[Solo] The Prussian Infantry Marches to Carcosa

I played a solo session today. A Prussian infantry detachment is somehow transported to Carcosa circa 1810. I was very much inspired by this cool session report by Underground Adventures: an Into the Odd one-shot for a single player, about a group of Napoleonic soldiers on Carcosa.

The Detachment:

• Captain Friederike “Freddy” Krüger, a woman who entered service disguised as a man, but is by now accepted as she is
• Brother Paul, Augustine monk and scholar
• Dr. Krowitz, field surgeon
• 20 disciplined Infantrymen with muskets

(Carcosa art by Rich Longmore)

How I play:

I rolled a random starting hex (0311).

Procedure: 1 Turn = 1 Day

For weather: 2d6 Reaction roll

Wandering encounter: 2-in-12 chance, 1 is daytime, 2 is nighttime

Turn 1

Location: Hex 0311, Wasteland

Weather: 7, Neutral

Encounter: 11, None

...Once the electrified mist disperses, the Detachment finds itself in a strange landscape, a purple wasteland. A violet-crowned sun hangs menacingly above and twin moons race through the light blue sky. The soldiers are nearly blinded by the alien hues.

Friederike checks her compass. The needle whirls around like a madman. It’s useless. So Friederike tries to get her bearings by the strange celestial objects.

d30 eerie/weird garage rock bands

This is a supplement for the d50 Delinquent Werewolves from Outer Space post. Because your Delinquent Werewolves need some sick tunes to blast in their cars and clubhouses.

1. The Aztec Mummies
2. The Bad Vibrations
3. The Berenices
4. The Black Lagoon Divers
5. The Blowers
6. The Crypt Keepers
7. Doctor Tarr & His System
8. The Draculalas
9. The Eeries
10. The Frankenhookas
11. Gordon & His Flashers
12. Ilse & Her She-Wolves
13. Jack Chick & His Tracts
14. King Tut & His Curses
15. Las Máscaras
16. The Milkshakers
17. The Mortsafes
18. The Nudes
19. Los Pornados
20. The Quasi-Mods
21. The Reefers
22. Santo & The Vampire Women
23. Satan’s Fingers
24. The Saucerians
25. The Screamers
26. The Suburban Rejects
27. The Teen Wolves
28. The Tiki Twisters
29. The Torturers
30. Victor Noir & His Admirers

d30 generic items

I have a couple of all-purpose tables. One of them is the Amazing Inspirational Animal List (d30 animals...), which I've written about previously.

Another simple little table I always keep at hand is this list of 30 items.

For those "what's in its pocketses" situations. Players search the room/body/shelf/table, whatever, you just need something quick.

1. Alcohol
2. Blade
3. Book
4. Cards/dice
5. Charm/talisman
6. Coins
7. Cosmetics
8. Creepy
9. Documents
10. Drawing
11. Figurine
12. Fire-making device
13. Food
14. Handkerchief
15. Jewelry
16. Knick-knacks
17. Light source
18. Live creature
19. Medication
20. Mirror
21. Musical instrument
22. Pocket lint
23. Poison
24. Recreational herbs
25. Religious item
26. Sweets/treats
27. Time-keeping device
28. Tool
29. Twine/rope
30. Weird

This is a generic list, usable in any setting. However, it's also a cool exercise to try and come up with setting-specific reskins for all these items.

E.g., in a modern urban fantasy game, you would have

Alcohol → Fairy beer*

Card → The business card of a shady detective

Cosmetics → Vampire-attracting lipstick

...and so on.

* As elaborated during a discord convo, that's a regular IPA, but you burp rainbows after drinking it.

The Science Fantasy Frankentable

The Frankentable is an ever-growing multi-purpose random generator. 11,578 lines as of today. I’ve been maintaining and expanding it since 2020-2021, using Inspiration Pad Pro.

It’s gonzo science fantasy, sort of like Carcosa, but with even more stuff added in. I copied some stuff from my favorite PDFs and blogposts. I added tons of names from ancient civilizations. Lists of random adjectives and nouns... And wrote thousands of lines of custom content.

I love it, because it’s finetuned to how my brain works and always inspires gameable ideas... And it’s just fun adding stuff to it. I used to to run solo hexcrawls (session 1, session 2), then a randomized hexcrawl for my friends, use it all the time when I’m creating dungeons (to come up with fresh ideas), generate settlements. I used it to make pre-gens for a recent pick-up game.

Unfortunately, I cannot share it, sorry! It has copyrighted material in it alongside my own stuff. But I can only recommend creating your own Frankentable! Either as a digital tool, or, who knows, maybe as a bunch of index cards?

 

Just a sampling of raw results:

Seeds:

• regular sisterhood going to polluted inn
• android (Mawia, Sovereign of the baggy Pterodactyl-infested standing stone) telling bad news regarding lucky spaceman
• brigand (Mardonius) and archaeologist (ruby warlock Pro-Consul) searching for runaway lover Pharadates (the vigilante)
• cart-pusher (Urshanabi, Chief of the fountain) going to helipad
• motley cult embarking on expedition to mist-covered stone circle

 

Objects:

• stone flower
• stone staff, imbued with the power to poison
• oversized cape
• fake bottle, rumored to hold the power of invincibility
• glowing pharmacon, imbued with the power to overcome fear

Buildings:

• narrow bakery closed
• ancestral cairn is actually a front for something sinister (connected to hierarchic cult)
• bustling bank under attack from monarchist herald
• stucco-covered bakery rumored to hide secret knowledge
• decrepit carpentry rumored to hold treasure

 

Locations:

• (10 hexes west from here) windswept volcano is the hide-out of militaristic brotherhood
• (11 hexes west from here) poisonous Sabertooth-infested castle infested with vermin
• (14 hexes west from here) otherworldly garrison staked out by chimeric food-seller
• (5 hexes north-west from here) bowl-shaped sierra staked out by Giant Snake
• (3 hexes east from here) pleasent barrow hides buried treasure

 

[Actual Play] Secret Hide-Out of Glaxorzis pick-up game! (Searchers of the Unknown)

I ran Glaxorzis as a quick pick-up game on the OSR Discord server yesterday! Around 90 minutes, for three players – a nice group of chill folks, two of them I’ve interacted on the server before (but haven’t played together) and one new person – so, overall, a great time!

We used Searchers of the Unknown. Great ruleset for quick games. “Think D&D without the ability scores. Do you know how in Basic you can write down the scores of a monster in a single stat line? This game just uses that for player characters as well”.

I whipped up some pre-gens using my trusty science fantasy frankentable (a gigantic ever-growing generator I maintain in Inspiration Pad Pro).

The players picked these characters:

 

Baron Chosroes the Purple (enterprising mercenary)

 • Stats: Leather, AC 7, MV 9, HD 1, 8 hp, #AT 1

 • Arms: laser pistol (d8), shield (-1 AC, -1 MV), axe (d6)

 • Equipment: hand-torch, chalk, small sack, electric lamp, holodisk

 

Timo (holographic golem)

 • Stats: Plate, AC 3, MV 3, HD 1, 8 hp, #AT 1

 • Arms: energy pistol (d6), shield (-1 AC, -1 MV), sling (d10)

 • Equipment: 50' rope, hand-torch, 6 rations, 50' wire rope, backpack, moldy looking glass, with the power to make the material immaterial

 

Europa (shy hero)

 • Stats: Chain, AC 5, MV 6, HD 1, 4 hp, #AT 1

 • Arms: shield (-1 AC, -1 MV), grenade (d10), polearm (d6)

 • Equipment: musical instrument (loud synthesizer), water bottle, hand-torch, candle, grappling hook, bedroll, decaying book, acquired from the frightening tower

 

We bumped them up to level 2.

Then the players came up with their motivation to go after Glaxorzis, that sorcerous CREEP!: Timo the golem had been created by Glaxorzis and now wants to take revenge; Baron the mercenary was cheated out of a promising contract by Glaxorzis, and Europa (who joined 30 minutes into the game) was the heroic type who is generally out fighting baddies.

 

The session was enough to cover most of the first level.

• The group explored the passages, got into a fight with the Orange Goblin guards, routed them, took and interrogated a hostage (“Bingus”), then let it go free.
• They went back to free the imprisoned giant. They gave him rations and started working on bending the prison bars.
• The goblins returned with back-up and their leader, striking from two directions, and another fight ensued.
• But in the meantime one character managed to free the giant (using that randomly rolled dematerialization device). The giant (“Chungus”) went berserk – well, it couldn’t do too much, as he is a 15’ tall dude in narrow cave passages. So he crawled through with great fervor, sometimes blocking the passage, which added an interesting element to the fight.
• After defeating the goblins, the party explored some more. They steered clear of the lake with mist, got the giant to clear the passage blocked by the collapse and went round. They found the shaft to level 2, descended, and this is where we finished.
• They left three rooms on this level unexplored (which is where the treasure was…). However, they did grab the goblin chief’s Scimitar of Unhealing Wounds!

Glaxorzis, you sorcerous creep, they are coming after you! AND THEY ARE GONNA FEED YOU TO CHUNGUS.

[Dungeon] Secret Hide-Out of GLAXORZIS, that Sorcerous CREEP!

I drew and wrote a quick little dungeon by hand, in that foldable pocketmod format.

GRAB IT HERE FOR THE PRICE OF FREE!

What it says on the tin! 

You are after GLAXORZIS, THAT SORCEROUS CREEP, who wronged you somehow. Kidnapped your friend, stole your shiny artifact, played a stupid prank on you. Follow him underground into a complex of 21 rooms spread out over three levels. 

This is a barebones thingie, printable/foldable as a pocketmod. 

No stats. For fantasy adventure games where you die in a hole.

Actual play report for Parallel Dungeons by Starmonkey

Starmonkey ran my adventure PARALLEL DUNGEONS in Into the Odd (great fit!) and posted a session report. It's great to see other people using (and enjoying!) my work.

Parallel Dungeons, if you haven't seen it, is a free adventure that has three dungeons on a shared map; they exist in parallel realities and the player characters can jump between them using an arcane device. It's fun.

Just a Crab Monster. By Erol Otus, from White Plume Mountain

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?

[Secret Santicorn Dungeon] The Dark Keep in the Snow

My contribution for the OSR discord server's Secret Santicorn event! envymania's prompt was simply "The Dark Keep in the Snow". I cycled through several ideas (one was to make a classic murder mystery! I might return to it...) then ended up creating a dungeon.

Frankly, feature creep is always a problem. I could have made something less ambitious. 

Underground dungeons are easy. You only have to care about the interior space... While when making something "architectural", there is also the exterior, and you are under more pressure to make it "make sense".

But here we are, in early February 2025, and The Dark Keep in the Snow is ready!

It's a fortified monastery of sorts, high up in the mountains, populated by Yetis - for a reason!

No stats, you can find all these monsters in OSRIC.

Get your snowshoes on and

DOWNLOAD THE PDF!

THE MAPS IN A SEPARATE IMAGE FILE

(I hope to eventually re-draw the maps. For now, they are here in all their hand-drawn beauty)