Original Roleplaying Concepts
A hidden alcove on the far right of this room has another visitor looking for food, though the food only just walked in.
A large Ochre Jelly moves towards the party. This one has been feeding a lot lately and has 7 HD.
The jelly has no treasure.
Nice new mail call. Especially when it is a book I worked on. I have to admit this never, ever gets old to me.
My "The Nightmare" and a great one, "Medieval Mysteries" from Scott George set in a medieval monastery.
Yeah, I am pretty happy with this, to be honest.
You can get all the Fright Night Classics Adventures on DriveThruRPG.
A secret room in the back of the Thoul hole leads to a larder, but this is no Troll or Thoul hole.
This is no larder of a troll or thoul. This is the storeroom of the Shadow Elves. There is food and water enough for five for a week here.
There is no treasure or weapons, but the characters gain 100 xp for finding this room.
No new monster today because I am working on the final bits of my new Monster Mash II: A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Monster Mash II: A Midsummer Night's Dream
More Monster Classes for Basic-era Games
For years brave adventures have been going into the dangerous wilderness and fighting monsters.
Now the monsters are fighting back.
Monster Mash II is an Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy compatible game that allows you to take on the role, not of a stalwart hero, but as one of the monsters.
This book features 12 faerie and sylvan-based classes.
Bugbears, Centaurs, Hamadryads, Leprechauns, Nymphs, Pixies, Púcas, Satyrs, Werebears, Werefoxes, Woodwoses, and the Faerie Witch.
New spells for Clerics, Druids, Illusionists, and Magic-users.
New spells, occult powers, and ritual spells for Faerie Witches.
All are completely compatible with Basic-era OSR games and my previous witch books.
Coming this Midsummer!
Going back and taking the central tunnel goes on for a long time (100') it leads to another room that appears to be another troll hole. Though in this room are not trolls, but Thouls.
These thouls (4 in total) are distantly related to the trolls in Room 5. They are not sure how, but they know there is a kinship there, so they do not attack each other.
They can cause paralysis (like ghouls) and regenerate like trolls.
There is Treasure Type C x5 here. The thouls have been very successful here.
Note: The shadow elves are immune to the thoul paralysis.
The tunnel continues on and splits into three other tunnels. The first one on the right leads to a dark hole-like room that smells terrible. The room is very dark and it is nearly impossible to see unless the characters have infravision.
Inside this room are two very large Trolls.
These trolls have maximum hp and are hungry. They have been eating shadow elves and are hungry for something with a bit more meat on them. They attack right away.
The tunnel opens up into another large cave system.
The party will encounter three Shadow Elves. They are on patrol.
Once this Shadow Elf community was vibrant, well. As vibrant as these elves ever get. But a thousand years of exposure to the Vampire Queen's evil and the necrotic forces here (not to mention what strange radiations are coming from the ship above) have reduced their numbers and made the remaining elves slightly better than ghouls. Their alignment is now Chaotic (Evil).
They will attempt to talk to the party, but on the first sign of advantage, they will attack.
In addition to treasure they have food (more of the good mushrooms) and wine.
Note: Dwarves will notice that these passages are steadily going down.
It's the first Friday of June! Growing up that meant it was time for some D&D. What better way to do that than some old-school adventures? Thankfully we have some great ones to choose from.
Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #0: Village on the Borderlands
Mark Taormino is a long-time friend of the Other Side and I have all of his Kickstarters. This one looks great as well and I can't wait to try it out. If it is half as fun as his other adventures then it will still be twice as fun as most of the adventures out there.
Tomb of the Dundel Chief - A D&D adventure, 5e, 1e and C&C
Ah, now this one comes from D&D royalty! Heidi Gygax-Garland and her husband Erik have already created some adventures. But this one looks rather epic in scope. Plus it has a Castles & Crusades version, the game that Gary himself felt was the spiritual successor to AD&D.
It also looks quite fun.
https://pacesettergames.com/collections/bx-rpg-1/products/things-better-left-alone
Ok. So not a Kickstarter, but on sale now. And it looks really cool and would jive well with all of these adventures.
So get out your circa 1983 rulebooks, color in your dice, and get these adventures. It's summer and time to play!
Moving through the cave away from the tunnel, you begin to spy smaller tunnels on either side.
As the party goes by several (1d4+2) giant white worms, Caecilia come from the tunnels and attack.
Each worm has Treasure Type B stored in its worm tunnel.
So it is June, and historically June has been D&D month around here. Though I have to admit I have not been in a D&D mood all year. I do have some things that fill that space certainly and will get to them.
Today though feels more like May 32nd. So I am going to do a little bit more with my Doctor Who posts and move on to other things. And a good place to do that is to compare the three characters that I have been using for all my Doctor Who posts; Larina, Jenny Everywhere, and Valerie.
The biggest difference between the 1st Edition and 2nd Edition Doctor Who RPGs is predominantly in character creation. Since I have three characters here that are a bit outside of the norm they make good test subjects for the new Distinctions.
Who Are You?
So I have a public domain "shifter," an immortal from the 16th Century, and a witch vaguely aware of all her past lives. How do these three get together in a bar in Soho?
Thankfully I already have good ideas about who these characters are in the Doctor Who universe. I just need to get them to jell together. Using the Shared Background Experiences table on p. 33 helps.
So when a chance meeting in a bar in Westminster one cold November night, things got weird.
Going back to the characters now and build them by the new rules.
I have mentioned Jenny a lot. She is a great character for the Doctor Who game and maybe even a better character for this newer version.
As always, I must include her license:
"The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed."Concept: Shifter in time and space.
What does that mean? Well she can sense changes in time flow, she can move about realities, she knows things that she otherwise would not know or not be capable of knowing. This new edition is explicit on the fact that the Time War changed history and the future and what we thought happened didn't or happened differently. Jenny can sense that.
Focus: Adventure
Jenny is nothing if not about adventure. She doesn't bemoan her abilities or lot in life, she embraces them.
Distinction: Shifter
This is what she is. It defines her. Since this is a major one her Story Points are reduced per page 47.
To paraphrase the Doctor, she is not my character but I have put a lot of work into her. Valerie is an immortal and she is always search for others like her, somewhat out of companionship and kinship but mostly to discover why she is the way she is.
Concept: Immortal seeker of knowledge
Everything about Val revolves around her desire to learn more about who she is and her place in this cosmos.
Focus: Discovery
Val is cautious not to let people know who she is until she knows who they are first. But when it comes to a mystery or discovering something new she jumps in feet first and then figures out how she will land on the way down.
Distinctions: Immortal, striking appearance
This one was easy, and the examples are given in the book. She also takes a minor reduction in Story Points.
Ah. Now this girl. We go way back.
She is a witch. Regardless what that means in any given world that is who she is. If anything she lives by the quote "A witch is not what you do it is who you are." Sounds like a Concept to me.
Concept: Modern Witch
She believes in magic, in the power of crystals and more. She does not view these as "paranormal" just "extra normal." Certainly in the universe of Doctor Who she can be justified.
Focus: Curiosity
Larina wants to know things just for the sake of knowing them. Her curiosity is insatiable and it gets her into trouble. A lot.
Distinctions: Psychic, striking appearance
Ah, now here is where the Distinctions work better than traits. In the First Edition, I had to buy a lot of traits to get her the powers I wanted, even if in a small bit. Here she takes a Major Distinction, Psychic and I work out with my GM (well...me) and figure out what she has when. So she is telepathic and empathic and can have visions of the future (precognitive) when needed. There are plenty of examples of these sorts of humans in Doctor Who, well traveling with this bunch has turned her abilities up. Turned up so much that they might even become dangerous.
The balance here is do I reduce her Story Points OR as the GM use her as a plot device? Both sound appealing.
I have to admit. I rather love these. I knew with the new 2nd Edition system, things like my group of weirdos here would work so much better.
Right now the only thing keeping me in the First Edition game is inertia, but if I had too I could switch over to the Second Edition with no looking back.
I'll reiterate this with more clarity.
If you are new to RPGs and/or new to Doctor Who, then this is the version of the game to get. Get to your FLGS (preferably) or Amazon (if you must) and grab a copy. Or if you are a Save the Trees type (good for you!) then head over to DriveThruRPG and grab a copy in PDF. It has everything you need except dice.
I am now coming up on the next wave of Doctor Who RPGs. All from Cubicle 7.
While there are technically three RPGs, they are all related.
First is the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space. This is the one I have talked about here a lot already.
Second is the new Second Edition of the RPG, now just The Doctor Who Roleplaying Game.
And finally, we have Doctors & Daleks, a game based on the previous two, but using the 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons OGC rules.
One thing that strikes me is despite all I have said about this game line over the years I have never really given it a proper full review. Well I will change that next week.
In the meantime, here are some characters I have stated up for the Doctor Who RPG (1st Edition so far).
I'll spend the rest of May with this system.
One of the "bed rooms" (Room #17) has a larger open corridor that leads to another similar room. This room however only has one bed in the very center.
Pressing any buttons will cause different colored lights to shine with an accompanying tone. If the characters are within the 10' area (with the central bed in the center) then the following happens:
White - Sanitizing, everything becomes clean, dirt falls to the ground.
Green - Healing, minor wounds are healed for 1d6+1 hp of damage
Red - Warming, gets uncomfortably hot.
Orange/Yellow - very bright, blinds as per the Light spell.
There are no creatures or treasures here.
--
This a surgery center. The lights are great if you are an Ophidian, not so much for humans.
The rules for the Time Lord game are lite on character creation, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. The Appendices in the Print and PDF versions give some guidelines but with 7 Doctors, 29 companions and more NPCs, putting together a new character is not very difficult. Let's see how this game fares in recreating two characters we have already seen; Jenny Everywhere and my witch Larina.
Jenny Everywhere
Again, I am having Jenny stand in for our Time Lord character. The Time Lord RPG is thin on character creation and even thinner on creating new Time Lords and Gallifreyians. Jenny makes a good stand-in. Again I am making the claim here that this Jenny is Gallifreyian/Human, raised mostly as a human. I am also going to speculate that there are other Gallifreyian/Humans out there, this may explain Henry DeTamble of "The Time Traveler's Wife" (It can't be a coincidence that Henry was born in 1963.)
As always, I must include her license:
"The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed."
Jenny EverywhereJENNY EVERYWHEREApparent age: Mid-20s
Species: Gallifreyan/Human
Equipment: Scarf, Cool Goggles, bike messenger bag
Strength: 3, Cheat Death 2, Iron Constitution 2, Regenerative Powers 3
Control: 4, Escapology 1, Blunt Weapons 2, Brawling 2, Edged Weapons 2, Marksmanship 2, Sleight of Hand 2, Stealth 1
Size: 3
Weight: 3
Move: 3, Running 1
Knowledge: 5, Computing 1, First Aid 1, MacGuffin 2, Pseudoscience 3, Science 3, TARDIS 1, Temporal Science 2
Determination: 5
Awareness: 4, Bureaucracy 1, Resourceful Pockets 2, Serendipity 1, Striking Appearance 1
Attack: 4, 6, 6, 6, 6
Basic Defense: 3
I am unsure if this is the same Jenny from the FASA game. This one feels a little different, but I can't explain why. I mean they could be different and yet aware of each other all the same.
Larina "Nix" Nichols
As with the FASA game (and every game I try her out in), I go outside the strict rules for character creation. Based on what I did for the FASA game, this is Larina after she had been in contact with one of the blue crystals from Metebelis 3. This was the start of her adventures. The Larina for the FASA Who game was a Welsh girl. Since this game takes place in 1991, I will use a version of her that I was using in back in the 1990s, an American foreign exchange student living in Scotland at the time.
Edited to add: OR if this takes place in 1996 this is an older (25 years old) Larina back in the US. In my timeline for her, this would be right after her divorce.
Larina "Nix" NicholsLARINA NICHOLSApparent age: Early/Mid-20s
Species: Human
Equipment: Small knife, tarot cards,
Strength: 3, Cheat Death 1,
Control: 3, Edged Weapons 1, Stealth 2
Size: 3
Weight: 3
Move: 3, Running 1
Knowledge: 4, First Aid 2, History 2, Occultism 4, Science 1
Determination: 5, Independent Spirit 1, Psychic Shield 2, Telekinesis 1, Telepathy 1
Awareness: 4, Striking Appearance 2
Attack: 3, 4
Basic Defense: 3
Ok. I do like these builds much more than I thought I would when I picked this one back up. Jenny is a very flexible character and any differences between this version of her and others is honestly part of her character design. That is, there are supposed to be differences.
For Larina, well, her job is to stick as close to the Rules-As-Written as I can and yet still get the character I want. My concept of her is a "witch", writ large, and maybe even stereotypically. How can I make that work in a game where so far everything has a scientific explanation. Though I will point out that this game has an "Occultism" ability and it says this:
Occultism [Knowledge]So there is a solid hook here, AND I will point out that no other characters (companions, NPCs, or monsters) have this skill on their sheets.
The real question now becomes, are these two traveling together? I like the idea of the Doctor being involved, particularly Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor. That is if I go with 1991, when the rules were in print. I could very easily go with 1996, the year that the game was released on the Internet, AND when the Paul McGann Doctor Who movie came out. That is also the same year that "The Craft" came out so using the logic of the TV series, the Eight Doctor is traveling with a young American witch. I don't hate the idea, certainly.
Yeah...I don't hate this idea at all really. Maybe the bike messenger bag that Jenny has in my build above she gives to the Eighth Doctor for his Big Finish audio dramas. The Eighth Doctor's time is ripe for all sorts of shenanigans to be honest.
I'll have to consider this one more, but I like these builds and would use them to give the Time Lord rules a go.
Going back and this time taking the far left hallway leads to another corridor and collection of connected rooms.
These four rooms are larger than the ones on the far right. There are plenty of flickering lights with writing that doesn't not translate. There are plenty of beds in these rooms. One has a skeleton of the snake people on it.
There are no creatures, but there are more (1d10+10) more of those "healing wands" here but only 1d6+3 still work.
--
This is the ship's sick bay. It is designed for Ophidian life, so even if anything was working it would not be good for humans.
The year is 1991, and the FASA Doctor Who game is out of print. Equally less likely to see a resurgence is the Doctor Who series. In 1989 Sylvester McCoy, who had signed on as the 7th Doctor in 1987, was featured in the last "Classic" Doctor Who episode, "Survival." The Doctor's future on BBC Television was in serious doubt. The Doctor had seen something of a resurgence in the Sylvester McCoy years leading to Virgin Books (founded by Richard Branson) to continue the story of the Doctor and Ace in the "New Adventures" series. The novels were very popular among Doctor Who fans, even if they took some liberties with the established lore of the show. Though some ideas (like the Time War and Other) would find new life in the 2005 reboot of the series. But that is for another discussion.
While Virgin saw success with the novels, they found getting into the RPG market a little more difficult. They released Doctor Who Time Lord with the subtitle Create your own adventures in time and space in 1991. The book was in an A5 (148.5 x 210 mm or 5.8 x 8.3 inches) format as a novel. The authors were Ian Marsh and Peter Darvill-Evans. Both of whom had solid RPG and Doctor Who credentials. The game has been out of print for a while, but the authors had released a copy of it online. You can still find it if you know where to look. I compared it to my print copy, and they were identical save for some updates to include the then-new Eighth Doctor.
Time Lord
1991. 288 pages, A5. Color covers, black & white interior art and photos.
The presentation for this game is an odd one, since it came from a novel publisher rather than an RPG one.
PART ONE: DOCTOR WHO: A Legend In Its Own Primetime
This covers the history of the Doctor Who programme from 1963 to 1989. It gives us details on the seven actors to play the Doctor. We are introduced to some concepts in Doctor Who like the TARDIS and the Companions as well. There is also a short story, The Necromancers, that is referred too later in examples.
PART TWO: Role-Playing: What It Is And How To Do It
This covers the basics of RPGS including a history lesson complete with nods to Dungeons & Dragons. It is not a bad overview really. Designed mostly I think for Doctor Who fans that are not roleplayers already. There is a solitare adventure you can play, Switchback, with the characters Jamie and Tegan as your examples. I am just trying to imagine a situation where these two would be working together. It is more or less like a "Choose your own Adventure" sort of deal. Similar to the one found in the D&D BECMI Basic book, but you won't be carrying Tegan's lifeless body back when you are done.
PART THREE: How To Role-Play A DOCTOR WHO Adventure
This covers the basic rules of Time Lord. The system uses two six-sided dice (like the other DW RPGs) but in this one you take the difference to get your number. So the results will be 0 to 5, with 5 (6-1) being the best role. You compare an ability to a difficulty set by the Referee. If your Ability score is lower than the difficulty score then you must roll and score higher than the difference. So if your ability is Strength 3 (average) and the difficulty for a test of strength is a 5 then you need to roll a 2 or better. Difficulty can be adjusted as the Referee needs. There are some examples given in the book and appendix.
The Abilities include Strength, Control, Size, Weight, Move, Knowledge, Determination, and Awareness. All (save Weight) have special abilities attached to them. The special abilities are all detailed and work like a combination of skills and advantages.
Combat is covered, though Doctor Who is not a combat-focused game in any iteration, there is some here. It should be noted that in Time Lord, unless you are the Doctor, death is permanent.
PART FOUR: The Cast of Thousands
This section might be where Time Lord shines above FASA's Doctor Who game. Here we have stats for all Seven of the Doctor's incarnations and all 29 of his companions, from Ace to Zoe. We also get a lot of aliens andvillains (though not sure why Sabalom Glitz is here, he is more of a comic-relief character). The Master and the Monk are two separate figures in this game.
There is some coverage on various vehicles including space and time travel ones. Special attention is given over to the TARDIS as expected.
There is even a section called "500 Year Diary" (something that just popped up in a recent Doctor Who episode I was watching too!) that briefly covers a few topics.
PART FIVE: The Never-Ending Script
This covers running a game. It also gives good examples of what the various levels of Abilities are. While humans range from 1 to 5, with 3 being average, the scale does go to 10. So for example a "comic book superhero" has Control 7 and a Time Lord like Rassilon has Knowledge 9.
There are plenty of examples of Difficulty modifiers and relative percents. So really there are some really great details here. There are details and tips on creating your own adventures and a sample adventure The Templar Throne (or Curse of the Cyclops in the PDF) is provided.
APPENDIX 1: CREATING COMPANIONS
There are no character creation rules really in this game. The rule expects you will be playing the parts of one of the Doctors and his various companions. This Appendix though does give you guidelines on how to create your own companions. A sample companion, Alison, is given.
APPENDIX 2: SAFE COMBAT
This covers how to tone down the lethal-ness of combat.
APPENDIX 3: DESIGNER’S NOTES
Now this is pretty interesting. The designers talk about why the made the game the way they did and how to want to appeal to both sorts of fans, Doctor Who and RPG players.
APPENDIX 4: ADVANCED CHARACTER CREATION
Now this is from the PDF version only. The print version does not have this. This addresses the original criticism that the game did not feature character generation rules. This takes the guidelines found in Appendix 1 and expands them to includes combined a point spread generation and a random number generation. This produces characters that are all roughly of the same sort of spread with some exceptional abilities thrown in. Much like the companions themselves.
Note: There are still no rules here for generating a Time Lord character. Unless that character is a Gallifreyian and a companion of the Doctor, like Susan or Romana.
Both end with blank character sheets. The book also includes blank sheets for Aliens and Villian NPCs.
I had grabbed this PDF back in the dawn of the Internet and held on to it for years, not really knowing what I had had. It wasn't until I saw the Virgin book on sale that I finally put it all together.
The Time Lord game is very much a product of the 90s and the Virgin New Adventures here really shine through. Granted that could just be me reading into it all. I had a rather nice collection of those books, and it colored my view of the Seventh Doctor (for the better really).
The game is not groundbreaking by any stretch, but it is much better than I originally gave it credit for and would have been great fun in the dry years following the Fox Doctor Who movie.
Given the use of two d6s instead of grabbing them from your "Monopoly or Risk" games as the book suggests you can borrow some from it's sibling games that also use d6s.
Taking the far hallway on the right leads to another corridor with four doors. Each door opens to similar rooms.
Each room is dark with a large vat full of green liquid as the centerpiece. In two of these, the vats are empty of liquid and there are skeletons at the bottom. The glass is broken.
In room 16a there is a vat with a Saurian floating inside. If the glass is broken and the liquid drained the saurian will revive in 1d4+1 turns. The saurian (a Warrior) will be enraged and quite insane. It will attack the party right away.
In room 16c the vat has a human male. If this vat is drained the human will revive in 1d6+1 turns, scream incoherently at the party and then promptly die.
--
These are abductees of the Ophidians. They have been here for centuries kept alive and awake for all this time. The Necromancers kept these two to come back to later but never did. The controls for the life support are damaged, so there is no way to put the victims back.
Another sci-fi staple today and one that also fits in well with Doctor Who, Star Trek, and yes D&D. Today I want to discuss the Saurians. Now these guys go by a variety of names, saurians, saurials, reptoids, reptilians, and more. But for the sake of argument I am making a distinction between these guys and the Ophidians of last week. While I typically cast the ophidians as typically all evil and descended from human snake cultists, the saurians (just to use one name) are mostly neutral, cold and calculating, and largely descended from the same era that gave us dinosaurs.
I do admit that I took a lot of notes from Professor Dale A. Russell's idea of a "Dinosauriod" creature. IT hit me at a very fertile time in my imagination; my growing love of all things science, my curiosity about UFOs and alien abduction theories, and of course, my love for D&D which was at an all-time high then. Throw in healthy amounts of Doctor Who (Silurians, Sea Devils, Draconians), Land of the Lost (Sleestaks), and Star Trek (Gorn, Saurians), and it makes a heady brew. I also discuss them, or their near-kin, in my various posts last year on Conspiracy Theories (Ancient Aliens, Cryptoterrestrial Hypothesis, Extraterrestrials on Earth).
D&D already had Lizard Men and, to a degree, other reptilians. They would later move Kobolds over to be more reptile-like (something I have worked around) and introduce more reptilian races that are even closer to this idea (Saurian, Saurial). We also get one of the "Big Bads" of the BECMI D&D line, the Carnifex, who works with this idea.
I used these guys for years but mostly just used Lizard Man stats. Over time I adapted them and changed them to what I mostly use today.
Saurian
Saurians are a reptilian race that came about around the time dinosaurs walked the world. They appear to be humanoid, but this is a case of convergent evolution; they have no biological relationship to the other humanoid species found in the world.
Saurians are divided into castes based on their roles in society. These castes are purely functional in nature, and while each caste feels they contribute more to their society than the others, all are required to make their society function.
All saurians are reptilian with large forward-facing eyes. They have three fingers and a thumb on each hand. They also have broad, three-toed feet. Their skin tones can vary from green to pale to even near-pink. There is no color combination between castes; any color saurian can be born to any caste.
Females are slightly larger than males. There are no mammalian sexual characteristics, Saurians do not nurse their young, and males do tend to be more brightly colored. In the vision range of the Saurian eye these color differences are far more pronounced. Creatures with infravision can see these differences.
While many perceive the Saurians as evil, they are, in truth just very amoral when it comes to other life. They see all mammals as potential enemies and/or food.
Saurians are ancient enemies of the Ophidians and the Dragonborn.
Saurian Minds
Saurian reptilian brains work differently from that of mammals. This has a few effects when in regards to other creatures.
This makes giving them an alignment trickier. Slaughtering a group of humanoids, including the very young and very old, would be seen as an evil act by most creatures, but for the Saurians, it would be a necessary part of remaining alive and providing for their own tribe; an act they would view as good, even lawful. Many humanoids would chafe under their rigid caste system, but to a Saurian, it ensures that individuals are living up to their greatest potential. No Saurian would want a Scientist as a Warrior or a Noble as a Worker since they would all be very ill-suited for the jobs.
The other effect is one of magic. All saurians, regardless of caste, have a +2 bonus to saving throws on all mind-affecting magics. This includes Charm, Hold, Illusions, and Sleep spells. It also means they have a +1 on all saves on other magic except for those that deal direct damage. Even a healing spell cast on a Saurian must first be subject to a saving throw. If they make the save they are not healed.
Consequently, Saurians are not able to take levels in any magic using classes like Cleric, Magic-user, or Witch.
Saurian (Worker, Scientist, Noble)
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 2+2 (11 hp), 3+3 (17 hp), 4+4 (22 hp)
Move: 120 (40)
Attacks: 1 by weapon
Damage: 1d6
No. Appearing: 2d10, 1d8, 1d6
Morale: 8, 10, 10
Treasure Type: None
Alignment: Neutral (True Neutral/Unaligned)
Saurians are a reptilian race of humanoids. They are born into a rigid caste system based on their biology. Each caste feels they contribute the most to their society, so inter-caste conflict is much rarer than intra-caste conflict.
The Worker, Scientist, and Noble castes are largely indistinguishable from each other to outsiders. The worker caste is the most numerous, and the nobles are a little taller.
Workers: These laborers handle all the labor in a Saurian tribe. This includes everyone from the ones that build homes to healers to those that care for eggs and hatchlings.
Scientists: Generalized by their higher intelligence and pursuit of ways to improve the Saurian people.
Nobles: The ruling caste of Saurians.
Since all saurian eggs are kept in hatcheries, there are no parent-child bonds but hatchmate bonds. So in this manner, a worker can claim kinship to a noble and visa-versa. These bonds are just as strong as any mammalian parent or sibling bond.
Saurian, Warrior
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 8+2 (56 hp)
Move: 120 (40)
Attacks: 2 by weapon
Damage: 1d8+3 x2
No. Appearing: 1d8 (3d6)
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: None
Alignment: Neutral (True Neutral/Unaligned)
Saurian warriors are a caste unto themselves. The largest and healthiest hatchlings are trained from birth to be warriors whose only purpose in life is to defend the Saurian tribes. Warriors will fight among themselves to establish dominance and access to resources, but they will never attack anyone of the other castes. They find such ideas repugnant.
However, a Saurian warrior will have no qualms attacking a group of humanoids; young or old, as they only see mammals as potential food.
Hatchmate bonding is the strongest among the Warrior caste, with warrior Saurians dedicating their lives to protect their hatchmates.
Saurian, Psionist
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 4 (18 hp)
Move: 120 (40)
Attacks: 1 by psychic attack
Damage: see below
Special: Psychic powers
No. Appearing: 1 (1d4)
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: None
Alignment: Neutral (True Neutral/Unaligned)
Psionic Saurians are the rarest and sit somewhat outside the Saurian caste system. They look like Noble or Scientist Saurians, if somewhat smaller. They are identified early, taken from their hatcheries, and raised only with other Psionic Saurians. Thus they have the weakest hatchmate bonds of all Saurians, and intra-caste violence between psionics is the highest of all castes.
Saurian Psionists have the following powers. These are not magic powers but instead are psychic in nature.
There are stronger psionists with more powers.
Note: The powers are not magical and cannot be detected or countered by magical means.
Going back to Room #10 and going straight. This hallway opens into a large open chamber with hallways leading away from the corridor. There are also several doors (8) in this room.
There are skeletons of same snake-like creatures here.
The rooms are all nearly identical. These rooms appear to be living quarters of some sort. Each one is about 20' by 20. In each one is a bed, a closest and table. Some still have their inhabitants, though long since dead. Scouring the rooms will reveal about 1d8 x 10 gp worth of various bits of good metal.
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These are the crew quarters for the junior officers. Not all of them made it out.
Going back to Room #10, going left takes them down a long, poorly lit hallway (lights are flickering) it turns to the left and continues into a long room.
This room looks like Room #13, but it is not damaged. The far wall glows and gives off a slight hum.
Touching anything in this room will give off a strange trilling sound. A light will come on, and then go right out.
There is no treasure here.
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This the Port (left) side engine and it is intact. The engine itself is in standby mode and will not reactivate. Thankfully. Reactivating the engine will likely blow up the entire island.
You didn't think I would go through all this effort and not at least see how my own Drosophila melanogaster would work. I least wanted to try out a witch.
In truth, my little witch Larina has a lot to do with Doctor Who, especially the Doctor Who I was watching in the 80s. My original version of her had bits of Sarah Jane Smith and Jo Grant, but not as "screamy" as they were. And more than a little of Romana II. And many of my favorite episodes had a more horror feel, especially "The Brain of Morbius" and The Sisterhood of Karn.
SO...how does a witch fit into Doctor Who? We have the Sisterhood of Karn in the classic episodes and even the Carrionites in the later "The Shakespeare Code" (2007). The episode "The Daemons" gave us a White Witch, and "The Stones of Blood" gave us druids. So there is at least some fertile ground here. Humans in rare cases have been shown to develop mental powers like telepathy and tk ("Planet of the Spiders")
Given my love for the occult 70s revival and British folk horror, I am tempted to set her as a companion to the Doctor (or one of the other PC Time Lords) in 1974 (Tom Baker era). Have her a "white witch" from Wales (because why not) who is trying to figure out what to do with her parents' old spice shop. That is when a Time Lord comes into her life.
Larina Nichols
aka, "Nix"
Human Female
Profession: Spice shop owner, neo-pagan
Approximate Space/Time Coordinates: TNP Earth, 1974
Apparent Age: 20s
Actual Age: 25
Regog. Handle: Bright red hair, blue eyes, thick Welsh accent
Height: 5'4"
Build: Slim/Average
Looks: Striking
STR: III
END: IV
DEX: IV
CHA: V
MNT: VI
INT: V
Max Op END: 20 Wound Heal: 4
Curr Op END: 10 Fatigue Heal: 4
Inact Save Lvl III: 12
Unc Thresh Lvl II: 6
Special Abilities: Telekinesis (11), Telepathy (11)
AP: 7
Skills:
Artistic Expression II
Gaming II
Life Sciences II
General Medicine II
General Medicine, Herbal Cures III
Physical Sciences II
Public Performance I
Social Sciences II
Streetwise I
Trivia, Occultism III
Unarmed Combat, Brawling II
Verbal Interaction III
I can see her traveling with her Time Lord roughly parallel to Sarah Jane Smith and the Fourth Doctor's adventures. Maybe in this alternate reality, she got her mental powers from one of the blue crystals from Metebelis 3, turning her eyes from brown to blue, somewhat like they did with Leela.
Travel with her Time Lord until she decides to stay on Karn and join the Sisterhood? No idea, really yet.
As it turns out, I did, in fact, have a character sheet for her. It wasn't complete, but enough to get me going.