Inventory Management as Diegetic Milestones; or Angband Fangirling

There is little I can say about inventory management in the GLOGopshere that hasn't already been said. Arnold Kemp's inventory was the best first solution I saw while I was still a neophyte with Inventory and Inventory Jr, but always shall we iterate. Mausritter has its adorable and supremely diegetic item tokens and backpack grid.  While I am typically opposed to the abstraction of inventory management such as the usage of Usage Dice in Blackhack and dislike the wealth abstraction system of Prismatic Wasteland's design, there are certainly tables that love it. I even chafe against Blades in the Dark's retroactive load rules though within the game own's framework it keeps the games ad-hoc breakneck high-stakes pace moving. 

Similarly, light in the dungeon remains up for debate, even recently. Though I agree that "torches should last 1-hour and weigh 2 lbs" Kaponkie's idea for light as saving throws is delightful and very keen and has something I think we all desperately crave and scrabble for in our heartbreakers and home games. 

Elegance. 

I am one of those bizzaroids from the Cambrian that thinks Elfgames are best played with an Excel file and yet I understand that while such solutions are brutally effective, they are, in a word inelegant. I think we all long for the "hit point revolution", a magical imaginary rule for inventory management as good and enduring as HP has been for health. A solution that is both simple and effective and easy to remember and despite the everlasting cries of "it makes no sense!!!" nevertheless, stays. 

I do not have such a solution. But I do think I have a way to make managing inventory rewarding. But first we have to go back to 1993 and discuss ANGBAND!

Gorgeous. 

Angband is super fucking cool. It is also the hardest game I have ever played. Long story short it's one of those early Roguelikes, coming out 13 years after Rogue and being based on the game Moria. In the game you take on the roles of a race/class adventurer combing through the first 99 procedurally generated ASCII dungeon levels of Angband, an evil fort from Tolkien's Silmarillion to find Sauron and kick his ass. Then you can go to level 100 and kick Morgoth's ass and be crowned king of Silmarillia or something. I'm not sure because out of like 50 characters I've only had one make it past dungeon level 50 and he only got to level 79 before a pit fiend disintegrated him.  

Rest in peace gentle Garg XVI

This is what the game's inventory management screen looks like:

Harrowing. 

Here's what your equipped screen looks like

Harrowing-er.

If HP is to elegance, this is to getting clubbed over the head in a dark alley by a very very blunt, very strange instrument. Like a flugelhorn. It's a simple list, conveniently color-coded, and fiercely efficient. It eschews reality (you can simultaneously wield a bow and sword and carry potions in stacks of 40) but its own internal logic is very sound. 

What makes it interesting is this the most efficient this character has ever been and he's only getting more so. Let me explain. 
 
When you first make a character, you begin with very little. You carefully scrounge around the uppermost reaches of the dungeon armed with only a torch and some sling stones and if RNG is kind, a dagger. You crawl, space by space, slowly lighting up your path and revealing the shape of the dungeon. You test unnamed potions, read bizarre scrolls and hope they don't poison you or teleport you five levels lower. You collect everything and your inventory quickly fills up and all the while you can't even see the shape of the dungeon level and until you've been everywhere. And then you find a Scroll of Mapping. 

It maps but not lights out about a quarter of the dungeon in rough circle around you. It weighs half a pound and only works once so you treasure it. You only use it for hard or confusing levels, and you soon stack as many as you can and weight be damned, you'll drop that sick Flail of Demon Slaying before you'll leave those scrolls behind. The same goes for Scrolls of Treasure Location to efficiently find loot, Potions of Heroism to counter fear-based status effects and Wands of Hold Monster for obvious reasons. 

So you ration them all. Weigh the odds every fight. These are valuable resources after all. And then you find a Rod of Mapping. It weighs half a pound, and besides a short cooldown it never runs out. Now you never need scrolls again. You're free! And you dump them on top of the nearest corpse. That's a valuable slot and you weigh less so your speed goes up and you survive fights better. And the game is doing this kind of thing all the time!

Heavy one-time use scrolls are replaced by rechargeable wands and staves and eventually rods. Resistances (to the games various and extensive elemental effects) begin with temporary potions and rings in coveted ring spots and weak shields, and eventually unique legendary armors cover several at one time freeing up spots for more powerful shields and rings and potions. Even your class can aid you. Warriors become immune to fear at level 30, negating the need in your equipment. I've found some cool artifact weapons that make you immune to some effects, a rare treat indeed that eschews the need for potions of resistance. 

Light too, that ever-present 10 HD bugbear, is improved with treasure acquisition. Torches, which only last a cool 5000 turns can be replaced with a lantern that light up more space and last a hefty 15,000 turns. Lanterns too are replaced with magical counterparts that need no oil or are enchanted with Brightness, showing more of the dungeon. Eventually you'll find the Phial of Galadriel which needs no fuel and can also cast Light Room. I am sure as I progress deeper I will find yet more treasure which exist as superior or at least lateral equipment. 

In short, treasure of all stripes, makes managing your inventory easier by making you need less. That is the reward. 

~~

While this certainly isn't a novel idea, to some degree, I think Elfgames miss the mark on this. D&D 5e, obsessed with progression, replaces many core parts of the game with class abilities and spells and whole classes (looking at you Ranger) very early on, robbing you of the joy of becoming more efficient. Banning Goodberry is infamous amongst modern DMs seeking to make inventory tracking matter, in a game that seems largely disinterested in tracking much of anything. Goodberry should be a euphemism for druid kidneys and should be a mid-level reward for brutally massacring a druid. 

The OSR of course has done much better, with our slots and stones and encumbrances and so forth. But I think the scene has not considered the next question of inventory management progression (what a phrase). We know copper becomes silver becomes gold becomes gems but what of our torches and lanterns? What of all this mapping talk of late? Drawing maps by hand is fun (I make my players do it) but would I or perhaps you be so brave as to give them a Rod of Mapping? How would you even make that work? Rations are great to track but what treasure exists out there makes it so you don't need to eat anymore? 

Already diegetic progression exists in the phyletic tree that begins with B/X and its grandfather OD&D. The fighter and the cleric get their castles and churches, wizards find their spell scrolls. Obviously, we expect gold and treasure to make their lives easier in the fiction but I think equipment too, needing less and less of it can be its own reward. 

I challenge you to challenge inventory management in your game and to make things that make inventory tracking worth it, if only so eventually you don't have to. 

~~~

A Bit About Hirelings

I love hirelings. In my fantasy heartbreaker you will abound with hirelings to feed the ego of your venal and vice-ridden character, all tracked on your handy dandy Wretched Lot sheet (the only people worse than you wretches, are arguably those wretches who follow you). They fill an interesting and to some degree frustrating, middle ground in inventory management. They don't make managing it easier (you're just offloading the work onto either a separate sheet or heaven forbid the referee) but they give you more room to carry stuff. They only "matter" insofar as they can be threatened by the world they exist in and the players attachment to them. These things must exist in tension, and the rules should support that tension; Peasants wanting to live (morale) balanced against player greed and a system that doesn't let you churn through NPCs (reputation?) makes for fun gameplay. 

In short, I think hirelings are not necessarily a reward that makes inventory management easier, but something to play around with more that can be rewarding. Convincing an ogre to join the Wretched Lot is fun and badass (especially when it has its own desires) and certainly a kind of reward (think how much food he can carry (or eat)). 

~~~

I am told there is a tax. Here are my (not novel) equipment tracking rules and d7 things that suck to track and their magical reward replacements

Equipment 

You can carry a number of stones/slots of equipment between your Flesh (FLSH) score (1d6-1) and twice your Flesh score with neither malus nor bonus. A stone is 15 lbs. or the size of a cantaloupe, whichever is less convenient. Write each discrete piece of equipment on a note card and put them in a stack. You can quickly and easily access a number of the top cards/equipment equal to your FLSH. 

Conan Rule: If you carry less than your FLSH, you gain a +1 bonus to damage and initiative. Your speed is incremented one size (1d4 => 1d6=> 1d12)

Hoarder Rule: If you carry more than twice your FLSH score, you gain a -1 malus to damage and initiative and you look like a fool or worse, a miser. Your speed is decremented one size (1d12=> 1d6 => 1d4). 

Armor Rule: Armor uses slots equal to DR. Heavy cloak =1, gambeson=2, chain =3, shield =+1. The system eschews plate for players but it's a whopping +5 DR for heavily armed foes. 

Rule of 3: Light things that can be bundled are three to a stone
Rule of 20: Tiny things that can be grouped are twenty to a stone

Write each discrete piece of equipment on a note card. When you take damage that would destroy items (acid, fire, android lazer beams), draw a card from the stack counting up from the bottom equal to the sum of the damage. It is destroyed if the destruction makes sense. 

D7 Rewards
(I'll add to this if anyone has any additional ideas!)

1.Mapping.  Mapping Imp, fits in a pocket. In exchange for doing nothing when the opportunity to do good presents itself (as the best devils offer) and when supplied with chalk and slate, it will scout ahead and map out the next few rooms for you in perfect if verbose and exacting detail due to their quixotic minds. Also due to their quixotic minds they will not note extreme temperatures, deadly vacuums or intense radiation since they are unaffected by it. When slighted it may omit key details like a large ogre, pit trap or the like. Can be found in the servitude of witches and hags, or in the bottoms of chests they've been locked in, bored for a century, in which case the first gig is free. 

2. Food. Elf Pellets, Rule of 20. These golf ball sized pellets are swallowed whole and give you nourishment for as long as three days. Actually, the nutrient dense droppings of cockatrice and basilisks, who eat stone and bone to extract minerals. The unnecessary fats and proteins are thusly extruded. 

3. Ammunition. The Thirteenth Arrow of Misfortune. It greedily fills a quiver. A single dark arrow said to be whittled from the Tree-Prison of the Chaos Serpent (whose one put-out eye is the moon) and tipped with one of its teeth. When placed in a full quiver of 12, it binds them all together, becoming indistinguishable from the rest. The thirteenth arrow fired always crits and always causes the greatest disaster and chaos an arrow could cause, ricocheting around corners to do so. For everyone person in the room you declare you Hate, this arrow ricochets once more. This could be severing ropes, killing lovers or destroying something precious. No one will ever forget what you wrought and you are glad for it. 

It is not a specific arrow, just the 13th fired. When the quiver is depleted, it magically regifts you with 12 ordinary, blood-soaked arrows. 

4. Ammunition. Rod of Zapping, Rule of 3 when strongly bound for such mighty rods are like opposing magnets. When activated it fires ZAPS that do the damage of a bow with a maximum range based on its length (they can be stacked like markers). It can fire however many ZAPS you need in a ten-minute cycle but then must recharge. I'd link the recharge time to the Underclock; when the sum of Underclock rolls equals the number of ZAPS fired, it recharges. 

5.  Food. Gastrolith of the Tyrant King. A large stone once in the belly of a great crocodilian king. If swallowed, a mighty task indeed, you need only eat once a week. 

6. Travel. Snapsticks, Rule of 3. A pair of sort of thin wooden doweling rods, favored amongst thieves. When the first of the pair is broke over the right knee nothing happens. When the second is broken over the left knee, you and some friends are teleported back to the where the first was broken. 

7. Weight, Amour.  Maille of the Elytra Prince. DR3, 1 stone. This dark lightweight armor scintillates a rainbow of colors in the light, made of the carapace of a former beetle knight. Exceedingly rare as it cannot be given away and dead beetle knights rarely die peaceful deaths. To wear it is to honor that knight and owe allegiance to the Elytran throne. 

Class Progression As Less Not More

Let me expound on the title. I think the best class progressions let you ignore or even better, break a rule. An example: 

"A fighter's favorite weapon uses up no slots while in his possession."

This of course requires you know how the equipment/encumbrance rules work in your system or heartbreaker of choice. But it's less to remember because your class ability is the exception to the rule. The best ones should let you outright break a rule. Consider a rule like "No one can read magic innately." Then you go roll up a wizard and lo and behold

"A wizard can read magic innately."

Immediately very cool and I think, counterintuitively, good rules design. The subject of memory has been brought up before. Everyone shares the rules knowledge "no one can read magic" (Automatic rule) except the wizard who will remember because it makes them feel very cool (good use of Extemporaneous rules).

This should exist in opposition to restrictive rules such as poorly thought-out weapon proficiencies of recent editions. "Only fighters* can use martial weapons." Absolute hogwash of the murkiest order. A wizard carries a sword because it's faster to kill knaves that way then they're choking out chthonic incantations and besides it looks both rad and badass.

I think D&D and the OSR could do a lot more with this so here's some more examples off the dome. 

Everyone begins play with 1 MD naturally and can hold 1 spell in their head in the Vancian way, after having read a scroll or spell book, with great straining. But a wizard can hold 5 this way before their brain explodes. 

Everyone can pick 2 weapons they're deadly with at character creation. A fighter may pick 4 and if it's their favorite, it costs no slots to carry. 

Coins are always 300 to a slot. Thieves however can sneak in an extra 100 per slot if they tell no one.  

Druids (a made-up class) cannot use metal armor or weapons. However, a druid's wooden weapon, if it has never known a thinking creatures' touch, is harder than steel in their hands.

I think the common interpretation of Thief Skills from early versions of the game are a good guideline. Anyone may attempt to move quietly, but only a thief may attempt to do so silently. Similarly, anyone can attempt climb a wall but alas the sheer surfaces are reserved for the sticky-footed rogue.   

Now an obvious counter to this claim is to look at the 5e ranger who simply gets to succeed in their chosen element. One might argue that here we see the Ranger gets to ignore the rules so this should not be lauded hmmm?  Cockamamie gibberish of the purest distillation. Here the Ranger nullifies the rule it breaks. It would be the same as saying "All of a fighter's weapons cost no slots while they carry them."

Note that this is the same hogwash we defenestrated earlier but in reverse. "Only rangers can travel without being lost" is the same as "only fighters can use martial weapons." The solution is to fix the rules that they're allowed to break which stink in the first place. Observe:

When a group becomes lost, you may attempt to reorient yourself by seeking a landmark, observing the direction of the sun or following water, all taking 1 watch. A ranger however may do so in a ten-minute turn provided he can see the stars, a body of water or observe wild animals, though he cannot use the same stars, water or animals twice in one day. 

You must sleep 8 interrupted hours each night to regain HP. A ranger may regain HP irrespective of how much he is harried as long as he sleeps at least 4 hours. 

When observing tracks anyone can roughly determine two of the following: origin, direction, rough party size (more than one, more than ten etc.) or answer a specific question like "do they have prisoners?" A ranger can accurately determine two or roughly determine three.  

~~~

An idea: Maximalizing play procedures for classes inverse to their proficiencies. A fighter has to remember very few rules when fighting whereas a wizard must jump through many hoops, or rather everyone has the same baseline for combat except fighters who need not consider much at all. 

For example: an imaginary ruleset where one must consider initiative, weapon strike accuracy, weapon deadliness and combat fatigue

"When combat begins, determine initiative by [favored method] or else foes act before you. To strike a foe you must roll below their AC but above their HD. Unless the foe is bloodied or you have [advantageous fictional positioning] your attacks are dangerous [1 Wound], not deadly [Instant Death], unless you've mastered the weapon. At the end of each round you have Wounds, roll above Wounds or become Fatigued which gives [Relevant Combat Maluses]. Unless you are a Fighter..."

"...As a Fighter, you always go first. To strike a foe roll below their AC. Unless a foe is supernatural, all your strikes are deadly and will kill in one hit. You ignore Combat Fatigue."

Perhaps rather than all at once, your system of choice uses templates/classes and each template/level lets you ignore an additional rule in your favor. I am reminded of the (still in progress) Seven Part Pact by Jay Dragon where each wizard rules their own domain, being experts in it. Rather than protecting class identify, this design reinforces it. This does have the potential issue of disempowering a player because they never learn certain rules but maybe that's ok. Our time is precious and system mastery be damned maybe when I play a fighter I don't wanna think hard.

I think this could also be fun with a magic system as well. Let's assume the GLoG magic as a baseline (+4 casting dice, spell books and scrolls etc) but with some astrological flair I've been working on. 

"To learn a spell, you must study it from a book or scroll and its relative place in the Spheres [or other extraplanar fantasy jargon]. You must spend at least 8 hours studying and experimenting with the spell to determine its Sphere of Origin (which planet it hails from), practicing the verbal and gesticulatory phrases and motions to insulate it from your brain and expel it from your mind and determining its metal associate for physical casting requirements. Nonetheless, it may require additional specific archaic material components (chrysalids, copper twine, a human skull)"

To cast a spell, you must first prepare it under the culmination of its home Sphere e.g. when it is highest in the sky, typically around sunrise (a special book may be required for this or an orrery), which takes 1 Turn (ten-minutes) per spell prepared. You can prepare spells equal to half your MND score. Each spell prepared beyond this introduces racking headaches, nosebleeds and intrusive thoughts and memories. Mishaps when casting these extra spells act the same as Major Wounds to the head, save that a helmet cannot protect you. 

If prepared and you can read the scroll or spellbook pertaining to the spell (typically requiring a lectern or a free hand) and the basic material component in a free hand (traditionally a wand, rod or staff of the correct metal) you may roll your magic dice and cast the spell. If in combat, you begin casting before your foes act but finish the spell after they go. 

Unless you're a Wizard..."

"...As a Wizard you may learn a spell with an hour of experimentation and then prepare the same spell. You can prepare any spells by studying them for an hour at sunrise, when the sun refreshes magic across the surface of the Irf (you can picture the path of its home Sphere innately, they are the same stuff as ley lines under your feet, perhaps the very same thing altogether). You may prepare spells equal to your MND score though spells prepared may be prepared beyond this but busy your mind with whispers, compulsions and obsessions that are both your own and not. Mishaps when casting these spells act as Minor Wounds to the head, save that a helmet cannot protect you. 

A prepared spell cast from a book needs no basic material component such a wand or staff however it may increase the potency of the spell (+1 to any die result) and you will still require any specific material components. You may cast with a book as above but if you prepare the spell focus you can cast it in the Vancian way. Additionally, if cast under the correct planetary conjunction, at the right time of day, under the effects of certain herbs or tinctures or with implements of the correct metal, you may roll extra magic dice, supplied to you by the universe."

I guess in summary, playing around with carving classes out of the existing rules means there are less rules to remember, just exceptions to them that reinforce class identity. I think this also has the added benefit of making things you have to add to the game like magic for example, make it feel more rare and special, a time when slowing down to consult the rules is ok because Fireball or Rhialto's Reticent Disintegration is about to be cast.   

*Here meaning fightery classes like barbarian, ranger etc. 

Mini Marine Monster Post

Ghost Nets 

Every year a shit ton of animals are killed by nets abandoned at sea. In fantasyland, this becomes an issue that fights back. A roiling cacophony of desperate enraged perpetually drowning marine life, held in vile shape by taut and taunting rotting rope. 

~

A halo of ragged undead birds dart around a massive looming form, necks snapped. It takes a ragged step forward. The boat tips precariously.
An animal's spirit is a little thing, like a fish, and what do fish hate more than a net? When enough life is dragged down and drowned by a net errantly cut loose, a dull and throbbing singular thought moves through the spirits of the dead. They swim together.
A thousand writhing glassy eyed fish stare at you gasping. Its strangely quiet, raised fists glistening in the moonlight
A pain becomes an anger, an anger a desire. Swim up. Swim up and don't stop. A creature's spirit is like a little fish. 
The knowing eyes of a porpoise pierce you, squinting past its own bloat. The fist snaps the mast like so many little bones. 
What would they do when they hate? 

Ghost Net

HD 7/AC Chain/Damage 2d6 (smash) or as dart (undead bird)

DIS: Aggressive, Cowardly, Confused MOR 10

WANTS: To drown fishermen, sink boats, tear down lighthouses

NEEDS: To be freed, to be cut loose, to rot 

AVOIDS: The day, the tide, the depths 

DESIRES: To stop the tides, to reach the moon, to quell a fear it doesn't understand

 

 

Eelmen

Some people have orcs. I have eelmen. If orcs and trolls are strong and dim, then eelmen are fast and cunning. The Venn diagram of all three has "vicious" at the center. 

I like linking them to weather tables. They attack during thunderstorms, compelled by the changing air pressure to raid, when rivers flood and they can stay moist. They only need to submerge once a day, they're quite terrestrial, their lakeside camps flooded and full of craft-eels. Crossbows and nets are a favorite. They always prefer to ambush and always in greater numbers or tactics. They do not have legs but slither like cobras. 

They're very clever, like traps and have effective caravans, full of great slimy cauldrons. Dear god what's in them.

~

Tidepool crawler. Beach comber. Man renderer. Feed all the parts to a pit of eels under a full moon and spread thin the fat of the sacrifice. What is left in the morning is man's pride and drive and eel's cunning and savagery and the viciousness of both. It is handed a hooked ax and slithers off, confident.

Eelman

HD 1+1/AC as armor/Damage as weapon

DIS: Cruel, Stalker, Prudent/MOR 7

WANTS: to abduct, to propagate 

NEEDS: to eat, to stay damp, to attack during thunderstorms

AVOIDS: aridity, greater numbers

DESIRES: to feel rain on their skin, to feel superior

Retributive Bite. When critically struck or reduced to 0 hp, it may reactively bite a foe and latch on. A STR check with a -4 can unhinge the eelman's jaws, but its pharyngeal jaws bite all the while, automatically dealing 1 damage each round it is not removed. They often do this before they die, locking the jaw as a final act of defiance, -8 to unhinge. Dragging an eelman corpse around, halves your speed and hurts. 

Trip. Skilled with polearms they may trip for half damage on a successful hit. Prone foes take triple damage. There's a reason "he fell" is synonymous with death. 

The Lady-in-Waiting

dedicated to my beloved

A stonefish

The knight has travelled weeks back to the Lady of the Cave. This task was the most arduous of all, quarry hanging heavy on his horse, heavier on his heart. His footsteps are slower now, the newly earned limp his only companion besides the horse. But its ok, because the Lady will fix him. She always does. 

The cave entrance is jagged, uneven, hardly befitting of one so wise as her he thinks, one so knowledgeable. One who would, he recalled the words, come to "encompass him," in eternal glory and wisdom he knew. The Lady was kind. She was transcendent. She had to be, as desperate men often decided. The horse's ears twitched.

He no longer entered nervously as has he had so many times before. Cautious he had been, but this was his final quest. She would give him sight beyond sight as the holy men had said. Something to help home. The horse chuffed nervously. 

She floated there above his head, all warm light and honeysuckle, her attendants floating lazily around her. He idly wondered why such a perfect being chose such a dank place to dispense wisdom but under the warm cave-sun the stone might have well been pheasant-down to him. He dropped the quarry at his feet, hunted to exhaustion only slightly more than him. He avoided the vacant glassy eyes. It hurt his heart. The light intensified and he smiled the smile of a boy long since gone. His aches faded. 

"You have succeeded." The voice was raw and unearthly. 

"For you, my Lady. My pledge drove me on." He was met with only silence. He only looked up when his horse took a nervous step back. Then the light began to fade away, and with it the warmth that blanketed his wounds.  "My Lady, long I have trekked, much of you to others have I spoken. Many at home count on me as I have on you. Forgive my terseness but the wisdom please."

"How many?" The voice was thicker now and quicker, as if panting. "How many have you told of me and this place?"

"All in every town between here and the distant peak you sent me to."

"Good." The voice was thicker still, resonant. The glowing attendants moved faster now, agitated. They flit like so many minnows sensing the shadow of an ibis overhead. "More will come then." The horse reared in a panic, the attendants winking out in rapid succession and the Lady faded away. 

And two glassy black eyes replaced them. 

Knight and horse together were swallowed up before his hand could reach his sword. 

The Lady-in-Waiting, or the Land Angler Fish

(L)Angler Fish

HD 5/AC as Leather/Damage 1d6

DIS. Cruel, Cunning, Honeyed/MOR 6

WANTS: to appear divine, to be worshipped

NEEDS: to satiate a monstrous appetite  

Special. Its lure takes the form of a glowing celestial, different for all, but one deemed comforting, wise and angelic. While the light glows, the rest of the creature cannot, and indeed has not, been seen.  In fact, it is not truly there, hiding just out of reach in a nearby dimension or plane, only the lure physically present. Those who bask in its presence are healed 1 HP per hour and wounds and sickness mend and cure themselves at a rapid rate and indeed the (L)Angler encourages this. 

Vacuum. Once per fight, the Langler Fish open its vacuum sealed maw from the dimension it hides in. All Close creatures must make a difficult Test of Strength or be swallowed. 

    

Suitors, glowing brightly

HP 1/AC as Plate (speed)/Damage as dart
DIS. Doting, fanatic, starving/MOR 11

WANTS: to breed 

NEEDS: to be patient 

AVOIDS: being devoured 

Special. They flit to and fro between Lady and foe in a fight, healing her the damage they do, a living blood transfuser. 

 

 

 

 

 

An Anti-Meta Monster: The Malfectorix

I am a compulsory doodler. A clear sign of the ADHD missed for so many years, childhood margins were filled with twinkling lines and dashes, pictographs and comics. Perhaps compelled by the gallery books of Waterson and Larson I scribbled and scrabbled so much that I am happy to say I have filled a good chunk of a journal with absurd drawings.

However, a special book I have, custom made by mi amour, of spiral binding and dotted background, that I fill with my monsters. Most are, to me at least, original or else grounded in folklore. Some are reinterpretations of classic one's, my own spin on them. One stands out, one I am especially fond of. 

The Malfectorix. A name that would strike terror into the hearts of anyone, if I had ever run it as a monster in my games.

D&D has its beholders and dragons and mindflayers on the front of its bestiaries. My own would have this guy: 

Born of a boring virtual training class, the Malfectorix whose name means "very bad" and "you don't understand Latin" is a great beastie that should have one more HD than is reasonable in your system. I have written in my book here HD equivalent to "15 men" but perhaps it would be better off at 11 HD, many more than I would ever give a creature in a system where a HD tops off at 10+. 

It is the pinnacle of awful monsters. Incredibly strong, it runs faster than a horse, and with an immense appetite, it will sunder entire country sides seeking food, that being anything it thinks could be food. Unlike its contemporaries, dragons and beholders, it is frightfully unintelligent. Nature has conversely given it a head harder than granite to protect the precious few bundles of neurons it has. This is good (for it) because its primary form of locomotion is straight, with no care for lies in its chosen path. It can and will sunder an entire castle wall with minimal brain damage, though this is more because the castle was in the way of the direction it chose a few miles back than any issue with the wall itself [1].

Killing it confers no benefits to the killer, beyond its absence. No part of it is valuable. Its shaggy pelt will leave you freezing and its meat is vile and toxic. Its claws are brittle in death, losing their razor sharpness quickly. Its stony head could be of use it you had enough men to carry it, and its mouth's edge is vorpal sharp, but it will begin to crack and crumble by next winter. Unlike many monsters with stomachs and crops just for holding swallowed treasure, the Malfectorix's stomach will only contain 2d3 bowling ball sized stones. It is theorized these allow them to break up the horrible things they eat. There's another theory that the Malfectorix confuses them for eggs and that this causes its troublesome indigestion and is the primary cause of its bad temper. 

Their corpses, not unlike whales, explode after, unlike whales, 1d3 hours, making bringing a head in for reward difficult. The explosions can send the stony craniums upwards of half a mile away or, half a meter through your buddy. 

Interestingly, its eye stalks are on the side of its head. Perhaps a distant ancestor grew tired of smashing them to a pulp during its preferred ramming attacks and divested itself from its brothers' kiddy gene pools, searching for deeper waters. The resultant effect was the stretching of its already thin brain. As such the eye stalks sometimes fight, confusing the other for another Malfectorix. This makes breeding, thankfully, a challenge and breeding pairs hate each other, compelled by mother nature to get along long enough to well, get along. 

In truth the creature's true purpose in my games is perhaps to befuddle and annoy players. It has no reasonable loot, is difficult to kill and easy to trick. Therefore, its favorite food is power gamers and it should always fall for the first ruse provided by the shyest player. In a world where my monsters' lives are measured in rounds, the Malfectorix stands apart. It seeks instead to challenge their notions of a monster's purpose. If I thought I could get away with it, I'd give the monster negative XP, taking a level per player on death. It is the "BANG!" flag that comes out of a loaded clown's revolver. It exists for its own sake and not the sake of any player. Cleverness will suffice for defeating it and not even much is required. If it by some miracle it is killed, it can take a player out with an explosion and the resultant noise summons every monster in the area. Perhaps even, another Malfectorix. 

Some Stats for the Foolhardy 

HD: 21 Men (learned though much trial and error); or 1 more than is standard for the system you use
AC: Stone Maw like plate, body like chain
MV: Easily outruns a horse on its disturbing chicken legs, but only in straight lines
#1°: 1, 1d2 (mated pair, angry) + 1d4 chicks (ravenous bastards)
Sp: Vorpal Maw, its crits decapitate heads and remove limbs in one hit. It ignores armor. It is famously stupid.

Noxious gas. Can be emitted from its nostrils, varying in potency: 1. Deadly 2. Acidic 3. Anoxic 4. Paralyzing 5. Confusing 6. Sleep inducing. The latter three can affect the creature itself, if it stands in its own cloud for a round. 

WANTS: to eat (anything)
NEEDS: to fight that other Malfectorix
AVOIDS: nothing
DESIRES: to eat large rocks
TREASURE: those very same rocks

Meta: It targets power gamers first and the last thing to hit it second and falls for the first trick proposed by a quiet player. On its death, it takes one level of XP per player with it. The level can be retrieved with an arduous series of interconnected fetch quests that form an ouroboros back to the first quest giver.

The other picture didn't capture his regal nose smoke

1. Foes have tried to use this to their advantage, luring the beast over, having it smash a hole in a wall to end a siege early, only to fail when the monster put a hole in the wall on the other side allowing their quarry to escape.

There's no discharge in the war!

You must listen to this first. 

"orcs,

orcs, 

orcs, 

orcs 

marchin' up and down again 

there's no discharge in the war!"

-Rudyard Kipling, probably

" You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it." -Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

"A monster is a sign, something somewhere in the world has fucked up." -Dan, Throne of Salt

War and Starvation, those wretched gods that dance together in love and lust, through the mired field of the dead and dying. Their dresses are made of vulture feathers and the stink of hungry feral hounds. Atop the armor stripped from the dead for everlasting glory, they sway, they sway to the sound of the great hangers on of Bloody Campaigns, the cooks and porters and slaves that feed War's Great and Terrible Machine. They two- and three-step to the wailing cries of ransacked towns, the tearing of ration cards and the growls of empty stomachs. And they laugh. 

But while they laugh, men march to the sound. And march. And march. And march. Until they lose their minds. 

~~~

Everyone thinks they have the best orc and everyone is right. 

These are mine

 

Don't- don't- don't- don't- look at what's in front of you. 

March a man half to death and then do it again. Feed him hard tack after the beetles have had their fill. Drain his canteen until only a drop remains and do it for a week and then do it again. Tell him little and make him hate his Officer, for an Officer is a thing, an oracular machine who reads the winds of war in the entrails of those he sends to death. Tell them to find the Enemy, that thing so wretched and godless that it must be found like a hound on the path of the wolves who take the shepherds and their flock in dead of night. The Enemy is that thing. The Enemy is what the Officer says it is. Tell them to ignore the angry glares of those they fight for, they are not part of the efficient machine that makes machines that make war. Tell them to scorch the earth until the angels who sound the trumpets in heaven jump and cry at the heat under the soles of their ironclad and seamless floor because it will never be more then the distant and smothering ceiling of those who march. And then do it again.

Watch the soles of his feet thicken after the blisters never heal. Wear his boots thin and thinner still until there is no boot. Make him patch it. When it's all patch replace it until you don't. Then do it again until no boots are left in the whole damn world because the cobbler got drafted, the luckiest man alive he is, for who gets to find the Enemy and snuff it out. 

Make hunger his friend and the white pallor of his skin his blanket. Watch this sallow skin yellow and then green and his jaw jut out at first in pride for he seeks the Enemy and then later to keep from biting his own tongue clean off. Watch his teeth grow wicked and sharp because he knows when he runs out of the bullets in the bandoliers he's counted one one-thousand times and his bayonet dulls because he's whittled his whetstone to nothing that he will use them to destroy the Enemy, who is determined by the Officer, who is the oracular machine, which finds the Enemy. 

Never let him set his rifle down or the Enemy will be atop of him. Watch as by degrees and days his arms are stretched until they hang to his knees, dragging his rifle in the mud behind him. Make him hate the sight of the man ahead of him. Make him hate the Enemy, decided by the Officer, the oracle machine that makes machines that make fire to scorch the earth. 

Never let him find the Enemy. When he can think of nothing but the Enemy, he is a man. When he forgets the Enemy, when his mind has been wiped clean for nought but marching and boots- boots- boots, he is an orc. 

Orc-As-Class

Equipment. Armor, worn. Weapon, worn. Boots, worn to nearly nothing. A nearly empty canteen, a nearly full bandolier of ammunition, an empty helmet atop your head. 

+1 STR and +1 damage per template

A). Boots (boots, boots), The Officer

B). The Enemy, Hate

C). The Machine, Lunatic

D). Apotheosis 

Boots- Boots- Boots-. You gain Fatigue like anyone else from a forced march, starvation and exhaustion which fills an inventory slot. Unlike others, Fatigue can be stacked in threes before it fills the next slot. You use this to keep watch all night, so the Enemy does not get atop of you. For every slot filled with Fatigue, stack 1d6 atop your character sheet. These are your Fatigue Dice

The Officer. When you have no Fatigue, you may remember the voice of your Officer. He reminds you what (never who) The Enemy is. If today's Enemy is not yesterday's, you do not question it. 

Irrespective of Fatigue, when you would make a save against the Enemy, or make any save to prevent charms, mind-control or fear, you recall his voice and add your Orc templates to the save. You may also add half your orc templates to morale saves of any hirelings in your service, as long as you stand. 

This is like a rangers favored enemy but you can pick what (not who) it is. It cannot be a people specially but it can be that what causes the problem that aids the Enemy. 

    Δ March 100 miles (16 Hexes) and wear through Ten Pairs of Boots. A week's march gives modest boots the need for a patch. At the end of each week you have Patch-in-6 chance the boot needs replaced. A la Dings 

The Enemy. The Enemy is that thing which you hate more than anything in the world except boots- boots- boots- boots. When you find the enemy, whatever you use to kill them is considered a deadly weapon including your bare hands and teeth which are clawed and sharp respectively. When you kill The Enemy, you may remember the voice of your Officer, who will remind you what the Enemy is, even if you are Fatigued. 

Hate. You may reduce Fatigue by one when you kill the Enemy. 

    Δ Stay Awake for Ten Days with no reprieve. 

The Machine. You may reduce Fatigue by 1 and remove 1 Fatigue Die from your character sheet to deal ten times the damage to The Enemy you normally could or twice the damage to anyone else. 

The Machine must also be fed. You may remove one or several Fatigue Dice from your character sheet, roll three times on the Carouse Table, and take the worst choice. You are ran out of town in addition to the result and after everything not nailed down, you take. You take 1d6+ [Fatigue Dice] slots of loot, divvied up between food, jewels and trophies, as you see fit.  

Anyone could raid a town for supplies and get 1d6 slots of loot but you're good at it because the alternative is death. Consider scalps as trophies if it fits the tone of your game. 

Lunatic. The first time you take damage from an attack, you do not. You still bleed, have an arrow in you or are poisoned, you just don't care. A lunch, rest or killing an Enemy, resets this.  

    Δ Kill 10 Enemies and pillage 1000 gold worth of food, jewels and trophies. 

Apotheosis. Gain +1 reach from lengthy limbs held down by weapons you never part with. Gain night vision in whites and greens from too many sleepless nights on watch (it is temporarily lost from bright flashes). When you drop to 0HP, gain HP equal to Fatigue Dice on your character sheet which you then remove. You can smell loot, ambushes and the Enemy. It's everywhere. 

Orc-As-Monster

March men, and only men, a thousand miles in a hundred days though ten pairs of boots. Do not let him eat, sleep or piss without fear the Enemy will be atop him. Make sure he always has his rifle and bayonet. Give him no reprieve from boredom, fear, orders and most of all marching. When he does not find the Enemy nor recognize himself in the polish of his boots, he will be an orc. 

HD 1/AC as Armor -1/Damage as Weapon+1

DIS: Aggressive, Militant MOR 8

WANTS: To find the Enemy, to fight, to drink and feast

NEEDS: To march, to eat

AVOIDS: Authority, organization, reprisal, abuse 

Tackle. On a failed STR check, target is knocked down. 

Shakedown. On a failed STR check, the target is robbed of all rations, boots or a bag of gold. If more than two orcs do it, it's a Hard test (roll under half STR). 

Special. Oath made to orcs are magical. When you make an oath, they will ask you, "Bones or blood?" Each day you do not uphold the oath, you will lose 1 max HP if blood, or gain a random injury if bones. Roll 1d6 for head, torso, limbs etc. Each limb can be broken twice before it is mangled beyond repair. 

 

Orcs use their oaths to their advantage in the long run. They are picky about what they accept in return for whatever you ask (usually "stop attacking us" or "go away" or "serve me") but can usually be satisfied with the promise of food, boots or treasure though never as a one-time deal. Its food when they're hungry and boots when they need shod and treasure which they'll need more of because they'll spend it all. They will be quite clear about this. Cowardly town leaders will promise this in exchange for them not attacking until one day the wells run dry. 

~~~

 Some levity. 

 

 

Curses, Curses Broken by the Sword

In the style of this and this. Inspired by a quote I found from this: 

"that was magic, which could be undone, and this was scissors, which could not."

"See, Paetus, it does not hurt.” Arria and Paetus. François-André Vincent, 1746–1816. Oil on canvas. It hangs in my office.

No peace

 

The blood and tears the Fools ignored

but the sweat they've all forgotten. 

For peace is pain we haven't bought

And the strongest spell well-knotted

When told all what dull swords have wrought.

'All curses can be broken yet, if broken by the sword'

 

Sacrifice the petty lord

they bleed like all the rest 

Lice make up the sacrosanct  

And lies the church erects

Turn your levies unto sycophants and tell them strike the flank. Say,

'All curses can be broken yet, if broken by the sword'

The Sun on sweat and tears adored

Recall the sword is Gabriel's hand

the Moon she laughs when wolves catch hares

her light a dancin' on the blood of the damned

blood is the song and tears the prayers, Sing

'All curses can be broken yet, if broken by the sword'

[This system assumes all magic can be undone somehow but that what is done by the blades, by the sweated hand cannae]

The Violent 

You are tired. You have ran through the sunset haze of gut-burning rage and you have arrived here all but willing. The burning spike in your chest and groin upon seeing and hearing and tasting what had transpired has cooled like the blood on your hands and other places. And the grip, icy, knuckle-white, on the steel used to commit this Act has relaxed. And you sweat. Weariness, not of body but of light sits on your shaking shoulders and the spirit of Violence, always writhing now walks hand-in-hand with you. He, oh yes he, not her, with his long hair and twisted spinster fingers and ever-present smirk is with you stride-for-stride. He made his way through your tunnel conjured red when your hand drew steel with virgin grace, which he now fondles and presents to you. Trembling with adrenaline, he fades not far from reach, but from furthest sight he goes, you cry and sweat and bleed. 

Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle. Arnold Böcklin. 1872.  

Starting Equipment. A weapon grabbed in a crime of passion, a memento stolen in the guilt that followed. Something acrid to dull the pain and something sharp to stimulate it. As much armor as you need to feel safe. 

Templates

A) Great and Terrible Violence, The Act

B) Sweat

C) Blood

D) Tears

Judith Beheading Holofernes. Gentilieschi

Great and Terrible Violence

In anyone else's hands, the average weapon is dangerous and what is improvised is desperate. In your hands what is improvised is dangerous and what is a weapon is deadly. Whatever damage or harm ordinary non-fighting people are capable of, you are capable of ten times that. 

Violence is your suitor, your prince, your confidant and your lover. He is always with you and his advice and his answers, while multifaceted are always the same. If there is a question about how to most effectively enact Violence, you know the answer. If there is a second question, he will answer it for bruises or blood, yours or your foes.

A weapon used to commit Great and Terrible Violence weighs nothing to you and uses no inventory slot. A second weapon may benefit from this if the Violence committed with it is worse than the first, whatever that means to you. 

The Act

You have performed it, the reasons myriad and different in every case. Whatever your reasons, you draw a mote of sympathy from those who have as well, save psychopaths. You gain respect, fear or derision from people who have not and the love of demons and monsters everywhere who crave it, though all may accost you for it and you must take it, for fair's fair. Unicorns will shun you, lions will respect you and gods above dragons note your cause. 

You may tack on a modifier to reaction rolls for each Violent template you possess, though the referee will determine if it adds or subtracts.

When you perform the Act, track it, as a Notch on a weapon if you prefer the gauche. 

 

For every prime numbered notch, for you are indivisible, gain +1 damage or harm when you strike

 

For every tenth notch gain a nick and you see an opening to attack again. Every nick after that practice that reveals another opening. Your suitors lust grows more ambitious in you.*

    

*[Nick-in-6 chances of successfully using the opening to attack again. On a failure, you may attack anyways but take 1 harm. Each attack after the first has a -1 chance of success.]

You have a Notch-in-20 chance of having terrible wet visceral nightmares each night where you gain no benefits of rest though each has a Notch-in-6 chance of containing information useful to your current quest, campaign or mission. Vices, whether drugs or sex, dull the effects of both the nightmares and the visions. Of course love, that thing that is not a sword, can soothe it all but your suitor is a jealous one. 

Your suitor can now identify someone who has not performed the Act for you the same way a streetfighter can recognize someone who has never been in a fight. He rewards your educating them with ecstasy and the taste of their blood, with tenderness and joy.

Sweat

Each day you do hard physical work, fight (whether mock or for your very life), fuck passionately or take maximum (6) damage, you sweat, the thing all magic fears. For what a man does with a sword cannot be undone by any Magic, that is the Law. Wipe the sweat from your brow, one day's work enough to damp your sleeve and apply it to a weapon you've committed Great and Terrible Violence with. With it you may make ordinary tests Easy and Hard tests ordinary where the weapon can concern itself. Impossible tests come within your grasp at the expense of 1 harm, 2 if you fail, sinew stretching white and bone tensioning, twisting unnaturally. This will not affect those tests whose objects have no concern for the sword. 

Hard work can be a day in the fields, a forced march, some naked escape or other great and stressful toil. Your suitor, he tightens your muscles like great springs, crying for release. 

Blood 

You find little use for it, unlike those evil and their ilk out there, though some use you do find. Your suitor whispers in your ear what blood cries out for: release.

Spill it and the earth laps it up, to return it to the dead and forgotten and those imprisoned in the earth. Mixed with libations, it draws forth shades, those slain by your hand or command first, spurned lovers second and whom you seek last. 

Mix it with milk to draw out the little wicked things in homes: nightmares, gremlins, imps and ills. Care, you must still catch them. 

Take it still warm and brush it over the eaves of a home and it will be granted protection from ghosts, angels, the superstitious and the kin of the deceased. Upon your forehead the same.

This however anyone can do. What you can do is much worse. It speaks to you, upon bar room floors and moldering battlefields. Like a frothed-mouthed hound get down on all fours and take time, longer than ten minutes but less than an hour to listen to the song of spilled blood, how it twists and burbles, denote its color and taste and consult below. 

[You may determine one of the following for every three Notches you have] 

• its origin
• who or what spilled it
• the direction either victim or perpetrator (but not both) went thereafter
• its former owner's Humour, in the Greek sense
• the weapon used
• the state of mind when spilt, victim or 

Alternatively blood freshly spilled or sacrificed can give you an omen, answering pertinent one-word questions like "Ambush?", "Number?" and "Skilled?" 

Finally, you may take a weapon, perfectly balanced and made with care and push it to the hilt into a still living foe. Let it drink its fill as the foe dies on the blade. You must hold their gaze and the weapon while they die. The weapon becomes a bane to the foe and its ilk; against them it deals +6 damage or harm. Your suitor, he is as pleased as a maiden who need no longer wait, the weapon a promise like a ring. 

You will never forget their eyes, and you gain a grief you can't shake off. Without what keeps you sane, pacified or medicated, you either begin taking trophies or take up their mantle. A string of ears or a check cut to a newly christened widow, or else you can't go on.

Tears

Faithful Unto Death. Sir Edward John Poynter. 1865.

Tears, that what cut the living from the dead and the monsters from the monstrous. Grief, a flitting sparrow that forgets to sing its song upon its perch up in the boughs of mighty trees, grief that awful thing with wings that flies upon the summer skies and while it roosts at dusk and dawn you weep with such a stream of eye, the ground can't even drink it dry. You cry. 

When you cry this mighty sea of salt and yearning that cannot be, you heal. An old wound fades unto a scar and a scar becomes a line if, before the rising of the sun, or after its just passed, you weep for all the pain you feel and pray that you will last. The bleeding of the skin will stop, or the poison's work is done, a feeling of the Act will pass but the curse is broken some. 

The tears come when expected least, at the death of hated foe, after sex without meaning or when a passing crowd grows slow and also when you expect them most, anniversaries, funerals and when sad tales are told.

 

When you weep, deeply and openly, your most severe wound is healed by one stage, whatever that means to you. Savaged limbs become crippled, crippled merely scarred. Curses and poisons too will lose potency or severity or simply fizzle out a frothing mouth. Most magic spells cast upon you will end as well, good or bad, your wounded heart shedding its harms and charms like a snake.  

Everyone knows the most potent curses are cured by the kiss of true love. 

Everyone learns that all curses can be broken yet, if broken by the sword. 

Guilt remains, one you can hardly place. It costs one inventory slot and one day you can put it down. 

 

 

Yikes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kill! If you think you have the HD to do it!

Last year I was following Gundobad's series on fighter maneuvers has been fascinating or rather was at the time when I read them last year. I love when designers post their thought processes and in the open like this series here. So, I sought to steal and adapt their rules for whacking monsters in my own Heartbreaker. 

Some background on my Heartbreaker

• Game is for referees like me with tiny mental CPUs. Players roll everything, active defense, ref almost never rolls. 
• Armor is ablative, lowering damage 1-3 points
• Uses split team initiative (or whatever the kids are calling it these days). Players Test DEX and go before the monsters on a success or after on a failure. 
• No order beyond that, anyone can go at any time or the same time. 
• Currently uses "relative distance" e.g. Near (melee), Close, Far and Distant. I first saw it in MechaHack and loved it. Can run anywhere Close in a turn
• Combat Theater a la this
• Resolution mechanics are rolling pools of D6s and hoping to get a 6. Each 6 is a success. 
• Attacking is the same, but you automatically hit and choose your damage from the rolls
  
  

Baseline Whacking 

When you attack in the Heartbreaker you roll D6s equal to your Fighting skill (1-5) and choose which one you want for damage (you automatically hit). These are your Fighting Dice. Additionally roll an additional D6 of another color. This is the Hit Locator. A roll of 6 tracks to the head, then left arm, right, torso, left leg, right. I do the macarena to remember. If the damage and location match, you crit, roll the D6 again for damage. If it's the head (a roll of 6) the crit explodes. Keep rolling D6s as you do. 

You can roll 1 less Fighting Dice, for 1 extra Hit Locator for trying to fuck up one limb in particular, though you may not crit this way.

• When you deal 1 damage, either from a roll or damage reduction from armor, you give your opponent an opening and they may Counter! Check if the weapon is damaged or breaks by rolling its quality under its nicks. Each time you're Countered! add 1 nick. The first time you roll under its damaged. If its damaged and you roll under, it breaks. 
  
  
• [This helps keep heavily armored foes dangerous. You can chip away at the armored knight but he's going to be Countering! the whole time]

When you defend in combat you again, roll your Fighting Dice and choose the damage of your opponent. If it's a 1 or reduced to 1, you may Counter! while you check armor quality (same as above).  Roll the Hit Locator after you've chosen. It's only fair!  

• [I find this method elegant. Unlike in many D&D games and clones, those who fight good (fighters) get punished with extra attacks. The Heartbreaker simply lets them roll max damage more often. Similarly better fighters are better defenders, choosing the damage their foe does, letting them set up Counters! more easily.]

It is encouraged the referee and players scream "Counter!" when a counter occurs, for purposes of morale. 

Whacking Alternatives 

Sometimes you may want to permanently injure a foe by inflicting wounds, such as hamstringing, blinding or bone breaking. Sometimes you may wish to go for a single killing stoke. If so, use the maiming and killing procedures.  

Maiming attacks permanently weaken a foe. To go for a medusa’s eyes, a dragon’s wings or the thews of a mighty giant, is a precise or even “called” shot, that carries great risk. You must garner two successes to maim without being maimed in return, the first to successfully maim them, the second to avoid being maimed, gaining a grievous wound.

Monsters in the Heartbreaker are designed modularly, that is each part may have its own HD. Take care however, monsters often protective of these regions, some inaccessible unless specific maneuvers or other actions are taken. A giant will never be killed while its heart beats and you will never reach its heart while it stands.  

A killing attack inflicts the best status condition fighting has to offer. Dead. Again, take care would-be monster slayer. As with maiming you still need two successes. Unlike with maiming, failing the second roll gains you a mortal wound, crippling the limb struck or turning your torso into hamburger meat.

Many monsters are emblematic or symbolic. When murders go unsolved in rural communities, scarecrows arise and kill each night. When kings gorge themselves and peasants starve, ogres arise. To kill a monster is not to stop what may cause its return. Like hydra’s heads or a vile phoenix, when one dragon falls in avaricious lands, two more make take its place if the community's greed is not tempered. Its a sign something is fucked up.

To successfully maim or kill a foe you must first compare your experience surviving, a comparison of HD, to see if you even can. 

Armor improves your HD for these purposes. Gambeson (light armor) adds +1 HD and Maille (medium) +2. Plate mail adds an impressive +4 HD, if its user is trained in it.  

Anyone who’s ever survived a fight can size up a foe. You can always roughly guess a foe’s HD.  

HD Maim-Kill Table 

Foe’s HD	Maim?	Kill?
Much greater +6 HD	If Staggered	Impossible
Greater +2-5	If Staggered	If Maimed
Even +/- 1 HD	May attempt	If Maimed
Lesser -2	May Attempt	If Staggered or Maimed
Much less <-2	May Attempt	May Attempt

 

The referee consults the table above to determine if a maiming or killing attack is successful. Some foes must be whittled down first if they are to maimed or killed. Remember a bloodied foe (half HP) is automatically staggered.  

Whacking with Friends

You may have some fine fellows you pay or have lied about giving treasure to, in exchange for violence on your behalf. If they are fighting men, mercenaries, they will fight at the line of battle but will not pass it. If they be a levy of some kind, inexperienced or disloyal, they will not pass the second rank. If they be shield, spear or torch bearers they will avoid being Near the battle at all except to throw you a new shield or shield, or keep things lit. 

Asking (yelling in the heat of combat) for these folk to do more than that prompts a morale check or rout. 

If they must because their life depends on it, roll morale. On a success they do it and then flee. On a failure they rout or give up, based on their humors. 

If they are fighting for you, rather than give them a whole turn, add +1 Fighting dice of a different color to your own. They can crit as you (representing teamwork) can but do not roll an extra Hit Locator. Far too slow unless you think it's worth it. If your fighting guy gets an exploding critical or kills a monster in a very cool way, they get a name.