Bandits

Victor Ambrus is awesome

So I'm working fecklessly on a project and striving to find the middle road between railroad-y prescriptiveness (which I hate) and gonzo randomness bereft of a strong sense of internal consistency. I'm a Tolkien fiend from childhood and am very enamoured of the seamless sense of an internally consistent world the Professor achieved at the cost of tremendous labour and which would probably have seen him rewrite everthing several times over had he had the chance. I am also very fond of the elements he allowed into the mythos which were a little bit jarring and which might have been effaced later on in a moment of sobriety had not the pressure to publish precluded the opportunity. Bombadil is one of these, the primordially avuncular nature spirit (or whatever he is) cops flak from those to whom mawkish jollity is anathema but to me there is something wonderful about him. Beorn is another, once we get into the grim seriousness of LOTR post-Rivendell, dudes do not turn into bears or have helpful serving-goats, that would be silly, but I like these wrinkles in the composure of the story. I like the fucked-up steampunk monstrosities that destroyed the walls of Gondolin before Tolkien decided that was a bit too gonzo and I like Melko getting chased up a pine tree in some early scrap of bootleg juvenilia before things get mythically consistent in a way myth never was.

However, I think that the combinatorial randomising approach that the OSR has embraced and, to an extent, improved upon, is potentially less than optimal for creating and maintaining a tone unless that tone is specifically absurd and chaotic and open to the intrusions of discordant elements. I understand that, of course, the game is about communal goofing-off as much as it is about cohesive narrative but all I am striving for is a balance between the two poles.

N.C Wyeth in understated mode

One of the significant issues I face in pursuit of this end is my tendency to codify everything in turgid little prose poems with a distinctly unplayable quality. I can't really help myself. It is a compulsion. My intention is to convey as much as possible the style and tones and generic conventions of the setting without resorting to blocks of faux history and faux geography which I cannot bear and cannot read and certainly cannot write.

So little nuggets is it then, in a style like the guy who wrote Eye of Argon doing a pastiche of Clark Ashton Smith doing Poe doing Pilgermann*  and describing only that which can be mechanically codified or lead to further opportunities for expanding the narrative.

 I like bandits. I remember Dr. McGrogan writing (in the rpg.net thread that lead to his big old Monster pdf and which was my  introduction to the embryonic OSR back in late '08 while I was teaching in some shitty nowhere town in the desert) that it would be great if someone did a Monster Manual consisting entirely of humans. I agree, I think humans are the best adversaries. Almost all of the decent minable-for-ideas literature out there deals with human conflict and that which ostensibly does not really does 'cos that's all there is. That is what we're pretending to do, really (kill people).

So I guess this would be part of a big old Crossing the Fells table and would appear like this;

 roll d10
1. Mouldering Hugo and his Wherrymen
2. Coney Skinners
3. Helgafel the Mummer-queen
4. Runagate Pikers
5. Groote Hans
6. Bartholomaeus Crumpe
7. Magisterial Bombardiers
8. Bridge Churls
9. Lost Crusaders
10. Pontifical Harquebusiers

1. Mouldering Hugo and his Wherrymen attack with kern-darts and six-foot morningstars at the ford. They are bow-legged grizzle-beards in smocks of dun and Jarrowneck green. Hugo is a grinning oaf of poetic distractions who fights with Lang-dirk and targe. The seven Wherrymen sing the Ballad of the Frisky Mule (or suchlike lacklustre peasant ditty) as they wade to the attack. All are sick with grippe and casually sadistic.

Mouldering Hugo - AC: 6 (coat-of-plates, targe) HD: 3 hp: 17 Dmg: 1d6+2 (lang-dirk, STR) ML: 10

Wherrymen (7) - AC: 8 HD: 1 hp: 4 each Dmg: 1d6 or 1d10 ML: 8

Booty - sack of 77 groats hidden in a barge amongst the weeds by the riverside, Hugo has a silver Tetrarchic Signet Ring worth 25 groats, anyone wearing this will be hunted by the Tetrarchic Heterodoxy

Special - Fighting waist-deep in the ford imposes a -1 penalty to AC. Anyone coming into contact with these men must save vs. poison or contract grippe.

2. In a steep land of moss and scree and stony echoes an ambush launched by green-stained youths befalls the party. Babbling, feral and mostly naked they roll down great rocks and hurl bones and shards of stone from inaccessible clefts above. The Coney-skinners may be placated with offerings of food or frightened off with fire but they cannot speak for they are immeasurably mad.

Coney Skinners - (17) AC: 9 HD: 1/2 hp: 1 each Dmg: d2 (rock) ML: 4

Booty - a dented bronze cauldron worth 2 groats hidden in some brush

Special - 6 working together are able to roll 1 boulder every three rounds which will require one character to take evasive action (forgoing that round's action) or be forced to save vs. petrification to avoid taking 1d8 dmg. One of the youths is the wayward heir to the Earldom of Scroggscombe lost on a hunting trip three years prior.

 3. Heralded by a discordant trumpeting in the distant gloaming comes Helgafel the Mummer-Queen and his gaudy entourage in tempestuous purple and jaundice-green. They come from a night of ghastly rapine glittery-eyed and bedaubed with night-soil, arrogant and queasy beyond mortal ken.

Helgafel - E3 AC: 6 (jupon, burgonet, DEX) hp: 12 Dmg: 1d8 (estoc) ML: 9 Spells: sleep, charm, invisibility

Revelers - (8): E1 AC: 8 (jupons) hp: 3 Dmg: d10 x 5 (ranseur, brandistock, feather-staff, war-scythe, military fork) d6/d4 x 3 (crossbows/ballock daggers) ML: 9 Spells: light (polearm users), sleep (crossbowmen)

Booty - Brightly coloured animal masques of silk and painted leather - 20 groats apiece, 1d12 groats apiece in spangled purses, plundered amber, ivory and silverware worth 1d20 groats apiece, 3 brazen bugles worth 15 groats apiece, Helgafel's estoc and burgonet are particularly fine and worth 100 groats apiece.

Special - The light spell will be used in an offensive capacity (to blind). Anyone displaying items seized from this troupe will receive a -3 reaction penalty in the Lowlands such is the fear and dread in which Helgafel and Co. are held. It may be possible to raise an angry mob aginst them.

4. Driving a dozen shackled slave children through mud and sleet come five Runagate Pikers with the black man-tyger of Scroggscombe blazoned on their mottled tabards. They bear half-pikes and scars and are hollow-eyed with fatigue. They reek of the battlefield and unforgivable sin. Crows follow them.

Pikers (5) - AC: 7 (jack, kettle-hat) HD: 1 hp: 4 each Dmg: d8 (half-pike 2-handed) ML: 6

Booty - 50 groats worth of tackle

Special - The children are kidnapped from the Petty Baronies of Framgarth, though the pikers be deserters their association with the Earl of Scroggcombe is sufficient to raise tensions between the two demesnes.

5. Sitting on a waystone at a desolate crossroads is Groote Hans, seven-feet tall and broad of beam, with battleaxe and bearskin and piggy little eyes. He greets danger with affable scorn for arrows will not pierce his gleaming byrnie nor bloodshed detract from his good mood. From all who come he demands tribute and servility. He may be persuaded by invocation of ancient rite to take part in a drinking contest for none can best him under heaven.

Hans - F3 AC: 5 (byrnie, spangenhelm) hp: 20 Dmg: 1d10 + 3 (Carle's Axe) ML: 12

Booty - Pewter goblet worth 5 groats, Antler-handled eating-knife worth 7 groats

Special - Byrnie of Blunderous Grylde; huge mail shirt of double weight and completely impervious to normal missiles but bestowing complete fearlessness such that the wearer is completely incapable of retreat.

I think Michael Hague always wanted to be Edmund Dulac, perhaps because Dulac was so very good

6. One Bartholemaeus Crumpe, excommunicated Scrivener of the Archimandrite’s Judiciary, waits in a dark grove. Crumpe bears the marks of torture – he wears a wooden nose and his ears are gone. With him are his eight hooded henchmen with torches and knives. All are cannibals. All are hungry.

Crumpe - T2 AC: 6 (brigandine) hp: 7 Dmg: 1d6 (war-knife) ML: 8

Henchmen - AC: 9 HD: 1 hp: 3 each Dmg: 1d4 (torch or knife) ML: 6

Booty - 1d4 groats apiece in filthy undergarments

Special - Crumpe's wooden nose would be of interest to agents of the Archimandrite

7. Away on a plain of long grass burnt yellow by the frost are toiling a troupe of Magisterial Bombardiers with iron ordnance and heavy tackle, their hose long since abandoned to the dysenteric flux that spatters their legs. From afar the wind carries the stink of filth and sulphur and the sound of their deaf and braying voices bawling out a marching song.

Bombardiers - (12): AC: 8 (cabassets) HD: 1 hp: 3 each Dmg: 1d4 (stiletto) or special ML: 7

Booty - 1d6 groats apiece in grubby wallets, Rusty Iron Mortar 500 groats to the right individual, 3 exploding shells - 60 groats apiece, Powder keg, half-full - 50 groats, Sundry articles of tackle 50 groats

Special - Mortar causes 3d6 dmg to all within 20 ft. from exploding shrapnel but Bombardiers need to hit an AC 3 to get within 20 ft. ROF 1/7rds, Range 150/250/300, first shot will obscure area with smoke, Will explode on a 1 for full effect to those firing, Bombardiers can talk but not hear.

8. Half a dozen shambolic Bridge-Churls on an ill-fated jaunt into banditry have barricaded a dilapidated bridge in a forsaken region and demand an unreasonable toll and any and all spirituous liquors from those who would cross. They are desperate and humourless and armed with rough and knotty war-bows and mauls. Their barricade is a paltry affair.

Churls (6) - AC: 8 (barricade) HD: 1 hp: 4 each Dmg: 1d6 (arrow) or 1d8 (maul) ML: 6

Booty - 15 poorly cured hides worth 1 groat apiece

Special - Such is their disillusionment with this venture that they will gladly join the party should they fail a morale check.

9. In the interminably dreek Marish-folds, emerging from the fog astride gaunt and archaic destriers come two septuagenarian Lost Crusaders in rusty harness. They are veterans of the Schism of the Accipitrine Concordat and half a hundred other campaigns. One will formally demand seizure of goods and chattel as a tithe to aid completion of the uncompleted 31st Crusade against the Leper-King of Blaskinforthe. The other will take exception to the heraldry, courtesy or theology of anyone present and demand judicial duels by pollaxe, by flail, by jousting and by wrastling.

Sir Umberton Nunsputter - F3 AC: 1 (plate harness, heater shield) hp: 17 Dmg: 1d6+1 (war-hammer, STR) or 1d10 x 2 +1 (couched lance at full tilt, STR) ML: 10

Don Romualdo the Intransigent - F2 AC: 2 (Plate, rotella) hp: 14 Dmg: 1d10 x 2 (couched lance) or 1d10 (pollaxe) or 1d8 (flail) or 1d2 (wrastling) ML: 10

Destriers - AC: 7 HD: 5 hp: 22 Dmg: 1d6 (bite/stomp) ML: 10

Booty - 3d10 groats apiece, Sundry weapons, Map with markings clearly indicating the lairs of a tatzelwurm, a haunt of Hob-grues and Codricke the Tarnie-Wight

Special - The destriers would be worth 500 groats or more apiece but their savagery makes such a transaction unfeasible.

10. Crouching in the wiry brush behind boulders atop a rocky knoll are five Pontifical Harquebusiers in ragged regalia. They seek to prosecute an ambuscade with terribly inefficient and complicated martial pomp and thunderous reeking fusillades and shouting, They are mustachioed and starving and heedless of mercy.

Harquebusiers (5) - F1 AC: 8/7 (morion, buckler) hp: 4 each Dmg: 1d8 (harquebus, ROF 1/3 rds) or 1d6 (pigsticker) ML: 8

Booty - 1d10 groats apiece, Scarlet Episcopal vestments of broidered silk in a hidden chest, worth 60 groats.

Special - The Harquebusiers do not know that the Seventy-Years-War ended long since and that the Pontificate and the Magisterium are united in the Crusade against the Lacustrine Apostasy.

-----------------------------------------

 

* The best novel in the world. I shit you not.

The Template Approach

Beksinski

Bah! After two years of lurking in feckless obscurity I oh-so-much wanted to burst back into action with a flailing crescendo of unbridled awesomeness but I am afflicted with incapacitating self-doubt so I have decided to try to ease back into this thing. Also, a significant consideration to take into account is the probable fact that my humble little dead blog will long since have fallen off the few blogrolls it was on and that amongst the hundreds of lacklustre OSR blogs my own occupied a fairly inconsequential position. I am not really under the illusions that my work measures up to that of the late lamented Valley of Blue Snails or Thool or Mandragora blogs. However, I have been writing on and off this whole blasted time. Perhaps this obscurity will help me to build up something outside the glare of having sometimes upwards of twelve (!) people looking at my stuff each day. Anyway, instead of blathering about Middenmurk-specific stuff (or  the Uttermost South, Antediluvian Earth or Calderia stuff I ambitiously initiated as my fickle brain shrank away from the onerousness of sticking-at-things) I am responding to yet-another-clever-Zak-idea and publishing my Search & Replace dungeon generated from his template so that I can analyse it and speculate on how the tools that produce this can be used to create other interesting
stuff. Anyway here's Zak's map;




And here's my key;

The sound of the Churning Aethermill is audible throughout if PCs enter through the north entrance. The ceilings are 7feet high.

Check for wandering monsters every 3 game minutes or whenever PCs make a lot of noise, roll d10:

1-2 d6 Stingrats

3-4 d4 Rampant Faunlings (with keys to green locks)

5 1 Giant Collecting Bummel-Clock looking to kill PCs and steal their oil flasks

6-10 Nothing

___________

1. Stairs to surface/next level

2. Flitterghul-It is a foot tall & eerily beautiful. It is harmless. If unmolested, it will continue to roam the halls.

3. Fragments of a dazzling walrus ivory mosaic, very damaged, are here--a landscape with only a pair of white legs ending in hooves are visible so far.

Pieces of the mosaic can be found throughout the dungeon, and will fuse to the wall if placed on the mosaic.

The true form of the mosaic is of Aethelburga the Shield-Harlot of the Bramstane Interregnum on a horse--and assembling it will create a work of art worth PC level x 1000gp, however it is possible to construct false forms by accident or design.

Existing mosaic+humanoid upper body = a demon. Zaphiriel the Jabbering Arse-Clowne in 76 will begin calling anyone present to it. Save vs spell.

Existing mosaic+missing front horse legs+human upper body = centaur. Each round, violent madness will be inflicted on whichever party member rolls the lowest on a d20 until they leave the room.

Missing pieces are in rooms 19, 87, 50

4. This Skeblous Quilkin is intelligent & can speak but does not show it because it fears hostility It seeks the Satirical Ikon of the 52nd Underpope and a Merdog Compromised in room 21

5. Dead Rampant Faunling

6. Monster in 7 can be heard from here

7. The Gyre Stag-Fyshe It is too large to leave the room. Drinks from well

8. Three Rampant Faunlings looking for Memling the Hydromancer

9. Echoing corridor

10. Statue of The Leperchrist --vandalized. d6 dead Rampant Faunlings with a Siege Terrapin here dead in the center of the triangle, apparently dragged from 25. The triangle will slowly devour them over the course of an hour, at which point the statue will come to life and seek out Zaphiriel the Jabbering Arse-Clowne in room 75.

11. Droolkinder inside a Churning Aethermill

12. Nonfunctional Churning Aethermill

13. Junk everywhere, vial of Ichorous Zeal

14. As soon as the PCs enter this room the Aethermill (which will attract a wandering monster) will activate.

A wizard will recognize the effect as a product of a special curse that can be removed on the request of a specific livingmaster (the Spectral Scrivener Royale )

15. Kitchen. Pots, pans, the usual. There is a brick oven & a small pantry closet. A halfling could fit in it.

16. This room is full of baby skins that the Spectral Scrivener Royale has collected.

The columns here look weak and can be destroyed with 30 pts of damage. The ceiling will cave in.

17. 2 identical statues. One made of Shit one made of walrus ivory

18. There is a Sackbut here worth 2500gp. Playing it for the first time will cause monster in room 7 to break out and crash through the rooms, collapsing the ceilings until it gets to the player.

19. Library. Full of ogham-scribed bones

-humanoid upper body mosaic pieces from the mosaic in room 3

20. Hall. 11 small portrait paintings. One of each of Naberius' sisters. They

are worth d20 x 100gp to collectors with unusual tastes

21. Paladin of The Leperchrist fighting Rampant Faunling wizard in desperate battle

Satirical Ikon of the 52nd Underpope compromised with a merdog. Worth 600gp.

22. Empty cells.

23. Old dining room. Three paintings here: each eight feet wide, worth 2000 gp each.

24. WC

25. Dying Priest of The Leperchrist, just finished pulling foes to room 10

Siege Terrapin

Spectral Scrivener Royale. It is disguised as Grub and will observe the PCs.

26. A Crakie Bugge is here--it does not speak & obeys the Spectral Scrivener Royale. Crakie Bugge has (as always) hidden a key to room 67 in the gaping aperture of a Sheela-Na-Gig

27. There is a cursed mustard-yellow liripipe. Any creature inspecting it will be afflicted by a desire to Mess with the Aethermill for 1d4 rounds.

28. Channel of Angel Sputum from south ends in a pool here

29. Channel down center of hallway filled with Angel Sputum a Mummified Mouse is floating in it

30. Empty

31. Secret door activated by mechanism in room 85

32. Secret door activated by mechanism in room 85

33. Pool of Angel Sputum

34. Dead Hollowback Ylfen carrying diary, contains biographical details of The Ark Raven - Naberius The Proctor including its birthday

35. Fishbelly white crystal formation. Anything white that touches it will begin to vibrate unnaturally--the object will then reflect magic for one hour and then explode.

36. Walking into this room lowers steel bars where the green O's are and releases monster in 37.

37. Verdigrue in cage.

38. The Ark Raven - Naberius The Proctor's bedroom. If The Ark Raven - Naberius The Proctor is not in this room the (ordinary) doors will be locked. Secret door: behind a Divan--a thin crack will be visible. Room contains a make-up table (no mirror, of course), a canopy bed hung with velvet, (d12 x 100) gp worth of other

trinkets. The bed, painting, Naberius The Proctor 's wardrobe, & the table are each worth (d12 x 100) gp. There is an alabaster pyx with a soporific vapour trap under the bed containing 600 gp & locket with a small painting of Naberius The Proctor

39. Switch raises and lowers bars in rms 36-38

40. Child's bedroom. Belongs to Naberius The Proctor's daughter. Her remaining toys ( Glims and Trinklings) are here.

41. Bile-pit activated by door

42. Stone walls carved into the shape of scaled enormities, hideous to behold

43. Carrion Gunners

44. Purpureal Vortex of Scorne in cage. Sibling of Naberius The Proctor Gone mad long ago. She may aid the PCs if they convince her they can help her escape the dungeon. She hates Naberius The Proctor & will make any deal to be reunited with her, but again, will turn on anyone aware of her existence immediately afterward.

45. Anything made of Shit placed on the altar will be transformed into walrus ivory.

Any Waves of Lassitude in the circle or crossing it will be transformed into fulgurous emanations

46. Texts sacred to religion of The Leperchrist

47. Puzzle room: Carnifexes, Clysterers and Goliards are sacred to this religion. A magic mask asks 3 questions only members of those professions, respectively, would know. Wrong answers = Power Word Melt and it emits an animalistic shriek

48. Statue of a creature of Lassitude. An Archpriest of The Leperchrist is here. (PC level x 1000 gp worth of gold flake on statue.)

49. Murals depicting Aethelburga the Shield-Harlot and betrayal by Donkeyboy

50. Tombs. d6 Priests of The Leperchrist

Fragment of mosaic in room 3 showing horse head and humanoid lower body in a saddle.

51. Tombs. Vial: Substance repels Batrachians

52. Tomb of Aethelburga the Shield-Harlot

53. Mouldering skeleton of hero's traitorous ally, Scrying Mirror of polished bronze

54. d6 Carrion Gunners guarding sacrifice chamber. They have keys to the cage in room 55.

55. Bile-pit

Apparently a two-headed pigeon in a cage. Is actually a Phooka . It is looking for the Skeblous Quilkin because it betrayed her.

56. Prayer room, distinctive to The Leperchrist

57. Prayer room, distinctive to The Leperchrist

58. 2 dead Carrion Gunners

59. 2 dead Carrion Gunners--one muttering "The Hollowback Ylfen, the Hollowback Ylfen" shattered manacles on the floor.

60. 2 Carrion Gunners guarding the entrance to room 61

61. Fingerbone of St. Istvan being examined by 3 Carrion Gunners

Room is full of Corroded Grenadoes

62. Giant Collecting Bummel-Clock. A pile of its eggs obscure the door to the north. Two ogham-scribed bones containing Schemata of the Undercroft of Niphraates are hidden under the pile.

63. Full of Lanthorn-oil flasks collected by a giant Collecting Bummel-Clock

64. Well, rusty water.

Dead adventurers. Burned spellbook. Partially accurate formula for Obscure Consultation with ye Marrow-Sprite remains. Failed int check indicates Curse of the Renegade Marrow

65. Door to north opens easily, door to east seems old and stuck.

66. Grunzel-gullet room. Crakie Bugge throws organic waste into this room.. The Grunzel-gullet covers the entire room, including the wall, obscuring the locked, unpickable secret door there.

67. Abecedarian Hoopoe. It knows all about the Spectral Scrivener Royale, which is why the Spectral Scrivener Royale has had Crakie Bugge wall it up in a secret chamber. The Spectral Scrivener keeps it alive because of resemblance to the plague-taken Sister-bride

68. Murals, int check to read, glyphs and pictograms seem to refer to walrus ivory and fulgurous emanations

69. Empty or stairs to surface/next level

70. Quiet room.

71. Prison Contains d10+10 victims of Naberius The Proctor. A variety of sentient species

are represented as well as a few celebrated & high-level missing persons.

72. Door is large, impressive and locked. Picking is at half chance.

73. Throne room of Regent of the Bramstane Interregnum. Long dead Bramstane Interregnum

74. Star metal globules guarded by Sulphurous Choke-pit

75. Zaphiriel the Jabbering Arse-Clowne It has been trapped here by a mystic seal on the secret door by the Spectral Scrivener Royale and seeks revenge.

76. Clearly a room once built by the Bramstane Interregnum culture.

77. Contains various instruments of Hepatic Auguries

78. Disused Hepatic Auguries room. Naberius the Proctor was having experiments conducted until capture of Memling the Hydromancer made them unnecessary.

Hollowback Ylfen assassin seeking Memling the Hydromancer

79. Disused Hepatic Auguries room d4 Stingrats

80. Disused Hepatic Auguries room Blood, remains of Stingrats

81. d8 Stingrats

82. Statue of The Leperchrist

83. d10 Carrion Gunners plus Toad-Skald Sentry

84. The Ark Raven - Naberius The Proctor, d4 Glisterfraggen - Serjeants of Soot Overturning cauldron of quicklime in ceiling, experimenting with fulgurous emanations. Huge dead two-headed pigeon conceals secret door.

85. Cage containing mechanical model of universe, rotating planets into proper position for the day opens secret door in room 31, rotating them onto Naberius the Proctor 's birthday opens secret door in room 32

86. Pool of Angel Sputum

87. Memling the Hydromancer just escaped, hiding from the assassin in room 78.

-missing front horse legs from mosaic in room 3

88. Walls carved with scenes dedicated to The Leperchrist depicting members of the following professions: a Carnifex, a Clysterer & a Goliard--all kneeling

Careful inspection reveals that carving is not wholly original and the figures have been repurposed. There is a monster with a huge mouth where the secret door to 73-76 is.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I think there is an extent to which I have achieved the visceral, ribald, carnivalesque Northern Renaissance atmosphere I am interested in, but there is definitely work to be done. I'm very interested in creating and utilising tools for the creation of dungeons, or rather the skeletons thereof to be fleshed out with the addition of monsters, items, traps etc.

This thread which uses this generator achieves the fantasy fucking Vietnam tone I am most interested in as an emergent property of very simple basic elements. Onto this kind of framework more evocative details can be added.

Incidentally, Aliens has just come on TV. That film is a meatgrinder tonally very similar to some of the play reports in that rpg.net thread.

On Setting Design and Sabatons

I am not much one for bandwagon jumping but I cannot help myself as the zeitgeist hath intersected my own thoughts. The idea of dispensing with game fiction and fictional geographic writings in the presentation of games, a fashionable topic in the blogosphere at of late (as originated by Zak Smith and expanded upon at Trollsmyth and Strange Magic) appeals to my own aesthetic.

I have 20-year-old campaign setting the contents of which are still only vaguely familiar to me. My eyes glaze over very quickly when I try to read about Silverymoon or Specularum. There is something about the characteristically lengthy and bland descriptions of places that makes me struggle with imagining what they feel like or why I would want to adventure there. I have a much more instrumentalist relationship with gaming materials. I want to know what affordances exist in the environment for the PCs to interact with. What threatens the PCs? What resources are they able to marshal to deal with those threats? What opportunities exist in the environment that the PCs can exploit for gain?

These things are traditionally the domain of the core rulebooks. Conventionally, the lists of equipment, hirelings, spells, magic items, treasure, dungeon features and monsters have to an extent remained static between settings. There is usually a little customisation (esp. with monsters) going on but it is generally assumed that the basics remain the same as those presented in the canonical text. Whether in Faerun or the Flanaess or the Grand Duchy of Karameikos the affordances available for the character to work with and thus the parameters that govern their survival and prosperity or lack thereof are similarly identical. All those settings are then, are means of determining NPC agendas and bits and pieces of scenery that may or may not actually affect the players’ trajectories.

Admittedly I am guilty of grotesque generalisation here, as suits my purpose. In spite of my curmudgeonly moaning I love many of the settings being produced in the OSR community at the moment. I am just interested in seeing if it isn’t possible to present a different way of enabling a rich and fascinating setting environment primarily by messing with the basics.

Which is all really just a lengthy preamble to my own ongoing project in which I endeavour to reduce the megadungeon setting presentation to a series of random tables, menus and lists. I’d like to produce a Middenmurk document which presents a fairly formulaic series of steps to generate a campaign.

I envisage something like this;

I. Generate Characters

II. Roll on Starting Village Table – this will determine equipment and hirelings.

III. Roll on Fells Encounter Table(s) – journey through the wilderness

IV. Randomly Determine Dungeon Map (pre-stocked) – run through dungeon

V. Roll on Fells again – return journey

VI. Repeat ad nauseam

I’d like as much as possible to utilise equipment and encounter and treasure tables as the primary vehicles for the communication of setting fluff, whenever possible reducing description to a short and pithy paragraph as is my wont.

For Joesky:

Sabatons of Sir Fotherington Codsworthy



These cunningly wrought and fiendishly pointed pieces of foot armour were worn constantly by Sir Codsworthy throughout the 17th Crusade prior to his death of Mankfoot Fever following the Battle of Crodde. It is rumoured that the wearer can walk unharmed through Demon-Bile and skip across caltrops with impunity. They may also be used as a weapon against male creatures of manlike form, in which case they cause 1d12 damage and 1d4 rounds of extreme discomfort and incapacitation.

Price: 50 ducats

Villages of the Lowlands

Typically scattered and chaotic as I am, I am constantly revising and re-imagining my approach, postponing and aborting and editing ideas. But I am continuing to develop the setting (and its atmosphere) despite my lack of posts.

At this point I envisage a kind of formulaic adventure randomly generated from a series of tables and proceeding with a kind of predictable randomness

The Lowlands (previously the Northern Marches) are rustic and uncouth outlands at the edge of the wilds. Its inhabitants speak in a guttural bastardised version of the Imperial Speech known as the Meagre Tongue. There is little contact with the Seventh Empire from whence all civilisation and holiness springs.

It is to this far-flung realm on the margin of the world that the player characters arrive on their way to the blasphemous northern horizon

Each town has a series of special items that can be purchased
and hirelings that can be recruited. It should be noted that an inventory of basic items are available from every village - the special items and thehirelings are in addition to those in the basic inventory, the prices and crunch for which will be dealt with in a later post (if there is ever another post).

All prices will be in groats as per the new copper standard I would like to implement.

Roll 1d8 to see where the PCs arrive

1. Muttonwocky
2. Gnathous Bremley
3. Auld Skerrick
4. Scrope
5. Crowfork
6. Throckbottle Copse
7. Flockenwhistle Abbey
8. Foote


1. Muttonwocky: A dreary and hopeless grey little cluster of Mud huts and animal pens where clandestine and taciturn shepherds clad in soggy sheepskins mutter superstitiously at outsiders. The drizzle is without respite and the stink is potent.

Things that may be purchased here include;

- A Miraculous Tricorn Goat that banishes evil
- A rude ginger-pated knave - “Horsemonger” - and seven smelly and uncouth shepherds without flocks who speak only in monosyllabic grunts
- An ancestral black shillelagh with miraculous powers
- A firkin of muddy ale blessed by St. Aethelbrid; reputed to give fortitude to the unwilling
- Dried mutton and turnip gruel
- Sundry sickles, cudgels, spades and shortbows
- Apotropaic ram-skulls inscribed with sacred glyphs

2. Gnathous Bremley: A sombre hamlet in a hard land of barren and frosty fields where starveling ropy swains break ploughs toiling to stave off perpetual famine. Venerable owls hoot by day from dead pine trees. Hovels of stone shelter gaunt and fearful cottars. None speak here but Grandmother Morag.

Things that may be purchased here include;

- The ironmongery of Silas Groote, a hamstrung blacksmith of some renown
- A pack of desperate urchins with pleading eyes and groping fingers
- A cache of rusty war-flails and Jeddart axes from the Bartholemite uprising a century ago
- A pair of pavises from same, their heretical insignia has been but poorly effaced
- A Sacred Canon bound in mooncalf-skin
- No Food but boiled bark and beetle-grubs

3. Auld Skerrick : Abandoned imperial Bastion on a mossy hillock in an empty land. Aged Lost Crusaders and Heretics-in-exile hide out among dark hills in this palisaded ruin. Archaic imperial cuirasses are still stored here as are scrolls with charms of barring-the-way and come-hither-thrall. Croaking ravens perched on the battlements sing ancient battle-hymns of the glorious past.

Things that may be purchased here include;

- Valdemar, a scholar of the Inferno, constantly drunk and fearful
- Three vermin-infested squire-turned bandits, deserters from the 22nd crusade, with kettle hats and tattered gambesons and rusty eel-spears
- Crotchety old follower of the Panurgic heresy named Spetchley
- Various brandistocks, corseques and military forks of imperial manufacture
- Two Coats-of-plates and seven linen jacks, all of which were once embroidered in bright heraldic insignia but are now much faded and greasy and rust-stained
- Rye bread of dubious wholesomeness

4. Scrope; on a sluggish tributary with six dilapidated toll-bridges is a crannog-village on stilts - an enclave of villainous and watchful watermen and a stork that can speak and a water mill that is choked with weed.Here there are also many wooden racks of smoked fish and a venomous fear that permeates everything.

Things that may be purchased here include;

- Six gaunt and savage lurchers of exceptional fleetness
- A pair of snaggle-toothed villeins in mouldy leathern jacks with bucklers and baselards
- Several plumbata of archaic origin
- A number of wicked-looking war-flails and morning-stars laid-by for banditry and seven nail-studded targes for same
- Various lockpicks, probes and skeleton keys
- Two knightly sallets wrested as tolls from lost crusaders
- Saltfish and barley gruel


5. Crowfork; Fierce and oppressive village of vigilant and superstitious crofters nigh unto the crossroads. Here there are whippings and hangings and heads on spikes, bloodthirsty militia-men and flagellants and pallid and fitful sunlight. There are bonfires on the ridges and dule trees and sullenly accusing goodwives. Fanatical priestlings stride hither and yon imprecating against imminent skyfall.

Things that may be purchased here include;

- an Alectryomantic spatchcock in a wicker cage
- A variety of bloodied whips and scourges
- Six zealous brutes seeking pilgrimage and restitution
- An archaic imperial executioner’s sword, much notched from use
- A variety of reliquaries containing the mortal remains of various of the Quailbiter heretics
- Dubious saltpork

6. Throckbottle Copse: Here in a darkling grove with dirty snow on the ground are bodies stacked like cordwood and heresies afoot in wooden shanties. An ill wind blows and grindstones are always spinning, sharpening axes. Folk do not speak aloud here but whisper in corners and murder without conscience.

Things that may be purchased here include;

- Several copies of the Apocrypha of Nidde, hidden in sleeping pallets and under floorboards
- Axes, saws, adzes and chisels of exquisite sharpness
- A couple of arbalests with cranequins and a hundred quarrels accumulated in some long ago treaty of assize
- Ten battered siege-caps from same
- Two Green Recusants with sharp axes and sooty smocks seeking respite from the poisonous fear

7. Flockenwhistle Abbey: Smoke hangs low in the valley of the Abbey and it seems always to be dusk. The brethren observe the canonical hours diligently within the mouldering hulk of stone. Fugitives and foundlings serve and are exploited by or parasitise the monastical inhabitants. The Abbess is a blind saint and her thurifers burn loathsome incense.

Things that may be purchased here include;

- Seven Brass reliquaries containing the fingerbones, locks of hair and bits of preserved skin from St. Udo the Footpad, St. Boldo the Seven-crowned and St. Mormo the Leech
- Two antiquated croziers, one of bronze and one of silver
- Four tonsured and foolish pilgrims in hairshirts
- Medicus Blont, drunken Imperial leech with a variety of sharp blades
- Cock-eyed apothecary in the service of the order
- Three scabrous urchins with fleas and ballock daggers
- Smelly green holy water from the font of St. Tristram the Cenobite


8. Foote: Sinking village lit by guttering torches in a foul haze at the end of long causeways above turnip fields drowning in the flood,. Filthy serfs are hauling sticks and stones to repair the crumbling causeways or crowd around battered cauldrons of nameless gruel under the muddy sky. Everything is rotting and sodden and mouldy.

Things that may be purchased here include;

- A trio of Heathens from the Ashen Heights armed with dirk and targe and spangenhelm
- Wrapped in a greasy tabard and hidden in a well- the green flambard of St. Stephanovicus
- Three katzbalgers with red scabbards, taken from retreating Fensknechts after the battle of Cradlemark
- A dreadfully wasted soldier of fortune with an Arquebus and a tattered purple arming doublet
- Faded dun brigandine with basinet belonging to an imperial archer.