Spes Magna Games

Last week, I took the aerial servant from the AD&D Monster Manual and statted it up for Savage Worlds Deluxe Explorer’s Edition. If you missed that installment of Savage Wednesday, you can click here to make amends.

(Nota Bene: The first two links above are affiliate links.)

I kind of enjoyed writing the aerial servant post, and so I asked myself, “Self, why not do the same thing for the next monster?” I couldn’t think of a good reason to not do so. The AD&D Monster Manual remains a classic among the host of roleplaying game collections of monsters. Sure, some of the art is a bit uninspired. (I’m looking at you, Brachiosaurus.) Some of the monsters are perhaps a bit odd or even unnecessary. (Now I’m looking at you, Mule. You’re not a monster.)

Other entries, however, are classics, and the anhkheg (note the correct spelling) is a classic. An giant burrowing arthropod that attacks by surprise and spits acid? What’s not to love?

Anhkheg

The anhkheg burrows through the earth like an earthworm, preferring soil rich in minerals and organic matter. Thus it will usually be found in forests and choice agricultural land. This causes farmers great consternation, since the anhkheg likes to supplement its earthly diet with a bit of fresh meat, human or otherwise. The anhkheg has a chitinous shell which is brownish in color. Its underside is pinkish. The creature’s eyes are glistening black.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d6, Strength d12+4, Vigor d10
Skills: Fighting d8, Notice d8, Shooting d6, Stealth d8
Charisma: —
Pace: 6
Parry: 6
Toughness: 14 (3)
Special Abilities:

Armor: +3.

Bite: STR+d10.

Burrowing: The anhkheg has a Burrowing Pace of 3. When burrowing, the anhkheg gains a +2 to Stealth rolls.

Spray Acid: The anhkheg sprays acid using the Cone Template. Every target within this cone must beat the anhkheg’s Shooting roll with Agility or suffer 4d8 points of damage. The anhkheg can spray acid once every 1d6 hours.

Size +4: The anhkheg reaches lengths of 20 feet.

Tremorsense: The anhkheg tends to lurk underground and attacks by ambush. The anhkheg detects vibrations within 6″, gaining a +2 to Notice rolls.

Tags: monsters, Savage Wednesday, Savage Worlds

The Kids’ Game campaign using Savage Worlds Deluxe Explorer’s Edition is on a brief hiatus. Last Saturday would have been our next session, but folks were out of town or otherwise unavailable. This is probably a good thing. The next session looks to be a bit, well, busy. The kids in the forms of their pulp hero characters are holed up in Watusi, a small African town at the edge of Leopard Man territory. Pharaoh Doctor Mobius has a detachment of stormtroopers moving toward the fabled Temple of Tears, presumably to ambush the heroes when they show up with the Tiles bearing the secrets to finding the Chalice of Possibilities.

Realizing forewarned is forearmed, the heroes beat the streets and broke into some offices to gather intelligence. One of Mobius’s lieutenants, the inscrutable and deadly Wu Han, is en route via airship with more stormtroopers. Elements of the Resistance have allied themselves with the heroes while collaborators make ready to welcome Wu Han. In short, the heroes sit on a powder keg of potential insurrection. Hundreds of lives hang in the balance.

Like I said: busy. On the plus side, the next session presents a great opportunity to test out the Allies and Mass Battles rules, so I got that going for me.

And now, for no particular reason, the first monster in the AD&D Monster Manual. (Nota Bene: The links above are affiliate links.)

Aerial Servant

The aerial servant is a semi-intelligent form of an air elemental, typically encountered only due to conjuration by a cleric.

Attributes: Agility d10, Smarts d4, Spirit d8, Strength d12+2, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d10, Notice d10
Charisma: —
Pace: —
Parry: 7
Toughness: 9
Special Abilities:

Elemental: An aerial servant takes no additional damage from called shots. It is Fearless, and immune to disease and poison.

Flight: An aerial servant flies at a rate of 12″ with a Climb of 3. It may not run.

Ethereal: An aerial servant cannot be harmed by nonmagical attacks.

Invisibility: An aerial servant is naturally invisible. Its presence can be detected due to disturbances in the air. A character may detect an aerial servant with a Notice roll at -4. Once detected, an aerial servant may be attacked, but with a -4.

Size +3: An aerial servant is about 8 feet tall.

Slam: STR+d6.

Tags: monsters, Savage Wednesday, Savage Worlds, The Kids' Game

The Kids’ Game campaign continues. The heroes left behind Miami, Florida, in the 1980s and entered the Nile Empire, a strange mixture of ancient Egyptian society, Depression-era pulp noir, weird science, and masked men of mystery. Transformed from 8th-graders into men of action, the heroes found themselves thwarting attempted murder by giant scorpion, matching wits and bullets and fists against a master of disguise, and racing against the agents of the diabolical Wu Han, servant of Pharoah Doctor Mobius, to retrieve a set of mysterious tiles stolen from the Temple of Tears deep in be-jungled Leopard Man territory. The tiles, it is said, must be restored to their original configuration in the Temple in order to reveal the location of the fabled Chalice of Possibilities, an obscure but allegedly powerful artifact that several would-be world conquerors seek to possess.

Among foes faced by the heroes were a Priestess of Sobek and an Avatar of Sobek, a monstrous crocodile. Between the Avatar’s jaws and the Priestess’s fear magic, the heroes nearly met defeat.

Avatar of Sobek (Wild Card)

Larger and more powerful than most Nile crocodiles, the Avatar of Sobek bears the hieroglyph of Sobet on its head, branded between its eyes. It obeys its mistress’s orders.

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d8, Strength d12+4, Vigor d12
Skills: Fighting d10, Notice d12, Swimming d10
Charisma: —
Pace: 4
Parry: 7
Toughness: 12
Special Abilities:

Aquatic Pace: 6

Bite: STR+d6

Tail: STR+d6. The Avatar of Sobek cannot target the same creature with its bite and its tail.

Death Roll: With a raise, the Avatar of Sobek inflicts +2d4 damage.

Size +4: The Avatar of Sobek is more than 20 feet long.

Priestess of Sobek (Wild Card)

Scaly fleshed and wearing a crocodilian mask, the Priestess of Sobek is a fearsome enemy.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d8, Spirit d10, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d10, Notice d12, Swimming d10
Charisma: +0
Pace: 6
Parry: 6
Toughness: 7
Special Abilities:

Aquatic Pace: 5

Crocodile Fang Sword: STR+d6

Crocodile Paw Throwing Knife: STR+d4 (3/6/12 range)

Miracles of Sobek: The Priestess has 10 Power Points to spend on Beast Friend and Fear. She gets a +2 to influence reptiles, but has a -2 to influence other animals.

Scaly Blessing: +2 TOU

And, just because I did it for two other game systems, here’s a third version of the bearboar:

“Everybody died,” the scientist claims. The grizzly boar charged through the grounds and impaled the rich hunters, one after the other, on its sharp tusks. Though it was shot a few times, the creature seemed to have no problem absorbing bullets.

Mad scientists in a lab with poor security? Of course. Sheesh, what fresh hell will it be this time?

Bearboar

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d8, Strength d12+4, Vigor d12
Skills: Fighting d8, Notice d8, Swimming d6
Charisma: —
Pace: 8
Parry: 6
Toughness: 10
Special Abilities:

Bear Hug: A bearboar that hits with a claw and gets a raise has pinned its foe. The foe may only attempt to escape the “hug” on his action, which requires a raise on an opposed Strength roll.

Bulletproof: The bearboar’s mutated hide negates up to 4 AP from bullets and provides +4 protection from them as well. This bonus is not added to the bearboar’s Toughness above.

Claws: STR+d6

Improved Frenzy: The bearboar can make two Fighting attacks each action at no penalty.

Tusks: STR+d6. If the bearboar can charge at least 6″ before attacking with its tusks, it adds +4 to its damage total.

Size +2: The bearboar is more than 8 feet long and weighs more than 1,000 pounds.

Tags: monsters, NPCs, Savage Wednesday, Savage Worlds, The Kids' Game

Johnny Appleseed (Wild Card)

Johnny is an eccentric entrepreneur. He travels the country, usually on foot, pretending to be an impoverished vagrant. In truth, he is quite wealthy. Kind-hearted, pious, and generous, Johnny uses his skills and uncanny powers to help others. He is not a man of violence, however, preferring to overcome hostility with his wits and words.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d8, Spirit d10, Strength d6, Vigor d10
Skills: Gambling d6, Healing d8, Knowledge (horticulture) d10, Persuasion d10, Repair d8, Survival d10, Swimming d6, Tracking d6
Charisma: +2
Pace: 6
Parry: 2
Toughness: 7
Special Abilities:

Animal Lover: Johnny can speak with animals. Animals won’t attack Johnny unless he attacks them first.

Elan: When Johnny spends a Bennie on a Trait roll, add +2 to the total.

Pacifist: Johnny is a pacifist. He won’t fight living creatures.

Plant Control: Johnny can control plants. He has 20 Power Points that he can spend on the Barrier and Entangle powers.

Tags: NPCs, Savage Wednesday, Savage Worlds

When I last posted about our The Kids’ Game campaign using Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition, I explained how fantasy heroes Foxglove, Dark Halo, and Haldir aren’t really Foxglove, Dark Halo, and Haldir. They’re really rather ordinary middle school students from Miami, Florida, who have found themselves thrust into a strange fantasy world in which they become heroic members of the Guard.

In our two most recent sessions, the kids returned to Miami, arriving at the school playground just a few hours after they were transported to the fantasic world of Aysle. There they met Carlos (played by guest star Alex). The kids evaded the police, who were looking for the allegedly missing children. Bit by bit, the kids pieced together what had happened since the strange attack on Old Man Sutherland’s home.

According to the news, Sutherland was in the hospital in serious but stable condition. He was being watched by the police, and was accused of being some sort of money launderer for a drug cartel. The attack on his home was perpetrated by drug dealers. The children were wanted for questioning as witnesses. The children also heard about a homeless man killed in a state beach park. Supposedly he’d been killed by an alligator, but the children recognized his picture: He was the spitting image of the corrupt constable from Aysle.

During the two sessions over which events played out, Mario outsmarted a police detective during an interrogation as Mario’s house. Mario also deduced that the detective knew details about the attack on Sutherland’s home that only someone who was there would know. The other kids, with the help of Carlos’s mother, determined that some sort of frog-spirit was responsible for the homeless man’s death.

The kids went to the park, meeting up with Carlos’s uncle and his motorcycle gang. The kids partied a bit, and Ganke decided he really wanted to be a biker. The kids also found the stone tip from a crude spear, which, thanks to strange “bleed over” from their Aysle personae, they recognized as belonging to a bullywug hunter.

Somehow a monster from Aysle got sucked into Miami’s reality when the children returned.

The kids returned to the park at night. They did battle with a pack of killer frogs, and then hopped on their bikes and pedalled like crazy when the bullywug hunter and more killer frogs showed up. In the high speed chase-slash-fight, the kids defeated the frogs and killed the bullywug.

The session ended with the kids studying Sutherland’s home-made rulebook more closely. They learned that there are several different realms. In each realm, evil forces seek dominance with the ultimate goal of gaining sufficient power to invade Earth by means of interdimensional bridges. The key to these bridges? Something called the Possibility Chalice. The next clue to the Chalice’s location seems to be in the two-fisted, pulp realm of the Nile Empire.

And so the kids sat down to make up new characters in order to jump to a new universe.

Bullywug Hunter (Wild Card)

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d4, Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Climbing d6, Fighting d6, Stealth d6, Throwing d6
Pace: 6
Parry: 5
Toughness: 5
Special Abilities:

Javelin: STR + d6.

Amphibious: Breathe air and water. Pace 8 in water.

Frog Commander: May share Bennies with amphibians under its command.

Jump: Leap 1d6″ to gain +2 to attack and damage.

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I’m back to selling a few gaming items via ebay. If you’re interested, check these out, and maybe even put in a bid.

Heroes of Olympus: A Task Force Role Playing Game was published as a boxed set in 1981. Conceived and written by B. Dennis “Chariot of” Sustare, this unusual game combines fantasy roleplaying in mythical Greece with squad level wargaming action. This game was (at least) almost unique among roleplaying games of the time.

I wrote Path of Legend for the Dawnforge: Crucible of Legend campaign setting published by Fantasy Flight Games using the d20 System. This adventure was designed to introduce players to Dawnforge. According to the front cover, it is a “Legendary Quest in the World of Dawnforge”. According to the back cover, “The adventure leads new heroes from 1st to 5th level, and also offers them the chance to earn their first legend point. The adventure provides a compelling mix of location and event-based encounters, and rewards roleplaying and puzzle-solving as well as combat.”

Tags: ebay, monsters, Savage Wednesday, Savage Worlds, The Kids' Game