Death and Dismemberment Redux

The last few Google Plus Hill Cantons games have been real meat grinders, especially when compared to the sessions of their more stable, wary, and experienced table-top cousins. The mortality rate for men-at-arms is hovering around 100 percent and two PCs had their numbers called—almost.

Instead of InstaDeath I have been using the much-vaunted Death and Dismemberment chart, a veritable old school D&D Texas tradition first brought to fame by Robert Fisher a couple years back (I first encountered it the hard way in Norm Harman's Caves of Chaos hack).

Longtime readers will notice that I have posted a couple versions here before—all increasingly less forgiving then the original—the following version is the one I have been actually using in the campaign in the last year and a half.

May you never have to consult it—unless you damn well deserve it.

Hill Cantons Death and Dismemberment Chart

Roll d10 if a PC reaches 0 to -10 hit points (anything lower is an automatic death). If hit again during the session, the player must make an additional roll at -1 (cumulative for each roll on the chart). The GM can also adjudicate positive or negative modifiers according to circumstance.

With any result the character is out for the session unless magical healing brings hit points into the positive range.

1d10
0 or lower	Grisly Death. Body so spectacularly destroyed that only a resurrection or wish spell can bring it back to life.
1 to 3	Just Plain Dead. Dead as per the usual rules.
4 to 5	Fatal Wound. Character dies in 1d12 rounds unless magical healing is applied. Character is completely incapacitated and will remain an invalid for 3d6 weeks . Scarring makes for -2 to Charisma.
6 to 7	Severed or Mangled Limb or Digit. Roll randomly or GM pick for which limb or digit (can also be eyes, ears, or nose). Unconscious for 3d6 rounds. Character requires 3d4 weeks of healing before being able to adventure. -1 to Charisma.
8-9	Broken Bone. Roll randomly or GM picks limb. 3d4 weeks to heal bone. Also unconscious for 2d6 rounds.
10 or higher	Concussion. Unconscious for 2d6 rounds. 3D6 if not wearing helmet.

Further Notes from Sigil Underground

This morning I compiled and synthesized more information cribbed from Planescape canon about the undercity. (Thanks to John and Chris W. for tips about where to look.)

Putting this together, I just couldn't resist the siren song anymore no matter how much candle wax I shoved into my ears. Following Micheal's lead, as of this morning two bright and shimmery gates were penciled into locales in the Hill Cantons for players to discover (or not) as a possible entry-point for field trips to that strange, cold place.

Features of UnderSigil:

The undercity definitely exhibits many of the reality-bending features of the Mythic Underworld, though of a more deliberately fabricated kind. Sigil's underground is not made of stone for example. The underground material is hard, you need a pick and shovel to tunnel through it but it crumbles like rice cake when removed from the underground. Since it's not really rock there are no natural caves or cavern systems.

Many of the passages are unstable, rare localized “cagequakes” will often bring down tunnels causing 3d4 damage (save vs. breath for only half) to anyone caught in such a collapse. Ventilation is bad, travellers can only take exerting themselves at half rate (presumably this is where the old school resting rules come in).

The complex is hundreds of square miles of tunnels and chambers, most of which are empty. The tunnels rarely get wider than 10 feet across with even narrower corridors common.

The upper levels are fairly close to the surface level and are mostly composed of sewers, crypts, and dungeons (the literal kind, the High Houses have deep and extensive ones for prisoners and slaves) . Dabus tunnels, were-rat passages, and vermin warrens connect all of these areas with passages extending to deeper levels. Darkers, mysterious exile communities living wholly without light, live in areas just off these branch-off tunnels.

There are many entrances to the Realm Below scattered through the city. The easiest entrance is through the sewers. You have to wade though the muck and filth for a few hours but you will find mysterious passages and doors leading off. These split-off passages lead downward at very steep angles (presumably long too).

Surface crypts will often lead down into the catacombs too. Cagers (Sigil dwellers) will often dig down underneath the crypts to bury their dead and will enlarge on existing catacombs when they find them. Ghouls who live in large numbers under the Hive and Lower Ward often dig up to the crypts too.

Many ruined surface structures, especially in the slums of the Hive, have entrances into the catacombs. The dwarven neighborhood, Gurincraag is rumored to have several entrances. A deep, 200-foot shaft (in the Lower Ward?) with filth-dripping walls leads straight down in the undercity. There is no visible means of descent but a maze of tunnels branches off in all directions at the base.

The rat-dominated realms have four separate—and vast—networks dominated by collective brain entities called the Four Great Minds. Sewer rats, cranium rats, and were-rats are part of these domains. Were-rat warrens are filled with traps—mostly of the sharp spikey, poisonous and blade persuasion. Entrances to these warrens mostly extend to the walls of the Ditch in the Lower Ward.

The Temple of Darkness is a major complex of sinister Eviiiil underground. It's a refuge for the scheming “yugoloths”, who have nothing to do with crappy Balkan-made cars but are a race of Neutral Evil planars we old schoolers knew and almost-loved as daemons. It's mapped in Faction War, making it one of the only major underground sites (to my knowledge) with a tabletop canonical map. But keep that under your hat this place is secret and hidden.  

Pointcrawling Sigil's Undercity

In yesterday's post about the megadungeon possibilities missed in Planescape's hub city, Sigil, Michael Moscrip asked very nice and polite like for a setting supplement. Since he's ill-advisedly talked about running a Dickensian-like Sigil adventure—even going as far as to create a portal to it from the Google Plus pocket universe's Castle Nicodemus–it's in my enlightened self-interest to help out.

I am way too swamped to do a great sweeping treatment, but here's a stab at a few things to get someone going on creating a Sigil underworld of their own.

First of all, we have to deal with John's good, tough question from yesterday:

“My trouble with the Catacombs is that, in a way, they're too big. On the one hand I like the idea of the entire torus being riddled with dungeon passages. But if I have one entrance in the Twelve Factols and another entrance in the skull library, ten miles away, how can I ever link them up in a way that matters? For all practical purposes they're two separate dungeons. Do I "cheat" with miles and miles of empty passageways? Weird dungeon spatial warping?”

Yes to both seems most appropriate given what we know, namely that most of the undercity was created as work and living space by the tinkering dabus and that as many inter-dimensional gates exist below as they do above. If this section is to be believed you have something as reality-defying as the Mythic Underworld:

“Nobody's ever dug so deep that they come to the 'other side' of Sigil's toroidal surface. Those who dig deep enough simply disappear, presumably stumbling into a random plane, and nobody's ever been able to figure out a pattern to it.”

So how do you run such a sprawling beast? I suggested trying to apply my pointcrawl system (John answers his own question with some interesting remarks about a hex-based solution in the comments).

Above is a pointcrawl map listing every site that gets a mention in canonical material. Underscoring yesterday's point all but two of the sites, the Gurincraag (a dwarven neighborhood under the Lower Ward) and the Twelve Factols Inn (mentioned yesterday), are drawn from Torment.

Large boxes indicate major sites, worthy of a single dungeon level or two. Green boxes indicate a site that has humans or other overworld living creatures living there, blue indicate wholly “monster”-inhabited levels. The smaller uncolored boxes indicate “sublevels”, special areas that would typically be 2-10 rooms in a normal dungeon.

Unbroken lines indicate the more normal walkable tunnels and other . Squiggly lines indicate places joined by a “teleporting” portal (all such portals have some kind of material key to them). Arrows indicate that the connection leads downward in that direction. Connections should be of variable length and indicated on the map (out of laziness I didn't).

What about stocking these places? Here's where I am going to punt. Since the vast majority of this space is treated in the computer game—many of these areas get a highly detailed treatment in the numerous online walkthroughs of the game. You will find a number of useful links to maps and descriptions on the various levels and sub-levels here at Sorcerers.net.

Eyeballing these maps they feel too cramped, too square and oddish in shape to be a perfect fit for tabletop maps—and you have to deal with the meta-gamey knowledge of those who have played through—I would strongly advise using them as a launching pad, expanding the maps and areas over longer dimensions.

End of backseat driving, now go and build.  

The News from the Hills

Busy as all get out today, so I have for you today two microposts.

The first—second one coming early afternoon--being news from and for the tabletop and Google Plus players in the Hill Cantons campaign. A nice pictorial account of this Sunday's slam-dunk enjoyable face-to-face session can be found here.

And now the news...

Marklankh priests pouring poppy-wine ablutions on the darkened slab altar of the City Gods Sunlorday were startled to note a loud humming from the ley line conjuncture at their feet. Sensibly running madly away they were further shocked to note seconds later a 10-50 foot (sources vary) sickly-wattled creature with a score eyes and a bulbous tongue emerge from the structure bellowing wildly.

Said creature then proceeded to stroll northward wrecking havoc among the boulevard. Tens of structures were toppled and burned and several prominent citizens consumed. Ten and a hundred riff-raff and lesser sorts were also dispatched in the rampage before the creature flew into the air toward the northern mountains.

The cantonal Rada convened an emergency session to deal with the crisis—further fueled by a mysterious skirmish in the vicinity of the Lady Szara's manse last week. The usual suspects have been rounded up and put to the question. A bounty of 2,000 suns has been set on any ruffian who can bring the council the head of the scurrilous abomination.

In other news...

Planescape's Missing Megadungeon

It struck me the other day that Planescape is another of those tabletop settings that bitter-sweetly is both well loved and little played. Well...that is except for it's popular computer alter ego, Planescape Torment. Not only was that game played widely in the years around its 1999 release, it's considered a cult hit to this day.

Why the disconnect? Why didn't the tabletop version rocket into cult status too?

Undoubtedly there are many reasons: the rising primacy of computer games over face-to-face, the runaway popularity of the Bioware games of that era, Planescape's appearance at the end of the 2e setting smorgasbord, etc. But it occurred to me that part of it is that Torment managed to hit some deep D&D elements that the tabletop material glossed over in its drive to play toward being a rival with that White Wolf hooha of the time (thanks Robert and other readers for that particular insight).

Namely it made good on the megadungeon lurking under the streets of the setting's literal hub city, Sigil. Enamored by its original bits, most gameplay in the setting revolved around adventure around the planes and less successfully around political intrigue amongst the factions.

Hints at a undercity play arena were only vaguely hinted at. The original Sigil booklet has the haziest of mentions and it's only later with In the Cage: a Guide to Sigil supplement do you even get a peak at what a massively missed opportunity there was:

"The homes of the dabus [the weirdo, rebus-speaking floating worker drones of the city] are deep underground; some Cagers [Sigil citizen] say that the entire torus is a warren of dabus, and that the part of Sigil on the surface is only the face the city shows to the Ring, to travelers. The actual city is a maze of deep tunnels, storehouses, dungeons and corridors...”

That's a hell of a tease. The booklet goes on to continue to tease about the possibility throughout the book, detailing places like the Twelve Factols, an underground tavern where drunken obnoxious diners will on occasion force the serving staff to let them traipse into the deep passages that lead into the Catacombs behind warded doors. You hear a lot about the tavern in that passage but nothing about what lies beyond.

According to the Planewalker wiki this massive underground is only called “UnderSigil” by the Clueless (outworld newbies according to that annoying PS in-game cant), it is mostly known as "down below," "the Catacombs," "the Realm Below," or "the Labyrinths" according to the locals. The mention of it immediately makes me think of the romance of the giant undercities of Tekumel, where the ritual half-millennial clearing and rubbling over of the cities create layer over layer of rich adventure.

Whatever the name it is called (and I am partial to all of them as evocative titles) Torment was the only large-scale exploration of that play area in the setting. Play down underneath in the game simply rocks. Each sub-map of down below just drips with unique flavor and seem ready made for the sub-level punctuation of the sheer mass of a megadungeon.

You have a Buried Village under the heaps of the Trash Warrens. You have an entire underworld realm of sentient skeletons, zombies, and ghouls with a unique civilization, the Dead Nations. Another subrealm, the Warren of Thought, dominated by a collective rodent brain with its cranium rat and wererat minions. An animate skull library, the Bones of the Night, lorded over by a kooky wizard. Weird tombs and catacombs a plenty with talking carved heads and unique critters.

Great stuff in other words.

Play in D&D doesn't have revolve around the eponymous dungeon, but it's often at it's best as a game when the agoraphobia is kept under wraps by the comfort of a tight mortared ceiling. It's a shame that UnderSigil wasn't explored further, but I suppose that's what makes Gygax's famous parting words from OD&D ring so true yet again: “why have us do any more imaging for you?”

Indeed. Go forth and build your own undercity.

Factoids of the Hill Cantons: Unique Gear

Continuing in my series of posts from the Rough Guide to the Hill Cantons, I present today a piece of the unusual items that a visitor might find in a remote stall in the more exotic markets and trade fairs of the Hill Cantons. 

Rare Weapons

Poignard of the Overworld

Cost: 100 suns

Damage: d4+1

Weight:

A  long, lightweight thrusting knife with a tapering, acutely pointed blade and crossguard forged from a luminescent green ore from the “falling overworld”. Because of it's properties it can strike otherworldy beings. Usable by Magic Users.

Ostrovan Luft-Pike

Cost: 40 suns

Damage: d6+1

Weight: 15

A 24-foot hollow steel pike crafted by the weaponsmiths of Ostrovo and employed in the tight phalanxes of the HC townbands. The pike breaks down into four sections and carried in a leather tube on the march. Always strikes first in first round of melee. The weapon can be used from third rank, but only with sufficient head room (i.e. a terrible weapon in the dungeon). Double damage when receiving a charge.

Petard

Cost: 300 suns

Damage: 3d6*

Weight: 20

Small conical leather and chain bounded bomb filled with the “Seed of the Sun Lord” (an explosive material whose secrets are tightly controlled and regulated by the temple hierarchy). Typically employed to force a gate or breach a wall in a siege. The device uses a 1-minute fuse. There is a 1 in 6 chance of a dud fuse, necessitating a change out.

If an “18” is rolled, the damage dice explodes, roll another 3d6 and continue rolling if further 18s are scored.

Nettled Club

Damage: 2-5*

Cost: 60 suns

Weight: 5

This imported club is made from a woody cactus. Small thorns adorn the head of the club and can easily be broken off. A roll of a natural “20” with this weapon will inject a poison that paralyzes an opponent that fails to save vs. poison for 1-6 rounds.

Bone Dagger

Cost: 15 suns

Damage: 1-4

Weight: .5

A lightweight dagger made from a single bone claw of a great beast of the south. The hollow edge beneath the claw-point makes it an ideal poison delivery device and as such is a favorite weapon of the Hashasian societies of the Scarlet Sultanate.

Misc

Greek Fire

Cost: 5 suns/ceramic jug

Damage: 2d8

Made of naptha and other materials known only to the Society of the Sanguinolent Alchemists. Substitutes for the standard vegetable-based lamp oil of D&D.

Tears of the Atramentous Lady

Cost: 100 suns/drop

Small, rounded opaque white crystals said to be formed from the embittered tears of the Celestial Lady herself.

When consumed roll d10 (add WIS modifier):

1-3 Hoax. No effect.

4-6 Heal 3 hit points.

7-9 Heal 5 hp.

10 Heal 7 hp. +1 to AC for day.

Radegast's Dark

Cost: 20 suns/stein

The Dark is a special dark-as-night ale drawn only at select feastdays in honor of Radegast, the Old God of Hosts, Fermented Drinks, and Magister Ludis. Reportedly has supernatural powers, such as the ability to pass into the “spirit realm”, when enough is drunk to become inebriated.  

Armor

Half-Plate

Cost: 140 suns

Weight: 27

AC: 5

Fluted breastplate, groin protection and upper arm guards. Because of advances in metal-working in the HC, cheaper and lighter than full chainmail. The gilded version costs 520 suns.

Burgonet

Cost: 10 suns

Weight: 3

The burgonet is a steel helmet characterized by a high combed skull, brow peak, hinged ear pieces and blackened sections.