The past year I've ran a biweekly game of Dungeon Crawl Classics set in a fantastical Netherlands I call
A pastiche of every psychedelic Northern Renaissance painting I could get my hands on, especially my man Hieronymus Bosch. That means all monsters become nightmare chimeras fully of forgotten symbolism. The themes are mostly traditional murderhobos navigating between the monolithic forces of Church, Nobility, and Pagan things from the dark.
The campaign focuses on Hertogenbosch, a city of trade and culture in the Low Countries. It is more or less the city the PCs call home. In classic DCC fashion I had each player roll a trio of 0-level peasants in preparation of the mayhem. The first session had incomplete minutes, they get great in every other session.
The proprietor of a public house called the Jolly Limpet, your favorite den of sin, has called upon you to rescue his wife. A pair of gnomish brothers have absconded with her, taking her to their home in a cave beside the river Meuse called the Sunken Pit. The reward? A casque of his finest. Topped up with liquid bravery and your closest dozen friends, you braved the darkness of the pit. Many of them fell, but you have killed one of the brothers and rescued the wife.
The Spoils 100 gp, split between the surviving members of the party, 1 heavy pick, 1 silver ring, 1 locked wooden chest, 1 demonic war mask
A gall is an amazing thing. Formed by a plant when a parasitic wasp injects an irritant into it, they take a huge variety of forms. Check this out.
That lights me up. So many gameable possibilities! I smell a series coming on!
The Enclave Devil
The walls between the planes are not so much thick as antithetical to one another. Like oil and water, or oil and fire, they either remain unmixed or destroy each other on contact. Extraplanar intrusions will be inexorably drawn back to their origins, like a balloon held underwater. However, there are beings in other worlds who take great interest in the possibilities of other planes. The devils, aggressive thoughtforms, and rogue engrams of the outer spheres puncture normal space and inject it with pieces of themselves to open the way for future conquest. Succubi, incubi, dark rituals, each acts to change the world to match elsewhere, or encyst a piece of one plane in another. The enclave devil is not a singular type of creature, but a multitude of beings. Each plane develops its own more or less stable shape, although most are humanoid. They are vectors for alien planes, driven to scratch out galleries and tunnels that have both mystical significance and act to thin the walls between worlds. Enclave devils also directly scratch at the barrier between the planes, creating breaches through which other extraplanar beings can move freely.
Enclave Devil Forms
Worm-centaur
Scuttling, emaciated thing
Bulbous glutton
Cobweb thing, composed of diaphanous webs
Eyes and teeth whirling in the air
Red-skinned humanoid. Blank, eggshell face
Humanoid with exoskeleton like an insect
Shadow person
A muscular man with the head of a star-nosed mole
A floating array of glittering sigils
Enclave Devil: Init +4; Atk extraplanar claws +0 melee (1d6, ignores non-magical armor); AC 13; HD 1d8; MV 30’; Act 1d20; SP may scratch through any barrier, 1’x1’x1’ per hour; SV Fort +0, Ref +3, Will +1; AL based on home plane.
The Planar Ram
An enclave devil is comparatively weak, and on its home plane it lacks the ability to cross to another. Aggressive dimensions make use of a carrier organisms to insert enclave devils and other creatures into other planes. Planar rams usually break through in areas of intense magical energy, such as dungeons or wizard towers. They have also been known to break through deep underground, allowing enclave devils to cut extraplanar catacombs undisturbed for years before the inevitable breach. The results are rarely positive for the plane they have invaded.
Planar Ram Forms
Enormous, almost immobile, square humanoid, body dominated by wooden door
Skeletal figure with an exposed ribcage opens to the beyond
A thin ring of stretched skin and bone
Floating multidimensional shape bends space around it to create a portal
A mystical circle slowly rotates on a flat surface, it’s mandala-like designs spin when it open a portal within itself
Bulbuous, faintly pulsing organ attached to nearly surfaces with ropey sinew. A large valve acts as a portal
Tall, thin humanoid made of cracked earth. Hollow. Inverts pieces of its anatomy to reveal a portal within
An animate bronze statue, many-limbed. It carries on its back a portal ring
A floating tear in space, causing the air around it to howl
Planar Ram: Init +0; Atk limbs+0 melee (1d6), portal explosion +2 ranged (1d8); AC 15; HD 3d8; MV 20’; Act 1d20; SP Planar radiation (characters within 5’ take 1 damage per round due to the otherworldly energies it radiates); SV Fort +2, Ref -1, Will +2; AL based on home plane.
Witchflies
A witchfly is a fist-sized insect that looks like a cross between a wasp and a stick insect. Found in temperate swamps, they go through a relatively normal life cycle that undergoes major changes when intelligent humanoids are closeby. A female will seek out a sleeping humanoid and deposit 1d6 eggs under the scalp. Each egg release a substance which forms a growth on the skull called a witchgall. The hair falls out from around the spot, then a hollow, round knob of bone grows. The space fills with elastic brain tissue, making it the perfect home for the creatures. The witchfly eggs feed on the neural impulses and cerebrospinal fluid, growing faster and larger in the presence of magic. Once an egg is large enough the larval witchflies will burrow free, either breaking out of the skull and flittering away, an agonizing process at best, or eat its way deeper into the brain.
A wizard inflicted with witchgalls can tap into the increased brain mass to better cast their spells. They add +1 to their spell rolls and saving throws to resist the effects of spells cast against them while inflicted with a witchgall. However, the galls also leave them more open to the warping effects of magic, add +1 to corruption rolls. These effects are cumulative for each witchgall inflicted upon the character, to a maximum of +5. To determine if a witchgall breaks open secretly roll a d10 for each when a PC casts a spell. On a 1 the egg has hatched. The PC must make a DC17 Fort save. If they succeed they take 1d6 damage as the insect burrows out of the skull. If they fail they take 1d10 damage and permanently lose 1d3 Intelligence as the insect chews its way deeper into the brain.
Effects of having a witchfly wrapped around your medulla
1-5: nothing
6: You have a compulsion to seek out and consume worms and vermin.
7: You no longer blink. You no longer need to blink.
8: You now sleep, 1: 4 hours a day, 2: 12 hour a day.
9: You gain 2d6 inches in height over the next two weeks as your pituitary goes into overdrive.
10: Whatever god the witchflies belong whispers to you in the dark hours. Making demands. It has plans, so many plans.
Did you miss me? The last year has been a whirlwind, but I start a new job soon which should give me a little more breathing space for things like running (and playing!) more games. Never mind Secret Santicore, which I did lots of layout work for. There is so much good stuff this year, it's going to blow your mind! It just has to work its way through a final editing pass and then it will be out in the wild, raiding campsites and eating tourists. And now, a little new content for the Jungles of And, west of Ig and full of nasty critters.
The jungles of And burst with life. Fifty creatures vie for every inch. The glittering scale wing, air grouper, and howling gribbon all compete to survive among the green canyons. Buzzing in the dappled light are dozens of wasps in variegated hues and all sizes.
The folk of And turn this riot to their own ends. Local hunters carry long-barreled air-powered fusils they call waspgonnes. Each is a work of art, hand-tooled from tropical hardwood, sinew, and polished chitin. Waspgonnes use a small bellows to fire a large wasp at their target. The weapon is pressurized, a glass jar containing a wasp is loaded into the firing chamber of the waspgonne, which draws the insect into the firing chamber, and the weapon is ready to fire whenever the trigger is squeezed. Activating the weapon accelerates the wasp along the barrel at whatever the hunter is aiming at. The flight and ensuing impact enrages the insect, which furiously bites and stings whatever it strikes. The wasp is not expected to survive, but the damage it inflicts is usually sufficient to dispatch a target. A waspgonne is also almost silent, only a quiet hiss announces its use.
Hunters raise the insects in mesh cages beside their lodges. Before an excursion the cages are flooded with woodsmoke allowing the wasps to be collected. Note: only females have stingers. Their wings are clipped and then they are sealed into individual glass jars. The hunters carry these jars in belts and bandoliers.
a waspgonne
Insects used for a waspgonne include the biter, stinger, libertine, and redeater. A biter is any small calibre wasp without venom. A stinger has a deadly venom. A libertine is smaller wasp with unclipped wings. The hunter makes an initial shot with a pheremone packet, then fires the libertine which will inexorably seek out the packet. The redeater is any oversized or especially vicious wasp. There are other, stranger types of wasp used by the most experienced hunters like the gall wasp, paper tiger, and black ghost, but they are rarely used.
A Waspgonne has the range of a longbow and must be wielded with both hands. The bellows takes 5 minutes to fill, and is good for 10 shots once charged. Wasp jars save at -2 due to their fragility, should the occasion arise.
Almost all waspgonnes are one-off pieces built by hunters, but they may be talked into selling an older piece for 60 gp. Wasps cost 5 gp, but are rarely for sale.
Wasp Ammunition
Biter (1d6)
Stinger (1d6 + poison, CON save or 1d4 damage for 1d6 rounds)
Redeater (1d8)
Pheremone packet (0, lasts 3 rounds, +5 to-hit with Libertines)
Numenera does interesting things with characters, effort, and health. They're composed of a trio of pools which act as both a resource pool to use to make tasks easier or attacks more damaging, but they also act as health. It leads to an interesting balancing act where the player must make some sacrifices to avoid getting hit with something terrible, and be strategic about when to cast that giant spell. So what if a monster fed off that resource?
Nivunco, level 2 (4)
The nivunco, or fatigue eater, is a dangerous predator in the Ninth World. Unwelcome in city and wilderness alike, it takes the form of a gaunt, man-sized quadruped covered in long dark hair. It crawls on it's belly on four long limbs, moving in an unpleasantly human manner. Its long body lacks a discernible head, terminating in a hairless snout which writhes and twitches as it sniffs out its prey. A fatigue eater has a two-part diet, psychic and physical. It feeds off the fatigue an organism experiences, picking it up as psychic static from miles away. Once the nivunco locates it's quarry it will ceaselessly hunt it down. In many cases the creature will let itself be seen before attacking, heightening the paranoia and stress the quarry feels. However, the creature's tracking ability hinges on the quarry's fatigue. If the quarry were to remove the fatigue, by sleeping or completing whatever task is so testing than the nivunco would have nothing to track. The greater the stress the more nourishing the nivunco finds its prey. The more psychic distress the prey releases the stronger the creature gets. It's physical and mental capabilities increase in step with the diminished capacity fatigue brings. For every 3 points a PC spends from their pool, for any reason except damage, the nivunco's level increases by one. When the fatigue eater has sufficiently softened its prey through harrying tactics it goes for in for the kill. It grapples its quarry with its gangley limbs, beating them into submission with its blunt claws. When its prey has collapsed it uses its long snout to completely drain the body of blood. After sating itself on the lifeblood of its prey it creeps back to its den to sleep off its meal, a process that can often take years. Motive: Food Environment: Any wilderness, especially high moors Health: 12 Damage Inflicted: 3 points Armor: 0 Movement: Short Modifications: Tracks at level 7, all other tasks involving their quarry at level 5 Interaction: The nivunco is little smarter than an animal, but telepathic communication is possible. They are simple creatures and could be thrown off by mental effects.
I've sat on an adventure for the last two years waiting till I had time and everything 1000% perfect before I release it unto the wild. That's never going to happen, so I'm biting the bullet and putting it out up here in it's mostly complete state for the betterment of all mankind. It rough around the edges, but I learned a lot working on it from both a design and procedural standpoint. I wrote it for DCC, but it should work for nearly anything.
Like goblins? Like bees? Like bees and goblins and degenerate underground jerks? Need a low-level dungeon to throw your fresh peasants into? This might serve that need.
Continuing my series on the Lake of Woe, here are two of the biggest threats in the area.
Brinewing
All dragons are forces of entropy. They may put on a veneer of civility but beneath the facade is a drive for the unordering of all things, the breaking down of man and beast and stone into dust and the hastening of the heat death of the universe. It was dragons who looked with hate on the light of the Big Bang, and dragons that will suck the last cold marrow from the universe before taking each other apart in final destruction. Inevitably the land around a dragon is inexorably degraded by its presence.
AC: 1 (18)
HD: 8
Attacks: 2 claws, 1 bite, 1 tail slap, or breath
Damage: 1d6/3d6/1d8/*
Save: F7
Morale: 9
Movement: 30’ Fly 90’ Swim 60’
XP: 2,200
*Brinewing can release a blast of concentrated salt from her mouth in a cone 90’ long and 30’ wide 3 times a day. It deals half her current HP in damage, or save for half that. Anyone caught in the blast is slowed for 1d3+1 rounds from the crust of salt that covers them.
Brinewing’s serpentine body is long and sinuous. Whipcord muscles twitch in stark relief beneath her hide. Her head is heavily plated and topped with a sharp frill that extends like a thorny crown. Her wings are thin and ragged on long finger-like pinions. Her breath is superheated salt, and can strip the water from a man in seconds. Entombing them forever in a briny shell. She is naturally magical, counts as a 6th level magic user, and knows the following spells: Level 1: Putrefy Food and Drink (50’ range), Pass Without Trace, Spider Climb 3/day. Level 2: Invisibility, ESP 2/day. Level 3: Feign Death 1/day
Brinewing is crafty, preferring to weaken intruders to her home long before facing them directly. She will approach a group invisibility and use her magic to ruin their supplies, turning their water to brine and food to rot. Then she will leave them to suffer, letting the arid terrain sap their strength until she feels they’re suitably softened. Only then will she face them directly.
Wandering Psyche
The extreme asceticism the monks of the Clay Palace undertake does strange things to their minds. The hours they spend in a trance state weakens the connection between their physical bodies and causes their minds to drift. After a few decades the mind is almost entirely unhinged from the mortal shell and drifts around the Lake of Woe freely. They appear like numinous strands taking the form of an indistinct humanoid figure. They communicate directly to every mind telepathically, but speak in a endless stream of koans, chants, and stream of consciousness ramblings. Enlightenment gives a wandering psyche an entirely alien motivation, never add modifiers to their reaction roll.
Encounters: 1-3
AC: 3(17)
HD: 4
Attacks: 1 Mantra
Damage: 1d6
Save: F4
Morale: 8
Movement: 30’
XP: 300
A Wandering Psyche recites ceaseless mantras which have supernatural effects on the creatures around them. Each round of combat a Wandering Psyche uses one of the following Mantra:
Brainshock: target save versus spell or take 1d6 damage.
Skinride: the Wandering Psyche attempts to take control of a body as in the Magic Jar spell. Unlike the spell the host’s soul is subsumed, not removed, and may attempt a save versus spell each round at -2 to eject the Wandering Psyche.
Water Vampire: target takes 1d6 Con damage as the Psyche pulls the moisture from their body.
Koan: 30' save versus spell or be affected as Confusion spell
The Lake of Woe is a salt lake in an unpeopled corner of wilderness. It is fed by springs descending from the glacial peaks to the east. Five years ago the lake was fresh. When the dragon Brinewing was driven from the western shipping lanes by the sea kings she blocked the lake’s outlets and let it grow brackish. Now the lake is desolate, denuded of all but the hardiest plant life with shores littered with the mummified remains of creatures that have displeased her. The only movement on the shores of the Lake of Woe today are the clouds of flies which cover everything like a vile black carpet.
Brinewing is a salt dragon. She measures thirty feet long in a sickly yellow, muted by a thick crust of salt that has built up on her scales from bathing in the Lake of Woe. She is not particularly intelligent but is vain, territorial, and easily enraged. In place of fire she breathes clouds of superheated salt which burn and desiccate. Her lair lies in the most inhospitable southern sections of the lake on a peninsula of stone and crenelated salt. During the day she is more likely to be found sunning herself on the shores to the east of the lake or flying paranoid circles over her watery territory. The only creatures she permits to approach her presence are her ‘pets,’ the brine shrimp which infest the waters of the lake and can grow to an enormous size.
Hidden in the hills to the west is the Clay Palace, a monastery of salt monks dedicated to achieving enlightenment through self denial and desiccation. The Clay Palace proper is a compound of mud brick building on the shores of the lake, but the coming of Brinewing drove the the monks away. Now it lies abandoned, a ramshackle monument to the dragon’s dominance. The survivors carved out rows of cells along the canyon walls south beyond the dam the dragon created from shattered mountain pinnacles. Here they are protected from the dragon’s sight by overhanging stone. The wisest of their order are little more than leathery husks. Their minds are only lightly tethered to their almost immobile bodies, and drift throughout the region like silent ghosts. Should something threaten the monastery can steal the water from less enlightened monk’s bodies and achieving a lurching mobility. Their mental wanderings have left them utterly without empathy and terrifying in combat.
Encounters
The buzzing clouds of salt flies become impossibly thick, sucking the moisture from bare skin and creeping into mouths and noses
Salt mephits
The salt crust covering the ground here gives way, uncovering a large sinkhole. Contains: 1-salt water 2-nest of hungry brine shrimp 3-jagged old bones 4-caustic mineral bath 5-meditation chamber of a salt monk 6-treasure
A gale kicks up a wall of acrid dust, cutting visibility to mere feet and scouring unprotected flesh, it lasts for 1d6 hours
1d6 pilgrims to the Clay Palace. Either 1-3 arriving, or 4-6 departing
The wandering psyche of an elder salt monk
Mummified remains of the dragon’s victims, a quarter of the time the corpses will rise as undead: 1-2 caravan, 1d6 humanoids, 1d4 pack animals 3- 1d6 wolves 4-2d8 herd animals 5-bats 6-giant eagle
A quartet of salt monks carrying the body of an elder on a palanquin
The blasted wreck of a small village, 1 in 6 are inhabited by something horrible
Mirages appear, hauntingly real until touched: 1- rows of saltwhite children 2-oasis 3-attacking army 4-crystal castle 5-apocalyptic vision 6-the dragon
The rainbow-colored crust around this dried pond is a potent drug: 1-2-hallucinogen 3-4-stimulant 5-6-deadly poison
Brinewing appears
More info on Brinewing, the Clay Palace, and a map forthcoming!
