Random Encounter: Carcass

On vacation, we hiked through the Red & Blue loops of Table Rock State Park, in southwest Missouri.

It was a touch under 5 miles, so if we'd stretch that path into more of a straight line rather than a distended "8", I could pretend we traversed a 6 mile hex.

A quick encounter table was generated randomly in the field (d10):

• 1-3: 1d3 bicyclers (these were also mountain bike trails, and those folks be crazy*)
• 4-7: 2d3 hikers
• 8: Woodsmen cutting trees (heard, never seen)
• 9: A hunter with a hound (heard (hound baying), never seen)
• 10: A turkey vulture carcass, spread across 3 locations

Depending on how you lay the hexes, we could have been in the same hex or one hex adjacent to Branson, MO, a city of ~10K. Either way, it's right next to Table Rock Dam, and the hatchery there, so there's no way it's not a civlized hex.

The '10' result on the above table is what generated the most interest during the hike. First, we found a piece of wing, about 4 feathers worth. The trail wound on a few hundred more yards, then, a good portion of the torso of the bird. After that, a larger bit of wing, this bit still with insects hovering around.

What happened? Was the bird caught on the ground by a bobcat or some such? Unlikely.

The torso was found hanging in a snag, about chest height. Dropped by another bird? Was there a fight? Bit of an argument over who eats what, and the group of the birds always flying about around the dam looking for trout turned on their own?

Or, as is the way of things, did one of their brethren fall to old age, and this was the obvious end, as a member of their venue turned into meat?

At any rate.

A carcass is a great encounter, or, a prelude to a possible encounter. What killed the thing? What ate it?

The additional detail of it being spread across some few hundred yards is the kicker here though - that implies much more than just a simple "pounce and feed" - there's implied conflict there. Predators taking a respectful distance from each other while feeding? An argument over the choicest bits? A combat between competitors?

The intent is to foster paranoia.

Imagine if that had been a youngish dragon. A bit of wing here, most of a torso there, more wing further along. What killed it? What ate it? A bigger dragon? A flight of griffons? A roc? Caught on the ground by a bulette? Intelligent humanoids, taking a rare opportunity to eliminate a dangerous species when vulnerable (or to harvest it's parts)?

It's a flexible introduction to a possible encounter or lair, and, if just left as that encounter and never followed up on, provides a bit of verisimilitude to the area, showing the PCs that the world is operating without them.

 * The best mountain biker encounter was the ~12 year old boy just killing it up the trail, he was in the zone and moving fast, in that way only kids can pull off. Some tens of feet behind, his poor dad trying to keep up, mutters " He's cruising for a flat tire" as he passes us by. :)

Petty God: Neub, Mother of the Forgotten

Dunno if it'll make the cut or not. I like the general concept, I'm a little less confident on the interaction mechanics. I like the "call upon Neub to save your butt" portion better than the "call upon Neub to put down a uppity high-level guy".


Name: Neub, Mother of the Forgotten

Symbol: A broken sword, held within a teardrop

Alignment: Chaotic

Movement: 60'

Hit Points (Hit Dice): Variable HD (Attacks as a Fighter 1, see text)

Armor Class: As Chain +3

Attacks: Weapon and Special

Damage: 1d6+1 and Special

Save: As Fighter of current HD

Morale: 10

Hoard Class: Special, See Text

XP: As monster of equivalent HD


Born from the wailing death cries of uncounted farmhands, runaway apprentices, noble's cocky sons, and peasants with nothing left to lose, Neub, Mother of the Forgotten stands alone as the patron of novice adventurers slain on their first delving into the unknown.

Neub appears from afar as a well-equipped fighter, carrying herself as a warrior of great ability.

As she closes, however, one sees a changing vision of horrible fates. Her visible flesh - face and forearms - slowly morph through a series of gruesome, fatal woundings - cuts, crushing blows, partial severings, acid and fire burns, bites, and deep piercings. Her fine chainmail armor shows dents, slashes, melts away through her flesh, spouts arrow piercings, and all manner of appalling, seemingly unsurvivable events before reforming anew. Her weapon bends, breaks and rusts away. Every death and fate worse than death that has been suffered by the beginning delver is mirrored upon Neub's form in an everchanging milieu of horror.

Neub favors the inexperienced. When facing imminent doom, a young adventurer can call on Neub, with so little as a cry of her name as the unfortunate fool falls to his death. If answered, some strange chance of fate may save the delver from impending death, or, give him or her a chance to run and hide. The supplicant must sacrifice to Neub the next 2,000GP in treasure the adventurer finds in coin, gem, or magical items, and must also forgo any XP award from that treasure found. If Neub is not repaid, a horrible death will soon follow the reneging character.

At 1st level, there is a 7% chance that Neub will save the doomed character. This reduces to 3% at level 2, and 1% at level 3.

Neub despises the successful explorer or hero, and can be called upon to harry the same until the targets are dead or Neub is defeated. Summoning Neub requires sacrificing coin, gems, and magical items worth the notice of a skilled adventurer - as a general guideline, a number of items, mundane or magical, and coins and gems worth 4 times the amount of XP the embodiment of Neub is worth.

Neub will take these items and engage her targets whenever they next enter any underground environment. Targets who have a habit of respectful treatment of the corpses (animated or not) of those lost early in their careers may only experience her as a visitation, being gifted with nothing but a sad smile and forlorn sigh.

While Neub can be drawn into the world at a variable strength, she forever attacks with her weapon as a level 1 Fighter. If melee proves unworkable, Neub begins to despair, and will, on an attack roll of 15+ that does not connect with a target, point, and with a plaintive, accusatory cry, drain a level (save vs Death).

Neub has no organized following, nor any temples. Her churches are the first level of dungeons; her altars are spiked pits and other deadly obstacles. Her prophets are the tales of bards and the hushed tones of those who called upon her and were saved.

What would their mothers think?

The Heathkit Dungeon

So, after mentioning it last post, I googled around a bit and found a .BAS and a .EXE for the Heathkit Dungeon!

Super exciting! A quick apt-get of dosemu later, and it's on! It's exactly what I remember. One of my late BASIC projects as a kid was giving this thing real graphics - I had a sprite for almost every monster. It was pretty cool - I may still have it on some old 5 1/4" disk somewhere, but, probably no working drive.

As if a gift from the past, the random number generator gave me this as one of my starting locations:

 

The Basement of DOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Look at that! Random dungeon generated with no way to go, only the stairs up - to a tavern where you turn in your gold for XP.

Making the best of it, I sat there, picking up items and fighting monsters (if you stay put, a random encounter may happen, despite the lack of entrances to my area) until a Level 1 Vampire drained me to Level 0. Interestingly, that's survivable, but it took 4 max hit points away - and, also, 4 current hit points - I was at 2 HP at the time so that killed me.

Note I'm a Squire - there's no classes - your moniker is taken from whatever your best stats are. Everybody can fight and cast spells. There's also a limited amount of magic items, monsters, and spells, but they're all staples - note the Elven Shoes I'm about to pick up there - they help you not fall into randomly encountered pits, and aid you in hitting a monster when it first appears (initiative, basically).

Funnily enough, it was "real time" - there was a timer built in, that if  you did nothing, the choice would disappear, and the round would restart - another random encounter may happen, or the combat round would continue with you having done no action.

It's good, good stuff from back in the day. If you've read Playing At The World, that right there is a direct descendant of what the author was talking about when he was relating how sysadmins around the globe would be stomping out these wastes of precious CPU time.

For the curious, it's here. Source code (Old school BASIC - this thing is nothing but GOTOs and GOSUBS). That site also has a lot/all of the old SSI AD&D games - from the original Pool of Radiance to the last Eye of the Beholder.

Updated d3 to d100 Conversion Charts

Over to the right, probably down a little, I've changed where I've uploaded my d3 to d100 conversion charts.

I've also updated them - there's two new versions, one with all the DCC dice, the other with just DND dice. The original one is still there.

I've added a new column for each dice - so now there are three per -

• -X, for rolling at or below the target number
• X+, for rolling at or above the target number
• X%, the percentage chance of doing the above.

It may just be me, but I was working on something the other day and I kept brainfarting on a d100 to d20 (X+) conversion.