beneath the dozens of tattered red sashes. If the shaman botches the pact-making ritual, she will do her best to brutally murder the mayor, who was the man who tied her to the tree all those years ago. If the shaman helps her kill the mayor, her Loyalty will increase by d4.

If a shaman wishes to extract a favor from a god without making a Loyalty check, they can make it an offering. La Dama accepts only blood. A small task, like casting a 1st level spell, participating in a fight tipped in the Goddess’ advantage, or translating the words of a creature that can’t communicate with humans, might require d6 HP. Major favors, like casting a 5th+ level spell, joining a fight with desperate odds, or revealing a powerful and ancient secret, might require 5d6 HP.

The Goddess of Blood and Sunshine makes a Loyalty check or requires an offering when the shaman violates one her her taboos in front of her, or when the shaman asks her to violate one of her taboos:

BEG NO PARDONS
SHOW NO MERCY
BOW TO NO ONE

October 11, 2015 jacinto items, npcs, table, treasure

magic items and the people who use them

There aren’t many magic items locked away in chests in San Serafín. They’re usually in the possession of someone or somebody, whether they be an adventurer or one of the Dead. Someone lucky enough to find a magic weapon is pretty much guaranteed to become a local celebrity, and someone tough enough to keep it probably has a successful career as an adventurer ahead of them.

1. Six Ways To Sunday
A six-shooter revolver machined by an infamous exorcist. On a successful hit against on undead creature, the gun Turns them as a cleric with 2 more levels than the wielder’s level and deals damage equal to the turn result. If shot at a living creature, it simply deals 2d6 damage. This gun takes regular ammunition, but can only be reloaded on Sunday at noon.

Six Ways to Sunday is carried by Soledad (Lawful Fighter LVL 3). She is looking for the body of her son and she wants to find the Body of San Serafín so she can destroy the city permanently.

2. Glorious Face of the Sun
A mask that once belonged to a member of an extinct clan of devils. Anyone who wears it is considered the 12th Solar Devil by all other devils. It can create a temporary field of Day or Night once every 24 hours, but each use attracts the attention of a random devil looking to expand its portfolio.

Glorious Face of the Sun is currently being worn by Usmail (Chaotic MU LVL 4). He is on a search for immortality without joining the ranks of the Dead.

3. The First Sword
Anyone with this broadsword in their hands cannot be harmed by edged metal weapons.

The First Sword is now in the possession of the Hummingbird Knight (Neutral Fighter LVL 4). She wears a feathered mask, and has become an adventurer simply out of a desire for wealth. She can also polymorph into a hummingbird at will.

4. Galconda
A red-bladed shortsword blessed by the blood of the First Saint. Its wounds do not bleed or hurt, and it is said anyone killed by it is guaranteed a place in Heaven. A successful Sneak Attack with Galconda does not alert the attacker’s presence to the victim.

Galconda’s owner is Amorente (Lawful Cleric LVL 2). She is a Saint of Honey and Salt and adventures to gather the wealth and power necessary to start a radical utopian commune.

5. Sunshine
A six-shooter that fires projectiles sanctified by the Sun. It doesn’t take regular ammunition; one turn in direct, bright sunlight recovers 1 bullet.

Sunshine is owned by Jaguar Boy (Neutral Fighter LVL 6), a high school students who moonlights as an adventurer out of sheer boredom.

6. The Cutting Wind
A one-handed war fan. When waved, creates a gust of wind that cuts like a knife, dealing d8 damage. Range is as spear, and it uses Dex for the attack roll.

The Cutting Wind’s wielder is Doña Yolanda (MU LVL 2), a washed up opera singer with an axe to grind. To wants to become an indefatigable warrior and extract bloody retribution from her former employer.

7. The Hot Black Flame
An ugly black cinder that shimmers with dark flame, which can be used to throw fire for d10 damage at javelin range. A two handed weapon; the wielder must hold it in one hand and pull fire to throw with the other. (Uses Brendan’s ammo die rules. If you run out, you have to find a flask of Midnight Oil to refresh the flame)

The Hot Black Flame’s owner is Yuma (Chaotic Cleric LVL 3). She wants to unmask the devils and restore them to their former, (relatively) benevolent divinity.

8. The Finger of God
A ring of silver metal, about six inches in diameter. The wielder can reach inside the hoop to pull out a spear of lightning, which they can throw at longbow range for d8 damage. A two handed weapon. (Uses Brendan’s ammo die rules. If you run out, you have to find a flask of Oil of Joy to reconsecrate the ring.)

The Finger of God’s wielder is simply called the Padre (Lawful Magic-user LVL 5). He has formed a pact with the Dead and works to further their goals.

Unaccounted for:

The Zehir: a divine weapon rumored to have the power to destroy minds
The Aleph: a fragment of omniscience
Tizona: a sword with power over fire
Colada: a sword that frightens the wicked
The Book of Sand: contains all human knowledge
The Body of San Serafín: grants a Wish