Spes Magna Games

If you’re wondering, no, I’ve not forgotten about the goblin spider lair. I just have to remember to find the maps that I was working on.

And, so, onto today’s post.

Patreon artist Fernando Salvaterra recently posted this fun illustration of three skeletons about to teach a group of tomb trespassers a lesson about property rights. Nota Bene: If you click on the pic, it embiggens.

Each skeleton has a magic item it uses in combat. These magic items detect as evil. Each has the same deleterious effect when used by non-evil creatures, namely that the creature suffers a -1 penalty to saving throws against fear effects per item used.

The Archer
Number: 1
Size: Medium
HD: 2 (d12) (13)
AC: 13
Saves: P
Move: 30 ft.
Attacks: 2 with Short Bow (1d6 plus magical effect) or 1 with Short Sword (1d6)
Special: +1 or Better Weapon to Hit, Magic Quiver, Regeneration 1, Undead
Int: Average
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Type: Undead (Unique)
Treasure: 4
XP: 56

Combat: The Archer prefers ranged combat, firing two arrows per round from its shortbow. If forced into melee, it pulls the short sword from its skull. The Archer cannot be harmed by nonmagical weapons, and even magical slashing or piercing weapons inflict but half damage to it.

Magic Quiver: The Archer’s magic quiver holds a dozen arrows. Each day at sundown, the magic quiver refills with a dozen arrows. When an arrow is pulled from the magic quiver, roll 1d6 to determine that arrow’s magical effect:

1-4 = +1 to hit and damage
5 = +2 to hit and damage
6 = +3 to hit and +1d6 damage against a living creature

Regeneration: The Archer regenerates 1 hit point per round until reduced to 0 hit points, at which time it regenerates 1 hit point per hour. The Archer cannot regenerate damage from holy water.

Undead: The Archer is immune to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, and all mind-affecting spells (charms, compulsions, et cetera).

The Spearman
Number: 1
Size: Medium
HD: 3 (d12) (20)
AC: 13
Saves: P
Move: 30 ft.
Attacks: 2 with Magic Spear (1d6+1)
Special: +1 or Better Weapon to Hit, Magic Spear, Regeneration 1, Undead
Int: Average
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Type: Undead (Unique)
Treasure: 4
XP: 120

Combat: The Spearman prefers melee combat, attacking twice per round with its magic spear. The Spearman cannot be harmed by nonmagical weapons, and even magical slashing or piercing weapons inflict but half damage to it.

Magic Spear: The Spearman’s magic spear is a +1 weapon. If thrown, it splits into two spears that may target any two creatures within 10 feet of each other (or both may target a single creature within spear range). The thrown magic spears disappear at the end of the round, reappearing in the Spearman’s hand as a single spear.

Regeneration: The Spearman regenerates 1 hit point per round until reduced to 0 hit points, at which time it regenerates 1 hit point per hour. The Archer cannot regenerate damage from holy water.

Undead: The Spearman is immune to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, and all mind-affecting spells (charms, compulsions, et cetera).

The Captain
Number: 1
Size: Medium
HD: 4 (d12) (26)
AC: 18
Saves: P
Move: 30 ft.
Attacks: 2 with Magic Sword (1d8+1)
Special: +1 or Better Weapon to Hit, Magic Sword, Regeneration 1, Undead
Int: Average
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Type: Undead (Unique)
Treasure: 4
XP: 224

Combat: The Captain prefers melee combat, attacking twice per round with its magic sword. The Captain cannot be harmed by nonmagical weapons, and even magical slashing or piercing weapons inflict but half damage to it.

Magic Sword: The Captain’s magic longsword is a +1 weapon. Against lawful good creatures, the sword inflicts an addition 1d6 points of damage with a successful hit.

Regeneration: The Captain regenerates 1 hit point per round until reduced to 0 hit points, at which time it regenerates 1 hit point per hour. The Archer cannot regenerate damage from holy water.

Undead: The Captain is immune to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, and all mind-affecting spells (charms, compulsions, et cetera).

Tags: C&C, Goblin Spider Lair, monsters, undead

I’m still not back on track with what’s supposed to be regular posting. It’s not that I’ve accomplished nothing since my last post, but nothing I’ve accomplished explores the goblin-spider’s lair enough to be worth a post.

But, I did do this!

Unidentified Female Observer
Number: 1-4, 6-24
Size: Medium
HD: 6 (d8)
AC: 15
Saves: M, P
Move: 40 ft.
Attacks: By weapon (see below)
Special: Alien Technology, Telepathy
Int: Superior to Genius
Alignment: Lawful Neutral/Evil
Type: Extraplanar
Treasure: 6
XP: 330 + 6

UFOs appear much like lovely humans (or maybe half-elves) who wear tight clothes made from what looks like shiny, metallic fabric. They wear strange masks and helmets or headdresses. Graceful and strong, many UFOs avoid combat, seeking to study what to them are strange forms of life, but evil UFOs may abduct creatures in order to perform painful experiments upon them.

UFOs speak their own language. They may choose to communicate telepathically, and this ability transcends language barriers.

Combat: UFOs use weapons in combat. A certain UFO will have 2-3 weapons available. See below for a suggestions.

Alien Physiognomy: A UFO’s Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores range from 13-18 (1d6+12). Adjust attacks, damage, hit points, et cetera as appropriate. When determining encumbrance, count Strength and Constitution as prime attributes.

Shiny Metal Fabric: A UFO’s clothing has a +5 AC bonus and an EV of 1.

Strange Helmet/Headdress: A UFO’s helmet/headdress has a +5 AC bonus and an EV of 1. It can be set to deepvision, see invisibility, locate object, or twilight vision.

Telepathy: UFOs may communicate telepathically. They understand all languages and can communicate with all creatures, save those with no discernible intelligence.

Weapon – Belt: When activated, the belt duplicates protection from arrows (1 charge), invisibility sphere (2 charges), teleport (3 charges), or wall of force (3 charges). These operate as if cast by a 9th-level wizard. The belt has 9 charges when fully charged. It regains 3 charges per day.

Weapon – Blaster: This hand-held ranged weapon fires a blast of destructive energy that duplicates burning hands (1 charge), magic missile (1 charge), shatter (2 charges), or lightning bolt (3 charges). These operate as if cast by a 5th-level wizard. The blaster has 7 charges when fully charged. It regains 3 charges per day.

Weapon – Rod: This hand-held melee weapon carries a powerful electrical charge that inflicts 1d8+5 points of damage with a touch attack roll.

Tags: C&C, monsters

Well, so much for my plan to post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The middle of the week arrived, and I got some stuff done, but obviously none of that was typing up and posting more Wednesday Lore about the goblin-spider’s lair. So, how about this:

I’ve been running Castles & Crusades for a while now. I have a weekend C&C game, and I have three groups of students in grades 5 through 7 for whom I run C&C, each group getting lunch/recess time on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays to assemble in my classroom for heroic fantasy adventures. This summer, I’ll be running two one-week long C&C game camps as well.

The more I play C&C, the more I like it. I’ve pulled several of my AD&D books from the shelves to use with C&C. With my students, I’m running a series of old Dungeon adventures. One of my students groups segued from a Dungeon adventure into Day of Al’Akbar. This week, the PCs in that group navigated the checkerboard riddle room, albeit not without suffering some damage from electricity arcs.

In my weekend game, we’ve acquired two new players, the middle-school-age nephews of one of my regulars. With the addition of two new players, we firmly established a second group of six PCs operating out Elmelynn, a small town about a week north-by-northwest of the campaign’s original group of four PCs who operate out Sisak, a frontier farming village. The new group has helped a lost modron escape to a friendlier reality. In the process, the new group learned that a modron army has invaded their campaign world in order to “restore the balance” (as the modron explained). The group’s rogue also learned that their town’s criminal kingpin has demon or devil blood flowing in his veins. (Aside: I really wish C&C called rogues thieves and wizards magic-users.)

Shortly after the modron adventure, the PCs signed on to escort of new tax assessor to Sisak. (Nota Bene: This tax assessor is the replacement of the assessor who was killed by monsters which were defeated by the Sisak group of PCs.) Group two also heard that a special shipment of dwarven ale had gone missing en route from Hol Lodur in the Shadowed Vale to Elmelynn. Since the tax assessor isn’t leaving for a few days, the players decided to track down the missing ale and collect the reward offered for its return.

Group two’s first day on the trail of the ale was eventful. Hol Lodur in the Shadowed Vale is not far from Elmelynn. The PCs tracked the missing shipment to where it had been stolen by a group of humanoids, whose trail led to an abandoned dwarven hold in the wooded highlands of the Vale. Cautious investigation learned that the ale was in the hold, and that there were bugbears and goblins there as well. The PCs withdrew to camp, sending back one of the dwarf NPCs recruited from Hol Lodur, the ale’s point of origin.

Since I’d been using random encounters (something I tend to shy away from), I figured it was sensible to see if this dwarf NPC encountered anything on his way back to Hol Lodur. A few dice rolls later (using the random wilderness encounter tables in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide) revealed that the paths of the dwarf and a hill giant intersected.

Many hours passed, and the NPC dwarf had not returned. The PCs followed the NPC dwarf’s tracks to where the hill giant attacked and captured the dwarf. The PCs then tracked the hill giant back to its lair. One PC, the fastest on horseback, raced back to Hol Lodur to get reinforcements. The rest of the party faced the hill giant. After a fierce battle in which the PC dwarf’s giant-fighting AC bonus did some heavy lifting, the PCs defeated the hill giant and its mate, rescued the dwarf from being roasted on a spit, and discovered a hoard of treasure. Also, three adolescent hill giants escaped by fleeing into tunnels leading deeper underground from the giants’ cave lair.

By the end of the session, the PCs were trying to figure out what to do with a bit more than a half-ton of coins and other treasure, gradually realizing that a simple find-and-retrieve mission has become quite complicated indeed.

Tags: C&C, game play

Bosukumo is not an average goblin-spider. It has 6.5 hit points per HD (26 hit points), and it enjoys a +2 bonus on saving throws against magical effects that affect the mind or emotions. Bosukumo’s gaze poses a threat. Once per day each, Bosukumo can inflict charm monster or hold monster on a human, demi-humanoid, humanoid, or giant that meets its gaze. This ability works in any of Bosukumo’s forms. Because of these additional abilities, Bosukumo is worth 294 XP. What’s more, Bosukumo’s treasure type is 4 (Hoard).

In other respects, Bosukumo is a typical goblin-spider, the stats of which follow.

Goblin-Spider
Number: 1-2, 2-5
Size: Small to Medium
HD: 4 (d8)
AC: 14 or 15
Move: 30 ft., 20 ft. (climb)
Attacks: Bite (1d3 or 1d8) or by weapon
Special: Darkvision 90 ft., Poison, Shapeshift, Twilight Vision, Web
Saves: M, P
INT: High
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Type: Shapechanger
Treasure: 4
XP: 130+4

The goblin-spider is a yokai, a type of supernatural creature that most often has an evil disposition. In its natural form, the goblin-spider appears much like a man-sized spider, but its eyes are those of a mammal rather than an arachnid. The goblin-spider is a shapeshifter as well. Intelligent, malicious, and aggressive, the goblin-spider poses a serious risk to the humans and demi-humans upon which it prefers to prey.

Poison: A victim bitten by a goblin-spider must make a constitution save to prevent the immediate affects of the venom taking place. A successful save halves the poison’s initial effects and negates the second round’s effects.

A goblin-spider’s poison on the first round causes 1d10 points of damage. On the second round, it causes a further 1d8 points of damage plus paralyzation for 3d6 hours.

Shapeshifting: During the day, a goblin-spider is about the size of a goblin, and it cannot use its shapeshifting ability. When in small form, it is AC 14 and its bite inflicts 1d3 points of damage. Once the sun sets, a goblin-spider grows to size medium, and it can shapeshift into any small or medium animal, human, demi-human, or humanoid.

In animal form, it gains the appropriate movement, AC, and attacks. If that form has a bite attack, the goblin-spider’s bite remains poisonous. In human, demi-human, or humanoid form, the goblin-spider loses its poisonous bite, but it can wield weapons, wear armor, et cetera.

A goblin-spider speaks the language of arachnids and the Common Tongue regardless of form. In animal form, it speaks with animals at will. In human, demi-human, or humanoid form, it speaks the appropriate racial language.

Web: In either small or medium goblin-spider form, this monster spins webs. A single strand of its silk is strong enough to support the goblin-spider and one creature four times as large. Eight times per day, a goblin spider can throw a web (as the wizard spell). To protect its lair, a goblin-spider creates sheets of sticky webbing from 5 to 60 feet square. It usually positions these sheets to snare flying creatures as well as to trap prey on the ground. A goblin-spider can move across its own web at its climb speed and can pinpoint the location of any creature touching its web.

Tags: C&C, Friday Foe, Goblin Spider Lair

Today, I shift away from Chaos Goblins and the Undead and toward the Fimir, found on pages 218-219 of the 1989 Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WHF).

WHF tells us that the Fimir might be “part Human and part Demon” and that they “haunt bogs, fens and desolate moorlands throughout the northern and western wastes of the Old World.” While usually fond near coasts, Fimir dwell “anywhere that is suitably dank and dismal”, where they live in “strongholds [that] are typically forbidding, craggy piles of rock, crudely built in the semblance of human castles on jutting headlands and other rocky eminences”. These strongholds are “constantly wreathed thick, writhing mist”.

“The Fimir are creatures of mist and darkness, and shun bright light.” They live in communities populated “almost entirely of males”. These creatures have a caste system. From lowest to highest, these castes are the Shearl (thralls), “a cast of servitors and menials”; the Fimm (warriors), “to which the bulk of Fimir nobility belongs”; the Dirach (demonfriends), “a small but powerful cast of magicians”; and the greatly feared Meargh (hags), “the witch-queens that rule over Fimir strongholds. The Meargh are the only female Fimir.”

Fimir live by raiding isolated communities to seize food and prisoners. Since the Meargh are sterile, Fimir “abduct Human women” with which to breed; offspring of these blasphemous pairings are always fully Fimir whose castes are obvious at birth. Very few female Fimir are born, and most of those are killed by the stronghold’s reigning Meargh.

These raiding parties “generally consist of a dozen or so Fimm and a roughly equal number of Shearl”. Along coastlines, Fimir “travel in low-hulled, black longships.” For important raids, a Dirach leads the Fimir. Meargh are seldom encountered outside their strongholds. Fimir favor “great heavy maces and axes, which a Human would need both hands to wield; some Fimir, especially the nobility, go into battle with one of these weapons in either hand. Fimir do not generally use missile weapons, since the fog which is their natural element precludes missile fire.”

“Fimir dress in an almost Human fashion, but always leave the legs, arms and tail bare. The Fimm often weapon shirts of chainmail in battle, and nobles favor long cloaks fastened at the shoulder by heavy brooches of gold set with gems.” Fimir nobles love blood-colored gems. “Dirach and Meargh wear long, drab-coloured robes and cloaks.”

Fimir resemble large humanoids with powerful chests, short legs, feet with three clawed toes, and long arms that nearly reach the ground. Fimir are quite strong, with strong muscles hidden beneath a flabby layer of fat covered by leathery skin. They have large, mostly bald heads that resemble a cross between a boar and a lizard, with a single lidless eye. Fimir have no exterior ear structures. The average Fimir stands about eight feet tall, but they typically stand hunched over. Fimir also have “powerful, snake-like tails, which average about 6 feet in length.”

Fimir

Magic: Dirach cast spells as an 8th-level wizard. Dirach always know summon lesser monster. Due to their pacts with hellish powers, a Dirach can summon a specific type of monster, as desired, and the summoner can communication with its summoned monsters. Meargh cast spells as 10th-level wizards. Furthermore, a Meargh can prepare cleric spells of up to 3rd level in place of wizard spells of the same level. These cleric spells are gained through devotion to evil deities.

Furthermore, once per day, Dirach and Meargh can cast fog cloud. The bilious fog created by this ability is centered on and moves with the caster.

Strength Bonus: Due to their size and strength, Shearl, Dirach, and Meargh receive a +2 bonus to melee weapon damage (including tail lashes). Fimm receive a +4 bonus to melee weapon damage.

Tail Lash: In place a melee weapon attack, a Fimir may lash out with its tail, striking at a creature no farther away than 10 feet. A The tails of Shearl, Dirach, and Meargh inflict 1d6+2 points of damage. Fimm have stronger tails that end in bony knobs or spikes for nobles. These tails inflict 1d10+4 points of damage.

Twilight Vision: No type of fog — natural or magical — obscures a Fimir’s vision. Fimir dislike bright light. They suffer a -2 attack roll penalty in bright light as well as a -2 penalty on saving throws against fear while exposed to bright light.

Tags: C&C, monsters, Warhammer