Myassari, Patron of Birth and Decay

Myassari: The Patron of Birth and Decay was written by Clint Bohaty and Julian Bernick, with art by Trevor Hartman. The publisher is Order of the Quill.

This is a complete patron writeup for Myassari, the stenographer of birth and decay, the silent observer, and the deity of midwifery and time, including three patron spells, patron taint, invoke patron results, and spellburn table.

When Myassari must converse with material beings, she takes on the appearance of a weatherworn harpy, whose heated feathers dance and flicker like flame driven by a bellows.  Those who wish to form a bond with Myassari must first be catalogued by the scrupulous patron.  After crying out her name upon a blazing pyre, the PC must survive the torment of a ceaseless cycle of life and death within her vacant dimension for a full week.  Having been beaten and tempered on the anvil of time, PCs bound to Myassari are requested to make offerings of rare and valuable materials to be studied by their patron, until she's documented the phases of each object and being within the multidimensional universe!

This patron is first mentioned in Cast Tower of the Blood Moon Rises! Considering that this patron is offered as a "Pay What You Want" pdf, there is no reason for anyone involved with the Dungeon Crawl Classics to not have gotten this!

Have you ever wanted to turn a treacherous demon-lord into a plump babe and raise him as your own son?  Have you ever wanted to shroud a fellow adventurer within the mucusy secretions of a healing membrane to lessen his pains?  Have you ever wanted to summon a phoenix built of boulders to smash in the brains of your foes (or allies)?

THEN KISS HER TALONS AND BEG FOR MYASSARI’S MERCY!

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Mutant Crawl Classics

Mutant Crawl Classics was written by Jim Wampler, with additional writing by Bob Brinkman and David Baity. Art is by Tom Galambos, Fritz Haas, Cliff Kurowski, Barrie James, Doug Kovacs (including cover and cartography), Brad McDevitt, Jesse Mohn, Peter Mullen, Russ Nicholson, Stefan Poag, Chad Sergesketter, Jim Wampler, and Michael Wilson. The publisher is Goodman Games.

This is the first official adaptation of Dungeon Crawl Classics to another genre, specifically post-Apocalyptic fiction, and as such it has been widely covered elsewhere. Indeed, the Glowburn podcast is about Mutant Crawl Classics (and related games), and has two episodes at the time of this writing which are dedicated to taking a first look at the rules. You can listen to them here and here.

Episode 43 of Spellburn was likewise about Mutant Crawl Classics. Mutant Crawl Classics has also come up from time to time on the Sanctum Secorum podcast, and especially on Episode 15 (Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth).

As of this writing, the game has not yet been released into the wild, but backers of the Mutant Crawl Classics kickstarter have had a chance to delve into the book. Reviews of Mutant Crawl Classics can be found here, here, here, and here. There is an extensive review in Meanderings #2.

I was lucky enough to do some playtesting of MCC #3: Incursion of the Ultradimension by Michael Curtis, and therefore had some early access to the rules. Interestingly, the plantient (sentient and mobile mutated plant) that was one of the pregenerated characters was instantly named Yew-root (after Groot) because of his mutations. We were all a little sad to realize that raccoons were not listed among the baseline of manimals (mutant animals). That's easy enough to fix!

Both Dungeon Crawl Classics and Mutant Crawl Classics allow for gonzo action, but Dungeon Crawl Classics seems more heroic to me, whereas Mutant Crawl Classics is tinged with survival horror. Certainly, the classes available to Pure Strain Humans seem weaker than the core classes in Dungeon Crawl Classics; the game relies upon interaction with artifacts and AIs as part of its balance mechanism.

One of the neatest rules in Mutant Crawl Classics may actually cause the most difficulty in actual play. Your mutant (or plantient, or manimal) has a fluctuating genetic sequence, meaning that you may gain or lose mutations over the course of play. When I sit down to play Dungeon Crawl Classics, I can use the Purple Sorcerer tools to create customized spellbooks, and can use The Crawler's Companion to roll spell results if I failed to plan ahead. These things, along with the Ready Reference Book, mean that I don't have to actually carry the core rulebook around with me. (I usually do; but I don't have to.)

When creating pregenerated characters, I will print out specific spells so that the players need not flip through the book. Again, Purple Sorcerer makes this easy. When I ran my first playtest, I did the same for mutations.

And then the mutations changed. Not just once during the session, either.

There will be reason, therefore, to make something like the Ready Reference Book for Mutant Crawl Classics. There is also good cause to create a Sorcerer's Grimoire-type tool for mutations, and an ap that can roll mutations you didn't realize you'd need (and therefore did not print out) before you sat down to play.

The artwork is, by the way, glorious.

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Mushroom Kingdom Classics

Mushroom Kingdom Classics was written by K.J. O'Brien. Map and character sheets are by K.J. O'Brien (heavily influenced by sheets available at Purple Sorcerer Games). All other art was “borrowed” from Google Images. For lore and image references, check out the Super Mario Wiki. The publisher is KJ O'Brien.

Imagine that you love role-playing games, and you love Dungeon Crawl Classics in particular. Now imagine that you have a 5-year-old child that you want to introduce to tabletop games in a friendly way. The result, for this author at least, is Mushroom Kingdom Classics, a reskinning of Dungeon Crawl Classics to allow adventures in the world of Super Mario and cohorts.

This also becomes a great example of how the rules can be bent to meet the needs of the game, rather than the game bending to the needs of the rules. So warriors become Tough Guys/Gals, clerics might be Mushroom Priests or Healers, and your zero-level PCs might be a Toad Instructor, a Human Plumber, or a Yoshi Star Gazer, among others.

Every race type has its own special abilities, from the Super Jump that humans can do to the sticky tongues of the yoshi. Race is not class in the Mushroom Kindom, and a character can be of any of the following races: Human, Koopa, Toad, or Yoshi.

The pdf comes with a zero-level funnel, The Old Mansion on Rubbleknot Hill, paper minis, and zero-level character sheets that look like the Purple Sorcerer sheets redone by 80s-era Atari. Even if you don't have children, this is a surprisingly playable version of the game! Doubly so if you know a gamer who is addicted to Mario Cart.

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Moon-Slaves of the Cannibal Kingdom

DCC #93: Moon-Slaves of the Cannibal Kingdom is a 2nd level adventure by Edgar Johnson. Art is by Jim Holloway, Doug Kovacs (also cover and cartography), William McAusland, and Stefan Poag. The publisher is Goodman Games.

I thought that I was writing a love letter to Abraham Merritt when I penned Through the Dragonwall; Edgar Johnson has gone me one further. Well, if King Kong or Mighty Joe Young were also created by Abraham Merritt.

The general set-up of the adventure is that the PCs arrive on the Vainglorious Rat (a great name for a ship that would, probably, mean my players avoided it!), but that is not necessary to the adventure. The adventure itself is partly a hexcrawl, but it has important keyed locations that will influence any action that occurs therein. Maybe the best way to consider Moon Slaves of the Cannibal Kingdom is as a mini-campaign setting loaded with both wonders and dangers.

This adventure is still relatively new, so I am not going to spoil it for anyone. I will say that there are complexities for the judge to pay attention to, especially in terms of time keeping, that the judge should be certain she fully understands before running the adventure. The adventure is worthy of the effort involved.

Edgar Johnson talks about the module on Spellburn, here.

Far to the west, beyond civilized lands, lie the Tolomak Islands— volcanic peaks covered in pestilential jungle and bestriding sunken ruins. The legends say the Tolomaks are home to treacherous witches, ferocious cannibals, moon demons, and worse! Wise are those who steer well away from these accursed jungle isles, but not everyone is wise… For the legends also speak of power unimaginable and treasures beyond the limits of mortal avarice. Now, under the light of the triple moons, a band of intrepid adventurers sails ever nearer the islands. With luck, they will escape with a fortune; without it, they may not keep their souls.

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Monster Mod Cards

Monster Mod Cards were written by Chris Stenger, with art by Deborah Stenger, J. M. Woiak, and Heather Shin. The publisher is Fatbelly Press.

These cards are not usable only for Dungeon Crawl Classics, but can be used for any role-playing game where monsters might be encountered. They are very much system neutral. There are 42 cards in the deck, and each card has an entry for "Head", "Body", and "Extra", each of which has an entry that may be cosmetic, or may prompt the judge to change the statistics of a creature.

One of the advantages of the Monster Mod Cards method is that a number of cosmetic changes can be applied as quickly as drawing a card...which is faster than consulting a table, and allows the judge to differentiate individuals in a horde of beastmen.

Examples include:

Head:

"A wispy beard"

"Glowing eyes: (1d8): 1) violet; 2) blue; 3) aqua; 4) green; 5) yellow; 6) orange; 6) red; 7) white; 8) only visible with darkvision"

(Note the two entries for #6. You could dice-off, or roll 1d10 and reroll 10s. The product is not perfect.)

Body:

"Hungry-looking, razor teeth-filled mouths at the end of each limb"

"Skin appears to be stitched together with thick black thread"

Extra:

"Splits into two creatures when slashed"

"Intent on stealing internal organs from its targets"

It should be noted that, if you order the physical cards, you can now get it with a pdf of the cards that you can print out on your own. This pdf would be more valuable to the harried judge if it was OCRed, which it is not at this time.

The author writes:

Long ago, when you were a kid (longer ago for some than others), you didn't know the stats of a kobold. Heck, you didn’t even know what a kobold was, aside from whatever description you had been given. And if you faced a group of kobolds, you probably didn’t know – at least that first time – that all of them would fight and die after a set number of hits were taken. You were creating a scene in your mind that you’d never seen before. What a wonderful thing that is. It’s one of the reasons many of us love these games. It’s a thread back to childhood. 

If that sense of wonder that we all had as a kid is missing from your tabletop games, then you and your fellow players might benefit greatly from mixing things up a bit. Inspired by the OSR, and made to be used with RPGs old and new, our deck of Monster Mod Cards will help change things up, just enough to keep your players in that sweet spot of imagination and wonder, requiring them to create brand new scenes in their minds.

Each 42 card deck features no fewer than 126 new attributes to add to each creature your players face. To use them, simply draw a card for each encounter, and use any of the attributes or tables presented to add flavor and mystery to your creatures. Don’t like what you drew? Draw another one, or use them only for inspiration. 

So bring the weird. Bring the gonzo. Make it rain air-swimming robot lobsters. Most importantly, craft those new experiences, and make memories out of them. It’s your game, after all.

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Monster Extractor III: Giants & Giant Creatures, for DCC

Monster Extractor III: Giants & Giant Creatures for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game was created and illustrated by bygrinstow. The publisher is Inner Ham.

As with the Monster Extractor I and Monster Extractor II, this product is, literally, two pages long. The first page is the extractor proper, and the second page is a worksheet to record your creations. This Extractor is focused on creatures considerably larger than your average orc. The following creature was made using the Extractor to face a 6th level party with 4 PCs:

Init -2; Atk tail smash +9 melee (1d20) or tar spit +9 (1d24 plus adhesion); AC 36; HD 4d24+8; hp 53; MV 70'; Act 5d20; SP tail smash, tar spit, leap; SV Fort +17, Ref +1, Will +5; AL L.

It was randomly determined that this is creature is 75' tall or long, apearing as a big cat with an exoskeleton, that walks or runs on 3 limbs and can make mighty leaps up to 8 miles. It has the attack forms of Tail Smash (3 damage dice in a big line or 1 damage die to everything in an arc) and Breath Weapon [Sap/Tar -like Goo (1die + adhesive qualities)] with a 60' range.

Behold!

The Lion of the Necropolis: Init -2; Atk tail smash +9 melee (3d20) or tail sweep +9 melee (1d20) or icy spit +9 (1d24 plus frozen in place); AC 36; HD 4d24+8; hp 53; MV 70'; Act 5d20; SP tail smash, tail sweep, freezing spit, leap; SV Fort +17, Ref +1, Will +5; AL L.

On the world of Hubris, in the Frozen Wastes "the gargantuan city palace and grand necropolis of the Dread Lord Glish Mal lies covered in massive snow drifts and forgotten with time." The Lion of the Necropolis is a hidden guardian, mounded beneath the snow and ice, and waiting patiently for thousands of years to prevent the "horrific undead army and unimaginably powerful sorcery" of Lord Glish Mal from returning.

The Lion of the Necropolis appears to be an enormous lion, fully 75' long, not including its tail. Its exterior is covered in a stone exoskeleton that makes it appear like a statue when not moving. although its hind legs are fused into a single member, it can make prodigious leaps of up to 8 miles and can move at extraordinary speed.

The enormous cat's tail reaches a full 60' behind it. It can strike at three targets within a this range in a line, doing 3d20 damage to each target, or sweep all targets in a 40' arc for 1d20 damage. Further, it can spit icy water up to 60' away, doing 1d24 damage and instantly freezing targets in place (DC 20 Reflex prevents freezing). If the target misses the save by 5 or more, it cannot get itself free. Otherwise, a DC 15 Strength check may be attempted each round to do so. A creature frozen in this manner takes 1d5 damage each round it fails a DC 15 Fort save.

In ancient times, the Lion of the Necropolis was immune to the powers of all un-dead, and could transform magical energies used against it to its own benefit. These powers are no more, and their failure may one day release again the might of Lord Glish Mal upon a cowering world.

Monster Extractor III is designed to help jump-start your brain when you need something that reaches the sky and stomps on buildings, but can’t dredge up anything from the Monstrous Island of your creative centers.

A single page of charts to aid in finding that new monster, and a page of 4-up monster "character sheets" for recording your creations.

This product also acts as the "tip jar" for the Appendix M blog.

NOTE: This product has no actual relationship to Hubris. I just used that as a demonstration.

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Monster Extractor II, The Un-Dead, for DCC

Monster Extractor II: The Un-Dead for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game was created and illustrated by bygrinstow. The publisher is Inner Ham.

As with the Monster Extractor I, this product is, literally, two pages long. The first page is the extractor proper, and the second page is a worksheet to record your creations. This Extractor is focused on un-dead creatures, which are a staple not only of Appendix N fiction, but also of role-playing games. The following creature was made using the Extractor to face a 3rd level party with 4 PCs:

Init +8; Atk +4 ; AC 14; HD 8d8; MV 30'; Act 2d20; SP possession, bend attacker's will (must succeed in a DC 15 Will save to attack it), immune to effects requiring a Fort save; SV Fort n/a, Ref +10, Will +10; AL C.

It was randomly determined that this is creature died 352 years ago, and which has above average intelligence. It was a normal peasant (gong farmer, etc.) that is obsessivelly seeking to see its familiar remains consecrated. It appears as it did in life.

Behold!

Tarquin Fossor: Init +8; Atk shovel +4 melee (1d4 plus possssion); AC 14; HD 8d8; hp 38; MV 30'; Act 2d20; SP possession (Will DC 14 avoids), bend attacker's will (must succeed in a DC 15 Will save to attack it), immune to effects requiring a Fort save, ; SV Fort n/a, Ref +10, Will +10; AL C.

Tarquin Fossor is the revenenant of a gravedigger who dies three and a half centuries ago in Ur-Hadad. He appears just as he did in life - a gaunt but muscular man dressed in soiled antique clothes and carrying an old shovel.

The misfortunate gravedigger fell an early victim to the Yellow Death, and when his wife and three children followed him, their bodies were tossed into a mass grave beyond Ur-Hadad's walls. The gravedigger's rage at this injustice consumed him in death, animating his body and defining his very existence. Now, each night, he seeks the remains of his family - not only their physical remains, but also the jewelry his wife once wore - to see that they are buried properly. Until this is done, or his un-dead form is destroyed, he cannot rest.

So powerful is the un-dead gravedigger's that anyone struck by his shovel must succeed in a Will save (DC 14) or join him in his quest for the next 1d12 hours. Worse, if Tarquin Fossor's body is destroyed during this time, a second Will save (DC 14) must be made by each affected creature (determine order randomly), or the gravedigger's spirit inhabits the body, driving it to seek its family's remains each night....potentially preventing the benefits of rest. A successful exorcise spell may drive the spirit out, or divine intervention, but little else short of finding the spirit's wife and children, and seeing that they are properly buried.

Monster Extractor II is designed to help jump-start your brain when you become weary of the garden-variety un-dead out there already staggering through the world, but can’t dig up anything from the mist-covered loam of your creative centers.

A single page of charts to aid in finding that new un-dead monster, and a page of monster "character sheets" for recording your creations.

This product also acts as the "tip jar" for the Appendix M blog.

NOTE: This product has no actual relationship to Ur-Hadad. I just used that as a demonstration.

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