A Miscellany of Rules for Necrocarcerus

Some rules from the Necrocarcerus House Rules document, and a table governing available phone plans in Necrocarcerus. The first rule is on lighting:

"Light sources with a radius shine good lighting in a circle out to their distance, and shine dim lighting out to twice that distance. Cones shine in a 45-degree arc with good lighting out to their distance and shine to twice that distance with dim lighting. Beams shine on one object that they are pointed directly at with good lighting. They may be pointed at another object with an action. Someone with a beam pointed at their eyes counts as blinded."

Type	Cost	Wt.	Light	Time
Bullseye Lantern	50	H	20m cone	4 hrs.
Glow Button	250	L	40m beam	Infinite
Rushlight	1	L	2m radius	1d4 turns
Safety Lantern	50	H	10m radius	4 hrs.
Waterproof Torch	5	-	10m radius	6 turns
Underwater Flare	5	L	2m radius	1 turn

The next two are on readied items and encumbrance:

"Ready items may be drawn and used in a round without expending an action. Stowed items require a round to dig them out for use. An item is readied or stowed depending on what container the PC has it in. Armour or items that a character is wearing (i.e. hats), and items they are holding in their hands always count as readied."

"PCs can carry a number of heavy items (H) equal to their Strength score freely. 1000 obols, 10 light items (L) or 5 medium items (-) can be bundled up into 1 heavy item. PCs carrying up to 2x their Strength score are encumbered and cannot run or use their hands. (NP) items cannot be carried."

Containers	Cost	Capacity	Items
Backpack	10	8H	Stowed
Bandoleer	5	4L	Ready
Chest / Coffer	75	60H	Stowed
Frame Pack	50	12H	Stowed
Purse	1	1-	Stowed
Quiver	10	6L	Ready
Sack	1	3H	Stowed
Scabbard	1	1H or 1-	Ready
Scroll Case	10	2L	Ready
Utility Belt	15	4L + 1-	Ready
Webbing Belt	25	8L + 2-	Ready

And on phone plans:

Plan	Cost / Mo.	Abilities
Basic	50	Phone Calls; Texts; Clock
Premium	100	+ 2m beam Light; Camera; Calendar
Super	150	+ Video; Conference Call Hosting

All costs are in obols.

Adventures in Necrocarcerus

Courtney Campbell is taking a short break from Numenhalla, which means I will be taking over the time slot (Saturday mornings 9am EST on Google Plus) to run Necrocarcerus.

In the Necrocarcerus campaign, after all other book-keeping is done, play begins with the PCs selecting one of four possible motivations for this week's adventures, depending on the style of play and adventure type they want. Once the motivation is selected, I select / roll up the adventure they will be going on as a result.

PCs may be deluded by the Confabulations of Lunatics, going on site-based adventures.

PCs may be restless, reckless, and On the Lam, going on hexcrawls, pointcrawls and overland adventures.

PCs may fall prey to the Whims of Maniacs, receiving task-based quests to accomplish for patrons.

PCs may make Poor Life Decisions, pursuing their own agendas and finding themselves in hot water.

As a sample of what these mean, I will list one rejected result from the list for each:

Confabulations: " A strike by rail workers leaves the PCs at Ottavo Station in the Far Lands. They hear of the fearsome Pyramid of the Adamantine Rat a day's journey away on foot. A guy handing out maps to tourists tells them of the ancient cult that built the Pyramid, and their fabulous alchemical wealth"

On the Lam: 'After being permanently banned from the Last Teahouse in the Far Lands for excessive revelry, the PCs find themselves on the edge of town. The rail line stretches off far to the west, while a sign saying "Forbidden" points down a muddy path through some ruins."

Whims of Maniacs: "The PCs are hired by the Underlord Santobar Nkruma to steal the cursed head of Occlan from the Museum of Impossibilities."

Poor Life Decisions: "The PCs wake up hungover and covered in blood in the royal suite of an inn, clutching a map and the severed head of Devil Mike, which is muttering something in an unknown tongue. Guards pound on the door."

The Inhumanoids of Necrocarcerus

The inhumanoids are the sentient creations of the rogue vorticist surgeons, one of the first forms of hylic "life" they learn to mold on the way to the clonal hylic bodies amongst which a master vorticist surgeon eventually distributes their consciousness.

Most inhumanoids follow a roughly human-like design, though they tend to be more resilient and stronger.They grow to adult size within a day or so of emerging from the vats. New inhumanoids are fed a slurry of nepenthe and pseudo-brain to instill them with necessary skills and the rudiments of a personality. This creates a tremendous demand amongst vorticists for illegal supplies of nepenthe and sacrificial victims.

The hordes of inhumanoids that periodically plague Necrocarcerus almost always originate in a vorticist surgeon losing interest in them, often even leaving fully operational spawning vats behind. These abandoned inhumanoids are often distraught and heavily armed.

Inhumanoids use orc, goblin, kobold, bugbear, hobgoblin or ogre stats, depending on their type.

Places to Go, Things to Kill: Ocean Null

Ocean Null is the ocean of Necrocarcerus. It does not exist in any particular location, but may be reached by losing sight of land while on an open body of water, whether from fog, darkness, or other means. It may be exited by following one of its currents until the correct shore is reached. It is a vast, stormwracked body of water mainly of use to smugglers, warlords and desperate merchants, though over the aeon of its existence it has accumulated many things that may be of interest to adventurers.

Places to Go

Vigilant Pantagruel

A town built in the empty eye-socket of a vast and ancient skeleton that rises out of the depths. Only the head is visible, though the feet are said to rest at the bottom of a oceanic chasm five kilometres below. The inhabitants mine the skull's teeth for massive slabs of bone harder than steel, and trade it to necromancers for use in undead juggernauts. It is overseen by the Parliament of Pirates, self-proclaimed lords of Ocean Null. Vigilant Pantagruel is a free port where all are welcome, no matter their crimes.

The Lashing Eyes

The Lashing Eyes are a pair of lighthouses that oversee the Great Malestrom, the largest permanent whirlpool in Ocean Null. They sit on small islands on either side of the maelstrom, and the lights are green flames endlessly spurting from the mouths of massive statues of gargoyles on iron pillars. The islands are populated by a handful of refugees who survived the Great Maelstrom and are led by the legendary killer Tzalka Mur, and the crabmen they have enslaved, who dredge untold riches from the shipwrecks laying at the bottom of the whirlpool.

Coal Slag Island

An AUC-run prison atop a giant coal seam jutting out of Ocean Null. Inmates dig the coal and refuel AUC steamers traversing Ocean Null. A red Guardian, Allumex-8, oversees their punishment, and uses fire elementals for guards. Because of its out-of-the-way location, Coal Slag Island is a popular place to hold onto high-value prisoners who are likely to escape or be freed by their allies. The entire island is blanketed with choking soot and toxic coal slag, with the narrow tip of Coal Slag Bastion poking out of the smoke. The prisoners here have a tendency to go mad and become coal wights, who are let to roam around outside the fortified mining areas to discourage escape.

Things to Kill

The Kraken Shipyard

The fever-dream of the mad dream-smith Gotomba Ryoat, the kraken shipyard is a massive golemic kraken that sails around building ships. Unfortunately, to do so it disassembles whatever ships and other objects it finds sailing loose in the ocean for their the raw materials it needs. Those sailors who do not resist are allowed to board the kraken, where they serve as labourers assisting the host of smaller golems who do work too fine for the massive manipulators. The kraken shipyard is a master at its task, and can build a ship out of almost anything in under a day. Gotomba Ryoat is long dead. His body can be seen behind the impenetrable glass of the bridge window, slumped dead over the control panel. The codes to access the bridge were lost upon his death, and now no one can prevent the kraken shipyard from destroying whatever it comes across to build more ships.

The Red Sea Bankers

The Red Sea Bank is a group of vampire pirate-captains, and one of the more aggressive pirate fleets operating across Ocean Null. Most of their crews are thralls, zombies and sea-ghouls, though they will also hypnotise the crews of ships they have captured. The Bank maintains a treasure house in Vigilant Pantagruel, but they maintain a low key presence in almost every major port in Ocean Null. Their leader, Bloodbeard, rides a skeletal chariot drawn by two nightmares that launches from the deck of his flagship, the Furious Hunger.

The Sea Devils of G'Dur

G'Dur was the Guardians' attempt to build a small city in Ocean Null as a fortified outpost for AUC. The experiment failed when the volcanic island G'Dur was on exploded. The city crumbled into the newly-formed lagoon in the centre of the island, and the few inhabitants that didn't die in the cataclysm fled, never to return. Since its abandonment, a tribe of sahaugin have taken over and appropriated the technology and infrastructure of lost G'Dur for their own uses. The tribe now numbers in the thousands, and their army is well equipped with cannons and harpoon guns. G'Dur's site was chosen so that the currents of several major exits from Ocean Null flow near to it, which the sea devils have used to their benefit by attacking ships for materials hard to obtain on G'Dur.

Fighters Get Better Initiative

I have come around over time to the system of initiative Courtney Campbell uses in Numenhalla as simple and effective. Briefly, the system is that each side (PCs and monsters) rolls a d6, with the higher roll going first. Even ties are resolved in favour of the player acting first, odd ties result in the monsters going first. I used to be more of a proponent of individual initiative, and still use it in some games, but for Swords and Wizardry, and other old school D&D versions I play, I tend towards using this method.

I have a proposed alterations to this system which I will be experimenting with in the next Necrocarcerus campaign:

If a fighter is the highest level character in the party (or all characters are of equivalent level), then the group may roll a d8 for initiative.

The idea is that the fighter is tactically acute in a way other characters aren't, and helps coordinate not just their own actions, but the actions of others, allowing them an operational edge. You can continue to roll surprise on a d6.

Feats of Strength: A Proposal for Fighters

I play Swords and Wizardry Complete, where there is no "Exceptional Strength" score. I like the idea of "Bend Bars / Lift Gates" as an ability one has, but suggest that you make it a fighter class feature instead of based specifically on Strength scores.

I use Jack Shear's suggestion that all Thief skills use the Hear Noise d6 table, modified by my own rule that Assassins, bards, dandies and monks (and all other classes that receive thief skills) use the same rule, but at -1 compared to thieves (so whereas a thief starts off at 3 in 6 and goes up, other classes start at 2 in 6 and go up).

I propose that we use an identical table to the Thief Hear Noise d6 table for feats of strength - singular exertions of power and force - that a fighter wishes to perform, whether battering down doors, hurling boulders back at giants, hoisting the portcullis of the castle, dragging the elephant he's just lassoed to its knees, picking up an opponent and using them as a living missile, etc. Barbarians, rangers, paladins, etc. may do the same thing, but at the same -1 penalty that thief-like classes suffer in comparison to thieves using their skills. In cases where it might constitute an attack, an attack roll skill needs to be made, this roll simply allows the feat to even be possible in the first place.

The intent here is not that fighters are automatically the strongest class around (though they do tend to be), but rather than this represents their capacity for heroic exertion under stress. I recommend against allowing it to replace normal athletics tests for running, jumping, swimming, climbing, etc. (I will be using Skills: The Middle Road in Necrocarcerus when I start it up again). Instead, this is precisely there to cover the exceptional feats that we read about in epic literature that are otherwise not well represented in the rules. I encourage players to come up with exciting and interesting feats of strength for use in the game.

There are no limits to how often fighters can use feats of strength, and I encourage a permissive attitude, since this encourages fights to follow unpredictable, dynamic progressions involving the feats of strength. Individual referees may wish to establish beforehand with the players of fighters whether these feats of strength can actually be superhuman (as some examples mentioned above are), or merely at the extreme limits of what is humanly capable (the strength of the exemplary mother lifting a car off of her children in a fit of adrenaline).

One simple possible variation of the rule would be to have the feats of strength be merely humanly possible until a player hits 9th level, and then allow them to become superhuman.

Safe Area Duvanovic Introduction

AUC Airship Survey of Duvanovic Operational Theatre, Sector 5

The Ooze Salient, Necrocarcerus, 9998:

The flag is a clenched blue fist on a black field, and it waves over the last six blocks still intact in what was once the mega-borough of Duvanovic. The ooze-collaborationist Popular Purity Front, led by Rotman Carkel, lords over this micro-state in reward for their service in the first phase of the oozes' ultragenocide of the Braemonian citizens of Necrocarcerus. The outside streets are a no man's land stalked by inhumanoids, bandits, the undead, loyalist partisans and flesh-horrors produced by the oozes' war machine. Somewhere in the distance, the thunder of loyalist bombards and the reality-crackle of Weapon Q promise that liberation is coming, but the thousands of refugees who have flooded in can hardly wait. Food has run short, the water supplies are fouled, disease is rampant, and theosadists pluck people at random and subject them to demented tortures for their own pleasure. The rich pay black marketeers to smuggle them to safety, while the poor pray to the Creator that tomorrow a gas shell will fly astray and put them out of their misery.

Soldiers of the Popular Purity Front

WHY ARE YOU HERE (1d4)

1) Partisan infiltrator here to overthrow the Popular Purity Front on behalf of AUC.
2) Stranded by black marketeers who stole your money and dumped you here.

3) Convalescent from wounds in an earlier phase of the campaign.
4) Last survivor of a mercenary scavenger gang here to make their fortunes.

The random encounter table for wandering the no-man's land of Safe Area Duvanovic