Keying my Hexcrawl

In a comment on the last Land's End play report, GFC wrote:

[... I'd love to read more about these factions, and your process for prepping these richly detailed hexmaps. Looking forward to reading more play reports!]


*****

Thanks for the commentary, GFC!

My hex-stocking procedure is painfully slow and perhaps not worth emulating. After playing music for 20 years and D&D for closer to 25 (wow!), I have learned a little bit about my creative process. The best bloggers that I read seem to be able to create their own settings top-to-bottom (or nearly so), while I will always be using a lot of existing material, and perhaps stitching it together in an interesting way if I'm lucky.

When I do dream up something creative & interesting, it tends to come damnably slow. Nevertheless, I have fumbled along despite these handicaps and built Land's End in the following way. I hope it may provide some help in your own games.

My basic ideas are not too far from Blair's classic How I key a Hex Map.
There are tons of other guides on the basics of hexmapping out there for those who are new to it, so I'll just leave this starting point here for those who might be interested: Hexcrawl Resources at Ars Phantasia

Almost two years of exploration

Starting Out

I began with a mental picture of the campaign setting: a "lost world" cut off from civilization. The adventurers leaving known territory and mapping brand-new lands, scattered with the remains of former empires. I wanted an aesthetic of cavemen, lizardfolk, swamps and jungle ruins. That suggested locations, terrain & possible encounters to start with.

In two years of play, my group has travelled halfway across my 8.5"x11" paper map of six-mile hexes on the long axis, and three quarters of the way on the short axis. They have by no means seen everything within that area, either (as you can see on the map above). I usually only have 20-ish hexes stocked that they haven't been to yet. Just enough that I have my bases covered if they take a wrong turn. I come up with new locations quite slowly.

What helps is that travel in jungles & swamps is slow - the players can't get far in a day even at light encumbrance (they take pains to never get weighed down with too much stuff) so I only need a few extra hexes stocked in any direction. They often revisit the same adventure locations multiple times for various reasons (strategic chokepoints, stocking up on resources, landmarks and paths through the jungle, to say nothing of repeat dungeon delves). The region is small but has become dense with connections and history.

See: Shallow & Deep Wilderness Sandboxes


Grab From Everywhere

I have praised d4 Caltrops before on this blog. A huge number of my hex locations are from his "100 Wilderness Hexes" document. This thing is fantastic, so check it out. Many of the hexes interconnect with each other (especially the swamp hexes), which adds further layers of adventure possibility. I have taken many of these and spun them into a whole game session, or connected them to something across the map for my players to go check out.

See: 100 Wilderness Hexes

You might have a few modules gathering dust on your shelf that you'd like to include on your map. So far I have added the The Tomb of Abysthor, The Spire of Quetzel and a few two-pagers from the excellent Trilemma Adventures compendium.

Modules aren't just useful for saving time. Each one added to your setting can be spun off into new elements if you put a little effort in. Using The Tomb of Abysthor for example, I reworked the included wilderness locations into larger, more detailed locales. I created more NPCs for the cult of Orcus and the Tsathar, spread them around the hexmap, added them to the region's encounter tables and gave them new lairs, dungeons, motivations, things to do, equipment & treasure, etc. All of a sudden, a single dungeon module has added a new layer of texture & meaning to the world. Even if they never set foot inside, the players will get involved with the dungeon's factions and NPCs one way or another. Do this for three or four modules and you should have a whole campaign's worth of material in no time.


Random Generation

Sometimes you get stuck, and that's OK. Judges Guild is here to help: go get the Wilderness Hexplore Document. Compiled based on material from the Ready Ref Sheets and elsewhere, it amounts to a complete random wilderness stocking system. I don't use it that way exactly - I roll on it for ideas when I can't think of anything. It gives just enough detail to jog the mind into doing something new. You might also try the Tome of Adventure Design, some of the tables at the back of the DMG, or another of your favourites.


Example

I was stocking the Drowned Lands (the great swamp at the centre of the hexmap, where the lizardmen live) and after 20 or so hexes, I felt a bit gassed. I opened up the tables and this is what happened:

Rolling on the feature table on pg. 8 gives a result of 7 - Temples & Shrines. I roll for the temple's size & shape (an obelisk of metal), age, number of followers, type and number of leadership, treasury (very important for PCs), the type of shrine (a holy statue), defensive measures and traps, effects of defiling the shrine, the deity's sphere of influence and plenty of other things. Occasionally results need to be tweaked to fit the system (there are no 11th level clerics in Land's End!).

Rolling for the deity's appearance resulted in these traits: goddess; elf; alien; wasp wings. That sounded familiar, so I dug through the Book of the Damned (one of the few Pathfinder books I actually like). I found the Oni Daimyo pictured below, whose divine portfolio matched some of the random table results and gave me more useful details. Jumping back & forth between various books like this really works for me.

Putting it all together I get this basic hex info:


Hex 0612 -TEMPLE OF INMA - Obelisk of unknown metal, surrounded by 40’ walls adorned with tallow candles & reed torches. 23 chthonian elf worshippers inside, led by triumvirate of priests (Cle 2nd, 4th, 4th). Statue of goddess Inma, "The Empress of the World" has three eyes, four arms, alien features and wasp wings. An obscure demoness of blood who bestows wealth on worshippers when appropriate sacrifices are made. The temple is rich and fanatical.

Ceremonies: Regularly at dusk (all - public, lizardman blood), midnight (high priests - public, platinum) and dawn (high priests only, copper). Special ones - a month of fasting and prayer, the longest day of the year, goddess’ “day of death,” death of a high priest. 


This only leads to more questions. Who built this place? What is the obelisk actually made of? What do Inma's worshippers want with treasure, anyway? Where do they get the coinage for their sacrifices? Why risk death at the hands of lizardfolk? Are the clergy isolationist hermits, or will they deal with the outside world? How are relations with the lizardfolk who (at least nominally) control the whole swamp? Are they apostates from chthonic elf society, or does Inma have a place in their larger pantheon? How will they react to the PCs: as allies, enemies, potential sacrifices or something else?

Answering these might result in a dumb adventure location or something fun & memorable. The effects might spiral outwards and change any number of things in your game world. I don't have it all figured out yet. The important thing is that I now have something I wouldn't have made up myself, and I can flesh it out and see where things lead. The setting just got slightly more complex, more textured.

The Wilderness Hexplore Document is quite wide-ranging. It could just as easily have given me a ruined bridge; a sunken canoe guarded by giant frogs; or a castle with a samurai and his djinn servant (I have rolled all these before). Adapting & reskinning the results to my game world is always an enjoyable exercise that expands my thinking about the setting and fills in details that I otherwise would never have included.

Putting it All Together

This is where two DMs with the same raw material might run completely different games. Remember that aesthetic I mentioned earlier? I think of it as a filter. Everything I use from a module or blog, everything I roll on a random table - it all gets filtered through my own view of the setting, tweaked a little bit until it gels, and then set down.

There is no strict hierarchy or step-by-step procedure to follow. I like to bounce around between all these options as the mood strikes me. When I get stuck, I change my approach and continue. At a certain point you have to trust yourself to make the connections, to adjust elements to fit into a larger structure that only you can see.

See: The Dirt Cheap Sandbox

I hope these examples are useful. Read the links, because those guys usually say it better than I can. If I missed something, let me have it in the comments!


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It's funny to be writing about my wilderness hexcrawl while I'm neck-deep in keying a gigantic city sandbox for a different game with some new people. It's proving to be quite the unfamiliar challenge!

And now for a bit of classic '90s gaming music.

Random Monster Generator Shootout 6 - Blogosphere Rabbit Hole Remix!

So I stumbled across this somehow.
Probably on MeWe, where I follow some cool kids.
If you use it too, add me eh?

From that link I checked out several different monster generators on a few blogs, including some linked from the comments. Here is what I discovered:


*****

BUILT BY GODS LONG FORGOTTEN
Monster Remixes - links are on the right side of that page

Released as PDFs, one for each monster category (as delineated by Sham here). These are wild. I really wish they were compiled in one giant pdf document, but they were written years ago so what can you do?

Each one consists of a single page. They basically strip apart the traits, characteristics & special abilities of a particular category or flavour of monster, and spread them out across a series of tables. Each one is different, and the formatting & layout are all over the place. Let's look at the categories:

-"Beasts" of Fey Woodlands: animals with fairy tale abilities
-Humanoids of Fey Woodlands: elves, pixies and the like
-Dragons, Dragonesques & Chimera: an odd one, dragons share a page with grab-bag mixed animal shape beasts
-Esoteric Animals: random mundane animals with strange abilities
-Gorgons, Lycanthropes & Gargoyles: any monster that turns you to stone, or changes shape
-Humanoids: people-types, where they lair, what they look like and some of their behaviours
-Humans: for determining the size, composition and traits of a human fighting force
-Slimes, Molds and Jellies!: just like it says
-The Otherworldly: elementals & similar beings
-Undead: you get it

Let's have a few examples.

ESOTERIC ANIMALS
Type: cat
Size: large, horse-sized (3 HD)
Number: small group (d10)
Esoteric Trait: holding or touching one confers immunity to petrification

Well, that's an odd one...

UNDEAD
Form: corpse, child
Descriptor: bandaged (d8 damage)
Attacks: Mob, affected by normal weapons (-2 HD); Summons rats 3/day (+1 HD)
Vulnerabilities: magic, wood
HD: 3
AC: 5
No. Appearing: 3d6

This is good! A pack of bandaged-up children's corpses that can summon a horde of rats! Very Silent Hill. Perhaps they have a hive-mind and are treated as a single creature? Creepy.

DRAGONS, DRAGONESQUE & CHIMERA
Type: Chimera
Body: Big Cat (d8 damage)
Tail: Dragon (+1 AC, extra attack)
Wings: Yes
Trait: Headless Toothy Maw (swallowed if hit, or damage if body too large to swallow)
HD: 5
AC: 4
Attacks: 2*1d8
No. Appearing: 1d4

A great cat with a dragon's tail & wings and a fanged mouth instead of a head? That sounds hella gross and pretty cool. I am imagining a great cat-version of the Gaping Dragon from Dark Souls. I imagine it might be able to swallow a halfling whole, but not a human. Still would make a great abomination for the heroes to fight!

I must say that these really exceeded my expectations! A little recombination of familiar elements can yield cool results, and I would happily use these monsters in my game. If I had a complaint about these generators, it would be a matter of scope. The undead table will only give you undead, the slimes & molds table will only give you slimes & molds. The tables seem to only include possibilities that already exist in the monster books, and few (if any) new additions by the author. You won't find an undead monster with a breath weapon or an ooze that can drain levels. Also, these pdfs are laid out a bit crudely and are sometimes tough to parse, if that's important to you.

Having said that, the results you get are pretty damn cool. If you want a lightning-fast generator that'll give you a monster blending familiar elements in a new way, these will do that.

How Many Rolls: Lowest is 3, most common 5, highest extreme for one of the pages is 14.
Would I use these in the middle of a session: Yes. The upside of using familiar elements is the short learning curve. If I needed a monster was just a bit different (instead of completely crazy like what the RECG turns out), I could easily turn to these tables.
Variety and Reusability: Limited variety. But the reusability is good, as you can mix these basic elements together extensively.





SAVE VS. DRAGON
d30 Generators - there are quite a lot of them. If you just want the monsters, better to go to the post on DIY and dragons linked at the top, which links the monster generators individually.

This guy has a TON of different generators. Mr. LeBlanc also wrote the d30 Sandbox Generator (which I quite liked and perhaps should review some day soon). For now, we'll stay on topic with the monster tables. LeBlanc has done so many of these, they are all small one-page affairs but each one is a really nice-looking pdf, laid out cleanly and professionally. Far better than I could do in a month, and he seems to knock them out in a day! I found 29 of these one-page monster generators in a few minutes on his site.

They seem to take a few forms. For humanoids (bandits, elves, dwarves, berserkers, goblins, gnolls, things like that) there is a standard layout. The first table is "Group Background/Descriptions," with motivations and organizational cues for the group, like "explorers: lost as a result of a dwarvish prank" or "tribal unit/thugs: seeking slaves." This is a good start. Then we have "No. Appearing," which doubles as a leader/champion generator. Then "Arms/Armour/Mounts," which offers a bit of variety (orcs with flails riding dire wolves, or orcs with axes & crossbows? etc).

This is a basic template which is departed from in some cases: the orc page has an "Orc Tribe Name" table (like "vicious bone" and "baneful axe"), the berserker page has a "Celebrate Victory By..." table. These add some welcome colour if you're stuck trying to think of something.

Other creature types have completely different generators. Generally the less humanoid the creature is, the more different its page. I approve of this. The Sea Creature Generator comes with nice little pictures to illustrate various aquatic body shapes, and an old woodcut in the corner of some great beast smashing a ship. The Fiend Generator is the only two-page entry, and looks fun. Let's try a few:

BERSERKERS
Group Background/Description: transporting captives to use as slaves
Celebrate Victory By: cutting off opponents' hands and feet
No. Appearing: 20
Additional Fighters: 2 1st-level, 1 2nd-level, 1 7th-level subchief
Motivation: bloodlust
Weapon: polearm

Huh, that's quite detailed! I'll wager this would add some excitement to your "(3d10) Men, Berserkers" on the standard encounter table. Maybe the party comes across them just as they're be-handing a few victims and tying up the survivors as captives? Or maybe they carry the severed hands of their victims on big garlands? Either way it's going to be harsh!

FIENDS
General Form: ape-like
Size: medium
Base HD: 5
Visage: stretched
Body Shape/Muscle: skeletal, +0 HD
Body Surface/Density: hairy/bristled, thin (+1 AC)
Back/Wings: crested, insect-like
Appendages: 2 short arms, 6 long legs
Hand/Arm Features: animal-like talons
Foot/Leg Features: octopus-like suckers
Head: goat-like
Head Adornment: grotesque spine
Eyes: amber, multi-faceted
Ears/Mouth: trumpet-like, gaping toothed
Special Abilities: immunity: acid, electricity; electric breath; gas breath; regeneration; paralyzing touch
Talon Damage: 1d8
Bite Damage: 2d4

What...

the...

FUCK.

I love it! This can go on the shelf with Appendix D, which I reviewed in the very first edition of RMGS! This monster is very difficult to picture, which is honestly what I want in a demon generator. I will 100% use this, guaranteed. Top tier. Seal of fucking approval.

How Many Rolls: Many are only 3 rolls. Some only 1. The most complex might have 5 or 6, except the Fiend Generator which has 15+!
Would I use these in the middle of a session: Fuck yes. Not the Fiend Generator though, it's in a class of its own.
Variety and Reusability: Well. If you have stuff like Berserkers, Goblins and Orcs on your encounter table, there is simply no reason not to use these! Having said that, these tables don't really 'interlock' like some random monster generators in a way that would give you 13,000 possible results or what-have-you. What they can do is add variety & interest for those bog-standard monsters on your encounter table that we're all used to. Go check them out!




OLD GUARD GAMING
The Unexpurgated Dragon Generator

This blog has been around for a long time, and I never came across it. It's really good. I'm just going to quote Palmer at length here:

"...I make a distinction between monsters (species in the Gygaxian Naturalism tradition), and MONSTERS (unnatural unique creatures which don't have to follow the rules of Nature). I employ both in my own Greyhawk, and my players can never be certain just what the hell they're up against in any given encounter. It adds spice to the game and checks the overconfidence that leads to complacency and boredom. Dragons especially seem to get over-defined in the game. Ancient and medieval dragons were extremely varied in form. Like elves and goblins and such in myth, they were rarely described in the same way consistently.
A randomly generated dragon will bring to your game some of that fear of the unknown which was the norm for people before the reign of technology."

That's what I'm talking about. This generator randomly determines age, size, hit dice and attacks like you'd expect. Also there are tables for special attacks & defenses, unique breath weapons, colours, special motivations and other strange things. I'll just show you with an example:

Int: very

AL: lawful

Age: adult (5 hp/die)

Size: enormous

AC: 6

HD: 11-14
Move: 9 ground/24 flying
Attacks: 2
Damage: 2-12, 2-12
Breath Weapon: cone of sound (1-8 dmg per hit die, save or be deafened permanently)
General Characteristics: construct
General Form: serpentine, bipedal rear legs, forearms, wings
Primary/Secondary colours: red, black
% in Lair: 10%
Speaking: Yes
Magic Use: No
Sleeping: Yes
Purpose or Obsession: to accumulate treasure
Allies/Minions: a non-dragon mate (the dragon is capable of breeding with other creatures!)

Wow, what to make of this one? A construct dragon with a monstrous mate? Perhaps it's a fleshly dragon-golem of some kind, created or commissioned by its mate for companionship, like the Bride of Frankenstein? Maybe a robo-dragon that found another robot to team up with, and they're building a new monstrous "child"? I could just throw this thing at my players, or I could sit down and explore the possibilities. Seems like there is a whole adventure or two in here if you want it. Awesome.

How Many Rolls: 26-32!
Would I use this in the middle of a session: Hmmm it's pretty long. It wouldn't be my first choice under time pressure. If I needed a dragon that quickly, I'd use stock stats and roll on a few of these tables to turn it away from the norm just slightly.
Variety and Reusability: Well... you're going to get a dragon. But since dragons are normally all the same, I'd say you could reuse this basically forever!


IN CONCLUSION

I thought this series had run out of steam. I'm glad to be proved wrong by folks releasing cool things on their blogs. No glossy books or fancy production values (well, LeBlanc's pdfs are a bit fancy).

If I could only pick one favourite, it's a toss-up between LeBlanc's Fiend Generator and the Unexpurgated Dragon Generator. Obviously the utterly bizarre multiplicity of demonic forms is a topic very close to my heart. But that dragon generator, man... it's a thing of beauty. The fact is that I will use almost everything I looked at today (except the orc generator, because I don't have orcs in my campaign setting!).

Just go out and download 'em, okay?


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Well this has rambled on for quite a while. Time to relax!!

Play Report: Return to Land's End - Catching Up

OKAY, OKAY.

I should have learned by now not to say "next, I'm going to..." because my plans are instantly upended. The new drop-in, large-party city game set in the City-State of the World Emperor has been put on hold, for obvious reasons. Instead we've been playing in Land's End with my roommates while my brother joins in over Google Hangouts. We are up to session 18 or so, and things are getting really interesting.

I have been reading various folks throughout the blogosphere mentioning how important actual play reports are. I find them very hard to write, but I do like a challenge! I will say that it's great to have comprehensive summaries I can look back on in the future. I'll endeavour to bring us up to speed on the last year (!!!) of gameplay, by touching on the main points:

CAST

Vuk Thuul - wild half-elf serpent oracle, in search of his mysterious origins
Nahash - lizardman barbarian, cast out from the Black Wings for a crime he didn't commit
Liliana Vess - sylph witch, on the run from Imperial witch-hunters


THE WHITE TOWERS

The party explored partially buried towers built by the ancient snake-men. One spiralled upwards, the other downwards (on the inside) in defiance of all physical laws. The observatory at the top of this tower faced subjectively "down" into the sky - none of the party were brave enough to jump out and see what happened, although they got a demonstration later.

Many clues were found. The snake-men had computers made of metal, plastic and crystal, powered by glass spirit-bottles. (See the Stygian Library for more details.) Only some lucky rolls by Vuk Thuul to recall his dreams at the standing stone allowed interpretation of the language and controls, and he managed to type in a few questions. They learned of the long-lost Bright Empire, which once covered the known world, and several names for Vuk Thuul's mysterious infernal patron, Abraxas - "Cruelty of the Heavens," "Master of the Final Incantation," "The Fourth Way Through Immeasurable Darkness," etc. The library of metallic scrolls in the tower was described as a shrine to this very entity, but none of the scrolls were deciphered.

Wisely bypassing two or three altars to strange & forgotten gods of chaos, they came to a room with seven great sarcophagi. Each the resting-place of a snake-man champion of old. Some held monsters, like the necrophidius that nearly killed them all on the bridge in a tense end-of-session fight: Vuk Thuul tried to grapple it and nearly fell off the bridge, then Leliana cast enlarge on Nahash and the raging barbarian bull-rushed it over the side.

Others had treasure of immense value: like a colossal snake-man greatsword too big for human use, or the False Eye of Abraxas, an artifact which grants insight into the nature of things by allowing the user to view a realm of pure information. Nobody had the stomach for removing their own eye to make room for it, and so it rests in their house in Land's End, nothing but a strange curio (for now).

One of the sarcophagi was packed completely full of tiny spiders, spilling out over Nahash in a flood! While the PCs ran away, the vermin scuttled down the stairwell to the observatory and 'fell' out of the top, flying into the sky and scattering all over the jungle! Will this deed haunt them in the future, or indeed change the ecology of the jungle?

Yes.

The party killed the huge & hungry spider-women infesting the tower, but not without Vuk Thuul suffering immense CON damage from their acidic bites (this would become a theme in his life). This endeared them to the Caiman tribe, who could see his battle-scars with their own eyes. The caimans are their devoted friends now, and the party has been gifted some of the tarnished silver rings they wear.


PUSHING SOUTH

Jeregosh, leader of the the Caimans told them about a great field of cairns & barrows to the south, and they travelled in that direction, completely missing it. Instead, they found a great silver tower on a hill, surrounded by a ruined curtain wall. It glowed and shone even under the clouded sky, flickering blue-green afterimages. They opened the grand doors and saw two great vulture-headed demons bearing polearms, who croaked "ahhhh... guests!" Immediately they slammed the doors shut and ran.

Wandering back to the broken stone road, they followed it west towards the cliffs. The land became grey and dead, even the dense jungle undergrowth thinning out. At the bottom of the cliff they found the great pit of bones, and entered the Tomb of Abysthor.

This didn't last long either, as the endless skeletons issuing from the Font of Bones inside eventually put them off exploring. They tried smashing, Mending, and casting any spell they could think of to shut it down, but wave after wave of skeletons drove them away.

To the north, they found a sacred cave inhabited by the hostile Wolf-totem tribesmen and slaughtered them all. Looted some nice gear, including a fossilized shark-jawbone mask which spews forth a black gas of confusion. What I wasn't expecting was for Vuk Thuul to go full fucking Colonel Kurtz and hang the Wolf shaman's corpse upside-down in front of the cave entrance, the mark of the demon Abraxas burnt into his chest!

What the PCs didn't know at this time was that this sacred cave was devoted to the demon of beasts, rage and hunting, called Droquatraxl. Is this the beginning of a new infernal power-struggle? We'll see...


DOWNTIME

They bought a house in town and dug a storage room out beneath it, using Mending to seal up the floorboards after placing their loot inside. After this they started spending more time in town, and I eventually realized the error of my ways in making this last-stop podunk town too conservative. I basically told the lizardman's player that I would start making the town weirder so that he would fit in a little better.

The first oddball NPC that showed up was Baridian, a scarred, taciturn monk devoted to a secret cult called the Postulants of the New Sun. He has gradually been attempting to recruit the PCs to his side, inviting them to the secret meetings he holds in town where he sits & preaches from inside a brazier full of hot coals! The players attended a few holiday festivals and met some of the Altanians who live a barbaric life in the hills and mountains. They recruited one named Bolgrim to come with them on their adventures, and let me tell you - Pathfinder is not set up to have classed & levelled henchmen following you around. The next one they hire is going to have stats of 11 across the board - I'm not rolling for them.

Later on they heard a rumour that a strange foreigner from up north wearing a holy symbol of Mitra was asking about Leliana, the witch. They concluded that he is a spy sent by Imperial witch-hunters. (That's exactly right.) They added a spiked pit trap just inside the front door of their house, and paid a boy in town to water their plants while they're away on adventures. Oh boy...


THE BLACK PYRAMID

Recently, the action has come fast & furious. Their alliance with the goblins dissolved after the greenskins' leader Guzboch found out who really raided his adamantine treasure-vault (the PCs did it of course). Who told him? It was Absalom Glop, the sinister & manipulative abhorrer the party released from a magical circle in one of the goblins' underground bases.

Pushing northeast along the river, they found a hermit named Idokan living in a cabin on stilts above the swamp. He seemed friendly enough for a half-crazed weirdo. He told them of the lizardfolk, the fearsome witches and other rumours of the swamp. He directed them to a black pyramid in the jungle to the north, having sighted black-robed fellows poking around it. This piqued the party's interest.

Many adventures were had in the black pyramid and mighty treasures gained. They defeated the fearsome death worm which lurked inside and looted some treasures of the old priests: The Sword of Eyes and a mysterious & magical black spear with unknown properties. When Leliana cast Identify on it she learned nothing, only hearing a phrase in her mind: "Our voices are open graves, through which the never-dead escape!"

A major clue concerned Vuk Thuul's mysterious patron Abraxas: as it turned out, those black-robed fellows were the cult of Yredelemnul, the bloated & hircine demon-lord of the dead otherwise known as Orcus. All initiates into this cult are taught elementary demonology, including the names of the greatest Chaos Lords: Yredelemnul, Jubilex, Tsathoggua and Abraxas! Now knowing his spells are granted by an entity unambiguously low in the infernal hierarchy, will Vuk Thuul start behaving even worse? We'll see.

The group learned this by interrogating a captured cultist on their second visit to the pyramid, but failed to pursue his co-religionists inside. This was a bit of a mistake. The remaining cultists have recovered all the loot the PCs missed on their first visit, and are now in possession of some good magic items and the Bone Key.

THE DROWNED LANDS

From the rickety cabin of the hermit Idokan, the party built a log raft and set out into the dark and mysterious swamps. The first strange location they found was a brass tower, 100' high, rising out of a patch of dry ground. Covered in alien scripts that proved unreadable but induced fainting & blackouts when the spellcasters tried read magic.

The party had a few fights here, including one against zombie lizardfolk that emerged sodden and rotting from the swamp water. These foes precipitated a full-scale retreat when the tiny white crabs inside one scuttled all over Bolgrim and almost devoured him right away!

They met some friendly lizardfolk and managed to parley, learning much of the situation in the swamps. Long ago, they were one unified society. About a generation ago, the last time human outsiders visited [1], they brought such strange ideas that the lizardfolk were divided politically and have never recovered. Since then they have formed into four tribes: Yellow Eyes, Black Wings, Purple Claw and Red Fangs. The Red Fangs have not been heard from in a year or more, rumoured to have been destroyed entire by the hateful, toadlike Tsathar. Paralyzed by factional differences, the tribes have not mustered a unified response to this threat.

THE GREAT CITY

Iron-Heel, the leader of the lizardfolk hunting party, urged Nahash to give up adventuring and join his people but the barbarian was having none of that. Nevertheless he brought the group to the Great City of the Yellow Eyes to meet their leader and see the tribe's power. Built on the edge of a great central lake in the swamps, this cyclopean stone city was not made by the lizardfolk. Its walls were raised in the ancient days of the snake-men and thousands of years later their former servants still live inside.

The gang were introduced to the aged warchief Far-Walker who seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts and his witch-doctor Murk-Watcher, whose magic can discern truth from falsehood. Murk-Watcher tested the tale of Nahash's origins, and he was careful enough to pass without revealing the entirety of his exile, imprisonment and escape.

Things seemed to be going well in the city until one more player revealed itself: Absalom Glop stepped from the shadows of Far-Walker's throne room, grinning its hateful grin! What designs does it have with the Yellow Eyes? It wasn't telling - only making cryptic remarks that incensed the players.

When they left the great city shaking their fists at Absalom's mysterious return, Iron-Heel entreated them to find the Red Fangs rumoured to still survive in the swamps, and introduce his ideas of pan-lizardfolk unification to them. This they are now attempting as they wander the desolate Drowned Lands, getting lost and looking for trouble!


*****

[1] - This was the original Land's End game, back in... 2012? Oh lord have mercy.

My group LOVES the swamps, and I do too. It's starting to get actually dangerous out there for them (which I like), and they really seem to like faction play and making alliances. I have a huge spreadsheet of factions and NPCs in this campaign, and most of them are based in the swamps.

As of this writing there are at least eleven factions of varying strength around the swamp, plus lone NPCs like the witches who basically are factions of their own. It's an interconnected web of relationships that I am still developing. Every time I don't know what to work on, I open up my spreadsheet and add a few things. This article on faction play has been a fantastic guideline for simple and gameable prep.

Also, these guys level up REALLY slowly! They are almost at 4th level. Maybe I am not including enough treasure, but that's easily remedied in upcoming dungeons.

This is my main jam when I need to get into the zome for Land's End:

[Guest Post] Late Medieval & Renaissance weapons & armour

[Phew, we made it! The longest and most complex equipment list of them all. I nearly went blind fiddling with the formatting for the tables in this one. I can't believe I forgot to add pictures to the last post in the series, so I'm going to make up for it with a ton of plate mail here. Having added pages of Steve's notes in the earlier entries, there isn't too much left to explain, I hope. Enjoy! - HDA]

Part 1 - Intro & Prehistory
Part 2 - Antiquity/Bronze Age
Part 3 - Dark Ages
Part 4 - High Medieval

*****

-RANGE: After reading the comments on the last post, I did a possible retuning of the archery ranges across the board. I went with flat 30/120 for one handed bows, 60/120 for two handed bows, as suggested. The “30” short range bracket can be simulated by the ideal ambush range, granting advantage only on surprise against targets within 30 feet. For any bow that gives us:
30 feet or less, advantage (if you have surprise)
60 feet or less, normal shot
120 feet or less, disadvantage

Obviously distance shooting would be way longer, especially for longbows. If you didn't read those links in the last post to Delta's archery breakdowns, do so now.

[This would - optionally - replace the range increments for ALL bow weapons. In the entries below, I have preserved the numbers as Steve originally sent them to me, for consistency with the previous weapon lists. -HDA]

-Repeating crossbows actually existed in ancient China. You can remove them to retain European flavour, or do what Warhammer did and make them the signature of dark elves, since hand crossbows only get you so far. If you want to make them simpler, just have them do a single attack for 2d4 or 2d6, each attack roll representing a short volley. Also, like the blowgun, repeaters were basically designed to employ poisoned bolts since they lacked some oomph, another reason the Drow flavour fits.

-The elephant in the room: while realistic, the reloading numbers on the crossbows make them basically unusable in actual play, or at least very inconvenient for dungeon crawling. A feat that lowers the number of turns to reload by 1 (to a minimum of 0) would be a welcome replacement for 5e's Crossbow Expert feat, which basically turns you into damn Legolas.

-I included brigandine as late-period scale mail. Same stats. It's basically just a breastplate that rattles, so it gives the stealth disadvantage. Instead of one full piece, it is made of segmented overlapping pieces riveted to the inside of a garment. If you hit a guy wearing it, it would feel like hitting solid steel but sound like you were breaking a glass at the same time.

Transitional armour

Late Middle Ages (14th-15th century) & Early Renaissance* (16th century)

Simple Melee	dmg	notes
Club	D4 B	light or versatile
Dagger: bollock, rondel, stiletto	D4 P	finesse, light
Handaxe	D6 S	light
Javelin, war dart	D6 P	thrown (30/120)
Mace	D6 B	-
Mace, footman’s	D6 B	versatile
Military flail	D6 B	-
Morningstar	D6 B	-
Peasant flail	D8 B	two-handed
Quarterstaff	D6 B	two-handed
Sap	D4 B	finesse, light, knockout
Sickle	D4 S	light
Spear	D6 P	thrown (20/60), versatile
Simple Ranged
Crossbow, assassin*	D4 P	ammunition (20/80), loading (4), light
Crossbow, hand*	D6 P	ammunition (30/120), loading (1)
Crossbow, hand-spanned	D6 P	ammunition (60/120), loading (1), two-handed
Crossbow, belt or lever-spanned	D8 P	ammunition (80/160), loading (1), two-handed
Crossbow, windlass	D10 P	ammunition (100/200), loading (6), two-handed
Crossbow, cranequin*	D10 P	ammunition (100/200), loading (4), two-handed
Hand cannon / culverin	D8 P	ammunition (10/40), misfire, loading (4), two-handed
Matchlock, pistol*	D8 P	ammo (20/60), light, misfire, loading (5)
Matchlock, arquebus / carbine*	D10 P	ammo (30/90), loading (5), misfire, two-handed
Matchlock, arquebus / musket*	D12 P	ammo (40/120), heavy, loading (5), misfire, two-handed
Shortbow	D6 P	ammo (80/160), str 11, two-handed
Sling (stone)	D4 B	loading (0), ammunition (30/90)
Sling (bullet)	D6 B	loading (0), ammunition (30/120)
Martial Melee
Battleaxe, horseman’s	D8 S/P	-
Greataxe, bardiche	D12 S	heavy, two-handed
Greatsword, claymore / zweihander*	D12 S/P	heavy, two-handed
Lance, heavy	D8 P	heavy, reach, two-handed on foot, versatile (D10)
-couched charge	2D8 P	heavy, reach, two-handed on foot, versatile (2D10)
Maul	D12 B	heavy, two-handed
Pick, horseman’s	D8 P/B	-
Pike	D8 P	heavy, reach (15 ft, cannot attack 5 ft), two-handed
Polearm, bec de corbin	D10 B/P	heavy, reach, two-handed
Polearm: halberd, poleaxe, bill, glaive, voulge	D10 S/P	heavy, reach, two-handed
Polearm, partisan / ranseur	D10 P	heavy, reach, two-handed
Shortsword, baselard	D6 P	finesse, light
Shortsword, cinquedea	D6 S	finesse, light
Sword, arming / side*	D8 S/P	-
Sword, long / bastard*	D8 S/P	versatile
Sword, estoc / tuck	D8 P	versatile
Sword, messer	D8 S	-
Sword, rapier* / koncerz*	D8 P	finesse
Sword, sabre/scimitar	D8 S	finesse
Warhammer	D8 B/P	versatile
Martial Ranged
Crossbow, light repeating	D4 P	ammunition (20/80), bonus attack, two-handed
Crossbow, heavy repeating	D6 P	ammunition (60/120), bonus attack, two-handed
Longbow	D8 P	ammunition (150/300), heavy, str 13, two-handed
Longbow, heavy / recurved	D10 P	ammunition (150/300), heavy, str 15, two-handed
Net	-	special, thrown (5/15)
Shortbow, recurved	D8 P	ammo (100/200), str 13, two-handed

Special weapon rules
Light: Ideal for off-hand use when dual wielding.
Versatile: May be used in one or two hands. Roll the next higher die for two-handed damage.
Finesse: May use DEX modifier in place of STR for attack/damage rolls.
Heavy: Small creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls.
Reach: Adds 5 feet to striking distance, unless more is indicated.
Ammunition/Thrown: A ranged weapon. The first number is short range (attacks incur no penalty), the second is maximum range, in feet.
Loading (x): Require the user to spend an indicated number of actions reloading the weapon. If the number indicated is 0 it can be fired once per round, but no more.
Misfire: These weapons fail spectacularly on a to-hit roll of 1 and cannot be used until fixed.
Bonus Attack: These weapons can make an additional attack as a bonus action, similar to the rules for two-weapon fighting.
*Early Renaissance: Add or subtract these weapons to taste, depending on the culture & technology level of your setting. Including them instantly gives you that WFRP feel.

Light Armour	AC	notes
Arming doublet	11+dex	-
Buff coat	11+dex	-
Padded jack	12+dex	-
Medium Armour
Mail shirt, bishop’s mantle	12+dex (max 2)	stealth disadvantage
Mail shirt	13+dex (max 2)	stealth disadvantage
Jack-of-plates	13+dex (max 2)	-
Brigandine	14+dex (max 2)	stealth disadvantage
Breastplate	14+dex (max 2)	-
Breastplate, mirror	14+dex (max 2)	stealth disadvantage
Coat of plated mail	15+dex (max 2)	stealth disadvantage, str 13
Half-plate	15+dex (max 2)	stealth disadvantage
Heavy Armour
Suit of plated mail	17	stealth disadvantage, str 15
Half-plate and mail	17	stealth disadvantage, str 13
Three-quarter plate	17	stealth disadvantage, str 13
Transitional plate	18	stealth disadvantage, str 17
Full plate	18	stealth disadvantage, str 15
Shields
Buckler**	+2	no AC bonus vs. ranged
Shield	+2	-
Pavis	-	3/4 cover when positioned

**Bucklers: considered proficient if proficient with shields, or with light armour and any type of sword

*****

Want to dig deeper? Here are a few informational links that ought to have you kids writing up your own weapon lists in no time:

Armour & Weapons by Charles Foulkes (pdf). I found this on the OSR links to wisdom wiki.
A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms & Armour by George Cameron Stone. I have linked this before, but surely this is the most appropriate place to remind you all. Loads of pictures are included. If this doesn't get you excited to game, get your circulation checked.

As before, images are from Osprey Publishing. Go check 'em out.
Here is a nice piece on costs of medieval items. Weapons & armour are limited, but it's quite interesting and this article is as good a place as any to link it.
A huge article on early firearms. What is a matchlock, really? Find out here. Packed with references, links and pictures.

Matchlocks vs. armour:

MINI REVIEW: Hex Kit software

A brief detour from our wildly successful foray into the True Scientific Realism of historical weapons & armour. Thanks to everyone who has commented on those posts so far with an idea, correction or suggestion. Doing those tables is hard on my hands & eyes (all those pointed brackets) and the last one will be the biggest yet, so be patient.


*****

I recently took a chance on Cone of Negative Energy's mapping program. Hex Kit and all the additional tilesets are available in this highly affordable bundle right now. I was booting around on Roll20.net and saw them available there as well. Check out their website for some more details.

Hex Kit is very simple, low-resource, bare bones hexmap software. You can buy the tilesets to use in Roll20 if you do that kind of thing, but the program itself (as bought from DTRPG) works perfectly for me at home for my own use. The great strength of this program is its utter simplicity and ease of use, and the gorgeous hand-drawn artwork.

Here is a player's map I made yesterday in about an hour. Most of that time was taken up with double-checking it against my paper map, to make sure I had it right! There is more territory beneath the black hexes but we don't want my shifty players looking ahead:

Click to enlarge

Hex Kit has a perfect balance between simplicity and depth. All you have to do is pick a tile and start clicking on your map to fill hexes. If you pick a category (eg: forest, mountains, haunted wood, etc) the individual tiles will be assigned randomly, which just makes things look great. Most terrain types have 20 or more tiles so duplicates are far enough apart that I never notice. If you want to fine-tune your map you can click over & over to cycle the look of an individual hex, or just go into the terrain type and pick from individual images. I haven't had to do this yet.

It uses multiple layers for icons like towns, castles, ruins, whatever - but also cliffs, rivers and coastlines that will overlap your existing terrain. The coasts especially are lovely, the Fantasyland tileset has hand-drawn pieces that cover any cross-section of a hex you could ever need.

Click to enlarge

Observe a work-in-progress above. This shows a few of the Traveling Through Dangerous Scenery tiles, and the workspace. Simple buttons for paint, erase, clear a tile, labels & descriptions, rotate a tile, flip a tile, zoom and select a tile. The layers interface which is straightforward, and then your tilesets below. If you've ever used photoshop, GIMP or the like this will be a snap, and if you haven't it won't be too hard to pick up. A few minutes of messing with it is all you'll need.

There is also a 'custom map generator' that I'm still getting a handle on. It allows you to fill a hexmap quickly with any number of types of hexes randomly, based a hierarchy of elevation that you set. At the very least it's nice as a starting point, because if you resize the map it will automatically fill the new hexes for you!

If you don't get the bundle, Hex Kit comes with a default black & white tileset called Classic which is nice, but not nearly as cool as the full colour tiles. At a bare minimum you have to get the Fantasyland tileset, but Traveling Through Dangerous Scenery is also fantastic. There is an outer space set and one made to look like a pirate's treasure-map as well - get them if they sound useful, they look great but I don't know if I'll ever need them myself.

I do enjoy doodling a map with my coloured pencils but CONE's work is just ridiculously good here and I'll be using it from now on. Go check it out for yourself!

[Guest Post] High Medieval weapons & armour

[The fourth in our ongoing series. This one is probably closest to your basic D&D equipment list. Most of this should be familiar to folks, except that plate mail hasn't fully developed yet. Let's check it out, with a couple of explanatory notes and links that reveal Steve's obsession with bows and crossbows... -HDA]

Previous posts in the series:
Primitive
Antiquity
Dark Ages

[EDIT: I guess we made it to the big time! Finally on the board at the OSR links to wisdom wiki. Chin-chin! - HDA]

[EDIT AGAIN: I can't believe I forgot to include pictures in this post. Here are a few illustrating the armours of the day. - HDA]


*****

-I spoke with a medieval anthropologist who shoots both crossbows and longbows and he shared an interesting theory with me. He's willing to swear by an academic work (the name escapes me) that the find of the Mary Rose has been misinterpreted to indicate that English archers used monstrously high draw weights like 185 or 200 lbs, because the bows are so stiff and the skeletons found had disfigured spines. The article's opinion was that remains of sailors were mislabelled as the skeletons of archers (supposedly there were only a few archers on board and a much larger crew) and that the back problems came from the crew's manual labour on the ship.

The bow staves being carried were actually half-finished munitions bows in transportation. The idea is they get shaved down by a bowyer to suit the individual man who would draw them, therefore reducing draw weight. Maybe they think so because the natural texture of the wood was left on the back of the bows. Anyway, if you believe that as this guy I talked to did, he was sceptical that any war bows were heavier than 110 pounds, arguing that a 190 pound bow is impossible for even a very strong man to draw. He thinks that the emphasis on the superhuman strength of English archers is a kind of historical myth perpetuated by England because it reinforces national pride and glorifies their ancestors. However, there are archers today who can draw and shoot the Mary Rose bows and they haven't trained from the age of 8. [Of course today we have access to a high-calorie, high-protein diet and fitness gyms. English peasants didn't. I saw a video of a dude squatting 1,001 lbs for 3 reps the other day. You be the judge. -HDA]


-Similar to the ancient Sica, the Baselard of the late Medieval had the connotation of a scoundrel's weapon, used by criminals, murderers, etc, and banned in certain places and towns. The high medieval/crusade era was trickier, but I did find a reference to an 11th/12th century short sword called a servile. It was assumed to be a boy's sword, or blade for a servant. They could have it wrong, it could have been a perfectly good weapon for war. Either way, in a fantasy context, a boy's sword is perfect for the Frodos and Bilbos and it might be an unassuming weapon for a rogue.


-Basically, everything we know about splint mail, banded mail, whatever, throw it all out. There is mail, and there is plate. One grew into the other over time. At the beginning it was "plated mail" or "mail & plate", which was just plates covering important parts. Europeans started putting plate over their mail, until it was all plate with just mail in the gaps (called transitional armour). Then they got so good that they didn't need the mail and just had a shirt with mail armpits that they put on beforehand.

-Lamellar is better scale armour using bronze wire to lace the scales to each other instead of to a backing. It was popular with the Byzantines and spread to the Byzantine-influenced areas of Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Turkey, Persia and into Asia from there. The cataphracts would upgrade their mail with a shirt of lamellar on top which then turned into mail-and-plate armour (or plated mail), and then the mail limb armour went back to higher grade lamellar (the same style as Roman lorica segmentata), so the highest levels of armour in the era were a composite of chest plates and segmented limb armour.

High Middle Ages (11th-13th century)

Simple Melee	dmg	notes
Club	D4 B	light or versatile
Dagger, knightly	D4 P	finesse, light, thrown (10/30)
Handaxe	D6 S	light
Javelin	D6 P	thrown (30/90)
Mace	D6 B	-
Mace, footman’s	D6 B	versatile
Military flail	D6 B	-
Morningstar	D6 B	-
Peasant flail	D8 B	two-handed
Quarterstaff	D6 B	two-handed
Sap	D4 B	finesse, light, knockout
Sickle	D4 S	light
Spear	D6 P	thrown (20/60), versatile
Simple Ranged
Crossbow, hand-spanned	D6 P	ammunition (60/120), loading (1), two-handed
Crossbow, belt-spanned	D8 P	ammunition (80/160), loading (1), two-handed
Dart	D4 P	finesse, thrown (20/60)
Shortbow	D6 P	ammunition (80/160), str 11, two-handed
Sling (stone)	D4 B	loading (0), ammunition (30/90)
Sling (bullet)	D6 B	loading (0), ammunition (30/120)
Martial Melee
Battleaxe	D8 S	versatile
Greataxe, dane axe/sparth	D12 S	heavy, two-handed
Lance, light	D6 P	reach, thrown (20/60), versatile
Lance, heavy	D8 P	heavy, reach, two-handed on foot, versatile
(couched charge)	2D8 P	heavy, reach, two-handed on foot, versatile (2D10)
Pike	D8 P	heavy, reach (15 ft, cannot attack 5 ft), two-handed
Polearm, fauchard/guisarme	D10 S	heavy, reach, two-handed
Polearm, spetum	D10 P	heavy, reach, two-handed
Shortsword, servile	D6 P	finesse, light
Sword, arming	D8 S/P	-
Sword, falchion	D8 S	-
Sword, long	D8 S/P	versatile
Sword, scimitar/sabre	D8 S	finesse
Whip	D4 S	finesse, reach, knockout, no opportunity attacks
Martial Ranged
Longbow	D8 P	ammunition (150/300), heavy, str 13, two-handed
Longbow, heavy/recurved	D10 P	ammunition (150/300), heavy, str 15, two-handed
Net	-	special, thrown (5/15)
Shortbow, recurved	D8 P	ammunition (100/200), str 13, two-handed

Special weapon rules:
Light: Ideal for off-hand use when dual wielding.
Versatile: May be used in one or two hands. Roll the next higher die for two-handed damage.
Finesse: May use DEX modifier in place of STR for attack/damage rolls.
Heavy: Small creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls.
Reach: Adds 5 feet to striking distance, unless more is indicated.
Ammunition/Thrown: A ranged weapon. The first number is short range (attacks incur no penalty), the second is maximum range, in feet.
Loading (x): Require the user to spend an indicated number of actions reloading the weapon. If the number indicated is 0 it can be fired once per round, but no more.

Light Armour	AC	notes
Padded aketon	11+dex	-
Padded gambeson	12+dex	-
Medium Armour
Mail shirt	13+dex (max 2)	stealth disadvantage
Mail coat	14+dex (max 2)	stealth disadvantage
Scale shirt, lamellar	13+dex (max 2)	stealth disadvantage
Scale armor, lamellar	14+dex (max 2)	stealth disadvantage
Plated mail shirt	14+dex (max 2)	stealth disadvantage
Coat of plated mail	15+dex (max 2)	stealth disadvantage, str 13
Heavy Armour
Suit of mail	16	stealth disadvantage, str 13
Suit of plated mail	17	stealth disadvantage, str 15
Shield	+2	-

*****

[Here are some great links for more info:

The mighty Delta explains archery, range & accuracy in D&D Plenty of further reading. Archery is much more complex an issue than I thought!
Military kits of British soldiers, 1066-today with lots of pictures
How did swords work against armour anyway?

Firing speed of bows & crossbows:

Thoughts on Reaction Rolls & Campaign Updates

Remember when I reviewed the mathematics for my random encounter tables? Today I have been thinking about the humble reaction roll. I use these and the morale rules (taken straight from Labyrinth Lord) in every game I run. I transplanted them into my Mathfinder game and they work fantastically. These days I would at a minimum hesitate to run a game without these kinds of rules.

So here are a few things I like to do to mess with reaction rolls. Some I've been doing for a while, but I was inspired to post about them when I remembered a conversation on d4 caltrops quite a while back. Ktrey really ran with the idea of overloading various rolls to create more information about a monster! This breakdown is a bit simpler but these techniques work well for me, and hopefully the reader may find them useful.

By The Numbers

Note: I've inverted the normal "lower is better" reaction roll for ease of use, so +1 is an improvement and -1 is a penalty. No need to confuse things.

Reaction Table (2d6):
2: hostile, attacks
3-5: unfriendly, may attack
6-8: neutral, uncertain
9-11: indifferent, uninterested
12: friendly, helpful

Normal PF stat modifiers are +1/-1 for every 2 points away from 10. Obviously I use the stat modifiers from Labyrinth Lord to match the reaction rules. This is funny because my players ask "What does my 'Reaction Skill' mean? Why is the bonus so low? Why can't I put points into it?" I have to explain it all every time.

LL's CHA modifier table looks like this:
3: -2
4-8: -1
9-12: +0
13-17: +1
18: +2

Not much of a bonus, but on a 2d6 roll it really changes the game. Jeff talks about this here. Even a 13 CHA makes "instant hostility" impossible, and that 18-CHA paladin makes friends with a monster on 10, 11 or 12! As always with classic D&D, the rules support each other if you use them all together: rolling stats straight down the line means having a character with the gift of gab is a lucky situation not to be overlooked.


Circumstance Modifiers

The basic thing I do to mess around with reaction rolls is a flat modifier based on the temperament of the creature, or circumstances in the dungeon or wilderness region. A few examples from my Land's End random encounter tables:

Lizardmen: Neutral, standoffish.
Jungle Bear: +2 to reaction. Rarely hostile unless provoked or near food/cubs.
Goblins: -1 to reaction. Jumpy and irritable from being cooped up inside the fort.
Mosquito Swarm: Thirsty!

Three basic possibilities: roll unmodified, roll with a bonus/penalty, or instant attack. These modifiers could be likened to a 'slide' of the probability curve up or down. Note how they can drastically change results at the extremes, so keep that in mind.


Reaction Rolls based on Modifiers (%):

Modifier	Hostile	Unfriendly	Neutral	Indifferent	Friendly
-4	41.7	41.7	16.7	0	0
-3	27.8	44	25	2.8	0
-2	16.7	41.7	33.3	8.3	0
-1	8.3	33.3	41.7	16.7	0
0	2.8	25	44	25	2.8
+1	0	16.7	41.7	33.3	8.3
+2	0	8.3	33.3	41.7	16.7
+3	0	2.8	25	44	27.8
+4	0	0	16.7	41.7	41.7

Going beyond +/-2 obviously can only happen by combining extreme CHA scores and situational modifiers. I include them for completeness and info-tainment purposes. Be careful when that 18 CHA PC starts taking the lead!


Limits

Another possibility. Less extreme than +/- modifiers, more consistent results. Simply determine the best or worst possible reaction the creature might respond with. I would use this only in specific cases, as I think it's more fun to have a wide range of possibilities. For example:

Charau-Ka: Demon-worshipping ape-men. Disdain other humanoids, especially hairless ones. Best reaction is Neutral.

An encounter with the Charau-Ka has the same chance of being instantly hostile and a huge chance of being neutral (6-12). That charismatic paladin won't make friends with them, but has some chance of being able to defuse the situation without violence. This sets a limit to how well (or poorly) the encounter will go, while leaving some room for chance and stat modifiers to play their part. In a sense it is a halfway point between "instantly hostile" and a numerical modifier.


Quantum Reactions

A fun technique is to build other random determinations into your reaction roll. Look at this entry from my encounter tables:

Wildmen: Reaction roll for tribe
2: Wolf or Jackal. Hate everyone.
3-11: Any (1d6 - 1 Wolf, 2 Bear, 3 Caiman, 4 Bat, 5 Spider, 6 DM's choice)
12: Caiman. Welcoming to travellers, enjoy games & contests.

This combines the Limit technique with some baked-in detail about the game world. I am not 100% sure about this method yet, but it continues to work well for me in Land's End. The players don't know what the rolls do, it all happens behind the scenes. It just so happens that all the belligerent locals wear wolf pelts, and the friendly ones crocodile-skin masks. In the middle, anything can happen and relationships will be determined by player character actions and circumstance. This does mean that you can have "indifferent" reactions from the Wolf tribe and "unfriendly" reactions from the Caiman tribe. These groups are still people like everyone else. Ultimately this saves time and allows the DM to absorb setting information with one glance at the local encounter table.


More Suggestions

The possibilities are endless. I have not tried these yet, but they might work:

Motivations. I am considering this in a dungeon I'm working on right now, but care must be taken. If you have an array of interests or goals for a group of monsters and can't choose one, a reaction roll would be one way to decide. Eg: If the neanderthals want to make contact with the gnolls on level 2 and are also fighting with the goblins for control of the main corridors, perhaps the initial reaction roll sets the tenor for their attitudes throughout the dungeon delve: 2-5 indicates they are on war footing against the goblins and 9-12 suggesting diplomatic efforts towards the gnolls. Later on, other neanderthal parties will be in the midst of pursuing this same goal.

What are the monsters doing when you meet?
Hostile: patrolling territory, on a raid
Unfriendly: hiding loot, hunting, getting high on cave fungus
Neutral: guarding an area
Indifferent: trying to sleep, absorbed in a game,
Friendly: recovering from another fight, selling something, on a religious holiday

What condition are they in? A 'friendly' result might mean they're wounded or low on manpower, willing to bargain. A 'hostile' group is at full strength and ready to throw down. Modify the # encountered by 10-20% depending on the reaction roll.

Let's hear suggestions in the comments, or maybe some links to other folks that have discussed this!


***** Campaign Update *****


It had to happen: the Land's End game is going to slow right down since my brother just had his daughter. Cigars all around folks, I'm an uncle now!

As a rules-heavy, character-driven sandbox with only three players, it will be tough to play without him. My brother is one of the best players I've ever DM'd for, and his serpent oracle Vuk Thuul seems to drive the campaign along just by showing up. Luckily the drop-in game is taking off, new people keep showing up and we're having great fun.

There are still plenty of articles in my 'Drafts' folder about Land's End, including the last dungeon they explored but I'm going to be shifting my focus to the other side of the campaign world and the escapades of a brand-new group of 1st level scrubs trying to survive all my LotFP adventures and the encounters from The Nocturnal Table!

Pursuant to this, YOU dear readers can expect more of:

-Play reports on various OSR modules as I run my players through them. I don't like "standard narrative play reports" but I am writing them up for my players anyway, so you'll get something between a review and a play report - what went wrong, what the players liked, what was easy to use, what was difficult, what I'd do differently next time.

-Making the Wilderlands my own, likely by borrowing more from Book of the New Sun

-Nameless Cults and Gifts of Chaos

-The return of Fun on the Velvet Horizon

-More demon-summoning rules

-New Labyrinth Lord rules and less pathfinder content!


Next week we're back with High Medieval weapons & armour.