On Bards

Statement: bards using music to cast spells is stupid.

Query: how does one make bards using music to cast spells cool? 

Answer: creative cursing. 

What I'm thinking of is a mixture of the classic witchery (the curse works because you believe it works, because you know that someone cursed you and you're superstitious and your brain makes connections that aren't really there), and a single episode from Terry Goodkind's writing legacy about how a magic-using artist is more dangerous than anyone else - because an artist's spell doesn't depend on words. It is powered by visuals. Hiding your true name doesn't protect against it. 

So: art imbued with magic can become a curse. How does it work with poetry? 

Here's what you need. 

1. A bard. It can be someone born with a magical ability, or someone who met a Fairy Queen and she liked him and had a one-night stand with him and seven years later he showed up and was changed forever, or someone who drank some godly mead from a magic cauldron, you can write your own d20 table of the source of bardic power if you like. Point is, there's someone who can put the magic into the rhyme and tune rather than weird gestures and mixing bat guano with pure white sand.

2. A target. Here's a retelling of an old Irish legend about Seanchan the Bard, a highly unpleasant individual. Feeling offended by a cat, he claims: "I shall satirize the tribe of the cats, and their chief lord, Irusan, son of Arusan. For I know where he lives with his wife Spit-Fire, and his daughter Sharp-Tooth, with her brothers, the Purrer and the Growler". For his offensive song to work, the bard needs to know his target well enough. It must be written in a tongue that the target understands. 

3. After the bard composes and sings the song, it will magically find its way to the target (unless the target is right there next to the bard - Seanchan killed ten mice that had the misforture of hearing his ballad about them). It'll be catchy enough for people to sing and repeat it, even though they would hardly remember where they heard it first. 

4. As soon as the target hears the song, bam - the curse activates. Seanchan's song led to the death of King of Cats. 

5. Depending on the target and the curse, the target might have enough time and opportunity to kill the bard. The target will know who cast the curse-song, it's part of the magic. The King of Cats might've bitten Seanchan's head off if he wasn't convinced by his daughter to bring the bard alive to their cave so that they'd all take turns torturing him. 

It feels like it's a mechanic best reserved for NPCs. How can it be useful in a game? Either there's an evil bard who's making a curse against someone, and you the characters must find a way to stop the bard, or there's an evil king or something and there's a bard who wants to kill the evil king with a magic song, and you the characters must provide bard with the information about the evil king for the curse to become possible.  Or you hire a bard to hit your enemy with a curse-song, why not. 

Don't know when, or if, I'll get to test it.

The General Theory of Dragons

 As Zak put it here: 

One thing I really don't like about D&D's dragons is the symmetry of the original dragon scheme: good metal dragons on the left--evil colored dragons on the right. 

 The symmetry is suboptimal. It works, more or less, if you're doing some sort of epos/wargame where armies of dragons are basically the same kind of dragon, only there's many of them. 

But it decreases the value of an individual dragon. Dragons in the epic of Silmarillion are just one of Morgoth's armies, but Glaurung is cunning, cold, and horrible. 

 Dragons in Witcher books are somewhat different. There are several colours, which seem to be similar to human races - there are white dragons who live in the cold climates, there are "red" and "black" and "green" who are actually various shades of brown and grey, and then there's the gold dragon who's unique, a legend, different from all the others. He also presents the closest thing to alignment that is encountered in Sapkowsky's books while drinking beer with a monster slayer and two half-naked warrior women, which is doubtlessly the best way to discuss such things. Anyhow - a unique golden dragon is interesting, a subtype of golden dragons who are all similar is less so. 

And in Dragonlance, dragons are kind of a big thing. There's many of them. Onyx and Pyros are supposed to be individuals and interesting, but having another dozen of black or red dragons right next to them kind of gets in the way. 

So while I'm recreating Tarsis for my players, I'm thinking about dragons. 

And I'm thinking that, while I despise D&D alignment system, dragons could work really well with my colour-coded system. 

Dragons know all about the Colours. They see how the Red grows in times of war, how Green prospers in the forests, and how Black and Blue struggle for influence. 

And as they grow, dragons attune themselves to the Colours that they prefer. Dragons, like mages, carry their Colours openly. 

Dragons are born yellow, and filled with the Colour of youth, joy, and curiosity. As they grow, some stay forever young and curious, and these become brass dragons. 

Others change as they age, and pick their paths in life. As their interests and desires grow, the dragons grow stronger with particular Colours, and it affects their appearance. Those who crave riches and power turn black, and gain the ability to summon and control darkness and shadows. Their breath corrupts the very air. Those are the black dragons. 

Those who value freedom and the joy of flight most of all turn blue, and become able to turn the sky itself against their enemies, raining lightning on them. 

The metallic dragons (besides the brass ones) are those who keep a specific aspect of White as well as other Colours - they are governed by honour. 

The white dragons are cold, and proud, and honourless - this separates them from the silver dragons. 

Green dragons are careful and good at hiding and avoiding conflicts. They are sensitive and wise in the ways of nature, and like nature itself, they are cruel and shameless. 

Red dragons are creatures of passion and rage, and fire heeds their call. 

***

This means, among other things, that colour is not strictly hereditary among dragons - sure, many of them grow up just like their parents, but some of them don't. 

And it feels like, with this in mind, Takhisis and her followers were even worse than depicted in the books and modules - I mean the whole thing with corrupting the unborn dragons.

It has been a busy week

There's a lot I wanted to write about, but I didn't. Because a) real life demands some action, It's nicer and more fun than what I did in my old life, but still time-consuming. 

And b) some of my favourite people in the hobby asked me to do some work, and when this happens, you don't say "But I want to write something for my blog". 

Can't say what's it going to be but it should be good, if I manage to finish it. 

But meanwhile, some nice things. 

I've thought about making a table for LotFP that's all about drugs, magical drugs, creepy drugs, drugs that make you stronger, drugs that make you weird, etc. While I was thinking about it, Zak went and made one. 

I think using it for side effects of magic potions will be interesting. Instead of a d6, roll a d100 and use Zak's table for the specific effect. 

Going to playtest it with the Playing D&D In Ukraine gang as soon as we get together and roll some dice.

Simple side effects of magic potions

 If just glugging liquid hit points and bottled spells begins to feel boring, here's one way to spice it up. Thanks to Becami Cusack at Systematica for inspiration.

The potions that you find in a dungeon and were made by some freak who knows where and probably under strong influence of some underground-grown hallucinogen have 3 in 6 chance to have random side effects. Every found batch of potions shares the same side effect, including 1-potion batches. 

There's also a 1 in 6 chance that the potion is actually more effective than it should've been - roll twice and pick the best result when determining its effect. 

City-based alchemists sometimes make potions that have a known side effect, and sell them to common folk, lowering the price compared to basic potions - a practice made famous by an opportunistic alchemist named Generico.  

The side effects start if the characters fail a saving roll versus poison when drinking the potion.

Possible side effects: 

1. Allergy. The character's body itches viciously. This is annoying, and causes a -1 penalty to all rolls. What's worse, unless treated, this condition returns every time the character drinks a potion of the same type as the one that caused allergy. 

2. Intoxication. Whenever the character tries to do something important, or whenever it might provide funny results, make them roll twice and pick the worse result. It's cumulative and gets worse if the character drinks more than one potion - after failing the roll versus poison twice, it's "roll thrice and pick the worst", etc. Don't apply it to the actual saving roll. 

3. Bliss. The character is happy about the world and their place in it. Whenever someone - anyone - makes a suggestion, make the player roll against magic. On a failure, the character thinks the suggestion's an excellent idea, and should be implemented immediately - treat it like Suggestion spell. 

4. Hallucinations. In combat, make the character roll twice and pick the worse "to hit" result, on a failure, the character strikes down a hallucinatory enemy. Out of combat, play it out as you like it. 

5. Sleep. Roll to save versus magic, on a failure, treat it as a succesful Sleep spell. Reroll for elves. 

6. Roll twice and combine.  

I'll need to test it out but so far I like it. 

If you still haven't read All Dogs Go to Hell, the latest LotFP adventure by, well, me, you can still get it at DTRPG for whatever you want to pay for it. Hurry before they run out of PDFs.

On the question of Trapmaker's art

Our yesterday's game session started with James and Becami deciding to interrogate the hobgoblin that we captured. The talk went well (my bard was the translator - you hang out with Zak's cleric for a while, you have to pick up some Goblinese), which led to the mention that dungeon exploration is much more rewarding with a Speak to Monsters spell. To which Jeff Rients replied that well, yeah, but there's no Speak to Traps spell. And also told a hilarious anecdote about a player who wanted his character to be able to speak to walls that was printed in the very first issue of Dragon magazine, but I'm not telling it, look up the issue or ask Jeff, it's funnier when he tells it. 

Anyways, this made me think. I've never been trained to be a sapper, but I learned a thing or two. 

Thing one: landmines took some time to develop into what they are now. They started out as just "step on it, get shot in a foot" thing, which wasn't all that effective. They evolved into something that sent a message. You take a step ahead - you will be maimed. You'll be crippled and in pain and your comrades will see what happens to you and they'll have to take care of you. So keep that in mind. 

Thing two: in a sapper's mind, everything can be booby-trapped. And will be, given half a chance. A good sapper thinks in a special way, different from a normal person - that's what makes them what they are. 

So what does that give us, tabletop roleplaying-wise? 

You can play it simple, "You roll for traps - okay, you found this acid-filled thing that would've melted your face if you didn't notice it in time, good for you", or just forget traps altogether and focus on whatever is fun for you and yours. 

Or you can make the traps say something about their makers. Like that Indiana Jones movie - the traps are tests, they are questions and you need to answer them correctly. 

In So You Want To Be A Hero PC game, the Kobold has a fire trap on his invisible stash of gold. The message here is sort of clear - "I live in a cave and have no friends, and I want whoever wants to grab my stash to die". 

The cleverly hidden poison trap on the ridiculously simple lock that kills Tasslehoff in Silvanesti says "I know there are Kender in the world and I hate the fact". 

Or you can make it into more of a "trap language", especially if some of your players have this sick kind of mind that would make them good sappers. You can give them some extra bits of information - like the person who set this trap was left-handed, or used a rare sort of perfume to mask the smell of acid, or clearly had a deathwish because the way the trap is set it could've killed them as they were setting it and they evidently didn't care, or their favourite colour is blue. It can help the players track a trapmaker down. It can help the characters understand what is the message that the trapmaker is sending, and to whom.

Note to self: after I finish the current thing, I want to try and write up a trap-centric adventure. And probably a Trapmaker character class while I'm at it.

Another way to do alignment, colour-coded for your convenience

Based obviously on David Gemmell’s Knights of Dark Renown.

You pick a colour that reflects your passions, goals, and what makes you who you are.

Red is aggression, love, fear, bloodshed and fire. Basically a good fighter has a connection with Red.

Green is healing, peace and nature. Druids dig Green, man.

Yellow is joy, laughter, curiosity and youth. All Kender characters are naturally attuned to Yellow.

Black is strength, earth, moonlight, metal and building things. Blacksmiths and miners are empowered by Black. So are many dwarves. Celebrimbor the Elf? Totally in tune with Black.

Blue is freedom, flight, open skies. Probably the sea, too. Most freedom fighters have a mixture of Red and Blue, depending on whether they prefer the fighting part of the freedom part.

White is poetry, honour, bravery, heroism, that sort of things. A good bard is empowered by White and strengthens White wherever she goes.

Gray is ashes, emptiness, loss, burnout. People connected to Gray are not in a nice place, but they can take a punch and are not impressed by a little suffering.

Some colours are antagonists, like Red and Green – violence and healing don’t go together well. Or heavy grounded Black and light airy Blue. Others can work together okay, like a Black and White noble nice-things-maker.

What does it mean mechanically?

1)      When you do something that goes well with your Colour, you get a bonus to succeed. Feel free to be creative with what goes well with the Colours – creativity is fun.

2)      When you are in a place where your Colour is strong, you get another bonus. Green is strong in the forests, so healers like to work there, Black is strong close to earth and underground, Blue is strong at sea.

3)      It goes both ways, whenever you do something that goes against your Colour you get a disadvantage. Or whenever you are in a place where your Colour is weak. A person attuned to Blue doesn’t feel good in a prison. These things stack, so fighting to free yourself from a prison doesn’t just seem like a good idea – it makes you more effective.

4)      Colours are basically magic, so a magic user can feel them and work with them, specifically for creating magic items. A metal bird infused with Blue can fly, a gauntlet infused with Black can make the wearer stronger, etc.

5)      Feel free to bring in spells and effects like “Protection from Black”, “Detect Red” etc.

6)      People who are tied to different Colours can get in each other’s way, it’s harder for a healer to heal around a dedicated fighter and vice versa. It manifests when people actively do something Colour-related, so “stop doing your thing, you’re not letting me do my thing properly!” happens a lot.

7)      A character can be connected to more than one Colour if it makes sense. A heroic fighter (White+Red) and a crafty healer (Black+Green) can work together more effectively because they’re not completely cancelling each other’s bonuses.

8)      The connection to the Colours can change in time, Yellow of the youth being replaced with Red of vengeance or Blue of freedom, Green or White burned by tragedy into Gray.

Will playtest it when I have a chance. Tell me if you think of something I missed.