Yearly Archives: 2012

Robe Wards

Image from Wikipedia

Here are a collection of special wards that may be added to wizard robes. I’m not totally sure about the power levels and costs of some of these, but I don’t think anything is too crazy.

Any ward may be decoded with read magic (though see obscuring ward below) and destroyed with dispel magic (the wearer’s saving throw versus magic applies).

Elemental ward.
Choose one: fire, cold, lightning. You may re-roll the next failed saving throw of the given type. Doing so exhausts the ward. Minor effects related to the element in question often manifest around the wearer, though generally in subtle ways (a faint aura of cold, sparks when walking on stone, etc). Cost: 500 GP. Components: the remains of an elemental creature of at least 3 HD.
Paralytic curse.
Anyone other than the attuned magic-user donning the robe must make a save versus paralysis or be frozen in place indefinitely. If the save is successful, paralysis is avoided, but the wearer feels uncomfortable and nauseous (taking a -2 to all rolls). Cost: 500 GP. Components: the spleen of a ghoul.
Obscuring ward.
This ward disguises the nature of another ward. It either hides a ward completely or makes it appears as a different (non-functional) ward. Useful for disguising wards that may rely on forbidden magic, such as diabolism or necromancy. Cost: 500 GP. Components: blood of an adulterer.
Flaming retribution.
If the wearer is slain, a fireball detonates with ground zero at the wearer. Cost: 100 GP per die of fireball damage, max = robe level. Components: ash from a home that was burned to the ground.
Protection from evil.
Choose one: demons, undead, faeries. As per the spell. Any hostile action (referee determination; the player should be given information about what constitutes hostility) grants the creature a saving throw versus magic to destroy the ward. Creatures of this type can also sense the ward and thus have a -2 on any reaction roll. Cost: 1000 GP. Components: captured creature of the appropriate type (minimum 3 HD), sacrificed or ritually destroyed.
Demonic sympathy.
The true name of a demon is inscribed as a ward. If the attuned wearer dies, the demon is destroyed. If the ward is dispelled, the demon is freed. Cost: 1000 GP. Components: demon’s true name.
Undead retribution.
If the wearer is slain, she raises as a wraith and inexorably pursues the killer. Cost: 1000 GP. Components: fat rendered from the flesh of a person killed by terror or energy drain.
Precipitative ward.
Rain, snow, and other natural precipitation falls around rather than on the magic-user. Winds are calmed slightly, but not entirely (gale-force winds remain dangerous). Cost: 50 GP. Components: cloud, bottled and preserved.
Relay ward.
This ward must be created voluntarily with another magic-user. The other magic-user may cast spells through the wearer, though targeting is still up to the wearer. This also creates some form of unidirectional magical channel between the two, and the remote magic-user will always be able to sense the approximate direction and distance of the wearer (the remote magic-user also gains a +2 to all saves versus spells cast by the wearer). Some masters use this ward in order to control their apprentices. Cost: 1000 GP. Components: blood from both parties, freely shed, mingled.
Sartorial ward.
Robes may shift in appearance as long as they continue to maintain approximately the same surface area. All wards remain visible unless magically obscured. Robes must continue to appear as some form of clothing. Cost: 100 GP. Components: the ashes from a suit of currently fashionable clothing, burned.
Necropotent ward.
No life will come into being within 10 feet of the robes. Living plants will also gradually die, and animals will become uncomfortable (-2 reaction roll). Useful as a magical form of contraception. Cost: 100 GP. Components: crops spoiled prior to harvest.
Seelie friendship.
Must be created jointly with another magic-user of the Seelie court. +2 reaction rolls with members of the Seelie, -2 reaction rolls with members of the Unseelie. Generally awarded as a boon to magic-users that have helped the Seelie court. The reverse, Unseelie friendship, is also possible, but obviously not both at the same time. Cost: 500 GP. Components: blood shed in violence of a member of the opposing court.

Wizard Robes

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The Beguiling of Merlin (source)

The act of spell casting opens up magic-users to dark forces and draws the attention of wicked spirits. In order to defend against such dangers, many magic-users wear garments imprinted with powerful and esoteric pictograms. Such wards help protect a magic-user against psychic pollution or opportunistic attack.

To function correctly, the wards must be imposed spiritually between the magic-user’s soul and the magical threat. There are some extremely powerful magical periapts that can accomplish this task without the symbolism of clothing, but they are very rare. More common are robes which stand directly between the flesh of the sorcerer and the external threat, particularly flowing clothing such as robes, which provide more space for esoteric symbols.

Just like physical armor, robes provide a defense rating, from 1 to 6. This rating functions as a bonus to the save versus magic and does not provide any bonus to physical armor class. Warded robes also function, by referee determination, as AC against certain special creatures (such as those that are ethereal). In Hexagram, the magic defense trait bonus does not stack with the bonus from warded robes, though the magic defense trait may be used to protect a companion (see the path of wonder trait descriptions).

The symbolism of clothing requires that the robes bridge the space between flesh and threat, so conventional armor may not be worn at the same time. However, most magic-users fear arcane assault more than physical assault (which may be guarded against by certain abjuration spells and loyal warders). Thus, many magic-users opt to wear robes rather than traditional armor (though they may forego wards and wear armor if desired). There are legends of warded mage armor, particularly among the faeries, but such treasures rarely come without strings attached.

The base cost of warded robes is as follows, by robe level. This includes the cost of materials and the labor of skilled tailors. Robes take one week per level to create.

10 gp
100 gp
500 gp
1000 gp
5000 gp
10000 gp

In addition to the saving throw bonus, warded robes may have up to N special wards (where N is equal to the level of the robes) which can provide special protection. The nature, cost, and availability of these additional wards are up to the referee, but often require special materials or far away knowledge.

Robes must be attuned to a particular magic-user. The cost of attuning a set of robes to a new owner is half the original cost. Additionally, the magic-user must cast a spell of level N as part of the attuning procedure. Warded robes that have not been attuned function at half-level (rounded down) until the garments are reworked to fit the soul of the new wearer. Some magic-users may also work curses into their garments (these would fall under the category of special wards) as insurance against theft.

In addition to psychic defense, warded robes also have social value. They advertise to strangers that the character is a magic-user. Such open magic-users are assumed to follow the laws of the ancient academy and to reject black magic such as diabolism and necromancy. One of the responsibilities of magic-users following the ancient rules is to hunt down and punish sorcerous rebels. Many magic-users are quite zealous in this task, in order to protect their fragile reputation. Within the society of magic-users, the complexity of robe symbolism also functions as a crude method of assessing another magic-user’s skill and power.

It is assumed that there are only three kinds of magic-users that do not wear robes openly. Those that are too poor or inexperienced to craft proper garments. Those that wish to conceal their nature (this is considered evil and is a crime in many places). And those, like the arch-mages of myth, that are powerful enough to need no external protection.

Armor by Class

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Image from Wikipedia

Armor is something I have never been totally satisfied with in D&D. It’s not because I object to the abstraction of armor making characters harder to hit rather than preventing injury (though I have written about that before). Rather, I don’t much like the idea that a magic-user can’t strap on a breastplate and get some benefit from it. This is not a major problem for me; I don’t have any issue playing traditional B/X with all the armor and weapon restrictions and having a great time. But it does seem like an imperfection.

That being said, I do think fighters should be better at using armor. The weapon restrictions problem, which is similar, has been very elegantly handled, in my opinion, using damage by hit die rather than by weapon (which I originally based on Akrasia’s damage by class). Perhaps something similar could be done for armor without totally modifying the underlying system?

First, I am going to fall back on my earlier assumption of a threefold armor classification (light, medium, and heavy corresponding to leather, chain, and plate). Traditionally, there are also several types of character class regarding armor use. The heavily armored classes can use plate (fighters and clerics). The lightly armored classes, such as thieves, which can only wear leather. And finally the unarmored classes, such as magic-users, which can wear no armor.

My basic idea is that by default, armor grants one point of AC per tier. So, for example, leather armor would grant +1 AC and plate armor would grant +3 AC. Someone with no armor skill (such as a zero level character or a magic-user) who straps on a suit of plate thus only gets +3 AC.

Additionally, characters gain an AC bonus equal to their armor skill if their armor skill is equal to or less than the AC bonus of the armor in question. The armor skills by class are:

Cleric (heavy): +3
Fighter (heavy): +3
Magic-user (none): +0
Thief (light): +1

In other words, you get to double the AC bonus when using armor of a tier less than or equal to your (class-based) armor skill. None of the big four classes seem to have medium armor skill (though in terms of balance, the cleric probably should). However, there are a number of subclasses that seem like they would naturally have medium armor skill, such as the ranger.

Effective AC Bonus
Class	Armor Skill	Light (leather)	Medium (chain)	Heavy (plate)
Cleric	+3	+1 +1 = +2	+2 +2 = +4	+3 +3 = +6
Fighter	+3	+1 +1 = +2	+2 +2 = +4	+3 +3 = +6
Magic-User	+0	+1 +0 = +1	+2 +0 = +2	+3 +0 = +3
Thief	+1	+1 +1 = +2	+2 +0 = +2	+3 +0 = +3

In the table above, each armor column has three numbers: the inherent armor bonus, plus the class armor skill bonus, which together = the full AC bonus. The armor skill bonus only kicks in if it is not greater than the armor bonus. So, for example, a thief, who only has an armor skill of +1, gets no armor skill bonus when wearing chain, making chain equivalent in terms of protection to leather (though the thief can still wear chain if circumstances require it).Similarly, for example, magic-users benefit much less than fighters from plate, but a magic-user in plate is still better armored than a magic-user in leather. In effect, this system defines how much protection comes from just wearing the armor and how much protection comes from skill at fighting in armor. Some classes may get less benefit from wearing armor, but all penalties, whether they are encumbrance, speed reduction, thief skill impairment, spell failure chance, or anything else, apply in full. All else being equal, a thief will thus gain the same AC bonus from leather as they would from chain, but will take fewer penalties in the leather. The same thief will be slightly more protected in plate, though presumably at the cost of rather still penalties to sneaking and maybe fleeing (depending on the specific armor penalty rules that are active).

Potential AC bonus from a shield is equal to half the armor skill, rounded down, meaning that thieves (who have a +1 armor skill) and magic-users (who have a +0 armor skill) would gain no benefit from using a shield, and fighters (who have a +3 armor skill) would gain a +1 from using a shield (as would any class that was deemed to have a medium armor skill). This ends up outputting the original numbers, which is nice, but also means that it is impossible to gain any benefit from a shield without armor skill, and I’m not sure that is satisfactory. Provisionally, I think characters without enough armor skill to use a shield should be able to get the +1 AC if they spend their action focusing on using the shield to defend.

Incidentally, this same system could easily be used with Hexagram, substituting the path of battle “defense” trait (or something derived from it) for the armor skill bonus described above.

Author Versus Player

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Play to find out what happens. — Vincent Baker in Apocalypse World

What does the game master or referee in a roleplaying game do? There are several different schools of thought, some of which include things like: creating challenging situations, interesting relationships, stories, and events. Whichever of these are deemed important (or forbidden), there is often a hidden assumption that the referee is the author and the people running PCs are players. Even the initialism PC suggests this (player character).

As author, the referee is expected to know what is going on. The referee is thus a kind of facilitator. They have decided beforehand about the truth of the important things (if they are a good game master in this paradigm), and these truths are expected to unfold through play, either through narration or mystery solving on the part of the players. This is independent of whether the game in question is a railroad (invalidates or circumscribes player choice) or a sandbox (respects player choice as much as is feasible given limited time and human mental capacity).

However, I haven’t been playing that way recently. I have been interested in the referee as player, not author. This is not to say that the referee does not have a special set of responsibilities or powers with respect to the setting. The ref needs to play the roles of the NPCs, run the monsters, devise traps, provide clues, adjudicate rules disputes, etc. The ref needs to know enough about the setting and scenario to do these things impartially and consistently. But they don’t need to know everything in advance. In fact, some things can be left positively up in the air (if necessary, truly uncertain things that, unforeseen, become salient during play can be determined randomly).

There is nothing wrong with a game mastering style that says the adventuring is over here (with a big neon blinking arrow pointing toward the megadungeon or whatever). It is certainly practical with regard to session prep strategy. But it seems to me that tabletop RPGs have a unique potential compared to other narrative media. They have freedom regarding not just how some questions are answered, but even what questions are important to begin with. I’ve been trying to create things that respect the logic of my setting, but also trying to let the players decide what is important. The artifacts that I create to help me run the game (monster stats, maps, NPC descriptions, calendars. etc) are tools to help me figure out what happens, not scripture regarding what makes up a fictional setting.

I do project events forward several steps. Making some decisions beforehand is required for impartiality. How can I discover what happens impartially if I am free to just make up whatever I want whenever I want? No, there must be some constraints. Examples: if nothing affects this area, then this NPC is going to consolidate power; this other group of NPCs is going to flee south as quickly as possible; demons attack this town during every new moon. I try to not decide things too far in advance, though. It is sort of like predicting the weather: there are too many potential variables to make forecasting far out practical. Who knows if the PCs will even be in this part of the world three months later?

Hexagram Treasure Overview

Sorcerer Patrol

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Being a sample Hexagram campaign (consisting of rewards and backgrounds).

Talisman of Saturn

There are three types of people in the world: naturals, trained magic-users, and everyone else (the bulk of humanity). Most people just don’t have the talent, instruction, or mental fortitude to dip their hands into chaos, the raw substance of creation and potentiality, and make their will manifest. A small portion, however, with study into ancient mysteries, can learn to work magic. An even smaller portion shape reality whether they want to or not. These are the naturals. They can be some of the most potent wonder workers, if they don’t go mad or destroy themselves and those nearby.

In their worst form, naturals are raw chaotic wounds on the flesh of civilization. They are dangerous, and need to either be trained or destroyed. That’s where the player characters come in, as agents seeking out these wild wonder workers. The catch? Most of the time, those best equipped to destroy or train sorcerers are themselves magic workers. However, after the great disaster, sorcery is forbidden and great college disbanded. However, small cells of the academy continue to operate behind the scenes. Think wizardly X-Men.

Short digression on mechanics for experience. I’m playing around with another variant experience system, which I will use in this post. Rather than 1000 XP required per level, 6 XP are needed. This scale is influenced by more recent games like Vampire and Apocalypse World, and “6 XP per level” obviously fits Hexagram stylistically, and allows me to present XP similarly to any trait.

However, stylish elegance is not enough; the system needs to work structurally as well. The major thing that I like about the more granular D&D method (with thousands of XP required per level) is that XP can be awarded impartially (by treasure value or monster hit dice) and small XP rewards can still provide a sense of progress even if major objectives are not accomplished. So, is that possible with a more compressed XP scale? I think it probably is, assuming that rewards remain objective and are awarded communally (XP acquired per session is totalled and then divided among surviving PCs).

It should be easy enough to translate back to the 1000 XP per level system that was outlined previously. Multiplying all rewards by 100 would work, though it would result it slightly slower progression. The previous treasure hunter reward paradigm can also be done using this system: spend 166 (round up to 200) GP to gain 1 experience point.

Let’s look again at this particular campaign idea to see how rewards might function.

SORCERER PATROL REWARDS

Neutralize a wicked sorcerer: 5 XP per sorcerer level
Recruit a sorcerer: 10 XP per sorcerer level
Recover of an item of power: 1 XP per item level
Destroy dangerous item causing chaos pollution: 1 XP per item level
Discover the seclusium of renegade sorcerer: 1 XP per sorcerer level
Destroy a beast of chaos: 1 XP per hit die

This list of rewards is rough, incomplete, and probably needs some numerical adjustment; I just want to get the basic ideas down. More suggestions for reward-worthy “sorcerer patrol” tasks are welcome.

(Item levels range from, you guessed it, 1 to 6, and will be covered in a future post.)

SORCERER PATROL BACKGROUNDS

A natural, you were trained by an academy cell and feel indebted.
You began as a “special skills” operator for an academy cell. You slowly pieced together the nature of your employer and were forced to make a choice: be disappeared, or join fully. Do you welcome this new role, or rue the day you came across the wizard hunters?
Though not a powerful sorcerer yourself (you may know a spell or two), you are fascinated beyond measure by all things arcane. What led to this obsession?
An ex-soldier, you began as a mercenary employed by a cell and worked your way up to full membership. Why are you interested in this line of work as opposed to other mercenary jobs?
Someone you care about needs an infusion of sorcerer blood to remain stable or healthy. Are they sick in some way, or perhaps a natural themselves?
You craft items of power from the bones of sorcerers. How did you develop this skill?
Just being around sorcerers is a high for you, never mind when they actually cast spells. You crave that experience over all others.
Wizard suprematist. For now you work within the contraints of the academy, but one day you will write your own laws. What experience in your past shaped your confidence that the wielders of magic are destined for mastery?
Sorcerophage. That’s right, you eat sorcerers; you like finding the wicked ones best, because few object to killing them. Why? Is it a religious thing? Do you get power from it? Do your superiors know?
You believe that naturals corrupt the flow of magic power for everyone else and are a danger to trained wizards. They must be controlled or destroyed for the safety of all practitioners and mundanes. What formative experience cemented this point of view?

Black Sun Rising

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The first volume of the Coldfire Trilogy, Black Sun Rising is a book which I originally read in high school. I was captivated by the cover art by Michael Whelan (I very clearly remember seeing the slightly beat up hardcover copy at the local public library and knowing that I just had to read it). Rereading, I see that BSR has had a far larger impact on my gaming taste than I had previously thought.

The plot is not the strongest and the characterization is only okay, but where this novel shines is the setting, which seems almost tailored for a D&D type game, and in a way that does not seem contrived. Just for one example, in traditional mythology vampires fear running water. That just falls naturally out of the setting, along with many other such features. If you don’t like overly systematized fantasy, the Coldfire Trilogy might not be for you, but I would suggest that systematized settings are exactly what are needed for a fantasy game. But enough about generalizations; what makes the setting special?

The setting is hard science fantasy in the sense that the world is expected to conform to the laws of physics and is explicitly set in the far future; the characters are the descendants of Earth colonists on an alien planet. The “magic” is a property of the planet Erna which exudes an energy called “fae” naturally. The fae comes in several different variaties, the most common of which is called earth fae, which humans can “Work” in order to create magic-like effects. Additionally, there is tidal fae (protean, unpredictable, lunar, unworkable by humans), dark fae (which waxes in the absence of light), and solar fae (which is not explained in much detail but is associated with sunlight somehow). The earth fae is connected to geological dynamics, and flows strongest in fault lines between tectonic plates. Sorcerers that try to work the fae when an earthquake hits get their mind fried (and Erna is very geologically active, so this is a real and continuous danger). The fae has inspired a number of my recent chaos magic posts (the parallels between manipulating chaos and working the fae should be clear, though I would hope to present chaos more mythologically).

There are two main protagonists, Damien Vryce and Gerald Tarrant, who end up working together despite being polar opposites (the contrast is obviously supposed to be the primary thematic tension of the series; the idealism of Damien the priest and the ruthless pragmatism of Tarrant the sorcerer). Damien is probably the most cleric-like character in any fiction I have read (perhaps to an even greater degree than characters in TSR setting fiction, surprisingly). He’s a tough priest that belongs to an order of church demon hunters that believes in working the fae despite the fact that church doctrine opposes sorcery. Damien partly inspired my recent church sorcerers post.

The fae is not just power though; is is psychologically reactive. The fae gives flesh to the things that people fear, and such faeborn creatures feed on human emotions. Thus, the planet Erna creates the monsters of human myth. Such monsters are most powerful at night, and are mostly unable to threaten people during the day. They are also weakened by deep or flowing water (alluded to above) as that acts as a buffer around the earth fae. Friedman describes how fae-wraiths cluster around the walls of small settlements at night, trying to get in but being repelled by wards designed to keep them out. It’s perfect for D&D, and something that I have been using for as long as I can remember myself, though I may have originally gotten the inspiration from reading this series way back when.

Despite the rationalization and explanation of the magic system, the actual effects which characters generate with the fae are mostly rather subtle. There are few fireballs or magic missiles being hurled around (though Tarrant does engage in some rather dramatic coldfire displays in some parts; he is somewhat special though, for reasons that I don’t want to discuss here lest I spoil the plot). Instead, most fae workings are concerned with information, and are essentially “Seeing” the fae (being able to get information is also controlled by the direction of the flow; if someone is “upstream” from you, more information is available). There are also Healings, Wardings, Banishings, and many other kinds of working. Additionally, some people, called adepts, are born with fae-sight. Essentially, natural born sorcerers, whereas most people must learn how to see and manipulate the fae in a more academic manner (a virtually perfect mapping to the wizard/sorcerer dichotomy in D&D).

I feel like I could go on and on about how many of the setting elements harmonize so perfectly with the assumptions of D&D. The monotheist-style church trying to bring law through faith to the chaotic wilderness, struggling against fae-born godlings which also have their own “pagan” worshippers. But the power of the planetary fae gives these things real corporeal power. It ends up feeling a bit like a less solipsistic version of the World of Darkness Mage setting, where the nature of reality is determined by what people believe. Complicated technology (like guns) are less reliable because people do not completely understand the mechanism and fear that it will not work (and this fear is made into real danger by the fae). Once the original colonists had landed on Erna, they were stranded because their own psychology prevented their advanced technology from working reliably. It’s such a wonderful justification for a world full of adventure and danger.

The God That Crawls

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The God That Crawls LotFP module

The short review: based on a read-through, this is one of my favorite Lamentations adventure efforts, probably right below Tower of the Stargazer (my favorite) and Death Frost Doom (my second favorite). I was hoping for a “weird” take on a more traditional fantasy dungeon adventure (with factions and tent pole potential), and that is definitely not what this module is. However, it is a very ambitious attempt at tacking something else that I am very interested in: making exploration time (as a cost) the centerpiece of a scenario. The layout and physical appearance is among the best that LotFP has produced to date. I love the slight fade to gray around the edges, which makes every page almost seem to glow. The standard LotFP digest size also makes the PDF convenient to read on a tablet. The art is, however, not up to the standards of releases like Carcosa or The Monolith From Beyond Space and Time (though it is by no means bad). For the long review, with spoilers, continue beyond the period tower.

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The setting and atmosphere are historical, but in a way that should be easy to incorporate into many fantasy settings. A saint has been corrupted in the past and transformed into a terrible monster. However, the village populace still believes that the creature is somehow holy and seeks to protect it and hide it from outsiders. It’s also part of a higher-up church conspiracy (or at least some church superiors know about the cult and seek to keep it secret if for no other reason than to protect the reputation of the church).

I really like the main adventure hook. Though it likely traps the PCs in a bad situation, it is entirely opt-in. That is, players are going to be drawn in by their own curiosity (rather than railroaded into the adventure), and there are many possible approaches. Minimal investigation could easily reveal warning signs that all is not right, but I suspect most players will not question the hook. This could be an issue in a campaign where players do not decide which leads to take, but it should be fine for either a one-shot or an extended sandbox game. This also means that if players are smart and come at the adventure from an odd angle, or wait until they are powerful enough to challenge the god directly, they should not be penalized.

Also, questioning adventure hooks is a matter of player skill, in my mind — players should always worry about being used as tools by NPCs for unwholesome ends. It is also possible, through skillful dungeon play, to come out ahead in the end, though I would consider the scenario as a whole to be difficult and potentially punishing. There’s nothing wrong with that for players that are up for a challenge though.

The map itself looks like it might be one of the few labyrinth style dungeons (maze of twisty little passages) that I think might be fun to play through literally and diegetically, mostly because there are so many interesting (if a bit arbitrary, sometimes) tricks scattered around for players to interact with. There is enough variance to keep the areas from feeling too similar (and much of that variance is not merely cosmetic; it also contains real clues). The decision to use one powerful monster as the tool of time pressure rather than an arbitrary number of wandering monsters is interesting and thematically sound (horror stories are much more likely to have one horrible creature stalking the protagonists and getting closer and closer, rather than patrols of orcs or whatever). The time spent reaping the potential module rewards (which are real) directly increases the chances of encountering the god — which is old school dungeoneering reduced to its essence.

LotFP modules are sometimes criticized for only having “screw you” magic items. There are certainly a few problematic items in TGTC, but there is also plenty of treasure that has no strings attached (as described above, explicit risk versus reward is the major design principle of the dungeon). Further, the items with drawbacks are interesting and seem like they might lead to some fun play without just punishing players for interacting with weird elements. I like the book and its new spells, though it would probably require several readings to really understand how to run it. The chariot has some silly player-dependent mechanics (including the painting of a player nose — but those are easy enough to ignore). There are also a few items that have interesting effects but perhaps lead to outcomes that are a bit to final for my taste (such as “I am the gate”) which I would either excise or tweak slightly.

One of the most valuable aspects of this module is that running it successfully seems like it would require a mastery of movement rates and encumbrance. That may sound tedious (or trivial) but stay with me here. The game part of the dungeon revolves around the trade-off between spending time (and making noise) breaking open sealed treasure caches. The time and noise made increases the probability of encountering the god, which is probably too difficult to fight, which means that PCs need to flee if they want to survive. If you can run this module successfully, you should be able to run chases and pursuit in any other dungeon context. Thus, The God That Crawls makes for great practice regarding an important referee skill that is not (in my experience) used as much as it should be.

Overall, this looks like an excellent module, both as a fully realized adventure locale and as a source of ideas to insert into other dungeons (especially the numerous tricks). I think it will require some effort to prepare and run successfully, but I bet that anyone running it will end up as a better referee for doing so.

Shaping Raw Chaos

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Image derived from Wikipedia

Reality is a war between the ordering force of civilization and the pure chaos of the wild maelstrom. The farther from outposts of order, the more raw untamed power seethes just beneath the surface. Those that tap this dangerous and sanity bending power are sorcerers, and woe follows in their path.

To work their magic, sorcerers must have chaos to shape. The more chaotic the location, the more power is available. The most dangerous areas, such as deep in the underworld or perilous wilderness are the most chaotic. A wonder worker’s mortal mind cannot perceive chaos directly. It cannot be seen, tasted, or felt. Thus, the character can only speak of chaos in metaphors: trickles, flows, torrents, leaks. But this is not chaos. The way that can be named is not the way. The referee will keep track of quantitative details.

Shaping chaos is dangerous. Sorcerers can’t control exactly how much power they draw. Once tapped, the power must be used quickly lest it consume the sorcerer. Any worker of wonders that ends a turn holding chaos must make a saving throw versus magic. Upon the first and second such failure, they manifest a chaos leak, and the chaos decreases. If there is a third failure, they are consumed by the chaos. Unused chaos may by burned off assuming the sorcerer is not in a stressful situation.

Chaos may be contested. As an action, one sorcerer may attempt to steal chaos from another. The target makes a saving throw versus magic. Upon failure, the target takes one point of damage and loses a trickle of chaos. The aggressor gains that same amount.

As an action, wonder workers may attempt to siphon off power directly from chaotic creatures. The target must make a saving throw versus magic, and upon failure the creature takes 1 point of damage and the sorcerer gains access to some chaos. The referee will track how much, and this may vary by creature. The chaotic entity so targeted is now linked to the sorcerer, and is usually enraged by the theft. This link may manifest in a variety of ways, and can often be quite dangerous to the wonder worker (thus, many sorcerers attempt to destroy the sources of chaos that they feed upon in this way).

Sentient life energy, taken without consent, may be used in lieu of chaos. A sorcerer may target any intelligent creature within the range of a dagger throw; the target then makes a saving throw versus magic. Upon failure, the target takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage, and the magic-user gains access to a trickle of chaos. In either case, the sign of sorcery will be upon the victim and the two will be connected. There may be other more violent and permanent methods to harness the power of sacrifice.

General considerations. Sorcerers may draw and cast in the same action. For all chaos manipulations (contesting, etc) the sorcerer must be within dagger throw range. An area has Nd6 points of ambient chaos available, where N is the dungeon level or distance in wilderness hexes from civilization. As alluded to above, those points will never be directly communicated to the player. Instead, the referee should use the following language:

Trickle: 1d6 points
Flow: 2d6 points
Torrent: 3d6+ points

A sorcerer may attempt to draw up to 1d6 points per round. They may cast immediately, or hold the power and attempt to build up more (save against chaos leak as specified above). A spell requires 1 point of chaos per spell level (thus, a traditional fireball would require 3 points of chaos). Spells cast with insufficient chaos fail and require a save versus magic to avoid a mishap (see bottom of that post for one possible table). Casting rules could be reliable or require a casting check. All such effect tables (leaks, mishaps, overloads) should regularly be refreshed. Consider replacing used entries between sessions to keep things interesting.

An “area” should be approximately defined beforehand by the referee, but follows no strict rules. A small cluster of rooms or a subzone could be appropriate area sizes. Think about how many rooms your players can explore in a single session and go from there. Certain areas of power may break any and all of these rules.

Mechanical transparency or mechanical opacity? In the transparent model, the referee tells the player, you harness a flow of chaos, 7 points, and then the player is responsible for tracking those points and can make decisions based on that quantitative knowledge. In the opaque model, the referee tells the player something like: you can sieze only a trickle of chaos. Does this mean 1 point or 3? The player doesn’t know. The referee needs to track the numbers, which might be a hassle, but all else being equal the danger and mystery of magic will be reinforced by uncertainty. The above model as outlined assumes the opaque model, but I expect that it would work in both modes.

This is necessarily a rough draft. It has seen no play testing. I’m certain that some of the numbers, probably the offensive drain abilities, will need to be adjusted, and that the writing could be clarified. Also, I think side effects from extra ritual considerations would add to the system, along with some other consequences for deriving chaos from sentient suffering within civilization. Some corruption tables might fit. The ranges might need modification as well, but how much more interesting is it to suck unstable chaos from an enemy (that might blow up in your face) rather than tossing yet another magic missile? (And you wonder why sorcerers build their towers far away from the prying eyes of villagers and other busybodies.)

Chaos Overload

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