The Raid on the Shrine of the Many Legged God

The PCs are currently based in the city of Karn, taking room and board at the Broken Ram. The landlord steered them in the direction of a mysterious woman known as the Information Broker, who operates at the rear of a slaughterhouse. Trading what little they knew, and some silver, they acquired directions to a recently reoccupied shrine out in the wasteland. After all, where there is religion, there is cash. Also they questioned her about the tattoos some of them had been given when drugged and captured by slavers.

They hired a spearman, Rolv, to accompany them for three days and set off into the wilderness.

A quick roll on the omens table gave "a found object," which I decided was a shiny copper penny. Pocketed by the former wasteland marauder stating " a lucky penny...."

Out in the wilderness they encountered a weird covered bridge that didn't actually span anything. It was just lying there. It was clearly built by the ancients but how it came to be there was anyone's guess.

They carried out the raid at night, figuring anyone in the shrine would be asleep or at a mass or some sort of ritual. The door held the ominous engraving "The House of the Many Legged God."

The raid itself was the guys finding the Champion of The Lord of One Hundred Things. Stripped to the waist and bearing a hundred centipede tattoos, in addition to his hugely ornate flail. After some challenges and tactical manoeuvring the fighter mage lunged in with his longsword and delivered a mighty one point of damage. The Champion retaliated by flailing him between the eyes for a solid eight hit points and a trip to the afterlife of his choice. Undeterred the marauder and Rolv the spearman leapt into the fray. Rolv's second spear thrust did the trick, piercing the Champion's chest for max damage and putting him down. They were so excited to loot their former comrade's body they nearly forgot to steal the ex-Champion's flail and silver centipede arm ring.

Inspecting a statue of a twenty foot long centipede the cowardly mage greedily attempted to pry out its gemstone eyes only to have its stone forcipules close on his arm for three points. Now even more cowardly, he temporarily forgot his greed and wished to flee the shrine entirely. The surviving marauder reluctantly agreed while the fighter mage's player started rolling up his new character.

Hiding outside the shrine they saw signs of pursuit so the greedy mage used his sleep spell, in a most cowardly fashion, to put them down. They then applied the customary throat cuttings and stole their pursuers silver centipede holy symbols.

They re-entered the shrine, explored a bit and fought some giant centipedes that attacked from the ceiling. They also found a captured paladin in a holding cell, awaiting his doom, who was all too keen to be freed so he could join up and complete his goal of cleansing the place of these vile centipede cultists.

Finally, they interrupted a ritual where one cultist was restraining another on an altar while the high priest was holding a giant centipede to his chest for the purposes of it biting him. The bitten cultist rushed the PCs, while the second cultist ran for a portcullis that if opened would unleash a centauripede. Rolv's thrown spear took him in the back before he could free it, and earned him the name Rolv Spearslayer, as the cultist fell to another max damage roll from the hireling. The bitten cultist quickly fell to the blades of the marauder and the paladin, centipede poison not exactly falling into the category of performance enhancing drugs. The high priest proved to be more of a problem but largely because he levitated twenty feet in the air and the party nearly ran out of things to throw at him. His darkness spells, magic missiles and thrown centipedes not really cutting the mustard against these determined warriors.

They looted some silver coins from under the altar (naturally) and made off with the high priests ornate centipede necklace, which was the  most valuable treasure in the place. They eyed up the large opal around the neck of the centauripede but thought better of setting it free because it simply looked too dangerous.

Then it was back to Karn for fencing jewellery, dividing the spoils and calculating experience. Quite a few of the silver coins were stamped with a centipede design, let's hope that there are no cultists in the city who might take umbrage with the sack of their god's shrine....

Player's map

My map

d100 Legs, or the Cult of the Centipede!

A lot of love is given to giant spiders and serpents in the sword and sorcery world. They're classic foes it would seem and play on those primeval fears. Everything from Conan to Lord of the Rings has them in the literature, they're even in Harry Potter. I fully intend to use them in my post magical apocalypse setting (which clearly needs a snappier name) but also I want something a bit different too.

Centipedes. Yes that's right, centipedes are the new spiders. Sort of.

Aaaargh! Run for your lives!

Having recently read Rafael Chandler's excellent Obscene Serpent Religion (which I recommend wholeheartedly) I hit on the idea of a centipede cult. The cult of the Many Legged God, or The Lord of One Hundred Things, as he is known.

One of the themes of the setting is that there are no "True Gods" necessarily. There are an almost limitless number of gods worshipped, some are real beings or creatures and others simply idols or fictional ideas. Either way, there is not much in the way of confirmation, only faith. However, I digress slightly.

Cultists of the Centipede God would carry out blasphemous rites using the four listed types of giant centipede in the S&W monsters chapter; cast centipede related spells; be obsessed with the number 100 and look with awe upon the blessed sons of their god, the centauripedes.

Centauripede

Basically a hybrid with the torso of a man and but the head and segmented body of a centipede. Characterised by ferocity and  terrifying speed, the centauripede is a dangerous foe similar to an ogre in strength but with a poisonous "bite" from its forcipules. It usually causes d10 weapon damage by whatever it's wielding in its human arms due to the swiftness and power of its strikes.

Hit Dice: 4+1
Armor Class: 5 [14]
Attacks: Weapon (d10), Bite (d8+poison)
Saving Throw: 13
Special: Lethal poison, +4 save
Move: 18
Alignment: Chaos
Challenge Level/XP: 6/400

Like this but carrying a poleaxe

Perhaps they are at odds with the Praying Mantis Cult....

Change is afoot

I'm in the midst of developing a new setting for a whole new group of players. It's going to be a post magical apocalypse world complete with insane magical constructs; flesh crafted hybrids of beast and man; ancient, powerful magics and tons of forgotten secrets; loads of bizarre ruins; the last surviving human fortress citadels; walled peasant villages; the evils of slavery; the glories and questionable morality of gladiatorial combat; no non-human player characters; dinosaurs(!);  reptile folk; a weird blue skinned, black eyed, HR Giger armour wearing telepathic, man flesh eating, hive minded race; another weird armoured, eyeless race with strange weapons and bizarre, roving fortresses; winged carnivorous apes; the fabulous treasures of the ancients; dragons; mutants; all that good stuff. As Zak S. is fond of saying, there is D&D in every direction. Or Swords and Wizardry in this case, as if that was not the same thing.

Some Weird Occurrences: A Random Table

This primarily relates to my Grim North setting, particularly urban adventures in Nox Aeterna but hey...

Roll 1d20 in town for something strange:

1 The dark cowled figure whose face is the skull of a crow.

2 A drowned woman who speaks inscrutable dooms.

3 The moth like figure who flits between the dark spires and whose prophecies leave the recipient catatonic and irredeemably insane.

4 A pale, bald, fat (Kingpin fat) man with needle teeth and four arms. He wears a bloody apron and carries two cleavers and a pair of carving knives.

5 A dark haired woman who is seen to be washing your bloody clothes in a stream.

6 A man who dissolves into a hundred ravens or rooks

7 A large black dog with green eyes

8 A pot breaks. Then they all break.

9 A face is reflected in a mirror or pool. It has no eyes.

10 The shadows form a horned, fanged face. It speaks your name. It is gone.

11 You tip back your drinking vessel and snakes pour forth. Or worms. Or millipedes. As you prefer.

12 You see a person you are sure you know but they deny you three times.

13 A little girl whose eyes have been recently gouged out beckons to you but when you look back she is no longer there.

14 There is a well. It is dark beyond black. From within you can hear the echoes of gentle sobbing.

15 There is an urgent knocking at the door. There is no one there. When you close it, it starts again.

16 An old man falls in the street. He wails. If anyone touches him, he turns to ash.

17 A weasel crosses your path and stops to stare at you with malevolent eyes. If approached it becomes a snakes and vanishes into the nearest hole.

18 An old woman is selling lucky heather. She sees you, stops for a moment as if struck dumb and then approaches. She pins it on you with no charge and says "Where you are going, you will need this."

19 A beggar freaks out as you walk by. He throws his meagre takings in copper pieces at you saying "Take it, take it, just don't look at me."

20 You see cats. They're in alleys. On rooftops. In the windows of shops. They're watching you.

The d20 Polygraph Test

I hate Sense Motive and similar skills. The ability to detect lies is not a given even for the people who do it for a living. Investigators, journalists, lawyers etc are frequently had over by liars in their day to day business.

If you're a PC in my game then I expect you to make your own judgement about whether an NPC is giving you the run around. If you make an effort to find out then you'll have more to go on. If you just want to roll your d20, well you're going to miss out and quite frankly you deserve to because it's lazy gaming in my opinion.

So, get out and about. Find out where this NPC hangs around, ask questions, buy drinks, threaten people, look stuff up, put the word out, check out what they tell you or reference it with someone else who might also know. Yes, this takes time. It might not be as much fun as smacking the heads off random goblins but how far are you prepared to trust these people. I mean, I just made them up. They're hardly going to be on the straight and narrow, surely?

Are you ever going to get a concrete answer? No. You cast Know Alignment and nothing happens because it's a stupid spell that has no effective meaning in any way other than a meta game concept of behavioural codes that does not exist outside of the DMG.

Play the game well and you will be rewarded, rely too much on the rules and you will be reviled. Don't believe me? Sense my Motive...

Some Witches in the Grim North

 Just some ideas I had about witches while on the train today and yesterday. These will end up in the appropriate random encounter tables for the Grim North.

Random encounter? Oh, go on then

The Frost Witch
White gowned a pale skinned with blue hair lips and eyes. Has a wand that turns folk to ice. Can call a snowstorm and travel through it unhindered or quicker, also appears through the panes of mirrors or reflective surfaces such as ice. Casts charm person, sleep, cone of cold, wall of ice, that sort of thing. Servants are a malignant blue skinned dwarf armed with a whip, two black worgs and a fur clad ogre.

The Owl Witch

Wears a cloak of owl feathers. Can transform into a snowy, tawny, barn or giant owl dependent on the colours of her cloak. Casts owl related spells, wall of feathers, fly (sprouts wings), avian missile, etc. Servants are all owls, they whisper secrets in her ear.

The Night Witch

Hooded and cloaked in black. She carries a noose with her at all times. Blends into and travels through shadows. Noose can attack telekinetically. Has a black cat, may enlarge and fight as a panther. Uses stick figurines to enact sympathetic magic.

The Fen Witch

Bent and ugly. Her name is Daisy. Wears green and brown. Eats frogs and eels. Has a cauldron in which she can see the present but not the past or future. Carries a staff crafted from a crooked, lightning struck branch. Is served by an intelligent serpent that can spit venom, flocks of starlings and an old brown bear.

Things Encountered on the Road to Nox Aeterna

There are things in the woods. They hate you.

Things encountered on the road to Nox Aeterna (in note form):

Beastmen, Satyr, they might look like steroid using goat barbarians but they're flesh eaters and you look like a Sunday roast for the whole warherd.

The Teeth of Beoric, the Green Pearl of Vaxos, the Ivory and Iron Crown, the Skeleton Puppet, finding any of these things can only lead to grief and woe.

Peasants in trouble, faeries have stolen their wagon, an ogre has eaten their children, goblins have soured their milk cow or whatever.

Nothing, they get to the city without incident. Hahaha. As if.

A wizard hunter.

Flying things, pelgrane? Harpies? Dragon? Vores? Moths? Goblins riding moths? The actual Mothman?

Visions, a snow leopard that talks, the Horned Lord and his wolves, any of the other weird faerie-ish gods, a fat man towing a wagon on which sits a huge cauldron of porridge, a black dog with green eyes, a faerie cat, nine dead men hung from the branches of an ash tree.

Witch/witches, inhabiting abandoned huts, weaving or threading beads or sewing or being openly hostile, reading fortunes for silver.

A birchman, or colony thereof 4hd AC 5 (14) dmg 1d8, immune to blunt and piercing weapons, vulnerable to fire.

A rabbit hole, a rabbit hole is like a wormhole but a fantasy one. It leads to the otherworld or at least a pocket of it. It is small but everyone can fit in it.

A dead or wounded patrician.

A gold prospector. Guess what? He's mad. I did not see that coming...

A bridge. Not just an ordinary bridge. It depends on how you cross it. Or who built it. Or who lives under it. Or who disputes your right to pass over it. Or all of these things.