Piles of Downloaded Files... #3: more treasures from the Unsorted folder

I’m reviving my old series, Piles of Downloaded Files, in which I delve into the bottomless Unsorted folder of RPG-related PDFs. See the previous installments under this tag. 

 

Micromaiden Spirit Grid by Evlyn Moreau

It is a two-sided pamphlet dungeon, with Evlyn’s trademark art. One side has the map of the dungeon, which is a complex semi-anthropomorphic computer circuit. Each node gets a title and one or two keywords (for function/condition), e.g. Cyber Maintenance Unit [In Use] [Possessed] or Sensation Module [Patched] [Cyber Fauna].

It is evocative, but definitely a toolbox. I feel you need to get into a specific mindset to be able to fit all this together – but then it can provide a super interesting game world. I’d love it if someone made a computer game with the art from this pamphlet. A top-down dungeon crawler of some sorts.

Link: https://evlyn.itch.io/micromaiden-spirit-grid

 

Salo’s Glory by Glynn Owen Barrass

I used to subscribe to the Stygian Fox Patreon. This was one of their monthly adventures, back in 2020. It’s a Call of Cthulhu 7e scenario… IN SPACE! A megacorp sends an exploratory vessel outside the Solar System. The scenario goes for that sci-fi horror vibe that you get in the Alien franchise, like in the comics. Hell, it has stats for power loader exoskeletons! It also comes with quite good floorplans for the space ships and shuttles – definitely a reusable resource for any sci-fi game.

The adventure is written in the usual CoC style: lots of text, not skimming-friendly. But overall, it feels like a solid offering for CoC/Mothership/Alien RPGs.

Link: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/309908/salo-s-glory-a-sci-fi-call-of-cthulhu-scenario-set-in-interstellar-space

 

Bonus mystery entry!

“original-colony.pdf” is a single-page file. It’s labeled “Original Drawing of the Ant Colony”. And it has a side-view section map of an ant colony. Pretty good map, I gotta say!

Reverse image search leads to a Something Awful topic I cannot access.

However, next to this file in my folder, I have:

Percent in Lair: Ant, giant by Justine Rogers / Angrymog Games

Turns out, the colony map was made for this project. This is a 10-page-long brainstorm on Giant ant colonies in fantasy adventure games. It contains the aforementioned map. Adventure hooks – why are we delving into an ant colony? And all kinds of Giant ant variants. Weird ecosystems, fungi, psychic ants, gem-encrusted ants… This is actually not bad!

Link: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/150281/percent-in-lair-ant-giant

Random table synergy

Yesterday I had some free time but not much brain power, so pulled out my old random table print-outs and just shuffled through them, browsing, rolling dice or dealing cards now and then.

I got to a couple of hex stocking tables by The Welsh Piper.

On the RUINS generator, I rolled

Temple – Flood – Restoration – Fighter – Hybrids

Good stuff. I can imagine the whole situation right away: a pious knight and their human-animal hybrid companions restoring a flooded temple.

I moved on to the next table on my print-out, LAIRS, and got

Deep Horror – Expanding – Weird Things – Partially Submerged

Now this is good random table synergy! Clearly, this is not a separate lair in a different hex. This is the flooded (“partially submerged”) undercroft of the temple, where a bunch of weird creatures nest. Maybe they seeped in somehow with the tainted groundwater which caused the temple’s ruination?

Black Snakes Gang - an AD&D Bandit group

I really like the Men-type encounters in the AD&D Monster Manual. The listings include all kinds of rolls to flesh out the group of ne’er-do-wells, be that Bandits, Brigands (which are, we learn, chaotic evil Bandits), Buccaneers, Pirates (that is, chaotic evil Buccaneers…) or what have you.

Generating them on the fly is a pain in the ass, but during prep/hex stocking you can create the whole group that has a lair and sends out patrols/raiding parties in their area.

Here’s a Bandit group, rolled up by hand:

THE BLACK SNAKES GANG

Leader: 10^th level fighter

Lieutenant: 7^th level fighter

Personal guards: 6 x 2^nd level fighters

Elite fighters: 3 x 3^rd level fighters, 2 x 4^th level fighters, 1 x 5^th level fighter, 1 x 6^th level fighter

No magic-users or clerics.

Regular bandits: 60

Equipment (total no. of combatants: 75):

medium horse, chainmail & shield, sword            10%       7

light horse, leather armor & shield, spear            10%       7

light horse, leather armor, light crossbow            10%       8

leather armor & shield, sword                                   40%       30

leather armor, pole arm                                              10%       7

leather armor, light crossbow                                   10%       7

leather armor, short bow                                            10%       8

 

Lair:

Type: informal camp

Important prisoners: 12

Camp followers/slaves: 15

Treasure: 4,000 sp, 4,000 ep, 300 pp, 40 gems

So this is what you get just from the Monster Manual.

For additional details, I would use my humanoid lair generator. The Black Snakes lair in a ruined manor, they are plagued by inner strife and low morale. Perhaps all those elite fighters are planning a coup.

[Dungeon] Oracle of the Laughing Prophet - a small OSR location

I ran my procedurally-generated science fantasy hexcrawl over the weekend. The party happened upon a cave in a jungle hex, surrounded by psychic echoes, so we took a small break and I came up with a dungeon. Now I'm sharing it with y'all.

So if you need a small 6-room lair to put down in your hexcrawl, feel free to use this! It has a mad prophet and a Green Dragon in it...

Download PDF!

Anecdote: we had a near-TPK (3 dead, 1 unconscious), because they made too much noise and the Dragon woke up... So the group continued the game playing as the Deep Ones, and eventually managed to leave with the loot!

 

Six Grasslands Lairs/Encounters

Six grasslands/steppe/open ground locations created using my quick lair generator and random encounters on the OSE SRD site.

1. 4 Acolytes inhabit the hovel-like Shrine of the Sacred Plow. A barely domesticated (and thus easy to anger) Elephant works the farmlands around the temple.
2. Three small burrows, surrounded by a stone circle. 34 Halflings live there, trapped inside the circle: the only person who can pass through the barrier is Sylvia, a psionic Halfling. She trades for food for her village and wants to find a way to break the spell.
3. 3 Thouls, brothers, live in a small shack next to a fishing pond. They are equally eager to consume human flesh and/or serve as mercenaries. The eldest knows a lot of stories about heroes, champions, great warlords.
4. A system of narrow underground tunnels criss-crosses the area: the work of the local band of 30 Pixies. They have the power to create and change these tunnels to their whim. The passages allow them to quickly disappear and pop up in a completely different place.
5. 19 Driver Ants in the process of meticulously consuming a small settlement. The only thing they cannot chew is a set of magical armor in the half-eaten temple building. One of the ants behaves in a strange way – perhaps it is breaking away from the hivemind?!
6. Permanent camp of 15 Berserkers, their rage triggered by the fumes emanating from a grotto in the middle of the camp. They are led by a married couple: Anadha and Ghear. Their herd of 34 Goats with braided fur grazes nearby.

Six Desert Lairs/Encounters

Six desert locations created using my quick lair generator and random encounters on the OSE SRD site.

1. 30 Nomads camping near a deep well. Unbeknownst to them, their leader Paranur was turned into an undead bloodsucking creature (like a Zombie, but sentient) by a cursed ring he’d picked up in the City Under the Sands.
2. Abandoned military camp, back from the time of the Great War, yet the Cursed Lord’s banner still stands proud in the middle. A pride of 4 Lions lives here; the alpha male wears a jewel-encrusted collar.
3. Spiritual retreat gone wrong: 6 Magic-Users, young, ambitious and foolish, rebelled against their elderly master. Now they are lost in the desert, haunted by things they summoned but couldn’t put down.
4. A small village of craftsmen (weavers of magic carpets!) terrorized by a Wyvern. All children are given to the monster as provender.
5. 50 Orcs who bury themselves under the sand during the day and terrorize caravans by night. Their chief, Oldhorn, carries the Blade that Sucks, a Cursed Sentient Sword created to detect magic and slay wizards.
6. This red sandstone cave is home to Aloyseus the snake-charmer, with 2 Giant Rattlers in his service. He extracts their poison so the real danger lies not in the bite of the snakes (which mostly distract enemies), but in the poison darts he fires from a blowpipe and the numerous pit traps in the area.

I wrote some of these in a bad mood, and I think that is kind of noticeable? Sorry. Take care!

Six Jungle Lairs/Encounters

Six jungle locations created using my quick lair generator and random encounters on the OSE SRD site.

1. A small burnt-out settlement. The natural steam vent (goes off every hour) attracted 4 Flame Salamanders. Valuable sulfur deposits crust the nearby ground and ruins, giving the place an eerie black-yellow look.
2. 20 Brigands camp out here in tents. Their situation couldn’t be worse: they were recently defeated by a party of highly-skilled adventurers and lost their leader. Oh, and the adventurers took the treasure map the Brigands were following.
3. 4 Spitting Cobras nest in a rock crevice, right next to a spring of fresh, potable (and untainted!) water. A cart with a broken axis stands abandoned.
4. Two towers connected by a bridge at mid-level. For some reason, the place is always surrounded by mist. 6 Dracos, starving and weakened, cling the vines and masonry, ready to drop onto any unsuspecting victim. At the top floor of the second tower, there is a stash of six Potions of Flying.
5. Well-built manorhouse, recently taken over by a swarm of 17 Killer Bees and their Queen (she even has a name, Elizzzzabuzzz III). The previous inhabitants are dead. Their treasured collection of expensive tapestries is intact on the walls of the main building.
6. Herd of 13 Antelopes graze peacefully in an abandoned caravanserai (the trade route moved decades ago). The nearby pond holds tasty fish. It’s truly a paradise on earth! …or is it?

Six Forest Lairs/Encounters

Six forest locations created using my quick lair generator and random encounters on the OSE SRD site.

1. 2 Centaurs, Roxtrix and Rebha, live in a moss-covered hovel. They are lovers but cannot bear child. A domesticated pack of 13 Wolves serve them.
2. 4 Merchants and 12 Caravan Guards hiding out in a gorge. They were attacked by a Basilisk and left their precious cargo behind (two wagons full of mummified bodies from the tombs of the Beast Tyrants – such bodies fetch great prices at the arcane black market).
3. 30 Orcs squat in a tower with a magical mysterious water cycle – rising on one side and falling on the other. Their leader is the ambitious Maradok, who is currently trying to come up with a plan to profit from that weird feature.
4. Smoke and the noise of metal against rock betrays the presence of 13 Bugbears running a mining operation in a small valley. Little do they know that they are actively digging towards an ancient cursed artifact buried underground.
5. Crashed metallic flying vessel, encampment of 3 Cyclopes – explorers from another dimension, two of them (Jad and Hrau) want to find a way back home, while the third (Zes) secretly likes it here and thwarts the attempts. He hid an important element of the vessel in a nearby cave.
6. Overgrown, but intact shrine to the patron god of travelers, staked out by 4 Warp Beasts. Fresh grave marked with stone actually hides treasure.

Six Mountain Lairs/Encounters

Six mountain/hill locations created using my quick lair generator and random encounters on the OSE SRD site.

1. The log chalet of Adalbert the Weretiger, with 24 Goats in a nearby enclosure and a nice smokehouse. The dwelling might look abandoned at first – Adalbert is suspicious (but also curious) of people. He lives here as a hermit, conflicted about his double nature.
2. Old copper mine occupied by small tribe of 21 Goblins, under the leadership of the young and cunning Sheila the Bitter. They are on the payroll of the lord of the nearby stronghold and hold the lord’s ambitious younger brother in prison (supposedly “gone missing” during a hunt).
3. High up in the mountains stands Keep Agher, a foreboding blackstone castle, surrounded by abundant springs. Four towers topped with large brass spheres – an elaborate weather control device. 3 Cloud Giants (Ergha, Gareh and Hraeg), identical triplets, live here, unaware of the function of the device. 16 Dire Wolves patrol the area.
4. Doomsday prepper cult of 40 Brigands, swayed by the paranoid visions of their charismatic leader, Lukretis, who thinks the end is neigh. Snares and pit traps all around the place. They also obsessively dig wells.
5. 22 Troglodytes serve Abglu, the hedonistic Stone Giant. Abglu has grown lazy and near-immobile, he just hangs out at his cave, and waits for the next meal to be served. He is especially fond of human meat and strong mead. The Trogs keep a couple of prisoners in a covered pit.
6. The tower-like temple of a long-forgotten hawk-god is now occupied by 6 Harpies. The monsters bicker a lot and can never decide how to divide up the prey. The god’s statue is covered in silver feathers.

Six Swamp Lairs/Encounters

Six swamp locations created using my quick lair generator and random encounters on the OSE SRD site.

1. Camp of 16 Lizard Men rebels, in opposition to the Reptile Lord. The group is led by Garmorzu, a one-eyed beastmaster, who successfully trained 3 Giant Crabs to serve as mounts.
2. Large decrepit manorhouse with seven gables, constantly surrounded by 4 Wyverns. Embullion the Wizard hides in the basement: he stole a Wyvern egg for his magical experiments, but drew a protective circle around the building. The circle will hold for 3 more days.
3. Half-flooded cave, home to 3 Trolls. The eldest has a laser blaster (an ancient alien artifact) attached to its arm. Inside their cave, there is a magical spring that grants the power of regeneration, but turns the imbiber into a troll after 12 days.
4. A creepy fairground, half-sunken into the morass. 21 Skeletons (former carnies and visitors) continue their routine of riding the merry-go-round, firing rifles at the shooting gallery, devouring toffee apples... An animated Cave Lion skeleton inhabits a cage.
5. Five-strong adventuring party (2 Dwarfs, 1 Thief, and 2 Magic-Users who always bicker) at the entrance of a haunted cave. They plan to sacrifice somebody at the altar in the first chamber to rid the area from the ghostly presence.
6. A herd of 5 Pegasi with clipped wings guard a shimmering amethyst grotto. Inside, there is a map of the local ley-line network carved onto black rock.

Quick humanoid lair generator for wilderness stocking

This is a dead simple generator of wilderness lairs. Good for stocking a big hexcrawl map or for on-the-fly use. This is where your tribe of orcs or gobs or human bandits live.

1. Roll d66 for the Lair location.
2. Roll d66 twice for some extra Details about the inhabitants of the Lair.

Lair location: 

	Type	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	Cave	Flooded	Gorge	Grotto	Cave system	Mine	Dungeon
2
3	Camp	No shelter	Lean-to	Tent		Hovel	Military
4	Ruin	Homestead	Tower	Shrine	Manor	Outpost	Settlement
5
6	Structure

For Ruin and Structure, the first die also indicates the overall size of the building (4 – small, 5 – medium, 6 – large).

Details:

	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	Plague	Curse	Haunting	Inner strife	Leaderless	Starving
2	Recently defeated	Low morale	Fleeing	Lost	Traitor in ranks	No offspring
3	Spring	Stream	Pond	Waterfall	Well	Ample food
4	Valuable resource	Workshop	Prisoners	Traps	Mounts or vehicles	Livestock
5	Co-habit with different type	Talented storyteller	Talented healer	Talented magic-user	Leader of different type	Allied with local faction
6	Superior weaponry	Double treasure	Magic item	Cult idol	Sacrificial altar	Ley-line nexus

 

A couple of examples (for the numbers and the monster types, I just used the wilderness encounter generator from OSE):

• [55, 16, 66] In the hills, 115 Kobolds occupy in a medium-sized ruined outpost. They are starving, but won't move on because they live atop a sweet ley-line nexus.
• [11, 13, 26] In the swamps, 25 Trolls live in a flooded cave. At nights, the ghost of a devoured victim haunts them. They do not have children.
• [45 65, 64] In the forest, 150 Brigands squat in a small ruined outpost. They are actually cultists, and have set up a foul idol and a sacrificial altar to their god Stand-and-Deliver.
• [62, 35, 46] In the jungle, 85 Elves live in and around a large tower. They dug a deep well in the basement - the only source of clean, germ-free water in the fetid jungle. They have a herd of herbivorous dinosaurs (a source of meat and eggs).

See more fully worked examples under this tag.