Sunday, January 30, 2022

1d10 carousing mishaps for Three Musketeers campaigns

Our LotFP campaign is moving to Paris, to play Terror in the Streets. We're gonna play as D'Artagnan and the Musketeers! Our Referee, as per usual, crowdsourced a carousing mishaps table from us, these are my 10 entries:

  1. You and your carousing mates go on a wild carriage ride. Save against Paralyze to see if you can hang onto the speeding vehicle. If you fall, take d6 damage. If you stay on, the coachman is so impressed, you get a free day of service (access to a four-wheeled coach with two horses for a full day).
  2. You save a young boy or girl from trouble. Turns out, they are a junior member of the thieves’ guild and owe you a minor favor: this can be some information, or stealing a small thing for you. You can always find the person hanging out around the Cour des miracles.
  3. Referee’s eyes only! Somebody plays a trick on the character. The character’s weapon is replaced by a poor-quality copy. It breaks on the first attempt to use it in a fight.
  4. You get into a fight with the Cardinal’s Men: it’s a good ol’ brawl, with improvised weapons. The fight ends in a draw, but you get to keep your improvised weapon, roll d6: 1 leg of lamb (1 tasty ration), 2 leg of chair, ornately carved (club with d6 damage or worth 10 sp), 3 mop or broom, 4 silver tray (usable as small buckler or worth 50 sp), 5 chain that used to hold a chandelier, 10’ long, 6 bottle of wine, miraculously not broken during the scuffle (magic item, bottle made out of unbreakable glass).
  5. You get into a fight with the Cardinal’s Men. You challenge their leader to a duel. Roll d6, the fight is: 1 to the death, 2-4 to the first blood, 5-6 to disarming. You are too drunk to gauge your opponent’s skill, but they might be lower or higher level than you. If you back out, you are a coward and Reactions to you are at -2 in this city. If you agree, roll initiative and fight (Fighter [carousing character’s level+2-d4]).
  6. You get into a fight with the Cardinal’s Men and fall into a trough. Everybody laughs at you, news spread quickly. You and your whole group gets -1 on Reaction rolls this session.
  7. You get into a fight with the Cardinal’s Men (of course). No blood is shed, but they slice up all your fancy clothes. You go back home and change into your second set of clothes (if you have one), and on the way back you get into a fight with a rival Musketeer (you both have your eyes on the same beautiful lady/handsome lad). No blood is shed, but your clothes are ruined AGAIN. Next you borrow a shirt from a comrade, but get into a scuffle with a trash racoon, and the animal tears the shirt into pieces. THIS IS A CURSE. THIS SESSION IF YOU PUT ON CLOTHES, THEY TEAR OR BECOME USELESS PRETTY SOON.
  8. You reach a transcendental state of drunkenness and break down the walls of reality. The god Bacchus appears to you, and accepts you into his entourage. Your character gains some traits of a maenad or a satyr. Maenads have long flowing hair (cannot be cut), an insane stare, and can cast Charm Person 1/day. Satyrs have hooves, pointy ears, small horns, lots of hair, +2 on Saves against Poison. Both of these types can just about pass as a human with the aid of disguise, but sober people make Reaction rolls at a -2 when encountering them.
  9. You learn that a prominent noblewoman or nobleman has no lovers at all, is not engaged in any conspiracy or scheme, and has absolutely nothing to hide. How is this even possible? French nobles are obliged to have secrets and take part in court intrigue. This person is probably an alien from another planet, who tries to blend in and look inconspicuous. If you sneak into this person’s mansion, roll a d6: on 1-3, you find a piece of alien technology, on 4-6, you are beaten up by guards and take d6 damage.
  10. You wake up wearing a very fancy hat. It has three gilded ostrich feathers in it, each worth a 100 sp.
Source




Thursday, January 13, 2022

Ulfire Tablets #1 - a sword, planet & sorcery roleplaying zine - out now!

 


It's alive!!!

Finally, the first issue of the science fantasy/planetary romance zine Ulfire Tablets is done and public! Huge thanks to all the authors, it was fun to edit your stuff. 

In the future, I hope to expand to other planets and settings, and new contributors are welcome: get in touch here or see my other contacts in the zine itself.

Get it here: https://eldritch-fields.itch.io/ulfire-tablets-1

It's free!

Read it on your screen or print it at home as a neat 32-page booklet + cover.


Table of contents and a short overview:

  • The Chessmen of Carcosa is a chess variant. You cannot have a proper planetary romance setting without a chess variant. In this boardgame, you sacrifice pawns, summon beasts from the outer dimensions, and fight to defeat the opposing sorcerer king! We wrote this together with a friend (we often collaborate on weird shit) and playtested over the summer. It's a fun, over the top game, give it a spin!
  • M.W. Hess contributed two awesome pieces: a write up of Mushroom Mans (sic!) of otherworldly colors; and a quick overview of faithful dinosaur mounts. 
  • In true old school fanzine spirit, there is a piece of short fiction, recorded to cuneiform holodisk straight from a sorcerer king's mind!
  • I love random generators, so I included one for coming up with arcane technological/magical artifacts. There are six ready-to-go examples in there as well.
  • Dan St. Cyr gave us 20 fighting styles for post-apocalyptic barbarians!
  • And there is a review of Xuhlan, a pretty cool sword & weird science setting!