Auteur : David Skelector

Time-Travel Mishap – (The Wandering Glade) – Session 17

David Skelector Château des Fausseflammes, Fantasy, jeux de rôles, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG

My nephew Olivier, now seventeen, suggested we return to our Castle Xyntillan campaign.

Last time we played in this particular campaign was more than a year ago and the session led to a most dramatic change as the characters chose to flee Averoigne (through time-travel no less), teaming with the bishop/sorcerer Azédarac instead of fulfilling their mission for the Bénédictins monks and bring incriminating evidence to them. I told the players afterward that we could continue to play with these characters but in another setting entirely. I had in mind something closer to Zothique than Averoigne (still firmly inside Clark Ashton Smith’s cycles stories). But, well, I never came around to put together something satisfying for me and more or less let go of the idea.

But now is time to stop messing around and go back to something that was quite formative for us: Gabor Lux’s Castle Xyntillan. But! Before that, an interlude into a module of the same author – The Wandering Glade, that will, I think, do a proper transition for the events of the campaign.

The general idea is that the adventurers got caught in a trap that was meant for Azédarac…

The Wandering Glade is a point-crawl adventure from Echoes from Fomalhaut #06, by Gabor Lux. https://emdt.bigcartel.com/products

The author’s blog: https://beyondfomalhaut.blogspot.com/

Set in Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne

TTRPG System used: Worlds without Number, by Kevin Crawford

Adventurers – Player Characters (PCs)

  • Noah (Isaac), crafts stuff, has a repeating crossbow and a magic sword called Scrupulous, Expert lvl 6
  • Cordélia Lenoir (Marjorie), using the dark arts for Good (probably), Necromancer lvl 5
  • Monmon (Edmond), has a powerful antique spear, Warrior lvl 6
  • Paul Nareff (Olivier), friend and sponsor of the numerous Jean clan, Warrior lvl 6

« He [Azédarac] was the wisest and the mightiest of sorcerers, and the most secret withal ; for no one knew the time and the manner of his coming into Averoigne, or the fashion in which he had procured the immemorial Book of Eibon, whose runic writings were beyond the lore of all other wizards. He was a master of all enchantments and all demons, and likewise a compounder of mighty potions. Among these were certain philters, blended with potent spells and possessed of unique virtue, that would send the drinker backward or onward in time. » (The Holiness of Azédarac, Clark Ashton Smith)

The Wandering Glade:

  • The PCs wake up in a clearing surrounded by some majestic oaks lording over the dense forest. The light of day is already starting to fade. There’s no trace of Azédarac nor of his acolyte Jehan.
  • There’s a statue of a woman, beautiful and proud-looking, and a plaque under it. It says: « Oh Azédarac! Not the place you expected to arrive perhaps? Where were you fleeing this time? Did someone caught you lying and cheating again? We’ll see if you can escape this green labyrinth of mine… »
  • There’s a big boulder nearby but nothing else so they leave the clearing by the only visible path, it goes west.
  • They see another large boulder, this one covered in wild flowers. A faded inscription says: << Wandering Glade >> Clearing of Secrets.
  • They turn right at an intersection and enter a meadow. The pleasant scent has attracted giant butterflies. The PCs turn back and takes another path.
  • They go through an area with old-growth forest, dead wood covered in moss everywhere. A dozen Mossmen jump up from the ground and threaten the adventurers with sticks and stones. PCs gets some light wounds from thrown stones but then obliterate half of the Mossmen very quickly and the surviving ones start to flee. Noah shoots some more with his automatic crossbow.
  • Thence, they go northwest but are soon surrounded by some celtic warriors. The PCs manage to bribe them with gold, they learn that they serve the Enchantress Moriannis and leave peacefully.
  • Going due west now, they get ambushed by several deadly archers. Noah is hit by an arrow. The group start to sprint further in the path and Cordélia gets hit by two arrows in the back and is severly wounded but then both her and Noah shoots back and down one archer and wound another, making them retreat.
  • After that, they walk another 20 minutes and now they can see some sort of big camp and a lot of activity ahead, with fires and tents, and are soon intercepted by the lookouts. Cordélia uses her magic and takes the appearance of Moriannis from the statue they saw initially. She then speaks with the leader of the warriors, Brughaft, and explain that she’s only an « aspect » of the Enchantress and thus lacks the knowledge of her real « self ». Brughaft accepts her explanation and tells her of one way to get out of the Wandering Glade (and abstains from telling another one) – they must follow the spiral path called Morag’s Way, go to the end of the path and offers 3 things to the magic pool: the sap of roots of the night, petals from flowers of winter and blood from lovers. He also gives his bronze key. The adventurers for their part gives him some jewels and precious stones to ensure his loyalty.
  • The PCs also learn of several key locations in the glade but their exploration will resume next morning, after a night of sleep in the warriors’ camp.
  • Next day, the PCs want to find the « wall of trees » somewhere in the southeast. They’re not quite sure which paths will lead there though. They manage to take a shortcut and not get lost and find one of the tallest oak of the forest. There’s a cave mouth that opens between its roots.
  • They enter the small grotto, there’s a pool of silvery water with some rocks emerging with non-precious rocks, small crystals and trinkets laid on them. Paul look more closely onto the pool and sees a vision of black roots hanging from the ceiling of an underground area.
  • Leaving the grotto and great oak behind, the PCs go east in a path. They suddenly hear much noises at their right in the forest, small trees falling, a big claw marks appear on a boulder but no sign of what creature is doing all this damage. They hurry away.
  • They reach the Wall of Trees, impenetrable at first look. Cordélia attempt a spell of Extirpate Arcana (contested against the place’s magic) and succeed but knows it won’t hold very long. They enter the clearing and search the area. Monmon find 10 magical arrows, Cordélia finds a golden sickle and Paul finds delicious berries that seems to have healing capacities.
  • Leaving the clearing they decide to go north along the path, cross the area where they killed Mossmen, turn right and come across a burial site of a sort with thirteen mounds of earth, each having a green sapling on top. Paul puts a spade in one but then corpses start to emerge from every mounds, with each apparently having a sapling’s roots through its heart. Unpertubed, Cordélia goes right in the middle and casts Smite the Dead, slaying all of the undead at once.
  • Further north and then west, the adventurers go to the next area they wanted to investigate – a den of monsters they’ve been told. Sure enough when they approach they can see a cave and bones littering the entrance. Two big Sabretooths get out leisurely of the cave. Cordélia casts her last spell of the day, a Compel the Flesh on one Sabretooth, forcing it to attack its mate. Paul and Monmon both attack it too. Paul is wounded by the big cat’s claws but it soon is slain under the attacks from all sides.
  • Entering the cave they see 2 nervous cubs and Cordélia sends them the controlled Sabretooth mother so they stay calm. There’s not much in the cave except some faded cave paintings showing a vertical shaft and then stick figures seemingly fighting against trees.
  • From there the adventurers go west to get back to Brughaft’s camp because Cordélia wanted to rest to get her spells back, even if it was still quite early in the evening and with much disgruntled comments from Noah, Monmon and Paul.
  • The three non-mages decide to try to explore a bit more whilst Cordélia is resting. To the north, they find strange mossy boulders graven with mesmerising patterns. Monmon feels sick looking at them and they leave the place.
  • They then decide to try to reach the old well that they had heard of, first taking a path going west and south. They fight some other overmatched Mossmen and then reach a stone circle containing heaps of antlers. There’s a runic inscription: « SIGN SHOW, KINSMEN GATHER ». The PCs try a few things, mostly on the silly side, but without results.
  • They leave and, not very far from there, they find the old well. Noah uses his grappling hook & rope and begin to descend after having thrown some rocks in the water at the bottom to see if anything uncanny happened but nothing did. He saw four stone snake heads and was a bit wary but couldn’t see anything dangerous so he continued his descent and reached a bearded face crowned with a wreath of oak leaved, very druidy in appearance. Inspecting it closely Noah finds a keyhole and immediately thinks about Brughaft’s bronze key but unfortunately guess whom has the key, Cordélia! Cursing their 5-minutes day mage, they call it off and go back to camp.
  • Next day, the adventurers go back all together this time, to the old well. The bronze key indeed matches the keyhole, opening a secret door that leads into darkness. Into the Druid Grave.
  • TBC..

Closing Comments:

  • I’ve adapted a bit the adventure for my purpose, added the premise with Azédarac and Moriannis, made the module’s bandit gang as the latter’s followers instead, made them less hostile but also added a bit more stringent characteristics to the ingredients necessary to exit the Wandering Glade. Not much else really.
  • I had half a mind to send out the characters naked or without most of their stuff maybe, going a little Against the Slavers-style, but finally opted to be a non-cruel DM for this rekindling of a campaign.
  • Most of the fights were on the easy side, with one harder (against the « evil scouts ») ending in a stalemate. They didn’t stumbled upon the more dangerous stuff we could say (yet).
  • I think we’ll find a moment in the christmas holidays to continue this one hopefully.
  • XP = Participation 1, Treasures 1, Secrets 2, Total: 4

Frosthaven – Call of the Harbinger (56)

David Skelector Boardgame, Frosthaven, Play reports

This scenario is linked with Carrion Ridge (21) in the algox sub-campaign which was pretty easy and straightforward (no play report). This one is neither of those things.

This is a Defeat the Boss scenario but with said Boss being physicaly split in two and defeating it forced to be made in three parts, each time having to destroy an altar so one of us (only one) can hurt the Harbinger for a third of its hit points. Phew.

Characters

  • Schlurkt the Deepwraith (David) lvl 7, a crab that goes stab stab stab
  • 4H2 the Hive (Math) lvl 5, refurbished robotic assembly, ADHD
  • Teabag the Infuser (Guillaume) lvl 5, no, no, not this kind of teabag or is it?

We start with an invincible and shadowy beast breathing down our necks and monsters ahead.
Black imps are protecting an evil altar.
The Infuser gets munched a little by the Harbinger.
The Deepwraith destroys the altar and get pulled into the Harbinger’s realm, the duel is on!
Meanwhile his companions go further into this hellish place and find more enemies and a second altar…
The Hive has his full panoply deployed.
The Deepwraith has reappeared, none the worse for his duel and will have to help quickly, the situation is perilous.
The poor Infuser is yet again the target of the Harbinger.
Let’s destroy this altar.
Now is the turn of the Hive to fight one on one Hive-Assembly vs Harbinger + summons.
This will drag on a bit…
Yet another altar and more monsters to boot.
The Hive is back, now to the altar.
And who gets bitten again?
Let’s finish this… (Deepwraith stabs the Harbinger a gazillion times)
Victory! Loot!

Closing Comments:

  • Hard one, and quite a bit cumbersome as a scenario I feel, jumping in every hoops at the right moment-style.
  • The Deepwraith was especially well-suited to kill the Harbinger really fast, that helped a lot I think.
  • The Hive took on himself to do it once but in retrospect it wasn’t the greatest idea as it took (understandably) several turns to do the job.
  • And with that the Deepwraith has achieved his Personal Quest and will retire. Very strong character, with a very high ceiling. Really enjoyable too, he’ll be missed.

Dragonbane – rulebook walkthrough pt 3: combat and monsters

David Skelector Dragonbane, Fantasy, jeux de rôles, Roleplaying Game, RPG

Part 1: character creation and magic

Part 2: character advancement and conditions

Final part of my walkthrough/overview of Dragonbane’s rulebook. We’re getting at the most interesting part: combat and monsters!

Combat system features:

You don’t roll for initiative in dragonbane, you pick an iniative card from the initiative deck (1 to 10 cards). Still a random process but it offers some additional options as players might choose between two cards or swap cards between themselves depending on their abilities, or if they choose to wait before acting.

Combat is lethal. There’s no hit points bloat in DB, on the contrary, the possibility of raising a character’s hit points is very limited. Your character’s constitution score determines your hit points. An orc’s scimitar for example does 2d6 + d4 (str bonus). It does not take a lot of hits to get through your 3 to 18 hps or maybe a bit more (for a long-standing hero with several Toughness say).

The players must be very careful and find ways to mitigate damage.

Armors (and helmets) do help a lot but have some drawbacks too (penalties on skill checks depending on type of armor). For example, a chainmail + open helmet gives 5 armor combined rating and reduce as much incoming damage but gives you a bane (roll twice take worse) on evade, sneaking, awareness.

And then you can also try to parry (with shield or weapon) or evade attacks at the cost of your (only) action, if you don’t have already acted this round. But, if your character has heroic abilities like fast-footwork and defensive you’ll still be able to act after evading or parrying, incredibly useful.

All weapons have features: subtle, long, toppling, piercing, slashing, bludgeoning – depending on type. An halberd for example is long, toppling, slashing and piercing. These add some depth to the combat system, particularly if the optional special attacks are allowed in your game. Indeed if every optional cambat rules are on (shove, weapon damage type as related with armor type, severe injuries when reduced to 0 hp, melee mishap, range mishap, parry movement and special attacks) you have a fairly complex system, not exactly crunchy, but with a lot of options and great verisimilitude I’d say.

Monsters:

The bestiary section of the rulebook shows us 15 classic monsters, a page each. Some are considered « non-monsters » like goblins, orcs and skeletons. The others are, well, monsters… The latter are more complex – they all have a « ferocity » level that determines how many time it can act (how many « turns », with one action and one move per turn) in a round. Thus, the standard giant with a ferocity 1 will act once but dragons with ferocity 3 will have three different initiative cards and have 3 turns in the same round.

In addition, monsters attacks are always rolled on a random d6 table. Taking the dragon again as example, it has 6 possible actions: « Dragon Roar! », « Claw Attack! », « Dragon Wind! », « Tail Strike! », « Dragon Bite! », « Fire Breath! ». You re-roll if you get the same action twice in a row.

Not like this.
More like: « They have a cave Troll »

In practice, with the relatively weak power curve of character advancement, combined with the lethality of monsters, you’ll probably never fight a horde of (true) monsters in Dragonbane. The scene inside the Moria in the LotR movie with the cave troll and multiple orcs is pretty much how I see combat in DB (with one big monster wreaking havoc in the middle of a confusing melee). Which, y’know, isn’t a bad thing at all.

Closing Comments:

  • No hp bloat, armors that reduce damage, good tactical depth – those are all things I like for a combat system.
  • The bestiary section of the rulebook is quite limited. There’s also a Bestiary book, and, it’s fine? It’s no monster bible by any means, I would have like to see more content than that.
  • I haven’t tested much combat with monsters in my campaign to be honest, with most fights being against humanoids or critters, so « non-monsters » to date. I’ll probably add something to this post or another with more experience.

Frosthaven: Collection’s Capstone (88)

David Skelector Boardgame, Frosthaven, Play reports

Our fiftieth scenario of our frosthaven campaign! The three of us are each at our fifth character and there’s not many left to unlock. The eponymous town of Frosthaven is now pretty advanced in buildings/upgrades. On the other hand we still have many scenarios available (dozens?) and we haven’t put much time on the main puzzle recently so we still have a long way to go to finish the game if we wish to be completionists.

This scenario follows our actions last time against a villain called The Collector whereas we messsed up his collection pretty good. This time though we’ll be fighting him and try to put an end to this evil hobbyist.

Characters

  • Schlurkt the Deepwraith (David) lvl 7, a crab that goes stab stab stab
  • 4H2 the Hive (Math) lvl 4, refurbished robotic assembly, ADHD
  • Teabag the Infuser (Guillaume) lvl 4, no, no not this kind of teabag or is it?
First room we’re against a savvas icestorm and a savvas lavaflow, two powerful summoners.
They’re not the only ones to bring reinforcement though, the Hive brings out his Arcing Generator.
One summoner down but the other has brought forth an Ice Demon.
We push forward and now face two lurkers.
« targeting » « no targets »
Leggy is here, we’re sure to prevail!
We open the door and find The Collector. Oh, you want to add us to your collection? We’ll see who collects whom.
Teabag engages the enemy, helped by the 4H2 but what’s Schlurkt doing? Looting, really?
Teabag: « It’s not working, he’s too tough! »
But the Deepwraith finally joins the fray and he stabs the Collector a gazillion times!
One round of utter carnage. It’s not long after that before we overcome the Collector.

Closing Comments:

  • Easy scenario, the savvas are strong foes but without much time to summon they weren’t that bad.
  • The Collector had 75hp but no shield or retaliate and so was a prime target for my Deepwraith. 8 attacks in one round boosted by a power potion, that was satisfying.
  • Yet another scenario where we couldn’t pick the special item that was buried at the bottom of the loot deck.

Frosthaven – The Collection (87)

David Skelector Boardgame, Frosthaven, Play reports

A girl from town wants us to save her two brothers. They’ve been taken prisoners by this weird savvas dude, the Collector, as subjects for his experiments.

This a kill them’ all random scenario but with a twist at the end. It figures a mad scientist/evil genius villain but we won’t see him until next (linked) scenario. We’re accompanied by this enthusiastic militia man named Ormi (road event).

Characters

  • Schlurkt the Deepwraith (David) lvl 7, a crab that goes stab stab stab
  • 4H2 the Hive (Math) lvl 4, refurbished robotic assembly, ADHD
  • Teabag the Infuser (Guillaume) lvl 4, no, no not this kind of teabag or is it?
  • NPC Ormi (Math)
Seems like the Collector has hired algox as guards for his abode.
Schlurkt kills the archer in no time and is joined by Ormi and Teabag in melee against the unlucky, poisoned guards.
Meanwhile 4H2 deploys his first apparatus of many, his Sniper Turret.
With the last guard poisoned and on its last leg, Schlurkt opens the door to the next area but takes a step back as two more archers are aiming at the intruders.
Ormi hasn’t learned prudence yet…
We’re ready to fight them now but the Steel Automaton behind is a tough cookie.
Reinforcement from the Hive, with an Armored Tank. Superior numbers will see us through.
The final blows goes to young Ormi!
Schlurkt opens the left door and comes face to face with two ferocious bears. No worries, he’s got help from 4H2 from afar.
On the other side, Teabag will have to fight two fierce lurkers all by himself.
This side is clear.
« targeting » « no targets »
Hold on Teabag we’re coming!
About time, the Infuser is battered and bloodied.
Final area, two more algox and one bladespinner.
We see the captive brothers in the back and we’ll have to act fast before they’re shredded to bits by the bladespinner.
Ignoring the dumbfounded algox for the moment, Schlurkt and 4H2 focus on saving the brothers.
Teabag is probably taking sips from an infusion or something.
With the bladespinner destroyed and the brothers out of danger, we finish the last guards onward to victory!

Closing Comments:

  • Not an hard scenario by any means but made way more complicated by two annoying town challenges cards and also, by the fact that me and Math were both going for masteries on our characters and thus were restricted on our actions.
  • This scenario figured monsters from all 3 major factions, a rare event and a boon to Guillaume for his personal quest.
  • Getting invisible is a big part of the Deepwraith’s abilities but that meant risking the NPCs lives (and getting penalties if they died) so I had to eschew doing it a few times in this scenario.
  • The Infuser managed to fight two lurkers almost all by himself, a testament to this character’ strength certainly.

No helmet? (amuse-bouche post)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Fantasy, jeux de rôles, Roleplaying Game, RPG

I will finish my dragonbane rulebook’s walkthrough soon enough. Part III is about how dragonbane handles combat, a strong point of the system in my opinion. In short I think it achieves to strike a good balance between providing tactical options (manoeuvers, weapons variability, heroic abilities and so on), and simplicity.

Armors in dragonbane offers damage reduction, something I’ve always prefered over decreasing chance of being hit.

And it also has helmets… How is there no helmets (except magic ones) in typical D&D? I understand we’re playing a game and not everything has to be realistic but come on!

Frosthaven – The Lurker Problem (78)

David Skelector Boardgame, Frosthaven, Play reports

Hey, we’re back playing Frosthaven! And we’re having two new characters in the team as last time we played we had two retirement at once. Math is reprising his role as the unfettered Hive, a character that was as long-standing as a fart in the wind, so maybe we’ll see a little more of it this time. Guillaume on the other hand will play a brand new character, the Infuser, a character that plays a lot with elements. I’m still playing Schlurkt the Deepwraith; high level, well-equipped, impeccable deck, very efficient, feels good to be a killer crab.

Okay, so in this scenario we’re helping this guy, this Trenchcoat NPC and huh… Who the hell are you again and why does it matters to us? A cavern, an artefact you say? Gyah fekkit, just point us in the right direction…

Characters

  • Schlurkt the Deepwraith (David) lvl 7, a crab that goes stab stab stab
  • 4H2 the Hive (Math) lvl 4, refurbished robotic assembly, ADHD
  • Teabag the Infuser (Guillaume) lvl 4, no, no not this kind of teabag or is it?

No matter what, never turn left he says. Yeah, yeah, we can do that.

We begin… already in close combat.
We let the lurkers make their move and they make the best of it. But then it’s our turn and we make the crustacean monsters pay dearly.
We ignore the left door and get into a larger area. We have to kill these monsters in a particular order for some esoteric reason.
Be kind missus eel, it’s not your time to die yet.
You pest, not killing you is the harderst part, I mean it.
Hey 4H, your legs are wandering around again.
« Schlurkt, go into this room, we’ll wait behind the auto-cannon… »
Gasp Oh, only a statue. And what’s that in that chest, a fish hook weapon?
Final room. The Elite Lurker Soldier is calling for reinforcement.
Things are brutal but the Deepwraith let out an Ink Cloud to hide himself and the Infuser so they have a brief respite.
All is in place for the final moment of the fight.
Leggy kicks a lurker into oblivion.
D’ya want to be my friend? No? Stab

Closing Comments:

  • We’re at our last few town challenge cards and they’re the most annoying as it’s those we kept delaying to do. We still picked two but it ramped up the diffulcty of the scenario quite a bit.
  • But we went on not opening doors at our left and that probably saved us a lot of trouble.
  • The gimmick with killing the monsters in a certain order in the second room, aside from being very gamey, made things a lot more complicated and one misplaced 2x hit on a bleeding (wounded) lurker meant that we had to rush killing the 2 others that were earlier in the order. We managed to do it but it was a close one.

Resting/camping in rpgs

David Skelector Delicious in Dungeon, Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, jeux de rôles, musings, Roleplaying Game, RPG

A few years ago, in my D&D 5E campaign in the jungles of Chult, my players fought a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Awesome? Heck no, twas a real snoozefest of a fight. A bit predictable in fact, dinosaurs are pretty bland in D&D, the T-Rex has one bite attack and a tail attack (how does a tail attack makes any sense I wonder) and that’s it – but that’s not really what I want to talk about. One character, Rufb the barbarian, was pretty messed up by the fight, the T-Rex bite attack does hit very hard obviously, and he lost probably more than half his hit points, even with his damage resistance. No worries, one long rest later and he was as fresh as ever – full hps, all his abilities back, etc. And that was with the so-called Gritty option on mind you. He healed, naturally healed – no magic, not even bandages involved, from wounds by a T-Rex bite frikkin overnight…

Now, we know that D&D 5E has definitely a super-heroic style, characters are pretty much like in video games and, yeah, there’s absolutely no sense of verisimilitude.

On the other hand, in many old-school systems for the same long rest all you get is 1 hp (unless you’re a magic-user and much more importantly also get all your spells back!). That’s more realistic for sure, healing takes time, and more in tune with a game of resources management.

But in my opinion also lacking in some way?

I mean, it’s a bit annoying, it goes against what I said about 5E, but I think that the best example of an interesting resting mechanics I can come up with is also found within video games rather than a supposedly more flexible tabletop rpg.

In Darkest Dungeon, in medium and large expeditions you’ll most likely camp along the way. You then spend a bundle of wood and some food to get back some hit points and, more interestingly, also spend from a limited pool to activate camping skills.

Three skills are accessible to every characters, anyone can do an Encourage, a Wound Care or a Pep Talk to help another character.

Every other skills are character-specific. Be it the Anger Management of the Abomination, the Restring Crossbow of the Arbalester, the Zealous Speech of the Crusader, they all are coherent rp-wise and flavorful For example, if the highwayman’s camping skills are about giving fighting bonuses to himself only, the Vestal’s are all about helping others.

A personnal favorite of mine is the Grave Robber’s Gallows Humor which has, for all companions. 75% chance to decrease stress by 20 (that’s good) and 25% chance of increasing it by 10. The Grave Robber herself has an automatic -25 stress. Dark humor is hit or miss, it is well known. A somewhat similar skill is the Jester’s Mockery which decreases stress for everyone at the expense of one companion, the butt of the joke the poor lad.

Now, many of those camping skill gives temporary buffs and that is something that can be portable to ttrpgs if one wishes so. Get your whetstone out of your backpack and sharpen your sword or encourage a low morale henchmen – could be included in any system I think. On the other hand, the examples from Darkest Dungeon mostly work on the premise of the specifi Stress parameter. I guess you must have some resource other than hit points, if not stress then something else in order for it to work. I know that I could borrow some things and implement it into Dragonbane for example because it got a willpower pool and conditions to fiddle with.

Edit: It seems like Tales of the Valiant, a 5E derivative system from Kobold press, has some interesting resting (or resting-adjacent) mechanics involved. Here’s a play report from blogger Blacksteel who uses it to good effect: https://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2025/10/valiant-swords-of-greyhawk-session-14.html I still wouldn’t run something similar to 5E but it’s interesting nonetheless.

Edit: Here’s someone who did a real attempt at it as opposed to my halfassed commentary above: A Camping Procedure by Rise Up Comus :https://riseupcomus.blogspot.com/2025/10/a-camping-procedure.html

A note on Parasites

David Skelector Delicious in Dungeon, Fantasy, gygaxian naturalism, jeux de rôles, Monsters, musings, Roleplaying Game, RPG ,

So that’s a bit random but I was thinking about resting/camping in D&D and then how STIRGES should preferably feed on sleeping targets and act more like their real-world counterpart, the vampire bat. And yeah, we might say I got down the rabbit hole…

Am I a bat or am I a mosquito?

The sanguivore stirge should not be seen as predator but in fact as a parasite (it doesn’t wish to eat you, just to steal some of your blood, that’s parasitic in nature). Sometimes the boundary between the two gets blurry, for example many species of leeches in the real world are often both – stealing blood from animals and also swallowing micro-organisms.

I’ll not go into truly gruesome territory over here (there’s plenty of it when we talk about parasites) but suffice to say, I think including parasitic behavior within your fantasy ecology can definitely add some kind of unforgiving nature ambiance.

In my own game, in my Jungles of Chult campaign, I had giant parasitoid wasps (the mounts of wasp-riding goblins) that laid their eggs inside giant spiders and also fed on the spider-like sentient Araneas. The Araneas turned to the adventurers for help against this threat in exchange for precious spider silk vestments.

For you see, I’m a big fan of Gyagaxian Naturalism in my ttrpgs.

Ryoko Kui’s Dungeon Meshi.

And here’s an entertaining video from Unnatural History Channel, highly recommend this channel if you’re into that kind of stuff:

Dragonbane – rulebook walkthrough pt 2: character advancement & conditions

David Skelector Dragonbane, Fantasy, jeux de rôles, review, Roleplaying Game, RPG

Part 1: Character creation and magic

If character creation in Dragonbane is a bit different from other D&D-adjacent system, we’re now gonna talk about two mechanics that makes it, hmm maybe not groundbreaking (what is nowadays?), but unusual in a good way.

Character advancement:

There is no levels in Dragonbane. Instead how your character can improve is by increasing his skills (including with weapons), gaining new spells (see part 1) and, less frequently, gaining new heroic abilities.

Each time you roll a d20 and roll a 1 (a dragon) or a 20 (a demon) you check a box next to the skill you used.

In addition, if you answer yes to these questions at the end of the session you can check a skill box of your choice:

  • Did you participate in the game session? (a freebie)
  • Did you explore a new location?
  • Did you defeat one or more dangerous enemies?
  • Did you overcome an obstacle without using force?
  • Did you give in to your weakness (optional rule)

(You can also find a teacher that has at least 15 in the skill you wish to improve and is better than you. The cost in time and money is left to the GM discretion, no direction is given in the rulebook beyond that unfortunately.)

Then, at the end of the session, with all checked boxes you must roll a d20 and exceed the number you already have in order to increase your skill by one. Pretty simple.

Heroic abilities: There’s 2 ways to gain new heroic abilities. The first is if you manage to increase a skill to 18 you immediately gain a new heroic ability of your choice. The other way is by accomplishing a « grand heroic deed », that’s also left to the GM’s discretion but it’s mentionned that it should be a rare event.

Pushing your roll & Conditions:

Now, another fun and interesting mechanics that is actually an optional rule, but I really see don’t why one wouldn’t include it, is the Pushing your roll. If a character fails a skill check he can choose to re-roll but with a cost, he’ll suffer from a condition from now on. Each attribute is linked to a specific condition: Strength >> Exhausted, Constitution >> Sickly, Agility >> Dazed, Intelligence >> Angry, Willpower >> Scared, Charisma >> Disheartened.

You choose the condition you’ll gain and will have bane (roll two d20 take worst) on any skill check linked to the affected attribute. You can’t choose a condition you already have and you’re also supposed to roleplay somewhat the whole deal.

You can also gain conditions in other ways, an environemental effect, a monster attack, etc. To remove a condition (or all conditions) you must do a shift rest (6 uninterrupted hours).

Closing Comments:

  • For me the character advancement system is reminiscent of the Elder Scrolls video games (I’ve played extensively to Morrowind back in the day, didn’t even try Skyrim though) where your stats simply improve with how much you use them. I like this.
  • An unfortunate side-effect though, at least for my young players, is the « I want to roll… » just in the hope of rolling a 1 or 20 and check the skill box. Listening to a door with an awareness check has never been so popular I tell you.
  • I’ve homebrewed somewhat the questions in my game (i.e did you explore a new location? >> did you find an iconic location in the dungeon?)
  • The way we play, my players’ characters suffer from at least one or two conditions each session, both from pushing their luck and dungeon hazards. The way to remove a condition is a bit more arduous than simply shift resting in my game, they must find a way for their characters to have a good time (i.e having a quality meal).
  • The conditions makes me think of my basic military training where I saw several guys vomiting from exertion (sickly!) but still going on, I dunno, makes sense to me.

Part 3: Combat and Monsters