WITCH ASTEROID

   Seek the Myths. Honor the Seers. Protect the Realm. Spring. One day until Sceptremass. Sir Baldric and Sir Brom part ways with Jabek, a captain of the warty guard, and decide to ride towards Fort Grasp; the Seat of Power of the Realm. Journeying North, they come across a group of shepherds at night. They speak of tigers killing sheep in the East. In the morning the Company gallops with urgency to the fort. The river joins trifold and the knights have difficulty crossing. Brom is across with ease, but Baldric must be aided by his squire Dorf. Afternoon on the day of Sceptremass. The Company approaches the colossal structure, noise and jubilation inside. A courtyard filled with guardsmen training, archery, sparring with hay dummies, dogs chasing carved sticks. They tie their poor exhausted horses up with a young squire named Spike. The Company enters the grand hall, tables set with food and drink. Two Sworn Bell Knights guard a locked door on the right. One of them, Sworn B...

 Seek the Myths. Honor the Seers. Protect the Realm. Spring. Four days until Sceptremass. Young Knights-Errant; Baldric the Gilded Knight , a beautiful force of violence in a short-and-shiny package, and his squire Dorf ; Brom the Rune Knight , a hulking thoughtful behemoth, and his squire Noll . Visitors from a distant Realm. They are instantly cursed by false paths amongst eastern bluffy crags. Dorf takes a watch all night and nearly depletes his Clarity to 0 (it is left at 1). The next day the Company runs into a logging team of warty guards captained by Jabek . He wears full plate with a frog helm, but is NOT a Knight. The warty guards mention “The Toad,” and how they’re gathering materials for his castle. The guards deposit massive logs beside the lake and depart on fat donkeys.  The next day the Company come upon two scouts investigating the prints left in the boggy mud by the overweight mules. They are Scout Tom and Scout Cole , wearing strange leather bodysuits with...

“How can only one zombie be scary to a group of adventurers?” Short answer: watch an Evil Dead movie. Cheating answer: let’s design a new zombie. The core zombie: AC 8, HP 11, ATK 1 slam +2 (1d6), MV near, S +2, D -2, C +1, I -2, W -2, Ch -3, AL C, LV 2 Undead. Immune to morale checks. Relentless. If zombie reduced to 0 HP by a non-magical source, DC 15 CON to go to 1 HP instead. Let’s add some old-school flavor and edit Undead: Undead. Silent until it attacks. Immune to morale checks. In the world of Lefort undead are always corpses possessed by demons . After watching Evil Dead: Rise tonight I realized how similar this concept is to the Evil Dead series and was inspired to create this post.  This isn’t some poor soul dimly reanimated. This is a master of chaos and evil inhabiting corporeal form,  possibly for the first time. ATK 1 gore +2 (1d8 + black bile), I +1 Black Bile. DC 12 CON or 1d4 CON damage (can’t heal while ill). Repeat check once per hour; ...

Incorporeal and possessive demons underly most of Lefort’s fantasy antics: monsters, wizards, and also the undead. Undead are similar to other kinds of demon-possessed creatures (like minotaurs being demon-possessed cows), except the creature in this case is a corpse. Undead, like zombies or wights, are summoned magically by inviting a demon through occult ritual into a corpse to possess. And undead, like skeletons, are still encountered naturally, demon-possessed bones wandering around with semi-sentient abandon. Most demons are powerful enough to possess whole graveyards’ worth of corpses, making chaotic deals with warlocks and liches for undead armies. Ghostly and specterish undead, like wraiths, are transitory souls that demons have latched on to in the same way, favoring their natural state of incorporeality. Twisting Liches Argus, the Wizard-King of Argusdoom Wizards who seek to extend their lifespan can become a lich. Wizards of any alignment can become a lich, but the process ...

1. Adamic Plum Within Shiver, on the neighboring mountain to Zahir's pear tree , grows the adamic plums. Light-yellow plums grow on the surface in lush fields of vibrant tall grass. Uprooting the plums' plant reveals roots in the shape of an elderly man. When the roots are exposed to the cold air of Shiver they speak out of the elderly man's mouth: 1. The words of a random scroll! Which, if quickly written down on parchment, can be cast as a scroll.  2. A poem! An arrangement of words never before spoken. Listeners gain permanent +1 WIS. 3. The True Name! Of: 1. Adom 2. A demon king 3. A ruler 4. An assassin. 4. "Filth!" Yellow gas slowly spews out of the elderly man's mouth. After a minute the gas becomes Cloudkill.  2. Kingsfeather It's rumored the first kings of Lefort used this flower to gain power. If kingsfeather is worn against one's forehead the wearer can cast Command using their CHA. Kingsfeather cults exist in the slums of Babilan, but the...

The Assassin’s Guild; also known as the Masked Assassins of the Mascot Guild, Skin Devils, Brain Eaters, and Ghouls. AC 15, HP 44, ATK 3 thinsword +8 (1d12) or 2 automatic crossbow (far) +8 (1d8 + poison), MV near (climb, swim), S +4, D +4, C +3, I +4, W +4, Ch +5, AL N, LV 9 Poison. DC 15 CON or target's eyes roll back and it turns on its allies for 1d4 rounds. DC 15 WIS on turn to end effect. They, and the other cabals of Lefort, have no need for the traditional currency of the gold system. The assassins deal in organs. 1. 1,000g, 1h, Heart Like gold is trivially assigned massive wealth, so have certain organs. The heart is incredibly valuable because these organs serve multiple purposes. The assassins of the guild go through intense body-modification to make them untraceable and unrecognizable between operations, as well as make organic repairs.  It’s rumored that some masked assassins have been alive since the guild was created, hundreds of years ago, by using these...

When I host a TTRPG game in Lefort I allow six playable ancestries or races: 1. Humans are scattered across the island and the most common ancestry. 2. Halflings are the scarcest ancestry, being rock-salt homunculi created by ancient wizards. 3. Goblins are small, shark-like albinos that reside in secluded communities. 4. Dwarves are stocky, large-skulled, hairy artisans that isolate in the Shadowdark below the surface. 5. Elves are pastel-skinned aliens with Gigeresque garments. More on them in the future. 6. Half-Orcs are tusked pig-men that make up the nobility of Boar Valley. Granted, these are the six core playable ancestries in the Shadowdark rulebook, and also commonly the core playable ancestries in other fantasy roleplaying games. I was really curious why half-orc was the default, instead of orc. There's no core option to play a half-dwarf, or even the iconic half-elf. What's the in-game reason "full" orcs aren't players? I'm guessing it's because...

The people of Lefort keep track of the year by the seasons. Each season -- Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring -- has 91 days. Between Winter and Spring is the Lost Day, the 365th day of the year, also known as the mark of the New Year. Poems tell of a battle between Madeera and Memnon, where Madeera sacrificed the 365th day to bring order to the rest of the seasons. 1. Midsummer Villagers celebrating Midsummer in the village of Harmony The 45th day of Summer. A secular celebration of light, warmth, and love. It's customary for people to wear pastel colors and make sun tapestries, sheets of canvas painted entirely white that reflect the sun's light.  Demon Kings , like Sabet and King Lauren, have twisted the holiday into less wholesome directions, hosting pleasure festivals and naked parades that take up the entire wilderness of Boar Valley.  The king of Sowden has been trying to quell these demons by sending violent militia to "deal with them." For the past few years Mids...