• Bathtub Review: A Night at the Tavern

    Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely, but I’m doing this for my own edification: Whether I’d choose to play them, if I’d need to modify them significantly to run them, and whether I’d adopt some of the modules approaches when writing myself. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited harsh critiques on usually excellent modules. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

    A Night at the Tavern is a four page system-agnostic module by Sandy Pug Games, with art by Beowulf and Raul Volpato. I backed it on Kickstarter. Each page details an hour of a night at Zar’s tavern, The Soggy Dog, using a “mood” summary, NPC summaries (there are 12, some with different descriptions in different hours), and an isometric map of the tavern showing where each character is and who they’re with.

    The pixel art maps and character art are excellent, and leverage the simplicity of the character designs to make it fairly clear who is in what room and what they’re doing. Pages 2 and 3 are darker and have some particle effects on them, and a broader range of character designs and colour choices might have made it easier to use. On the other hand, the maps are a very clever way of utilising art to facilitate running a social location, and they work most of the time.

    All of the characters appear to be monsters in Zar’s tavern, and the first hour is getting to know these monsters, despite the fact that a party of adventurers is coming to ransack the place. The character descriptions on page one do an great job of world-building the fantasy world from the perspective of work-a-day monsters without exposition, and don’t fall into the Name/Look/Agenda trap of feeling similar and blurring together. Tension builds in the second hour, with the arrival of some thugs pretending to be adventurers, an assassin, and a cultist, all arriving to complicate matters. In the third act, these new arrivals act on their intentions (it is implied, at least, by the missing sprites and descriptions that something happened in the interim). The fourth page implies the arrival of the adventurers and the summoning of a world-destroying demon.

    This is excellently written, the concept is very interesting, and I don’t think I could bring it to my table, except perhaps as a one-shot. The world is too specific and different from most fantasy worlds to be a drop-in module (although it’s fun and interesting and something more comprehensive that explored A Night At The Tavern’s world would be cool). It’s not intuitive to me who the players in this scenario would be, as the entire tavern is self-sustaining and the agendas of the NPCs are entirely internal and secret. As a one-shot, I could probably run this as a free-form, mystery module where each player takes one of the characters already in the tavern? Frustratingly, some of the major events are elided by the time skips between hours, resulting in my having to figure out who the ‘collateral damage’ was by flipping back and forth through pages two and three. These elisions happen throughout the document – for example, the tavern’s name is the Soggy Dog, but I only know that from the itch.io summary, not from the module itself.

    However, I almost certainly think they design is really useful for party scenes in RPGs. Using a small map with multiple rooms, easily identifiable sprites that move between rooms according to time or event, to help to run something like this, and changing moods and timed events, are all very cool approaches to writing a locked party scene for any adventure. It’s well written and attempts valiantly to incorporate its lore and worldbuilding into as few words as possible, unfortunately not achieving its goals. I’d certainly recommend checking it out if you’re interested in innovative approaches to module design, even if I don’t think the execution lives up to the potential of the concept. I could totally see these methods and approaches utilised again, they just need refining.

    24th March, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

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  • The Tension Jar

    I don’t remember where I got this idea from, but when I ran dungeons, before the overloaded encounter die, I used the tension jar. This overloaded overloaded encounter die made me think of this.

    The original version of the tension die was this: When the company did something loud, risky or stupid I’d add a d6 to a jar. Every real time or game time ten minutes I’d roll all the dice and on a six there was an encounter.

    I think it’d be fun to run this, but with a hazard dice:

    Every the company did something loud, risky or stupid add a d6 to a jar. Every real time or game time ten minutes roll all the dice and look at the highest result.

    1. Nothing
    2. Omen
    3. Rest or exhaustion
    4. Deplete Resource
    5. Environmental effect
    6. Encounter

    The chance of an encounter starts at 17% D increases by about 10% each additional dice in the jar. It doesn’t approach 100% for a long time, (~20 dice) however I suspect cumulative probabilities would make that moot.

    The reason I like this is that it is theatre, more than that this is any better probabilistically. It’s not. It’s a little meaner. But hearing them jump when you signal the end of a turn with a shaking jar, or wince when they shove open a jar or begin to discuss their plans too loudly. That’s juicy, and dungeons are supposed to be never-wracking danger puzzles.

    17th February, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

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  • I Can’t Sleep and Am Thinking of Dungeons

    I can’t sleep and am thinking of senses in which dungeons have stories

    A dungeon has a story in the same sense that a mall has a story, one I do not know and consisting the experience of its inhabitants, visitors, and it’s changing physicality

    A dungeon has a story in the sense that when we enter one we generate memories which will often unintentionally become stories

    A dungeon has a story in the sense that it suggests a story, even if it’s nature is not narrative

    A dungeon has a story if it progress through it is linear, if this is to me a failure of the dungeon to find it’s potential

    A dungeon has a story in the same sense that a narrative videogame has a story; you are floating through an algorithm based on your choices, but the places those algorithms go are often preordained, if not your responses to them

    A given dungeon probably has a story in many or all of these senses simultaneously, depending on who is entering it, how safe they feel, and how the dungeon is described

    A dungeon has a story in the sense that each time it is played the experience of it changes and that is in and of itself a story I’m interested in hearing

    16th February, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

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  • Internal conflicts in OSR play

    A few years ago I ran the AD&D DL series of modules, the Dragonlance Chronicles. They are a perfect example of the worst inclinations of the Weiss-Hickman plot-driven rail-roading modules that began with Ravenloft and continue to this day. I decided to pick it apart and place it into a sandbox. It worked.

    DL1: Dragons of Despair

    However, I think the design I did wasn’t successful because of the methods I used to sandboxify a linear, plot-driven series of modules. I think that the success of the campaign was largely due to a minor introduction I made in order to simply communicate what the important aspects of the characterisations from the novel were: I gave each character a one-line internal conflict. This was both challenging and potentially dramatically dangerous, because it pitted a lot of PCS against each other, but also set up fruitful relationships with NPCS, again in ways that seeded drama into moments later in the campaign.

    There was no relationship mechanic here, and no procedure for generating them. For this campaign, I went bespoke. But I think that these could be semi-randomly generated, and that’s what this post is about.

    Why internal conflict and not external conflict?

    The primary goal of the internal conflict is to complicate decision-making, not to provide opportunities for drama. The big dramatic moments will come when the internal conflict is resolved; in my experience, this occurred organically, and created interesting play opportunities when it did. An example of this is that a slow-burning pair of PCs with a troublesome marriage resulted in one of the pair turning coat on the heroes, which turned the tide in a major battle.

    Creating an internal conflict

    So here’s my basic working definition: An internal conflict refers to a struggle between two opposing values. Our list of values (this isn’t the right word, quite, but I’m not sure exactly what the right one is):

    • Desire, such as your desire for power over others through magic.
    • Need, such as the need to keep your vampirism secret or face doom.
    • Duty, such as your duty to protect your sworn lady irregardless fo risk to yourself.
    • Fear, such as your fear that your brother will not thrive without your protection.
    • Obligation, such as your obligation to obey your Lord Father in his commands.

    We need to take these values and combine them to create our conflict:

    • I desire to be a powerful wizard more than anything, but to do so I would have to abandon my brother.
    • I desire the love of my fiancé, but my duty to my Goddess will always come first.
    • I will be executed if I return home, but I fear being captured by the villains that pursue me.

    So, let’s randomise this process. You’ll need to repeat this process twice, once for each value. Roll 1d10 for your value. On 1-2. Desire; 3-4. Need; 5-6. Duty; 7-8. Fear and 9-10. Obligation. Roll 1d10 for what in the world the value relates to: 1. Home; 2. God; 3. Family; 4. Friend 5. Enemy faction; 6. Friendly faction; 7. Sibling; 8. Magic 9. Riches; 10. Body. Roll 1d10 if you need assistance in determining the relationship between the value and the world is 1. Devoted; 2. Antagonistic; 3. Dependent; 4; Unaware; 5. Treacherous; 6. Protective; 7. Authoritative; 8. Dedicated; 9. Coercive; 10. Aggressive.

    If your table is using world anchors (you may have noticed that the third of those lists is adapted from world anchors), it might be beneficial to tie one or more of your values to your world anchors.

    Finally, be sure that there is some intrinsic tension between your two values if necessary, by adding an extra clause to your sentence:

    • I desire to be a powerful wizard by studying with the great wizard Grabimoru (Desire/Magic/Dependent), but to do so I would have to abandon my brother who lives to protect me (Obligation/Family/Protective).
    • I desire the love of my fiancé who wishes only to keep me safe (Desire/Family/Protective), but my duty to my Goddess will always come first, and she wishes me to bring her healing back to the world (Duty/Goddess/Dedicated).
    • I will be executed for treason if I return home (Need/Home/Antagonistic), but I have a duty to keep the tumpkins safe from the murderous grolgs (Duty/Friendly faction/Aggressive).

    Linking internal to external conflicts

    A secondary goal of the internal conflict is to provide the GM with opportunities for temptation. Cursed magic items, grey-aligned gods and wizards, bribery and corruption: Internal conflicts provide chances for PCs to lean into these things without simply being characters who make poor choices (most players don’t like to make suboptimal decisions). This is where the GM has the opportunity to create external conflicts from the seeds these internal conflicts grow.

    Resolving internal conflicts

    You can definitely do this by discussing it with a player; they can say “No, I think it’s time that my character makes the decision to no longer put his brothers needs before his.” It may involve discussion with more than one player if necessary. It’s up to the player whether or not the resolution of the conflict is the end of the story for the character, or whether they develop a new conflict for them.

    Well, I was hoping I could have a simpler list, roll d66 for an internal conflict, and maybe that’s possible too. I suspect if I spent enough time analysing literature I’d find that there is a limited number of internal conflicts that we could compress to a table, but I don’t have energy or time to do that analysis. I’d love to see someone who did!

    There are a number of ways we can use this! Firstly, we can get players to generate them for their characters, discuss them with each other, and decide whether any of the people involved are PCs. But perhaps a better solution would be for the GM to use the spark tables to generate a d10 or d66 table of campaign-specific internal conflicts, that each character can be randomly assigned. If I were to do this, I’d ask that the relationships be evenly split between PCs and NPCs if possible. I feel like a list of internal conflicts would be a more fruitful approach than the typical d10 hooks that we get more often in campaigns and modules.

    10th February 2023,

    Idle Cartulary

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  • Time bubbling

    Timekeeping is important when you’re running multiple groups simultaneously in the same world. Doing this means you get to do half the preparation, and might get to re-use preparation on a second group. It’s pretty good GMing practice for people like me, who want to play a lot, but can’t find easy ways to play a lot. Most of the advice I’ve been given about timekeeping in D&D-likes is pretty unsustainable practice for me. It’s typically this: Write down everything your PCs do every day, so that their actions impact the world that the other groups are adventuring in. It often comes bundled with the advice between sessions, game-time progresses at the same speed as real-time, because that’s the way the Gary did it and he’d run for up to 50 players!

    Marcia’s Fantasy Medieval Campaigns has the best version of this (which, to be frank, is probably the intended version, those early rules can be vague): Don’t track days, track weeks. However, it’s still more tracking than I want, so instead, for my next open table campaign, I’m going to try something new: Time bubbling. If you recall my previous post on apocalypses, it’s always more fun if you tie an apocalypse into a mechanic, so here it is:

    The Apocalypse

    Nobody knows what caused it, but sixty-odd years ago time broke. The dead began to rise from their graves – some still rotted corpses or skeletons held together by time itself, some strangely renewed and with cruel powers. Those that lived or walked in solitude became disconnected from time. And when time disagrees with itself, entire communities can be trapped behind impenetrable walls of time itself.

    The Mechanic

    Whenever an individual or small group leave a larger group (such as a town or city), they enter their own timeline – a time bubble. Everything that happens when they are travelling exists on its own timeline until they return to that same town, and which point it is placed into history at that point in time, as if it all had occurred at once. If contradictory or simultaneous events occur, there is a time paradox in that location from now on (a unique quest is required to resolve a time paradox!) And there are unpredictable impacts on the ability of items or spells to function that originated in the paradox (you both have the sword of knowledge? It only knows half of its knowledge in each timeline!).

    An Example

    So, in this example, the Tigers of Red Larch set off on the 1st, the Band of the Silver Bridle on the 3rd, and the Party of Five on the 10th. However, The Band arrives back first, and so their adventure becomes history on the 9th. This doesn’t impact the Tigers at all until they return on the 13th, however the Party leaves after they return, and so their adventure exists in the past for them, where the Tigers does not. The Tigers get home on the 13th, impacting the Party’s adventures only 16th, and when the Tigers and the Band resume play later in the month, all three groups adventures will impact the group.

    Why?

    Because I can now run things only in game time, without any real-time impact, which is something I appreciate. Real-time play doesn’t work for me and my friends, who can’t play regularly, and don’t want to wait a year for their downtime magical item to be finished. Timelines don’t interact until adventures are complete.

    Tricks and tips! This can also run week-by-week if you wish. I think it’s actually messier weekly, because usually sessions happen on a weekly basis, so everyone’s timelines sync up and it results in more, rather than less paradoxes. Paradoxes don’t occur very often except in the case of specific groups competing for things, and they’re a fun consequence as well, and clever groups might come up with methods to avoid them.

    6th February 2023,

    Idle Cartulary

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  • Not ancestries, factions with food preferences

    I started writing this at one time, and then realised it dovetailed with a conversation that Sandro and I were having on discord about food. So I mushed them together.

    Ancestries are boring. Don’t use them. Instead, develop factions with each other, because they come with built-in red barrels. To do so, pull from the work of Chaos Grenade and Dungeonfruit.

    These don’t have to be major, and they can be ancient, but community-based biases and contradicting community goals have a deep place in fantasy literature and it appears to be overlooked in most modern fantasy D&D-likes. We recall Legolas and Gimli’s animosity, but also recall the animosity between the elves of Mirkwood and those of Rivendell, between Rangers and Bree-folk, or between Tooks and Bagginses. Most of these are petty and unfounded and based in distant history. I am reading City of Brass, and in it, there is a conflict map between Shafit, Deva, Nahid and Qahtani based on religious beliefs, current superstitions and wars that happened one thousand years ago, and all of these are simply different families of djinn.

    Let’s start with a few basic building blocks: elves, dwarves, and orcs. There are never just one type of a group, so let’s say we have elves of Kalladros, elves of Ellumel, dwarves of Kalladros, dwarves of Xermahk, and orcs of Gheribour. Let’s use a 5 point conflict map to sketch this out. And don’t be afraid to be distant, superstitious, and petty.

    I’ve literally drawn on the diagram from the blog linked to earlier on Chaos Grenade.

    I’ll pick one, because I don’t need to write a bunch of communities to make an example. This map poses me questions. But, first, I have a few questions drawn from the Dungeonfruit article as well, and I’ll put them first

    • What is their aesthetic?
    • What is their hierarchy?
    • What is their (strange, proactive, selfish) goal?
    • What do the dwarves of Kalladros need from the elves of Kalladros and how are they exploited?
    • What do they have that Gheribour needs, and how do they exploit the orcs?
    • What inspired the rivalry between them and Xermahk?

    The Dwarves of Kalladros

    • Slim, diminutive, elegantly bearded, intricate knotwork, graceful curves, stone and metal that appears to be woood.
    • A council and many committees that lie below it, open to all in theory, but not in practice.
    • Freedom from the tyranny of the elves of Kalladros.
    • The Dark Trees of Kalladros will drain the life-waters of the Earth-goddess. In their kindness, the elves brought their magic to restrain the Dark Trees. However, they strain their goodwill by requiring such great taxes on our stone and metalwork.
    • Gheribour need the waters of life, for their swamplands have been polluted in their war with the elves. In exchange, we smuggle them weaponry to weaken the elves of Kalladros
    • Xermahk abandoned the great city of Alladroshahk when the waters first began to dry, one thousand years ago. They are spineless and weak and do not deserve shelter or hospitality.

    The important thing is that it’s not necessarily true that the Dark Trees will drain the waters, that Gheribour need them, or that Xermahk have become inferior in their absence, in fact this is all more interesting if the waters are not magical at all, and neither are the trees.

    But I’m not finished, because now we have inter-community politics and we have needless discrimination, but we don’t really have a sense of what the community of the Dwarves of Kalladros are. Enter food.

    So, ask yourself some questions about food or drink and it’s place in your factions community. Pick one or two of these!

    • What are one or two meals your community eat most days?
    • What food does your community replace “chicken” with in the phrase “tastes like chicken”?
    • What is a major event in your communities calendar, and what food do you eat only at this time?
    • What food do you always have in a pocket or hidden away?
    • What condiment do you always have and that you add to everything?
    • What is a small ritual your perform before or after every meal?
    • What food or drink can you only have after you’ve come of age?
    • When you eat as a community, where do you eat and what is it like?

    Now, it doesn’t matter too much how much detail you go on here, it’s about bringing a sense of home to the community you’re a part of. So, maybe you eat steak and eggs for breakfast and steak and three veg for dinner and that says a lot about your community and its structure and even it’s climate; same if you’re having vegetarian madras or if you’re having barbacoa. This is about bringing flavour as well as explosiveness to your community. For the dwarves of Kalladros:

    • We have huge community feast-halls with roaring fires where the entire district brings food to cook on the communal fire or in pots to keep warm over it. This happens regularly, whenever a significant puck-ball or axeball match happens.
    • We always have spiced dried or friend fungus chips in a pocket or hidden away to snack on.

    And our impression is suddenly not just of beautiful artisans, but of a sport-loving tailgating culture that love fried snacks.

    And they’re just mountain dwarves, aren’t they?

    4th February 2023,

    Idle Cartulary

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  • What’s your apocalypse?

    I was writing a post about a timekeeping technique called Time Bubbling (coming soon!), and I realised that there was a worldbuilding technique that I think is essential to most fantasy worlds that we play treasure-hunting in: Apocalypsing. Don’t worry, this one will be a quick one.

    Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts has one of my favourite apocalypses

    Most D&D-likes are post-apocalyptic. When you’re world-building, the first thing you need to decide is: What was your apocalypse, and what were its consequences? Because this is a fun question to ask, and it says a lot about your world.

    The size of an apocalypse

    The main decision you need to make about your apocalypse is whether is was a local apocalypse or a global one. A local apocalypse might look like this:

    The kingdom of Magras was once a noble kingdom well-known for its Oogrish stonework and its advances in automation. It was destroyed in a war with the Moondark Queen, and now only remnants remain in a twisted wilderness peppered with the ruins of the old kingdom and cultists of the now-dead Moondark Queen.

    Whereas a global apocalypse might look like this:

    One thousand years ago the God-priestess of Som Nam used her secret and blasphemous arcane research to open a hole between the mundane and the eldest divinity, allowing the divine to engulf and infect the world. The portal was wedged closed by a consortium of long-dead knights, however not before the world was shattered by the destruction caused by Darkness of Possession, the Devouring Void, and the Ecstasy of Destruction. Were these three elder gods ever truly vanquished?

    Choosing which sized apocalypse you want to write about is more important than the nature of that apocalypse, because it will often dictate the nature of your campaign and how much sense treasure-hunting makes in that context.

    The nature of your apocalypse

    The nature of your apocalypse helps dictate what kind of hazards might be encountered, what kind of treasure there might be, and what kind of community remains.

    Our two earlier apocalypses were military and divine in nature respectively, but there are many opportunities for other apocalypses such as war, famine, climate change, the summoning death-gods, causing divine wrath, creating intelligences that turn upon you, accidentally merging your dimension with another dimension, mountains falling from the sky, or an army of sorcerers suddenly trying on each ther because their access to magic was tainted.

    Choosing the nature of your apocalypse is less important than the consequence that that apocalypse has on the world now. The nature of the apocalypse is just lore. Don’t put too much thought into it.

    Fun apocalypse consequences and tensions

    Instead focus on the consequences of the apocalypse and the tensions it causes. Let’s take our two earlier apocalypses.

    In the first, the war has left only a remnant: Let’s say there are the remnants of the militant nobles, now solitary but organised and patrolling the wilderness to protect the most sacred object of Magras, the remnants of the innocent civilians, reduced to subsistence in walled villages or living in caves, and the remnants of the cultists, in the desecrated temples of the past empire. In the ruins are automated technologies that only need to be activated or repaired to be implemented. Outside of Magras, there are likely places unaffected by the war who have an interest in the technology of Magras, and who are in opposition to the Rangers and may ally with the cultists or the remaining magrasians in exchange for passage or information.

    In the second, a thousand years have passed, but there are wastelands that new communities and old have had to learn to avoid and overcome. There are zombie wastelands of the Possessed, there are whirlpools and black holes rendering swathes of land uninhabitable by the Void, and roving bands of the crazed devotees to the Ecstasy of Destruction roam the lands chaotically. There is a mystery here, too: Is this all still remaining, or are the elder gods still here and biding their time?

    Consequences can also be mechanical: Time is broken, and now different groups travel in different timelines. Magical artefacts are rogue, and now they must be tamed. Violence was banished, and now combat can only occur in certain arenas. The benevolent gods fled, and now the only gods hide their curses behind blessings.

    Note how tensions are harder to extract from a thousand-year-old apocalypse. Easier to extract treasure, or hazards, or enemies that have been trapped or held in stasis. But having elder gods hibernating beneath the land is cool! How do we bridge the two?

    Layered apocalypses

    Well, we layer apocalypses. We can have our thousand-year elder god apocalypse, our recent war with the Moondark-Queen, and the kingdom that stood on the same ground that was destroyed 500 years ago by its hubris in attempting to harness the power of prism-batteries.

    There is a danger in layering apocalypses, however, because the more we layer apocalypses, the more we need to explain why the previous apocalypse hasn’t been demolished and looted. This can be fruitful, though: Stone is expensive to mine, so if there is stonework it’s likely to be repurposed. What does this look like in modern or pre-modern architecture? Did they respect the ancients and preserve it? Treasure is likely to be taken unless it’s dangerous. Most communities will mark danger with signs that are meant to be universal (see physical waste markers). What are these signs? How did subsequent communities use the treasure or the technology they found that was not dangerous? Why are there no dinosaur skeletons? Why are the ruins beneath the ground? Did they live in dungeons, or did the apocalypse bury them? Ask these questions, these are the fun questions to ask, that will bring weirdness to your world.

    That’s it, really. Let me know your thoughts, and tell me about your apocalypses!

    Addendum: Mechanical consequences was added to the consequence section.

    2nd February 2023,

    Idle Cartulary

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  • New Years Purge

    Dan inspired me to empty out the drafts folder of Playful Void so I can start fresh in the new year. Here goes: All the things I worked on this year and never finished!

    • Comparing contemporaneous versions of D&D
    • Solving the problem of disruptive skill systems in high level and domain play
    • Planning a procedure for a collaborative Gygax ‘75
    • Finishing my ambitious Curse of Strahd by-memory demi-plane (I wrote five or so posts though, if you want a taste)
    • Designing a danger flower to replace the hazard dice
    • Randomising monster types and traits for interesting encounters
    • A Fallout B/X hack
    • Gaoltown again
    • NPC microadvice inspired by The Laws of Fantasy Economics
    • Making alignment languages make sense from a worldbuilding perspective using parasites
    • Independently evolving domains
    • The City of Snowick Bush
    • Animal Crossing in Into the Odd

    If you’re interested in my finishing any of these, or if you’re interested in any of these you can be inspired yourself!

    There are a few I’d like to finish, though. I’m not sure I will, though, but it’s more likely I’ll be able to attend to them after the purge.

    • Intentional Reviews for Mausritter, Spire and Trophy Gold
    • A more intuitive version of Welsh-Piper involving a drop method
    • Part 3 of my Western series
    • Using public evolving maps as replacements for rumour tables

    Bit now I’ll delete all of the purged posts from my drafts folder and start fresh this year!

    Idle Cartulary,

    19th January 2023

  • The Curator, a God of the Crossing

    A testament for Errant.

    You have made a Covenant with the Curator, Magpie God, Memory-of-Things, Museum of Eternity and Edge; god eminent of the preservation of history, display of objects, recording of meaning, and reminiscence of creatures. The Curator is represented by an owl holding a pair of scales. Zealots in covenant with Curator are the only ones who know his true name, which is Thirst. They are rumoured to be able to identify the veracity of any artefact without error. They delve into the depths often to find objects for their collection, hoping to bring glory to the Curator and to be admitted to see the collection of all he contains.

    Blessings

    The blessings of the Curator grant you special abilities, which you can perform at will.

    Remember this. From out of nowhere, create a souvenir or keepsake worth a few shillings of anything in your collection.

    Amber and arsenic. When time is able to be spent with a creature or object in submission to you, you may spend 1 favour per threat, +1 bonus, or rarity, to perform divine taxidermy or to preserve it in a time-resistant coating of divine amber.

    Doctrines

    Your covenant with the Curator grants you the power to perform miracles, supernatural acts related to the eminences of your covenant.

    The First Doctrine. Miracles in the manner of calming of flora and fauna, identification of ancient objects, and comprehension of languages.

    The Second Doctrine. Miracles in the manner of the unerring seeking of objects, protection of objects, the evocation and displacement of wards, compulsion of fauna and some sentient creatures, and invoking minor aspects of the Curator.

    The Third Doctrine. Miracles in the manner of calming vicious or suspecting creatures, true sight, true knowledge of the history of an object, and the bestowal of a major aspect of the Curator.

    The Fourth Doctrine. Miracles in the manner of calming into submission supernatural creatures, binding and caging of epic creatures, manipulation of time and the preservation and theft of moments into physical form.

    The Fifth Doctrine. miracles in the manner of calming into submission supernaturally indomitable wills, preserving in amber an object of supermassive size, time travel.

    Gaining Favour

    For 1 favour, accept a donation to your collection; visit a great or long-since-abandoned collection; bring into your collection a living thing rarely seen.

    For 5 favour, be present to preserve a moment of historical importance, found a museum in a major city, or reveal a history that was never before known, bring into your collection the last specimen of a type of living thing.

    For 15 favour, preserve an entire kingdom for collection, or collect a lesser god for donation to the Curator.

    For eternal favour, preserve the entire world in amber, or place a god of great things in stasis for donation.

    The Curator’s Table of Woe

    1. Target experiences the pain of a single life, inflicting 1d4 damage.
    2. Target begins weeping uncontrollably.
    3. Target is placed in stasis for 2d8 hours. While in stasis they cannot be injured, but they cannot take action.
    4. Whenever the target closes their eyes, another pair of the eyes are there. This second pair can read any language with no living speakers.
    5. For the next day, the target sees the future death of everyone they see. This experience is so overwhelming they cannot speak to anyone unless they are alone together.
    6. Target becomes unable to tell lies but can also sense when others are lying.
    7. Target experiences the battle that took place here from the perspectives of every warrior in an instant. Take d6 damage.
    8. Target’s eyes become large and owl-like, and able to see in the dark as day. Daylight becomes uncomfortable, and their gaze is unnerving.
    9. Target experiences the lifetimes of everyone within a kilometer in an instant. Age d6 years.
    10. Target must record a recollection every day for d20 days, or lose 1d4 presence.
    11. Target is deafened for the next hour but becomes able to hear the voices of the dead.
    12. Target is unable to sleep until the collect d20 objects for donation to a collection.
    13. Target is struck with the weight of history, and ages decades in minutes. Target must make a physique saving throw or have their physique halved permanently.
    14. Target becomes a living taxidermy, their blood no longer flowing, their flesh brittle and their organs incapable of activity.
    15. The flesh sloughs off one finger, forming a key. It has a 1-in-6 chance of opening any lock.
    16. Target’s left eye sees 10 seconds into the future, and target’s right eye sees 10 seconds into the past.
    17. All within 30 feet of the target must make a presence saving throw or be assaulted with the last 100 years of history of the area, permanently losing 1d4 points of presence.
    18. Target begins to sprout feathers and cough croaks. Each day after the beneficence, target must make a physique saving throw. If the target successfully makes three saving throws in a row, the effect ends. If they fail three times in a row, they are turned into a magpie.
    19. The next time the target does something of historical significance they must make a presence saving throw. If they fail, they are preserved in amber, killing them instantly.
    20. Target’s flesh begins to mummify. They must make a presence saving throw. If they fail, their body stiffens in taxidermy, killing them instantly.

    “The collector’s exquisite pleasure, is that her desire should know no bounds, and though she reaches out into the infinite always seeking, she shall be never complete.”

    From the Book of Curation

    This was my second Animal Crossing themed Errant testament. I tried implementing my previous observations, which made this one easier, but as with Mister Nook, it’s the Table of Woes that is most challenging and time consuming. I still think the subject matter is making choosing eminences difficult. What do you think, should I continue with my Animal Crossing theme or move on to more original gods?

    17th January 2023

    Idle Cartulary

    , ,

  • Mister Nook, a God of the Crossing

    A testament for Errant.

    You have made a Covenant with Mister Nook the Bold, Tanooki King, Thief of the Stars, with a Tongue that Spoke Silver into Being. Mister Nook is represented by an inverted leaf; a silver leaf on a field of green is preferred. It is said that zealots in covenant with Mister Nook hear coins tinkling from far away, and spontaneously laugh when a merchant near by plays an out-of-towner for a fool. Often, they are not welcome long in a settlement.

    Blessings

    The blessings of Mister Nook grant you special abilities, which you can perform at will.

    They with the silver tongue. You may exchange 1 favour as many times as you wish to increase the sale price of an item you are offering by 20%. The buyer must accept it; they may have to go into debt to you to do this.

    Just what you wanted. You may exchange 1 favour to reduce the rarity of an item by one from what it would usually be in the settlement you are in, as many times as you wish. You may be exposed to legally grey markets in doing so.

    Doctrines

    Your covenant with Mister Nook grants you the power to perform miracles, supernatural acts related to the eminences of your covenant.

    The First Doctrine. Miracles in the manner of a purse of shillings appearing when it is needed, clouding the mind of another for a moment to gain an edge, making a promise that seems honest even if it obviously is not.

    The Second Doctrine. Miracles in the manner of a purse of guilders appearing where it is needed, and the rejuvenation or improvement of a product, the evocation of trust, and invoking minor aspects of Mister Nook.

    The Third Doctrine. Miracles in the manner of the creation of a shopfront of your choosing, insight into another’s deepest needs and desires, and the bestowal of a major aspect of Mister Nook.

    The Fourth Doctrine. Miracles in the manner of permanent creation of great riches, the granting of land and title, compulsion of another against their will, turning things to gold with a touch.

    The Fifth Doctrine. Miracle in the manner of the creation of cities and islands, apocalyptic hail of gold and rivers running with noble wine and saffron.

    Gaining Favour

    For 1 favour, convince someone to make a minor offering to Mister Nook; make a minor sale to a stranger; trick someone.

    For 5 favour, put someone into debt in exchange for their life, open a shop or sale-wagon, or perform a great deception to selfish benefit

    For 15 favour, change the economies of kingdoms, or trick a god.

    For eternal favour, bring Mister Nook into this world to and provide him with. The opportunity to perform the greatest trick ever pulled.

    Mister Nook’s Woes

    1. Pennies grow on the target’s skin like warts, inflicting 1d4 damage.
    2. Target vomits pennies whenever they open their mouth.
    3. At the point of effect, the target’s flesh begins to turn to copper. The target’s limbs are slow and hard to move for 2d8 hours. When the entire target is copper, the effect resolves and they are purified of all ailments, and may make an appeal to Mister Nook.
    4. A small tanooki head appears beside your regular head. This head knows exactly how much money anyone they see has access to, and can whisper it to you.
    5. For the next day, every bargain, sale or purchase costs twice as much.
    6. Target becomes unable to tell lies but can also sense when others are lying.
    7. Shillings push their way out of the target’s skin like splinters, inflicting 1d6 damage.
    8. Every month, the target’s eyes are afflicted with a blindness to items worth any amount of gold until they sleep with gold coins upon their eyes.
    9. Target ages d6 years.
    10. On a random limb, target’s skin turns to silver, but continues to function normally.
    11. Target can hear nothing but the sound of coins for the next hour, however can accurately predict the number of coins they hear.
    12. Target is transformed into talking tanooki until such time as they sell d20 items.
    13. Half of the flesh on the targets body turns to gold. Target must make a physique saving throw or have their physique halved permanently.
    14. Target’s bones turn to gold.
    15. Target grows a tanooki tail. Whenever anyone grabs it, the target must dance wholeheartedly for 1 minute.
    16. Target can hear the thoughts of anyone standing on their left-hand side through their left ear.
    17. All within 30 feet of the target must make a presence saving throw or be assaulted with the weight of all the world’s greed, permanently losing 1d4 presence.
    18. Target begins to grow soft hair in patches over their body, and large ears and a tail. Each day after the beneficence, target must make a physique saving throw. If the target successfully makes three saving throws in a row, the effect ends. If they fail three times in a row, they are turned into a human-sized tanooki.
    19. The next time the target gives a gift freely, they must make a presence saving throw. If they fail, they become a magnet for all coin nearby, instantly being crushed under the weight of the world’s wealth.
    20. Target feels something writing under their flesh. They must make a presence saving throw. If they fail, their body is instantly turned to gold, killing them instantly.

    “Being a wolf in sheep’s clothing is preferable to simply being a wolf. Having a fleece of gold is more preferable still…”

    From the Testament of Mr Nook

    I was complaining about how challenging writing testaments was for me (Ava says there are lots of currently inaccessible testaments but for now we need to create our own). Chris encouraged me with his work on his own Errant campaign, and Marcia B and Sandro were talking about running an Animal Crossing campaign, and these two things merged in my head strangely to inspire this.

    Thoughts on writing testaments: If you’re writing a woe table variation having at least three discrete and unrelated eminences to your god will make creating variation much easier. Next time I’ll write eternal favour and fifth doctrines immediately after eminences as they affect an agenda, which helps drive decision making elsewhere.

    This was a lot of fun. I may make more, if I have time.

    15th January 2023

    Idle Cartulary

    , , ,

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