Dungeon Scrawler

I recently read an  interesting blog series  about city-crawls and why they don't really work. The basic argument, as I understand it, is that cities are rarely suitable for spatial exploration mechanics. As cities are generally safe, and the activities that take place there are typically supplemental to the more exciting activities of delving dungeons and exploring wildernesses, it's just not generally desirable to employ a procedure for walking two blocks and hooking a left down an alley to be assailed by thugs on your way to buy extra rope. This argument really piqued my interest and got me thinking though: if a city is not suitable for exploring in terms of it's spatial qualities, might there be some other  sense in which a city can be generically "crawled"? Can you crawl a settlement in a less physical sense?  The epiphany: can you crawl  a social network ? And would that even be fun ? Crawling through graphs I have to take a moment to reinforce the basic i...

Blood Buzzard 7 HP, 10 STR, 13 DEX, 7 WIL, beak (d8), claws (d6+d6) Large predatory birds with sickle claws and serrated black beaks, wreathed in snow-white feathers stained with blood. Greedy and ravenous, they will converge from miles around on the slightest scent of blood, gluttonously devouring whatever they find until their guts are too heavy for flight. Feeding Frenzy.  When any combatant takes Critical Damage, all Blood Buzzards present are driven to a mania--their attacks are enhanced, and they do not have to make Morale saves. Found in all manner of deserts and badlands, Blood Buzzards are relentless predators with insatiable appetites. Though they thirst for blood, they will not harm their own kind--whether this stems from a sense of camaradarie between the beasts, or from the reportedly caustic quality of the meat is a matter of speculation. Regardless, if you find that travelers on the ways have suddenly become timid and polite beyond your expectations, keep one ear...

Towering above the waves, encrusted with barnacles, a bridge spans the sea, high enough for ships to sail under it, and long enough to disappear into the horizon in either direction. Once a great trade route, now, the tower outposts --stationed every twelve miles or so--are mostly abandoned. The only living evidence of its former grandeur are a few fishing villages built right on the bridge and scaffolded haphazardly onto its columns. They still cheerfully charge a petty toll to those who seek to cross. Inspiration I'm basically ripping this straight from One Piece, but it's a great idea!

Face-stealer 8 HP, 10 STR, 10 DEX, 14 WIL, fists (d4) Their true form is that of a writhing mass of oily black worms, topped with a fleshy, mask like face. More often they wear the form of someone who's face they've stolen. They cannot steal a face against one's will, but instead must receive it through a consensual trade--usually an exchange for information or some object of value. An object received in trade from a Face-stealer is indistinguishable from the real thing by mundane means, and dissolves into a clump of black worms d4 days later. The worms eventually find their way back to the Face-stealer. From the shadows, a figure approaches. What at first seems to be a mass of writhing worms resolves into the silhouette of a human figure, black as pitch, but with a beautiful and pleasant human face. The face smiles at you, and in a bewitching voice as sweet as honey it speaks: "How may I serve you?" Face-stealer is a misnomer, for t...

At regular intervals, white steam billows from the earth. In calm weather, the cloud piles higher and higher in a towering column. As you approach, the forest turns oppressively humid, shrouded in a sweltering fog, before the ground gives way to a sudden drop and a massive sink hole, hundreds of feet wide and of uncertain depth. Commentary I like the idea that there are known places that connect the surface world to the place below. But I also like places like those to be more  than just a simple cave. (Like, if it is  just a cave, I'd like to be a pretty dang cool one at least.) I imagine this particular place leads to an underground, boiling lake, and I imagine a party making their way down with dedicated climbing equipment, absolutely soaked to the bone in sweat, unable to see how much farther they have to travel. What they find next is, of course, up to you and your own personal iteration on the underworld. Back to Wilderness Crawl Index

Oddling 3 HP, 7 STR, 12 DEX, 8 WIL, claw/bite (d4), slingshot (d4) Small, mischevious, grotesque humanoids with a variety of physical mutations. Avoid combat, except to take targets by surprise with numbers. Critical Damage: rather than doing further harm, a nearby Oddling steals a random item from inventory and runs off with it. No one is quite sure where Oddlings come from, though there are many theories. Some think they grow spontaneously from muck and refuse--where else do they get their ragged clothes? Others, with great sophistication, explain that when a gnome's mother tree withers, the whole tribe mutates into Oddling form. Still others think them the result of malign experiments performed on missing children. Wherever they come from, everyone knows an Oddling when they see one: diminutive, dishevelled, and mischievous in the extreme--and with the face of something entirely inhuman. For the Oddlings' part, they don't seem to mind--o...

Deep in the woods there is a great gnarled tree, branches snaking wide, blocking the sun.  Between it's thick, tangled roots is a gaping hole. Peering far into the dark reveals this is no simple animal's den, and footprints in the heavy mud tell you that you won't be alone deep among the roots. Commentary Some trees are just really dramatic, in particular their thick winding roots. Sometimes I've imagined shrinking down and looking between roots like an arch. Whether this be a mini-dungeon or just Level 1 of something bigger, I think it's awesome to stumble into a dungeon in a hexcrawl. In most cases, it's probably ideal for a rumor or hook to point  to that location, but just stumbling into one is pretty sweet, too. (Though if that's really how it's going to be, you might want to go with something smaller or steal from more creative people to save yourself prepping a bunch of stuff that your players may never see.) Or maybe you just needed an idea for a...

Bedrooms, studies--the somewhat personal  spaces where people sleep and think. Here are the rooms: To live would be a great adventure This can be a rabbit-hole if you're not careful. Dungeons do not have  to be completely  realistic spaces--touches of realism are great for immersion and encouraging certain bands of problem-solving. But getting side tracked while drawing your dungeon with questions like "where are the bathrooms?" is probably a high-cost, low-return distraction. Even so, living spaces can be a great inclusion. Aside from boosting the sheer variety of rooms in your space, they do  add some verisimilitude, and  they're a great place for placing characterful loot and lore . The questions to ask are: who built/occupied this space originally? what was their status? worthy of excellent craftsmanship and opulence? or lowly and humble? what was their attitude? ostentatious, or utilitarian? You may also consider the specie...

Bull-frog 8 HP, 1 Armor, 14 STR, 9 DEX, 4 WIL, bite (d8) Huge, hungry, solitary amphibians with thick rubbery skin and curved horns Sluggish unless hungry or it's territory is threatened, then fiercely persistent. Skull bash (d12): launches into a target within 40ft; if the Bull-frog collides with a wall or similar object, it cannot attack on it's next turn as it regains composure. Found in damp and humid places, these huge amphibians boast an impressive bulk and an even more impressive appetite. During the heat of the day, or times of rest, they will submerge themselves in deep water or cool mud, leaving only their eyes and nostrils exposed. Male bull-frogs are solitary and fiercely territorial; when a potential rival enters their territory, they puff up their stretchy throats in an attempted intimidation display. If this doesn't work, the competitors square up, cock their powerful legs, and crash their thick skulls into each other until some...

Deep in the woods there is a wall. If not for the trees, you would probably see it long before you reach it, for it towers above their boughs, and its depth is that of longboat. The stones are weathered, but large as boulders. Once, the wall might have spanned a hundred miles, but now it's crumbling remnants snake across a measly six, with ruined gaps every mile or so. Perhaps the stones have long since been carried off for other projects. Elsewhere, the stones are tumbled to the earth and overgrown--certainly in places moss and tree have reclaimed the wall so successfully that you could be forgiven for thinking it was only a natural cliff or rise blocking your path. It is inadvisable to linger near this wall, however. Bandits have been known to claim it's heights for their own purposes, and lurking predators can be found from time to time lairing in barely preserved tunnels along the wall's base. Inspiration There are two here: First, I'm sure everyone knows the Great ...

I'm pleased with my previous take on Spellbook magic. ...yet, at the same time, something inside me says it's too  detailed. Or perhaps, too "hard"; Brandon Sanderson is famous for (if not inventing the idea) popularizing the idea of "hard" vs "soft" magic systems. The explanations I proposed before definitely constitute a hard magic system. There's nothing strictly wrong with that, of course, it's just that everything else  about Cairn is so pro-abstraction. Other things in Cairn feel  "soft".  Mind you, this isn't a criticism; Cairn is quite practical--the focus is on good gameplay. But my motivation was to come up with a sort of coherent understanding of magic. I think I definitely did that (or at least about 80% of it), I just, y'know, wanted to do it again . In part to hew closer to the "spirit" of Cairn, but also, in part, to demonstrate that these things are malleable, and one person's explanation nee...