Blog Graveyard vol 2: DIY RPG Productions

     We are gonna continue this series with a blog that eventually gave way to a book that I love dearly, Hubris from Mike Evans. Over on DIY Productions you can see the prototypes and bones that grew into Hubris. You can find things that were left on the cutting room floor and didn't make it into the book. This blog really is a great way to feel out if you're going to like Hubris or not. It is worth noting that this blog has been somewhat active, there hasn't been any RPG related material for a few years now, but there are regular posts presenting a punk song of the day. Not technically dead in the way you might expect as Mike went on to release his book. You'll have to head back to around January of 2025 to see any directly RPG related content but I cannot recommend digging through this one enough. You will find art, monsters, classes, patrons, and more if you dig through their archives!

 

    This is the part where I share some of my favorites, hoping to wet your appetite and send you off to go dig through the content over on DIY Productions, so let us dive right in!

 The Blood Witch: This is one that made it into the final cut of Hubris and is slightly different here from the rule book. This class is a little bit of a magic user but with some unique options that really lean into the visceral world of Hubris. As the name suggests they play with blood a little. Their spellcasting is stunted but they gain things like healing in the form of their Blood Potion. Personally, my favorite item in their toolkit is Blood Walk which was always my favorite feature of the old 3.5 prestige class, the Blood Magus, but updated to feel like it belongs in DCC.

 

The Blood Acolyte: Continuing the trend of blood, this class also gets to play with blood in a different way than the Blood Witch. This class feels a little like a mystic monk but flavored appropriately for Hubris. They can fight unarmed and like to wear light to no armor. Their mystic abilities are fueled by the blood of their foes. Their abilities are diverse and depend on how much blood they want to invest into their abilities. They feel like a good visceral monk and it really is a shame this was released after the Hubris book was released. The only drawback here is that it lacks an attack bonus but that is easily remedied by just giving them a flat 1:1 progression with their level.

 

Orcs: The orcs of Hubris are near and dear to my heart. They are a heavy inspiration for my own orcs in Hodas. The orcs described here bring prisoners back and create abominations with them through dark alchemy practices. They very much are a bad guy species and I really like it that way. The post includes not only a table on how some of the orcs are mutated but also a quick set of rules on creating abominations for the orcs.

 

The Klind: This is another thing I love about Mike Evans' monsters, he doesn't just present a stat block, he pumps out an entire lore and several versions. He talks a little bit about the why and the what. The Klind are another example of the absolute fire writing of Hubris. Its viceral and just a little bit horny. I mean, look around at sword and sorcery art and writing as far back as you like, so much of it was armored bikinis and ripped shirtless men. Why shouldn't Hubris be a little horny?

 

Wizard's Spellbook: Another Entry that is near and dear to my heart, Spellbooks! Mike proposes that a wizard's spellbook should be strange and even have it's own personality. If you've seen my post about spellbooks then you know I think a spellbook can come in a lot of different forms but if one wants to stick to the general book premise then this is a great article. Personally I have integrated this into Hodas in the form of mages before the fall of man were "Magicians" like the class from dying earth and each had a book that was rolled on this table. The modern era of magic is now unstable and full of half remembered learnings that reflect the Core Rules wizard. This is a great entry to generate a villain's spellbook or even a piece of treasure.

 

Ioun Stones: A classic magic item turned into a DCC style. I'm sure Mike isn't the only one to cover these but I've always really liked his handling of them. I've used them a few times in my own games, usually rolling randomly on the table with 40 entries when tossing one into a loot pile or tacking one onto an evil wizard. You can feel the early influences of 3.5 and PF in this one and I think it's perfectly fine to have those influences. A while back I made a class specifically because someone coming from 5e really wanted classes in DCC that felt like some 5e options, so we got the spell drinker.

 

Going back through this blog was such a good time. The early bones of Hubris and other works from Mike Evans really just rocks! I shared two classes but he has a lot of write ups for classes over there and I think you should check them out! His blog and by extension setting are apologetically visceral and horny. The logo he uses is a hand giving the middle finger. Nothing is sanitized. It is a treasure and honestly I feel like more people making content for OSR games should lean into this energy. Mike Evans brought us a blog, then an entire book that doesn't flinch at these things. I cannot say this enough, go read his blog. GO!

Bonus: Buster from 19 Sided Die has also done an entry in this series covering Appendix M! Check out his post!

Champions of Tibault Vol 7

     I always like when character's patrons get involved in their lives. Patrons are a great tool to generate quests and challenges for the party. Their patron can send them to go get something, help someone, or do anything and due to the transactional nature of a patron the party is obligated to do something about it. I often like to use it when the party is at a bit of a loss for what to do or need a longer term goal.

    In this episode we saw use of the extended mercurial chart from hobonomicon. I really like that table as the results of the core book's table where nothing special happens is not all that interesting to me. I like magic to be weird and unusual. At times, I sub out the mercurial magic table for the Nehwon table. I particularly like that one for Goblins in Hodas as a way of sort of setting them aside from true wizards, it makes their magic feel more formulaic and rote while still keeping it kind of unusual. 

 

Session 7:

The party rest and is given a vision from their patron, The Architect, of a piece of a broken mirror locked in the elven vaults. As the party gathered to discuss this vision they were summoned by the elves to stand trial. During their trial they learned that the elves treat justice strangely. They sentenced the party to create a work of art that had a form and function that improved the emerald dream. To get an idea of what this could mean the party sought out the royal artist. They found her in the palace, depicting a sleeping elf in various mediums and forms. Based on the amount of work here she seems to have been doing this for centuries. Unsure what to do next the party decides to rush for the vault, risking it all. They found the vault and engaged with the elven guard and their perfect mithril blades. After some struggle Egrat took a gamble and cast a spell from a scroll he had been saving. The resulting mercurial effect whisked them to another world, a strange one with men fighting with guns that were far more advanced and less artful than those of Hodas, massive constructs of steel in the streets. They landed in WW2 without knowing it. Meanwhile back in the vault, four WW2 german soldiers had replaced our heroes. When faced with myth these germans chose to simply start firing. Their modern weapons made quick work of the surprised elves and their magic. When the effect ended the party traded back with the germans and found that the shard was in their grasp. They snagged one of the weapons from a fallen german and their patron stepped in. Taking the shard in exchange for protecting them and getting them out of the emerald dream. They were given one week to recover in the Architect’s pocket dimension before he returned them safely to their tent in Tibault.

 

Blog D100: Spellcasters

     This week we have another post courtesy of the Blog d100 challenge laid down by buster over on 19 Sided Die. The source of these prompts is found over on d4 Caltrops.

 

Rolled 3: Are spellcasters rare and how do people feel about them?

 

    I love this question for a lot of reasons. I get to talk a little bit about some table philosophy that I keep and the setting of Hodas! Let us dive in!

 

    I'll talk about table philosophy first because it's going to be important to the second half of this. At my table, the PCs are the only people in the entire setting I run who have class levels. The only wizards with levels in wizard in the entire world are the three who were played by players  in prior campaigns. An NPC might have a few features of a class, like a skilled pit fighter might have a deed die that adds to attack and damage but doesn't allow deeds. A magician might have a couple of spell like abilities but they won't have full spellcasting range like a wizard. A burglar might have the ability to pick locks and sneak silently but they won't be spending luck or using the full range of thief abilities. A high priest of a temple will be able to perform minor healing with a ritual of prayers and incense but never as easily call on divine power as a cleric. This allows me to tell stories where the PCs are this unique and possibly legendary or disruptive force who move through the world doing things that others could only dream of. I like to run a low magic game where the PCs are not outshined when they meet an NPC who is just them but better.

 

    So in Hodas, the average NPC will never see magic, real magic, in their lifetime. They might see a magician who knows a few parlor tricks, or a priest who has some small healing ability, but they will never see the kind of magic that a PC is slinging around. Those evil sources of magic, foes, aren't the type to openly practice in a world that would fear and hunt them if they just whipped out their magic tricks. Its a low magic setting, one magic user who decides to announce themselves publicly had better prepared for the mobs that will come for them. As it stands, no foe of the PCs has gotten to the point of being a wizard in his tower with an army of minions. Not for lack of trying. There is at least once case of a former PC who's going to become a problem in 10ish years, but that is a story for another time.

 

 

If you decide to join the d100 challenge or even just make a post related to the d4 Caltrops list, comment below and I'll include a link to your blog under this section! 

Dungeon Exploration and Combat

 I recently stumbled on the YouTube channel of a gentleman named Galen Wood, a real OG of war gaming and tabletop RPGs going back to the 1960's. He has such a great conversational tone on his channel, it feels like I'm sitting down with a friend who's been in the hobby longer than I've been alive and listening to him talk about something that he is passionate about. I watched his video on Dungeon Combat Through Time and it really spoke to me. If you've been here for a while you know I talk about dungeon exploration from time to time and sometimes it bleeds into topics that aren't related. Sometimes the article is about exactly that.

    His video really got me thinking about how I run combat in the dungeons of the games I run. In recent years I've run entirely online. When I first started running games online I used to make maps in Gimp and upload them to a VTT like roll20. Over time I did less and less of this. Eventually I started to run entirely theater of the mind for fantasy, which I was already doing for Heroes Unlimited and other Palladium games. I found that it dramatically improved the games. I really used to love maps and visuals and all that jazz. I bought a 3D printer at some point to make my own minis and environment pieces, I got these papercraft map pieces, I started to get into 3d modeling... But honestly it didn't improve the experience. After Covid I barely played in person anymore and my Judge's Toolbox was collecting dust. It was all online play with zero visuals. I enjoyed it a lot more and people who had been playing with me for years told it that those were some of my best games. In some ways it felt like getting back to my roots. My first experiences with D&D were playing with my dad running a game for me and my friends. He didn't use maps, he didn't use minis, just occasionally asked for a marching order.

Combat as a more nebulous series of descriptions really made things fun. In a game with less rules like DCC it really shines. Heck it even says in the book itself that everything is written the the assumption that they will not be needed. It allows for more dynamic combat, telling the players how many feet away something is, letting the thief try to describe how he's going to slip around instead of looking at a map and counting squares and assessing if he has to pass foes, these things really make the combat feel more dynamic and enjoyable, it keeps the attention on each other and the Judge, not watching a map and having perfect battlefield clarity. The theater of the mind acts as it's own fog of war. Character should not have a perfect mental map of the battle in the dark places under the world that they have just set foot in, they have to focus on the ogre trying to kill them right now. 

 This is all to endorse how much I think theater of the mind improves the games. I want to thank Mr Wood for running his channel and I really think you should check him out, here is a link again. If you're someone who uses a lot of maps and visuals and has never tried theater of the mind, I strongly recommend you give it a shot, even if you don't end up liking it, I'm confident you'll have walked away learning something.

Magic Weapon: The Executioner's Sidearm

 

+1 Lawful Silver Wheelock Pistol

7 intelligence, communicates by urges

Made to Punish Murderers

Bane of Demons: on hit, fortitude save, DC 15 or die permanently

 

Omen: gun is inexplicably heavy, when dropped everything within 30' shakes harmlessly

 

Attunement: Slay a proven and wanted criminal

 

Silver: -1d damage, +2d damage against creatures vulnerable to silver and it's bane, even as a ranged attack.

 

The executioner's sidearm didn't start as a magical weapon. It was a ceremonial piece commissioned as a means of execution. Placed to the back of a murderer's head and the trigger pulled. Over the decades one of the executioners who carried it noted that it seemed to be growing heavier, perhaps the weight of the countless souls it had taken from the world. Even so, it spent more than a hundred years in service as an executioner's tool.

    The sidearm gained its infamy when a summoning in a now long gone human city went wrong and demons poured through the streets of the city. The executioner stood alone against several of the creatures with only his ax and this ceremonial weapon. Even after his ax broke against their hides he continued to fight. The exact moment the weapon gained it's otherworldly power is unknown, all that is recounted from it's origin is that none of the demons killed in front of the executioner's home found their way back to the abyss. From there, the pistol continued to be used as a ceremonial tool of execution until the fall of the human empire, where it disappeared into a private collection, then moved hands as the world picked itself back up with much of the human presence gone.

Years Gone By

     I recently passed my 100th post on this blog and it got me wondering, how long ago did I start? I checked out the Blog's original home over on Tumblr and found this post, dating my online presence as Judge Toast to September of 2023. More than two and a half years ago. I made the move over to Blogger eventually and made a small effort to keep the Tumblr up to date with this blog, but just never really kept up with it. 

    When I started this blog Hodas was still mostly scattered notes and a handful of class documents and a single rough draft of a zine. I remember waking up one night and telling my wife "I gotta write" and hammered out the entire rough draft for the first Dueling Guardens of Hodas Zine, Goblins. That is coming, I promise. We're in a rough spot right now working out art, editing, layout, and kind of living in survival mode but it, along with two others, it is coming. 

    This blog has been something I've kept consistent for a long time. I've missed a few posts but I've been pretty good about getting out my Tuesday and Thursday posts each week. It's given my life a sense of structure and consistency. Even when it's just one of the session write ups or a magic sword that I generated on the spot the day before. It has gotten me in touch with more than a few people in the community who I have really appreciated their feedback and experience, people like Nick Baran from breaker press games, Daniel J. Bishop from many beloved books and articles and his Crowking Press, and many others. I would like to shout out to Buster from 19 Sided Die who I've gone to for feedback and given feedback to, talked to a lot and really feel like I've made a friend with. His blog is something I check every Wednesday. It might be a bit presumptuous of me but I really feel like our two blogs are growing together. I would also like to shout out Tyler Broor who has been running his blog since August of last year and has, in my opinion, become a bright spot in the blog sphere.

Seeing my weekly readers jump from 2-4 to around 1000 has really kept me going! I appreciate every single person reading this blog, Thank you all for coming by and reading! I would love to hear more from you guys, what you're interested in, how you feel about stuff I write! 

 I wanna sign this one off by saying thank you again to everyone who has been stopping by to read my blog. I will remain committed to making my regular two posts a week with intermittent self promotion when I am able to count past the number 1. I promise I am not a gully dwarf. I've been teasing it for a long time but there will be Hodas Zines in time, the first three issues are going to be the Goblins, the Minotaur, and the Ooze. We don't know if there will be a kickstarter yet but if there is expect more than those three.

Monster: Steam-Blood of the Sandbars

     Haven't done one of these in a while, despite how much I love making monsters. This time we got away from the usual method of tinkering with something that comes from the Monster extractors. (Not that they aren't great sources! Seriously, check them out, they are PWYW). Instead we got our hands on a bit of an old book that we only recently stumbled on: The Random Esoteric Creature Generator! This book goes all the way back to 2008 which feels so far away now.

    So this time we moved through the tables in this book and got our flavors and abilities of the monster, then put it all together. It has a lot of the bones of DCC, use monsters once, don't give them proper names for your PCs to call them. call them things like "achie's folly" or "the beast in the dunes", and other great advice. You can really feel the philosophy of the future of DCC in this book and it's a great time. 

But this isn't a review, the title of the post says there is a monster here! Here it is for you:

Steam-Blood of the Sandbars