The Bode

Very quickly wrote a brief adventure for Flowerland/Horror Florida using a Monsterparts-y hack that I will run this weekend, or at least offer as a hook. There's not a clean way to resolve the situation besides "rolling a huge boulder in front of the dungeon", but that's okay I guess.

~~

There is a hill north of town where the pine trees grow and nothing else. It's dark there, and too quiet, and too cold, even in the thick of summer.

If you are playing close attention, you might notice that all traces of the most recent wildfire stops short at the base of the hill, where the pine forest begins. If you have spent a lot of time in the woods, you might expect there to be palmetto scrub under these pine trees, not just the dead needles heaped there now.

At the top of the hill, where it is darkest and coldest, where the trees grow so dense your shoulders always brush their trunks no matter how you turn yourself, stands a temple built from roughly hewn basalt, furred with moss and crusted with lichen. There is no light inside, and the faint draft blowing from its low entrance smells foul and mineral, as if the earth started to rot like flesh. Water dews continuously on the interior walls, making the steps down to the inner chamber slick.

At the bottom you'll find a circular room, maybe twenty feet in diameter, spiderweb cracks radiating from the jagged-edged pool of water punched into the slab floor at the center. Arranged in a circle around it are twelve deformed animal skulls: too many eye sockets, two or three mandibles fanning out from a twisted jaw, melted-wax contours and clusters of horns. These skulls are cursed, they are a curse, they are best left untouched, they are called The Bode.

IN THE TOWN OF VER
Pretty much everybody in town is talking about a bunch of messed up stuff happening in the wilderness to the north of Ver, known locally as the Old Church Wood. It's always had an unsavory reputation, but there's has been a spate of disappearances and bad omens associated with it.

Shrinekeeper Trinidad, the town's cleric.

• Despite his warnings and the Woods' ominous reputation, a pair of hunters--Trinidad's friends--pursued a deer into the pines to the north. They haven't returned, and that was a week ago. That was the start of the trouble.
• Every sunset, Trinidad lights the ritual lanterns along the perimeter of Ver. The northernmost ones have been blowing themselves out by midnight, when they should last until sunrise.

Rudriq, hunter.

• Rudriq stopped hunting around the Old Church Hills when he found animal skulls wedged between tree branches there.

Pilar, witch.

• Distrusted by people of Ver, considered possibly to blame.
• She claims she saw an oddly proportioned creature--something on all fours, like a deer or a coyote, it had a pale face and an awkward gait--the night after the hunters should have come back.

Odesa, the town's mayor.

• She had mediated a fight between the two hunters over the game they caught a month ago, and believes they got into some sort of fight out in the woods, or else it's bandits. She's dealt with a lot of bandits over the years.
• Odessa thinks everyone is seized by superstition and is ready to led her band into the Old Church Wood to solve this once and for all--but has been so far dissuaded by Trinidad's pleadings.

Katarina, general store propietor

• Her caravan hasn't come back since this whole mess started. See if her idiot employees got eaten by a ghost or not.

Luis, farmer

• missing from his farm since yesterday. He had been complaining that something had been going after his livestock, but not like most predators--they were killing for sport.
• His farm is to the north, a few minute's walk past Trinidad's torches. If the players investigate, they will find his house unlocked, but his barn locked from the inside. His goats are cut apart--like they unraveled off of their own bones--and all of their skulls are missing.

THE OLD CHURCH WOOD
Dense pine trees on a steep hill. It's dark and chill.

Encounters.
1-2: Mutilated... 1-deer 2-coyote 3-bobcat 4-black bear
3. Abandoned caravan, horses beheaded and cut to pieces, goods untouched. This is the only treasure in the whole adventure, now that I think about it.
4. Tree laden with animal skulls wedges between branches
5. Body of Luis or caravaners
6. Brood of Bode

Brood of Bode

• HD: d8
• 10 EP
• Defense 14
• Naked, wiry man, running on all fours far faster than a person should be able, wears a filthy deer skull over his face
• Spells: Can cast one spell per encounter from its list: 
• Fog Cloud
• Phantasmal Force (a dark presence like a passing cloud, moving through the trees like the first cold blast of wind from an approaching thunderstorm) 
  
• Snuff (extinguish all torches, lamps, etc within earshot of its scream) 
• Inflict Light Wounds (what it's been using to cut its victims apart),

THE OLD CHURCH
Brood of Bode will not enter, at least at first. One of the hunters is in this chamber, his head and torso submerged in the central pool. If approached, he will slide all the way in.

• The Bode can speak in this chamber. Their voice is subaudible, like something half-imagined. They will offer their power to the strongest fighter in the party in return for a sacrificed comrade, and they are not lying: the sacrificer will become another Brood of Bode.
• The skulls of The Bode are cursed. Anyone who breaks their skulls will never be able to recover from their wounds. The skulls come back when nobody is looking, anyway.
• The Bode can see anything in the pines of Old Church Wood.
• The Brood is the other hunter, who sacrificed his friend. His mind is lost to The Bode. The Bode will tell a PC what the hunter did if the PC keeps them talking.
• The pool is cursed. Anyone who tries to swim in it will sink to the bottom and drown, and all attempts to haul them out have disadvantage. The body can be retrieved by any other method.
• Anyone left alone in the Old Church must make a save or vanish. This increases the Brood of Bode's HD by one step
• The Bode want more Brood, they want more skulls in the pines to see out of, they want the wards on Ver destroyed so they can claim its inhabitants.

something is wrong character creation

strange beings come out to make mischief in the weirding light of the spiral moon

 

A super-pared down 5e-ish thing for Flowerland/Weird Florida. Checks are the typical 1d20+ability score mod+proficiency bonus (if applicable), but classes are more thematically defined packages of proficiencies instead of discrete lists of skills and abilities. Magic is an unreliable accretion of superstitions rather than a very formalized list of abilities, and HP is a small, easy come/easy go buffer between mobility and death. All of this should fit the mood better than the more high fantasy feel of rules as written 5e D&D.

ABILITY SCORED

Roll 3d6 for Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Use the following ability score modifiers. If your modifiers have a negative total, you can reroll all of your ability scores. Once you have a viable character, you can swap two ability scores of your choosing.

HIT POINTS 

Don't exist. We are using the endurance/stopwatch system. Everyone starts out with 6+CON mod EP.

• You can recover EP equal to your hazard die by resting an exploration turn (triggers an encounter check). Each time you rest, your max EP reduces by 1. Eating a ration lets you recover EP without losing any points from your maximum.You can't take a rest in situations that are draining your EP.
• You recover all of your EP, and you max EP returns to normal, when you take a long rest in a safe place.
• You gain +1 max EP when you level up.

CLASS/BACKGROUND/PROFICIENCY
Your proficiency bonus is +2, and increases by +1 every 4th level. Add your proficiency bonus to tasks your class is good at. The listed die value is your Hazard Die, which determines how much EP you can recover when you rest and how much your weapon attacks deal.

1. Cacique [1d6] bullshitting, winning contests, brawling, barking orders, making friends/rivals, etc
2. Warrior [1d8] fighting, climbing, swimming, jumping, athletics, etc
3. Thief [1d6] picking locks, picking pockets, sneaking, climbing, etc
4. Cleric [1d4] performing apotropaic rituals, speaking with authority, praying to spirits, etc
5. Witch: [1d4] performing dark rituals, inuiting, animal handling, bargain with spirits, etc
6. Hunter: [1d8] ambushing, marksmanship, tracking, naturalism, hiding, etc
7. Scholar: [1d6] knowing languages, history, teratology, medicine, etc
8. Diva/Adonis: [1d6] dancing, singing, seducing, conversing, distracting, etc

EQUIPMENT AND INVENTORY You start with 3d6×10 dollars. $1 = 1 sp. Buy stuff off of the LotFP equipment list. 

We are using this inventory system.

SAVING THROWS
Basic ability score checks. Pick one saving throw; you can add your proficiency bonus to it.

MAGIC/RITUALS
Anything that we would recognize as a spell from D&D is far beyond the capability of humans, and generally requires the intercession of a god or demon. Rituals are slower and quieter and subtler, but they are also powerful rules the supernatural world must abide by. Anyone can try to perform a ritual, but people who spend their time close to the supernatural (witches and clerics) are better at them.

Players do not get to see the list of rituals. They discover rituals as rewards, by accident, in books, through rumors, by joining factions. Some are common and most people know about, some are kept secret by powerful organizations. Players will be part of an adventuring Company that will help explain why a new crop of characters might know a bunch of weird rituals after the last group got a TPK.

• [simple] rituals are easy to do. You just need the right component and the right action, like throwing salt on a monster or chanting a certain phrase. Some simple rituals people perform on accident, and this can be dangerous.
• [complex] rituals are hard. They require a lot of practice and knowledge. Making a talisman, reciting a long passage of holy writ, or inscribing a pentagram just right are all complex rituals. They take a month to learn from a tutor or a text. Complex rituals are easy to perform incorrectly, and this can be dangerous.
• [apotropaic] rituals are the rites clerics use to drive back the supernatural and defend humanity. When they require a check, use WIS. When they require a saving throw, the DC is 8+WIS mod (+proficiency bonus if ritual caster is a cleric)
• [dark] rituals are the rites witches use to have their way with the world. When they require a check, use CHA. When they require a saving throw, the DC is 8+CHA mod (+proficiency bonus if ritual caster is a witch). These rituals are often illegal.
• Players can perform impromptu rituals if they make sense. If someone is bitten on the arm by a werewolf and the cleric makes a rosary tourniquet, it is ritually potent enough to work even though it's not listed below. These might have high DCs, or the victim might get advantage on the saving throw.

purity rite [apotropaic] [simple] Cast salt on an impure creature (devils, demons, undead, fey, etc). They must make a CHA saving throw or flee for a turn.

warding rite [apotropaic] [simple] Pour salt in a circle around you. Impure creatures must make a CHA saving throw to cross it. Lasts until disturbed or you leave the circle.

nazar [apotropaic] [complex] DC 14 Spend a long rest and 10 gp making a blue eye bead. Anyone who carries it will have advantage on saving throws versus curses. It cracks the first time its bearer is the target of a curse, whether or not they succeed the saving throw. If a would-be creator fails a check to make a nazar, all nazars they have already made lose their power.

casket rite [apotropaic] [simple] Seal a coffin with silver nails. If the interred has the will and ability to rise as a restless corpse, they must make a CHA saving throw to succeed and will not be able to try again if they fail. If a witch is trying to raise them, they must make a CHA saving throw before they can attempt it, and cannot try again if they fail.

revenant rite [dark] Bury someone with a smoldering piece of cypress charcoal on their chest, and they will return as a restless corpse. If they don't want to come back, they cane make a WIS saving throw.

ill rite [dark] [simple] Cast grave dirt on a human as you whisper a cursed syllable. They must make a WIS saving throw or suffer a wasting illness, losing 1 EP a day until they die.

rite of calling [dark] [apotropaic] [simple] Summon a corpse by calling its name at night at the edge of the woods, the mouth of a cave, the bank of a river, or the shore of a lakeThey may or may not be friendly, and if they don't want to come they may make a CHA saving throw to avoid the summons.

red ribbon rite [dark] [simple] tie a red ribbon to a bound or incapacitated spirit (fiend, fey, elemental, undead, celestial). It must make a CHA saving throw or consider you its master. It can remake the saving throw every time your orders humiliate it, place it in danger, or require it to violate its nature.

shrine rite [dark] [apotropaic] [complex] spend a turn building an impromptu shrine from ritual stones to a spirit (fiend, fey, elemental, undead, celestial) to communicate with it directly. You can ask it to cast a spell, perform a task, guard you, reveal a secret, etc. It may or may not be friendly. Each spirit has its own shrine rite, and they must be learned separately. Ritual stones may be reused.

blades of grass

a 5e monster for weird florida. Been thinking about Pearce's Monstrum 1 and Monstrum 2 posts, and while I haven't faithfully applied those principles here, I wanted something that didn't immediately and obviously fit into the D&D taxonomy (in some ways it doesn't matter if your kobolds are dogmen or lizard people or birdlings or shivering clouds of diamond dust if players know that it's a fodder enemy in the same genus as goblins and bullywugs).

 ~~~

you might think it's a coyote at first when you see it running down the trail--its skeleture is right, and it has that canine posture on all fours, but then it rears back on its hind legs and then keeps going, sprinting like a human, reaching for you with its sharp fingers. it looks more like a person up close, but its mouth is a little too wide and its teeth are far too sharp, and when you cut it, its blood is pink and viscous, like real blood mixed with milkweed sap.

GRASS HOUSE DWELLER
medium fey, chaotic neutral
Armor Class 15
Hit Points 7
Speed 40 ft, 60 ft on all fours, 30 ft climb speed           
STR 8 (-1) DEX 14 (+2) CON 10 (+0)
INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0)                    
Skills: Stealth +6
Senses passive Perception 12
Languages unknown
Weaknesses radiant damage, makes their blood burn like wet sodium
Graceful. Can take the Disengage or Hide action on each of its turns
Hide in the House. Has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks when hiding in grass
Grass House Walker. Moves through palmetto, tall grass, and natural difficult terrain silently and without penalty                                                                 
ACTIONS

• Claw. Melee weapon attack. +4 to hit, 1d6+2 slashing damage
• Green glass blade. Melee weapon attack.+4 to hit, 1d8+2 slashing damage, breaks on a roll of maximum damage.
• Weird. The dweller can cast one of the following spells per short rest. Use WIS as spellcasting ability score. Its spell save DC is 14 and its spell attack bonus is +4
1. as entangle. The dweller gently palpates the ground; if it is stone it flexes like soft flesh, if it is dirt or sand the dweller reaches below the surface and manipulates something unseen there. Slender pale arms churn through the ground, delicate strong hands with opalescent fingernails drag down whatever they find.
2. as fog cloud. The dweller scores the earth deep with its claw and black smoke boils up out of the gash.
3. as unseen servant. There is the faint smell of cut grass and open earth, pollen and tiny insects hang in the air.
4. as thunderwave. The dweller throws back its head and roars like a thousand thousand cicadas, it's the worst sound you've ever heard, you can taste it in your teeth, feel it blast through the fine bones of your jaw and ears.

• Pact. Once per day: Three dwellers within 5 ft of each other can use their action in the same turn to summon a demon if they are outside in a wilderness area. Roll or choose based on situation, all have fiend type. Demons have their own initiative and act in the interests of the dwellers unless separated from their summoners, in which case they act of their own free will.
1. sunstroke demon (as yellow faerie dragon) a ragged coyote corpse leaking mirage-shimmer from the rents in its hide, running weightlessly across the ground, flitting from branch to branch as easily as a crow.
2. palmetto demon (as imp) scuttling mass of palm scrub detritus: palm fibers, browning fronds, broken roots, sand clods. It doesn't change shape, but just shows you what it's been all along, changing from spider to rat like an optical illusion resolving itself
3. anhinga demon (as spectator) has a 60 ft swim speed. it coils through the air like an eel through water, braided serpentine bodies throwing off coils and wings that dissolve into black feathers as fast as they form. its conjoined heads are spotted with angry red eyes, each stare carrying a different curse.
4. ash demon (as azer) it could almost be a charred corpse and often disguises itself as one, but its skin is thick like charcoal. when roused the red glow of its internal flame can be seen through the cracks in its skin, and its breath is heavy with smoke.

There are dwellers in other houses, too. The Petal House Dwellers have the character of both spiders and moths, and their magic is white and filamentous. The River House Dwellers are hulking and patient and make familiars of toads and crocodiles. There is a Pure House, too, a House long ago and far away and high above, with dwellers of infinite beauty and cruelty, who drink up the creatures of the earth, who would pull apart the world like a ripe fruit and eat it if they could.

the earth does not want you

hey guys. it's certainly been a while. i've been thinking about a weird fantasy florida, recently, out in the palm scrub, where everything is mean and sharp and unfriendly and unnavigable and really kind of beautiful in a careless sort of way.

sinner
her flesh moves like fire on her bones, her hair roils like a plume of smoke from her head, her feet barely touch the water as she strides across it and you smell the black magic in the air: hot metal and raw meat and ozone.

• Each sinner knows a random cleric spell with a level equal to their HD. They can cast it at will.
• Sinners cannot cross lines of salt or enter holy ground or consecrated buildings like churches, and they must flee the sounds of church bells and calls to prayer as if they had failed a Morale check.
• Sinners can walk on water, walls, and ceilings; they are supernaturally light when it suits them, and any surface or structure that can support the weight of a crow will also support a sinner.

corpse
they are pale, luxuriously dressed in black veils and black lace, they move in groups of two or three, they dart about close to the ground in the edges of your vision. they never seem to be what they should, seeming to be very large and very far away, or else very small and very close; you always have to reach farther than you think to strike them with your weapon, but they can just raise their hand and touch you all the same.

• Each corpse can cast a random magic-user spell with a level equal to their HD. They can cast it at will.
• If a corpse sees an open grave (dug for the purposes of burying someone, at least 6 feet deep, a burial marker at the head of the grave), it must climb inside and lie down. If it hears properly recited funeral rites (INT check and a round of effort), it must make a Morale check. Corpses cannot cross lines of salt.
• As long as nobody can see its point of departure or arrival, a corpse can teleport to any location in 120'.

palm devil
a figure standing at the edge of the pines, a little too tall to be human, the contours of its body beneath its ragged coat too long and slender, it's holding a palmetto frond in front of its face, and when it turns to you, all the leaves on all the trees as far as you can see rattle, malicious and filled with volition

• a palm devil's face is indescribable; should anyone see it they must Save vs Magic or become Feebleminded. They will transform into a sinner by midnight of the following Sunday unless restored by Remove Curse.
• Can cast Gust of Wind, Move Earth, and Plant Growth twice each per fight.
• Can fly by riding its palm frond.
• In a palm devil's hands, a palm frond functions as a vorpal axe and can easily cut through any mundane substance.

venomous augury
someone has nailed a huge rattlesnake to the trunk of a dead pine tree at regular intervals, tied lengths of red silk to each nail head. it looks at you with wet human eyes and tells you something horrible.

• the venomous augury knows everything, probably. A player can ask it anything and it will give them the true answer. This can amount to a wish--ask it where the elixir of eternal life it, and it will tell you, whether or not there was an elixir before you asked. However, every answer introduces an evil equal in influence or power to the wealth or knowledge being sought. Ask "where is the woman who will save the world?" and the augury is liable to answer "in the house of the man who will one day destroy it"
• once someone has asked the augury a question, it forevermore appears to them as a stinking dead rattlesnake grotesquely nailed to a tree.

prophet of mud
a huge hairless face emerges from the muck in front of you. it does not bother to turn its head, but swivels its bulging yellow eyes towards you as it begins to hum a hymn

• the prophet of mud is a third level cleric and knows Bless, Command, and Augury and can cast spells from its head or its hands.
• the prophet can emerge from any body of mud. it can reach its hands up from any body of mud or murky water that is contiguous with the mud it head is in.
• the prophet's head and two hands get their own turn in the initiative order. it can only see what its head sees, naturally, but will feel things out with one hand to help the other.
• the prophet can spend a round singing hymns to cast Rock To Mud at will.

mother
there is a mother deep beneath the earth, she once had a shell of many hard plates and swam with many sharp legs and saw with a constellation of many watchful eyes. she died long ago, when this land was still a sea, but she is still here, she is a hollow in the bedrock far below, a long spiral in the dark. sometimes she tells the land what it used to be, and when she does it listens.

photos by me

good, actually

So Pathfinder gets a lot of crap for being enormously complicated, but many of its spells--particularly the obscure ones--are quite good.

Swarm Skin

Climbing Beanstalk

Whip of Spiders

Curse of Burning Sleep

Boiling Blood

Blazing Rainbow

Fairy Ring Retreat

Discern Next of Kin

Anonymous Interaction

Mirror Hideaway and Mirror Transport

Adhesive Blood 

Cape of Wasps

Leashed Shackles

Summon Froghemoth

Strangling Hair

Silk to Steel

Sands of Time

Youthful Appearance

Waves of Ecstasy

Dance of a Hundred Cuts

Marionette Possession

Reckless Infatuation

Burning Gaze

Threefold Aspect

out in the swamp where the water is dark

monsters in dungeons and dragons can feel very taxonomical, as if some fantasy Linnaeus separated the ghoul from the ghast and the wight from the specter. In practice, it's just palette-swapping. However, I like the idea of monsters that suggest an unusual and inscrutable method of specifying one kind of creature from another.

by Tim Waters
distributed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

However, I also want there to be something of a blur between kinds of monsters. Monstrosity is something afflicted or achieved, it is a political category, a caste, a title. Bluebeard and Christman Genipperteinga are as much ogres as men; Elizabeth of Bathory was a woman, witch, and vampire. Monsters and witches can and should step on each other's conceptual turf, just because neither are wholly one thing. 

witches with beautiful hair
Such a witch keeps his or her hair in a long braid, ornamented to look like a snake. A single strand of it, teased free and tied around the finger, wrist, or neck of a victim, ensures their compliance in all things; so long as the strand is still attached to her head, the witch can command it to sever the member around which it is tied. Neither distance no scissors are protection against this; a witch's hair can stretch across oceans or over mountains, and no conventional means can cut it.
     Witch-hair is exceedingly fine, but a watchful witch-hunter can follow the hair from victim to owner. However, the witch can always use his or her victims as hostages no matter how far they may be, or even blackmail them into fighting their would-be rescuer.

blood-swallowing witches
A witch of this ilk has learned a very beautiful song that summons great swarms of mosquitoes. The witch then disperses them across the countryside to collect blood from her neighbors. When the mosquitoes return, they vomit the blood up into the witch's pots and pans, which the witch then brews into vile liqueurs. Some are fatally poisonous; others simply delicious, while the most coveted restores a measure of youth to the drinker.
     A witch-hunter knows a blood-swallowing witch by their love of music, by their hidden or strangely stained pots and pans, and by the barrels they keeps but never seems to tap. Imprudent enemies of a blood-swallowing witch might find themselves exsanguinated by a storm of mosquitoes.

witches whose shadows have eyes
The most mysterious kind of witch. shadows cast by these witches have eyes, as if their owner had two holes in their head and light was streaming through. Their shadows do their bidding, rising up off the ground, gaining strength and substance. A witch's shadow crawls about unnaturally, like a person trying to walk on all fours, but runs as fast as a horse and possesses the strength of two.
     These witches can only be caught by close examination of their shadow, or by their shadow's absence when they have commanded it to run off and perform some wickedness. Witches whose shadows have eyes have been known to hide their nature and rise to positions of great power and prestige.

witches who live under the mangroves
These witches can hold their breath as long as they please. They carry heavy cudgels and live out in the mangrove swamp, where they float facedown in the waterways or thrash like a drowning swimmer so that they can bludgeon their rescuers unconscious and carry them away to a half-submerged larder. When they are not hunting, these witches sleep in the dark waters between mangrove roots, thinking black and briny thoughts and trading secrets with passing crocodiles.
     Witches who live under the mangroves are betrayed by the mud in their mouth, which they can never quite spit out and which prevents them from speaking well. The eldest witches of this kind are trapped below their mangroves, transfixed by slow-growing roots over the course of their century sleep. They are easy to destroy if discovered, but their mgic is powerful and filled with venom.

by Guillaurme Schaer
distributed under CC BY NC 2.0

upon the ancient shores of albion...

A Most Thoroughly Pernicious Pamphlet has received an Honorable Mention in the distinguished 2016 Ramanan Sivaranjan Awards for Excellence in Gaming, an honor I will treasure until my dying day, and one I will clutch in my bony fist long after.

I've decided to lower the price of the Pamphlet to $2, so if you've been holding out in hopes of a lower price, your day has come. You can get it here. If Gumroad gives you any trouble, which has been known to happen, let me know in the comments of this post or over on Google+ and I'll get you a copy.