Now that's a dragon

So, I recently wrote on my history blog about how I went to see the Witches and Wicked Bodies exhibit at the British Museum. And it was very cool.

I was particularly struck by this Temptation of Saint Anthony by Jacques Callot. Click to enlarge:

I'm gonna zoom in on the dragon, although there's a lot of other great stuff there.

Look at that guy. Check out his majesty. I mean, I guess he's the devil rather than a dragon per se, but when I looked at him I thought dragon, so I'm gonna go with it. He's got a serpent twined around his arm which is itself breathing fire, he's got the other hand just holding fire, he's surrounded by an aura of blazing radiance, he appears to be breathing out monsters, and he's chained to the goddamn sky. He's got lesser monsters living in his wings like parasites, he's got an adoring cult there down below, and he seems to be just kind of generally blighting the area.

He makes me never want to look at this little guy again:

Fuck outta here, Young Red Dragon. 

I love the idea that the only reason the dragon doesn't come down and just ravage the shit out of whatever defenseless fantasy kingdom is below him is that in ages past some doomed party of fools chained him to the roof of the sky. That's both high-questular-fantasy as hell and also metal as hell. It ticks all the boxes. And having the dragon-worshipping apocalypse cult trying to break the chain is way better than the usual schtick where they're trying to wake him from his slumber, because in the slumber scenario, either:

a) you foil them, and you never get to see, let alone fight, the dragon, or 

b) they are on rails to wake him and you fight him but you feel like chumps because it was predetermined. 

Whereas here, even leaving aside the various quests and stuff you'd have to do just to get up there into the sky in the first place, you still get to see the dragon and maybe fight him a bit and certainly fight or avoid his various minions, but regardless you get to go where the action is rather than being the poor responsible fools who make sure there isn't any action at all. 

I think I may know what Wednesday Night D&D are doing once they have their fill of sailing the high seas in search of trayzhur.

New monster: Baboonbot

Today, as I recounted on my other blog, I went to the Rosicrucian Museum. It was pretty cool and I imagine I'll be writing about it for some time to come. But enjoyable as that was, it wasn't game-relevant per se. Except ...

... while looking through the funerary gallery, my wife took this photo of a mummified baboon:

Now, he is pretty cool. But do you want to know what's even better? He's fake. When the baboon was X-rayed, it was discovered that the torso is a pot, the head is carved ... no real baboon. In reality, this happened all the time. I assume that fake animals were just easier to source and less expensive than real ones, so the grieving widow would pay up for a gen-u-wine mummified crocodile and some unscrupulous funerary guy would give her a bunch of broken pottery in a crocodile-shaped mummy wrap.

But I got to thinking about the interpretation. What if it's not a fake mummified baboon? What if it's the mummy of a fake baboon? There are two routes you could go with this. Well, more than two, but I have done two: one for D20, one for CoC.

Zergathrax's Versatile Ape

This uncanny construct serves a wizard as a tireless, deathless companion, equal parts reagent-fetcher and face-ripper-offer. It is built around a clay pot which contains a number of volatile alchemical reagents (total cost (d4+1) x 1,000 GP) as well as the blood of a baboon. The ape is loyal and reliable, but surly, inefficient and frequently aggressive.

Wizardly opinion is divided about the apes. Some claim they are faithful companions, and it has even been known for particularly sentimental magi to have their constructs buried with them to serve them in the afterlife. Others feel that the baboon blood makes the ape simply too baboon-like to be a useful assistant, while given the high cost of reagents, hired goons are simply more economical as guards.

Medium Construct
Hit Dice: 2d10+21
Initiative: +2
Speed: 40 / Climb 30
AC: 16 (+2 Dex, +4 natural), Touch 12, FF 14
Base Attack: +2
Attack: Bite +4, d6+3 damage
Space/Reach: 5/5
Special Attacks: Baboom!
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, Darkvision, various construct abilities.
Skills: Climb +10, Listen +5, Spot +5

Etc., etc.

Baboom! The mixture of alchemical ingredients in the jar which powers the construct is highly volatile. When the ape has taken 22 damage, each subsequent hit has a 1-in-10 cumulative chance of rupturing the containment vessel and causing the jar to explode. The explosion does 2d8 fire damage to the baboon itself, and 1d8+1 fire damage to any adjacent creature. Reflex (DC 18) halves.


Ape mummy

This mummified baboon was sold to a European collector in the mid-1870s and has since passed through a series of owners. Although an interesting curio, the lack of information about the ape's provenance limits its usefulness to an Egyptologist. It is currently sitting unnoticed in the shop of a Northern California antiquities dealer, one William Hatler.

What Hatler knows -- indeed, what no one knows -- is that the baboon is not truly dead; it is simply inert. A hollow pot in the mummy's torso is primed with spells known only to initiates of Nyarlathotep (to whom, in his guise as the Egyptian god Tehuti, the baboon is sacred) to receive the spirit of a worshiper. If the baboon is brought into the presence of one of the god's devotees, the akh or magical intellect of the sorcerer will fill the pot. At this point, the baboon will lurch into a creaky semblance of life.

The baboon cannot speak, but it has the intellect of the sorcerer, including the knowledge of all spells. If the spell requires speech, the baboon cannot perform it, but could teach it to another worshiper. Devotees of Nyarlathotep tend to be highly intelligent, but it is likely that, having been dead for millennia, they will not by fluent in modern languages.

STR 18
CON 18
SIZ 8
DEX 16
APP 0
INT, POW, EDU: as human

HP 13
Armor 3
Damage bonus: +d4

Attacks: Bite 40% d8

Climb 75%, Dodge 25%, Jump 50%

As an artificial construct, the baboon is immune to impaling damage, poisons, strangling and what have you. The enchanted jar in its torso is immune to damage and can only be destroyed using the proper spell. The baboon does not apply its armour against fire damage, and takes an extra d4 damage from any fire attack.

More combi-weapons and the random Renaissance bionic arm

I spent some time in a local museum the other day and snapped some photographs which had possible relevance to games and the blog!

Axe-gun, like in this post.
I think in order for this to be good in games, you'd need a
game that has drawing a weapon as a slow action.

I find the idea of a blunderbuss with a bayonet hilarious for some reason.

"Ha ha! You thought I had a gun, but actually it's ... a knife ..."

OK, so those are my flashbacks. On to the meat of the post. I also saw this prosthetic hand -- there were actually two, but I don't think my photo of the other came out well enough. As you can see, this is an iron prosthetic from the Renaissance, and it's pretty cool-looking. From the description on the card, it doesn't sound like it was actually very functional, but we can beef it up for gaming a little bit. But we don't want bionic hands to just work like replacement hands; how boring would that be? 

First off, obviously the fantasy replacement hand is made of metal, so it has some good points: great for opening poison-needle traps with, for instance. Probably not great on the ol' dexterity, though, so you probably don't want to be trying to open traps that work by explosives or deadfalls. I assume they probably take Dex penalties for tasks performed with that hand? I'll think of it when I get to it.

Anyway, I like the idea that these things are made individually by local smiths, so no two of them are the same. With that in mind, I have created the Random Mechanical Hand Table. It is designed for my home D&D game, which is like d20 but I ignore the complicated bits. I think that PCs should be able to try to influence the outcome -- maybe you can get a second roll on the table, but it costs extra? Anyway:

Random Mechanical Hand Table

Roll d10 once for each section.

Advantages

1. Decorative inlay. Looks really cool. 
2. Knuckle spikes. Unarmed strikes do an additional d4 damage. 
3. Integral multitool. Saw, screwdriver, pliers, little knife, etc. Gives +2 bonus on crafty skills, handy for cutting ropes, etc. 
4. Hidden finger compartment. Secrete one small object -- a note, a few gems, some lockpicks. 
5. Joint lock. Set to hold hand in one position. +2 to resist disarm, but needs to be reset before you can do anything else with it. 
6. Integral dart launcher. Compressed-air charge fires a single dart; provide your own poison. Reloading takes several minutes, tools and removing the hand. 
7. Armoured plating. Counts as a buckler in combat. 
8. Exotic construction. Double base cost. 1-2: Silver. 3-4: Meteoric iron. 5: Bones of a saint / cursed relics. 6: Bamboo, whalebone and exotic hardwoods. 
9. Magnetised plate. Good for attracting small metal objects. Can be inconvenient. 
10. Cable reel. Works like a grappling hook. 

Disadvantages

1. Decorative inlay is highly offensive in a randomly-determined language or carries symbols of hated cult/insurgency/noble house/whatever. 
2. Joints squeak unless regularly oiled. -2 on stealthy stuff unless regularly maintained. 
3. Loose fit. If you land a critical hit with this hand, roll d6. On a 1, the hand falls off. 
4. Tight fit. Bites into the arm, causing irritation. -2 to any rolls involving remaining calm (like resisting Rage spells). 
5. Evil. 
6. Shoddy construction. When putting high pressure on the hand (e.g. carrying a heavy object, clinging to a cliff edge), roll d6: 1-3 no effect. 4-5 minor damage; -2 on all rolls with this hand until repaired. 6 catastrophic failure. 
7. Rough finish. Wears away at ropes. Apply a penalty to skills using ropes or 10% chance of snapping rope when used with this hand if skills aren't your bag. 
8. Non-retractable spikes: not bad as a weapon, but don't shake hands with people, as this hand is covered in jagged blades and spikes. 
9. Crooked smith concealed valuable information/stolen goods in hidden compartment; dangerous people and/or the law are desperate to retrieve it. 
10. Unpredictable lock. As with grip lock above, but roll d6 when trying to unlock the hand: on a 4-6 it remains stuck and has to be opened by painstakingly dismantling the lock mechanism.