Humbling the Human Instant (Monsters)

More fun playing with Loch and Louis's monster generator. This time, I mostly went through a list of half-formed monster ideas and used the generator to flesh them out. This is why so many are humanoid in form.

For your own ease, here is an automated version of that generator using Spwack's list-to-html marvel: 

Pilate Bush

Grow slowly, only reliably reaching ambulatory adulthood near cataclysms and old battle sites. Lacking the full spiritual dimension of humanoids (which they are far more closely related to than true bushes), they seek to understand the divine spark of conscious life, like anatomists from the good old Burke and Hare days. They study victims spread-eagle, eventually giving up, drinking down the blood, and moving on.

HD 4. Armor: Needles. Attack: +2 impale/impale/impale/impale. Mind like a beefeater. Moves like an octopus on land— not apt, but surprisingly quick. # 1d2

• Needles: provide armor as leather, bypassed by sawblades, machetes, or fire.
• Impale: On hit, the target takes d6 damage. Until the Bush is dead, the target must make a grapple check to free themself from the needles. On a failure, they must either remain where they are or make a save vs death as they slide off the branch.
• Organization: tend to chase off others of their kind, but 50% chance an adult Pilate Bush is training its 2 HD offbudding. On that Treasure Type V lifestyle.

Eukaryote

Ancient pre-humanoids, chitinous guys with odd jaws and experimental shapes. Some tall and thin, others bell-shaped, others squat, and so on. Suspicious of intricate crafts, they count loyalty as the highest technology. Known for their anaugers, those who seek glimpses of the upcoming ages and help their community to plan for them.

HD 1. Armor: as chain. Attack: weapon or Friend. Mind like a first-generation business owner. Moves like an old man with a cane, swims with hesitant grace.

• Friend: Once all life feared the dry, deadly land. It was lightning, dancing light, that told them "I will go with you. I will bless and better you," In one round, a eukaryote can call out a spot for their friend to strike, and the vicinity goes tense with ozone. In the next round, the friend pounces, all flame and light— save or take 3d6 damage and everyone can see your skeleton.
• Lycanthropy: The moon has slain many Eukaryotes for fleeing his service in preference for the high-falutin land. A Eukaryote gets -3 reaction to all encounters found in the moonlight, and attacks against one in moonlight crit on a 19 or 20.
• Organization: undirected and ad hoc. Often encountered in groups of 1d8. Their spokesfigure is usually a carpenter or warrior. Elder Eukaryotes grow fatter shells and an extra HD, and are afforded bone kama as status symbols. Communities have Treasure Type D.

Carbonifer

Claim to have invented fire, but you'd think they'd be a bit more bored of it if that was the case. Broad-faced, neckless humanoid amphibians, they are genial swamp-dwellers who have through intelligence fucked up their ancestral niche. As a species, the carbonifer mates in the hot, dark summer, but suitable conditions can be simulated with enough smoke and fire. Small wars have been fought merely to gain hold of enough dry, flammable buildings to set the mood for an army's single's night. A more enthusiastic collier there has never been.

HD 2. Armour: sometimes. Attack: as weapon, or +2 tail whip 1d4. Mind like an impatient workman. Moves like a monkey in an axolotl's body.

• Coalsmoke: Groups of Carbonifers love to burn their so-special smokes, especially in exigency. Each subtle hue in the coal can be brought out by the patient screever to filter out some behavior or perception. This one filters out anger and fear, and thus pacifies. That one renders impossible the concept of an "army." When you breathe the smoke, save or have the intended concept filtered from you for 1d6 Turns. 
• Sluggard: Overexcitement mingles the fresh and spent blood in a Carbonifer's heart. They get -4 to grapples, physical saves, and the like.
• Organization: found in crews of 1d4 x 2, always operating in even numbers to facilitate use of the butty system. Carbonifers prefer their mixed coalsmokes to most magic items, but can meet or exceed the craft of dwarves with ten times the bulk and a steady-burning power source. Treasure Type G.

Nosto

Dignified and romantic, subtle and shrill, everyone dreams of dating a bat-person who fell from the moon in a meteor. But truth is often the disappointment of our dreams. These are a stoic and cynical lot, on a reckless mission to gain their way back home.

HD 1/2. Armor: Grace. Attack: Foil 1d6 or Bite. Mind like a James Bond. Moves in brief flutters, unused to the weighty earth.

• Grace: When holding still, unarmored. Otherwise, armor as plate and +3 to physical saves.
• Bite: Save or be suborned, charmed by the little guy hanging off your neck or arm, their skull flattening around their mouth. Control lasts for 25 rounds, minus victim's Charisma score. If the Nosto is killed before the duration ends, the affect [sic] continues until removed, dealing 1 damage to the victim.
• Organization: Nostos operate in isolated cells of 1d4+2, with a 2 HD handler. They are known to use magic wands and scrolls. Treasure Type S.

Hadean

Rocky centauroids from a world like our own volcanic past. They regard our experience of liquid water and plate tectonics as a pitiable state. Morose, cynical, and egalitarian.

HD 3. Armor: Rock. Attack: +2 (+4 when charging) Sledgehammer 1d8 or +3 Rescue. Mind like an umarell. Moves like an overladen deer.

• Rock: provides AC as chain armor, and DR 2 vs attacks that wouldn't be very effective against a rock guy, like a sword slash.
• Rescue: especially charitable Hadeans may try to carry off targets from their humid, soft-fleshed environs and rescue them to a nearby volcano or chasm. When a Hadean charges or rides by a foe, they can roll vs the target's AC to sweep them up. Someone who grapples their way free of a Hadean may risk 1d6 road rash damage (leather armor negates).
• Avert!: Hadeans regard lithostratic inquiry and geology to be the key to avoiding liquidity on their own world, and must save or be fascinated by sufficiently interesting minerals, fossils, or stones.
• Guileless: The unicameral Hadean mind is unaccustomed to flim-flammery, rhetoric, or legalism. It cannot assess whether a complicated series of logical statements are straightforward or deceptive, and thus many Hadeans regard the humanoids of our world like tottering tricksters. They get disadvantage vs. mazes.
• Organization: 2d4 clades (1d6) make up a pride, led by a 5 HD mare and a 4 HD quartermaster, who has a 50% chance of owning 1d4 stones similar to our world's feather token. Instead of a tree token, for instance, it might summon a lattice of gypsum. Instead of an anchor, a lodestone. Instead of a bird, a mole. Treasure Type A.

Pangean

Four-foot-tall brightly colored vulturoids, with round teeth, slutty mynacean garments, and advanced glass eyewear. Used to be top dog before their supercontinent-spanning empire was split apart by warring successor-generals and tectonic plates. Though their society is egalitarian and still very advanced in ingenuity, Pangean society at large disdains most of the world as jumped-up former colonies and ungrateful yokels. Nabobs seek to recreate their "golden age" society in missions across the continents, never admitting that the golden age they chase is long-set.

HD 1. Armor: none. Attack: Spell or Mammalesis Staff. Mind like a Lepidopterist. Moves like a vulture.

• Mammalesis Staff: used to keep servitor species in line, way back when. The target saves or grows more hirsute, spawns extra ossicles, broadens their forehead, and/or lactates. This deals 1d6 damage and 1d3 dexterity damage. If a creature is reduced to 0 dexterity in this way, they explode into a pile of live young of a new species. A staff has 2d6 charges.
• Dirge: to maintain their society's haughty and exclusive customs, Pangeans are stuffed with cultural programming and a literary canon like they're foie gras. If anyone plays the Notes of Noy, or quotes other examples of the works memorializing their lost empire, Pangeans must test Morale or flee and weep, thinking only of their losses.
• Organization: expeditions of 2d6 Pangeans, led by one 3 HD professor (75% chance of magic staff, 50% chance of 1d3 spell scrolls, 25% chance of treasure map) and accompanied by 1d20 non-Pangean servants. Treasure Type E.

Schioppa

Captured valkyries, left to winnow and molt in cages of armor plates, too clumsy to heal or carry, and too ill-oiled to sing thee to thy rest.  Most confuse them for ensorcelled armor with plaster wings. Sorrowing weapons of war, bound to bound forward like charging destriers to break a line, and leave the souls of the vanquished for the crows. Some wander the byways now, stuck in a never-ending pilgrimage, laying strangers low for there is nothing else they can do and no one to stop them.

HD 3. Armor: plate. Attack +6 Barrel Through 3d8 or +2 Buffet 1d8. Moves like a nurse just coming off a long shift, or like a drunken bull. Mind like a rambo.

• Barrel Through: with at least 20 feet of space to build up speed, a Schioppa can run straight through formations, walls, and even your scrawny ass, essentially running a path of destruction in a 60' straight line. Any hit that exceeds the target's AC by 5 or more throws them into the air, to somersault and crumple.
• Angelic: though diminished and pitywauling, the Schioppa still has scruples unbroken. Children and the totally innocent cannot be Barreled Through, and the monster is careful not to harm someone who is already dying. If she somehow breaks this prohibition, she must save or become demonmail.
• Bitter Fruits: A slain Schioppa's armor has a 50% chance of being cursed with one of the following: (d4) casts levitation at inconvenient times 1/day, -4 AC, frightening afterlife dreams that prevent rest, or -6 to attack Lawful creatures. Otherwise, a set of armor is worth 1,000 to a collector or 2,000 to a godi or jarl. Treasure Type U.

Breaker Guardo

The elite soldiery of and main export of Breakerland , a remote mountain nation which maintains shrines to gods of traps, gold, and lack of moral outrage, even trapping the few tunnels and passes into their land and banking for demiliches and Orcuses. There are two sorts of Breakers— those who carry a knife, and those who carry a knife and a short-hafted mancatcher. The cream of the crop are rented out to patrol and vouchsafe the bodies of  warlords, dungeon masters, and most famously, the faith head of the Archdruidal States. 

HD 2+2. Armor: Costume. Attack: +2 Mancatcher or +2 Knife 1d4. Mind like a child soldier. Moves like a parade ground bravo.

• Costume: Pantaloons and doublets of slate grey or marbled marble flicker into braggadocious technicolorcolor right before the Breaker attacks. Ambushes on a 1-2, as long as they remain still. Protects as leather +1.
• Mancatcher: On a hit, the target takes 1d6 nonlethal damage from the jostling spikes within the collar, and saves or is grappled. If reduced to 0 damage while mancaught, the victim is half-conscious and helpless, easily led and unable to defend themselves.
• Ancient Enmity: goes postal in the presence of a Gessler, an explosive skeletal wheel-shaped creature known for trampling crops by night and thwarting the looting of cities and churches. And you know what? Fair enough. Also fears other tokens of their local superstition, such as the linden leaf, depictions of Lady Medusa, and the touch of a Lawful cleric.
• Organization: Found in platoons of 2d4 squads of six. Like to carry magic items as a display of wealth, but tend not to use them. Treasure Type C.

Carnifex

When the wrong person is interred in a sarcophagus, especially a chamber intended for a rare and noble personage, the unrest in the ceremonial vessel and the lich can mingle together, spiraling around the unrest of lacking the proper inhabitant. Stone swells over the fingernails and tastes the gums. Bone swirls through and around the coffin. Once waiting becomes unbearable, the box-body floats up and begins to search for the right occupant.

HD 6. Armor: Lithossum. Attack: Apprehension and +6 Crash 1d8 or +4 Swallow. Mind like a starving rat. Moves like a mastiff running on ice.

• Lithossum: The ornate planes of the box are easy to strike (armor as leather) but harm is only suffered when attacked with something that has a reasonable chance of damaging stone.
• Apprehension: the mind of the Carnifex rubs against yours, searching for familiarity that will never come. You sense death probing you. Save vs fear or refuse to approach the Carnifex for a turn.
• Swallow: the lid unhinges to engulf someone— perhaps this is the correct occupant? If it is, the carnifex immediately disanimates. Otherwise, it begins to drain the moisture and youth from the victim, 1d4 Constitution damage each turn. The Carnifex will always use this ability after crashing into a group of foes.
• Vacation: The box's interior still contains the rooted skeleton of the original, erroneous occupant, the skull flickering with electrical force. When the skeleton is exposed (including during and right after the Carnifex attempts to use its Swallow ability), it can be attacked. It is unarmed and lacks the Lithossum ability, and when harmed inflicts double damage on the Carnifex. Treasure Type B.

These last two were largely the creative work of Renegade, who is very good at synthesizing a strong concept from the table results. I composed the words.

Scadu Fairies

The shadows of fairies, and some say their opposite. Rough and crass, they bring unwelcome news and unwise solutions, then demand they are enacted. They're always saying things like "So what if she gave back the ring? She can't run around with someone else!" and "You should kill your boss!" As a group, they have a raggedy hierarchy like kids playing soldier.

HD 1/2. Armor: smallness as chain. Attack: +1 needle 1d2. Speed: annoyingly fast. Mind like a tattle-tale. Moves like a dragonfly.

• Things of Shadow: Live in the shadows of flowers. At night, you can't see them and therefore they disappear until sunrise. They are flammable, and if one member of a cloud of Scadu Fairies is ignited, there's a 50% chance a nearby one will be too (and so on and so on). 
• Organization: Frequently appear in clouds of 2d10 or more, dispersing into a spy network to sniff out wrongdoing and demand the person they imagine to be the victim to seek justice. Treasure Type U.

Melach Hashuta

Also called a Fool's Angel. This creature hides in cavern pools, turning them into deadly sludge. A golden crystalline thing that can shift from the form of a pillar to a pile to a grasping tendril. Its touch fills water with sulfuric acidic. Made by an ancient logos as a chthonic angel to protect the occulted teachings of that godhead, and gradually parasitized by pyretic structures which help it drink up the vital juices of interlopers.

HD 5. Armor: as chain. Attack: +5 slam 1d8. Moves with lumbering reproach. Mind like the scripture of an inhuman god.

• Crystalline Coating: has achieved perfect, austere stillness, resembling a remarkably large but inert pyrite outcropping. Ambushes on a 1-3. Though large as a stallion, it can flow through any space large enough for a newborn foal. 
• Sulfuric Acid: All water touching the monster is impregnated with potent, scentless, colorless, oily vitriol. Those who might touch it unknowingly save to realize the danger in time, or take 1d6 damage, and 1d6 for each round spent in the water. Wood chars, leather suffers, metal discolors. If the water is superheated, as by a fireball, it will disperse acidic fumes in a 60' radius.
• Forehead: A broken Melach Hashuta will reform over the course of 1d4 days unless the pyrite around its head is scraped away to reveal the Secret Name that animates it. As soon as it is read, the creature slow, fails, and dims.

His Ghastly Song, No Chant of Victory (Two Monsters, Four Areas)

Part of the bandwagon started by Louis and Loch. Use this generator, and make 1d2 monsters in a 1d4+1 area dungeon. 
-

I hear that great town Sekahii was wiped off the map, torn down by the fire of the gods. Guess nothing's certain in this bitch age. I'd avoid that cursed place myself, but there are those who would love to know what became of their loved ones, and others who wonder if anything of value survived.

"The only thing strange was that nothing was missing, except all the people."

Sekahii

Ash and fresh stone covers almost everything. Wind has started to reveal the roofs of buildings and the tops of the city walls— those defenses which once repulsed the Tribes of Gale, and which you now step over. In the center of town, the high walls of the temple reach out like a drowning man's hand, and closer, as though grinding against the city wall, is a strange tower, the ash dunes sinking down and leaving the space around it clear. Beyond the town, the fresh-faced Mount Pertumum stares down like a hung-over horse.

• Tower: The Thief's Tower is trying to escape the city but finding itself penned in by the city walls. It has resorted to eating ash. This specimen is four stories tall, with windows on all but the top floor.
• Each floor is decorated with stolen tables and chairs. On the third floor, fine silverware (500 gp)  and a tapestry (1000 gp) hang, saliva having cleaned away any ash that would mar them. On the ground floor, a collection of pottery, jewelry, and hasty sketches (60 gp) lies in rows, the desperate offerings of refugees who tried to escape the eruption into the Thief's Tower.
• Temple: Half-rubble, many ash-stains that once were people. A godstone gilded with gore.
• One ash-stain clutches a set of tablets, a half completed Monster Manual. Experts will recognize this work as a draft by the famed naturalist Tutiksus, literally priceless now that he has passed away. The tablets have information on six "monstros", which range anywhere from an elf to a merchant to a beholder. A player can declare that some creature they encounter is one of the ones described, and consult the tablets about its weaknesses, capabilities, or how to get on its good side. The tablets have a 50% chance of giving specific, correct information and a 50% chance of giving specific, incorrect information.
• Tunnel: Poking out of the mountain, a new, smooth tunnel leads down to the heart of the rock. Here lairs the Aasales, so fumes roll out of the tunnel as she scans for prey.
• Volcano Shrine: Once accessed by a narrow path now-ruined. Now connected to the Aasales's tunnel(, a miracle ordained by the Earth god to ensure people could still worship him.) The shrine of worked iron has been defaced by graffiti— "Tefurus has a long-ass schlong. The Earth God's Schlong is soft and mediocre". There is an ash stain before the altar. If the graffiti is somehow cleared away, the Earth God will bless the suppliant, giving them immunity to lung-based diseases and the ability to safely run over lava and magma.

Bestiary

Thief's Tower

+8 Door (engulf), +4 Stomach quills 1d8. Moves 1 foot/day.

Keystone HD 3, unarmored.

- Furnace Metabolism: It gives off a pleasant aroma, like cooking meat. The result of its alien physiology, it entices victims. On a negative reaction roll, those within 100' must save or try to enter through a door or window.

- Engulf: Those who hesitate to enter outside the door of the Thief's Tower will find it splits in half hamburger-style to swallow them. Save or be swallowed. The door-mouth can be battered down as any stuck door, but see Quills below.

- Leveled Stomach: Though the exterior roughly resembles a constructed stone tower, the inside is clearly a thing of flesh. A Thief's Tower will have 1d4+2 levels, each a stomach chamber lined with walls of undulating quills, bony floors, and cartilaginous, ropy ladders ascending and descending.

- Symbiosis: The Tower will protect those who beautify and enrich it. Bringing in furniture or draping treasure about can give you a well-guarded hideout, the source of the creature's moniker.

- Quills: The quills can carefully push objects around the room, or strike at prey. Each round, it may attack as many targets as it can perceive, and will lunge out of hunger, or to punish those who try to damage it, who try to steal its treasure. The Tower has no vision. It uses its quills to feel and hidden ears to hear what happens within it.

- Keystone: On one floor is the heart-brain of the Tower, resembling an undulating piece of soapstone with veins connecting it to the cartilage and bone. The level that contains the keystone lacks windows.Damaging the keystone, in addition to incurring quill attacks, causes the tower to shrivel up like a juicebox. Save or be thrown off your feet as the tower tilts and wilts wildly, falling prone into a wall and either taking 1d6 damage or losing your next turn (your choice)

Also called a Witch's Tower or Gardinel D'Bologna, the Thief's Tower is a giant cylindrical creature with an eel-smooth, chitin-hard skin. In early spring, it appears in urban areas, the sorts of Gygaxian cities with encounter tables loaded up with vampires and wraiths. Bandits and other monstrous humanoids frequently take advantage of its refuge, and local lords are often slow to address the arrival of a Thief's Tower, as the law usually states that those who slay one are entitled to its treasures, and it's tempting to let it accumulate some booty before you fell it. 

Aasales

HD 6, Unarmored, claw 1d6/claw 1d6/proboscis (see below). Fast as a starving catamount.

- Fume Cloud: constantly giving off black and neon-green volcanic fumes, giving her cover (+4 AC) vs ranged attacks. Breathing the fumes is unpleasant and painful. After an encounter with the Aasales, anyone exposed without PPE has a [round of exposure]-in-10 chance of contracting (and I swear I'm not going out of my way to shoehorn this in) Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Each day, a victim must save or reduce their dexterity by 1. If reduced to zero, their lungs turn to lava.

- Proboscis: After making her claw attacks, the Aasales can grab someone she hit and jab them with her sucking muzzle. Do however you do a grapple contest in your game, and if the Aasales wins she drains 1d4 HP from its target. An Aasales who has drained at least 5 HP in the past week is no longer slavering, and has a +1 to reactions and a -2 to morale.

- Parched: She swims through fire like water and water burns her like fire. Must test morale to attack a soaked person or cross over wet ground.

A ravenous cthonic predator. From the fiery forge that makes the world over and anew again, deep below the surface. She resembles nothing so much as a lioness or mountain cat, with a sharp, eversible needle-face and crunchy, chalky fur. Naturalists value her organs, as they are said to animate desiccated or mummified remains if sewn into them. Monks believe she is a metaphor for the fantasy covenant of their religion.

The King With a Thousand Daughters (Location: Valemon and Tureshol)

Introduction

This is a brief adventure scenario with more of the extreme emotion and zazz that I felt was missing from my previous dungeon. It's also a small experience in mingling keyed areas-- like the last one, this one is roughly twenty areas. Unlike the last one, the areas are divided between dungeon chambers, town features, and surrounding environs.

Timeline

• For the past ten years: King Osgood has ruled Valemon, keeping it neutral in the raids and wars of neighboring city-states and danelaws.
• Five years ago: a clan of gnoles began camping in the ruins on Tureshol, paying rent to Osgood.
• Three months ago: a general truce in the land makes Osgood's arrangement with the gnoles tense. The elf Quirinia approaches him, asking to lead an expedition to drive the gnoles out and retake the structure while the majority of their raiders are abroad. The king waffles.
• One month ago: The king's daughter Mary leads a group of friends on Quirinia's mission, where they discover a magic mirror which duplicates them and switches places with their copies. The doubles, thinking they are the original conquistadors, start using the mirror over and over to imprison new copies and take their stuff. They deputize the gnoles.
• Three weeks ago: As far as anyone in town knows, the princess is missing and the gnoles have turned bandit. Everything is in disarray, and the common folk are beginning to suspect dopplegangers and street conjurers making false coins and stealing faces.

Mary's Party

1. Princess Mary of Valemon (fighter 2) Daughter of King Osgood. Overconfident and charming. Wields the sword Chardonnay, a +1 arming sword that can lock any door 1/day.
2. Vicar Conan (cleric 2) Chaplain and confessor to Mary. Friendly and airheaded. Carries a gilded purse with the Heart of Saint Ismay, which can cast Sanctuary 1/day and a geas to abide by one's oath 1/week. For complex soteriological reasons, Conan's god would love to cease empowering the clones of Conan, but to do that the deity would have to defrock the original, who hasn't erred enough to justify it. Tragically, the many duplicating hearts of Ismay torment her more and more in Fantasy Heaven, and the purses have begun to bleed and whimper. Knows the spells Detect Magic and Protection from Evil.
3. Landrada (barbarian 3) Exiled from foreign parts for concealing a couple murders, she has enjoyed the hospitality of a string of nobles for the past six months. Rough and impolitic. She carries a Poultice of Healing (1d4 hp, two doses left) and the Ring of Gest, which grows three mundane rings (worth 1 GP) each day.
4. Quirinia (elf 1) Hedonistic but distant, she was stranded in these lands a century ago when King Arathur Elassar defeated the Fantasy elf Roman Empire and sent their quastors and caesars away. Proposed "reclaiming" Turishol to King Osgood, who hesitated too long, and so Quirinia convinced Mary to lead an expedition. Carries a Scroll of Clairvoyance she found in the tower. Knows the spell magic missile.
5. Elinor (thief 2) The naive daughter of one of Osgood's supporters, she has responded to the ennui of entering into adulthood by deciding to live her life like she stole it. Wears the Torc of Charisma +1
6. Beatrix/Ingibjorg (gnole) A gnole they encountered in the tower and inexplicably decided to adopt. Properly named Ingibjorg, but the Valemonters found it hard to pronounce so they told her she was named Beatrix now. Thrilled to be here, guys!

Activity

The party has cowed and cajoled the gnoles into acting as their lackeys, and imprisoned the "clones" (actually the originals and every previous clone) in the bottom of the dungeon. The city fears and hates them, though it is not yet commonly known who they are. Their grindset:

• Duplicate Mary's magic sword to make a world-shattering army.
• Duplicate Conan's relic and Ladrada's poultice for their powers.
• Duplicate Landrada's ring a bunch of times to get rich fast.
• Stack as many copies of Elinor's torc onto the same person as possible. At 24+ Charisma, those with less than 13 wisdom save or are charmed. At 30+ Charisma, those who see the wearer save or are stunned for 1 Turn.

Da Gnoles

• Hoss Olaf (gnole 1) husband of the Värdinna of the clan, Aud Lodleggr. Wields his wife's metal nunchaku. Not respected in his own right, but speaks in her stead while she leads raiders abroad. Led by Mary's group to turn bandit against Valemon, he worries that he has spelled his clan's doom. He's probably correct.
• Everyone else (gnole 2) is happy to go with the flow. They're not worriers, and anyway Aud should be back soon to pull our bacon from the fire.
• Aud's (gnole 3) Expedition isn't coming anytime soon. The last raid went poorly, and she's been captured by some foreign margrave, her warriors sent to the mines. She does not feature in this adventure.

The City

• King Osgood (thief 1) seeks to find his daughter, and figure out who's duplicating his family's sword.
• The people are pissed! What in the numerable hells is going on? Damn wizards and face-elves and humanoids. Where's our princess? Who's going to do something?

The Prisoners

• Real Conan has convinced many of the clones that he really is an original, and they have united around him.
• Real Mary, Real Elinor, and Real Beatrix have not distinguished themselves from their duplicates.
• Real Quirinia has escaped, wandering half-mad northeast of Valemon
• Real Landrada is dead, too hard to control.
• Of the Clones, most are Beatrix or Mary. There are very few Landradas (too defiant) or Quirinias (too magic).

d4 Random Encounters

1. 1d2 adventurers and 1d4 gnoles, all with Chardonnays

2. 1d6 gnoles (-2 MOR when not supervised by an adventurer) with Chardonnays

3. 1d3 Escaped clones

4. Angry mob (1d10+10 burghers with torches and clubs)

Kingdom of Valemon

• Valemon Town (see below)
• Due south, the river flows. Under ten feet of water, a riverboat was recently sunk after an inept hijacking attempt by a Landrada and her gang of gnoles.
• Salvagers will find two Chardonnays, a Ring of Gest and twenty-one other rings, and a couple corpses. The door to the captain's quarters is watertight, and opening it will possibly suck you in— save or take 1d4 damage and get winded. Strapped down in the captain's desk, however, is 2000 gold coins, a Free Mason ring, and a Telado Flail, made by Iberish smiths to bristle and clank in the tense air that precedes an ambush or storm, conferring the wielder immunity to surprise rounds and a +2 to saves vs. white squalls.
• West and southwest, hilly terrain has been tamed into fruitful vineyards, mostly chardonnay and seyval blanc grapes.
• North and northwest are the high mountains that feed the river running through the town. Travel is slow and little can be found there except the odd hermitage or woodcutter's cottage.
• To the northeast, marshlands predominate. Here, propitiated each year with wine and sick dancing demonstrations, lairs the green vire Gallfang. It absent-mindedly hunts a mud-covered fugitive from Tureshol, the original Quirinia.
• Due east, prosperous villages along a fine road lead out of the kingdom.
• Southeast of the town is Tureshol (see below), a series of hills where nothing good nor green will grow. Wandering monsters are found there on a roll of 1 or 2 when making encounter checks.

Valemon Town

• Palace of King Osgood: the small-yet-prosperous home of a small-but-prosperous man in a fine silk shirt and a sash over the shoulder that says "KING" on it. He is good at kinging, and knows the value of keeping everyone happy. Wants to find his daughter, not offend the gnoles too badly, and maintain his truces with all his neighbors.
• Two pubs: The Leopard and the Fruit of the Vine. A good place to get rumors.
• Everyone's on edge— at the first excuse, an angry mob will form.
• Market: weapons getting snapped up in these uncertain times.
• Sewer: An ill-maintained folly, in light of the encroaching marsh.
• The core was built in elven times, with notes and graffiti in Elvish, but beware suddenly unblocking blockages, floods, and fouled footing which may throw you into the drink; save or be fouled (-1 to all d20 rolls until clean) and make a further save vs death (if wearing medium or heavy armor) or vs getting carried out to a drain south of city, sputtering and d6 HP fewer.
• Embassy: the residence of Brian the Red, envoy of Osgood's neighbor Earl Guy. Uncreative but mustachioed. Increasingly concerned by how things are proceeding in Valemon. If he thinks you have a good shot at bringing down the temperature, will give you a crossbow with ten +1 blessed bolts "as a gesture of friendship from Earl Guy,"
• By the way, angry mobs hate Brian, Guy, and anyone they think are connected to them.

Tureshol

1. Improvised kitchen: outside the tower, an elder gnole supervises a gang of gnole cubs in the preparation of gruel for prisoners in area 5. Pilfered sacks of grain sit under makeshift tents.

At the first sign of trouble: they run off.

2. Base: Elinor (or one of the other adventurers if she's busy) guards this spartan chamber with four gnoles, explaining some aspect of the human feudal culture they're unfamiliar with. A ladder leads down into a dirt tunnel (branching to areas 3 or 4), while stairs lead further up (area 6).

3. Cairn: The resting place of the ancient gnole warrior Gunnvor Brotnskjalta. Packed in around her bier are twelve gnoles. 1d4-in-4 of them are asleep at any given time.

The body of Gunnvor (gnole 4) wears a rusted corslet shirt and clutches a +1 halberd of undiminished splendor. Careful investigation of her teeth reveal that one is a hollow fake ("Brotnskjalta" is the Gnorse word for "broken tooth") with the rune meaning "bear" carved on the back. It contains a potion of polymorph (up to 5 HD). Gunnvor stays very very still, even ignoring combat around her, and will acquiesce to polite requests, but will only part with her halberd if someone answers her questions in proper rhyming call-and-response, otherwise challenging them for it.

4. Tunnel Trap: the dirt becomes looser and shows no footprints for the last ten feet of the tunnel before coming to a staircase of worked stone (going to area 5).

Crossing over the loose dirt has a 3-in-6 chance of breaking through the dirt, depositing the victim 20 feet down in an area 5 cell. Mary's party and their duplicates are familiar with the trap, and skirt around the edges. The gnoles are instructed to reset the trap whenever it's set off.

5. Donjon: a cramped complex with a hundred cells and connecting hallways in the Elven architectural style, each elven lock still functioning perfectly. A hundred and ten duplicates and most of the original members of Mary's party are locked away here, fed near-starvation rations by sympathetic but unhelpful gnoles who visit twice a day.

Negotiation: Freeing the prisoners will lead to a frantic, instinctive rush in all directions. Anyone freed will rush to help others escape, then (d4) kill the clones currently in power, smash the mirror, use the mirror to make new clones to exploit themselves, report to king Osgood (but probably get got by an angry mob first. If the party appeals to the prisoners as a group, the Real Conan is the closest they have to a spokesman, and may (3-in-6 chance) get them to stick to a course of action.

Ghoulizers: two prisoners, a Landrada and the Real Elinor, are kept in separate cells from the rest. They are convinced that if the prisoners kill and cannibalize each other, they will be afflicted with ghoulism and empowered to fight their jailers.

6. Stairwell: Faded murals show scenes from the earliest Elven colonies, including a pact with the trees, twin elven wizards staring at each other, and humans working with elves to slay a giant and a dragon.

Pressing on the twin wizard scene: pops open a secret door to a small chamber within the stairwell, once the study of the elf wizard Snamolas. Among many expired magical ingredients, there is a scroll ordering his banishment from the Fantasy elven Roman capital, an ioun stone that gives off a weak lime green light, a potion of Hold Person (colored with ink, a trap for thieves), a jeweled handmirror (worth 1000 gold coins) and an account (in Elvish and the common tongue) of his attempt to resurrect his companion, the human wise man Oelfwine, after Snamolas's folly led to his pointless death. Powering it with his own magics, he intends to spend centuries in meditation within the mirror of his creation, gathering his failings and felony until he can invert them, turning himself into the taken saint. He warns in bold, underlined text that the mirror should be covered until then, as anyone who stares into their reflection will spend a vast amount of his painstakingly stored energy, only creating a hostile copy of themselves and "transposing their positions,"

7. Pad: 1d4 of Mary's party, hanging out and probably arguing. Mattresses and pillows cover the floor. In the middle of the room is a pile of Rings of Gest and 3000 gold rings.

In a fight: If they have forewarning, one will put on twenty Torcs of Charisma +1 and a second (if any) will wait in a corner to ambush attackers. Otherwise, they'll fight unstrategically, protecting those they love, shouting unhelpful advice to those they subtly hate, and leaving those they openly hate out to dry.

8. Shrine: roughly turned over in the process of seeking a secret door. Little murals of an elf wizard, robed man, hooded woman, and armored gnole going on adventures. The secret door (to area 9) is wide open.

9. Great Mirror of Salomans: a dusty, spartan chamber, fresh manacles ready to use piled up along the wall. In the center of the room is a heavy full-length cobalt mirror covered in script: "Let none disturb this mirror, by order of Salomans, for I sacrifice my self in service of all the world and redress of a great wrong I have done,"

Staring at yourself in the mirror: Makes a duplicate where you stood and rotates you to the other side of the room. The duplicate, polluted by the gathered selfishness of Salomans, disdains and resents you.

When someone created by the mirror dies, each object that was reflected with them dies too. It twists out of the world like an image in a spinning mirror

Holding another mirror up to the Great Mirror shows you the elf wizard Salomans himself, annoyed as hell but unable to stop what's happening.

Stone Bodies (Location: Tomb of the Orchard-Burning General)

I've been running a couple sci-fi games recently, and felt the desire to write up a classic fantasy dungeon. 

art by Angus McBride

Dungeon below, or if you prefer it as a google doc: Dungeon link here. 

This follows the format of 20-block dungeon stocking, and serves as a dungeon you could place almost anywhere without issue, though names and details may want to be changed. For more directed play, incorporate the ancient history of the dungeon with the PCs' bloodlines, or the cities and towns they hail from. Give them a special reason to want to ensure the ancient general is not unearthed, or a deep need to acquire the means of resurrection.

I'm glad I wrote this dungeon, and there's a lot I like in it : 3 but on the other hand there isn't too much of pathos here. Little of love, of extreme emotion, of true adventure, of zazz. Something to keep in mind for next time.

Stone Bodies

Background

A couple weeks ago, a group of farmers discovered that flooding had eroded the seal on a previously unknown tomb, one dug and forgotten centuries ago. None save you readers know that the following three sources contain the story of this place within them…

… The novelist Vico Da Spatatratto collected sources from folklore, opera, local sayings, and heroic narratives to write his authoritative Matter of Shordabardia. One character who looms large in the middle chapter of the book is the foreign condottiero Chleosryde, who menaces many of the demigods and spellcasters who populate the epic for a period of eight years. His downfall comes when he agrees to occupy the liberty-loving city of Ilfobordo as a colony of the Archdruidal States. Upon brutally pacifying all resistance and gaining the hatred of the local nobility, the archdruid paid the condottiero's own army to turn against him, poisoning his body and concealing the location of his tomb… 

… The records of the elven court historians tell of the arrival of a Hobgoblin warlord, the Orchard-Burning General, at the head of a vast host that set about attacking fortified cities at random, making and breaking alliances, and eventually coming to a bad end at the hand of a fated hero, Queen Justinia Elf-Friend, who erased all memory of the Orchard-Burning General from the short-lived races' official accounts… 

… Of late, orcos and yecha have fled here from the Underlands. Some tell of the chief Klaas Wreed, the warrior who set about preparing his tomb as soon as he arrived in human lands. His folly of filling up the tomb with treasures and life-restoring elixirs rather than paying out gifts to his lieutenants and elites has passed into proverbs. "As stingy as Klaas Wreed", they say of the miser, and "Don't ask Wreed what to do with that gold" they chide when someone is counting on something they're not sure to get. When his army returned without him, they did not mourn him, and they never named the foe that bested him… 

d6 Random Encounters

1. Ghostly Pronouncement— on a positive reaction roll, gives a clue in the form of a challenge or warning, on a negative, just gives frightening and vague threats.

2. 1d4 Malices (stats as 2 HD veterans) faceless conquerors and looters, the "perfect" deeds of the ancient army. When slain, disappear before your eyes. 

3. Nesting Vermin (stats as insect swarm) Rats, two-tailed snakes, beetles, exc.

4. Rival Adventuring Party from room 14

5. 2d6 zombified workers, throats slit. Addled and envious, incapable of speech but knowledgeable of layout.

6. Haunting— seals doors or throws things around or kills firelight.

art by Dyson Logos

Areas

(Note: the statues found in this dungeon are infused with the famous Ectoplasm of Curse and Grudge; if shattered, this ectoplasm lashes against the person most directly responsible, dealing 1 damage.)

1. Foyer: A once-proud gate with its copper bars pried away. Wall frescoes depict a hobgoblin general, wielding a two-handed sword and holding aloft an ornate sceptre that resembles a golden torch. His face has been scratched away.

2. Statues: Twenty glazed clay statues of hobgoblin warriors leveling their weapons northward, further into the dungeon. They wear an eclectic mix of doublets, trousers, clogs, scale coats, and animal helms, and wield straightswords, dagger-axe polearms, stringless bows, and maces.

• The door further north is stuck, its frame askew. 2-in-6 chance per turn of opening it.

3. Damaged: Another twenty clay warriors facing north. Along the southeast and east, the roof has partially collapsed through the floor, and movement is treacherous.

• Among the rubble: a tomb-robber's scroll, recording how the Orchard-Burning General punished those who failed him, including burning an unsuccessful captain alive, scarring the hands of a company that failed to take a town, and revoking the pensions of his bodyguards when an elven assassin almost killed him. The writer notes that the goblinoid mind must be especially loyal to follow such a brutal master.
• A gash against the eastern wall: half-filled with debris, leads down into the foundations. See area 19 (Calamity).

4. Park: Cavern carved to seem natural, with artfully placed boulders and raked sand. Miniature windmills dotted artfully through the room sport decorative fans. In the center, four Malices guard a corpse upon a bier like holes scorched into a pleasant painting. A vast mural in the north wall shows a pleasant scene of a cottage in a field of flowers.

• The bier: holds the earthly remains of Klaas Wreed, the Orchard-Burning General. He wears a bright red-and-blue silk coat and patinated bronze chestplate inlaid with a winter scene, finery worth 1000 gold coins. Removing the scarf from his neck shows that his throat was cut to the bone. His right arm clutches a five-foot-long sword, and his left shows signs that something was pried out of it.
• Tagliaboshi, a two-handed chopping sword so fine, it bought clemency for the town of Invernotore. Its fine workmanship gives +1 to hit and damage. Optimized for splitting pikes, if your game has rules for reach weapons the wielder counts as having reach beyond theirs for attacking wielders of such weapons.
• Inspecting the mural: the painted door of the cottage is an actual door, opening to reveal a narrow passage to area 6.

5. SW: This simple sunwell is a smooth shaft leading up to the surface. Rungs in the side lead up to a simple trapdoor.

• Climbing the rungs: Some will break when weight is put on them. Save or fall 20 feet.
• Opening the trapdoor: about four feet of earth immediately fall through the sunwell (take 1d6 damage and save or fall), but natural light will fall through, illuminating the entire park during midday. Zombified workers and Malices fear the clarifying rays of daylight.

6. Concubine: Chamber decked in bright fabrics— dandelion yellow, royal purple, lime green, bold magenta, anything but red or blue— and heavy with the scent of incense. Laid into a padded box is a skeleton and a mummified iguana.

• In the box: The iguana is animate, the former pet of Klaas Wreed, and essentially harmless. (Stats as mummy, but 1 HD). The skeleton is Fiora Misilmaglia, the former concubine of Klaas Wreed, who preceded him in death. She wears a dutifully fashionable dress worth 400 gold coins, a banded torc worth 100 gold coins, and a fox-head amulet worth 300 gold coins. In her hand, she clutches a pearl of protection +1. 
• Searching behind the fabrics: objects are hidden in alcoves along the walls:
• Jade orb in a gilded stand. Worth 250 gold coins.
• Snakebone fan: aquamarine paper fan with five stiff bone quills. The wielder can transmit their thoughts in fluttering script on the fan, intelligible only to their servants, vassals, and hirelings.
• Forged Tulip: The dye has faded, revealing that it is a chimera of silver thread, silk, and bone. It functions as a wand of charm person with 12 charges, but the victim is charmed by the flower more so than its owner.
• Behind the door: stuck to the door with wax is a blessed paper that repels the spirits of the dead. When waving it at one, they must test Morale (plz don't give them a really high morale score) or retreat. This paper has kept the iguana in the room until now.

7. Shattered: Three Malices stand surrounded by the shattered statues of captives. The walls are covered in scenes of atrocities committed by the general's armies— executions, looting, trucebreaking, and other miseries. The Malices re-enact these deeds against each other and the shattered statues.

8. Shrine: Stack of swords, skulls, receipts, and cauldrons forming a shrine to the immortal Nonggong, the Scorching Duke. Built out of love by Klaas Wreed and appeased out of fear by his soldiery. The shrine is covered in droppings and shows signs of nests forming throughout it. Several objects have been set out before it.

• Entering the room: May alert the rat swarm within the shrine.
• The objects: are offerings to Nonggong. Stealing one will anger Nonggong, but if the rats are killed or driven off, the image of a hobgoblin in banker's robes and armor will appear and grant the PCs permission to take them. They are: 
• Bronze Bell: Decorated with rows of bosses and a dragon with breasts like you'd see tattooed on a sailor's arm. Clapperless, it is meant to be struck with a mallet, whereupon it makes all coins within 100' hum along.
• Jade Boar Figurine:  Removing a lid in the back reveals that it is a drinking vessel, containing two doses of a potion of healing.
• Cursed Axe: The word "DON'T" crude scratched into the blade. Handle still blood-slicked. Once clutched, will not let go.
• Nonggong: Patron of mercenaries, lover of paydays, snob, and demoniac. His d6 means are Tenacity, Hot Metal, Idle Young Men, Wind, Flooding, and Greed.

9. Prayer: Chamber full of tables laden with written prayers, records of ancient transactions, and outdated political maps. Still, like a room someone just stepped out of.

• Searching: Every Turn spent searching has a 1-in-6 chance of revealing (d6) the deed to vineyard currently operated by a druid bishop, a scroll of Protection from Magic, a tablet with a very painful curse wished on Klaas Wreed, a +1 intelligent misericorde that is histrionic and xenophobic (save or attack Florentines [or equivalent] on sight), a map of the tomb with an X marking a specific soldier statue in area 12.

10. Heavens: Thirty soldier statues face towards area 8 (shrine). The ceiling glitters in firelight, showing precious gems and metals in a diagram of the heavens.

• Popping out a gem: causes a loud hiss as invisible, sickly-smelling gas descends from a hole in the setting. Those who breathe it in must save or go unconscious, suffocating if not returned to good air within ten minutes.
• Earth gem: limestone.
• Moon plate: polished silver disc worth 10 gp. 
• Sun plate: mirror-shining red gold worth 150 gp, smiling upon everything.
• Mercury gem: emerald worth 500. makes you immune to the poisonous effects of quicksilver.
• Venus gem: diamond worth 700 gp.
• Mars plate: iron medallion with faint grim face. When wet blood is upon it, counts as medium armor.
• Jupiter gem: topaz worth 300 gp.
• Saturn gem: amethyst worth 300 gp.

11. Officials: a collection of ten statues— stewards, seneschals, and bureaucrats— arranged as though in conversation. One is in the middle of delivering a low bow to the center of the room.

• Imitating the bow: makes the officials wake and speak. May give a party's leader a mantra against inhumane action— as protection against evil and immunity to Malices for the next hour. If the officials decide they don't like you, they will eat your food, drink your fluids, and screw with you.

12. Entertainers: Twelve statues— jugglers, fools, and dancers. Both they and the walls have been marred with curses against the general.

• Speaking a curse aloud: save or suffer its effects.
• "Let him dy the deathe, be fryd and piersd, and brokn on the wheel" Save or take double damage until you level up.
• "Nonggong turn yur back from druidsop Klaas" Save or suffer a penalty from Nonggong's Means table the next time you enter the shrine or encounter his worshippers.
• "May Klaas Wreed live in interesting tymes" Save or increase the chance of random encounters for a week.
• "LIGHT BLIND THE ORCARD BURNING GENERL" Save or lose the ability to see in firelight for a month.
• "A Pox On Him" Save or lose 1 charisma.
• "Gods turn klaas reed into the dog he acts as," Save or become a dog until you perform five good deeds. (🐶)
• Hidden in one statue: is a hollow cavity you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it (see area 9). Smashing it open reveals a string of 100 gold coins and a bottle of Alchemist's gin: five doses, each with a different effect in sequence— levitation, fire immunity, invulnerability, liquid form, and magnetic grasp. Biting into the orange curing at the bottom of the bottle makes you immediately drunk.

13. Charnel pit: Pile of disarticulated bones. Workers will not attack here, simply weeping.

• If blessed: or otherwise improved, the zombified workers lie down in sleepy rows and their spirits move on. Ignore rolls of 5 on the encounter table.

14. Musicians: Long hallway with a procession of forty musician statues, each with their instrument. A party of chancers camps here, resting before continuing their search for the general's command rod. They are amiable, more likely to be rivals than enemies, but getting the rod would not go well for anyone.

• Speaking any name: causes the musician statues to play for a few seconds. If "Klaas Wreed" is spoken, they will play a triumphant dirge, and an illusory wall in the west will fade away, revealing a passage into area 16 (Unfinished).
• Daddo the Rake: Thief 2. Leads and organizes with sheer enthusiasm. Figures the command rod will allow him to command all these statues. Happy to make a deal to cooperate, then double-cross when the gold is in sight. Carries 500 coins muffled in cotton in his breast pocket.
• Bianca de Invernotore: Fighter 2. A brawler with a wicked hook-shield, she can make two attacks in a round; once with the hook and another with a fist, elbow, heel, or knee. Doesn't consider herself a "real" tomb raider, just hired muscle. Picked up a gem worth 250 gold when no one else was looking.
• Stefano Misilmaglio: Magic-User 2. A pretentious oaf who assumes that he is related to Klaas Wreed (he's not) and that this blood connection has fated him to own all that he finds here. Knows the spells Charm Animal and Hold Portal. Wears a dragon-headed gold ring worth 100 gold coins.
• Janneken the Foreigner: Hobgoblin. Hired as a guide but by no means a historian. Knows that this is the tomb of the Orchard-Burning General, but not his name. Keen sense of smell and skilled with the spear. Her signature move is to set a spear against a charge, and if she strikes a running foe twisting them to the ground. Just now picked up a set of Hobgoblin Pipes, a simple thing of bronze. Like much of the rest of the tombs, they are haunted. Any song played will only produce the notes of noy which bring melancholy and sorrow, as well as nearby spirits. If exorcised or Turned, it becomes a mundane set of pipes.

15. Pool: An artificial pond full of shimmering quicksilver, with a picturesque miniature shrine island in the middle.

• Crossing: Those who run quickly can hustle over the top, but cautious movement involves wading through— save vs mercury madness now and vs deadly metal poisoning a week from now.
• In the shrine is Reniu, a bird-cobold-spirit, ancient and all-knowing, who can advise those who consult him on the important matters of their lives with surprising insight and accuracy. But he's a real trickster, and if you fail the mercury madness save he controls your actions for 10 minutes, usually making you do something foolish and dangerous.

16. Unfinished: hall with unfinished warrior statues and statues of workmen on break. Leaning against one is an odd-looking puck-shaped object. The floor along the south wall has started to buckle, and there's a narrow gap into the foundations (area 19)

• Thuiskomst Wheel: A thick, fuzzy, mauve wheel of wax that weighs about a hundred pounds. If cut into, reveals perfectly aged cheese— chalky and soft, with notes of burnt onion and wet wool. By tradition, warbands setting out from the Underlands bring a freshly sealed wheel of cheese, and enjoy it upon their return. This specimen is especially fine, and if the party digs in, every member with Constitution 12 or less gains 1 point of Con.

17. Lich: Cracked wizard statue with glaring red-eyed black-toothed skeleton within.

• Vranck Wreed: Magic-User 8. The general's shit-kicking second son, awaiting his father's "inevitable" resurrection. Will crash through his statue-shell to throw a hex on fools who displease him. He wears fine black silk robes with skeleton embroidery, worth 1000 gold coins.
• Ten Nails: Vranck wears foot-long copper fingernails on his finger-bones, each one inscribed with a spell to form a spellbook of sorts.
• Left pinky: Phantom Limb (1st) Target saves or you control a limb of theirs for the next month. This nail also contains his Death, and if his bones are destroyed he'll drip out of the nail 1d20 days later and reform.
• Left ring: Magic Missile
• Left middle: Wizard Lock
• Left pointer: Laser Maidens (4th) Summon 1d6+1 loyal monocolored hologram-warriors with d6 HP, medium armor, shield, and spear for ten minutes. They can fly at light-speed at the cost of 1 HP.
• Left thumb: Five at One Stroke (3rd) Exactly five targets save or take 6d6 damage, cleft by an invisible chop.
• Right thumb: Name of Glory (3rd) Any number of targets in a 30' circle must save or periodically shout "Vranck Wreed!" for the next six hours.
• Right pointer: Devil’s Bridge (4th) Conjure a sturdy stone bridge across up to 200 ft. Of empty air. It falls apart upon the next new moon.
• Right middle: Locate Object
• Right ring: Levitate
• Right pinky: Detect Magic.
• Black Kiss: Vranck's teeth are covered in a lipstick of crushed jet kneaded into an Onychophora butter, keeping the tube and a tube of beeswax on his person. Smooch exposed flesh and the beloved must save or have that part of their body stiffened and paralyzed for 1d4 hours. A quick peck will only create a feeling of pins and needles. Four snogs remain in the stick. Loading up on multiple doses only slightly lessens the allure. When applying, be sure to lay down a layer of beeswax from the accompanying tube or else suffer the effects yourself. 

18. Rod: Hallway with twenty statues in a line, all facing towards a pile of rags and bones. Along the north wall, the floor sags, and a collapsed section leads down into the foundations (area 19).

• The pile: is a shanked skeleton with time-aged clothes. It carries the withered remains of adventuring gear as well as the command rod, a golden sceptre that resembles a blazing torch. If anyone picks it up, every statue in the dungeon will decide they're trying to become the next Orchard-Burning General and will therefore stab them to death (stats as hobgoblins). If you do manage to get it out of here, it's worth 2,500 gold coins, but as a treat it counts double for XP purposes.

19. Calamity: A vast section of the tomb's foundations have been half-collapsed and dug away by a Calamity. This gnawed cavern is irregular, dark, and stinks of saliva.

• Calamity: the oafish burrowing soldier of an infernal hierarchy (stats as umber hulk). Resembles a biker, a beetle, and a Pantalone. Feeds on disorder and confusion, and thus is in a sort of food coma from the psychic energy of the tomb. Maintains a collection of unpolished and raw gems he's found, worth about 1000 gold coins, in addition to some buttons and minerals of only sentimental value.
• Fighting the Calamity: risks bringing down the tomb above. Fighting (or otherwise exciting) the Calamity has a 50% chance of causing it to burrow through the foundations of one nearby chamber, then a 1-in-10 chance of causing a chain reaction collapsing the entire dungeon.

20. New Life: In the center of the chamber is a strange object like a red wardrobe, covered in written blessings and charms. To one side is a desk and scroll rack, and to the other is a stone coffin.

• The wardrobe: is a masterpiece of geomancy and kastromancy, a magical chamber to return life to the dead. Its operation is complicated (see the section below) and the wardrobe will not function in other locations.
• The desk: contains writings about how to use the "Fruit of Heaven Chamber" to bring someone back from death to life. The body must be set in the chamber and the door shut. A mage must call them back into the body by name, waving incense and shattering a magic sword (if they have ever killed someone) or tearing magic cloth (if they have not). They pour the blood of a hydra over the top of the chamber, and the newly alive body opens the door with 1 hit point. If anything goes awry in this process, what emerges instead will be a Custodian of the Deeper Fire (stats as greater fire elemental, but pissed off)
• On the desk, an elf skull is used as a paperweight. On the inside of the back is a hobgoblin phrase painstakingly inscribed: "De ouden zijn sterfelijk", a pointed sort of memento mori that is also a call to action. Someone displaying the skull, such as on a chain or wearing it as a helmet, may call on its magic if they are reduce to 0 HP, shattering it and regaining 2d4 HP.
• The coffin: is empty, just kept here in case it's needed. On the inside of the lid are glow-in-the-dark affirmations.

d30 Magic Swords

 I'm a big apologist for the classic +1 sword. Especially in a game with fewer bonuses to your attack roll, wielding a magic weapon always feels cool to me, and it's useful for a very common adventure game situation. They often just want a bit of pizzazz, some loving description or historical detail.

Cool extra abilities are cool (it's in the name) but I would say that it also helps to add some specificity. Many of the interesting swords of stories are interesting because they have some relationship to the wielder, the land, or the foe before them. 

In the list below, assume each sword is +1. Some have special abilities, others have special contexts. At no additional fee, some have both. If you want to roll on this table and you don't have a d30, just roll a d20 and add 0 or 5 or 10. They're in no particular order.

d30 Magic Swords

1. The masterpiece of this land's founding. Whoso wields it is rightwise king. If this seems arbitrary or even ridiculous to you, you have no trust in fate and no love in your breast.

2. This blade is the mark of a great and ancient comitatus, that not only wields the sword but aspires to be a swordsperson. To vanquish another wielder of such a blade heals you 1d4 HP per level, and to carry such a blade is to draw gauntlets from other duelists and from johuns and posers. Randomly encountered roughs should sometimes wield a sword of this type.

3. This blade is the mark of a great and ancient comitatus, but you will never be part of it. Their quest was broken, their dominion shattered, and those who recognize it do not like to be reminded of it, either for the ill it represents or the good it failed to defend.

4. When it gives someone their killing blow, this sword bisects or dismembers them, even defying logic. WHA-SHINK!

5. Bears an oddly glimmering edge. Can slice through anything softer than stone in one stroke, so long as it holds still and you narrate your stroke as a certainty rather than an attempt.

6. Hates a long-lived and crafty foe, burning or shimmering in warning of their servants.

7. Here is a sword that was given as a token, a love-sign of the elves or an adoption by the dwarves or some angel's grace-mark. The owner of the sword by the transmutation of love is a member of the giver-race, and more— for the slaying of a mer by a mer-friend or ghoul by one of the la tukal is worse than murder. It is a kin-slaying, for the orc-proven is not only an orc but a sibling to all orcs.

8. Much as a beyblade contains a bit-beast, this sword is imbued with a sacred animal that may deploy a signature move if the fighting spirit of the wielder is strong

9. This one is heavy, heavier than anything, but you can carry it. Its dweomer is to make the burden of a weapon literal, but to do likewise for its wielder's tenacity. Very few NPCs can even try to parry this blade, and more than a few will resent it.

10. From a workmanlike hilt comes a substance rare, light like shadow or web or rime, or fluid like fire or blood.

11. Dancing Sword. You fucked up, and now it’s dance or die. Sever nine heads in nine days, and in the instant you complete the geas you may throw it aside. Or let three rulers’ crowns encircle the sword, never resting until. Or serve a rough master until they ask five questions of you. It’s something odious and something you have to stumble through, and when you’re done it doesn’t feel like winning.

12. This is the bear-rider's sword, and if you wield it, you can ride a bear into battle, ignoring most or all of the buzzkill penalties

13. What? How can this be? You find the lost sword of your family. Its deeds were your family's deeds, its shame was their shame. When it was lost, so were they. How in the world did it get here, and how could it be you have come to find it?

14. Famously, this sword was used in some momentous deed whose effects are felt today. People can't help but consider the wielder's deeds in light of that elden use.

15. A long, deep crack runs along the blade. It rests in an arrested moment of blazing glory— within it are three swipes, a thrust, and a parry-and-riposte. Each is guaranteed to succeed, but if another sort of attack is attempted, or if the last move is performed, the sword finally shatters into a million pieces.

16. Beetle collector. If you're ready for it, you can try to slice projectiles out of the air with an attack roll that exceeds that of the attacker. For really big projectiles, like cyclops-thrown boulders, you probably have to figure out how to make your slices deal enough damage to thwart the boulder.

17. The black cat blade. Hurray, the sword comes with a loyal, purring shadow glimpsed at a distance and in darkness. Tragedy, for she seldom comes close enough to pet. Ask her a question, and in the morning you'll find a scavenged gift left for you in answer, promising weal or woe or weal and woe. A half-dissolved coin for the woe of the gelatinous cube. A scrap of cooked meat for the weal of a safe inn. A lock of hair for the weal and woe of a painful former love.

18. Used to be somebody. A curse mingled them into oppressor— violence— and victim— object. This princeling or mournful troll or caveman or spirit cannot speak when they have more tang than tongue, and cannot directly reveal the cure for their curse even when communicated with magically.

19. Occulted blade. This sword has no known history, which is confusing in itself. Where has it been and how long has it waited, that it has not interfered and won itself a name? Who forged it and why has it evaded notice so completely?

20. This one has a destiny, the kind of destiny that swords have. Its destiny's name is written along the fuller,and only that destiny's blood can wipe the name away. It will not break, unless snapped off in its destiny's armpit. If you are buried in a tomb, it will find a way out. Its destiny will not die a natural death.

21. Here a Reckoner, a sword against the tyrannies of nature. Makes the immortal wrath of a plague into one that can be fought, or solidifies the coiling hunger of famine so a sword may be stuck into it. No Reckoning-beckoner has ever managed to slay a heart's iniquity.

22. There a Reckoner, a sword to raise the tyrannies of nature. Makes the imagined wrath of a plague into a beast that can be ridden to Bethlehem, or solidifies the poetic coils of famine into a great beast for a warlord to command. No Reckoning-beckoner has ever died peacefully.

23. The tip of the blade softly glows and produces a thrumming hum. When you're in the dark and feel the wielder's approach, you decide for yourself if you really want to confront the master of a magic blade, or if you want to bide your time in the shadows. When in doubt, make a morale roll.

24. A weapon to hold a tripartite transformation. Hold it aloft under the open sky to call a fulminating metamorphosis, becoming as a Recidor— a nephil, a starknight, a roland. Slam it to the floor under the earth to raise a vulcanized rebirth, becoming as a Scansior— a diabol, a magman, a drizz't. Passing through the cope of the earth ends the change.

25. Sword that eats souls

26. Soul-catcher sword. Like a trapper spider, it swipes the soul from a deathblow, coating the blade in  fresh ectoplasm. Carefully collect it in a jar. Anoint a holy object in a tray full of it. Sip it from a bottle.

27. As-You-Like-It. Can go from the size of a pin to a lance to a narrow pillar. Perhaps the +1 to hit and damage is from the extra force of lengthening the sword as you strike?

28. A weapon belonging to your great foe, that remembers the echoes of their plans and their hidden byways.

29. A slayer's sword, that has learned to cut through dragon breath, or slice open gorgonized statues, or buffet wight-stench.

30. Katana, roll twice and combine