The Black City Bestiary: Berserkers

Berserkers are a common "monster" type throughout the Black City. As various groups of competitive raiders pillage the city for hidden wealth and alien artifacts, it might seem natural that some groups would abandon the hard work of finding treasure for themselves, and instead lay ambushes in the ruins to take take the treasure of other adventurers. Banditry is indeed common. But the darker flavor are those groups that enter the ruins and never come out - not because they perish, but because they choose to retreat deeper into the city and live as wildmen and ragers, away from the laws of Trade Town. Over weeks and months, some of these outcasts even devolve to a bestial state, setting snares and death traps, skulking in the shadows and deeper in the sublevels of the city, savagely attacking former friends that trespass on their territory. These are the Berserkers.

New arrivals to Trade Town will be warned about sleeping in the ruins of the city at night. The delvers spread rumors that a devil spirit flies on the night wind, enters the souls of men and infects them with the hunger for human flesh, filling them with the blood lust and transforming them into berserkers; they call the spirit "wendigo". The less superstitious amongst the delvers just call it "cave madness", from spending too much time in the weird ruins. The truth is both more insidious and prosaic.

The ancient Greys that built the Black City were masters of biotechnology and life form engineering. They created a parasitic organism that enhanced the aggressiveness and bestiality of terrestrial life forms to make their captives fitting specimens for the arena. Long after the city had fallen, these microorganisms spread to the fresh water sources used by creatures in the sublevels of the city, polluting wells and cisterns alike. Many of the "dire animals", giant insects, and other monstrous natural life forms (especially those in the vast caverns of level two's "Warrens of Decay") have evolved due to the constant biological pressure generated by infection. Outsiders like the Northmen, with no natural immunity to the parasitic "roid worms", often become infected, developing into berserkers (and ultimately cannibals) after drinking polluted water in the dungeons.

Worm Madness
Worm Madness is caused by drinking water infected with the microscopic roid worms. These parasites alter the victim's brain chemistry, increasing rage, paranoia, and suspicion. Advanced stages of the infection increase the victim's muscle mass, strength, and size, and inflict a punishing hunger that drives the victim towards violence and cannibalism.

The dungeon text will indicate whether a specific water source is infected with roid worms. Worm Madness can only be cured by Cure Disease; once infected, there is no normal recovery.

Exposure: Victims must make a save vs poison after drinking contaminated water.

Incubation: 4 hours - after a few hours, a victim must make a second save or advance to Stage 1 of the disease (see below). The victim is now a Berserker.

NPC's will avoid returning to civilization once infected and will be more comfortable camping in the ruins for extended periods, becoming agitated and aggressive around the uninfected.

Interval: 2 weeks. Every few weeks after infection, there is the chance the victim mutates to the next stage of worm madness. Once a player character advances beyond Stage 1, the character is a monster and an NPC until cured.

Stages of Worm Madness
Stage 1
Humans and demihumans infected with roid worms will function like standard Berserkers (Moldvay page B32 or Labyrinth Lord p87) with the following modification: the infection alters the victim's perceptions, increasing paranoia and aggressiveness towards outsiders; all reaction rolls by these Berserkers are made at -2.

Stage 2
At this stage of infection (2+ weeks), the victims of the parasites are less than human. They will be ravenously hungry to fuel their gains in strength and biomass, driving them towards eating raw flesh and cannibalism. Statistically, the cunning stealth and raw strength granted to Stage 2 infected make them equivalent to Bugbears (Moldvay B32, Labyrinth Lord p66).

Stage 3
In the final stage of the infection, the victim will no longer trust any other beings (even other infected); the Stage 3 infected will wander off to a secluded section of the ruins and create a cave-like lair protected by cunning traps. These mutated monstrosities are no longer remotely human, and function statistically as Ogres (Moldvay B40, Labyrinth Lord p90).

Return to the Black City

Thanks all for the kindly words about our adoption and well wishes for the recent trip to Ethiopia!

One good thing about a 3 week break is that I got to put a lot of notes in my brainstorming notebook - and since the regular campaign in Gothic Greyhawk is 90% modules, all that work went into the Black City.  I've got the major encounter areas scattered across the surface ruins sketched out, the viking trade town that will serve as the home base, and all five mini dungeons for level 1.  Posts for the next few weeks should be heavy on Black City content as I turn scribbled notes into blog posts and get this thing in a playtestable format.

If you're fairly new here, the Black City is an ancient ruin on the island of Thule in the frozen north sea.  The builders of the city are long gone, and the ruins were rediscovered by the Northmen a few years ago who have begun exploiting the lost wealth and bizarre artifacts found in the city.  My inspirations include the city of the Elder Things (from Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness) and the desire to build an unusual megadungeon that mixes weird science and some sci-fantasy with Vikings.  Here is a link to view all the Black City related posts.

The Blue Obelisk
Labeled J on the new City map

Just north of the great glacier is a 40' tall stone obelisk in the center of a snow and ice covered clearing.  The obelisk radiates extreme cold and will cause 1-4 points of damage if touched with bare skin.  At night, the obelisk glows blue and the faint lines of a gigantic magic circle and hexagram can be seen just below the ice.

If a character does touch the obelisk, they'll see the face of a young boy with large almond shaped eyes swim to the surface of the translucent stone.  The character will receive a vision of lightning, followed by a room with a bed of glowing crystals.  The character will understand that removing the blue crystal from the matrix will turn off the obelisk and reveal a secret stair beneath it, leading to a treasure.  (These manipulative visions lead to Level 1 Transit Tunnels - The Electric Co. - room 25, the Obelisk Control).  A powerful magical suggestion will be secretly placed in the character's subconscious; if this character is present when the group makes it to the obelisk control room, he or she will need to make a save vs spells at -2 to avoid removing the blue crystal and freeing the prisoner.

The plaza of the Obelisk is a dangerous place; the winds that howl across the plaza make it a favorite haunt of the wind demons that scour the glacier.  If a wandering monster is called for while adventurers are at the plaza, there is a 50% chance it will be a wind walker or air elemental.

The obelisk is the prison for an extradimensional entity trapped by the ancient Greys; they used the Obelisk to torture and extract eldritch secrets from the prisoner.  If the characters do find the control room on level 1 and deactivate the Obelisk, the entity will be long gone by the time they return to the surface - it will immediately head into the dungeons below the city and begin gathering its power to free the avatar of the Dark Goddess imprisoned on level 7.  The characters will meet it again on level 7.

There is no treasure beneath the Obelisk.

Ethiopia blocks Dungeons & Dragons - Blogs!

I'm back in the states from Africa.  I was out of touch with the D&D blogosphere for a few weeks.  It turns out that Ethiopia blocks a number of internet sites that could be used for political discussion, including blogspot.com, so I wasn't able to post or read anything while over there.  I found Ethiopian society to be fairly free and progressive in the capital, so it was strange to encounter that kind of government control over the internet.  There were like 1,000 unread posts in google reader - that A-Z challenge you all were doing was a killer.

We spent the first week at the orphanage and doing the court stuff for the adoption - we're approved for the adoption, and once the embassy gets back to us in a few weeks, Mrs Beedo will be heading back to the capital to pick up our new son.  He's healthy, and with a translator we were able to share some thoughts - he's a good kid.  Thanks to church, family, and friends, we were able to bring a few extra suitcases of donations for the orphanage, including a hundred pounds of infant formula, soccer balls, and toothbrushes.

We had time in the second week for doing cultural stuff and tourism - we spent a few days deep in the rift valley spotting wildlife (many hoofed bovids were seen, and I saw at least a dozen crocodiles while out there).  We toured some spectacular orthodox churches and a monastery, went to the national museum (it has an awesome paleontology section on early hominds and "Lucy"), and had a ton of Ethiopian food.

Regular blogging will return shortly - I had plenty of time on the plane while Mrs Beedo was sleeping to fill my game journal with notes for the Black City.  (The plane ride from Washington to Addis Ababa was 13 hours there, 17 hours coming back).

Going to Africa

Hi all, I want to thank all the folks that have been reading or following Dreams in the Lich House and to let you know I expect to be offline quite a bit over the next few weeks.  I haven't been able to post as much gaming stuff lately as we've been planning a huge trip - we're going to Africa.  I'll be back at the end of the month.  We're specifically heading to Ethiopia.  While I have a few near term posts mostly ready to go, I'm not sure how good the internet connectivity will be out there and whether posting will be possible on the road.

It's good news - we're in the final stages of an international adoption, to help a four year old orphaned boy join our family.  On this trip we'll be heading out to the orphanage, meeting the surviving relatives, and doing all the court stuff; if approved we'll have a second trip early in the summer to bring the little guy home.

So if I don't get a chance to post or micro blog, I'm off doing good things, and will be back online the first week of May.  I'll have my brainstorming notebook for the plane ride, so either the Black City will get some love, or gamer ADD will crash Gothic Greyhawk like a house of cards - because we DM's are nuts.

See you all on the other side!

The Tyranny of Continual Light

Lately my imaginings have been wending towards campaign settings that are more technologically sophisticated (Renaissance or later) and maybe even higher magic - which is odd, because I've been a Dark Ages advocate since returning to old school gaming a few years ago.  The recent poll here on "Which historical setting is your D&D game most like" had 60% of the folks responding Dark Ages and Ancient World - a lot of you like the grittier worlds, too.

So here's my question for the day - and maybe I think about this stuff too much, or maybe the rest of you solved this one long ago - how do handle such common, yet seemingly world-changing spells, as Continual Light?

I'm no historian, but the wise folks out there that write books indicate things like artificial light freed up labor to work around the clock and not be limited to the hours of daylight.  Continual Light, a cheap, permanent form of light, can be cast by any 3rd level magic user; the clerical version is a little harder to achieve, but I'd happily set up a shop selling Continual Light stones down at Beedo's Light Emporium and rake in a fortune.  Wouldn't that spell, by itself, turn the whole Dark Ages paradigm on it's head and launch humanity centuries along the tech ladder?

In my games, my crutch is artificially keeping magic rare.  Fear of spell casters and fear of magic keeps folks from studying magic or trafficking with enchanted items, that, and the persecution of the church.  But the implied setting of D&D is certainly much more forgiving of the arcane arts than my dreary Dark Ages settings tend to be, and implies demographics that have a higher proportion of casters than my games.

I'm also not overlooking the great sense of accomplishment I feel as a DM when the group has to micromanage their torches and oil flasks, wondering if their resources will hold out.  All that bean counting and logistics, potentially undone by a level 2 magic user spell.  I think all future dungeons will need at least one "continual light wiper", kind of like those things at the checkout counter that depolarize magnets - although then I suppose the group would just camp and recast the light spells.

Some time back I put up a post eulogizing The Principalities of Glantri, and one thing I've both loved and hated about that Gazetteer was it's unabashed assumption that magic was common and plentiful.  People zoomed through the canals using gondolas powered by trapped water elementals, basking in the glow of continual light orbs on the street corners.  It's the anti-Dark Ages.  Glantri how I loathe you, yet can't stop talking about you.  Opposites sometimes attract, I guess.

Anyway, I also put up a new poll - if there's no good answer that fits your approach, feel free to drop a comment instead.

Mythic Monday: The Meenlock

Can you see them, Sally ... hiding in the shadows. They're alive, Sally. They want you to be one of them when the lights go out.

So check it out - I was recently listening to one of the Dragonsfoot D&D podcasts (Roll for Initiative) , and they were talking about the Meenlock from the Fiend Folio and puzzling over where the creature came from… and it struck me, don't they remember the old 70's movie, "Don't be Afraid of the Dark"?  I loved B-horror and that one scared the heck out of me as a 5-6 year old(?) on a Saturday afternoon.  Many years later I remember coming across the Meenlock in the Fiend Folio and making the inspirational connection.

The typical Mythic Monday monster has involved going back to the roots of folklore to get ideas on changing up or improving D&D monsters; the Meenlock doesn't quite have a centuries old pedigree, but I love the creature and the roots of the story, so here goes.  Besides, Guillermo Del Toro has a huge man-crush on the movie, and is doing a remake this summer.

In the movie, a woman and her husband inherit her father's house; he's away on business and she discovers a sealed fireplace in the dad's study while exploring.  She ends up bringing in a workman to unseal it, and discovers a network of tunnels (too small for people) underneath the hearth.  From that point on, she's terrorized by these little guys - they constantly douse the lights and set up little ambushes, and whisper in a way only she can hear; they kill her decorator by tripping her down the stairs.  No one believes her about the creatures, and the original ends on a stormy night where the woman is locked in the house all alone with the creatures; when friends finally arrive to rescue her, she's completely missing.  But then we hear her voice amongst the voices of the creatures… she's been dragged into the hole and turned into one of them!

Anyway, the write up for the original Meenlock is in the Fiend Folio and is totally over-the-top as a "stalk the party, claim a victim" type of monster for terrorizing adventurers; it tracks the movie monster almost identically, right down to the sealed lair, the telepathic messages that only the victim can hear, and then making the victim one of the monsters.  Here are the salient points from the Fiend Folio.  Their appearance causes fear; they live in a sealed vertical shaft and only become active against adventurers when someone opens the shaft and breaks the seal - the victim brings it on themself.  They pick a single victim to terrorize and send telepathic messages only to the victim, degrading their combat abilities and hopefully sowing some paranoia.  They have a paralytic touch, and their ultimate goal is to drag the victim back to the shaft and turn them into another Meenlock.

These guys are awesome!

One of us, One of us.

The Meenlock (flavored for Labyrinth Lord)
No. Enc.: 3-5
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 90' (30')
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 4
Attacks: 2 claws + paralyzation
Damage: 1d4 / 1d4
Save: M4
Morale: 11
Hoard Class:
XP: 300

Cause Fear:
Anyone less than 4HD seeing a Meenlock will fall to the ground in fear for 5-8 rounds (save vs paralysis to halve the effect).

Dimension Door:
Meenlocks teleport 6' every other round, giving them a -4 to AC on those rounds.  They typically use this power to extinguish light sources.

Telepathic Terror:
Range 300'.  The Meenlocks will stay at range and harass the victim, causing him or her to lose 1 point of Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Wisdom per hour, cumulative, in addition to a -1 on to hit rolls.  The effects end when the Meenlocks can no longer follow (like if the party moves into bright daylight).

Surprise:
Meenlocks surprise on a 1-5 out of 6.

Victimization:
It takes 3 Meenlocks to carry a victim; if they claim their target, the victim will be dragged back to the Meenlock lair and transformed into a Meenlock.

Edit:  Hey, someone else featured Don't Be Afraid in the Dark in a post - check out an alternate take over at Aldeboran.  I like the Jermlaine as these types of creatures as well, and could fill a similar role in an adventure.



Note:  Kind of an OGL questions - are we allowed to use a term like Meenlock on a blog, or is that IP protected because it's in the Fiend Folio?  Just curious how that aspect of the OGL works...

Game Report: Gothic Greyhawk game 26

Cast of Characters:
Mordecai, a Cleric-4: Adam
Forlorn, an Elf-3: Bo
Mister Moore, Magic User-4: Mike
Grumble the Smug, Halfling-3: Nogal
Barzai, a Cleric-3:  Z, recently promoted

Henchmen:
Shy, a Fighter-3
Phat Kobra, a Dwarf-3
Zeke, a Fighter-3
Starkweather, a Thief-4


=========================================
Hammers of the God:  Spoilers
=========================================

No sooner had the gaming kickoff music* finished, then the group unanimously decided to take the submarine ride - as opposed to leaving the dungeon.  What's the worst that could happen?  Rolling characters is easy.

The first order of business was to haul up the second submarine from "the other side" and see what was inside it.  Shy and Kobra climbed the crane tower, with a light spell on Shy's sword, tied themselves to the ladder just below the cabin, and then Shy finished the climb to take on the zombie they expected.  It was a quick fight, and then they hauled up the submarine (it took about an hour, taking turns cranking the winch).

They excitedly hurried down the beach to see it bobbing on the water by the shore.  The bow men tried to keep a clear shot at the hatch, and then Shy popped it open.  Once the seal was broken, it popped open with a whoosh and a large cloud of mold spores burst into the air.  Time for saving throws!

About half the group missed the throw and sucked in too many spores, immediately losing their reason and going nuts (random madness chart).  A few of the guys wanted to clamber on the sub and get more spores, the others tried to take important gear and chuck it into the whirlpool.  Mister Moore decided to spell everyone, starting with web.  Oh no, The Crazies!

Shy put Starkweather in a headlock, Forlorn tackled Mister Moore, but most of the drama was Barzai and Kobra trying to keep Mordecai from throwing his backpack (with a dozen cleric spells on scrolls) out into the water.  Someone would snatch the backpack away, only for him to get it back next action.  Eventually, Mordecai got frustrated by keep away, and just dragged himself and the dwarf into the water; by then, some of the other folks had come to their senses and Forlorn was able to toss Kobra a rope.   Mordecai broke the dwarf's grip, insistent on drowning himself, and Kobra had to make a heroic effort to grab him again and let the others pull them both to shore.

Once everyone had the chance to recover, they decided to ignore Sub #2; it seemed like too much trouble to clean out the mold spores and risk more Mold Madness.  They sealed it up and went to Sub #3.  Sub 3 was empty.  Were they ready to go now?  No.  The only thing they were ready to do was to agonize over the decision on the best way to use the subs and the cranes.  The fact that there were cranks in the subs, and cranks in the towers, caused no end of consternation.  Did they need to leave someone behind to operate the tower?  Why else would the towers have zombie operators?

When the going gets tough, the tough go... to the library?  They made their way back to the dwarf library and started pouring over the catalog listing again hoping for a clue about operating the subs and towers.  The one named "Operations Manual" seemed auspicious, and a few hours later, the proscribed reading time, they confirmed it was a guide on how to use the submarines and winches.  The big winch in the tower would let them ascend faster, but the smaller winch in the sub should still work to get back up.  Everyone could go on the ride!  They went back to the whirlpool.

They inspected Sub 3 and noted the winch inside the sub seemed jammed, so they opted for Sub 1 (which had zombies in it previously).  They used ropes to secure everyone to the seats (the seat belts were gone), stowed their gear in the back, and used a light spell to see once the air tight hatch was closed.  The trick was pushing off, having Shy clamber in, close the hatch, and get in position to let out the winch.  The submarine spun around the whirlpool, slammed around a tunnel as it circled the drain and rushed quickly down, and then splashed into deep water after a moment of free fall.  There was a crashing sound from the rear of the sub, where many of the glass vials and oil flasks shattered despite their efforts to anchor the backpacks.  (That's what you get for filling up a backpack with 13 oil flasks).

The submarine continued to sink as it was pulled down by the current and flow of water; Shy had to crank it back to the surface.  They opened the hatch and could see they were in a new cavern!  Starkweather was picked to jump into the water and swim the submarine to the cavern shore.

As they paddled to shore, they could see statues of dwarves on the beach; gems glittered in their foreheads.  Once on land, they could see a passage leading straight ahead out of the cavern, and over the lapping of the water and splashing behind them, it sounded like there was a crowd roaring in the distance.  Was there an arena somewhere down the hallway?

Starkweather was on guard, and warned everyone that had just come ashore to turn around.  Emerging from the water behind them were a handful of dwarf zombies.  To be continued…

We've knocked our game time down from four hours to three the past couple of weeks as we've let a few of the 9 year olds (Nogal and Z) sit in on "the grown up game" as Nogal calls it, so I'm finding it can take a long time to play through a module.

*Gaming Kickoff Music:  the only thing happier than a weekly D&D game is Monday Night Football, so I start every gaming session with the 70's theme from Monday Night Football - best of both worlds, baby!