Post-it Dungeon for October

There's been lots of talk among the OSR of character sheets, monster stats, or even whole dungeon maps that can fit on a typical 3x5 index card. But what about something EVEN SMALLER!!! Just on a whim, I drew up a dungeon map on a post-it note and stocked it as basically a funhouse dungeon (albeit with factions) as an exercise of sorts. Its fun to see what sorts of shapes you can just shove into such a small-square area! There's only one entry/exit to this particular locale, so it wouldn't work very well as a modular dungeon morph or anything, but I think you could easy make a modular dungeon out of small post-it chunks too (I'm pretty sure someone else has done that before but I don't recall who). I'm planning on running this as a duet game with my girlfriend so if you're her DON'T READ THIS!

 

ALSO ITS OCTOBER NOW !!!! So the donjon is mildly spooky themed

 

ROOM KEY

1: Heptagonal chamber (where an eighth side would be is instead the entry to a hallway, southeast). Each wall has a carved figure of a martyred saint, representing the seven virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, faith, hope, and charity). Their injuries correspond to their respective virtue (prudence has been gored through the brain (seat of rationality), justice sits on the executioner's block, etc.) A fully articulated human skeleton (1 gp worth of silver wire holds the whole thing together) with one hand held upwards and the other downwards stands in the center of the room, its feet buried into the dark clay of the floor.

2: Square chamber, both door entrances to room 2 are locked, and will lock behind the players if not propped open. The sound of moving liquid can be heard through the walls, vaguely echoing throughout the chamber. The northern wall sports a large red devil head, mouth agape, tongue outstretched, and sporting two gemstone eyes (opals worth 25 gp). The tongue is the most obvious platform from which to pry the opals out, but stepping on the tongue opens pipes that begin to pour viscous blood into the room, steadily flooding it until the whole chamber is filled with blood, floor to ceiling, in 1 exploration turn.

3: The north wall of this chamber bows out in a gentle curve, patterned on the inside like the spine and ribcage of a great turtle. A mass of rusty metal pipes crisscross this room, primarily north-south, leading into the trap in room 2. A rag-man (vaguely humanoid form whose features are indistinct under piles of rags, stats as hobgoblin) with long pallid arms has set up camp in the far northwestern corner of the room, hanging up a dirty cloth over the pipes like a shelter. His name is Yarfan Loam and he wants nothing to do with the fight between the scientist and the ghouls. He is certain that one of the pipes in this room is full of sweet yogurt but is too afraid of breaking open the blood pipes to find it.

4: An abandoned library full of ancient books that crumble to dust when touched. A skeleton lays slumped on the desk in the center of the room, with a large wasp stinger buried in its spine. One book on the shelf on the eastern wall is made entirely of silver, every page a thinly hammered sheet, and written on in blood. This tome is worth 1,000 gp. The southern wall of this chamber is very thin and can be easily broken through with the right tools, leading you to the narrow passageway between rooms 1/5/6 to the west and rooms 14/15/16 to the east.

5: Rectangular chamber with a steep, narrow corner on the northeast edge. A flickering flame behind a pane of stained glass in that steep corner casts multicolored lights in an arc across the room. Stepping too close to the stained glass causes a trap door, hidden under a rug, to collapse, dropping the victim into a cistern full of whale oil (the fuel for the flame behind the glass pane). High risk of drowning follows, and a major difficulty in retrieving anyone who fell in due to the slipperiness of the oil.

6: Small square chamber. Two sets of empty suits of armor flank the room on the north and south walls. An empty husk of human skin lays on the floor.

7: A pond in the center of this chamber is home to 5 pale crocodiles. They are attracted to light, and lay strewn about the edges of the body of water. Going through this room inevitably involves skirting by the edge of the pond. One half-submerged skeleton has a jewel-encrusted gauntlet worth 1,000 gp. The skin of an individual pale crocodile is worth 150 gp to the right buyer.

8: Part of the home base/lair of the ghouls, a community that has made this dungeon home. There are 36 ghouls total living in the dungeon, including their leader, the Ghoul Princess Hyrcania Forsooth. They live in mud-daub huts built directly into the sloping triangular walls of rooms 8, 9, and 12, with the exception of the aforementioned Ghoul Princess (who wears a cape made from moth's wings) and some of her subordinates in their tribe, who live in family mausolea carved directly into the walls. The bodies of the formerly interred inhabitants are left leaning up against the wall with gold coins on their eyes and under their tongues. The ghouls farm giant ticks, which subsist on blood from giant flightless vampire bats, which themselves subsist on blood from pale crocodiles, which eat pale eyeless fish (who in turn scrape pallid algae off the rocks, or eat pale crayfish that scrape pallid algae off the rocks). Many of the ghouls yearn for the taste of human flesh, and would do anything for a bite, even though the Ghoul Princess hasn't allowed them to eat their enemy, The Scientist. The ghouls wield spears and their own paralytic touch, and look like shrink-wrapped corpses with unusually long faces and long silvery mops of hair.

9: Part of the home base/lair of the ghouls. Nothing notable except for more ghoul huts and disinterred corpses leaning on the walls. A secret door (the entire wall can rotate when the right brick is pressed) connects this room to room 14. The ghouls aren't aware of the secret door.

10: Behind the stuck door that connects this room to room 8, this room is crawling with 5 black puddings on the floor and dripping green slime on the ceiling. There is no treasure; indentations in the wall where rich wooden artifacts would have been placed have been eroded by the oozes.

11: There is a tall mirror on the wall opposite the entrance to this room (i.e. the eastern wall), which shows an idealized version of anyone who looks into it. One party member (randomly determined) will not appear in the mirror at all, no matter what, seemingly implying the world would be better off without them in it. As mentioned below, under random encounters, if The Robot is roaming, this room will be full of roosting giant flightless vampire bats.

12: Part of the home base/lair of the ghouls. This room is the location of the grand mausoleum of Ghoul Princess Hyrcania Forsooth. She has a peacock feather fan in pride of place in her mausoleum, worth 350 gp. Directly opposite is the largest giant tick pen where the ghouls farm tick blood.

13: This room is completely empty except for a beautifully carved antique chair, complete with handwoven upholstery in the style of a Persian rug. The feet of the chair are nailed to the floor. This chair is worth 600 gp.

14: This room has the appearance of a throne room and banquet chamber for some long forgotten evil lord. There are tattered tapestries on the walls, cornices in the shapes of bats and spiders, and a central banquet table with fragile, nearly collapsed chairs. There are no cups nor silverware on the table, and no treasure of any kind.

from (I'm pretty sure) The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

15: The laboratory of The Scientist. He is a recent arrival to the dungeon and has taken over what appears to have been formerly an armory or pantry of some kind (complete with crumbled barrels and rusted polearms leaning against the walls) as an impromptu laboratory, having set up tables covered with all manner of alembics, bunsen burners, diodes, electrical equipment, glass containers of sulfuric acid, etc. A humanoid robot stands off to the side, with a door in its torso open to reveal unfinished mechanisms and wiring. The Scientist wants to study the ghouls' paralytic powers, to determine whether it is a venom or a psychosomatic effect; he also looks down on the ghouls, and considers them beneath him, in a manner similar to a scholarly colonialist. He is working on the aforementioned robot to break into the ghouls' lair, but it needs silver wiring to be complete and he currently doesn't have any. In the meantime, he has bred a race of mutated two-headed and two-stingered wasp things that act as his more brutish underlings.

16: Nest of some of The Scientist's wasp things. There are 10 wasp things that dwell in this strangely circular chamber, complete with a domed ceiling. The floor is sticky with their secretions.

17: Circular chamber with a domed ceiling. The ceiling sports tiled mosaics depicting hell scenes, including scenes of sinners having to march into a gaping hellmouth. The mosaic tiles are worth 2 for 1 gp to an artist. 2-in-6 chance that 1d6 wasp things from room 16 will also be present in this room.

18: Circular chamber with a domed ceiling. The ceiling clearly used to sport tiled mosaics, except now most of the tiles have fallen to the floor, and there are some bricks missing in the walls. The fallen tiles obscure pressure plates in the floor which, when pressed down on, activate a pneumatic trap that launches bricks out of the walls straight at head-height. Victims take 1d6 damage per brick for 1d6 bricks launched. Halflings and other diminutive types are immune.

from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

RANDOM ENCOUNTERS

Roll 1d6

1: 1d8 giant flightless vampire bats

2: 1d4+1 wasp things (allied with The Scientist)

3: 1d6 ghouls with 2d6 giant ticks on leashes (part of the Ghouls faction)

4: 2d6 black puddings

5: 2d6+1 moss-encrusted skeletons (controlled by a mute necromancer in the next room; if the necromancer is killed, replace this entry with 10d6 dermestid beetles)

6: 1d6 pale crocodiles (if 4 are rolled, one pale crocodile is wearing a black cape)

7: The Robot (stats as iron living statue)

If (and ONLY if) The Scientist is able to finish creating The Robot in his laboratory in room 15, add +1 to random encounter rolls. The Robot is his latest attempt to one-up the Ghouls and find access to their secret chambers. It is impossible to encounter giant flightless vampire bats when The Robot is about, because its slow shuddering footfalls scare them, leaving all of the remaining giant flightless vampire bats to roost in room 11 (as far from The Scientist's laboratory as possible).

wasp-thing photocollage by me

Wasp Thing

No. Encountered: 1d4+1 (up to 2d6+1 in lair)

Hit Dice: 2

Attacks: 2 stings (1d6+1 and venom, see below)

Armor: as chain and shield

Morale: 7

Flying: Wasp things can fly, albeit clumsily. Given the cramped quarters of the dungeon, they don't do that often outside of combat, where it gives them a height advantage.

Venomous sting: Each individual target stung must make a save vs. poison (only one save is made, even if stung twice; receiving 2 stings gives disadvantage on the saving throw) or swell up uncontrollably, making any armor uncomfortable to wear and making any pressure or weight put on the body (like opening a door, pushing an object, lifting treasure, etc.) deal 1d4 damage. This effect lasts for 2d6 exploration turns.

The stats for all the other monsters can be either inferred or are described using equivalents from OSR games, mentioned above :)

This dungeon ended up being a bit less Halloween-themed than I initially intended but its still kinda spooky and I feel like it all came together very satisfactorily :) Hope y'all like it!

The DOUBLEGANGSTER

I was having a conversation earlier today with my girlfriend (check out her blog, Half Again As Much! She has a great post on there about spells collected by her dad Mike Gunderloy from the early days of D&D!) and in the course of that conversation she used the phrase "doubleganger" rather than doppelganger, and when confronted about that made a joke about not wanting to use loanwords. That snowballed into a bit between us about a "doublegangster," and I said I'd write it up as a monster on my blog, so here's that!

photocollage of John Dillinger made by yours truly

DOUBLEGANGSTER

Number Encountered: 1d3

Hit Dice: 6+1

Attacks: 2 punch (1d4) in close quarters OR 1 pistol (single target, save vs. Getting Shot or take 1d4 HIT DICE damage) OR 1 Tommy gun (up to 6 targets in a cone or swipe, save vs. Getting Shot or take 1d8 HIT DICE damage) (see below).

Armor: Unarmored (0)

Morale: 7

Double vision: Doublegangsters look like two people at the same time, hazy and indistinct on top of one another, like persistent double vision. Ranged attacks against them always have disadvantage. Doublegangsters can be seen in two places at the same time. 

Firearms: Doublegangsters wield guns, EITHER 1 pistol OR 1 Tommy gun. Only the mob boss of the doublegangsters (which appears in doublegangster lairs) wields multiple firearms (two Tommy guns, one in each hand). When a firearm is fired, there is a 2-in-6 chance of the gun jamming or running out of ammo, which takes a full combat round to resolve. 

GREED: Doublegangsters are horribly greedy sumbitches. They're after gold, jewels, deeds to rich estates, inheritances, life insurance policies, Rolls Royce cars they can refinance, big cartoonish bags marked with dollar signs. They're open to a deal if the players offer it. 

Uncanny countenance: The doublegangster looks exactly like another character present, or a (randomly determined) NPC that the PCs know (if you have a recurring NPC table, roll on that). The only difference is that, instead of their normal garb, the doublegangster is clad in a pinstripe suit, slacks, and a wide-brimmed hat.

 

DOUBLEGANGSTERS are uncanny supernatural creatures that take on the appearances of innocent men and woman to frame them in delinquency, crime, murder, burglary, scandal, gambling, racketeering, and WORSE. They enter the world from stage right, cast in shadow, the steel of their Tommy guns glistening in the moonlight, go on a Bonnie and Clyde gun moll rampage, then exit just the same. Their lairs, torch-light caves, often half-flooded, full to the brim with stolen cars and piles of gold and dollar bills (marked with the faces of presidents you've never seen nor heard of before), are always in the last place you expect. And yet, for the poor saps that a doublegangster has mocked by stealing the face of, such dark corners feel uncannily familiar. Nobody knows why they steal innocent faces or frame them in the court of their peers, and even fewer know why you can never quite focus your eyes on them, why a doublegangster always appears to have two heads, four arms, four legs, two black ties on white dress shirts in pinstripe jackets. Their voice comes out in terrible stereo, issuing forth from two mouths. Their guns fire out twin streams of bullets, but leave only one set of wounds. One of the gangsters ain't real, you dig? But the mobster will reach out his pinstripe-sleeved arm and invite you to touch, like whatshisname with the real hole in his hand, to show you just how real the whole thing is.

 

COWARDS would say this is a monster for Call of Cthulhu or similar, or maybe Gamma World (it would really work great in those kinds of contexts, of course). But real ones will be BRAVE ENOUGH to drop a two-headed ghost gangster from the 1930s into a D&D game. Put a doublegangster on the random encounter table for your dungeon!!! Let your players steal a weirdly hazy double vision Tommy gun from the cold dead hands of a mobster with your best buddy's face!!! It'll be fun!! 

Observatory of the Beyond: A Dungeon for GAMMA WORLD

I set a goal for myself of making at least one post a month every month this summer. It's now the tail end of September, and I've got one post to show for it. Shameful! My RPG juices have been really not flowing, busy with personal life events (moved in with my girlfriend which is lovely!) and NOT running or playing in anything has really done a number on my creative output. I'm still plugging away on MORTUARY ON MOTH MOUNTAIN, an adventure location zine for King of Kings that I announced last year; a few months ago I lost all of the image files I used in doing the graphic design, so I've had to start over on that. BUT I will not naysay overmuch. Below is an adventure location for GAMMA WORLD and other post-apocalyptic type roleplaying games that I put together just to get something to go from brain to paper to computer screen, so to speak. Hope you like it!

 

OBSERVATORY OF THE BEYOND

Sitting atop a grassy hill, looming from between the sickly copses of trees that dot the landscape, is a concrete construction that, from afar, looks almost like a slate grey flying saucer, or perhaps a faceless turtle. Once a traveler ventures closer, however, they begin to hear it: the awful, awful buzzing. This is a place of no honor.

Far from any village, mutant or otherwise, this uncanny brutalist structure is a strange type of observatory, built for inscrutable reasons by the ancients. It is not a typical telescope observatory, not like the kind that Amish astrologers use. It was instead a radio observatory, its sensors and dishes tuned into a particular frequency, in this case the frequency that all other observatories do their best to ignore, drown out, and go past: the staticky sound of cosmic background radiation. It is said that the ancients that built this unseemly place wished to meditate on the waveforms of the very sounds of the universe itself, and on the impacts that this sound has on the minds of mortal men. What impact that is, from whispered rumors, is one that surely nobody would like to experience for themselves. It's no wonder the grand civilization of the ancients collapsed into ruin and ash, if they were such perverts who fixated on the evil noise between the stars.

But, perhaps that sound could be put to better use today. Or perhaps the technological wonders rumored to be on the other end of the uncanny sound entice you. Or maybe you just want to be the first to push past superstition and get all the copper wiring out of the walls of the place. The Observatory of the Beyond buzzes uncaringly atop that wretched hill all the same.

 

 

 

Room Key

The Main Facility

1: After entering through the still-operating airlock (marked with a set of two doors ('D') on the map above), this room was originally storage for personal items and hazmat suits worn outside the facility. There are 12 hooks for suits on the walls, all but two of which are empty. One of the hooks has a filthy rag on which is written a confession, while another has a hazmat suit sized for an unmutated human (resistance to toxins and radiation).

2: The main hub of the facility. A short desk faces the doorway leading to room 1, while a circular table set in the center of the room served as a dining table, complete with skeletons seated in the chairs. Ffarad Ssef, Hisser scholar, has set up camp in this room. He has a circular tent pitched off to the north side of the room, between the doors that open to rooms 8 and 14. He has an electric stove, battery-powered, as well as a cassette recorder (also battery-powered).

3: Supply closet. Full of brooms, mechano-mops, rusted hypertechnological vacuums, etc. One hypervacuum is in working order (complexity C, can be operated to suck in 1 human-sized opponent within range or blow air to knock over 1 human-sized opponent).

4: Kitchen. Full of (now long broken) stoves, ovens, microwaves, refrigerators, and dirty plates.

5: Hallway. Lights are flickering on low power in this room, as well as rooms 6 and 7. Visible damage to the walls, caused by Jeb Gorn.

6: Electrical and HVAC room, door locked (this isn't noted on the map above). Any damage done to the electrical system will knock out all of the lights in the entire facility (the speaker system and radio array will be unaffected, since they are on a separate electrical grid). Jeb Gorn really wants to get in here. Hidden in a ventilation pipe is a human skeleton wearing a set of ultraviolet goggles (complexity A).

7: Large pantry. Food is all rotted away, turned to dust, or eaten long ago by now. One crate is full to the brim with 16 stargazing rats.

8: Bathroom with four stalls, no urinals. There is a skeleton seated on one of the toilets. A doorway leads to room 9, while a small tube (only smaller-than-human-sized characters can fit) out the back wall (not noted on the above map) leads to rooms 10 and 11.

9: Multi-purpose room that once did double duty as a shower and storage room. The water still functions just barely.

10: Hydroponic self-cycling garden under a set of fluorescent lights. The garden beds are overflowing with cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers, and watermelons. The watermelons explode when agitated, dealing 4d6 damage to those in range and possibly setting off a chain reaction. Living amongst the plants are 24 moldlings with large eyes, who hate the moldlings that live in room 11.

11: Another garden room. The garden beds are overflowing with squat stalks of corn, beans, oversized squashes, and potatoes. Living amongst the plants are 32 moldlings with large eyes, who hate the moldlings that live in room 10. There is a water pump and hose attached to the wall (complexity D) which when operated and placed into a source of liquid can issue forth a blast of water.

12: Office/laboratory. Rows of desks, desktop computers and word processors, knickknacks. Door north leads to room 13, the radio array control room. The narrow passage to room 13 is monitored by the Securitron, a mobile robotic security unit that will not leave room 12 but will attempt to destroy any who attempt to enter room 13.

13: Radio array control room. Door is locked and reinforced. This is the only room in the facility that can turn on and off the radio array, lower or raise the volume of the loudspeakers, etc. A skeleton sits in the command chair, wearing a pair of headphones. Ffarad Ssef really wants to get in here.

14: Sitting room. A skeleton sits in an armchair, holding a rusted knife.

15: Men's sleeping quarters. The ancient mystic-scientists who lived here were gender segregationists for some reason. Some of the 12 beds have skeletons in them. One bed has a single stun ray (complexity C) hidden under perfectly tucked in sheets.

16: Preparation room for the maze. Boots and pairs of goggles left strewn across the floor and benches.

17: Women's sleeping quarters. Some of the 10 beds have skeletons in them. One bed has keys to a hover car stashed under the pillow (whereabouts of the car itself unknown).

18: Secondary bathroom. No shower. Visible damage to the walls caused by Jeb Gorn.

 

The Hypno-Maze

The Hypno-Maze was originally used by the ancient mystic-scientists to study the effects of the cosmic background radiation signal on addled minds. Test subjects (usually volunteers) would be sent through the dimly lit maze, sometimes drugged, made to wander the winding halls until they became confused, and the signal would be played over the loudspeakers to add to their confusion. When wandering the Hypno-Maze, when you roll for a random encounter, roll 1d6:

1: Sources of light go out.

2-3: The players are confused and have been twisted around. Turn them to walk in the opposite direction without their knowledge.

4-5: Hallucination (see below).

6: Exhaustion.

 

Room 19: The only actual room in the Hypno-Maze. Octagonal, with an opening that connects to two passageways in the Hypno-Maze, this served as a resting area and meditation room for those who completed one round of traversing the maze. A ratty rug has a single skeleton in a crumbled lotus pose leaning against the wall. Inside the area where the skeleton's stomach would have been is a keycard to room 13. There is a pile of bottles of purified water on the floor against one of the walls.

 

Random Encounters (for the Main Facility)

Roll 1d6:

1-2: 2d6 Stargazing rats

3: 1 confused and agitated Soul besh

4: Ffarad Ssef, psychic Hisser scholar

5: Jeb Gorn, mutated human copper-burglar

6: Rogue soundwave

Ffarad Ssef and Jeb Gorn are unique characters, and killing them removes them from the encounter table. There are 2 soul beshes total in the observatory; killing both removes them from the encounter table. Replace any removed entries with another result for 2d6 stargazing rats.

A rogue soundwave is a sudden glitch and power surge in the observatory's radio array and internal speaker system which sends out a surprise blast of cosmic background radiation signal through the area the players are currently in. Track the number of rogue soundwaves rolled; after 3 rogue soundwaves, each subsequent one prompts a save vs. mental effects (or a roll against a character's MS score) or else each character experiences a randomly determined hallucination:

Hallucinations from Beyond the Stars (Main Facility)

Roll 1d6:

1: A piercing migraine roils through your skull, as the world around you plunges into the darkest night. Pinpricks of light, stars off in the far, far distance, stab through your eyes like porcupine quills. Collapse to the ground in pain.

2: A looming planet hangs over you, casting a terrible shadow as you fall to your knees in awe and majesty.

3: You feel your skin begin to burn to a crisp. It's only a sensation, not the real thing, but the pain is debilitating until something snaps you out of it.

4: You don't see anything, but you hear the unmistakable rustling sounds of something whooshing past you, the unshakable feeling that you are being watched that won't go away until you leave the room.

5: Rhythmic beeping in your ears that keeps going even after the rogue soundwave falls away, growing louder and louder and louder until you can't function.

6: The walls fall away, revealing a faceless crowd of silhouetted figures just outside of your field of vision. The anxiety caused by this revelations prompts you to flee at high speeds, even though you can't see your surroundings; 3-in-6 chance you hit a wall.

 

hallucinatory horror from between the stars

 

Hallucinations from Beyond the Stars (Hypno-Maze) 

All hallucination rolls on the random encounter table when in the Hypno-Maze prompt a roll on the table below. 

Roll 1d6:

1: A shuddering hallucinatory horror from between the stars melts out from the wall, or suddenly appears when you turn a corner! A pile of shivering visceral tendrils and uncertain limbs, this star vampire lunges at you, you feel its teeth digging into your flesh, but the whole experience never occurred.

2: Suddenly, you collapse to the floor under the weight of gravity on a world you've never set foot on, crushing you, pushing all the air out of your lungs, pinning you down, practically breaking your bones. Once the hallucination is dispelled, it becomes apparent this never occurred.

3: The maze itself falls away, leaving you floating in a formless void. It isn't exactly pure darkness. You are floating among the cosmic background radiation signal, visual noise so dense and confusing it leaves your brain unable to process any of it.

4: You see a large-headed, wide-eyed humanoid peering at you from behind the nearest corner in the maze. A feeling of complete and terrible dread sinks into your body. You are unable to progress further until the feeling has been shaken.

5: There is no air around you. You are in a vacuum. Your body begins to burst at the seams, depressurizing, expanding, exploding, so painful, so excruciatingly painful. You cannot move until the feeling has been shaken, when it becomes apparent this never occurred.

6: An eerie floating light silently hovers at high speed through the maze, colliding with you or flying so close overhead that the sudden whoosh of air painfully explodes in your ears. The heat put off by this floating light blinds and burns you, leaving no real marks.

 

(One possible way to run some of the physically damaging hallucinations could be tracking damage on player characters but making them return to their previous HP upon leaving the maze or the hallucination being dispelled).

 

Stargazing Rat

No. Encountered: 2d6

Hit Dice: 1d6

Attacks: 1 bite (1d6)

Armor: none, but fast reflexes (AC 9 or ascending AC 11)

Morale: (6 for 2d6 morale, 4 for 1d10 morale)

MS: 2d6    IN: 1d4

DX: 2d6    CH: 1d4

CN: 3d6    PS: 1d4

Mutations: none (see below)

Stargazing rats are an isolated population of rodents that have been living isolated within the observatory of the beyond for centuries. The cosmic background radiation signal has directed their evolution. They have large, upward-facing eyes tinted pink, coarse black-haired bodies that splay flat on the ground, and long wormlike tails. They are immune to all psychic effects and mental mutations, but radio transmissions tuned to the wavelength of the cosmic background radiation signal can control their movements. They attack all at once as a swarm with 2d6x1d6 HP and 2d6 bite attacks per combat round.

(Doing a new statblock format for these GW posts that mixes the stuff in my typical D&D statblock with info from the GW 1e and 2e statblocks, to make it essentially edition neutral for Gamma World)

 

I'll always love the GW7e monster art... for comparison, the GW2e Soul Besh below (they're both good in different ways!)

Adapted from GW1e and 2e:

Soul Besh (Skeeters)

No. Appearing: 1

Hit Dice: 10(d6)

Attacks: see description

Armor: 8 (ascending AC 12)

Morale: (7 for 2d6 morale, 1d4+1 for 1d10 morale)

MS: 1d4        IN: 1d4

DX: 3d6        CH: 1d4

CN: 1d10+2  PS: 1d10+2

Mutations: Chameleon powers, intuition

From GW1e: "This is a flightless, mutated mosquito with chameleon powers. It often attains a length of over 1.3 meters and inhabits swamps, marshes, grasslands, and forests, where its powers of concealment enable it to ambush prey. It has a 2 meter long coiled proboscis, which is inserts (preferably into a sleeping victim) causing an immediate 1d6 damage and, in the same melee round, the soul besh begins sucking blood at a rate of 12 hit points per melee turn. The exoskeleton of the soul besh, when boiled down in a large cauldron, will yield 150 cc of syrupy antidote to intensity 18 poison. 10 cc is the required dose for humans."

(The two soul besh in the observatory of the beyond became trapped in the facility when Ffarad Ssef entered some time previous. They are agitated (disadvantage on reaction rolls) because they haven't been able to escape the facility. They will react positively to being ushered out through the facility's front door.)

 

Ffarad Ssef, psychic Hisser scholar

HP: 66

Attacks: 1 sword (1d8, 1d12 vs large enemies) and 1 bite (1d6)

Armor: 3 (ascending AC 17)

Morale: (8 for 2d6 morale, 7 for 1d10 morale) 

MS:  14    IN: 14

DX: 9       CH: 9

CN: 16     PS: 26

Mutations: Mass Mind, Sonic Blast, Telepathy, Repulsion Field, and Multiple Body Parts (arms)

Ffarad Ssef is a scholar from a desert colony of Hissers, a psychic race of matriarchal colonial snake people. He is in the observatory to record the original cosmic radiation signal sound directly from the radio array, in order to amplify his glorious mother's sonic blast with cosmic super-signal. He has a bulging brain tumor that is the source of his psychic abilities, which he dresses up in a miniature set of ritual robes and refers to as his little sister. Like all Hissers, Ffarad Ssef is immune to lasers and sonic blasts.

 

Jeb Gorn, mutated human copper-burglar

HP: 39

Attacks: 1 knife (1d4) and 1 quill-throw (1d12) OR 1 quill strike (1d6)

Armor: none (AC 10)

Morale: (6 for 2d6 morale, 4 for 1d10 morale) 

MS: 9    IN: 9

DX: 14  CH: 13

CN: 13  PS: 13  

Mutations: Vision defect, Quills/spines, Body structure change (one eye), Weather manipulation, Life leech

Jeb Gorn is a wandering copper-burglar who ventures into ancient structures to strip them of their copper wiring and copper plating. She uses weather manipulation to, in the leadup to her expeditions, create stormclouds that dissuade other copper-burlgars from venturing into her chosen quarry. She has set up camp somewhere in the forests around the observatory of the beyond, but has been staying in the observatory for a couple days trying to get access to the insides of the walls. She does not get on well with Ffarad Ssef.

  

Moldlings

No. Appearing: 6d6

Hit Dice: 3(d6)

Attacks: 1 bludgeon (1d4) OR 1 fungal touch (see below)

Armor: 9 (ascending AC 11)

Morale: (9 for 2d6 morale, 8 for 1d10 morale)

MS: 2d6        IN: 1d6

DX: 3d6        CH: 2d6

CN: 1d8+2    PS: 1d6

Mutations: see below

The moldlings are mildly intelligent mutated soil mold that has lived for hundreds of mold-generations in the two hydroponic garden beds of the facility. The two moldling communities in each individual garden bed absolutely despise one another. They tend to be friendly to outsiders, unless they see you collaborating with the enemy. They are limited to areas with mold growth, confining them to the two garden rooms. Their touch communicates a sickening fungus that acts as a strength 6 poison. 

 

Securitron
Power source: Broadcast Power 
Sensors: Standard, infrared, ultraviolet

Control: Vocal (admin ID), programmed

Construction: 2 meters tall, radially symmetrical cylindrical upper body with three tri-jointed arms, two ambulatory lower limbs. Its three arms can lift and move up to 150 kilograms. Two arms end with metallic tentacle-fingered hands, while the third features a metallic claw.  The metallic tentacle-fingers are tipped with paralytic nodules, while the red nodule atop the unit's head is able to emit a high-temperature laser beam that deals 3d10 damage. 12 HD (72 HP), armor 3 (ascending 17).

A Real 17th-Century Dungeon Delve

Earlier this year, I read An Ottoman Traveller: Selections from the Book of Travels by Evliya Çelebi, in part following a very exciting and happy trip to Istanbul in December/early January. Evliya Çelebi was a seventeenth-century Ottoman nobleman, muezzin, Qur'an reciter, and possible Sufi initiate who embarked on a life-long endeavor of travel following a dream wherein the prophet Muhammad, the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and the muezzin Bilal vouchsafed him and gave him the mission of travel. It's a really great book, a super fun read that puts into English translation most of the majorly important, interesting, and sometimes shockingly humorous scenes from Evliya Çelebi's travels (it doesn't feature all of his Seyahatname, which has never been fully translated into English). While there are more tidbits which I think are worth sharing, I wanted to highlight a specific episode which was so surprisingly relevant to this blog and to OSR, location-based adventure design... Evliya's description of what amounts to a real dungeon delve from the seventeenth-century Ottoman Empire!

I finished the book months ago and have been sitting on a draft of this post for a full month, if that tells you where I've been at any. Procrastination central over here.

1839 painting by Francis Arundale

Anyway! I'm not going to quote the entire section in full, because its actually quite long. The dungeon in question are the ancient depths of the pyramids of Giza, which have fascinated people with their age, grandeur, and mystery for just about as long as they've existed. If you're curious as to what medieval Muslims before Evliya's time thought about the ancient Egyptian pyramids, check out this very informative video on the topic from the Islamic history channel al Muqaddimah (while you're there, also check out this video on how the Mongol khans became Muslim sultans, which I wrote most of the script for!). Evliya calls the pyramids of Giza "three mountains," lauding them as the man-made versions of Mount Qaf, the mythical cosmological mountain so large it encircles the world, and even gives names to each of these mountains (these are Mt. Balbahith (aka Belhib), Mt. Malhawiya (aka Belhube), and Mt. Abu'l-hawl (which actually refers to the Sphinx)). He also goes over the many conflicting accounts for why the pyramids were created, which (at least in this translation) reads very much like the kind of fantastical yet purposefully uncertain worldbuilding that is widespread in these circles:

There are thousands of stories about these artificial mountains. Some chroniclers say they were built before the Flood by Ad ibn Shaddad. Others maintain that before the flood, King Surid, at the urging of his soothsayers, built them as a tomb for himself. When they were finished he filled the three pyramids with treasure, put in weapons, and also placed therein the books of all the sciences written by the prophet Idris. He set up talismans and guardians (?) and covered the pyramids with brocade, making them a hidden treasure. He also built a great city on the shores of the Nile where the guards of the pyramid resided. Every year, in spring, all the people of the world came and circumambulated the pyramids, as they do the Ka'ba.

Even now, in the northern pyramid, there is a south-facing gate, inside of which, on the right side, is a Hebrew inscription carved on the rocks. It reads, "I who built the pyramids completed them in six years. May those who come after me be able to tear them down from their foundations in 600 years. Indeed, it is easier to tear down than to build up. And I covered them with brocade. May the kings who come after me be able to cover with them reed mats."

Further, Evliya recounts a tale of the Caliph Ma'mun, who came from Baghdad to Giza to uncover the treasures of the pyramids, and whose efforts to do so proved the above inscription, because after spending seven months just to excavate 20 cubits from the pyramid, his workers only uncovered a jar containing enough gold pieces to exactly cover the exorbitant costs of the excavation thus far and nothing else. But, lest he let his own ego be overcome by this, he boasts his plan to overcome the ancient mountains:

As for the saying of Surid - "I built the pyramids in six years. May the kings who come after me be able to tear them down in 600 years" - the interpretation of this humble one is: If I were to mine the pyramids with 100 quintals of black powder and one 'six-treasure' mine that was used in the siege of Candia castle, the mountains of Ahram (the pyramids) would be blown sky-high like an ihram (pilgrim's garment) and no trace would be left of the building, not even the foundation, but all would crumble to the ground and melt into the Nile.

But, to tell the truth, I have never seen such a huge building on the face of the earth...

Inside the great pyramid of Khufu

And now, the dungeon delve proper: 

God be praised that, during the governorship of Ibrahim Pasha, I spent five or ten days partying next to the pyramids, while our horses were grazing in the nearby meadow, and I had occasion to tour them several times and marvel at them.

On one occasion there were forty-five of us, including some in the retinue of the Master of the Horse and Behlul Agha and other officers. We brought torches, oilcloth lanterns and wind-tapers. After clearing away the sand and rubbish from the door on the northern side of the large pyramid, we took refuge in God and entered with a besmele. This humble one kept an eye on the compass and the watch.

The first 700 paces in a southern direction was a broad highway, fifteen cubits wide and surmounted by vaults 20 cubits high. There were numerous caves on either side, also man-made halls with domes carved from the soft rock stratum and gilded and decorated as though just emerged from the hand of Bihzad. Every cell was full of human bones, and every skull could hold 100 bushels of wheat. Only God knows how many skulls there were, both large and small. In our path lay a shinbone, still covered with its skin, that was 71 spans as measured by this humble one's hand. There were an abundance of such bones.

One large cave was full of human corpses that lay shrouded in date-palm fibres. And there were several hundred skeletons (or mummies), each 70 or 80 paces tall. But we nearly suffocated from the smell of bat droppings, the bats being as large as crows and hanging from the rocks by their claws. Some hurled themselves at the lanterns and torches and scorched their wings. Some struck us in the face.

At this juncture, a few of our companions got frightened and went back with one or two lanterns. The thirty-five of us who were left summoned our  courage and went on for another hour, along a gently descending slope, our compass pointing south. We saw vaulted halls like the Vault of Chosroes, each containing mummified human corpses, and near them, trampled in the dust, rotted reed mats and pieces of cloth woven of date-palm fibre.

Fifty paces further on, continuing on a downward slope, we came upon a large pool of clear water. But all around the edge sat frightful birds, as large as eagles or geese. As soon as they saw us, they flapped their wings and produced a thunderous noise that made our brains ooze from our ears. And the bats besmirched us and our clothes with their droppings. Meanwhile the torchbearers informed us they were running out of kindling. The noise produced by those eagles' wings was particularly dreadful.

We had no heart to advance a single step beyond that pool, and had just decided to turn around when a freezing-cold wind from the direction of the birds made us shudder with apprehension. What would we do if our torches and lanterns went out? The bats meanwhile, that were the size of pigeons, kept fluttering at the flames like moths and brushing against our faces with their wings. It nearly drove us crazy.

To make a long story short, guided by the piles of stones we had set up along the way, we somehow managed to make our way back and emerged safe and sound. Our companions who had fled earlier teased us, saying, "Where did you get these filthy faces and strange looks?" God knows, though we emerged safely, we were completely exhausted. But it was a tremendous experience! Only God knows what lies beyond that pool.

Thus this humble one saw the inside of one of the pyramids. There was no buried treasure, only buried men. But there is no doubt that it is under a talismanic power. For when we came to that pool, all of us were confounded, and we remained in this stunned condition until we came out into the air, when we recovered our souls. God save us! May I never be vouchsafed to enter it again.

After returning to our tents for breakfast and coffee, we surveyed the pyramids from all sides. Two of them have a square base with each side 200 paces long, making the circumference 800 paces. Each of the stones is 20 or 30 cubits. The large pyramid has a door on the northern side through which we entered, but the other two have no visible entrance. The Abu'l-hawl pyramid (the Sphinx) is quite small, but both are mountains with square base and pointed tip reaching up to the sky.

I climbed up the pyramid that we had entered. At the top there isa square or arena large enough to pitch a pup-tent with ten flaps. In some of the crevices I found jesses and hoods and pigeon rings and anklets. All Cairo was spread out beneath my feet - so lofty are these mountains. There are also structures built of black stone and guarded by talismans all around the pyramids. I would need an entire volume to describe them all.

I hope that you may forgive the lengthy quotation! I just loved this whole episode from the moment that I read it. It is so completely unlike what we now know to be inside the pyramids at Giza, to the point that clearly it must be fabricated, but none of the details surrounding the actual expedition into the pyramid appears fantastical or fabricated at all. The talismanic power that surrounds the pyramid fits very well into the aca'ib literature in the Ottoman Empire at the time, the literature of the fantastic and miraculous, more or less the early modern Ottoman equivalent of paranormal literature. But on top of that, the imagery here is just so unsettling! Giant, looming skeletons and desiccated corpses, a pool of dark water thronged by huge uncanny birds (birds explicitly compared with eagles and geese especially, for some reason roosting in this completely closed-in space, just feels so fundamentally wrong). It's just too good!!

Thinking through Evliya's description as an actual dungeon, it reads very much like a classic dungeon where the main concerns are resource depletion brought on by the systemic exploration of large ancient spaces which may have rather monotonous architecture. Not quite a fair comparison, but reminds me some of good ol' megadungeons like what we have of Gary's notes for Castle Greyhawk, or the early OSR favorite Stonehell. None of the giant corpses come to life like something out of Barrowmaze, but they very very effectively set the tone (alongside the giant "vaults of Chosroes" (Khosrau Anushirvan)) for the methodical exploration. This is then capped off with a room that seems to be half "special" (i.e. the mysterious pool with the birds posing a particularly sound-based challenge for Evliya and the other adventurers) and half a monster lair. I love the birds so much dude.

That's all I wanted to make this post for :) It's just a very very cool OSR-y episode from an extensive collection of such evocative anecdotes and descriptions which document a life of travel in the seventeenth century. I would love to run a dungeon with even half the rich oozing darkness of Evliya's description here.

Ottoman miniature of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (they slept in a cave which is underground like the pyramid dungeon is, so its thematically appropriate)

Joesky tax for this otherwise non-gameable post:

Frightful Birds of the Pyramid 

Number Encountered: 4d8

Hit Dice: 1+2

Attacks: 1 bite (1d6) + 1 claw (1d6) OR frightful flapping

Armor: as leather

Morale: 8

Bat symbiosis: Frightful birds of the pyramid have a mutualistic relationship with the guano-producing bats which dwell in the pyramid and which have the uncanny ability to crawl through the paper-thin gaps in the masonry. They subsist on the bat's guano, given few other food sources. When frightful birds of the pyramid are engaged in frightful flapping (see below), they agitate their bat partners and prompt them to release guano on the birds' interlopers, which applies an additional -1 to the save vs. noise required as well as having a chance to spread disease.

Frightful flapping: When there are six or more frightful birds of the pyramid in close proximity, they may produce a frightful flapping which overwhelms the senses and disempowers those who hear it. Those within earshot must save vs. noise or be overcome with a terrible sense of impending doom and anxiety that prompts them to flee. This save has a penalty of -1 for every 6 frightful birds which are present.

Appearing like great looming shaggy geese, pallid and sickly with uncannily wide and arm-like wingspans and feathers choked with occasional spats of grey, the frightful birds of the pyramid were trapped within this ancient structure long ago, when it was first closed up. This is typically attributed to the long forgotten god of knowledge and writing having decided to do so on a whim. Now, the things are adapted to the darkness within the great pyramids. They subsist on bat guano and linger around deep dark pools of stagnant water. When threatened, they use their numbers to their advantage, flapping violently to produce a horrible echoing noise; when this fails, they attack with their beaks from their long flexible necks and slash with one webbed foot, the other foot comically hopping on the ground like an animal that never properly learned how to walk. They do not guard treasure. "There was no buried treasure, only buried men."

GO VOTE IN THE BLOGGIES OR ELSE

 HI HELLO HI

I'm posting this like a day late but that's okay that's whatever.

My unnecessarily long-running post series Goin' Through the Fiend Folio has been nominated for a BLOGGIE for Best Series, and I am formally requesting that YOU vote for it! You can vote for up to three blog series so it's okay if you vote for other ones too, but PLEASE vote for the humble Fiend Folio too!!!

TBH though I'm just happy to be included :) Like, what do you mean my little monster review series is nominated side by side with Josh's Designing Dungeons Course??? Are you forreal????

But uhhh if I want to win I've gotta be cutthroat uh uh uh if you don't vote for Goin' Through the Fiend Folio for best series then I'm going to burn down your crops and give your wife/husband/spouse a debilitating illness. If you're not married yet, you're lucky that my debilitating illness doesn't work on girlfriends and boyfriends

Go HERE, click VOTE NOW, and on the page for best series vote for GOIN THROUGH THE FIEND FOLIO !!!!!!!

 

EDIT: didn't win it :( but that's okay :) congrats to Josh and elmcat and all the others who did win!! and thank you if you voted for me at all! 

Fish-Eaters of the Enlightened Empire (A Character Background for King of Kings)

  These Ichthyophagi subsist on what their name is derived from, — fish. Yet only a few of them fish out in the deep, for boats to do it with are scarce, and the art of fishing is unknown. Generally speaking, they are indebted for their fish to the ebb-tide. To take advantage of it, they make for themselves nets which are mostly two stadia in length. These they weave from the bark of the palm-tree, twisting the fibres like flax, Now when the sea retires from the land, the parts left dry are generally found to be without fish, while the hollows, which of course retain some water, swarm with them. The fish are generally small, though some are of considerable size: these they catch with their nets. The more delicate kinds they eat raw as soon as they are taken out of the water, but the large and coarser kinds they dry in the sun, and when sufficiently dried grind into a sort of flour, from which they make bread. They bake also cakes from this flour. The cattle, as well as the men, eat the dry fish, for there are no meadows in the country, nor grass at all. But in many parts they fish also for crabs and oysters and mussels. Natural salt is found in the land [...] from these they make oil. Some of the tribes inhabit desolate tracts which are so utterly sterile that they bear neither trees nor even wild fruits. These poor wretches have nothing but fish to live on. A few of them, however, sow some part of their land, and use the produce to eat for zest along with their fish, which forms the staple of their diet. The better classes build houses of whale-bone, which they collect from the carcasses of whales cast ashore, and use instead of wood. The doors are formed of the broadest bones they can find. The poorer members, who form the great majority of the population, construct their, houses with the backbones of fish.

-Arrian, The Indica

O Commander of the faithful!
It's a land where the plains are stony;
Where water is scanty;
Where the fruits are unsavory;
Where men are known for treachery;
Where plenty is unknown;
Where virtue is held of little account;
And where evil is dominant.
A large army is less for there;
And a less army is use less there;
The land beyond it, is even worse

-Messenger to the Caliph 'Umar, 
quoted in The History of the Prophets and Kings by al-Tabari

 

The coast of modern-day Makran, in southern Iran

 On the far southern littoral of the Enlightened Empire, where the mountains slope almost suddenly into the salt-flats and scorching beaches by the southern sea, dwell the Fish-Eaters. This nation of subject barbarians are the southernmost subjects of the most enlightened King of Kings, living in a land second only to the Kavir-e Bozorg in terms of heat and oppressive sunlight, and thus the most distant from civilized habits like farming, honest trade, bricklaying, slavery, and misogyny. Constantly living on the brink, there is no time for Fish-Eaters to care for such things. As the geographers of the First City describe, the Fish-Eaters are so called because their blighted land cannot grow any meaningful crop, and so the people there rely on fishing, even grinding dried fish into flour and building houses out of the bones of sea serpents, whales, and sharks. Even the few domesticated animals they (occasionally) keep feed on fish, and the flesh of dogs and scrawny cows from the littoral regions of Mahestan have a repugnant oily quality and rotten smell even when freshly killed.

Since the Fish-Eaters are well known for their vagaries and treachery, the office of satrap of Mahestan has been left intentionally vacant for several generations (he would, naturally, be too vulnerable to bribes, coercions, and assassinations by his own benighted subjects) -- instead, terrible Mahestan is de facto governed by the policeman-general of Parch (the closest thing to a city along the coast), the constantly cycling-out Sub-satrap of Lesser Mountain Passes (an administrative position that seems to only exist to punish those who fall out of favor in court), and the Middle Herbad Over the Eternal Flame of Chelonis. The temple at Chelonis is a fully-stocked temple of Truth, complete with an Eternal Flame that is constantly at the brink of going out due to the region's lack of forests for good fuel. This Flame was lit under the auspices of a temple faction which had preeminence under a previous Shahanshah, and which had a broader conception of which nations were truly good and eligible for religious virtue. They wished to redeem the immorality of the Fish-Eaters by introducing the light of Truth to their midst; now, a few generations later, the priesthood has changed its orientation and finds the Eternal Flame out on the edge of the sea to be a liability in a swarm of barbarians that Truth disdains. This sputtering Eternal Flame is fueled by turtle shells and charcoal made from the bark of sickly date palms.

Anyways, the majority of the Fish-Eaters have always been disinterested by the Eternal Flame at Chelonis. For one, they do not make fire themselves, and have no respect for it. The sun itself is half of Truth, for them. It dries their catch, after all! On the other hand, its heat is half of the Lie. To the Fish-Eaters, the sun is a malfeasance, a duplicitous god that gives with the same hand he takes with. No, the only thing that can be trusted is the Sea. The Sea is a distant but ever-present mother, who they are constantly taking from, accruing a beautiful debt they can never repay. The Fish-Eaters have no boat-making culture of their own, and view the surface of the wine dark sea as the skin of their own mother, who should never be cut or injured. They shoot down diving birds, and would also shoot at every single sailor that crossed their stretch of coast were it not for the policeman-general at Parch. They especially distrust Froglings, in their fly-powered dhows. A sailor that leaves the sea is, after a certain length of time, forgiven as a gift of hospitality. The scars from his ship's rudder heal over, and he can be forgiven, at least until he sets out to sea again. They sacrifice elaborate scrimshaw effigies of children and dogs in burying rituals on the beach, letting the tide come in and take away the sympathetic magic of whatever they wish kept safe.

They also disdain the Eternal Flame at Chelonis because the area around it is inhabited by their sworn enemies, the Turtle-Eaters.

In the angle of Carmania are the Chelonophagi, who cover their cabins with the shells of turtles, and live upon their flesh...

-Pliny the Elder, Natural History Book VI, Chapter 28

The Turtle-Eaters are identical in all respects to the Fish-Eaters, at least as far as those from the rest of the Enlightened Empire can tell, other than that the one builds huts of fish bones and the other of turtle shells. They get into shouting matches that quickly escalate to brawls practically on sight.

An Ichthyophagus, from (I believe) the edition of Wonders of the East bound in the Beowulf manuscript (Nowell codex, Anglo-Saxon, circa 1000 CE)

CHARACTER BACKGROUND: FISH-EATER

Fish-Eater (fish-skin loincloth, net, short knife, near-encyclopedic knowledge of southern sea fishes, lack of upper class niceties, a scrimshaw effigy)

What does my scrimshaw effigy depict?
Roll 1d12:
1: A whale caught in a net
2: A baby strangling a bird
3: A man eating a fish eating a turtle
4: A sumptuously dressed dog-headed man with a spear through his chest
5: A mother holding a fish like a child
6: An eel all tied up in knots
7: A mer-man with fish's tails for feet, holding a date palm in one hand
8: A mother with multiple breasts, a fish suckling on each one
9: A fat woman with an oyster shell for a head
10: A sea serpent holding a sleeping man in its mouth
11: A dugong with a metaphorical map of the world carved on its back
12: A crab with a human face

Fish-Eaters, in any King of Kings game I run, are inevitably foreigners to wherever the game is taking place (although a game set in Mahestan could be interesting!). It'd be a neat line of thought to have to think over both how your Fish-Eater character got to wherever the game is set, as well as how they entered into their character class. A magic-using priest trained at the Temple of Chelonis, or perhaps someone initiated into local sea-mysteries; fighters and thieves seem like easier bets given the reputation of the region, but if making a Fish-Eater fighter it could be worth asking, if your fighter character had military experience, in what war was this distant province conscripted into? The Kingdom of the Southern Dog-Headed Men is right next door (keep an eye out for a future post about them), so maybe a Fish-Eater character had to face off against dapper cannibal kings and their retinues and, having spent so long away from the sea, feels unable to return home. OSR games might not encourage the development of deep character backstories, but this sort of thing is always an interesting avenue to connect characters in with the rest of a living world :)

Actually ngl an all fish eater campaign set in Mahestan would kinda go hard