Monster Monday: Flukeman

Flukemen
No. Encountered: 1 (1d4)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 90'/120' Swim
Armor Class: 8
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: 1 (claw or bite)
Damage: 1d6 (claw) or 1d4 + Flukes (bite)
Save: F2
Morale: 12
Hoard Class: II
XP: 30

Flukemen are unfortunate humans and demihumans that have been infected with a parasite found in remote swamps and steaming jungles.  These parasites take control over the host's body, as well as making a number of physiological changes.  Flukemen appear as hairless humanoids whose skin become thick, covered in scabs, and mottled grey in color.  This gives them an AC equivalent to leather armor.  Their mouth has turned into a gaping hole ringed with four large fangs and other smaller teeth.

Before a Flukeman can bite an opponent, it must first hit them with a claw attack.  Once hit, they may make a bite attack with a +2 to hit.  Those bitten by a flukeman must make a saving throw against poison.  Failure indicates that the victim has been injected with a number of living flukes.  Each day there after, he or she must make a save vs poison.  Failure lowers the victim's CON to the next lowest modifier.  For example, a character with 15 CON who failed their saving throw would have 12 CON due to the flukes burrowing into their flesh and changing their physiology.  Once a character is reduced to 0 CON or less becomes a flukeman.

The flukes that permeate the flukeman's body also work to repair it.  Flukemen regenerate 1 hit point per round as the flukes weave them back together.  Fire and acid do not stop this affect, but if the creature should reach 0 hit points or less then its life functions have ceased and it will not reanimate as a troll would.

Coinage of the Dark Country

Inspired by Chris of the Hill Cantons' monetary system and this post on Jeff's Gameblog, I decided to work out the coinage system for the Dark Country.  Note that this is pending the approval of my players who might not want to think about all this nonsense.

Most coinage in the Dark Country is either Western or uses the same system found in the West.  Some are imperial coins that have been found in various caches and put back into circulation via adventurers; however, these are rare.

The Shield is the largest form of currency.  It is issued by the various cities in order to trade between each other on a massive scale.  It is incredibly rare, but it is not unheard of for it to be found in large numbers in old treasuries.  They are called shields because they bear the arms of whatever kingdom or city minted them.  They often have a picture of the current ruler on the obverse side.  Shields are equal to platinum pieces in Labyrinth Lord.

A Gold Shield

The Guilder is the most common of the gold coins found in the Dark Country.  While still issued in the name of a ruler or a city, guilders are backed by the holdings of a guild.*  On one side they will have the face of a ruler, and on the other side they will have a symbol representing the guild that financed the coin.  They are equal to gold pieces in Labyrinth Lord.  Guilders found in Nightwick Abbey likely have the symbol of the Sword Brothers one one side and the face of one of the Hochmeisters on the other.

A Guilder Financed by a Mercenary Company

The Sold is the least common gold coin in the Dark Country.  Most predate the founding of the most powerful guilds and were instead minted directly by cities or rulers.  They typically bare the rulers face one one side and his or her coat of arms on the other.  Some go back to the times of the Empire.  Solds are universally smaller and usually more debased than guilders.  They are equal to electrum pieces in Labyrinth Lord.

An Ancient Sold

Denars are the most common form of currency in the West and therefore also in the Dark Country.  They are silver coins minted by rulers or cities and are marked in the same way as a shield, but are also much smaller.  Denars are equal to silver pieces from Labyrinth Lord.

Two Silver Denars

Nummi are relatively rare coins made of bronze or copper.  They originate in Zenopolis, but many of the Seven Cities issue them themselves.  They are totally unknown in the West.  Nummi are equal to copper pieces in Labyrinth Lord.

Two Bronze Nummi

Zenopolitans and Novgovites have their own forms of currency (both of which include both the denar and the nummus), but I'm too lazy to describe them right now.

*I am aware that historical guilders are named after the Dutch word for gold, but I don't really care and this sounded neat.

Unfocused Thoughts Riffing off Jeff's Saikaido Idea

Jeff of Gameblog fame has been posting has been posting about a campaign set in Japan since before I got a blog of my own.  He hasn't posted about it recently - the last one was late last year - so this isn't really prompted by anything, but I had some ideas about what I would do with a D&D/LotFP game set in historical Japan.

• I like his idea of using Onmyoji for Magic Users.  The fount of all knowledge (wikipedia) tells me that during the period his campaign would be set the Onmyoji had fallen out of favor due to the fact that they were associated with the now mostly powerless imperial court.  There is something to be done with this.
• Spirit Folk as children of the imperial line?  Aren't Elves and Magic Users automatically chaotic in LotFP - the system Jeff plans to use?
• Ok so let's taking those two things together, the emperor is the degenerate descendant of a Great Old One or similar entity and a bunch of humans.  His chief advisers, and all magic users in the campaign, are horrid magicians trained in arts that shatter mortal minds.  
• I want to emphasize the word degenerate in that last one.  I imagine that he's a far cry from his ancestors and is generally more interested in getting high and engaging in bizarre and petty amusements with the aforementioned advisers.
• I like Jeff's pick for the historical period, but I'm also tempted to set it during the Genpei War.  I suppose I might think about doing it during the Sengoku period, but I want to keep westerners out of the mix.
• What I would probably actually do is set it during the era right before the Genpei War, populating it with some of the same clans and historical figures, and then use the Oriental Adventures event tables to decide what happens politically.
• For rules I'd use LotFP with some bits - especially monsters - taken from OA and Ruins & Ronin.  I'll also likely be taking some things from the 3e version of OA which was/is my favorite book for 3e.  I really like the monster illustrations.
• If I set it during or around the Genpei War I would try to find a suitable spot somewhere far away from Kyoto to keep the war off camera.  It just needs to be there to explain why authorities don't intervene as much in player antics and to occasionally show up to burn down a village.  If I used the period he wants I'd also put it on Kyushu for the reasons he mentions.
• I'd use a lot of Japanese mythological monsters but I'd try to interpret them in the creepiest, most bizarre, and horribly cosmic ways possible.
• Social monsters will live in isolated, out of the way places and most encounters walking down a road or in a city will be with people.
• Unless it's at night.  Night is bad.
• Most people in the world only rarely see or interact with monsters.  That's something adventurers do.
• My very scant Appendix N: Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, the Lone Wolf and Cub Comics, and those Short & Shivery books I read as a kid.

There you have it.  This is probably one of those ideas that I'll never actually run, but the muse struck me so I scribbled this down.

On a related note: one of the first OSR games I ever ran was Mike D.'s Ruins & Ronin.

Armor of the Dark Country

I'm not normally an armor and weapons nut, but I decided to do some quick google image searches to figure out what the different types of armor present in Labyrinth Lord look like in the Dark Country.  Below are examples of each except for scale and studded leather.

Plate armor is found only in the West, and those possessing it in the Dark Country have either brought it with them, stolen it, or paid a Western-trained smith to forge them some.

Western Nobles in Plate Armor

Mail is considered a bit archaic in the West but is still common in the Dark Country because poor knights often rely on hand-me-downs.  Barbarians, Novgovites, and Zenopolitans also commonly wear mail.

Sword Brothers Displaying Archaic Mail, Leather, and Padded Armor

Two Western Knights in Contemporary Mail

Splint armor is fairly common, but it is mostly used by non-Westerners such as Zenopolitans, Novgovites, and Barbarians.

Barbarians Showing Examples of Mail and Splint Armor

Zenopolitans in Mail, Padded, and Splint Armor

Novgovites in Mail and Splint Armors

Banded armor appears in Zenopolitan, and Novgovite armies but is most commonly seen being worn in the West, where it replaces the role splint serves in other areas.

A Westerner in Banded Armor

Leather, like mail, is used by all the peoples of the Dark Country.

A Westerner in Leather Armor

Hopefully this will make it a bit easier for my readers and players to get a sense of what characters in the World of Nightwick look like.

Monster Monday: Devil Men

Devil Men
No. Encountered:  1d6 (4d6)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 90'
Armor Class: 5 (4 with shield)
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: 1 (Weapon)
Damage: As Weapon
Save: F2
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: XXI
XP: 25

Devil men are diabolic servants of the demon lord known to men as the Horned One.  In places in which the Horned One's presence is felt in the material plane, his taint acts like a radiation that twists and deforms the unborn in the womb.  Such infants are typically either directly killed by their communities or left in the wilderness to die of exposure.  However, sometimes the parents will seek to disguise their children so that they might live.  This rarely ends well, for creatures touched by such demonic taint will always seek to sow evil into the world, regardless of whether or not they are shown mercy.

This is not the only way devil men come into this world.  The Horned One is known to appear to women and tempt them to engage in all sorts of sexual perversions.  The result of these awful meetings are often devil men, though some have been known to give birth to jackals, goats, and other animals with diabolic intelligence.  Devil men can also propagate their own vile race by mating with human women in the usual fashion.  Even exposed infants have a chance of surviving, for a devil child reaches full adulthood in 1d6 days.

Devil men typically congregate in old ruins known to possess terrible histories.  If the ruin is remote enough and if enough devil men gather there they will form a small village.  These villages will often have mixed populations, with small numbers of humans and beastmen whose clan is closely associated with the Horned One - such as deer or goats - also present in the population.  The vast majority of the humans will be female, and many communities of devil men are led by a human witch or hag.

Devil men are roughly the size and shape of normal humans, but they possess two great, curving horns, yellow fangs, and either red or metallic grey skin. They are typically well equipped, with mail, shields, and expertly crafted weapons.  These are typically gained through trade with sympathetic humans.  Devil men without these contacts will gain their equipment through raiding, in which case their AC should be adjusted to represent the poorly made and ill fitting armor they have scavenged.

They possess a crude form of telepathy that can allow them to communicate silently with other devil men; however, they usually prefer speech as this telepathy requires too much concentration and they will only rely on it when stalking a potential victim.

Devil men speak Common, Pig Latin, and Crowleyian.

Hand Drawn Lychgate Map

This is the current working map for Lychgate, rendered in the style of Huge Ruined Scott's Dwarf-Land map, except for the settlements which use the key from the Rules Cyclopedia.  It only has those features that the PCs in my G+ Nightwick Abbey game, and therefore it lacks pagan villages, ruins, and monster lairs. 

click to embiggen

Once I have more of the hex contents figured out, I plan to redraw it to fix some of the little mistakes I made on this one and to use some more "iconic imagery" for the settlements.  When I do that one I'll start with the settlements first so that they don't get screwed up by the landscape like the castle in 0816 and Nightwick Abbey (1607).

I haven't labeled anything yet because my handwriting is absolutely abysmal - it took all my ability to write the name of the map in a way other human beings can read.  The swamp is the Great Swamp, the forest in the eastern section is the Fog-Bound Forest, the mountains are the Nameless Mountains, and the forest in the north is the Witchwood.

One final note: my use of the ACKS hex paper does not mean I'm using that system. Their sub-regional hex paper just happens to be about 1/4 the size of the larger Judges Guild paper. This allows me to break it down into manageable chunks, but will hopefully later allow me to have a Wilderlands map of my very own. 

Nightwick Abbey Session Report and Something Else

Zzarchov over at Unofficial Games has provided yet another play report for Nightwick Abbey.

Michael Moscrip of the Grumpy Old Troll has something similar, which appears to be an overview of the places they've been in the abbey.

I believe Michael's is a response to something I posted on G+ where I said that the reason I give xp for player made play reports is that I want the players to be communicating with each other about the stuff they missed in a session they were absent, and for new players to be able to get a sense of what's going on.

Michael will have to confirm whether or not that is correct.