Session Report - Shootout at the Irontown Corral - 29 March 2019

Characters
Chaus Hussar (cavalryman, 2nd level Wizard)
- played by Peter

Tomas Antonio de Carlos Ortega (shoemaker, 1st level Knave of Diamonds)
- played by Todd

Milton J Pennypacker (banker)
Phineas Cole (railroad man)
Molly Oatcakes (farmer)
Alexander Smokes (cigar maker)
- played by Josh


Session 10 - 29 March 2019
After the fall of Brimstone and her party's excursion to the Gold Soul Mines, Sweet Nell headed off for Chicago to put on a Vaudevillian ventriloquist act using Mr Archibald as her "dummy". The pair ended up mentoring some new folks back east who'd decided to travel out west into the demon-haunted Dark Territories ... but that's a tale for another day. (And frankly, for another blog, if Todd chooses to tell it. He recently started running his own Brimstone campaign using the funnel from Black Powder Black Magic volume 1, and repurposing Nell and Archibald and NPCs.)

Meanwhile Chaus followed the same trail the refugees from the ghost town had, lo those many decades ago, and eventually arrived in Irontown, where he was happily received, as there was something wrong with the iron mine. Local banking magnate Milton J Pennypacker was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, and he'd recruited a handful of expendable cannon fodders civic minded volunteers to help investigate. It seemed the iron in the mine was actually growing (which was good!) and also that almost everyone who went in didn't make it back out alive (which was not!) They were also joined by Tomas Antiono, an inveterate gambler, borne on the wings of chance, who somehow knew Sweet Nell and Archibald, and claimed to have won some interesting fossils off her in a casual, friendly, high-stakes card game.

Asking around town, Chaus met a few people who'd been into the mine and made it out alive, and learned of a ghostly woman who seemed to be made of golden light. He thought he recognized the description as another gold-soul ghost like he'd encountered before. Milton was also aware of a rumor of cruel men made of rust patrolling the shafts, and no sir, he wasn't going to stand for it! "Why these men stand in the way of good honest industry! This cannot be allowed to continue!" Together, the six new companions made their way to the entrance of the mine.

The ground out front was covered in sand, and veins of iron were indeed extending out of the mine onto the outer cliff walls. The veins seemed to pulse to some silent, internal rhythm, and almost imperceptibly lengthened as the group stood watching them. Chaus, who'd thought ahead and purchased a rock hammer and some mason jars to collect samples, bent down close to inspect the iron. It seemed almost like mercury, like liquid metal there in the wall, and was pliable and ductile beneath his hammer. As soon as he scraped any off into a jar though, it seemed to harden instantly to become normal metallic iron. Molly Oatcakes was curious how much give the liquid metal had, and she pressed a potato into it. The metal gave way and made a hollow for the potato, eventually, it seemed as though it was beginning to grow over, or maybe even through, the plant. Molly thought she still had time to pull it out, but decided to leave it there, and rather than fall to the ground, the potato continued to be slowly, slowly incorporated into wall.

The group discussed the similarity to the veins in the human body, and the way iron-rich blood flows through those, but before they could become too philosophical, Chaus stood up and cast a magical spray of colors directly at the iron vein. Almost instantly, the whole interior of the mine lit up before them, in rainbow colors that rotated red, orange, yellow, green blue, violet, then red again. To Tomas Antonio, it looked like the new electrified neon-gas lights that had recently been installed in all the finest casinos in Chicago. To everyone else, it looked like a rainbow was lighting up the mine.

Milton shoved Phineas to the fore, and he bravely volunteered to lead the group into the now-glowing mine. As soon as they stepped inside, they heard a sound that had been inaudible before, a sound like waves breaking on the ocean, or like sheet metal wobbling as someone shook it. Though rainbow colored, the room was nearly as bright as daylight thanks to Chaus's spell. One whole wall was literally covered in soft, liquid iron, now coruscating with light. They saw two one passage leading off to their right, another mostly straight ahead, and a third to the right that appeared to be filled knee-deep with gravel. They briefly strategized and decided to explore the easiest-to-reach rooms before entering the gravel-filled passageway.

The group entered the right-hand room, and found it entirely covered in pulsing, coruscating liquid iron, almost blindingly bright because of the rainbow magic illuminating it. On the floor was the indistinct silhouette of something dead. Tomas crouched down to investigate the body and discerned that it was a skinless pit pony, and that tendrils of iron had grown up from the floor and were penetrating the dead animal's flesh, growing into its actual veins. Looking at the pitiful creature, he felt woozy, but chalked it up to the horror of what he was looking at. Chaus bent down to take a closer look as well and promptly fainted dead away. Molly carefully reached out for Chaus with her rake and pulled him closer. She felt a wave of vertigo as well, but maintained her footing, and the entire group retreated back to the very first room.

With a slight breeze of fresh air blowing in from outside, the Molly managed to revive Chaus without difficulty, but as she did so, a man made of an assemblage of chips and flakes of rust came out of the room after them. He locked eyes with Chaus, who scurried up to his feet. The man scurried forward, and Chaus was sure that this strange creature was mocking him and imitating his movements. Chaus continued to back up toward the entrance, and the rust man followed, mincing and mocking as he drew ever closer. At the mouth of the mine, Chaus simply ran for it, and the man, now blocking the entrance and trapping the others inside, turned to face the rest of the group. Milton loudly cursed Chaus for his lamentable cowardice.

Alerted by Milton's insult, Chaus turned and saw that the man had stopped following him, and cast a colorful spray of magic directly into the rust-being's back. The creature was lightly wounded, and also seemed to have perhaps gone blind. It groped forward, no longer mocking anyone, but it must have memorized their last positions, or still been able to see the after-image, because it caught poor Phineas flat-footed, and the railroad man turned to flakes of rust himself, and fell in a formless pile to the floor. The others rushed up on the cruel rust-made man and attacked him. In the creature's blindness, it seemed less able to defend itself. Tomas raked a straight razor across the creature's throat, opening a wide gash so that it nodded like its head was going to flop off onto the floor. Milton picked up Phineas's prybar and smashed at it, and Molly wailed at it with her rake. Between them they opened a gash that ran from shoulder to hip, and the two halves of the rust-creature's torso drooped apart, though it remained standing. Finally Alexander lay into it with his machete, cutting off the creature's head so that it fell apart in flakes of rust just as Phineas had, and the two rust piles co-mingled on the ground.

Chaus re-entered the mine, collected a full sample jar of rust flakes, then went back to check if the dead pit-pony was still there. It remained, seemingly undisturbed since he'd first investigated it minutes ago. Chaus then took the jar outside to look at it in the sunlight, but for all its supernatural origin, the rust just looked ordinary when Chaus held the jar up to the sky.

The group followed the straight-ahead path next, entering a cave with a floor covered ankle-deep in sand. Continuing forward, they arrived in a perfectly square room with wood-paneled walls. On one wall was red graffiti saying "Abandon Hope" and a dead body lay slumped in the corner next to the writing. The body was bleached white as paper, and as they looked closer at it, seemed to be hollow. Molly tapped the body with her rake and it crumpled easily. Pressing harder, she flattened it; indeed there was nothing inside to support it. She used the teeth of her rake to tear off a sample, which Chaus gingerly removed and placed into a sample jar. Although it looked like paper, Chaus thought he recognized it as parchment, like the sheepskin of his old diploma.

They continued straight ahead and arrived in a larger cave with one straight, wood-paneled wall and two doors. Waiting inside the room was a small stone-skinned creature that looked like a gargoyle downspout like Tomas had seen in Chicago. The gargoyle bowed extravagantly to the group as they entered the room. In sweeping gestures and an exaggerated pantomime style, the little gargoyle indicated that it would love for them to go into the left-hand door. As a banker and a gambler, and thus both accomplished liars in their own right, Milton and Tomas felt certain that the little creature was lying to them somehow. Whatever master it served, it certainly didn't have their best interests at heart when it suggested they go to the left. The little creature pointed to its chest as if to say "me?" then shook its head "no, no!" and crossed its heart. Alexander ran up and threw open the right-hand door! ... aaand saw the entrance to a hallway going off to the side. Anticlimactic. The gargoyle looked halfway between smug and apologetic, "I tried to warn you" it seemed to shrug. But when the group started going through the door, it started gesticulating frantically, genuinely trying to stop them and warn them off! The group ignored the creature and walked down the hall.

They arrived in a room where the far wall was made entirely of pulsing liquid iron, pounding like there was a heart right behind it. They noticed that the effect of Chaus's spell was weaker here, so far from the door. Where the earlier iron wall had been almost too bright to look at, this one gave off a pleasant firelight glow as it cycled through the colors. Chaus theorized that there was, in fact, a heart behind the wall, and so carefully took off his academic regalia, folded it neatly and set it on the ground, rolled up his sleeves, and then took up a mining pick and began carving away at the wall with all his strength. He shaved off great curls and whorls of iron that fell solid to the ground. Somewhere in the distance, they heard the echo of a deep, thunderous voice, "What?! Who dares?!" Molly and Milton started at the sound and retreated to the hall to peer at Chaus from around the corner.

As the two watched, they heard a new sound, a kind of musical groaning and clanking, like something with accordions for legs and cymbals for feet going for a walk. A moment later, a new being entered the hall through the door the party had just used - it stood taller than human height but had no head, its body looked like a rubber-bulbed bicycle horn, and it had oversized hands and feet. As Molly and Milton watched with jaws dropped, the new creature started like it had just noticed them, scratched its head (or rather, where its head SHOULD be) in confusion, waggled a scolding finger at them, and then put its hands on its hips in a huff. Behind the new creature, they saw the little gargoyle peeking around the corner. As the monster's hand hit its hips, it squeezed its own rubber bulb, and with a great honking sound, fired dozens of whirling little circular blades. Both Molly and Milton were cut all over, and both knew instinctively that they couldn't survive another attack. They ran back into the main room, shouting a description of the new monster while cowering behind Tomas and Alexander for cover. Their backs against the pulsing iron wall, the group was trapped, with nowhere to run and no way to escape!

Groaning and clanking, the musical creature followed into the room, but before it could attack, Tomas pulled a gold coin from his pocket, invoked the mysterious entities he followed, known as the Arcana, and with an elaborate baseball windup, pitched the coin at the creature. Halfway along its flight, the coin winked out of existence in midair. The walking bicycle-horn scratched its head in confusion again, then elaborately shrugged. Chaus dropped the pick, drew his cavalry sabre, and charged the monster. He inflicted a critical wound that might have slain a lesser being in one strike, but the creature pounded its hands into its hips disapprovingly again, and more spinning blades flew out of the horn, along with a great musical honk. Chaus and Alexander both dodged and received only minor injuries, but Tomas took the full force of the blast, and like two of his friends, knew he could endure not a single more injury without dying. Alexander and Chaus charged the creature again, first scratching, and then actually puncturing its rubber bulb, but that only seemed to make it angry as it began gesturing wildly. Tomas pulled from his coat pocket a fossil he'd won in a rigged competition received as a gift from Sweet Nell. The fossil bloomed like a flower and became the skeleton of a dragon. The little dragon roared like an angry kitten, then spit a gout of green acid onto the creature. Its rubber bulb dissolved entirely away, and the rest of its bodyparts fell noisily to the floor. The gargoyle, who'd moved closer to watch from the end of the hall, looked absolutely shocked and turned to run away at full tilt.

Realizing how close they'd come to dying en masse, and fearing what might happen if they encountered any other dangers, the group agreed to return to the mine entrance. "I begin to see why so few who've entered this mine have returned back outside to tell about it," Chaus observed drolly. They filed down the hall and into the larger room where they'd met the little gargoyle, but there was no sign of the creature now. Both doors blew open and hot wind like from a furnace blew at them in great gusts from every direction. Molly, Milton, and Tomas all cringed, fearing that their doom had found them after all, but rather than grow hotter or scald them, the wind abruptly stopped.

They hurried the rest of the way back out of the mine and limped back into Irontown. While the others recuperated, Chaus located Phineas's widow, Mrs Cole, and gave her the jar of her husband's "ashes" (really the intermingled flakes of rust belonging to both Phineas AND the monster) and $10 worth of gold dust to help her cover her expenses. Though she was shocked by the news, and clearly in mourning, there was also a glimmer in widow's eye for this strange and mysterious scholar.


Gains
1 jar of rust flakes (given away)
1 jar of paper-skin

Losses
$1 spent on failed magic
$10 given away to Mrs Cole
Phineas Cole (turned to rust)

XP
1 Luck for Chaus Hussar for his donation in service of a Lawful cause
2 XP for surviving the fainting room
4 XP for the crumbling simulacrum (cruel rusted man)
1 XP for interacting with the deceased hungering husk (hollow paper man)
2 XP for negotiating with the gargoyle majordomo
4 XP for the sprayer machine (bicycle-horn being)
6 XP for exploring 6 new rooms
Total: 17 XP each for Chaus and Tomas, flat 10 XP each for Molly, Milton, and Alexander for surviving their first adventure

Sometimes when a Bob-omb and a bicycle-horn-duck love each other very much ...

Post-Mortem
If the two sessions late last year were kind of transitional, then I think we've officially arrived at a new chapter in the campaign. I let Peter just level up Chaus because I felt like I've been too stingy with my XP awards. I would have let Todd bring Sweet Nell up to level 3, but he seems to have retired her, so I let him create a new character at level 1. (I was also hoping someone would use the Knave class I wrote for David Coppeletti's eventually-to-be-published DCC Class Alphabet, and Todd graciously volunteered.) I also let him keep the fossil dragon Nell had just secured but never used. A fateful decision! We also welcomed a new player this week - Josh from the Bernie the Flumph! blog.

Between Todd McGowan, John Potts, and now Josh Burnett, this play group is shaping up to be something of an all-celebrity game, though perhaps with less stature than Todd's OTHER celebrity group with James Maliszewski and Dyson Logos.

For this session, I re-skinned "The Iron Coral" adventure from the Into the Odd rulebook. I've been wanting to run that since the first time I read it, and since Peter and Todd wanted to leave the Gold Soul Mines (at least temporarily, although they may decide to revisit it later) this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I spent a little while thinking about how to reimagine the original underwater, coral adventure site as a mine, but decided that the "soft red coral" that's growing out of control in the original would become living, liquid iron, and that the various human-built observation areas in the original would become squared-off, wood-paneled mining company rooms. I also decided on an explanation for what's going on here, although I'll wait until the group is through with this site before saying what that explanation is. With those ideas in mind, I was able to convert the room descriptions on the fly, without needing to prepare a detailed key of new locations.

The only place I messed up was in getting confused about which passageway out of that first room was filled with foam (which became gravel) although in my defense we were having our worst trouble getting the audio to work at that moment, so I was a little distracted. Fortunately Roll20's native audio worked much better than the last time I tried it, and the adventure could continue. Because of that mistake, the rooms they passed through were slightly less interesting than they could otherwise have been - and if they were avoiding the gravel, then different narration on my part might have led them into an entirely different part of the dungeon!

The monsters I spent a little time statting up for DCC, since DCC uses Hit Dice to determine a lot of things, and I2TO only gives hit points and ability scores for its monsters. I don't have any kind of rigorous system in place yet, but I estimated that monsters got about 1 HD per 5 hit points listed, with exceptional ability scores contributing to Armor Class and Saving Throws and the like. If I do more of this, I might try to formalize things a little more. For now, the informal approach seems to work fine.

In addition to writing up DCC stats, I felt like I ought to reimagine some/all of the monsters to change them from undersea horrors to underground mining monsters. The biggest change, probably, is the Sprayer Machine. Chris McDowall described the Sprayer Thing as a "huge toad-like thing" that "spits Itching Barbs." I thought a digging robot might be a good choice for a creature that spits blades at you. And then, I dunno, as soon as I thought that, the image of a walking bike horn cartoon character, complete with white gloves, just kind of popped into my head. The group seemed to enjoy him, and Josh pretty correctly identified him as being from Wackyland. The thing that's really interesting to me is that I don't think I ever would have come up with something like the Sprayer Machine all by myself. It came because I was reskinning McDowall's adventure. It's a reminder that every game using a published adventure is a kind of collaboration between the judge and the adventure's author, to say nothing of the collaboration between judge and players in EVERY adventure, published or not.

The fight with the Sprayer Machine was a thing of beauty. We came THIS close to a TPK ... and then Nell's fossil dragon won the night! Milton, Molly, and Tomas were all down to 1 hp, and Alexander wasn't doing at all well. Chaus MIGHT have survived one more attack, but it was absolutely down to the wire for the others. We'll see if they remain as lucky in the future! One surprise this week was how often I managed to roll wandering monsters. Usually, I feel like they rarely turn up, but this time around I got three encounters and one sign (the dead hungering husk.) Peter, Josh, and Todd were all pretty certain their characters were dead when I pointed out the dice indicating that last random encounter, but luckily for them, the table just said "A sudden rush of hot air." (They were also pretty certain the hot air was going to do 1 hp of damage to each of them. Can you imagine! That would have to be about the MOST ignoble way to die after surviving such a grueling fight.)

In light of my earlier concern about not passing out enough XP, I tried to give larger awards while saying within the DCC guidelines. My initial inclination was to award 1 each for the trapped room and the gargoyle, 2 for the rusted man, and 3 for the horn robot. But following inclinations like that is how I found myself wishing I'd been more generous. So I bumped them up to the amounts you see above. I considered, but decided against factorial experience for exploration (ie, 1 XP for the first room +2 XP for the second, +3 XP for the third, and so on.) Something like that (even something like that but multiplied by 10) might work in an XP for gold situation, where awards are routinely in the hundreds. But that would mean 21 XP for visiting 6 new rooms. Ultimately, I decided to go with a flat reward of 1 XP per room. I didn't feel right awarding twice as much for exploration as I did for everything else put together. It might be worth revisiting that discomfort some other time, but for now, I think the overall increase should help with my initial concern.

Session Report - Descend into Brimstone - 11 Nov 2018 & 14 Dec 2018

Session 8 Characters
  
Sweet Nell (innkeeper, 2nd level Warrior)
- played by Todd

Stella (trapper)
Dagmar (lawyer)
Hellen (porter)
Tess (draughtswoman)
- played by Cheryl

Session 8 - 11 Nov 2018
A week after the Demon Queen Hezzemuth was summoned to the mortal realm, and the town of Brimstone was in absolute chaos. New buildings were rising directly out of the ground, so tall they scraped the sky, tall like Chicago or New York, yet seemingly molded from clay or carved directly from the earth, rather than built by human hands.

This was the demon architecture of the demon ant queen! But as this new city flourished, Brimstone suffered. The town's old wooden buildings were destroyed as the new structures rose up. Townswomen Stella, Dagmar, Hellen, and Tess all lost their homes, but rather than move into the overcrowded campgrounds where so many townspeople were sheltering since their lives were destroyed by the demon, the four women sought out the help and advice of Nell, famous around town for trying to fight and oppose Hezzemuth.

They came, hats in hands, to the cabin at the edge of town that Nell shared with her other friends, and she led them on an errand to Pemberton Nimby's tent out in the campgrounds. The grounds were crowded with makeshift tents and lean-tos, and they had to pick their way carefully through bodies of people lying out in grass, trying to escape the crowding inside their shelters, drinking their cares away in the sun. Pemberton was overseeing a pair of hired hands packing away the contents of his tent. "OH," he said, in his creepy Peter Lorre voice, "so good to SEE you. I've been thinking of taking a little trip. The WEATHER, you see, it doesn't agree with me."
 
Nell agreed that heading out of town for awhile sounded like a good idea. She turned over two of the spellbooks they'd stolen found in the Freemason's hotel room, much to Pemberton's delight. He returned the pair of fossils she'd lent him, - "with some SPECIAL modifications" - and wished him well on his trip. Nell led her four new companions back to the cabin, but as they walked, they noticed ominous black smoke ahead of them, and when they got closer, they saw that the cabin was on fire!

Nell unhitched the party's horses, and Stella, Dagmar, Hellen, and Tess stole borrowed four to ride alongside her. As they rode, Nell told the other women of an old fairytale she knew, about the so-called Gold Soul Mine, where one day all the miners vanished, and the town became haunted by ghosts made of gold-colored light. She rubbed her chin as she rode, and said she reckoned it might be about time to go chase down that old fairy tale. And so, with little more than the clothes on their backs, the five set off on a week-long ride, living rough on the land, before finally arriving at a ghost town, where a broken sign out front announced "Welcome to -"

They explored the town a bit. The buildings were all empty, half the doors had fallen off their hinges, half the windows were broken. The weeds grew tall and dust blew through the sand-covered streets. Nell guessed it had been empty for years, maybe decades. Her own mother told her that Gold Soul tall tale as a bedtime story.

With their pick of campsites, the group moved into the biggest saloon in town, and brought the horses inside with them. Searching for provisions, they found a few bottles with a finger or two of dregs left in their bottoms. Stella found a jar of pickled eggs, Dagmar found a cracker tin that was full of dusty powder, Hellen found a barrel of pickles that had all turned to slime, and Tess found a bag of dried beans. Nell found a side of salted beef that appeared to still be preserved, but after she ate some, it quickly poisoned her. The other women stuck to a dinner of pickled eggs and boiled beans. Between the rotted foodstuffs, Nell's illness, and the horses, their barroom campsite smelled foul by the morning.

Despite her stomach ache, Nell insisted that they head over to the mine entrance in the morning. They saw it was boarded up, though the boards were rotten and falling away. The weeds and grass were dead all around the mine entrance, and the few nearby trees were sickly, with emaciated branches and drooping yellow leaves.

Session 8 Gains
a new home-base in the ghost-town saloon
2 provisions

Session 8 Losses
the former home base (burned down)
the town of Brimstone (taken over by demons)

Goldsoul Mine map by Martin O

 
Session 9 Characters


Chaus Hussar (cavalryman, 1st level Wizard)
- played by Peter

Sweet Nell (innkeeper, 2nd level Warrior)
- played by Todd

Session 9 - 14 Dec 2018
Chaus Hussar remembered Nell's fairy tales about the fabled Gold Soul Mines, and so when Brimstone was ravaged and their cabin burnt down, he too rode out to the old ghost town to meet her there. While the newcomers improved the group's camp inside the grand saloon, Chaus and Nell went back to the mine entrance, marked as it was by dead grass and dying, yellow-leafed trees. Chaus cast a spell that allowed him to climb like a spider, and with Nell clinging to his back, descended into the pit of the mine.

Down the pit they arrived in a small cave where the floor was covered in rocks like skipping stones. They saw a crawlway leading out horizontally, and a hole in the floor, marked by graffiti reading "None Here Have Mercy". Deciding to heed the warning, they crawled through the shallow half-tunnel leading away to the right.

Halfway through their crawl, they began to hear stringed musicians playing "The Blue Danube" waltz on ukulele, banjo, and guitar. They hurried through the crawl and arrived in a slender, cylindrical cave with only a hole in the floor and the sound of a rushing underground river coming from below. As they stood there contemplating, the sound of the waltz grew louder, and a few moments later, a trio of ghostly musicians arrived. The ghosts were rude, demanding to know who Chaus and Nell were before immediately dismissing them, "Well I've never heard of you!" Chaus was unfailingly polite and convinced the ghosts to continue on their way, playing another refrain of waltz. The ghostly trio disappeared through the hole in the floor, while Chaus and Nell decided to crawl back to the first cave they'd entered.

Returning to their starting point, the pair decided to climb down through the hole in the floor. This led to a narrow shaft that they descended by bracing their bodies against the back wall. At the bottom, they reached a much larger cave, and shared some of Nell's chewing tobacco to help revive them from their fatigue. After their rest, they inspected three possible exits - another hole in the floor, another path leading off to the right, and a slope leading upward and to the left. They elected to go in a new direction, and waded through hip-deep gravel as they made their way up the slope to the next cave. Along the way, they passed a handful of picks and shovels, all with broken shafts and dented metal heads.

Practically swimming upstream by the end, the pair bellyflopped into a new cave with obvious, un-mined veins of gold lining the walls. Nell thought back on her mother's bedtime stories. She recalled that the miners allegedly turned to gold, and their ghosts haunted the townspeople, who then all ran away. None of the fresh gold in these walls bore a human silhouette, so Nell declared it safe to mine. Much to their chagrin though, neither she nor Chaus had much in the way of mining equipment. They'd been lucky to leave Brimstone with their lives, and hadn't had time to pack. They used some of their other gear as makeshift scraping tools and managed to get about $100 in gold dust and pebbles to break off the wall. They divvied up their find and slipped and slid back down to the lower cave. Once there, they did their best to pull more gravel down the slope to try to block off the room entrance, hoping to discourage anyone else who might come by from jumping their claim.

They took advantage of the narrow walls to make a relatively easy climb back up to the first cave in the mine, bracing themselves against the wall and then half-walking their way up. As they lay on the floor catching their breath though, a half dozen gold-soul ghosts flew into the room through the other shaft. The ghosts had been dead and trapped so long they forgot what it was like to be human, and looked more like blobs of gold-colored light, but Nell had no doubt these were the ghosts her mother's fairy tale had warned her about. Chaus Hussar cast his spider-climbing spell again, and carried Nell up and out with all alacrity. Bobbing along like jellyfish in the sea, the gold-soul ghosts followed, but couldn't catch up with them, and tonight, at least, came no further than the entrance to the mine.

Nell and Chaus made their way back to the saloon where they went to bed on empty stomachs, as the women maintaining the campsite had no luck finding more provisions. Over the next week, Nell, Chaus, and the others made a more systematic search of the houses in the ghost town, and managed to cobble together a decent set of camping supplies.

Session 9 Gains
$100 in gold dust
assorted rations and camping supplies

Session 9 Losses
none, for a change

Session 8 & 9 XP
Unfortunately for Cheryl, I don't think that Stella, Dagmar, Hellen, or Tess have done enough to read first level (sorry, Cheryl!) As for all the others, I decided that anyone who wanted to could simply level up, or start a new character at level 1 for Session 10.


Post-Mortem
Both these sessions were cut somewhat short by audio trouble. My regular online group uses Roll20 for our dice and maps, but we had trouble with the Roll20 audio early on, and set up a Discord channel to use just during our games. It's been sort of hit and miss. It was especially bad during Session 8, but still caused us a few problems in Session 9. Then we played an entirely separate mini-campaign (which hopefully I'll post about here soon) with no troubles at all. Then most recently, poor Discord audio threatened to ruin Session 10, but we switched back to Roll20's audio to good effect. 

Probably the biggest difficulty in online play is getting everyone signed up and logged in on the same platform, and then getting that platform to function ... correctly ... for everybody ... at the same time. (I mean the BIGGEST biggest difficulty in online play is probably the same one as in-person play, just getting enough people together, period, to have a quorum so you can run the game. That problem is the reason I've played so few sessions between last fall and today. But functionality is still probably the biggest online-specific difficulty.)
 
As an aside, I was thinking the other day about the scene in Bladerunner where Deckerd is at a bar, and goes to a phonebooth to videocall Rachel. I was thinking about how that scene is like the very definition of the idea of retro-futurism. At the time, the possibility of placing a video call seemed SO futuristic that I doubted the technology would exist in my lifetime. Today, when everyone owns a mobile phone with a built in video camera, the same scene seems positively archaic. And the really quaint thing about it isn't that Deckerd still goes to place his call from a public, landline, payphone. No, what's really charmingly old-fashioned about it all is the idea that Deckerd would seek out even a modicum of privacy for his call, rather than just ringing up Rachel from right there at the bar, and shouting his intimate conversation at top volume, surrounded by a audience of strangers who were all doing the same thing.

Anyway, these sessions are kind of transitional. After the debacle in the Maw of Hezzemuth being summoned successfully, my players indicated that they were interested in moving on to some new adventuring sites. The random campaign event generator I've been using said that there was a fire in town that directly affected the player characters - which was about as perfect a coincidence as I could possibly ask for. Since they were leaving anyway, I decided to play up the destructive influence of Hezzemuth's presence, as she started erecting termite mound skyscrapers and generally remaking the town as she saw fit. If they ever decide to go back, Brimstone will be quite a different place than they left in.

In the meantime, my players' wish to visit some greener pastures meshed well with my desire to try running a few different  pre-written adventures I've had my eye on, just reskinned to fit into this campaign. At the moment, running something as a DCC western adventure is currently the easiest way for me to run it. I feel full of new ideas, and I'm eager to try something different, but I don't have anything else finalized or ready yet. So for now, I'm enjoying trying out a few wish-list adventures as reskins.

The first up is Goodberry Monthly's Gold Soul Mines. We didn't make it very far in because of the aforementioned audio problems, and - spoiler alert - Session 10 takes place somewhere else, so I'm not sure if we'll be back. Gold Soul uses the Veins of the Earth cave generation rules and nomenclature, making it easily the most claustrophobic space the campaign has explored thus far. I think my players were pretty unnerved by the gold-soul ghosts as well, so I'm not sure how eager they'll be to return to the scene of this particular crime.

GFA18 - North American Familiars

My very last entry in the 2018 Gongfarmer's Almanac was a reprint and update of something I wrote earlier that's fallen out of print now. One nice thing about putting this up on my blog is that I can add in the hyperlinks to the other settings I mention in the introductory essay.

My writing on this piece was edited by Cory Gahsman. That fantastic art piece is by Carmin Vance, and I just love the detail he put into it, especially the behavior of the cat familiars, the wanted poster, and the way the possum familiar's potion looks like a little jug of moonshine.

Because I waited so long to post this, the call for submissions for the 2019 GFA has gone out! It won't be organized on Google Plus as it was in years past, but it's found a new home (actually several new homes) on MeWe, on the Goodman Games discussion boards, and on its very own website! (Click that Participate tab at the top to volunteer!) Writing submission are due by May 1st, art submission by June 1st, and they could always use volunteers to help with editing, layout, publishing and coordination. 
 

Image by Carmin Vance

 
When a wizard in a North American setting casts find familiar, they don't summon one of the entities from the DCC core rules. Instead, they summon a familiar spirit from the local territories. Lawful familiars in North America mostly take the guise of domesticated animals and animals that form civilized communities. Neutral familiars mostly appear as wild animals whose very existence symbolizes the frontier in the minds of city-dwellers. Chaotic familiars dress themselves in the guise of pests, vermin, and decay.

These familiars are usable in any DCC campaign that takes place in a North American setting, whether it's the Dark Territories and town of Brimstone from Carl Bussler and Eric Hoffman's Black Powder Black Magic, the Shudder Mountains from Michael Curtis' The Chained Coffin, the Trails of David Baity's Dark Trails, Our World from Diogo Nogueira's Lost World setting, the Crawling Revolution led by James Walls' Revolutionary Crawl Classics occupations, the Esoteric America watched over by Michael Curtis' Secret Antiquities patrons, or any similar locale.

As in the DCC core rules, if the familiar has an ability and no modifier is listed, the wizard gains a +4 bonus to use that ability. I imagine fey familiars as being child-sized or waist-height, but looking so elfin and otherworldly that they'd never be mistaken for a human child.

North American familiars are an itinerant sort. At the judge's discretion, either at the beginning of each session, or each time the wizard gains a level, their previous familiar departs and a new one comes to take its place. This could be the original spirit taking on a new physical configuration, wanderlust causing one spirit to move on and another to replace it, or a regular shift-change between punch-clock geists. The wizard enjoys a different master's benefit each time their familiar changes (besides, what fun is a table with 72 entries if you only get to see one of them?)


LAWFUL FAMILIARS
Familiar Physical Configuration (and Master's Benefit)

1     White cat (move very silently)

2     Hound dog (all followers, retainers, etc. receive +2 to morale checks)

3     Miniature horse ('spooked' feeling warns caster of surprises and ambushes)

4     Miniature long-horned steer (+2 hit points)

5     Miniature blue ox (+1 Stamina)

6     Prairie dog (excellent hearing)

7     Groundhog (caster knows upcoming weather each morning)

8     Beaver (swim speed 20')

9     Yellow miner's canary (supernatural ability to detect traps and hazards)

10    Pigeon (caster can 'home in' on route out of dungeon or back to town)

11    Cock rooster (loud, commanding voice)

12    Barn owl (ability to see at night as well as during day)

13    Red-tailed hawk (excellent vision)

14    Bald eagle (excellent vision)

15    Giant ant (+1 to all attempts at ESP, scrying, etc)

16    Giant honey bee (melee attack deals poison: DC 12 Fort save or temporary loss of 1 Strength)

17    Child-sized scarecrow (opponents are -2 to morale checks)

18    Miniature covered wagon (once per day, the caster can ‘find’ a single low-cost mundane item in their pack)

19    Miniature train engine (movement 40')

20    Fey school-teacher wearing glasses and elbow-patched tweed jacket, never speaks, communicates using writing slate (caster can attempt to read any unknown language as lawful thief of the same level)

21    Fey Catholic priest, dressed in black robe with white collar (one of caster's known spells is replaced by a random cleric spell)

22    Fey soldier in blue-coat US Army uniform (caster is proficient with all weapons)

23    Mysterious fey figure dressed in gunfighter's outfit, mouth covered by bandana, never speaks (+1 to initiative and to all missile attacks)

24    Tiny feather-winged angel wearing white robe, face identical to caster's, speaks up whenever caster is tempted to disobey interests of patron (+1 to saving throws versus chaotic magic and supernatural effects)


NEUTRAL FAMILIARS
Familiar Physical Configuration (and Master's Benefit)

1     Gray cat (move very silently)

2     Possum (+1 to recovering the body checks for caster and familiar)

3     Badger (+1 melee damage)

4     Miniature stag deer (+1 Personality)

5     Miniature bison (+1 AC)

6     Gray Wolf (extraordinary sense of smell)

7     Miniature mountain lion (+1 Strength)

8     Miniature grizzly bear (+1 to melee attacks and melee damage)

9     Toad (ability to hold breath underwater for 20 minutes)

10    Gecko lizard (climb speed 10')

11    Desert tortoise (+2 AC, movement 20')

12    Armadillo (caster is proficient with shields, suffers no spellcheck penalty from carrying a shield, can shield-bash as a dwarf)

13    Mockingbird (caster is able to speak 1 additional random language)

14    Whip-poor-will (beautiful, haunting singing voice)

15    Crow (uncanny ability to detect gemstones and shiny objects)

16    Wild turkey (excellent at hiding in forest)

17    Giant grasshopper (once per day, caster can leap 10' vertically or 20' horizontally)

18    Will-o-the-wisp (familiar acts as candle-light in darkness)

19    Tumbleweed (caster can withdraw from melee combat without opening themselves to a free attack)

20    Fey wilderness scout, dressed in leather suit and racoon cap (uncanny ability to find paths and know direction)

21    Fey woodcutter wearing plaid shirt, carrying axe (+1 to attack and damage against plants and fungi)

22    Fey card-sharp, dressed in gambler's finery, carries tarot deck (+2 Luck that restores each night if used, similar to a thief's recovery of Luck)

23    Dust-devil cyclone (once per day, after hitting their first opponent in combat, the caster can continue making attacks against new opponents using the same weapon and action die, until missing an attack or running out of opponents)

24    Tiny elemental (+1 to all saves and checks related to that element. Roll 1d10 to determine element: (1) earth; (2) air; (3) fire; (4) water; (5) dust; (6) fog; (7) ice; (8) lightning; (9) mud; (10) exotic element such as gold, silver, gemstones, demon ore, etc.)


CHAOTIC FAMILIARS
Familiar Physical Configuration (and Master's Benefit)

1     Black cat (twice per session, impose -1 penalty on opponent's roll)

2     Raccoon (ability to pick pockets as a chaotic thief of same level)

3     Weasel (supernatural ability to squeeze into tight places)

4     Porcupine (anyone grappling or dealing melee damage to caster takes 1 damage from quills)

5     Polecat skunk (immune to nausea and stench)

6     Coyote (+1 Agility)

7     Tiny python (extraordinary sense of smell)

8     Tiny rattlesnake (melee bite attack deals poison: DC 16 Fort save or temporary loss of 1d6 Stamina)

9     Miniature alligator (successful melee attack grapples opponent, automatically deals 1d6 damage per subsequent round)

10    Bat (excellent hearing)

11    Miniature buzzard vulture (caster is able to safely eat rotten or spoiled food)

12    Black swan (once per day, caster can reroll any natural 7, and once per day, caster can reroll any natural 13)

13    Giant millipede (climb speed 10')

14    Giant maggot, transforms into giant black housefly during combat (‘skin crawling’ feeling alerts caster to presence of disguises and shapeshifters)

15    Tarantula spider (melee attack deals poison: DC Fort save or temporary loss of 1 Agility)

16    Giant mosquito (bite attack deals 1d4 damage and heals wizard of 1 hit point)

17    Tiny black scorpion (+2 to Fort saves versus poison)

18    Miniature skeletal horse (+1 to all attempts at planar communication or travel)

19    Miniature black stagecoach with large glass windows revealing casket inside (+1 AC and +1 saving throws versus undead)

20    Beautiful fey saloon dancer with skin flayed from her back, dressed in can-can outfit (+2 Personality)

21    Fey tattooed lady, dressed in bathing suit, covered in ink showing Patron's motif (+1 to spellcheck of random spell)

22    Fey hanged man (grants an extra life - the first time caster dies, the familiar dies instead, and caster is restored to full hit points, less the consequence of familiar dying)

23    Child-sized human skeleton (+1 damage to undead and +1 damage from necromancy)

24    Tiny bat-winged red devil, face identical to caster's, speaks up whenever opportunity arises to tempt caster to advance Patron's interests (+1 to all saving throws versus Lawful magic and supernatural effects)


Note: Most of the entries above originally appeared in the article "Familiars of the Dark Territories" in Black Powder, Black Magic, volume 4. Lawful entries 7, 10, 17, and 20, Neutral entres 12, 13, 19, and 21, and Chaotic entries 12, 14, 16, and 19 originally appeared in the post "Pseudo-Preview of BPBM4" on the DIY & Dragons blog.

GFA18 - Mountain Lion Magic Items

Okay, so actually the FINAL final mountain lion entry for the 2018 Gongfarmer's Almanac is a pair of mountain-lion themed magic items. I almost forgot I wrote this! My Black Powder Black Magic campaign needs a fair number of magic items, because characters can find demon ore, and trade it for magic items, which means the campaign NEEDS magic items for the characters to acquire. (Ideally, characters should have to "quest for it" rather than just trading in the ore like it's currency, and long term, I should possibly think about some kind of rule for "retiring" items that have been used long enough, but those are concerns for different posts.)
     
So the story behind both these items is that I watched the Lego Batman movie, and Catwoman has like one line in the whole movie, where she's helping a gang of villains break into a building, and we see her on the comms, and she's like "Meow-meow, we're in, meow-meow!" It's practically a throw-away line, but I loved the idea of her bookending all her sentences that way. So then I watched Black Panther, and the little sister Shuri has these cat-faced gauntlets that fire vibrating soundwaves as a weapon. And in my head, every time she fires these things, she says "meow-meow, meow-meow!" (Next time you watch Black Panther, try adding that sound-effect yourself. It's delightful!)
  
So the first item is pretty much just Shuri's gauntlets, and the second is a variation on the same idea, which arises out of the first. (It also lets you play at being Lego Catwoman, the same way the first one lets you play at being Shuri.) Plus, I don't know, in addition to the fun of getting my players to say "meow-meow" to use their magic item, I kind of like the idea that a magic item might have a command word that the players have to know and say. The presence of a "magic word" has a certain fariy-tale-ness to it that I like, and having the player say the magic word is sort of an immersive role-playing element. Outside of a situation like this, I would probably pick magic words like "abracadabra", "alakazam", "hocus pocus", and "open sesame". 
  
Danny Prescott edited this article, and the others in the series, and he was a big help in making sure that my physical descriptions evoked the right mental image and that my instructions were clear and easy to understand.
  
    
Gauntlets of the wailing mountain lion: These metal forearm-guards are made of the same vibrating material as a tuning fork or xylophone bar. The gauntlets seem to hum or purr constantly, sounding a musical note when struck against each other or used in combat. Each guard is carved to look like a mountain lion, tail wrapped around the wearer's forearms, haunches gripping the wrist, and the lion’s chin resting on the knuckles.
  
The gauntlets grant +1 AC and allow the wearer to make an unarmed punch for 1d4 damage, but prevent wielding another weapon in combat. They are ideally paired for two-weapon fighting. At least once per day the wearer can invoke the mouths to fire a soundwave at a target as a ranged attack for 1d14 damage by saying magical phrase "myow-myow," and the player has to say it out loud.
  
Spellcasters can use this power a number of times per day equal to the highest spell-level they can cast. If the wearer uses two-weapon fighting to fire two soundwaves at once, this counts as only a single use of the gauntlets.
  

  
Gloves of the were-lion thief: These coal black mouse-leather gloves have weighted knuckles. The leather on the back of the wrists and hands is worked to look like a cat preparing to pounce - tail curled above the wrist, haunches perched on the hand, chin and forepaws gripping the knuckles.
  
If worn by a non-thief these gloves allow the wearer to make an unarmed attack like a blackjack (1d3 subdual damage) with an additional +1 to hit and +1 damage, and once a day, the wearer can say the magic phrase "myow-myow" to use any one thief skill using a d24 skill die.
  
If worn by a trained thief they function as above, however the thief may instead say the magic word to roll a d24 skill die thrice per day, and if the thief uses this power while backstabbing the attack deals lethal instead of subdual damage with the automatic crit rolled on the monster crit table. When invoked, the player has to say the magic phrase out loud. Thieves who use this power more than once per day must use it for a different skill each time.

  

GFA18 - Were Cougar

The last entry in my series of mountain lion variations for the 2018 Gongfarmer's Alamanc is the were-cougar. Traditionally, the ability to shapeshift between human and feline forms is associated with the wampus cat, but I thought it was an interesting enough ability to stand alone. For roleplaying monsters, I think it may be better to have just one really stand-out ability, and for the wampus cougar, that was already the mourner's wail, and the were-cougar was born. 
   
She's the only mountain lion with a real alignment, and I thought giving her a demon's crit sort of fit well with her supernatural aspect. While I wanted her to shapeshift often so the players could see it (well, or at least imagine seeing it) I didn't want that to create any kind of confusion involving a second stat-block. So she has one stat-block, one hit-point total, and her shapeshifting is basically cosmetic, which is fine with me. I added the coin-toss to make her shifting random. I didn't want it to happen every round, but I thought it might be harder to remember instructions like "every third round."

   
The association of the word "cougar" with older women who want to date younger men led me to the idea of the lover's wail. I probably wouldn't have thought of that if I'd chosen a different cat, but I'm glad I did. It reminds me of some of the early D&D monsters who kidnapped party members by making them fall in love. That's the worst-case outcome here, but a normal failure just means that you'll spend all your downtime with your new cougar-wife, and if you're lucky, she'll actually join your party as an NPC ally. Danny Prescott edited this entire series.
 
   
Were-cougar: Init +3; Atk claw +3 melee (1d4+1) or bite +4 melee (1d6+2) or wail (special); AC 13; HD 3d10; MV 40' or climb 20'; Act 1d20; SP shapeshifter, pounce, lover's wail; SV Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +4; AL C; Crit DN/d4.
  
A were-cougar is a shapeshifter with two forms. In her human form she appears as a woman on the cusp of old age wearing simple local dress. She seems feisty and self-reliant. In her lion form, she has a slightly demonic air, pointier ears, shaggier fur, sharper claws (she uses identical statistics regardless of form).
  
A were-cougar is the implacable enemy of the nearest town, and may treat PCs as allies if they are outcasts there. She collects husbands and has a harem of 1d8 local men in her den at all times. She is not particularly jealous, and allows her men to take second wives, so long as she retains their primary loyalty. There is a 50% chance the were-cougar is first encounter her in lion form.
  
If a were-cougar makes the first attack of combat she will use her lover's wail; otherwise she attacks normally. Thereafter, she will alternate attacks between claw, bite and wail, pouncing when possible. Each round she doesn't pounce flip a coin; if heads she uses her move to shift between her human and cougar forms. A were-cougar prefers to use her claw and bite attacks against female opponents and against males who pass their Luck check against her wail. If every living male opponent has been affected by her wail she will return to her den and any new husbands will follow.
  
Shapeshifter: A were-cougar takes half damage from ordinary weapons. She counts as unholy for lawful clerics. The were-cougar can shift between her human and cougar forms as a move action.
  
Pounce: A were-cougar can pounce to gain an extra d20 attack die and attack with any two attack options, i.e. claw and bite, bite and wail, or wail and claw. The were-cougar can only pounce if she surprises its victims, attacks first due to initiative, or has taken no damage since her previous attack.
  
Lover's wail: A were-cougar sings a haunting, wordless song, like a lonely woman singing to her cat. A were-cougar's wail affects the male opponent with the highest Personality score who hasn't been affected yet today (in case of tie, she targets the opponent with the highest Luck score from among those with highest Personality). The affected target rolls a Luck check to see how he is affected.

• Half Luck score or lower - The were-cougar falls in love with the target and stops combat immediately. She will offer to marry the target and join the them as an NPC who mostly follows his instructions. She will follow him anywhere in order to live her life beside him.

• Luck score or lower - The were-cougar is the most beautiful woman the target ever saw, but he knows it is just not to be.

• Higher than Luck score - The target falls in love with the were-cougar and retires from combat while trying to talk his friends into stopping their attack. The target spends his downtime between adventures living with the were-cougar as her lover in her den. He refuses to go on journeys that would take him too far away from his lover.

• Higher than double Luck score - The target falls deeply in love with the were-cougar, and fights to the death to prevent anyone else from attacking her. The target retires from adventuring to marry the were-cougar and live with her forever in her den.

Demonic crit: A were-cougar rolls 1d4 on the demon crit table.

GFA18 - Wampus Cougar

The wampus cougar is my next-to-last mountain lion variation for the 2018 Gongfarmer's Almanac. It's physically the weakest mountain lion, but also the most deadly. The wampus cat (which originates in Cherokee myth, but was also adopted into American folklore as a fearsome critter) is supposed to have a voice that either kills or foretells death. It's also supposed to shapeshift into a woman, but I decided that for gaming purposes, it was more interesting to separate out that ability, resulting in the were-cougar. 
   
The various "wail" abilities I gave to the cactus, wampus, and were-cougars ended up being modeled on this one, which was in turn modeled on the folklore. I decided I wasn't quite willing to kill a character for failing a Luck check, but that I was totally willing to kill a character who rolled over double their Luck score. I also thought it would be fun if there was some reward for surviving really well. I initially thought about giving all the mountain lions their own wails, but ultimately decided it only fit with a few of them. Danny Prescott edited all the mountain lions, and provided art for this one.
 

Art by Danny Prescott 

 
Wampus cougar: Init +0; Atk claw +2 melee (1d4) or bite +3 melee (1d6) or wail (special); AC 10; HD 3d6; MV fly 20'; Act 1d20; SP ghostly body, pounce, mourner's wail; SV Fort +1, Ref +1, Will +3; AL N; Crit U/d8.
 
The wampus cougar is smaller than other mountain lions, with longer, silver-white fur that seems to shine in the dark. It floats rather than walks, stalking completely silently, and appears almost unreal as it moves. The sight or sound of a wampus cougar is widely believed to be an omen foretelling death.
 
If the wampus cougar makes the first attack of combat, it will use its mourner's wail; otherwise it attacks normally. Thereafter, it will alternate attacks between claw, bite, and wail, pouncing when possible.
 
Ghostly body: The wampus cougar takes half damage from ordinary weapons. It counts as unholy for neutral clerics and lives halfway between our world and the spirit realm.
 
Pounce: The wampus cougar can pounce to gain an extra d20 attack die and attack with any two different attacks, i.e. claw and bite, bite and wail, wail and claw. The wampus cougar can only pounce if it surprises its victims, attacks first due to initiative, or has taken no damage since its previous attack.
 
Mourner's wail: The wampus cat caterwauls like a mother crying for lost children. The wampus cougar's wail affects the opponent with the lowest Luck score who hasn't been affected yet today (in case of tie, it targets the opponent with the lowest hit points from among those with lowest Luck). The affected target rolls a Luck check to see how they're affected:

• Half Luck score or lower - Permanently gain 1 hit point

• Luck score or lower - The target faints and immediately comes to. Lose 1 hit point and fall prone

• Higher than Luck score - The target loses half her current hit points (rounded up) and falls prone

• Higher than double Luck score - The target drops to 0 hit points and begin bleeding out

Undead crit: A wampus cougar rolls 1d8 on the undead crit table.

GFA18 - Sabretooth Cougar

My fourth mountain lion variation for the 2018 Gongfarmer's Almanac is the sabretooth cougar. The biggest changes to my basic mountain lion template is that the sabretooth is giant, so I decided to take advantage of the DCC rules for turning it into a giant. It gets an extra Hit Dice and its die-size goes up by +1d on the dice-chain. Its claw attack goes up by +1d damage, and its bite attack goes up by +2d (because, c'mon it has sabre-teeth). Like other giants, it gets a d24 Action Dice, crits on rolls of 20 or higher, and uses the Giants' crit table. 
   
I think I'm probably espousing a general philosophy of how to treat dinosaurs and megafauna by writing this. I'm definitely advocating that other DCC authors follow my lead and add a Crit entry to the end of the standard stat-block. Most of the time, it just saves having to cross-reference your monster entry against that table of crits by monster type and HD. Sometimes though, like this, having the entry come standard makes it easier to show that a monster has an unusual crit. Danny Prescott edited the entire mountain lion series, and he provided the art for this entry.
 

Art by Danny Prescott

   
Sabretooth cougar: Init +3; Atk claw +4 melee (1d6+1) or bite +6 melee (1d10+2); AC 16; HD 4d10; MV 40' or climb 20'; Act 1d24; SP pounce, crit on 20+; SV Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +1; AL N; Crit G/d4.
 
The sabretooth cougar is megafauna from an earlier era. It stands a foot taller and a foot longer than other mountain lions with orange fur and a tawny belly. Its most notable features are its namesake foot-long fangs, which give it a vicious bite.
 
If the sabretooth cougar makes the first attack of combat it will pounce; otherwise it attacks normally. Thereafter, it will alternate attacks between claw and bite, pouncing when possible.
 
Pounce: The sabretooth cougar can pounce to gain an extra d24 attack die and attack that round with both claw and bite. The sabretooth cougar can only pounce if it surprises its victims, attacks first due to initiative, or has taken no damage since its previous attack.
 
Giant crit: The sabretooth cougar uses d24 action dice to attack, and crits on any roll of 20+. Its crits roll 1d4 on the giant crit table.

GFA18 - Mountain Lion Cougar

The third mountain lion variation in my series for the 2018 Gongfarmer's Almanac is the mountain-lion cougar, which is the baseline monster I altered to make all the other variations. It's the simplest and probably the easiest to fight.
   
Danny Prescott edited all the entries in this series. Clayton Williams provided the art for this one. Somehow the black bands on this cougar make me think of an 80s workout music video.
 

Art by Clayton Williams.

 
Mountain-lion cougar: Init +1; Atk claw +2 melee (1d4) or bite +3 melee (1d6); AC 13; HD 3d8; MV 40' or climb 20'; Act 1d20; SP pounce; SV Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +1; AL N; Crit M/d8.
 
Mountain-lion cougars look like giant house cats, standing 3' tall at the shoulder and measure 7' from nose to tail. They have short tawny fur that turns white around their mouths and down their bellies. Their ears and nose are outlined in black, as are their paws and the tips of their tails.
 
If the mountain-lion cougar makes the first attack of combat, it will pounce; otherwise it attacks normally. Thereafter, it will alternate attacks between claw and bite, pouncing when possible.
 
Pounce: The mountain-lion cougar can pounce to gain an extra d20 attack die and attack that round with both a claw and bite. The mountain-lion cougar can only pounce if it surprises its victims, attacks first due to initiative, or has taken no damage since its previous attack.

GFA18 - Cactus Cougar

My second mountain lion variation for the 2018 Gongfarmer's Almanac is the cactus cougar. Like the ball-tailed cougar, this is a semi-naturalistic take on an American folkloric creature. My idea to give these monsters pre-programmed attack strategies is a little bit easier to see in this one. If it attacks first in the first round of combat, it starts with the drunkard's wail, otherwise it starts with body slam, then bites, then wails, etc. If it gets the chance to pounce, it will just do whichever two attacks come next in the programmed order.
   
The cactus cougar is also the first example of the "wail" attack I thought of. Like a dragon's breath, "wails" hit their targets automatically, but you get some kind of defensive roll to protect yourself. Except instead of a saving throw, you get to use DCC's Luck roll mechanic, which is basically "roll under your Luck score or bad things happen to you." In this case, I wanted more outcomes, adding something like a critical success and something like a critical failure. I initially thought about having them turn up on rolls of 1 or 20, but I decided that I wanted them to occur a bit more often, and I wanted to differentiate them a bit from DCC's official "crits" and "fumbles." Note that any character with a Luck score 2 or higher can potentially get the best outcome, but ONLY characters with Luck 9 or lower can get the worst - at Luck 10 and above, it's simply not possible to roll more than twice your Luck score (unless something forces you to roll a d24 instead of a d20, I guess). 
   
Danny Prescott edited this piece and the others in this series. Again, I want to point out how invaluable his help was in making sure my instructions for pouncing would make sense to people who aren't me. Clayton Williams did the art for this one.
 

Art by Clayton Williams 

 
Cactus cougar: Init +1; Atk bodyslam +3 melee (1d6 + spikes) or bite +2 melee (1d6) or wail (special); AC 16; HD 3d8; MV 40' or 20' climb; Act 1d20; SP pounce, spikes, drunkard's wail; SV Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +1; AL N; Crit M/d8.
 
The cactus cougar has green tinged fur and six-inch quills growing at intervals across its body. Although as agile as any other mountain lion, it has a clumsy, staggering walk and a distended belly.
 
If the cactus cougar makes the first attack of combat it will use its drunkard's wail; otherwise it attacks normally. Thereafter, it will alternate attacks as follows: bodyslam, bite, and wail, pouncing when possible. If the cactus cougar puts every living opponent to sleep it will eat the sleeping target with the lowest Luck score then return to its den.
 
Pounce: The cactus cougar can pounce to gain an extra d20 attack die that round and attack with any two different options, i.e. body-slam and bite, bite and wail, or wail and body-slam. The cactus cougar can only pounce if it surprises its victims, attacks first due to initiative, or has taken no damage since its previous attack.
 
Spikes: A target hit by the cactus cougar's bodyslam, or who deals melee damage to it, is stabbed by several of its spikes. The target makes a DC 13 Fort save against poison. Upon success they take 1 damage; otherwise they take 1d4 damage and will be affected the next time the cactus cougar wails.
 
Drunkard's wail: The cactus cougar caterwauls like a drunkard singing on the walk home. Affected targets each roll Luck checks to determine how they are affected. If the cactus cougar wails during the first round of combat it affects the target who drank alcohol most recently, otherwise its wail affects all targets who failed their poison save since the last time it wailed:

• Half Luck score or lower -The water in the target’s canteen becomes very fine mescal or tequila.

• Luck score or lower - The target is drunk, and has a terrible hangover in the morning.

• Higher than Luck score - The target falls asleep, and for 1 hour cannot be woken except by taking damage.

• Higher than double Luck score - The target falls asleep, and for 8 hours cannot be woken except by magic.

GFA18 - Ball Tailed Couger

This 2018 Gongfarmer's Almanac piece is the first in a series of mountain lion variations. I started with a base monster, and then for each variation, tried to come up with a couple really basic ways that it would be different. The ball-tailed cougar, my naturalistic variation on the folkloric ball-tailed cat, is relatively simple. I decided that DCC's dwarven shield-bash mechanic would work pretty well for the tail-slap attack, so that d14 Action Die listed below is dedicated to only be use for tail-slapping.
  
Danny Prescott edited this series, and he volunteered art for this entry. He was a huge help in making sure the text related to the "pounce" ability made sense. His suggestions made my writing much clearer. I wanted to try out something where each of the mountain lions has a very predictable series of attacks, and a special ability that gives them an extra attack under certain circumstances. The predictable attacks potentially allow the players to strategize how to best to fight these things. In particular, preventing the cougar from winning initiative or going an entire round without taking damage makes it MUCH easier to defeat by denying it the chance to use its pounce ability.
  
Having a predictable order of attacks is also supposed to take some weight off the referee. I'm much more comfortable in the role of "neutral arbiter" than I am in the role of "adversary trying to kill your characters" so having pre-ordained tactics makes it easier for me to run the fight without either feeling uncomfortable about being "too hard" on my players or feeling as though I'm improperly pulling my punches. (Demanding that the claw attack be used every other round also solves a head-scratcher on many monster sheets, which is that if the judge is choosing which attacks to use, why would you ever use the claw attack when the bite attack is clearly better? In this case, you do so because the instructions say that's how this animal behaves.) Pre-programmed tactics can also potentially make different monsters FEEL different by making them do different things, even if their stats are pretty much the same. Programmed tactics might be better for animals than for intelligent opponents, although I also like the "video-game boss monster" feel that you get from knowing that your adversary is running through a set list of moves.
  

Art by Danny Prescott

  
Ball-tailed cougar: Init +1; Atk claw +2 melee (1d4) or bite +3 melee (1d6) or tail-slap +2 melee (1d6); AC 13; HD 3d8; MV 40' or climb 20'; Act 1d20 + 1d14; SP pounce, tail-slap; SV Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +1; AL N; Crit M/d8.
  
The ball-tailed cougar has a double-long tail that ends in a rounded club like an ankylosaurus or manticore.
  
If the ball-tailed cougar makes the first attack of combat, it will pounce; otherwise it attacks normally. Thereafter, it will alternate attacks between claw and tail-slap and bite and tail-slap, pouncing when possible.
  
Pounce: The ball-tailed cougar can pounce to gain an extra d20 attack die that round to attack with both its claws and bite. The ball-tailed cougar can only pounce if it surprises its victims, attacks first due to initiative, or has taken no damage since its previous attack.
  
Tail-slap: Each round, the ball-tailed cougar can make an attack with its tail using a d14 attack die.

GFA18 - Mountain Lion Varieties & Signs

My next batch of Gongfarmer's Almanac 2018 pieces are a series of related monsters for Weird West adventures in DCC. My initial inspiration for these was the Pokemon variations meme of drawing multiple versions of the same Pokemon in a way that resembles natural genetic variation. So this is my attempt to create slightly naturalistic monsters out of some famous "fearsome critters" of American folklore. Danny Prescott edited this batch of entries.
 
  
Travelers in the western half of North America know to fear the mountain lions that stalk the rocky Cordillera region from British Columbia down to Jalisco, and are even found occasionally back East. Mountain lions are solitary predators who follow their prey for some time and often surprise unwary victims. Mountain lions look like giant house cats, standing 3' tall at the shoulder and measure 7' from nose to tail. They have short tawny fur that turns white around their mouths and down their bellies. Their ears and nose are outlined in black, as are their paws and the tips of their tails.
  
If PCs encounter a mountain lion, roll 1d6 to determine the type: (1) ball-tailed cougar; (2) cactus cougar; (3) mountain-lion cougar; (4) sabretooth cougar; (5) wampus cougar; (6) were-cougar.
  
If the characters all stop attacking and throw down all their rations, kill an animal or person for the lion to eat, or allow the lion to eat someone who has already died, any mountain lion will take its meal and retreat to its den immediately.
  

 
Signs: Some characters are skilled trackers and can discover the presence of wilderness creatures before they're encountered. Judges may allow their players to encounter clues about the identity of local monsters before encountering them directly. Use the portents below if players are potentially likely to encounter a mountain lion. A character hearing a distant wail as a sign of a nearby lion will be the first character targeted by the wail during combat. I recommend playing Ratatat's "Wildcat" quietly on repeat from the time the characters encounter a sign (or roll initiative for combat) until the end of the encounter.
  
Ball-tailed cougar: The PC hears a sound like a child bouncing a ball, over and over and over.
  
Cactus cougar: The PC smells tequila in the wind and hears caterwauling like a drunkard singing on the walk home. The character who drank alcohol most recently is now drunk again and can feel the hangover coming already.
  
Mountain-lion cougar: The PC smells ammonia in the wind, and for a moment everything goes silent as the birds stop singing and insects quit their buzzing. After a short period the natural sounds resume.
  
Sabretooth cougar: The PC feels a sudden chill in the air, like breeze blowing in off a glacier, and hears what sounds like distant thunder.
  
Wampus cougar: A cloud crosses the sun and throws the PC into shadow. The PC hears a caterwaul like a mother's cry for lost children. The character with the lowest Luck and lowest hit points faints and immediately comes to after losing 1 hit point.
  
Were-cougar: The PC hears a woman singing. He can't make out the words, but it sounds like a lonely woman singing about her cat. The male character with the highest Personality and highest Luck is sure the singer is the most beautiful woman in the world.

  
   

Session Report - Descend into Brimstone - 2 Nov 2018

Characters
Archibald (innkeeper, 1st level Zombie)
played by American John

Nell (innkeeper, 2nd level Warrior)
played by Todd

Chaus Hussar (0th level cavalryman)
played by Peter

Detective Guillermo "the Bull" (man-at-arms)
NPC ally

Caspar, Melchior, and Abendego (magicians)
Salma and Penelope (acolytes)
NPC ... allies?
 
 
Session 7
The small pilgrimage arrived at the demon-shrine, an ancient pueblo building inside a large cave. The crowd of spectators stopped a few steps behind the adventurers, and whispered amongst themselves about the site before them. Confronted with the shrine, standing on the very doorstep of a human sacrifice, Archibald, Chaus Hussar, and Nell felt indecisive. Nell turned to the nearest Mason, Abendego, "Now, remind me again why we're doing' this sacrifice? What are we lookin' to accomplish?" Abendego explained that the architecture of the West is boring and undeveloped, Hezzemuth, as a queen of the ants, is sure to be a builder, certain to build great things, and that he and his colleagues want to be part of it. Melchior leaned over to chime in that the sisters had promised them that Hezzemuth would reward them with special demon's eyes.
 
Nell took all this in, then asked "Now, remind me again who these sisters are?" Melchior repeated the story of how they found the shrine while looking for interesting architecture in the Maw, and that in the shrine they met the two Mexican sisters who inducted them into Hezzemuth's cult. When the Illuminati sent an assassin from back east to kill them, the sisters somehow foresaw the assassin, and gave the Freemasons the advice they needed to get the drop on the assassin and capture him.
 
Nell, Archibald, and Chaus Hussar debated what to do. They settled on the idea that it would be like going to see a Vaudeville act at a music hall, and decided to go ahead and enjoy the show. Nell still felt conflicted, and called back to the crowd to explain that the Masons wouldn't be performing the sacrifice themselves, it would be the sisters ("The beautiful sisters!" chimed in Abendego) but this information did not deter the crowd.
 
The adventurers entered the shrine. They saw a giant pool of water, yellow with sulfur, and smelled brimstone in the air. They saw the giant soldier ant that'd killed Archibald, lurking at the far back of the room. The Masons led them past the pool through a doorway to the right, into a large hall with a high ceiling, held aloft by wooden pillars. At the front of the room was a stone altar with a man bound and gagged to the stone. He was flanked by two beautiful Mexican sisters and two stone sculptures of Hezzemuth, marble images that cast her as a Greek goddess holding tools like the plumb bob, the ruler, the triangle. The crowd filed in, and all eyes were on the bound man. They edged to the back of the room, trying to stay as far from the bloodshed as possible. ("Ohhh, you mean this is COLLEGE college!")
 
The Freemasons took their place at the front of the room, standing around the altar. The sisters, Salma and Penelope, addressed the crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen! Tonight, you will witness a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! The queen, Hezzemuth the Painmistress is coming to earth!" While the crowd was in awe of the sisters, Archibald, Nell, and Chaus Hussar whispered among themselves. They saw another door on the back right-hand side of the room. They crept over, sidling between the other onlookers, and pulled the door open just far enough to slip through. Chaus Hussar went ahead while Archibald and Nell stayed to guard the door.
 
Suddenly, chaos erupted in a matter of moments. One member of the crowd came forward and threw back the hood cloaking his face - it was Detective Guillermo "the bull"! "Tonight?" he yelled, "Tonight you sons of bitches are going to pay for your crimes!" He fired his handgun at the sisters, but only hit the wall behind them. In the other room, Chaus Hussar entered a dusty, disused space with another stone altar and another pair of statues, these showing Hezzemuth as a cruel smiling woman with razor teeth, licking blood from a dagger, and holding a whip, a flail, and a sword. As he stepped forward to investigate, he heard the noise from the hall ... and stepped into a bear trap. Nell heard Chaus Hussar scream in pain and ran through the door to help, shouting "Save Guillermo!" over her shoulder to Archibald. The Freemasons rushed forward to detain the detective, and Caspar stabbed him in the shoulder. Archibald lurched forward, but his new zombie body was too slow. Salma made beckoning motions with her hands, and said in a powerful voice "Come now detective, you don't want to hurt us." Guillermo stopped struggling against the Masons, his arms went limp, his eyes went blank. In a voice like talking in his sleep he said "I will come to you now. I don't want to hurt you." He walked to the front of the room with Archibald too slow behind him, and Penelope slit the detective's throat before plunging her knife into the bound man's chest.
 
There was a thunderclap and blinding flame as a demon tore through the wall of reality and into the room. The crowd panicked and tried to rush for the exit, shoving and jostling in a frightened herd, as Archibald backpedaled for the door his friends had disappeared into. Hezzemuth laughed and laughed, lashing out into the crowd again and again with her whip. Each time it cracked another onlooker was torn apart, their bodies practically exploding under the force of the demon queen's wrath. The last thing Archibald saw as he backed through the door was the Freemasons' eyes suddenly glowing with the light of hellfire. "My eyes!" they shouted, "I can truly see!"
 
In the dusty room, it took Nell and Chaus Hussar several tries to free his leg from the bear trap. They froze when they heard the commotion in the other room, and Nell drew a bead on the door as Archibald came through. She wiped her brow and holstered her pistol. "Mr Archibald!" she scolded, "I nearly shot you!" They could hear Hezzemuth's whip cracking and her horrible laughter as the remaining members of the crowd screamed in fear and agony. After getting free and wrapping a bandage around his leg, Chaus Hussar put the bear trap in his bag and moved to get a closer look at the altar and its horrid statues. Archibald noticed that the real Hezzemuth looked much more similar to these gruesome visages than she did to the neo-classical statues in the main hall.
 
Chaus Hussar tried to topple one of the statues, hoping it might somehow break Hezzemuth's power, but he had to rock it on its base to make it move, and it fell forward on him instead, pinning him to the floor. At the same time, the other statue came to life and moved toward the trapped man. Archibald touched his demon ore necklace, the one that bound his soul to his dead body, and projected his own ghost temporarily into the room. Archibald's un-dead flesh was grey, his posture poor, his movements slow and jerky - but the ghost that appeared was like an idealized version of him as he'd been in life, and his flesh fell to the floor like a discarded cloak as the ghost emerged. He tangled with the statue, distracted and passing through it as Nell worked to free Chaus Hussar. As soon as she got him out, the both set the statue back upright, and the one Archibald was fighting abruptly reverted to perfect stillness.
 
The sounds from the other room had quieted, so the three decided to make a break for it. When they re-entered the hall, they saw the soldier ant blocking the far door and a few survivors cowering against the back wall amidst a charnelscape of severed limbs and spilled blood. Archibald picked up a severed arm. The demon Hezzemuth stared at Nell. "Wouldst thou join me, Sweet Nell?" the demon's voice boomed, "Wouldst thou become my disciple?" Archibald threw the arm over the ant's head into the other room, and the great beast turned to follow the snack. Nell turned to the survivors "Get on now! This here's your chance!" They heard a splash as the ant charged into the sulfurous pool. The friends and the few survivors ran for the door, and found the entry room completely empty with no sign of the giant ant. They felt confused, but didn't stop to investigate the source of their good fortune, but rushed onward, back through the Maw, back to the elevator to the Gallows. "You know," said Archibald, "I'm getting tired of giant ants." The others nodded in agreement as they trudged.
 
It was evening as the group finally made their way to the surface. A few others must have escaped ahead of them, because everyone in town, from the elevator operator onward, seemed to be aware of what had transpired. The bartender at the Gallows offered the a round of stiff drinks. "Shoulda known that you all was the real heroes in this town," she said, commiserating with Nell. "Them Freemasons musta bamboozled us all somehow. I guess them preachers was right about that demon, tryin'a talk some sense into us." Archibald contemplated his drink. "Yes, and to think, it only took dozens of deaths to realize human sacrifice is wrong."
 
After their drinks, Chaus Hussar suggested going to rob the Freemason's hotel room, and Archibald and Nell agreed. The hotel manager said "Of course, I could never watch someone rob my customers, no matter how odious they are," then unlocked the room door and walked away. They found some spare clothes, and most importantly, the three Masons' spellbooks. One book contained a spell to save a person from falling, another a spell to help read other magical writing, and the third spell to inscribe magical runes. Chaus Hussar decided to try to learn magic, and wanted to keep two of the books. The group agreed that they could probably trade the final book to Pemberton Nimby in exchange for something made from the fossil they'd brought him. Nell mentioned she might like to get out of town for awhile, maybe stay away from the Maw and look for adventure somewhere else. She remembered a fairy tale she'd heard as a girl, the story of the Gold Soul Mine where one day all the miners vanished and all the townspeople left, and only their ghosts still worked the mines...
 
 
Gains
demon eyesight x3 (effects TBD)
stolen spellbooks x3 (Feather Fall, Read Magic, Runic Alphabet - Mortal)
 
Losses
Guillermo "the Bull" (sacrificed to demon)
unnamed sacrificial human (sacrificed to demon)
about 15 spectators from the Gallows (sacrificed BY demon)
 
XP
4 XP for participating in sacrifice/summoning
1 XP for bear trap
1 XP for living statues
1 XP for giant soldier ant
1 XP for robbing Freemasons
Total: 9 XP for Archibald and Nell, flat 5 XP for Chaus Hussar for finishing funnel
 
Running graveyard (and session of death)
Detective Guillermo "the Bull" the NPC Mexican police-captain (7), Bjornk the hunter (6), Meriwether the 1st level Cleric (5), Archibald the 1st level Thief (3), Officer Shia "the Beef" the NPC Mexian police-officer (2), Daniel the plumber (2), Officer Benicio "the Bull" the NPC Mexican police-officer (2), Luther the factory-hand (2), Jed the miner (1), Henry the huckster (1), Lilly the clerk (1), Bill the livery-stabler (1), Harry the butcher (1), Rusty the auctioneer (1)
 
 
Postmortem
My main goal going into this session was to preserve my players' ability to decide how they would interact with the human sacrifice / demon summoning scenario. I was willing to let them be spectators, participants, or opponents, but I didn't want to force them into any of those roles. By that measure, I felt like this session was a success. I think a couple of my players felt bad afterward for having take a little while to decide what they wanted their characters to do, but from my perspective, the important thing was that they weren't forced (or rushed) into doing anything they didn't want. And as I said, deciding they just wanted to watch the sacrifice and summoning was, from my perspective, a completely valid decision for them to make. 
   
I can recall a couple times as a player, including once when John was the ref, where what I really wanted to do was watch one monster fight another monster so I didn't have to fight either of them - and in retrospect, I can see that the judges were doing the same things I did here, kind of slow-rolling it and checking in often to make sure the players were still on-board with a spectator role in the scene. In fact, the one thing I wish I'd handled differently was the combat between Guillermo and the sisters (who, yes, were Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz). Again, I made decisions about what each of the NPCs was going to do, then had my players roll the dice. This was slower than me rolling the dice myself, but it didn't really constitute meaningful participation in the combat, I don't think. In retrospect, I wish I'd rolled for myself so I could have narrated a little faster, or assigned each player a faction (sisters, masons, and Guillermo) and let them control them fully. (Also, man!, that whole thing could have played out differently if Guillermo had hit someone during the surprise round, or not ended up last in the initiative order, or succeeded his saving throw against being charmed.)
   
This session felt like the end of one chapter and the start of something new for the campaign. I think my players want to branch out. The goal of the megadungeon mine is to be the default campaign activity. If you can't think of what to do, you go down into the mine, and you find something that sends you on a quest. Then you complete the quest, and unless that turned up new leads, go back into the mine for something else. In the original BPBM campaign where I was a player, finding demon ore often served as the reason for a quest, because we had to find someone who could turn it into a magic item, and then do them a favor. The other way we got embroiled in a quest was finding a letter from a hostage, which eventually led to us mounting a rescue. I think my players liked going on the quest for Nimby, and want more of that sandbox style play. And I think they want to see more of the world. This has got me thinking about the limits of a procedurally generated dungeon, how large it can be, and how much variety it needs to stay interesting. The next place they're off to is Goodberry Monthly's "Goldsoul Mine" dungeon.
   
I liked Peter's idea to go rob the Freemason's hotel room. We rolled randomly for the spells there at the table. At the end of the night, Peter also rolled to find his wizard spells, and got Color Spray, Sleep, and Spider Climb, the lucky devil. Each time my players have found a magical item, I've had to decide what it does. When they trade the spellbook to get back the fossils, I've decided that they're going to turn into a dragon!