On Bak-Shah, The Child Eater

There are many dangers a traveler in Ramhknal would be well advised to avoid: mountebanks, muggers, the docks in their entirety. But one that looms large in the public imagination is Bak-Shah the tiger, and it would be negligent of me, your humble guide, to gloss over the topic entirely. Make of this entry what you will.

The known facts are these: Bak-Shah is a man eater. He skulks into Ramhknal under the cover of stars and hides in abandoned buildings. Then on moonlit nights he wanders our fair city, into our houses1, and abducts children. This he does by gently biting their entire head. This process silences their screams entirely, allowing him to carry the child away to his lair, where he may eat them at his leisure.

A dozen such lairs have been discovered. The first of these was found nearly thirty years back, and the most recent was discovered in the year of this writing. They are fetid holes, filled with the skeletons of children2, their skulls indented with fang marks. One year an expert on tigers was invited into the city. Upon seeing the number of skeletons the pit contained, he concluded that the tiger had lived within that charnel house for at least eight months.

A dozen tiger hunts have been launched. They start within the city; abandoned buildings are searched and occasionally put to the flame3. When this process inevitably fails to locate the beast, these hunts spread out into the jungles. Rough men come back with dozens of tiger pelts, and hundreds of stories: surely, the public thinks, one of these must be the dreaded Bak-Shah himself. A particularly large specimen, nearly ten feet long, was killed this year; perhaps it was the fell beast himself. But always, so far, the tiger has come back, so this humble author remains doubtful.

Now we enter into the realm of speculation. These theories cover the full spectrum of improbability, from the merely unlikely to the utterly impossible. Many accuse the tiger of possessing a strange and terrible form. For one, his size is in question. Some speculate that the tiger is enormous, standing shoulder to shoulder to a man and weighing nearly one thousand pounds4.  But another theory holds that the tiger is in fact a runt, diminutive in stature: this has made him incapable of hunting regular prey, and is why he targets children5. One popular theory asserts that Bak-Shah's coat is reversed: he is a black tiger with orange stripes. This is how he blends into the night and so far avoided detection. A few men claim to be survivors of the beast's attacks, and these witnesses claim that the tiger was serpentine in aspect, elongated and possessing dozens of paws, as if someone had stitched twelve tigers together. But surely these 'witnesses' are drunks and madmen, for the gods would not suffer such an abomination to live.

Other theories concern themselves with the tiger's origin. Some claim him to be a shape shifter, who takes on the form of a man to hide himself. Others believe him a sorcerer scorned, now enacting his terrible revenge against the city for some dimly remembered crime. Perhaps the tiger is a ghost who enters homes like a chill wind, immaterial except for his teeth. Still more theories abound: Bak-Shah is a curse, Bak-Shah is a demon, Bak-Shah is a machine constructed by the church of the Iron God. And some believe him to be merely a man, a depraved killer with a strange method to deflect suspicion. If so, he has managed to fool us all.

I will allow the esteemed reader to judge these theories upon their own merits, choosing what he will and discarding the rest. Regardless of what you choose to believe, I offer you this caveat: do not roam the streets at night, and lock your doors and windows.

1. Bak-Shah has been known to attack even in houses with locked doors. It is thought he jumps inside through open windows.
2. The occasional adult as well. Presumably these are unfortunate late night wanderers.
3. In several unfortunate incidents, with their occupants still inside.
4. How then, one wonders, does he fit through windows, or for that matter, doors?
5. But why do the pits contain adult skeletons then? And why are his visits so infrequent?

On Carrying Shit - The Modern Adventurer's Inventory Managment

Items come in two sorts: encumbering (medium shit), and non encumbering (little shit). I draw the line arbitrarily and at my whim, but 5 pounds is a good guideline.

You can carry your STR + 5 encumbering items. Every additional encumbering item after that is another -1 to all physical activity rolls.

You can carry all the non-encumbering stuff you want, because I can't be assed to keep track of it. But you must tell me in which container you are carrying it.

The most essential part of items is: you need a place to carry them! If you got nothing, it's all hands and pockets. Here's how many encumbering items you can carry in various types of containers.

Note: If this is my home game and we're doing inventory on note cards, keep each of these as a separate card.

Wearing - Armor, clothing, hats, etc.

Since all of this stuff is dispersed around your body, it all counts as half weight. Chainmail in your backpack takes up four slots, but on your body it only takes up two. Hats, scarves, etc I don't even bother counting.

By the by - all the bags and belts below weight nothing if worn and are one encumbering item if carried. So no infinite bags in bags, but this way I'm also not a jerk. New characters get two of these things for free because see the above line.

Hands - 2 Slots

You're using these! Right now! How exciting. However, only list something here if you are literally ALWAYS CARRYING IT. That saber, for example, will prolly spend most of it's time in its sheathe. If you tell me you're fooling around with a lock, and suddenly monsters come, I WILL make you spend a turn picking your damn sword up.

Belt - 2 Slots & Bandolier - 3 Slots

Items in these containers are immediately accessible: as long as you have an open hand, you can grab whatever you want. So you should keep a free hand open. If you have 10 different things in here that are non-encumbering I suppose that makes you batman.

If you get smacked around, these items are the first to go. I'll probably start rolling randomly to see what breaks.

Sling Bag - 4 Slots

A sling bag takes a turn to rummage through to find whatever you need.

Back Pack - 6 Slots

If you want to take something out, you need to straight up take it off. And THEN you need to look through it. So that's two combat turns, as opposed to everything else.

Big Sack - 8 Slots+

Giant sacks carry a lot of stuff, but you need to drag them around with your hands.

Other - ? Slots

Maybe you carry your bow strung across your torso. Maybe you have boot daggers. As long as it makes real world sense, that's awesome. Write it down mate.

None of this shit is terribly original. I am indebted to more people than I can know. Literally: the OSR is just one incestuous orgy, and sometimes you end up with this thing on your hands and you don't know which dude it's from or who's done what to it.

But it was playing in Cole's game that inspired me to write this, so you could call him the father.

Ramhknali Armor - A Summary

So after last Thursday's game, a player asks me,

"can you re send me the armor stuff and the other stuff again? when i got booted from the call, I lost all the info in the chat

make the group and add use ot it"

Which I preceded to spend entirely too much time on. Hooray for over-complicated armor rules! Here, have a reference table.

A note: This list is sorted by which of the city's many factions wears this type of armor. Strangers assume you belong to this faction if you walk around in their stuff; dress accordingly. Your costume will only pass a brief inspection by insiders, so don't push your luck!

And seriously, the blowfish cap is cheap because it makes you look ridiculous. Wearing a war mask is proof positive you're about to commit a crime. See this as of yet unwritten post for explanations and pretty pictures.

Armor	AC	Section	Weight	Cost1
Round Shield2	+2	Shield	1	110
Buckler3	+1	Shield	0	360
		Accounting Corps
Reinforced Kepi	+1	Head	1	200
Tarleton Kepi	+1	Head	1	300
Veiled Helm	+1	Head	1	200
Coat of Laws	+2	Torso	0	NFS4
Coat of Nails	+5	Body	3	1500
		Native Ramhknali
War Turban	+1	Head	1	200
Great Coat	+2	Body	2	60
Coffin Shield5	+2	Shield	2	150
		Zhang Hese
War Mask	+1	Head	1	100
Samurai Yoroi	+4	Body	2	2000
		Captanate Soldiers
Fish Helm	+1	Head	1	175
Coat of Scales	+3	Body	2	700
		Rural Buyani
Blowfish Cap	+1	Head	1	120
Coconut Shell Lamellar	+2	Torso	1	500
		Looters in Law
Mirmillo	+1	Head	1	200
Skull Helm	+1	Head	1	200
Trellised bascinet	+1	Head	1	200
Cheap Ass Chain6	+2	Torso	0	100
War Belt(s)7	+1	Torso	1	200
He-Man Harness7	+1	Torso	1	200
Spiked Ocrea (Greaves)8	+1	Legs	2	200
Calvary Boots	+1	Legs	1	200
Skirt of Nails	+1	Legs	1	200
Manica (Arm Guard)	+1	Arms	1	200
Splinted Vambraces	+1	Arms	1	200
Gauntlets9	+0	Arms	0	200

1. In iron pieces: Ramhknali currency is weird. In other settings use your own standard.

 
2. Shields can be splintered. Before taking damage you may declare your shield absorbs it, for the price of shattering into so many useless boards.

3. It's so small it leaves the hand free. Can't be splintered since it's a hunk of metal.

 
4. Not For Sale. Not even on the black market. The black market, incidentally, is why some of these prices are so high. The Captanate and the Accounting Corp do not generally sell to civilians, but the occasionally corrupt quartermaster certainly does.

 
5. +4 AC vs. missiles. Can also be splintered.

 
6. It's pretty shit. If you smack it for max damage, it goes down to +1AC. Costs 20 IP to repair.

 
7. You can wear both together.

 
8. Big spikes! Anyone who engages in melee you roll a 1d12 against. On a 12, you deal 1d4 damage.

 
9. +1 punching damage, fuck yeah!

Section

This column tells you what the armor covers. A lot of armor protects the entire body; you may wear a helm and shield and that's it. Other armor covers the torso, arms and legs individually. Mix and match to your heart's content. You can overlap pieces but the AC doesn't stack

Weight

How many significant items this weights. Armor is heavy, but its bulk is distributed across your body. If you're not currently wearing the armor, the weight doubles, with 0's increasing to 1. Hopefully you will never need that rule.

Athletics Penalty

The athletics penalty, or AP, reflects a sad reality: you ain't doing any sick ninja flips in 30 pounds of metal. Any time climb a wall, flee a boar, or lift a bolder (or most any STR, DEX and CON checks out of combat), add your sum AP to the roll. And of course, swimming is right out.

P.S. Knives in grabby melee range ignore AC from armor. So do war hammers, cannons, etc.

Buckler, War Turban and a Coat of Nails. He's got 99 problems but low AC ain't one.

On Pale Worms

20 HD, +5 To-Hit, Ignores Any Damage Under 4 

They crawl. Massive. Quick. They have three eyes; one vast and facing straight on, the other two lower down on either side, never both open at the same time. They blink constantly to remain aware of their surroundings.

This cousin to the purple worm lives almost wholly above ground. It is slow to start and impossible to stop; every turn it can accelerate or decelerate 30 feet a round, up to a maximum of 720 (about 80 miles an hour). If it doubles back after rushing by you at top speed (and it always goes top speed), you won't see it for another 50 rounds: it's armored plates leave it nearly incapable of turning.

So it plows through country and city alike in huge lazy circles, blasting through buildings to add their detritus to it's hide. All the riches of the world end up within their stomachs, each a larder of treasures.

Worm tracks are long, wavy, and gently curving: they make for perfect roads for weary travelers. Luckily, there's no chance of being surprised by a worm, as the things have only one volume: perpetual agony. Maybe something inside them is broken.

Surprisingly hard to find good pictures of worms.

You've heard that in other lands they've saddled these beasts, and learned to control them. You've also heard it the other way around; these things were built, and now have escaped, estranged from their original purpose. You're not sure which theory sounds stupider.

While still, the beast is massive but not dangerous: even being attacked only makes it move 1 time in 6. While moving, anyone looking at it realizes the obvious: that thing is filled with enough gold to turn this life into paradise. Make a DC 20 WIS check, unless you specifically look away.

If you pass the check, you feel a deep sense of shame. All the treasures of the world! A life free from pain and suffering! And yet you didn't even move, and now it's gone. Each passed check gives you -1 to all rolls for the rest of the day as you mentally beat yourself up.

Fail and you inch yourself closer to worm's oncoming path. Fail three times and next turn it will be upon you. Everyone talks about the treasure, but nobody talks about the teeth: those swallowed take 10 1d6 damage attacks in it's toothed esophagus on their way to the stomach.

Think less fire and more on the ground. From Girl Genius.

Inside the stomach will be 20d4 porcellaneous pellets, each containing 20d100 gp in gold and art (for the worm is like a sieve: it uses the ugliness of life as a shield, while keeping the beautiful inside). You may grab one and be summarily shit out, or attempt to cut your way out. Any damage inflicted upon the worm causes 1d4 stomach contractions, each crushing you for 1 damage.

After 15 damage you've cut a gash into the outside world. The worm will thunder on, bellowing in pain and leaking stomach acid, losing 1 HP every turn. It will only stop once it has left it's attackers far behind. It will burrow down, down, deep into the earth, where it will rest and heal. And then it will return. The worms always return.

I think all the best monsters are metaphors for the things we fear. So here's a monster about my relationship with trains. Thankfully, things have been going a lot better lately.

New Class: One Punch Man

Through enormous training and discipline, a One Punch Man can defeat any opponent with one blow. This doesn't help him one iota in shopping for groceries.

Level Progression as Fighter, but with the following class abilities.

ONE PUNCH

Your One Punch deals four* times your level damage, plus your strength mod (you should definitely write this number down somewhere). You can deliver One Punch every combat. If your One Punch misses, you did not actually punch anyone; instead, you spent the turn worrying about coupons.

*Assuming your monsters use d6's for their hit dice. If they use d8's, you deal five times your level.

CONSECUTIVE NORMAL PUNCHES

At level 3, you can split up the damage of your One Punch between multiple targets.

NOTHING BUT PUNCHES

Except for your One Punch, you cannot punch, kick, or deal damage with any hand held weapon.

HUMANS CAN'T FLY

At level 2, a One Punch Man can jump their level times 100 feet.

FUCK YOU BUILDING

At level 4, your One Punch deals quintuple damage against buildings, rocks, and other environmental structures. You only get One Punch against them.

EXTREME TRAINING

The secret to your One Punch is a (not that intense) training regime.

• One hundred push-ups! 
• One hundred sit-ups! 
• One hundred squats! 
• A ten kilometer run! 
• Three meals a day! Just a banana in the morning is fine. 
• And never use the AC or Heat. It strengthens the mind. 

If you follow this regime every single day for one month, you gain 1 point of Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution. For every point, there is a 1 in 20 chance you go bald. There is no limit to how many points you can gain like this.*

* FIIINE YOU WIMP OF A GM. There's no further benefit after three years.

Most episodes of one punch man boil down to this: Saitama can defeat anything in one punch. Therefore, most of the plot is all the stuff that happens before he shows up. I made this class to capture that feeling. You're the ultimate glory hog: your friends beat up the monster, and then you effortlessly finish it. Feel free to replace the punch with a sword: chopping through entire buildings is pretty anime too.

Is this class even remotely fair? No, not really. And that goes both directions: after you kill one guy, you have nothing to do. If all of this makes your character seem too useless, you can add this ability. It would probably take more than this to fix the class though.

SWEET THROWS

At level 2, you can throw an opponent. Regardless of size. This deals 1d4, and they need to make a CON check. Failure means your friends get advantage to hit them next round.

The 3 Rules of a Great D&D Game

Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat, but all of my best games have followed this model.

You may feel free to skip

Some unnecessary philosophy

One thing I used to do a lot is describe the lay of the land, give the PCs some context, and than ask them what they do. This is a very videogame approach to roleplaying: dropped in a virtual landscape, the player starts to interact with stuff just because it's there, and perhaps more or less at random. It's like playing Skyrim.

When playing with a strong willed and adventurous bunch, the players will quickly go off and get themselves in trouble. But I've often seen players blank-faced and at a loss for what to do, especially if I have newbies.

Which is on me, because D&D is not just a video game. The story telling techniques that work in that medium do not inherently translate into roleplaying. Same as railroading: you don't run a game the same way you write a book.

The actual bloody rules.

So here's my magic formula. Secret bonus: run games like this and they're usually one shots. God I love one shots.

Rule 1: Present the players with a time sensitive mission.

Examples: Orcs are going to invade the village in three days. There's some dudes over there and it looks like they're setting up some kind of race with gambling. A rival adventuring party is going to raid the dungeon.

This accomplishes two things. First, it forces the players to be proactive. The problem is imminent: you must either engage now or ignore it. Second, it provides a clear and obvious goal. All the best stories have strong beginning.

Rule 2: Multiple ways can help solve the problem.

Good example: Combat. Smack a bad guy. Trip somewhere. Retreat to the room with the traps. Cast a spell. Talk your way out of it. Heal a friend. Set everything on fire.

Bad example: Vast Hitpoint Boss Monsters. They're immune to a lot of interesting spells. They're geographically limited. All you can do is deal enough damage to kill it. 

This keeps things interesting. If you're planning a heist, someone can distract the guards, someone else is making a beeline for the the diamonds, and the third group is digging the escape tunnel. Which means EVERYONE can contribute: if a character can't climb a cliff or deal a lot of damage, that's fine: they can help in other ways. It keeps everyone engaged.

It also avoids pixel bitching. The standard mandatory secret door is infuriating because there's only one way to spot the damn thing. Giving the players options means they're less likely to get stuck and sink into frustration and despair.

Rule 3: Provide resources, some with no obvious use. 

The player's character sheets can do a lot of the work for you. Inventories are full of weird items, the wizard has some funky spells, and the ranger has a pet bear. Sometimes this is more than enough: the players can stand on their own two feet. But adding environmental features only expands the range of cool shit. Maybe the dungeon has a 200 foot shaft. Maybe it has thirty feet of steel chain, and three locks to go with it. Maybe it has incredibly narrow corridors that the minotaur can't fit into. Give the players a chance to get creative and surprise you.

Anecdote time: I once ran the 'Your village will be invaded by orcs in three days' game. While drawing the map, I added a river, some standing stones, and a door in the middle of a hil. I just wanted to make the map a little more interesting: I didn't have anything special in mind. In the course of the game, the players voraciously explored EVERYTHING.

They allied with the dwarves who lived in the hill and got them to build a series of tunnels and foxholes, so they would have better mobility on the battlefield. At the standing stones they made a deal with Satan. And best of all, at the river they built a bridge, so the the orcs wouldn't have to ford it. Then they lined the bridge with dynamite.

I played the 1812 Overture when they blew it up, taking half the orcish horde with it. It was a beautiful finale to an evening of orc killing.

Wizard Wednesday: The Wizard Wednesday

Or: yes, I do think I'm very clever.

Albert Arbiea ("just call me Al") was a mage experimenting with time. He was meeting with some success: he had mastered a powerful spell, which could send things up to a day into the future, and sometimes into the past.

And then everything went to shit. Hey, sometimes you mess with the timestream, and sometimes the timestream messes with you.

Now he's stuck in Wednesday. 11:59 PM he'll spend in February 3rd, but at 12:01 AM he's jumped to February 10th. It's very annoying, and he can't stop it. Since the locals only see him around on Wednesdays, they've taken him to calling him the Wizard Wednesday. He's grown to accept it.

It's tough only being around for 52 days a year. His clothes and accent grow ever older, and he has a hard time keeping up with current events. Too much happens in his friend's lives. Sometimes his birthday lands on a Wednesday and that makes him very happy.

In addition to his other magic, Al Aribea can literally punch you into next week. Indeed, he can send anything into next week. He's fairly certain he's somehow casting the spell onto himself every midnight: maybe it's burrowed into his head. To test his theory he's looking for an exorcist or an anti-magic circle, no order of preference.

Adventure Hooks

1. Al Aribea knows who did this to him: Vrydag, a colleague of his now known as Mr. Friday. It's *very* difficult to catch a man who is never around when you are. So he's hired you: he has very good intel that the two faced incompetent is sleeping in the Rat & Barrel, two days ride from here. Al won't make it there in time, but you can. He wants you to take Mr. Friday alive. And on his very careful instruction, he wants you to interrogate him. Fun fact: Mr. Friday has, on his person, a spell that can send you back in time one full year. You can fix a lot of mistakes in a year, make a lot of smart moves. If you do manage to trap him, it's his first bargaining chip.

2. Or maybe the Wizard Wednesday and Mr. Friday have always been good friends, working together to solve their plight. They're working in the woods right now, mostly through very well written notes. The entire area is getting slowly saturated with time magic: some animals are permanently hasted, others permanently slowed. Some start and stop in strange fits. The ogre has fallen apart: his body is in one place, the howls come from somewhere else, and the club and claws strikes in a third place. Everything but the wizards seems to be caught in a loop: everyone does the same thing everyday, as if a giant clock keeps resetting itself.

And all the cats are dead. Fun fact: a cat is the temporal equivalent of a canary. Near a bit of time magic they start yowling, and near a lot they just drop dead.

3. The Wednesday Wizard lives in town. He has a nice house, and it's filled with all kinds of experiments. He's hiring you to house sit: he's gone six days a week, after all. Water the plants, keep the potions from bubbling over, feed the thing in the basement once every three days. Buy this list of groceries. And please deal with all the weirdoes who inevitably show up between Wednesdays.

4. Al Aribea's old castle is time-fucked. Sections of it only appear on particular days; dungeon is only here on a Friday, the moat shows up on Mondays. Most pertinently, the top of the east tower only appears on Wednesdays, floating in mid air: it's connecting bottom half only appears on Tuesdays. Getting from one to the other is... tricky. And Al Aribea left his wand, the one he thinks can stop all of this foolishness, up in the east tower. It's not his fault: he fell out when the floor disappeared.

Like this, but with more missing.

Beware: time moves six times faster in the castle. Al didn't tell you this because he doesn't know. But the other adventuring party he sent in? They know. And they know that when the castle pieces disappear, they go somewhere outside of time. Somewhere filled with horrible things that are currently killing them.

5. FUCK IT FUCK IT FUCK IT FUCK IT. He's done with trying to stop this thing. Hey you! Here's a magic wand. Whatever you zap with it only appears on a Wednesday. I WANT YOU TO ZAP EVERYTHING HERE YOU GO TELL YOUR FRIENDS.

5.5. You know it's the oddest thing, there's an entire town that only appears on Wednesdays now. What's up with that?

6. His birthday is next Wednesday! He wants you to get him a party. Get some tables out here, a cake, and invite all of these people. He'll gladly teach the wizard a little time magic in return. Things like haste, slow, time stop: the trivial, easy to learn stuff.