Transparent Cobra

This cobra is misnamed it is in fact a teleporting cobra. The misunderstanding is mostly due to it's remote  jungle home and how few of it's victims get away. It will eat any meat at all, as long as it killed it. They come in a mated pair and either 3-30 eggs or 2 -20 young (50/50). The cobra's will recklessly attack a group of "dinner" no matter what the groups power or nature. When attacked the cobra's have a 75% chance of teleporting away and making the combatant miss. they typically teleport to a new position to attack from(max of 20 feet) The suggested stats:

HD 3
attacks as 8 hd
Damage 2d6 plus save vrs poison of take an additional 2-12
Ac 15 /05  plus 75% miss chance due to teleporting away

Fauna The Remember Bird

These birds come in 3 varieties(detailed below) but they all share the following. The bird will present a small token of what it is going to convey(the token will be directly related for the coming vision).This token(if held) will give a very brief flash insight in the brain of the holder.Their origin is lost to time. If speak w animals is cast the chirping will be revealed as"Take this Please!"i
The Common Remember Bird reveals insight about the past. For example it will give a view of a power king if you were in the ruins of his city Or maybe seeing ones grandmother you never met.

The Uncommon Remember Bird reveals the present. You might see the throne room of a noble you should see, Or maybe what your mother is up to.

The Rare Remember Bird will reveal the future. Not a possible future but the definite future. It will reveal an enemy(perhaps showing a weakness) Or you grown up son, who looks a lot like you

In all cases the visions are crystal clear, but fragmented


other than all of this, it is a just a small bird

DMs NOTE
These can be used to advance a plot or foreshadowing or to advance the player's back story


image

...a cool idea......

Here at Dragonsfoot http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=65381 The post discuses the use of the classic arcade game " Dragon's Lair" as a playable dungeon but it approaches it like a normal D&D game. You cannot represent DL with " Ok Bob, it's your turn what are you doing?" So I've got a germ of an idea.

The castle itself is a dream construct of the way-too-powerful-to fight Dragon. From a distance the castle is changing, growing towers, walls falling , getting bigger and smaller in rapid succession. The castle "eats" interesting things that the players will need to extract. It is also Multidimensional and planer and moves around.

The way I am planning on running it is that individual rounds are broken into 3 parts and only one player gets an action to interact with the "trap". a second player will be able to aid the "phasing" player in what ever action he takes. casting spells will be broken up over the 3 partial rounds(depending on L of spell).The phasing player will in essence be the party leader for the 3 partial rounds. The phasing player "job " will be rotated in some fashion(havent got this worked out yet). This is all run w/ the idea that you are trying to recreate the frantic pace of DL The growing and shrinking nature of the castle forces constant movement on the players A brief description of the situation will be provided with the idea of "looking around" will be an action that takes up a whole "partial" round. A few normal combats to be sprinkled in.

Since a lot of work will go into an encounter that should only take IRL 2 maybe 3 min., the rooms and traps are reusable (justified by the "dream logic")

This will obviously not work for a large group of players. Prob want to keep it to 3 or 4.
This will require MASSIVE prep time for what will prob amount to a 1 hour crawl at best (depending on how many standard fights you work in) That's why REUSABILITY is key. To make the prep worth it , you can rerun it w/ the "dream logic"

Not sure if I'm going to pull the trigger on this. But I really like the idea.Not promising a part two if I don't.

A cool pest> Dragon Duck

http://ruinsofmurkhill.proboards.com/thread/1593/dragon-duck

Making Mundane Weops. Unique

I've never been happy that almost every player picks long sword and greatsword, so I made a special chart to make them more unique. I use this in OSR and Pathfinder. I use 20 only as crit threat,double damage.

dagger +2 to hit, D4 damage
short sword +1 to hit, d6 damage
long sword, threatens crit on 19-20, D8 damage
battle axe, ignores one Damage resistance(scale at higher L?) D8 damage
Mace, 0ne damage on a miss(Scalable?) D8 damage (Ok , should prob only be vrs Metal armor but not looking for that kind of complexity)
spear D6 damage, d12 damage vrs large creatures
great sword 2d6 damage
military pick d6 damage, x3 damage on crit
great axe D10 damage, +3 to confirm crit
quarterstaff(2 handed) D6 damage 1 bonus to AC
Etc.

Cheating DM: Puzzles

I often create puzzles that I don't know the answer to. I drag it out until just a HINT of frustration sets in amd then BANG,next good idea from players is the answer! In 37 tears they never caught on to this.

Link to GREAT post over on Dragons Foot

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=75374&p=1791863#p1791863

Very well thought out contiplation of RPING in modern day, check it out!

link in comments below works

I'm running a Political/military PbP on Presposia

Just started adventures in "banditry" in Zimbabwe over on Presposia, just getting started if you wanna take a look(I'm tmao on that site) link is in comments below
ACTIVELY RECRUITING MORE "BARONS" FOR PbP FUN!!!!!

Some more Crypts and Things musings......

Been thinking about Luck and Sanity in actual play, thinking maybe static 10 for Luck and min 10 wisdom . Luck is kinda really important and a lower wisdom could be CRIPPLING with Sanity rules, as I'm not planning on switching for at LEAST four months(campaign has to EVOLVE) four months , I've got lot's of time to think about it.

Preview of Sundered Worlds Recap 2

Ok planning on some sort of divine intervention on Monday. Laying out destiny of PCs and an out line of things to come in the following years. Join me as my thought process evolves on this through out(sorry you know by now my spelling fu is weak) today will be updating this post continuously if you want to wait come visit This on Monday

Sanity stat in any D&D

I've looked for YEARS for a way to do this, I think Crypts and Things Remastered is THE way to go with this. Simple and Elegant. I could spoil it here but you peeps need to support D101 games, they are doing AWESOME stuff(although I am basing this solely on Remastered). C&T Sanity system I think will work well in actual play, we shall see.......

Cheating DM: Puzzles

I often create puzzles that I don't know the answer to. I drag it out until just a HINT of frustration sets in amd then BANG,next good idea from players is the answer!

So Remastered has caused me to re think Sundered Worlds/Stolen world.....

Ok Remastered's rules are VERY closely aligned with the provided setting. I've decided that I'm going to use the"canned" world instead of creating my own. I've got to CRAM setting into my plans, At least it's easier than making new world.

I'm 56 years old and have been playing D&D since I was 17, 90% of the time I have been the DM. I have never EVER used somebody else's setting before. Brand new territory for me!

Cool monster link

link is to very comprehensive overview is Spellweavers, very alien sorcerers  working link in comments

DM RANT (lucky) 13: OSR Cleric(if you rake away ONE thing from me,let it be this!)

Allow Spontaneous casting of cure spells by clerics! This means a cleric can substitute a cure spell for an appropriate spell. You can always set a limit on number of times per day they can do this. Makes clerics more than cure machines! I used to laugh at the spell lists of NPC clerics in old school products and magazines. 7th L clerics w/ only 2 CLW, laughable!

DM Rant 12ish Some thoughts on specific spells concerning OSR

I HATE Sleep and Color Spray, far, far too powerful BUT if your going to ignore Rant 11 ,they HAVE to stay, if your only going to get one spell it might as well be a doozy!

The more modern "Magic Weapon" is VERY suitable to OSR play(makes weop +1/+1 magic for a moderate amount of time) should be available to MUs and Clerics both

adding DOOM to clerics list will not kill you either(save for -2 to hit and saves, short duration)

DM Rant 11(?) a message for OSR DMs

For goodness sake help out low level casters! One or Zero spells is NO WAY to PLAY!!!!!! Lots of great ideas are available. I know all about "wizards dominate at high level and they must PAY!"

C'mon! Would 4 LOUSY cantrips kill you? Bonus spells for high Int? Some sort of "ZAP" mechanic that functions basically as a short bow!

You can EASILY rule that any sort of bonus goes away at say 5th!

HAVE A HEART!!!!!!!!!!!

Book Review: Songs of the Dying Earth

This is a fantastic and HUGE collection of short stories celebrating(and imitating) the Dying Earth series by Jack Vance(poss known to gamer's as the source of the memorization spell system of D&D) The variess big name authors of the stories do a fantastic job of imitating Vance's very unusual style. Except of course for Neil Giaman's close to the book which very arrogantly makes no attempt at channeling Vance. If you love Vance ,this is a must have. NOTE: Vance's style is a VERY peculiar take on wizarding and I would recommend getting a sample before you buy.

Gaming Review: Petty Gods

I haven't had a chance to go through this yet but it's AMAZING Very minor Gods(50hp) to demi gods, great art, huge book FREE, THAT"S RIGHT FREE link in comments

(Look my cat died yesterday and the family is real broken up about it, so if I spend a lot of time , making many posts here , forgive me)

Crypts and Things House rules are DONE!!!!!!!!!

Follow link in comments below!