No peace for the heathen — Sentient Relics
Game Design Log #20
Hi again!, it took me a bit longer than expected to write this post because I had some friends visiting me and just after they left I started to feel ill.
But now I'm recovered (mostly), and embracing the cold and wet days of October, which is one of the things I like about being in the north hemisphere; having the days in phase with the mood of Halloween while getting deep into some gothic and horror reading.
As I told you in the last post, I was going to show the tables to create “Dead holy Wheeled Towns”, which are Holy Wheeled Towns that have been damaged due to extreme weather changes on Isla Grande, or by venturing into regions that were unsuitable for their design.
However, as “Dead holy Wheeled Towns” are one of the main self-contained places of adventure in No Peace for the Heathen (dungeon-like locations), one of their most important features is the creatures players may face inside them. Thus, these have to be totally defined before I threw references to them into some random tables.
I already had the names of these creatures, and their main aspects, but their specificities weren’t there yet.
So I got into the duty of designing these creatures as functional gameable artefacts. Trying to define their particularities, special features, powers, and stats. But after some hours of unfruitful work, I decided to draw them, as sometimes by drawing (which I do much of the time without a clear plan) I can spark more clarity into the workings and specificities of the things I’m imagining.
That’s how this post, that was meant to be a “how to make your own dead holy wheeled town”, has become “these are some creatures that you could find inside a dead holy wheeled town”.
Now my idea is to show you all these creatures (which I plan to do in multiple posts because they are at least 12×3 creatures), and then, after that is done, I will throw you some random tables and some easy to follow rules to build your own dead holy wheeled town.
But what kind of creature lives inside these places?, you may ask yourself. Well, I didn’t write “12×3” in the previous paragraph because I like to write numbers in funny ways, it is because there are 3 kinds of creatures and 12 of each kind that may be inside these magically warped nightmarish towns. These are the three kinds:
Sentient relic: All holy towns carry a relic as the source of their holiness, and as a token of their god to present to the new followers they are meant to amass. In dead wheeled holy towns, this relic has become sentient due to the interaction with the chasm (gap that lies between the worlds of significances of islanders and colonists).
Vice incarnated: A vice, that lived in shame inside the heart of the high priest of the town, and that fed by the magic of the land, and the strange warped energies of the chasm, has become incarnated.
Colonist spirits: The personification of the fate after death that the inhabitants of the town had suffered.
By reading these broad descriptions of types of creatures, you may find a dark religious horror vibe running through them. I think that this makes them particularly interesting to be used in a game like Mork Borg (not a surprise, as No Peace for the Heathen started as a Mork Borg hack) or any dark-religious-horror setting that you are running with your favourite OSR.
I will probably convert some of these into Mork Borg creatures for Morktober so you might want to wait for the conversion, or you can do it by yourself and include them in your game without having to wait for me (the conversion should be easy).
Now, here you have the first 4 Sentient Relics:
All of these creatures make reference to something call “Grief” and sometimes to a tactic/attribute/stat of the PCs, so if you want to use them in your OSR game…
…for something like OSE you can use this:
Grief → XP or Treassure carried by PCs or sum of both (divided by 1000).
Strong → STR
Agile → DEX
Imposing → CHA
Resilient → CON
Sneaky → DEX
Observant → WIS
…for something like MÖRK BORG you can use this:
Grief → Omens, or Silver dived by 100, or the sum of both.
Strong → Strenght
Agile → Agility
Imposing → Presence
Resilient → Toughness
Sneaky → Agility
Observant → Presence
…for both you could also add this:
Let the PCs spend “X” HP to increase their roll by “X”.
Thorny hammer of the Silent Mother:
Chasm 2d6 (Blood/HP).
Imposing 2d4 (stat for everything).
+ Grief of target to all its rolls.
What it does?
Flies (30’)
Dark vision
Thorn hammering → 3d4
if at least 1d4=1, one thorn breaks, and the victim can’t speak.
Diamond Hammering → 1d10
Black light [1 chasm to activate]
Magical darkness in 30’ (10 m)
Bell of the First Word
Chasm 2 + 1d8 (Blood/HP).
Imposing 2 + 2d4 (stat for everything).
Uses Grief of target instead of own Chasm.
What it does?
Does not move
Tonge lash hammering → 1d8
Shadow Hands → 1d6
They have 1 Chasm (HP) each.
Create 2d4, they can be created as afar as 120’ (40m)
Move 30’ (10m) all of them
Forgotten Word → 1d6 + Grief Target
Reach 120’ (40m)
Gallows of the first Sinner
Chasm 2d10 (Blood/HP).
Imposing 2d4 (stat for everything).
- own Grief to the rolls of those looking at it.
What it does?
Flies (30’)
Fog of despair
Reach 30’ (10m)
Roll Resilient DC 10 + own Grief
In fail → You get despair (-2) condition
Purple Ghosts → 1d6
Reach 30’ (10m)
Tendrils of sin → 1d10
Roll Agile DC 10 + own Grief
In fail → You get direct extra 1d6 damage and the relic recovers the same amount of Chasm.
Helm of the Warrior Priest
Chasm 2d4 (Blood/HP).
Imposing 1d6 (stat for everything).
+ Grief of possessed to all its rolls.
What it does?
Flies (60’)
Fire Bolt → 1d4
Reach 120’ (40m)
War cry [1 chasm to activate]
Everyone who hears it is compelled to attack the closest being.
Tentacle Lash → 1d6
Tentacle Grip
Roll Agile DC 10 + Imposing
In fail, tentacles grip you
Posses
Only if a tentacle has a grip on you.
Roll Resilient DC 10 + Imposing
In fail, you become possessed by the helm.
On a side note, I just want to share the joy of finally getting into the hobby of painting minis. I found a super cheap second-hand box of dungeon bowl, and one of the friends who visited me guided me in buying my first paint set and on how to paint my first mini.
We had the chance to play a couple of games, and it was super fun. So now I'm getting into dungeon bowl, and I’m exploring some skirmish games to use the minis I have, and maybe, get into kitbashing to create some units for these games.
Obviously, all this excitement has got me thinking about creating some games using minis. One of the ideas I have is to create an "expansion" for Up is Out, where the execution of the Security job could trigger a skirmish type scenario using minis, but we'll see.