Corvid Friend (not to be confused with covid)

You get +1 HP for every Corvid Friend template you possess.

Starting skills (1d3): Lockpicking, Gangster, Scavenger

Starting equipment: A beak, claws, and an identifying feature.

Templates:

[A]: Crow, Best Friends

[B]: mimickry, Comforting Grip, +1 Defense

[C]: Fly-By-Attack, Wing Buffet

[D]: Murder, +1 defense.

Crow

You are a crow (or raven I guess). You can fly in any reasonably open spaces but will probably never be able to carry others. You can claw people to deal 1 nonlethal damage, and can use tools, so long as a crow could reasonably hold said tool. You have no inventory slots, but can carry up to one object of your size or smaller in either your claws or beak. Because of your size, you can occupy the same space as any other creature.

Best Friends

You choose another PC to be your best friend. Whenever you are in the same space, you both get a +2 to all d20 rolls made at the same time, against the same thing.

Mimickry

You can mimick many ambient sounds in nature. This could be another bird's call, the ringing of a bell, or an animals call, but not a human voice. Anyone can attempt a save to realize that the sound is slightly off, and they will know something is up.

Comforting Grip

You can perch on the shoulder or arm of your best friend to give them advantage on a save check.

Fly-By-Attack

If you are in flight, you may make an attack roll on an opponent who must save or be knocked prone. Save vs. dex to remain aloft.

Wing Buffet

Whenever you make a critical attack on an opponent, you may grab onto their face and buffet them with your wings blinding them. Each turn, they may save vs. dex to remove you.

Murder

If you spend a day in any settlement spreading rumours about an individual among the local crow population, those crows will be biased against that individual and go out of their way to annoy or hurt that individual.

At any time, you can make a call which will attract 3d6 crows to you. They will attack any individual they have a bias as long as you are too.

Dragons are Weaklings

Im going to do it. Im going to break every sacrament of gaming and just go through with it.

You probably thought this was a dragon, didnt you?

Well you're wrong. Dragons are just pathetic little pests that sit in trees and pee venom. But most importantly, they're absolute wimps.

Dragon

HD 1 Attack Bite 1d6 Defense  6 Move as Bird Morale 5 Save 5

Caustic Urine Works as a ranged attack roll except the dragon must be above whoever it is attacking. On a hit the target takes 1d6 acid damage per round until they wash it off.

Evasive Maneuvers Whenever you attack a dragon from melee and miss, it can choose to escape by flying away. It will probably still pester you from the air where it's a little more safe.

Combat Actions

In combat, a dragon will usually fan out its wings and screech a few times, and bite anyone who tries to get close to it. As soon as someone attacks it, it will take to the sky and start peeing on everybody until chased off with missile weapons.

Activities Table

(roll this when you hit Dragon on your encounter table)

1. Attacking a flock of sheep. 1d6 peasants will come to chase it off with rocks in 5 minutes.

2. Sitting in a tree screeching loudly and peeing on any passersby, will flee at the first sign of danger.

3. 2 dragons are mating as they clumsily flap through the sky. However obnoxious you think it should be, multiply that by 3.

4. It's chasing a small child around terrorizing them. Just make up a reason for the child to be there.

5. A group of knights are pursuing it through the woods, they are trying to find their nest.

6. Hundreds of dragons are nesting in a massive tree, you should probably leave because they won't be as scared hunting together.

Bard Generator

So I sort of mentioned in my Hexcounter Table post that tool encounters include travelling bards, which is pretty much just this idea but for a travel-based game. Anyways, I figured if I'm going to have bards be a possibility, I may as well make a table of random bards, Perhaps this will all be turned into a document with all kinds of sub-tables but for now here's more content.

Instrument(d20)
1. Viol
2. Hurdy Gurdy
3. Banjo
4. Recorder
5. Crumhorn
6. Flute
7. Lute
8. Pipe and Tabor
9. Nakers
10. Bagpipes
11. Fiddle
12. Lyre
13. Sackbut
14. Zampogna
15. Adufe
16. Harp
17. Shawm
18. Psaltery
19. Rebec
20. Cittern

Outfit(d8)

1. Overly gaudy with a floppy hat

2. Farmers clothes. But is it only a disguise?

3. Clothing made of patches. Each one has a story

4. Extremely anachronistic. Knows of things forgotten by time

5. An untied straitjacket. The mutterings are best left unheard

6. Soaked and smells of the sea. Hums mermaid songs

7. Walks on a pair of stilts. Specializes in tall tales

8. Dressed as a mime. Tells all rumors in charades

I Made a Dungeon!

Jog Brogzin and I did a little bit of a fun collaboration project soon after I did this post Here. In keeping with the snail theme, we decided to make a travelling snail temple.

The map was the original collaborative project, and is individually licensed under Creative Commons, so feel free to use it for whatever you want.

I also used the map to make my own dungeon, you can check it out below.

Wrath of the Hydra Link

Hexcounter Tables

Previous Rules Found Here:

Exploration Rules

Each hex has a d12 encounter table (maybe this is too much?), the first six things are the interesting and cool hard to find stuff, so a town isn’t going to be on this list, but the secret shrine to the blasphemous blood god in the surrounding woodlands would be. When you choose to explore rather than just wander through the hex, remove the last six entries from this encounter table. This means that you are guaranteed to encounter at least one interesting thing.

- - -

There are a few problems with this. Mainly being that I was right when posting that. Thats way too many entries per hex, even trying to key a small hex map would take ages.

So I came up with a solution. That being Unification.

An Explanation

Alright, so to start with, take your world map, and divide it into a set of regions. You can do this based on climate or theme. The jungle will be separated from the desert, and the fairy tale land with knights and dragons will be separated from the place with samurai and giant skeletons that eat people.

Taken from Here.

After that you write an encounter table with the following entries:

(1d12)

1-4. Regional Encounter Omen

5-8. Regional Encounter

9. Tool Encounter

10. POI Omen

11-12. POI

Omens

Regional Encounters

For the most part these are just like any other encounter table you'd see, a list of things that you'd be likely to see in the area, and have the potential to turn deadly.

You're going to want to either make it 

vague, or put a small list of subtables. The idea is that you can generate plot hooks or a mini story element off of what's going on in the region, making repeated rolls more interesting.

Tool Encounters

Sort of like regional encounters, but these ones are only ever useful. Something like abandoned adventuring equipment in the ditch. Or perhaps a wandering minstrel you can get information from, while getting your own name out there.

POIs
The points of interest, these aren't fixed entries on the table. Basically whatever the interesting part of the hex is is on here. And if you get an omen of it, you'll have a much better idea of what's going on, giving them more information for later.


If the players arent using their explore action while in the hex, you roll a d10 instead of a d12 for any encounter rolls made during that watch.

There are certain things that should never be put on the encounter table though. Settlements, lakes, rivers and other auch things are not as easily missed as an abandoned mineshaft covered in vegetation which now houses a haunted pile of unrefined gold, or the secret underground murder chamber of the seemingly nice village meatpie vendor.

- - -

Thoughts, comments, questions? Better ideas? Put them in the comments part of this post to help me and others steal from them.

Revised Armor System: Introducing Chaos!

I've been thinking a lot about armor lately, and by extension my armor system. It's too complicated, Nobody wants to remember three seemingly random numbers which attempt to mimick real world armor. Its clunky, and ugly. Which is the opposite of what armor is. Armor is pretty and elegant. So a pretty and elegant system is better at mimicking armor, right?

The Old System

The New System:

Okay, the first step, it to make your players describe their attacks. From there you can determine what weapon they're using as well as how they use it. Any weapon can use any type of attack as long as the player can justify it adequately.
After damage is rolled, the defender rolls resistance, which is based on the armor type as listed below.

Textile:
Blunt-d6 , Cut-d4 , Stab- d6

Chain:
Blunt-d6 , Cut-d8 , Stab-d6

Plate:
Blunt-d8 , Cut-d10 , Stab-d8

You do not gain any resistance to melee weapons while you are prone, because at that point any dude can just walk over and stab you.

The average damage tends to rest somewhere between 1-3 pretty consistently based on my current weapons system. And that feels pretty alright to me. Obviously these aren't based on the attacks monsters would necessarily be making, which are much more likely to deal higher amounts of damage, but armor will do a good job of protecting you against other humans.

Why Chaos?

There are a few advantages rolling has over static numbers in this case.

For starters, it gives us a wider range. Previously, I had proposed that Plate reduced all damage by 8, meaning the attacker, at maximum damage with the highest damaging weapon type, deals 2 damage. Which straight up does not work. With this new system, the damage is reduced by a die roll, which means the damage you deal usibg the highest damage weapon type can be anywhere from 9 to 0, which occurs less than half the time unless the die rolls are equal, in which case it's exactly half the time.

The other benefit is that it doesn't force you into doing anything. Previously you were shoehorned into using polearm weapons against anyone wearing plate. Which doesnt make sense. While a polearm would be ideal against an armored opponent, its not like it's invulnerable to everything else.  On the otherhand, its not gonna be as easy on you to take your tiny dagger against a fully armored opponent.

I dunno, maybe my armor system in general is a bad idea. Here's another picture.

All the art in this post was done by Eol, a talented artist who draws people in armor. If you like what you saw, consider checking out his Twitter or Youtube Channel.

Combat Rules - Cementing My GLOG Hack Maybe?

Before I've even started drafting this these rules are already in the google docs of my GLOG hack. But why not write about some of why I made them?

I've basically taken the idea of Pathfinder 2e's Action Economy and dumbed it down a lot. For example, you get 2 actions rather than 3, most things only take 1 action, it's nowhere near as wordy considering it doesn't quite even fill half a page.

Context

Combat

Combat is divided into actions. You have 2 actions during each round during which you can perform any of the following activities:

• Make an attack roll
• Cast a spell
• Move 30 meters
• Pull an item out of a quick inventory slot
• Use a consumable
• Combat Maneuvers

Activities that use 2 actions:

• Pull an item out of a general inventory slot
• Tying a knot, climbing a wall, setting up the weird trap, etc.

Anyways, Im going to get into a little more of what each action entails.

Taken from Here

Attack
Melee and Ranged opposed checks basically. Also of note, I don't really do penalties for range increments on ranged attacks. It's messy and I usually do theater of the mind stuff anyways. As long as it's feasible you can make an attack, do it.

Spellcasting
Doing your wavey-hand chanty stuff. Yes you can cast two spells in a round. What's the big deal? You're just that much more likely to die a horrible wizard death.

Movement
What's up with the 30 meters thing?
Meters are neater than 5ft. and besides that, I don't use squares anyways, I measure the distance with a string if I even bother to measure at all. This is really only here for if I decide to ever use battlemaps, as I usually do theater of the mind stuff.

Quick Inventory Slots
The first three inventory slots. Their numbers are in bold text to make it even easier to see. Basically this is the stuff that's in a quick to grab area, like your sword sitting in the scabbard at your side or the potion strapped to your belt.

Use a Consumable
Okay, you just pulled that potion off your belt. Now chug it. That's your second action.

Combat Maneuvers
Tripping, disarming, throwing your pommel, etc. The kinds of stuff that's not an attack but also kind of an attack. You could spend your turn wresting someone to the ground then stabbing them with your dagger, for example.

General Inventory Slots
I mean, only six seconds to dig around in your bag is generous to be honest.

Basically anything that takes time
That's more or less what the last part is. Mostly up to GM discretion. You might think stuff like climbing should be part of move, sure do that, why not.

_   _   _

It seems like it would be easier to understand to me at least. Traditionally you have your move action and your standard action. Each one has different activities that can be done during that time, and the players have to be told they can do other things, at least in my experience.

With this method, it's just: Alright, what two things do you want to do this turn.

While as written, you can do the same thing twice in a turn, keep in mind that that's all you get to do that turn. Though if you wanted you could just rule you can't do the same action twice. I personally like the idea you can just do something twice though. It adds a little bit less rigidity to the system.

I both do and don't like the two actions activities. On the one hand, it makes sense they'd take longer. On the other hand, perhaps it encourages players not to do that kind of thing? digging through your bag, and setting a tripwire takes two full turns, meaning you're maybe less likely to do that kind of thing. It's not like its bad to do that, but a player may consider that a less optimal choice in the moment when its maybe a better choice.

That's a communication thing though. You can let your players know that kind of thing. Sort of like the sheet of player tips that I can't seem to find.

Anyways, if you have any thoughts, please shoot it into the comments. It's not that Im not open to discussing things elsewhere, but I feel it's useful for questions and ideas to be shared along with what promted them.

the 'Not Deer'

        A nameless traveler directed his cart down a path, a steady clip clop keeping him company along with the occasional whinny from his horses or snore from his sleeping companions.
     The foggy night brought a lull to the journey and, in trying to fight off sleep, the traveler noticed a mild curiosity. In the middle of the road, far off in the distance, stood a deer, utterly still, outlined by the moon and the creeping fog. He wrote it off, figuring it would scare off eventually, and continued to listen to the steady rhythm of the horse's hooves.
     The traveler glanced at the deer again, it had not moved but somehow looked different. He brushed it aside. His mind must have been playing tricks on him, so he chose to ignore it.
     After a good number of seconds had rolled by, his horse began dancing nerves through his reigns. He started and was met with the sight of the deer once more. It remained still as it had before, then it seemed to morph before his eyes as he noticed new details he hadn't seen before. Both fascinated and horrified, he was torn between the desire to see more, or the urge to flee in terror.
     As the traveler got closer to the deer, its flesh began to replace what was once silhouette. Its true appearance revealed to him, he realized that this thing was not a deer, and had never been one, but by then it was too late.
     It turned towards him and smiled.

Stolen from Here.

     Most consider the 'Not Deer' to be a mere legend, but as any old kook who has spent significant time in the mountains will tell you, it's very much real, than again, who would trust the word of a crazy man?
     Though its exact form varies, all 'not deer's have the approximate appearance of a deer, by looking long or hard enough however, one begins to notice things that make it look not quite like a deer.
     They only pick a fight if their prey is alone, if multiple people are present it will run away as soon as one of them notices something off about it.

The 'Not Deer'

HD 2 Attack 12 Defense 13 Move 15 Morale 4 Save 12
Special Frightening Presence, Morbid Curiosity

Frightening Presence - when first seen, PCs must save vs. fleeing. NPCs and hirelings must make a morale check at a -4 penalty.

Morbid Curiosity - If you end up holding your ground, you notice something funny about the deer in the road. If you decide to look closer, you notice a second feature and the creature attacks.

What Makes it Look Funny?
(2d10) on a repeated result make it more pronounced.
1. Its limbs are too long.
2. Its joints are backwards.
3. It doesn't cast a shadow.
4. It casts multiple shadows.
5. It has short tentacles dangling from its mouth.
6. It has human feet.
7. Its body is covered in cancerous lumps.
8. Instead of fur its skin is covered in thousands of tiny teeth.
9. There are sharp edges where there shouldn't be. Like a poorly made 3d model.
10. It moves in spasmatic, deliberate twitches.

On Maamilla's Hierarchy of Spirits

Angels/Demons

Angels and Demons are the same thing; the only real difference between them is their philosophies, but because they disagree, they fight constantly.
There are exactly 490 angels and 666 demons at any given time, the death of one marks the birth of another. Each one looks unique, with its own name and appearance.
Angels and Demons are also the most alien looking spirits, the least familiar and the most distant. They are the guardians of celestial bodies, and are considered the main "gods" of the majority of Maamilla. This doesn't mean they never do things to influence world events.

Patrons/Local Spirits

Patrons often encompass broader concepts, but with more limited spheres of influence, which they must earn from their followers.
They can be anything from warlock patrons to local gods to spirits guarding local streams.
Competition among patrons is often fierce, and they rarely ever team up. Spirits with larger ranges of influence are able to subjugate local spirits as well.

MTG Yarok, the Desecrated

taken from here

Spells/Minor Spirits

Spells are the small bois of the spirit world. They are quick to follow orders because they are used to it, this is why they are so easy to use or lure into your brain.
There are more spells than current numeric systems are able to count to, and they are constantly breeding and mutating.
Spells are never quite exactly the same, but they belong to families in which they are more or less the same, just with minor details, such as personality quirks or variations in manifestation when cast.

the little guy.
Artist

Any spirit can become a magic item, the higher class ones are just much more narcissistic or incessant about the situation, which they have every right to be.

More Images

Artist

Artist

Toto's Traveling Tavern! Also Gastropomancers

slightly blurry photo of a drawing.

A massive snail trudges across the horizon, a platform with rope ladders hanging from a platform on it's side. On the top of it's shell, a spiraling dome sits with a long staircase leading to the platform below. This is Toto's Traveling Tavern, and he's come to sell you drinks and perhaps a ride.

This is my entry for a tavern mapping contest in one of the discord servers I'm a part of, but I really wanted to write a background for it, so here's my attempt.

Kotilo

The massive snail on which Toto's tavern is built, fondly named Kotilo, travels about the northernmost parts of Maamilla. The Kihagai Tropics acts as a terminal for the it, as it likes to feed from the massive leaves found on the trees growing there. Kotilo isn't the only snail of its kind, they are found aplenty in the Kihagai Tropics, Toto was just the only one mad enough to attempt the feat of building a moving tavern, not to mention the task of taming such a creature. Kotilo has been alive for almost 11 years now, however, and Toto knows they don't have much time left, he is looking for someone to find a replacement for Kotilo, so he can grant it a pleasant retirement. He would do it himself, but he's not willing to leave his buddy alone.

Toto

Toto is a Gastropomancer, which is the reason he was able to make an agreement with and direct the movements of Kotilo.
Toto - HD 3 Gastropomancer
Attack 12 Defense 9 Move 11 Morale 13 Save 9 Stats 10, 9, 15, 10, 13, 13
Spells Speak with Gastropods, Snail Pace, Escargot Pearl.

From Here

Gastropomancer

Perks:

You have a snail shell that is stylistically strapped onto your back. It takes up one inventory slot, but can hold up to five.

Drawback:

Instead of Magic Dice, you have Mollusk Dice, which are d4s instead of d6s, and are removed from the dice pool on a 3-4 rather than a 4-6.

Cantrips:

1. Given 12 hrs. you can eat ~300 lbs. of plants or rotting materials. Only usable once per day.

2. You can float up to the top of an area of water as long as you aren't overencumbered.

3. Snails and slugs are naturally attracted to you and will come out from hiding if called to.

Spells:

You automatically get 'Speak with Gastropods' at first level, roll your other spell normally.

1. Speak with Gastropods | R: - | T: self | D: [dice] minutes

You can talk to gastropods and they can talk back. Gastropods are lethargic and slow, and tend to only know things pertaining to their immediate surroundings, such as which head of lettuce tastes best.

2. Spontaneous Generation | R: touch | T: object | D: -
You hand another creature a nonmagical object, They must willingly take it from you. The maximum size of the object depends on how many dice are invested: 1 [Dice]: pebble-sized, 2 [Dice]: grape sized, 3 [Dice]: Bucket sized, 4 [Dice]: person sized. Up to [Sum] rounds later, you can choose to have the object permanently turn into snails or slugs, perhaps 1 large one. They are slimy and gross.

3. Corrosive Slug | R: touch | T: - | D: [dice] minutes

creates an acidic slug that deals [Dice] damage each turn unless it is removed and the slime is washed off, can also corrode most organic surfaces it is placed on.

4. Snail's Pace | R: 10' | T: creature/object | D: [sum] rounds

Target must save or be reduced to Move as Snail for the spell's duration.

5. Sticky Skin | R: - | T: self | D: [dice] minutes

Your skin excretes a sticky mucus which can be used to climb walls or grab objects, your skin must be in direct contact with the object to stick to it.

6. Wall of Cabbage | R: 60' | T: point | D: [dice] rounds
creates a wall of thickly packed leaves 10 ft. across per [dice], 10ft. high and 5ft. thick. Anything inside of the wall is trapped for the duration.

7. Slug Form | R: - | T: self | D: [sum] minutes

Your biology becomes as that of a slugs for the duration, you can stretch out your body to squeeze through gaps as narrow as a keyhole during this time, and are immune to bludgeoning damage.

8. Blight Life | R: touch | T: [sum] ft.² organic matter| D: [dice] hours
You suppress growth in an object, causing it to rapidly decay for the duration, at the end of the duration, it rapidly springs back to life.

9. Escargot Pearl | R: - | T: self | D: instant

you lay [Dice] rations worth of white caviar.

10. Slime Line | R: touch | T: point | D: [sum] hours
You create [Dice]x50ft. of a length of slime that can support your weight as you do rigorous activity.

Emblem Spells:

11. Love Dart | R: 100' | T: Creature | D: [Dice] minutes

Fires a Calcareous dart out of the caster's arm, dealing [Sum] damage, and causing an effect as Charm Person for the duration

12. Stasis | R: - | T: Self | D: [Dice] days
You form a calcium shell over your body in a rapid process, you remain sealed in this shell for the duration. During this time, you are sealed off from the outside, and do not require food. The shell cannot be broken by standard weapons.

So someone else had this idea before.
Artist

Mishaps:

1. MD only return to your pool on a 1 for 24 hours.

2. Take 1d6 damage.

3. Random mutation for 1d6 rounds, then save, permanent if you fail.

4. Deafness for 1d6 rounds.

5. Blindness for 1d6 rounds.

6. Roll a d6 for each item in your inventory, on a 1-3, it immediately erodes/rusts/rots.

Dooms:

1. You turn into a slug for 1 day, you can see poorly and can smell, but can't hear.

2. You turn into a slug for 3 days, you can see poorly and can smell, but can't hear.

3. You turn into a level 1 Pile of Snails (see below).

From Here

Class: Pile of Snails

For each Pile of Snails template you possess, you get +1 Defense and -1 Move.

Starting Gear Parasites, Shell, a lot of Teeth.

Starting Skill (1d3) Land Snail, Freshwater Snail, Sea Snail

[A]: Gastropod, Hivemind

[B]: Slime Trail

[C]: Mucus, Stasis

[D]: Regeneration

Snails

Though you were once part of a human, you are now a mere snail. While you do have a mental concept outside of your immediate surroundings, you can not understand complex thoughts like mathematics. You are unable to hear, but can see poorly and smell normally.

Hive-mind

The snails you are made up of share a telepathic connection, and can communicate with each-other no matter where they are at any given time. Every point of damage causes a snail to die in a tragic way. Single Target Save or Die effects instead deal 1 damage to them. Other single target effects affect all of them. Whenever you would take lethal damage, instead of rolling death and dismemberment, instead a number of snails equal to the damage taken die.

Slime Trail

By going ahead and moving across a surface, you create a trail of slime that can act as either a lubricant (grease spell), or as a slime which other creatures or objects can stick to as a glue.

Mucus

Your mucus has minor healing properties, by crawling about on an injured creature, you can remove 1 fatal wound.

Stasis

By entering your shell and sealing off the opening, you can enter a state of stasis, during this time you do not have to eat. You can still be killed if your shell is broken.

Regeneration

When you are brought below 0 HP, roll 1d4. The result is how many snails die, the rest regenerate over a period of 12 hours.

From Here