The Latest Enemy

Here is an excerpt from my hack  A Crucible For Silver  The entire list goes up to 1d100 and gets pretty weird in its contents. These are the type of trinkets I like to start my players off with. It gets them interacting with the fiction in very specific ways that are endlessly amusing. When all you have is a magic hammer, everything starts to look like a magic nail for my players and the ways they try to exploit these trinkets. 1. Globe that shows its location on itself. 2. Boots that allow you to jump an extra foot. 3. 10 sheets of paper that turn into what you fold them into, when you throw them in the air 4. Jar of sleep powder. 5. A piece of masonry from The Great Temple that allows you to see everything in the universe perfectly when you touch it. The input is overwhelming and very disorienting. 6. A veiled painting of a tiger that induces complete obsession in all who fully view it. 7. A pair of antique Obols that when placed on the eyes induce a deep and restful s

Spyglass that sees in accurate detail to a league away. When a button on its side is pressed it teleports the user to half the distance of what was looked at. Pressing the button further times teleports a further half of the distance remaining each time it is pressed. A new destination can be selected once per day by looking through the spyglass and then pressing the button. This trinket is a play on some of  Zeno's Paradoxes . By pressing the button repeatedly you technically will never reach the destination you chose. After a couple of presses there will not be any discernible difference between almost at the place and teleported right there.  This is a very powerful tool that is limited by the distance away of the destination being selected (about 3 miles or half of a hex), the once per day usage, and that it will only transport the person pressing the button. However being able to quickly close distances makes it a very powerful assassination and surprise attack tool. The image

You see the infected and dead twitching their way, almost dancing through the streets. Their bodies are no longer their own and seem to be puppeteer-ed by some unknown force. You see no strings, but their limbs jerk exactly like a marionette and their jaws are pulled open unnaturally to wail and sing in an unearthly mimicry. The disease is a mycosis, caused by some sort of fungal infection that reaches the brain and forces it to perform in such a way. The skin begins to be covered in lesions and the muscles are quickly worn beyond use as they are forced to perform. While the fungus is a perfectly natural explanation, it does not explain why groups of the infected tend to congregate and perform almost choreographed puppetry movements. It seems as if some extra force is controlling the hapless victims. The disease appears to continue even after the infected is dead. It should be said that it is not known if they are actually dead, but their flesh is so mortified and infected that by all

And with that I have now brought A Crucible For Silver to version 1.0. I finished the mercenary company rules last night and did another editorial pass. There wasn't much more I could do so I have released it here: https://skyorrichegg.itch.io/a-crucible-for-silver for $4.00 as well as at drivethrurpg for the same price. It still has to go through the review process at drivethrurpg so that will be a couple of days before I announce its release on anywhere but this blog.  It is a frightening feeling having it out there. Realistically, as a public domain "artfree" version, I will be happy if I ever make a couple dozen sales. Just knowing someone out there thought it looked interesting enough to drop a few dollars on it will be a wonderful feeling.  Next on the horizon is getting together some kickstarter preview art and starting to put together a small kickstarter project for A Crucible For Silver with really nice art to go along with it. Here is a preview of what that look

If I could recommend every GM to read an author it would be Jorge Luis Borges. The Argentine author is very concerned with ideas of interest to a typical GM: labyrinths, libraries, infinity, mythology, and the metaphysical. Make no mistake, roleplaying games are an exercise in the metaphysical: a melding of the minds at the table to bring to life the shared fiction. Borges wrote his own mini settings that are ripe for stealing:  The Library of Babel  is an infinite library consisting of identical hexagonal rooms filled with books that consist of every permutation of the text.  The House of Asterion  portrays another maze of seeming infinitude as well as a portrayal from the point of view and motivations of a villain.  The Lottery in Babylon  depicts a society governed by a secret group that preordains the favor and disfavor of all individuals, a metaphor for the randomness of life but one that can also be used literally to great effect at the table.  Borges wrote his own monster manual

 Everybody loves maps! I am using the  Thousand Thousand Islands  setting books for the area my players are currently in. They are an insanely evocative OSR resource that gives an immediate Southeast Asian feeling to your setting. We have Andjang in the upper left, which is where I started my players right in the middle of a blood tithe. Mr-Kr-Gr, the Death-Rolled Kingdom is next counter clockwise along the river. Then Kraching, land of cats. Finally we have Upper Heleng in the upper right, a forest blessed by time. As I said the player's mercenary company has shown up right in the middle of some religious turmoil. Andjang is in the middle of its blood tithe, but to further stir the pot I decided to adapt material from here:  What Child is This rpg . This religious group has spewed forth a god-child and the child is definitely legit. With the blood tithe going on I felt there was a lot of thematic overlap when it came to religious overtones. Adding in a legitimate deity that your p

Here are 1d100 weird backgrounds that have led to you becoming a mercenary. Random background tables are something that we can always use more of. These are all found in my hack found here: https://skyorrichegg.itch.io/a-crucible-for-silver Master of Keys A master of keys will often start out as a simple locksmith or perhaps a thief specializing in lock picking. Soon enough they find themselves hoarding keys and lock picks obsessing with the idea of a single perfect, primordial, Ur-key. Their worldview has been changed to one that sees the whole world as a lock in need of key. 6d20 Keys of all shapes and sizes, stuffed into pockets and hanging off their clothing Lock Picking Tools Hammer Runestone Open Key Sketchbook Advantage when lock picking non-magical locks. 2-in-6 chance that they have the key to any lock encountered but it takes 1d60 minutes to find. Maze Expert Hedge, stone, catacomb, cave, dungeon, beehive. If there is a maz