The Dwarf Kettle

Finally, the players in my Wilds game have figured out what the iron kettle they've been lugging about does! Now I can post it for everyone.

Dwarf Kettle

This iron kettle was made by the Dwarfs long ago, though it's plain shape and lack of adornment make this hard to discern. When a command phrase is spoken (Kettle Cook - in Dwarf), the kettle transforms whatever liquid it is filled with into a rich, warm broth, just right for sipping. Consuming one cup of this broth is equivalent to a full meal. The kettle can be activated twice per day.

• The kettle holds four servings.
• Anyone consuming a serving regains 1d4 HP.
• Broth produced cannot be stored for more than one hour.

Short and sweet!

The Dwarf Kettle is one of seven items in Items of Power Volume One, available via DriveThruRPG.

Old Blue - Dungeon Maps Are Always Good

I haven't posted much about maps in a while, because I haven't had much time to do any drawing. May is crazy with family obligations, but now that we're into June, I have some spare cycles to devote to cartography. I've been working on some classic blue maps lately. Here are a few samples.

Daruna - A Brief Update and a Map

The Daruna gang are back in town, and settling out their debts and obligations. After selling off their fat, fat loot, they suddenly find themselves with a lot of money. In fact it's an uncomfortable amount to be lugging around, and in their usual non-subtle way, they've not exactly hidden the fact that they have a lot of money.

So they're buying a house.

Daruna - It's About Time

Well the weekend is over, and the task is done. The party fixed time. Here's how my most recent Daruna game went down...

Daruna - Lost in Time

I finally get to run the next session of my Daruna game in a week or so. When we ended the last session, the party had survived a weird cross-time combat involving a flying serpent creature, lion-like golems, magicians engaged in some sort of ritual, and warriors of unknown affiliation. By the time the battle was done, the party had obtained a number of time-stabilizing pendants and a massive golden seal, the result of the magicians's ritual. Unfortunately the entire world had gone nuts outside. Time was broken and none of the party's support crew or gear was to be found.

Here's a look at what's coming...

Note to my players: KEEP OUT. Spoilers ahead!

Daruna - Alchemy

My Daruna game is a low-magic setting. In the distant past a magical cataclysm corrupted magic, making anything beyond minor spells dangerous to the caster. Despite the threat of permanent corruption, the benefits and advantages granted by even minor spells make such usage an accepted part of society. In addition there are two magic-like spheres on knowledge that are intrinsic to the setting, Alchemy and Artifice. I'm going to talk about Alchemy today, since one of my player's has actually expended character points into learning the skills involved, granting me the opportunity to go down the 'complex system no one but me will ever see' rabbit hole.

Random Tables - Update

I've been adding more tables to the random stuff generator. I figured it was time for a full listing of what's there. Most of these are pretty complete. The ones in need of the most work are the demonic creatures generator and the modern residences generator. Here's the full listing:

• Modern Vehicles - Cars, motorcycles, trucks, and various oddball things you might see on the highway. There are generators available for individual vehicle categories or a random selection from all types.
• Modern Residences - Brief descriptions of houses, apartments, condos, and other homes. Each includes a few notes about the interior, exterior, and / or locale. Useful for on the fly scene setup.
• Demonic Creatures - Nasty beasts with fangs and fish heads and tentacles and... well you get the picture. Just descriptions for now.
• Dungeon Doors - Doors, complete with locks and traps.
• Dungeon Junk - Random bits and pieces of garbage to give some color to that empty room.
• Dungeon Noises - An assortment of random creaks, groans, and squeaks. What was that?
• Card Hands - Sets of four five- and seven-card hands dealt from a standard deck of playing cards.

More to come.

Treasure Generator Update

I updated the random treasure generator I've been working on today. It now has at least some data for all entries and is generating a wondrously random range of weird magic stuff. I also rounded out the armor and weapon tables, so entries should be functionally complete.

I also threw together a small collection of other random generators: modern vehicles, fantasy map descriptions, and modern residences (WIP).

Let me know what you think!

Randomness Revisited

A few days ago I wrote about the random treasure generator I was working on. This is just a brief followup to let folks know it's mostly done. Mostly.

Randomness

A long time ago, I had an Amiga 1000. Being both a gamer and a programmer, I spent some time playing around with various game-related programs. One of them was a text processor that read various table-like files and produced randomized results from them. Time moved on, and the Amiga went the way of the dinosaur and dodo, to be replaced by a PC running Windows and another running FreeBSD. Once again I did a bunch of messing about with table-driven randomizers and ported the old Amiga code over to new OSes and new languages.

The latest incarnation is written in PHP, and I just finished the beta version. The first test page is now up, a random treasure generator for D&D-like fantasy RPGs. If you have a few minutes, please stop by and give it a spin. Feedback welcome of course.

Link: http://www.pbegames.com/treasury/

Anamika - The River Guardian

Anamika is the river primordial my players encountered during the last session of our Daruna campaign (so keep out guys). The stat block that follows is for my own class free version of D&D, but adapting it to other flavors is pretty trivial.

Daruna - Shalish Area Map

I like maps, but not being any kind of artist, I seldom post them here. Nevertheless, here's a regional map of the Shalish area I did for my Daruna game. This was done pen and ink, then scanned and size adjusted.

Shalish Area - Daruna Campaign

Why yes, that is a HUGE river running southwest to northeast.

Magic Item: The Sun Globe

This magical object is a three-inch globe of polished amber, shot through with twisting veins of some deep blue stone. It emits a faint radiance at all times, and once its secret is unlocked it can be commanded to do any of the following:

Daruna Session Notes, Part II

The continuation of the session notes from my most recent Daruna game. This is part two of two. Part one can be found right here. At the end of part one the party had just recovered the icon missing from Anamika's shrine and restored it, allowing the ferry across the Chungal River to start running again.

Daruna Session Notes, Part I

This is part one of a (hopefully) two part series covering events at my last Daruna campaign session. I posted up the teaser last week. Things took a few interesting twists, including a couple major distractions from the main rescue mission plot line.

Daruna - Session Teaser

This the is the session teaser I just sent out to my players as a lead in for our upcoming weekend game extravaganza.

Waxing Summer, the 19th day of the Moon of Heaven's Call

It's hot out. Damn hot. In the fields, irrigation work is in full swing, farmers levering skins of water from the Tana and its network of canals onto fields of wheat and barley, plots of beans, and clusters of fig and fruit trees. The temples are beginning their preparation for the midsummer sacrifices, a minor matter for most, but important to the scholars that track the movements of sun, moon and stars.

Daruna - Session Report

A couple of weeks ago I ran the first of hopefully many weekend-long games set in Daruna, my latest campaign world. The session was also the first test run of the Class Free 2.0 system, my home-brew game system loosely based on d20 and 3rd edition D&D, and the first trial of the corrupting magic system I wrote about in a previous post. Aside from the usual goal of seeing my friends and having fun with RPGs, I had three main goals for this session:

• Shake out the bugs in CF2.0. I wasn't terribly concerned with this aspect. Everyone knew it was a new system and that there would likely be changes to the rules.
• Get everyone up to speed with the new system. A bit of work, as the majority of my players were diehard AD&D 1st/2nd edition players. But they're game, I'm game, so... forward.
• See how corrupting magic affected play balance. This was the biggest potential fly in the ointment. I was (and still am to be honest) particularly concerned about healing, since ablative hit points assume a robust healing mechanism.

Daruna - Corruptive Magic

Wow. This place is dusty. Guess I need to break out the vacuum.
I'm finally doing some work on my Daruna campaign again. We're scheduled to play the first session in a few weeks. One aspect of this game is a bit of swords and sorcery feel, with powerful magic a tool of the big bad guys rather than the player characters. To reflect this I've been working on a system of magical corruption. The how and why follow...

Shalish - A City of Daruna

Map Key

Red - Military
Green - Residential
Blue - Temples
Yellow - Market / trade
Tan - Warehouse / storage
Purple - Government

Shalish is the largest city of the Shalish Alliance, and is the capital of the province that bears it's name. It is smaller in terms of population than Daruna or Loshma, but significantly larger than any other known city. The city and surrounding lands are ruled by King Lahkim Dashen II. Dashen's nephew, King Anda Kamase rules Goba as a vassal state loyal to Shalish, the result of a successful invasion by Dashen seven years ago.

Daruna - A Map

Starting a campaign without a map is like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without peanut butter. This is my first effort at a map for the previously mentioned Daruna campaign. I've created this using the free version of Hexographer, a hex mapping application from Inkwell Ideas. I really do need to buy a copy of this excellent application sometime soon.