Yet More Vikings

As you may recall from my posts about Saga, Mythic Iceland and Sagas of the Icelanders, I tend to acquire games that deal with the early medieval period. Greenland Saga is sort of an outlier, since it's not actually set in the Viking age, but rather in the 1450s. This is quite an early third-party third-ed scenario, if I remember correctly, released in 2001. It was written by Michael Bennighof and published by Avalanche Press. AP are still around, but they're not making RPG products any more. 

That damn cover

Controversy over the covers of Avalanche Press's RPG supplements was one of the ongoing arguments of the early d20 era, and I don't want to rehash it here. In principle I agree that there's nothing wrong with any given sexualised image of a female character -- the problem is simply that there are too few non-sexualised images of female characters, a lack of equivalent images of male characters, etc. However, despite the cheesecakey model and pose, my problem with this cover is not that. It is this: this cover illustration sucks. For two reasons!

First, quite apart from the outfit, what the hell is she doing? Her pose looks awkward and unnatural; look at how loose her hand is on the hilt of the sword. She's standing slightly on tippy-toe (or something; the line between whatever's behind her and the floor is really mushy) while either drawing a sword backward from her belt or stabbing herself in the hand. If she's drawing the sword, why is it covered in blood (and where's its scabbard?); if she's sheathing it, why is she doing that considering she seems to be surrounded by enemies? What is the blurry sort of dragony thing in the right of the image? What is the thing in the foreground, partly obscured by the AP logo? In short, what in the hell is going on in this illustration? 

But the fact that the image isn't good is only the lesser part of the problem. The more important point is that the cover gives you a very misleading idea of what kind of scenario this is. Greenland Saga is. In a sort of what-the-hell, high-fantasy romp, this chainmail-singleted Valkyrie would be a fine (if clumsily executed) cover image. But that's not what this is; Greenland Saga is a heavily historically-inspired scenario with lots of references to the sagas, particularly Grœnlendinga saga and Eiríks saga rauða. The Valkyrie appears as a suggested character on one page of this scenario; this is the only image of any character in the entire thing (there's almost no interior art).

So what we actually have is a D&D adventure for history nerds, while what the cover depicts is an 80s trash-fantasy throwdown.

Which is a shame, because it's an OK scenario

The gist of the scenario is that a Papal agent in Norway recruits the PCs (who may have worked for the church in a previous adventure) to go and find out what's going on in Greenland, which has been out of official contact for some time. When the PCs get there, they find that Greenland's Norse population is dwindling and that the locals are reacting to this fact in different ways.

The interesting thing that Greeland Saga does is that it doesn't provide a single explanation for the disappearances. It gives some mundane explanations (the colonists are getting ready to abandon Greenland for a more welcoming North America, the colonists have been enslaved by unscrupulous Portuguese cod fishermen) and a supernatural one (the colonists are under attack from unipeds, legendary creatures mentioned in the saga).

Most of the scenario is actually focused on travelling around the different parts of the Norse colony on Greenland, talking to different people and figuring out what's going on. It's possible that there will be a lot of combat, but there are few scenes where it's absolutely called for -- it's more a byproduct of travel in a harsh environment than anything else.

There are two main problems with the scenario: the first and most significant is the rules system. Historical scenarios test the limits of the D20 system's adaptability. Here, for instance, we're told that the party should include a cleric, but that clerics shouldn't be able to a) cast spells, or b) be proficient with weapons or armour. While this is a pretty accurate description of actual 15th-century priests, it does make playing the party cleric a suicide mission, considering that clerics also don't get a lot of skill points. Similarly, every who-gives-a-crap sailor, beggar and merchant in this scenario gets a full D20 write-up, complete with Forgery skill or whatever, just in case ... something. There is nearly nothing that couldn't be achieved just by saying "Level 1 Commoner." You see the same problem with something like Skull & Bones -- the writer is fighting with the rules a bit to fit them to the history. The difference is that S&B made up for it by providing a ton of new historically-inspired rules.

The second problem is with the historical content itself. There are a few editing glitches -- for instance, some of the Old Norse words have rendered incorrectly, presumably because the special characters needed went missing at some point in the production process. There are also a few simple goofs -- for instance, that valkyrie on the cover? Her name is Sigurd. Not Sigrid; Sigurd. Which is a man's name. I mean, I guess people can be called anything, but it's as weird as if she were called William.

But the thing that keeps jarring me is the inconsistency in terms of how historical we're meant to be. So there are, no fooling, rules for getting dysentery from drinking the water, which you're supposed to roll every time you drink. There are stat penalties for female characters, because "life is not fair. Deal with it." But then one of the first people the characters meet is this like beautiful but deadly Italian merchant princess assassin -- in fucking Bergen -- with like a fancy gown filled with throwing daggers. So which is it? Is it James Bond in the 15th century, or is it a game where you have to constantly roll to see whether you get the death shits from drinking water?

There's a sentence I did not anticipate writing before I bought this thing.

Anyway, it's got a few useful bits (unipeds, I guess, although again Skull & Bones has better monsters-from-medieval maps) but overall it's more interesting as an example of the kinds of things people were experimenting with in the early days of the D20 boom than as a scenario. It does have a few useful maps, and the idea of the different explanations (and a section discussing how to combine them) was a good one.

So: concept OK, execution flawed, I am a weird completist who has bookstore credit he seldom gets to use.

Bone armour, part 2: the Corselet of Zothul

On Monday I talked about the exciting discovery of bone armour from Siberia and opined that this could be the basis for some cool game items. Here is the first, statted for the D&D 3.5ish I use in my D&D game and grounded in my own campaign world.

The Bone Corselet of Zothul

Little is known of the mighty wizards who created the pact between the Empire and the Outer Dark. Some were annihilated by the powers their spell unleashed, erased not only from the world but from time itself. Still others became incurably mad and had to be put down. Yet others were destroyed in the following centuries, their names and histories suppressed by their victorious rivals. Such a one was Zothul the Cold, a master necromancer. It was Zothul who, when the Outer Dark took the city of Glory as its sacrifice, engineered the raising of every man, woman and child within its walls as undead creatures.

I swiped this photo of a classic Citadel figure from 

the excellent Lead Plague blog. Sorry, Asslessman!

Zothul commanded his Old Bone Legion in the wars that followed, clad in a suit of armour of his own design. Each plate of this armour was a bone taken from one of his victims. The reverse of each bone was inscribed with arcane sigils. This face was turned to the armour's leather backing lest mortal eyes see the sigils and be destroyed. Eventually, Zothul grew too powerful for the comfort of the other members of the Imperial Council. The Red Buffalo Legion destroyed the Old Bone Legion in a civil war that lasted nearly thirteen years. Today, to speak the name of Zothul would be to incur the wrath of the Immortal Buffalo General.

Zothul's armour was lost during the fighting. Most believe that it was destroyed when he died, but this is not so. It passed from hand to hand and out of the knowledge of history. No one knows where it rests.

The Bone Corselet provides protection as a suit of studded leather +1. Unlike most such armour, it provides no spell failure chance when the wearer casts spells from the Necromancy school. However, it applies an increased spell failure chance -- 30% instead of the usual 15% -- on spells from all other schools.

The spectral energy of the armour contaminates the soul of whoever wears it. For every week in which the wearer dons the armour regularly (ie in which it is his or her most commonly worn suit of armour) he or she suffers a cumulative -1 penalty on all Diplomacy, Gather Information, Heal, Perform or Sense Motive checks dealing with non-undead creatures. Penalty points disappear at the rate of two weeks of non-use per point. Once the cumulative penalty reaches -10, the wearer gains the Undead quality with all its various benefits. He or she can be turned as a ghoul with HD equal to his or her level. However, on a result that would normal destroy him or her, the wearer is only turned as normal.

RPG a Day, Day 4: Recent purchases

Today I've made a short video talking about my most recent gaming acquisitions.

Notes: 

You can buy Skull and Bones in PDF at DrivethruRPG. Or you can buy it in print.

Similarly, Forgive Us is like a fiver in PDF. I wrote a longer review of it a while back..

Tin Man Games do Fighting Fantasy apps for mobile devices.

I forgot Ian Sturrock when mentioning the people who did Skull and Bones!

Also, it occurs to me that Skull and Bones would combine very well with Call of Cthulhu d20.

Here is the post about Maelstrom I mentioned. Also, turns out the game is, you guessed it, on DTRPG for $10 US (about £6).

We interrupt this Week of Synnibarr ...

Today I don't have time to edit my video, since I am away for the afternoon. Instead, I am going to write about a cheap toy that I used in one of my games!

Seen here with Wednesday night D&D stalwart Torchy the Torchbearer and a Rogue Trader-era Space Marine, these little guys are Androidz toys which I got at The Works for 49p each. As you can see, their design aesthetic makes them good little warforged sort of guys. There are also much more work-robot-like designs, which I also got a few of. I figure they'll bumble around spaceports and things doing important tasks and periodically going berserk.

I think that, if you wanted to be serious about them as miniatures, they might take quite a lot of work -- the bodies are metal, the arms are relatively soft plastic, and the mould lines are a pain in the butt. But I know that there are people who've worked with them, so it isn't impossible.

Using toys in D&D seems to be a thing for me -- the earth elementals in my last game were Gormiti figures I got for 25p each at a car boot sale. I like to use miniatures in games because I think it's a fun visual representation of what's happening; I don't do it in every fight, just ones where it improves convenience. But even so, if I'm bringing out new antagonists every couple of weeks, even a miniatures collection as eclectic as mine struggles to cope.

Plus, you know me: I find scavenging and bargain-hunting fun by themselves.

Tomorrow we'll be back with the exciting conclusion to Week of Synnibarr! Hopefully.

A third Androidz toy playing the part of a wrecked wargolem while some
goblins pile on a poor hapless PC and an eagle signally fails to help. 

Inspiration is everywhere: Day 4

As you may have noticed, a lot of my inspiration and resources come from charity shops, car boot sales and so on. Sometimes I'm not even there! When my wife is out looking for a bargain, she will also keep an eye out for anything I might like. This week she scored me a copy of Chew, Volume 1: Taster's Choice in a charity shop. In celebration of this generosity, I've decided to take this week's inspiration post from Chew!

Tony Chu, the main character, is a cibopath -- a psychic who gains impressions from eating things. If he eats an apple, he gets an impression of the sunshine, the tree, the place it was grown, pesticides, what have you. He is, for obvious reasons, a vegetarian. The world of Chew is one where chicken is outlawed, and Chu and his partner Mason Savoy hunt the big international chicken-smuggling rings. It is, as you might expect, not a wholly serious book. 

So the obvious thing to take away from Chew is cibopathy itself. Here then are three variations of the ability: a ritual for Unknown Armies, a spell for d20 (I don't have psychics in my game) and a psychic power for World of Darkness. 

It Tastes Like Murder, and Murder Tastes Pretty Fuckin' Good

Power: minor

Cost: 3 minor charges

Effect: For the next three hours, anything the caster eats will create a potent image in his or her mind of the item's origins and history. The images are vivid, as if the caster experienced them. Eating a meat product of any kind will therefore trigger a Rank 3 Violence check. Other experiences will trigger Stress Checks as appropriate. 

Ritual action: Draw a mystic sigil on an edible substance such as rice paper or cake frosting using your own blood. Cook the sigil using a specific mix of herbs and oils, then eat it. If any part of the sigil is left uneaten, the ritual doesn't function. 

Chew's Cantrip of Cibopathy

Level: Clr 4, Brd 4

Components: V, S, M

Casting time: 10 minutes

Range: Personal

Target: Object

Duration: Instantaneous

The caster must eat a small amount (at least a full mouthful) of an object in order to use Chow's Cantrip. The god Chew then grants the user a vision of the past or purpose of the object being consumed. The cleric may then ask a question about the history or function of the item, which the DM will answer in the form of a subjective, emotional impression. Multiple attempts at using this spell produce the same result each time. 

Material component: the object to be eaten.

Cibopathy (ESP, ***)

Cost: 1 Willpower

Pool: Wits+Composure or Wits+Crafts

Effect: Like Psychometry (Second Sight, p. 41), Cibopathy allows the psychic to perceive impressions attached to objects -- specifically, to edible ones. This usually takes the form of a general overview of the object's history, unless there is a particularly traumatic or emotional experience associated with it (for instance, eating the body of a murdered person would give an image of the killing). 

Dramatic Failure: the psychic receives a revolting, nauseating image of some disgusting part of the object's past. A successful Stamina+Composure roll prevents noisy vomiting. 

Failure: the cibopath receives no information from the object. 

Success: the psychic receives an impression of an important or emotionally charged part of the object's past. 

Exceptional success: the psychic experiences a sped-up vision of the object's "life" or history. 

Modifiers: 

+1: the object is food, cooked and prepared as such. 

0: the object is not prepared food, but is edible (a plant, an animal)

-2: the object is not digestible (dirt, a penny, paper)

Maps!

Reader Thea asks:

A G+ friend posted this link to an intriguing map, and that made me ponder other real or historical maps that could be stolen and repurposed for gaming: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/the-complete-map-to-earths-deepest-cave-7-208-feet-dee-1553470971

Very cool! I am a big believer in repurposing maps for gaming, although it's important to be clear about what they're for. Take that cave map in the link, for instance. It's super impressive, but from a gaming perspective the map isn't terribly interesting. It doesn't provide a lot of challenges for the players -- most of it consists of a series of single tunnels, so there are few choices to be made in terms of where to go. You go forward or you go back. There absolutely would be tactical challenges fighting anything in there, and there would be big exploration challenges in terms of climbing, but they aren't really represented on the map, if you see what I mean. It does, however, give a great impression of how far deep underground you are at any point, which is useful, so that's cool.

This then prompts the question: what are we looking for in a map? Obviously, the question depends on what it's going to be used for in a game session. There are several functions a map can serve:

• It can set the scene and give you an impression of what kind of place you're arriving in. This is what those big country maps in the endpapers of fantasy novels are for, I assume.
• It can create tactical possibilities and challenges for things like combat and chase scenes. ("I duck behind this dumpster here!" "Quick, take a right on Grand and we'll cut him off!")
• It can ground travel and investigation and make them feel more natural. ("Hey, the security camera factory is right across the road -- maybe they got a picture of the murderer?")

The particularly good thing about maps is that they produce these effects in ways that the players hadn't anticipated. And the great thing about stealing maps for other sources is that they produce these effects in ways the GM doesn't anticipate.

One of my favourite set of gaming maps are the foldout maps from the backs of the old "Arkham Country" books for Call of Cthulhu. Here's an example: this is the map from Escape from Innsmouth.

So it does two things: first, it tells you where everything is, which is important because one of the scenarios in the book ends with a big chase through the town. Second, it gives you a feel for what Innsmouth is like -- the style of the art, the curves of the streets, all suggest something bowing under great age, something rotting and turning in on itself. So it reinforces the Innsmouth atmosphere and also has this practical function. 

Historical maps are good like this as well: a friend once asked me for a map of a medieval town which was intended to be an Innsmouth-alike. In the end, I think we settled on Cork: 

When I wanted to add a port city to my game, I used Stettin: 

It's nicely complex, it's got features I wouldn't have added if I were drawing the map myself, and it shows the town in a nicely varied landscape context. Result. 

Note that neither of these towns are very big: most preindustrial cities weren't, but great big cities is a fantasy trope, so if you're looking to swipe a historical map you may be out of luck. 

The easiest way to find this kind of map is really just to pick a town somewhere or other in the world, put its name into Google image search, and see what you get. I searched for "Avignon medieval map" and this came up right away: 

Click here for a zoomable version. 

In a previous post I talked about castle maps, and even though the image didn't come out very well, I encourage you to click on the link to Estalia and check it out -- although the castles are not historical per se, they're very well researched and definitely worth taking a look at. 

You can find lots of historical house plans online, which is particularly good for more modern scenarios. Medieval house plans tend to be simpler than most fantasy games make them out to be, presumably because there are fewer secrets and fewer fun things to do in a house that's basically one big room and a few little ones. 

But the toughest map of all is the dungeon map properly so-called. The problem is that real-world structures other than homes don't often have the complexity that a real dungeon requires in order to be interesting. Still, there are some good ones. 

If you play in my Wednesday night D&D game, read no further.

So, for instance, check out this lovely Polish salt mine: 

You should be able to click on those, particularly the top one, to enlarge them. Well worth it for that top one, although sadly I can't find a bigger version of the second image. 

Or check out this map of the catacombs of Rabat. 

I tend to chop maps up, relabel them, use parts of them, add things and so on. I have a huge hangup where I want things to look neat and professional, so in fact I am extra crude in my manipulations as a way of overcoming that. 

Here are some good places to find maps: 

If you're looking for a location in the UK, you want to go here. However, it's search-by-location. Good if you want to know what Braintree looked like in the mid 19th century, not good if you just want to find somewhere cool-looking. Also some good resource from the British Library http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/webres/scanned/here.

The New York Public Library has tens of thousands of maps (and other things) online -- and not just maps of New York, either. 

Old Maps Online has a map-based search which is pretty cool. 

There's some quite good stuff in the Old Maps tag on flickr, even. 

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.

Two dollar monster challenge: some inspirational material

I was out and about on Saturday, and every time I passed by a Poundland or something I popped in to snap a few quick pictures. I was also in a zoo gift shop, which was a place with lots of good stuff, although perhaps on the pricey side. Most of these are very large, but I bet there's still a lot that could be done with them. 

If any Chinese toy company wants their box copy
rewritten in something approximating the English
language, they should know that I work cheap.

`                                               

I'm not Shakespeare, but I bet I could do better
than "The World of Biological Series."

Dire Weasels ripped my flesh!

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. 

Two-dollar monster challenge: Intro

In the early days of RPGs -- indeed, even before there were RPGs per se -- fantasy gamers struggled to find miniatures they could use in their games. There weren't really fantasy figure manufacturers like there are today. We knew that early fantasy wargames were set in Conan-type worlds that were full of human nations modelled on historical societies, the better to use collections of Greeks and Vikings and so on.

When it came to monsters, however, things got complicated. Gary Gygax described using Airfix Romans as orcs and making dragons out of plastic dinosaur toys. And once D&D was a going concern, coming up with new monsters meant getting very creative. Check out this excellent post on the origins of the bulette, the rust monster and the owlbear, which were made from dime-store "prehistoric animal" toys. 

Nowadays, of course, you can get bulettes, rust monsters and owlbears in a hundred places, where official D&D miniatures, loving old-school homages or very similar knockoffs. And that's great. Nothing wrong with having options. If the wargamers of that 60s-70s generation could see the variety available now, they'd go green with envy. And it isn't just miniatures -- even if you don't use a lot of figures in your games, chances are you've cussed out a rust monster at least once. 

And yet ... and yet ... 

There is a difference between making monsters from cheap toys you found at the drugstore and celebrating the monsters that other people made from cheap drugstore toys. Making stuff from junk is a grand tradition in the wargaming world, and ought to be encouraged everywhere. Therefore, I am holding a contest! With fabulous prizes to be won, although I haven't actually decided what they are yet. I will begin with an example, though. 

This crazy-ass-looking ape thing, seen here next to GHG mascot Torchy the Torchbearer, was found at Poundland and cost, well, a pound. I think we can all agree that it is amazing. If I put this on the table, my players would crap themselves. But what is it? Here's my example, roughly statted out for d20, which is what I use in my Wednesday night game.

Bonegarden Infestation

Developed by Imperial court wizards working hand-in-hand with the Night-black Cenacle, the Bonegarden infestation is an advanced form of the combat zoanthropy surgeries already used on many Imperial soldiers. It was intended to create a method of inducing rapid-onset mutation without the need for lengthy individual procedures. Unfortunately, an attempted raid by Immortal Buffalo Legion troops on the base where the Bonegarden organism was being developed led to its escape into the wild. Naturally, each general blames the other for the resulting problem.

When the Bonegarden infestation enters a living host, it carries out a series of more-or-less standard metamorphoses, promoting sudden growth of bone spikes or weapons and altering the host's brain to produce increased aggression and decreased sensitivity to pain. The infestation process takes 2d6 days + the victim's Con modifier. Adequate medical care or disease-affecting spells can stop the infestation, although the victim will take d8 damage, +1 per day the infestation has been developing.

Bonegarden Infestation is a template that can be added to any creature. It has the following effects:

• Change the creature's type to Outsider. 
• +2 AC as the infestation produces thick deposits of bone and scar tissue. 
• +10 HP 
• If the host did not already have natural weapons, it gains claws which do d6 damage. If it does have natural weapons, they do an additional +2 damage. 
• The host organism gains the ability to Rage as a barbarian. 
• On a successful grapple, the host may make a bite attack with its chest maw at +2. If it hits, the attack does d4 damage (plus appropriate modifiers) and the victim must make a Fortitude save, DC 18, or become the host for a Bonegarden infestation. 
• Bonegarden-infested creatures gain Regeneration 3.
• Creatures suffering a Bonegarden infestation become irritable and aggressive but peculiarly biddable. They suffer a -4 penalty on all Will saves as well as a -8 penalty on all skill checks related to social interaction and a -4 penalty on all Intelligence-based skills. 
• Bonegarden infestation is invariably fatal after d10+2 months. 

Bonegarden-infested Dire Ape

Bonegarden infestation is particularly common among the dire apes of the Blue Isle where the Cenacle's research centre was based. However, because the infestation is so deadly, these creatures may soon be extinct.

Size/Type: Large Outsider
Hit Dice: 5d8+23 (45 HP)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 30, climb 15
AC: 17/11/15
Base Attack: +3, Grapple +13
Attack: Claw +8, d6+8
Full: 2 x claw +8,. d6+8, bite +3, d8+3 OR maw +5. d4+6 and special as above
Space/Reach: 10/10
Special: Rend 2d6+9
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent, Regeneration 3, others as above
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +3
Feats: Alertness, Toughness
Organization: Solitary

OK, that's my example. Tomorrow, we ask for yours!