Lost Galmagia Basic Housekeeping

Because this will be in B/X it means a "dwarves, elves and halflings are classes" structure. So I need to deal with a couple of inevitable questions: 

1) why don't the demi-human races have clerics? 

The gods of this world are the stars overhead, and when they meet as pantheons they meet on one of the three moons (there's an interesting split in human religion over whether the sun counts as a god). The three pantheons are the gods of the Fae, the Gods of Humanity, and the Gods of the Earthfolk. 

Well, there _were_ three pantheons. The Fae gods stars are occluded by a cloudy formation in the sky, their moon is in a geostationary orbit over the elf city of Deephome. No one knows what happened to them, and it has been this way for as long as humans have records. The elves (and the halflings who are more fae than earthfolk) have no clerics because they have outlived their gods. 

The earthfolk gods take created not just the dwarves, but also the giant-kin, which includes orcs.  As the gods of the earthfolk became twisted, the dwarves broke with them, and the enmity between dwarves and giant-kin is greater than you can imagine. The dwarves (and those halflings who are more earthfolk than fae) have no clerics because they are apostates from their pantheon. 

2) Why can't dwarves and halflings wield magic?

In play, I'm actually tweaking halflings to make them less Tolkien and more faerie, and the player will have a choice to give them the choice of some magical powers, and have them be satyrs, dryads, kitsune and other nature spirits, or additional durability and have them be more classic halflings. 

Dwarves don't have wizard like spellcrafting, but will gain Dweomercraft as a power that lets them create and forge magic items. This takes a long time and is very expensive, so it really only comes up at level 5+ play. Earthfolk just don't interact with magic the way humans and elves do. 

3) Alignment? 

I'll be stealing a page from 13th Age here and rather than Law/Neutral/Chaos the PCs will have a list of 9 major patrons whose clearly defined goals the PCs can align with. Each patron's followers have common phrases and signs to act as an "alignment language", and when you meet someone of your "alignment" you'll be able to get extra assistance from them. 

Alignments Include
"The Lost King": restore humanity to where it was before the giant's shadow fell
"The Matriarch of the Moon": leader of the organized human religion... in the north at least...
"the Lord Mayor": forge a new direction for humanity based on the facts on the ground
"The Elf Court": very conservative and systems driven, more on the side of the Lost King
"The Dwarf Counsels": balanced between tradition and innovation, more on the side of the Lord Mayor
"Queen Mab": The secret name of the loose ruler of the thieves guilds, likely a halfling if she exits at all
"The Clouded One": the cloud giant tasked with maintaining the edict, watching overhead.
"The Brotherhood of the Stars": leaders of human cults, each deeply grifting their own congregations
"The Orc Kahn": Chaotic strength/violence proves leadership, forget the edict, take it all. 

If you're thinking "hey, that kinda maps to the 9-fold alignment chart, that's by design. 

Dungeon23 Challenge: the Giants Shadow - Lost Galmagia

 

Dungeon23 Logo designed by Lone Archivist and generously made available for free through the CC BY 4.0 licenses.

Like everyone else in the know universe I'm taking part in the Dungeon23 Challenge. The idea, in brief, is to build a classic megadungeon one room a day, one level a month, so you on January 1 2024 you have a 12 level, 365 room dungeon like the ones that were the heart of the game in the 1970s.  

This is built in the same world as the Hobbit game "A Distant Inheritance" design I posted back in 2013, so a nice little anniversary synchronicity there. Unlike "ADI", which was set 99 years after the giants came out of the mountains and destroyed all the human cities of the Tarmalanian plains, leaving behind the edict that across the plain "no stone shall lie upon stone", this game is set a mere 25 years after. Human refugees in the dwarf hills and mountains and elvish woods have just enough of a foothold - a couple of coastal 'cities', numerous small towns - to start wanting back the things they left behind. Enter the Player Characters. From a town that is one step up from a refugee camp settled over entrances to (and borrowing the name from) the dwarf city of Amethyst Spire, they will be trying to recover the treasures of Lost Galmoria, which is a tantalizing and no longer insurmountable day's ride away.  

System is going to be B/X (the Moldvay basic set, the Cook/Marsh Expert set), which I haven't run since '83. I'm making a 40 year reunion in the mechanics and a 10 year reunion in the setting. Being me of course there will be some game mods in this, but I want to keep as close to pure rules as I can in the presentation. I'm aiming to post one 7-day room cluster a week on Monday mornings, with W and F updates on the world, rumors, ideas, etc. when I can manage it. Things will get archives on the Lost Galmagia page.  

N is for Neptune Smith in the 2022 Campaign Creation Challenge

Neptune Smith is a giant lobster. No, not anthropomorphic. He's just a 7' long lobster, not counting the 4' reach from his claws). He is either the child of a kaiju lobster empire deep in the ocean or a mutation that gained sentience and the power of speech pulling an elaborate con. He's not exactly brilliant by human standards but he's got deep cunning and a strong survival sense that comes from being very old - while his legal status has him in his early 30's he's more likely over 300.

Neptune hasn't appeared yet: he's going to crawl out of the Haven docks and cause havoc, perhaps precipitating the formation of the super-team, but by the time the heroes arrive it will be difficult to judge who started it. Neptune will slip into the bay. He will return later in a time/place less likely to cause havoc to treat with the local authorities with not just his story but a vast supply of gold pulled up from sunken treasure vessels and a request to start is education at Yale. 

Money heals many wounds, and Neptune will soon be scheming from Haven harbor, Long Island Sound, and the halls of the Ivy League. Every once in a while, he picks a fight with the heroes for no good reason and then hides behind his diplomatic immunity or some incomprehensible biological imperative. His personal fortune pays for any collateral damage. No one knows why he does this: maybe it is part of his kaiju nature, maybe he needs the force of their blows to weaken his skin before he molts, maybe the giant lobster is just an asshole. By he is insanely strong, difficult to hurt, and has enough speed an accuracy to be a threat to the heroes. 

Creation Notes

Another villain for the whole team, another 1 on the powers roll. I put the first on skills and two on powers and finally got what I needed for a proper super strong character. OK, I actually didn't roll animal powers, I got water breathing, but since that immediately went to "lets super charge water breathing to make a Namor like prickly jerk with diplomatic immunity" I decided it was easier to just move it to Animal/Plant powers with maximum number of powers and make that Heightened Strength bonus at maximum. Having the backgrounds kick up Inheritor and Education while he also had Reduced Intelligence, but the level training rolls had him maximize his Int, led to the insane and delightful (to me) idea that he's an actual giant lobster, but also attending Yale with a fat wad of pirate gold. 

Wecome to comics, people. 

M is for Mimir in the 2022 campaign creation challenge

Miriam Hardison is the late in life daughter of a prominent politician from his 2nd and much younger wife. No one knew that part of his 2nd wife's beauty came from her being 1/16th Vanir, not even Miriam. But she did covet the magical secrets of the Skull and Bones order, and through her family connections was able to reach, touch, awaken and bond with the oracular head of Mimir, which the order had been consulting since its founding. The now awakened godhead was sick of being cooped up, sick of being abused and misused, and had ideas about the correct state of the world. Miriam is more than happy to help it out.

Since obtaining literal godlike power, Miriam (and Mimir) have been exploring the world and interfering in whatever catches their attention. Miriam likes to think she's the dominant partner in the relationship, but in reality Mimir, whose scope of power and foresight and age, is directing things to institute some sort of Ragnarök event. He knows it's well past time for the end of the world, and perhaps can even make an argument that whatever mass extinction event he's planning is for the greater long term good of the world or universe. That's the angle he is slowly playing in Miriam, who for all her narcissism is not ready to end the world. 

Skull and Bones are not taking this lying down, of course. Not only do they have their own agents after her, but every law enforcement agency and mass communication outlet in the United States is knows she's in the top 10 most wanted. Other villains don't want to associate with her not just because she acts like they are beneath her, or she's not one of them, but also because she's radioactively hot. Skull and Bones have made sure she has no allies, not realizing that just maybe she doesn't need them. 

Creation Notes 

I knew this had to be the first of the "vs. hero team" villains and the dice were  great for the background and attributes, but gave me just 1 for powers. That's fine due to the wonder of V&V, and that one of those powers was Special Weapon Item. Gee Howdy did I go to town on that. Mimir manages to survive in an action economy sense as she's got at least 3 and maybe 4 actions, and can spend one of those to summon and direct a very large number of monsters of Norse myth, which will prevent the heroes from ganging up on her 6 on one. Her dimensional travel lets her 

Mimir's also got a clear enough long term goal that is easy enough to conceptualize but has dozens of paths to it, so you can pick the one that fits your campaign. That Mimir has telepathy means that Pcs telepaths can't easily try to get access to any of Miriam's moral reserves, and her Prejudice means she's really unlikable for trying that. 

The character is clearly inspired by Emerald Empress, but also Kid Babylon from Bill Willingham's _Pantheon_ series. 

1 is for 1001001 in the 2022 campaign creation challenge

 1001001's construction at the behest of eccentric Canadian billionaire Kellingley Laws was with the intent of her being purely a sports mascot for his new hockey franchise, the Hamilton Electrics. Backed with functionally limitless money the designers went kind of overboard, constructing an ambitious modular android with a unique, fan-friendly design and wings. Wings! Laws was thrilled and backed multiple extra modules to make it even more impressive. He even licensed his favorite Rush song to use as a name and game music.

Their original programming of Asimov's first law had to be reduced as during her first practice match she kept pulling the skaters apart and chastising them The reduced directive – that she had to intervene to protect people who were in danger (due to something other than organized sport) and she could not initiate hostilities, was put in place instead. They hadn't quite thought that through as 1001001 quickly started acting as a local super-hero. There wasn't much by way of super-crime, but the Hamilton authorities didn't complain about the assistance with emergency services. 

With Kellingley's death his heirs cared little for the newly created hockey franchise and sold/transferred it to Haven to replace/resurrect the long lost Whalers. 1001001 went with them. Her prior skin of the gold and blue of the Hamilton flag was replaced with either the blue with seal of the Connecticut flag or the white and green of the Whalers logo, depending on the day and whether there's a game on the ice. 

She still acts as a super-hero (her programming won't allow her not to), and its still mostly emergency services work. She really only fights super-villains when she teams up with the other Haven heroes. 1001001 has gotten much smarter since she was created and her AI improves with experience. 

Creation Notes

Since February has 28 days and the alphabet only has 26 letters I knew I was going to need two numerical entries. Since this one came up with Android Body it was logical, and then the dice told me she was from Canada and the name became clear. Then the dice told me this Canadian Android was skilled in Broadcasting and Sports and I could not get the idea of an android hockey mascot out of my head. So 1001001 is a bit goofier than the other heroes, but that's part of comic book's charm. I leaned into it, keeping the ice powers device I was originally going to drop because hocky. The throwing pucks and collapsible hockey stick battle staff were entirely due to Moon Knight coming out and "Random Bullshit Go!" 

I was happy with her design of the skeletal android covered with pressurized inflated skin that kept her circuitry at optimal conditions but could be altered or expanded or even used to cover people. I've always been a huge fan of the Vindicator/Guardian literally wrapped in the flag costume design, and happily borrowed it here for a new Canadian hero, albeit in a goofier way. The idea of her heightened agility being an enormous database of flight and cheerleading routines fits surprisingly well, and her ice powers device being rerouting of the cryo plant needed to counteract her plutonium core again makes sense, for certain values of sense. 

She's the first of our heroes who is team based rather than having her own book, so her villains will actually be all team villains.