more buildings in Polyesterdelphia
So, just some more models of the Pleasant streets of Polyesterdelphia.

The Gueratine Hotel.



Original Roleplaying Concepts
So, just some more models of the Pleasant streets of Polyesterdelphia.
Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...
The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.
Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.
—oOo—It is a ninety-one page, full colour, 41.20 MB PDF.
The layout is clean and tidy, but the text feels disorganised in places and requires a good edit. The artwork varies in quality, but some of it is decent.
Where is it set?
Korolan Islands: Hero Wars in the East Isles – Volume 1 is set on the archipelago of five islands that make up the Korolan Isles which lie in the Jeweled Islands, the Islands of Wonder that lie to the east.
To protect the IInd Polyester Freestate a small number of border forts were constructed about 200 years ago. Many of them are still in use, mostly as garrison barracks, or to house proficiency MOS schools. Some still hold the border, especially along the frontier with Oppressorbad, where they usually are augmented with emplacements for old heavy guns.
this model of Fort Ben Hambone on the Oppressorbad frontier is based on the old Warren Built Rite toy. It is an excellent example of the type.
Crash of the Titans is designed for a party of between four and six Third Level Player Characters which takes them into a unique environment to face—well, actually, to not face—but dodge and work around a pair of kaiju-sized monsters! The Holy Medicinal Order asks the Player Characters to help find a replacement power source for its most precious device of the Ancients—a rejuv-chamber—which is capable of healing almost any injury or illness. It requires a Q-Pack, one of the rarest of power cells and the Order knows of only one source where another can be found—the City of Storms. This is located in a nearby city of the Ancients and is renowned for the electrical storms which play out above its skies. However, when the Player Characters arrive, they discover that the skies are clear and the area, buildings and all, sits in a swamp of acidic water. This though is the very least of their problems.
As the Player Characters explore the area, they disturb not one, but giant mutants, one an insectoid monstrosity, the other all tentacles, and both towering over the Player Characters and the area. Both monsters wander the area randomly, stomping on the Player Characters if they notice them, and battling each other when end up in the same location. The region consists of six hexes surrounding a central hex which is a lake. There are encounters to be had and locations to be explored and scavenged in each of the six surrounding hexes amongst the old industrial and residential buildings. In other adventures for Mutant Crawl Classics, the number of artefacts that the Player Characters can find and make use of does sometimes feel scanty, but here the number feels about right given the limited number of locations and size of the scenario. The progress of the Player Characters is both hampered and driven by the looming presence and threat of the giant mutants, but it is also helped by a much larger, but more of an environmental nature mutant, which literally whispers hints to them as they move around the area.
Eventually, the Player Characters will find a Q-Pack, but will be faced with another problem—how to charge it! Thus sets up the second half of the scenario as the Player Characters ascend the vine-entwined walls of the area’s only standing building. This is a power tower and once inside, they will need to find a way to restore it to full operation and charge the Q-Pack, setting up the climax of the scenario in true King Kong kaiju style!
Crash of the Titans is a short adventure, which can be played in a single session, but probably best plays out in two. There is a sense of openness to the scenario with its relatively flat, swamp location combined with the ominous presence of the two giant mutants wandering around the region, sometimes clashing and fighting each other, forcing the Player Characters to flee. All of this can be played out on the scenario’s map which is presented in full colour inside its wraparound card cover. The scenario even comes with a pair of standees, one for each giant mutant, which the Judge can cut out of the cover and then use to indicate where each giant mutant is on the map. Whilst this would give the scenario a sense of space, would a Judge really want to cut holes in Crash of the Titans’ fantastic cover?
Physically, Crash of the Titans is very nicely presented. The cover hints at the adventure to come and the map inside the wraparound cover is very nice. In fact, it is actually good to see a map for Mutant Crawl Classics done in full colour like this. The scenario is otherwise well written, easy to understand, and straightforward to run.
If perhaps Crash of the Titans is missing anything it is that the whispering ally that the Player Characters encounter during the scenario could have been developed further, perhaps as a Patron—an alternative to the Patron A.I.s usually encountered in the Mutant Crawl Classics? Otherwise, Crash of the Titans is a great little scenario for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, one which packs a lot of inventive adventure into its few pages. Overall, of the releases for ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2023’, Crash of the Titans is the best of the three scenarios released.
I've been working on some paper models of the buildings along Spamstreet, downtown Polyesterdelphia. They should be useful for most Ornrian simulations or dioramas. If you build the ruined version first (98 percent smaller than the "nice" one) put in floors and joists and what nots with scrap card, bits of craft stick, balsa, whatever junk seems good to you, you should then be able to slide the nice one over the ruins like a telescope. It's an idea of Charles Grant, repurposed for printers.
Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...
The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.
Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...
The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.
The first adventure in the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack is ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’. Designed for a party of between five and seven First Level Player Characters, it is notable for being the winner of the of the ‘2022 Mystery Map Contest. The scenario begins with the Player Characters summoned to the normally sunlit city of Sphyre high in the Torrith Mountains. Here the people have worshipped the sun for centuries, but now the pattern of day and night has changed, the latter longer, the former shorter. Normally, the city is protected by the immortal wizard, Baltothume, but something must have happened to him for the light of the sun to have begun failing, so the Player Characters are expected to enter the and explore the outpost when he has lived for thousands of years. The outpost is quite small, consisting of just nineteen locations divided between two halves. The first half is where Baltothume lived and worked and feels quite tight and worked to be liveable, whereas the second half is darker and has rougher-hewn, natural feel to it, of a far wider space than the Player Characters can see.
To progress beyond the first half, the Player Characters will need to explore the facility and solve several puzzles, all possessing a solar nature, requiring either light or shadow. There are a few encounters here, but in the main they are just about enough of a threat to First Level Player Characters. The scenario is puzzle-orientated—so much so that they require their own notes—their being solved opens the way into the dungeon’s second half and then back again for its dénouement after that. Surprisingly, for a scenario of this size, it does includes more than the route between the two, preventing the scenario from stalling when the Player Characters cannot make any further progress. That said, the players and their characters may find themselves stalling when attempting to solve the scenario’s puzzles. Careful attention to detail is required and the Judge should definitely make notes as part of her preparation to run ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’, both to help her understanding and to help her players and their characters come to understand how it works.
‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’ is a neat, nicely self-contained—of course, decently detailed, dungeon which can played through in a session or two. The detail extends to a pair of entertainingly memorable magical items that will help the Player Characters in the exploration of the dungeon. The combination of its puzzles and theme of night and day that split the dungeon should engage players who like to think their way through a situation and the Judge should definitely prepare for that.
The second adventure in the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack is ‘Grave of the Gearwright’. Designed for a party of between four and six Second Level Player Characters, it is actually inspired by DragonMech, the fantasy-steampunk-mecha setting published by Goodman Games in 2004. (Perhaps the scenario is a precursor to it being re-released, this time for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game? Who knows? Watch this space in 2024 on the roleplaying game’s twentieth anniversary.) That said, the scenario is not specifically designed to be run using that setting, but rather as an adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game which combines magic and machinery. The scenario definitely requires a Thief, whilst Player Characters with a mechanical or engineering inclination will also be useful. Clerics or Wizards with mind or nature-affecting spells will find their spells to be less effective in the scenario given the nature of the dangers that the Player Characters will face.1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.
Another concept that comes up is the Demon Spawn that tries to do good. These characters often appear in comics with magic as a theme and they are a great choice for a Wasted Lands game since there is likely to be a lot more interaction with demons.
This character could be a lot of different things, and "demon" might even be an alien, say in the case of Karolina Dean from Marvel's Runaways. But my example here will be borrowing heavily from DC's Teen Titan, Raven.
Now there are a lot of ways to do Raven. We have Psychics, Sorcerers, and even Necromancers. But Raven's primary powers come from her empathic abilities and astral projection with some spells. So I am going with Psychic for her here.
The Demon's Daughter
Class: Psychic (Persona Aspect)
Level: 6
Species: Human-Demon
Alignment: Twilight Good
Background: Student
Abilities
Strength: 12 (+0)
Agility: 13 (+1)
Toughness: 14 (+1)
Intelligence: 15 (+1) N
Wits: 15 (+1) N
Persona: 17 (+2) A
Fate Points: 10
Defense Value: None 10
Vitality: 30 (d6)
Degeneracy:
Corruption: Unnatural Parlor
Check Bonus (A/N/D): +/+/+
Melee Bonus: +2 (base)
Ranged Bonus: +2 (base)
Saves: +3 to Persona based saves
Psychic Powers
Supernatural Attacks, Sixth Sense, Empathy, Psychokinesis (Telekinesis, 2d6+1), Temporal Sense, Shadow Walking, Astral Projection
Superhero (Divine) Archetype: Rebilous Child of older God/Demon
Divine Touchstones
Level 1: Mystical Senses (as Sorcerer spell)
Level 2:
Level 3: Additional Movement: Fly
Level 4:
Level 5: First-level Sorcerer
Level 6:
Spells
1st Level: Protection from Evil
The Divine Touchstones are really what separated the normal people from the heroes and the heroes from the legends. You likely will not use all of these on one character. I'll have some less-super examples coming up.
She has fewer to reflect that she is still just a teen or young adult. This also more likely the speed in which people will want to hand out the Divine Touchstones.
Moving on from room #12 the party enters a large spherical room 50' in diameter. The walls of the room are polished obsidian. The center of the room features a large monolith of the same material. Stalactites and stalagmites break up the otherwise uniform blackness of this room.
This monolith radiates evil and necromantic energies. It doesn't take a magic-user to figure this out, all the characters can feel it.
Touching the monolith a character hears a voice. The monolith is known as the Monolith of Evil. It brags that it is 1000s of years old and was worshipped by 1000s of acolytes. Offerings of blood and lives kept it powerful. But now it is drained of all power, the Vampire Queen drained came and took all of its power.
It lets the characters know that if they could just kill their fellows it will be able to grant them the power to kill the Vampire Queen.
The monolith has no idea is the Vampire Queen is still active or not.
There is no magical compulsion here, save for being creepy it has no real power left.
In D&D, they would be a paladin or some other knight in shining armor. They are the bright reflection of the Dark Avenger. Thankfully they both have the Amazon Warrior Princess to help balance them out. One of many reasons why this unlikely trio works so well together.
The Paragon
Class: Warrior
Level: 14
Species: Human
Alignment: Light Good
Background:
Abilities
Strength: 22 (+5) A
Agility: 17 (+3)
Toughness: 17 (+2) N
Intelligence: 15 (+1)
Wits: 15 (+1)
Persona: 16 (+2) N
Fate Points: 10
Defense Value: Plate (7)
Vitality: 75 (d8)
Degeneracy: None
Corruption: None
Check Bonus (A/N/D): +6/+4/+2
Melee Bonus: +5 (base)
Ranged Bonus: +3 (base)
Saves: +5 to all saves
Warrior Skills
Combat Expertise, Improved Defense, Increased Damage, Melee Combat, Master of Battle (90%), Ranged Combat, Spell Resistance (36%), Supernatural Attacks (Melee), Tracking, Extra Attack (x4)
Improve Defense: -4
Superhero (Divine) Archetype: Justice, Hope
Divine Touchstones
Level 1: Mystical Senses (as Sorcerer spell)
Level 2: +1 to combat rolls
Level 3: Additional Movement: Fly
Level 4: Increased Ability Score (Strength +2)
Level 5: Divine Smite
Level 6: Gout of Flame (as Sorcerer spell), as Heat Vision (unique mode of attack)
Level 7: Divine Aura
Level 8: Damage Immunity from missile fire
Level 9: Increased Ability Score (Strength +2)
Level 10: Half Damage from Mundane slashing
Level 11: Chill Breath (as Ray of Frost Sorcerer spell)
Level 12: Unique Attack, Heat Vision 60' line
Level 13: Down But Not Out
Level 14: Divine Recovery
The Divine Touchstones are really what separated the normal people from the heroes and the heroes from the legends. You likely will not use all of these on one character. I'll have some less-super examples coming up.
This one looks great. And don't tug on his cape.
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