Those of you who have been enjoying my recent Derailed Fantasy adventures, thanks for that,
I really enjoy making those and I am happy to keep making them for you.
I enjoy that they are just pure creativity, I don't have to worry about the rules system
of whatever roleplaying games you care to use to play those adventures with your friends,
you might just be watching them as entertainment in and of themselves; and that is just fine
with me.
I also don't have to worry about whatever world setting or lore may be specific to those
games; you can take any part of the story, drop it into any fantasy game, change it around,
or change it completely; as I have always said, it's your game, your rules, your friends,
you know better than anyone what they like, what you like, I am just happy to provide
something that will spark the imagination, and if I am honest, I hope I am providing
some small guidance to those who may be less confident about their story telling, or their
pacing of a game.
A lot of sources will give a lot of advice, but I seldom see them give actual examples
of what to say, how long to say it, and how long a part of the adventure should be really
taking to get completed in a comfortable fashion by your friends and you, hanging out online
or in person.
Man I miss playing games in person, I really do.
Anyway, to those of you who noticed the time stamp in the description text for this video,
and you really need to start paying attention down there from now on, because I am going
to add cool random roll tables and all sorts of excellent shit in there just because I
can, and they will add to the fun in the adventures.
For example, a random table of magic effects from Bubbery Berries from the Evil in the
Ironwoods adventure, that would be fun and help explain what happens when someone eats
a handful of the fruit all in one go.
The most hilarious thing you roll on the table happens of course, if they combine in some
way to be even more hilarious, such as farting a cloud of glitter that forces everyone to
speak with a bad french accent for no reason... that is what they do.
I mean no offence to the good people of Quebec when I say that.
by the way.
To those of you who clicked on the timestamp, this is where the video starts, so here is
the subject for today.
In the adventure video called Blades of the Blood Beast, I mention the Gut Gobbler monster;
I mention there is a mated pair of them, they have laid an egg sack, and that they have
eaten all the goblins from an ancient dwarven tunnel going from one side of a mountain to
the other.
Here is the rest of the lore for the Gut Gobbler, and some general tips, plus a little preview
of one of the coolest RPG books to recently get published by Free League publishing, stay
tuned until the end of the video for a sneak peak at some actual pages from the Lord of
the Rings roleplaying book and how to make a Nameless thing, it is well worth it, trust
me.
So, where there are wizards, alchemists, artificers, techno-wizards, ether-smiths, warlocks, diabolists,
sorcerers, warp scholars or whatever you want to call them, the people who love very rare
and dangerous books, fling spells and fancy wearing robes with a lot of exotic decorations,
you tend to get Magic pollution, a bit of arcane disruption, some warp corruption going
on.
Magic potions, magic item creation, and even a lot of spells will result in some long-term
mystical pollution, it stands to reason, these effects we see mages use in combat are very
reckless when you consider how long crafting a magic item takes.
So I pose the question, what happens with all this magic residue?
While in my games, witchfinders are nothing like the Earth history witch-finders of the
16th century and other eras, they normally pop up after random and unexplained misfortunes
befall a society, such as plagues and so on, as people seek out some source of tangible
evil they can exact their revenge on.
This behavior is universal among human cultures, so it probably is on fantasy worlds as well
if you want to depict humans accurately.
Not their best look, but it is what it is.
No, in fantasy games I like to have special branches of the wizarding and druidic societies
that are trained in and dedicated to the art of detecting, tracking down and eliminating
the source of arcane corruption, this is the role of the Abdurationist wizard; hands down
the most awesome wizard sub type I bring to the game.
I mean, if you have ever seen the actor James Woods play the role of a vampire killing catholic
priest, you will know what I'm talking about.
Keanu Reeves playing John Constantine is another great example.
They know full well what goes thump in the night, and they have a bag full of weapons
and tools they will deploy to thump that gibbering horror right back where it came from, then
incinerate the location to make sure it doesn't come back.
Clerics are suitable for this role, and Druids, you could argue, are almost driven to combat
arcane corruption of the natural world, its what they are all about really.
So what is the wizard to do?
Can't go about this risky magic item business out in the open, and you don't want to go
pouring your failed attempts down your own privy or the well you drink from, so, you
go find some remote, underground location, an abandoned shrine, a ruin, an old dungeon,
some deep caves, you clear out whatever is lurking in there, and you find a spot to dump
your toxic waste.
Job done, back to the lab, maybe spread some rumours that horrid curses will be inflicted
on any who go there, and why bother, the place was plundered of all valuables long ago.
No problem, sleep soundly.
Yes but, water, chemicals and evil tend to settle into the deepest and darkest places
of the world, in fantasy worlds, very much so, and things live down there, such as goblins,
who do drink water and not just fermented rat piss, as many would believe; I mean, they
do, but that's another matter, getting rats to eat weird fungus is a good survival tactic
if the rats go a little crazy, well, one thing leads to another and goblins have very, very
hardy digestive systems and rock solid livers.
No amount of hardy biology is going to avoid toxic effects from magic pollution though,
and so, they drink the tainted waters than trickle down from up above, and they get a
little bit weirder, a little more chaotic and crazy, some weaken and die, others get
diseases and mutations, others though, they get bigger, meaner and very, very hungry.
First, they might be some of the best hunters and warriors in the goblin tribe, some might
seek to lead the tribe, being brutal and war loving tyrants, some become much more isolated,
unwilling to share any food, getting less and less fussy about what sort of creatures
they will hunt and eat, less and less intelligent, more and more driven by the killing instinct,
until one day, they are eating every living thing, including other goblins.
They are driven from the tribe, which might flee the area; who knows, perhaps this happens
more often than folks think, goblins could deal with this sort of mutation all the time.
The isolated mutants feed on all sorts of vile crap in the deep realms, they grow to
a truly monstrous size, perhaps they get large enough and feral enough to actually hunt and
eat cave trolls?
They start to look much less like goblins, their ears and noses get badly damaged in
fights with their prey, they scar over, their limbs change, they get massive and very strong,
their jaws increase in size, their internal organs change, and eventually, you have the
creatures I called the Gut Gobblers in the adventure video.
They are so far removed from goblins now that they are a different species, they don't reproduce
the same way, their body seems to reject their own offspring and ejects the whole placenta
like a leathery egg, they still have some primal nesting instinct, but it's as disgusting
and twisted as the rest of them, so they just float the egg sack in a pool of their own
urine, marking the territory near it with heaped up piles of their solid waste and decorating
their squalid lair with the skulls and bones of their prey.
They know goblins the best of course, so they hunt them wherever they can find them.
Any creature is food though, unless they are mating with it.
Eventually, perhaps their offspring survives, hatching a more horrific creature, one of
the nameless terrors of the deep.
And here we come to the fun review of a section of the new Lord of the Rings RPG from Free
League Publishing, link to their website in the description below.
They have been kind enough to send me a review copy of the gorgeous book, which I am most
impressed with.
Those of you who remember the Warlord character class from 4th edition fondly will love one
of the playable classes in the game.
But right now, let's have a look at this section on how to create a Nameless thing using the
random roll tables found in the Lord of the Rings, I'll just put a couple of the pages
here so you can see how the random roll tables are presented, and you can see that these
lore details and descriptions are designed to be added onto a base statistic block, which
is a great way to handle a big, gnarly monster, because when the players encounter a Nameless
thing, and you start rolling on charts to find out what it is.. they get spooked, because
even the dungeon master doesn't know what the hell it is, its just big, horrible and
its going to chew their asses unless they start getting clever and tactical pretty much
immediately.
It fits the lord of the rings vibe perfectly, and the art in this book is great, mostly
gorgeous sketch work like this, again, perfect vibe for the Lord of the Rings.
OK, thats all I have for you right now, as always, thank you so much for joining me and
as always, I will be back with more for you, very soon.