| 1 | Issue of The Waking Eye #1 - Student Cults |
| 2 | Issue of The Waking Eye #2 - Custodians |
| 3 | Issue of The Waking Eye #3 - The Committee |
| 4 | Issue of The Waking Eye #4 - Faculty Cults |
| 5 | Issue of The Waking Eye #5 - Mathematics Organizations |
| 6 | Issue of The Waking Eye #6 - Memetic and Mimetic Plagues |
| 7 | Issue of The Waking Eye #7 - Campus Rumors |
| 8 | Wizard Porn - Like the firefighter's calendar, but they all have long beards and pointy hats. Headers: Enlarge, Magic Mouth, Rope Trick, Suggestion, Clone, etc. |
| 9 | Stalker notes on notable Professor/Grad Student (schedule, possessions, who they talked to, etc.) |
| 10 | Unlabeled White Powder (1d4): 1. Cocaine 2. Sodium Hydroxide 3. Hydrochloric Acid 4. Sugar |
| 11 | Untracable Blackmail Note Addressed to (1d4): 1. Nearest Professor 2. Holder 3. The Reader 4. The Dean |
| 12 | Unlabeled Clear Liquid (1d4): 1. Acid 2. Vodka 3. Anti-Psychotic Drug 4. Water |
| 13 | Patent License (1d4): 1. Floating Disk 2. Secret Chest 3. Magic aura 4. Tiny Hut |
| 14 | Bootleg Spell (1d4): 1. Ginny's Glitterbomb 2. Marvin's Moderately Collateral Missiles 3. Gyges' Great Devisualization 4. Cob's Crackhouse |
| 15 | 1d4 Servings of Wizardnip |
| 16 | 2d4 Wizard Teeth |
| 17 | Chunk of Brain |
| 18 | Dried Eyeball |
| 19 | Lock of Hair |
| 20 | Personal Hit List |
| 21 | Someone Else's Hit List |
| 22 | Fresh Tongue |
| 23 | Trap! Extradimensional Leech in the Pocket |
| 24 | Bees. |
| 25 | Miniturized Spell Book |
| 26 | Dust of Blinding (normal dust) |
| 27 | Ninefolded Paper |
| 28 | Unicorn Hoof |
| 29 | Spare Face |
| 30 | Property Deed to Condemned House |
| 31 | Ticket to the Secret Policeman's Ball |
| 32 | License to Kill (only good for a single murder), Signed By Wearer |
| 33 | Animate Zombie Hand |
| 34 | Cursed Hanky |
| 35 | Wand of Glitterbomb |
| 36 | Sixty Six Kernals of Corn |
| 37 | Crumpled Note Bearing Eye-Pyramid |
| 38 | Rat Familiar |
| 39 | Shrunken head of twin |
| 40 | Miniturized Pooch |
| 41 | Pocketwatch Watch (a watch for your pocketwatch) |
| 42 | Calculations for the Date of the Apocalypse |
| 43 | Dried Ramen Noodles |
| 44 | 2d6 Packets of ramen spice |
| 45 | Juice box of brain fluid |
| 46 | Wizard's Knife |
| 47 | 2d4 Blackflame Candles |
| 48 | 3d6 Greenflame Candles |
| 49 | A Big Bloody Liver |
| 50 | Phlegm-colored slug |
| 51 | Stacks of business cards with salacious scribblings in the margins |
| 52 | Compressed spare robes |
| 53 | Splash goggles |
| 54 | 4d4 Blood collection vials, 1d4 of them full |
| 55 | Cipher Ring |
| 56 | Bag of Live Crickets |
| 57 | Mortuary Jar |
| 58 | Thrice-chewed Chewing Gum |
| 59 | 2d10 Broken Pencil Halves |
| 60 | Invisible Ink Vial |
| 61 | Miniature Chest, Trapped with Miniature Poison Needle |
| 62 | 1d4 Quartz Crystals |
| 63 | Angry, Bitey Homunculus |
| 64 | Dust of Reappearance |
| 65 | Chewed Children's Handball |
| 66 | 1d4 Expensive Chalk Sticks |
| 67 | Miniturized Pain Machine (a machine that solely feels pain) |
| 68 | 2d6 Sticks of Cheap Incense |
| 69 | Orange Peels |
| 70 | Mimetic Plague scribbled on note: "Eat The Rich" |
| 71 | 1d4 Handfuls of Gunpowder |
| 72 | Human skin graft with eye tattoo |
| 73 | 3d20 Fresh Severed Mouse Legs |
| 74 | Mysterious Inert Slime |
| 75 | Insect-derived Protein Block |
| 76 | Bag of Peanuts |
| 77 | 2d6 Unused Aromatic Teabags |
| 78 | Thick Metal Drinking Straw |
| 79 | Rusty Scalpel |
| 80 | Sewing Scissors, Needles, Thread |
| 81 | 1d4 Handfuls of Salt |
| 82 | Untarnished Red Rose |
| 83 | Mesmerizing Snowglobe |
| 84 | Half-rotted Apple |
| 85 | Blood-stained Napkins |
| 86 | Personal Calendar with Today's Date Severely Underlined |
| 87 | Broken Pocket Watch |
| 88 | Cheap Pocket Watch |
| 89 | Backwards-Ticking Pocket Watch |
| 90 | An Unregistered Key |
| 91 | 1d20 Spellgold |
| 92 | 1d20 Spellgold |
| 93 | 1d20 Spellgold |
| 94 | 1d20 Spellgold |
| 95 | 2d20 Spellgold |
| 96 | 2d20 Spellgold |
| 97 | 2d20 Spellgold |
| 98 | 4d20 Spellgold |
| 99 | 4d20 Spellgold |
| 100 | 4d20 Spellgold |
Monday, November 18, 2019
Thursday, November 14, 2019
The Monkey's Paw
There's a fun little challenge going around Reddit linked to The Adventure Zone called The Ring of the Grammarian. Basically, it's a ring that allows you to craft homebrew spells on-the-spot by mutating a single letter in the spell's title. I had some fun with this about two years ago for the Infinity Hotel setting (almost a year to the date since The Adventure Zone had it in their podcast).
I've mulled on this before, but this challenge/object/mechanic presents an interesting problem for both the player and the GM to solve: generate a new spell from scratch - probably on the spot, probably without preparation - and not have it be an entirely ineffective downer by default. You're using up a spell slot for the Ring to work, after all. It shouldn't be entirely useless. You're casting a spell - potentially a very precious spell.
And there isn't really any guidance for how to determine exactly how effective this new spell will be. You pretty much just need to wing it. You can kinda eyeball it with the Spell Level and such, perhaps re-skin the mechanic with a new type of damage or modify the base spell's parameters. Somewhere along the way, though, you'll need to determine how this affects the chances. You'll need to move the odds somewhere along the this-automatically-fails to this-automatically-succeeds continuum (with all sorts of advantages, disadvantages, bonuses, and penalties to dice rolls betwixt). To assist in this measure, I'll illustrate what I call The Monkey's Paw Principle. (Named, of course, for the story we are all somewhat familiar with.)
The Monkey's Paw Principle is this:
It kinda seems like a no-brainer though, right? Specific solution > Non-specific solution. But you would not believe how many times I've played in games where this has been ignored, primarily as an lazy excuse to reign in the unpredictability of homebrew content.
((Side Note: It's applicable to more than spells. It should, for instance, apply to any sort of tool (a grappling hook, for instance), but I'll focus on spells for the moment because their importance as a limited resource is obvious.))
I'd like to illustrate this with a couple of D&D spell staples: Jump, Burning Hands, Magic Missile, and Wish. Then a couple of Grammarian / paronym examples.
Jump is a fairly absurdly specific spell. You cast it, you can jump higher. That's all it really does. Totally useless in scenarios that don't involve jumping. It is the juicer of spells: it can juice plenty of things, but unless you're throwing it at something it's just gonna make juice.
Going by the Monkey's Paw Principle, if a player actually spends the precious resources on the Jump spell - a resource which could be spent on the far more versatile Burning Hands - and their problem involves jumping, then they damn sure should have a heck of an advantage on that task. You probably shouldn't even roll, lest other factors are significantly getting in the way (hazards, traps, goalkeeping baddies, etc.).
Burning Hands, by contrast, is a very versatile spell. Fire shoots out of your hands. There is a wide arrangement of scenarios that fire can solve: burning dudes, starting brush fires, creating steam smokescreens, heating giant tea kettles, impressing your fire elemental boyfriend, the list goes on and on.
But because of its wide use of applications and its obvious and plentiful uses, using Burning Hands should generally entail more risk during its course of burning things than Jump entails in its jumping. Baddies make Saves, fires sometimes don't catch, and your fire elemental boyfriend isn't always easily impressed. Jump, however, should almost always solve your jumping problems.
To an extreme, Magic Missile is a hyper-specific spell with near-total inviolability. The only way it's avoided is with specific counters. It is the banana holder of spells: it can hold bananas, and that's it, but it does it perfectly virtually all the time. You deal damage to a living creature. It's guaranteed. Roll your low-uncertainty damage. So hyper specific that there's no uncertainty with how it works at all.
(Wish, paradoxically, is an incredibly unspecific, versatile spell that includes the Monkey's Paw Principle embedded within it automatically. The more absurdly specific your Wish, the less risky it should be.)
Magic Mouth -> Magic Moth
Disguise Self -> Disguise Shelf
Your player decides to cast the spell Magic Moth. Okay... What the hell does a Magic Moth do? Well... It's a moth and it's magic. It could do virtually anything, provided it has some quintessential mothiness or moth flavor thrown in.
Maybe it's like a Butterfree and it spreads sleep spores around willy-nilly. Not unreasonable - just like the Sleep spell, but maybe increase the HD to match its 2nd Level Spell Slot use. Maybe the Magic Moth flocks to tricksters, liars, or traitors, because that's what magic moths do in your setting. Maybe it feeds on eyeball juices and radiates Color Spray all the time.
You've got tons and tons of potential options for what a Magic Moth does, so how do you determine its effectiveness? Well, I propose that this would depend on how absurdly useful the Moth and Magic parts of this spell are within the present situation. Trying to distract a Giant Magic Bat with giant magic food? Magic Moth is 100% effective. No rolls needed. Trying to distract some street thugs? Well, unless they're specifically afraid of moths or worship the Moth God, maybe you roll for its effectiveness, standard check. Trying to force open a door? Well... What parts of Magic and Moth are relevant or specific to door-opening? Magic? Sure. Moth? Not much. Completely ineffective.
Your player decides to cast Disguise Shelf. Why on earth did they decide to do that? Was it to magically disguise a shelf?
No? Well what good could that possibly be? The spell's title is pretty self-evident that it's about disguising shelves.
Yes? Well then that Disguise Shelf spell better be the most damned effective spell at disguising shelves you've ever seen. Whatever counteracts that Disguise Shelf should be at least as absurd as the likelihood of Disguise Shelf being used effectively. Otherwise what was the point of that creativity?
Hopefully, this gives some insight as to how effective absurd homebrew content should be. It won't help you come up with mechanics, but it should give you an idea for how strong these new mechanics should be.
 |
| For Example |
I've mulled on this before, but this challenge/object/mechanic presents an interesting problem for both the player and the GM to solve: generate a new spell from scratch - probably on the spot, probably without preparation - and not have it be an entirely ineffective downer by default. You're using up a spell slot for the Ring to work, after all. It shouldn't be entirely useless. You're casting a spell - potentially a very precious spell.
And there isn't really any guidance for how to determine exactly how effective this new spell will be. You pretty much just need to wing it. You can kinda eyeball it with the Spell Level and such, perhaps re-skin the mechanic with a new type of damage or modify the base spell's parameters. Somewhere along the way, though, you'll need to determine how this affects the chances. You'll need to move the odds somewhere along the this-automatically-fails to this-automatically-succeeds continuum (with all sorts of advantages, disadvantages, bonuses, and penalties to dice rolls betwixt). To assist in this measure, I'll illustrate what I call The Monkey's Paw Principle. (Named, of course, for the story we are all somewhat familiar with.)
The Monkey's Paw Principle is this:
Independent of other variables and controlled for resource expenditure, the more absurdly specific a resource is, the less risk it should entail.
It kinda seems like a no-brainer though, right? Specific solution > Non-specific solution. But you would not believe how many times I've played in games where this has been ignored, primarily as an lazy excuse to reign in the unpredictability of homebrew content.
((Side Note: It's applicable to more than spells. It should, for instance, apply to any sort of tool (a grappling hook, for instance), but I'll focus on spells for the moment because their importance as a limited resource is obvious.))
~~~~~
Jump is a fairly absurdly specific spell. You cast it, you can jump higher. That's all it really does. Totally useless in scenarios that don't involve jumping. It is the juicer of spells: it can juice plenty of things, but unless you're throwing it at something it's just gonna make juice.
Going by the Monkey's Paw Principle, if a player actually spends the precious resources on the Jump spell - a resource which could be spent on the far more versatile Burning Hands - and their problem involves jumping, then they damn sure should have a heck of an advantage on that task. You probably shouldn't even roll, lest other factors are significantly getting in the way (hazards, traps, goalkeeping baddies, etc.).
Burning Hands, by contrast, is a very versatile spell. Fire shoots out of your hands. There is a wide arrangement of scenarios that fire can solve: burning dudes, starting brush fires, creating steam smokescreens, heating giant tea kettles, impressing your fire elemental boyfriend, the list goes on and on.
 |
| Source |
But because of its wide use of applications and its obvious and plentiful uses, using Burning Hands should generally entail more risk during its course of burning things than Jump entails in its jumping. Baddies make Saves, fires sometimes don't catch, and your fire elemental boyfriend isn't always easily impressed. Jump, however, should almost always solve your jumping problems.
To an extreme, Magic Missile is a hyper-specific spell with near-total inviolability. The only way it's avoided is with specific counters. It is the banana holder of spells: it can hold bananas, and that's it, but it does it perfectly virtually all the time. You deal damage to a living creature. It's guaranteed. Roll your low-uncertainty damage. So hyper specific that there's no uncertainty with how it works at all.
(Wish, paradoxically, is an incredibly unspecific, versatile spell that includes the Monkey's Paw Principle embedded within it automatically. The more absurdly specific your Wish, the less risky it should be.)
~~~~~
Let's try and apply these to new spells generated by the Grammarian Ring or a Paromancer:
Magic Mouth -> Magic Moth
Disguise Self -> Disguise Shelf
Your player decides to cast the spell Magic Moth. Okay... What the hell does a Magic Moth do? Well... It's a moth and it's magic. It could do virtually anything, provided it has some quintessential mothiness or moth flavor thrown in.
 |
| Close enough. |
Maybe it's like a Butterfree and it spreads sleep spores around willy-nilly. Not unreasonable - just like the Sleep spell, but maybe increase the HD to match its 2nd Level Spell Slot use. Maybe the Magic Moth flocks to tricksters, liars, or traitors, because that's what magic moths do in your setting. Maybe it feeds on eyeball juices and radiates Color Spray all the time.
You've got tons and tons of potential options for what a Magic Moth does, so how do you determine its effectiveness? Well, I propose that this would depend on how absurdly useful the Moth and Magic parts of this spell are within the present situation. Trying to distract a Giant Magic Bat with giant magic food? Magic Moth is 100% effective. No rolls needed. Trying to distract some street thugs? Well, unless they're specifically afraid of moths or worship the Moth God, maybe you roll for its effectiveness, standard check. Trying to force open a door? Well... What parts of Magic and Moth are relevant or specific to door-opening? Magic? Sure. Moth? Not much. Completely ineffective.
Your player decides to cast Disguise Shelf. Why on earth did they decide to do that? Was it to magically disguise a shelf?
No? Well what good could that possibly be? The spell's title is pretty self-evident that it's about disguising shelves.
Yes? Well then that Disguise Shelf spell better be the most damned effective spell at disguising shelves you've ever seen. Whatever counteracts that Disguise Shelf should be at least as absurd as the likelihood of Disguise Shelf being used effectively. Otherwise what was the point of that creativity?
 |
| Nobody will ever discover where you keep your porn... |
Thursday, November 7, 2019
UGH Old Gallax Hall 1-21
1 Day = 10 Hours = 100 Turns = 1000 Minutes
1 Hour = 10 Turns = 100 Minutes
1 Turn = 10 Minutes
WANDERING ENCOUNTERS
1 in 6 chance every 2 Turns. 1 in 6 chance on loud noise.
* = If applicable, by circumstance
** = Fill this one up second. Two Variable encounters on this table max. If you get a third, then replace the first one.
^ = Some beings on this floor operate on the 11th Hour. This includes any monks (Father Ghost), Cats, Stone Statues, Time Automatons, Administrators, and anyone touching The Unmoving Hourglass (Area 69).
The 11th Hour
There weren’t always 10 Hours in the day. People say it’s been that way forever. Well… They don’t really say anything. Nobody questions the Time. It’s always just been that way. The Powers That Be have worked very hard to change common knowledge. In truth, there used to be 12 Hours…
The Witch Hunters of olden days removed the 12th Hour from all of existence to combat the Witches of the Old Way. Without their hour of apex, the Witching Hour, they were helpless before the Hunters, and so were annihilated. The Administrators later discovered this power within the Monastery of Level 4, and used it to remove the 11th Hour for everyone but themselves. At first, they simply used it to catch up on work and sleep. Then, as they became more corrupt, they greedily used it for domination and recreation.
At the transition between the 10th and 1st Hours, the 11th hour begins. Beings who can operate in it (listed above) will have free reign to move around while everything else is completely frozen in time. If something or someone is frozen in time, nothing can manipulate, harm, or impose force upon them (everything is infinitely hard and unmovable, including doors). Anything touching something unfrozen at this instant will be unfrozen with them. (i.e. If you are petting a Cat at 10:99, you and anyone/anything you’re also touching may operate in the 11th Hour.) To observers, this makes anything operating in the 11th hour seem to instantly teleport the instant it’s 1 o’clock.
Background: The Old Gallax Building was condemned centuries ago. Dangerous necromantic experiments and illegal student cargo cult proliferation forced the University Administrators to take ever increasingly stringent policies to pacify the student body, resulting in multitudes of excessive measures which would inevitably be the downfall of the institution. As it was sunk into the muck and its windows and exits filled up with concrete, dozens of living statues and hundreds of undead destroyed what students remained, fossilizing the building into an eternal ossuary. Only recently has an entrance been excavated…
The Administrators
Four Ghosts of influential old Administrators of the University roam the Old Gallax Building. In their living days, they were powerful wizard-bureaucrats, wielding the majority of influence within the academic sphere. In death they are broken records, constantly reliving their obsessions and anxieties repeatedly over the course of each day, believing they’re still alive.
Rules for Ghosts:
1.Ghosts are ethereal. They are immune to all forms of damage not explicitly affecting ghosts. They can pass through objects and walls, and turn Invisible at will.
2. In the event of ghost-damaging abilities, treat Administrators as Professors with 9HD.
3. All memories are reset daily, at the stroke of 1 o’clock.
4. Each ghost has a physical corpse somewhere. If this corpse is burned, consecrated, or otherwise de-cursed, the Ghost will be destroyed. If burned, the Ghost will be drawn to the corpse to attack for 2d4 Rounds as the body smolders.
5. The Ghosts have trouble discerning people (particularly those they perceive as underlings). If you entertain their delusions they will not attack until those delusions are disrupted. Once a Ghost knows something is wrong, it will become hostile.
6. If hostile, Ghosts will unleash a Horrific Visage and a loud scream (instant Wandering Encounter) before turning Invisible to pursue and Haunt its targets for 1 Hour.
7. Touching a Ghost immediately turns them Hostile as it breaks their delusion.
Administrator Poe
Appearance: This ghost man even looks like a pencil. Flat face, thin, rigid, cylindrical robes, with a black conal hat.
Obsession: Bureaucracy
Haunt: Papers - Causes them to be scribbled and defaced in incomprehensible handwriting in dark red ink.
Office Work: Writing faculty evaluations.
Delusion: Mistakes arrivals for faculty or staff he’s reviewing.
Quote: “Dr. Constein… I assume you’re aware as to why I’ve invited you here? It’s time for your review. I see here you've been using the restrooms for an average of six-point-one-two minutes in excess of university policy on average four-point-six-zero days of the week. Care to explain yourself?…”
Administrator Gallax
Appearance: Wears a pin-striped suit and a different hat every Hour. Cross halfway between Santa Claus and The Devil.
Obsession: Money and Grants.
Haunt: Coins and Currency - Causes them to animate and either roll, fly, or fold their way to his Secret Hoard (Area 41).
Office Work: Grant Applications.
Delusion: Mistakes arrivals for wealthy donors and alumni.
Quote: (Attempting to shake someone’s hand vigorously.) “Aaahhhh… Mr. Marble! It is so positively pleasant to finally meet your personage. I’m sure we can trust the Marble Center will continue its funding of the Gallax Center Grant?”
Administrator Zot
Appearance: Everything is clean and tight. He’s smooth and sunken, like a plastic bag pulled over a vulture’s face.
Obsession: Time, timekeeping.
Haunt: Clocks, Watches - Causes them to mistell the Time, and to animate into Time Automatons.
Office Work: Writing letters demanding standardization of procedures.
Delusion: Mistakes arrivals for his hyper-competent secretaries.
Quote: “Trist, please take these notes down and be quick about it. I was eating a pork sandwich at 5:48:92 on Sunday in my vacation office when a brilliant idea came to me regarding the school’s policies regarding student tuition. We can hold portions of students’ souls as collateral until they pay off their loans. It fixes several problems at once!” (Will check notes to make sure they’re exactly precise.)
Administrator Hargrave
Appearance: A sweat-stained mess in baggy robes. Missed two spots when shaving. No hat. Bald.
Obsession: Student body discipline.
Haunt: Statues - Causes them to animate and attack Students.
Office Work: Academic Probation Rulings
Delusion: Mistakes arrivals for the student revolutionary rioters that finally came to get him, or as faculty suspected of disloyalty.
Quote: “Oh Nimmix, thanks goodness! I think I can hear them just outside… They’re coming for us, defend the door!”
1. Entrance Hall
CONTINGENCY: Any ruckus in this room will draw up another 1d6 zombies each Round, forming a zombie hoard to mindlessly chase after fresh brains.
1. Entrance Hall
1-4: Empty | 4-5: 1d4 Black Magic Brothers | 5-10: Empty | 10-1: 1d4 Black Magic Brothers
ARCHITECTURE: Floors and walls of polished granite. Footsteps fall loud and crisp. Noises travel fast and hard. Press your ears to the stone, and hear whisperings of budgets and balances. Note: Increased chance of Wandering Encounters (twice as often, double chance on loud noise).
Old metal staircases in the northwestern and northeastern corners lead to Area 51 in Level 2 - Steam Tunnels.
Two statues of headless lions flanking the now-collapsed entrance. Close inspection reveals surrounding dust and debris - evidence that they’ve been defaced and the heads broken off by repeated hammerings.
White graffiti of a skeletal hand on the floor points a grim finger east - towards an outpost of the Black Magic Brothers. Dusty footprints all over.
SEARCH: Dusty footprints. Plenty going from the staircases to the east. Plenty going from the east to the north and west. Very few returning from the west and north.
CONTINGENCY: A scuffle or other loud noise will draw the Black Magic Brothers from Rooms 3-7.
2. Broken Glass
Broken glass litters the bare concrete ground. The concrete-filled windows cracked inwards.
3. A Puzzle Disguised in Blood
1-2: Empty | 2-3: One Black Magic Brother | 3-5: Empty | 5-7: 1d4 Black Magic Brothers | 7-1: Empty
Furniture barricades around the door and the northern wall. Various occult objects frustratingly strewn about: bloody daggers, hair bundles, abstract idols, broken mirrors, rabbit’s feet. A Seal of Blood on the northern wall - magic circles within magic circles detailed in blood, ornamented with teeth and severed ears.
Any Black Magic Brothers here will be attempting to decipher and crack the Seal hidden beneath the Seal of Blood.
TRAP: The Seal of Blood draws the teeth of those who touch it right out of their skull. Lose 2d12 teeth and take 1d6 damage for touching it. Save vs. Paralyzation for half. The Black Magic Brothers are immune to this trap.
DECIPHER: 30 minutes of study required. The Seal of Blood was only added recently. Hidden underneath it is another seal: a Seal of the Custodian, engraved into the wall. This Seal allows the touch of a Custodian (alive or dead) to disperse the wall, revealing the shortcut to the Vault (Area 69).
4. Windowed Lounge
Bare, dusty. Scraps of red carpet. Windows on the southern wall are sealed up with concrete. Footprints of men. Tons of them. Around the room then heading out and north.
5. Zombie Guards
1-5: Four zombies | 5-7: Four zombies + Toast | 7-1: Four zombies
Broken glass littering the hallway. An axe wound in the door. Eyeless rotten faces within.
TRAP: Four student zombies brought by the Brothers wait inside this closet to spring upon those who step on the glass. They’ll make a good deal of noise, gnashing and moaning. They’re silent until then, under orders.
CONTINGENCY: Noise of a commotion here will alert the Black Magic Brothers in Area 7 of intruders. They’ll prepare for an ambush. If met with silence for 3 Turns, they’ll stealthily creep towards the Entrance Hall in force to take the initiative.
Toast (Area 7 for details)stands just outside from 5 to 7. He likes taunting the zombies with little bits of brain tied to a stick.
6. Spare Furniture Room
Piles and piles of chopped and broken wooden furniture scavenged from nearby rooms. The Black Magic Brothers use these pieces as firewood.
SEARCH (2): Extensive slashing and cutting can reveal 54gp stuffed in an armchair.
7. Black Magic Frat Camp
1-4: 2d6 Black Magic Brothers + Toast | 4-5: 1d6 Black Magic Brothers + Toast |
5-7: 2d6 Black Magic Brothers | 7-10: 2d6 Black Magic Brothers + Toast | 10-1: 1d6 Black Magic Brothers + Toast
Base camp for the Black Magic Brothers. From here they prepare themselves for expeditions elsewhere on this Level. Despite a fire always going it’s still chilly. Bedrolls, long knives, and numerous cursed objects pollute the room like it’s the day after a rowdy frat party.
Toast is the senior brother. Imagine dude burned at the stake, but he still has his hair. Everything about him is extra crispy.
TREASURE: 66gp, a broken mirror haunted by a 3HD ghost of a spiteful Brother who died, sixteen preserved brains in jars (dead)
Toast
AC Chain HD 5 HP 20 Morale 11 Wizard 5
1d8 Burning Knife
Spells: Knock, Protection from Underclassmen, Burning Hands, Heat Metal, Phantasmal Force (Fire)
Combusting Curse: Those who land a killing blow on Toast will randomly burst into flames every 3d4 Turns, dealing 1d6 fire damage, until the curse is lifted.
Black Magic Brother
AC Leather HD 3 HP 12 Morale 9 Wizard 3
1d8 Horrible Knives
Spells: Knock, Magic Mouth, Ray of Enfeeblement, Protection from Underclassmen
Protection from Underclassmen: As Protection from Evil, but functions against students less senior than the caster (i.e. a senior year student would be protected against juniors, sophomores, and freshman)
Haunting Curse: Any Black Magic Brother killed has a 25% chance of returning as a ghost to haunt the killer within 3d4 Turns, with HD equal to half that which he had in life.
8. An Old Message
Numerous toppled, defaced, or splintered long desks reminiscent of pews. Ancient blood stains by the doors and on the walls. Chalkboard on the western wall, message scrawled over blurred spell diagrams: “MODERNITY IS A STAGE” and “CUT THE STRINGS” accompanied by a chalk picture of several puppet-students bloodily slicing the throat of their puppeteering Administrators with knives, along with drawings of observing Cats.
9. A Few Skeletons
Four animate student Skeletons (AC Unarmored, HD 1/2, HP 3, 1d4 Claw) lie piled in broken glass from concrete-sealed windows on the walls. They together carry matching bookbags holding 4d4 very old textbooks (1d4x5gp each on the Black Market).
10. Class Monument
A polished, masoned boulder of black and red bits. Inscribed:
“Devoted to the Class of 677. May they rest in peace.”
Moaning and shuffling emanates from a hula-hoop-sized hole in the wall to the west.
CONTINGENCY: Loud noises or close examination of the hole will rile up the Class of 677, causing 1d6 zombies to pile out of the hole, which will then become clogged with additional zombies as a good portion of the class gridlocks in search of braaaaaaains.
11. Hall Monitor
2d8 charred Zombie corpses from the Class of 677 litter this hallway.
Grey stone statue of a sworded knight, standing upright and rigid like a chess piece. Its head turns with a grinding sound to face those within 40ft. It declares, robotically: “PRESENT HALL PASS.” From its visor emanates a dangerous red glow.
TRAP: Fail to present a Hall Pass within 3 Rounds, or similarly approach within 20ft, and a beam of red energy will lance out and strike the leading person for 4d6 damage, Save vs. Staffs for half. It can do this once a Minute.
The magic of the statue is fairly undiscerning. It will not acknowledge or accost those wearing Professor’s or Administrator’s clothes.
12. Cold Room
3d6 Zombies from the Class of 677 are clustered around three now-defunct but sealed refrigerators along the northern wall. They knaw and bite at the containers, breaking their old teeth to dust. The fridges are vacuum-sealed, and none of the zombies are smart enough to operate a handle.
These Zombies are quite distracted by the scent of ancient preserved brains within the fridges, and will not react to noise, but will react to fresh brains nearby.
TREASURE: Fridges are stocked full of preserved Brains in Jars from a multitude of species. They range in value from 10gp to 300gp, depending on size. The smallest is the size of a walnut. The largest is the size of a desktop computer.
13. A Normal Janitor’s Closet??
A perfectly normal janitor’s closet, complete with totally standard broom, dustpan, mop, mop bucket, and now-inert cleaning liquids.
14. Defunct Cafeteria
3d4 Zombies from the Class of 677 crowd around the corpse of a Black Magic Brother, picking at scraps.
Numerous tables and accompanying benches checker the room. A zombie beats its head against the southeastern door to Area 15.
TREASURE: A gnawed-on satchel by the corpse contains 100gp and a Cursed Pen which causes all writings to transliterate to the writer’s secrets one Day after it’s written.
15. Barricade
A barricade of old dusty furniture holds the western door shut. Lots of busy foot traffic in the dust.
16. Kitchen
An uninspired cafeteria kitchen. Broken ceramic plates and utensils scattered on red-tiled floors.
One lucky Zombie chews on tough shanks of mummified meat hanging from the ceiling. There are three shanks total. It will take the Zombie days or weeks to eat through all of it. It is entirely distracted and helpless.
Racks upon racks of cooking utensils: pots, pans, ladels, shakers, etc.
A notable absence of knives...
TRAP: Shattered ceramic plates on the floor can create a racket. If the party’s moving carefully ignore this hazard.
TREASURE: Three soapy-residue bins contain 22 silver plates (4gp each) and 5 fistfuls of silver silverware (3gp each).
17. They’re Making Meat Men Mummies
4 Black Magic Brothers called the Butcher’s Tetrad ritually chant around a shank of mummified meat enclosed in a magic circle pilfered from Area 16 - Kitchen. Eddy, Frankincense, Bulbo, and Knifey Sal are their names. Sal carves little crude men out of the meat with a serrated knife. One by one to the chants these slices of salted meat men animate and wait obediently for orders. There will be 1d12 of them ready.
It will take them 3 Hours to gather enough. Once this point has been reached, add The Butcher’s Tetrad and the Mountain of Mummified Meat Men to the Variable slots on the Wandering Encounter Table.
TREASURE: Assorted pile of kitchen knives, cleavers, and blender blades in the corner. Most are mundane and rusted. Three fistfuls of untarnished silver cutting implements (20gp each). Includes The Silver Cleaver - a medium weapon that can cut Ghosts (treat as handaxe).
18. The Class of 677
ARCHITECTURE: Unnatural caverns, hollowed out by tooth and claw, like a giant fox den.
The entire student population of academic school year 677 has been interned here, zombified. Apparently, they are not resting in peace.
Approximately 408 zombies are piled and buried into the cavernous walls. At any given time 3d20 of them are crawling and meandering about aimlessly.
CONTINGENCY: Any ruckus in this room will draw up another 1d20 zombies each Round, forming a zombie hoard to mindlessly chase after fresh brains.
TREASURE: None, explicitly. There are, however, many many many pockets to pilfer.
19. Entrance to the Crypts
ARCHITECTURE: Unnatural caverns, hollowed out by tooth and claw, like a giant fox den.
3d20 zombies from the Class of 677 are crawling and meandering about aimlessly.
A set of elaborately-carved gothic stairs descend down to Level 4 - Monastery, harboring an additional 1d20 zombies.
CONTINGENCY: Any ruckus in this room will draw up another 1d20 zombies each Round from Area 22, forming a zombie hoard to mindlessly chase after fresh brains.
20. Rubble, Zombies
3d6 Zombies from the Class of 677 meander around this old classroom, tripping on old chairs and desks, chewing on chalk.
Significant amounts of rubble in the room counts as difficult terrain.
The eastern door is open. At least once an Hour a zombie will wander out and get vaporized by the Hall Monitor.
TREASURE: A nearly-empty box of G.D.-signatured brand chalk lies on the ground, containing three sticks worth 20gp each.
CONTINGENCY: Any ruckus in this room will draw up another 1d10 zombies each Round, forming a zombie hoard to mindlessly chase after fresh brains.
21. The Last Stand
1d6 Zombies aimlessly list about with ancient blood-stained jaws. Broken furniture scattered by the eastern door and the breach in the southern wall. Five dusty skeletons with their skulls gnawed open lie in a corner.
A chalkboard bears a final message, trailing off in death: “JUSTICE TO THE ADMINI…”
TREASURE: Satchels by the skeletons contain 57gp, five severely outdated textbooks worth 1d4x5gp each, an expended Magic Missile Wand, and three containers of G.D.-signatured brand chalk worth 200gp each (Professors would kill for this supreme quality chalk, as its means of production are now extinct).
CONTINGENCY: Any ruckus in this room will draw up another 1d6 zombies each Round, forming a zombie hoard to mindlessly chase after fresh brains.
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