Rule Systems Matter - Glass Goblins

Here's a monster that only works properly using the 1st edition AD&D rules. In that set of rules, anyone can hit this creature on a "natural" roll of 20, with only 5th+ level Fighter-types, 7th+ level Cleric-types, 9th+ level Thief-types, 11th+ level Magic-User-types, or 2HD or greater monsters able to make use of any "to hit" bonuses, due to its unusually high Armor Class. Now, if it is hit, then it immediately dies, thanks to its fixed 1 hit point (treated otherwise as per any creature of less than 1HD). Based on an entry in All the World's Monsters, Volume 1 from Chaosium. The concept could easily be transplanted into another edition, but a harried converter might miss the subtleties involved, especially when translating into 2nd edition rules.

 

GLASS GOBLIN

FREQUENCY: Very Rare

NO. APPEARING: 4-40

ARMOR CLASS: -4

MOVE: 6”

HIT DICE: 1 hit point (but as 1-1 for to hit and saving throw purposes)

% IN LAIR: 40%

TREASURE TYPE: Individuals K; Lair C

NO. OF ATTACKS: 1

DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6 or by weapon

SPECIAL ATTACKS: nil

SPECIAL DEFENSES: nil

MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard

INTELLIGENCE: Average

ALIGNMENT: Lawful evil

SIZE: S (4’ tall)

PSIONIC ABILITY: nil

Attack/Defense Modes: nil

LEVEL/XP VALUE: II/31

Another goblin affliction similar to nilbogism (see ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS FIEND FOLIO – Nilbog), the strange disorder resulting in glass goblins causes most strikes to bounce off of their rigid flesh, but a perfectly-angled attack will cause the glass goblin to shatter into tiny fragments, as if it were truly made of glass. Otherwise, glass goblins live among their normal kin and cannot be told apart from them without touching the glass goblin’s skin (see ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS MONSTER MANUAL – Goblin). They live in perpetual fear of bugbears (see ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS MONSTER MANUAL – Bugbear), who are the members of goblin society most able to shatter them.

 

The Geist

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

All right, no more apologizing. Sometimes it'll just take me a while between articles here. That's just the way things go sometimes.

Anyway, in the previous entry, I talked about fine tuning your AD&D (or other) game for your specific setting. I thought I might provide a part of an example, since I have it handy, and also it's appropriate to the season. In my setting, I wanted the spirits of the dead to be less Evil. Sometimes, they're your ancestors! They do have a problem with the living, but not one where they feel the need to destroy all living things. So, the Ghost entry in the Monster Manual isn't very helpful, and most of the other undead spirits of the dead weren't what I was looking for either. However, there is the entry on the Kuei in the 1E Oriental Adventures book. OA was, in fact, a large part of shaping my ideas on fine tuning a setting, and its approach to the dead with an unfinished task fit my ideas on the restless dead very well. So, with some rewriting, here is the Geist, a replacement for the Ghost in my setting:

Geist (Lesser Spirit)

FREQUENCY: Rare
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: -4
MOVE: 18”
HIT DICE: 3 to 6
% IN LAIR: Nil
TREASURE TYPE: Nil
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6, 1-8, 1-10, or 1-12
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Possession
SPECIAL DEFENSES: See Below
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 10%
INTELLIGENCE: Average to Very
ALIGNMENT: See Below
SIZE: M
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil
    Attack/Defense Modes: Nil
LEVEL/XP VALUE:
    3 HD: IV/180 + 3/hp
    4 HD: V/275 + 4/hp
    5 HD: V/405 + 5/hp
    6 HD: V/725 + 6/hp

A geist is a spectral entity, representing the soul of a deceased individual who has taken on a ghostly form. This transformation may result from the person passing away without proper burial rites, leaving behind unfulfilled life goals, or being murdered and not avenged. Visually, the geist retains the appearance it had in life, seemingly tangible but intangible to touch, as it cannot interact physically with the material world. Although they are not affected unduly by sunlight, geists tend to be more active during nighttime hours. Their alignment varies, depending on the nature of the task they must fulfill.

The geist's abilities vary based on its hit dice. These abilities are as follows:

    Hit Dice    Weapon Needed to Hit    Damage    
    3 HD                            +1                           1-6    
    4 HD                            +2                           1-8    
    5 HD                            +3                           1-10    
    6 HD                            +4                           1-12    


Other abilities of the geist include the following:

    • The capacity to shift into an ethereal state at will.
    • The power to take control of a living person, akin to the possession spell, which it can exercise up to three times daily.
    • Immunity to ESP, as well as resistance to charm, enchantment, illusion, and water-based spells.
    • They are impervious to psionic attacks.
    • They have an immunity to standard fire and cold damage, with only half damage taken from their magical counterparts.

In encounters, a geist typically seeks to possess a host. Successful possession results in the geist's form vanishing as it assumes control of the host's body to fulfill its unresolved earthly duties. These tasks might include seeking retribution, honoring a pledge, or performing sacred rituals for its release. A geist can maintain possession for extended periods if required by its mission, as illustrated by tales of geists completing lifelong vows through their hosts. Possession can only be ended through the host's demise, the completion of the geist's task, or through exorcism or a similar spell. Once freed, the host regains their faculties, oblivious to the events that occurred during the possession.

EDIT: It seems I forgot to include the data on the Possess spell. In OA, it's a 5th level Shukenja spell. The relevant factors are that it allows the user to possess, and so completely control, a creature of fewer hit dice, but the creature gets a saving throw vs. magic to resist. The possessed creature will not remember its time under possession. The possessor cannot use any class features of the target. If you prefer, you can substitute the Magic Jar spell, just as the Monster Manual ghost does, adjusting factors accordingly.

Aliens In Spectacular Science Stories/Rockets & Rayguns

Yeah, I am still thinking about which name to use. I think that, at least, SSS will be the working title.

Anyway, aliens. Since the game draws on a wide range of sources for its inspiration (I'll do an "Appendix N" post soon), it also draws on a wide array of types of alien races. On the one hand, humanoids, even ones that can intermarry with Humans, should be really common. On the other hand, some of the aliens in the source material get really weird and "out there". A really common trope is the alien race that is a lot like our stories of spirits and demons, being non-physical and capable of manipulating the physical universe in various ways. The original Star Trek series was particularly good for providing visual examples of these, but they were common throughout the history of the pulp raygun fantasy stories.

I'd talked earlier about the idea of the Flanaess Sector, but that was originally targeted at a more "hard" SF setting, where what we know of physics was important. That isn't a concern in raygun fantasy, so I've been looking at other monsters to include as aliens. I probably still won't include elves, since that would make things look a little too much like 40K for comfort!

I'm particularly interested in some of the more obscure entries to be found in the OSR, actually. The Kzaddich and Tsalakian (pdf), originally found in Footprints magazine (and John Turcotte's dreams prior to that), were put into the OGL when they were added to the Swords & Wizardry Monster Book. I think that they would be perfect for raygun fantasy. In the Adventures Dark & Deep Bestiary, Joseph Bloch provides an interesting creature called the "Genius Loci", which resembles a number of creatures from the original Star Trek, from various adventures of Northwest Smith, and so on. Mr. Bloch helpfully included that entry under the OGL.

I mentioned a number of creatures that fit in the Flanaess Sector article, such as the Flumph, Grell, Otyugh (or Neo-Otyugh), Myconids, Ropers, and so on. I think that I can replace the Mind Flayers with the Thelidu (they fit into the idea of raygun fantasy a little better anyway, since they were specifically developed for a science-fantasy influenced setting, Dwimmermount), which were included in the Swords & Wizardry Monster Book by James Maliszewski. The Umber Hulks who attend on Neogi could be replaced by Joseph Bloch's Underground Goliath.

All of that aside, it should be pointed out that nearly anything that fits into a fantasy world will also fit into raygun fantasy worlds. Notably, some of the horrors in Rafael Chandler's Teratic Tome are extremely appropriate to the sorts of pulp SF that falls into the raygun fantasy category.

I should write a manifesto, of sorts, of raygun fantasy.

The main thing that I'll need to do is work out which aliens are most common and have star empires of their own. I already know that I want the Thelidu to have one, with a sector of Ropers resisting them, and I certainly want an empire of Myconids (or maybe Skathros's Mushroom-men).

In the end, though, all of that is pretty much background to the central theme of the game, which I will talk about next time.

Edit 4/26: I didn't get around to talking about that central theme in the next post, but I will. I started to approach the discussion a couple of posts later, when I began to lay out what, exactly, I mean when I say "raygun fantasy".

What Is This?

Over at Photoshop Disasters, there was this image of a four-eyed mountain sheep. It must have stats in some game or games. Share them with me! Is it a Gamma World mutant? A demon from the depths of AD&D's Abyss? Something else?

Another Update In Lieu Of Content, Plus Wire Trolls

I didn't get any character classes finished this week, so instead you get this.

The main thing I've gotten done lately is quite a bit of work done on the Fantasy Wargaming retroclone and revision, and somewhat less work done on the Top Secret retroclone. For the former, I've finished the draft of the character creation chapter and am well into the chapter on magic. For the latter, character creation is pretty much finished and I've worked some on action resolution, mainly on the "contacts" system by which characters can acquire information and services in exchange for bribes, threats, or seductions, among other techniques.

I've been learning a bit more about the Middle Sea world, but not enough to make a post of its own yet. I'll get there.

I'm trying to decide if I should go with presenting the Fantasy Wargaming revision as a Dark Ages/Medieval setting, as it was originally, or if I should present an original setting. The advantage of an original setting would be getting to avoid the criticism leveled at the former of "giving stats for Jesus" (which, while technically true, wasn't really as big a deal as the critics made out, since the stats given were effectively infinite - God wasn't intended for use as a monster you can kill). The disadvantage, of course, is that the idea of a straight Dark Age/Medieval European setting is a compelling one, and one around which many of the mechanics are based. I am really leaning toward keeping it in Europe, at least as a basis. Perhaps I can work up another setting as a supplement, if any demand exists. Maybe the Middle Sea world could be dual-statted for AD&D and FW/whatever I end up naming it. There would have to be a lot of work to do so, though, as it would require, at the very least, an entire chapter just on the religions of the Middle Sea: the Tetradic Church, the Fatalist Church, the Radiant Church, the Denialists (who might need their own, new magic system, though it would actually be a modification of the standard one), and polytheists of several varieties (Kurai, Davrai, and Daling, at the very least), plus demon-worship.

I'm having to revisit the matter of setting with the Top Secret retroclone as well. In initial feedback, I heard from people that they'd prefer to see it set in the Cold War era of the late '70s/early '80s, just as the original was. However, since then, Merle Rasmussen has released his first TS adventure in decades, and it is set in the present world of conflicts with terrorist groups and rogue states. I could also provide information to cover the multiple eras, but that would take up quite a bit of space.

OK, after all that, you deserve something you can use, so as a Joesky Tax here are some stats for Wire Trolls (thanks go to Zak S for pointing out the picture, which coalesced some previously inchoate ideas that I had running around in my head):

Wire Troll

Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 4
Move: 6"
Hit Dice: 6+1
% in Lair: 10%
Treasure Type: E
No. of Attacks: 2
Damage/Attack: 1-12/1-12
Special Attacks: Wires, Puppets
Special Defenses: Regeneration, Puppets
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Average
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Size: L (8' tall)
Psionic Ability: Nil
     Attack/Defense Modes: Nil
Experience: 825xp + 8xp/hp

The wire troll is a terrifying creature that wanders the wastes, using its puppets to forage for food and water, as well as to protect itself from attackers. They rely on the senses of the puppets, as their own are dim and weak.

While a wire troll can attack with its two great, maul-like hands, it prefers to send puppets to do its attacking for it. Those are, after all, expendable in the eyes of the wire troll. It will repair damage to its own body at the rate of 2 hit points per melee round, which will include severed parts coming back to the main body, or even forming an entirely new wire troll if the main body is destroyed by fire or acid, taking 3-18 melee rounds to do so.

The most feared attack of the wire troll is the sending out of wires, 1d4 per melee round, with a maximum of one per target per round. Each of these acts as a missile weapon, with a range of 10". If a wire hits, the target must make a saving throw (against petrification) or the wire embeds itself and attaches to the target's nervous system. At this point, the wire troll gains complete control and can manipulate the target to do anything the wire troll desires. Such puppets must remain within 10" of the wire troll at all times. A wire troll can never have more than 12 puppets at a time, and cannot voluntarily release any puppets. Puppets will retain all abilities, hit points, and so forth, except that no spellcasting abilities or divinely granted abilities will remain while a puppet. A wire troll cannot make a puppet out of a creature larger than itself.

Since the wires remain as a connection, it is obvious when a puppet is attached to a wire troll. The wire can be targeted by a sharp weapon to attempt to cut it, requiring a roll "to hit" against Armor Class 0, followed by a damage roll of at least 5 hit points of damage. Puppets released in such a fashion must make a System Shock survival roll, and will be disoriented and stunned for 1d6 melee rounds even if they succeed. If the wire troll can be killed, all of its puppets will be released without injury.

When encountered, a wire troll will have 2d6 puppets, of the following types:

1) human*
2) elf**
3) dwarf***
4) goblin
5) orc
6) gnoll
7) centaur
8) ogre
9) roll on random encounter chart
10) DM choice

*humans have a 10% chance of having a character class. Roll as per henchmen (DMG, p. 35).
**elves have a 20% chance of having a character class, as above.
***dwarves have a 15% chance of having a character class, as above.