Giambattista's Megadungeon

Doing some organizing in my D&D folder on my computer today I came across this incredible megadungeon map drawn by Giambattista Nolli in 1748.  I think I came across this one day while Google image searching for floorplans and recognized it for the masterpiece in dungeon construction that it is.  You can visit an interactive zoomable navigable version of the map here (thanks UO!).

I am going to use portions of this for the ruins of ancient Abolon that my 5e Waterdeep campaign players are likely going to be discovering soon under the sewers.

This is just a snippet - the full map is way too big to paste here.

As promised, more maps - Blue Opal House

I promised my 5e Waterdeep Campaign group that I would post the above-ground, more-or-less public levels of the Blue Opal House before our next session. 

One of these days soon I will finish up the recaps of session 1 and 2 and that will included some backstory on the Blue Opal House.  Until then no further explanation of these scribbles will be posted here besides a note that the stairs between levels 2 and 3 were accidentally drawn in reversed direction (they should be leading down from level 3 to level 2, and likewise up from level 2 to level 3).  

Blue Opal House Roof

Blue Opal House 4th floor

Blue Opal House - 3rd floor

Blue Opal House - 2nd floor

Blue Opal House - Ground Level

Starting Friends

The first session of my new 5e Waterdeep campaign is tonight - getting excited!  Just finished up a table for determining some random "starting friends" that each PC will already know in the city.  Here is it in  one page .PDF format.

Table headings: You became friends how?; How would you describe the relationship?; Something unusual?; Useful contact that they have?; What physical features stick out?

Here is the .PDF printable version of the massive list of THOUSANDS of canon NPC names from Forgotten Realms novels that someone at Candlekeep compiled and I formatted to print out for the names I need to generate in game:  Forgotten Realms Name List .PDF Format

Three Magical Items

Pouch of Concealment

Twisting the jewel clasp of this pouch in a particular pattern creates an illusory double of the pouch’s contents at that moment.  This illusion will persist even if the contents are removed or other items are added.  The illusion is all that can be seen if the pouch is opened, and a save is granted only if an item is placed into the pouch or it is reached into (Intelligence Save DC12).  Twisting the clasp again will dispel the illusion.

Crossbow of Illumination

Bolts glow brightly for one hour after being fired from this crossbow, shedding bright light in a 20’ radius and dim light for an additional 20’.

Quarterstaff of Pain

This staff does not do real damage, but on a successful hit causes intense hallucinatory pain, requiring a CON save at DC = unmodified attack roll to take any action the following round except writhe in pain.  If the save is failed by 2 or more the victim also drops prone to the ground.

All Art By Moi

Like Lewis Carroll on acid with Lovecraft thrown in

The Fungus Forest was featured on the Roll For Initiative podcast.  I think they gave us a new tagline:

This is like Lewis Carroll on acid with Lovecraft thrown in.

Check it out!

Three Scrolls

1. Scroll of Release: Reading this scroll aloud unlocks all non-magical locks and unties all knots within a 10’ radius.  The magic consumes the scroll.

2. Scroll of Judgement: Reading this scroll aloud causes all within earshot to believe that a declared target is guilty of a specified crime (Save DC BLANKITY).  A new save is allowed each time new evidence is brought forward that exonerates the target.  The scroll can only be used once, but anyone who has failed the save will believe the scroll to contain damning evidence upon examination.  Anyone who makes the save sees the used scroll as completely blank.

3. Scroll of Temporal Passage: Up to five willing targets are transported forward in time exactly 12 hours, reappearing in exactly the same spot (or displaced the shortest possible distance if something is now blocking that spot).  No time elapses from the perspective of the temporal passengers.  The scroll disappears after use only to reappear in the same place in 1d100 days.  It can be used repeatedly.

Scroll by Moi

Ring of Fluidity

Ring of Fluidity

Once placed on the finger this ring can only be removed after death (unless Remove Curse is used).  It transforms the internal structure of its wearer under the skin, replacing muscle, bone, and organs with an opaque green goo.  Food is placed in the usual orifice and dissolved internally (nutrition requirements stay the same); nothing is defecated.  The ring wearer can squeeze through finger-width cracks and finger-diameter holes.  The ring wearer no longer ages.

White Water Wyrm and Wyrmlings

[creatures and text by Lee Reynoldson from Fungus Forest, art by moi]

White Water Wyrm A thirty-foot long beast with huge bulging eyes that are perfectly adapted to the darkness of its cave and its waters. It has rubbery white flesh, proto-gills and lungs, diminutive fins and semi-functional limbs. It secretes an oily substance that paralyses those that come into contact with its skin (Saving Throw at -1 penalty to avoid paralysis for 3d6 turns) or are exposed to the water around it (Saving Throw each round at +1 bonus to avoid paralysis for 2d6 rounds). It is also asexual and without another of its species gives birth to batches of White Wyrmlings.  It feeds on its own young, forcing the Wyrmlings to flee the lake and inhabit the underground river system. It is a dangerous predator in the water, but it can, and does, waddle onto land from time to time. White Wyrmlings Offspring of the White Water Wyrm. These vile looking things resemble aquatic tapeworms with teeth. They thrash about a single victim in a swarm. Anyone who succumbs to the paralyzing poison that seeps from the Wyrmlings' skin or from their bites will be eaten. If they are successful in paralyzing a victim, they will devour him in just four combat rounds. If left to feed they will not attack anyone else. If the party tries to rescue their paralyzed comrade the swarm will retaliate. If a swarm is reduced to four or less HP it will swim away.

White Water Wyrm AC: 3 [16] HD: 5 (24 HP) Move: 4; 16 Swim Attacks: 1 Bite (2d6) Save: 16 Special: Immune to poison; Secretes poison (on contact: -1 to Save, paralyzed 3d6 turns; in water: +1 to Save, paralyzed 2d6 rounds) XP: 600

White Wyrmling Swarm AC: 9 [10] HD: 2 (9 HP) Move: 12 Swim Attacks: 1 Swarm Frenzy (Poison) Save: 18 Special: Poison (Save or paralyzed for 2d6 rounds); Devour paralyzed victim in 4 rounds; Immune to poison XP: 50

The Fungus Forest is an old-school adventure location suitable for low level play, available at DriveThruRPG as a pay-what-you-want .PDF (please download it for free if you can't afford to contribute anything, we want this in the hands of gamers!).  

Fungus Forest (C)2016 by Lee Reynoldson and Carl Nash

Tusked Demon Mask of the Phoenix Society

This mask was fashioned from the flayed face of a minor demon lord named Anshagali whose soul was bound into the artifact during its making.  The mask has been owned by the Phoenix Society for generations, and is associated with dance regalia of that society including a magnificent cape of purple and green iridescent feathers trimmed with red fox fur (Cape of Speed x2 Movement, +1 Attack) and a woven porcupine-quill chest piece beaded with a radiating geometric sunburst pattern (Chest Piece of Defense AC 2 [17]).

The mask is only worn by the mentally and physically strongest warriors during the private dance ceremonies of the society, particularly at the ceremonies marking initiation into a deeper level of the society, but its existence is well known throughout the tribe because of the tell-tale glowing red eyes of the society members who have worn it.  These warriors are known as the Ashes of the Phoenix and must swear a lifetime vow of celibacy and ascetic living before donning the mask.  Anshagali longs to be freed from the control of the Phoenix Society and constantly whispers in the minds of those unfortunate souls bound to him through chains of ancestral history to steal him from the Phoenix Society House away into the jungle.

Tusked Demon Mask by Emma Nash, Photoshop flames by Carl Nash

Anyone who dons the mask even once gains permanent darkvision to 180' as well as eyes that always glow red in the dark with the strength of a candle (Remove Curse will reverse both conditions).  When the sun is down Anshagali can communicate telepathically with everyone who has ever worn the mask and any of their descendants born after the mask was worn  (nothing short of divine intervention can prevent this).  A strict diet of fish and bland starchy vegetables (no fruits, nothing spicy, no red meat) reduces the volume of Anshagali's whispers to a low murmuring that can be easily ignored.

While wearing the mask, Anshagali grants +2 to STR and DEX, immunity to fire/heat (although cold and water do double damage), and a natural bite and tusk attack for 1d8+2 damage +ongoing 2 HP damage until magical cure or Remove Curse.  All damage dealt by the bite attack (including ongoing) accumulates as charges for the mask on a 1 HP = 1 Charge basis (charges reset with each new wearer).  Charges can be spent as follows:
1 Charge: +1d6 fire damage to any attack (maximum +3d6 to a single attack)
1 Charge: +1 to hit on any attack roll (maximum +3 to a single attack)
5 Charges: 30' cone of fire, 15' wide at apex, bursts from the mask's mouth (5d6, Save for 1/2)
10 Charges: Bursts of fire from the eyes, 100' range, 5d6 (no save)
10 Charges (must be night time): Anshagali Possession - become the fiery incarnation of the imprisoned demon soul for 2d6 rounds.  The body of the mask-wearer completely disappears and is replaced with a hovering ball of fire that crackles around the mask.  The mask wearer gains 50 temporary HP but takes 1d6 damage per round of the possession that is removed from the permanent HP pool.  Instant death results if this damage reduces HP to 0, and the physical body never reappears in this case (completely consumed by the mask).  If the temporary HP are exhausted by attacks or a cumulative total of 25 HP cold or water damage are received, the possession is ended instantly.

While possessed by Anshagali the following attacks can be made (choose one per turn):  Fire Lash x2 attacks, 25' range, 3d6 fire damage and pull/slide the victim up to 10', Save to avoid being knocked prone; Flame Burst 15' radius blast centered on mask, 5d6 (Save for 1/2) and pushed back 10', and knocked prone if Save failed; Fire Sword 5d12 melee
At Will Spell-Like Abilities: Teleport (180' distance max, line of sight to destination required, no chance of failure); Knock/Open Lock; Major Illusion (concentration required to maintain); Silence 15' Radius; Telepathy (180' range);
Once per Possession: Death Gaze, Save or Die, 180' range

A Save is required at the end of the possession, failure allowing Anshagali to posses the individual once a day at any range for 2d6 rounds, during which time Anshagali is in complete control.  A new save is permitted at the end of each day that Anshagli does take active possession, at a cumulative -1 penalty after each subsequent failed save.

Anshagali has INT 17 WIS 9 CHA 20

Anshagali was never the cautious calculated sort as a demon lord and has only grown more impatient and reckless as an artifact mask.

The Most Interesting Treasure Trove In The World

[Fungus Forest text by Lee Reynoldson]

Dark Fey are evil fairies. Like fairies, they are small (six inches) magical creatures with wings. They have small horns, protruding fangs, claws, scaly grey skin, and bat-like wings.

The Dark Fey and their foul creations the Wassermen are evil through and through. Their only
interest is in slaying anyone they come across... especially their neighbors the Draklings. They
cannot be reasoned with and the only communication a party will have with them is being taunted
and threatened.  The Wassermen spend most of their time in the large underground lake and the rest patrolling the underground river system.

High above the ground, carved twenty feet up the wall above the south shore, there are hundreds of tiny cave
mouths. These are the homes of the Dark Fey.

If things go bad they retreat into their tunnels, which are 7-10 inches high and 5 inches wide. The tunnel complex stretches far into the walls, making the Dark Fey relatively safe once they retreat into them.

Clever adventurers may shrink themselves, using magic or the Grow-Shrink Shrooms, to infiltrate the Dark Fey cave system.

The Dark Fey raise tarantula-sized wolf spiders in their cave system. They will attempt to lure intruders deep into the complex to their temple, the large chamber shaped like a spider. The Dark Fey will flee out the far exit of the temple while dozens of wolf spiders attack from their nests in the “arms” of the spider cave.  The Dark Fey keep no treasure in their complex.


Straight from the water near the middle of the north shore of the lake there is a ten-foot cliff leading up into a cave. The Wassermen have covered the surface of the rock in slimy moss to make it treacherously slippery and very difficult to scale. For years the Dark Fey have been hoarding treasure in this cave that they or their Wassermen have salvaged from the Shroomenkin’s dump, stolen from other creatures within the forest, taken from adventurers and pilfered from the surrounding countryside. They spread rumors of their hoard as bait to lure new victims to slay.

Get the Fungus Forest yourself as a pay-what-you-want .PDF with full color illustrations and interior layout at DriveThruRPG.com and find out what other strange delights lurk within!

Fungus Forest - Pay What You Want

The Fungus Forest is available now as a Pay What You Want .PDF on DriveThruRPG.com.  Check it out and download now!

The Fungus Forest is an OSR Compatible adventure location designed for use with Original, Basic and Advanced Editions of the world’s most popular fantasy role-playing game (and their modern simulacra).

Pay what you want for this sprawling 100+ cave complex suitable for low level play.  Please download for free if you cannot pay anything; we want this thing in the hands of gamers, not mouldering away on a DriveThru bookshelf.

Features:

• Unique creatures and magical items, including six feuding Fey factions that will try to pit the party against their rival factions.
• Compatible with most editions of the game; stats are provided in a simple, system-agnostic format with both ascending and descending armor class listed. 
• Maps: 2-Page overview map spread of the caverns; four quadrant maps of sections of the caverns; inset map of the Tiny Tunnels of the Dark Fey; printable black & white single page version of the overview map.
• Full Color art and layout.  
• Ready Reference Appendices: Formatted in black and white with printable margins to enable home printing for easy in-game reference; Appendix I - Random Fungus Generator; Appendix II - Magic Mushrooms of the Fungus Forest; Appendix III - Fungus Forest Bestiary (30+ unique entries); Appendix IV - Printable Fungus Forest Map.
• Bookmarked & Hyperlinked: Fully bookmarked .PDF with a clickable Table of Contents
• Two Formats Available: 2-Page Spread or Single Page .PDF formats available for download.
• Print Edition Coming Soon: The Fungus Forest is currently .PDF only but a print edition is in the works, loaded with more art!

Thanks to osrcompatible.org for the "OSR Compatible" declaration, used under a Creative Commons CC-BY license.

OSR Logo by Stuart Robertson used under a Creative Commons CC-BY License

Fungus Forest (upcoming release)

I am getting close to releasing a product that started kicking and clawing its way to freedom way back in 2009.  I drew a map for the now defunct megadungeon.net project and Lee Reynoldson made an awesome key for the map.  We have kicked around the idea of publishing it in a few different forms over the years but in 2016 the stars aligned and I finally got off my butt and started tackling the editing, art and layout.  Several intensive weeks of work later, we are so close I can taste it!

This is a big project; there are over 100 keyed locations on the map, with 101 unique key entries (some entries covering multiple caves).  Lee wrote a really terrific text for low-level play; each of the Fey factions that live in the magical Fungus Forest will try to pit the party against their rival Fey factions.  Every creature in the Fungus Forest is a unique creation of Lee's (which is a big selling point in my opinion); the Bestiary in the appendices contains nearly 40 new creatures.  And of course, there are tons and tons of magical mushrooms.  You can never have too many magic mushrooms.  It took a LOT of editing work to get the sprawling original 60 page Google Document print-ready, from making sure all stat blocks and abbreviations were standardized to compiling the appendices and of course going over the text with a fine-toothed grammar comb.

I also wanted to make individual quadrant maps in addition to the main overview map, and of course I wanted more art than the couple few monster pictures I drew... so I talked my wife into doodling some awesome mushroom sketches in pen and ink, which I am coloring in PhotoShop.

On top of that, it turns out that doing interior layout is WAY more time consuming than I ever imagined.  I have learned a ton about Adobe InDesign throughout this process and I am very pleased with the way things are shaping up.  A few sample spreads (not necessarily final layout but probably pretty close on these particular pages):

Oh good, we are in the Tomb of Horrors

I just realized that my character in Carter's Lands of Ara campaign is knee deep in the Tomb of Horrors right now.  I have never played or read the classic Tomb of Horrors 1e module, but I have certainly encountered plenty of references to the granddaddy of all deathtrap dungeons.  Well imagine my surprise when I finally tracked down a copy and had a strong sense of déjà vu as soon as I began to look at the map and read the key.  I recognized the long tiled hallway to an archway filled with green mist, and the giant skeletons that popped out of chests, but just to make sure I flipped a few pages... yup, there was the room with spheres on the walls and the room with the four-armed gargoyle statue with one arm broken off.

Our party has been exploring the frickin' tomb of horrors!  No wonder we have been frustrated by that dang dungeon!  We are chasing an ancient vampire, or possibly his not quite as ancient descendant vampire, and this dungeon below the sewers of Kaladar is his home.

I stopped reading the module and had only skimmed it up till that point, but somehow just knowing that we are in the Tomb of Horrors is a mild spoiler.  We had already realized that we needed to proceed with extreme caution in this place, so I don't think it will cause any difference in gameplay.  Still, the knowledge that we teleported ourselves deep into an  unknown section of the tomb of horrors and are trying to work our way back out to an area we have already explored is terrifying!  

200 Word Sorcerer

I submitted an entry to David Schirduan's 200 Word RPG Challenge.  I already revised my submission once and David posted the revision, and since then I have revised it a couple more times - I am not going to keep resubmitting my revisions, at this point I am mostly just messing around with it because it is a fun exercise in conciseness.  What can I take out and what can I add.  Having read many of the other submissions I have no illusions about winning anything (nor are the prizes particularly exciting) but the process of writing a 200 word class/supplement was a great challenge and got my creative juices flowing. Some of the entries are pretty impressive in that they both give novel rules without reference to a common starting point like D&D (which I relied on) and also are very evocative in describing a setting or milieu.

I don't think my D&Dish sorcerer hack stands up well to some of the other entries, but I still like it. My latest edit is a .PDF with full color background image that I created of a burning hand / embers.

Temple of the Dragocroc - Isometric Graphing

All hail Dragocroc!  I hadn't been exposed to isometric graph paper until I saw some Dyson Logos posts that inspired me to check it out.  I found a website with printable isometric graph paper and printed some out.  I present the Temple of the Dragocroc in isometric pseudo-3D view. This started out as doodling without a plan, and as consequence I have gone past the edge of the graph grid in a few places.  I am going to keep working on the original drawing but I also scanned it in and messed around with it a bit in Photoshop just for kicks (Photoshopped scans at bottom of post, unaltered scan of work in progress immediately below).

Work in progress - this is what I have done with pencil, pen and marker so far (no Photoshop)

There is 10' of liquid demonblood flooding the inside of the walled structure. I hinted at the towers and walls extending down past the interior surface area to suggest that it was a liquid surface, but this will be more obvious when I finish up the outer walls and color in the surface of the blood. I am thinking of using colored pencil for the demonblood surface to get some good color swirls going on.  The blood spills out of the mouth of each of the Dragocroc statues down past the tower level immediately below them, landing on the third level up from the bottom, flowing through a channel system to waterfalls that cascade down each face of the tower.

The four Dragocrocs that make up part of the 5th tier of the temples are stone statues inlaid with jade mosaic.  The red eyes are unnaturally large glowing rubies (single rubies each ~10' long, each 1/8 of the heart of the real Dragocroc (powerful demon bound below).  If the ruby eyes are replaced in the heart of the real Dragocroc,  the demon will arise, drink its stolen blood to restore its power and utterly destroy the entire structure and surrounding countryside before embarking on a murderous rampage.) 

The only entrances to the structure are on the fourth and fifth tiers.  Archways open into the tower face on the fourth tier below each Dragocroc mouth.  Each archway leads to a staircase that ascends the inside wall of the tower, giving access to the fifth tier and the walkways on top of the Dragrocroc statues.  Open archways at the base of the tail-spire give access to an empty stone room with a sacrificial alter in the center and an engraved circular trench around its perimeter, the Blood Circle.  The blood of approximately 20 human sacrifices is required to fill the circle.  If the sacrifices are performed under the light of a full moon, the Blood Circle can be used as a powerful summoning and binding focus and a teleportation circle (giving access to the dungeon levels inside the blood-drained and bound Dragocroc demon imprisoned below).  20 ritual spellcasters are required to use the circle for summoning and binding, and 20 sacrifices is the minimum needed for this use.  Every multiple of 20 sacrifices beyond the first 20 increases the power of the circle when used for summoning and binding.  Priests of Dragocroc carry amulets which are linked to the Blood Circle.  Chaotic individuals who hold an Amulet of Dragocroc can sacrifice 1d8 HP of blood to the medallion to teleport without error (including all personal gear and up to two other individuals, unwilling individuals can save to resist) from unlimited range to the circle on the 5th tier.  There is a 1 in 6 chance every time anyone who is not a Priest of Dragocroc picks up an Amulet of Dragocroc that the amulet attacks as an 8HD monster for 1d8 damage and teleports the victim to the circle (save to resist).  

The real Dragocroc is a powerful demon, summoned and bound by a cult which stole its blood to power their magic.  Priests of Dragocroc draw their spellcasting ability from the stolen blood.  They must drink fresh Dragocroc blood once between full moons (at the full moon) or permanently lose all spellcasting ability and go insane (1 in 6 chance of also becoming a were-dragocroc, transforming into a humanoid dragocroc under the light of the full moon, filled with a burning desire to destroy the Priests of Dragocroc).  Any Priest of Dragocroc who suffers this fate will be killed on sight by the priesthood.   Only fresh blood spilling directly out of a Dragocroc statue mouth works, so every full moon every Priest of Dragocroc returns to the temple to drink from the waterfalls.  The potent demon blood provides two extra benefits to the priesthood while powering magic; all damaging spells do an extra 1d8 damage and all undead under the control of a Priest of Dragocroc have +1d8 HP, +1 to initiative and +1 to hit and damage.

Here are two stages of me messing around with this in Photoshop - I don't like the effect and will finish the piece with pen, markers and colored pencil.

Gorilla Art

I recently finished a fun piece of commissioned art, depicting an Experimental Ape from Michael Curtis' upcoming Stonehell 2.  I drew the Ogre Face Arch (the image on the Stonehell tee-shirts) and Coal the Black Bear in the original Stonehell Dungeon, and was very happy to oblige Michael with a new piece.  I never spend any time on artwork unless I have some specific project motivating me, but I always enjoy the hours spent when I do pick up pen and lay it to paper.  I ended up using kind of an unusual technique in this drawing, so I wanted to post about the process here.

I looked over the list of potential illustrations and "Albino Apes with Cybernetic Type Implants" caught my eye.  I introduced bionic chimps and orangutans into my Mutant Future campaign (War Chimps and Warangutans) and they were a big hit with my players.  I have had soft spot for great apes with cybernetic implants ever since. Once I claimed that picture as mine, Michael sent me the following details:

"Experimental apes are double-sized albino gorillas that have two additional arcanitech arms grafted to their bodies below their natural upper limbs. These magical/mechanical arms possess great strength (equal to that of an ogre). These arms also deliver a powerful electrical shock. Any target struck by either of the arcanitech limbs must make a save vs. spells or suffer an additional 1d8 points of damage. Experimental apes are conditioned to be fiercely loyal to the Plated Mage and the Mage-Engineers, and seldom flee from combat. Attempts to charm them rarely succeed and experimental apes gain a +4 bonus to all saving throws against mental domination."

This presented an interesting challenge to me, as the easiest way to depict something as albino is to show it in bright light as mostly white, but I wanted to do a more shadowy drawing since the apes would be encountered underground in a dungeon environment.  I first did a few gorilla studies to get in the mood and shake off any rust from my art muscles.

I wanted to use pen and ink but kept struggling with the fact that I really would need a nice white ink pen and dark paper to draw the image I saw in my head.  Then I hit on the idea of drawing the image with black ink on white paper and reversing it in PhotoShop.  I reversed the larger sketch I had done so far as a quick proof of concept.  Of course the image looks like a negative because the shadowing is in reverse (particularly obvious in the face), but I mostly wanted to see how the fur/hair looked and I liked the effect:

To avoid the appearance of a negative image once I reversed my final piece, I wanted to create a negative image to use as a reference point for my original drawing.  In other words, I would draw a negative image in the first place, so when it was reversed the shading would be correct but all the pen work would be white and the background would be black.  I spent some time collecting various pictures of gorillas, standing gorillas, crouching gorillas, leaping gorillas.  The whole time I was looking for a good reference picture that I could easily insert bionic arms onto, which made the choice a bit more difficult.  I finally settled on an action shot to use as a reference image for the drawing that looks like the gorilla just took a swat at something:

One slight stumbling block was that the left arm of this gorilla was cut off; I could have just winged it, but at this point I had such a large collection of gorilla images that I picked a different image of a different gorilla with its left arm out in a similar fashion and literally just Photoshopped the other gorillas arm over the arm in this picture.  Here is the 2nd gorilla image I used for its left arm:

Next I added a second set of arms by copying the first set of arms, rotating them and moving them down below the armpit.  Then I turned the image into a negative to use as a reference while drawing.  Here is the resulting negative image of a four armed gorilla:

I printed this out, and drawing directly onto the print out, I transformed the lower set of arms into robot arms and added some bionic parts to the torso.  This printout is what I used as a reference while drawing the final image:

My purpose in using a negative reference image while drawing with black ink on white paper was that I would be able to scan and create a negative image of my final drawing; this way the inked fur of the gorilla would be white instead of black.  I hoped this would create the albino effect I was looking for while still allowing me to draw a mostly shadowy, low lit image.  So in other words, I went to some great lengths because I didn't have a good white ink pen and black paper!  My plan was to only reverse the image of the ape itself and leave the robotic arms the way I drew them, since I didn't have a negative reference image for them and also because I thought it would be an easy way to make the metal arms stick out as different from the rest of the ape.  After some work on the drawing I scanned it in to reverse it and see how the process was working - I immediately realized the image I had chosen as a reference image was too shadowed to create an obviously albino ape even if the fur cross-hatching itself was white.  The shadowed areas of the ape were just too dark and made it seem like a normal ape with a bright light shining on some of its fur:

I ended up adding a lot more fur detail than was visible in the original reference image in the chest, stomach and rear leg. I went back in with a pencil in addition to the pen, to lighten up the ape in relation to the background.  Even the most shadowy areas got at least some light pencil fur added.  Several times I called it done, scanned it in and reversed it and decided I still needed to add even more pen and pencil work.  Finally, I decided I had done all I could do and was running the risk of muddying up things if I kept adding more fur.  I added some more pencil shading to the robot arms and scanned it one more time to reverse it and do some more touch up work in Photoshop.  For reference, here is the original (un-reversed) scan of the final drawing and then the reversed image at that point.  I found it very interesting how the entire time I was drawing from the negative image the head just didn't look right, but the second I reversed it, it looked awesome!  My mind had a hard time looking at the original (unreversed) drawing and processing where the eyes were I think.  I just had to trust that I was following an actual negative photo of a gorilla face and as long as I faithfully shadowed where I saw shadow everything would work out okay once I reversed the image.

Original *unreversed* Drawing (pen and pencil)

Negative of the final drawing - before separating the bionic arms out and leaving them unreversed

I carefully went in and selected just the bionic arms to put them in a separate layer of the Photoshop document and leave them un-reversed.  this also allowed me to use a Photoshop effect (Outer Glow) to make it look like the arms were glowing - I was hoping this would evoke the electric shock they could deliver.  I also fixed up the feet and left hand a bit in photoshop since I was unhappy with the way they looked when scanned in (I had made the mistake of drawing an outline around the feet in pen which ended up being a glowing white edge around the toes, and the shading I had done on the left hand I was never happy with).  Finally, I had to figure out what to do about a background.  I didn't really have the time to draw a background (my wife and I recently had our first child, and between working ~55 hours a week and spending as much time with baby Leo as I can, I really don't have any "free" time these days) so I played around with some different things in Photoshop.  I added a gradient to suggest a surface at the bottom, and played around with different ways to crop the image.  I settled on a black circle around the ape, with a slight gradient to gray toward the bottom right, and the ape itself protruding past the background in places to suggest that it was coming out of the page at the viewer.  I know this is kind of cheesy but as soon as I tried it out I really liked the effect it had in this case.  Ultimately I probably didn't save any time versus drawing in a background by hand onto the original drawing and rescanning, because to add the photoshop background I had to carefully carve the entire image out of the black background so it could be on a separate layer from the circle gradient (otherwise I couldn't add the gradient and have the ape look like it was standing on top of it).  This took quite a while as I didn't want it to be a sloppy select job.  I had to go in pixel by pixel in some cases to remove everything except the ink strokes I wanted to keep around the edges.

I have to say though that I am very pleased with the end result - and I can't wait for Stonehell 2 to come out!  Maybe some of you will get to sick one of these bad boys on your players (or meet an untimely demise at their robotic hands if you play on the other side of the DM's screen!).  Final image:

Experimental Ape - Carl Nash 2015 - Pen, Pencil & Photoshop

Figs and Faeries

Some hastily jotted and assuredly unfinished business that has been languishing in my Google Drive, pasted here for your pleasure. I only completed the random d8 ripeness/potion charts for two species of fig trees. I did not detail any of the faerie courts which inhabit the fig trees, or their unique potions (nor a single parasitic wasp imp species for that matter). More to come?

Figs = Potion Trees

The ripe fruit has magical properties - see d8 potion tables in individual fig tree entries below.

Each fig tree also has a special syconium, a particularly large fig (~2-4'), magically protected, with a single gate that shrinks those entering it - it is a difficult challenge to force entry past the gate if the keepers are unwilling. Each syconium is a faerie kingdom of blooming fig flowers bathed in a soft golden glow that dies down to a flickering glamer at night  - the faeries dwell in the fig flowers.

Each fig tree species has a unique relationship with a type of faerie that dwells in the syconium - the faeries each have a set of unique spells that they derive from the potion fruit.

Parasitic Wasp Imps seek to take faerie syconiums as their own and have their own spells and magical abilities - great variation exists among the parasitic wasp imps. Syconiums that have been taken by these parasitic imps are quickly filled with their offspring, the magical wards of the syconium perverted to feed the growing brood.

Giant ants tend giant aphid-like bugs which secrete potions as well - ants protect their trees against any intruders deemed a threat

Giant insect ecosystems on the forest floor below depend on the fruit

Also magical birds

Fig sap hardens into a rubber, can be treated when fresh to make magical oils

Syconium Physics - objects are reduced to 1/8 their normal size and 1/4 normal weight when entering a Syconium.

Syconium Time - time passes very slowly inside the syconium compared to the outside world.  One day inside the syconium = 14 days outside.  From the faerie perspective every other fourth day they either leave the syconium to visit a neighboring kingdom or receive visitors from a neighboring faerie court that inhabits a different fig tree.  To the outside perspective these excursions or incursions are roughly 2 months apart.  When visitors come to the syconium it pollinates the tree; each tree bears a harvest about once every four months.   

Visitors, pollination and the special potion fruit - each visiting faerie court has a unique special potion associated with it. Any roll of an "8" on the d8 potion roll for a fig tree requires a second d8 roll - a second roll of "8" explodes, resulting in the unique potion of the visiting faerie court that pollinated the tree.

Banyan or Strangler Fig

Banyan or Strangler Fig - sprawls out, sends down aerial roots, covers other trees or stone structures indiscriminately with strangling roots.

Ripe Fruit:  Reddish brown skin, brown flesh - bitter - get darker and softer as ripen, 1d8 - fig properties, from unripe to ripe:

1. Fig of Climbing
2. Fig of Growth
3. Fig of Plant Control
4. Fig of Undead Control
5. Fig of Animal Control
6. Fig of Giant Control
7. Fig of Human Control
8. Fig of Dragon Control

Cluster Figs

Cluster Fig - figs grow in clusters directly from the trunk,  bark has healing properties, grind into paste in water to make healing potions - LOTS more on wikipedia, lots of cool Buddhist / Hindu traditions

Ripe Fruit: green skin, white flesh, very sweet and soft when fully ripe, firm and pleasant when younger - roll 1d8 on ripeness table:

1. Vitality
2. Philter of Glibness
3. Philter of Persuasiveness
4. Fig of Treasure Finding
5. Fig of Giant Strength
6. Fig of Heroism
7. Fig of Invulnerability
8. Fig of Super-Heroism

5e Dungeon Master's Guide and 5e mini review

I picked up my pre-ordered DM's Guide at my local game shop the day before Thanksgiving. First a mini review of 5e, then some random bullet points from the DM's Guide that stood out to me.

Color me thoroughly impressed with D&D 5e now that I have the three core rulebooks in my possession. Compressing the modifier range, AC and to hit bonus across levels almost makes it more old school than old school, but there are plenty of cool options available to appeal to new school players.  Compared straight across, 1st -3rd level 5e characters will be much more powerful than their B/X or AD&D equivalents, but that quickly evens out and probably even flips towards the older systems being more powerful at higher levels.  Consequently, converting B/X or AD&D material to 5e looks to be extremely easy.

 I still had some unanswered questions and gripes about the game after reading the PHB and MM, but the DM's Guide really took care of most of these for me.  If I had to choose my top D&D edition just based on the core rulebooks, I would have to take 5e at this point (although 1e still gets the nod for best DM's Guide even with it's Gygaxian organization).  Player options are presented without being overly complicated or resulting in too much power inflation.  Monsters strike a nice balance between simple to run and having some memorable and unique abilities (I particularly like the lair based powers of the legendary creatures). The core system is very solid, as is the treatment of the planes and the cosmology presented in general. There are an awful lot of rule variants and DM's tools provided that allow you to customize the game in many different ways.  If you don't want to play with skills, the DM's guide gives you a purely attribute based resolution system for a more old school feel. The default, relatively "heroic" (read practically superheroic) out-of-combat healing presented in the PHB is now just one of many options available to the DM.  Tools for running a Call of Cthulhu style campaign (Sanity attribute) fit in nicely with the focus on factions, organizations and secret societies.  High marks for consistently emphasizing that the game can be customized, and providing many extremely useful examples of how you can do so.

Also, laser guns, antimatter rifles and frag grenades.  Need I say more?

Of course this is not a perfect game.  I have many small quibbles. Some areas of the DM's guide seem like unpolished, hasty add-ons that could easily have taken up the same amount of space and accomplished so much more  (e.g the hodge podge of maps that is Appendix C) and almost every single random chart should have been expanded upon significantly.  Maybe I am spoiled from years of browsing the amazing (and free) online content produced by D&D players and DMs, but I expect a lot more than 10 results for a "Short-Term Madness" table (especially when two of those results are stunned and unconscious - p.259) or 9 entries on a "Lingering Injuries" table (p.272).  Rolling on a table to see what kind of injury your PC gets should be one of those awesome d100 moments where the world stops and hangs on the rolling dice, all manner of calamities looming, not "Oh I lost another (insert 'eye' or 'arm/hand' or 'foot/leg')" or "I got another scar".

The art is also all over the place between and within the core rulebooks, and ultimately that is good and bad for me because I don't trust the art direction at WotC enough to want them to go all one direction or another.  This way I at least get some stuff that I enjoy.

Physically the books themselves are relatively impressive but I have some complaints here.  My MM is the best quality with no obvious printing errors, but there are noticeable problems with my PHB and DM's Guide.  My PHB had numerous instances of smeared ink from illustrations blurring text on facing pages and in several places there is fuzzy text in side bars (which almost seems like a layout error not a printing error, it seems like digital fuzziness).  The only printing flaw I noticed in my DM's Guide was that the black ink from the illustration on page 124 bled all over the text on page 125, smearing and blurring the entire first column.  I can still read everything on that page but it is a very noticeable smear.  I like the look and feel of the books, especially their heft in my hands when holding all three together, but I do not like the red and white Dungeons & Dragons logo on the spine and front cover and the white lettering for the book name.  I'm not sure why, but I just really don't like the new red and white banner logo.  I think it is mostly the red color, and now that I am focusing on it and asking myself why I don't like it, I think the stylized tearing at the end of the banner also grates on me.

Now for some bullet points from the DM's Guide:

• The generally flattened power curve of 5e is reflected in the bonuses for magic weapons and armor, which only range from +1 to +3 in this edition.
• Speaking of magical items, the magical item creation rules on pages 128-29 make it impractical for PCs to make anything but a common or uncommon magical item.  It would take a single PC 200 days of working 8 hour days to create a rare magical item (+1 armor or +2 weapon are rare magical items for reference).  It takes 2000 days of working 8 hour days to create a very rare item (+2 armor or +3 weapon) and 20,000 days (54 years!) to create a legendary item (e.g. cloak of invisibility or iron flask) .  Multiple PC spellcasters can split this time up, but I don't see any party using the rules as written to craft anything but common or uncommon items.  It takes 4 days to craft a common item and 20 days to craft an uncommon item (potion of healing is common, broom of flying is uncommon - illustrating a seemingly arbitrary assignment of rarity to magical items, as the broom of flying is pretty bad ass, carrying up to 400 pounds and coming with the ability to park itself anywhere within 1 mile and then come when summoned - compare with the carpet of flying which is nearly identical in terms of flying and lifting capacity, does not have the 1 mile self park and summon ability, and is rated as very rare!).
• Still on magical items, some of my favorite illustrations in the book are of the items but I go back and forth on their inclusion.  The item illustrations are awesome and mostly very well done. I really enjoyed seeing familiar items from my gaming past rendered in full color.  On the other hand there are a LOT of them - if the magic items were presented sans illustrations, it would have opened a lot more space for even more content. And ultimately, as cool as it is to see one artist's rendition of a Ring of Feather Falling, magical items have to be unique in appearance in game and are probably better left the province of the imagination.  I would have loved to see a lot more space allotted to random encounters and honestly if those had been lavished with illustrations instead of the magic items, they probably would have been the showstoppers for the book!

• There are some strange/illogical decisions made on the many (otherwise helpful) charts provided as DM's tools.  For example "Improvising Damage" (p.249)suggest being struck by lightning is equivalent to falling into a fire pit (2d10 damage), while I would have guessed a lightning strike to be at least worth 5d6 if not more.   Also the "Maintenance Costs" (p.127) of an abby or keep seem extremely high (20gp/day for an Abbey and 100gp/day for a keep) considering that any money the property could earn to offset maintenance costs by charging fees, collecting tithes or donations or selling goods is supposedly taken into account on the table.  You have to spend 3000 GP a month to have a keep on top of sinking all the taxes you take in for protecting the surrounding lands back into upkeep and on top of what you save by consuming what your own fields produce?  Ouch!  
• I like the quick resolution rules for mob/group attacks (p.250).  Large groups of low level combatants are much more of a threat to even high level PCs than they have been in any other edition with the compressed AC ranges and attack modifiers, and this is a great way to run that style of combat quickly.
• The "Epic Boons" (p.231) are a cool variant to allow progression past level 20, for those who like a high powered end game.  E.g. "Boon of Planar Travel" allows plane shifting once a combat (once between short rests) to one specific plane (and back to the Material Plane); "Boon of the Fire Soul" grants immunity to fire and the ability to cast burning hands at will.
• I wish Appendix C Maps had been replaced with something more closely tied in to the content generators provided for dungeons, settlements and wilderness areas.  I am probably spoiled by Dyson Logos and many more, but 6 full pages dedicated to maps could have delivered a lot more content.  Two pages each of dungeon, settlement and wilderness geomorphs comes to my mind.  
• The "Random Settlements" generator (p.112-114) is great. The PCs are wandering up to a town that is not detailed.  Let me roll a few d20s and give you an example: Mostly wealthy townsfolk, known for its flowers, with tension between races, ruled by a religious leader. Undead are stirring in the cemetery.  A tavern named "The Mysterious Lamb" is a gathering place for a secret society.  All in all a relatively uneventful set of rolls but they would give me plenty to riff on.  A few ideas that these rolls prompted in me just now:  While the undead stirring in the cemetery is beyond hackneyed, the detail about flowers made me think of tulips, then bulbs, and I think the secret society is developing new varieties that required the bulbs to be planted in undead flesh but produce stunning flowers which are upsetting and outcompeting the established, racially divided flower growing guilds; and the undead flowers probably also have magical properties that allow the secret society to manipulate people (pollen emitted in the homes of the wealthiest and most fashionable).  
• The chase rules (p.252-254) are simple but seem like they would work well, and I hope to see some bloggers publish expanded chase complications charts because I think they are a cool idea.
• I really like the illustration on page 248 that shows examples of creature sizes Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge and Gargantuan: