A qualitative Cockatrice

Seeing how I am currently on sick-leave and spend most of my days trying to distract myself from the state of my mental health, I won’t pretend this one is overdue because of a busy life. Really, I have been procrastinating this write-up, because the cockatrice historically isn’t really its own being. Rather it is a synonym for ‘basilisk’. We see this even in the description given to us by the Little Brown Books:

“The Cockatrice is a less powerful but more mobile Basilisk. It turns opponents to stone by touch. The Cockatrice is able to fly. They are not intelligent.” (Monsters and Treasure p.10)

Amount: 1-8; AC: 6; Movement: 9/18; HD: 5; In Lair: 35%; Treasure type: D (some copper, silver, gold, gems and jewelry, and magic items). (Ibid. p.3 and p.22)

There is little to comment on, they are really for the most part just as the first sentence describes them. Even their need to touch their opponents to petrify and their ability to fly fit in the ‘less powerful’ and ‘more mobile’ descriptors respectively. The only additional difference is the amount you encounter. Basilisks are never in groups of more than four; a flock of cockatrices can number up to eight. 

What if we take this idea, that Basilisks and Cockatrices are the same creature, seriously? With my limited knowledge of biology, I could think of three ways in which members of the same species can differ significantly:

Option 1: Sexual dimorphism

Probably best to have actual biologists describe these:

““Sexual dimorphism” means that the two sexes of a species differ in external appearance or other features. Males and females may differ in size, color, shape, the development of appendages (such as horns, teeth, feathers, or fins), and also in scent or sound production.” (1)

Basically, anything you can use to determine whether or not a given member of a species is male or female. 
For some creatures this dimorphism is rather tame, different coloured feathers for ducks spring to my mind. In terms of size and shape they look (to me) mostly the same, so it is really just the feathers that give away their sex (assuming this is a strict binary, which I am not sure of). 
Other creatures differ more radically. Anglerfish are the first that jump to my mind. They differ greatly in size, but also the females are the only one with the glowstick appendage, and the degree to which they fuse as part of their reproduction is very asymmetrical. 

Option 2: Phenotypic plasticity

As the biologists put it:

”Phenotypic plasticity, [is] defined as the ability of an individual to alter its phenotype in response to environmental changes” (2)

 So changes in physical appearance based on the situation you find yourself in.
The most well known of these is probably a chameleon changing colour, but one I personally find very interesting is locusts. These are, genetically speaking, just regular old grasshoppers. However, under certain conditions they will drastically change their behaviour (forming swarms that roam and eat everything in sight) as well as their physical appearance (changing in colour, wing length etc.). 

Option 3: Metamorphosis (in this case, complete metamorphosis)

And finally: 

 “More than 80% of insect species, possibly representing around 60% of all animals, undergo a particularly marked form of metamorphosis in which an ecologically inactive life stage called the pupa is interposed between the larva and the adult, during which the insect's body is almost entirely rebuilt. This kind of transformation is called holometaboly or ‘complete metamorphosis', where the larval body is always markedly different in form from that of the adult.” (3)

You look like one thing, form a pupa, and turn into a different looking thing. Same species, drastically different appearances. 
It is probably slightly redundant to give examples of this, but for completion’s sake: think maggots to flies, caterpillars to butterflies, larvae to bees, etc.     

Though all three of these options these could be fun, I find myself preferring complete metamorphosis. My interpretation of the Basilisk is very food oriented, it looks for different kinds of rock and thus tries to petrify as many different kinds or organic material as it possibly can. The comparison to something like a caterpillar is easily made. 
    The Cockatrice could then, much like butterflies, be mostly focussed on dispersing eggs, for which the increased mobility is very useful. It being less durable also feels appropriate to me: there is no real need to compete over resources, so it can just fly away, rather than stand their ground and fight. 

So this is the angle through which I will create a qualitative cockatrice:

Cockatrice (adult form of Basilisk)  

Traits:

•  medium-sized (like secretarybird), flying (like vulture), prized (like gems)

Strengths: 

• Cement Vomit: They can projectile vomit a disgusting sticky substance, which quickly begins to set, similar to cement. 
• Stunning Claws: Brilliant talons which cause whatever flesh they sink into to become rigid and numb. 

Weaknesses: 

• Eyecatching: Its crystalline feathers shimmer even in the lowest light, making them easy to spot in most surroundings. 
• Destructive Independence: Unable to cooperate or accept assistance of any kind. 

Ecology:

• Metamorphic Fission: Commonly emerges in sets of two from the geode-like pupa formed by a Basilisk once it has reached sufficient size; one male, one female. 
• Parasitic Inheritance: The stares of their offspring would kill them. Instead they look for hosts to plant their egg on, after which they cover both host and egg in their vomit. 

 

Leftover of a basilisk pupa after cockatrices emerged 

The 'biologists' 

1. (Katherine Ralls, Sarah Mesnick, Sexual Dimorphism, Editor(s): William F. Perrin, Bernd Würsig, J.G.M. Thewissen, Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals (Second Edition), Academic Press, 2009, Pages 1005-1011, ISBN 9780123735539, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-373553-9.00233-9) 

 2. (Juan M. Guayasamin, Tim Krynak, Katherine Krynak, Jaime Culebras, Carl R. Hutter, Phenotypic plasticity raises questions for taxonomically important traits: a remarkable new Andean rainfrog (Pristimantis) with the ability to change skin texture, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, Volume 173, Issue 4, April 2015, Pages 913–928, https://doi.org/10.1111/zoj.12222) 

3. (Truman, J., Riddiford, L. The origins of insect metamorphosis. Nature 401, 447–452 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/46737)  

Disclaimer: No biologists were harmed in the writing of this blogpost.  

A qualitative Chimera

This entree had me stumped for a bit. It got me thinking about something interesting though: When we use names of monsters, what are we reffering to?

For the chimera specifically, I found four ways in which we can use the term.

1. Monsters as fantastical animals

This first one fits well with the depiction in the Little Brown Books (LBB):

“Combining the worst of many creatures, a Chimera has the forebody of a great cat, the hind quarters of a goat, dragon wings, and three heads. The goat’s head can gore with its long and sharp horns, the lion’s head can tear with its great fangs, and the dragon’s head can either bite or breath [sic] fire (but with a range of only 5’ and but three dice damage).” (Monsters and treasure p.11)

Amount: 1-4; AC: 4; Movement: 12/18; HD 9; in Lair: 50%; Treasure type: F (i.e. chance of silver, gold, gems/jewelry, and non-weapon magic). (Ibid. p.3 and p.22)

Three clues point to this interpretation being that of a fantastical animal: The indefinite article (‘a Chimera’), the universal features that Chimera apparently have (great cat + goat + dragon), and the amount you can encounter (1 to 4). Only when writing up this post did I notice that this has been the LBB’s interpretation of all the monsters we’ve looked at so far. 

On the whole, I think it is pretty boring. Despite being a dragon with a bunch of add-ons, it feels more like a worse dragon. The stats seem to somewhat support this, as they have worse AC, a worse breath attack in terms of reach, and less variation (though the type of big cat is left open to interpretation, the dragon head will always breathe fire). Why would you ever use this over a dragon?

2. Monsters as singular aberrations

This is how we see the Chimera being described in classical sources:

"First he [King Iobates of Lykia (Lycia)] sent him [Bellerophon] away with orders to kill the Khimaira (Chimera) none might approach; a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire. He killed the Khimaira, obeying the portents of the immortals." (Iliad, 6. 179 ff, via https://www.theoi.com/Ther/Khimaira.html) 

We have a definite article and this entity is the result of immortals dicking around. Though the classical sources do also describe monsters as a species (centaurs were like this, but so are the sirens, maticores, and harpies), a lot of monsters are one of a kind. There is just the one Sphinx (a child of the Chimera of Lycia), the one Cerberus (one of her brothers), the one Lernean Hydra (one of her sisters). 

Now, personally I already like this a lot better. Sure the implied lay-out of the heads is a bit awkward, but in practice these will get a lot less in each other's way than the LBB version (imagine that goat head trying to gore something without accidentally poking the eye out of one of the other heads…). Also, I find this monster a bit silly, so it being a weird one off feels more appropriate to me. The use of conflicting sexual dimorphisms is also interesting to me. All depictions give the lion head manes, a masculine feature, but the goat middle has udders. Combine this with the fact she birthed other monsters (the Sphinx and Nemean Lion according to Hesiod Theogony 319 ff), and we also have clear feminine features. As a cis guy it is probably not my place to suggest this, but Chimera as a trans or intersex icon seems potentially fruitful. Then again, that might be well trodden ground that my vanilla ass is simply unaware of. 

The one thing I find lacking in this interpretation is that it is one and done. You get to throw in your one Chimera, and if players have dealt with/ignored it you are done. It makes the chimera less a monster you can use to stock your world, and more an NPC that influences part of the world. That isn’t bad, but it is less flexible, and not what I had in mind for this ‘qualitative X’ project. 

3. Monster names as broad categorizations

I’ve seen this for other monsters as well, but the chimera seems to be the one where this understanding of monsters is applied most often. My assumption is that this is based on the legacy the mythical creature from classical literature has in modern genetics (which take the term to mean “an animal comprised of two or more genetically distinct cell populations derived from two or more zygotes” (Brenner’s Encyclopedia of Genetics, Volume 1, p.516)). In short: a chimera is any hybrid creature. This interpretation is where one gets the random chimera tables from. Roll for front-head, for middle-head, for tail-head, and finally for breath attack, resulting in e.g. the Bull + poison-spitting-Wolf + Swan chimera. 

Though I am sympathetic to this understanding of the chimera, it presents a problem for my ‘qualitative X’ series: How the hell am I supposed to write this up in the same style? Such conformity to an arbitrary format shouldn’t have to constrict me, but I really feel like it does. More damning though, if any combination of real world animals into a fantastical entity is a chimera, then centaurs, pegasi, gryphons, etc. are all also chimera. This understanding of the term makes it sort of useless for this bestiary project, which makes me less eager to use it. 

4. Monsters as the result of human actions

Dan from the blog throne of salt has probably written the definitive post on this interpretation of ‘monster’, but modern genetics gives us an interesting angle for chimeras that fits this conceptualization as well:  

“Chimeras are experimentally produced by the transplantation of cells or tissues between individuals, most often between embryos, although transfer between adults or between embryos and adults are also utilized.” (ibid).

This is the chimera as it is also presented to use in Full Metal Alchemist: humans fuse two or more different creatures into one. This makes chimeras something inherently horrific, a reference to animal experimentation of the worst kind. All the more monstrous because it is something we actually do. 

To me, this is the strongest contender for a qualitative chimera. It gives you the flexibility of a ‘species’, the messiness of the classical version, and the variety of the ‘category’ interpretation, without causing a bunch of taxonomical confusion about which monsters are and aren’t technically chimeras. An understanding of chimeras that is chimeric in and of itself; an unintentional but welcomed quality, I think.

Chimera:

Traits: 

• Unsettlingly large (like combined volume of original creatures), variable speed (like largest creature used), artificial (like bread). 

Strengths: 

• Numen Spew: Can projectile vomit excess magical energy, burning living creatures on contact. 
• Magical Resistance: Created by magic, they are resistant to being directly affected by spell effects, other than dispelling magic. 

Weaknesses: 

• Arcane Fusion: Anything that dispels magic destroys the chimera, leaving behind the mangled remains of whichever creatures were used in its creation. 
• Conflicting Instincts: As the sum of its parts, its initial reaction is in accordance with animals used to create it. When these reactions conflict, it trips over itself trying to do all at once. 

Ecology:

• Experimental Existence: The result of magically combining two or more other creatures, destroying both to create something new. 
• Sterile Singularity: By their very nature, chimeras are singular entities. They cannot reproduce, nor can similar copies be recreated. 
• Magic Hoarder: Perhaps because it feels kinship with other creations of magic, they are known to seek out and hoard magical items. 

Two qualitative centaurs

Two interpretations of a monster this time, fitting its dual nature I suppose.

Look, I think these primitive/savage sub-human creatures are often very boring. The Little Brown Books (LBB) are unfortunately no exception to this:

‘At worst these creatures are semi-intelligent, and therefore Centaurs will always carry some form of weapon: 50% of a group will carry clubs (equal to Morning Stars), 25% will carry lance-like spears, and the balance will be armed with bows (composite bow, foot-type). In Melee the Centaur will attack twice, once as a man and once as a medium horse. Centaurs will be found in hidden glens. It is there that both their females and young are and where their treasure is hidden. In the lair (glen) will be found from 1-6 additional males, females equal in number to twice the total number of males, and young equal to the number of males. Females are not generally armed and wiII not fight, and the young are also non-combatant, except in life-and-death situations.’ (Monsters and Treasure p.15)

Amount encountered: 2-20 (assuming 2d10, so 11 on average); AC: 5, Movement: 18; HD: 4; In Lair: 5%; treasure type A (i.e. an assortment of copper, silver, gold, gems and jewelry, and maps and magic items). (ibid. p.4 and p.22)

At worst we have some derogatory ‘primitive’ peoples (living in glens, fighting mostly with clubs, suggestion of either harems or a sexist ‘hunter-gatherer’ division of labour). But even a more charitable reading, which leans into the lack of a description of glen-life and interprets the staying behind of women in a more empowering way, it is just so boring. They are people with horse legs and it is implied they are somewhat primitive. Medium cavalry, except they can’t dismount and are thus presumably hindered in all the ways horses are. Yawn.

There is good reason for this. Centaurs in the western imagination are based primarily on the way they are depicted in ancient Greek and Latin sources, in which they are clearly a metaphor for barbarism, if not a straight up depiction of horseback-riding nomadic peoples as seen by the ancient Greeks: 

“We are also told that they [i.e. the centaurs] demanded of Peirithoos (Pirithous), on the ground of kinship, their share of their father's kingdom, and that when Peirithoos would not yield it to them they made war on both him and the Lapithes (Lapiths). At a later time, the account goes on to say, when they had made up their differences, Peirithoos married Hippodameia, the daughter of Boutes (Butes), and invited both Theseus and the Kentauroi to the wedding. The Kentauroi, however, becoming drunken assaulted the female guests and lay with them by violence, whereupon both Theseus and the Lapithes, incensed by such a display of lawlessness, slew not a few of them and drove the rest out of the city. Because of this the Kentauroi gathered all their forces, made a campaign against the Lapithes, and slew many of them, the survivors fleeing into Mount Pholoe in Arkadia (Arcadia) and ultimately escaping from there to Cape Malea, where they made their home. And the Kentauroi, elated by these successes, made Mt Pholoe the base of their operations, plundering the Greeks who passed by, and slew many of their neighbours.” (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4, 69, 4 via https://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/KentauroiThessalioi.html)

They are warmongering, entitled, and rude; they drink irresponsibly, don’t respect the laws of hospitality, and are unable to control their lust. Unlike us. In one of his fragments Theognis even claims the centaurs are ‘eaters of raw flesh’ (Fragments 541, via ibid.). Yuk. 
However, rather than lean into the barbarism, making the centaurs truly monstrous, the LBB instead gives us primitive horse people. A wasted opportunity in my opinion. 



These classical centaurs get featured in one other source I find fascinating: Dante’s Divine comedy, specifically in Inferno:

“Between that awful river and the steep cliffs we had descended we saw Centaurs galloping in a long line. As they did in our world, so here they were armed with bows and arrows as they hunted. ‘[…] There are thousands of them on this circle. They gallop around shooting any soul who dares to emerge from that bloody river above the level of his guilt.’” (Divine comedy, Inferno, Canto 13, via https://dantecomedy.com/welcome/inferno/inferno-canto-12/inferno-canto-12/)

Now, to be fair, these centaurs are still in literal hell as a punishment for their sinful lives. But, rather than boiling in the river Phlegethon they serve as guardians, ensuring the wicked get their just punishment. To repent for their sins they are condemned to serve the divine into perpetuity. This opens up a different interpretation of the centaur, not as a savage barbarian, but instead a repentant enforcer of justice: a paladin. To me, the interesting part of the paladin is less so the 'smite' ability, and more the concept of the oath, so that is what I will focus on. 

These are the two angles through which I want to adapt centaurs: As barbarous monsters who plunder and pillage, and as reformed criminals sworn to a holy cause.

Centaur (barbarous):

Traits: 

• Large (like mounted horse), fast (like horse), strong (as a span of oxen).

Strengths: 

• Frenzied Bloodlust: Once excited enters a ravenous frenzy in which they don’t feel pain or fatigue, but can’t stop fighting or pursuing their enemies. 
• Shameless Liars: Will say whatever they need to in order to create an opening to attack or to survive, no matter how debasing. 

Weaknesses: 

• Rash: Quick to jump to conclusions and into action, making them relatively easy to lure into traps.
• Hollow Words: They’ll reference family, parents, children solely because it causes others to take mercy on them, but when pressed they have no idea what these concepts actually refer to. 

Ecology:

• Group Hunters: They never go anywhere alone due to a lack of trust of one another, and the fact it increases the success rates of their hunts. 
• True Antropovores: All they consume is raw human flesh. It is unclear if it is all they can stomach or it is simply what they are best at attaining.

Aside: Human-animal hybrid monsters. 

How do we make sense of these without them being stand-ins for horrible views on cultures deemed inferior from a perspective of superiorty? I think the centaur as barbarian works best if it is a straight-up monster. Not ‘human but less advanced’ but in some way completely inhumane. To achieve this let us take a lesson from the anime Frieren. In this show demons are human-like in appearance and capable of speech that sounds convincingly human. They passed the Turing-test. However, the show stresses that their ability for speech doesn’t mean you can reason with them. Rather, as a predator who preys on humans, they developed speech for the sole reason to make it easier to kill and consume, or as the show often puts it: Demons can speak, but only do so to deceive. So too will I treat the barbarous interpretation of the centaur. 

Centaur (repentant)

Traits: 

• Large (like mounted horse), fast (like horse), devout (as saint). 

Strengths: 

• Sharpshooters: Able to hit anything in their range, as long as they have line of sight of their target. 
• Relentless hunters: While in the process of bringing someone to justice, they cannot cease their effort until they have completed this task. 

Weaknesses: 

• Avengers only: Only allowed to act on their own accord in order to punish a crime they witnessed first hand. They’ll let you die in the streets, but at least they’ll slay your killer. 
• Oath Bound: Forced to obey the divine oath that gave them their equine bodies. Have to obey all orders of representatives of the faith. 

Ecology:

• Repentant Sinners: Candidates get recruited from among sinners by criteria opaque to anyone but representatives of the faith. 
• Strict Hierarchy: Always beholden to someone above them, which is why they are never seen alone. Their minimum group-size consists of a commander and a disciple. 

A qualitative Black Pudding

 Next monster by alphabetical order of the Little Brown Books is the black pudding:

‘Another member of the clean-up crew and nuisance monster, Black Puddings are not affected by cold, it is spread into smaller ones by chops or lightening bolts, but is killed by fire. Black Puddings dissolve wood, corrode metaI at a reasonably fast rate, have no effect on stone, and cause three dice of damage to exposed flesh. If an armored character runs through a Black Pudding the monster's corrosive power will eat away the foot and leg protection of the armor so that it will fall-away next turn. Black Puddings can pass through fairly small openings, and they can travel as easily on ceilings as on floors.’ (Monsters and Treasure p.19)

Amount encountered: 1; AC 6; Movement: 6; HD: 10; Never in a lair; Never has treasure (Ibid. p.4)

Information I find notable:

• The LBB give us not only the functions of black puddings in their interactions with the environment (what it does and does not corrode, how it interacts with certain elements, how it moves), but also its function in the dungeon: ‘clean-up crew’ (its in-world ecological niche) and ‘nuisance monster’ (a suggestion for the referee for when and where to use it). 
• We get some idea of what it looks like based on the description of what happens when an armoured character runs ‘through’ a black pudding (suggesting a literal pudding-like consistency and a height of about the knees of an average human). 
• It is always encountered alone, which is interesting given that it is a scavenger. Rats and vultures congregate around a source of food, but the pudding is always alone. This makes it seem to me that black puddings can merge with each other, which makes sense to me given that they can be split.
• I am surprised by how mobile it is. I expected the hole-squeezing and it makes sense to me that it can move on ceilings, but it is way faster than I would have thought. The fact that it can keep pace with a dwarf (even while on the ceiling) is disgustingly terrifying. 
• This version of the pudding is also extremely hardy. Ten Hit Dice puts it in the same ballpark as Balrogs, Efreet, some Giants, and some Dragons. That is crazy for a ‘nuisance monster’. Its mediocre Armour Class means it will be hit more often, but it is still way more durable than I thought it would be.
• Nowhere does it say that black puddings are not intelligent. Might mean nothing on the whole, but given that it was spelled out for the Basilisk it is surprising to me. Especially because (at least to my knowledge) this is a D&D original.

All in all, it's giving this:


 

‘This’ being a plasmodial slime mold, a single cellular organism that can merge with others of its kind, split apart, is surprisingly good at finding optimal solutions for problems, and is definitely part of nature’s ‘clean-up crew’. 
Considering the black pudding as a slime mold has some advantages as it allows us to take the rest of a slime mold’s qualities and apply them to black puddings to give them a bit of extra flair. 
For example, slime molds can survive prolonged periods of dehydration and malnourishment. Just add water to turn the grey shriveled film into a horrifying black goop. 
Their lifecycle is also quite interesting. The way they produce spores once they run out of food could be wonderful dungeon dressing, a classic hazard, and/or a warning to the players that this has relatively recently seen pudding activity. 
Finally, slime molds leave behind a residue which tells them where they have been. This too could be a fun way to indicate the presence of a black pudding and give you something to present to players when ‘tracks’ are rolled on an overloaded encounter dice. Additionally, as this is a way for the pudding to know where it has been (and where there probably won’t be any new food), it can also communicate relative safety from the pudding to savvy players. (source for info on slime molds)

So this is what I ended up with:

Black Pudding: 

Traits: 

• wide (like carpet), amorphous (like water balloon), crawling (like spider). 

Strengths: 

• Corrosive Touch: Contact will dissolve most metals and all organic matter. Residue needs to be washed off to prevent effect lingers after contact. 
• Splitting: Attacks that would cause cutting or cleaving instead cause it to split in two independent puddings of appropriate size. 
• Antifreeze: Able to withstand even extreme cold. 
• Cunning: Adapt at coming up with optimal ways to safely secure food, including approaching from above, hiding in hollows, pretending to be ordinary muck in shallow puddles, prioritizing torchbearers, etc. 

Weaknesses: 

• Flammable: Is only truly hurt by fire. Once set ablaze it will attempt to split in two and flee. 
• Food motivated: All it cares about is nourishment, making it relatively easy to manipulate. 

Ecology:

• One and Only: When two meet they will merge into a single, bigger specimen.  
• Draft Migration: Once it has grown to sufficient size it will find a drafty area of the dungeon and create spores. The temporary forests that grow this way are both a hazard and a source of food for others in the dungeon.

 

A qualitative Basilisk

 

I’ve been meaning to do qualitative versions of the monsters from the Little Brown Books (LBB), but have been putting it off for almost three years. The idea was inspired by a community project that never went anywhere on a discord server I no longer frequent. For it, I wrote a gryphon and a centaur, but my perfectionist brain wants to get through these alphabetically (as if I will ever get around to doing all of them), so let's start with the basilisk:

‘Although this creature cannot fly, it has the power of turning to stone those whom it touches and those who meet its glance, but it in turn can be petrified by the reflection of its own eyes if the Iight is sufficient, and it looks at a good reflector. The Basilisk is not intelligent.’ (Monsters and Treasure p.10)

Amount encountered: 1 to 6; AC 4; Movement: 6; HD: 6+1; In Lair: 40%; treasure type: F (i.e. chance of silver, gold, gems/jewelry, and non-weapon magic). (Ibid. p.3 and p.22)

The LBB are delightfully vague about what a basilisk is. It is a monster, but so are ‘men’ when they are opponents. Instead it focuses more on what a basilisk can and cannot do:

It cannot fly (one assumes in reference to the cocatrice discussed directly before the basilisk). It can petrify by touch (any?) and eye contact (even with itself). It is unintelligent. More often than not it lives in groups (which it cannot make eye contact with and might not be able to touch at all), is decently armoured (the same as dwarfs), slowish (again, as dwarfs), on average can take a bit more punishment than a minotaur but less so than a troll, and spends about 9,5 hours a day at home (asleep?). 

What is interesting to me is how little this has to do with the basilisk as a historical entity. Compare the above to the description Pliny gives of the basilisk in Natural History book 8, chapter 33:

‘There is the same power also in the serpent called the basilisk. It is produced in the province of Cyrene, being not more than twelve fingers in length. It has a white spot on the head, strongly resembling a sort of a diadem. When it hisses, all the other serpents fly from it: and it does not advance its body, like the others, by a succession of folds, but moves along upright and erect upon the middle. It destroys all shrubs, not only by its contact, but those even that it has breathed upon; it burns up all the grass too, and breaks the stones, so tremendous is its noxious influence. It was formerly a general belief that if a man on horseback killed one of these animals with a spear, the poison would run up the weapon and kill, not only the rider, but the horse as well. To this dreadful monster the effluvium of the weasel is fatal, a thing that has been tried with success, for kings have often desired to see its body when killed; so true is it that it has pleased Nature that there should be nothing without its antidote. The animal is thrown into the hole of the basilisk, which is easily known from the soil around it being infected. The weasel destroys the basilisk by its odour, but dies itself in this struggle of nature against its own self.’

This is a tiny snake, so deadly it kills anything it touches, looks at or breathes upon, including the earth itself. Easy enough to stab to death, were it not for the fact that doing so will kill you in the process. The focus is again on how the creature functions, though more attention is given on how one can recognize whether a particular snake is or isn’t a basilisk. 

The basilisk from Natural History simply does not rhyme with what is described in the LBB, which means I have to make a choice: Which basilisk do I try to adapt: The petrifying beast, tough as minotaurs and trolls, or the small but deadly snake, an environmental catastrophe only difficult to kill because it would be hard to approach it without you or your weasel dying?

Let’s do both/neither in whatever distribution happens to strike my fancy: 

Basilisk: 

Traits: 

• Large (like bull), heavy (like elephant), lumbering (like fat pig). 

Strengths: 

• Petrifying gaze: Turns anything organic it gazes upon into stone, each material a corresponding mineral. 
• Stony hide: Requires heavy blows with hammers or picks to be damaged. 

Weaknesses: 

• Self-reflection: It turns to stone upon meeting its own gaze, and is blind to its own shortcomings.
• Cold-blooded: The colder it gets, the more sluggish it becomes. Also, severely lacking in empathy. 

Ecology:

• Picky eater: Though the nutritional value of all rock seems to be the same, they nonetheless pursue a varied diet, wreaking havoc in the process. 
• Sovereign of One: They are absolute rulers of their habitat, due to a total absence of any other living creatures. None has even met another of its kind. Hence their name: Tiny King. 

 

Magic Rocks: d6 Diseases of Metal, Rock and Soil

My submission for the RPG blog carnaval. This month's topic is Magic Rocks - stones, crystals, weird metals. 

First, we need to understand disease. Following the Arnold Kemp, what we call diseases are actually spirits. Suffering a disease is the same as being possessed, to be cured requires the spirit to leave voluntarily or be exorcised. 

Second, we need to understand that humans aren't special. Just like we have a spirit, so do other beings in the world. Moreover, just like a human is made up of different parts, each with their own spirit, societies made up of different humans have collective spirits. Ergo, not only trees, but forests have spirits, both boulders and mountains. It is spirits all the way up and down.

Given these two facts it should be obvious that not only humans get sick. Other living beings can become ill, but also forests, mountains, fields. What we will concern ourselves with here are the diseases of various metals and minerals. 

D6 diseases of metal, rock and soil:

1. Giltwither: Gold is oft deemed incorruptible. This is wrong, there is a spirit malign enough to sully even gold. Lead is the common name used for gold infected with Giltwither, a spirit so foul that exposure to lead quickly leads to horrible effects on most peoples health. Alchemists have spend many lifetimes attempting to cure Giltwither, but as of yet no known cure has been discovered. 
2. Ironrot: Also known as rust, ironrot is is a common water spirit. The easiest way to cure it is by removing the infected metal, similar to amputation of rotting limbs, though it is also possible to cause it to leave the iron through exorcism or bargaining. Ironrot can be warded off by most oils.
3. Glowstone: A condition which causes calcium rich minerals to emit a green glow, a pebble casting about as much light as a rushlight. Anything with bones and teeth that gets in sustained contact with the glow has these parts of their body become infected and start to glow green as well. Anything possessed with greenglow eventually crumbles into dust.  
4. Brittlemold: This nasty spirit has won wars and ruined economies. It infects rocks, though it has a preference for crystals. Affected minerals become incredibly brittle, which is why Brittlemold has at times been used deliberately to infect large stone fortifications. The disease progresses slowly, but is sometimes faster than starving a besieged town or castle. 
5. Saltcreep: Infects tilled soil, causing it to become as barren as salted earth. If not treated in time, the soil dies making it impossible for anything to grow from it. Flushing the soil with water is a possible treatment, though it is very labour intensive. Rituals for cure exist, but are prohibitively expensive.
6. Zombiesoil: One of the reasons we burn our dead, earth infected by Zombiesoil reanimates anything that once lived. Decaying plants turn into shambling mounds, putrified beasts into black puddings, and as one would expect from the name, corpses into zombies. An attempt has been made to eradicate the disease, making it relatively rare these days. 

AI and gaming: The fall and rise of amateurism

My submission for the RPG blog carnaval. This month's topic is Good morning, Dave: AI and gaming. 

 

There is a nice little comparison between two organisational structures made in the infamous first chapter of A thousand plateaus by Guattari and Deleuze. They use a lot of examples to illustrate this difference, the most famous one being that between tree-like and rhizome-like organisations. However, for the purposes of my argument I prefer the image of the difference between the fixed point and the line. 

Fixed points are goals, it is result oriented, and it is the way around which a big part of our life is structured. One needs to get specific grades to get a specific degree to get a specific job, make a specific amount of money, get a house, a spouse, etc. And the idea is that, once you have all of this, achieved these goal, got the desired result, that you are successful and thus should be happy. 

I suffer from this mode of thinking a lot. Though money isn't high on my priority list, I value my actions based almost completely on the result I achieved. The performance was fun because the singer managed to hit the note they didn't during rehearsal, the tournament was fun because I fought competently, a game was fun because the players told me they liked it and I didn't notice any skrewups I made while running it. 

Lines in comparison are, mathematically, unending. Lines are not so much the journey - as this still implies a starting point and goal, two fixed points we just happen to be at some point in between - but a directional movement we can follow. Experimentation is a nice concrete example of a line organisation, as there is change without some predefined goal this change is directed towards. 

I wish I could think more in this line-like way, which ironically is a very point-like way to frame that desire. Children are great at lines. They can start drawing, not something in particular, just drawing. Or playing. Or singing. But from a young age only my achievements were celebrated, only my failures punished, there was only ever attention for points, good or bad. Insecurity made me at an realy age begin to cling to the point and abandon the line. 

And I don't think I am alone.  

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One of the coolest things about DIY rpgs is that the production quality of a lot of these projects are higher than the market leaders once they finally get released. There is better lay-out, writing and art in something like Electric Bastionland than the 5e 2014 Players Handbook. Which feels really unique to the hobby. Though I often don't love big budget movies or video games, their bigger budgets are often reflected in the production quality of the product. Good looking CGI and graphics and what not. 

These great works of the hobby, often made by just a few people, righfully get a lot of praise and attention. They are milestone achievements, points to strive towards for anyone aspiring to make and share somerhing themselves. 

Blogs have since I started undergone a similar development. The great posts are nominated for awards, published in nicely layed out booklets, or even get hardcovers dedicated to the best work of a single author. More goals to work towards. 

As a point thinker it felt like the bar for quality content in DIY rpgs was higher than it was for homebrew 5e stuff, and the longer I have hung around here the more that bar seems to have been raised. Or at least that is how it feels to me. 

And I don't think I am alone.  

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Imagine, if you will, someone who thinks they have a good idea. They think others might think it is a good idea as well, so they want to share this result that they are proud of. But looking at the field in which they would like to share this idea they see things that look way better than anything they are able to make or commission. 

There might be some frustration here. This person might lament their lack of skill at designing or art, or their lack of capital both material and social. It might even feel unfair. Those with artistic skill have a leg up in the same way those with money and connections do. If only the playing field could be evened. 

I've seen this person. They exist. And they aren't alone. 

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This, I feel, is the context in which to place generative AI in rpgs. So often have I seen this technology be praised as the democratisation of creativity. Skill is no longer necessary, ideas will reign supreme. 

It seems to me that these people think they are creative, after all it is still their ideas the program is working from. Arguing about whether or not this counts as creativity or if the product is art is about as useful as discussions about when something counts as cooking and what is or isn't a sandwich. 

To me the main problem isn't with the tool itself, nor with the products created with it (though there are other reasons to critique the way most llms currently function as well as the impact mass produced slop has on our daily lives). The main problem I am interested in is the context, the obsession with points and the increasing unachievability of them that drives some to use tools such as these. 

If I had to give this problem a snappy name I would call it 'the fall of amateurism'. Amateuristic work is something that seems to be no longer tolerated. Even in more casual groups I see more and more that instead of a shitty picture of a character, people use something generated that looks 'better' than they can make themselves. 

But interestingly, in using generative tools like this while chasing these points, amateurism is also rising. Though work is less visibly amateuristic and, assuming these generative tools continue to improve, amateuristic work might become indistinguishable from genuine craft, outsourcing these skills makes one even less proficient in them. We can get an image or a piece of text that looks nicer than what we could have made without the use of generative AI, but we have no idea how it came about. The result is complete alienation from the product we 'made' this way. 

Bernard Stiegler call this loss of knowledge and skill through alienation of the product we make 'proleterasiation'. So lets say, with some tongue in cheek, that it is peasant amateurism that has fallen, but proletarian amateurism has risen through the increased use of generative AI. 

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Now I think this broader contextual issue with the use of AI is a shame. Alienation is miserable and performing labour while alienated from the product of that labour is unfulfilling. In our working lives we might necessarily have to expose ourselves to such conditions merely to survive, but it feels like such a waste to willingly endure that feeling during what should be a leisure activity. 

Though I have never used generative AI for rpg stuff (or much at all in general) I am very much a point thinker who fetishizes the greats. So I hope I will be able to stop chasing and celebrating points as much and instead try to enjoy the hobby as amateuristic craft: unabashedly shitty experiments, following a line to see where it goes. 

 

Posts my mind assocites with this topic:

This post from Dwiz about the OSR as DIY rpgs.

This post from Retired Adventurer, specifically the bit concerning the effect of expectations about what a game should be. 

Magic Shops and Their Alternatives: d6 distilled spirits

My submission for the RPG blog carnaval. This month's topic is Magic Shops and Their Alternatives.

 

 I like the idea of potions being distilled spirits in the broad sense of the word. So drinking them will get you drunk, and causes you to get 'possessed' by the spirit in question. Effects last as long as the buzz does. Here's d6 I though off:

1. Breeze Vodka:

Clear liquid, very low viscosity, smells of ozone, goes down smooth. 

Allows you to fly at the speed of a pleasant breeze. While possessed your body easily loses its shape, as if its made of smoke. Losing your shape completely causes you to loose your identity, effectively killing you. 

2. Blitz Mule:

Cloudy, dark grey liquid, very viscous, smells of summer rain, tastes sour

Allows you to quickly move towards a point you can see. On arival you'll cause a loud bang. Be wary of any grounded metal rods, as their presence causes you to arrive near them instead of your intended destination. 

3. Whisper Wiskey:

Purple liquid, water-like viscosity, smell sends shivers down spine, grassy taste

Allows you to project your voice, making it seem like it comes from any source of your choosing. While possessed you cannot say anything louder than a whisper. 

4. Blaze Palinka:

Amber liquid, wine-like viscosity, smokey, burns as it goes down

Turns your breath into fire once it exits your mouth. Watch your eyebrows. 

5. Absinth Fog:

Milky liquid, creamy viscosity, smells like wet dog, tastes salty

Causes your skin to emit enough fog to completely obscure you from normal vision. Initially quickly, then enough to maintain obscurity. The fog affects you the same as it does any surrounding you. 

6. Masticha Treeherd:

Mossy green liquid, mud-like viscosity, smells like moss, tastes like fallen leaves

Allows you to communicate with plantlife. Plants are surprisingly observant, but take their sweet time when communicating. 

Drunkenness

A swig of spirit will last you a dungeon turn and only gives you a slight buzz. Downing an entire spirit makes it last Ud6 (see Splitting the Overloaded Encounter Die) but causes you to function as if you're tired while it lasts (see Qualitative Harm and Encumbrance).

Mixing spirits 

Whether mixed before drinking, or in the stomach, mixing spirits is usually a bad idea.
All consumed spirits try to possess you, roll d6 for each spirit drank, the highest rolled spirit takes effect, Matching dice cause the spirits to mix, both with each other and with your own spirit. When the effects of the matching spirits subside you become catatonic. An exorcism is required to regain control over your body.

Downtime activity: Recovering from a wound

I like slow recovery, but I don't like HP as anything other than the way they are used in ITO and systems inspired by it. Slow recovery forces moments of downtime, which opens up the possibility for players to invest in the myriad of activities that don't fit in the regular game-play loop of adventure games. See Ben L.'s blogposts on downtime or his little booklet Downtime in Zyan to get an idea of what I mean. 

So why not make recovery a downtime activity in its own right?

Recovering a wound:

Wounds roughly come in three varieties (see this post for more detail): 

• Scrapes and bruises
• Serious wounds
• Lethal injuries

When players don't have access to magical healing, they can spend downtime to recover from these.

Scrapes and bruises

• Don't require dedicated rest (so you can perform a different downtime activity while you recover from these) 
• Don't require supervision of someone skilled in healing
• Take 1 downtime turn to recover 

Serious wounds

• Require dedicated rest
• Cause lasting inconveniance if not supervised by someone skilled in healing. 
• Take 1 succesful downtime recovery action to heal. 

Lethal injuries

• Require dedicated rest
• Always cause lasting inconveniance
• Are deadly if not supervised by someone skilled in healing
• Take 1 succesful downtime recovery action to stabilize.
• Take 1 succesful downtime recovery action when stable to heal. 

Recovery action

For each serious wound and lethal injury roll 2d6 

Modify based on circumstances: -1 if a major factor negatively impacts recovery up to a maximum of -3 (think supply shortages, no access to clean water, etc.), +1 if a major factor aids it up to a maximum of +3 (like a hospital, pressence expert in your ailment, etc.). 

Consult table:

6-: No significant progress

7-9: Standard recovery

10+: Recovery + if wound was suffered in the dungeon gain an adaptation: alter character in some way to reflect the mark the Underworld has made on them (think immunity to regular flames as they bow to the one who mastered them, a venomous bite gained after surviving the toxic of a giant spider, etc.)

Lasting consequences

These are not the same as adaptations, but serious wounds that didn't get the care required (think broken bones that didn't heal right, eyes lost due to infection), or lethal injuries the PC survived (like the loss of a limb, the shattering of a spine). 

Their impact on gameplay should make sense. The shitty leg means you are the slowest among the group when running away, the missing eye means you don't have depth perception and a massive blindspot, missing limbs speak for themselves.

RPG blog carnival retrospective: Promises, oaths and vows

With the begining of a new month a new topic for the RPG Blog Carnival begins as well. It was my pleasure to host last month's carnival, and as host I am still due one post to properly end that topic: The retrospective.

Marineris honeymoon: Mechs

On the blog Carrion Gods aconspiracyofravens describes a neo-fudalist world where biomechs replace knights and coporations join the oldfashioned bloodline nobility and organised pious powers. Goes into detail about campaign ideas, rules for mechs of various sizes, multiple example mech builds with step by step overviews, a whole bunch of additional delta templates, and a pilot GLOG class.

The Boast ability of this pilot class is what ties all of this goodness to the carnival: 

"You can get a point of fame by making a boast, each must be more impressive and audacious. On a failed boast, you replace all your fame with infamy. You can use fame to reroll a social check or critical failure. Infamy does the opposite (dm controls). You may only have one pending boast."

The inherent escalation and raising of stakes that come with this ability are design genius and tempt even me, someone who doesn't really like meta-currencies, to gives something like this a try.

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Knight of oaths class

Nrdman over on the r/glog reddit page gives us another great GLOG class: the Knight of Oaths. Each template revolves around taking an oath as well as the consequences for breaking one and instructions on how to redeem yourself. I especially like Honored // Disgraced as it might function as a reputation mechanic on its own:

Honored: You are well regarded amongst the noble houses. You have a contact in every court of man, who will greet you as an honored guest. Guards, soldiers, and the like will assume you have the best of intentions if they can see your face. Flip to disgraced if you are arrested for a crime.

Disgraced: The high courts have spurned you, but there is a court below, the underworld crime lords. Over the next week, you gain contact with every crime organization. They will greet you as one of their contacts, and an exchange is expected. Guards, soldiers, and the like will assume you have the worst of intentions if they can see your face. Flip to honored if you are subject to the due punishment of all your known and outstanding crimes.

An outstanding rendition of the classic Knight if you ask me.

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Who hears your oath?

The titular question is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of when coming up with last month's topic. Xoasseed on Seed of Worlds not only answers most a lot of the questions I ask in the initial prompt, but ties it all together in an understanding of divinity which matches very well with how dieties act in many stories: They may or may not listen as they are in fact very busy. 

Oaths of this kind are easily integrated into local custom, a great way to have your players interact with sacred shrines, divine days and pious pilgrimages. 

The 14 minor gods that the post ends with are a great illustration of what oaths could result both while kept and when broken. 'The hum of harmony' being my favourite of the bunch, as it seems like a great way to tie oaths to hirelings and other NPCs.

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To swear upon the mushrooms

Bjork's Blog gives us another post detailing the customs of oath taking: Oaths are taken before 'Saint's Cap' mushrooms, which grow in places that comemmorate a great deed done by individuals who have become enshrined in stories. 

I am really impressed by the marriage of materialism (go to a place where something grows and bring it a gift) and idealism (become a narrative in order to become divine; let people commune with everything). Personally I haven't seen it done like this before, but would love to see more examples of it.

The example shrine to 'Serenata of the Clean Waters' is evocative and really sells me on the premise.

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Why isn't every bride a paladin?

Another great question with a bunch of interesting answers is provided by Christian Hendriks on Advantage on Arcana. They break down a bunch of requirements for a satisfying answer and then goes on to provide three potential answers. 

This approach is one I am very fond of and will probably try to adopt more in the future. It makes the nature of the problem very clear and allows readers to quickly spot where they might agree and disagree, not only with the answer but with the formulation of the problem itself. 

For example, I am not as keen on the stipulation that 'A person who makes an oath can become a paladin unwittingly', though I understand the accompanied explanation. This makes evaluating the answers given in the post really easy, as I can see their merit regardless of whether or not I like the explanation myself (though I genuinely do really like the third one). Great stuff!

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Oaths of dragons and gods

The Sea of Stars gives us a truth bound Empress, always doing what she says, and the interesting ramifications it has her subjects. I like the offhand remark that the killing of the kin of whomever challenges her rule only became a vow to stop dramatic suicides. 

We also get two oaths which survived from before the Empress' reign: oaths upon the Sun and upon the Moon. They are a great way of telling us about lore particular to this world through information that is almost all gameable. 

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The promises of Joy of Dice

The carnival sparked Joy of Dice from Imagine me this! to write down a setting that revolves entirely around "social bonds, entanglement, and transformation". Four posts brimming with enthusiasm and creativity are explicitly part of the carnival. They are a lot, but I mean that in the best possible way.

A jubilous anouncement post, Join the Carnival, in freefall! , and three inhabitants of that world, the Human, the Fae, and the Demon.

I absolutely love how they have taken the often bland idea of humans being adaptive and turned it up to at least thirteen. From the play-aid: 

You are the mutable race.
You do not cast magic. You build it.
You change the world—and let the world change you.  

Human magic consists of performing rituals, symbolically crafting things, and making vows, which leave their mark in the form of chimerisms. Beautiful. 

This version of Fae is also wonderful. Especially fae courtesy intrigues me: "A forfeit is owed when someone near a fae strays from social or emotional norms." Forfeits can be given when one willingly does this or invoked against their will. This is peak fae-hood, fairy tale logic to the extreme, it is Rumpelstiltskin and Maleficent. Again, gorgeous.

And, as expected at this point, the Demon is pure bliss. A wound in the world given shape as it is understood is by far the coolest version of a demon I have seen. And the bargaining is especially good:

Demons trade not for the gold in the coin, but in metaphysical substance.
They reshape what is offered—turn desire to fire, memory to weapon, soul to contract.
And they need more demons.

I cannot do any of this justice in short summation. If this sounds interesting enough to go read these posts I have done my job, if not then you should still read them as I have done them disservice. 

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Edit 2: Fuck me, I missed one send directly to me... Sorry Vdonnut

Vows as Social Standing and Social Structure

This post in Vdonnut's Valley details what the function of vows is in a faux medieval context, outlining the classic estates, what vows of nobility to a liege and to their subjects might entail, what vows from subjects to the authorities and/ir the community consist of, and how oathbreakers fit in this equation. 

The way 'magic' is done in this setting is close to what I dream of for my own setting: You swear an oath to a diety/demon/spirit and for as long as they believe you to uphold it you get magical benefits. Break it in their eyes and, if they notice, they will act accordingly. 

Those little caveats are such a brilliant little addition, as they allow for so many interesting situations at the table. From player characters trying to break an oath behind the back of a mystical entity to trying to get such an entity to believe that an enemy of the player characters has broken theirs. So good.

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What a wonderful carnival this was. It took some time to write this up as I had postponed digging into some of the longer posts until now, but I am glad I did. 

I am sincere when I say that all of the above is better than I had imagined or could have made myself. Despite this, I will end by pointing out my own contributions to this month's topic:

In Oaths and other divine favours I suggest a system to use for interacting with the divine, including swearing oaths upon them. 

In Replacing charisma: Standing I suggest a system to use for stracking the party's standing with recurring NPCs and the impact breaking promises has on that standing. 

They are perhaps some of the least directly relevant posts of this carnival, but they are what came to mind when trying to engage with the topic so they will have to do.  

Thank you any and all who took the time to read any of this. Hopefully I will see you again on any of the future carnivals.

 Edit 1: Post launch expansion:

 Beguine/Beghard class for OSE and Shadowdark

A final post has been made on Leicester's Rambles by Vance A, detailing a class based on the beguines/beghards, people taking religious vows and often forming communities to live mostly independent. 

I only revently learned about the existence of beguines on a trip I made to the city of Breda (NL), but hadn't yet considered basing a class on them. 

The post goes into some of the details of what beguines/beghards were and makes good on the titular promise with a class for both OSE and Shadowdark. Great stuff!