Kovakistan Liberation Party

This is not about a political faction.

So… we’re at a point where everyone reading this has tried out Jeff Rients’ carousing rules right?

If you aren’t familiar with it, the idea is PCs can get a bunch of XP if they blow hundreds or thousands of monies throwing a giant party. If they do that, they have to make a saving throw vs. poison or get shitfaced and have to roll on the table to see what they did while they were blacked out.

The other evening, I was running Kovakistan and an unusual situation came up, where I actually wanted to play the party out. The PCs weren’t looking for bonus XP at all, they wanted to throw a party and invite everyone in the same high-rise project as their safe house to build support for the revolution.

I didn’t tell them this but the risk they were taking was that the party might get too loud (with celebratory AK-47 fire and patriotic shouting and whatnot) and be heard by a passing USIncorporated patrol, possibly triggering a massacre that would be the PCs’ fault.

There wasn’t anything stopping me from still using the carousing rules but in a different way, making the PCs roll saving throws to avoid blacking out whenever they get more fucked up. But some of these players were doing a good enough job of keeping up with their characters that there was no need to artificially handicap their judgement.

KOVAKISTAN PARTY RULES

If all goes well and all encounters are dealt with successfully, public support for the revolution goes up by 1% for every hour the party goes on for (this is for Delta Green, which uses a resource roll instead of keeping track of the players’ money. if i was using this for D&D, it’d just be 1% per 100 monies spent on the party or something). If your characters are open about their identities with the party guests, this also affects public support for their cell and/or faction specifically, but there’s a risk of someone giving away your location to USInc. forces.

Every hour (or more often if you feel like it, just adjust the public support reward to compensate for the added risk) roll 1d8 and 1d10. If the d8 results in a 1, two Kovakistani Police officers show up. They’ll call for backup and try to shut the party down if they aren’t dealt with somehow. KPs are usually open to large enough bribes, but they'll know they can come back to shake the PCs down in the future. Kidnapping them and using them for an execution video may be an effective propaganda tool, but would harsh the partygoers’ buzz enough for them to leave.

(and if the KPs had recognized any of the PCs from wanted posters the jig would be up, but they had all disguised themselves earlier)

The d10 is to see what happens at the party that the PCs now have to deal with. Things can happen more than once; ref's discretion whether they involve the same NPCs as the first time or not.

1. Someone has gone and grabbed their AK-47 and starts shooting into the air, while bellowing the Kovakistani national anthem. If this keeps up long enough for the Americans to notice, they’ll send a reaction force to “disperse” this illegal gathering.

2. A skeezy looking dude with a coke ring and his hair slicked back just pulled up in an American muscle car. He’s got a duffel bag in the trunk full of drugs that he’s willing to share, but it won’t be long before he starts creeping out the women. If they start leaving, everyone else will, too.

3. Someone is stealing peoples’ cell phones (1d20+6 so far) and people are starting to notice they’re missing. The thief will try to sneak away after realizing the jig is up. Public support goes down by 1% for every phone lost, so catching the thief is advisable.

4. A couple twenty-something dudes with a few years of krav maga training have lost their shirts somehow and are fighting for fun in the parking lot. People are laying down bets (yes of course the PCs can get in on this). Everything is fun and games unless someone loses an eye. If a PC challenges the winner and beats him, public support goes up by 5% in addition to the normal boost just for throwing the party. If the PC injures their opponent badly enough to hospitalize, maim, or kill him, public support goes down by 10% instead.

5. Someone catches their significant other at the party with the S.O.’s side piece. First words then blows are exchanged and a pistol will soon be drawn.

6. Basically the same as #5 except it’s either a rap battle or a break dance battle (referee’s discretion).

7. Someone who is too drunk to remember why is bleeding everywhere. Like a big-ass stream of blood spurts out with every heartbeat. If this person dies at or after leaving the party, no public support points will be awarded for the night.

8. A group of partygoers leaves for a while and returns with a goat and a chainsaw, with which they sacrifice the goat. Everyone yells HAIL SATAN and the public support boost for throwing this party is doubled.

9. The booze and/or drugs are starting to run low. The PCs have 2d6*10 minutes to replenish the supply somehow or the partiers will start to leave.

10. Someone decided to light a bunch of shots of dangerously strong basement hooch and the resulting kitchen fire surprised everyone enough that someone else dropped the bottle in the middle of it and now the safe house is on fire.

A Tale of Potential Poop

In Sunday night's Black Hack game, the party (Allison the 12 year old 21st century alice, Kalasso the wandering saurian priest, and Chevalier d'Eon the mage) made their way to one of the saurian towns in the Hojo Mori rainforest. I didn't have any specific NPCs or events in mind, so it was pretty much all driven by the players and the dice.

The guards stopped them on the way in, and Kalasso almost immediately asked if anyone inside needed healing. It turned out that there was something wrong with the local lord's heir. Before approaching the castle though, they wanted to go find a beastmaster and see about incubating this rotjaw egg they'd acquired previously. After a brief discussion, they elected to have a sort of coffin-cart made, in which they'd simulate a rotjaw nest by filling it with dung and mulch, and bury the egg in that. Then they got distracted by a crazy-eyed fortune teller.

Once some gems were sold off and a deal had been struck with a local carpenter, they went up to the castle. Inside, they learned that the hatchling had been in a coma for a week now, and the court healer was stumped. Kalasso examined the patient but failed to make a concrete diagnosis, even with the comprehensive book on jungle diseases that Allison suddenly realized she had stashed at the bottom of her backpack.* Then Chevalier thought to cast detect magic, and discovered that this was actually a curse designed to look like a disease. The party went to ask the crazy fortune teller what to do, and she told them to talk to the spirits in the caves at the other end of the map.

*If you aren't familiar with the Alice class from A Red & Pleasant Land, they have this "exasperation" ability where if they get really stuck, the situation changes in their benefit in some randomly determined dream-logic kind of way.

So the plan at this point was to stay the night at the inn, then go pick up the completed incubation wagon from the carpenter's shop, find some farmers to fill it with fertilizer, and start a three day journey to the spirit caves. This plan was derailed when I rolled for that morning's weather and got "flash flood." When the PCs got to the carpenter's shop, he and his family were bugging out in high quality canoes. The PCs found a boat in the attic that was big enough for them and the (still empty) wagon and got out alive, but headed in the opposite direction from where they wanted to go.

So now I have a group of players with "gather a big pile of shit and rotting plant matter" as an explicit short-term goal.

D20 "HEY I'M NEW IN TOWN WHAT'S THE WORD" TABLE

1 The local lord's hatchling has been in a mysterious coma for 3d4 days. The healers in town are all completely stumped because it's actually a magical curse. The hatchling will have a 1 in 8 chance of dying every day after day 14.

2 The town is about to begin its week long Festival of Ancestors. The sequence is: opening procession, drug fueled partying, ceremonial defeat of death & peak partying, final night devoted to somber reflection.

3 A famous acting troupe is in town. Their play recounts the events of one of Hojo Mori's legendary exploits and takes advantage of illusion magic. The conquest of the goliaths and the binding of the cave spirits are popular subjects.

4 The town is currently besieged by whichever of the other local lords likes this one the least. The two sides are evenly matched and waiting for each other to make a move when the PCs show up.

5 The town is celebrating the hatching of the lord's healthy new heir. The egg has been secretly been exchanged with the offspring of a sorceress and a powerful demon.

6 Slave revolt! These towns usually keep a variety of species as slaves. If the lord of this town doesn't believe in slavery, the saurian citizens are rioting.

7 The majority of a hunting party has been slain by a jungle tyrant. Their funeral is today. The ceremony is a sky burial on the roof of the castle's tallest tower, with the whole town watching the sky lizards in mournful silence.

8 The local lord is hosting a Tournament of Champions tomorrow. The prize is an amulet that gives its wearer a +2 bonus to all saving throws. It also has the secret, nearly undetectable power to act as both eyes and ears for the lord.

9 An ambassador is here, with servant and bodyguards, representing one of the other lords in the region. There is a 1 in 3 chance that the ambassador is a spy and/or an assassin.

10 Grisly murder scenes are the work of an unsuspecting saurian were-raptor.

11 The town is currently rebuilding in the wake of a flash flood. Expect all goods to be sold at 1d4 times their regular prices. 1 in 3 specialty items simply aren't available right now.

12 The eggs of four peasant families have gone missing over the past three weeks. The party may enter but no one may leave until the culprit has been found.

13 The whole town is convinced that a local hatchling is some kind of messianic figure, loudly agreeing that obviously mundane, routine occurrences are miraculous portents.

14 The local lord's financial advisor has been assassinated. His three potential successors are the only current suspects; each has a 1 in 4 chance of being guilty (leaving open the possibility of a conspiracy or another killer with a different motive).

15 The PCs arrive in the middle of an execution. The condemned tradesman's wife is convinced that he was set up. She's right, but no one wants to hear it. The man is being executed for possession of heretical documents that were planted in his desk.

16 One of the local tradesmen is trying to unite the rest of them into a guild. The various business owners in town have agreed to hold a vote one week from today. The local lord is opposed to this, but must allow the vote or risk an uprising.

17 A goliath enslaved as a pit fighter has become so successful that he's almost ready to buy his freedom. His master would see him die before allowing that to happen, but would risk a riot if this charismatic fan favorite was openly murdered.

18 Slaves and citizens alike have been falling prey to a brain-eating plague. Every day in town, each PC has 1/12 chance of contracting the disease via mosquito bite. INCUBATION 24 hrs, DURATION 7 days, INCREMENT 6 hrs, EFFECT 1d2 permanent INT damage.

19 A power-hungry mage has recently failed to take the stronghold, causing lots of collateral damage. Expect all goods to be sold at 1d4 times their regular prices. Everyone is suspicious and resentful of all visiting spellcasters right now.

20 The local lord has recently had a mystical experience that caused them to add a core belief to their personal philosophy, possibly calling one of their previous beliefs into question. Conversations in town are dominated by this paradigm shift and its implications, which are still trickling down, slowly, to the general populace.

Dart Plants

by Anne Hufnagl from here

Dart plants are mobile plant creatures that appear in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Those who’ve stopped to dissect the dead ones claim to have found complete animal skeletons deep beneath these masses of bark and vine, suggesting a parasitic nature.

Colorful flowers grow at irregular intervals on the dart plant’s surface, in which they form tight clusters of dart-like thorns, each carrying thousands of microscopic spores. When the cluster is ready, the flower closes, forming an airtight tube that acts as a blowgun.

As the spores travel through the host creature’s bloodstream, they multiply and feed on the nutrients intended for the host’s own organs. Treat this as a disease that slowly drains the constitution of host creatures and eventually kills them, at which point the dart plants consume the corpse from the inside out.

This constitution drain occurs at a rate of one point every six hours (or one HP per HD, if it’s a monster and you’re playing an OSR game). PCs and important NPCs are entitled to a saving throw vs. poison at each interval to temporarily avoid the effect, but the infection continues.

If a creature is still alive after a week of this, its immune system naturally kills off the infection. Cure disease spells and potions remove the infection as normal, but they don’t restore the victim’s constitution score to its previous level. Survivors of dart plant infection can be identified by their unnaturally pale skin, scales, fur, or feathers.

Mature dart plants are just a little bit bigger than their host creatures were. They have the same number of hit dice (including character levels) and can move at half the original creature’s speed. Each dart plant only has so many clusters ready to fire at any given time, but they also have a slam attack that does damage dependent on the size of the dart plant. The number of readied dart clusters is also dependent on the size of the plant, and uses the same table the slam attack does.

small: 1d4

medium: 1d6

large: 2d6

huge: 3d6

gargantuan: 4d6

When the dart plant eats the brain of its victim, it also absorbs the creature’s memories and intelligence. Dart plants that grow out of sentient beings try to use this ability to gain the trust of the victims’ friends and companions. Even with less intelligent animals, this usually at least tells the dart plant where to look for more host creatures. The host creature’s personality has never been known to overpower the instincts of the plant itself.

One major limiting factor on the dart plant population is their high calorie intake. These plants’ unusually active lifestyle requires that they consume twice their own weight in animal matter per day or face starvation. Since their first dart clusters take a couple of weeks to form, many dart plants starve to death before they ever get a chance to procreate.

This meat is stored in whatever space is made reasonable by the animal’s anatomy — in most vertebrates, this would be the stomach and chest cavities. An internal root system digests the dart plant’s prey while the plant retains its ability to move around (provided that its prey is at least one size category smaller than it is). What this means to you is that if this area were to be sliced open from below, piles of bloody half-rotten body parts would come tumbling out like it was a piñata at a GWAR show.

Any flowers that still contain readied dart clusters can be distilled into a potent drug that causes intense hallucinations. The drug can be imbibed like a potion, or administered intravenously by applying it as a poison to an edged or piercing weapon. The affected individual must save vs. poison or hallucinate for two hours (if the imbiber is willing, no save is necessary), during which they are not in control of their actions. Roll 1d12 every half hour until the end of the effect to determine the nature of the hallucinations and the actions of the affected creature. After the hallucinations end, the character will feel nauseous and generally not up to adventuring, and every roll they make during the next six hours suffers from disadvantage or a -2 penalty or whatever, while attacks against the character are made with advantage or a +2 bonus.

1. You are one with the intertwining root systems below you, granting knowledge of a hidden location.

2. Everyone around you is delicious meat and you are carnivorous and hungry so so hungry.

3. You are a talking tree and will not willingly allow yourself to be moved, screaming if overpowered.

4. Decay is nutrition. You must seek and devour any decaying flesh, plant matter, or feces you can find.

5. You are a leaf on the wind. Wander aimlessly, fleeing from anything that tries to touch you.

6. The sun is life. Fight your way to the nearest direct sunlight and fight some more to stay there.

7. Everything is fractals. Stand in open-mouthed bewilderment, allow self to be led by hand.

8. You are a thistle bush and everyone is a goat. You have legs for some reason and need to get away right now.

9. Find some insects (there are always some insects and many of the ones on Exodus are dangerous) and rub them all over your genitals.

10. You are a fruit (hurr hurr shut up) that must find an animal to eat you so it can spread your seed when it shits.

11. Shit, termites. Madly clawing at yourself does 1d4 hp per turn unless you’re successfully restrained.

12. Something’s wrong with this dose. Begin the slow transformation into a dart plant as if shot by one.

The drug is incredibly dangerous and hardly ever any fun at all. However, the potential reward is legendary. Dart plant venom is commonly available in any place where adventurers gather, but usually not allowed to be taken there or anywhere other place where the recipient would pose a danger to the public. The venom’s desirability stems from tales of friends of friends who took it and experienced visions of fantastic treasures, the locations and some of the nature of which these brave fools awoke knowing.

In game terms, this means that if a player on dart plant venom rolls a 1 at any point during this horrible trip,* they must write down three elements of the location they saw. Everything else is up to you to fill in with whatever the hell you feel like, but the three statements the PC wrote down are 100% true. If a PC rolls a one more than once,** If multiple PCs are tripping together and both gain secret knowledge, they learn of different locations.

This shouldn’t exactly be a Monkey’s Paw scenario, where there’s no real benefit at all, because you want the PCs to actually try it at some point. Still, the temptation is too strong to not give in at least a little bit. Pick one statement out of every three; you still have to follow the letter of the law but it leaves out something important and dangerous. If a magic sword is demanded, you could decide that it’s cursed. If the players state that there aren’t any traps in the dungeon, you could make the entire dungeon a trap and turn escaping from it into a puzzle.

*There’s a 1/3 chance of this occurring, if you’re curious. 

**1/9 chance. There’s a 1/81 chance of someone getting to make nine demands about the same place, which is less than 2%.

Lost World Mammals

These things all live on an island where the ecosystem is dominated by dinosaurs, so none of them really get as big as, say, an elephant. Even the communal species appear in relatively small numbers, let's say 2d4, maybe 3d6 for burrowers.

d4: size

1 tiny

2 small

3 medium

4 large

d8: body type and behavior

1 rodent - solo burrowing omnivore

2 feline - solo carnivore

3 ursine (bears duh) - solo carnivore

4 lagomorph (like rabbits) - communal burrowing omnivore

5 canine - communal carnivore

6 primate - communal omnivore

7 ungulate (hoofed quadrupeds) - communal herbivore

8 chiropteran (bats) - communal omnivore

d10: covering (colors usually blend with habitat)

1 spots

2 quills

3 solid color

4 stripes

5 armadillo-like shell

6 pangolin-like scales

7 brightly colored for mating, roll again with 1d6

8 largely hairless

9 marsupial and roll again with 1d8 (yeah I know but it fits best here)

10 duck-like bill and roll again with 1d8

d12: special features

1 echolocation

2 1d4 horns or antlers

3 prehensile tail

4 prehensile snout

5 aquatic or semi-aquatic

6 absurdly long neck (headbutt attack)

7 plague carrier

8 long tusks

9 stone bite, breath, or gaze

10 sonic blast

11 shocking touch

12 speech & intelligence

I'm a little bummed out that I couldn't get the flying squirrel membrane in there but you could totally roll up a caveman by accident (3-6-8-12) so I'm calling it even.

Like the dinosaur tables I posted, if you wanted to rule out weird magic powers (for some strange reason), you could just use a d8 instead of the d12.

Random Mutant Dinosaurs

Ashley: "These tables are stupid. You can roll on them and get a colossal flying reptile with tail spikes and a neck shield."

Me: "These tables are awesome. You can roll on them and get a colossal flying reptile with tail spikes and a neck shield."

Roll 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, and 1d12 all at once. Or, if you already know you need (for example) a huge bipedal ambush predator, just roll the d10 and d12.

Rolling the d10 and d12 multiple times is likely to produce absurd results that may or may not be just what you want.

d4

1 quadruped

2 flying reptile

3 biped

4 aquatic

d6

1 tiny

2 small

3 medium

4 large

5 huge

6 colossal

d8

1 pack hunter

2 ambush predator

3 solo hunter

4 territorial herbivore

5 curious herbivore

6 herd herbivore

7 curious scavenger

8 skittish omnivore

d10

1 neck shield

2 back shell

3 bright feathers

4 spiked joints

5 back fin

6 spine plates

7 bony skull ornament

8 neck frill

9 spine spikes

10 covered in bristles

d12

1 1d3 horns

2 tail club

3 tail spikes

4 long neck & tail

5 sharp beak

6 tusks*

7 razor claws*

8 disease carrier

9 acid spit

10 radioactive breath

11 froglike tongue

12 speech & intelligence

*All dinosaurs have bite and claw attacks. These ones just do a shitload of damage in comparison.

If you only roll the d12 one time, there's a 1/3 chance of getting an extremely not realistic result that changes up the encounter. That feels about right to me. If you want to cut that stuff out completely for some reason, just use another d8 instead of a d12.

Now have a drink and make up a kickass sword & sorcery style name for your dinosaur species, like "dragonhawk" or "great tooth" or even "death lizard." Repeat the process a few times, maybe fudge a roll here and there, and a whole ecosystem starts to emerge.

The Oracle Rolls a Funny Shaped Die and Tells You…

Image courtesy of the Met

I keep seeing these ancient d20s popping up on my social media feeds. The one pictured here was found in Egypt, carved during the Ptolemaic period, after the country had been conquered by Alexander the Fucking Insane. Hence the use of Greek letters (which were also used as numbers). The Romans produced similar dice, also using Greek letters. I’m guessing an icosahedron with enough room on one side to legibly carve XVIII would have been pretty big and heavy.

Gamers around the world have been having fun trying to imagine what sort of games the ancients were playing with these dice, but what if they weren’t used for games at all? Playing cards started out as divination tools, why not dice? I’ve never really been satisfied with how prophecies work in D&D, which is why I’ve never used them, so let’s see if I can do better.

If you type “greek alphabet oracle” into google, you’ll find a bunch of tables sort of similar to the one below, along with some possible ways in which the table could have been used (shaking a bowl of 24 stones until one flies out was apparently common). Obviously I’m going to want to use dice, but unfortunately, there are 24 letters in the Greek alphabet, not just 20.

Good thing I’ve got that d24 that came in a set with my d30.

1 - Alpha | Successfully: You will be successful in your endeavors

Effect: The PC may, at any time but only once, declare a short-term goal to be the endeavor described by the oracle. Any actions taken by that PC to work towards that goal get a +15% (3 in 20 or about 1 in 6) bonus to succeed.

2 - Beta | You will get assistance, but you must complete the task

Effect: The PC may, at any time but only once, declare a short-term goal to be the task described by the oracle. That PC’s mirror image will appear. It isn’t under the control of the PC in the way that a summoned creature would generally be, but its sole motivation is to bring the task to completion, allowing the double to return to the other side of the mirror. The double will not allow the PC to indulge in any distractions whatsoever until then, even going so far as attacking if the PC tries to rest or return to town.

3 - Gamma | You will have a fruitful harvest from your labors

Effect: Okay this one’s super easy. The value of the next significant treasure the PC finds is multiplied by 1d6+2.

4 - Delta | You must use finesse more than strength

Effect: The PC loses 6 points of STR and gains 6 points of DEX (or agility or whatever). This can be reversed by a remove curse spell, assuming the PC even wants to.

5 - Epsilon | You desire to see a successful union

Effect: This PC will gain enough XP to advance a 5th level PC if they can find some NPC willing to marry them, and any time they can either adopt a willing child or make their own. It is assumed that they will all be taken hostage at some point.

6 - Zeta | You must escape the storm before it worsens

Effect: A large group of experienced marauders will come to sack the town in 1d12 hours. 

7 - Heta | The sun, which watches everything, watches you.

Effect: Exposure to direct sunlight will heal 1 HP every ten second round. If the PC ever goes back on their word, fails to fulfill an oath, or tells an outright lie, this regeneration effect ceases, and the PC is stricken blind. If the PC manages to somehow fulfill the oath after this occurs, the regeneration effect is reestablished and the PC regains the ability to see.

8 - Theta | You are guided by The Gods in your path.

Effect: The PC can call upon whatever forces lie beyond and ask them where a specific person, place, or thing can be found. The first time in a day this is attempted, they/she/he/it are guaranteed to answer. Each successive time this ability is used in a day, the chance of these powers ignoring the call increases by 1/6.

9 - Iota | You need to work harder to succeed

Effect: From now on, the PC must gain 150% the normal amount of XP in order to level up. Whoops.

10 - Kappa | To fight the waves is difficult; you must endure hardship to proceed.

Effect: DM, you can stop making random encounter checks. There is one every time you would normally check.

11 - Lambda | You will receive a blessing in disguise.

Effect: The DM must find an appropriate way for the PC to be stricken blind before the end of the current game session. At the end of the NEXT session, announce that the PC has mastered echolocation. Torches is for suckers, yo.

12 - Mu | It is necessary to labor, but the change will be admirable.

Effect: From now on, the PC must gather double the normal amount of XP to level up, and also picks one of their six core attribute scores to add one point to each level.

13 - Nu | A gift will answer your question.

Effect: The DM must introduce a new NPC, a stranger to the PCs, that must give them them a note, map, or other clue before the end of this session, that can lead them to a sizable hoard later(with complications, of course).

14 - Xi | You will not profit from something without potential.

Effect: The PC may no longer gain XP or levels in their current class, and must immediately switch to a different class, gaining the powers of a lvl 1 whatever-it-is the next time they get enough XP to level up. All abilities of the current class are retained.

15 - Omicron | You must reap what you sow

Effect: Someone you have killed is now a vengeful undead abomination.

16 - Pi | Completing many contests, you will seize the prize.

Effect: A team gladiatorial tournament will be held to choose a traitorous officer corps’ replacements. If there’s a TPK, the players can use the tournament as a convenient way to work in new characters.

17 - Rho | You must learn when to go and when to stay

Effect: From now on, anytime the PC takes no action during combat, then attempts to flee during the next round, the attempt will automatically succeed.

18 - Sigma | You must wait or stand your ground - be patient

Effect: If the PC takes no action this combat round, all attacks against them are made at disadvantage.

19 - Tau | You will separate from friends or enemies

Effect: Shit, time to split the party.

20 - Upsilon | The affair holds a noble undertaking

Effect: The next random encounter will be with a noble or royal, who is isolated, wounded, desperate, vulnerable.

21 - Phi | The gods (or universe or whatever) will not help you until you help yourself.

Effect: Starting the next time the PC levels up, they may automatically succeed at one action or attack of their choice per level. This power cannot be used to perform anything that would be physically impossible, i.e. it has be something that the player would normally be allowed to roll to perform, and the uses of this ability do not “roll over” into the next level.

22 - Chi | You must seize a golden opportunity

Effect: The PC will meet an NPC (with a lot of cash and a series of favors that need doing) in a chance encounter.

23 - Psi | You are given a fair judgement

Effect: Everyone that the PC wrongs in some way will always be able to find them, and there will always be at least one surviving (possibly by hiding from the PC) witness.

24 - Omega | You will have an unfortunate harvest

Effect: Basically the opposite of #3. The value of the next significant treasure the PC finds is divided by 1d6+2.

Oppenheim Rumors

I felt like screwing around with the Kellerlabyrinth some more. These are some rumors you may hear in the city above it.

1 Not everyone is willing to put up with Catholic rule. There’s a group that meets deep in the kellerlabyrinth, each week, on the eve of the sabbath.

2  There’s been an outbreak of the plague. We must seek out the witch and cut this evil off at its source, before she spreads it further!

3 You know, some of the older cellars don’t even belong to anyone anymore; just locked up loot, and no one’s got the key. 

4 Keep away from the Den of the Dragon, if you value your eternal souls! That wicked old easterner Zheng’s been leading our children into temptation too long.

5 My niece went down into the kellerlabyrinth, and never came out. Last week, someone said he saw a giant spider wearing her dress!

6 I met a man who fought the Swedes up north in Breitenfeld (September 1631). He said they will never be stopped.

7 The kellerlabyrinth is a hive of sin and heresy, crawling with witches and hideous abominations. Stay in the Lord’s sunlight, where the dangers are at least familiar. 

8 I hear the inquisitors are offering a reward of 30 pieces of silver for information leading to the capture of a practitioner of witchcraft.

9 I saw a rat the size of a pony down in the tunnels the other day! You won’t catch me down there again.

10 I hear that a group of women has dared to usurp control of a town near Wurzburg. It’s not right, I tell you. Someone needs to remind them of a woman’s place. (referring to Better Than Any Man, the most elaborate Free RPG Day release I’ve ever seen. Download the pdf version here.)

11 All the dog owners I know have had their hounds go missing in the past couple weeks.

12 The booze must be starting to get to me. I swear I saw an eyeball crawling around in here on little pink legs earlier. I’ll definitely quit drinking tomorrow. ::belch::

13 The Hapsburgs have commandeered at least a half dozen cellars to store their munitions. Good thing it’s too damp down there for a fire to start accidentally.
14 I was robbed on the road, my friend — by the devil himself, I tell you! He wore a green suit and a blood-red cloak.

15 My cousin said she saw a Roman officer in the tunnels. Apparently he made as if to remove his helmet with both hands, but the whole head came off with it. She swears it winked at her before fading away.

16 See that guy with a hook for a hand over there? He claims to have explored more of the kellerlabyrinth than anyone alive.

17 The old beggar, Whiskey Pyotr, swears up and down that he seen a wolf, big as a horse, running through the streets of Oppenheim. My pa says it was the whiskey what seen it. 

18 I have a friend who works for the Spanish, and he says that a prominent servant of the Hapsburgs is secretly working with protestant dissidents.

19 Eduardo Hapsburg has just arrived in town. Word is he’s looking for someone specific.

20 I saw two men in grey robes pay a couple of thugs, the identity of whom may or may not be known to me, for three tightly wrapped bundles. Why yes, I would say the bundles were about corpse sized. How much gold did you say you have on you?

Nothing Says Christmas like Rules for Malaria

If you use nothing but the information and tables in any of the core D&D rulebooks, I’m pretty sure the only thing that really differentiates jungle regions from other types of terrain is the wandering encounter tables. There might be something about how long it takes to travel through the area, or how easy it is to get lost there like in Barbarian Prince/Road of Kings, but that doesn't seem like enough. It seems to me that the jungle itself should be just as much of a challenge as the stuff you encounter there, or you’re missing an opportunity.

You could (and probably should) treat the jungle as a dungeon in and of itself. I probably wouldn’t go so far as stocking a complete subhex breakdown, but creating a point crawl for each hex (not as detailed as that one though) really isn’t that bad as far as prep goes. 

A tile from an old board game called magic realm.

Old-school versions of the DM Guide always made it a point to tell DMs what ratio of rooms with monsters to rooms with treasure (for example) they should be going for. This table is the same thing as that, but for nodes instead of rooms:

1d6 JUNGLE NODE CONTENTS

1 Nothing Unusual

2 Encounter

3 Encounter & Treasure

4 Terrain Feature 

5 Terrain Feature & Encounter

6 Terrain Feature, Encounter & Treasure

I tried to keep most of the following rules and information as general-purpose as possible, which is my excuse for not including encounter tables in this post. That said, I’m writing this so I can use it in the Yucatan Peninsula, and a few details are going to be specific to that region. You can always change them if you want.

This table lists a few of the major terrain features that your players could come across. There should be fairly obvious ways to interact with all of them.

D12 JUNGLE TERRAIN FEATURES

1 Quicksand - Starting at the beginning of the party's marching order, everyone saves until someone fails and falls waist deep into the pit. Every 10 second round, that person sinks another 1d10 inches (shit I may have to put a blank spot for height on my character sheet). People wearing heavy armor sink 2d10 inches per round. Pulling the character out with rope requires a strength check, more than one person pulling grants advantage on the check.

2 Banana Grove - If you can climb a tree, you can get as much food as you can carry. It goes bad in 1d8 days. 1/6 chance of an anaconda lying in wait. Otherwise, there are 3d12 howler monkeys hanging out that will probably attract attention.

3 Running Water - Secretly check for piranhas (1/6) and also roll 1d4 on this table.

  1 Stream - Only a couple feet deep and 1d10+20’ wide. 

  2 River - 1d10+10’ deep, 1d20+30’ wide, swimming check or end up downstream.

  3 Rapids - Large (and slippery) rocks sticking out of the water all the way across, skill checks/saving throws to cross without falling in and ending up downstream (no swim check).

  4 Waterfall - Same as Rapids, plus Cliff.

4 Blasted Clearing - No trees here, just blackened stumps, but that means the undergrowth is getting crazy amounts of sunlight. Any attempts to find useful (or dangerous) herbs in this area get advantage.

5 Cliff - If this node has more than one approach, decide whether someone traveling from each direction would be at the top or bottom of the cliff and mark it on the map. Any combatants at the top of the cliff would have an obvious tactical advantage. Moving up or down the cliff requires a successful climb check.

6 Cave - Oh come on. If you can’t think of something fun to do with a cave then you need to let someone else DM.

7 Ancient Trees - A thousand years old and a hundred feet tall and a dozen feet in diameter. Climbing these trees requires specialized equipment and takes time, but allows you to see major features four hexes away. Wildlife encounters are common at the top.

8 Ridgeline - Can see major features two hexes away from the highest point.

9 Ravine - Double random encounter chance in this area, probably an ambush.

10 Cenote - Deep and wide natural limestone pits with freshwater pools at the bottom. There’s a 1/3 chance that a village has formed around the cenote.

View from inside Ik Kil, a cenote near Chichen Itza

11 Recent Battleground - Broken and rusted weapons and armor half-buried in the bloodstained mud. At least two separate mass graves, the occupants of which may or may not A) be buried with valuable trinkets and B) be undead.

12 Overgrown Ruins - Site of an ancient city. Roll 1d4, 1d3 times, to see what’s left of it (and accessible). Only one palace should be here but there could be multiple temples and tombs.

  1 Palace

  2-3 Temple

  4 Tomb 

Roll on the appropriate weather table for the season at the start of each day. Rainfall typically occurs in the late afternoon and lasts 1d12*30 minutes. The only two seasons are wet and dry.

Temperature is in the 70s - 80s (fahrenheit) range year round, with a crazy amount of humidity during the wet season.

D6 WET SEASON (June—October) JUNGLE WEATHER

1 Dry Today - +1 chance of random encounters for 24 hours starting at dusk.

2 Light Misty Refreshing Rain - Heal 1d4 hit points during rainfall, even if traveling. This type of rainfall doesn’t heal you during combat, but will afterwards if the rain doesn’t stop first.

3 Big Ol’ Fat Rain - Non-natives suffer a -15’ movement penalty during rainfall and a -5’ penalty for the next 24 hours.

4 Torrential Downpour - Non-natives suffer a -30’ penalty and a -10’ penalty for the next 24 hours. Natives treat this like non-natives treat Big Ol’ Fat Rain.

5 Lightning Storm - 1d12 chance that the storm is focused on your current hex, in which case trees near the party keep getting struck by lightning and exploding, sending grenade-like shrapnel off in every direction. Save or take 1d6 damage. This happens right next to you every 1d10 minutes until you get out of the hex.

6 Hurricane - Torrential Downpour for 24 hours before the hurricane, which lasts 1d4+2 hours with a 1d6*10 minute period of complete calm in the middle, and again for 24 hours after the hurricane.

During the main storm, anyone without shelter must make two saves every hour; one reflex save to avoid flying debris, and a fortitude save against exposure to the elements. Failing either save means that a character is incapacitated, and will suffer 1d4-2 (minimum 1) points of damage for the remainder of the storm (including the Torrential Downpour) unless rescued (which might be even worse, depending on who finds you).

Even if you do find shelter, it should take damage during the storm, though you’d get a chance to make some quick repairs during the calm. I’m comfortable waiting until it comes up in play to figure out exactly how that works.

D20 DRY SEASON (November-April) JUNGLE WEATHER 

1-16 Dry Today

17 Light Misty Refreshing Rain

18 Big Ol’ Fat Rain

19 Torrential Downpour

20 Lightning Storm

JUNGLE SURVIVAL RULES

-Natives get to ignore this whole section.

-You need to drink twice as much water as usual. Three times as much during the wet season.

-Roll a navigation check to make it from one node to the next. If you fail, you find yourself walking in circles and basically spend another turn in your current node. (This is straight out of Barbarian Prince).

-Even if you don't get lost, it takes twice as long as usual to travel.

-Every day, each character has a 1% chance to have to roll a successful saving throw or come down with malaria.

MALARIA

-Symptoms appear for 1d4+2 hours at a time every 24 hours, and basically make you bed-ridden, shitting and vomiting out everything in your system.

-You can’t survive a malaria flare-up without either A) some sort of medical attention or B) very very careful preparation (shitload of water, safe space, a few buckets, etc. Think about the detox prep scene in Trainspotting).

-Save every day, or your condition worsens, now affecting you 24/7. If you fail your daily save while your symptoms are already active all day every day, your condition doesn’t immediately worsen further, but if you fail three days in a row in that condition, you fucking die and need to roll up a new character.

-If you make your daily save three times in a row, you beat the infection. All symptoms disappear and you are now immune to malaria, for the duration of the campaign at least. Thank fuck.

-A cure disease spell would work but wouldn't give you a future immunity.

Wandering around and partying in Mistfall

What is it about a city that truly defines it? It's not the landmarks or the shops or history of the town. It isn't court intrigue or some epic quest. It's what happens when you walk around aimlessly and get shitfaced with complete strangers.

I usually roll on this table a few times in a game day whenever the PCs are just sort of wandering around. If they're actually trying to stay focused and get something done, I treat it like a wandering monster check (1/6 chance of an encounter).

URBAN ENCOUNTERS

1 A pair of angry guards with tiny penises harassing some foreigner.
2 A group of five rats, each carrying a different item of jewelry, runs into the sewer.

3 Pregnant cultist fleeing priests of the Eternal Child asks you to help her hide.

4 A drunken veteran wants to tell you a story. It has a 50% chance of being true.

5 Simeon the singer. Wants someone to write epic songs about, will leave if he gets bored.

6 The raven familiar of Zographa, the lady of Sunrise Tower, has taken an interest in you.

7 A bald, bespectacled, dwarf arguing with his young human friend who thinks these pills he's been taking are making him smarter. They want you to settle their argument for some reason.

8 A masked woman, wearing a flowing grey cloak, running across the rooftops.

9 Oh shit there’s a dragon! Why isn’t it attacking? Look, it’s landing in Central Square. Someone should probably go see what it wants.

10 A mime that refuses to leave you alone. More mimes start following you every few turns. They're starting to compete for attention.

11 Street hustler selling tobacco without a license. A couple of guards appear to be taking an interest.

12 A knight in red armor casually kills a peasant for making a rude gesture. No one blinks.

13 Random PC’s hat is stolen by a flying monkey. Save with disadvantage to avoid.

14 Save or get your coin purse stolen by a 1.street urchin 2.handsome/beautiful redhead and accomplice 3.sextagenarian 4.dandy. 

15 You notice a fat man with a mustache and an apron beating a dog with a stick in a side alley.

16 You notice a fat man with a mustache and an apron beating a woman with a stick in the street.

17 A well-dressed man hands you a fancy invitation, winks, and disappears down a side street.

18 A flying monkey goes for one of your equipped weapons. Save or watch it fly away.

19 A wide trail of fresh blood leads into a nearby alley.

20 A group of six well-armed guards mistakes one of you for a wanted murderer.

21 Man gives you a blood-stained coded message addressed to Lady Annecke Bartolomeus and says “please” as he dies.

22 Prostitutes; gain 3xp for every 1sp spent, but save or catch a fucked up disease.

23 A flying monkey steals a passing lady's powdered wig, and she starts swearing creatively at it.

24 Freak storm out of nowhere. Lightning keeps striking the statues in Ambassador’s Square.

25 Man getting away from pursuing guards runs right past you, 45% chance he’s innocent.

26 Children with slingshots are trying and failing to get their ball back from a flying monkey.

27 Young man tries to feel out your politics, gives you a pamphlet if you’re on his side. 

28 Town crier yelling about something the PCs did recently (if at all applicable).

29 Lost child needs to find his way to one of the inns but doesn’t know the name of the place.

30 Street hustler selling potions from a many pocketed cloak.

You know what a carousing table is right? The fastest way to level up is to find a shitload of cash and then blow it all partying. You get 2xp for every silver piece you spend frivolously, but you also need to save vs. becoming blackout drunk. If you fail the save, you have to roll on the carousing table.

CAROUSING

1 You wake up in bed with someone of a gender you don’t usually have any interest in. +500xp.

2 Save or vomit with volume and force once every hour today. There’s blood in it.

3 You wake up naked on the roof of the stables. Your friends might remember the stranger you were chatting up, hopefully you can find them before you’re arrested.

4 You wake up in the richly furnished room of a noble, who is snoring loudly beside you.

5 Save or suffer from PTSD hallucinations once every hour today.

6 You lost a finger. Permanent -1 penalty to tinkering checks.

7 You find a contract, which you have signed in blood, with a being who’s signature is an unintelligible glyph. You now have an at-will touch ability that heals you while draining your opponent’s HP. In exchange, you agreed to complete an unspecified task at a later date.

8 People you don’t recognize keep yelling “Hey! Pigfucker!” and cheering when they see you.

9 You befriend a well-informed local, who can usually be found at the Mended Lantern.

10 You wake up in an alley surrounded by the mangled corpses of flying monkeys. +10xp.

11 You’ve gambled away all your cash. 1xp for each 5sp lost (instead of the usual 2xp to 1sp ratio for partying).

12 You went along with some cultist’s ritual thinking it was a weird sex thing. Now there’s some fucked up egg sack in your stomach. Save once per day; after four failures, they hatch into 3d4 cannibal brain stems, bursting out of your stomach and doing 1d12 damage each.

13 You wake up with a hook in place of your hand and 1d20x100gp more than you had. 

14 You wake up in jail. Bail is set at 1d20x10sp.

15 You wake handcuffed to a fat sweaty man in what appears to be an abandoned warehouse.

16 Someone was offended by a joke you made and smashed a bottle over your head, knocking you out. You begin the day with only 75% of your normal max hp.

17 One of your magic items is missing. It was probably that local you thought you were making friends with last night. You may not have his real name, but he has a distinctive neck tattoo.

18 Gambling binge actually went well. Regain all the money you just spent and gain 50xp.

19 The last thing you remember was everyone buying you shots after you saved a little boy from choking. It seems half the neighborhood was related to him.

20 You wake up with a demon tattoo on your back. It whispers things to you in your sleep.

21 You have been sold as cattle to a coven of vampires.

22 There’s a parrot in the room. It keeps saying things like “hide the loot” and “dead man’s hill”.

23 You wake up in the middle of being buried alive.

24 You have been challenged to and accepted a duel with an arrogant nobleman (who is also an experienced fighter), set to go down at noon in Founder’s Square.

25 There’s a dead hooker in your bed. She was definitely alive when you passed out.

26 Guess what? You’re a werewolf now. No, you can’t control it. The moon will be full for the next two nights (unless the dm already keeps track of that).

27 You pass out smoking a pipe and wake up with the room on fire.

28 You tried to start a brawl but kept swinging and missing. No one else got involved but you caused a lot of property damage on your own. You owe 1d12x20sp.

29 Congratulations, you are now married. To a donkey.

30 You wake up in a trash heap. It was warm and cozy but the smell will not come off. Disadvantage to pretty much any interactions all day and check for wandering monsters twice as often.

If you don't have a d30 there's plenty of javascript dice rollers and free phone apps that do. You probably know that though, right?