Three Character Study - Moral Creatures

This document was written as 3 character study, where 2 of the characters are children. The main intent was to create a realistic seeming conversation including children. I did not want idiots or wunderkind. I think I succeeded, but in free writing, created a rather dark story.

The secondary intent of this post was to imbed a Google doc into a blogger post, as can be done with Google sites. It's a bit tricky, but I think I nailed it down. 

52 Weeks of Magic - Week 24 - Monk's Bane

This weapon is a dragonfly shaped dart made from wire and glass. When thrown at a target, it will strike once a round, every round until the target either strikes the dart with a weapon or makes a save vs. magic. No to hit roll is required as the dart can be avoided and neutralized with a saving throw. 

The dart strikes for 1 point of damage per round, but also foils one attack per round by the target. If the target strikes the dart without a weapon or tries to catch or deflect it, they suffer 3 points of damage, lose all attacks for that round, and the dart will still attack next round. This is why the dart is called Monk's Bane.

Any handheld object counts as a weapon, including gauntlets, sticks, brooms, shields, etc. 

If thrown at a magic user and the MU passes their saving throw, the dart will return to the thrower and explode for 1d6 points of damage. There is no saving throw. Illusionists who make a saving throw will take control of the dart. Again, there is no saving throw. All other character types that make a save cause the dart to return to the original thrower, where it will go inert for a day. Note: Characters have two opportunities to negate the dart; First the saving throw and second, an attempt to strike. 

Since the Bane is attempting to strike the target's face, the target suffers no penalty for striking it and can even use a shield to bat it down. However, other people suffer a -4 when striking at a dart pursuing someone else. Missile weapons are right out for this purpose (unless the archer is evil or doesn't care). 

Monk's Bane is usually found in groups of three, sometimes 6. Several of these darts can target one individual, but only the first will attempt to strike them. The rest will circle. If one is defeated, another will take its place in the next round. Most characters will need to make multiple attacks or multiple saves to escape. However magic users and illusionists require only one and this one save will either cause all of them to return home and explode or all fall under the control of the illusionist. 

When an illusionist takes control of the darts, the darts will land in his or her hand. The darts can only be thrown as fast as the character has attacks. Monk's Bane have the normal range of a dart, but once in flight can chase someone for miles. 

When a magic user repels these darts with saving throw, the darts will scream after their former owner and newest target with a vengeance and will usually strike by the end of the round, but can strike like a bolt from the blue after many days. It is a rather ignominious way to die. 

Magic users and illusionists generally understand the problems presented with these magic items and will use them with care.

Navigation

Week	Item	Week	Item	Week	Item	Week	Item
1	Magic Lamps	2	The Rat Bag	3	Emulous Cursed Sword	4	The Cloak of Peaceful Repose
5	The Cowl of Death	6	Scimitar of Smiting	7	The Symbol of Sol Invictus	8	The Equi Phalera
9	Libertatem	10	Sorrow	11	Aemilla Carna	12	The Obice Cardeam
13	The Gnollish Rattlebone	14	Bands of Roland	15	Shape of Memory	16	Defender's Boss
17	Missile Mirror	18	Stone Horse	19	Staff of Eyes	20	Helm of Aware Airs
21	Potion of the Lionhearted	22	The Unnamed Potion	23	Whispering Wings	24	Monk's Bane
25	Token of Infi	25b	Device of Defense	26	Shield of Force	27	Coming Soon

Now, the commercial. I have a little book called Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners, over at DrivethruRPG. Also on Drivethru is my custom character sheet for AD&D and Unearthed Arcana.

I am obviously thinking of writing another and Gnolls might be the subject. Please let me know what you think in the comments. 

52 Weeks of Magic - Week 23 - Whispering Wings

The Whispering Wings is a small amulet or brooch, useful to organized societies, such a clerical orders and thieves guilds. Typically it takes the form of a moth or butterfly, but can be any winged insect such as a scarab. The device will deliver a 15 second verbal (25-35 words) message over a distance of two miles. The travel speed is 1 mile per hour, which is why they are not used by the military.

The device is made of stone and is not subject to any weather conditions but wind. If it is too windy to fly, it will crawl.

On arrival, it will unerringly find the recipient, if within it's range. It can detect invisible and hidden creatures and will approach in a manner that will not reveal their position to others.

It's message will be delivered by whispering in the targets ear. This is difficult to hear when in combat and if it is asked to repeat the message, it will jumble the words. This scrambled message will shift the word position, but can't alter the individual words themselves. Users would be wise not to use both negative and positive intents in the same message. 

Once its mission is complete, the amulet will attach itself to the recipient on any visually appealing and convenient area, such as a collar, button hole or string. It has a limit of two uses per day; the recipient can, but doesn't have to send a return message. In order to return the device, some sort of message must be sent.

Navigation

Week	Item	Week	Item	Week	Item	Week	Item
1	Magic Lamps	2	The Rat Bag	3	Emulous Cursed Sword	4	The Cloak of Peaceful Repose
5	The Cowl of Death	6	Scimitar of Smiting	7	The Symbol of Sol Invictus	8	The Equi Phalera
9	Libertatem	10	Sorrow	11	Aemilla Carna	12	The Obice Cardeam
13	The Gnollish Rattlebone	14	Bands of Roland	15	Shape of Memory	16	Defender's Boss
17	Missile Mirror	18	Stone Horse	19	Staff of Eyes	20	Helm of Aware Airs
21	Potion of the Lionhearted	22	The Unnamed Potion	23	Whispering Wings	24	Monk's Bane
25	Token of Infi	25b	Device of Defense	26	Shield of Force	27	Coming Soon

Now, the commercial. I have a little book called Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners, over at DrivethruRPG. Also on Drivethru is my custom character sheet for AD&D and Unearthed Arcana.

I am obviously thinking of writing another and Gnolls might be the subject. Please let me know what you think in the comments. 

Character Buffs - Zero to Hero

D&D and AD&D had a system of allowing characters to be buffed by adding some sort of skill to one of the regular classes via professional skills. Noticeably short on details, it encouraged DMs and players to think outside of the box. AD&D had the ranger and monk classes which featured two hit dice at first level while clerics were buffed with not just first level spells, but bonus spells based on Wisdom scores.

With the release of Unearthed Arcane, players received a model for having a character start below 1st level in the form of the cavaliers. Magic users received cantrips which hinted at powers before first level. Weapon mastery made fighting classes much stronger while pushing other classes into the non-combat skills.

Obviously, the cavalier and thief acrobat were nods to the cartoon. Clearly TSR wanted to change and update their product long before 2.0.

At the time, 2.0 wasn't available to me and by the time it was, I was already too invested in AD&D. Basically, I was unwilling to change. I had a large group of players, between 5 to 12 players per session, a few of them running 2 character at the same time.

What made this possible was an embryonic idea to codify low-level, non-combat oriented characters. While much of this was roleplay for my players, a bit of it dove into the skills possessed by these secondary characters.

Fast forward 33 years to 2018. That stack of notes, rules of thumb and memories of the fun were transformed into an actual pamphlet so that others could implement these types of secondary characters into their campaigns. Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners was born.

It started with a list of 50 professions from the middle ages. In January 2019, the list increased by 9 and later reached 61 in October of the same year. The professions are broken into 3 groups: Sedentary, Active and Laboring which determines their hit points. The characters are average people, so they have ability scores generated by average dice, numbers 2-5 weight towards 3 and 4 or collectively as 9 to 12. Combat skills were limited to using the tools of the trade, which are poor cousins of real weapons. Each new "class" has its own abilities, which are flexible and sometimes overlapping. The classes feature their own levels, from 1-5 which have nothing to do with combat or treasure hunting.

These rules were meant to flesh out NPC classes and includes a table of modifiers for hiring them. But I also wanted to make rules for converting a non-player character to one the main classes in D&D and AD&D.

Once a professional becomes a fully fleshed out player character, I needed to include rules for the tools of the trade. Can a mason turned magic user use a hammer? Sure, why not. Within limits. Stats for mauls, hammers, woodworking axes, zaxes and various other implements were created. These improvised or unusual weapons were define in such a way so as to delineate them from traditional weapons of war. In the right hands, they are powerful tools, in the wrong hands they are poor cousins of their martial variants.

Due to the use of average dice for these characters, a path to "rescuing" a hopeless character was created. All of these rules were designed with the existing D&D and AD&D classes in mind. While not entirely balanced, because the regular classes are not balanced, they are not overpowering. The intent was to flesh out bit part NPC and color player characters with a background.

I hope you will take the time to read Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners and incorporate it into your game. I also have a character sheet for use with characters designed with Unearthed Arcana. Both are available at DriveThruRPG at a suggest price of $0.99 or PWYW.

52 Weeks of Magic - Week 22 - Drink me and die!

I am so glad I ran ahead a few weeks. I almost didn't make it to week 22 on time. This one is a quick, one-off potion. In my campaign, it was found in a rack of potions. The rack contained one potion of The Lionheart, two potions of healing, a vial of holy water and two of these unnamed potions.

The potion is in a brown bottle and is an obviously glowing red liquid. It has a blood-like consistency and will fizz when shaken or handled roughly. It seems like the cap is ready to blow off.

It contains a substance that will act as the second-level stinking cloud spell. Whatever this potion was, it was changed by the ichor of the undead. If a character opens it, the stinking cloud will envelop them immediately, allowing them no saving throw. Other people are entitled to a saving throw.

Most characters will note the red glow and fizziness. They will not open the bottle. There is zero chance that a person could ingest the fluid inside, it vaporizes as soon as the cap comes off. The vial can be thrown for up to 4" like a grenade.

Unlike the spell, if the vial strikes a creature directly, the effects will follow them, possibly harming others for 3-5 rounds (not turns as per the spell). Creatures of animal intelligence or higher will flee the area, searching for water to bathe in. Unless there is an obvious body of water in the area, the creature will flee directly away from the thrower. Total submersion in water nullifies the effect. Intelligent creatures will drop whatever they are holding and try to strip off helmets, headgear, and saturated clothing while running.

Creatures hit by the potion will be smeared with fungus orange stain until they are washed with soap and water. Organic, but non-living items which fail a saving throw are permanently stained. Stains, especially on clothing or skin cause a -1 to Charisma and another -1 to reactions until removed. Intelligent creatures will not want to touch the victim, so this shift and penalty cannot start a violent encounter.

If the vial misses a target, it will still burst and envelope an area as per the spell description for third-level casters.

Carrying these vials is not especially dangerous, but players should treat them like eggs or hand grenades. There is no way to get "only a drop" out of the vial, opening the cap allows the entire contents to vaporize instantly. This is not a joke.

Wiley DM's can roll saving throws for the vial at random times or not inform players that targets flee.

Navigation

Week	Item	Week	Item	Week	Item	Week	Item
1	Magic Lamps	2	The Rat Bag	3	Emulous Cursed Sword	4	The Cloak of Peaceful Repose
5	The Cowl of Death	6	Scimitar of Smiting	7	The Symbol of Sol Invictus	8	The Equi Phalera
9	Libertatem	10	Sorrow	11	Aemilla Carna	12	The Obice Cardeam
13	The Gnollish Rattlebone	14	Bands of Roland	15	Shape of Memory	16	Defender's Boss
17	Missile Mirror	18	Stone Horse	19	Staff of Eyes	20	Helm of Aware Airs
21	Potion of the Lionhearted	22	The Unnamed Potion	23	Whispering Wings	24	Monk's Bane
25	Token of Infi	25b	Device of Defense	26	Shield of Force	27	Coming Soon

Now, the commercial. I have a little book called Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners, over at DrivethruRPG. Also on Drivethru is my custom character sheet for AD&D and Unearthed Arcana.

I am obviously thinking of writing another and Gnolls might be the subject. Please let me know what you think in the comments.