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• Apr 5, 2017

  Dragon's Dogma Bestiary: Ogres

  

  Despite being smaller than cyclopes, ogres are actually more dangerous! A cyclops is a slow, stupid, and indecisive combatant that may be driven away by an insistent enough attack. None of that applies to ogres! While not really bright, they are very cunning and driven to satisfy their endless hunger. Ogres tend to live in caves and ruins, and their smaller size means they don’t require those ruins to be exceptionally spacious. They love to eat fresh meat, especially that of humans, and will attack any they perceive. While typically solitary, sometimes people do run into a pair of them.

  In combat, ogres will make use of their great strength to strike enemies, but what they really like to do is grab a foe and twist. Faced with a large group, they will often grab a single for and try to drag them away, but it doesn’t take much to make an ogre go berserk. A berserk ogre fights to the death, but even then it has enough presence of mind to fight smart, targetting its weaker-looking foes and trying to get the others in a position where they can’t dodge effectively.

  Ogres don’t typically carry weapons, but will gladly use any available objects as improvised clubs or projectiles.

  ST 27; DX 12; IQ 7; HT 12;

  SM +2; Dodge 8; DR 3;

  HP 27; Will 10; Per 10; FP 11

  Basic Speed 7.00; Move 7;

  • Punch (14): 3d+1 cr. Reach C-2.
  • Improvised Club (14): 6d+1 cr. Reach 1-3.
  • Bite (14): 2d+2 imp. Reach C.
  • Grab (14): Grapples at ST 28.
  • Twist (24): The ogre uses Wrench Limb, Wrench Spine or Neck Snap at the listed skill level on a grappled target, depending on how it’s grappled.

  Traits: Claws (Blunt Claws); DR 3 (Tough Skin); Night Vision 5; Teeth (Fangs); Gluttony (9); Bestial; Berserk (12); Bully;

  Class: Mundane.

  Variants

  Elder Ogres: Legend has it that ogres grow stronger and tougher as they age, and that they are either immortal or extremely long-lived. Such an Elder Ogre would add extra ST, DR and combat skill on top of the stat block above depending on its age.

• Apr 3, 2017

  Psi Wars: Golko the Slaver

  The name of the Psi Wars game I’m starting over on RPG.net is “Golko Wants You Dead”. That is also its premise: there’s a crime lord named Golko, he wants the PCs dead, and they need to do something about it. During character creation, each player gets to decide why Golko wants their PC dead, and to state a true thing about Golko himself. I love this, because I love using player input in this way. I did something similar with my 2015-2016 X-COM campaign.

  I can’t claim credit for the “Golko Wants You Dead” premise, however - I first saw it used a number of years ago in a Wushu game, also on the RPG.net forum. I’m just recycling it here, and in fact I already got a nice nostalgic compliment from a player in that original game!

  I already posted a brief summary of who our PCs are, and I promised to post about Golko too. Now it’s time to deliver. Each Golko Wants You Dead game ends up with a different Golko, and this one is ours. The description below synthesizes all the True Things my players said about him, plus a few things of my own invention.

  Golko the Slaver

  

  Golko cuts a large and imposing figure: his body plan is basically centauroid, though the first word that comes to mind when looking at him is “lobster” rather than “horse”. He has six articulated legs and four arms: a pair of hugely strong and sharp crab-like pincers, and a smaller, weaker pair of hand-like manipulators. He’s a callous and cruel individual who views anyone but himself as assets or liabilities to be dealt with accordingly.

  His species is native to the planet Geryon, which lies outside Empire space. Psionic ability is extremely common among them, and while this gave rise to a rich psionic tradition it also caused some conflict in their otherwise peaceful society. A minority of Geryonites are born without psionic potential, and they tend to be seen as embarrassments to their families. Golko was one such individual. He left his planet out of spite, and found a profitable niche renting slaves to the Empire.

  You see, Imperial law forbids its citizens from owning slaves, but its elites exploit a loophole that allows slave-owning aliens based outside the Empire’s borders to “rent” these slaves to Imperial citizens. Golko is a very big player in this market, having clawed his way to the top both literally and figuratively. He sells human and alien slaves to rich nobles and businessmen, bloodsport arenas, and to whoever else wants to buy any. He also keeps a portion of them for himself, particularly those who display psionic abilities. Golko is funding a secret lab whose scientists experiment on these psions in hopes of finding a way to awaken his own psionic abilities.

  The PCs have recently dealt blows to all of these operations, either by disrupting his slave shipments or by escaping slavery themselves. Golko’s current obsession is making an example out of all of them, so that business as usual can resume.

  Golko’s organization is composed of criminals belonging to several more common species, like humans and other humanoid aliens. Many of them use Imperial gear that comes to Golko through the same routes through which he sells his slaves. He also has a sizable force of brand new combat droids acquired through the same channels.

  Design Notes

  The details of Golko’s business operations and his psionics obsession were all given to me by the players, as was the fact that he could be described as a “creature”, which meant he’s an alien.

  Now, an alien slaver inevitably draws comparisons to Jabba the Hutt, who fills this role in Star Wars. I wanted my Golko to be both reminiscent of Jabba while also being different from him. So you have a large, non-humanoid alien crime lord who isn’t an immobile mound of quivering flesh, and is instead a formidable threat all by himself. All of this is known to the PCs, which is why I’m posting it as part of the blog. Further campaign developments will be posted as they appear in actual play!

  Geryon, the name of his native planet, is also the name of a mythological giant defeated by Hercules in one of his twelve labors: he had three heads and six arms. Golko has a different collection of surplus appendages, but I still felt the name was appropriate.

• Mar 30, 2017

  GURPS X-COM: The Arsenal of Ruin, Part 1

  

  As I mentioned back in the post about my campaign setup on this game, I can’t post adaptations of the Dreams of Ruin creatures here without violating the book’s license. What I can do, however, is post stats for their gear in this campaign, since it’s different from what’s in the original book. Today, we’ll focus on the Puppets of Ruin, which are the only alien the group met in their first operation that actually uses gear.

  Original-flavor Puppets of Ruin carry magic swords, bolt-action rifles, concussion hand grenades, and ocasionally a RPG launcher. That’s a terrifying loadout for anyone in the medieval fantasy worlds they’re meant to attack! With this equipment, and at 3 Hit Dice, they’re supposed to be superior to any conventional force of 1 HD soldiers or even 2 HD humanoids. That would be even truer in a GURPS campaign, where they’re taking TL 7 weapons into a TL 3 world. Even powerful adventurers wouldn’t be able to face them head-on!

  However, in this campaign they’re attacking a late TL8 world, which means their original equipment would actually be less advanced than what’s typically available to an outfit like X-COM! That feels wrong to me - it’s not a proper X-COM game unless even the “weakest” alien has a technological edge over your soldiers. Therefore, I decided they needed an upgrade. And now, for the first time, I’m publishing stats for their weapons:

  Puppet Gear

  These weapons and their corresponding ammunition are grown by the Body Trees rather than manufactured. Their construction and functionality is equivalent to Tech Level 9. They tend to have a curvy, organic look, with no unecessary seams. Each individual item is slightly different from all others, though ammunition for a specific weapon will always fit another weapon of the same type.

  Weapon stats are all as described in the Basic Set, with two exceptions. Weight is in kilograms, not pounds, because I like the metric system more; and monetary cost is not listed, because I didn’t use it in the campaign itself. Filling a cost in shouldn’t be too hard for those GMs that want it, and to figure out an item’s weight in pounds just multiply the listed numbers by 2.

  These days, I prefer to use the alternate Guns specialties presented in Pyramid #3/65: Alternate GURPS III. I did so in the campaign itself, and I do so in this article, though I also note what Basic Set skills the weapons require.

  Puppet Sword

  Around 1 meter long, this sword has a straight double-edged blade made of a ceramic/metal composite material and a substantial handguard similar to that of a cavalry saber. As puppets are more proficient in melee combat than just about any typical modern soldier, this is probably their most dangerous weapon if they happen to be within easy reach of their targets.

  Treat this as a Superfine (p. UT163) backsword (p. MA227 or LT66). It’s used with the Broadsword skill. All puppets have one.

  TL	Weapon	Damage	Reach	Parry	Weight	ST
  9	Puppet Sword	sw+3(2) cut	1	0	1.5	10
  		or thr+3(2) imp

  
  

  Puppet Rifle

  This is a short, semi-automatic carbine firing caseless 7.77mm rounds with an Electrothermal-Chemical (ETC) action. It contains no targetting electronics, but the puppets’ own senses and link with the forest more than compensate for this. It’s made from the same materials as the sword and self-cleaning, requiring no regular maintenance. It’s extremely reliable and won’t malfunction unless some external factor lowers its Malf.

  The Puppet Rifle is fired with Guns (Longarm), or Guns (Rifle) if using the Basic Set skills. All puppets have a fully loaded rifle plus 3 or 4 extra magazines. The Trees of Woe bear extra reloads as fruit, so they can resupply if they have access to a thicket.

  TL	Weapon	Damage	Acc	Range	Weight	RoF	Shots	ST	Bulk	Rcl
  9	Puppet Rifle	7d+2 pi	4	750/4500	3/0.33	3	20(3)	9	-4	2

  
  

  Puppet Grenade

  This is a concussion grenade with an advanced plastic explosive filling and a soft outer shell that limits fragmentation. It’s used with Throwing, and every puppet carries from 1 to 3. These also grow from the Trees of Woe, so puppets near a thicket will be profiligate in their use.

  The Puppet Grenade is essentially a TL 9 HEC hand grenade (p. UT146 and UT154).

  TL	Weapon	Damage	Weight	Fuse	Bulk
  9	Puppet Grenade	8dx2 cr ex	0.5	2	-2

  
  

  Puppet RPG

  This weapon is a thin launch tube with handles and iron sights, firing a 77mm over-caliber warhead which vaguely resembles a RPG-7 round. It takes 3 seconds to set up. While launchers and their ammo are also provided by the forest, they appear at a slower rate, and only where the Trees of Woe are at their densest. Only about 1 in 7 puppets has a launcher, and will typically carry from 1 to 3 rounds for it. Its squad mates might carry extra rounds as well.

  The launcher has a hazardous backblast that causes 2d burning damage. It uses Guns (LAW), which has the same name in both skill systems.

  TL	Weapon	Damage	Acc	Range	Weight	RoF	Shots	ST	Bulk	Rcl
  9	Puppet RPG	6dx8(10) cr exp	2	10/1000	9/2.5	1	1(4)	9	-6	1
  	linked	6dx3 cr exp

  
  

  Using the Arsenal of Ruin

  These weapons have other campaign roles aside from equipping the Puppets of Ruin! They occupy the same niche as lasers in the original X-COM or magnetic weapons in the 2015 XCOM 2, using technology that’s a step up from what’s initially available to human soldiers but not as good as what the alien masterminds have at their disposal.

  Unlike the alien weapons from the X-COM computer games, they can be easily operated by humans and contain no biometric locks, self-destruct failsafes or anything of the sort. Someone who came across one of them lying on the floor could just pick it up and use it, assuming they had the appropriate skills.

  This is by design! The Forest wants people to commit violence within its borders, and is only too happy to provide them with the tools to do so. Any local Servants of Ruin drawn to its borders will soon find themselves well-supplied with these weapons, and possibly in command of a puppet posse. Even people who aren’t quite as evil might be gifted with weapons as a temptation. They are also chock-full of spores, so taking them beyond the forest’s borders aids the spread of the Dreams.

• Mar 29, 2017

  Dragon's Dogma Bestiary: Chimerae

  

  A chimera is nightmarish three-headed beast whose appearance in Gransys heralds the coming of the Dragon. It resembles a huge lion with a giant goat’s head growing out of its back and a monstrous snake in place of its tail. All three heads are extremely dangerous! Both the lion and the snake have very strong bites and have large enough jaws to grapple human-sized targets, with the snake being venomous as well. And while the goat doesn’t have a large range of motion, it can cast spells. This last fact is very often the last surprise any who dare face the chimera have in their lives, and is a sign that the monster is a lot more intelligent than its animalistic appearance would indicate. In addition to all of this, all three heads can act independently at the same time.

  As heralds to the Dragon, chimerae guard the path to it, making their lairs in places one must cross to arrive at the Dragon’s chosen nest. They can also sometimes be found near lesser dragons as well.

  GMs who use chimerae in their games are also encouraged to include Snake-Maned Lions as either a variant chimera or a related monster. You can never have too many freakish mutant lions in your game!

  ST 24; DX 13; IQ 14; HT 12

  Dodge 10; DR 1 (Tough Skin); SM +2

  Will 14; Per 14; HP 24; FP 20

  Speed 7; Move 7.

  • Lion Bite (15): 2d+2 cutting. Reach C. May grapple the target on a hit. Parried as a weapon.
  • Snake Bite (15): 2d+2 impaling + follow-up 1d toxic (HT-3 to resist; 5 cycles; 1 minute per cycle), Reach C-3. May grapple the target on a hit. Parried as a weapon.
  • Talons x2 (15): 2d cutting. Reach C, 1. Parried as a weapon.
  • Spells (-): The goat head can typically cast Daze-15, Sleep-15, Ice Slick-15 and Ice Sphere-15, using the chimera’s 20 FP.

  Traits: 360-degree Vision; Combat Reflexes; Compartimentalized Mind 1 (Spellcasting only); Extra Attack 3 (claw/claw/bite/bite); Fearlessness 5; Magery 3; Night Vision 7; Penetrating Voice; Quadruped; Restricted Diet (Fresh Meat); Sadism (9); Terror 2 (Roar).

  Skills: Brawling-15; Stealth-15; Wrestling-15;

  Class: Hybrid.

  Notes: Immune to Animal spells, but susceptible to Mind Control spells. The Chimera may attack with all three natural weapons and cast a spell during each of its turns.

  Fighting the Chimera

  Chimerae like to incapacitate targets either by grappling them with one of their biting heads, or by magically dazing them or putting them to sleep. They will then proceed to tear the helpless victim apart with their teeth and claws. Despite its size, the monster is fairly mobile and smart enough to try and avoid being surrounded. It’s most vulnerable to long-ranged attacks, but it’s also smart enough to be aware of this! When faced with a large group of opponents, a chimera might try to drag them away one at a time.

  A chimera’s lion and goat heads can be incapacitaded by a single attack doing over 12 HP of injury (as if they were limbs). They each have all the hit locations you’d expect of a head: neck, face, eyes, brain. These can be targeted at the usual penalties. Killing a head prevents the chimera from performing the actions associated with that head. The lion head is the beast’s main head - it dies when the whole creature dies.

  Chimera Variants:

  The same variants described in the Snake-Maned Lion article are appropriate here, with the exception of Intelligent (which already applies to all chimerae). Gorechimerae are not only both Armored and Demonic, they also know more spells and have higher combat skills! No one has seen one of these in Gransys - the laws of nature would need to be completly broken for such a beast to cross the Rift.

• Mar 28, 2017

  Psi Wars Campaign Commentary

  

  Looks like my nascent Psi Wars campaign has gathered attention from the highest of circles, by which I mean Mailanka himself is following the game. So hey, no pressure.

  I only noticed the above post today, since I was a bit behind on my RSS reading. It contains a very detailed summary of my recruitment/character creation thread, with links to relevant posts and an analysis of some of my campaign decisions. That’s a better summary than I could have written myself, so go read it! I’ll use this post to provide some additional context on my decisions.

  First of all, a small nitpick: It’s “Bira’s Octopus Carnival” :). Bliss Authority was indeed the one who had the idea for a Psi Wars game on the RPG.net forums, but the blog is mine. It’s all good, though! Let’s move on to the good stuff:

  On Communion

  Mailanka comments about my stated view that True Communion is good, and Broken and Dark Communion are bad. Indeed, I know that things were meant to be more ambiguous than that in the Psi Wars text, but this is my first time actually using the material! I wanted to keep things simple both for myself and for any players who weren’t familiar with Psi Wars as its own thing.

  So, for this specific campaign, I adopted a stance more closely aligned with that of Star Wars itself. A game more focused on exploring Communion would certainly benefit from the more neutral view.

  There was also the more practical reason that it looked like we were headed towards a party which included followers of conflicting Paths, and I wanted to avoid that in the first game. This ended up not happening, as no one spent points in Communion to start. Jatuu the former gladiator might still end up going either True or Dark in the future, if the game lasts long enough.

  Robots and Cyborgs

  I denied lordmcdeath’s wish to play “a robot who pretends he’s a cyborg” for a couple of reasons, the main one being that I wanted to limit the amount of template surgery in this particular game. There are no ready-made racial templates for PC-level robots, and while something could be arranged by taking the base Android template and tweaking it into a usable racial template, the ensuing discussion would have added more time to the already lengthy play-by-forum character creation process. Reality Glitch’s character had already gone through an extensive round of such discussion, and they ended up leaving the game.

  Mailanka’s discussion on whether it’s thematically appropriate to have robots pass themselves off as organic is another reason why I disallowed it for this game - it’s not a theme I wanted to focus on.

  That said, I might end up working on a “playable robot” racial template to post here in Octopus Carnival, possibly even with an “organic disguise” lens. Just because I’m not focusing on that in my current campaign doesn’t mean I don’t like the concept!

  In Closing…

  I’m very happy to see this game has been noticed by the setting’s author and I hope I don’t disappoint in my execution :). If you’re interested in following the game as it happens, the out-of-character thread is here and the in-character thread is here.

  Next up: Golko himself!

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