GLOG Class: Ranger

I've been watching Lord of the Rings again.

GLOG Class: the Ranger

A: Whisperer, Parts Unknown, Wild Ways

B: Be Silent That You May Hear, Old Bones

C: Uncanny Instinct, Walk Unseen

D: Folk Unknown, Voices Forgotten

Starting skills [d3]: 1 = child of a woods-witch, 2 = (in)famous outlaw, 3 = latent elf or fae blood

Starting equipment: a hooded cloak in a subtle color & style, well-worn boots, a brace of knives, a sturdy backpack, and a weapon of your choice. 

(A) Whisperer

Animals always react better to you: you know how to soothe them, how to guide them, and how to frighten them. You can tell what an animal wants by examining it for a few moments, and what it very much doesn't want by studying it for a few moments more. You're also preternaturally good at picking out the tracks, markings, and remains of animals, and can always tell when you've entered one's territory.

You can also talk to certain animals. Roll 2d6 and pick one:

1. Cats (and a few other felines)
2. Crows (and most other corvids)
3. Horses (and most other equines)
4. Moths (and a few other lepidopterans)
5. Mice (and a few other rodents)
6. Snakes (and no other reptiles)

You can speak to these animals and be spoken to in turn. Animals don't speak like humans, they're less grammatical and structured, but you can understand them nonetheless. (Bear in mind, however, that most animals, even ones that can talk, don't usually want much to do with humans.)

Every time you finish an adventure/arc/chapter, roll another 2d6 and pick another animal.

(A) Parts Unknown

You know the path to all the major locations in the world: huge cities, mighty rivers, vast deserts, mountain ranges—all of the large and important and exciting places. You may or may not have been there before, but you know the way there regardless.

You know the path to about half the medium-sized locations in the world: forests, lakes, towns, ruins, bogs—places that are important to the regions around them, but perhaps less known on a worldly scale.

You know the path to 2d4 minor locations: individual hills, clearings, ponds, trails, villages, caves—all of the oddball random locations that make up an actual tract of land. Every template, you learn the way to another 2d4 minor locations—maybe ones you've visited as part of the campaign, maybe not.

Once you've been to a place in-session, you know the path back (unless, perhaps, it's a location that magically moves, like a flying castle or lake-that-crawls). 

If you know the path to a location, there's a [templates]-in-6 chance that you know of a secret entrance, hidden pathway, or other means of ingress, egress, or traversal through the location. Sewers, goat-trails, trapdoors, tunnels, and so on. 

For medium locations, I'd just assign a 50% chance to any given location the Ranger actively wants to go to. For minor locations, I'd make the Ranger choose the first handful with the GM's help at chargen, and then let the rest be retroactively declared as needed. The GM basically always has veto power over this if it really comes down to it, but be generous.

(A) Wild Ways

Every template, roll 1d12 and gain that associated way. If you roll a repeat, take your choice of the one above or below it.

(B) Be Silent That You May Hear

If you stand silent and still for a moment, you can hear everything within a hundred feet of you, down to noises as quiet as a whisper. If you stand silent and still for an entire minute, you can hear the difference between a dark room that is silent and a dark room where someone is not making a sound. 

If you press your ear to the earth for a minute or two without speaking, you can hear anything the earth feels within [templates] miles of you. The earth feels things like the hammer of footfalls, the dance of a stream, the gnawing of roots, the creak of a glacier, or the rattle of bones coming alive; it usually doesn't feel the drone of voices. 

(B) Old Bones

Once per day, if you rub shoulders and stamp your feet while ruefully gazing at the sky, you can ask the GM what the weather will be for the next [templates] days; the GM will answer you truthfully.

Alternatively, you can ask when the next occurrence of a given weather pattern (rain, fog, snow, a cloudless hot day, etc.) will occur; the GM will answer you truthfully. 

Alternatively alternatively, you can ask what the weather is at any point in the world right this instant; the GM will answer you truthfully. 

(C) Uncanny Instinct

You know wizards, witches, spirits, faeries, and shapeshifters (like werewolves) on sight, no matter what form they take.

If you stop and smell the air, you can pick out the distinct scents of: curses, blessings, illusions, death, madness, and gold. How far away this works from is based on the intensity and the wind, as with any other smell.

If you taste the blood of a creature, you can tell its broad type (say, an undead from a dragon, but not a zombie from a revenant). You can also tell how long the blood has been there, and whether it was spilled by accident or in earnest.

(C) Walk Unseen

If you draw up the hood of your cloak, you can move without being spotted. Choose [templates] of the following that are true:

• You won't be seen
• You won't be heard
• You won't leave tracks, scent, or trail
• You can move at a full pace
• You can do it with your weapons out and ready
• Your comrades can still see and hear you

Whichever ones you don't choose aren't true, so you will leave a trail or you can be seen or you have to stow your weapons, or whatever. 

(D) Folk Unknown

You know the path to people in the same way you know the way to locations. If you set out to find someone whose path you know, you'll always find them eventually. 

That said, the major-to-minor ratio of people you know the path to is reversed: that is, you know the way to every minor individual, about half of the medium-importance people, and 2d4 major people.

Every time you finish an adventure/arc/chapter, add another 2d4 major people you know the path to.

As with locations, if you know someone's path, there's a 4-in-6 chance that you know a secret about them—but people and locations have different secrets.

As with locations, knowing the way to someone doesn't mean you always know where they are, or that you could draw a map to their location—just that if you set out to find them, you will. If you need some secrets for people to have, use the Middleman's list.

(D) Voices Forgotten

You can talk to non-animal things as if they were animals. Roll 2d6 and pick one:

1. Stones (and most other minerals)
2. Trees (and a few other plants)
3. Rivers (and most other flowing bodies of water)
4. The wind (and a few other weather patterns)
5. Roads (and most other established pathways)
6. Fire (and no other chemical processes)

You can speak to these things and be spoken to in turn. The secret language of things is even stranger and less human than the words of animals, but you can still understand their voices.

Every time you finish an adventure/arc/chapter, roll another 2d6 and pick another thing.

A quick note on speaking with animals and things: pay attention to how exactly that speaking process works, and consult with your GM. Maybe you mimic the call of crows and the whistling of the wind; maybe the elves taught the world to speak, and so you speak elvish; maybe when you speak it takes the form of prayers, and the G_ds bless you that you might be understood. Whatever it is, speaking to non-human things is important, and you should put some thought into how you do so.

Wild Ways

Rangers know things about the world, things that other folk simply don't. Maybe it's smoke and mirrors, maybe it's genuine magic, maybe it's just being lightning quick.

Every level, roll 1d12 and gain the associated way. If you roll a repeat, take your choice of the one above or below it. 

1. Walks-Upon-Winter
   You don't sink in snow, regardless of your weight; you simply walk across the top of it as if it was solid earth.
2. Skin-As-a-Snake
   In a minute, you can change your appearance to be as dirty or as clean as you please. Mosquitoes, fleas, ticks, and other such pests will never bother you, unless you want them to.
3. Friend-to-Fair-Folk
   Faeries and spirits take a liking to you; this means they're flirty and charming and happy to please you, but also take insults and offense far more seriously.
4. Breathes-Without-Air
   You can hold your breath for [templates] × 3 minutes. If you need to, you can take a breath only once per minute and still act normally.
5. Slumbers-On-Foot
   For [templates] hours per day, you can walk while you sleep. You still won't hear or see anything, and someone will need to hold your hand to get around corners, but you can sleep while walking.
6. Speaks-Many-Tongues
   You know a dozen words in a dozen languages; if you try your hardest to be understood in foreign lands but still can't, folk tend to take pity on you.
7. Remains-Always-Ready
   If you take a minute to hide a knife on your person, it cannot be found by anyone you don't want it to be.
8. Sees-No-Sunlight
   If you draw your hood up, you can hide your face from unfriendly eyes: they still see you, it's not as if you are actively hiding your face, but they can't get any clear details or distinctive features.
9. Drinks-As-a-Camel
   You can go three times as long without water as a regular person, but have to drink three times as much water beforehand and afterwards. 
10. Keeps-Many-Secrets
    If you encounter tracks or remains (fur, feathers, scales, etc.) from one of the animals you can Whisper to, you can ask those tracks a single question as you were speaking to the animal directly.
11. Heeds-Not-the-Bounds
    You can swim and climb as quickly and easily as you run. If underwater or hanging vertically (from, say, a tree or cliffside) any abilities that take a minute or more only take half as long.
12. Bears-the-Wilds
    When you walk into town while visibly wearing your cloak and bearing arms, folk will give you a free meal, a mug of beer, a corner to sleep in, and take care to be genial and courteous or to leave you alone entirely (your choice).

--

"Aragorn-the-class," basically, to go with the Sage as Gandalf-the-class. Things that this class doesn't do but I kind of wish it did, but it's already long as hell:

• Heal people in witch-y natural ways (the hands of a healer are the hands of a king, etc., etc.)
• Fight good
• The thing where Aragorn does CSI: Middle-Earth outside of Fangorn
• Probably some other cool ranger stuff I'm forgetting

Anyway, yeah. There's like a billion ranger classes out there anyway, and I couldn't think of a good name for this one other than "ranger."

Oh yeah, and the empty room/room that is silent is ripped straight out of deus' Zouave. It's just too good to pass up.

Let me know if you get a chance to test it out.

GLOG Class: Xeromancer Wizard

"Inhuman solitude made of sand and G_d."

GLOG Class: Xeromancer

Art by Ikarus, as it says, but I can't find any reference or links to them.

The desert draws magicians like moths to a flame, and xeromancers are no exception. These are magicians who strive for mastery over the physical elements of the desert: heat, sand, water, wind. They are strange, reclusive magicians, ones more at home on the endless dunes than in cities or academies. That said, xeromancers are highly sought-after as ship's canters, and can always find work out on the Seas.

Perk: messages-in-a-bottle that you send will always reach their recipient, but it will take 1d100 days. Messages-in-a-bottle sent to you will always reach you, though they too take 1d100 days.

Drawback: you cannot bathe in water, cross running water, or set foot in the ocean. If you do, your flesh will wash off like so much sand.

Starting skill [d3]: 1 = outcast prophet; 2 = child stolen by a psammead; 3 = genuine desert sorcerer

Starting gear: a scarf to hide your face and eyes, two skins, two random xeromancer items, and a long twisty ragged cloak bleached to the color of sand.

SPELLS

Roll 1d10 twice at level 1, then once every additional level; if you get repeats, roll again. At level 4 (D Templates), you get to pick spell #11 or #12. You can find more spells via scrolls, tablets, etc.

1. Siphon
   R: touch; T: [sum] × 5' radius of sand; D: [dice] hours
   You can instantly shift the temperature of a circle of sand by up to [sum] × 10 degrees, up or down. This will have different effects based on the sand you're on.
2. Hollow-Heft
   R: shouting distance; T: [dice] creatures; D: [sum] minutes
   The target's weight increases by either 10x or is reduced to 1/10th. Hostile creatures can make a save against this effect.
3. Zephyr
   R: [sum] ×10'; T: a line, starting from you; D: [dice] × 10 minutes
   When you open your mouth, a blast of high-speed wind comes out in a line [dice] × 2' wide. Any creature caught in the blast of wind can make a save to not be hurled backwards.
4. Forecast
   R: sight; T: the sky; D: [dice] days
   You know what the weather will be up to 24 hours from now. You can shift the daily d100 weather table roll up to [sum] amount during the duration.
5. Well
   R: touch; T: a container, like a barrel or skin; D: instantaneous
   All water within a [sum] × 100' radius is instantly drawn into the container you touch (potentially overflowing). 
6. Geyser
   R: shouting distance; T: a spot in the sea; D: [dice] rounds
   A geyser of sand bursts from the surface, [sum]' wide and [sum] × 10' high, launching anything beneath it upwards.
7. Sculpt
   R: touch; T: a bunch of sand; D: [sum] minutes
   You sculpt a bunch of sand into a structure no larger than a [dice] × 10' cube. For the duration, the sand is magically held together; after the duration expires, gravity takes effect, and the sculpture will endure only as well as it naturally would.
8. Endure
   R: touch; T: [dice] people; D: [sum] hours
   The targets do not need to drink, eat, or sleep (and are unaffected by having already not done so); they are immune to heatstroke and exhaustion; their speed is not halved when travelling by sandshoe.
9. Dive
   R: touch; T: self + [dice-1] people; D: [sum] × 10 minutes
   You gain psammitic gills (so you can breathe sand); you can swim in any sand at standard speed; you gain sandsense out to [dice] × 100'; you are immune to the extreme heat of the depths of the sandy seas.
10. Glide
    R: self; T: self; D: [sum] minutes
    You can glide along the surface of the sand at [dice] times normal speed. Anyone within [dice] × 10' on either side of you must save or be blinded for 1d6 rounds as you spray sand at them.
11. Storm
    R: [sum] miles; T: self; D: [sum] hours
    You conjure a huge sandstorm: you yourself are immune to its effects (but not your ship or crew). The sandstorm stays centered on you, and allows you to fly at double speed. Sandstorms will vary based on the kind of sand they are composed of, but are always exceedingly dangerous.
12. Transmute
    R: self; T: sand, earth, or water; D: permanent
    Within a [sum]-mile radius, you transmute the terrain around you into: any of the seven sands, solid earth, or pure fresh water. 

Xeromancer Mishaps:

1: you spend 1d6 rounds vomiting sand, a couple cubic feet of it per round—it's not the kind of sand you're currently on, though, roll 1d6 to see what it is.

2: for (secretly rolled) 1d6 days, you count as weighing 5x for the purposes of determining whether you sink in sand.

3: you and anyone (but not anything) inside a 10' radius burst into flame; you suffer 1d6 damage per round until you extinguish yourself.

4: you attract the attention of the desert: roll on the phenomena encounter chart.

5: for 24 hours, you cannot see, hear, or speak unless you are actively touching sand.

6: for 24 hours, any water you touch turns to sand; you must pass a save vs. curse to drink a skin.

Xeromancer Dooms:

1: The Seas swallow you for a time. You sink into the sand and are buffeted around its swirling depths for 24 hours, at which point you are spat back up 1d6-1 miles away, in a random direction.

2: The Seas demand you take no sustenance other than from them. All water within 1 mile instantly evaporates.

3: The Seas claim you as their own. A sandstorm immediately rises, centered on you, and you transformed into a being of pure sand. If the wind blows at you at any time from this day forth, you will simply crumble away.

Xeromancer Items:

1. Vial of holy water. Doubly impactful in the desert.
2. Red silk sash. Worn by merchant-princes and high priests; quite valuable.
3. String of shark teeth. Each has a little rune carved into it. Quite deadly if used as a garotte.
4. A live cobra. Kept inside a clay pot; not particularly friendly. HD1, 1d8 venom damage. 2 slots.
5. Dual scimitars. Light & elegant, matched to fit into a single sheath. 1d6 damage, 1 slot each.
6. A gnarled wooden staff. Quite rare for the Seas, given the wood scarcity. 1d8 damage, 2 slots.
7. Philosophical texts. Ascetism, theogony, divine geometry. Probably worth something to the right person.
8. Flask of tequila. It's good tequila, too, the kind that's hard to find these days.
9. Pair of sandproof goggles. Made of crystal, leather, and glass. Fits easily into your scarf.
10. Wavy-bladed sword. Finely-crafted of steel and brass. 1d8 damage, 2 slots.
11. A vulture. Not a pet, exactly, but it sort of follows you around and keeps an eye out for interesting sights.
12. Coracle. A round little one-person rowboat, nimble but not very fast. 6 slots if you want to portage it.
13. Vial of centipede venom. Target has to save vs. anaphylactic shock or be paralyzed. 3 doses.
14. Pair of sandshoes. These ones are made of camel leather and papyrus, the old way. 2 slots.
15. Handheld mirror. Burnished, silvery steel; highly reflective. 1 slot.
16. Brass whistle. The cylindrical mountaineer kind.
17. Bone flute. Beautifully carved; you know how to play some basic tunes. 1 slot.
18. 50' of hempen rope. Sailor's choice. 1 slot.
19. Pack of tarot cards. Both the major and the minor arcana. 
20. A strange and unusual artifact [1d6]:
1. A strange sandstone brick. It hums and shimmers sometimes, and will move of its own accord in your backpack. 1 slot.
2. A maze of twisty indigo tattoos across your back and shoulders. A map? A diagram? A text?
3. A fossil in a lump of kiln sand. Some kind of scuttling thing, all shell and legs and razor wings. 
4. A shimmering, incandescent scarab beetle. Inside a little glass jar. Always tries to walk in one direction.
5. A bronze tablet, covered in strange runes. You can't read it. Seemingly no one else can, either.
6. An ordinary human skull, but made of hardened sand. There are legends of skeletons turned to sand; this may be proof.

--

Yeah. Sandy wizard. At some point I might get around to the "day-night-dreams-mirages desert wizard," but that's a big TBD.

Let me know what you think, or if you get a chance to use it.

d100 Seas of Sand tattoos & trinkets

 I'm running another Seas campaign shortly, so I made another couple d100 trinkets and d100 tattoos tables. Here they are:

d100 TRINKETS

1. set of matched jokers
2. clay smoking pipe
3. sharktooth necklace
4. wide-brim rawhide hat
5. camel’s lower jawbone
6. manual on snake handling
7. vial of bone sand
8. four strips of fish jerky
9. neck kerchief, blue
10. brass bangles
11. golden front tooth
12. studded nose ring
13. bells meant to be sewn into a braid of hair
14. tiny prayer wheel
15. foreign coin on a string
16. silver thimble
17. tin of beard & mustache wax made from snake oil
18. geometric-patterned sash
19. high-grade eyeliner
20. green silk scarf
21. veneered, gilt dagger
22. random major arcana
23. sealed jar of honey
24. two hand-rolled cigarettes
25. nip of scorpion tequila
26. steel trident
27. red fez, gold tassels
28. curved pointy shoes
29. big hoop earrings
30. huge baggy pants
31. inlaid drinking horn
32. set of bone pipes
33. scrapwood fiddle
34. live tarantula in a glass jar
35. carved dice & cups
36. vial of antivenom
37. huge silver belt buckle
38. pamphlet-sized starmap
39. soft camelskin jacket
40. “legitimate” war medal
41. a blue glass eye
42. lobster claw on a string
43. old copper pentagram necklace, verdigris-y
44. letter from a former captain
45. a working music box
46. shed cobra’s skin
47. shrunken human skull
48. a golden sewing needle
49. a broken scimitar
50. feathered tricorn hat
51. black leather eyepatch
52. wooden peg leg carved to resemble an eagle’s talon
53. bottle of rum, near empty
54. seax knife, still sharp
55. animal mask
56. mummified cat
57. a pair of old socks
58. collection of shiny beads
59. 10 ft. of silken rope
60. a locket with a cameo of a lover inside
61. three wedding rings
62. an old papyrus manuscript
63. pamphlet on the very graphic dangers of STDs
64. a fancy curly wig
65. crocodile-leather sandals
66. a cracked, busted compass
67. arrowhead, unknown metal
68. tattoo needle & ink
69. camel-hair monk’s habit
70. a pair of sandproof goggles
71. bouncy camel-bladder ball
72. clay tablet covered in esoteric runes & glyphs
73. broken brass pocketwatch
74. half of a sailor’s astrolabe
75. dried-out husk of a tentacle
76. a cluster of ripe bananas
77. a flask of pirate’s grog
78. straight razor & towel
79. seven different fancy colored leather belts
80. false nose, wood & bronze
81. a nautical chart from some distant far-off watery sea
82. a round leather drum
83. a key carved out of bone
84. a large, strange egg
85. finger-sized oilskin pouch
86. diver’s helmet (no suit)
87. pair of silver shackles
88. monstrous claw preserved in embalming fluid
89. an actual bar of soap
90. ancient bronze sickle
91. bottle of luxury perfume
92. snuffbag full of rare salts
93. two dried peppers, extremely spicy
94. deed to unknown land
95. pouch full of crop seeds
96. saucy pin-up star calendar
97. pack of dog-eared cards
98. set of crytalline marbles
99. brass knuckles
100. one-eyed ship’s cat

d100 TATTOOS

1. random scribblings
2. ring of roses
3. geometric glyph
4. dice showing snake eyes
5. line of crawling insects
6. smiling drunk camel
7. gatehouse & portcullis
8. the letter “P,” “S,” or “W”
9. a lighthouse
10. “Eat Me Last”
11. collection of black dots
12. thunderbolt
13. cobra head, leering
14. crossed harpoons
15. perfect shiny diamond
16. “R.I.P.” + name
17. “Mother” +  heart
18. pair of swallows
19. 1d10 anchors
20. queen of hearts
21. 1d4 of the four card suits
22. vulture with a black halo
23. crescent moon
24. bone structure diagram
25. lion print tracks
26. paper lantern
27. line of stitches
28. grinning skull
29. “Eight Lives Left” & a cat
30. Lucky #13
31. “Real Flesh & Blood”
32. lemon slice
33. constellation
34. full-body squid
35. seven-pointed star
36. dead man’s hand
37. rat king of 2d10 rats
38. two sandships crashing into each other
39. fishbones
40. swarm of locusts
41. angel with a burning sword
42. grappling hook & rope
43. big pile of golden coins
44. series of musical notes
45. perfect equilateral triangle
46. seahorse unicorn
47. pineapple
48. supine, nude figure
49. eyeball, on the eyelid
50. burning book
51. flickering candle
52. 1d20 random playing cards
53. “Vox Clamantis in Deserto”
54. 1d10 words in foreign script
55. “Upstanding Citizen of” + random city
56. cow skull
57. swordfish
58. “Pillage, then Burn”
59. random set of 1d4+1 initials
60. 1d20 bands
61. unbalanced scales
62. sunburst
63. ourobouros serpent
64. empty grave
65. halbear, the halbeard bear
66. fully-rigged sailing ship
67. broken heart + name
68. “Keep Well Lubricated” + drop of water
69. coil of rope
70. exotic dancer
71. “Hold Fast”
72. compass rose
73. twisting glass dragon
74. matched palm trees
75. spider crab
76. all-seeing eye
77. checkered grid, 2d20 × 2d20
78. ship’s wheel
79. rooster
80. “Memento Mori”
81. “Water is Gold”
82. empty waterskin
83. chain, 2d20 links
84. “Silence”
85. skittering centipede
86. spyglass
87. “F.U.B.A.R.”
88. tornado
89. cluster of ripe bananas
90. “Too Pretty to Die”
91. spitting camel
92. meat cleaver
93. 1d100 tally marks
94. snail on the edge of a knife
95. treasure map
96. crown split in half
97. salt cube
98. mushrooms
99. crate + weight in lbs.
100. just a big glob of indigo ink

I might also be putting out another set of Seas rules sometime in the future. TBD. 

Big Wet Three: d100 Trinkets, Yes-Sir-ee!

I love trinkets lists. This one's for the Big Wet. 

1. Tin of spam
2. "Flooding Procedures and You" government pamphlet
3. Old-fashioned spyglass
4. Disposable camera and enough film for 25 photos
5. High-grade nautical chart, now 100% useless
6. Manual of sailor tattoos
7. A cool geode
8. Four caffeine tablets
9. Half-dozen glo-sticks
10. Bandana
11. Rubber duck
12. A single glow-in-the-dark condom
13. Denim jacket, sleeves optional
14. Barber's razor, battery-powered
15. Tourniquet
16. Nose ring
17. Tattoo gun, no ink
18. Doc Martens
19. Wallet full of mostly-useless cash
20. One wedding ring for each finger
21. Excised tumor in a little jar
22. Bright blue jerry can, reads "potable water"
23. Spare tire
24. Fingerless black leather gloves
25. Matched spiked bracelets
26. Twister, but missing the spinner
27. Pack of cigarettes
28. Dog tags
29. Pack of balloons
30. Surfboard, tie-dye colors
31. A hefty canoe oar
32. 12 oz can of Coca-Cola
33. Bottle of extremely old codeine
34. Ice axe
35. Chocolate bar
36. Set of allen wrenches, missing two
37. Palm-sized wad of sticky-tack
38. CD jukebox, battery-powered
39. Shemagh scarf, like the cool military bros have
40. A bullet with "BASTERD" poorly carved into it
41. Diver's wristwatch
42. Wraparound shades
43. Four-pack of twinkies
44. Complete Yahtzee! set, no scorecards
45. Basic travel-sized makeup kit
46. Male enhancement pills, questionable efficacy
47. Trusty beanie, slouch-able or ear-covering as needs be
48. Sharktooth necklace
49. Inner tube
50. Staple gun, no staples
51. Roll of scotch tape
52. MRE: fettuccini alfredo
53. A weird scary bug in a jar
54. Acoustic guitar, missing a string
55. BB Gun
56. Matched shot glasses
57. Super high-end hydroflask
58. A pouchful of dry earth
59. Rubik's cube
60. A packet of Lisa Frank stickers
61. Nokia phone, still working, no signal
62. Baseball cap, Boston Red Sox
63. Cowboy hat
64. Growler of moonshine, mostly empty
65. Lobster cage
66. 10' of barbed wire in a little sack
67. Rubber-band ball, 6" across
68. Hard hat with "expendable" stamped across it
69. Snorkel
70. Really fancy switchblade with an in-laid handle and everything
71. Lock of red hair
72. Bowling ball
73. 6-months sober token
74. A random major arcana card
75. Ushanka
76. Compass
77. Bundle of coat hangers
78. Dozen permanent markers, in full rainbow bright colors
79. Bottle of hand sanitizer
80. Raggedy-Anne doll
81. Big, powerful magnet
82. Harmonica
83. Stack of Playboys, waterlogged and blurry
84. Black eyepatch, medical-grade
85. Super high-grade tactical cargo pants
86. Roll of paper towels, dry
87. A weird skull
88. Love letter
89. Windchimes
90. Pack of poker cards
91. REI gift card, $100
92. Six feet of 0.75" PVC pipe
93. Crucifix on a necklace
94. Sixer of light beer
95. Three $10,000 poker chips on a string
96. Small desk fan
97. A fucking sword
98. Athletic elbow- and knee-guards
99. A dozen granola bars
100. A strange radio that beeps out a single Morse code letter every dawn

Some entries (lovingly) stolen from Mothership, KISHU, and the Face gang. 

Taxonomy of Powered by the Apocalypse Games, some flawed-but-still-cool research

I turned this in as a final for art-history-of-games-ish class this semester, so I thought I'd put it up here for shits and giggles as well. 

This is a somewhat-exhaustive taxonomy of PbtA games, tracking ten different systemic mechanical elements in each, and a loose kind of succession between them. It's not perfect, in that my methodology is sort of flawed and there are definitely errors and omissions floating around, but it's a useful visual nonetheless, I think.

Here's the PDF. You'll want Acrobat for this, since it's dependent on the different layers. If you don't have Acrobat or otherwise don't have access to the layers feature, here's a .zip file of all of the graphs as images.

And just to show the mild absurdity of this whole thing, here's what the graph looks like with every single layer turned on simultaneously: 

Anyway, let me know if you have any questions or want to give me grant money to do more of this research or whatever. 

Big Wet Two: Equipment Boogaloo

 Continued from the first post.

This post is about stuff. Mostly gear. 

Remember that bullets are currency. I'll do an actual inventory rules-post at some point, but for now, assume the standard 10-12ish slots per person.

GIANT LIST OF WET WEAPONS

As we all know, blogger hates tables, so here's the table instead:

Here's the link to the PDF.

If you're unfamiliar with Mothership, here's a brief overview of the bits you might not understand:

• Underlined numbers are multiplied by 10. 2d10 has a range between 20 and 200. 
• Short range suffers no ill effects; medium range imposes a -10 penalty; long range imposes disadvantage
• [+] means advantage, [-] means disadvantage
• Crits are any double (11, 22, etc.)
• Automatic weapons fire in bursts. If you're trained in firearms, you get to use the (parenthesized) number, otherwise it's spray and pray. 
• An average person has about 60 health, give or take. That might go down for Big Wet.

Everything else on this table should be relatively self-explanatory. 

Some rules and stuff about guns:

1. Shooting a gun is a regular combat action.
2. Reloading is a regular combat action.
3. If you spend 30 seconds lying or kneeling down with your gun braced on something, taking careful aim, you can give yourself advantage on the next shot you take.
4. As established previously, guns generally don't mind getting wet, but firing underwater is essentially impossible.
5. Remember that bullets are currency, so all the costs listed are in bullets.

Some notes and thoughts about this table:

• Melee weapons are very cheap, and deliberately so. Fighting in melee is a messy, dangerous gamble, and in the Big Wet, there's no guarantee you can make it to your opponents without having to swim or wade through muck. 
• It lacks a lot of the common "improvised weapons" you see in apocalyptic settings (bricks, screwdrivers, bicycle chains, etc.), mostly because there are too many to list. If you need rules for those, I'd have them deal 1d10 by default, +1d10 if they take two hands, +1d10 if they have sharp or exposed edges. 
• Guns get pricey fast. This is also deliberate: post-apocalyptic settings don't often have much to work towards, and so I think having some visible-but-not-available rewards for players is a good thing. Also, they can just fucking shred people (and things...?), so they shouldn't be cheap.

GIANT LIST OF WET GEAR

And here's a big list of gear and equipment that you might use:

This is only the first page!

Most of this gear should be pretty self-explanatory. 

Tracking bullets, batteries, and slots I realize is extremely fiddly, but at the same time, this is a survival game: those kinds of small details really, really matter. You could maybe hack in Usage Dice (a la the Black Hack) for batteries and gasoline and stuff, but because bullets are currency, you really do have to track them. (On the flipside, you'll never have that many, so there's isn't much to track anyway!)

BIG WET FUTURE II

That's all I've got for now. Next time, I'll hopefully get to vehicles, food, and armor, all of which I have a few ideas for, but nothing 100% certain yet. 

Also, if there's interest, I might outsource some of this, and run a Big Wet Challenge for the good folks over on the spillway, in true GLOG style. 

Let me know, in any case.