Gallimaufry is a collection of 18 (and counting) items for Troika!
The item descriptions are free/PWYW, readable as HTML within the itch product page itself, for easy rules referencing during online play. A print-friendly PDF will be forthcoming once I decide the item collection is finished. The items are also licensed CC-BY 4.0 so feel free to adapt and remix into your own rulesets and modules, including ones sold commercially.
Bestiarum Geondica
Bestiarum Geondica is a bestiary that's free to download. @NateTreme made a simple monster-name generator and crowdsourced people to write tweet-length descriptions of monsters they'd rolled up. The Bestiarum collects 100 descriptions (including two by me) along with the generator tables. It's an excellent read! BYO stats, populate your next hexcrawl or campaign setting with them, you won't regret it.
They're turtle people. You have a stronger idea of what that means for your setting than whatever guff is in the monster manual.
Physical Detail (d12)
irregular, blotchy shell colours, almost like leopard spots
belly indicates sex: concave is male, convex is female
powerful, bone-crushing jaw
looong neck, as long as your torso
bright red belly in youth, slowly fades to orange with age
overlapping spurs on your forelimbs, like a pine cone or scale mail
upper jaw tapers straight down like a hawk's beak
spiny, crinkly brown head like a fallen autumn leaf
each scute of your shell is pale in the centre, shading to a dark border.
small pig-like snout
spiny ridge down the centre of your shell
light and dark lines run radially through each scute
What trinket do you carry with you? (d6)
a crude knife made from a sharpened clam, given to you by your youngest child.
your great grandmother's claw, yellowed and brittle, bound tightly to your forearm with a woven bracelet.
a jar of toasted seaweed you traded for. you allow yourself little snacks as a reward.
a fragment of speckled sea glass. it throbs in seawater.
tattooing needle and bright ochre inks. you are still unmarked but will be ready when the time comes.
a glass bottle you found floating in the sea, holding a crude map of an island you do not recognise and a letter in the human tongue pleading for help.
Stats for Old-School Essentials and other retroclones
XP Requirements. As Magic-User
Ability Score Requirements. Con 9
Languages. Alignment, Common, Lizard man
Saves. As Fighter. Saves vs wands and breath attacks are made as a Fighter 3 levels higher, due to your protective shell.
Attack. As Fighter. You can wield all weapons, but tortles usually disdain bows and crossbows in favour of slings and thrown weapons more resilient to wet environments.
Hit Dice. 1d8 per level, +3 per level after 9th.
Claws. You can make melee attacks with a hand that isn't holding anything. This deals damage as a dagger, i.e. 1d4, if the optional rule for variable weapon damage is used.
Hold Breath. You can hold your breath for 6 turns (60 minutes). Strenuous activity such as combat consumes air at twice the normal rate, or a minimum of 1 turn.
Shell. Your Armour Class is as plate armour, i.e. AC 3 [16]. You cannot wear armour over your body, but you can wield a shield, and can benefit from magical bracers and greaves.
Swimming. You aren't an exceptional swimmer compared to other aquatic demihumans, but you are more adept than a typical human. Whenever you negotiate an aquatic hazard, adjust your odds of success by 10% on a percentile roll, or by 2 if the referee prefers an ability check rolled on d20. See Hazards and Challenges: Swimming. Note that a single failure is unlikely to cause drowning, due to your Hold Breath ability, but subtracting 1 or more turns of available air is a possible outcome of a failed roll.
Tortle Progression
Level
XP
Hit Dice
To-Hit
Saving Throws
Death
Wands
Paralysis
Breath
Spells
1st
0
1d8
19 [+0]
12
11
14
13
16
2nd
2,500
2d8
19 [+0]
12
11
14
13
16
3rd
5,000
3d8
19 [+0]
12
11
14
13
16
4th
10,000
4d8
17 [+2]
10
9
12
10
14
5th
20,000
5d8
17 [+2]
10
9
12
10
14
6th
40,000
6d8
17 [+2]
10
9
12
10
14
7th
80,000
7d8
14 [+5]
8
7
10
8
12
8th
150,000
8d8
14 [+5]
8
7
10
8
12
9th
300,000
9d8
14 [+5]
8
7
10
8
12
10th
450,000
9d8+3*
12 [+7]
6
5
8
5
10
* Modifiers from CON no longer apply.
Optional: Separation of Race and Class
If you are playing with the Advanced Fantasy Genre Rules, tortles have the following benefits.
I strongly disagree with that book's decision to adjust ability scores, and haven't provided such adjustments. Similarly, come up with your own demihuman level limits if you want to.
XP Requirements, Ability Score Requirements, Saves, Attack, Hit Dice: As your chosen class.
Languages, Claws, Hold Breath, Navigator, Swimming: As above.
Shell. As above.
Additionally, your bulk may hinder certain thief-type skills at the referee's discretion.
Your shell doesn't affect divine spellcasting, but does impede arcane spellcasting. If you belong to an arcane spellcasting class, you have half the spell slots (rounded up) that that class would normally have at your level. e.g. a 7th-level tortle Magic-User has two 1st-level slots, one 2nd-level slot, one 3rd-level slot, and one 4th-level slot.
Your shell grants you a bonus to saving throws versus wands and breath attacks. This bonus is dependent on your CON score, as follows:
6 or lower: No bonus
7-10: +2
11-14: +3
15-17: +4
18: +5
Other Advanced Genre Rules Class Notes
Knight. A tortle Knight of 5th level or higher may train aquatic monsters as mounts at the referee's discretion.
Paladin. A tortle Paladin of 4th-level or higher may summon a sacred crocodile instead of a warhorse. AC 5 [14], HD 5+5 (27 hp) Att 1 × bite (1d8), THAC0 14 [+5], MV 90’ (30’) / 90’ (30’) swimming, SV D8 W9 P10 B10 S12 (4), ML 9, AL Lawful
Someone was asking about ways to do die-drop tables online (other than pointing a webcam at a physical sheet of paper and dice, I guess). At first I was thinking about some program that opens a png, picks a random pixel, and looks up the RGB value to determine what's encountered. Then I realised if I could make it work with Hex Kit, it'd be way prettier. And it turns out Hex Kit's .map files are really just renamed .json files, so it's super-easy to just pick a random tile in that json, get the filepath to the associated image for that tile, and look up the filename in some user-defined dictionary.
So here's a quick proof of concept. You'll have to download the script and run it in the command line, since I still have no idea how to make a proper webapp. It's pretty limited, but maybe it's of some use to people.
The example provided is a small random encounter table that's for use in a city, but based on the surrounding surrounding wilderness. Is it a good random table? No. Does it suffice as an example? Sure, I guess.
Human-Readable Version
Roll a d6 on the above hex map. Note which hex type the die lands upon, look it up in the following table. Some entries also use the face-up side of the die. Treat coastal hexes as their land terrain-type, not as ocean.
Hex Type
Encounter
Jungle (dark green)
Traders from the jungle clans. They have [1. brightly coloured snakes, 2. shavings of bark from various medicinal trees, 3. river-gold, painstakingly panned, 4. six glowing orbs of various sizes, looted from a sunken temple, 5. giant capybaras, excellent pack animals, 6. scavenged goods from the last, failed military expedition into the mountains] for sale.
Meadow (light green)
[1. A few, 2-3. Several, 4-5. Dozens of, 6. Hundreds of] farmers angry at the viceroy's new taxes
Mountain (brown)
The elephant-powered klaxon sounds. An air-raid from those goddamn mountain pterodactyls again. They carry incendiary bombs in their talons. Parents shoo their children into stone cellars.
Ocean (blue)
A ship sails into port, bearing the flag of [1. Redbeard's pirates, 2-3. the Imperial Navy, 4. the Open-Handed Ones, 5. one of the petty river-kings, 6. a PLAGUE SHIP]
Swamp (purple)
The swamp-sorcerer has sent envoys to purchase research materials. They are looking for [1. a live bear, 2. a chunk of floatstone from the Flying Fortress, 3. the bitter tears of a child who's just learned Santa isn't real, 4. silt from one of the jungle's more alkaline rivers, 5. tobacco, the good kind, 6. a human heart] and will pay well above market price for speedy delivery.
Volcano (orange)
KRAKABOOOOOOOOOOOM! The volcano erupts, huge pyroclastic cloud sweeping over the farming hinterland. You see wealthy folk rushing to buy as many supplies as possible and hunker down, while the poor look on with dread at what is to come.
Here is a quick draft of a random generator I wrote for determining how dungeon factions relate to a trick room of the dungeon. It's not fully baked, but I want to share it in the hopes of getting some feedback.
What do I mean by "trick room"? Some examples include the 20 pieces of strange dungeon decor I wrote a year ago, or Nick Whelan's Deadly Dungeons (pdf, print). Now, this isn't "trick room" in the strict AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide sense, as the list of strange decor aren't all puzzles or obstacles. It also includes "environmental storytelling rooms", basically anything odd or seemingly out-of-place that holds the players' interest.
Anyway, if you're grafting a trick room into a dungeon with factions — say, kobolds, goblins, and the peaceful tooth golems that just want some quiet time to relax in their fluoride pools — then it helps to know which faction controls the room, and what their attitude to the room is. You know, so the graft will take.
Roll on the tables, or just use the questions they present as a starting point for your own brainstorming. Embrace apparently incongruous results. Do the human bandits value the room because they are drawn there to spawn? Maybe they're not quite as human as they seemed.
1. Who controls the room now?
1-4. A dungeon faction (choose faction randomly, then roll on [3])
5-6. It's in no-man's-land — roll on [2]
2. Why is it in no-man's-land?
Factions are new to the dungeon. They either haven't discovered the room or are racing to claim it.
Warding spells preserve the room, conjuring spirit guardians who attack those who deface it or linger too long.
The room was controlled by a third, recently ousted faction.
The room appeared out of nowhere just last week.
Factions have agreed to treat the room as a neutral meeting ground, a place of amnesty where blood may not be shed.
3. Faction relationship with room
They don't know it exists
They know it exists, but have put "unravel its secrets" on the backburner while they deal with more pressing issues
They actively fear, avoid, or loathe the room
Mixed feelings, or the room is the focus of some intra-factional conflict
They value the room — roll on [4]
They will defend their possession of the room to the last person.
4. Why do they value/defend the room?
They believe it to be tactically useful in defense against other dungeon factions or marauding adventurers
The room has resources that fulfil material needs — roll on [5]
The room has spiritual significance — roll on [6]
Another faction seems to really want it, therefore we must deny it
We held the room in the good old days, WE MUST HOLD IT AGAIN!
5. Material Needs:
An inportant food source can be found here
They use the room as shelter, living or work space
they quarry the walls for building materials
they are instinctively drawn here to spawn
6. Spiritual Needs
They inter their dead here.
This is a church or temple to them, a place to perform rites.
This is a site of historical significance, a sacred place in their cultural memory.
7. How do they defend/control it?
They garrison fighters within the room.
Barricades and locked doors.
The room is well behind the border/front line — get past that and very little stops you from reaching the room.
They've placed a magical curse upon those who trespass.
They regularly scry on the room, or have tiny animals, insects etc keeping tabls on it. That is, you can easily trespass into the room, but they will know and rapidly respond
They don't defend it. They are a trusting people.
8. What happened to the Builders?
They're still around — they're one of the dungeon factions. They may still possess the necessary architectural skills, they may not. They may currently hold the room, or have been ousted.
Their civilisation was destroyed long ago by climate change. Ambient magic keeps this room at the temperature they preferred — a temperature uncomfortable for humans.
They tired of their former lives and shrunk themselves to micrometre scale. Their whole society is still here, busy exploring and documenting the strange vistas and denizens of a mossy flagstone in the corner.
They have embobbled themselves in anticipation of some future age, putting themselves in temporal stasis inside silver orbs blood-warm to the touch. The bobbles are stacked in neat rows in this room and elsewhere in the dungeon. A bobble can be moved, but cannot be breached, nor its contents determined.
Pestilence. Their skeletons, contorted in agony and covered in virulent growths, lie in mass graves under the floor of this room and elsewhere in the dungeon. Erosion may have exposed bodies, or created voids about to cave in.
They were colonists, whose ideology of superiority led them to underestimate their colonial subjects. They were driven out, their monuments destroyed, all except for this one.
Floating glass tektites are scattered around this desert oasis. A crater lake, with thirsty animals lapping at its rim, and a gleaming shard of impervious midnight-blue metal at its epicentre. The shard emits a low droning sound, those who sleep within earshot dream of true events occurring far away.
The last of the bison live in the taiga around this frozen rift lake, which lies hidden from greedy foreigners by forbidding mountains. The water is home to giant diatoms, whose spiny, porous shells bodies hold an opalescent glimmer. The locals say the changing colours are a glacial language, and if you are patient, you may learn the diatoms' ancient secrets.
A limestone cenote filled with clear, still water, yet the bottom cannot be seen. Shelves protruding into the sinkhole are home to multicoloured freshwater snails, each feeding off detritus that falls from the shelves above.
A steaming lake of blood-red caustic water. Flamingos are the only animals in sight, laying eggs on mudflat isles safe from predators. The nearby city mummifies their dead kings with these alkali waters and build hidden tombs for them in a nearby valley. Waxed boats ferried by burn-scarred hands retrieve the calcified bodies of birds who die in the waters, to inter as immortal guardians.
A stepwell of concentric pentagons sits in these arid hills, supplying water to the surrounding villages. It is part of a temple complex dedicated to the Five Winds. If you commit any violent act here, the four surviving winds will forsake you. You will never feel their cool caress, and any ship you embark will find itself becalmed. Monks ritually cleanse themselves in the waters, each hoping to be the one who gives birth to the fifth wind's next incarnation.
This river meanders, throwing off oxbow lakes. Giant water lilies cover the lakes' surface, sheltering juvenile fish awaiting the next flood. When the moon is a sliver in the sky, these lakes swell with power. Nomadic crones pluck fish out with bare hands to read their entrails, and sew fishskin cloaks to turn aside the church's knives.
Halfway up this frigid mountain is a ravine full of low rolling fog. At the end: hot springs and a hidden elfin forest. Stunted trees, ferns and mosses cling to life in the poor soil, while snow monkeys descend the ravine to warm themselves in the water. Tiny wooden shrines placate the eel gods, whose flicking tails cause the mountain to quake.
A huge salt crust under open sky, dotted with hundreds of tiny pink pools. Ants, lizards hiding under the crust and clumps of salt-fruited shrubs are the main wildlife. This ephemeral lake floods when monsoons fall just right far to the north. An explosion of fish and plantlife brings legions of pelicans, sandpipers and gulls, until the lake dries up again.
The base of this waterfall, carved out by the scouring waters, is where the hero god slew the winged snakes. The reeds growing here make the lightest and strongest of spears. You should make a pilgrimage here when weapons are needed against the greatest of foes.
The waters of this lake are a cunning illusion — boats will float, thirst will be seemingly sated, but the remains of foolhardy explorers dot the surrounding forest. The locals know not to drink, but to instead float offerings in tiny rafts. The offerings make their way to a palatial museum under the false lakebed, whose mysterious Curator releases tailored phage viruses to protect the locals from plagues.
I'm writing a bunch of portals from our world to the fey world. The final list may have 36 entries? Here's 12 of them anyway.
The format of these is a little in flux. To be a better aid for the referee, I would like to come up with cryptic hints for each of these portals, something a divination spell or a selkie warlock might determine. But those hints haven't been forthcoming yet. I was never good at cryptic crosswords ;-)
If you like these, consider joining my patreon. I won't be putting any exclusive content on there, but you will get free download keys to anything I put on itch.io, and patrons at the $2 or $5 level can commission content from me.
A tree felled by lightning, its stump, burned with Lichtenberg figures, has been carved into a tiny wooden temple. Make an effigy of yourself and place it at the temple gate. You will then fall into a slumber, and wake in the temple's replica on the other side.
The land-catfish stalks the mudflats, three storeys tall, striding on four thin storklike legs. You must trick it into swallowing you. It is otherwise uninterested in human prey.
Two hawthorn trees in eternal bloom, each on a lonely hill. Bring flowers from each to pollinate the other, then enter at the third point of the equilateral triangle.
(obviously there are two such points, and both lead to the fey world. But one is foul, the other fair)
A grove of baobab trees stands on an arid ridge. Their trunks bloat with water, they shed leaves in the dry season. One is audibly hollow, contains a spiral staircase down to an unseeable depth, magic "static" disrupts darkvision and dispels light. Only mundane light sources can be brought in.
A well in the middle of the forest, water gleams obsidian. Cast a token of affection into the well, and a tendril of water will emerge, holding a stone face. Kiss the face to cross over.
In a land where earth tremors are common stands a narrow arch of verdigris-crusted bronze, 50 ft wide and 100 ft high. A Fomorian croquet hoop, in phase with our own world. When the tremors start, their game is under way, and by swearing to obey the rules of the game, you may pass through and play. Mind the 50 ft diameter croquet balls!
An old cottage, seemingly abandoned except porridge is bubbling over a firepit, about to burn. Quick! Stir widdershins thirteen times and the flames will turn violet, letting you pass through without harm.
(note widdershins is counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere, clockwise in the southern)
A bullaun stone, its central depression holding a cupful of rainwater. To cross over, make an offering by tipping all the water onto the ground and replacing it with wine. However, the bullaun stone has a shrine which visited by many who believe the rainwater has healing powers. They will not appreciate you wasting the water.
A huge banksia pod, covered with dry bristles and embedded, woody beaklike fruits. Expose a fruit to fire and it will split open, revealing a cramped, winding tunnel. Crawl in the dark for what seems like hours to emerge in the fey world.
A frigid, windblown island, albatrosses and beetles the only animals in sight. Wild herbs in bloom, but no trees. An abandoned spire of elven make stands in the island's centre, upper third covered with undulating metal bristles. Inside is a magic mirror, and a fine clockwork mechanism. The machine runs whisper-quiet, unspooling tape, punching needle holes in it, and letting it pile in a tangled heap on the floor. Bring the tape to the mirror, and you will be allowed to cross over with it.
A grassy plain with a white stone monolith, surrounded by smaller red sandstone forms, weathered by wind into vague human shapes. At night they come alive, singing rock-people. Teach them a new song, and they will show you the secret path into the Alabaster City.
A folded paper fortuneteller abandoned on the ground, glowing numerals on broad, waxy leaf. The inner tabs claim to tell your future. They don't, but if you commit the act described, you will cross over.
These are written for a rugged coastal/archipelago setting.
locket from a drowned sailor, oil painting of her lover’s eye on a thumbnail-sized piece of ivory, lock of his hair concealed within.
nålbound woolen jumper with embroidered narwhals. soft and not itchy in the slightest.
mussel shell engraved with overlapping circles and strung on a leather cord. A talisman that keeps your spine limber, able to hold weird poses for hours.
small leather knife roll holding a pair of brass knives for oyster & clam shucking. Fit perfectly in the hand.
textile cone shell, concealed poison dart within.
accurate maps, indicate 1d3 sunken wrecks still worth looting.
basket of pigface fruit, deep red succulent flesh, salty-sweet.
painted pebble, floats in water despite its weight, reputed to ward off water-borne diseases.
earthenware pot of salted, fermented fish. Putrid to those not used to it.
vial of anti-blood, covers up the smell of blood in air or water, repels sharks and possibly other predators.
vase that preserves cut flowers indefinitely as long as the water is changed.
hole-punched tin lantern shaped like an anglerfish.
jar of silt from the most fertile floodplain in the known world. Spread over a hectare (~2.5 acres) will double crop yield indefinitely.
dried seaweed, triples dive-time when consumed.
reed panflute shaped like a dorsal fin, perfectly tuned, timbre carries feeling of low menace.
wax-paper packet of peppercorns.
ebony comb, cool in the hand, never snags or breaks a tooth.
pocket hymnbook, well-worn, each melody annotated with improvements.
mother of pearl snuffbox, filled with a mixture of powdered tobacco and willow bark, temporarily suppresses exhaustion.
shepherd’s crook, linen strip tied to it always flutters in direction of lost flock. Also works on ranger’s companions and similar bonded animals.
This is a tiefling class for use in OSR games. The design goals are:
Allow customisation but also randomness.
Support some of the blastiness of later edition tieflings (yet to be implemented), but also how most people seem to like-em, as charming con-artists
Avoid character builds and players thinking about what they get next level. Acquiring a new fiendish power should happen because it fits the events & unfolding story occuring in play, not because the chart says you get a new one at 3rd level.
Still be a useful resource for 5e players.. Some of the minor traits have specified game effects beyond appearnce, keep them system-neutral as much as possible. Write the fiendish powers such that they make decent replacements for the Hellish Resistance and Infernal Legacy traits of 5e tieflings.
Ignore the Great Wheel cosmology for something more personally interesting, but avoid being so far gone that they're nonsensical within that cosmology.
Make all-tiefling parties interesting.
note if you're looking for a tiefling name generator, try these:
Requirements: None Prime Requisite: DEX and INT Hit Dice: 1d6 Maximum Level: 10 Attack as: Cleric Save as: Cleric XP as: Cleric Allowed Armour: Leather or chain armour, shields Allowed Weapons: Any Languages: Alignment language, Common. Circumstance causes many tieflings to be Chaotic, but they have mortal free-will, their path is for them to determine. Prime Requisites: If your game awards bonus XP for high prime requisites, a tiefling must have at least 13 in one or the other prime requisite in order to get a +5% to experience. They must have a DEX and INT of 13 or higher to get a +10% bonus.
Abilities
Combat: Tieflings may use any weapon, armour up to chain, and shields.
Minor Traits: Your heritage is apparent to those who can read the signs. Roll any reasonable number of times on the Minor Traits table below.
Fiendish Powers: You start with one fiendish power. Roll twice on the Fiendish Powers table below and choose one. It is possible to acquire more of them, ether through your actions in play, or via a roll of 100 on the Minor Traits table, but not through levelling up.
Each time you learn another one, it may be chosen by player and referee based on story appropriateness, or chosen from a random selection of two, as above.
If the campaign offers many opportunities to acquire new fiendish powers, the referee may choose to restrict the total known to no more than your level.
Taint of Demonkind: The more you accept your fiendish heritage, the more you become entangled in the many conflicts of the Outer Planes.
When making a reaction roll for an Outworlder or a mortal animal (who are perceptive of such things), you or the referee roll 2d6 + 1d6 per fiendish power you possess. You then total the worst two dice and apply any reaction modifiers.
A modified result of 2 or less with an Outworlder indicates that both of you feel the instinct for conflict in your very blood and soul. Intelligent Outworlders may be able to control these instincts, but Outworlders of animal intelligence will simply attack.
Note many mortal animals will cower or flee on a modified result of 2 or less, only attacking if cornered.
Thief Skills: Tieflings often have to turn to criminality to survive. You have some training in two thief skills. Roll or choose from the list below:
Climb Sheer Surfaces
Find or Remove Traps
Hear Noise
Hide in Shadows
Move Silently
Pick Locks
Pick Pockets
Read Languages
Note that wearing chain armour or a shield may interfere with some thief skills at the referee’s discretion.
The tiefling starts with some training in those two skills. The referee will explain how the skill system works, may have a different skill list in mind, or may let you define your own freeform skills. For a rules-as-written B/X game, use the “Rolling on d100” variant under Conversion Notes for the Referee, below, and if Hear Noise is one of the chosen skills, convert its odds to d6.
Reaching 9th Level: Your fragment of fiendish power reaches its true potential.
Design a magic seal. A visage of you can be conjured by any petitioner who draws that seal. The real you is unimpeded in any way, but is aware of and can control the visage. Through it, you can speak with petitioners, and grant them any one of your fiendish powers. You do not lose the gifted power, and may revoke it at any time.
You attract a cult that starts with 2d6 mortal worshippers. Even if you choose not to design a special seal, one mysteriously appears in grimoires throughout the mortal plane. It’s too late. You have a cult now.
Your path to becoming a true demon prince, should you choose to walk it, is left to the referee to determine. It will involve great suffering and sacrifice, not necessarily your own.
Minor Traits
Roll a d20 if you want more "traditional" tiefling traits, or a d100 if you want a wider range. Roll as many times as you feel like.
Some entries have have multiple options listed in [brackets] -- roll a d6 or choose.
Some entries are contradictory, others can be reconciled. e.g. perhaps you have striped skin of two different colours?
snake fangs
seven-fingered left hand
tail [barbed, dog, hare, peacock, rat, serpent]
can conjure gold jewellery into existence on your body, or gold coins into your hand. They're real, but disappear if they leave you.
blue skin colour [pale, dark, muted, vivid, iridescent, glossy]
sulfurous breath
wings, small and nonfunctional unless you have the Wings fiendish power [bat, bird, draco lizard, flying fish, locust, luminous geometric forms]
palms reversed
no pupil or sclera, eyes are solid [black, blue, green, red, silver, gold]
birthmark, the symbol of a forgotten god. Only functions as a holy symbol if you convert.
antennae instead of a nose
objects you carry are twice as likely to break
other mortals find food tastes amazing in your presence
eye arrangement like to a jumping spider: two large primary eyes, two anterior lateral eyes providing peripheral vision, four posterior eyes (vestigial)
you cannot dream. 1 in 6 chance of parasitically hopping onto nearest mortal's dream each night.
total absence of body hair
Roll an extra fiendish power
Fiendish Powers
Change Shape. You can change into an alternate form, which is either in the shape of an animal or a chimera of two animals. You decide this form when you first gain this power.
Changing form does not alter your hit points, to-hit, or saving throws. Other statistics, including ability scores, movement, attacks, special senses, and abilities, of the alternate form are left to the referee to determine, and are not necessarily based on any existing monster statistics for the form chosen.
Extra Face. You are only surprised on 1-in-6, and have +2 to saving throws vs traps and similar natural hazards. This face manifests wherever you see fit, e.g. a complete face the back of your head, eyes on the back of your hands and a mouth on your torso, etc. The face can see, smell, breathe, and speak.
Facethief. You can swap faces with a creature of human size and shape by pressing your hands against their cheeks for 10 minutes. This lasts indefinitely. You can choose to apply relevant minor traits to your new face. Once the choice is made it cannot be revoked, and faces transferred from you keep any applied minor traits.
False Radiance. You can cause your body to emit a sickly light, illuminating surroundings to a distance of 30 ft. This ability takes 10 minutes to activate or deactivate.
Familiar. You can beseech the Planes for a familiar. The process takes from 1 to 24 hours (referee's discretion). While it is a spirit from the Planes, it takes the form of an animal of your choice. The animal cannot be one that attacks for more than 1d3 points of damage, or inflict a poison more dangerous or debilitating than a typical bee sting. A non-exhaustive list of suitable animals is provided below. Regardless of form, the familiar has an Armour Class of 7[12], Hit Points equal to 1d6+1, and Saving Throws of a 1st-level Fighter (unified 14, or D12 W13 P14 B15 S16)
As long as you have line of sight to your familiar, you can project your mind into its body, perceiving what it perceives. This provides no additional control over its behaviour -- it must be within earshot to receive new orders from you.
Familiars are more intelligent than ordinary animals. A familiar understands its master's known languages, and can communicate with its master using animal cries that only its master understands. While not subject to reaction or morale rolls, a familiar treated poorly by its master will find ways to exact revenge, petty or otherwise.
If a familiar dies, you may not conjure another one for a year and a day. If you die and you have line of sight to your familiar, you can permanently project your mind and live on in its body. You retain your Fiendish Powers, but have the Hit Dice and AC of the familiar. Your thief skills and saving throws become that of a 1st-level tiefling. You share control of the body with the familiar’s soul.
Familiar Forms (d66)
bat
kiwi
raccoon dog
capybara
lizard
raven
cat
locust
seagull
chicken
mantis
sloth
cockroach
monkey
snail
dingo
moth
snake
duck
mouse
spider
fox
nudibranch
squirrel
goat
octopus
toad
hawk
opossum
wallaby
hedgehog
pigeon
wasp
ibis
rabbit
weasel
Flight. You are capable of unpowered flight. If you gain this fiendish power a second time, you are capable of true flight. If you don't already have wings, you can roll d6 on the first entry on the minor traits table, or simply decide you can levitate through some unseen force.
Hermetic Lore. You have a 3-in-6 chance of identifiying any herb, poisonous plant, or precious stone. This knowledge is mystical and innate in nature. Add 1-in-6 to this chance for each additional fiendish power you possess. If this raises the chance to at least 6-in-6, you instead roll 2d6, failing only on a 12. At the referee's discretion, this knowledge may extend to alchemical and ritual uses for such materials, possibly at a penalty.
Hidden Ways. You can slip through the cracks of reality, taking yourself and creatures in physical contact with you to a Transitive Plane. Using this power takes 10 minutes. Creatures are entitled to a saving throw vs spells to resist the effect, but if they fail and are unwilling to follow you, must find their means of returning home.
This plane maps strangely onto the mortal world, allowing rapid travel. In this space, you can travel at 5 times your normal overland travel rate (note in B/X, this means you can travel miles per day equal to your base movement rate, typically 120').
Once you reach your destination, you can re-enter the mortal plane, emerging in a location within 6 miles of your destination.
At the referee's discretion, this may also be used to travel to other planes in the campaign's cosmology, at greater peril.
The transitive plane contains many Outworlders, which will prompt reaction rolls. The referee should determine the nature of the transitive plane, or roll on the table below:
d6
Transitive Plane
1.
the Plane of Shadow, through a glass darkly
2.
the Celestial Bureaucracy, a dozen dozen layers of precise inefficiency emanating from the Supreme Being
3.
the Sea of Chaos, unseen and unformed
4.
the Dream World, semantic, incorporative, subconscious, malleable
5.
the Stack, fragile tower underpinning all, micromanaged by daemons
6.
Space, the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism
Psionics. You can telepathically communicate with any creature that meets your gaze, as long as you share a language. Additionally, roll a random 1st-level magic-user spell. You can “cast” that spell once per day with nothing more than a thought. Unlike other powers, this one may be gained again. Each time, roll on the next level of spells. (The referee may also allow you to roll on other spell lists, such as the Cleric list, or the Elementalist list provided in Theorems & Thaumaturgy, or may replace this with a psionics system of their choosing).
Sense Desire. You can perfectly sense if a being is sexually attracted to you. Note this does not tell you if they wish to act on this attraction, merely that the attraction exists.
Sin Sense. You can stare at a mortal for 10 minutes to detect the degree of un-absolved sin. If the mortal fails a saving throw vs spells, you also learn the predominant, general nature of such sins, such as wrath.
The nature of this power may vary from setting to setting, depending on the relationship between the mortal, the divine, and the afterlife, if any.
Speak With Dead. You can reanimate a creature's remains for up to 10 minutes and compel it to answer three questions. It is an Outworlder and thus makes a modified reaction roll toward you, but is unable to lie and its threats are impotent. You cannot reanimate the same creature twice.
Tiefling Level Progression
To-Hit lists two numbers, the first is THAC0, the second, [bracketed] value is for ascending AC systems.
Saving throws, in order, are a unified saving throw, and the old-school saving throw categories: death/poison, wands, paralysis/petrify, dragon breath, and rods/staffs/spells.
The unified save values are taken from Swords & Wizardry: Whitebox. All other values are taken from B/X: Essentials, including ascending to-hit, calculated as 19 - THAC0. Adjust as necessary for your preferred ruleset.
Tiefling Level Progression
Level
XP
Hit Dice
To Hit*
Saving Throws
Unified
Death
Wands
Paralysis
Breath
Spells
1st
0
1d6
19 [+0]
15
11
12
14
16
15
2nd
1,500
2d6
19 [+0]
14
11
12
14
16
15
3rd
3,000
3d6
19 [+0]
13
11
12
14
16
15
4th
6,000
4d6
19 [+1]
12
11
12
14
16
15
5th
12,000
5d6
17 [+2]
11
9
10
12
14
12
6th
25,000
6d6
17 [+2]
10
9
10
12
14
12
7th
50,000
7d6
17 [+2]
9
9
10
12
14
12
8th
100,000
8d6
17 [+2]
8
9
10
12
14
12
9th
200,000
9d6
14 [+5]
7
6
7
9
11
9
10th
300,000
9d6+2†
14 [+5]
6
6
7
9
11
9
*First number is THAC0, for use with descending AC systems, the second [bracketed] number is for use with ascending AC systems. †Hit point modifiers from CON no longer apply.
Conversion Notes for the Referee
Thief skills are one of the most-houseruled subsystems in old-school games -- you probably already have ideas on how to revise how the tiefling’s skills work. Go with what feels right -- make them modifiers or advantage to appropriate ability score rolls, tweak the odds, make them rolled on smaller die types, combine, separate, or define new skills...
If the level-up process would take a thief skill above 100% odds, ask yourself whether this is meaningful, and if it isn't, tell players to reallocate excess odds. That is, do you referee in a style that involves situational modifiers to thief skills? In B/X as-written, the only thief skill that exceeds 100% is Pick Pockets, which specifies a penalty based on the target’s level.
You may also decide to allow players to choose where to allocate increased odds, or weight it in favour of skills that the character has practiced in-game. You might also allow characters to progress in a third skill.
If you want to overhaul all the skills to be d6 or d20, I suggest the following guidelines:
Rolling on d6
1st level: Choose two thief skills. The tiefling starts with a 1-in-6 chance in each. If Hear Noise is chosen, it starts at 2-in-6 instead.
Level-Up: Increase one of the chosen skills by 1. Flip a coin to decide which one.
Rolling on d20
1st level: Choose two thief skills. Roll d6. The tiefling starts with that number of ranks in one skill and 7 - that number in the other skill. If Hear Noise is is chosen, it has +3 ranks.
Level-Up: Flip two coins. Put 1 rank in the first skill for every heads, and 1 rank in the other for every tails.
Rolling on d100
1st level: Choose two thief skills. Roll 2d20. The tiefling starts with that percentage of success in one skill and 41% - that number in the other skill. If Hear Noise is is chosen, it has +17%.
Level-Up: Roll 2d6. Add the total to one skill, and 13 - that total to the other.
If the referee wishes to keep Hear Noise rolls on the traditional d6, divide the percentage by 17 and round up. Keep a note of the percentage for whenever the tiefling levels-up.
The goal of this list is to be weird, sometimes ominous, but not immediately hazardous.
I'd use this to provide tangible hints of a room's history (or perhaps at what the whole dungeon was originally built for) and overlay a "what the current faction uses this room for " table.
Ancient scorch marks and glassed rock surfaces. Whatever took place here weakened the barrier between worlds. During an eclipse, the barrier weakens further, and the various dungeon factions will temporarily truce and set up market here to trade with extraplanar visitors.
A copse of transparent-needled pine trees, growing in an unseeable light. Spending significant time here (e.g. camping overnight) runs the risk of radiation poisoning.
Scrawled-on parchment scraps joined by red twine are affixed to every square foot of wall. A player can pose a question about the dungeon and have their character spend 2 turns (20 minutes) sorting through these notes for a 1-in-6 chance of a correct answer, and a 1-in-6 chance of an erroneous answer. The author's bones, picked clean by flesh-eating beetles, lie in a crevasse elsewhere. If his journal is recovered the odds of a correct answer increase to 4-in-6. The walls hold enough information to answer six questions, however long that takes.
A ghostly ecosystem drifts through the room. It contains 1 metre wide, 10 metre long jellyfish, small fish, miniscule zooplankton, and bacteria visible only as a shimmering ghost-sediment. At present, they are intangible and harmless.
A clockwork well constantly generating a lot of noise. If cranked, it will dispense precisely 1 litre of water. If oiled, will generate much less noise for about a week.
Metal filings cover the floor. They stand on end, and are repelled by iron or steel.
A tiled pool filled with tepid, shin-high water that is potable and magically self-cleaning. Dungeon monsters bring their toddlers here for swimming lessons.
Detailed, life-size origami effigies of the player characters stand in the centre of the room. Pulling a lever on the wall will cause the effigies to refold into whatever creatures will next walk into the room. Creatures who are aware of this mechanism's existence become immune to its powers.
Yellowed, curling WW2 propaganda-style posters warning denizens to be ever-vigilant of water weirds (or some other "trap" monster).
Twenty meathooks holding clay sculptures of animal carcasses. Some are realistic, some abstract, some naïve.
A stream of ants marching between two crevices, carrying thin scraps of gold leaf (1,000 scraps = 1 gp) from some unseen treasure vault to another unseen room where the ants farm their gold-metabolising fungus.
An automatic tapestry loom dominates the room. It slowly, in real time, documents the history of the local surface-world lords above. Go on, cut a thread in active use, just try it.
Crystal egrets fish in a lake of unknown clear liquid (harmlessly passes unabsorbed through the system of any human who drinks it). If exposed to sunlight, the egrets will grow sickly and crumble to dust in the course of a few days.
This room has no flat surfaces, and is really a void in an irregular packing of chrome spheres of various sizes. Each sphere is worth its weight in silver, but may cause a cave-in if shifted.
A low ceiling covered in cloth sharply transitions some 40 ft into the room to a much higher ceiling out of view. The low-ceiling area is littered with human-size mousie toys.
Prominent stone wall, carved with a phylogenetic tree of all demihuman and humanoid species known to the characters, plus several unknown ones. This might be multiple trees if the setting history doesn't have descent from a common ancestor. One entry is chiseled out, but the stone is extremely hard and resists common hand-tools.
A nanosun about 1 metre in diameter hovers in the centre of this roughly spherical room. It provides bright reddish light, local antigravity (one can walk anywhere on the sphere's interior), and the occasional lashing streamer of solar wind.
Huge excavated tree roots with taps installed -- the sap is delicious and nourishing, but pleasantly dulls perception and is partly antimagic. Drinkers are resistant to spells (including beneficial ones) and have difficulty casting spells, these effect scales with dosage.
Immobile electrical apparatus fills most of the room, with a prominent terminal featuring numbered dials and a gramophone horn. Racks of large carved stone ears line the walls, each ear is 2 metres long and carved with a serial number. Dialing a number into the apparatus lets you listen through the corresponding ear over any distance. A random number has a 1 in 6 chance of connecting to one of the ears in the room, a 1 in 6 chance of connecting to an ear in some random nearby location, and a 4-in-6 chance of being an unassigned number, connecting to a buried ear, or being otherwise useless.
This whole room is a time-capsule buried by child godlings, It features 20 ft tall trading cards, an enormous packet of expired gum that now only grants *delusions* of godhood if eaten, amber marbles with humans imprisoned inside, and a really interesting stick. Disembodied choral harmonies are faintly audible at all times. Reading the cards' divine language aloud risks wild magic effects. The really interesting stick is quarterstaff-sized, and can be brandished as an action to transfix all creatures within 30 ft of you. A Paralyse/Petrify or Wisdom save negates the effect, which otherwise functions as Hypnotic Pattern (see the Illusionist spell in AD&D 1e or OSRIC, or the D&D 5e spell). The stick isn't magical. It's just really interesting.
Been tinkering more on the Python project mentioned in my last post. Now it'll roll up BX characters, including characters higher than 1st level. My source for the BX rules is Necrotic Gnome's BX Essentials line, but it would be fairly straightforward to adapt this to a different game like AD&D or a close-ish retroclone like LotFP or Basic Fantasy. I'm having issues with Gitlab right now so source code will have to wait, but example outputs are in my Drive folder Features:
rolls 3d6 in order, then chooses a class that would allow the biggest XP bonus for high Prime Requisites. This was an interesting inversion from the 5e script that picked a random class and assigned scores to fit.
Override options for class & each ability score, if you want to quickly generate 100 magic-users for Mystaran Hogwarts.
Finds the correct THAC0, saving throws, thief skills etc for character level.
Determines max # of retainers, their morale, bonus languages known, literacy, optional initiative adjustment, etc, all according to BX rules.
Determines spells prepared, if applicable. BX being strictly Vancian, it chooses spells with replacement.
Class dictionary can be easily modified to include homebrew classes that use the shorthand of "save as dwarf, attack as magic-user, casts cleric spells with the spells/day of an elf" or whatever.
It doesn't do equipment, AC or to-hit adjustments yet, and I've just realised it doesn't properly handle reversible spells. A proper implementation would indicate clerics can reverse on-the-fly, while prepared MU/elf spells would be 'fixed' as either normal or reversed.
It also doesn't weight towards cure light wounds or other staples when selecting spells. If using this for pregen PCs, you might want to let clerics spontaneously convert prepared spells to cure spells, hand-edit some of them beforehand, or let your players choose to swap out some spells before the character begins play. Nor does it produce pretty output. It would be trivial to get this script to output characters to a csv file, but coding the prettification script would take longer.
Again, hope someone gets some use out of this. :-)
I've been busy brushing up on basic Python programming skills, and for the past several days I've been working on a random generator for D&D characters. e.g.
Jaden Starhammer
Rock Gnome
Folk Hero, Rogue 1
Str 12, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 16, Wis 13, Cha 11
Proficiencies: Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Perception, Persuasion, Survival
Expertise: Animal Handling, thieves' tools
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Appearance: Towering
Physical Detail: Hoarse voice
Clothing: Blood-stained
Personality: Grumpy
Mannerism: Breathy
Currently it only supports 1st-level, though some of the infrastructure is there for higher level.
I'd also like to write a script for generating BX characters, perhaps other systems.
Janelle Shane's list of neural-network-generated D&D character names , here
and this dictionary of medieval names from European sources
(naturally, adding lists of non-European names is high on my to-do list)
I had a lot of fun writing this. It was just the right level of difficulty for my depression-brain to get into a flow state. How I've missed that :-)
If you have any suggestions or bug reports, you can submit them via gitlab. You can also write a comment here, but it'll be easier to keep track of them there.
...because i'm still in the closet in my real-life games, so my faithful readers will have to put up with this instead.
The crown prince wearing a terrible false moustache. Tall, regal bearing, but nervous as heck, constantly looking over his shoulder, flinches at the slightest touch. This isn’t his first time here; the other patrons usually play along.
High-elf leather-daddy with handlebar moustache. Vegetarian, his accoutrements are actually mycelial “leather”. Main kink is spanking willing submissives with mage hand when they least expect it while they’re performing various errands for him.
High-femme dwarf in Marie Antoinette-style fashion. Her wig has a foot-long model spelljamming ship as a centrepiece. It is actually armed and capable of flight, though not of interstellar travel.
Thri-kreen drag queen, mock-devouring the head of one of her burlesque backup dancers. The most fearsome fighter here, usually the one to show violent patrons, obvious cops planning on entrapment, and wannabe-blackmailers the door.
A shy halfling from an outer rural province. Their first time in the city, they’ve sneaked away from their traveling merchant uncle for the night. Has a double of whiskey sitting on the table because they’ve read somewhere that people call it “liquid courage”. Sneaks looks at people they think are cute, but eyes constantly dart back to check no-one’s spiked their drink.
Orc twink in cloth-of-gold hotpants. Thick eyebrows, oiled hair, hates jokes about barbarian orcish endurance. Likes to flaunt the booty, but he’s not really into hookups. People who chat him up quickly get trapped in an animated, one-sided conversation about his ideas for siege weapons, him being unaware of how he may be boring someone who was just looking for a good root.
Plump, fluffy, topless tabaxi with nipple piercings all the way down. She’s asexual, here for the music and conviviality. Has a reputation for being a mom-friend, particularly to outsiders & people new in town. Has particular scorn for [11], would love to eat his trained mice fight in front of his stupid creeper face.
Big hulking bisexual crabman. Audible snickering from other patrons wondering how he’s supposed to get anyone off with those claws, and what does he even have down there anyway. Eyestalks looking down at his drink, which sits in a special oversized wooden sippy-cup that the sympathetic bartender carved for him.
Two snail-folk, madly in love. They’re caressing each other’s shells, each trying to surreptitiously shank the other with a love-dart to determine who gets to top tonight.
Kitsune (human form, with subtle vulpine features) in immaculate finery gently filing his claws while giving a sly grin at a random PC. Styled eyebrows, short auburn hair with widow’s peak, habitually licks his teeth. He absolutely refuses to do it in fox-form.
Gnome wizard who enchants people’s clothing to flag sexual preference, but only in proximity of a compatible flag. Long braided salt-and-pepper beard, mottled green robes with a sharp odour of cheese. A half-dozen trained mice who he can communicate with are nestled in his beard and robes. A total sleaze, will accept coin but continually suggests customers can pay with sexual favours.
T R O U G H M A N, a being from the Quasielemental Plane of Salt. T R O U G H M A N emanates a psionic aura that prevents people from referring to T R O U G H M A N with pronouns. Hungry for the salts of mortals, T R O U G H M A Nlies in the urinals offering minor planar treasures for people to piss on T R O U G H M A N.
