Goin' Through the Fiend Folio Part 7 (Galltrit to Githzerai)

 It was not my intention to have such a gap since my last Fiend Folio review... Well, back to it! This next section, the letter G, has a few too many monsters to cover in one post so I'll be halving it, nine this time eight the next.

Galltrit

★★☆☆☆

Just a weird little bloodsucker! I think the image of a grotesque little humanoid with anticoagulant spit is fantastic, but the mechanic that involves constitution drain and delayed healing is a bit clumsy. The galltrit being difficult to notice is cool, but weird with how large it looks in the drawing (also, why that lil guy got such a booty?), but its pretty central to the monster since if you are drained of enough blood to lose 3 points of CON (i.e. after 12 rounds) you just straight up collapse! That's pretty great, I love a bloodsucker that just sucks enough to knock you out, doesn't kill you necessarily.

Gambado

★★★★☆

A very unique and sadly underutilized creature! It isn't explicitly stated here but I get the vibe that the gambado is like some kind of skull hermit crab, since it is mentioned that its skull-head can be either an animal or a "primitive man" (I figure some kind of neanderthal skull, which is just such a good image on the shoulders of such an inhuman creature), and it is mentioned that they gather together in places with lots of bones. The spring-loaded manner in which they pounce, move, and attack is just delightful, and I love how they really take on the expectations of a dungeon monster; they hoard gold and jewels in their little hidey holes! I think these shouldn't be played as straightforwardly violent monsters; they're ambush predators for sure, but play with them as animals, or perhaps as creatures with some modicum of intelligence!

Garbug

★★★★☆

I'm gonna be completely honest, the garbug is definitely carried by the visuals and the concept. Sure it doesn't really do anything all that unique, the paralytic tentacles are seen in the carrion crawler, plenty of giant insects or flying enemies for adventurers to face off against, but are any of them a horrible fusion of a lobster and a wasp? I think the two different "types" are a bit redundant, at least in how they're presented. I would love it if the black and violet garbug were instead the species' two sexes. It would make sense! They share morphology for the most part but are sexually dimorphic. Though, notice how the garbug illustration gives them both the black garbug's proboscis and the violet garbug's pincers... an intersex garbug! I just think its a very monster movie esque giant bug mutant, and I love it for that.

Fog Giant

★★☆☆☆

Not very distinct from the cloud giant from the Monster Manual, something further exacerbated by the fog giant being encountered with cloud giants if enough fog giants are rolled. I'm giving them two stars though because I actually think the fog giant is much more interesting than the cloud giant. Their pale skin and "black penetrating eyes" give such a unique appearance, and having them explicitly wear the skin of white dragons is honestly kinda cool, also I can only imagine what sort of "ornate swords" they love so much. They just feel much more characterful than cloud giants, but that doesn't make them super great.

Mountain Giant

★☆☆☆☆

This is just a hill giant but bigger and tougher. While the fog giant was basically just a cloud giant but weaker, it at least had more unique details and implied personality to make it stand out somewhat... the mountain giant has nothing like that. Not a fan of the weirdness around meeting giantesses of the mountain giants, it is always so strange to me how fixated some AD&D authors were on the sex makeup of monster lairs (although here it is rare to ever encounter a female mountain giant or young mountain giant so I just... don't get the point of even including it). Sorry to say it, but a pretty much worthless monster I am not inclined to use.

Giant Strider

★★★★☆

Oh my god these things are birds? I actually did realize this before writing this post, but it wasn't that long ago, just earlier this year; this whole time I thought giant striders were two-legged lizard things! Then being featherless birds makes me love them a whole lot more. At their core, they're just good effective flightless birds. However, they have a super fun and unique defense mechanism: the ability to shoot fireballs from glands on the corners of their eyes! Really evokes the blood-spewing adaptations of the horned toads... is their blood made of fire? I love how they are so adapted to hot environments that fire spells act as cure light wounds for them, that is such a unique detail, and it is so good that they made sure to include the inverse: cold spells deal extra damage. Not a fan of how they never check morale, but I honestly never am a fan of overusing never checking morale. Y'know, actually looking closer at the giant strider's abilities have really given me a new appreciation for them, I never used to care much about them but this is such a unique monster.

Gibberling

★★☆☆☆

I want to like gibberlings, I really do, I mean just look at the name! The idea of a bunch of pallid subterranean humanoids that just make weird incomprehensible noises is so good... but the execution is intensely subpar. They always fight to the death (again, never a fan of things that overuse never checking morale), they just attack with swords and are just good at fighting with swords like a normal swordsman is, they have no discernable language and no leaders and no real society despite somehow being able to utilize tactics and somehow being able to produce metal swords. In the end, these are just another brand of boring humanoid to mow down, and they don't even have the benefit of being able to parlay with! It is the worst of both worlds: the inability to communicate of a mindless crazed animal, and the qualities of a generic D&D humanoid. I would much rather it commit to being one or the other (and ideally the mindless incomprehensible babbling one, since that is such a unique image and there are already so many other monstrous humanoids around).

Githyanki

★★★★☆

The githyanki are one of those monsters with such a unique vibe going on that you kind of have to appreciate them. I especially appreciate them here where they look like absolute ghouls with skin drawn tight on their bones. In terms of their place in the game world, they are fantastic: the mutated evolved descendants of humans bound in mind flayer slavery for generations, having rebelled from the mind flayers using developed psychic abilities, now dwelling in a higher dimension, worshiping an undying lich-queen, doing expeditions into the material world, and having special agreements with red dragons that let them ride them around. That is just so so much absolutely fantastic detail, I love it! As far as humanoid factions go, I don't think there is much better than the githyanki. The githyanki are what I wish the (Fiend Folio version of) the dark elves were, in terms of evocative detail. Less interested in the specifics of the composition of their parties and treasure rates, but those are just kind of expected for AD&D 1e humanoids. Though I will say, I love the detail that their silver swords can sever people's connections to their physical bodies when they are in the astral plane. The only reason they aren't a 5 star is that they aren't universally usable; if I were to put the githyanki into a setting, I would want them to be a major part of said setting. They have to be tied into the rest of the game world, or else all of this interesting detail becomes ultimately unimportant. Also I think it would be cool to take historical inspirations from real life societies that grew out of revolution; githyanki society as a fantasy version of Actually Existing Socialism would be such a cool angle to take.

The githyanki are also the only monster in today's post to be featured back in the Fiend Factory column. The Factory version of the githyanki is more or less identical to the Folio version, even featuring identical art. I am honestly much more inclined to use this version mechanics-wise, if only because it is much simpler. A lot of the same details are here, including weapon and class probabilities, but it is just explained in way fewer words. Don Turnbull's comment isn't very interesting, though I am intrigued by his characterizing the githyanki as a "'tribal' beast"... what on earth does that mean. Small tribes aren't mentioned anywhere in the githyanki description, in fact the mention of the lich queen makes me think that the githyanki are governed by one single tyrannical state. He says that the swords are cool though, and on that count I think I am inclined to agree.

Githzerai

★★★☆☆

I am... considerably less interested in the githzerai as I am in the githyanki. Firstly, appearance-wise they are just less interesting looking, dropping the githyanki's hellish skeletal visage for... being a race of completely identical lanky monks? The description doesn't say they all look the same, but all four of the githzerai seen in the illustrations have the exact same face, which honestly provides a much more interesting implication than anything in the rest of the description (are they perhaps a race of clones?). The githyanki-githzerai war and the githzerai truce with the mind flayers are only really interesting when paired with what the githyanki have going on, which kind of ends up making the githzerai feel less independent conceptually. Though I will say, now that I've suggested githyanki as monstrous AES, I guess the githzerai end up as... revisionists? Anti-revisionists? A bit of a silly thought perhaps, but I end up much more enthused for my version of the githzerai than for the one presented in the Folio proper. The githzerai wizard-king would feel less interesting compared to the githyanki lich-queen except apparently the wizard-king never lets githzerai advance past 9th level? What on earth does he do, does he kill them? See I just end up interested in questions or musings prompted by isolated sentences in the description or comparisons with the githyanki, rather than the githzerai on their own! They would be only two stars if they didn't prompt such musings; as it stands, just on their own they are very very weak.

GLOG Class: Beekeeper

 Something finally clicked with the GLOG for me. I've been reading GLOG posts for basically as long as the GLOG has existed (and in some ways, since before even! Way back in 2015, when I was only 14 years old, I released an incomplete Gamma World inspired ruleset with rules derived from a bunch of posts that would later form the GLOG... Because of this, I'm actually technically listed as the first GLOGhack on the unified GLOG spreadsheet, even though this predated the GLOG itself! But this is all beside the point), but even though I've been exposed to all of it, I just could never really get into it. In many ways, this was because it was all spread out, and when I read the rules written by Arnold K. or Skerples it didn't really feel like I understood the GLOG... But now I'm increasingly into it! Don't worry though, I'm not going to completely succumb to GLOGification, there will still be things written up here for OSE/BX, but really the GLOG isn't too different in its applications! Well, I'll shut up with this preamble now, here is a class that I had an idea for just for fun!

The bee is the wisest and cleverest of all animals and the closest to man in intelligence; its works is truly divine and of the greatest use to mankind. Its social life resembles that of the best regulated cities. In their excursions bees follow a leader and obey instructions. They bring back sticky secretions from flowers and trees and spread them like ointment on their floors and doorways. Some are employed in making honey and some in other tasks. The bee is extremely clean, settling on nothing that is bad-smelling or impure; it is not greedy; it will not approach flesh or blood or fat but only things of sweet flavour. It does not spoil the work of others, but fiercely defends its own work against those who try to spoil it. Aware of its own weakness, it makes the entrance to its home narrow and winding, so that those entering in large numbers to do harm are easily destroyed by the guardian bees.

This animal is pleased by a good tune: when they are scattered, therefore, beekeepers clash cymbals or clap their hands rhythmically to bring them home. This is the only animal that looks for a leader to take care of the whole community: it always honours its king, follows him enthusiastically wherever he goes, supports him when he is exhausted, carries him and keeps him safe when he cannot fly. It particularly hates laziness; bees unite to kill the ones who do no work and use up others’ production. Its mechanical skill and near-logical understanding is shown by the fact that it makes hexagonal cells to store honey.

-The Geoponika compiled by Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus

The Beekeeper

Each template of Beekeeper you have gives you +1 hit points.

Skills: Beekeeping, Insect Identification, Starting Fires

Starting Equipment: A thick cloth garb for handling the bees in, a hood and wicker mask, nice warm boots, thick hardy gloves, a flint and tinder fire starter, a long metal spoon (1d4), a beehive (takes up three item slots, must be carried with both hands, placed down if you want to use your hands).

A Personal Hives

B Smoke it All Away

C Defensive Swarm

D One with the Bees

Personal Hives

Your bees take on distinct personalities and aspects based on what you feed them. These effects are apparent in their honey and in their stings (a few example personal hives are provided below). In order to fully utilize the effects, you must carry the hive with you, to harvest its honey at its freshest and allow the bees to sting any dangerous foes. Honey can be eaten as a meal to heal hit points as a normal ration. If the bees are stinging, however, you and anyone who gets within range must wear a beekeeper suit or be forced to make a saving throw to avoid the sting's effect. You can change what you feed a hive, but the change will leave that hive without its unique effects for the two weeks it takes the bees to become acclimated.

Smoke it All Away

By burning sweet-smelling and aromatic woods, flowers, and fungi you are able to produce a smoke which can calm any insect of any size. It does, however, take more smoke to calm ever-larger insects. The smoke must be able to surround at least half the creature; to calm a giant insect of about the size of a human, for instance, you must create a large fire that makes enough billowing smoke to account for their size. Attacking the insect once calmed immediately breaks the calm.

Defensive Swarm

You are able to induce the bees in the hive you are carrying to form a defensive shield-like swarm cloud surrounding you in all directions. The defensive swarm keeps you safe from melee attacks, and deals 1d4 damage plus the hive's sting effect to any attacker who steps within it, but does not keep you safe from ranged attacks, fires, electricity, etc. Billows of flame, lightning strikes, very large melee attacks/boulders, etc. will kill all of the bees in the swarm, ending that hive for good.

One with the Bees

You are able to speak with bees of all sorts, are immune to the effects of insect stings (though scorpion stings still affect you and insect bites still affect you!), and your defensive swarm is able to carrying you through the air as a suitable spell that provides flight, as well as being able to coat your body to defend yourself from melee attacks (reduces damage by 2, hive entirely depleted after four attacks).

Example Personal Hives

Rosewater Hive

Fed with: roses watered with rosewater, cultivated in a geometric garden

Honey: Liquid Longing, any who ingest it must save or be overtaken by intense feelings of morose longing for love that they know they can never have.

Sting: The Rose's Thorn, 1 point of damage per round for 1d4 rounds.

Lavender Hive

Fed with: the finest most fragrant lavendar

Honey: Beautiful Scent, able to transfix any who smell it on a failed save, heals 1d4 hit points when ingested.

Sting: Putrid Purple, turns your skin purple and makes you swell up on a failed save, slowing you down and making you unable to move if you are wearing tight armor.

Carnivorous Hive

Fed with: raw meat

Honey: Fetid Stench, forces any who smell it to recoil in disgust, possibly even to run away. Cannot be eaten as a ration.

Sting: Withering Away, 1d3 damage and -1 STR per hour.

Amish Characters for Gamma World

This is mostly just a post for my sake and to share a small aspect of the Gamma World game I previously posted about here. 

So traditionally in Gamma World, there are only three options for characters: Pure Strain Humans, Humanoids (sometimes rendered as Mutated/Mutant Humans), and Mutated/Mutant Animals. There have always been options for making plant-based characters since the first edition but there were also always strict "no players can be plants" stuff which honestly is kinda cringe; basically the mutant plant rules were there to make mutant plant NPCs. Not like the "players can't be plants" rule would really stop you, since NPCs/monsters basically function the same as player characters. Some later games inspired by Gamma World have expanded that to definitively include mutant plants and/or robotic beings (both of which are included in Mutant Future, the Gamma World-based ruleset put out by the folks over at Goblinoid Games).

 

The classic "Hopeless Character" from GW1e... sadly not very represented here in this mutationless post

I've always found it kinda interesting how Gamma World and other similar post-apocalyptic science fantasy rulesets rarely go beyond that. The biggest example I can think of is Gamma World 7e (the one that used D&D 4th edition rules), which completely did away with the character types from the older editions in favor of random combinations of "origins" that represented different kinds of mutants or groups in the game world. That mode of character creation is definitely cool, but its kind of incompatible with the way old school Gamma World works. I've been interested in potentially taking a Gamma World esque game in the opposite direction: instead of generalizing things into broad categories like GW7e's origins or even classic GW's character types, having something like D&D "races", more or less genetically stable populations of mutants that have a kind of community identity. Obviously I still love the weirdos too, but I think tying character options more directly into the world would be a really cool change.

This is kinda like that but not really, because this post isn't about mutants per se. The Amish are the unmutated overlords of an expansive empire stretching from just south of Gary, Indiana to the Hudson river valley in the world of my (hopeful) Gamma Ohio game, and thus I felt I wanted to make a distinction between Amish unmutated humans and other unmutated humans. With the character type described below, there would be four available: Amish, Pure Amerikan, Humanoid, Mutant Animal. Since I'm splitting PSH into two, I'll also include the modified form of that too below.

Hooligans of some lesser noble line, of course

AMISH CHARACTERS

• They can defend, but not attack in Mental Combat.
• They roll 4d6 for Intelligence and Constitution rather than 4d6 drop the lowest.
• They will be recognized (sometimes obeyed) by certain normally troublesome robots or security systems.
• They won't normally be attacked by robots except for those programmed to kill (such as military machines, securidroids, or crazed robots).
• They exert a level of social influence over all characters or intelligent creatures that rank below them. Mutant animals and humans give way when they approach, and a +3 is added to any reaction rolls with creatures that recognize the authority of the Amish.
• They can send for assistance from their family back in Amish Country. This is only possible if they still have a family, are on good terms with their family, and have access to a messenger/courier. The Amish character can request a specific need or type of assistance, and there is a base 2-in-6 chance that their request is granted. This roll is modified by the manner of the request and the relationship that the character has with their family. It will take a number of days for the request to be granted or for the character to be informed that they have been denied based upon where in Amish Country their family lives.
• They have good knowledge of architecture, ancient Merigan history, and agriculture. They speak the Deutsch language.
• When fighting unarmed, the fight as a character of half as many hit dice.
• They roll 1d8 for the figuring out of artifacts (same as Mutated Animals).
• They will receive a negative reaction if other Amish characters see them using ancient technology, with repeated instances of prominent technology usage resulting in them being anathemized. Other Amish characters in the party don't count for this (unless said Amish character's player wants to be mean).
• They do not mutate during play.

The archetypal Amish character is a young man or woman, an offshoot of some lesser noble line, out on Rumspringa in the wasteland. They're not completely cut off, able to send messages back home for help from Mama und Papa, and they have been prepared for adventure with their... rather academic knowledge base and almost ritualized refusal to use ancient technology.

GW7e's unmutated human illustration... pretty alright if I do say so myself, if not really the most inspiring or interesting.

Pure Amerikan Characters

• They can defend, but not attack in Mental Combat.
• They roll 4d6 for Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma rather than 4d6 drop the lowest.
• They will be recognized (sometimes obeyed) by certain normally troublesome robots or security systems.
• They won't normally be attacked by robots except for those programmed to kill (such as military machines, securidroids, or crazed robots).
• They roll 1d12 for the figuring out of artifacts.
• They receive +1 when fighting with a weapon type of their choosing (must be mundane weapons, not ancient technology).
• They are compatible with all medical equipment and do not suffer social consequences for using advanced medical tech (or any other ancient tech for that matter).
• They fight unarmed as normal (unlike Amish characters).
• They do not mutate during play.
• They speak the Amerikan language.

Making these exposed me more to some of the rather obtuse and not so good rules of Gamma World 2e, which I think has spurred on thoughts of house rules and such in future... but for now I'm mostly happy with it! I hope these character options are interesting enough, even if you're not intending on playing with GW2e... Personally, I already see places where I want to change things (starting with that ability score generation system, I already wasn't the biggest fan of 4d6 drop the lowest and then GW2e throws in 4d6 just keeping it even if its over 18 when the game is just designed for stuff up to 18?? I kept some of that in here just to not muck with the number balance of the game but in making my own post apocalyptic game I would uhm... want to change that.) I've honestly always had a weird feeling about the "Pure Strain Human" character type in these post apocalyptic games... on the one hand yeah not everybody should be a mutant so the mutants stand out and it wouldn't make sense for Everyone to become so weird and monstrous, but on the other hand the unmutated human archetype I like the most is by far the isolated weak but intelligent Vault Dweller type, yknow what I'm talking about, and the Gamma World PSH just... isn't that. I've tried to keep closer to the Gamma World PSH but in future I might mix things around, who knows.

Have a lovely day!

King of Kings Session 8 After Action Report

Picking up where we left off last time!

Dramatis Personae

Ishthyromeda the Small, level one amazon

Kusa, level one cleric of the exiled and half-dead foreign goddess Nasitu-Neb

Manchugo Coldeswain, level one cleric dedicated to Damir, foreign god of the trade routes

Rohm'Daan, level one cleric dedicated to Anzhalar, a local chthonic god of subterranean flame

(Zana the Charlatan's player was not able to join us so I just said that Zana went home instead of venturing on with the group the following day)

Waking up in the Snail's Trail (or out in the wide open plaza in the case of Ish), the group of four congregates in the eatery at the fore of the establishment. They proceeded to just kind of ask around for work to do, not finding any interested parties there (despite Ish advertising herself and the group as a bunch of mercenaries), but they do hear from some pilgrims that a dehqan (landowning noble) along the road to the north has been worried about unproductive farms under his sway. Apparently there is talk that his peasants are disappearing, but he refuses to believe such things no matter how much his attendants visit the places. His name is Shahab, and the proprietor of the establishment (a wide-smiling sacred one clad in red silks and wearing a prominent nose ring) inform them that yes he is wealthy and yes he is in need right now, but also that he is very rude, capricious, and paranoid. They also inform them that he is a member of house Manati, a noble family here in the satrapy especially prominent in Tabur city. As they leave, Kusa leaves a little tip for the proprietor.

I think in my mind the biggest visual inspiration for the proprietor was Maya from KSBD, if not necessarily in personality.

Before leaving for dehqan Shahab's estate, the group decides to make a visit to the shrine of the Morning Star in Temple Town, where there is a deaf oracle that can speak with the voice and the certainty of the Morning Star herself. Entering the shrine, they are met by a small group of priestly functionaries in red robes, the whole place lit up by flaming torches and sunlight through red-hued hangings between the black stone columns. They set up some sacrifices (a cow and two sacred owls) and tell the scribe what to write down on the paper for the oracle to read from. Four questions were asked:

Does the Morning Star shine on our work with dehqan Shahab?

Is there anything we need to know about the situation?

Does Ishthyromeda have great herds and wealth in her future?

On what and which axes will Kusa's path converge with that of Silvered Nasitu?

(All the exact phrasing of the queries)

After the animals were sacrificed and the group was brought into the chamber of the oracle, the deaf oracle made her pronouncements with suitable ritualistic pomp and circumstance. I can't reproduce all of this scene here because that would just be too long but here is the bit where they enter the chamber: 

"with the floor now slick and shiny with blood, the looming yellow door beyond is dragged open from within, smoke billowing out from the room beyond and into the chamber which houses you now... stepping within, you are greeted by the sight of a woman in black and scarlet robes, a hood hanging over her eyes leaving only her chin and expressionless lips visible. She sits upon a looming wrought iron throne, flanked by chalices billowing with flame, the scribe you saw earlier standing beside her and holding three parchments in his hands. She reaches for the first, and holds it before her eyes."

Here are the verdicts the oracle provided:

"The fateful Morning Star, ever-glorious in her flaming beauty, shines on your acts and deeds. Her baleful light will show you the way into the darkness that now sits before you. The Morning Star wishes you to only know one thing: beware that which yawns deeply."

"The woman of the long axe shall sit upon a woolen fleece, gazing across the wide expanse of her homeland. The Morning Star speaks to your god now. Many steeds shall become thee."

"You who is in exile, you who has fled the destruction wrought on your people and your land, you shall hear your goddess once again and see your goddess once again. In the shining hills of the east, where gold is wrought and war is fought, there you will find her. The Morning Star shall see to it that the crimes of the ones who hate flesh and blood will be avenged. The Silver Star is in a golden valley."

With the knowledge from the Snail Trail's proprietor and the oracle in their hands, they depart for the estate of dehqan Shahab, cracking jokes about the sleepy Rohm'Daan being "that which yawns deeply" that they are supposed to beware. Riding on Ish's cart, they converse among themselves on the way. Manchugo tells a folk tale about a man traveling through a desert unable to refuse the coats and furs that the people he meets offer him while Ishthyromeda listens, Rohm'Daan explains the story of Anzhalar to Kusa while Kusa shares some of the tales of Nasitu-Neb. Their talk is cut off, however, when they come across a group of six gryphons desperately scratching at themselves and rubbing themselves on trees just off the road. Debating what caused the creatures to suffer, they ultimately decide to go on, concluding that it may have something to do with the peasant disappearances.

Griffon vulture scratching... closest thing I could find

After another few hours of travel, they came upon a small group of goatherds crossing the road with their flock. One of the goatherds stopped to speak with the travelers, she told them that the gryphons probably just had sky fleas and that they could find "Shahab the Worrywort, that piece of shit" in the garishly-colored estate home on the next hill over. Dashing back to be with the rest of the goatherds, the group overheard her being mocked by her fellow herders for wasting time talking to city folk that look like they have a load of debt.

They travel just that short distance and are at the home of dehqan Shahab, a looming staircase winding up the side of the hill, two guards and a trumpeteer stationed at its base. The trumpeteer asks who they are, Manchugo replying that they are craftsmen here to offer mutually beneficial trade with the dehqan, the trumpeteer letting out a trumpet blast to call forth a servant-messenger in a short tunic who, after being informed of who the group are and what they are actually here to do, goes to retrieve the dehqan. Shahab emerges from the home with the messenger, clad in an ill-fitted facsimile of a military uniform, with a wooden panel hanging from his neck and a silver diadem upon his brow, a ragged beard hanging down recklessly. Manchugo engages in some deft persuasion to convince the dehqan to hire them, and negotiates a payment scheme with the assistance of Kusa and Rohm'Daan (20 drachmae each up front and 1.5 drachmae per peasant's tribute debt retrieved or peasant confirmed dead or disappeared). The paranoid and cowardly Shahab haggled with Manchugo but ultimately gave in, fearful for what might be around him and antsy to just get a conclusion to his present problem. Shahab informs them that what falls under his domain is a small worthless village and a small handful of farming estates, three of which have been particularly problematic and failing to provide anything to him. 

Oh also they asked dehqan Shahab if he had heard anything about bird lice or sky fleas and all he said was that a friend of his in Humakuyun apparently had lice in his pigeons.

This was where we ended the session, with the next session presumably going to feature the group investigating the three supposedly abandoned farmsteads!

The Grand Hospital of Humakuyun, d8 Unclean Spirits, and d12 Things the Nurses Want You to Do

On the shores of the northern sea, at the confluence of the roads which travel east and west, sits Humakuyun, last stop before the wilderness. While infamous for its dreaded assassins, Humakuyun-on-the-sea is also widely loved for its lively parties and its beloved hospital. The Grand Hospital of Humakuyun is a veritable pilgrimage site for doctors, alchemists, and nurses, and a regular destination for adventurers. Whether you have been subjected to a horrible folding curse, been bitten by a venomous snake, or contracted the red death, the nurses of the Grand Hospital will accept you with wide open arms (though they might not hug you, depending on how leaky your buboes are).

The Grand Hospital is the only place in the east where you can get real medical attention. You might be able to rest and recuperate in other places, sure, but only at the Grand Hospital will most maladies be addressed. The building is kept completely clear of any foul odors (seeing as, of course, plague is spread through miasma), fastidiously cleaned of any stinky filth by a veritable army of servants clad in distinct green robes. When resting and recuperating at the Grand Hospital, you receive a +1 hp per day bonus to daily healing, and have no risk of contracting disease or being possessed by an unclean spirit. Resting and recuperating in most other environments brings with it associated risks. Injury makes oneself more susceptible to intrusion by unclean spirit or plague.

Resting and recuperating in any spiritually unclean or filthy location (graveyard, sewer, pigsty, deep underground, building built atop any unclean location) prompts a save vs. ritual uncleanliness (save vs. death) or you are taken by an unclean spirit or disease. Until the disease or spirit is purged from your body, you cannot heal anymore. Being subjected to a curse also makes you susceptible to unclean spirits. Roll on the table below to determine the nature of the possession.

1d8 Unclean Spirits and Diseases

1: Spasmodic Spirit: When viewed with eyes unclouded appears as a stiff many-legged thing. Causes random uncontrollable spasms. When this spirit possesses you, roll 1d20; any time you roll the number produced, you go into uncontrollable spasms, unable to act.

2: Dysentery: Diarrhea! Slower movement and faster fatigue; dehydration requiring double the water, rest, rations. Disadvantage on saving throws against disease.

3: Heavy Shoulders Spirit: When viewed with eyes unclouded appears as a wide-eyed long-trunked ape-thing sitting upon the victim's shoulders. Move encumbrance status up one step: from unencumbered to encumbered, from encumbered to heavily encumbered, from heavily encumbered to immobile.

4: Sweating Sickness: Intense fevers and sweats. Too uncomfortable to wear armors or thick clothes. Inability to focus on anything, no attack bonuses and must roll for any spells cast.

5: Stolen Sight Spirit: When viewed with eyes unclouded appears as a dark black glistening insectile thing clinging to the victim's face. Forces the victim to see a horrible dream at all times, unable to stop it by closing their eyes and unable to see their surroundings.

6: Consumption: Difficulty breathing, coughing up blood, rapid weight loss. Steady loss of 1 point of STR and CON every week, and unable to run (automatically captured if in a chase).

7: Pitiful Wrath Spirit: When viewed with eyes unclouded appears as a small crawling mammal-thing, two humanlike faces on either end of its body. Every so often, the victim makes a reaction roll to determine their current emotional state, with low results as more negative emotions and higher results as more positive emotions.

8: The Red Death: Horrible red buboes leaking pus and blood. Physical frailty, difficulty breathing, bleeding from eyes, eventual bleeding in lungs. To be detailed in a further dedicated post.

Intense disease and curses take time to heal even at the Grand Hospital. Constant attention, priestly cleansing rituals, wafting of sweet smelling plants, exorcisms, sacrifices, application of poultices or imbibing of potions all take days, weeks, months. There is a base number of weeks that different levels of plague or curse take to heal (1 week for very basic diseases such as the sweating sickness (influenza), 3 for more involved afflictions, 6 for certain curses, 12 for the worst plagues and curses), and every week after that span of time, the patient makes a saving throw vs. death, recovering more or less fully on a success.

The nurses and doctor-savants and alchemists of the Grand Hospital are always in need of something. Since they expect to see an adventurer again in the future anyway, they often ask new arrivals to go retrieve some item, manuscript, herb, or piece of information for them.

1d12 Things the Nurses Want You to Do

1: Go to the Hinterbog in the east and retrieve the skin of a bright yellow frog; you will know it by the shape of the spots on its back, forming a six-pointed star. Do not lick them! They will make your tongue swell up.

2: Go to the Wall of the Conquering King and ask the Wallmasters how they deal with the thin air in the mountains.

3: Go into the Holy Cedar Forest and snatch up a mossling, just one... and be sure to figure out how to not catch the mosslings' ire, at least not on yourself. How you do that is up to you.

4: Go to Temple Town and retrieve the toes of mummy-saints. Don't take more than one toe from each mummy-saint! We don't want to anger our forefathers... nor the high priests of the fire temple.

5: Go to the Great Desert to the south and bring us a baby sandworm. Please keep it alive, if you bring us a dead one we won't pay you. How you keep it alive for the hundreds of miles between the city and the homes of the sandworms is for you to figure out.

6: There is a snake-vampire living in a copse of evergreens to the east. Go get cursed by him, and come back for us to examine the effects and determine a cure. Do not kill the vampire, that might ruin our findings.

7: Travel to the edge of the satrapy of Numistan, where the red-frond flowers grow. Harvest their stamens and bring them back to Humakuyun, but be sure to keep them out of the sun.

8: Consume this entire barrel of lizards all by yourself and go about your normal business for a week and then report back.

9: Visit the distant leper colony on the edge of Great Desert and remove all your clothes except for this amulet we will provide. Report back on what happens.

10: Travel to the rotting corpse of the slain giant in the territory of the client king to the northeast and harvest part of his liver. We have heard it grows back unceasingly and want to understand it.

11: Go into the Land of Darkness, cross the northern sea if you must, and return with as many individual pine needles as you can. Ideally store them in animal skins.

12: Drink nothing but this mixture of silver and water and sleep in a circle of salt for one month. Report back to us every week.

Gamma Ohio: Preliminary Notes on a Gamma World Game

So y'all might not know this since I haven't made any posts about it thus far, but I actually love post apocalyptic science fantasy roleplaying almost as much as or just about as much as I do the kind of weird fantasy OSR play that most of my posts have been all about. Gamma World was actually the first RPG I was exposed to that I really understood as an RPG (I had read the 4e Monster Manual 2 beforehand but I just thought it was a cool monster book, not something for a game), and Gamma World was the first roleplaying game I ever ran! I've made myriad attempts at making my own post apocalyptic roleplaying game or setting throughout the years, but pretty much none of them ever saw the light of day, and barely any made contact with play. So I'm gonna try and fix that! I'm going to run some games using classic Gamma World (probably the second edition), in an original setting centered on my homeland: the great state of Ohio. To get started on this, below are some setting notes derived from a conversation I had about this idea.

It is the 32nd year of the reign of Balthazar the Young (not so young these days), scion of the line of Methuselah the Great, ancestral King of the Amish.

Northeast Meriga 500 Years Since Apocalypse

The Empire of the Amish is a looming hegemon over what remains of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York state. Ruled by a long line of anabaptist kings, it is an edifice of military power built on a foundation of pacifism, a land of contradictions. The Amish form a ruling minority, separated by language (they speak a future descendant of Pennsylvania Dutch, the rest of the population speak a future descendant of English), religion (the Amish have de facto asserted themselves as a select group within a kind of American politics-Christianity fusion), and mutation (genetic mutations, even slight ones, are not uncommon, but the Amish seem to be consistently genetically unchanged). The Amish do not fight, instead hiring beastman mercenaries from Michigan and conscripting their subjects into wars with the heretic snake-handlers of West Virginia or the pagan merchant lords of the Great Lakes.

Ohio is a bare hinterland of Amish country. While a band in the north is settled with Amish lords and ladies, the southern fringe of Balthazar's state is permeable, its largest settlement being the shantytown of Syoto in the ruins of what was once Columbus. Just beyond that border is the wide floodplain known as the Emerald Expanse, the area that was once the Miami River Valley and the city of Dayton. During the great conflagration that engulfed the world long ago, Dayton was a target of nuclear armaments for its proximity to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, destroying not only the military base but also the dam that kept the city safe from flooding. Add onto that the extreme weather from global warming and nuclear armageddon, and you get a city completely flooded, downtown Dayton turned into a swamp pockmarked with what remains of its buildings. Surrounding the great marsh that forms the center of the Emerald Expanse are dozens of petty tyrannies, little fiefdoms ruled by monstrous mutant dictators, prophets, warlords, and sorcerers in what remains of the suburbs that surrounded Dayton.

Dayton has a lot of really cool art deco style buildings, sure the apocalypse happened in the future but I would want to maintain that unique aesthetic.

In the minds of just about everyone, whether mutant from Injunboli, Amish prince-scholar, or conspiracy theorist mud-scavenger, the greatest mystery is what is hiding beneath the terrible sky-base that seems to have been the reason the Emerald Expanse was targeted. Most people believe the collapse to have been the Ancients committing nuclear suicide, and many wonder at what might have been at the sky-base that the Ancients wanted to keep hidden. Delving into its depths is the dream of every mud-scavenger and steel cultist.

The steel cult is a political-religious movement that has emerged in what was once the steel/rust belt, a cult born out of labor unions, Larouchites, the remnants of the American socialist movement, and post-apocalyptic cargo cults that emerged at the edges of robo-factories that use automation to incessantly churn out resources. While its true heartland is in the holy city of Great Chikago, Birthplace of Steel, the two most significant representatives of this cult near Ohio are the High Bazaari of the Union State of Klevan and the Grand Fordist of the People's Republic of Motown. These two, and the followers of the steel cult more generally, have a fascination with the Emerald Expanse, and always have coin for any who can bring forth glorious Machine, the blessed product of Labor. Of course, Amish and Amerikan bishops will remind you that the steel cult is the worst sin, just the latest way that Jay-Eff-Kay and his foul masters Papa and Castro have their claws dug into the world. Even still, Amish kings make pilgrimage to holy Chikago even as it is ruled by heretics.

I honestly really do love the monster art from the WotC Gamma World 7e

Another reason to pass through the Emerald Expanse is to make your way to Gateway, a merchant republic on the Ohio river and the first stop on the way to the Mississipi Kingdoms of the south, the true heartland of east Meriga. Amish country is a backwater compared to the elegance and decadence of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. Though, even those places have their wastelands, beyond the shoreline.

So there we have three reasons to go to the Emerald Expanse: travel to Gateway for trade, scavenge for glorious Machines for the steel cult, or investigate the esoteric mysteries beneath the long-destroyed sky-base. Well, you could easily have lots of other reasons to explore and adventure, I just like having built in common motivations for settings. Also uh the Emerald Expanse is probably bigger than on the map, I just cobbled that together for a visualization.

Uhhhh other ideas for this:

In the conversation I had there was a parallel campaign idea where you would play as beastmen (mutant animal) mercenaries traveling from Michigan, buying up guns in Motown, crossing the Great Black Swamp (and contending with mutants from Toledo to Lima), getting in Amish country, and being carted on down to West Virginia to fight against the heretic snake-handler kings and whatever other petty tyrants hold sway over the valleys of Appalachia.

Extensive exaggerated Amazon fulfillment center inhabited by cannibalistic morlocks cowed by robotic task masters.

Peasant commune shining city on a hill style, inhabited by exile mutants building a better life for themselves, on top of the hill that was once Oakwood, while beneath the city-commune there is a vault of cryogenically frozen Ancient elites.

Opossum people curled up on trees, keeping watch with one eye open.

A mad sorcerer-queen of the fetid floodplain holding sway over fearful beaver-man serfs with reprogrammed gardening robots.

A free-for-all fight over the title of Mayor of Day Town when an Ancient polling location (a sacred temple to their glorious rulers) is uncovered.

Pale white squirrels swarming on vine-choked trees, acting as if by one mind. Albino rodents with thief-like cunning.

Goin' Through the Fiend Folio Part 6 (Firedrake to Frostman)

 When I started posting on this blog again, I began to run King of Kings again and began posting most of the regular things I posted before going on hiatus, but one thing was conspicuously absent... reviews! Specifically monster reviews! My lovely friend over at The Cosmic Orrery has already made a return to making their review-through of the Fiend Folio, and at a much quicker pace than me to boot... I gotta catch up! So here I am, picking up where we last left off back in January.

Firedrake

★★★☆☆

On the one hand, this isn't the most necessary creature, basically just being a weaker red dragon so you can have your players face off against a flying fire-breathing reptile that they can actually potentially beat. HOWEVER on the other hand this is such a fun take on the iconic fire-breathing reptile. Namely I'm referring to how it actually doesn't breathe fire. Instead, it spews flammable blood. Like, oh my god?? That alone brings this up from the one or two stars I would give a rather generic drake-type monster. Also I like the bit about how swords dipped in the blood become flaming swords, always a fan of parts of monsters that can become/relate to items. The art also just makes it, of course Russ Nicholson would draw a good dragon. I think I would probably use elements of this in an actual dragon, instead of justifying it by making a weaker creature for lower-level players.

One of the best full-pagers in the Folio

Firenewt

★★★☆☆

I was so torn on this... on the one hand, they're actually a pretty fun race of humanoids! Well, I hate that whoever wrote this beat me to using the name "salaman" and didn't even highlight it, instead just putting it in a completely offhanded comment, but like other than that they're pretty cool! The only problem is, they don't bring much new that "lizardmen that live in a volcano" wouldn't have just by being a) lizardmen and b) fire-themed. When I was reading the description, I found myself mostly uninterested in their breath weapon and percentages of leaders etc etc... their priests using druid spells is kinda cool, them riding giant striders is kinda cool cuz I like that it uses another Folio monster, and I really love the bit where they say that firenewts "delight in torturing and roasting victims alive before feasting on them." Mostly I'm neutral, but the bits I like I do like a good amount!

Fire Snake

★☆☆☆☆

I kinda feel bad giving these guys one star, I love snakes and I love the cute art that the fire snake has, but there just isn't much going on here. They're just snakes that happen to live in fire; at that point, I would just use an enchanted snake, and connect it to some outside part of the setting! They kinda go for that with the note that fire snakes might be larval salamanders, but they don't commit to it!! Without being actually tied into the setting, they're very boring.

Fire Toad

★★☆☆☆

Not a whole lot going on here but its more interesting than the fire snake at least. It being pushed back by water is very fun, and I find it interesting that the fireball of the fire toad deals damage equal to its current HP a la dragon breath. Between the firedrake and the fire toad you already have two really fun takes on a dragon! I know I just said with the fire snake that I wasn't a fan of it basically just being "snake that lives in fire", but the fire toad just Feels better, I think I would be more inclined to use it in my game than the fire snake. Maybe that's just because I like toads, I don't know.

Hey I figured since now we have a bunch of fire-themed or otherwise fire-related monsters I might as well rank them! The Definitive A-F Fiend Folio Fire Tier List is below:

1: Firedrake

2: Firenewts

3: Fire Toad

4: Fire Snake

5: Imix (Prince of Evil Fire Creatures)

Imix is just very boring.

Flail Snail

★★★★★

You KNOW how I feel about the flail snail. Or well, okay maybe you don't, I've never actually made any posts about the flail snail before. Giant snails are just great, and the flail snail is to me at least one of the most iconic D&D monsters. The manner in which you generally have to fight the flail snail is very good (having to incapacitate each tentacle, taking out its mode of attack as you kill it) and it letting out a "pitiful, wailing cry" when it dies that can attract wandering monsters is fantastic, I always love monsters that cause problems even after dying and that interact with other parts of the game. The shell being an incredibly valuable piece of treasure is fantastic; its anti-magic properties are a bit annoying but I think it is more than made up for by the difficulties that dragging that rich shell back out of the dungeon to sell brings. It is almost a whole adventure just to try and take the shell back with you! Now that is what I call a good monster.

Flind

★★☆☆☆

Flinds are pretty boring, but I will admit they're kinda iconic for the Fiend Folio for some reason. I generally don't like "x monster but more powerful" type creatures, which I feel like 1e AD&D had a gradual steady increase in by the time of the MM2. The flindbar is the one redeeming quality they have, it is really cool to have a creature that highlights a disarming weapon, feels really real in a sense. I think I wouldn't have the flind as a separate species, but rather as a kind of monstrous humanoid caste, a kind of warrior class trained in exclusive weapons like the flindbar. But as it is in the Folio, I'm not inclined to use it.

WOOHOO LETS GO

FLUMPH

★★★★★

WOOOOOOOOOO!!! I'm gonna be real, I think this is one of the best monsters in the Folio by far, and not in a "haha so bad its good" way, just in a completely played straight way. I really don't like all those people who crack jokes about the flumph being cringe or boring, those FOOLS just don't have CREATIVITY (note: I'm just being silly, I don't think any less of you for not liking the humble flumph). I just think that when you get down to it, the flumph is a very compelling and unique alien creature, and one that fits into a unique conceptual niche by being an ally of the (presumed aligned with good) characters. They are something like the nice underdark svirfneblins or whatever, a group of creatures that can be an asset to the players, and I find them much more interesting than other manifestations of that concept because the flumph is like an alien emissary of law. I think this gets a bit muddled by the time the Modrons get introduced, but here the flumph is a completely abnormal being that somehow aligns itself with the standard of morality of the characters' world, or with some eternal concept of "good", and that is just really cool and interesting? I'm much more into using flumphs as the supernatural representatives of law/good than vaguer angels. Also their powers are just fun, the repulsive liquid is very evocative and the vertical drop attack makes good use of 3D space. I've seen people crack jokes at "A flumph is helpless if turned over" but that's great!! It provides an easily understood tool to use against them if the need arises, and one that doesn't actually kill them! Interrogating an upside-down flumph just sounds like a good time.

I think its easy to forget that there are two forlarren illustrations, so I just wanted to highlight the one on the title page.

Forlarren

★★★☆☆

Very folkloric vibe on this guy, the whole "descendants of the offspring of a good nymph and the greater devil who enslaved her" thing reminds me a lot of the Children of Ana from Romani folklore, though I don't think the forlarren has a direct folkloric inspiration. Ana's children are much more interesting than the forlarren to be clear. I do like the art, Russ did a great job yet again, I like the heat metal power that it has, and I like the vibe of it flipflopping on its personality... however I don't think it should be presented as it is in the Folio. The Folio just says that it will attack the players, heat their metal, etc., and will only switch to acting in a friendly manner after that. Personally I would prefer a randomized thing, probably just tying it to the reaction roll, maybe making new reaction rolls every so often... I dunno, I just think there are some good ideas here but its not presented in the best way.

Frostman

★☆☆☆☆

Why is this like the only monster that is presented so vaguely... I like the idea of the eye under the eyepatch that releases a cone of cold when it is lifted up, feels very folkloric, very cool vibes, but why is this a "race" of ice-themed human-adjacent types that you only ever meet one at a time and only "maybe" have a whole society?? If you're going to have an intelligent society for the players to interact with, commit to it!! If you want the monster to just be a unique human or a small group of weird humans, commit to it!!!! I think if I were to use the frostmen they would just be humans that developed the cold-eye power, a small faction or maybe even a unique NPC. There is nothing gained by making these a separate race, at least not in the way it is in the Folio.

Now as a sad note: I wanted to include the Fiend Factory versions of some of these monsters, or at least the ones that actually were presented in the Factory column. The only problem is that as of right now (June 16 2021) The Trove, where I accessed a pdf collection of all of the Fiend Factory columns, is down. I can't reference the original forms of Fiend Factory monsters without having a Fiend Factory to reference! Sorry about that! Really hoping The Trove can come back up soon.

EDIT:

So this edit is coming super soon after posting it, but a lovely friend of mine reached out to me saying that they have full scans of old White Dwarf issues so I can include Fiend Factory monsters in this post! There's only one monster that had a version in Fiend Factory though, so I'll just share that below!

The fiend is the original version of the forlarren! Gotta say, really prefer the Russ Nicholson rendition of the art, this drawing feels pretty generic, even if I do love its weird expressionless face and wrinkles. Powers-wise it is exactly the same, although in the text it specifies a "fallen angel" and "the evil god Pan" as its ancestors rather than the much more vague "good nymph" and "greater devil", much prefer the fallen angel x evil god Pan version. Also I just really wanted to share this for Don Turnbull's comment: "Not a bad reason for wearing chainmail (which presumably produces a waffle effect on the character when the Fiend attacks)." That is just SUCH a good aside. Extrapolated conclusions like that are some of my favorite little things about Don Turnbull's comments and other takes on roleplaying in the late 70s early 80s. Still not one of my favorite monsters though.