Spes Magna Games

It’s been a while since I posted a new spell. As I’m going down a list of randomly generated Vancian spell names, here’s what’s next:

Biderukic’s Dense Salamander
Spell Level: Magic-User, 5th Level
Range: NA
Duration: 6 rounds

The caster summons 1d4 dense salamanders, who serve him until slain or until the duration of the spell expires. The dense salamanders do not appear immediately; there is a delay of 5 rounds before they appear.

Dense salamanders are sluggish, somewhat intelligent creatures of the elemental planes of fire. They appear to be large snake-like beasts with tough scales that give off dangerous heat. The very touch of a dense salamander deals 1d4 hit points of fire damage, and they wrap their tails around foes to cause an additional 1d4 points of crushing damage per round as the victim writhes in the deadly heat of the serpentine coils.

Dense Salamander: HD 2+2; AC 4 [15]; Atk touch and constrict (1d4 + 1d4 heat); Move 9; Save 16; AL C; CL/XP 4/120; Special: constrict, immune to fire, heat.

Tags: monsters, spells, Swords & Wizardry, Vancian magic

Last week, we teachers of 4th and 5th graders field tripped our students to the Texas Renaissance Festival. The highlight of the Texas Renaissance Festival for me is always the Mud Show. I especially adore Billy Billy VonBilly. How much do I adore him? Enough to turn him into a Swords & Wizardry monster:

The mud sprite, a creature of joy and mischief, dwells in muddy places such as a swamp or a pig-cote. They are often encountered in troupes that love to perform low-brow comedy acts for rewards of money, beer, and food. Mud sprites appear human, but they are diminutive, invariably filthy, and often quite hairy. These fey creatures can breathe water and can hide in mud or muddy areas (75% chance of success). When forced to defend themselves, they melee with daggers or throw balls of mud. A target struck by a mud ball must make a saving throw or be blinded for 1d4 rounds.

For Swords & Wizardry:

Hit Dice: 1d6 hit points
Armor Class: 5 [14]
Attacks: dagger (1d4)
Saving Throw: 18 (14 vs. elemental effects)
Special: Breathes water, hide in mud, mud ball
Move: 9 (Swim 12)
Alignment: Neutrality
Challenge Level/XP: 2/30

Tags: Billy Billy VonBilly, monsters, Mud Show, Swords & Wizardry, Texas Renaissance Festival

It’s been a little quiet around this site for a few days. Busy, busy, busy. I’ve got about 30 pages of Rantz’s Fair Multitude, my next PDF, typed up and semi-formatted. Obviously, my original goal of having this product done by the end of October has fallen apart, but that’s okay. I’d rather it get released later than I planned (or not at all) than it get rushed to the “presses” and end up a mess.

What with today being a holy of obligation for us Catholics, I took the day off from work. I’m right now hanging out at Houston Community College’s Katy campus waiting for my son Christopher to get done with the mandatory exam he has to take before he starts college classes for dual credit for both high school and college. Once he’s done with the test, I’m going to head home, take care of little bit of paper work for school, and then probably relax until this evening when it’s time to go to Mass.

Part of the hanging out/relaxing equation involves typing stuff, including what you’re reading now. I’d like to keep updating this site two or three times a week with OSR stuff, but to do that I have to use my down time to get ahead of the curve.

Anyhoo, enough about me. Let’s look at a new monster inspired by a combination of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary and George Gershwin’s “My Man’s Gone Now”. A version of this monster was featured in the Halloween game of Little Fears that I ran.

Huzuni are a demonic creatures that feed on sorrow, grief, and pain. They enter our world through tears in the barriers that normally keep hellish planes separate from the mortal realm. These tears can be caused by tears shed in desperate sorrow by people who refuse to accept the reality of their losses, who instead, often unwittingly, bargain with chaotic powers for a second chance to be with their deceased loved ones. Huzuni wait hungrily for the chance to slip free of their infernal realm in order to cause more death and pain. A huzun’s natural form varies, but they are invariably a distorted and horrible parody of humanoid. Features are always twisted, out of proportion. Limbs have too many elbows, too many knees. They scuttle about on all fours as much as they walk on their feet.

Many people cannot see a huzuni for what it really is unless it chooses to reveal itself. Children who’ve not yet reached puberty and animals always see the monster’s true form. Otherwise, only intelligent creatures with more than 4 Hit Dice can hope to pierce a huzun’s sinister false form, and even then doing so requires a saving throw. These demons’ false forms vary, but are always seemingly normal and harmless. They often appear in the form of deceased loved ones, especially if those loved ones were children. Some huzuni look like common domestic animals, such as dogs.

Huzuni have the horrifying power of autodismemberment, which permits them to tear their bodies apart into as many three pieces. Each piece darts about independently, and can attack with the demon’s claws and fangs, depending on which body parts a particular piece has. For example, a huzuni could split into three pieces, an armless torso that could bite and two separate arms that can slither about like serpents and claw. Even pieces without apparent sensory organs can still see and hear. Each piece can be attacked and damaged as if the monster were whole.

A huzun’s most dreaded attack is its ability to manifest its foes’ darkest fears, affecting all desired targets within 30 feet who can see the monster. Targets who fails their saving throw against manifested fears can do nothing but stand helplessly, overwhelmed by the terrifying sights and sounds conjured up by the huzun. This fear effect lasts 2d4 minutes.

For Swords & Wizardry:

Hit Dice: 8
Armor Class: 3 [16]
Attacks: 2 claws (1d8), 1 bite (1d6)
Saving Throw: 8
Special: +1 or better weapon to hit, autodismemberment, false form, magic resistance (35%), manifest fear
Move: 12
Alignment: Chaotic
Challenge Level/XP: 12/2,000

Tags: Little Fears, monsters, Swords & Wizardry

Every now and then in the Old School Gamers Facebook group, people post pictures and say, “Stat this.” On Tuesday, 8 October, Ethan Myerson posted the picture you see to the right of these words. (Click on the pic to embiggen. Click here to check out Ethan’s iStock site.)

Ethan’s stat request struck a chord with me because he said his kids came up with the idea for the firefrog, and then he drew the picture to fit their idea. That’s just cool, and so I tossed together this as my version of the firefrog:

About five feet long, firefrogs are the product of mad breeding experiments. They have claws and teeth, and attack relentlessly. Three times per day, a firefrog may spew a 5-foot-wide, 30-foot-long line of caustic chemical that ignites shortly after coming into contact with air. Creatures struck by this burning liquid suffer 1d8+4 points of damage (saving throw for half damage permitted).

Swords & Wizardry Stats

Hit Dice: 2+8
Armor Class: 6 [13]
Attacks: 2 claws (1d3), 1 bite (1d6+1)
Saving Throw: 16
Special: Leap, liquid fire
Move: 6 (Leap 12)
Alignment: Neutrality
Challenge Level/XP: 4/120

Tags: monsters, Swords & Wizardry

The jitundege (jē-tŭnd-ē-gǝ) is an enormous xenobeast combining the traits of birds and reptiles. They make nests high up on the imposing cliffs that dominate the western sea coasts of Lygia, not too far from the Shenzi Highlands.

A full-grown jitundege stands about 20 feet at the shoulder. It’s neck, about 12-feet in length, supports a narrow, long cranium. A strong, saw-toothed beak comprises most of the cranium’s length. A fan-like ridge of cartilage covered with fine down tops the head. A jitundege has wing membranes extending between its fingers and toes as webbing, a uropatagium, or membrane between the feet and tail, and a propatagium, or membrane between the wrist and shoulder. Iron-hard keratin sheaths cover its finger and toe claws, which extend and curve into sharp hooks well beyond their bony cores.

Jitundeges lack the ability to truly fly like birds. Instead, they must launch themselves by dropping from a height, much like an enormous bat. Once airborne, a jitundege can remain aloft for hours, drifting on thermals and flapping its membrane wings for additional thrust and altitude. These creatures are also far from helpless on the ground. They can trot on all fours faster than a man can run.

Jitundeges prey on smaller land animals (those roughly the size of an adult human). The typical attack involves catching the victim with a powerful bite and then flipping it through the air to crash back to the ground (6d6 points of damage with an Evasion save for half damage). These xenobeasts also use their powerful foreclaws to rend their prey so as to gain access to its internal organs.

The jitundege’s bony cranial ridge houses and protects a complex neural cluster that protects the xenobeast from psionics. Any creature that targets a jitundege with a psionic power must make a Mental Effect saving throw. If the creature fails this saving throw, it suffers neural feedback that inflicts hit point damage equal to half the activation cost of any powers they use. Mastered powers are treated as if they had their normal activation cost. The existence of this psionic defense adaptation is a source of controversy as there are no known psionic predators on Lygia.

Stars Without Number Data

Jitundege
Armor Class: 4
Hit Dice: 12
Attack Bonus: +12
Damage: 3d6 bite and catch, 2d6/2d6 claws
No. Appearing: 4-16
Saving Throw: 9+
Movement: 40 ft., 60 ft. flying
Morale: 9

Tags: monsters, Stars Without Number