[Labyrinth Lord] Dear Lawyers: I Assure You That is Definitely NOT A Grell...

Completely unrelated to my previous discussion regarding "serial numbers filed off" versions of WOTC's precious non-open content Product Identity created by fine gentlemen such as Charles Stross, good 'ole Alan sent me his write up for an exciting new floating paralytic-tentacle monster "The Beaktopus."

The material in the quote box below is hereby designated Open Game Content via the Open Game License.

BEAKTOPUS

No. Enc.: 1 (1)

Alignment: Chaotic

Movement: Fly - 120’ (30’)

Armor Class: 4

Hit Dice: 5

Attacks:   9 (8 tentacles, 1 beak)

Damage: (8 tentacles) 1d4 + paralysis / (1 beak) 1d6

Save:   F6

Morale:   10

Hoard Class: XIX

XP:   570

The beaktopus is a solitary underground predator which most likely originated in the fevered dreams of of a wizard with too much time and talent, though not enough common sense. Lucky adventurers who have chanced upon this fearsome creature and survived, describe it as well over 7 feet tall, with a body consisting of a central body from which eight radially symmetrical tentacles descend towards the ground. Each tentacle is covered with small, wickedly sharp hooked barbs which are used to capture and neutralize its prey. A large, sharp beak is found on the bottom of the body, sitting between all of the tentacles, and serves as the creature's digestive track entrance.

The beaktopus moves via a combination of levitation and using its tentacles to propel it, and is completely silent when it wishes to be. The source of the creature's levitation ability is a gland located in the central body, and if removed and lanced, will secrete enough liquid to act as a potion of levitation if captured and stored properly.

When a party of adventurers stumbles upon a beaktopus (for what foolish person would seek one out willingly?), the beast will focus all of its attacks on a single victim, and attack that poor sod with all eight (8) tentacles. If any tentacle his, then not only will each rake the victim's flesh with barbed hooks for 1d4 damage, but each successful attack also necessitates a single saving throw vs. paralysis, with a -1 modifier for each successful attack beyond the first.

Once the beaktopus has successfully attacked its prey and paralyzed it, it will draw the prey towards its beak and in the following turns begin devouring its helpless prey. The beaktopus may move and attack its paralyzed prey with its beak at the same time.

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System Reference Document Copyright 2000-2003, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Rich Baker, Andy Collins, David Noonan, Rich Redman, Bruce R. Cordell, John D. Rateliff, Thomas Reid, James Wyatt, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
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My Attempt at Running a "Normal" Basic/Expert D&D Game...

So I volunteered to run 3 sessions for Red Box Vancouver this month, and as a change of pace from my regular DM style attempted to make a "normal" dungeon for the adventures.

First I whipped up some maps in my awesome graph paper Moleskine notebook during some lulls in a Mutant Future Game (during which Kronh the Slayer got to get down with a four-boobed mutant queen!), and roughly blocked out some areas with the awesome Tekumel underworld chart PDF (I've got to get my hands on a copy of the Pettigrew Selections ASAP!). Came up with a couple wacky things with the results, but they were well within the precedents of early TSR OD&D/AD&D output.

Next I worked on the monster lists for stocking the dungeon; somewhat unsurprisingly my attempts at normalcy went pretty much went out the window at this point and things took a pre-Wessex Rientsian turn... (I was planning on using the spiffy S&W Tome of Horrors Complete for this, but between the monsters I wanted to use and my preference for the Fiend Folio version of some monsters nope; maybe if they included Hoard Class and Morale Scores... ;) As an aside every post Fiend Folio version of the awesome Crabmen ignores two awesome things about the Fiend Folio version: A) They're nuts about silver & B) They carry off women.)

Regardless I soldiered on in my attempt to make a normal B/X D&D dungeon and stocked it using a combination of the B/X D&D dungeon stocking tables; the Appendices of the AD&D DMG; and the Awesome Tricks. Empty Rooms, & Basic Trap Design PDF by Courtney C. Campbell of the Hack & Slash blog. (I'm planning on giving the regions unexplored after tonight another go-over with the also-Awesome Old School Encounter Reference by Kellri; the Judges Guild Ready Refs' Sheets; and sundry dungeon tables by Zak S.)

I did the stocking in a two-hour period before rushing to meet the super-cool Red Box Vancouver crew at a far too crowded and loud coffee shop in a cool neighborhood (as opposed to the tumbleweed infested coffee shop we used to use...). Graham proceeded to generate a halfling hobbit with 18s in Dexterity and Constitution, and a Strength of 13-15(?) right in front of me and I swore that that sheet would end up on my DM Trophy Triumph Death Wall...

The session was pretty awesome; I failed in my quest to gut the Red Box Vancouver stable of badass PCs (for this week...) but I managed to:

A) Totally beat the living shit out of badass dwarf Gamgar with the first dungeon encounter, on the stairs leading down into the dungeon, with a very muppet-like, hunched and piteously whimpering, mother-freaking Stair Stalker! Which also totally freaked the fuck out of the players, who were also incensed and skeptical when they took the same monster's remains to a wizard to have it identified and were told that it was a monster called a Stair Stalker that rarely spontaneously generate on underworld staircases.

B) Kill one of the party's sociopathic thug retainers, Rhino Toronto of the Toronto brothers, between expeditions via random roll, when he cracked his head slipping in bloody cobblestones while bashing a farm boy's head into an alleyway curb.

C) Nailed Gamgar with a pit trap, and was a hair away from tossing him down another one a mere minute later before another player thought to check the floors.

D) Kill Merrigold Serpenthelm's two batshit-vicious rottweiler sized "war dog" pitbulls (that were always pissing everywhere and eating dungeon-dressing bones) via shambling "Blind Dead" ghouls that also spent several rounds attempting to lap up Columbo the double-18 stat hobbit's blood with their withered jerky tounges but were unable to claw through the paralyzed hobbit's plate mail. Fortunately the stupid blind dead all shambled through the magic circle hologram gate to Carcosa that the party was cowering behind.

E) Got Dino Toronto of the Toronto brothers cut in half by a dark Jedi's lighsaber when the party broke into Darth Vader's tomb.

F) Got the DM-infuriating statistically gifted hobbit Columbo's eye taken out by the same dark Jedi's lightsabre. It was awesome when Merrigold Serpenthelm tried to invisibly sneak up on the dark Jedi who was force choking a hobbit and knocking arrows out of the air, and of course the Sith dude just used the force to know where he was.

Other hijinks included:

- An inexplicably Italian accented cowardly hobbit, who had a key to the service entrance to an abandoned wizard's manor handed down to him by his great-great-great grandfather who was a cook for the aforementioned wizard.

- Dino Toronto being apprenticed to Merrigold Serpenthelm by an elderly half-deaf, senile, drunken guardsman in a powdered wig as court-appointed punishment for inflicting random ultraviolence upon farm boys instead of him being tortured by virtue of the party intervening and feeding booze and gold to the "judge".

- Merrigold being able to identify by smell a pool of dog urine in the dungeon by virtue of his batshit massive pit bulls pissing everywhere for the past week.

- The party looting Darth Vader's suit of plate mail from his sarcophagus.

- The party killing a four armed white ape and than finding magic hologram gates to Barsoon and Carcosa.

- Retainers consistantly cowering from monsters and danger.

I can't wait for next Wednesday's return to The Manor of Kalapron!

Anomalous Subsurface Environment Released!

I'm a little late in the game to be cheerleading this, but everytime I've been reminded of it I've only had my primitive iPhone handy (crap for blog posts)

But Patrick Wetmore of Henchman Abuse has released the first part of his gonzo science-fantasy megadungeon "The Anamalous Subsurface Environment" in PDF and POD.

"Put those dark elves back in their box and get your gonzo on! Riches, glory, and super-science await the bold and the clever in the deep places under the ground. This module describes the dinosaur- and wizard-infested future of the Earth, the city of Denethix, and the first level of the megadungeon that beckons from below: the Anomalous Subsurface Environment."

I haven't grabbed a copy yet (budgeting...) but I definately will. I have an adventure by Pat for The Jewel Throne that is awesome and oh-so Jack Vancian, and Melan/Gabor Lux gives it his seal of approval, so I'm sure this thing is a real barn-burner. Plus is is the first part of a alpha-numerically coded series ("ASE1") which I would like to see more of in the OSR.

Flail - (Nunchaku) 8 gp

From my copy of Holmes...

Monster Stats for Nightgaunts, Moon Beasts, Gugs and More...

A whole bunch of Lovecraftian monsters on the Goblinoid Games forum...

Triumph At Red Box Vancouver!

crOm of Red Box Vancouver graciously invited me to one of their games at a coffee shop in my neighborhood last night. As I just had a band practice cancellation and a hole in my schedule I jumped at the opportunity...although every other member of the "Saucers & Sorcerers Society" were too busy/cool/lame ;) to attend...

...and I had a great time! The Red Box Vancouver guys are a real friendly/welcoming and fun bunch, and Corporal Kaffshyth ("Sending teenaged boys to their death is precisely how I became a Corporal!) was proud to aid the good people of Threshold by rescuing the children TREASURE! from the sewers. As well as uncovering a conspiracy involving corrupt, evil town guards! (I think that snooty elf is involved as well...)

However, Next time Corporal Kaffshyth is bringing the necessary equipment to harvest Yellow Mold and Rot Grubs. "What do you get when you cross a bottle full of rot grubs with a dragon? A dead dragon..."

In Seventies England Orcs Were Cyclopean...

At the Dragonsfoot forum, the poster ifearyeti shared some artwork from the Games Workshop version of Holmes Basic Dungeons & Dragons, the following two are my favorites: