Raven Crowking's Birthday Mathom 2014

Raven Crowking's Birthday Mathom 2014: The Ruined Keep & Additional Materials was written by Daniel J. Bishop with cartography by Daniel J. Bishop. The publisher is Raven Crowking.

Disclosure: I am the author, cartographer, and publisher.

The post offering this item, and giving the requirements for receiving it, appeared on 29 July 2014. As I said in that post, "These are just some fun things that you can get for free because sending them out helps me celebrate the passing of another solar rotation. And because the DCC community is great."

For a discussion of mathoms, see this listing.

This year's mathom included:

The Ruined Keep: This is one of two scenarios originally written for Raven Crowking’s Fantasy Game (RCFG), the “fantasy heartbreaker” I was writing before I switched to Dungeon Crawl Classics. I converted it to be used as a funnel for 12-18 0-level characters or 1st level adventure for 4-6 PCs.

Somewhere beneath the ruined keep lies the Oracle of the Crystal Grotto. The judge need only allow the PCs to learn this, and give the PCs some question that they need to answer, to hook them into the scenario.

If running a 0-level funnel, the PCs’ village may be suffering from an incurable plague, with the Oracle being the only hope of succor. If the PCs are in the early stages of the plague themselves, it will lend a certain piquancy to their mission.

If running a 1st level adventure, the judge may let slip that the Oracle can answer questions about  some treasure that the PCs discovered, or that the Oracle can lead them to spell knowledge or put them on the right track to obtain something else that they desire.

This adventure was reprinted in the Sanctum Secorum Episode #31 Companion: Jack of Shadows.

Bonus Material from Appendix N Authors: This material was compiled from various Appendix N sources and given DCC statistics. Included are:

• Chu-Bu: Minor god from Lord Dunsany (“Chu-Bu and Sheemish”: Saturday Review, 30 December 1911).

• Sheemish: Another minor god from Lord Dunsany (“Chu-Bu and Sheemish”: Saturday Review, 30 December 1911).

• Tree Spirits of the Vosges: From Abraham Merritt's “The Woman of the Wood” in Weird Tales (August 1926), I used my write-up for them almost exactly in Through the Dragonwall, which was intended as an homage to Abraham Merritt.

• Wind Whale: From Philip José Farmer: The Wind Whales of Ishmael (Ace Books, 1971). Careful readers will note a similarity with an encounter in the Appendixes of The Portsmouth Mermaid.

• Aerial Brit: Foodstuff (kind of), also from Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael.

• Namalee: A character in Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael, which may be used as an example of how characters can be transcribed without using standard DCC classes.

• The Purple Beast of the Stinging Death: A monster you do not want to encounter, also from Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael.

• Zoomashmarta: Another god, also from Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael. Because this god is an idol, as are Chu-Bu and Sheemish, it may be interesting to the reader to compare Dunsany with Farmer.

• Bloodsucker Creeper: Another monster from Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael.

• Stone Tortoise: Another monster from Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael.

• Air Shark: Another monster from Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael.

I have given Bob Brinkman blanket permission to use almost everything in this mathom for Sanctum Secorum Companion volumes, so hopefully these will appear in a The Wind Whales of Ishmael volume at some point. 

Additional Monsters: Dungeon Crawl Classics statistics for the behir, blindheim, hippocampus, and wyvern, using alterations I had made to the creatures for RCFG.

This product is no longer available, although, as indicated above, some of the content is.