Saturday, February 27, 2021

The House That Stink Built (A Mork Borg Monster)

 

    The Vodyanoy or Vodnik is a male freshwater spirit from Slavic folklore that I think has some horrifying potential in games like Mork Borg. I first came across it in The Slumbering Ursine Dunes and really enjoyed my players running into it in The Golden Barge, but sadly covid hit and the game went on permanent hiatus. So why not stat it up for Mork Borg? This encounter would be best placed around Lake Onda if you’re running the Mork Borg setting, also sorry ya’ll idk how to type a fuckin’ undulaut on my laptop.


The Vodnik

Spiteful Water Spirit

HP: 18 Morale: 9

Rubber-skin: -d2; min damage from piercing/slashing

+1 damage from blunt weapons; Immune to fire.

Tentacle: d4 + special

Special: Drowner; DR14 Agility test on hit or grappled;

take d4 damage from drowning if in water until Vodnik is dead.


Captured: 200s

Corpse: 55s

Tentacles: 25s


    From a distance The Vodnik is the silhouette of a man in a ragged coat with waterlogged hat, but that is where the similarities end. It’s skin is like that of shining black rubber, featureless save for the occasional tumor or growth. It’s face eyeless and mouth always grinning, pipe clenched between gnarled, blackened teeth. Wet. Always dripping wet no matter how far from water he is, water falls constantly from the brim of his hat and the filthy black coat onto the ground where is feet should be. The Vodnik seems float about two inches off the ground when not in his lake. His hands seem like that of a normal man, but when angered they change to grotesque tentacles and several more crawl out from beneath his coat. A puff from his pipe causes a temporary madness that allows mortals to enter his realm beneath the lake. If it is offered do not refuse, otherwise you will surely drown. His hands seem like the silhouette of a normal man’s, but if The Vodnik is angered they quickly shift into grotesque tentacles, several more crawl out from beneath his filthy brown coat.

    The people of Yevchodnik depend on the lake to survive and therefore hold many superstitions surrounding it. They both fear and revere The Vodnik, offering small sacrifices of tobacco is common among fishermen and in dire situations, when the fish have all dried up, they offer up young women to be taken as his wife. If it is dusk or dawn it is not uncommon to catch a glimpse of The Vodnik floating on a log, puffing away at his pipe out of the corner of your eye.


#

What’s Happening at the Lake?

1

An emaciated fisherman weeps on the shore of Lake Onda. He has come to check his nets and they all have been torn.

2

There is an eerie and unnatural silence only broken by the occasional ripple or splash of water. Smells of fishrot, pipe tobacco, and tea.

3

A little boy fishing alone says a rhyme* and leave’s a pinch of tobacco in the lake.

4

5d20 porcelain teapots are left in meticulous stacks on top of rocks, logs, and driftwood. There is a heavy fog and the muted sound of violin seems to come from beneath the lake; somber, melancholic. Smashing the teapots will anger The Vodnik.

5

The Vodnik is there smoking his pipe, sitting on a log; in a good mood.

6

Fishmonger cultists attempt to sacrifice a young woman. She is: d4

  1. Struggling; being violently dragged to the lake.

  2. Drugged; euphoric, incoherent babbling.

  3. Gently weeping; believes this is the only way to save her starving village.

  4. Fanatic believer; overjoyed to become The Vodnik’s wife.



#

What does The Vodnik want?

1

To trap the souls of young women into teapots in order to keep his wife eternally young.

2

A midwife to deliver his son.

3

A twisted and miserable faerie has stolen his wife and cursed him with drought. All will suffer as he suffers until her return.

4

The bones of a particularly clever fisherman that he has been unable to trick. Will make a marvelous pipe.


*Mr. Vodnik here’s your gift, now let me catch a tasty fish.*




    The Vodnik is the personification of poverty, pettiness and spite, Sisyphean drudgery, and loneliness. When The Vodnik is unhappy, which is nearly always, his misery will leak out into the surrounding area, must be something in the water. The villagers around Lake Onda have become increasingly cruel and vindictive, petty squabbles quickly turn to brawls, duels, and blood feuds. 

    Only the drunk, drugged, exhausted, raving mad, or starving may enter The Vodnik’s mirror realm beneath the lake, this is where he is most vulnerable and when he is most likely to strike up a deal. If any time is spent in the realm beneath the lake 1d10 days has passed, roll on The Calendar of Nechrubel accordingly. If The Vodnik is killed in the lake a black ichor creeps out from its body and spreads into the lake and kills all of the fish. In 1d6 days the fish will grow limbs and crawl out from the lake, their rotting bodies attack and kill all living things they come across. If any of these fish are eaten save toughness or they cause sickness.





Saturday, February 6, 2021

Rolling for Race at Character Creation

I’m kind of opening up to the idea of adding fantasy races in my game world. I kind of decided one of my players was a halfling because he took the diminutive heritage and grew up in the woods. It gave me some cool ideas for how I could do halflings different. So then I thought why don’t I just structure a 3d6 table for my players to roll on when they make new characters to determine their race!

So here ya go, another 3d6 table. I also think if you had a lot of fantasy races in your world you could make tables like this by region just to determine what’s common in the area they’re in when they meet the new character. A place with some powerful magic leaking into the world might produce more sorcerers, so you could expand their position on the tables.


#

Race/Class

3

Sorcerer

4

Dwarf

5

Dwarf

6

Dwarf

7

Human

8

Human

9

Human

10

Human

11

Human

12

Human

13

Human

14

Human

15

Halfling

16

Halfling

17

Halfling

18

Talking Monkey/Dog



Sorcerer isn’t exactly a race, but It’s the only time I’d let a player start with a class template. All other magic users either need to invoke a patron or learn from a mentor. So I put it on the list for a cool “Chosen One” vibe. Humans take up the majority of the middle bit because It’s a mostly human campaign, and then dwarves and halflings get an even split of the “fairly unlikely slots.” Finally 18 gets Talking Monkey or Dog. Probably doesn’t need explanation, but hey it’s a fantasy world and I like talking monkeys.

Okay, I guess I’m putting this online in the hopes someone else finds it useful, so lets try this with some traditional fantasy and sci-fi.



This fantasy one would be a nice way to keep a consistent tone in a 5e game where you want certain races to actually feel rare, it could possibly be more useful
when generating NPC’s.




#

Race/Class

3

Tiefling

4

Elf

5

Elf

6

Dwarf

7

Dwarf

8

Dwarf

9

Human

10

Human

11

Human

12

Human

13

Halfling

14

Halfling

15

Halfling

16

Half-orc

17

Half-orc

18

Genasi


And here’s a fun sci-fi one for If I ever pick up another Solar Blades and Cosmic Spells Campaign



#

Race/Class

3

AI

4

Alien (Insectiod)

5

Alien (reptilian)

6

Cyborg

7

Cyborg

8

Cyborg

9

Human

10

Human

11

Human

12

Human

13

Mutant

14

Mutant

15

Mutant

16

Alien (humanoid)

17

Alien (aquatic)

18

Psionics User




Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Structuring encounter tables 3d6


Encounter tables in Oren

Here’s my attempt at formulating some 3d6 instead of two 2d6 tables for my setting. It’s a lot more work and more to keep track of, but I think that having some options be really really rare makes the world feel more dynamic, so for the kind of game I wanna run it’s worth the effort.

A few things to consider are genre and tone. For this game I really want most encounters to be with people, and the ecology of the setting, so a lot of it should be bandits and cults, villagers, animals, and plant life. After that we put the fun stuff in like dragons and wizards and faeries and monsters. You can read about the general method I’m using here, but I’m going to expand it into 3d6 for a little more nuance. My reasoning is that I want there to be dragons and faeries and I want them to be rare, but there’s only one dragon in my setting. Nick from pencils and papers lays out his tables like this.


2

Dragon

3

Something Weird

4

Weird + builds the setting

5

Weird

6

Mundane + builds a sense of place

7

Recurring NPC

8

Mundane + builds a sense of place

9

Weird + builds the setting

10

Weird

11

Weird + builds the setting

12

Wizard


So I wanna keep the same format, but lets say I want the possibility of running into a djinni or a powerful fae to be on there and I want it to be like less than 1% because getting a wish can be a world wrecking good time. So now 18 is a djinni and 3 is a dragon cause I want my one dragon to be sleeping most of the campaign. Lets see what I can come up with for my specific setting using this format stretched out.

Some extra rules I follow when structuring tables are that low rolls are potentially more dangerous and high rolls are potentially more beneficial. This allows a god to bless the characters with good fortune by adding a bonus to their encounter rolls or a witch to curse them with bad luck with a negative bonus and they could be none wiser. Also if I roll doubles I roll again and add it to the encounter, triples I roll on an encounter table from an adjacent area. This makes everything a bit more dynamic in play and it makes your setting breathe with life.




#

Plains Encounters

3

Dragon

4

Wyvern

5

Catastrophe Tree

6

2d6 Flameous Lads

7

Stumbleweed

8

Living Statue

9

3d10 Brigands

10

Dangerous Game (Owl Bear etc.)

11

Recurring NPC

12

3d10 Monkeys (Fire Grevit)

1-in-6 chance one monkey talks

13

3d10 reclaimers

14

Village

d4 (1-2) hamlet (3) village (4) town

15

Forgotten Ruins

(Any 1pg dungeon)

16

Wizard

17

Elf

18

Djinn



So I think this works really well for me because I feel like I can just start listing whatever sounds cool and sort it out after, where with the smaller table I felt like I needed to be really picky.

Some clarifications since this is my setting stumbleweed, flameous lads, and crypto-spiders are all from Fire on the Velvet Horizon, and monkey-rot is a disease that turns monkeys, halflings and humans into zombie/goblin/gremlin things. I’m gonna shoot another one out for y'all in this post, so here comes Idlewood Forest.





#

Idlewood Forest Encounters

3

Dragon

4

Troll

5

Changeling

6

1d4 halfings with monkey-rot

7

2d4 Langur Bats with monkey-rot

8

3d10 Masked Ones

9

3d10 Brigands

10

3d4 Wolves

11

Recurring NPC

12

2d4 Langur Bats(night)

3d10 Barons Men (day)

13

Village

d4 (1-2) hamlet (3) village (4) town

14

Halfling Holes

15

Crypto-spider

16

Wizard

17

Elf

18

Djinn


On the real common ones I like to add some variation just to keep things from getting stale like a night/day condition. I hope y’all enjoyed my first blog post leave me some comments and lmk what you think.


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