Ten Creatures I'm Using Beneath the Broken Moon

In keeping with a far-future, non-Tolkien inspired theme I want to stock the random monster tables with appropriate creatures.  Here are ten that will see regular use during the campaign. 

• Morlocks:  What's a far future, fantasy earth of mysterious ruin without a subterranean species of cannibal monkey-men keeping the magi-technology up and running for unknown purposes?  They are as described by Wells: ape-like, with little or no clothing, large eyes and grey fur covering their bodies. They are extremely sensitive to light and conveniently  Labyrinth Lord has already statted them up for me.  Classed specimens will include artificers.

• Deodands:  As with Morlocks above, I couldn't go on without some direct lifting from the Dying Earth stories.  The devious and murderous deodands will be similar to trolls in terms of their threat to a party, only these guys talk and scheme and instead of a fear of and weakness to fire, they fear and take double-damage from spell magic.  Upon dying, they return to whatever abyssal hell spawned them in a puff of black smoke.

• Brutes: Stats as neanderthal, these are the feral hominians mentioned in the race descriptions.  Sometimes cannibalistic, they are always, well, brutish.  If you can give me a better name than brutes or feral hominian, I'm all ears... especially if it references or pays homage somehow to the weird or future fantasy source literature. 

• Feral Muties: Like brutes above, this is a nasty, violent version of a player-character race (as if PC's weren't nasty and violent enough).  Ferals gather in small family or larger tribal units and avoid humans unless they can isolate and kill/ capture small groups of them.

• Taheen: Love him or hate him (or both) Stephen King has imagined some eminently RPGable things in his prolific career.  The bird and mammal-headed, bipedal, dark-god serving weirdos of Dark Tower fame are a perfect fit for Beneath the Broken Moon as mid-level baddies that can put together (or carry out somebody else's) master plan. Classed individuals will include magic-using types.

• Billy-Bumblers:  Also from Dark Tower, these little fur balls will essentially replace raccoons, dogs, cats, rabbits etc... in the "little critter" category and I expect them to show up as familiars for NPC (if not PC) shaman.

• Manes:  Remember these annoying little 1 hit die sub-demons from Monster Manual 1?  Being native to the Abyss I have never gotten much use out of them, but that will soon change.  The dark, remote and forgotten corners of Beneath the Broken Moon will be lousy with them.  As with deodands, they disappear when slain.

• Golems:  Golems, golems, golems everywhere.  Ubiquitous remnants of Ancient construction, golems can be found as city guards, tomb guardians, sleeping armies (think terracotta warriors) or rogue and malfunctioning automatons running wild amidst the countryside.  Golems of all types will abound. They also present something interesting for high-level artificers to do. 

•  Slimes, Jellies, Molds, Mushrooms, Larvae and all other Weirdness:  Ok, so maybe I'm cheating to  cover a lot of area in a list of ten, but these are all basically the same thing to me; which is anything that could have been the star of a Creature Feature style horror flick.  Along with things like gelatinous cubes, shriekers, carrion crawlers and other weirdness will be liberal use of one-off things resulting from James Raggi's Random Esoteric Creature Generator.  

• Zombies: Entire cities of them.  Far to the south and somewhat west from the campaign's beginning there lies a land where Hastur, The King in Yellow, presides over a kingdom of the dead and the damned.  A bite from these sorts of zombies will possibly infect with a disease that turns one into a ravenous undead upon their death. What can I say, we're all Walking Dead fans. There will also be the stock-standard animated dead sort of zombie for necromatically-inclined wizards to love and cherish.

A Tool and Some Changes to Magic Beneath the Broken Moon

First up is the tool:  a spreadsheet to randomly select spells, build spell books and build shaman spirits.  You can find it here, as well as posted to the right under A Dungeon Master's Files along with the Sample Dungeon Project and upcoming additions. It's in excel and you can download and use it as you see fit provided that you do not sell it.  As a reminder, all content published to the blog is copyrighted under the creative commons thingy at the bottom of the page.

Since the tool incorporates a combined spell list derived from BFRPG's Libram Magica, it might appear to be of limited use to more traditionally-themed and executed D&D games, but it's instructive in its own right if you're not used to basic to intermediate excel use and easy enough to modify for your purposes should you want to do so.  The password for the protected pages is "qwerty123456".  If you only want to make user selections and use as-is, there's no need to enter the password. 

Sheet one of the spreadsheet is the compiled spell list; 263 spells all told.  Should you not use the second sheet of the file, I have given the appropriate dice combos and results to generate a random spell for any level manually.  Column B and C are important for the follow-on sheets.  Don't fiddle with them unless you're intentionally making changes to how or which spells are selected.

Sheet two is the user area for the random generator.  The "blue" sections will randomly select a spell of a given level from sheet one.  The "green" section will randomly generate a spell book for a user-specified caster level.  The "red" section will randomly name and provide the known spells for a  spirit summoned by a shaman in a user-defined ritual. The spirit is even named, using random tables (ex: Z'shmelgrue, Z'bak, Vilzat, G'shibbonalan, etc...).  I should note that the logic allows for multiple spells to appear in the same set.  I could have solved this but left it as is, allowing for a variable number of actual spells.  A spell book set to generate for a 7th level caster will receive 11 cantrips.  Because results may be duplicates this will vary in practice to usually between 6 and 11 actual spells).  The fewer the number of spells generated for a given level, the less likelihood of a duplication.  This worked for my purposes so I left it for now.  I've generated scores of random spirits and books and am pleased with the results.

Sheet three is where the sausage is made.  Use the above password if you want to make modifications, otherwise let it be.

You can comment here if you have any questions about how to use or modify the sheet.  Use of sheets one and two should all be pretty intuitive, so just go download it and try it out. 

Next up, the changes.  Without play-testing I've already made some changes from my initial blog posts about the magic-using classes, but rather than get into the habit of going back and updating old posts I'm just going to fix things on the fly in general update posts as I go.  Eventually there will be a pdf Guide to Playing Beneath the Broken Moon that I'll create for my players and also post here under the files section on the right, for others to read, use and abuse as they wish.  For now...

• Spells memorized per level:  No change here other than I'm incorporating the use of cantrips (0-level spells).  Any caster can sacrifice a 1st level spell for up to four cantrips when preparing their daily spells.  A second level spell can be sacrificed to memorize 8 cantrips, etc...  
• Starting spell books and known spells.  For BtBM, I'm not holding players to my typical Arcane Orders guidelines.  Rather, each magic user will begin play with 4 randomly determined 0-level and 4 randomly determined 1st level spells.
• Spells gained per level:  Each time a magic user gains a level, he or she receives one randomly determined spell of a chosen spell level that the character is able to cast.  ex:  Maga the Malefactor achieves third level and chooses to learn a 2nd level spell as her reward.  The aforementioned spreadsheet is consulted and Maga learns Blizzard.      
• Shaman rituals have been tweaked.  Shaman's are no longer limited to completing only one ritual per type of 1st through 8th.  Rather, a caster may complete one ritual per level of any kind that he is capable of conducting, given constraints on time and money.  This should effectively double the spell list for the shaman.  I think this version of the rules is what will make it to Opening Day of the upcoming campaign, though I'll be watching it closely as we play and, as with all rules, reserve the right to tweak it again. Also, a few of the eight rituals have been updated to include 0-level spells and this has been reflected in the aforementioned spreadsheet.

Next up for the campaign prep is to finish the player's info, which amounts to adding an updated version of my randomly generated background special abilities and then (ugh) equipment and a write- up on how I'm handling encumbrance.  Once all of that is said and done I'll probably talk a little bit more about the tone and setting, maybe put up a hex map and generate some rules for "sprawl-crawling", should Chris over at The Hill Cantons not beat me to it with his own set of rules for ruined city crawling.    Please Chris, beat me to it.  :)

Skills Beneath the Broken Moon

I like skills.  Outside of D&D, I appreciate game systems with a moderately-sized list of useful skills.  I'm thinking Call of Cthulhu and Traveller here, mostly.  What's common in both of those games is that there are no classes, and there's probably a lot more investigation and social interaction happening as part of playing the game than in D&D.  Conversely, it's reasonable to say that D&D is mostly about combat and physical exploration, particularly if one looks at the volume of rules published covering those two things. Further separating  D&D from my favorite skill-based games are classes.  Selecting a class and having an experience point-based leveling system already gives a character a default set of improvable skills that mostly involve one of combat or exploration (i.e. fighters can hit effectively, thieves can sneak and climb, clerics can heal and detect/ investigate, etc...).  One can argue convincingly (and many have) that a separate skill system is completely unnecessary to the game.  Ah, but I like skills and I think D&D can afford to have a few broad skills, if not quite so many as those other games.  

Something else I like is BFRPG's mechanic for making ability checks.  It seems to be inspired by the 3rd Edition concept of skills but in implementation keeps it closer to the feel of the old school ability check by limiting the power creep and bloat ultimately introduced by 3rd. This, from the 2nd edition (Release 75) of the BFRPG pdf rules:

There will be times when a player character tries to do something in the game that seems to have no rule covering it. In some of those cases, the only attribute the PC has that seems appropriate may be an Ability Score.  Here is a suggested method for making rolls against Ability Scores that still gives better odds to higher level characters:

The player rolls 1d20 and adds his or her Ability Bonus for the score the GM thinks is most appropriate, as well as any situational bonus or penalty the GM assigns. Consult the following table. If the total rolled is equal to or higher than the given Target number, the roll is a success.

Ability Checks

Level                Target
NM or 1             17
2-3                     16
4-5                     15
6-7                     14
8-9                     13
10-11                 12
12-13                 11
14-15                10
16-17                 9
18-19                 8
20                      7

Ability Score Bonus/ Penalties

Ability Score            Bonus/Penalty
3                                         -3
4-5                                      -2
6-8                                      -1
9-12                                     0
13-15                                  +1
16-17                                  +2
18                                       +3

Using the above two tables to determine results means that both experience and ability will factor into whether or not a character is successful with a given task.   This is fine and good as an ability check system, but it strikes me as even better as the basis for a skill system.

In Beneath the Broken Moon  there is no thief class.  But thieves, as arguably the most skilled class, should be a perfect fit for my tastes, no?  No.  I dropped them because I wanted to remove all implicit and explicit limitations on any character's ability to sneak around, climb things and rob or back-stab to their heart's content.  It's not that I dislike the idea of a specialist, I just didn't care for it being a stealth specialist for this upcoming campaign.

While I've been blogging about my new classes I've made mention of certain class abilities where an ability check was required.  These are my new specialists and the above system is what I had in mind for implementing their skills.  What I haven't yet gone over are the handful of explicit skills that all characters possess (sneaking, climbing and spotting below).  I couldn't possibly have thought of everything so far, so anything not explicitly covered by a secondary ability is probably an ability check; meaning in effect that everything possible is ultimately a secondary ability (or skill) that is adjudicated the BFRPG way.  DM-assigned bonuses & penalties to the roll should separate the truly desperate and one-in-a-million-shots from the merely difficult.   A roll shouldn't even be made for something deemed easy.  Below is a list of both the explicit secondary abilities shared by all as well as those specific to certain classes. 

Sneak (DEX):  All characters may sneak with a successful Dexterity check.  Sneaking includes hiding, moving quietly and any other stealthy activity such as swiping or nonchalantly dropping/ planting small items.  Encumbered characters will suffer a -1 penalty to the roll for every level of encumbrance (more on this later, it's akin to the LotFP encumbrance system). 

Climb (STR): While all characters may use this ability for navigating any vertically-oriented terrain, an actual climb check should be reserved for only when there is a decent chance of slipping or falling.  Climbing a ladder or hiking a steep trail should not require a check.  Doing so while fighting or managing a slippery surface may require a check.  A truly sheer surface, with no handholds or other available means of climbing cannot be climbed without magical or some other aid.  Encumbered characters will suffer a -1 penalty to the roll for every level of encumbrance (more on this later, it's akin to the LotFP encumbrance system). 

Spot (WIS): Hearing, seeing, smelling and even feeling or tasting are all encompassed by the Spot ability.  This is both passive and active in function and all characters posses it.  Intentionally searching for a secret door or a trap will require a Spot roll just as noticing a faint carrion odor or a subtle change in temperature.  Making Spot checks also replaces the Surprise roll.

Tinker (INT): This is both an artificer's and a wayfarer's ability. 

Wilderness Lore I & II (WIS):  This is a barbarian ability described  here. 

Comprehend Languages (CHA): This is a wayfarer ability described here.

Use Magical Device (INT): This is a wayfarer ability described here.

Create Rune (INT): This is an artificer's ability described here.

Repair Magic Item (INT): This is an artificer's ability described here.

Backstabbing:  Any surprise attack is made at a +2 to hit and causes double damage, enforcing the idea that getting the jump on your opponent can be significant in ensuring your victory.

Races Beneath the Broken Moon (Revisitied)

Some time back, before I decided upon the classes for the next campaign, I ruminated a bit on races and didn't really come up with anything too conclusive.  I have, since then, made some conclusions.  While snake-men and psycho-parasitic, diminutive, oast-riding taskmasters will make the cut in the broader world, I'm afraid that neither will be offered as playable races.  Below is what remains.

You can't help being born Beneath the Broken Moon, so race isn't chosen but rather rolled for.  I may give players something of an out here and allow them to choose to be human, but roll % dice and refer to the below if they want to play anything besides a human.  Maybe this is a bad approach, as anybody not wanting to play a human is still 60% likely to play one.  Here is where my actual players, should they be out there reading, might want to chime in.  It bears explicit mention, I suppose, that none of this has been play-tested on the whole... but my feeling is that the individual pieces are tried and true in other games or are re-skinned concepts, so it should be none-too disruptive. 

%Roll                    Result
01-60                      Human
61-75                      Mutie
76-85                      Simian
86-95                      Hominian
96-00                      Grey One

Human:  Congratulations, you have made the cut and are a proud member of far, far future earth's still-dominant species.  You may add 1 to any of the six ability scores and count yourself lucky.  You know your regional dialect and the common tongue.

Mutie: You are a tainted one; mostly human, sure, but something is not quite right about you.  It's somewhat obvious and there's only one rational way to determine what it is... roll randomly on Table 1 below.  You suffer a -2 penalty to all reaction roles.  You are of an oppressed and vilified people.  Legends persist of a mythical city known as Midian, where your strange sort are said to find refuge.  None have yet shown you the way.  You know the common tongue.

Simian (Ape-man): Long, long ago mankind reached far beyond his simian cousins in both intellect and accomplishment.  No more.  You are of the race of ape-men that represent the most recent leap forward in primate evolution.  You are taller and hairier than most humans with a somewhat denser build.  Your face resembles a cross between a man and a chimpanzee.  You are otherwise remarkably similar to most human beings.  You know your own language plus speak the common tongue.  +1 WIS & STR, -1 DEX & CHA.

Hominian:  Somewhere along the way in a past shrouded in mystery, mankind diverged into two separate species.  The bad news is that you're of the stupider and nastier variety.  You have the short, squat build, pronounced brow ridge and "pulled-forward" face of a neanderthal.  Most of your kind tends toward brutishness or passivity depending on whether they came of age as ferals in the wild or were bred for slavery by human or simian masters.  You, however, are an uncommon specimen of your species.  Add 2 to STR and CON; Subtract 2 from INT and CHA. 

Sectoid (Grey One):  You're not from around here; or, at least your ancestors weren't.  The oldest stories of your people tell of your coming from the heavens beyond the sky; but you have most likely lived your life until now amongst a small enclave of your people, keeping a low profile amidst the many dangers of far, far future earth.  You are short with a lean build and a hairless, grey-skinned body.  Your head is big, with a strong, square forehead and a weak chin.  You have a very small nose and mouth, but extraordinary eyes – large, almond-shaped, black and gleaming.  You posses a sharp gaze and can see twice as far at night as other races.   Your strange, alien appearance can make others uncomfortable.  +2 INT & WIS; -2 STR and CON; -2 penalty to all reaction roles.  Roll on Table 2 below for additional talents:

Table 1: Mutations (d30)

1. Fingernails are talons:  do 1d4 damage
2. Corpulence:  add 5d20 lbs and 2 hit points
3. Gauntness:  subtract 5d20 lbs. and 2 hit points
4. Goat-horned:  May make charge attacks with horns for 1d4 base dmg
5. Iron-skinned: +2 AC bonus due to hard skin
6. Vaguely dog-headed: may track by scent on a successful WIS check
7. Green-skinned with orchid-shaped ears (+4 to hear noise checks)
8. Purple-skinned and fanged (bite for 1d4 dmg)
9. Prehensile tongue:  You may pick up objects up to 10’ away weighing 5 lbs or less
10. Roll twice; keep one
11. Two-faced:  A functional face on both the front and back; +2 to all Spot rolls
12. Thorn-covered:  Body is covered in small horns that resemble thorns.  1d4 grapple dmg
13. Extra set of arms and hands: +1 attack  each round without an off-hand penalty
14. Beastman:  You look bestial and are strong:  + 2 to STR & -2 CHA
15. Giant Claw:  One hand is a giant crab-like claw that inflicts 1d6 melee damage
16. Frog eyes: Eyes on the side of your head & work independently; +4 to visually Spot
17. Super Albino: See twice as far in darkness but -1 to all rolls in full daylight
18. Prehensile feet:  Your feet function as an extra set of hands.  50% chance of having a tail, too
19. Tentacles:  Both of your arms are actually large tentacles
20. Roll twice; keep both
21. Feathers:  You have fine feathers in place of hair on your body
22. Scaly skin:  Your skin is scaly and dry but also hard.  +1 AC
23. Gills:  Breathe air & water but must be immersed or doused once weekly or suffer a -1 to all    ability scores for each day not so treated until CON is zero and you die
24. Gigantism:  add 50% to height and double weight.  Shift hit die to one better (e.g. 1d4 hit points per level becomes 1d6).  Add 2 to STR and subtract 2 from DEX.
25. Dwarfism: reduce height by 50% and half weight.  Shift hit die one worse, 1d4 is the lowest.  Add +1 to hit man-sized targets and add +1 to your AC.
26.  Random tentacle:  you have an extra appendage, a 1-3' tentacle growing somewhere on your body.  No direct combat bonuses, but it can hold stuff for you.
27. Extra legs and feet:  Add 25% to base movement and 30% to weight
28. Bioluminescence:  A small, external gland in some part of your body produces a softly glowing light equal to candlelight.
29. Roll twice, keep one
30. Roll twice, keep both

Table 2: Grey One Talents (%)

01-60:  None, though I'm sure you're still a swell life form
61-70: Clairaudience-  Concentrate one round and a successful WIS check and you can hear all sounds  normally audible to you in any area you have visited and are familiar with.
71-80: Clairvoyance- Concentrate one round and a successful WIS check and you can see everything normally visible to you in any area which you have visited and with which you are familiar.
81-90: Empathy-  You may read the emotions of others within a 90' radius unless they are magically or otherwise protected from scrying.
91-00: Telepathy- You may project your thoughts directly to sentient creatures within 90' and read those thoughts they intentionally project to you, independent of spoken language.  With a successful INT check you may read the surface thoughts of unwilling or unaware creatures. 

“Every great cause..."

Telecanter (my fingers always want to type telecaster?!?!?!) posted a rather thoughtful assessment of his engagement with this whole "online playing and blogging about older editions of RPG's" thing.  That I can relate to it directly and meaningfully isn't the whole of why I'm posting now.  Yes, this is a fist-bump in the echo-chamber sort of post (you really should go read it if you haven't already) but I also want to put this into a specific, recent context, give you some unasked-for advice regarding the scene and finally implore you to keep going.

Eric Hoffer wasn't writing about the OSR when he famously opined on causes, but it's an applicable sentiment.  So applicable that I'm sure it's already been used in the wake of Kickstarter madness and specifically in the debate over a rather prominent OSR persona's behavior and results so far.  I'm not here to kick anybody while they're down, point out their mistakes or tell them why they should or shouldn't back (or start) these sorts of things.  That's for others to do and it's being done.  My, is it being done. I will say this much: don't be surprised when the thing you think you know and love eventually looks like a racket.  But don't give up on the thing itself.  The thing that started the movement is probably still out there and maybe what led you to the thing is still valid and meaningful for you.  The thing itself, you see, can still go on even while the sad, declining life-cycle of the movement, the business and the racket plays out.

Many people want to follow a leading voice.  Fewer people just want to do their own thing and fewer still find themselves in a position to be a leading voice.  If you're in the first category, this post isn't for you unless you're looking to change your ways.  If you're the third type, again, I don't have much for you other than to say please be mindful when you willingly take on the expectations of others; particularly when you're taking their money as well.  I'm here to talk to the 2nd type and maybe also the aspiring 2nd type.  The would be Do-it-Yourself-er.   


The scene and then an industry were made by people like you.  But ignore the scene and industry both.  Ignore the people that just want to identify with the one or make a living on the other and ignore anybody that wants to step forward and pretend to speak for both.  Keep talking about the game. Your game.  Keep looking for new ideas and keep innovating.  Lacking a better idea; buy, borrow and steal better ideas from outside sources (provided by people that occupy scenes and industries, not scenes and industries themselves, you see).  When you take, give some back as well... particularly if what you got was for free.  Pay these people in money or ideas or credit, however its set up, or simply pay it forward.

Look, I'm a nobody.  I'm just another DM with enough computer literacy to figure out how to start a blog.  I'm not a well-known game designer and I've got nothing to sell you.  But I'm telling you this movement is mine and yours and Telecanter's much as it's Matt Finch's or the people at Autarch.  If this thing was really a movement at all, it still can be one. Its ethos is that we don't need anybody to tell us what to play or how to talk about it, we just need to play and to talk about it.  We don't need to play the old rules verbatim, coalesce around a new set of rules, influence a parent corporation's product offerings or help launch a hundred small publishers.  These things can be byproducts of what's going on but what's going on really is the meaningful exchange of ideas.  Nobody gets to step in and control that.

Keep going OSR bloggers and readers.  Continue innovating so that your next great idea might spawn some other byproduct whose merit as an artifact can be debated ad nauseum in message boards and blogs.  If you can't...  if you're done or if you're just ready to shut up and play the damn thing then keep your blog up if you have one.  As an artifact it might not be as polished or even as inspired as somebody else's blog or something that was published... but it captured some of your process which was a part of the process and there's value in that. 

Give people a chance to find your OSR.