Stella's RPG Zone

The crew hopes to pawn off some of the more unique items pilfered from the craft. Specifically the moss suits, and black ceramic organ vase filled with three mysterious liquids. Caulder’s connection to the underworld of Ux Qorath would be able to get him in contact with a wizard interested in potentially purchasing the living moss suit, but it would be a day before he would be able to get fully in contact.

Knowing the city is one of the few places with a strong enough alchemical presence where potions are sold freely upon the market they head there.

The market is abuzz, Yptifragean merchants and their pack lizards were swarming the streets hawking their wares. Eventually they make their way to a small alchemical stall called the Bubbling Potion, and meet with a diminutive middle aged woman named Yara.

After some brief introduction Mekinmini asks how much for a healing potion.

Much to her dismay it is 300 sols. Communications break down quickly after that. 

Amyl offers to sell some of the substances found in the vessel, warning that one of the substances is poisonous, but as to the nature of the other two liquids they have no clue. 

Yara pulls out a goblet and they fill the cup with a red syrupy substance

“Do you have any idea what this does?”

“No, that’s why we came to you” Amyl snapped back.

“I haven’t the faintest clue, although you could pay me 50 sols to have it identified”

“50!” said Mekinimini aghast “I could identify it myself for less”

“Oh yeah great wizard what does it do?”

“I don’t know but I could buy the spell myself”

“Good luck with that”

“How about we just sell you the entire thing” Amyl asked “It’s a genuine alien artifact, it’s got venusian writing on it”

“Let me look at that” and after a brief pause “That’s not venusian”

Mekinimini says “We’ll sell it for 100 sols”

“Ha pocketchange” retorted Yara as she ducked under her counter to produce ten bundles of ten souls on a string.

Realizing her blunder for going so low, Mekinimini starts to back peddle. “You know what forget it, we aren’t gonna sell you this anyways”

She reaches for the goblet and Yara instinctively recoils. Not thinking twice, Caulder grabs a potion off the shelf and lifts it above his head, making it clear he plans on dropping it.

Mekinimini says “Listen we just want what is ours back”

“You aren’t worth my time or money, get out the lot of you” Yara grumbled as she poured the goblet back into the vessel.

“300 sols for a healing potion, you are a cartel you know that!”

“Gladly are, go get your potions at lesser stores.”

“Shiester, you’re a shiester!”

As the group wanders into the less busy back alleys, beyond the Bubbling Potion and the Portage Bank Branch the group takes a breather. Looking around them they notice a charcoal graffito on the back of the bank reading “YGSÐД. Mekinimini recognizes the name of that of an ancient fungal god, who most worshippers had long since abandoned. 

With her supernatural healing provided by her attunement to her owl familiar, she listens in to the bank picking out mostly mundane conversation with a few proper names and titles thrown in, Xolo, and Haruspex. Caulder takes this time to look around hoping to find any secret doors to and from the bank, but comes up with nothing.

A fraudster is a fraudster, so Caulder comes up with a simple plan: open up a safety deposit box at the bank and while alone try to open the other boxes and pilfer whatever they find.

He enters in to the front of the bank, meeting a man with a shaved head and a wooden mask working the front desk.

“Xolo, representing the portage bank, how may I help you”

“I wish to set up an account”

“Why of course, you can set up a savings account: 5% interest per annum, but only quarterly withdrawals. Or, a checking account, 100 sol per year with unlimited withdrawals.”

“How about a safe deposit box?”

“How large?”

“A cubic foot or so.”

“That would be 5 lunas per year”

“Could I get it cheaper if I was only to store it for a month?”

“No it is bank policy, you purchase for a year minimum.”

They finish sorting out the details, signing the contract as “Harmody Alec” and going into the back with the keys to lock box 114. 

As soon as Xolo isn’t looking he gets to work.

Picking the lock of the next box he is greeted with an empty safe, just after he closes it Xolo walks back into the room.

“Woah Zolo, give me some privacy! I’m not done yet”

“Oh I had heard you close the door, I had assumed you finished”

“No, the door was just sticky and”

A bell rang from the front desk, and again, and again.

Roddy stood at the front desk jumping up slightly to reach the bell with his little muranian hands.

“Oh good finally some service, what do you need to do to get service quickly in here?”

“Ring the bell, only once.”

“Then why did I have to wait so long?”

“I was speaking to another customer in the back.”

“I want to speak to the manager.”

“I am the manager here, Xolo”

“Did I ask your name”

Knowing he had little time left Caulder made his move, picking open box 612 he finds fine crimson robes and an intricately sculpted brass mask of a grinning face.

He swaps it with garbage he had in his bag and closes the door.

He leaves and soon after Roddy stops pestering Xolo.

Steeling everyone with knowledge of what fae saw in the room they constructed a plan.

Drash opened the door, an orange glowing blob detached from the ceiling, a leechlike mouth greeted him. It charged through the air, a missile of wet flesh. He was ready, his shield met the teeth of the thing as he felt an intense heat radiate off of it. In one single swing of his pick he skewers the thing, bursting it like a balloon full of fire.

Mekinimini and Amyl blitz the room. Mekinimini swings her staff in an unflinching arc directly at a red flying leech, bursting it into another puff of fire. Amyl’s sword is quick and ruthless, aiming for the one glowing in the newest colors, its blood is all that remains on faer blade.

Three down, six to go. But soon the three find themselves swarmed, two blue beasts hone in on drash latching on and draining him of his precious heat. A pair of green ones surge at Mekinimini, the first dodged with ease but the second found the mark.

Her skin begins to bubble and peel from the strange energy radiating from the leech things. Amyl meets the wrath as well, with a yellow leech latching on and cooking fae from the inside out with microwaves.

Drash acts quickly, slamming the cosmic thing with his pick, popping it like a burst fire extinguisher, he swings for another with his shield hoping to take it down but it just evades his reach, only to be skewered by a dart thrown by Amyl.

Roddy, knowing he can't just leave his companions to die, storms back in charging towards the green leeches attacking Mekinimini. He is however unable to steel his frightful nerves, he stumbles over himself, dropping his knife.

Mekinimini tried her best to free herself but between the searing pain, and Roddy’s charge she swings wildly and misses as well. She's on the ground in an instant as her balance fails her.

The one that had but her leg stayed firmly on her, turning her skin blisterous and its ravages continued.

Another dived at her but missed colliding face first into the ground and seeming dazed.

A desperate swing of her staff came down on the one on her leg taking it out. 

In the commotion Amyl had struck one down and been laid low in return, innards cooked from microwave bombardment, giving a final shout of potion before slumping to the floor. Drash charged towards the remaining yellow thing using the full brunt of his charging shield wall to turn it to paste. Like a dwarven cannonball he turns around to see the magician Mekinimini felled by the disoriented leech, taking no time he charges, pick skewering the final beast. 

To no one in particular he screams “if there are any more of you, come get me”

Roddy had fled, making sure to grab his dagger on the way out.

Seeing to the dead, against all odds both Amyl and Mekinimini were alive but just barely.

The group decides to head back, seeing no future in continuing to fight their way through this creature. A brief amount of exploration finds a few barrels full of unknown types of preserved food. Using some rope they lower it down to the ground and roll them back to the city. They sell off the barrels for 3 gold a piece.

Someone else will get the treasure, that's fine by them.

The group holds a funeral for Justin and while trying to pawn off their food they meet a local thief, Caulder Grimm.

For use with Violence. Best used in the context of mythos spellcasting.

Based on this post.

Evoking the Inhuman Forces

Those with the Spellcasting Trait may evoke the inhuman to change reality. Speaking the cosmotic tongues of the eld. 

The character states what they wish to accomplish as simply as they can, and counts the number of syllables needed to express this idea. This is added to a value called Warp.

If the effect affects a living being double the Warp.

If the effect affects a group, triple it.

These stipulations stack.

After evoking the inhuman forces the character rolls 1d20+Warp, consulting the table below.

10 Unsettling but temporary cosmic effect (e.g. skin roils, eyes turn pitch black).

11–15 Area wide but minor effect (e.g. all loose objects knocked over, the area is encased in a dome of swirling galaxies)

16–20 Major and action requiring effect (e.g. a portal to the placed beyond opens, gravity is reserved until undone by another evocation) 

21–29 The character is changed, gaining a new Parasitic Trait that can never be removed. These replace existing Experiences. If there are no more Experinces to overwrite the character stops being able to form new memories. If the character can no longer form memories they lose all of them. The character is treated as downed with no risk of death.

30+ Catastrophic brain hemorrhage, instant death.

A character’s warp is reduced by 1 point per day in pulpier games, and 1 point per week in dour games.

Countering Evocations

Another caster may counter anyone else’s evocation by force of will. Both casters gain 1 warp, from this, the typical rules for doubling and tripling apply as normal to this cost. The one who countered then rolls as if they evoked. A evocation is still countered if the counterer dies. A counter may be countered back and forth until one party dies or gives up.

Parasitic Traits

No trait may be gained more than once, if a duplicate is rolled reroll.

Alien Star: light from the sun seems sickly and unnatural to the character.

Cosmophobia: the character develops an untenable fear of the sky, particularly at night.

Eye Tumors: tumors begin growing on the character's skin, eventually becoming non-functioning eyes.

Psychoprojection: the characters' emotionally charged thoughts are projected into the mind of those nearby.

Radioactive: the character becomes detectably radioactive.

Regenerative: the character may negate 1 Injury by gaining 3 Warp.

Sanguine Evocation: any time the character evokes all nearby have their blood drawn from their body, inflicting 1 Injury.

Ultraviolet Sight: the character can see the UV spectrum.

Unsleeping: the character can no longer sleep.

Unyielding: the character loses all sense of self preservation.

Vampiric: the character may force anyone they are touching to suffer the consequences of Warp roll in their stead.

Dramatis Personae

Amyl Taksvig, Warrior

Drash Diggman the Dwarf

Mekinimini the Green Observer

Roddy the Muranian Draft Dodger

Watcher Justin Zacharias

The city of Ux Qorath is abuzz, the recent kidnappings by martial warlords had shut down the churches, cults festered in the margins. However the real talk of the town is gold. Falling from the sky are great globules of clear jelly flesh, some even containing gold.

To the Knorth of the city a great figure appeared in the sky, a truly massive cnidiform like creature with massive butterfly like wings. From its very top to the bottom of the tentacles dragging across the ground was a total of 200 feet tall. A hole in the beast’s side glittered with gold.

Mekinmini was the first to approach, nearing a pile of goo bearing a single gold coin. Braving it she sticks her hand in, pulling the coin out. It is obviously foreign mint, not a zurthine sol.

Soon the others steeled themselves; Justin, the tattooed adherent of the Icosidyad, broached the tentacles. One thick tentacle bore holes the perfect size to climb up. After a quick testing for any stinging properties he begins the ascent. At the top he finds a small hatch made of a pink white stone. 

Becoming the rest up they all find themselves in a darkened room, surrounding the hatch are a few planters with a few pale green plants, two doors on opposite sides of the room, and three niches with green metal orbs recessed inside.

Amyl inspects the plants, breathing on them and spinning them to life. Glowing flowers emerge from bulbs, bathing the room in a warm light. Drash goes to inspect the orbs, on a closer examination they are not one piece but overlapping metal plates. He goes to touch one.

It quickly unfurls, a mechanical isopod bearing a crystal atop its head stares at drash, in a split second decision he raises his shield. Energy crackles around the crystal, a bold of pure hyperlight sears towards him, hitting his shield.

Not missing a beat the machine drops down onto the floor below and fires another bolt, this time searing one of his facial tentacles as it whizzed by. Another orb whirred to life, shooting yet another bolt at Drash, but his shield was ready. 

Taking action he swung his club at the robot that struck him, smashing it beyond operation and sending it careening into the second robot, spinning it around decalibating its sensors. Then he went to crush the stunned machine under the weight of his shield but was unable to pin the small thing.

The final robot unfurled and shot tried to unleash a bolt at Mekinmini but just hardly missed as the searing hyperlight screamed past her ear.

She returned with a throw of dart but it harmlessly was deflected from the robot’s metallic plating.

Amyl unsheathing her sword went in on the machine Drash had failed to pin, but even in it’s stunned state the thing was agile.

Justin began to chant the didacts of the Icosidyad, hoping to bring some small blessing to the party, but unfortunately his connection to the divine is still weak, and he knows deep within him his prayers are unanswered.

Roddy comes in with his favored dagger, stabbing into the machine that Amyl had just missed, skewering the thing on his blade, it tries to retaliate but all it manages to do is flail and get itself stuck on its back.

Drash tries to swing at the thing but from his grounded position it’s no use.

Mekinmini comes down on the machine that had nearly struck her, putting her full weight into the swing of her magician’s staff, crushing it. Simultaneously Amly skewers the writhing machine with her shortsword.

The room quiets. They gather their breath. A few put away parts of the machine in hopes of being able to sell it for scrap later on.

Once collected the group heads to the starboard room, a spiced smell is even stronger here than in the room they entered. Mekinmini wishing to know more begins to unleash her wrote magic, as she traces the mathmagical formulas and frees the entity from her brain, her nose elongates by three inches. She cannot detect anything special about the spice but stays weary.

The room is covered in tables with three mannequins covered in moss on the near wall. The tables are each covered in various artifacts. However Mekinmini is not the only one drawn to smells, Drash can sense something. On the most forward table is a stone, and stone that is valuable and good eating. Giving in he goes to lick it, hoping to get some of that sweet flavor.

In an instant he is in a void, a great cosmic void. Something far away begins to glow, at first faintly but it grow. It grows as luminous orange flames dance, until the center grows dark and black, with the fire turned halo. He doesn’t know how but he knows this is an eye, this is the sun, and it is judging him. A piercing ray peers into his very essence.

And suddenly he is back. Collapsing onto the floor he screams

“The sun judged me”

Without hesitation Amyl does the same placing her hand upon this massive stone coated in eye carvings. She is treated to the same vision, and she is back.

Wanting to meet the sun’s judgement, Justin and Mekinmini reach out, Justin touching first.

He was found lacking, in an instant he screams and is white hot fire. He is nothing but ash.

Mekinmini retracts her hand. No point pushing her luck.

Drash collects his ashes into a bag; they hope to give this holyman a proper funeral.

The group begins to inspect the other objects in the room, Amyl finds a vessel with three lids and a silver cirquelet, Mekinmini identifies an orrery of an alien star system, and turns her eyes towards the moss covered mannequins. 

A quick sniff by the nasally enchanted Mekinmini is able to identify one fluid in the vessel as being a mutagen so powerful as to be poisonous. And an inspection of the mossy figures reveals the moss is a living suit of clothing, she dawns it, feeling a kinship with the green magic on display.

Amyl dawns the cirquelet and feels a piecing pain in the center of faer forehead, as a third eye sprouts.

Roddy has no interest in dealing with any of these obviously dangerous things. He begins inspecting the doors to other rooms, he finds one with no obvious details he can make out from under the crack, and one that seems to be glowing with a rainbow of light.

I got interested in Antibor after seeing the mask relay entry for Yngta Pé. As such I am soon to be starting a Zurth game very soon. I made this occupation table for making a bunch of level zeros in Zurth and surrounding areas. Hopefully I will not have people permanently back out like what happened with the ave nox game I was gonna start not too long ago. 

Hey I decided to make a Webring for specifically bay area ttrpg people! I made it via onion ring so shout out to those wonderful people! Idk how to use tumblr well enough to actually have the webring on my tumblr blog but it's on my blogspot so head on over to

I am gonna be running a campaign soon based around the Feral Indie Studio megadungeon Ave Nox. I like starting campaigns at level 0 so I made a level 0 occupation table for the campaign.

Here's a few details about the peculiarity of the setting that I made up for the broader campaign world that are not like directly part of the module that I wanna talk about.

Guns exist, but they are not mundane, every bullet has a demon trapped inside and the gun breaks the seal unleashing the demon inside. This is stolen from a really bad book I read as a teen called the incorruptible, I don't recommend it. The way gun's work is they ignore mundane armor but other wise do like normal amounts of damage. Guns are primarily made by elves.

Elves are prone to warlockism due to their longer lives making arcane forces see it as more worth their while. Elven society is often broken up along the lines of patronage; blood elves come from a society that have sworn allegiance to the prime vampire, sea elves to the slumbering king of the depths.

Dwarves have a clockwork thing going on, they have railroads and the like. The railroads are powered by hellfire and not by coal.

I wanted to lean into the classic hobbit thing of isolated agrarian community, so I kind of took it in an Amish adjacent direction. Just very very very religious.

PDF for home printing here.

I was thinking about spelljammer again and realized I should share my house rules for sphere generators.

A while back I saw some south east asian roleplaying game that had a random ration generator. I have not been able to find it since (found it). This appealed to me greatly as I am a strong proponent of what I like to call rational gaming, where rations matter a lot (find my dungeon meshi blogpost about hirelings being more likely to not abandon you if you pay for good rations). Here is a random street food generator for troika, assume a meal costs 3 pence on a good day, 5 pence when on a bad day.

What if a little street urchin was a psion? Something to think on this Troika! Tuesday.

It's Troika! Tuesday. I decided this time I am gonna stat up the family from my gothic horror module Von Hynd Manor.

Dora

Skill 7 Stamina 20 Initiative 4 (see special) Armor 1 Damage as Large Beast

Special: put a specially colored token in the bag for Dora, when this token is pulled Dora receives a prophetic vision of things to come, and receives a +3 bonus to attack a creature of the judge’s choosing.

Mein

Reading

Receiving visions

Lounging

Studying

Preparing for gardening

Enchanting servant

Hiedi

Skill 5 Stamina 17 Initiative 3 Armor 1 Damage as Large Beast

Mein

Sneaking

Scheming

Crying

Biding her time

Questioning, incessantly 

Grooming

Lukas

Skill 6 Stamina 17 Initiative 3 Armor 1 Damage as Large Beast

Mein

Sneaking Food

Training

Fuming

Practising Speech

Smoking

Writing (subpar) love poems

Oma

Skill 9 Stamina 26 Initiative 2 Armor 2 Damage as Gargantuan Beast

Mein

Complaining

Nursing knee

Plotting

Idly mourning

Napping

Droning at servants

Werner

Skill 7 Stamina 22 Initiative 3 Armor 1 Damage as Large Beast

Mein

Smoking

Napping

Preparing for equestrianism

Lusting for wife

Belittling servants

The urchins of Troika city have it rough. Dead parents, crushing poverty, constant owl attacks. It’s truly a miserable experience. If by age 6 they are not able to find a job the many factories often times a life of crime is all that’s left.

The Young Man’s Etiquette Society is a child gang headed by the infamous 16 year old Hayhead Mirra. Nearly every pick pocketing urchin in the city pledges allegiance to him and his gang. Currently they control the toll to cross the Gold Eel bridge connecting the neighborhood of Brumpton’s Hill and Eelbones. These three are the ones who enforce that 3 pence toll.

Limney, 11 year old boy

Overly confident and prone to dozing off. Whenever he talks to a bearded man he insists that he just shaved his recently in as deep of a voice as he can muster.

Crandle, 12 year old girl

The eldest of the group and the one that keeps the coin purse. She is missing part of her ear from a knife fight and makes sure to keep it covered with her hair. She loathes Limney as she thinks he doesn’t respect her seniority.

Borlson, 8 year old boy

The new kid on the block, recently assigned to collect tolls on the bridge. Neither of his compatriots respect him yet so he cries often, this does not garner any more respect. In order to prove himself he has taken to becoming the point of first contact with those they extort.

Troika! Tuesday is here again. Here’s a small little monster.

Hidden within the goblin labyrinth of Troika City are many abandoned underground projects. The first underground railroad in the city was that of the Saint Inklethurt’s and Brondy, a line that would connect the port of Brondy to the farther inland Shrine of Saint Inklethurt. Using extensive labor from the damned the tunnels were constructed, track was laid, and it was opened to the public. With the power of demon binding custom steam trains with minimal smoke were ran through the somewhat ventilated tunnel. 

It ran without issue for 5 months before a small seal was broken and the hellfire engine unleashed its true power, acrid hellsmoke filled the tunnel and killed the hundreds of passengers inside. The company that created the rail line and bound the demons quickly went bankrupt and the tunnels were abandoned. All subsequent underground railroads in Troika have been powered by plasmic energy instead.

When wandering the goblin labyrinth you may encounter some left overs from the railroad.

Smoky Imprint

Skill 4 Stamina 18 Initiative 5 Armor 0 Damage as Sword (Ignores Armor)

Memories of those suffocated in demonsmoke. At first they appear faint, but as they interact with living they become more solid until they are a mass of hellsoot as firm as you or I.

Special

Only suffer damage from silvered weapons. If a smoky imprint attacks with its initiative token it gains 2 Skill and loses 1 token (to a minimum of 2).

Mien

Mourning

Haunting

Denying

Stalking

Distant

It's Troika! Tuesday. I made a micro setting based on a d6 encounter table for troika.

It’s Troika! Tuesday. I ran Devil in the crypt for 3 people in a discord server I am in.

We had

Vashko the Demon Stalker

Jimdon the Gremlin Catcher

Ghonnorea the Hogoblin

The three of them had heard tell, an ancient tomb of the ascendant of the phoenix throne floating near a traderoute upon the humpbacked sky had had strange occurrences happen, golden barges had been disappearing if they traveled too close. Rumors of devilry caught the attention of Vashko, so he rented a golde barge, and the help of two mercenaries. Or tried to get two mercenaries, he got one and an exterminator.

As their barge sailed they scouted three details, a cave waterfall about 30 meters down the side of the floating island, arid shrubland coating most of the island, and a mesa that creates a crescent shaped valley in the middle.

After trekking to the valley they gave upon a verdant vale, the road continues onwards for a while curving around palm trees and wind fluttering grass towards the back of the valley.

Ghonnorea suggested to head back towards the edge of the island and explore the cave waterfall, while Vashko was more interested in exploring around the edge of the mesa. After some time and seeing a few small caves, home to naught but bats, in the rich red stone walls Ghonnorea hatches a new plan. Using some rope borrowed from Vashko, the well fed goblin ascended the outer walls to peer into the valley to see if there was any more detail to obtain.

Coming close to the edge he spots below muddy tracks leading into the walls of the Mesa. Armed with this information the group made its way back to the verdant valley. Beyond a stand of palm trees was a truly massive white stone door, engraved with a blazing phoenix; an inspection of the muddy tracks leading to it revealed they were recent, but not fresh.

Pulling at the door’s massive knockers they heard the telltale creak of wood, and could pull no more. Peering in the slight crack they see it, the wooden beam baring the door from opening.

Vashko wastes no time; uncorking his bottle of lantern oil, rendered down from Big Jim the porcine demon, he slathers the small crack of wood in it and lights a fire. The flame takes and the group waits as the wood burns.

Jimdon, being weary of any inhabitants behind that massive phoenix door, moves out of the line of sight hoping to set up an ambush. Rounding a corner, hidden behind bushes is an opening to a cave.

Delighted at another method of entry the party moves quickly, Jimdon hears a crack under foot.

A human skull, picked clean, no nothing left.

They pause at the entrance, it smells of rot and shit. They think on it for just a second more and delve into that dark cave.

Eventually they get to a point where no more light will shine in from the outside, Vashko lights a lamp, Ghonnorea readies his axe.

Wandering into a larger opening, five sets of eyes glow back in the dark. Readied of spirit the three rush in. Vashko with silver sword in one hand, lantern in the other screams at the top of his lung in the abyssal tongue, insulting any demon unlucky enough to face him.

His lantern floods the room, these figures were once human. Their gaunt bodies tight against their bones, their mouths a toothless black void, their skulls split horizontally, with alligator like teeth.

Ghonnorea wastes no time, with a mighty swing he decapitates one of these wretches.

Jimdom unleashes Chumley (his small, but vicious dog) and goes in swinging with his gremlin club, the club makes purchase with a grazing blow against these cave fiends.

However in a single fluid motion the corpse eaters of the cave swoop up Chumley and with a wet crunch that echoes off the walls of the cave throw it into the gaping skull maw. Another wildly swipes at Vashko making purchase, he feels the clawed arm graze his unarmored flesh, but no pain follows. His arm goes limp.

His lantern falls to the ground, and against all odds remains lit.

Soon they begin to swarm, blows are exchanged with Jimdom landing a devastating blow that nearly kills his initial target.

Ghonnorea, the rubenesque war machine, became a whirlwind of steel killing yet another cretin, but in his glory one managed to chomp down hard; his entire body began to tingle.

Vashko is swarmed, taken off guard by his numbed arm and is unable to land a single blow, the creature rends its way through him killing him.

Jimdom , seeing his friend fall, lands one more blow against his opponent; smashing its mutated head like a watermelon.

It’s too late for him to save anyone, the remaining two begin to consume the delicate innards of the once mighty demon stalker. Ghonnorea goes stiff, totally paralyzed as Jimdom drags him out of the cave and into the light.