26 October, 2018

Why They Put Trails Through Forests

So, with Win10 they send me pictures every few days. Some of them are pretty great.

This one is a perfect example of somewhere your DnD character does NOT want to take their horse. Not just riding, but you don't want to try to walk it through there either. All those holes and shadows that look like holes will all look like holes to your horse, and even if your horse is trained so they won't freak out in a forest (they freak out in forests because, basically, they have one eye on each side of their head) they might baulk at going anywhere near them. The other possibility (the worse one) is that they try to jump over them onto what they think is solid ground, but almost certainly isn't, at which point they will almost assuredly break either their ankle or their leg.

"That doesn't look so bad" - someone who doesn't ride horses

If your character is looking at this, and they have a horse, they'll have to either find a way around or take their horse back and leave it somewhere. Unless neither the player nor the character have any experience with horses (this is pretty basic), in which case they can try to make their horse (not them) roll a wisdom save (determination) to go through it, and then a dexterity save to not break at least one leg (based on how badly they failed the save). The horse is going to have to keep making that dex save. How often depends on the ground, but potentially as often as every 5 minutes.

18 October, 2018

In The Mouth of Madness

This is the passage Sam Neill reads as the walls of the world tear open, and he watches Elder Horrors rush toward reality. I mostly put this here so I won't lose it.




In The Mouth of Madness
“Trent stood at the edge of the rip; stared into the illimitable gulf of the unknown, the Stygian world yawning blackly beyond. Trent's eyes refused to close. He did not shriek, but the hideous unholy abominations shrieked for him, as in the same second he saw them spill and tumble upward out of an enormous carrion black pit choked with the gleaming white bones of countless unhallowed centuries. He began to back away from the rip as the army of unspeakable figures, twilit by the glow from the bottomless pit, came pouring at him toward our world.”



10 October, 2018

Corken for the Holidays!

From Norchester down past Biggleswade, and throughout most of East Anglia, the wild corken is a favourite addition for every family’s Holiday table. It’s easiest to find them near rivers and lakes, and the best hunting is from early September to mid October.

cobaltplasma.deviantart.com
Corken: 1-2 HD, AC as leather, grab with tentacles for 1d4 crushing damage. If grabbed, automatically stab with legs next round for 1d4 damage. Tentacles only do damage on the round they hit, as they first tighten their grip and latch on. Small targets are immobilised by these grasping tentacles, but human-sized victims are basically unhindered. However, they will only be able to attack the Corken with small weapons, since it is STUCK RIGHT TO THEIR FREEXIN BODY!

Corken have no eyes or ears, instead using their extremely powerful and minutely discerning sense of smell. They smell with the suckered surface of their large tentacles, so if the tentacles are removed somehow, they will wander around aimlessly for a while, then give up on life and just sit down.

The traditional old-fashioned preparation of the Holiday Corken is on the left. On the right is the more recent style, where the tentacles have been removed and prepared separately, usually as a fried treat as well as an ingredient in other dishes. A few people in larger cities, such as Cooperton or Frippert, now put tentacle in the stuffing, but this is frowned on by all but the middle and upper classes.



Also, upon doing an image search to see who had done that top pic that had been sitting in my drive forever, I discovered somebody else had made a different (though obviously similar) creature for 5e. Here is their blog/campaign diary: skaldforge.wordpress.com. And here I thought I was the only one this odd. Well, not really.