December 11, 2022December 11, 2022 hex culture clerics, is this gonna work, magic, spell

offerings

Watching Chainsaw Man, thinking about Alex’s discussion of designing adventures around spells (and the vagueness of OSE’s phantasmal force) and well as Deeper in the Game’s magic items and philosophy behind them.

These are two abilities PCs can pick up; I would consider putting them at the end of their own adventures, seeding them in as treasure, or making them the result of magic research. I would think they’d fit most into what characters can do around level 5 (the Snake can do 5d6 damage in a very similar manner to lightning bolt, plus a bunch of other mean bullshit, but only a very limited number of times). They also require the DM to commit to particular kinds of games (not being too wishy-washy about how much time has passed for the Snake, making sure that a looming threat of social violence eventually gets acted on). The Snake also assumed that enemies have 1d8-sized HD; it becomes too strong if HD are 1d6 (so just bump its damage die size down to d4, I guess)

I would also think about making these count against follower limits imposed by Charisma, since someone cutting creepy deals is offputting and it categorizes them as a social relationship mechanically.

You could also drop these in at level 1 as a DM if you were comfortable to running the kind of game where the consequences of how PCs solve problems really matters. If anything goes in the dungeon, then these are just strong and creepy (which is fine); if a bunch of scrubs punching a hole through the local dragon subjects them to all kinds of troublesome scrutiny, then these are much more interesting.

I don’t imagine the Snake or the Foxes as having much explanation in the world; they are cruel and unfamiliar things that have an unknowable interest in a particular PC.

The Snake

Congratulations. You have formed a contract with the Snake. You may sacrifice one of your fingernails to give it a single command. You do not know why the Snake wants your fingernails. It probably just enjoys hurting you.

Photograph of a snake skeleton arranged in a spiral — Year of the Snake by Shenhung Lin CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Any time the Snake’s damage is mentioned, use 5d6. For each fingernail you give it, add +1 to the roll. For each creature it devours with more HD than it has damage dice, add 1d6 to the roll. For example, if you have given it 3 fingernails, its damage is 5d6+3. If it successfully devours a 7 HD wereboar, its damage increases to 6d6+3.

The Snake can only materialize in places within your line of sight and within earshot of your voice. The Snake materializes without fanfare or sound for the briefest moment to perform the acts you command before vanishing.

On your turn, you can command the Snake to do any of the following.

Snake, strike. You can simply tell the Snake to attack. It can attack a single target, or all creatures in a 100’ by 5‘ line. The line can originate from any point in range and has the orientation of your choice. The attack deals the Snake’s damage, Save (vs Magic) to take half damage. If this attack deals more damage than ½ their maximum HP, they must Save (vs Magic) again or the attack will kill them instantly as the Snake carves a hole through their body.
Snake, devour. You can tell the Snake to devour a single creature. This deals the Snake’s damage, Save (vs Magic) to take half damage. If this damage exceeds their maximum HP, the Snake successfully devours them, and can vomit them up as a separate favor. If this does not reduce the enemy to 0 HP, they stick in the Snake’s craw for a moment before it dematerializes. This annoys the Snake, and the next favor you ask of it requires an additional fingernail. It will tell you if it thinks it will not be able to devour a creature before it takes the fingernail.
Snake, release. You can tell the Snake to vomit up an enemy it has devoured for you. This enemy has ½ their normal HP and 10 AC, but retains all other abilities and statistics and acts as your perfectly loyal follower. It dissolves into oily smoke when reduced to 0 HP or the fingernail you sacrificed for it finishes growing back.
Snake, destroy. You can tell the Snake to obliterate a tube of solid, non-magical matter up to 100 ft in length and 5 ft in diameter. The tube can be in any shape or configuration (a cylinder, a spiral, a torus). The Snake obliterates this material by traveling through it; if it encounters a creature, it will deal its damage to them as if it had attacked and then immediately vanish (leaving the job of destroying the object or volume incomplete).

At any time you or an ally in range are about to take damage (after the attack is declared but before any dice are rolled)

Snake, protect. You can tell the Snake to block the attack. Roll its damage, then deduct incoming damage by that amount. If it does not negate all damage, its physical body is destroyed, which it will spend many mortal lifetimes regenerating. It is in your best interest to be dead by then.

Fingernails

Trace your hands (or at least your fingers) on the back of your character sheet and draw on fingernails. Whenever you offer one to the Serpent, right the in-game date you used it, so it’s easy to remember you’re missing it (and also to make it easier to remember when it grows back)

Though it always hurts more than you expect when the Snake claims a fingernail, no matter how many times it happens, you find your reaction oddly muted: no desire to flinch or cringe or clutch your hand. The Snake is particular and precise, and so the wound is nearly nonexistent; there is minimal bleeding and no trauma to the tissue. The Snake simply makes you unwhole. This is also what it does when it attacks your enemies.

The Snake always leaves your nail matrix perfectly intact, so that you can grow more fingernails for it to claim. It takes six months in-game months for a fingernail to grow back. If your game has downtime turns where there is a change of a random event, six of those will do.

If you need to call the Snake and have no fingernails left, there is no cause for concern. Perhaps there is something else you could offer instead?

The Foxes

Oh dear. You have formed a contract with the Foxes. Decide how many out of the five of them you have made a contract with, here and now. For each one, someone in your future will tell you a disastrous and believable lie, even if it contradicts their own nature and they believe they have no reason to deceive you. Everyone has a reason now, and it is the Foxes.

You can now command any number of Foxes to create illusions. Assigning more Foxes to an illusion increases the number of people it can deceive and the number of senses it can manipulate. Targets of an illusion may make a Save (vs Magic) to avoid being deceived, with a penalty equal to the number of Foxes assigned to the illusion. On a successful Save, they realize something is pushing and pulling at their mind.

No. of Foxes	No. of Targets
1	1
2	2
3	~5
4	~10
5	~20

Foxes are fickle and lazy. When you create an illusion, roll 1d6 for each Fox you assign to its creation. For each die that comes up a 1-3, one of your Foxes loses interest in helping you until your next downtime, preventing you from commanding them until then.

The Foxes do not accompany you on your adventures. However, your shadow, reflection, and appearance to other in dreams sometimes seem to have yellow eyes, sharp teeth, or perhaps a bushy and poorly concealed tail.

Illusions

Illusions can deceive senses in any way you please. You can make a target perceive something that does not exist at all, like a person or a wall. Illusions can move and act, such as an illusory wave fluttering in the breeze or an illusory person conversing and moving around (though it’s just the Foxes acting behind the scenes, of course).

You can also alter perception: wholly occlude someone’s vision, make an ally in their sight look like someone else, or prevent them from perceiving a particular person or object. You can also do something like make someone’s voice sound higher or lower, or make it sound like everything they say is an insult.

Illusions exist purely in the perception of their targets, but are shared amongst targets; an illusion brings a single, attenuated reality into being for those its deceives. For example, if one illusion affects two enemies, they must both perceive the same event unfolding. You could not make one enemy see an illusory dragon and the other see an illusory tree. You could create an illusion that depicts both or either, however. You could also set two groups of Foxes on two different illusions, though this would take more rounds if you are in combat and the individual illusions would not be able to deceive as many senses.

You can give false solidity to an illusion with the sense of touch. This does not allow illusions to support weight. For example, the victim of an illusion can’t walk through an illusory wall if the illusion deceives their sense of touch, but they would fall through illusory stairs. An illusory gale that includes the sense of touch would make its victim stumble and fall, but it could never lift them off the ground or propel them.

If an illusion ends up depicting something impossible (someone falls through solid-feeling illusory stairs, for example, or an illusory dragon picks them up with painful and powerful claws and then they are not actually lifted off the ground), the victim who witnesses the paradox may make a Save (vs Magic) to see overcome the illusion, thus losing all perception of it but experiencing stark reality once again. If they fail, they will confabulate the paradox away.

You can perceive your illusions and underlying reality simultaneously and without confusion. Illusions last until they wholly leave your perception.

Example

You have a contract with four of the Foxes, having decided five grievous lies in your life would be too many. You encounter a party of six goblins who seem like they might attack you. You command three of your foxes to deceive them with an illusion; you decide the illusion should impact sight, sound, and touch and affect five of the goblins. You tell three of your foxes to make it appear in the sight of five of the goblins that the sixth has drawn his weapon and attacked his fellow. The five deceived goblins see the sixth raise his club and strike; they feel the splatter of blood. The false target feels the impact of the club and the sound of it crunching his bones. The goblins gang up on the false attacker, and then begin brawling amongst themselves.

July 7, 2022July 8, 2022 hex culture Uncategorized

Situational Narrative Design in Tabletop Games

Saw Sean and Chris and Richard talking about incorporating setting details into player-facing components of the game that actually matter. Like, how do you do that thing that Dark Souls does that everybody loves so much but in a tabletop game? It’s easy to think of examples (there were three genius blacksmiths with unique styles and all magic swords worth anything visibly conform to one of the three, and each of a particular affinity for an alignment or whatever; in some dungeon there’s a bas relief of the Nightingale Demon being stabbed by the Rowan Angel and now players can guess that nightingale monsters take extra damage from rowan weapons etc etc), but I think grabbing it’s very easy to spit out these examples en masse but harder to relate them to each other in a meaningful way or to build a setting from the ground up around the player being able to form compelling interpretations of the world.

I think situational game design is actually a handy tool for solving this problem. Situational game design is a generally useful framework that is very useful for thinking about games in general and tabletop games in particular. It’s informed a lot of the game prep and writing I’ve been doing recently, and I think it would be very helpful for tabletop game designers at large. It’s not necessarily a perfectly total ideology of play, but it has helped me ask interesting questions and generate useful answers. The rundown I am going to give is extremely brief, and if you can get your hands on the book I’d really recommend it. Anyway.

Situational Game Design In Brief

Situational Game Design is a book by Brian Upton that proposes a methodology for designing and understanding games. Brian Upton is a video game developer, but the book addresses games of all kinds, and I think it can be usefully applied to tabletop roleplaying games.

Situational design centers the player and pays special attention to play that takes place when the player isn’t interacting with the game or isn’t trying to win the game. To be clear, situational game design takes non-interaction and non-pursuit of victory into account, but it does not ignore other aspects or forms of play. This more expansive attitude towards play is useful when thinking about rpgs. Most popular rpgs don’t have game-terminating win conditions, and a lot of enjoyment players derive from them aren’t strictly manipulating figures on the board, or even agents in a narrative. As Upton says,

In situational design, the nexus of play lies not in the interface between the player and the game, but inside the player’s mind (Figure 1.2). Some of the moves the player makes will affect the external state of the game, but others will affect their internal understanding of the game, or even their understanding of themselves and the world at large.
pg 6

I have miserably reproduced figure 1.2 below

A diagram that simply reinforces the quote above. It indicates that "the game" encapsulates part of the player and the rules, that "play" occurs within the player and within the game, and that there is interaction between rules and the player.

Things encapsulated by this definition of play that might escape our intuition or other formal definitions: making notes on character sheets about in-game events, naming an adopted pet, deciding you don’t like the Baron’s mustachioed butler, realizing that the Baron has been replaced by a simulacrum, perversely selecting Stone to Flesh instead of Flesh to Stone as your spell for this level, choosing on how to deal with your rebellious retainer after everyone has packed up and you’re driving home from game night.

Vitally, these are just as much play, and just as important to the situational designer, as deciding which kobold to attack or electing to do something in the fiction that triggers a PbtA move. Situational design doesn’t really elevate certain kinds of play over others.

To full understand play in the sense of situational design, we need to look at three concepts Upton lays out: situations, constraints, and moves.

We will start with situations. Upton’s definition is simple.

A situation is an interval of play that contains a choice.
pg 11

This is any interval of play and any choice, as suggested by my examples of play above. Situations can happen rapidly or continuously; deciding to fire a rifle at the alien soldier with an ice gun vs the alien soldier with a flamethrower and then immediately being faced with a choice between fighting the survivor or ducking for cover, with a series of choices after that, is the sort of the think you might expect in a typical video game. Situations can also happen in clear sequence as in chess, where you might decide which piece of yours to move or which piece of your opponent’s to capture, and then face a new situation once they have taken their turn.

Upton has a lot more to say about situations (naturally enough, in a book titled Situational Game Design) but this is a brief gloss, so we’ll stop here.

The next element is constraints. Upton explains them as follows.

When we’re within a situation we’re offered a range of moves to choose from. The constraints that structure a situation determine which moves we’re allowed to make, and therefore what choices it offers us.
pg 12

Upton offers rules as the most obvious kinds of constraints: in baseball, you can’t keep swinging after your third strike; in chess, you win if you take your opponents king and pawns can’t move four spaces diagonally. They can also be physics (balls move a certain way through the air when struck) or simulations of such (you want to lead your shots against a fast target in an FPS, or you can’t move through representations of solid objects in a platformer). There are also “soft constraints”, things players won’t or shouldn’t do. I can move my king out into the open in chess as soon as possible in chess, but soft strategic constraints will generally prevent an experienced player from doing so. In tabletop games, you might theoretically be able to kick a puppy or steal from your party members, but many players have constraints around how they want to express themselves in the game.

A key distinction is active constraints and potential constraints. While it’s true that you get to walk to first base after your fourth ball, that doesn’t matter to a player on third, and it matters even less to a player sitting in the dugout (I know very little about baseball, so I’m not sure why I’m leaning on it so hard for examples here). Constraints switch from potential and active all of the time, which leads us to the final core piece of situational game design:

Moves, which Upton mentions in his explanation of constraints.

A move is anything that the player does to change the game’s active constraints.
pg 15

This is a big deal, because Upton means anything. One of the examples of a move that he provides is doing nothing in a video game; if the game continues to proceed and your active constraints change, then doing nothing is a move. It can of course mean moving 30 feet closer to the kobold or running to second base, but it can also include “coming to like the Duke’s imperious secretary”, or “beginning to suspect the King is a simulacra” or “discovering the Church of Light’s god is actually a huge bug”. As long as it changes the constraints on the players’ behavior (maybe we don’t trust the Photonic Pope anymore on account of that bug thing), it’s a move.

Upton calls these “interpretive moves” and elaborates on them below

When we make an interpretive move, we’re not changing the state of the game, we’re changing our attitude toward it.
What this means is that play is not limited to situations that offer choices between competing actions; it also occurs in situations that offer competing interpretations. “What should I do?” is a playful choice, but so are “What’s happening?” and, “What does this mean?” These interpretive moves may be directed towards the past (“What caused this?” or towards the future (“What’s going to happen?”). They can even be directed towards ourselves (“Who am I?” or “Why am I doing this?”). If properly structured, these internal interpretive choices can be just as playful as choices that change the game’s external state.
pg 22

This also means that play (as Upton defines it) is happening in all kinds of places–the aforementioned car ride home from a D&D game, during character creation, while you’re standing in the shower thinking about how to solve a puzzle. It also means that there’s not a clean delineation between the crispy crunchy mechanical parts of the game that traditionally get a lot of attention (Reaction rolls, combat, skill check) and the more ephemeral parts less traditionally mechanized in the old school scene (setting, lore, building relations with NPCs). It’s just moves, constraints, and situations structuring and flowing into one another; the move of determining the God of Light is a bug leads to the situations in which you fight him; once he extends his glistening ovipositor, you’re likely making interpretive moves about him even in the heat of combat.

Okay, so that was a lot of preamble, and a lot of it I think is a really exciting way to think about games, but this blog post is titled Situational Narrative Design in Tabletop Games, so let’s move on to that part.

The Narrative / Setting Stuff

So if we’re thinking about that initial problem: how do you write a setting that is well suited for players interpreting and thinking about? How do you write a setting that provides them information they can act on? I think a possible way is to structure it around interpretive moves.

The way that I did this is sketch out a setting in terms of brief clauses and phrases linked with one of the following conjunctions:

but: for two facts that exist in conflict with each other, either conceptually (The king said he did this BUT actually did this instead.) or in terms of actual forces (The Good Guy Army marched into the desert BUT the Bad Guy Army stopped them)
so: for facts that have a causal relationship (The hunter killed the dragon SO it would stop preying on his people
and: for facts that occur concurrently (He founded a Kingdom AND gave gifts to his new supports)

I included the rough Situation Map of this below. This isn’t complete and is a proof of concept; it’s also a setting I only had a rough idea about before I started. Each fact should be pretty interesting and important to the setting at large; you don’t have to be too granular about it. Also if I were to do this again, I would probably include arrows to show which direction the “so”s and “but”s are going but it’s fine I guess.

wordpress absolutely refuses to let me make this image big enough to comfortably read

You’ll note that there are letters associated with each fact. I used these to cross-reference the facts with details in the setting; for each fact I tried to come up with a handful of ways that fact impacted the actual world in terms that players would notice, like so:

A The hero Luin slayed a great Dragon in his old age

Everyone knows: Orma Luin, the divine Dragon King, founded the empire whose ruins we all live in.
Many dungeons are his fortresses and palaces, which depict his victory over the monstrous and gluttonous Dragon

B So he could stop its predations on his people

Even know, there are tracts of desert and scrub winding their way through forest and meadow, wastes where the dragon’s fiery breathe scorched even the fertility from the soil.

C The dragon’s death voided the pacts it had made with the Courts of demons and the dead, allowing them to enter the Lands of the Living

Everyone believes: WIth its dying breath, the Dragon spitefully unleashed all manner of wicked spirit into the Lands of the Living
Many dungeons are the haunts and shrines of the Demons and the Dead
Many people out in the hinterlands swear fealty to a Greater Corpse or Demon rather than a human lord

D He secretly drank its blood, in violation of the great taboo

Everyone knows: sorcerers drinking an animal’s blood is forbidden, as is magic that lets one assume their shape
Most mayors or elders will offer significant bounties for the heads of nearby witches who violate the taboo
Hunter Knights will go to great lengths to capture or kill witches

E He could live eternally, with the might and vigor of a dragon

Everyone believes: The gods blessed Orma Luin with his youth and divinity for slaying the wicked Dragon.
Orma Luin still nominally rules the ruins of his empire from his Isle Palace.
Orma Luin is and was an army unto himself

F All manner of dangerous spirit began preying on humanity once again

Hunter Knights and Clerics do the constant work of keeping humanity safe from Demons and the Dead
Many dungeons are the haunts and shrines of the Demons and the Dead
Many people out in the hinterlands swear fealty to a Greater Corpse or Demon rather than a human lord
If you learn the lawful tongue of the Dead or the chaotic speech of the Demons, they will tell you all manner of things about Orma Luin that the Hunter Knights would kill you for repeating.

The full situation map key isn’t complete, but you get the idea (probably, I hope).

The next step is to go through the key and pull out things you need to put in your setting. What we have here includes

Multiple dungeons that depict Orma Luin defeating a dragon
Narrow, geographically improbable stretches of wasteland, scrub, and desert in otherwise fertile areas of the map
Multiple dungeons themed around demons or the undead
Remote settlements governed by demons or the dead
Settlements that offer bounties for shapeshifting witches
The ability for players to become shapeshifting witches (if they don’t mind the scrutiny of witch-hunters)
Hunter Knights on encounter tables
A really nasty dungeon with a really nasty Dragon King inside
A couple locations that are old battlefields where the Dragon King wasted an army by himself
Possible Hunter Knight class
NPCs expecting clerics to help them hunt undead and demons
Alignment languages let you learn things from the Dead and Demons
Rumors, secrets, and lies Demons and the Dead will tell you, including and especially things that contradict the “everybody believes” entries in the key.
And so on and so on.

That’s a pretty good list to go off of considering I’m working off of a half-finished proof of concept based on a setting I didn’t know much about when I started. The blacksmith entry would be the impetus for magic weapons in the setting, and their rarity would be tied to the fact that one demidivine blacksmith had to make them; they might all have her maker’s mark and be illegal to own and technically property of the Dragon King. The node about Seti (I believe item G) could give you insight into Clerics and Magic-users and how they’re trained and treated.

This process ensures that most things the players encounter tie back to the core narrative we mapped out at the start, while also not forcing them to think about it too much if they don’t want to. Since the conjunctions that link the nodes are implicit or unstated, players are allowed to use their own interpretations to interrelate pieces of information. For example, Node M (He sired many demi-divine heirs, who varied greatly in their character and cruelty) could yield grotesque pleasure-palaces belonging to princes and princesses as dungeons in setting. If players only encountered setting details associated with Orma Luin being a great king, they could decide if he was a noble person who had bad kids or if the apples didn’t fall very far from the tree.

Each node is sort of the foundation of an interpretive situation. The situation will vary player to player, and even playgroup to playgroup (assuming multiple people are playing the setting) because individual players bring their own assumptions and preferences, and different tables will naturally encounter the information in different orders.

Anyway, this has been a little meandering, but that’s all about I have for today– a possible way to make settings with capital letter Lore tie into player-facing elements of the game. If you can, read Situational Game Design; it’s great and Brian Upton explains it way better than I do here.

May 11, 2022 hex culture Uncategorized

laughing through a mouthful of blood

OSE Advanced Genre Rules Illusionist spells are great, but the class itself leaves me a little cold; while I can conceptually wrap my head around the difference between a crunchy Cleric and a Druid, there’s not a lot of daylight between a tricksy MU and an Illusionist–what’s the in-setting difference between what they’re learning and doing?

I also often try to work in classes that are explicitly about dealing with other NPCs, so this was another opportunity; having patrons and followers from the start is a good way to ground players in the setting and drive them into fun situations.

I started reading The Hidden World of Foxes and have been thinking about the animal a lot. They scream and laugh unnervingly like humans, they thrive in environments where we have destroyed most other living things, they can develop almost doglike relationships with people (though I really don’t like the idea of taming wild animals). Reynard’s Maleperduis is an ideal megadungeon: a fox’s castle-labyrinth in which he hides from the consequences of his actions; the Teumessian fox is an divinely uncapturable monster. Most also have associated rival-victims; Renard has Ysengrim (along with a bunch of other characters including Hirsent the she-wolf), the fox Kuma Lisa has Kumcho Volcho, Laelaps the hound hunts the Teumessian fox. There is of course the kitsune and Tamamo-no-Mae, but I am much less famiilar.

So, foxes are: scream-laughing in the dark; offering you a cursed spear of holly if you kill the noble hunting them for sport; sitting in a ring around a bloodslicked meadow with something you’d rather not see in the center; batting at your window begging for help because the Wolf is coming for them; disguising themselves as a reclusive noble family to eat up whatever traveler takes up their hospitality; telling a joke that will knock history off its axis; Lord Renarte laughing from the highest tower of his hidden castle; Vulpecula in the sky singing lies to the stars; helping and hurting and hunting and begging forever and ever.

Fox Royalty

Requirements: None, but being Lawful may put you at odds with your familiars
XP to level 1: 2,500 (as MU overall)
Prime Requisite: We don’t really do that here. Charisma if you gotta
Hit Dice: 1d4
Saves: as MU
Armor: None, no shields
Weapons: any one-handed melee
Language: Alignment, Common, the Nameless Language of Foxes

“Yum!” by Peter Trimming, available here and distributed under CC BY 2.0

Court of Foxes

Once in a great while, a human is born beloved, for whatever reason, to foxes–not just the beasts in the woods, but their gods and ghosts and demons. With this dubious blessing and certain burden, they are often cut loose by superstitious families and neighbors, left to their own (capacious) devices.

Phantom Fox Familiar

As Fox Royalty grow in power and precedence, they are attended by increasingly powerful fox Familiars. These Familiars are venerated criminals, divine tricksters, and related demons. They spend most of their time lurking invisibly or at least insubstantially about the person of the Fox Royalty they are pledged to, unless commanded.

At level 1, and every odd level thereafter until level 11, Fox Royalty gain an additional Familiar. The Familiar’s Rank is equal to ½ the Fox Royalty’s level (rounded up) at the time they acquire it; the first Familiar a member of Fox Royalty acquires is always Rank 1, no matter how many character levels they gain. For example, Fox Royalty at level 3 have a single Rank 1 Familiar and a single Rank 2 Familiar.

Spellcasting

Fox Royalty can draw on their Familiars’ power to cast Illusionist spells. A Fox Familiar can be used to cast any Illusionist spell known it its Royalty and equal to or less than its rank once per day. Thus, level 5 Fox Royalty can cast three Illusionist spells per day–one at Level 1, one at Level 2 or lower, and one at Level 3 or lower.

Fox Royalty start knowing three Level 1 Illusionist spells. Every time they level up, they learn one spell of each level of their choice from all Illusionist spells they can cast.

Optional Rule: If a Familiar eats a druid, their Royalty can add spells they had prepared or cast for that day to their spell list.

Familiars in Combat

Fox Royalty can also implore their Familiars to manifest and fight for them. This can be done at the top of the round using phased initiative, and requires an Applicant Reaction check and negotiation / payment every time it is done–foxes, even loyal familiars, are lazy and fickle. If they refuse an offer, they cannot be entreated to manifest for the rest of the day, and if the Reaction table turns up “ill will”, they run off to make mischief for the rest of the day and cannot be used to cast spells. If Fox Royalty has a standing debt to a particular Familiar, it will not appear for their Royalty or allow them to cast its spells.

Summoned Familiars

Fox familiars have stats according to their rank, listed below. They typically serve their Royalty for a number of Turns equal to the Royalty’s level. A manifested Familiar can cast Illusionist spells of their Rank or lower, but this counts against their Fox Royalty’s spells per day. A Familiar that is reduced to 0 HP vanishes for a time, and cannot communicate or give the Royalty spells until the day has passed.

Class Level	Rank/Max Spell Level	Statistics
1	1	HD 2 AC 13 MV 150’ (50’) SV +2 ML 7 AL C
3	2	HD 4 AC 14 MV 150’ (50’) SV +4 ML 6 AL C
5	3	HD 6 AC 14 MV 150’ (50’) SV +6 ML 5 AL C
7	4	HD 8 AC 15 MV 150’ (50’) SV +8 ML 4 AL C
9	5	HD 10 AC 16 MV 150’ (50’) SV +10 ML 3 AL C
11	6	HD 12 AC 18 MV 150’ (50’) SV +12 ML 2 AL C

I ues d20+HD >= 16 for saving throws, but you can just use their HD and the Monster Save chart in the system of your choice to figure out their saves.

Special Cases

If Fox Royalty want to summon their Familiars en masse or set them to a long-term or complex task pertaining to espionage, mischief, or nature, they may do so, but this is treated as “Other Magical Research” in terms of time and cost.

Dealing With Familiars

Familiars appear increasingly impressive or frightening with Rank.

A Rank 1 Familiar might appear as a scrawny juvenile fox.
A Rank 3 Familiar might appear as a wolf-sized fox barded in gold and silk
A Rank 6 Familiar might appear as a seething apparition of shadow and red-gold fire.

While unmanifested, foxes might possess their Royalty’s shadow to speak or appear as clots of foxfire.

All fox familiars are arrogant, cruel, and mischievous, with a soft spot for underdogs and fellow tricksters. Low rank familiars are younger, cruder in their malice, and more beholden to their animal temperament. Higher ranked familiars are older, more circumspect and patient, but also more creative in their cruelty and elaborate in their plots. The highest ranked familiars are demigods in their own right.

Fox familiars obey orders to the letter and spirit that don’t offend their sensibilities, even if they have low Morale/Loyalty. They don’t make Morale checks out of fear–they are unbothered by danger, but require checks when subject to indignity, disrespect, or significant pain, or when asked to pass up the opportunity to do something cruel, funny, or both. In terms of payment, they don’t care for treasure or gold, but do enjoy shrines being constructed in their name, incense, offerings of live chickens (and larger, bloodier animals).

“Fox with meat, again…” by Tambako the Jaguar, available here and distributed by CC BY-ND 2.0

Restrictions and Diplomacy

Foxes and foxlike beings are at worst Talkative with Fox Royalty, though they may not be so well disposed towards their traveling companions. Fox Royalty must never directly harm a fox (fortunately, foxes will never willingly harm them, unless it’s very funny), lest their familiars abandon them until they perform some task of great mischief to make it up to foxdom. Tricking a fox, even to the point of harm, is a whole other story, though–all cruelties are allowable to a fox if they’re amusing enough.

Strongholds

At level 11, Fox Royalty are demidivinities in their own right and may raise a bower or construct wilderness shrine. They will attract 2d4 Clerics of levels 1-3 and can bestow Illusionist spells on them, and all foxes in the region will accord them great, if grudging, respect.

Fox Familiar Statistics Formula

HD: Rank x 2
AC: 12 + Rank
MV: 150’ (50’)
SV: +HD (or as HD)
ML: 8 – Rank
AL: Chaotic

November 29, 2018 hex culture Uncategorized

My Most Influential RPGs

People have been sharing the 10 RPGs that most influenced them. Here’s a handful of mine–they aren’t the ones that I like the most or played the most, but have certainly had the biggest impact on how I think about table top games and gaming.

If You Knew Now the Fullness of Your Coming Regret, by Constance Hughs

The entirety of the game consists of the names and brief biographies of 100 characters in Plangence, a small South Dakota town. Its first and only print run was taken from shelves when the remains of 24 of the people named in the book were found in the author’s South Dakota home.

Chrysanthemums, by Anonymous

A simulationist take on Heian-era romance distributed in the early 90s by floppy disk. Its complex flower-based resolution system was derided by critics as inaccessible and expensive, but it accumulated a cult following.

Cradled in the Holy Hollows of His Hands, by Josiah Jameson

A diceless system based around accurate recollection of Bible verses. Its author claimed playing the game was an act of worship, drawing censure from a variety of Christian spiritual leaders. Publication rights have lapsed since its distribution in the 80s, and the author’s estate disavows knowledge of the game.

Supplement V, by M.M. Batiste

An unsanctioned fifth supplement to Original Dungeons & Dragons featuring extensive rules for what the author describes as games in the “Grand Guignol style”. An expansively cruel and gruesomely scatalogical tract claiming inspiration from 100 Days of Sodom, L’histoire de l’œil, and of course the shows of Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, its appendices included “rules modules” well ahead of the booklet’s time, describing options for ascending armor class and damage on a miss.

The Whole of the Law, by Anonymous

A series of allegedly false documents that loosely outline a modern fantasy horror setting in which a revanchist neopagan splinter sect stages a successful coup in the United States in the late 1990s. Sold loose-leaf in a shrink-wrapped manila folder, it was pulled from shelves in the early 2000s, perhaps the real string of arrests in West Virginia towns in which must of the metaplot’s action takes place.

October 12, 2018 hex culture Uncategorized

the earth does not want you II

Working on a low level 5e pathcrawl of sorts for a haunted stretch of Floridian wilderness.

palmetto scrub with intermittent pine trees

Terrain

Palmetto Scrub. fronds just taller than your average person. You can shimmy up the periodic pine tree to see into adjacent hexes. Going off the trail through scrub counts as difficult terrain and requires you to make a DC 14 Dex save or take 1d4 damage per turn as you get cut up by vegetation and bit up by insects.
Pine Forest. Dark, cool, weirdly quiet, with close-set trees. The mist doesn’t entirely burn off in the mornings here. Going off the trail counts as difficult terrain.
Wetland. Mostly waist-deep muddy black water, dotted with soft-soiled islands that support sparse palm trees. Counts as difficult terrain, and hurrying requires a DC 14 Dex save or falling into a sump in the river bottom that you didn’t notice because you were in such a dang hurry. Swimming creatures get advantage on stealth checks here.

Pine Forest Encounters (1d6 by day, 1d8 by night)

2d8 bandits (pg 343 MM). Disadvantage on morale checks–they are actually teenagers and kids, and very hungry. You might get 1d4 of them to tag along if you talk them down and offer them food.
1d3 outlaws (pg 349 MM, see Scout). Will ambush if they can. The outlaw last in initiative order can cast produce flame cantrip at will and the hex warlock spell 1/long rest, but does not have a bow.
1d2 brown bears (pg 319 MM). Not interested in fighting. If the players win initiative and make noise without attacking, they make a Morale check with disadvantage or bolt. You can get good money for their pelts and teeth, though.
cougar (pg 339 MM, see Tiger). Stealth check vs lead player’s Passive Perception or else it falls on top of them and starts mauling. If the players notice it, it will track them semi-obviously until it has a good opening for attack. Flees if attacked, but always returns.
1d3 false raccoons (pg 318 MM, see Baboon). Can cast minor illusion at will and suggestion 1/day. Their heads don’t seen to join up with their bodies quite right, and their teeth are a little too human, and they can talk. They claim to be from a place ruled by November, where everything is wild and barren and twisted sideways. They like it here, though. They think they are going to stay.
Kehkerekhek, Mockingbird God. (pg 324 MM, see Giant Eagle). Can cast minor illusion, thaumaturgy, disguise self, and silent image at will. Phantasmal force and suggestion 1/day each. If he hasn’t taken damage on a turn, he can do a rude dance as an action, triggering an encounter check. Hates all False Beasts.
Knightingale (pg 350 MM, see Veteran). Vampire weaknesses. Can polymorph into a nightingale as an action. Armed with a saber and carbine made of red-tinted mercury glass.
Moonbeast (pg 347, see Mage). Can fly. Will ignore players until next encounter in return for a human life, the location of many victims, or the name of a member of the party. Otherwise, just wants to taste as much blood as possible. As pale and indistinct as a fish seen in deep water, looks something like a deer skeleton settled on its haunches when it comes to a rest.

Palmetto Encounters (1d6 by day, 1d8 by night)

2d8 bandits (pg 343 MM). Disadvantage on morale checks–they are actually teenagers and kids, and very hungry. You might get 1d4 of them to tag along if you talk them down and offer them food.
2d4 coyotes (pg 341 MM, see wolf). Will ambush if they can. Try to separate the enemy and chase them off into the scrub. Can be distracted by food.
1d2 giant spiders (pg 328 MM). If they get a surprise attack in, each will try to grab a PC and pull them into the scrub. They ignore the scrub as difficult terrain. Flee if it looks like they will lose, but will track PCs, waiting for an opportunity to attack by surprise again.
2d4 boars (pg 319 MM). Don’t ever roll Morale, won’t stop chasing. Their meat and guts are filled with vermin, but their pelts are still good.
1d4 false coyotes (pg 341 MM, see worg). Big coyotes, each with three tails and too many eyes scattered across their faces. They come from a place ruled by November, and they want this place for themselves. Each can cast tasha’s hideous laughter 1/day.
Grass House Dweller (pg 346, see druid). Palmetto scrub does not count as difficult terrain. Keeps the souls of those they kills in calabashes on their belt. If they start losing a fight, they reach right into the ground and pull out an enormous centipede like a person yanking a root out of the earth to distract their attackers as they run away. Will implacably seek revenge afterwards, though.
Knightingale (pg 350 MM, see Veteran). Vampire weaknesses. Can polymorph into a nightingale as an action. Armed with a saber and carbine made of red-tinted mercury glass.
Divine Carrion (pg 228 MM, see Mummy). A carcass of indeterminate provenance, bone visible, thin slices of rich red flesh peeking between mangled fur and too many limp limbs. Can move, but begins all encounters with a supernatural appeal to take a bite of it, which requires a DC 12 Cha save to resist. Those who succumb cannot regain hit points in any way, and rise as ghouls when they die unless the curse-disease is lifted. Hates all False Beasts.

Wetlands Encounters (1d6 by day, 1d8 by night)

2d4 bandits (pg 343 MM). Paddling along on rafts and coracles. Disadvantage on morale checks–they are actually teenagers and kids, and very hungry. You might get 1d4 of them to tag along if you talk them down and offer them food.
1d4 crocodiles (pg 320 MM). Likes to surprise attack and pull people into the dark water.
Horseshoe Crab (pg 324 see Giant Crab). Like to swarm and grapple a single target, dragging them underwater.
Elder Amphiuma (pg 324 MM, see Giant Constrictor Snake). Can also breathe water. Can cast thaumaturgy and guidance as cantrips at will; 1st level spell slot to cast command and animal friendship, 2nd level spell slot to cast augury. Friendly, if obscure and erratic. Hates False Beasts.
False Crocodile (pg 324, see giant crocodile). Walks on/swims with long human fingers, has wet and friendly eyes. Can cast command (recharges on a 5-6). Wants the pearl under the Elder Amphiuma’s tongue.
River House Dweller (pg 346, see druid). Has swim speed, can hold their breath for an hour. Keeps the souls of those they kills in reeds on their belt. If they start losing a fight, they stir up the waters, turning it into a seething mass of snakes. Will implacably seek revenge afterwards, though.
Knightingale (pg 350 MM, see Veteran). Vampire weaknesses. Can polymorph into a nightingale as an action. Armed with a saber and carbine made of red-tinted mercury glass.
Drowned Merchant (pg 24 MM, see basilisk). It wants for its waters to swallow more lives and goods, to learn dangerous secrets, for the crocodiles in its waters to be well fed. It will sell anything that has fallen into its home river, lake, or pond at considerable markup; reveal a secret know to someone who drowned in its waters

wetlands on a cloudy day out to the horizon, a lone dead tree in the distance