Xeria: Giant Desert Arachnid

The desert arachnids of Xeria stalk the few shelters to be found within the drifting sands. Their sand-coloured bodies keep adventurers from even noticing them until they leap forth, using the momentum of their leap to skewer their prey with sharp, chitinous legs.

Giant Desert Arachnid 

Init +1 

Atk +1 melee (1d4)

AC 14 (12 for 1 round after leaping) 

HD 1d8+2 

MV 60, Climb 60

Act 1d20 

SV Fort +4, Ref +2, Will -2 

SP 20% leapers, leap attack: +4 melee and knocked prone (DC 12 Ref save avoids) 

AL Chaotic

Xeria: Espadian Occupation Table

DCC RPG uses a character creation system that has the player roll on an occupation chart that determines what the character did before he became an adventurer. Each occupation also comes with an undetermined set of skills that can be called upon when making a check. I use the word undetermined because DCC RPG has no skill system, per se -- if the character is attempting something he would have learned in his occupation, the skill is trained. Roll a d20. Otherwise, it's untrained. Roll a d10.

Since we've done away with Elves, Dwarves and Halfings for our Xeria hexcrawl, we decided to make a unique occupation table for each of the four human races we've designed instead. Here's the table for the Espadians, a race of humans who are essentially eccentric musketeer nobles. They wear fancy clothing, hold frequent balls, duel with rapiers for honour, and create beautiful works of art from glass, including the three splendid glass spires in their city of Espada.

Espadian Occupation Table (1d20)*

1. Glassblower's apprentice (blowpipe as staff, glass bauble)
2.  Architect's apprentice (dagger, parchment and quill)
3.  Servant (kitchen knife as dagger, 'lucky' trinket)
4.  Noble (rapier, large finely crafted satchel [50lbs])
5.  Messenger (letter opener as dagger, supple leather shoes)
6.  Herald (dagger, brass horn)
7.  Excavator (shovel as staff, 1lb sand)
8.  Foreman (hammer as club, speaking trumpet)
9.  Tailor (scissors as dagger, needle and thread)
10.  Dressmaker (scissors as dagger, 2 yards fine cloth)
11.  Lookout (sling, brimmed hat)
12.  Duelist (rapier, fine gloves)
13.  Blacksmith (hammer as club, steel tongs)
14.  Ostler (staff, bridle)
15.  Chef (rolling pin as club, fine spices)
16.  Merchant (dagger, cask of fine rum)
17.  Deckhand (knife as dagger, 50' rope)
18.  Scholar (dagger, 10 candles)
19.  Conman (dagger, quality cloak)
20.  Actor (dagger, fine clothes)

*The items in brackets are the character's trained weapon and starting trade good, respectively.

Mindscape: Cliffside Town

Another Mindscape for you. Cliffside towns. One of the cultures in our Xeria setting are the Morecians, and theirs is a culture somewhat of a cross between ancient Arabia and ancient Greece.


The music is by Gabriel Yared, from a rejected score composed for the movie Troy. This score far trumps the replacement score in my own opinion.  

Xeria: Hex Contents Table

The new campaign setting in the works is called Xeria. I'm actually co-creating it with my partner, Leah. The two of us decided we wanted to design a desert-themed hex crawl/sandbox. We printed out a hex template map and started allotting terrain using this awesome guide over at The Welsh Piper. After that, we turned to this awesome guide by Flynn over at his excellent blog, In Like Flynn. To suit our desert theme, we came up with a combined and modified version of the tables provided in both guides and rolled once per hex on the following custom tables.

Hex Filling Table (d6)
1-2. Colour
3. Terrain effect
4. Settlement
5. Lair
6. Adventure

After rolling on the Hex Filling Table, roll again on the indicated subtable.

Terrain (d6)
1. Weather
2. Arcane
3. Divine
4-5. Strange
6. Combine two

Settlement (d6)
1. Waystation/outpost/hut
2. Permanent camp/farm(s)
3. Village/small town
4. Large town/city
5. Monastery/shrine/temple
6. Wise person's abode

The different results indicated by the slashes correspond to the terrain type of the hex being rolled for, eg. waystation (desert), outpost (plains), hut (mountains).

Lair (d6)
1-3. Monster
4-5. Supernatural
6. Humanoids

Adventure (d6)
1-3. Site
4-6. Event

A site is a location, such as a ruin or dungeon. An event is a scene that is triggered when the players first enter the hex, such as coming upon a caravan master with a broken wheel who needs help reaching his destination.

Colour: This is just flavour or fluff and requires only a short description. For example: A tree with dangling nooses used to hang criminals.

We were quite pleased with the results and only occasionally fudged what the table gave us. But that's okay -- the point of the table is to give you ideas and get your imagination going. Also, we already had some cool ideas that we just plunked down into certain hexes instead of rolling for them. 

Note: This table and tables like it are NOT masters to be bowed down to. You don't need to be a slave to them. If another idea pops into your head, use it!   

The reason we decided to modify the tables in the original guides was due to the fact that those tables left roughly 50% of hexes completely empty. This seemed like a waste of space to us and we didn't want our players just trudging around only finding something interesting half of the time. That said, you don't want your hexes too cluttered, either, or exploration will start to lose some of its lustre. Overall it came to a nice balance of fillings for our purposes.

Enchanted Steel

How do magic weapons look in your game? Are they glowing with energy, alight with fire and crackling with lightning? Or do you prefer a more subtle approach? An exquisitely wrought pommel, a blade that never dulls, a faint warmth in the hand when grasping the hilt? Or is it the weird and otherwordly that strikes you? A strangely coloured metal, alien runes along the blade, a trail of whispering shadows when swung?

Leave a comment describing your favourite magic weapon you've come across in your games!

Mindscape: Desert Ruins

Since I'm so fond of music and art, I thought I'd put together a feature I call Mindscape. I post some landscape art and a soundtrack to go with it, and hopefully you get inspired for a cool location, character or adventure!

This is a desert Mindscape. It may have something to do with the setting I'm working on right now... The music is from the game Journey. Enjoy.

Bonuses for High Ability Scores

How should they be handled? Some games make you feel that in order to be a 'real' warrior, thief, what have you, you need to have a high ability score that lets you access that class's coolest features. When I say high, I'm talking 17 or 18 in a 3D6 system. If you take a look at old school games (I'm currently running DCC RPG), what kinds of perks can you give to characters who roll high in a 3D6 in order system without making characters who don't roll high feel inadequate in their class?

I think the key is having those perks open up more options for the character, rather than grant a direct bonus of some kind. When I say options, I mean situational possibilities. Something like this: a warrior with 17+ Strength may attempt to use his bare hands to crush the skull of his opponent (if humanoid) with a DC 20 Strength check after a successful grapple. 

Personally, this is the kind of thing I find exciting, and much more interesting than 'warriors with 17+ Strength get +2 to damage.' And if you're designing a setting with sub-races (human or otherwise), these 'high-score perks' can vary to reflect the style of each individual culture, so you're not only acknowledging a high score with a cool option, you're further embellishing the setting you've lovingly hand-crafted (probably). 

The great thing about old school games is that this kind of creativity is not only possible, it's encouraged!

On another note: as is wont to happen, the busy schedules among players have caused my grandiose plans for my Yekkislovia campaign to come tumbling down. However, there is another exciting setting in the works. Expect to read about (and see) it soon!