The Madling Sea

           The water surrounding Madling Isle festers with life, most of it extremely dangerous, from a vast array of Earth’s earlier time periods. Megalodon, merfolk, giant sea scorpions, ichthyosaurs, orca and an impossible host of other creatures inhabit the waters below the perpetually rough waters. 

            The most feared of all these creatures is the giant possibly immortal liopleurodon,  Dreadfin. In B/X terms Dreadfin functions exactly as a 12 HD Sea Dragon (Expert book pg 39) with a Morale of 10. A natural 20 on the liopleurodon’s attack roll results in a medium sized creature being swallowed whole,  or alternately the utter destruction of all but the most fortified watercraft.

            I was tempted to do a bunch of new monsters,  but the Madling Sea provides ample opportunity to use a ton of very underused critters- whatever your preferred edition.

            

Ruinlands Revisted, Madling Isle.

 

Madling Island:

According to popular legend, as related in the wine shops of Ssaur, the so called Madling Island, located in the Purple Lake of The Forgotten Depths, is the site of an abandoned factory, which, during the Lost Wars, was used for the production of Skeletal Warriors. Supposedly, a powerful Madling sorcerer took up residence in the old factory several centuries ago, and abides there still, engaged in an attempt to reactivate the factory's eldritch apparatus in order to raise an army with which to conquer Ssaur and the Rüinlands. The sorcerer is said to have a vast store of treasure. This horde is reported to be made up of magical, monetary and technological constituents. All of this is, of course, hearsay, and it is impossible to identify anyone who has traveled to the island and returned. Thus, the claims of legend remain unconfirmed, and true knowledge of the place is scant, if not completely nonexistent.

The truth of the matter is that the rumors are largely accurate, but they tell only a little about the strange and terrible place that is Madling Island.

Madling Island, Some Facts:

The island exists inside a time-space depression (TSD, henceforth); it actually occupies far more land area than it appears to from a distance. Although, at less than a kilometer away, the Island appears to be roughly 15 km from end to end, it is in truth, roughly 10 times as long. Furthermore, time flows differently there; for each day that passes on the island and in its immediate environs, a month passes in the outer world. Obviously, there is no missing the change in physical scale as one approaches the island; however, individuals within the TSD cannot detect the temporal aberration, as the day-night cycle is absent therein, replaced by an endless, brooding and blood-red twilight, punctuated only by the pulsating sullen glow of Godmount.

It is possible that a careful observer from outside the TSD might notice a dull flickering over the island, the cause of which would be difficult to ascertain.

The cause or causes of these strange conditions are poorly understood, although it is likely that the powerful reality warping magic utilized in the creation of entire armies of Skeletal Warriors- and the many other experiments and activities that took place on the island may have been among the causative factors

 

Origninally presented July 7th 2011, over the next few weeks I'll be fleshing out Madling Isle with new content and old. I rather like this old map though.

 

Madling Island part 2.2: Encounters in the region South west of Ssaur:

The move is over at long last, so (semi) regular posting will now resume. I want to thank everyone for their feedback on the maps I've been posting.

Anyway, lets get on with it!

Critters:

Icyopteryx

AC: 7 [12]

HD: 2

Attack: Beak

Special: Dive 2d6 on first attack.

Move 15 (fly)

X.P. 60

These large birds (wingspan 15 feet) travel in hunting groups of three. During the summer months Icyopteryx primarily nest and hunt in the mountains; however, during the winter and during freak summer snowstorms, they will descend to the lower elevations in search of prey.

Icyopteryx hunt in groups of three (known as triads) and will not hesitate to attack large prey animals. They have an uncanny ability to see and navigate during the heaviest weather and will often accost prey during the peak of a blizzard.

Special Dive: prior to the first round of attack Icyopteryx will climb high and then dive, adding the benefit of inertia to their strike and therefore doing double damage.

Na-Mammoth:

AC 4 (16)

HD 6-8

Attack: Gore 1d6/ Trample 1d6

Special: Breath Weapon

Move 12

Xp 1600-2000

Na-mammoth are large mammal like creatures, which live year round on the Wasted Plain and in the Dire Hills. They are omnivores and will eat virtually anything. A Na-mammoth can breath 40 foot cone of fire, 15 feet wide at its base, twice daily. During winter months this ability is often used to soften the turf in order to access buried plant food .

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the na-mammoth is it’s life cycle. These creatures have a unique form of asexual reproduction. Every spring, the na-mammoth gives (live, pseudo-vaginal) birth to one of the humanoid creatures known as mammoth men. Mammoth men are born full grown, but despite their name, and their brutish hairy appearance, these creatures are actually sexless. Mammoth men and na-mammoth work in concert to find food. Mammoth men take their nutrition directly from the na-mammoth, drinking a milky blood-like secretion from pseudo-mammary arrangements on the na-mammoth’s underside.

When the Na-mammoth dies, the mammoth men eat its corpse. Over the next several days they work in concert to spread their excrement over a small section of tundra. The high acid content of their dung softens the earth. Once this task is complete, the creatures engage in a horrific orgy of violence, during which, they kill and eat one another. The final survivor burrows its way into the softened earth, and generates a mucus sheath around its body. After this, it hibernates for 6 or more months and transforms; a fully formed juvenile na-mammoth emerges from the earth at the beginning the following spring.

For game purposes, each na-mammoth is accompanied by one mammoth man per hit die.

Mammoth Men

AC 10[9]

HD 1+1

Attack: Club 1d6/ Tusks 1d6

Move: 5

XP 100

The larval form of Na-Mammoths, these creatures are roughly humanoid in appearance, although they sport thick coats of coarse hair and large upward thrusting tusks. They are possessed of a rude intelligence, but have no culture or language and exist only to gather food for the Na-mammoth that spawned them.

Next time: I haven't a clue, really, but, possibly, a more detailed look at Madling Isles.

Halls of the Hidden Prince, level one [map] and a word about my favorite blog

My favorite blog these days, is without a doubt, Dyson Logos' A Character for Every Game it is all gaming, all the time. Dyson generates tons of awesome content- much of which I haven't even gotten to yet. He avoids pretty much every OSR kerfuffule, and his underground maps have made me aware of something that I'd never given much thought to before. I'm not certain if I can articulate this properly, but players need to get a groovy dungeon vibe from the referee; the ref's descriptions, the way he runs encounters and traps; what encounters, traps and dungeon dressing are included in the first place and so on. However, before she can share it, the referee also needs to get this groovy dungeon feeling. The problem, of course, for the ref is finding it. Dyson's maps give me that feeling. Also, they kick ass, and there are like seven million of them. Thanks man.

So, anyway, as an example of the sincerest form of flattery, here is my impoverished attempt to emulate his style (I've stolen the cross hatching technique wholesale), combined with some of my own notes (which were previously posted here in a slightly altered form back in 2010). A key will be forthcoming. This stuff actually does tie in to the current Madling Island project, because these levels are situated beneath the Tower of the Changer.



The Halls of the Hidden Prince

The combined cavern/room complex beneath the Tower of the Changer was constructed in stages. During the waning epoch of the Minotaur Empire, a disgraced imperial aristocrat and his retinue came to the Crumbled Mountains looking to create a new summer labyrinth far from the intrigues at court. Unfortunately, the aristocrat in question, whose name has long since been forgotten by history, had in his employ a shae sorcerer, who, not long after the completion of the complex, manifested an unexpected desire for power, coupled with a previously unexpressed talent for necromancy and a rather excessive amount of bloodlust. Anyway, good times ensued, which ultimately resulted in an empty complex- empty of the living, that is.

The next to come were a group of agrarian Lizardmen from Ssaur who were trying to create a utopian colony. Although, they installed many grow-vats and laid the foundations for a bitchen’ subterranean ecosystem, they were eventually, after a years long battle, driven out or destroyed by the undead. The undead, however, were decreased in number by this conflict, and since that time, as a result, several attempts have been made to re-inhabit the complex; a few groups, as well as many animals (eager to access the food that grows within) have made some headway, but no one controls the space.

There are four basic varieties of Architecture- natural, lizardman, minotaur and lich; although, some other groups and individuals have made modifications as well. Minotaurs like to decorate, so there are a lot of minotaur busts, murals, busts bas-reliefs. Minotaurs also like to bathe, so there are lots of baths, some of which were converted into vats or something else by the lizardmen. Furthermore, the lizardmen planted a lot of food fungus and algae on the walls, they also seeded pools with plankton, algae, fish and other stuff. They constructed mostly with metal and plastic, their machines are everywhere. Strangely, enough they were also fond of murals.

Click for larger image.

Island of the Madling: Part 2.1, South of SSaur, Weather and Hazards.

Part 1
Part 2

The Wasted Plain and beyond, continued.

Tundra and sub-glacial areas are often exceedingly dry; however, the same process* that results in the drainage which fills Lake Brood and, in turn feeds the River Sphere, holds the Würm in check and results in a fairly constant level of humidity and precipitation in the region surrounding Ssaur.

Note: The Rüinlands calendar is a simple affair. There are 10 months each of 35 days. A buffer period of roughly 15 days (taken up by The Festival of Promadealus**) is situated between the end of one year and the beginning of the next. Years are not numbered or otherwise counted, but named after animals. The months are numerically named thus: Onemonth, Twomonth and so on through Tenmonth. The first day of Onemonth is coincident with the spring equinox. However, aside from the gradually lengthening days, the true effects of spring are not felt, during most years, until towards end of Twomonth. Summer is in full swing by the second or third week of Threemonth. The weather turns cold near the end of Fivemonth or the beginning of Sixmonth. Winter begins a month earlier and ends approximately half month later in the mountains.

There are only two discernible seasons in the Ssaur region, summer and winter. Spring and autumn come and goes so quickly that they are hardly noticeable. The soil of the wasted plain never thaws beyond a depth of 6-8 inches even in the hottest years.

* the exact nature of the process is unknown. Some scholars postulate that the heat from a natural magma vent, contained somewhere within the vast expanse of the Würm, erodes the glacier at about the same rate that it grows. Others believe that an ancient weather control station (similarly located) performs an identical function.

** This is basically a winter festival, characterized by overeating/drinking and gift giving; the significance of the name is unknown.

Weather checks:

Summer (Check twice daily) 1d6: 1-2 rain. 3: Cool and dry. 4-5: Warm and dry. 6: Hot and dry.

Winter (Check three times daily) 1d6- 1-2: clear & cold; 3: cold & snowing (1/2 move). 4: Really cold & snowing (1/3 move). 5: Blizzard- (1/4-0 move) characters may be snowbound. 6. Freak weather (referee’s discretion).

Note: blizzard conditions should continue for 1d4 days, obviating the need for further weather checks during this time.

Hazards:

Summer:

Insect bites: All living creatures crossing through the Dire hills or the Wasted Plain during the summer months are accompanied by a personal cloud of biting, stinging, feeding and breeding insects. Characters without adequate protection, during summer will lose 1d3 hit points a day to insects bites.

Bugway Grease, is a foul smelling, bug repellant salve for sale in Ssaur (and it can sometimes be found in Shards as well). A supply sufficient to protect an individual for one week costs roughly 10gp in Ssaur and twice that in Shards. A character with the forage proficiency, access to a forest and a supply of animal grease can gather the materials to make four times this amount for 1gp in 1d3+1 days. The grease itself takes four days to cook. This process is extremely odiferous, and if done anywhere within the walls Ssaur, besides the Horn, it will result in an arrest and a level 1 punishment.

Boilfly Fever: Many species of biting insects lay eggs in the soil, just above the permafrost layer, prior to the onset of winter. These eggs hatch in the early spring, inflicting three months of stinging agony upon the inhabitants of the plain and any other creatures unfortunate enough to find themselves there.

Successful boilflies, however, lay their eggs within the body of a living host during the final weeks of summer. The host then contracts boilfly fever. If the fever is fatal, and it often is, the corpse of the host usually freezes with the onset of winter. When the thaw comes in the spring the boilfly larva eat their way out of the host, and spend their summer much like the other insects of the tundra, feeding on aurochs and other beasts. Despite the fact that only eggs lain at the end of summer are likely to survive the winter intact, boilflies mate constantly and are always on the look out for a living host in which to deposit their eggs.

For every day spent on the plain, without being smeared in bugway grease, characters have a 2 in 6 chance of being bitten by a pregnant boilfly. Characters bitten must make a saving throw. Failure results in coming down with boilfly fever in 1d4 days, at which point another saving throw can be made. Failure of the second saving throw results in a coma and death in 1d6+1 days. The disease can be cured by a cure disease spell any time after the first failed ST. If the second ST is successful, the character must make one further ST in order to successfully fight off the disease; otherwise they will fall into a coma and die in 1d6+1 days.

Due to their scales Lizardmen receive a +5 to all initial Saving Throws vs. boilfly fever. the second saving throw, however, is made as normal.

Winter:

Freezing to death: Each day that a character spends out in the harsh conditions of the tundra or high country winter, they run the risk of freezing to death. The weather attacks the character, treating their constitution as armor class (ascending). If the attack is successful, the character must make a ST. A failed ST results in a temporary loss of 1 pt of constitution. The next day the weather attack will be against this lowered number. Three successful attacks and the character falls in to a incoherent state and dies in 1d10 hours- if not gotten to shelter. Sufficiently warm cloths provide a +4 to ST vs. Freezing. Due to their thick coats, Sasquatch characters receive a +5 to all STs vs. Freezing.

All lost Constitution points can be regained (1d6 hours per point) once the character gain access to a sheltered environment.

Well, we’ll get to those Mammoths and mammoth men (and some other critters) next time. This one went off in an unforeseen direction...

Madling Island 2

Before you can die on Madling Island, you must get there alive...

Part one is here.
Note 1- click on the pic for a larger image,

Note -2 links to Ssaur, The Forgotten Depths, and The Tower of the Changer can be found on the left, I did not link them again in the post.

Madling Island 2

Getting there and reasons to go:

Getting there

Preliminaries: reasons to go.

In my one on one face-to-face Metal Earth play test we’re about a session or two away from Madling Island right now. I wont force the issue, of course, but Scott (my player) has already taken his Shae sorcerer and henchmen (Two Minotaur adventurers and a Grey) through the Tower of the Changer and down into the Forgetten Depth (and found the teleportation pool back to Ssaur located in Hex 0703 of the Depths). He’s in the city right now, but I’m pretty sure his lust for magical treasure will goad him to the island as soon as he hears a rumor of it- which will be at the beginning of the next session.

As for how he got to the Tower of the Changer in the first place, at the beginning of our first session, I simply handed him a cruder version of the map above (hard to believe such a thing could exist, but it does) and said, “You left Ssaur several days ago, searching for a pathway in to a fabled hidden land that is supposedly rich in magical treasure; you’ve been dodging a band of Mammoth Men for three days and you’re just about out of food, You see a tower high up on the side of a mountain to the west.”

This above is pretty good example of my preferred method with which to start a campaign; it saves me from an evening of, “So you are all in a tavern,” which I find extremely painful. Furthermore, once the initial session (or two) is over (we played the Tower and the beginning of the forgotten depths in roughly 5 hours total play time) the players are likely to have a pretty good feel for the basics of the setting and some sort of idea of what to do next.

However, I am aware that not everyone likes to do things this way. And, although, I am doubtful anyone is actually going to use any of this material ‘as is’ I feel compelled to offer some alternatives to my rather draconian and ham-fisted starting procedure.

1. Characters are lost somewhere southwest of Ssaur. They spot the tower. The party comes up with its own reason for being there.
2. In Ssaur, there is an unnamed wine shop along the wall that divides Market Town from the Horn. The shop is frequented by members of all the races that can gain entry to the city, and by many lower and middle class Shae. Higher caste Shae will occasionally patronize the place while in disguise. One such individual, a Shae woman of obvious wealth and breeding approaches the party and offers to pay them a large sum of gold (referee’s discretion) to recover the body of her son Aldra, who 20 years ago ventured into the forgotten Depths in search of a fabled island supposedly stocked with treasure. She will give the players a copy of the map above- or one very much like it- whatever, it’s up to you (obviously).
3. The payers are caravan guards. You know what to do.
4. The players otherwise acquire the map (e.g. they buy it; win it in a card game; inherit it, or find it on the victim of a mugging).
5. The players find the abandon temple in Ssaur that contains the teleportation pool to Hex 0703 and start exploring the depths.
6. Some combination of the above.

I’m sure I could come with some more, but I’m sure that everyone reading this can as well.

Features of the Map:

The map features an area of indeterminate scale located to the southwest of the great city of Ssaur. The level of accuracy and the scale of the map are matters best decided by the individual referee. If one looks at the larger setting map, the scale and accuracy of which are also unknown at this time, one will see there is plenty of room to move on both of these issues. As a point of information, in my own game, I have decided not to decide- and I feel really, really fucking good about it.

Ssaur: soon to be remapped and updated, but the current version, available on the left, is close enough for now.

The Tower: in my game this is the Tower of the Changer. You must do as you will, of course.

The Long Stair: a leagues long, monster infested, storm prone, stairway cut in to the living rock. It leads to the Tower.

The City in the Mist: in my game this is the ruin located in Hex 0301 of the Forgotten Depths, it’s also probably important to mention that the scale of this map is completely out of whack with reality in my game. Anyway, I am eventually going to detail this location, but if you wish to use it in the meantime you are on your own, which is kind of nifty, really.

The Dire Hills and The Wasted Plain: both of these regions are dominated by large herds of dangerous herbivores and blood thirsty hominids known as the Mammoth Men.

The River Sphere: a wide, frigid and fast flowing river. Plied by steamships, manaships and barges, but also plagued by mutant pirates.

Next time: Critters- including, but not limited to, Dire Mammoth and Mammoth Men (neither will be quite what you expect, I assure you) as well as the legendary one eyed monster mammoth and terror of the wasted plain: Squint. Also, some encounter and weather tables for the region southwest of Ssaur.

Madling Island (Map) Part 1 of ?

Click on the pic for a larger image.
(map is not entirely to scale)

Madling Island:

According to popular legend, as related in the wine shops of Ssaur, the so called Madling Island, located in the Purple Lake of The Forgotten Depths, is the site of an abandoned factory, which, during the Lost Wars, was used for the production of Skeletal Warriors. Supposedly, a powerful Madling sorcerer took up residence in the old factory several centuries ago, and abides there still, engaged in an attempt to reactivate the factory's eldritch apparatus in order to raise an army with which to conquer Ssaur and the Rüinlands. The sorcerer is said to have a vast store of treasure. This horde is reported to be made up of magical, monetary and technological constituents. All of this is, of course, hearsay, and it is impossible to identify anyone who has traveled to the island and returned. Thus, the claims of legend remain unvalidated, and true knowledge of the place is scant, if not completely nonexistent.

The truth of the matter is that the rumors are largely accurate, but they tell only a little about the strange and terrible place that is Madling Island.

Madling Island, Some Facts:

The island exists inside a time-space depression (TSD, henceforth); it actually occupies far more land area than it appears to from a distance. Although, at less than a kilometer away, the Island appears to be roughly 15 km from end to end, it is in truth, roughly 10 times as long. Furthermore, time flows differently there; for each day that passes on the island and in its immediate environs, a month passes in the outer world. Obviously, there is no missing the change in physical scale as one approaches the island; however, individuals within the TSD cannot detect the temporal aberration, as the day-night cycle is absent therein, replaced by an endless, brooding and blood-red twilight, punctuated only by the pulsating sullen glow of Godmount.

It is possible that a careful observer from outside the TSD might notice a dull flickering over the island, the cause of which would be difficult to ascertain.

The cause or causes of these strange conditions are poorly understood, although it is likely that the powerful reality warping magic utilized in the creation of entire armies of Skeletal Warriors- and the many other experiments and activities that took place on the island may have been among the causative factors.

Next Time: Reasons to go and how to get there.

Notes:

I like big settings, but I also like mini-settings; what I like best, though, is a mini-setting nested within a big setting. I discovered this whilst running my first full on Metal Earth game (with True20) about five years ago . During the course of that campaign, we thoroughly explored the island of Skeeme, and many of the ideas, which have come to represent the foundations of the larger setting, came into being during the course of that game. I believe the Forgotten Depths has at least four relatively self-contained mini-settings: The Abandon City (Hex 0301); the top of The Fin (Hexes 0704, 0803,0802 &0902); the Weather Control Station/City of the Sharkmen/Megadungeon (Hex 0907); and Madling Island. This is the first in what will be a very long series of posts detailing the last of these.