Showing posts with label BFR. Show all posts

Monday, 16 August 2021

More Interviews! More! MORE! MORE!

LEARN!

The secrets of BROKEN FIRE REGIME

with Her Christmas Knight!

My own Dark and Mysterious History

with David 'Yoon-Suin' McGrogan!

The secrets of PHILOSOPHY and THOUGHT

with MAX CANTOR

(creator of Maximum Recursion Depth

coming out soon)

25 DAYS LEFT ON THE DEMON-BONE SARCOPHAGUS KICKSTARTER!!!

Saturday, 14 August 2021

A Long Interview about Broken Fire Regime

Yes gather for my wisdom...

If you remember all the insanely in-depth comments on my blog from Her Christmas Knight, this is him, interviewing me;

Friday, 26 February 2016

Is this insane?

I can't work out if this is a crazy way to describe a room or not.

What’s in here ?
West Wall; Map of zone core.	North Wall; Bad abstract painting.			Window; looks out on vault.
	NW Corner; Sink Mirror Shaving kit (if male) Comb Soap Towel Perfume		NE Corner; Desk, Ceramic knife letter opener Financial report (good) Fire safety reports (bad) Wardrobe with high status clothes Shoes with raised heels
DOOR	SW Corner; Bath heated by wood-burning stove Soft rug Towels		SE Corner; Smiling Glass Girl Bed	East wall; Ceramic fragment warrior kneeling and presenting hilt of blade to opening gates of fire.
	Hook on the door; expensive coat, under that; crossbow & quiver of bolts.	Under the Bed; Go-bag with high-status clothes, low-status clothes, 200gp, 500 in gems, mini-crossbow, handful of bolts, 3 bolts of dispellment, passports or proofs of fealty with 3 closest civilised nations, endothermic gem.
South wall; Map of zone (Press the core and opens as secret entry to office).

(I should note, in the primary version the writing on the window and wall descriptions runs up and down the page so the 'walls' are thinner.)

Also: Look, Nick Alexander over at Daayan Songs Translated is still doing FotVH stats. Feel free to assist if you like.

Also; should hopefully have FotVH up on RPG.NOW soonish.

Also; will have Zine-esque blog collection up on there soon too. (It's like a Zine that comes out once every five years.)

Saturday, 6 February 2016

Nature is an overwhelming force and the Zone is a cathedral of that power. Human life is small and everyone can feel it here. The trees, the wall of sound, the desperation and the everpresent risk of death all speak to the irrelevance of human life, and sometimes, when people crack, that feeling gets inside and fills them up.

Clickers Individuals haven't just gone native, they've gone Individual. They live up in the Cloudgrave trees with hives of secret bees, eating blue honey and talking to the air. The honey gives them visions, the worms they keep give them visions, being up in the trees all the time gives them visions and huffing ground crystal and low grade resin from the plant also gives them visions.

They have a lot of visions. It helps to make up for the hunger. It also gives them a startling savagery in combat. Most of them believe they are invincible and a few don't even realise they are people at all. When they come down climbing from their hidden homes they come for rope and human flesh.

Mainly rope, its more useful and you can't really cook flesh up in the trees. But Clickers Individuals will straight up eat a guy, they are famous for it. "Clickers hungry!" they say, if they say anything at all. They tend not to use their words. No-one knows who Clicker is or can remember meeting them but when Clickers Individuals come for you that's who they say they are taking you to.

What Are They Like When You See Them?

The Individuals obsessively take on the identities of Zonal animals, wearing their skins and body parts, moving like them, eating like them and thinking like them. Many of them are so crazy that they actually believe they *are* these creatures.

In most groups there is enough ambient sanity to stop them doing anything _too_ insane but at the DM's discretion, if a group of Clickers Individuals fails a morale roll then, instead of running away, they may do something ruinously self-destructive that only that animal would do. I.e. try to fly or curl up in a shell.

How Do They Get About The Zone?

They either attack and kill the bridge guards or cross the canyons by moving across the Cloudgrave canopy far above the ground.

Kinds Of Individual

(Many kinds of Individual are described as 'men', they are in fact made up of all genders, except Slumberman who is always male and Honeywoman, who is always female.)

Basic Individuals

If Day - Hooky-Men

Ragged cloaks of Hook Bird feathers, masks like beaks and sharpened sticks like primitive Bakh Nagh. They attack from the lower canopy, clambering through the branches and leaping upon their target at the last moment, screaming. Like Hook Birds, they go after those who have already been injured or who are separated from the group.

If Night - Moony-Men

Stitched up skins of moon moles spread between the limbs. Some have their lips cut off, exposing their front teeth. They climb the trees and leap down, gliding invisibly but uttering the Moon Mole cry. ('Gliding' is pushing it, they fall at an angle.) They always stay together in a group, biting and clawing in a frenzy.

- Morale = group size

In the Upper Canopy - Stilty-Men

Stilt Sloth skins, walking on wooden stilts strapped on to their limbs. Passing across the fronds much like the Sloth, using the higher canopy as a kind of highway. Slow, indifferent, almost bored. Stilty-Men advance and strike downward with their stilts.

- Move at 1/2 speed

- Always lose initiative.

- Morale 11

- If a Silty-Man suffers impact of any kind a puff of light but poisonous hair explodes in a 3ft radius. Anyone caught suffers 1 hp damage to the lungs, they cough and weep blood for a full minute and make take no other action.

Special Individuals

The Individuals also have smaller number of specialist members who may appear if large groups are encountered.

SpiderKids

Children squatting down on hands and feet, softly crawling closer, disguised as any fucking thing you can imagine. Maybe that Rhododendron bush isn't really a bush. Maybe that log isnt really a log. Leaping for the face with daggers of sharpened bone.

- 1 HD 3 hp

- Stealth 5 in 6.

- Suprise attack +4 to hit damage x2.

Humble-Men

Big, calm, sheathed in bark-armour from a Cloudgrave tree, all wearing helmets of Humbler Snail shell. Wielding whips made from rope, snail radula and chips of stone and glass. They come forward calmly, relentlessly advancing.

- 2 Hit Dice 18 hp

- Armour as chain & shield.

- Whips - attack at 6 feet, entangle random limb on a hit, STR or DEX test to escape or auto damage.

Rat-Panther-Men

Stealthy, ruthless treetop assassins cloaked in ragged Rat-Panther skins like hobo ninjas, wearing their skulls as masks. Rat-Panther-Men leap, grapple, dig in their bone knives and keep digging. Its a matter of pride and self-identity for them that they never let go.

- 2 Hit Dice, 16 hp.

- Speed x 2 standard.

- Stealth 5 in 6.

- Surprise attack +4.

- If they score a hit, Rat-Panther-men drive their knives in further every turn, grappling and doing damage every round.

Wormlings

Plump, slow, secretive children. They rarely attack or advance but are often left at the rear to guard something important or prevent flanking attacks. Each one carries a familiar Zonal worm which they caress, if endangered they fire the worm at the face of the closest person and squirm into a hiding spot.

- Worm attack. Anyone receiving a facefull of goo must roll d4+d8+d8 on the Tree Dreams table (page xx).

Individual Individuals

Slumberman!

Slumberman is the mightiest of Clickers Individuals and their leader in war. (It’s not clear whether Slumberman is fully aware of this.) He once defeated a Slumber Monkey in hand-to-hand combat and still wears its blue skin and its skull as a hat. Slumberman advances bravely, focusing on the most powerful and masculine enemy fighters and tends to give away surprise attacks by making pseudo Slumber Monkey displays. (Slumberman can be distracted by threats to Slumber Monkey eggs.)

7 Hit Dice 40 hp, +7 AB, huge Cloudgrave club d8+3 damage , STR 18.

Clicker

The prophet and de-facto leader of the Individuals is a mysterious and terrifying figure. Eyes rolling, jaws clacking, mouth foaming, limbs jerking, they stumble forward like broken puppet. Clicker is in the final stages of Dementia-Wasp poisoning. Their insides have literally begun to ferment, filling the air with a sweet, yeasty scent and with cloud of Dementia Wasps which follow them about, waiting for them to die. (The Individuals keep Clicker in a rarely-visited tree and avoid them in combat.) Clicker is utterly, utterly, utterly insane and barely connected to reality. The Individuals will honestly try to follow their commands but it’s never really clear what their commands are or if they are even giving them so, in effect, a kind of rough democracy prevails where various arguments are put forth as to what Clicker is saying and the most popular or compelling is assumed to be the truth.

- Followed by a cloud of 3d4 Dementia Wasps

Honeywoman

Honeywoman is the only high-status member of Clickers Individuals that, in any way, has a vague idea of what is going on. She is an ancient crone, caked with the hexagonal blue wax casts of a Tree Bee hive. Literally built into the hive and waxed into the top of the tree, she lives a somewhat restrained life. Individuals bring her food and water and take away her waste when they come to ask for advice. One of the few magic-users in the Zone, Honeywoman knows the following spells and can cast them, at will, as a Lvl 5 Magic-User;

Detect magic, Identify, Locate Plants, Locate Object, E.S.P, Suggest

She can also place her mind into the hive of Tree Bees which live upon her body. If the bees do not work constantly to find food then they will starve to death so she will never possess them for more than an hour a day.

Can You Communicate And Deal?

It helps a lot to be seriously fucked in the head. Unless the person speaking to them is suffering from some kind of actual madness, clickers individuals won’t even recognise them. But if they are genuinely nuts, or at least, drugged out of their minds, then reaction dice may be rolled. This might lead to a parlay in some circumstances.

Honeywoman is capable of communicating with non-drugged, non-crazy people.

Names

D6	First Phoneme	Second Phoneme
1	Xi'	Nuknul
2	Jo'	Wnanale
3	Ki'	Naavul
4	Br'	Tvnuu
5	Oo'	Muknu
6	Zo'	Knkul

What Are Their Treetop Lairs Like?

Grim, and generally not great places to hang out. The Individuals move constantly and their sleeping places are guarded by Humbler Snails and semi-tame Hook Birds when they are not present.

What Do They Want, If Anything?

They like violence, eating people and drugs. There is a vague cultural sense that they should be ruling the Zone but nobody really has the mental technology to turn this into a fully formed thought.

Encountering The Individuals

Clickers Individuals have the following stat lines;

Armour none, Move standard', 1 Hit Dice, 8hp, 1d4 damage, Morale 9.

Climb 6 in 6, Stealth 2 in 6

Any specific differences are given in the entry for that kind of Individual.

Simple Encounter - roll 4d4 Basic Individuals and have them attack.

Complex Encounter - roll a d100 and add the total HD of the PC party, read across on the chart below.

(The numbers given are included so that it’s easy to generate a specific encounter without rolling more dice. If you want to, feel free to generate random numbers of Individuals by rolling 2, 3, 4 or 5 d6's and d4's)

D100+ party HD	Infiltrators	Main Force	Reserves	Rear-guard
1-20		4 Basic Individuals
21-30	2 Spiderkids	5 Basic Individuals
31-40		7 Basic Individuals	2 Humble Men
41-50	2 Rat-Panther-Men	8 Basic Individuals
51-60	2 Spiderkids	9 Basic Individuals	2 Humble Men
61-70	2 Spiderkids & 2 Rat-Panther-Men	11 Basic Individuals
71-80	2 Spiderkids & 2 Rat-Panther-Men	12 Basic Individuals	4 Humble Men
81-90	3 Spiderkids & 3 Rat-Panther-Men	13 Basic Individuals	4 Humble Men	2 Wormlings
90-99 RAIDING PARTY	6 Spiderkids & 4 Rat-Panther-Men	20 Basic Individuals	6 Humble Men lead by Slumberman!	4 Wormlings
100 TOTAL WAR	12 Spiderkids & 8 Rat-Panther-Men	50 Basic Individuals	12 Humble Men lead by Slumberman!	6 Wormlings. Clicker is also here, urging on the war party, or possibly trying to make them stop. He's doing something or other.

The Individuals thus generated are doing whatever it makes sense for a group of that size to be doing in the current context. If a strong party of PC's encounters a small weak group then they may have come across a scouting or thieving party, the PC's have the advantage. If a weak group of PC's encounters a gigantic war party, they are probably not the intended targets and may well have time to get out of the way.

Saturday, 16 January 2016

Hook Birds (Art by Scrap Princess)

Armor none, Move standard (flight)', 1 Hit Dice, 2 hp, peck or scratch 1d2 damage, Morale 4.
Climb 3 in 6, Stealth 1 in 6 (Hook Birds always try to use their stealth).

Hook Birds are fucking disgusting, no one could like them and nobody does.

There are almost no 'natural' species of birds within the Zone. Instead, there are Hook Birds.

It's not clear where the Hook Birds came from or how they managed to drive off or out-compete the other birds since, in almost every respect, a Hook Bird is pretty shit in comparison. One would think that a more efficient, less physically-hideous species with a better flight capacity that does not spend most of its time pointlessly harassing human beings would eventually displace the Hook Birds. But this does not take place.

There might be, and probably are, several inter-relating species of Hook Bird. They look pretty different. Nobody cares about this as they are universally awful. They tend to have the following qualities in common;

APPEARANCE

They look like crude, badly-designed birds with a little of the lizard in them. A bit vultury-looking, kind of like a retarded toucan, a crack-addicted chicken with little t-rex hands, or maybe like a turkey from a bad family.

Almost all Hook Birds have hooks and these usually protrude from the elbows of their wings. Some have shrivelled wings and what look like weird little secondary claws coming from somewhere near their shoulder. Some have teeth.

Hook Birds use their hooks to scrabble around on the trunks of trees. Mainly you see them scrabbling, scratching, flapping, hanging, pecking, clawing, climbing and screaming rather than flying.

They are capable of flight but rarely seem to do it. Perhaps it takes too much energy. If you ever see one take off it looks like a schizophrenic feather duster trying to fuck itself to death. If you kick a Hook Bird off a branch it simply glides to the ground in the laziest way possible, half falling, looking you in the eye as it goes, before landing in a heap, screaming and wandering about or just lying on its back and refusing to get up, whilst screaming, and staring at you.

Hook birds can put on astonishing bursts of speed when chasing each other about or dashing back and forth on pointless Hook Bird business, yet when threatened, even when one of a flock has been taken out by a slung stone, they only watch with a moronic stillness that may be real stupidity or simply a kind of idiot contempt.

Their colour tends to red. Sometimes a muddy, bloody, crude red, sometimes fading into old-stain brown, sometimes as vibrant as a new wound.

BEHAVIOUR

Hook Birds hang around like drunk thugs or under-employed teens. Though they are (probably) insectivores they never seem to actually hunt insects, or to do anything except scream. If you look at them, they are there looking back at you, waiting.

Though they are aggressive creatures, thankfully Hook Birds are also cowards. Despite their omni-presence in the Zone (it certainly feels as if you are never more than a few hundred feet from a Hook Bird) they rarely attack.

Sometimes though, a thrill of malignancy runs through a Hook Bird flock and they set off, dedicating themselves to fucking someone over.

Viscously opportunistic, the Hook Bird will attack anyone, or anything that seems weak. Especially people made vulnerable by circumstance, those, trapped, lost, injured or alone.

(A Hook Bird would certainly eat a person if it could.)

(A Hook Bird would eat a Hook Bird if it could.)

They flee very quickly if opposed but will follow at a distance till the end of the day, watching and waiting for an opportunity to strike.

Handily, following circling Hook Birds can be a good way to find lost workers as flocks usually gather near the bodies, waiting for the Fiddlehead Spiders to finish eating.

ROPE

Hook Birds like to eat rope. especially rope that people are hanging from They often bite and scrabble at the ropes used to climb Cloudgrave trees and build bridges. Some say they do this to line their nests, others claim that since the Hook Birds steal rope fragments continually throughout the year, it is a learnt behaviour indulged in specifically to put human lives in danger.

Anything in the Zone that's made of rope must have a slinger positioned nearby to drive off Hook Birds in the day. Nevertheless, they sometimes come silently at night and all rope must be continually checked and replaced.

THE CRY OF THE HOOK BIRDS

Hook Birds learn like parrots, they mimic human and natural sounds but the sounds they like most are those of anger and distress.

hook birds can tell when someone is upset and they like the kinds of sound that upset people make this is why hook birds try to make people angry or scared and hang around distressed people, repeating what they say.

If a Hook Bird hears something that it likes, it will repeat it to the rest of the flock, they will repeat it to the forest. This means the dominant cry of the hook bird is the scream, particularly the scream of someone falling from a great height.

If one of them hears this, it will repeat it and then keep repeating it and the cry will quickly be taken up by others.

As a consequence of this, the primary sound of birdsong in the Zone, the chorus that begins at dawn and runs continually until sunset, is the screaming of long-dead people repeated in the harsh metallic voices of birds.

Its important to note that if, when PC's are dealing with Hook Birds, they lose their temper say anything unpleasant, the Hook Birds will hear this and repeat it in their grating idiot voices.

Thursday, 14 January 2016

Centipedes in the Zone

The zone has a lot of Centipedes. It has more than enough.

Tipping over a stone or tearing away a chunk of bark will reveal some and they can be found pretty much everywhere, trying to eat pretty much anything. Most zone inhabitants will receive a nip from a frustrated centipede at some point but the poisons they carry are not strong enough to be anything but an irritant to a human being.

Though they do not prey on mankind or provide any significant threat, they are still a vital part of zone culture. Centipede fights, and the betting upon them, are one of the few leisure activities in the zone and the only one which unifies all classes and stations, ages and genders, though they are especially popular with the cohort which is both male and high as fuck.

WHAT HAPPENS IN A BOUT

Only the largest available Centipedes are used to 'duel'. This particular species can grow to between 8 to 12 inches in length and come in a range of colours. Centipedes of dramatically different sizes will never be allowed to fight, this would be unsporting.

The Centipedes are starved for a day or for two, then placed in an enclosed space together. They fight to the death and the winner eats the loser

The classic bout takes place on a cut piece of fallen cloudgrave frond lodged in the ground and flattened off like the trunk of a carefully-felled tree. Smaller bouts can take place on flat stones or, in a 'blind fight' the two creatures can be thrown together into a bottle or bucket.

MECHANICS OF A DUEL

SIMPLE

This is a good mechanic for a simple fight between two Centipedes of average status on which the PC's are betting an insignificant amount of money.

First each trainer decides whether they are starving their Centipede for one day or two (most will starve to death after three).

One-Day Centipedes roll 2d6.

Two-Day Centipedes roll 1d12.

----To Begin----

First, once Centipede must insult the other. (The trainer will usually do this for them.)

Second, the other Centipede must demand an apology or satisfaction.

Third, after a brief pause for drama, the first Centipede offers satisfaction.

The crowd goes "ZZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZZZoooooOOOOO-AH!", slowly raising its hands in the air and, on the "AH!", dramatically slamming them to the ground.

The Centipedes are thrown into the ring.

The bout begins.

----Each Round-----

Each Centipede rolls its dice.

If the total numbers match for each creature match the animals are assumed to be grappling. That round is discounted.

Whoever reaches 13 first is the victor.

COMPLEX

If PC's have staked a significant amount of money, or perhaps an important favour, on the result of a bout, then they may wish to use these slightly more complex rules.

The PC themselves should model and roll dice for their favoured combatant, the DM, or perhaps another PC, should roll dice for the opposition.

A Centipede is assumed to have 10 hp, an AC of 10 and to do d6 damage on a hit.

A 'two day' centipede has +1 to hit and initiative, but -1 to AC and hp.

These stats count *only* to simulate Centipede duels, they do not carry over into 'real life'.

Both parties should agree on the size of the ring and map the rough position of their Centipedes. If a Centipede is driven out of the ring area, it forfeits the match, and, traditionally, the owner of that Centipede must then eat it alive in front of the crowd.

----To Begin----

First, insult.

Second, the other demands apology or satisfaction.

Third, pause, then "Satisfaction!"

The crowd goes "ZZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZZZoooooOOOOO-AH!", slowly raising its hands in the air and, on the "AH!", dramatically slamming them to the ground.

The Centipedes are thrown into the ring.

The bout begins.

----Each Round-----

Both parties make attack rolls. If they hit, both make damage rolls. These are considered to have happened at the same time.

After attack and damage rolls have been made, but before the results are applied. The parties roll a d6 for initiative. Whoever wins initiative can declare one of the manuvres below to avoid or enhance the effect of a blow.

• 'Retreat!' : If they got hit, the Centipede may avoid the effects of an attack roll by declaring a retreat. Their opponent can move them a number of inches equal to the opposing attack roll.

• 'Entangle!' : If they hit the Centipede can wrap around its opponent. This does no damage but stops them from declaring a manoeuvre next turn and lowers their AC next turn by the value shown on the damage die.

• 'Focus' : Instead of attacking, the Centipede concentrates on their enemies weaknesses. Their next attack gets a +1 to hit and damage. This bonus stacks. If a Centipede concentrates every round for 3 rounds and then hits, their attack gets a +3 to hit and damage.

CENTIPEDE LORE

The unusual aspect of Centipede duelling in the Zone is not that the animals are forced to fight, (games of a similar kind can be found in many cultures) But the sophisticated lore that surrounds the assumed character of the Centipedes.

In the Zone, duelling Centipedes are considered personalities in a complex, evolving drama.

Any duelling Centipede must be given a name and a title. The title must be a noble one. "Sir" or "Lady" at a minimum. (Note: the actual gender of the Centipede has no effect on its name or title). Usually, but not always, a centipede will start at relatively low rank, however sometimes a centipede will be given a relatively high-status name straight away if it seems obviously appropriate to the creature.

Exactly what makes the name appropriate is not always clear. Some might have a distinctive feature or particular quality of behaviour, i.e. a wounded Centipede might be called "General" or a torpid one "Bishop", a beautiful one "Queen" or a dramatically-limbed one "Emperor", but the exact relation of title to creature is never exact, though the crowd will certainly know if a centipede is poorly named and will mock its pretension.

As well as a name, each Centipede has an assumed character, back-story, personality and, if it survives long enough, a dramatic and labyrinthine personal history.

The Centipedes are imagined in the public mind as Nobles vying against each other in some dramatic, continuous, ever-expanding tale. Some Centipedes are assumed to be 'good' or heroic creatures, and some are assumed to be 'bad' or villainous. This has no effect on their popularity with the crowd, though bouts between one 'good' and one 'bad' creature always draw the biggest crowd and largest bets.

Zonal Centipedes come in a range of colours, from dim blue-black, to pale white, red, green, purple and some 'colourless' Centipedes.

Centipedes of the same colour will be assumed to be of the same Noble family, organisation or house, though this does not mean that they will not fight against each other

Like a street-name or an in-joke, no one person can assign a Centipede its 'character'. The exact details of the imagined history, personal background, and the invented slight that brought two centipedes to battle are an emergent property of the audience. These histories might flex and shift their form a little for a few bouts, but if a centipede keeps surviving then its history becomes legend, to be preserved and transmitted rather than argued over or invented.

Some of the more famous have a notoriety that passes through the generations. Old zonals will often happily sit and talk of the great centipede duels of the past, and will often remember the imagined personal histories of their favourite centipedes.

Though a losing centipede always dies, the character they play can return. Sometimes, if a Centipede is found which seems similar enough to a previously defeated one, and if it seems appropriate, the 'character' may return to the ring, perhaps to avenge their previous defeat. Such a creature might be painted black to signify that it is 'incognito' then, should it win, the ink will be washed off and its true name and nature revealed.

(If it matches its evolving story, a Centipede might even be painted a different colour to signify that it has betrayed its house and gone over to an opposing house.)

Of course if a famous character returns to the ring and dies in the first bout, the crowd will simply say that they were a Pretender or 'false' centipede and that the 'real' personality is still out there, somewhere, awaiting their return.

Players should always name their own Centipedes, but here is a selection of possibilities.

Title

1. Sir

2. Dame

3. Lord/Lady

4. Baron/Baroness

5. Prince/Princess

6. King/Queen

7. Cardinal

8. Bishop

9. Sultan

10. Seneschal

11. Caliph

12. Shogun

Name

1. Snips-it-all

2. Cephalophant-seen

3. Debt-off

4. Gargantua

5. Rock-rider

6. Acidic

7. Click-and-close

8. Knees-Please

9. Toefucker

10. All-Poisoning

11. Mole-Fear

12. Infinite Twist

Insult

1. For the honour of a lady

2. Suggested cuckold

3. Accusation of cowardice

4. Inferring false parentage/false colours

5. "A snake with legs", "long bee" or other claims of false species

6. Physical weakness, Too long and thin "like a marked string", Too short and fat "like an accordion", weak poison "water in your forpicules.

7. Contemptible house "Effete Blues", "Savage Greens" etc.

8. Too wealthy and therefore lacking knightly virtue "no more than a usurer/banker" etc.

9. Too poor and therefore not true nobility ("Poor Knight" Centipedes usually considered 'good guys' by the crowd

10. Ancient enmity i.e. Blues must always challenge Blacks, all must challenge the Colourless house etc.

11. Claims of false colouration ie "painted", "no true green" etc.

12. Desire to challenge the most noble and potent (common challenge for 'good guy' centipedes)

Sunday, 10 January 2016

The Cloudgrave Tree

Cloudgrave trees grow darker as they age.

Some trees are still blackening from the autumnal gold of their youth, their crown fronds mixing with the leaves of other trees. The oldest, the giants, are like tornado columns or the iron arrows of titans, striking from the canopy like banner-shafts above a host of men. The older a Cloudgrave is, the harder it is to see at night, the Old-Black, Night-King trees blot out moon and stars like phantoms in the dark.

The Cloudgrave crown tree is an unfolding diadem of fronds like the stems of an enormous fern uncurling, presenting tough and slender blades before the sun like fields of oversized grass. Its blade-leaves, shaped like hoplite swords, are a dark near-blue-green, but the Cloudgrave sap that crystallises on their edges is refractive blue. When you see the sun through a Cloudgrave crown, the fronds are haloed in blue crystalline fire that dances as the trees shift slightly in the wind.

The trunk of a Cloudgrave is rough and dense but difficult to climb, the bark grows diagonally down in tubes and is frictive enough to shred ropes and fingertips.

As the tree grows higher, the lower fronds loosen and die, eventually crashing to the ground, crushing the saplings of competing trees and slowly releasing its crystallised sap into the earth, acting as a mild growth retardant. Large competitors are rare, the spaces taken by tough brambles, fungi and noxious flowers.

The smashed and fallen fronds of the Cloudgrave obstruct easy access much of the time. They decay slowly and build up into a jagged mess at the base of the trunk.

The Blue Blood of the Trees

The crown of the Cloudgrave tree is where the new fronds grow, protected by the Cloud blood sap, or 'The Blue Blood'.

There is a pool in the centre of the crown right at the top of the tree, 'the wound in which life enters'. The wound is full of azure resin in its most liquid form and this resin *is* the Zone, or at least, the foundation stone of its economy and the reason for its exploitation.

The Tree Blood oozes from the frond-blades and crystallises there, making them utterly inedible to any form of life (other than the shamefully torpid Stilt Sloth). The resin pit captures and kills any bird or creature foolish enough to fall into its grip and mummifies the remains which sink to the bottom of the pool to be absorbed slowly by the Cloudgrave as it grows. When a wind comes up, the wound fumes gusting from the crown disorientates climbing animals, and human beings, the well known 'Tree Dreams' (see page XX). In this manner is the tree protected.

The crown-wound sap is more potent than the crystal smear on the leaves of the tree and is much easier to harvest.

"Easier" being a relative term for a dangerous hallucinogen with the consistency and weight of semi-liquid tar which adheres instantly to human flesh, or almost anything else, on contact and which occurs about twenty stories up a dangerously frictive tree that likes to drop its absurdly large fronds without any apparent warning.

The only solvents that dissolve Cloudgrave sap are rare, expensive, and only partially effective, making it almost impossible for harvesters to remove unless they are willing to peel off the skin underneath, which most will eventually attempt, or face gradual encasement in a blue gemlike exoskeleton.

DM Knowledge

Most cultures in a D&D world don’t have enough abstract knowledge about biology and environments for the following information to be directly transmissible or easily explicable, but it might be useful for a DM to know.

(People may well have a highly sophisticated attitude towards their local environment and knowledge of things like fire regimes and the nature of particular species, but they generally don't systematise that stuff and spread it around.)

Cloudgraves are giant tree ferns and their life cycle is adapted to fire. The trunks are highly heat-resistant and become more so the older they get. The delicate organs of the plant are hidden deep within the trunk (the high silica content which makes the bark so abrasive also helps with this) and right at the top, hopefully far above the reach of any blaze. When a fire breaks out the trees drop their older heavier fronds and curl up their fresh still-flexible growth like an octopus retreating into a hole.

The heat carries the spores of the Cloudgrave high into the air. When they land they grow into small, apparently-unrelated gametophyte trees which develop both eggs and sperm. When six to thirteen feet high, the gametophyte trees exchange their wind-blown sperm, which then hatch into a new Cloudgrave in the heart of the pregnant gametophyte, consuming it as it grows.

Harvesting Principals.

Even small Cloudgraves are incredibly tall and harvesting one is highly skilled work. Only the most adept climbers should ever attempt it and a fall from any significant height is almost always lethal.

Harvesters often bring up light wooden platforms which they tie to the tree and use as a staging area to lower full buckets and bring up empty ones. This platform, slightly below the crown itself and therefore out of the wind, is less susceptible to Tree Dreams and, if they can afford the spare hands, a team will usually leave a member there, armed with a sling to threaten any Hook Birds that venture this high.

The next problem is lowering the sap to the ground without spillage. Harvesters must choose between lowering each bucket along with a member of the team (slower, more dangerous for the bucket rider, but more reliable) or lowering the bucket on its own (faster but more vulnerable to Hook Birds and likely to spill).

With the team divided, those left on the ground have the job of receiving and protecting the valuable sap, driving off Hook Birds, Spiderhead gangs and Maroons, and dealing with abusive Safety Teams (its effectively impossible to harvest a tree to the required quota without breaking some safety rules).

Since the two groups are so separate there is little they can do to help each other and it’s not impossible for a harvesting team to climb down to find the ground team wiped out by Maroons or killed some other way, or for a ground team to watch the sky team ascend, never to come down. They might be overcome by Tree Dreams, attacked by Moon Moles, or simply disappear, only to be found mummified in the tree wound many years later by another team.

Falling Damage

Due to the enormous height of the Cloudgrave, anyone falling is assumed to do so from a significant height.

Standard falling damage is d6xd100

If the DM is feeling generous they may apply the standard value only to NPC’s and animals and allow PC’s to take only for NPCs and allow PC’s to take only ‘lucky fall’ damage, allowing for a slightly greater possibility of a miracle survival.

Lucky fall damage is d20xd20

Harvesting for PC's

How big is the tree?

Tree Size	Height in feet	Climbing time	Pints recoverable
Small	100 to 130	½ hour	100 + d50
Medium	200+	1 hour	200 + d100
Large	260+	1 ½ hour	400 + d100

Who’s on the ground, who’s up the tree?

The PC’s must decide who goes up the tree and who stays down below. More climbers going up means greater safety and more sap harvested. Less people down below means less safety from threats on the forest floor.

Of course, only those with good climbing skills should ever be allowed to even attempt the climb.

In systems where not everyone has explicitly stated skills, only those with a ‘climb’ skill should be allowed to attempt it.

In systems where everyone has a certain degree of skill, only those with an above average rating in that skill should be allowed to try it.

It should be reasonably obvious in any particular game which characters are ‘climby’ and which are not. If non-climby characters attempt to push the issue, simply make them roll an individual standard climb test for the whole ascent and descent, inflicting falling damage if they fail.

Harvesting the Sap

Once up the tree, assuming no interruptions, a competent team of four can safely lower about 25 pints of sap per half hour

Rope

Standard rope is assumed to have 30 hp and to be however long they need to be. Hook Birds will often choose to attack rope rather than people.

In real terms it is probably practically impossible to carry about the gigantic amounts of rope required around the zone, or to manage its enormous weight as it hangs from the tree without a sophisticated pulley system and a series of relay points. If intelligent players point this out, they are right and you should deal with that however you usually deal with the confluence between intelligent players and inconsistent fictional worlds.

Remember that workers going about the zone are usually carrying huge coils of shitty hemp rope strung about themselves.

Rolling for encounters

Every half hour, each group, those above and those below, must roll a separate encounter die. On a roll of 1, an encounter takes place. Depending on their position at the time, each group has a separate encounter chart.

Encounters climbing the Tree

D20
1	Fall! - Lowest DEX member tests climbing or falls, others can test to execute a daring rescue but if they fail, they fall too.
2	Abrasions! d12 damage to rope or d4 to hands of random PC. (Ropes have 30 hp)
3	Fall! - Mass dislodgement, all test individually or fall individually. Rescues can be attempted as above.
4	d4 Hook Birds attack!
5	Fall! – Random PC must test climbing or fall. Rescue can be attempted.
6	d6 Hook Birds attack!
7	Tree Bees! PC’s must climb silently to avoid enraging them. Make stealth or DEX checks.
8	d20 Hook Birds attack!
9	Fall - mass dislodgement, all test individually or fall individually
10	One Hook Bird but its INT 18 and evil as fuck
11	Fall – random PC must test climbing or fall. Rescue is possible.
12	Insert bird! Deranged humming bird tries to insert living insect into random party members ear. They must evade or defeat the bird to avoid this.
13	Stilt Sloths in the canopy!
14	Rat-Panther nest disturbed!
15	Fall! Lowest DEX member tests climbing or falls, others can test to execute a rescue but if they fail, they fall too.
16	Zonal Worm disturbed!
17	Disco-leg! PC with lowest CON has stress-induced vibrating thigh muscle, group has to pause for a while. Add extra half-hour onto total climb time.
18	Clickers Individuals! Moving through the canopy, a mid-air encounter begins. If the ground crew has a sentry watching the canopy and they pass a WIS test to spot the Individuals, the climbers get a free round of action.
19	Sun through frond crystals causes trippy visions, DM may describe what they like to one PC.
20	Frond Fall!

Encounters at the Crown

D20
1	Sap Contact! Hand! Odds right, evens left.
2	Sap Contact! Face! d100% of face covered. If over 50% PC must roll a DEX test to close their eye fast enough to stop it getting in. 100% means testing for both eyes.
3	Sap Contact! Roll again 1-3 chest, 4 chin, 5 neck, 6 mouth.
4	Sap Contact! Roll again Odds right, evens left 1-2 forearm, 3-4 bicep/tricep 5-6 shoulder.
5	Sap Contact! Roll again. Odds right, evens left. 1-2 thighs, 3 crotch, 4 abdomen, 5 back, 6 ass.
6	Sap Contact! Feet! (harvesters rarely wear shoes) Odds right, evens left.
7	SapFall! You fool! Sap dislodged in lowering. All below roll a save vs breath weapon or suffer an attack with no attack bonus. If hit, they roll a d6 on this chart.
8	SapFall! You fool! Sap dislodged in lowering. All below roll a save vs breath weapon or suffer an attack with no attack bonus. If hit, they roll a d6 on this chart.
9	SapFall! You fool! Sap dislodged in lowering. All below roll a save vs breath weapon or suffer an attack with no attack bonus. If hit, they roll a d6 on this chart.
10	D4 Tree Dreams! PC with lowest CON rolls d4 on the Tree Dreams table.
11	D4+D6 Tree Dreams! The PC with lowest CON rolls d4+d6 on the Tree Dreams table. Or, another PC may accept the d6 and roll that separately.
12	D6+D6 Tree Dreams! As above.
13	D6+D6+D6 Tree Dreams! As above except a third PC may accept the third d6 and roll that separately.
14	Insert Bird!
15	Stilt Sloths migrating en-mass across the crown!
16	Zonal Worm disturbed!
17	Moon Moles disturbed!
18	Tree Bee nest discovered!
19	From the crown you see something approaching the ground team (roll a d6 on their table) but it’s hard to warn them in time!
20	Frond Fall!

Encounters at the base

D20
1	Safety inspection! Roll Safety team.
2	Masked Maroons!
3	‘Mister Company’!
4	‘Clickers Individuals’ in the trees!
5	Fiddlehead queue gang!
6	D4 'escaping' workers being chased by Security team!
7	Another team arrives, claiming they have been assigned this tree.
8	Tomb-rumour obsessed rando, convinced they have intuited tomb location, requests assistance, refuses to wait.
9	D4 workers found ‘hiding’ in roots, beg for assistance.
10	Slumber Monkey nest in roots!
11	Humbler Snail!
12	Fiddlehead Spider!
13	D4 Hook Birds!
14	D6 Hook Birds
15	D20 Hook Birds
16	D100 Hook Birds
17	Cephalophant sighting!
18	Dementia wasp! All non-pc’s flee in terror!
19	Rat-Panther attack!
20	Frond Fall!