Crayola Dragons

I had a terrible idea the other day while playing with my daughter and her crayon set. We all love those crazy and obscure colors of the Crayola box... so why haven't these provided more inspiration for chromatic dragons?

The answer to that question is probably because that's a terrible idea... but it's one you can't unthink. So here you go: six ridiculous Crayola chromatic dragons.

Burnt Sienna Dragon

Classic D&D has an ochre jelly and an umber hulk. Why not a Burnt Sienna Dragon? This was clearly an oversight, if not a misprint. Well, now the error is rectified. The Burnt Sienna Dragon is an earth-based creature that lives anywhere it can borrow. Its breath weapon is a cloud of dust that chokes and suffocates, and has the potential to incapacitate on a failed saving throw.

Rembrandt painted in ochre, umber, and burnt sienna... and slew dragons like a boss.

Sepia Dragon

The sepia dragon is semi-aquatic and its head looks a bit like a cuttlefish. It adamantly refutes any relation to the Sepia Snake Sigil. Its breath weapon is a thick and sticky, brownish ink that impairs movement. The ink is likely to suffocate victims or cause blindness or disorientation if gotten in the eyes.

Periwinkle Dragon

The Periwinkle Dragon is beautiful, but deceivingly deadly. Its friendly demeanor is enhanced by its magical aura that calms and pacifies all within range. Its breath weapon is a sweet-smelling vapor that puts its victims to sleep. The Periwinkle Dragon is rather passive aggressive, and doesn't like to eat food that fights back. It is fire-resistant and can regenerate.

A friendly dragon for the Bronies. (ShopiStar)

Chartreuse Dragon

The Chartreuse Dragon lives in wooded mountains. It largely avoids humans, finding them distasteful both to the palette and in their demeanor. The Chartreuse Dragon's breath weapon is a line-shaped sonic blast.

Mahogany

The skin of the Mahogany Dragon very closely resembles the bark of trees allowing it to conceal itself flawlessly in its natural habitat. Here it can wait patiently for a meal to meander by before striking. Its breath weapon is cone of venom that has the consistency of pine sap and can cause paralysis and blindness.

Fuchsia Dragon

Of all the fabulous creatures, the Fuchsia Dragon is the most fabulous. Its lairs are pristinely laid out with the most stylish contemporary treasure available. Its breath weapon is a rainbow-colored cone that has the effect of color spray (immature dragons) or prismatic spray (mature dragons).

Don't act surprised.

In the Big House

Not long ago, this fascinating piece aired on NPR. It's about a prison in Venezuela that is run by the prisoners themselves. Yes, there are guards - but they only guard the outside to make sure no one unauthorized gets in or out. On the inside is an entire system of politics, economics, and hierarchy controlled completely by the inmates.

I was going to do a post, speculating about the different setting in which this could work, but then my regular gaming group started a discussion about our next game setting. So, this is what came out (with some minor edits).

CU-5028 is one of the Galactic Empire's remote penal colonies. It is a destination for all sorts of criminals from all ends of the galaxy. All sorts end up here, from cold-blooded killers to political opposition to lousy poets to tenant farmers who can't pay their debts. 

Several things make CU-5028 an ideal location for a penal colony. It supports a breathable atmosphere that can support standard forms of life and agriculture to sustain them. It also has a wealth of minerals that benefit both the local populace and the Empire at large. Most importantly, its highly charged ionosphere makes it impossible to get on or off except via the space elevator that connects to a single space port. 

While there is a contingent of government officials, the planet is run by the prisoners. A small garrison is present to protect the space port, and the number of prisoners on planet at any given time is tightly regulated. 

Touchstones: Firefly, Star Wars, any dystopian future, Australia's criminal history, Venezuelan prisons. (I was tempted to toss in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but I feel that our group would naturally take it there anyway.)

I'm dying to add more detail, but as a group we agreed to limit world-building until we decide on a setting and can do it collaboratively. I would love to hear what anyone else thinks about this, though.

An Amazing Moment

It is also not often that a campaign lasts for a decade. It's not often that a campaign reaches its conclusion. Yet, this past weekend we had a final session of Slaying Solomon, a game which had run with the same core players for over ten years.

Slaying Solomon was a Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG campaign that took place in Solomon, Massachusetts in the years immediately preceding Buffy Summers becoming the Slayer. Thus, at the outset there was a time limit. But for six game years to be played out over ten real years is remarkable.

Now, I have to note that I am a newcomer to this campaign. I joined up with this group a mere three years ago. BTVS follows the convention of dividing the story into episodes and seasons. My first session in Slaying Solomon was four episodes into the final season (Episode 6.4), which pretty much makes my character the Cousin Oliver of this Buffy prequel.

Still, three years is long enough to form a bond with the group, even if my character had not been around for very long. And I think that is what made the moment so special. When the campaign came to its climax, I and another newbie had a few rolls to make, but the drama belonged to the core players. We were able to sit back and watch 10 years of drama unfold among a group that was uniquely attuned to one another. This was plain in the way that the end came about in a way that no one had foreseen, but that everyone worked with seamlessly.

I must say that it was an evening that I will probably never witness the likes of again, but I am honored to have been a part of.

R.I.P. Sam Kessler. She saved the world. A lot. First.

The Kreekou

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I recently stumbled across another cool source for bestiary art: the speculative evolution community. Here scientists and artists team up to imagine what future species might be like or what species could have evolved in an alternative evolutionary history. It's cool stuff. The first pic that caught my attention was the moora, which is imagined as an arctic-dwelling bird.  So, I gave it some D6 stats and a story. Thus, I give you... 

The Kreekou

The kreekou: Because your campaign needs a vicious bird to roam the tundra. (Osmatar)

The kreekou is an extraordinarily large, flightless bird that inhabits the tundra and permafrost. It is uniquely adapted to the frozen lands. Its greasy and matted feathers keep it warm, while the fatty hump on its back allows it to survive for weeks at a time between feedings. The kreekou prowls the tundra, feeding on whatever it can find: animal or vegetable, living or dead. While it is primarily a scavenger, it can also be a ferocious hunter, especially when hungry.

I had been without food for three nights before the blizzard finally abated. The morning sun brought hope and relative warmth. But when I suddenly heard that hungry call – kaaarrreeekooo! – I knew one of us would eat that day.

        – From Tales of The Frozen Wastes

The kreekou itself is not a particularly bold creature. Under normal circumstances, it would just as well avoid a fight in favor of a meal that won’t fight back. Yet it can be persistent when sufficiently hungry. When forced to fight, it will close as quickly as possible, using its massive body to its benefit. Its bony, claw-like wings are normally used to prod frozen carrion, but they are equally good at pinning prey to the ice while its sharp break snaps away large chunks of living flesh.

Agility: 2D: dodge 3D, fighting 6D

Coordination: 1D

Physique: 6D, stamina 5D

Acumen: 4D: search 5D, tracking 5D

Charisma: 1D: intimidation 6D, mettle 1D+2, persistence 5D

Strength Damage 2D

Hit points: 30

Slam – 1D a successful attack has a chance of knocking the target to the ground

Stab – 1D+2 the kreekou will attempt to stab any prone target and pin it to the ground. Any attack that does X damage to a prone target

Bite – 2D while it will first try to eat anything it has pinned down, the bite can be directed at any target

Wild Spaces in Civilization

Several nights ago, we were driving home through the Park when we were forced to detour. A half dozen police cars with lights blazing had converged, closing the road and diverting all traffic through another neighborhood. It was obviously not a fender-bender or a kitten stuck in a tree; something serious had gone down. All of this happened just a few hundred meters from our home, which got me thinking about the juxtaposition of Civilization and Wild Spaces.

This is about as Jungian as an archetype can be: Civilization is the safe place and Wild Spaces are where bad things live. This has been done a million ways, and there are a million new and interesting ways to do it. Hill Cantons, for example, has a dramatic and interesting take on it.

What the detour got me thinking about is how close these worlds can be while being completely distinct. There are borders between these realms, and the Wild can live right there in the middle of Civilization. It could be a matter of leaving the city walls, or passing the last light in the park. Crossing those borders means one world bleeds into the other. And when the words collide, adventure happens.

So here are some Wild Spaces to inject into your Civilization without the need for players to travel for days to some remote Lost World crater.

Park

A beautiful park, where no one can hear you scream. (Beteabondieu)

Cemetery

Even in the day, it's still filled with dead things. (Trey Ratcliff)

Sewer

Sometimes, the wild comes for you. (Sunpig)

Abandoned building

Trespassers welcome! We're hungry! (Jan Bommes)

Other side of the tracks

Sometimes you just end up pretty far from your turf.

Under the bridge

Under the bridge downtown, that's where I drew some blood. (BriYYZ)

Alley

Yeah. Don't go there. (lordlucan)

Random Encounter Montage

Here's a mechanic for determining random encounters.

I've always hated giving the DM sole responsibility for accidentally running into a wandering monster. And when I ran lots of dungeon crawls, I'd always forget to roll. On the other end of the spectrum is one DM I played with who would dramatically roll a d12 for each hour of travel. His encounters were terrible, too. They typically involved an epic battle that completely distracted the party from the main story.

Anyhow, this method puts the chance of encounter in the hands of the PCs. It's a spin off of the 4e Skill Challenge mechanic, and will work well if you want to give your travel a montage feel. For every significant leg of the journey, each player must make a skill check. The DM should determine an appropriate DC/target roll that is consistent for the whole party. The player can choose the skill she wants to employ, as long as she describes how that skill is helping the party along. This is her moment in the montage to detail however she wants. Depending on the size of the group and the pace of the evening, going around the table once or twice should be enough.

Success means the party makes unimpeded progress. Failure means the player gets to play the lead role in a random encounter. Perhaps she is attacked first. Maybe she sets off the trip wire. Maybe she finds the mysterious ring of invisibility.

Alternately, if multiple players fail their checks, the DM could wait until the end of the montage sequence and present an encounter that encompasses the collective failure. That is, Sven's failure means the party will encounter a patrol of goblins, but since Maude also failed, the goblins will have a troll.

They Have a Cave Troll by Otis Frampton

The trick is in finding the balance. You don't want to have too many random encounters turning your evening into a suckfest, like aforementioned bad DM did. On the other hand, the risk of failure is what makes it fun, and putting that risk in the hands of the players makes it all the better.

Encounter Lanscape Chart

So, the dice have been rolled, and it's time to fight a wandering monster! Quick, bust out the big dry erase map or chart paper and sketch out the battle field... wait, where are we?

Here's a chart I came up with for random encounters in Kimatarthi. Since it's a pretty arid and hilly land, I wanted elevation and terrain to play a role in each encounter. It makes it easy to give a little extra flavor to each random encounter, and can also be used to give penalties and bonuses to movement, missile attacks, etc.

To use this chart, assume that the map is oriented so that the party is at the center, traveling from right to left - cardinal directions don't matter at the tactical level.

Then roll a d12 to determine the kind of landscape and its position relative to the party (e.g. they could be traveling along the top of a ridge or the bottom of it) and a d8 to determine the position of the enemy (1 is the top of the map, 2 the upper right corner, etc.)

Borrowing a page from +Zak S., roll the dice on the map to determine the position of any obstacles. Throw a few more unique dice if you want a busier tactical map. Draw these in as shrubs, rocks, ancient pillars, whatever you like.

Encounter Landscape Chart
Terrain	Party is traveling…	d12
Flat		1
Ridge	Along the top	2
Ridge	Along the bottom	3
Slope	upward	4
Slope	downward	5
Slope	across	6
Gradual Draw	up	7
Gradual Draw	down	8
Steep draw	Up	9
Steep draw	down	10
Wadi/Arroyo	Along the top	11
Wadi/Arroyo	In	12

Thus, if the dice are cast and bring up a 2 (d12) and 4 (d8), then the party is traveling along the top a ridge, and the monsters appear ahead of them and below the ridge (unless it's a flying enemy...). On a roll of 10 (d12) and 3 (d8), the party is heading down a steep draw and the enemy appears directly ahead.

Win, lose, or gradual draw. (Doronenko)