WIS+15= Starting Age

It can be useful to know a PC's age in elf games. Why, just a couple weeks back a character drank some wine in Shmégel Manor and aged 30 years. Then they shrugged and drank until they turned to dust.

For humans, WIS+15= age at character gen. I'd add an extra year per level for creating at a non-first level murderhobo.

For dwarves, I'd multiply WIS by a d7, because dwarves in my campaigns are born as adults and live until they calcify at some point around age 1d120+100.

For elves, well, I have elves be immortal in both directions (each elf only recalls being around since time immemorial), but would go with WIS²+50 in other fantasy settings. 

I haven't decided about hobbits yet... I think maybe they are a one-off species that is distilled into adult life by fermenting certain tubers or mandrake roots. They start adventuring at WIS+d120 years old and live up to d120 years after that. I can't imagine a hobbit having sentient babies with their tiny hips, unless may be they are a race that gives birth to and starts as ferrets or something.

Lizard men hatch and then mature within a year. Their adventuring age is WIS-2.

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C.I.F.A.L. >>Pimp My Monster

Ran a couple of new players through some Gates of Gann. There is a Fiend Folio CIFAL in one of the rooms. No idea why. But as the fight went on, I realized these things are held together by "nuclear energy," and started to describe glowing core bits where bugs had been knocked off by melee blows. The players got really excited and started using video game logic to attack the glowing spots. I adjusted for this cool strategy a bit on the fly, but I realized I could have made this monster cooler and weirder.

So what can we do to spice up a CIFAL? The more good hits you make to it, the more radiation starts to leak out. Make a save vs CON damage each round with a penalty equal to the glowing wounds. 

One of my players was arrowing that spot. I think whenever an arrow hits, it should glow and then explode for some extra damage or radiation. Crits to glowing areas should also be bittersweet experience.

Finally, when the CIFAL dies, have it explode. Everybody save vs cancer and save vs blindness! A nuclear Scooby-doo ghost runs away, looking for new bugs to collect (it'll take a few weeks).
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Ompallios, a DCC dragon

If I make a few dragons ahead of time, I'll be ready the next time my players run into one. Which happens. So meet Ompallios. The name came from the DCC appendix, but I recognized it from a top tier Clark Ashton Smith story.

Ompallios is a 162 year old azure dragon the size of a house and aligned with the neutral watchers. It prefers to protect its layer with Fey Runes and it has a couple potions (Human control, Super-heroism) for extra defense. Ompallios keeps tabs on its surroundings by asking local fauna what they have seen.

PCs of any level probably don't stand a chance, unless they grovel, throw down sacks of gold, and offer to go on potion-ingredient quests. If anyone rolls a natural 20 on Personality while grovelling, Ompallios will bond them with its patron, Ithha.

• 10HD.
  
• 60HP.
  
• +10 init.
  
• 25AC (half damage from mundane).
  
• 50' spd.
  
• 4d20 action dice.
  
• +13 to hit (2 claws for d8s, bite for d12, and a tail slap for d20).
  
• 2d14 dragon-crits.
  
• stone gaze in lieu of an action die (target must save vs DC20 or be stoned).
  
• 2 breaths a day of poison gas (save versus death; goes up to 90' covering 10xd3 feet) in lieu of an action die.
  
• d30+6 to cast spells.
  
• Color spray
• Mending
• Invoke patron (Ithha) 
• Magic mouth
• Locate object
• Monster summoning
• Paralysis (-2 to cast)
  
• Make potion
• Runic alphabet, fey
  
• Can speak with animals 1/hour in lieu of an action die.
  
• Can cause plants withing 100' to grow to entangling lengths (-2 to attacks and move at half speed for people stuck in the area) 1/hour in lieu of an action die.
  
• Can reverse gravity in a 100' radius 1/day (it doesn't fall up, but everything else falls up 100') and cancel the effect to enjoy watching everyone fall in leu of an action die.
  

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Choose the form of the traveler

Been thinking about dungeon events a lot recently as I work on my megadungeon Shmégel Manor. The other day Turn came out. It was a good little thing. Just picked up my copy of RND issue 4, which I got back in 2017 when I contributed a couple pieces of art to it, and the last page was also inspirational. So I'mma spitball a thing. Based around trusting your players to make their PCs suffer.

If you want to see another take on abstract timekeeping to work on dungeon resources, I like my own post here. 

For the happenings determination in the first place, the old 1 on a d6 method is fine. I'm partial to rolling 2d6 and checking for doubles. The bottom table could be rolled on with a d30, d50, or d60 to consolidate encounter chance with results (any result not 1 thru 12 would be that nothing special happens).

d12    Result

1         Ask a player, what song is flitting through their character's mind right now.

2         Ask a player what they are searching their pack for that seems to be missing.

3         Ask a player what the tracks they just found seem to be.

4         Ask a player how they are going to deal with their fatigue.

5         Ask a player what they are running out of.

6         Ask a player what they see shambling out of the darkness.

7         Ask a player what just grabbed their ankle.

8         Ask a player who the familiar person they see is and what is wrong with them. 

9         Ask a player what rumor or legend is fleeting across the back of their mind.

10       Ask a player who they are thinking of from their past.

11       Ask a player what sound the party hears echoing through the halls.

12       Ask a player what kind of trap the one they just triggered is.

 

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d12 Crazy Monster Abilities & Twists

This is a non-exhastive list. Your task, dear reader, is to roll on the table and make a monster today! Note that you decide the specifics. For instance, a Midas could transform things into whatever. You'll see.

1. Bloodied: something special happens when the monster is down to half HP. Thanks, 4e Obama.
2. Death boon: slaying it blesses the slayer.
3. Death curse: it's bad luck to kill an angel.
4. Shut up: Verbose about the fight. Maybe polite!
5. I'll be back: Gaseous or vermin form escape.
6. Invincible.
7. Somebody help me: Needs to posses a PC's body to interact with reality.
8. Sympathy for the devil: Hurting it hurts you.
9. Magic hole: any weapon that strikes it turns to spaghetti. Any wand pointed at it turns to fetta.
10. Avengance shall be mine: PCs are marked for revenge if they harm the monster; something strong will stalk them.
11. Turtle: Transforms to regenerate for a few rounds, and may have a strong antipathy field or putties show up to protect it.
12. Midas: If something touches it, 1 cubic ell of that thing turns to gold. Sucky lead midases escape alchemical explosions sometimes.

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On the Spontaneous Generation of Porcs

Recently my group started playing FAGE RPG. And players were like, rolling my race herp derp I'm a gnome! Hey me too!  And I'm like, nah, you are just dwarves tho. And the book was like, be an orc too, and I was like, I don't know if I want that cuz orcs are kinda basic, but the players gnashed their terrible teeth and so here we are.

First off, orcs are porks. They have pig faces and lolling tongues. Second, porks are not a normal species per say; they are a phenomenon. They grow out of underworld dank. They bubble out of ritually-cooked elf corpses. They roll, unbidden, out of necromancers' shadows. They spawn with weapons that moulder away if the pork dies.

They have no souls, and are anthromorphosized expressions of evil in mankind's collective unconciousness. They don't have babies, love, or lust. No creedos, tastes, or art. They instinctively gather to further the aims of evil. They posses language only as a means to decieve and demoralize. They are arguably not even sentient, so they can't be tortured nor successfully negotiated with. You shouldn't feel bad about slaying them; they are humanoid viruses, and their resemblance to humans and pigs is a cosmic parody at best. 

But. Sometimes. One gains a soul. Who can say how. Afflicted with a mind and feelings, they wander off. They learn. They walk, blinking in the sunlight. They learn fire bad. They learn of gods and to curse them. 

Those that survive sapience might become adventurers.

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Horrors and Guardians Under the Keep That Contains the Dark Lord

NOTE: I found this draft from like 10 years ago. It was the proto-Calabraxis. You can see it if you squint.  I'm not sure where the map is, but it wasn't super important.