Dusty Blog

My blog is all dusty, I have multiple near finished blog posts but I never find the energy or the focus to finish them. I recently quit Twitter so this will maybe help me to post back again. It is not easy to exist in multiple virtual spaces, I am trying to post on instagram, facebook (for my non gaming friends), my patreon, on multiple discords and to publish videos on youtube, to stream a bit and to records episodes of my podcast. I guess that this is not much for some people but I often feel like I am too dispersed. Oh and I forgot that I am also trying to work on zines that I seem to never be able to finish. Shit, just before I transitioned I published around 5 zines on lulu, now nothing... -_-

Hopefully I will post back soon in the Cauldron. <3


-Ev

Tiny Goons mini adventure: The entity that cried nasty grublings.

• Oh no! Demon faced grublings are eating everything. (DS6 for a few, DS8 for a swarm)
• The tiny goons can easily track back their sulfuric and slimy trail to find from where they came. 
• On the road they encounter a few random creatures who are angry or sad because the demon grublings ate their stuff. 
• The trail lead to a Nasty-Gross entity that seem in pain, it is cursing nasty words and crying. It tears sprout grubling demons when they touch the ground! 
• The entity roots are chained down a hole.
• Someone is cooking down the hole and the smell attract the grublings down the hole. 
• Climbing down the hole the tiny goons encounter demon grubblings trapped in all kind of slimy traps (traps are DS6).
• At the bottom the goons find the Creepy-Gross Moleman Chef who chained the entity, he is preparing a delicious and spicy demon grublings soup! The Moleman Chef don't want to share the soup or to liberate the entity (DS10). He may offer to do so in exchange of a fetch quest to get exotic ingredients but he is lying and wont keep his promises. 
• The key to the chains hang from the roof. Climbing up there is not easy (DS10) 
• Other kinds of creatures are caged in the kitchen. The kitchen also contain all sort of pretty loot. A mutating and a rotting pepper (DS8) are guarding the kitchen. 
• Liberating the entity turn it into a Pretty-Gross entity and it will emit magical dust that can be collected or maybe it can even award it flaming heart. 

Tiny Goons

I missed the Tunnel Goons jam but here is a quick hack inspired by my blog article about how the gross can be positive too. (PDF version)

You are a ugly but cute creature looking for pretty things in a mutating landscape full of strange entities.

• Distribute 3 points between CUTE, GROSS and NASTY. 
• You start with one cute, one gross and one nasty item. 
• Your max inventory is 6.
• Your starting HOPE is 10.

When you try to do something roll 2d6 + CUTE, GROSS or NASTY. 

Add one for each item that apply to the situation.
For each item that exceeds your max inventory subtract 1 from any CUTE or NASTY rolls.

If the total is equal or greater than the action’s Difficulty Score (DS) it is successful.

If the task is super important or meaningful a miss reduce your HOPE by the margin of failure.

DS are 8, 10 or 12.

Regain HOPE by: 

• finding pretty things (d6)
• making new friends (d6)
• eating something tasty (d6)
• sleeping in a warm cozy place (2d6)
• finding something truly wonderful (2d6)

If you lose all hope you become melancholic and can do nothing until you regain some.

The creatures, entities and obstacles that you encounter are:

(d6) 1-2 small like you (DS8), 3-4 bigger (DS10), 5 way bigger (DS12), 6 gigantic (DS14). 

(d6) 1-2 cute, 3-4 gross, 5-6 nasty.

(d6) 1 spooky, 2 creepy, 3 moody, 4 spiky, 5 sleepy, 6 pretty. 

Advancement

Level up at the end of a game session: add 1 point to one of your CUTE, GROSS or NASTY attributes and raise your HOPE or max inventory by 1. If your HOPE reach 20 you make a chrysalis and become something truly wonderful.

Orc history and tribes generator

I used perchance to craft a orc history and tribes generator:

https://perchance.org/orchistory

You can also generate some cute orc babies to break the heart of your paladins:

https://perchance.org/orcbaby

Monsters with no HP

This is just me trying out a half baked idea (don't take this too seriously).

So there was a discussion on the Discord of the Good Friends of Jackson Elias about monsters having HP being somehow reassuring and I thought what if hitting monsters made them react instead of chipping away at numbers.

So you roll to hit as usual, then you roll your damages and consult the reaction table.

1-3 minor reactions table
4-6 major reactions table
7+ critical reactions table

Minor reactions table d6

1. Recoil: the creature step back a few steps but is still agressive. 
2. Scream: the creature scream in pain or anger, this may attract unwanted attention.
3. Riposte: the creature strike back to wound.  
4. Intimidate: the creature make a intimidation show, if the group retreat it wont pursuit.  
5. Swap weapon away: the creature swap away or break the weapon that hurt it.
6. Minor custom move: see creature profile

Major reactions table d6

1. Lurk: the creature step back and lurk away from weapon range but remain agressive.
2. Knock down: the creature knock down or throw away who hurt it. 
3. Furious strikes: the creatures make a series of furious attacks. 
4. Charge: the creature charge or push back it attackers. If the group run away it wont pursuit them once they exit their territory. 
5. Defensive stance: the creature step back to protect it wound and take a defensive stance. 
6. Major custom move: see creature profile

Critical reactions table d6

1. Retreat: creature retreat toward a defensive area to hide or barricade itself. 
2. Pin down: the creature tackle down or grab it attacker and immobilize or pin them down. 
3. Vicious strike: the creature make a critical attack that break armor or possibly kill it target. 
4. Sweeping attack: the creature make a sweeping attack and gain some ground. 
5. Lash in pain: small creatures make a weak desperate attack, large creatures trash in pain and damage the location.  
6. Critical custom move: see creature profile

Some custom move exemples:

Hobgoblins mob:

• minor: start chanting the blood song > gain buff (on reroll)
• major: form a shield wall > spear or missile attack (on reroll)
• critical: champion step forward and ask to duel or parley

Displacer beast:

• minor: activate displacer field > displacer jump (on reroll)
• major: teleport attack 
• critical: teleport away to lick it wounds

Dragon:

• minor: laugh and brag
• major: breath weapon
• critical: leave in anger to destroy nearby village 

Weird slime creature

• minor: release toxic spores
• major: life draining pseudopod attack
• critical: dissolve into the earth and leave behind a corrosive goo

For the player characters?

I guess that this work better with a player facing system like in The Black Hack. 

On a miss the character have to step back and give ground or take a minor wound. 

How wounds work if you have no HP?  Good question... 

Maybe this, roll the creature damages:

1-3 minor wound: no effect but two minor wounds become a major one and then a critical one. 

4-6 major wound: roll to hit or damage with disadvantage (player choice). 

7+ critical wound: make a save or roll on a incapacitated table. 

Or maybe that the monsters make their attack and roll their damages like the players do and consult the same reactions table but each entries offer a choice between a reaction or taking a wound.

This is far from being perfect as this is tackled on a system already existing instead of being it own system. 

Mutliverse Traveler Generator

Just a silly post, don't mind me.
You are traveler from the [d12] [d12, d12] verse.
(Roll and chose between the options provided)
Or just click there.

d12 Roll once

1. Dark / Gothic 
2. Fantasy / SciFi 
3. Cyber / Techno
4. Queer / Punk    
5. Cosmic / Mystical
6. Grim / Lighthearted
7. Lo fi / High 
8. Modern / Retro
9. Pulp / Gritty 
10. Bizarro / Poetic 
11. Tragic / Comedic 
12.  Post-Apocalyptic / Medieval  

d12 Roll twice

1. Western / Wuxia
2. Romance / Erotica 
3. Young Adult / Chick lit 
4. Noir / Conspiracy
5. Pastoral / Urban 
6. Space / Underground 
7. Picaresque / Heroic 
8. Medical / Legal 
9. Horror / Splatter
10. Political / Military 
11. Dystopian / Utopian 
12. Crime / Mystery

Rolling some examples

• Queer Chick Lit Noir Verse 
• Fantasy Political Young Adult Verse 
• Punk Noir Medical Verse
• Tragic Wuxia Conspiracy Verse
• Cosmic Splatter Mystery Verse 

Keywords maps

As a experiment I used keywords instead of names to fill up a map. I selected the keywords using free associations but I guess that you could also randomly generate them or use a mix of both techniques. Generating them collectively could also be fun.

I think that I like the result, I could easily use the map to improvise a point crawl session. The only annoying thing is that you have to figure out how to actually name things in the game world, I guess that you can combine the keywords with other words to craft names. Like the town with the keyword "sad" could be Sad Street or Sad Sparrow.

You could also use the keywords to generate random encounters. Let's try this.

The red keywords are regions or kingdoms, lets try with Diaspora of Remembrance. 

On one table we put up 20 keywords located in the region. 

1. Remembrance 
2. Sad
3. Moon
4. Quiet
5. Buried
6. Paintings
7. Healing
8. Light
9. Ghasts
10. Joy
11. Old
12. Memories
13. Abandoned
14. Forgotten
15. Ribbons
16. Milk
17. Exiled
18. Mourn
19. Roots
20. Rest

On a other table we put 10 types of encounters

1. Group of people
2. Loner or outcast 
3. Trader
4. Small beasts 
5. Large beast
6. Undead
7. Spirit
8. Monster
9. Conman 
10. Figure of authority  

If we combine some rolls to craft a d10 random encounters table we get:

1. Healing + Figure of authority 
2. Joy + Outcast 
3. Memories + Undead
4. Exiled + Spirit
5. Remembrance + Conman
6. Ghasts + Small beasts
7. Light + Undead
8. Buried + Group of People 
9. Milk+  Group of people
10. Forgotten + Trader

I could easily work with this. You can apply the same formula to generate treasures and magical items. 

Positive-Gross

The other day I was thinking back about the Skinned Moon Daughter B/X class that my friend Benjamin wrote for the Undercroft #9. I wanted to write a blog post about using the articles in the Undercroft #9 as the building blocks of a campaign but as I was rereading the zine I was taken aback by how nihilistic some articles were. I checked on the back cover and I noticed the “Compatible with Lamentations of the Flame Princess” logo. This made me think about the influence of the LotFP horror genre in the OSR and how it intermingled nihilism, gross out and horror together. By nihilism I mainly mean the dead trap nega-dungeon or settings and scenarios where everything is amoral, horrible and hopeless. 

In the Undercroft #9 there is a unstoppable sexual disease monster that contaminate everything it come in contact without any real hope of resisting it effects, there is a monster made of dicks that automatically turn people into copies of itself and finally there is a scenario about a entity that cause women to give birth to babies that spawn gigantic monsters that feature cults that control or use these women. All of these things had uncomfortable implications of abuses or cruelties and I thought: do gross things always need to be linked to these themes? Is there other kind of gross?

I thought about underground comics and the art of Julie Doucet, one of my favorite comic book artist who gleefully represented gross things in her comics but in a often playful way. Yes there was some self depreciation and angst in some of her strips but her art also feel positive and liberating.

There is a inherent power in daring to represent and to explore gross things, underground comics certainly understood this. There is also waves of women artists who try to appropriate the right for women to be as gross as they wish. They dive in the trashy and gross out but still, there is often sometime positive to retain from their work, not just emptiness.

While working at the library I also often see children books about farting and other gross things, these books tell kids that it is ok to be gross and that gross things are not scary. Daring to be gross can be sometimes cathartic, liberating and even empowering.

Gross things don’t have to be about abuses and cruelties or nihilism, I think that it is important to also be able to explore the gross in a positive way. I wish there was out there, creators or publishers that balance the nihilist-gross popularized by LotFP with material that explore a more playful and positive gross. I am not saying that nihilistic-gross should never be explored but that balancing it is important. I don’t want to see the nihilistic-gross balanced only by materials that move away from the gross to explore different things, I also want to see products that balance it by embracing the gross without linking it with forms of abuses and cruelty.

How to do that?

A good starting point could be to explore your own darkness. The video that Contrapoints made on this question is good food for thoughts. Try to explore your own gross or darkness first.

Some possible paths to explore:

• Feature the gross as something liberating. Something that break stiff social norms or that is good to vent out or to unleash in a cathartic way.
• Gross, like chaos don’t mean evil. If we can have chaotic-good things, we can have gross-good things too. Chaos is also often about change, transformation and revolutions, same for the gross.
• Present the gross as allies, tools or resources instead of presenting it as threats.
• Play characters imbued by the gross. Make the gross personal and familiar instead of about otherness and external fears.
• If you make the gross external and scary make it so that you can communicate with it in some way. Present the scary gross as something that you can make peace with instead of something that you have to destroy.
• If you present the gross as something to be fought, contrast and balance it by making the characters or their allies gross too. Motley of cheerful-gross friends vs the evil-dangerous-horror-gross.
• Don’t link the gross with abuses, keep it consensual, let the players trigger it or dare them to dip their toes in it. Same for the NPCs, don’t force the gross on them, make them embrace it through their emotions or actions.
• Empower the gross, don’t always link it with misery and suffering, make it sometimes amazing or wonderful in it own grotesque way. 
• Humanize the gross, don't always make it comical or ridiculous. Diversify it expressions or it reactions.
• Develop safety tools about gleefully grossing each other out, tools that let us safely dare each other. Tools that let us safely push our comfort zone to explore gross things. Maybe something inspired from the emotional safety flower. Read about the tools that already exist, hack them if needed. Thinking about content warnings could also be a good thing. I feel like there is exploration to be done here, especially for the OSR who often shy away from these tools.  

I don't consider myself a gross person, I am pretty shy and all but as a trans woman, the gross sometimes speak a lot to me, dysphoria often lead to self depreciation and I often find part of me gross (less often now that I am transitioning). I also often tried to identify with gross monsters to kind of accept myself. Making peace with what we perceive as gross is not always easy (and we are not always in a position to do so). I think that there is a lot to gain from exploring the gross in a way that don’t leave us numb and empty.

Gross as a ally and something personal and scary that you need to accept or make peace with:

The gross as player characters and as the familiar and the mundane:

Gross as something neutral that the characters can interact with:

Gross as someone that the characters can gain as a ally:

There is a lot to explore.

Insects from Shaggai

Using the Insects from Shaggai in a fantasy setting. 

Campaign premise: 

The player characters are young from the same village, they will be soon initiated into the local cult. Years ago the insects landed in their temple ship, they domesticated the more useful monsters to use them as servitors. This was a good thing at first, while the woods gained the reputation of being haunted, the area became more peaceful. But soon the insects implanted their cult into the local human populace. To answer their need, the insects taught some technological innovations to their cultist while carefully controlling the villages' populations. The lands around the landing area became a sacred and forbidden place. Thing would go well but factions among the insects have different plans for the villagers. There is also these foreigners that were found in the woods, near the forbidden lands, a family is healing their wounds but the foreigners sinful influence have already infected some of the young, they call them adventurers.

• Each village is under the influence of d3 Insect's factions.
• Local families have their own petty ambitions.  
• The wounded adventurers want to use the young to get what they want. 
• (The surviving adventurer are ill or crippled, it will take them weeks to recover) 
• The players determine a personal temptation that push their characters toward the forbidden area.  

Alternate option: the players play a group of adventurers who stop in one of the cult's villages. They are probably seeking something in the forbidden area. Young befriend them while local families want to use them to achieve their petty ambitions. The insects don't care about them at first but once the adventurer get troublesome, the insects will want to control them or may have other uses for them depending of their faction.  

Alternate option: the players play the insects. This option is naturally harder to play but quite tempting. The player characters are insects who fused with the mind of villagers to influence their community. Since their fused mind tap into their victim memories, this help the players make sense of their characters (vs playing truly alien ones). The insects have to deal with rival insect factions, their servitors becoming more erratic, the petty ambition of the villagers' clans and the presence of adventurers.


The Insects from Shaggai

Castes d9

1. Oracles (Command & administration)
2. Seers (Navigation)
3. Shapers (Engineering)
4. Priests (Science)
5. Scribes (Archives)
6. Weavers (Medicine & biotech)
7. Shepherds (domestication and bioengineering of alien species)
8. Singers (Operation)
9. Watchers (Security & Intelligence)

Factions d9

1. Seeders: want to create multiple colonies on imperfect worlds. Secret sub faction: research Shub-Niggurath to adapt their biology to these new worlds and secretly want to remain on their present world.
2. Seekers: seek only the perfect new Shaggai and ways to divine it location. Secret sub faction: research Yog-Sothoth and Daoloth to create the possibility of the perfect new Shaggai. 
3. Mentors: want to uplift indigenous species to imprint them with Shaggai culture to make backups saves of their history and culture. Secret sub faction: believe that the uplifted specie can revitalize the Shaggai culture if they are allowed to retain some form of agency. 
4. Harvesters: fear indigenous species revolts and influence, want to harvest them as raw materials or to exterminate them. Secret faction: research necro-animation technologies to develop a new servitors and are secretly worshiping Mordiggian.
5. Puppeteers: believe that the insects should infiltrate and control indigenous species and never reveal themselves. Secret faction: believe in monitoring the indigenous species to actually learn from them. They sometimes influence them to observe their behaviors but to gain meaningful data the specie must retain it agency and not be controlled or modified.   
6. Renders of the veil: want to find new deities to ally with and new dimensions to explore. Secret faction: want to use local species to use as interfaces to contact and summon new deities and dimensions. 
7. Heralds (or Pipers): want to fully summon Azathoth into the material universe to create a new Shaggai, oppose alliance with other deities. Secret faction: research Nyarlathotep to use local species to interface with Azathoth.
8. Dreamers: want to enjoys sensorial stimuli and indigenous memories. Believe that they will never find a new Shaggai. Secret sub faction: devise drugs from indigenous brain matters and genetically alternate their brains to create different drugs. Secret sub faction: want to fuse with indigenous species to live their life and explore their Dreamlands.
9. Guardians of the twin suns: want to preserve the past and pre-Azathoth worshipping culture, favor science but are very conservative and traditional. Secret sub faction: research Liao drug and time travel to return to the original Shaggai and the golden age of science.