Some Random Potion Tables

... so much for posting more regularly. *facepalms*

Here's a little something I was tinkering around with at work last night, a handful of little tables for generating unusual and/or more detailed potion descriptions.


Potion ...

Colour
1. pomegranate
2. amber
3. colourless
4. inky
5. rosy
6. emerald
7. prismatic
8. roll twice

Appearance
1. opaque
2. pearly
3. swirling
4. quivering
5. translucent
6. bubbled
7. iridescent
8. fizzing

Consistency
1. water
2. thin syrup
3. thick syrup
4. powdery (add water or choke!)
5. sticky
6. gelatinous
7. solid
8. pasty

Smells Like
1. grass
2. sewage
3. honey
4. nothing
5. roses
6. undead
7. bread
8. smoke

Tastes Like
1. bakeapples
2. blood
3. rain
4. seawater
5. peanuts
6. wine
7. bone
8. earth

Contained In
1. crockery jar
2. glass flask
3. small skull
4. rough stone
5. leather skin
6. wax tube
7. metal phial
8. hollow jewel

Label?
1. no
2. accurately
3. falsely
4. accurately (magical)
5. falsely (magical)
6. "belongs to"
7. "made by"
8. changes daily

W: Watery realms ...

One of these days, I will run an aquatic/undersea/marine-based campaign. Whether the main action is on a scatter of islands with some submarine facets, or primarily under the waves with a bit of activity on the surface -- or, hell, just plunk a campaign in the Plane of Water and be done with it -- it shall be done.

I have an abiding fascination with watery realms and aquatic adventuring, all the better when mixed with ice and snow; I suppose this can be blamed on my native stomping-grounds, but the careless abandon with which I'll mix up my critters, places and even climates probably more resembles a jigsaw of oceanic concepts than anything else. Unfortunately, an aquatic setting is even more specialized than some of the other special campaign types I've bandied about and no one's quite gone for the idea yet.

Hell, I even have a watery/icy world that's something of a slowly budding pet project which would be ideal for a more sci-fantasy sort of game, with periodic hibernatory freezing and other such fun things.

Aah well, back to the musing ...

R: Rolling the Bones --

What little rituals do you have with your dice?

Do you have a special bag or box or suchsort container for them, maybe keep them in a specific place (or, if in a box, set out in a specific order)? Do you have certain dice for certain tasks -- one die for all your attack rolls, or one set for playing and one for when you're the DM?

Do you let other players use your dice, or even touch them? (a bit extreme, perhaps, but I've seen it in action) Or is there something, some little quirk or action, that you feel compelled to do with your dice before a game or even before an especially important roll --

It's strange how much we can get attached to these little bits of plastic (or metal, or glass, or odder things), and how much importance we place on them, all wrapped up at times in our own unique little superstitions. Then again, given that the very lives and luck of our pretendy-funtimes people depend on those dice, perhaps it's not so strange at all.

My dice live in a decrepit old buckskin pouch that I've had since, oh, grade school sometime; the very same pouch I've used since I started gaming. The cords have snapped and the leather's getting weak, but I just can't seem to bear replacing it -- a fellow geek at my worksite found me a very fetching faux-velvet bag (not Crown Royal but it's close!), but the most I've done is put the pouch inside the bag, along with two sets of White Wolf-themed dice that didn't fit in the ol' buckskin.

Along with my dice (two sets, one blue and one a weird pinkish-orange -- that second one is my DM'ing set -- and a fusty set of black Vampire dice a friend didn't want any more), the pouch contains the following:

- a faceted crystal sphere the size of a small grape, meant to be hung from a cord but the drillhole broke
- three coins: a (Canadian) penny, a Chinese coin of who-knows-what provenance and a Russian coin I found after a hockey celebration
- a thumbnail-sized beaded mouse, in silver beads with a black nose and blue eyes; it eats the dice lice (you know, the little bastards that nest in your pips and such and weight your dice)

If any of the little frobby things are taken from the pouch, I get stroppy.

I don't mind other people borrowing my dice, oddly enough, though I've gamed with people who refused to use them because they weren't their own dice. I'm not much for people just idly playing with my dice, though.

So how do you roll the bones?

O: Origami?

I can't really elaborate on this idea enough to make a respectable-sized post out of it (having not actually made use of said idea), but I want to make it anyway ;3

Aside from, well, actual miniatures, I've seen and/or heard of gamers using little pog-like tokens -- with or without pictures on -- paper or cardstock standups, poker chips, coins, aquarium stones, chess pieces, and once G. I. Joes for the purpose of representing characters and critters on a large-scale map.

Why not try using origami for the purpose? Sure, one would have to learn at least a few different shapes; but change up the colour of the paper and write on a label as needed (no different than unmarked poker chips, etc) and you're good to go.

(the shapes don't even have to match up perfectly. a paper crane could be a perfectly serviceable dragon!)

You can even scale the papery beasties appropriately ;3

N: Numbers

Some numbers have a certain draw to them in D&D. Even at relatively low levels, there are certain numbers -- whether levels or something other -- that have stood out as milestones in D&D for me, whether as a DM or a player but especially as a player and more numbers still have a sort of intrinsic meaning if not importance.

A few:

0 --Found in everyone's favorite~ 2e hallmark, THAC0: To Hit Armour Class 0. That magic factor that did away with the to-hit matrix and similar such contrivances. It's also the second milestone for Armour Class, the one that says impressive (and often magical) negative AC is close at hand. For the first AC milestone there is of course

5 -- AC 5, the trusty chainmail. Whether you were working up to it or made damn sure you started with it, chainmail and its AC 5 are a nice comfort point in protection from getting splatted, especially early on. As "fifth level", 5 is also a moment of oh frabjous day for the spellslingers; see 3.

3 -- That wonderful moment when your magely type finally gains third-level spells. Fireball, here I come!

18 -- Of course, one wants as many of these as fate is willing to cough up when rolling up a character ...

20 -- You just rolled a natural 20. Need I say more?

1 -- And then you rolled a natural 1. Ouch, sorry dude.

M: Magitech and Mecha

My go-to game is D&D of many stripes, and always has been; and yet when I look at the bookshelf behind me the fantasy games are outnumbered by the scifi games:

-Anima
- Pathfinder

- Mekton Zeta
- Alternity
- Jovian Chronicles
- Traveller

It's an interesting dichotomy to be sure, but I would be a rank liar if I said that nothing science-tech-mechanical made it into my D&D games. Readers of this blog know my fascination with magitech and magical clockworks; there's been at least one flying mecha-ship, in the form of a bird of prey, and the number of robots living statues and similar such non-fleshy beasties is by no means small.

This works for me, obviously -- the basic idea if still the same, after all, only the trappings and the exterior appearance has been adapted to fit. This is better than trying to shoehorn straight-up mecha into a D&D game in my opinion; that kind of jarring juxtaposition can wreak havoc unless handled very carefully and I freely admit to preferring being "sneaky" about the subject. It causes fewer moments of cognitive dissonance for my players, I get to be creative with descriptions, and it neatly dodges the whole "you're putting scifi in my D&D baaaaww" I've occasionally been forced to listen to. (see also: psionics.)

... Well, unless I ever write up that Voltron adaptation. Then the giant-robots-in-"fantasy"-world scenario just might make sense.

L: To level or not to level

It has been my observation (or, at least, my unfortunate experience) that one of the gaming subjects near as likely to provoke a flame war in certain arenas as much as any edition debate is the idea of "games with levels" versus "games without levels". The basic gist seems to be that the first side doesn't fancy the fiddliness of point- or -grade-based advancement (or just doesn't see any reason to not use levels) and the second side thinks that levels lock characters into a grind of same-same advancement with no customization.

Or something. I fancy games that use either system and in fact Anima -- one of my current love-to-poke-at games despite occasionally dodgy translation -- uses both concepts. A character in Anima gains levels as they accumulate XP, and once a new level is attained said character gains a bunch of points that can be spent on various things.

I can hear the screams of outrage from all sides, truly ~

Once upon a time in my earlier post-secondary career I was presented with an especially ... interesting rebuttal of level-based advancement. This particular individual loathed leveled games (and (A)D&D in particular) -- I've known a few people with peculiar notions about D&D, I need to find letters for sharing some of the other stories really -- because they steadfastly believed that point-based advancement was "more gritty" and "made for lower-powered characters that had to either think or [die]". (the actual phrasing was, I think "take the consequences" but the intent was fairly obvious.)

It's a shame I never had a chance to introduce this person, one way or another, to a nice low-level D&D game. We'd see about "gritty" and needing to think, I daresay ... ;3~

Printin' and PDF'in' ~

I have been a good hamster and followed Jeff's instructions re the print and PDF blog options ...

*peers out; is it safe from potential pitchforks now?*


;3~

K: Knights and the lack thereof.

My campaigns have always had a curious deficit of the knightly persuasion. Not only has there never been any PC of the paladin-ish type, there has never been any characters remotely resembling a knightly or even vaguely chivalric ideal in my games.

... No, I lie. The party leader of my longest-running campaign was a remarkably honourable and almost knightly fellow, when I stop to think about it; rather an impressive feat, seeing as the gentleman in question was a thief. (he would be the unfortunate soul who was dressed in the fighter-mage's gown at the temple-warming party.)

Nonetheless -- and this is despite a fair few games having all the themes and trappings and even with some players being disappointed without them -- no one has ever actually played the archetype. Or even make small noises towards considering the idea.

Now, I myself am quite partial to paladins if not to all of the sometimes very culturally-specific trappings of the stereotypical knightly behaviour; many of the characters I enjoying reading about, making wander about in a video game or that I've written arguably have "lawful (good)" traits or would fall right in the middle. But I haven't played a paladin either, in the rare few times I've managed to be a player ... Frustratinglyamusingly enough, a goodly chunk of the reason is that the DMs in question have essentially discouraged it. They'd all fallen into the "paladin = lawful stupid arsehole" trap and there was likely no convincing them otherwise.

But in hindsight, I do find it likely that if I had tried to run a character along those lines I would have been disappointed -- the archetype, unless juggled veeeery~ carefully, doesn't really lend itself well to the behaviour of the "typical" adventuring party. And bending the intentions and fun of my fellow players as a group just so I could have my shining knight, frankly, just wouldn't have been very knightly.

J: Jumping across the worlds ...

It is frankly an inevitability that any game I run will -- somehow, some way -- involve crossing dimensions or traveling to other planes.

My go-to settings, even if only for inspiration, are Planescape and Spelljammer (though I've run a fair few PS campaigns, SJ is proving more elusive); and even in more "grounded" settings there are the inevitable planar bleeds, elemental hijinks and my nigh-obsession with portals, gates, and various means to various worlds. Even if I'm only attaching pocket dimensions and microworlds to the campaign setting I'll do it without batting an eyelash ... and then wind up dumping the party there somehow ~

One of these days I may put one of my snippets of more fiction-based -- and, more importantly, individually controlled -- planar travel (re to Tomira Eliyes: think Myar) into actual game terms but for the time being I haven't quite worked out how to let PCs learn their own routes. Or how to put the specific glorious chances of screwing up your destination into game rules ;3

I haven't played around with time, much, however. I chalk this up to an intrinsic loathing of grandfather paradox in all its forms.


Also tangentially related to today's letter (*cough*), one of these days I swear I will hack the Fighter class to give me a credible version of the dragon knight ...

H: Home is your ...

Aah, the joyous moment when an adventurer, or an adventuring party, stakes out a home of their own. Sometimes the moment is relatively mundane -- setting up shop in a certain suite in an inn for the duration -- and sometimes, not so much.

I've had PC parties go the inn route; they've also received small flats (in Sigil) or land for building in a chosen village (in more "mundane" settings) as rewards for services and general derring-do. (that one group then managed to give away the village to a tribe of monastic ranger werewolves is mostly irrelevant. but amusing to comment on.) While I love the founding-a-barony-etc bit at name level, by no means do I make my players wait that long if they want to set down roots.

Which brings us to "the temple-warming party".

Way back with a particular group of players, after defeating an especially bizarre group of bandits and turfing them from their mostly-underground lair (and dealing with their mysterious contractor literally falling dead on the doorstop of their inn suite after receiving the item he'd wanted retrieved), a great debate went up as to what should be done next. The winning comment was more or less as follows:

Cleric player: I wanna take over the lair!
me: Ei?
Cleric player: Yeah! I'll use it as a temple 83
Cleric player: And everyone else can live there.
Everyone else: Sweeeeeeet.
Cleric: We'll even bury the nameless dead guy and Craig's ranger in the new crypt! They'll be the first of many no doubt ~
me: ... *snrk* Go for it.

He was quite serious. So we had an entertaining evening of "preparing the temple" -- clearing out the underground pool of alligators, removing the bodies, sprucing everything up nicely, laying in supplies and whatnot that were purchased from their ill-gotten adventurous gains -- and then it was time for the temple-warming party.

I can't say that I remember all of the details; it's been a long time. Suffice to say that the temple-warming party involved:

- two funerals involving acapella dwarf singing
- filling the alligator pool with ale and swimming in it
- the half-elf fighter-mage's formal gown being snitched in order to dress the party leader (a thief) in it after he passed out

Good times ~

G: Gear -- what do you have?

No, this isn't a post on clockwork magics -- it's a shorter (if not sweeter) post about a few musings that trundled across my hindbrain this week.

What gear, if any, is assumed in your games? Taking D&D and its relations as the immediate example, do your PCs start with clothing (one outfit? more? what quality?) or do you make them purchase clothes out of their starting cash? Does a spellslinger have to buy their first spellbook -- potentially starting a game deeply in debt, monetarily or otherwise! -- or are they assumed to have that first tome "free", whether through the grace of a mentor or some other reason?

Does your campaign have "fast packs" or similar, to make kitting out new characters simpler? I'm rather fond of the idea myself, but tend to forget to make custom equipment kits (or lose my notes or get distracted) and default to a nice Dragon article I hunted up at one point ...

Conversely, are there items of gear that are Very Strongly Recommended a character have on their person if at all possible? For this purpose my rough and basic list is usually along the lines of: knife or dagger, 1-4 candles, flint or striker, day-worth of rations (minimum), chalk, string or twine, and some form or bit of cloth or rags. Add a basic scribe kit for a literate and wordy character, and a sturdy cloak or equivalent.

And then there's those games that abstract gear and resources in general; most White Wolf games come to mind. Do you play it all by ear, using the rough descriptions in the text, and handwave what a character might own -- or do you set a hard and fast line in the sand, trying to head off the "but why couldn't/wouldn't my PC own [whatever], they can afford it!" at the pass when a player conveniently~ claims to have some suddenly-beneficial possession?

Intersecting with all this, of course, is good ol' encumbrance. Just how much of all this gear is that PC trundling along with, anyway? Or does it even matter, as long as suspension of disbelief isn't completely shattered?

F: Final Fantasy

It's essay time!

No, I don't consider this the same as my anime post. Yes, it's long and full of personal opinions and such and in fact mostly borrowed from a post I made elsewhere. I'm a big FF person, I'm posting it here anyway ;3


Many -- if not most -- FF fans are aware of the influence Dungeons and Dragons had on the franchise, especially the first Final Fantasy. What may not be as clear is the sheer amount of that influence. In actuality, Final Fantasy feels and plays like a virtual replica of a hybrid between 1e and BEMCI. Most elements are shared between the two versions of the tabletop rpg; the classes borrow from the D&D boxed sets, the monsters from AD&D.

While some of similarities are painfully self-evident (level-based advancement, dungeon crawling, collecting XP, treasure and sometimes magic items from defeated monsters, and the multiple-character party), these are also fairly generic points. Here I plan to detail the more nuts-and-bolts parallels.

There may be a few things I'll miss, as I'm working mostly from memoryand a handy critter list. But I feel confident that I'll hit the major ones.


Classes

These are virtually self-explanatory, being as the classes available in the game are virtually identical to those in the Mentzer boxed sets (Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User, Thief, and -- introduced in later boxes -- the oddly-named Mystic) with a single exception, detailed below. The breakdown of classes is:

Fighter: Swings the big weapons, wears the beast armour, uses the best magical swords and stomps on your face. Essentially the D&D Fighter.

Thief: The sad thing is, until you hit the higher levels the D&D Thief is about as useful as tits on a mule. This sorry state of affairs is mirrored well in the FF Thief, which is little more than a weak Fighter until you receive the class upgrades from Bahamut. (more on class upgrades, and Bahamut, later.)

Monk (or Black Belt, if you like): The D&D Mystic, with the emphasis on no armour and dishing out damage with one's fists.

White Mage: Here we find the D&D Cleric. While one notable difference has been made -- the lack of armour, possibly to distinguish the White Mage from the Red Mage -- the White Mage otherwise mirrors the Cleric to an amazing degree. Like Clerics, White Mages focus on support magics, can use bludgeoning weapons (I miss White Mages having the ability to swing warhammers in later games, let me tell you!) -- and the apparently hideously-overspecialized Dia series of anti-undead spells in fact serve to emulate the Cleric's ability to "turn" and destroy undead creatures.

Black Mage: The Magic-User class, purveyor of increasing attack attributes and dishing out healthy heaping doses of magic-induced pain. Getting Fira is like reaching a high enough level to cast Fireball for the first time, I swear ~

Red Mage ...?: At first blush, it would appear that the hybrid Red Mage is unique to FF. Alas, this is not the case. D&D also contained three demihuman classes, Dwarf, Elf and Halfling (why yes, early D&D used demihuman species as their class) -- and with it's use of light armour, most weaponry, a decent attack stat and the ability to cast limited magic, the Red Magic beautifully emulates the Elf class, favoured class of those wanting to stab and cast magic even if you don't really like elves, level cap and XP penalty be damned. (I personally got around the elf question by backwards-engineering a human class. I really don't like elves ;3)


Gameplay Elements and Details

VANCIAN MAGIC!!: Aah, that wonderful need to carefully harbour your spell slots per spell level you can cast, lest you run out. Though the D&D "fire-and-forget" system of Vancian magic has been modified to a number of free slots per "day" (for lack of a better word) rather than the spellcasting characters selecting and memorizing/praying for a specific slate of spells per day for the sake of smooth videogaming, it's still a Vancian system. (At that, the FF method was borrowed back for the 3e D&D Sorcerer class.) It's not surprising that eventually Vancian magic was phased out in favour of a point-based system.

Churchly Resurrection: This one was also abolished within a few games as the FF franchise trundled on, in favour of the now-iconic Phoenix Tail/Down. But the need to bring your deceased party members back to a friendly church with powerful clerics to resurrect them -- until you've become powerful enough to cast the magic yourself -- is not only a D&D trope, it's a trope for a reason. PCs die all the damn time in D&D also. At least FF doesn't make you pay through the nose with treasure or a geased quest in return for the privilege ;3

Class Upgrades and Titles: In FF, party members gain a shiny class upgrade and new class title from Bahamut; they're real heroes now, with more oomph at their disposal. This is a well-turned emulation of the D&D "Name Level" -- usually around level 9, sometimes a few later -- wherein the PC gains a new and special title (Fighter -> Knight, Paladin or Avenger, Mystic -> Master, Magic-User -> Wizard, etc. etc.) and new privileges, usually based around owning territory and / or gaining followers. FF, not being a sim game, goes the power route; but the net intent and effect is the same.

Bahamut: Speaking of His Scaliness, Bahamut -- traditionally and originally a giant fish -- as an honourable and good king of well-intentioned wyrms is lifted straight from AD&D, where Bahamut is of course the Platinum Dragon and King of the Metallic (= Good) Dragons. (later games emulate this even further with his greyish colouration and in one case his human guise.) As Bahamut is a creature it is not surprising he was drawn from AD&D rather than D&D; see below.


Magic

FF uses a number of generic spells. It also uses a number of spells, names and all, that are pretty much D&D staples (haste; don't leave home without it). Some have been shuffled from clerical (white) to magic-user (black) types for the sake of class balance -- FF doesn't use non-combat spells, after all, so holes in spell lists need to be plugged -- but the spell itself remains.

I'm not going to enumerate every single FF spell and magical item, with commentary; I don't have that kind of patience, to be honest ;3 However, the following lists the FF spells which are iconic D&D spells, ignoring the generic elemental spells because pffft:

Black Magic

Sleep -- just as godly at low levels as the D&D version.
Darkness
Slow
Hold -- hold person and the like
Haste
Cloud (called Poison, Scourge, BANE etc in NA editions) -- cloudkill.
Confuse -- confusion. hate this spell, hate it -_-
Death -- could be many things but always seemed to be finger of death to me.
Saber -- Mordenkainen's sword.
Blind
Stop -- time stop.
Kill (Doom) -- power word, kill.
Flare -- hello meteor swarm. which is funny, as in later games Flare and Meteor get split up.


White Magic

(the Dia spells are addressed in the Classes section)

Blink
Silence -- love silence when fighting magic-users, yee~ees ~
BaThunder (NulBolt, etc.) -- protection from electricity; similar spells follow pattern.
Invisi -- invisibility.
Dispel -- dispel magic.

... Oh who am I kidding. The spells pretty much map, especially the White Magic as it's so repetitive.


(Magic) Items

Ditto here; you can basically say "yup, same ideas" with a few exceptions; (A)D&D uses generic names for a lot of this to begin with so there's not a lot of point rambling on about them like an idiot. A few magic items, especially swords, deserve calling out as having names identical to specific named types of magical blades in AD&D, and there a few other iconics hidden in there:

Ice Brand -- Frost Brand
Sun Blade
Defender
Staff of Power
Wizard's Staff (Spellbinder in DoS) -- probably Staff of the Magi, legendary along with the Staff of Power.


Monsters

Fun times! For this I'll be using the original FFJ names and cross-referencing more familiar ones where necessary to clarify.

The monsters in FF crib straight from the D&D monster lists and AD&D Monster Manuals in a big way, to the point of many monster names (Beholder, Marilith ...) needing to be changed in the NA editions to avoid lawsuits from TSR. Even once WotC acquired the D&D license and the System Reference Document allowed the use of some creature names, use of the SRD would have required a licensing agreement that Squenix -- rightfully -- would not have so much as looked at. Some were wiggled through in later re-releases, probably due to being made up of generic words (Mind Flayer, Black Pudding, etc.) and re-used by so many games at that point.

That said, here are the special AD&D monsters. It's also worth noting that the undead ability to paralyze, so popular in FF, is lifted from the ghoul/ghast/etc series in (A)D&D. In fact FF takes pretty much all the (A)D&D undead monsters, many of which bear no resemblance to the mythological creatures or words they were based on (lich and wight, for example).

To start:

CHAOS. Not as a specific monster, but! The entire gist of D&D could be boiled down to fighting off the encroachment of Chaos and the monsters, warping and corruption that goes with it. Most PCs are Lawful or Neutral and most monsters are Chaotic. The Good/Evil axis of alignment doesn't even get introduced until the AD&D ruleset. So, having the ultimate Big Bad be Chaos is definitely fitting for a D&D-flavoured game.


The Fiends:

Lich -- the iconic Terrifying High-Level Undead Horror of AD&D. Just saying. ;3

Marilith -- called "Kary" in original NA FF, no doubt to avoid a lawsuit (or through the fear of one).

Kraken -- generic, yes, but krakens in (A)D&D are intelligent and controlling high-level monsters so I'm including him here.

Tiamat -- much like Bahamut, appears here as a multiheaded dragon instead of her original version. She's blue in FF instead of multicoloured, however, something FF either cared not to emulate, chose not to, or did not wish to risk the wrath of TSR (especially as Tiamat was a major antagonist in the D&D cartoon). I've also heard it said that it was a simple palette limitation.


Generic Monsters:

Warg (Worg) Wolf
Ghoul
Sahuagin (and variations)
Ghast
Shadow
Green Slime
Crawler -- sprite is clearly a version of the carrion crawler.
Gray Ooze
Piscodemon
Wraith
Hill Gigas -- = Hill Giant, of the Hill/Fire/Ice D&D trifecta.
Wight
Ochre Jelly
Ogre Mage
Ankheg (PEDE, Centipede) -- though the sprite is more generic-looking than the D&D monster named ankheg.
Otyugh (Ochu)
Neo-Otyugh (Neochu)
Horned Devil (R. GOYLE) -- likely the reddish Horned Devil, later Cornugon.
Pyrolisk -- PERILISK of NES FF likely a lawsuit dodge.
Fire Gigas -- = Fire Giant, of the Hill/Fire/Ice D&D trifecta.
Winter Wolf (FrWOLF)
Mind Flayer (SORCERER, Mindflayer) -- they even look just like them ...
Ice Gigas -- = Ice Giant, of the Hill/Fire/Ice D&D trifecta.
Specter
Remorhaz (GrPEDE, Remora, etc)
Beholder (EYE, Evil Eye) -- oh, this one is/was a lawsuit just begging to happen ...
Desert Bulette (ANKLYO, Desert Baretta)
Bulette (R. ANKLYO, Baretta)
Water Naga -- of the Guardian/Spirit/Water AD&D naga trifecta.
Spirit Naga -- of the Guardian/Spirit/Water AD&D naga trifecta.
Black Pudding
Death Knight (EVILMAN, Doom Knight) -- ahahahahhaa treading on the iconic Lord Soth from Dragonlance ~
Gorgimera (JIMERA, Rhyos)

This list of course omits generic animals and monsters (wolf, goblin, ghost, orge etc) shared between both games.

In some cases only the name was swiped and applied to a more generic-looking creature of the right type (chimera/gorgimera, for example; the AD&D gorgimera is a hybrid of a chimera and a gorgon, an iron-scaled poison-breathing ox).

Additionally, many of the dragons -- and certainly the identifications by colour -- are lifted straight from (A)D&D.


So, there you have it. I may have missed a few things, but these are in my opinion the Big Ones. If there is any element in Final Fantasy -- an item, an event, a class, a monster -- you would like to ask about, feel free! I'll see what I can find :3

D: Dungeons and Dinosaurs?

It's time for an iconic critter! Something big, and impressive, and maybe scaly, something to give a party pause for at least a moment. What to use, what to use ...

A dragon?

Sure, dragons are great and all; I love me some dragons. But I love dinosaurs even more -- and it can be highly entertaining to fit the beasties into a game. Though it's true to say that "scaly" only describes some of them, and that not at all scaled the way snakes and lizards and dragons were scaled, dropping an ornithodiran or three can be great fun if played correctly. These weren't dull and lumbering beasts but strange and wondrous, lively creatures and a lot of gaming mileage can be gotten from them.

On the one hand you have your maniraptors (feathered, if you please! -- unless you're deliberately going for the retro Land-Before-Time look, of course) and your tyrannosaurs (send a pack of those after a party for great fun, whether a T. rex or one of the more sporty albertosaurs) ... on the other, even the herbivores can be baroque and unusual, like Stygimoloch or just about any ceratopsid ever discovered. If there's an angry herd of Achelousaurus between the party and their goal, what to do? It's like dealing with rhinos equipped with giant snapping beaks and spikety things. Have fun, folks!

Of course, one doesn't have to be obvious when introducing the beasts to a game. Don't call them "dinosaurs"; if they have familiar names, don't use those either. If the name is usual enough one might be able to get away with it -- the citipati posted here on this blog is, after all, simply the oviraptorid without being called out as a "dinosaur".

Or, taking a different tack altogether, maybe dinosaurs are the "dragons" of the game setting. Maybe certain species are intelligent, casting spells and -- if they survive past a certain point -- living effectively forever. Others might be terrifying brute beasts of elemental power (and, yes, possessing breath weapons! imagine a Trexie that breathed fire or acid), terrorizing the countryside and descending upon hapless villages, possibly in packs or herds ... even descending from the air, on two feathery wings or four (Velociraptor-sized Microraptors, anyone?), to cling and claw and bite.

And then there's the various possibilities of the undead ~

C: A Chapel of Bones

A rather shorter post than the previous two, due to circumstances: but still --

I like small, compact spaces for adventures, or to use as adventure hooks. Whether it's microdungeons or above-ground buildings, I'm not terribly picky; small locales allow me to customize to my heart's content and still keep the gaming time to something short enough for two people with erratic schedules to be able to pull off.

One thing I really like to tinker with -- although I haven't many concrete examples at the moment -- are chapels, shrines and small temples. These are often in ruins or at least run down, but not always ...

And then there is the chapel of bones.

The Sedlec Ossuary has been the inspiration for a number of skeletal chapels and temples over the years. Sometimes it has been the lair of a necromantic cult, or the focus-point of a lich's rituals (that one, alas, more background than anything else); it has also been a bleached ivory and delicate cathedral inhabited by blood-drinking creatures that are not quite vampires.

At other times, the chapel of bones has been a blessed place where the dead may be assured of never rising, where any unliving creature trapped behind it's doors loses its unliving curse with the rising sun. Or the chapterhouse of a band of hunters dedicated to putting the undead to rest, their bones consecrated and purified -- and used as weapons, if need be.


Why yes, this has essentially be a post entirely about one of my favorite bits of unusual architecture ;3

A to Z April Challenge

(I know I've been MIA for a week or so; I got hit with the flu. Blegh.)

I've basically decided to pick up the A to Z April Blogging Challenge -- you know, the one letter a day, 26 days, Sundays are a break meme. To make it more of a challenge I also decided to do it cold, with no pre-prepped list of topics. I am a brave fool, why yes ;3

I make no guarantee said topics will have gameable material or even be game-related except in my own head. Fair warning ~ *grin*

Inspiration from odd places

On rpg.net, a spambot popped up in a thread and (among other randomness, presumably), posted the following:

There are vampires in caves and forts all over Cyrodiil, and Daedra Hearts can be found in the realm of Oblivion.

A poster noted "That's quite poetic for a spambot." I think I'll take it one step further, and see what I can't whistle up as game inspiration -- with a few name changes and whatnot of course -- from such an interesting~ little spambot ...

Humanoid Trait Tables

The following set of tables can be fun for quick-and-dirty humanoid species creation, or just for spicing up an everyday encounter with goblins and orcs.

Not every single table needs to be used, but nothing says you couldn't, either ~


Roll 1-3 times on each or as desired:

Hit Dice
1. 1HD
2. 2HD
3. 3HD
4. roll again and add a +2 hp modifier to the result
5. roll again and add a +4 hp modifier to the result
6. Hueg Humanoids! roll twice and add the results together, ignoring another roll of six


Animal Traits
1. claws or small horns (1-4 hp damage)*
2. fangs or large horns (1-6 hp damage)*
3. hooves
4. wings (50% functional)
5. fins (50% granting a swim rate)
6. animal hide (fur, feathers, scales ...)
* may be completely theriocephalic


Weird Traits
1. extra arms (1-4)
2. extra legs (1-4 ... centaur goblins?)
3. multiple eyes
4. skin oozes slime
5. tentacles
6. mismatched body parts


Funky Colours
1. neon blue/green/pink/etc
2. animal pattern (leopard spots, tiger stripes ...)
3. monochromatic
4. camoflaged
5. paisley (wtf)
6. roll twice; use both


Special Abilities
1. infravision
2. poison (paralysis)
3. charm resistance
4. Armour Class bonus (1-6; tough hide, scales, awesome armour, magical aura ...)
5. speedy (extra attack/round)
6. elemental attack (1-6 hp damage)


Special Weaknesses
1. photophobic (-2 penalty to actions in sunlight or bright light)
2. vulnerable to holy water
3. obvious weak point (double damage if struck; marking on forehead, discoloured patch of flesh ..)
4. poor Armour Class (1-4 penalty)
5. unnaturally low morale
6. weak against element (half again damage from fire, cold, or electricity, etc)


Intentions
1. to pillage and raid all they encounter
2. to found a new humanoid camp or colony
3. to party! come join the fun!
4. to find allies against enemy humanoid community/tribe
5. to find captives for sacrifice to their gods
6. roll twice

Oi ...

No, I haven't fallen off of the map again already -- just had to deal with training the most evil new arrival to the worksite I've seen in years for two nights, then capped it off with a three-hour dental appointment. Blegh.

Posting shall resume anon! In the meantime, a question that I've surely asked before but the moment, my mind it is a sieve:

I posted a draft of an esper class here on the blog that (mainly because I futz around with the Red Box) only went to third level. Would it be worthwhile to expand the class and see what happens, and -- more importantly for scaling concerns -- would ye folks prefer to see such an expansion run to twenty levels, or to thirty-six?

The Merry Ides of March: A Plan, I May Has One

Or, How the hamster hopes to kick into gear again --

When I started up this blog, I hadn't counted on the sheer amount of material I was about to produce and toss up on it -- it was a grand time, but I couldn't maintain it forever and I only hurt myself by trying, especially after a few events (the most significant of which has nothing to do with gaming) put me in a place where I just wasn't writing my best. 2010 kept up that feeling of burnout compounded with other unpleasantness and the motivation just wasn't there.

But that's enough of that --

I had intended for 2011 to start off better, but crazed holidays, dental surgery and a phenomenally bad extended flu (I don't remember almost half of January ~!) kind of squashed that flat. Until now.

Starting with the beginning of March, I'm going to try to start posting at least semi-regularly again. I can't guarantee the output of my first year, the length of some of those posts or even always the same kind of material; but I'll be giving it a shot to at least be posting something that might see some use ;3

The Blogging From A to Z April Challenge (as passed along by Chris from the Vaults of Nagoh over here) also looks rather intriguing, I have to say ~

Let's give this a shot, shall we?