A Tongue in Cheek Reworking of an Infamous Race and Archetype

The elves desired more time to engage with their various arts, festivals and wondrous magics, and to distance themselves from the labour their civilization required as much as possible. To achieve this, they attempted to emulate the legend of the great forge god, who created metal men in its image to do its bidding. Despite the great pride the fey folk had in their ability, the forging of these metal elves went catastrophically awry and created rebellious and murderous automatons.

These robotic elves fled from the forest and into the mountains. There, they conquered a dwarf outpost deep underground and used the resources to develop a lifeless civilization of steel factories. They developed technology such as imitations of curved elven blades, a pair for each warrior, as well as metal mountain lions as attack animals. It is theorized that the ferocity of the mountain lions they contended with on their way to the mountains made a large impression on them.

Once, in a great battle against invading elves, the automatons were pushed deeper into the depths of the underworld and accidentally roused from its slumber a humongous being. It was a gigantic arachnid creature that devoured the elves and left the inorganic race alone. They saw it as their savior and made it their deity, augmenting it with their technology and turning it into a monstrous war machine.

Something like this.

These "elves" are completely metallic and camouflage themselves in fuligin hues to blend with the darkness. They are frighteningly quick with a pair of curved swords and occasionally employ metal tools that emulate spells. Some say they take living beings alive to do... something with them. Some say that they are assimilated into machinery, others say that it's something to do with machines fueled by blood, but all we know is that they never come back.

They can't be bargained with, they can't be reasoned with, and the last thing you hear before they get you is the horrible buzzing sound of their voices:

"Drzzzt".

Quick Darkest Dungeon-style Game Kit

1. Grab LOTFP for free.

2. Use these Darkest Dungeon adventurer builds by LOTFP666.

3. Use a sanity and stress system such as this one by The Id DM. Optionally, you can give them a save to stave off the madness, with a 17+ giving a beneficial, virtuous trait.

4. Use a random dungeon generator (http://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/dungeon/) or make your own dungeons up quickly via a system like the one from Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e (drop dice on a sheet of paper to determine room placement, checking for 1-3 exits from each room via the number rolled on that die, and work from there).

5. (Optional) Come up with some sort of village building upgrade system. I have been recommended An Echo Resounding and Other Dust by Kevin Crawford for this purpose (thanks to Andy from Known World, Old World for the suggestions!).

6. Practice your best Wayne June impression (Not to be confused with Wayne Knight, although that would be great in a different way).

7. Get some cool droogs.

8. Delve into some goddamn dungeons.

Have fun!

D8 OSR/D&Dable Things Inspired by Super Castlevania IV

Super Castlevania IV is an excellent action platform game originally released for the Super Famicom and Super Nintendo in America in 1991 and Europe in 1992. Essentially a remake of the classic NES game, you take the role of whip wielding vampire hunter Simon Belmont on his quest to defeat Dracula in the eponymous Castlevania.

It has a commitment to a strong Gothic atmosphere, varied level design and an imaginative approach to various mythological creatures. Coupled with solid gameplay, it is a classic that really helped showcase the leap in technology from the NES to the SNES.

There have been examples of OSR and D&D settings that have emulated the Gothic genre [1] and this game could definitely be of great inspiration for those doing a setting of that style or for any sort of fantasy setting.

D8 OSR/D&Dable things inspired by Super Castlevania IV:

1. There is a great evil holding a tyrannical sway over the land but look, a new member of the family of heroic monster slayers is here to help!

1D4 complications:

1. "Hero" seduced by dark forces or pure greed and wants the ungodly power of what they are trying to slay.

2. Hero is way too old for this shit, will need assistance from the party. [2]

3. Hero is actually a massive prick who will attempt to take all the treasure they can from the great evil's lair and then will gloat about it to the party. Hero will most likely become a treasure hunting, monster slaying rival of the party after the great evil is destroyed.

4. Not the hero but rather a servant of the great evil posing as them, with the intention of bringing a relic/magic item of the family to the great evil to augment its power. The actual hero has been murdered.

2. Magical/Blessed Equipment (1D6):

1. A goddamn boomerang cross, a true ranged relic.

2. A holy whip, randomly determine the foe it was made to slay.

3. Silver pocket watch that can very briefly stop time.

4. Holy water vials that can be thrown and create a blue fire upon impact.

5. A strange tablet that increases one's rate of fire with thrown weaponry such as hand axes or daggers.

6. A bronze statue of a bat holding a hoop. Can be activated once per day to animate and be directed where to “hover” with the hoop, allowing someone to use a rope or whip to swing across, throw a grappling hook onto it to climb upward, and so on.

3. Skeleton Knights, with a similarly skeletal steed. Will wield either a sword or a lance.

Personality/Quirks Table (1D4):

1. Bloodthirsty, berserk, will definitely charge at the party.

2. Cool headed, honourable but still aligned to Chaos, willing to strike a bargain or engage in a reasonable contest.

3. Not actually evil, wants to be chivalrous and help people, too naive to realise why people scream and call for a priest.

4. Haunted by memories prior to being undead, obsessed with a key memory of a lost love/family member/place of importance and will not rest or let anyone deter it from following their obsession.

4. Calcified Rock Men who break into smaller rock men when damaged enough. A close relation (possibly feuding with the Rock Men) is the Granite Giant, which becomes smaller but faster when it is damaged.

5. Bloody, fleshy blobs that will stick to walls and “stretch out” into a form resembling the skinned upper half of a human, with the intent of strangling their victims. A similarly deadly surface hugging creature are green masses of tentacles with a single mouth that fall from the ceiling onto prey.

6. A mummified but very much alive and furious chronomancer, who has taken over a clock tower with both loyal followers and amazed neophytes alike. This is part of a planned ritual to reverse time back to when he was the tyrannical ruler of the city, so that he can prevent the rebel coup that killed him. In my head, due to messing with time itself, all chronomancers are in a strange flux that makes them look like stop motion animation.

7. Gold skeletons (or any golden monster). Has a base value per HP in gold coins, thus the value depreciates when it is damaged. Yes, there are individuals who will buy one alive. Yes, they are probably a wizard.

8. A flesh golem alchemist, or one that has basically found good results from chucking alchemy flasks at people.

Example flask types table (1D4):

1. GAH, FIRE!

2. GAH, ACID!

3. A sort of alchemical flashbang.

4. Roll a potion effect from a different source [3] or GM's choice.

[1] Such as the classic Ravenloft modules and setting, or the wonderful blog Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque.

[2] There are lots of ways to go about this. My immediate instinct would be to make the aged heroic slayer a Don Quixote type character, and that his family are very worried about his obsession with the family legacy, but that doesn't mean you can't go with a world weary warrior, someone guilt stricken for not following the family tradition earlier in life, or something else.

[3] Such as this brilliant one from Goblin Punch.

Also, the soundtrack is amazing.

WHAT IS A BLOG? (Quickly Setting up Vampire Castles)

Step 1:

Either draw a map for cool gothic castle, map out the room layout abstractly by dropping d6s on a page (each die is a room) and deriving 1d3 results from each dropped die as exits from a room (basically what Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e does), or remix other castle maps into a crazy ass Dracula castle (Ravenloft's castle is recommended in this regard).

Step 2:

Use something like these baller posts by Dunkey Halton.

For years, man has pondered more efficient ways to
kill bloodsucking pricks...

Step 3:

Either use classic "WHAT IS A MAN?" Dracula, devise your own Strahdula or generate one (or more?) using this brilliant generator by Dunkey (excellent PDF created by Robin Z of Renfield's Cat):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx3r0TLm8WIpM1hjX3J2V2xIRzQ/view

Step 4:

Do the rest of your preferred dungeon stocking methods with regards to treasure and all that jazz. Here are some example minions of foul Strahdulas:

https://twitter.com/vgartandtidbits/status/792500411160793088

Handily, you can just roll 1d20 to figure out what monster will be in a room. I know there's 21 of them but the last one usually will lounge around certain areas, prepping speeches for the next hunters that show up.

Vampires are utter bastards so be sure to put in things that could used to help ward off or even kill the bloodsuckers (like the classic Sunsword). I recommend a holy whip lost by the great Slayer-Saint Simone De Belmond but that's just me.

Step 5:

"You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it..." - Gehrman, the First Hunter.

I'm delighted that they kept the Conan look for Smash Bros.

Using Excalibur to Demoralize Rabble

Fighting types of the Hero level can draw their weapon in an impressive and awe inspiring manner.  This will force 2d6 creatures to make an immediate morale check.  On their own, this may only affect creatures lower than 1 HD.

With a properly powerful weapon, however, the HD cap becomes equal to the plus of the weapon.  The plus can also be a penalty to the forced morale check if the creatures have HD lower than the cap.  If the PC has a weapon that is suitably impressive but doesn't have a magic plus, just give it a rough HD cap and roll with it. 

At Champion level, add an extra 1d6 to the number affected.  Optionally, if you really want it to be overkill on peasant mobs, add 1d6 per creature HD below the cap (so a +3 sword drawn by a Champion against 1/2 HD peasants would force 6d6 to make a morale check!).

Whether or not this could force an additional morale check for any remaining creatures present is up to the DM.   

Round Robin!

Fellow elfgames enthusiast, blogger and all around class dude Claytonian of Kill it with Fire has been inspired by this blog to create a brilliant one page RPG called Round Robin!  

It combines collaborative character generation and two six sided dice to create a game of fantasy derring do, simple but crucial resource management and a very engaging and fun level of player input.

Check it out right here!

Resting for now.  I'm sure he'll be up to
merry murderhobo shenanigans soon enough...

Collaborative Starting Magic

Inspired by Tales of Mordhease from VILE CULT OF SHAPES.

Make a blank d20 table.  Each person adds a spell name to the table, rotating until it is complete.  Upon casting a spell, this instance's effect should be agreed upon by the player and GM within the boundaries of the spell name.  Spells usually cost a point, more if the effect is considered particularly strong by the GM.  Perhaps 1d6 per magic point if specific numbers are needed, like in Vieja Escuela.

Wizards get 1+level points.

For Priests/Clerics/Paladins: Pick a God and its thing.  Everyone else makes a spell list using the same method as above, themed entirely around that thing.  Come up with only a d12 or smaller table because it saves time and makes it much easier to strongly stick to a theme.

Clerics have 1+2/3rds (rounded down) their level in miracle points because they have plate armour, turn undead and other stuff.

Nearly the OD&D lineup, just missing the Halfling.

Also if someone writes down "Magic Dance", give them a pat on the back.