[Adventure] The Tomb of the Daughter

A new activity popped up on the OSR discord channel: people use the Talk to Transformer neural network to generate RPG-related texts.
Edit: and here's some of the stuff from the blogosphere that started it off: Coins and Scrolls; Throne of Salt.

I made an adventure.

99% of the text was written by the neural network. I curated, compiled, interpreted and edited it, and drew a dungeon map. It is a weird, surreal dungeon... but, surprisingly, playable!

Have fun!

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THE TOMB OF THE DAUGHTER

1d8 curses

1. All your clothes, personal items and rations get covered in mold over the time. It can be cleaned off, but regrows in a couple of days until the curse is broken.
2. When you want to pay for something, you always somehow have one copper coin less than the needed amount. This comes into effect only in the exact moment of "transaction" - after you first agree upon or learn the price of an item or service and want to hand over the money, you realize there is one copper coin less. You cannot access any of your "other" money at this point. You have to barter, beg or borrow.
3. Food and drinks taste foul to you. The disgust can be overcome, but then you won't be able to tell whether something you consume is fresh, rotten, good, bad, acidic, etc. You do worse on saves against ingested poisons.
4. Tinnitus, but each time you get used to it, it changes in pitch or intensity, leading to renewed confusion.
5. People can't remember your name. They call you something else, or mix up letters. Slowly, you name erodes, and you yourself forget it. If you take another name, it is effected by the curse as well.
6. Your appearance becomes the go-to iconography when depicting a "bad person" (like a sinner in a biblical scene, a barbaric enemy in a battle, a criminal on a wanted poster). You start to be randomly represented in art pieces (paintings, drawings, tapestries, woodcuts, stained glass, and so on). Soon people subconsciously associate you with the "bad" you represent in these pieces.
7. Cats actively hate you. They never attack directly, but exhibit passive-aggressive behavior and plot murder.
8. Constant nagging discomfort. There is always a stone in your shoe. You get the bumpy bed and the creaky chair. Your wet clothes never dry properly. Everything is slightly off.

Random generator button:

[Actual Play] Third Time's the Stygian Charm! [LotFP]

A third (and for now - final) venture into the Stygian Library!
You can also read part one, part two.
Once more, I kept some of the basic room layout, but re-rolled Details, and randomized any new locations.

After the unsuccessful trip to the Library, the adventurers recuperated for a week, and decided to go back. And this time, they brought in a new team member as reinforcements (i.e. I had three players):

Krulo the Goblinboy, Elf 1 (former side-show attraction, former thief's apprentice, current free elf)
& Hurley the Laborer (retainer)
Machteld Mercki X, Magic-User 3 (Sorceress Supreme)
Ishimura Kobayashi, Fighter 1 (Machteld's bodyguard)

Prajna, Specialist 3 (Expert in medicine and ancient languages)

Downtime activities: A cousin or uncle of their previous laborer came to visit, demanding compensation for his beloved relative's death. Krulo, Machteld and Ishimura successfully avoided him - at least for now. No carousing or spell copying - the group was out of money. Krulo hired (and named!) a new laborer: luckily, word hasn't spread yet that "these adventurers kill retainers".

Back to the Stygian Library they went! Their goal was as previously: to find a valuable book on alchemy to sell to a rich patron.

0: Mausoleum + Vault
The Librarians took notice of the robbers' frequent comings and goings! The two regular doors leading out from the Mausoleum were replaced by a reinforced vault door (no more stealing oriental rugs from the tea room!) and a strong portcullis. After some hesitation, the group decided to take a road yet untraveled, and climbed up to reach the ventilation system of the Library.

1: Boiler Room + Too Small
The narrow duct took them to a hot and misty boiler room, where they could barely move. Wisely, they decided to NOT wait for the Ogre Spiders that usually reside in this area, and pressed forward.

2: Calculation Engine + Glass Tubes
The adventurers have seen some weird machinery in the Library before, but this one was new, a room full of turning cogs and gears, manned by two White Librarians. They approached cautiously (because the previous White Librarian they met tried to blind them), but these librarians turned out to be friendly and helpful! Their machine was a great Calculation Engine, that will one day hopefully replace the clumsy paper-based catalog of the Library.
By inputting a couple of questions, they adventurers learned some information about the alchemy book they were looking for. Krulo also tried to input a question about the identity of her mother, but the cold-cold machine had no answer for that...
While working with the engine, Machteld noticed something tugging at her backpack - and turned around just in time to see a looooooooooong and trying to snatch her spellbook!
The appendage (about 15' long) was quickly pulled back behind one of the towering machines.
The Librarians explained that this was the Snatcher, a mischievous creature of the Library, that steals things. The adventurers checked their bags, and found they were missing several items, including the trusty fire poker Krulo got from Johnny before Johnny died.
So they asked for permission to fight the Snatcher, which was granted - as long as they don't hurt the calculation engines!
An ambush was set: they returned to the machine, but left out some of their belongings as a lure. And soon the arm reached out again from the shadows - and here they all attacked!
The creature (a Bandersnatch) screeched, tried to retreat, but was cornered behind the engine stacks. Prajna shot at it with her sling, but missed, and the slingshot got stuck between two cogs, threatening to short the engine. Krulo almost got his fingers chopped off when he fished out the snag from between the gears... But at least they avoided the anger of the librarians.
The fight went on in the meantime, with Ishimura, Machteld and soon Prajna now going up in close combat against the shadowy creature. The Snatcher used its long arms to choke and slap them around, then when it felt overpowered, it grabbed one of the tubes on the ceiling, and jumped op high.
Ishimura, brandishing his magical spear, however, could reach it, and delivered a final blow.
The glass tube the creature was holding on to shattered, and black ink rained down on everybody!
But at least they retreived their belonging - and more! - a lacquered box containing ancient Chinese coins worth a LOT of money.
Before anything worse could happen, the adventurers proceeded to the next room.

3: Statuary + Glass Lamps
...which was a statue gallery, with very detailed marble sculptures. One statue depicted Rudolf II, the previous owner of the book they were looking for. A brass plate informed them that the alchemist Emperor donated his personal collection of books to the Stygian Library. Prajna touched the statue and asked a question about finding these books, and she was hit by a vision (her forehead ached like when eating ice cream!): she saw a set of book with special red leather bindings.

4: Spider Trapdoor + Lamp post
The next room finally had actual BOOKS! Lots of them, with labyrinthine stacks. They band split up, and started checking shelves to see if they have any books with the red bindings. Suddenly Machteld cried out - and disappeared. She just vanished. The others started searching for her, and noticed that the cobwebs and dust on the floor were disturbed in one place, and found that under the wooden floorboards there was an empty space...
They carefully pried it open --- only to be attacked by a spider the size of a small elephant!!!!
The spider already had paralyzed Machteld with its poison, and now was striking at the others with its mandibles. It attacked - then retreated back into its hiding hole in quick succession, then repeated the same move again and again.
Prajna hooked her whip (yes, she has a whip - she is a bit of an Indiana Jones character) around Machteld leg, and started pulling her out from under the spider ---- breaking the poor unconscious sorceress' ankle in the process...
The others attacked the beast with all they had, but it proved to be quite an opponent. Krulo helped Prajna hoist up Machteld from the space under the floorboard.
Ishimura decided that fighting the creature was of no use, and instead wanted to trap it. He convinced the scared laborer to help him: when the spider retreated once more into its hiding place, Ishimura and the laborer toppled a heavy shelf, blocking the spider's trapdoor. Good thinking, fellas! Then they toppled more shelves, just to be sure the spider stays down, and quickly moved to the next room.

5: Printing Machine + Gas Lamps
A printing machine, automated, currently copying a book written in Lengian hieroglyphs (which Prajna could actually read!). The original book was placed into a special slot on top of the machine. They adventurers screwed around a bit. First they replaced the book with a silver coin - the machine started printing the coin's image on paper (so many portraits of the Queen!). Then Krulo copied his hand, of course. Prajna joked about copying someone's butt, however she wasn't ready for it just yet.
While they were fooling around with the xerox arcane machinery, something strange happened. The air started to vibrate around them, and the spellcasters (Mactheld and Krulo) felt as if something was trying to intrude their minds... Then a couple of objects disappeared around them... Machteld felt that one of her prepared spells was now different, but decided not to try it...
Ultimately, they decided to move on.

6: Phantom Databanks + Turning Gears
More machines!!!!! What happened to good old fashioned books?!
These machined had glass jars slotted into them, each holding a moving, swirling, glowing white mist.
The contents of one of the jars became noticeably "agitated" when the characters entered, and Krulo, Machteld and Ishimura felt strangely drawn to this jar. They decided that it must be containing the soul of their fallen comrade, Johnny Tealeaves, who died in the Library...
Before touching the jars, they searched the room more thoroughly, and found a mysterious rare book, written in the language of Leng, which, if read, would be equal to being initiated into a mystery cult!
After this, they went ahead and unscrewed the glass jar that maybe contained Johnny's soul, and took it with them....

7: Auditorium + Vault
They entered a classroom, where three skeletons in coveralls were cleaning up after an alchemy lesson! Alchemy, finally!
One of the skeletons was quite the conversationalist, and confirmed that indeed the glass jar held a soul of somebody who died in the library. He also told that the Grey Librarians were capable necromancers. He explained that in this auditorium a lecture was held by a long-dead famous alchemist, whose soul was captured by the Librarians and now somehow made to give lectures to students.
Among the books that were scattered on the table, the adventurers finally found the exact one that they were looking for! Turned out, this book was the opus magnum of the alchemist who delivered the lecture.

The adventurers quickly snatched the book, backtracked, and exited the library - this time, they managed to not get killed (even their retainer survived!!), and also found plenty of treasure!

PS: Also, when they got home, and Machteld checked her spellbook, she found that a completely new spell appeared in it - it must be the result of that strange sensation she experienced back in the Printing Press room! Krulo entered his memory palace (Elves in this game don't have spellbooks, but meditate in a special mental place), and also found the strange spell inscribed in it - so now two characters hold the arcane power of Vanish!

[Monster] The Bulbous Ones, for the Harry Clarke Project

This is an offering for Emmy Allen / Cavegirl's Harry Clarke Bestiary Project.

Download as PDF

THE BULBOUS ONES

Fletcher / Gambi / Radish

No. Appearing: Unique trio of entities

Armor Class: as Leather / as Unarmored / as Leather

HD: 4 / 6 / 4

Move: half human / one quarter of human / human

Attacks: 1 blades of grass (d6) / 1 primal scream (d8) / 1 soft whisper (d4)

Save as: Specialist 4 / Cleric 6 / Elf 4

Morale: 12

Treasure Type: None

Alignment: Lawful

Here they are, the Bulbous Ones: Fletcher, Gambi and Radish. Leeches born from the primordial soup, three minutes after Creation, everyone’s younger siblings and servants. They speak the Ur-Language, consume the darkest secrets, and spew forth even darker ones.

Go out at night to the swamp, inhale the stench, dig a hole, and whisper a dark secret into it. Then the Bulbous Ones appear, and serve their summoner for 3 nights in a row. At the end of each night, the summoner must dismiss one of the three by giving it its coveted object. At the end of the last night, the summoner must appease the last one with the blood of an ox before dismissing it with the final gift.

Fletcher was three, then two, then one. Sinuous bodies coiled together. Can see through walls and into other dimensions. Fletcher’s coveted object is twelve twigs, eleven plums, ten ice shards, nine grains of rice, eight breaths of fresh air, seven kisses; all crushed in a mortar and fed to a pig.

Gambi smiles and bubbles. The smile is the smile of knowledge, as Gambi remembers all the secrets that were ever whispered to summon the Bulbous Ones. Gambi’s coveted object is an ivory chair with five legs.

Radish moves through the air with peculiar grace, in a dance akin to the flow of water. Traces magical resonance. Once traced, the resonance can be manipulated, replicated, consumed. Radish’s coveted object is a crystal that grows under your molars.

Art by Harry Clarke, text by Tamás Kisbali

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

1d6 things that might happen when you lie to Skeleton Interrogator

Turns out, there is a patented invention, an aid for police work, which is basically a skeleton with glowing red eyes, used to break a suspect on an interrogation.

The suspect cannot see his human questioner, though. Instead, as soon as the examiner flicks a button, a curtain lifts within the chamber, and the unlucky interrogee is suddenly faced with “a figure in the form of a skeleton,” surrounded by a “diaphanous veiling” and illuminated from both above and below by “a plurality of electric lights.” 

(from Atlas Obscura) 

Without further ado...

1d6 things that might happen when you lie/don't answer to Skeleton Interrogator! 

Written by a good friend (1,3,5) and me (2,4,6) :

1. You take on an aspect of the skeleton (e.g. glowing eyes, sickly thinness, extreme dry skin, vulnerability to turn undead)
2. Turns out, the skeleton was the good cop. Bad cop gator-interrogator takes over the session, good luck.
3. Your lawyer arrives, provides an alibi and you are cleared. However, now they want their fee.
4. The skeleton interrogator glitches out and starts speaking in random non-sensical syllables. There is a 3-in-6 chance these syllables are a random magical spell, which goes off
5. ZOOM BACK CAMERA! the studio lighting comes on and the film crew is revealed. You are actually on the set of your favorite police procedural/crime drama.
6. The interrogator skeleton breaks free, and turns against its oppressors - the police!

Variations on Vampiric Drain

Some ideas on modelling "draining" attacks in old school games:

Attribute Drain

The drain targets and changes an attribute. Bloodsucking usually decreases physical characteristics, energy drain or psychic vampirism affects mental characteristics, but it's always interesting to have unusual leeching, e.g. if your system has a Luck attribute, why not drain it?
There are a couple of different ways to do it mechanically:

1. Decrease the attribute by a numeric value (1, or roll a dice). Recalculate modifier and any related secondary attributes.
2. Bump the attribute down to the next modifier level. E.g. if the character's Strength attribute gives them a +2, lower it to the closest value that would give only +1. Then 0, -1, -2, -3. -3 is bumped down to death. (I think I took this from the LotFP Referee Book)
3. Re-roll the drained attribute using the standard character generation method (e.g. 3d6). Take the lower result. Recalculate modifier and any related secondary attributes.
4. If your system doesn't have a designated Luck attribute, but you want to model the draining of a character's "luckiness", how about applying a negative modifier to attack roles or Saves?

Advanced Psychic Vampirism

A psychic drain can either target an attribute (see above), or change some other "mental" thing.

1. Draining the spellcasters: 
• An ability that gives the caster spell usage is affected, e.g an unused spell slot becomes expended or spell points are drained.
• A memorized or prepared spell is erased from the mind of the victim for the day. A more severe version is removing the ability to prepare a spell at all (the spell might be re-learnt with effort).
2. Draining the Clerics:
• Mwhahahaha... 
• Remove the ability to Turn Undead for a set amount of time (based on the HD of the draining creature).
• Disable or reverse certain Clerical spells for a set amount of time (based on the HD of the draining creature). Forcing reversal is an interesting choice: fluff-wise, for example it makes a "good Cleric" a vampiric agent: cannot cast Cure Wounds, can only inflict pain, healing spells become curses and so forth.
3. Non mechanic-based draining:
• Drain memories: the character forgets something. The higher the HD of the draining creature, the more important is the memory. It can be a personal memory, or a piece of knowledge, depending on the flavor of vampirism.
• Drain "capability": the character forgets a learned/trained/nurtured skill, like fancy fencing moves, riding a bicycle, swimming, arithmetic, etc.

Level Drain

A classic! Feared by everybody. Perhaps too severe to some DM's tastes. You can try draining experience points instead (e.g. creature HD x 1d10 x 100 ?), or model the loss of "experience" by draining memories and skills, as above.

Parasitism

The effect isn't constrained to a one-time drain. The creature latches on to the victim, forms a bond or channel between them (this can be physical, but also psychic, sympathetic, magical). Through this channel, the creature can constantly feed on the victim even when they are not present. This connection stays until severed by magical means or until the initiating creature is destroyed.

Some possible effects:

• The victim cannot naturally heal.
• Once in a given period (week, month, during every full moon) the victim suffers the effect of the drain, e.g. loses hit points, loses an attribute point, or suffers memory loss.
• The victim is drawn to the creature (classic vampirism!)

The parasitic connection can have a visible / detectable sign on the victim (change in skin or eye color, clothing preferences, sunlight sensitivity, mental disturbance, sickness, etc.).

Withering & Weakening

Draining hit points ( = doing damage) is okay, but perhaps kinda boring? Weakening attacks can target Constitution too. I personally like using the HD attribute in various ways. For example:

The drained character must immediately re-roll all their hit dice. Constitution modifier applies only if it's negative. Take the new value if it's lower than the previous maximum hit points. Current hit points drop down to equal the new maximum or remain unchanged if already lower.

Aging

The victim rapidly ages. Roll a number of d10's equal to the HD of the draining creature. The total is how many years the victim ages. For each full 10 years, the victim loses 1 point of Dexterity. For each full 20 years, the victim also loses 1 point of Constitution.

Benevolent Leech

The bloodsucking creature drains 1d6 hit points worth of blood. If the victim is diseased, poisoned or has a similar ailment, they may roll a Save against Poison with a bonus equal to the amount of hitpoints drained; on a success, the victim is cured of the condition.

Alternatively, a psychic vampire takes away insanity, nightmares, etc.

Suspirian School of Ballet

How about a procedurally generated dungeon (akin to The Gardens of Ynn & The Stygian Library) set in the surreal and murderous dance school of the 1977 Suspiria?

During the day, the Suspirian School of Ballet (or the Chthonic Academy of Choreography?) is a tough place, where you have to put up with the cruelty of the teachers and the other aspiring ballerinas.

But at night... everything changes to even worse. You wake up screaming and sweating in your dormitory, only to find that the building is completely different. Corridors twist into a maze of madness, new rooms or macabre dimensions and unfathomable purposes appear. Unnatural lights shift around, and the curtains sway in the air as thousand phantoms. Shadowy silhouettes on the walls chase after you.

Somewhere in the very heart of this labyrinth is the Source of it all, a terrible, terrible secret... To escape this madness, you must find it and fight it.

Gameplay

Nighttime

Nighttime is crawling the vast labyrinth of the School. Only the Dormitory is fixed. Every night all other locations are generated randomly.

One exclusion: the characters can form a bond to a Nighttime location or encounter, to make it permanent and revisitable. Perhaps it's a dead girl's ghost who wants revenge. Or a hallway where healing water is tricking from the statue of a nymph. This has a cost: any place or entity the characters are bonded to will attract the attention of the unkind forces of the school.

This exclusion mechanic lets the players to define little goals or quests for themselves.

Daytime 

Daytime is downtime. Lick your wounds. Survive the torturous dance lessons. Find new weapons and do research in the library. Nighttime events bleed into the day, and each time you bring back more and more darkness. But perhaps certain Nighttime encounters are solvable from this side (kill the teacher who bullied that girl into suicide?).

Locations

1. "Normal" areas of the School, but twisted by the unkind forces (school rooms, offices, halls, staircases, dance rooms, bathrooms, library, cafeteria, dormitories, storage rooms, small gardens, orangeries...)
2. What was here before the School (Inquisitorial torture rooms, prison cells, dungeons, magic laboratories
3. Nighttime-born areas, lairs of the unkind forces, intrusions from other dimensions

Illumination

One of the strongest visual driving forces of Argento's Suspiria is the use of lush, baroque, unnatural lightning in each scene. I think it's possible to implement this in the game as well.
In each location, the Referee rolls for random illumination. This color influences what events or encounters happen, and how they play out. Some locations or circumstances call for two or more illumination rolls, and the influences bleed together.

1. RED is blood, aggression, death
2. PURPLE is madness and witchcraft
3. GREEN is poison, mutation, sickness
4. YELLOW is pain and torture incarnate
5. BLUE is deception and lies
6. DARKNESS is the Void you wish you could fill with any of the above

Encounters

1. Ghosts of pupils tortured and bullied to death
2. Mean girls
3. Living shadows
4. Phantom force
5. Dancing plague
6. Black-Gloved Killer
7. The Witch

Ideas for Extra Flavor

1. Language of sighs & whispers
2. Blades signal death
3. Spells contained in shards of stained glass

There's a lot to work out here, but at least I jotted down some basic ideas. Emmy Allen's stuff is a constant source of inspiration for me, and so are horror movies, weird fiction... I think this combination could work pretty well.

[Actual Play] Back to the Stacks! The Stygian Library, Revisited [LotFP]

Picking up where we left off: a second run at the Stygian Library (see the first report here).

I broke the number 1 rule... You are supposed the generate the Library from scratch every time the players enter or re-enter. However, I decided to use last session's general layout, and only modify and "re-stock" it, as one would do with a regular dungeon. Overall, I think this was a good decision for the game, because the players were eager to explore the paths not yet taken.

So I kept all the Locations, re-rolled certain Details that made no sense anymore, and of course kept encounters, events, and new rooms completely random.

The session was shorter then the previous, because we had less time on our hands --- but also because we got close to a TPK and the group (wisely) cut their losses and retreated! But let's see how it went.

Krulo the Goblinboy, Elf 1 (former side-show attraction, former thief's apprentice, current free elf)

 & Unnamed laborer retainer...
Machteld Mercki X, Magic-User 3 (witchy type)
Ishimura Kobayashi, Fighter 1 (Machteld's bodyguard)

Downtime activities: After their last adventure, the group spent about 30-40 days in town, recuperating, copying spells, researching the weird items they acquired, mourning their fallen comrade. Krulo went carousing, and ended up with a cool tattoo (an upside-down cross on his temple). Having spent all their money on these activities and shopping, the group looked for new employment. They were approached by a professor, who wanted to procure a rare book on alchemy (which used to be in Rudolf II's occult collection).

So back to the Library they went!

0: Mausoleum

The library section / mausoleum was of course now void of treasure. But there were some new books on the shelves, mostly genealogical surveys and social almanacs. Krulo the Goblinboy wanted to look himself up (he is an orphan and knows nothing about his origins), and he found information about Courlandian nobility, to which he think he might be related (because Courland -> Krulo, that's his logic). There was a heartbreaking story about a young noblewoman disappearing for two weeks, then giving birth to a malformed son 9 months later.

But soon, a fight spilled over into the room!

Four huge spiders were terrorizing four obsidian monkeys. 

The group decided not to take sides in this melee, and retreated to a neighboring room, which they knew to be the cafe / tearoom.

1: Tearoom + Oriental Rugs

Like last time, the room had food and drinks laid out, however the expensive cutlery and porcelain dishes were replaced by simple ceramics and wooden trays... (looting adventurers! that's why we can't have nice things!). The group wanted to check under the floorboards again, because last time they'd found a potion hidden there, but this time only buzzing could be heard from under the floorboards, so they decided against opening up the hidden compartment again --- the memory of their encounter with the Paper Bees proved to be quite traumatic! So they rolled up a couple of rugs to take home later, and went into a new direction instead.

2: Skeleton Collection + Oriental Rugs
This part of the library is made for comfort! ...And for displaying bones... Glass cupboards with posed bird skeletons lined the walls. Machteld's meticulous search turned up an extraordinary book, which she felt was vibrating with inner power: a misplaced collection of spells! The group didn't linger here longer, and went to check what's deeper.

3: Ossuary + Gas Lamps

More bones and teeth in display cabinets! Sorted by type, size, origin... Lots of rare stuff, too, including dinosaur fossils. Krulo found a secret door, that lead onto a dark staircase. Machteld thought the rare fossils from the cabinets would make a good addition to her laboratory, and, using the Rust Moth antenna they salvaged last time, the group opened up the lock...

...and out came of the Bone Beast!

The whirling tornado of teeth and bone fragments caught the group off guard. The poor nameless laborer was torn to pieces almost straight away, and Machteld received a serious injury. Ishimura tried to fight them off, but his spear (despite being magical!) was of little use against the swarm. Machteld managed to cast Hold Monster, slowing down the tornado of death. This gave Krulo the opportunity to open the secret door, jump inside, and pull it closed. On the next round, Machteld nearly died as the bones and teeth slashed her neck arteries open. Gushing with blood, she stumbled towards the secret door, and Krulo managed to let her and Ishimura into cover. The Bone Beast started scratching at the door... So the group quickly applied some first aid to Machteld (there was one very lucky Medicine roll), and fled. 

The small, narrow corridor led to another secret door, which they carefully opened, only to arrive into...

0: Mausoleum

Yes, the secret passage led back to the entrance. The door opened behind the vertically propped up sarcophagus. From this vantage point the group saw the spiders finish off the obsidian monkeys, wrap them in webs. Only two spiders were left alive after the combat. The monsters wrapped their prey in webs, and carried two marmosets out of the room.

The group used this short time window to leave the secret passage, pick up the two remaining dead marmosets and two spider corpses, drag out three oriental rugs from the Tearoom, and leave this wretched place, licking their wounds...

Future plans include going back into the Library (they still have a month to fulfill the alchemist's request, and they are in a dire need for money!)...

Embedded random generators

All the cool kids are inserting random generator buttons into their blog posts!

I'm writing a gothic cemetery-crawl adventure, so here's my work-in-progress "what's in the coffin / what's in the urn" table, turned into an automatic randomizer!

I search the coffin / urn!

(Note: I tried to make it into a weighted list: thus "regular content" comes up more often than "unique item" etc.)

[Actual Play] The Stygian Library [LotFP]

Finally! A test run of The Stygian Library!
Here's a recap, with Referee-side commentary in italics.

The game was ran using LotFP with some houserules (including the deadly wounds system from Wolf-Packs & Winter Snow) and VAM!-style magic. Setting - late 19th century historical Europe.

Source

Characters:

Two players, with a Level 3 main character and a Level 1 Henchman each:
Johnny Tealeaves, Specialist 3 (all-around bad boy)
Krulo the Goblinboy, Elf 1 (former side-show attraction, current thief's apprentice)
Machteld Mercki X, Magic-User 3 (witchy type)
Ishimura Kobayashi, Fighter 1 (Machteld's bodyguard)

The group entered the library through an old, forgotten wing of the British Library. The goal of the quest was the theft of a book with supposedly true information on lycanthropy.

(I set the difficulty of this task as 25. The players started at 17 due to the highly intelligent Magic-User.)

0: Mausoleum + Treasure Pile

The first room had shelves and shelves full of religious literature. In the middle, one shelf section was instead covered with a yellow curtain. The group carefully pulled the curtain, to reveal a vertical open sarcophagus with a skeleton inside. A small altar before the sarcophagus held artifacts and various offerings (a spearhead inscribed with runes, candles with magic sigils, a bunch of spell scrolls, unknown potion in smoky glass vial).
The characters started looting, but were interrupted as a fight spilled over from the next room. It was a whirling tornado of dust and a strange huge flying thing, a Rust Moth.
The Rust Moth avoided some attacks, then went straight for the biggest metal objects in the room, and ended up ruining Johnny's sword. Finally Ishimura killed it. The Dust Elemental didn't care about the group and swirled out of the room.
Johnny salvaged the Moth's antenna, after seeing that it had the ability to instantly turn metal into rust.

(A lucky start for the group, with a combination of two treasure-heavy elements. And a lucky reaction roll - after the death of the Rust Moth, the Dust Elemental wasn't interested in them.)

1: Auditorium + Candles
The group entered the horseshoe shaped stepped lecture hall from below. They instantly noticed a big rusty looking nest attached to the wall, which they carefully avoided. A quick search turned up a book, perhaps left behind by the lecturer? The books was locked, but Johnny used the Rust Moth antenna to "pick" the lock.
Their investigation was cut short by the emergence of another aggressive Rust Moth from the nest! Johnny tried to squash it with the heavy book, but missed. The moth ruined Ishimura's halberd blade, but the bodyguard managed to kill the creature with the blunt end.

(I added a Rust Moth nest on the wall, to explain the fight in the previous room. Then when the encounter roll gave an aggressive monster... I rolled Rust Moth again! Nice coincidence.)

1: Tearoom + Oriental Rugs
From the auditorium the group retreated back to the entrance area, and decided to explore an alternative path. They found a cozy little chamber with soft rugs, comfy armchairs, and food and drinks set up on tables. Kurlo the Goblinboy went straight for the food, rather incautiously... but turned out everything was perfectly edible and drinkable. The group stole some cutlery, and found a second potion in smoky glass vial under the floorboards.
They continued their journey deeper into the library.

2: Chapel + Fireplace
The next space was quite unusual: the interior of a sizable church without any windows. The chapel also had a fireplace, with a roaring fire. Johnny, the experienced burglar, assumed that although there are no windows, the fireplace's chimney MUST lead somewhere - but it's for a future expedition to find out where. Johnny also replaced his rust-eaten sword with a poker from next to the fireplace.
On the altar lay an extraordinary book written in Arabic or Persian - something the characters couldn't read just yet, but decided to take.
At this point, a figure entered, clad in black clothes: the first Librarian! The Black Librarian was neutral, didn't notice that the book was gone from the altar.

3: Reading Lounge + Phosphorescent Lamps
The room adjacent to the chapel was a reading lounge, illuminated by weird glass spheres. The players climbed up and cut down one lamp to use as lantern. They browsed through some of the books, but found nothing of interest.

4: Display Case + Stacked Papers
Display cases with minerals.
The players wanted to loot the cases, but 6 Black Librarians entered the room. One of them was injured. When asked, they told about being attacked by a dangerous Ogre Spider deeper in the stacks of the library. They came here to make medicine out of the minerals.
Johnny stepped forth and offered one of the unknown potions to the Librarians. The Librarians accepted it, and the injured one was healed!
As a token of gratitude, a Librarian agreed to lead the party to the Catalogue of Contents.

(For the event, I rolled an encounter with a creature at disadvantage. This became the 6 Black Librarians, one of them injured. I rolled a random creature to see what caused the injuries ( = Ogre Spider), and thought it would make sense that the Librarians came to the display cases to use the minerals as ingredients for an antidote.

Johnny's player did a very clever thing: offered the unknown potion to the Librarians, who are locals, and might know what it's for. Not only did the Librarians identify the potion as a healing serum, but accepted and used it. I thought this was clever enough, and as a reward the Librarian took the players safely 1d6 layers deeper, to the Catalogue of Contents.

In the adventure as written, the Catalogue is actually a rare occurrence - it's #2 on the Locations list, which means it's only accessible on Depth 0 or 1, with a very lucky roll.)

So the players ended up on Depth 7. While traversing the corridors, the Black Librarian also told the group about the various librarian orders.

7: Catalogue of Contents + Chained Books
A majestic, enormous hall, with chained books on the shelves, and the man-sized tome of the Stygian Catalogue in the center. The group engaged in research and learned that the book they are looking for is somewhere two layers deeper.
Then combat erupted: a Hungry Book broke its chains, and attacked a group of unlucky Black Librarians! The players joined the fray, and managed to subdue the book. However, the hungry tome did suck out the brains of one of the Librarians...

(This was the third time I rolled Black Librarians on the random chart!!)

8: Paper Bee Hive + Gas Lamps
The next room was a simple book storage, but with a huge papier-mâché beehive in the corner.
Disaster. The group went in with a lit torch, the bees got agitated and attacked the torchbearer (Krulo), stung him, Krulo went into allergic seizure, dropped the torch on stack of books and woosh! everything went up in flames. Johnny gave the second healing potion to Krulo... Then more bees emerged from the hive, and swarmed Johnny, causing massive poison damage and killing him. Johnny used his last "dead man walking" round for a kamikaze act, grabbed some burning books and threw himself on the hive, setting it on fire, killing the Queen inside. The others fled into the next room. The gas in the lamps exploded behind them...

(Before this encounter, I decided that the paper bees are obviously very much afraid of fire. I telegraphed the dangers of this room quite meticulously, asked the players what they think what might get the bees angry. When they entered with the burning torch, I rolled a reaction for the bees, and the bee soldiers attacked... Krulo's player said Krulo's first reaction was to drop the torch... the rest is history...)

9: Phantom Pump + Negligible Gravity
Not fled - the remaining explorers almost flew into the next room, propelled by the explosion and swimming in zero grav. The room was full of complicated, huge machinery manned by a White Librarian. The Librarian was very busy and very angry: it was trying to counter the consequences of the explosion via complex mechanical means. It gave the players 10 seconds to get out of the room...

10: Printing Press + Smoking
A room with a huge printing press. The room was also filled acrid smoke was from the still burning beehive room. Krulo almost died of smoke poisoning again, so he sneaked back to the machine room and hid behind a giant hydraulic arm.
The printing press was manned by two Yellow Librarians. They were busy creating replacement pages for a book... the very book about werewolves the party was looking for. Machteld risked choking in the smoke, and stayed behind for enough time for the Librarians to finish the work, and managed to sneakily snatch the tome when the Librarians went back to the printing press.

(There are so many coincidences when running the Library or the Gardens of Ynn! When the detail "Smoking" came up, I had no problem weaving it into the story, because it just meant the this was a consequence of the fire and explosion the players caused earlier.

At this point, the players were deep enough in the Library, and their progress meter also reached 25, so I gave them the book that was the object of their search.)

On the way back, they were attacked by the White Librarian, who cast a spell and almost blinded Ishimura (lucky magic save!). There was some more quick backtracking, and finally the three remaining adventures exited the deadly Stygian Library, with their desired book and a nice heap of treasure!