Spes Magna Games

I’ve not gotten much writing done in the past several weeks. No good reasons why. I did start outlining Commandos & Cultists, a mash-up of The Cthulhu Hack and WWII: Operation WhiteBox. As I’ve written once before, the heroes in ComCul fight against the Thule Society, an occult society that directs much of Nazi Germany’s occult activities, operating through the Heereswaffenamt (HWA) (with its Wissenschaft (HWW) and Okkulte (HWO) divisions) as well as the Ahnenerbe, a Nazi-backed archaeological and occult organization. (Nota Bene: These groups come from the “Mini-Setting: Nazi Occult” section of WWII: Operation WhiteBox.)

The real Thule Society was founded in the early 20th century. It was a bizarre mixture of neopaganism, anti-Semitism, eugenics, pan-nationalism, and occultism. Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel, strove mightily to make his devotion to the racialist occultism of the Thule Society into a sort of state religion for the Reich, envisioning Thule Society beliefs replacing other religions, especially Christianity, which Himmler loathed. An important part of Thule-inspired doctrines involved discovering the undiluted blood of Aryan descendants. Those with pure Aryan blood were destined to rule. Others were fit to serve, except for the lowest of the Untermensch, which had to be exterminated.

To assist with the racial classification and establishment of the race-based caste system, Munich-based Lehmann Publishers, a publisher of eugenics materials, manufactured the Augenfarben-Tafel shown in the picture. The glass eyes show 20 different eye colors used by proponents of Nazi racial ideology to help better classify individuals based on their suitability for various state-granted privileges, such as those related to marriage and children.

A small number of Augenfarben-Tafel possess magical properties. Various high-ranking Nazi officials, especially those assigned to the HWA, own magical Augenfarben-Tafel. A person carrying a magical Augenfarben-Tafel is surprised 1 in 6 times and suffers only a -2 penalty to hit invisible foes. The carrier also enjoys a +1 bonus on saving throws against being blinded. Fully 75% of magical Augenfarben-Tafel enable the user to cast Darkvision (50%), Wizard Eye (25%), or both (25%). Spells cast via a magical Augenfarben-Tafel can be used once per day.

Tags: magic items, The Black Hack, The Cthulhu Hack, WWII: OWB

Today is the first day of Epiphanytide, assuming one is using the Gregorian calendar. For the octave of Epiphany, my Magus character class written for Swords & Wizardry is available as a pay-what-you-want product. This means you can snag it for any price between free and, say, $250. Almost a year ago to the day, I wrote up gold, frankincense, and myrrh as magic items for D&D 5E. That post is here.

One of the better changes introduced into D&D quite some time ago is the idea of domains or spheres of influence through which clerics end up getting themed abilities based on deity, ethos, et cetera. These sorts of clerical special abilities appear early on the game.

For example, in 1988’s Greyhawk Adventures by James M. Ward, we find out that Boccob’s clerics “gain limited sage ability” at 8th level. The ever-popular St. Cuthbert has three orders of clerics: “the Chapeaux, the Stars, and the Billets.” Each order has a different special ability. The Billets, for example, “can cast one friends spell per day.” By the time AD&D 2E was all the rage, specialty priests were an established thing, at least in the Forgotten Realms. No more were the clerics of different deities the same.

(N. B.: That previous link is an affliate link. If you click and make a purchase, I get a wee bit of money.)

And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (The Gospel According to St. John 1:5)

In D&D 5E, a cleric chooses a divine domain related to his deity. This choice grants access to special domain spells, maybe some sort of bonus proficiency or cantrip, and various special abilities that kick in as the cleric advances in level. Since one of Epiphanytide’s motifs relates to light, I thought an alternate 1st-level Light Domain ability might be fun. This ability would replace Warding Flare.

Confounding Light
Also at 1st level, when in an area of dim light or darkness, you can emit a divine light. You shed bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet. This light can be colored as you like. Aberrations, evil-aligned elementals, evil-aligned fey, fiends, and undead creatures treat the radius of bright light as magical darkness. Your Confounding Light lasts as long as you concentrate, up to 10 minutes. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Tags: 5E D&D, Catholic, Character Classes

Most people in the typical D&D 5E world are commoners (MM, p. 345). A commoner is likely to lose initiative to a feral zombie. Even if the commoner wins initiative, he or she is unlikely to survive the first round of combat against a feral zombie. The feral zombie is only 20% likely to miss a commoner with an attack, and its claws are going to take a commoner to 0 hit points with one successful attack. The commoner is 60% likely to be infected by the feral zombie’s claw attack. Say one feral zombie breaks into a household in which five commoners live. All of the commoners are killed. Four hours after the attack, one feral zombie has become four feral zombies (with three-fifths of the dead commoners becoming new feral zombies). In a commoner-rich environment, such as a city, the presence of a pack of feral zombies quickly becomes a serious threat.

That major urban’s center first line of defense, the guard (MM, p. 347), is also a poor match against a feral zombie. A pouncing feral zombie can kill a guard in one round about half the time, and the guard is unlikely to survive a second round of combat against a feral zombie. The city’s first response to the feral zombies is going to fail, and every guard killed is 55% likely to become a new feral zombie.

Since feral zombies abhor sunlight, the majority of attacks occur after sunset. During daylight hours, feral zombies move into hiding. They aren’t inactive, however. Defenders who move into an infected area to root out the monsters still have a fight on their hands as they move from house to house, shop to shop, sewer tunnel to sewer tunnel. Meanwhile, the majority of those injured but not killed are suffering the effects of feral zombie infection. Many of them are dead six hours after being attacked, and the initial attacks (at least) are likely to overwhelm the city’s healing capabilities.

A group of adventurers using the city as its base of operations could depart on some heroic endeavor and return days later to find the city overrun with undead monsters. The adventurers could also face problems related to refugees who flee the city with infected friends and family, hoping to find succor in a nearby town and bringing the infection with them to a new location. In cases where the nearest other community to is too far to reach before the infection kills its host, the adventurers then must deal with feral zombies running loose in the countryside, preying on farmers and travelers. As the plague spreads, society breaks down. Structures that nourished communities become compromised, and people become desperate. Opportunists loot homes and shops, and even otherwise decent people are more likely to take drastic steps to survive and protect their loved ones. Law and order give way to what Jack London called “the law of the club” (see chapter two of The Call of the Wild).

And, of course, D&D being a fantasy game full of monsters, strange cults, and dark gods, the feral zombie outbreak could have sinister origins. Cultists and cult fanatics (MM, p. 345) under the sway of evil priests (MM, p. 348) direct the chaos. They smuggle feral zombies into new locations. Masquerading as beneficient helpers, they finagle their way into positions of trust and authority within populations of survivors. If the adventurers figure out what’s going on, they find themselves opposed by good but desperate people who have been duped by the forces of evil. Before the adventurers figure out what’s going on, they themselves might number among the dupes, embarking on missions of mercy that really expand the influence of those who seek to spread the undead plague. Meanwhile, other groups and creatures inimical to civilization muster at the borders of the affected regions. When the center fails to hold, the frontiers run the risk of collapsing as well.

One way to outline the horror unleashed by a single pack of feral zombies set loose in a city comes from the wonderful RPG Dungeon World, which uses a technique called a front. If you’re not familiar with fronts, check them out by clicking here. A front “is a collection of linked dangers—threats to the characters specifically and to the people, places, and things the characters care about.” If the characters don’t intervene, the front progresses to its natural conclusion, usually ending in widespread death and destruction.

A series of zombie plague adventurers can be started as two or three types of dangers. The most obvious type of danger is the Horde, described at the aforelinked site. Combine the Horde danger with an Ambitious Organization and Arcane Enemies, and you’ve got a wealth of material that can be spun into several adventures to challenge any group of characters.

Tags: 5E D&D, Dungeon World, monsters

In the competition for most done-to-death horror movie genre, the battle between zombie survival and found footage has probably been won by found footage, much to the detriment of movie making. My hypothesis is that movies are like books in terms of quality. Most books aren’t all that bad, but they’re not very good either. Many books, a week or so after I’ve read them, I’ve pretty much forgotten them. Same too with movies, especially, it seems, horror movies.

Thus, Feral, starring Scout Taylor-Compton and Lew Temple, along with several others who mostly serve as a combination of plot point and monster food. There’s nothing original in Feral. Zombie virus? Check. Grizzled cabin-dweller with a dark secret that’s revealed as a prologue? Check. Stuck-up girlfriend? Check. Spurned ex-boyfriend with a chip on his shoulder? Check. Zombies that growl and pose before attacking? Check. Hackneyed moral dilemma explored via characters screaming at each other? Check. Unsurprising surprise ending? Check.

Et cetera, et cetera.

Taylor-Compton almost delivers a strong performance, but the script holds her back. So too with Temple. The earlier parts of the film work better than the climax and ending. Taylor-Compton’s Alice manages to be determined and strong, and Temple’s Talbot comes across as haunted and regretful. Then the script degenerates into “Do it!” “I won’t do it!” repetition while the zombies alternate between lightning quick stealth and plodding stomach growls.

Feral is a mess, and a minimally entertaining one at that.

Zombie, Feral
Medium undead, unaligned

Armor Class 12
Hit Points 22 (3d8+9)
Speed 30 ft.

Ability Scores STR 16 (+3), DEX 14 (+2), CON 17 (+3), INT 7 (-2), WIS 10 (+0), CHA 9 (-1)

Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing
Skills Athletics +5, Perception +2, Stealth +4
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 12
Languages understands the languages it knew in life but can’t speak
Challenge 1 (200 XP)

Aggressive. As a bonus action, the feral zombie can move up to its speed toward a hostile creature that it can see.

Critically Hit. The feral zombie’s damage resistance does not apply to critical hits.

Daylight Torpor. The feral zombie gains a level of exhaustion when it starts its turn in sunlight.

Keen Sight. The feral zombie has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

Pounce. If the feral zombie moves at least 20 feet straight toward a creature and then hits with a claws attack on the same turn, that target must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the target is prone, the feral zombie can make one bite attack against it as a bonus action.

Actions

Multiattack. The feral zombie can make up two attacks, using its claws and bite one time each.

Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (2d4+3) slashing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or become infected. The target gains a level of exhaustion and can’t regain hit points. Its hit point maximum decreases by 5 (1d10) for every hour that elapses. Each hour, the target must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or gain another level of exhaustion. The target dies if this effect reduces its hit point maximum to 0 or it reaches 6 levels of exhaustion. The infection can be removed by a lesser restoration spell or other magic.

A humanoid that dies while infected rises 4 (1d8) hours later as a feral zombie, unless the humanoid is restored to life or its body is destroyed. The new feral zombie is not under the control of the feral zombie that created it.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature that is prone, grappled by the feral zombie, incapacitated, or restrained. Hit: 7 (1d6+3) piercing damage. If the target is Medium or smaller, it is grappled (escape DC 13) and restrained until the grapple ends.

Tags: 5E D&D, monsters, movies

Well, I’ve still not gotten much writing done. Pretend I’ve listed all of the excuses here instead of this sentence. That said, my attention deficit slipped into attention surplus long enough for me to complete about thirteen pages of Commandos & Cultists, a sort of The Cthulhu Hack, The Black Hack, and WWII: Operation WhiteBox mash-up. (I’ve mentioned this once before in another post.)

Once of the aspects of The Black Hack (TBH) that I’ve read (and cribbed for my own work) several times relates to how measurements of time are abstract. The basic unit of time is the moment. In general, moments are fleeting, lasting no more than a few seconds. In another words, a moment in TBH corresponds to a melee round in D&D.

As I was working on Commandos, I had a minor epiphany. Since TBH treats time as relative, not all moments are as momentary as other moments. When appropriate to the story played out in a game session, a moment might be six seconds long (a modern D&D melee round), a minute long (an AD&D melee round), ten minutes long (an AD&D turn), et cetera. But, in the final wash, if the GM can measure every PC’s individual actions with an identical unit of absolute time, then that unit of time can be treated as a single moment.

For example, a team of commandos wants to spread a bit of chaos and fear in the enemy ranks. The commandos plan out a campaign of nocturnal harrassment that lasts for three nights. The GM decides to treat each night as a single unit of time during which each commando can accomplish three tasks. For each commando, two of these tasks are moving into and back out the enemy lines. The third task might be stealing food, sabotaging a vehicle, absconding with classified documents, disrupting communications, et cetera.

In keeping with TBH‘s action resolution system, each commando’s actions would be resolved with a single die roll, using whichever ability score seems most appropriate. Sneaking behind enemy lines? Dexterity. Disguising oneself as a high-ranking officer and bluffing one’s way behind enemy lines? Charisma. Sloshing through a half mile of rat-infested sewer tunnels? Constitution. It doesn’t matter that each one of those tasks would take longer than a moment when measured with a stopwatch. Game-wise, treating each action as a bit of narration followed by a single die roll suffices to keep the action moving.

So, back to the commando team and their three night campaign of harassment. Each night has the potential to be resolved by as few as three d20 rolls per commando. Should a roll fail (“Ach! Your mustache has fallen off!”), then all of sudden time compresses, and a moment that before might have lasted for a few hours suddenly becomes a series of seconds-long moments in which a commando has to fight for his life.

Tags: The Black Hack, The Cthulhu Hack, WWII: OWB