Merry Hexmas: Sadtown

Merry Hexmas! There's a blog bandwagon up, and I've feeling extra hex-y this holiday season, especially for some Rankin/Bass Christmas cheer (or lack thereof in this case). It's a community project, so go check out the other blogposts too (I've linked quite a few here, but not all). If you link up one of your hexes next to mine, message me on Bluesky and I'll update my hex connections!

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Connecting Hexes:

• North: Jinglebell Barrens
• North-east: Talking Wishing Well
• North-west: Snomes
• South: Orcish Toy Factory
• South-east: The Sleeping Slopes
• South-west:  The Silver Steppe

Entering this Hex: All points of interest can be seen. An icy river cuts across this landscape of snowy hills. 

A. Sadtown. A sooty, bleak town with a blazing bonfire in the center

B.  Blues Rock Prison. A towering jailhouse, encrusted with translucent ice pillars. 

C. Gingerbread House. A small cottage by the frozen river.

Sadtown

The road into town is lined with spears hoisting pickelhaube helmets. Townfolk look forlorn and without hope, barely regarding strangers. Soldiers, dressed sharply, look on aimlessly as they patrol the town. Only Corporeal Grim will interrogate strangers (the party). 

Once a joyous village, Miser Master began to enforce his "Law of No Cheer," forcing townsfolk to give up their toys and frivolity to focus on work. Strangely Germanic.  

     Locales

• Bonfire - crackling golden red flame burns in the center of town. A pile of toys burn, as their holiday magic igniting in golden hues. Children look on with sadness. Corporeal Grim monitors the square, making sure no "fun" is a foot. 
• Burning toys - Ever since the Miser Master has implemented his ban on holiday cheer, townsfolk have been forced to sacrifice their toys. 
• Ritual - arcane runes are carved into the cobblestones ringing the bonfire, only visible on close inspection. Burning toys in the ritual circle channels their Christmas cheer into Miser Master's Snow Globe, powering it.  

•  Town Hall - an imposing gothic structure. Inside, Miser Master, lord of Sadtown, holds court. Townsfolk grovel, while a dozen elite soldiers look on with steely eyes. Miser Master gripes his Snow Globe as couturiers beseech him. He has grown cruel and megalomaniac with power. 
• Who is in court?
1. A salesman from the Babbling Baboon argues his products aren't toys, they are "toy-like objects." (They also don't have Christmas cheer) 
2. Representatives from the Trademark Megacorp Factory presuade Miser for the law to allow their candy canes, fresh from the Candy Cane Forest. Their slick presentation, ability to suck-up to higher-ups, and generous bribes are convincing. 
3. A captured Elf (from the Ironwork's Tiny Bronco crew) is being sentenced to imprisonment in the Blues Rock Prison.
4.  A scout reports on conditions at the Orcish Toy Factory. Miser Master muses on launching a raid. 
5. A villager pleads to keep his souvenirs from his vacation at the Mooncap Manor.   
6. Miser Master berates a scout, winded and doubled over panting for failing to capture this rumored "Gingerbread Man."
• Quest: Miser Master pays bounties for any captured toy-making elf (500 gp) or any toys (50 gp per 1 slot). 

• Orphan Asylum - Children huddle at the windows at the approach of newcomers. They sit on the floor, playing with sticks, stones, and rat bones. A stout young woman, Miss Jess, takes care of the orphans as best she can. A portion of the orphanage is cordoned off for the "sick ones." 
• Children's toys - while most of the children have naught, some have real toys. They are extremely secretive with these, but have a glitter of wonder about them. 
•  "Sick Area" - hidden away behind curtains, an injured elf lies in a sickbed. Miss Jess nurses Christopher Klautz back to health while evading the wrathful eye of Miser Master. Klautz pays back the favor with toys for the children, made with his elf magic. 
• Quest: Find a way to provide for the children (food, toys, cash) or a way to heal Christopher. No rewards (except thanks).  

    Dramatis Personae

•   Corporeal Grim - the only competent soldier in the town. A keening eye, an wagging finger, and a well-pressed suit. His curly mustache is a popular style in town. 
• Wants: Order, neatness. Someone else competent to work with.  
• Fears: Being perceived as foolish. 
• Mannerism: Indifferent to suffering, mild mannered. 
• Miser Master - an old, large man with an almost skeletal face, ruler of Sadtown. He enforces his "Law of No Cheer" with an iron fist. Secretly, this sorcerer siphons Christmas magic by ritually sacrificing toys. He rarely leaves his throne in the Town Hall.
• Wants: Power, his ego stroked. To be the happiest person because everyone else is miserable. 
• Fears: A rebellion or up rising. For his grasp on power to slip.
• Mannerism: Grouchy, ranting, megalomaniac. 
•  Miss Jess - A young, red-haired woman, who runs the orphanage by herself. Dressed simply by necessity, she gives more than she has. Seen as a saint by the villagers, though barely tolerated by Miser Master. 
• Wants: the children to have toys again. To fall in love with Christopher. 
• Fears: Christopher being found out. The orphans to be abandoned. 
• Mannerism: A patient, understanding school teacher. 
• Christopher Klautz - a (tall) elf who injured himself falling off a rooftop. His bright-white hair sets him apart from the townsfolk. His presence is known to only Miss Jess and her kids. 
• Wants: To make the children happy. To run away with Miss Jess. 
• Fears: Being separated from Miss Jess.  
• Mannerism: Overly enthusiastic, but full of cheer.  

Snow Globe - a twisted pine staff with an orb filled with falling snow atop it. The pine bark is etched with gold. Powered by Christmas magic, enhanced by Miser Master's ritual. 

• Once per day, the wielder can Scry anywhere is it currently snowing. 
• The wielder can shake the staff to cause a mini-earthquake (DEX save or take d6 damage). Magnitude can be enhanced via Christmas magic.  

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Blues Rock Prison

A fortress encrusted in clear, icy pillars. There's only two ways in: through the warden's well-watched front door or over the bone chilling frozen waterfall that springs from the center of the prison. The prison holds many of Miser Master's foes: elves, toymakers, small people he mistook for elves, etc. They toil away breaking ice. Some plan to use the waterfall, which runs from the prison's courtyard before crashing down outside, to make a daring escape. 

Warden Icehole guards the prison, on Miser Master's payroll. Too big for his britches, he likes to brag and give tours around the facilities. His lack of care is somewhat justified -- he's hired 6 Yetis to guard the prisoners. He's found they can be well trained if incentivized with reindeer haunches. 

Hardrock "Brass Bells" Verdi has a plan to escape though. Hardrock, his tattoo artist Jo, and a few other of the fellas have figured out they can break out if they can somehow 1) break down the portcullis blocking the waterfall, 2) surf out on an ice float, and 3) survive the fall. All while managing to avoid the Yetis. 

Without outside assistance, the plan will fail. 

• Jo will be caught chiseling away at the portcullis and devoured by Yetis. 
• The ice float will work, but it will be so cold, the crew will get pneumonia as they chisel it.
• During the escape, the Yetis will catch half the crew. The other half will not survive the fall to the bottom of the waterfall. 

Other interesting prisoners:

1. A Jack-in-the-box: Sentient, longs to return to the Ilse of Misfit Toys. 
2. A Ceraphalophore: Named Berilark, he holds in head in his hands while he sighs sad poetry. Arrested for "strange behavior," he's not quite sure what's happened to himself. 
3. A swearing penguin.
4. A Baker. She's afraid of his creation, the Gingerbread man, has gotten free. She knows the Man's weakness: he can't cross running water (and will ask for a ride & be easily captured). 
5.  A big pile of snow. Previously a Snowman, his heart grew too warm. 
6. A dozen kids. All really quite cold, they promise they aren't elves and promise to they'll be good this year. 

 

Gingerbread House

A frozen river trickles by a candied cottage. The otherwise plain cottage is decorated with giant gumdrops and candycanes. Outside, a young man (?) cheerfully carries firewood.

The Gingerbread Man (Stats for Carin) 4 HP 8 STR 18 DEX 10 WIL Rolling Pin (d6)

• You can't catch me! - The Gingerbread Man can move 90' per round. 
•  Nimble - characters making ranged attacks against the Gingerbread Man must make DEX saves to deal damage successfully.  
• Crumbly - Whenever the Gingerbread Man takes STR damage, he loses a limb at random.

The Gingerbread Man, the final creation of the imprisoned Baker, is an immature delinquent. He will laugh and run and run. If ignored, he will grow frustrated and start to launch drive-by attacks with his rolling pin. Around his neck is a Gingerbread Cog, stolen out of boredom. 

He cannot cross the river, though will gladly accept a ride on someone's back to cross. The ice is thin and water freezing, making crossing extremely dangerous.  

Gingerbread Limb - Eating part of the gingerbread man imbues the effects of Haste on the eater for d6 turns. 

Gingerbread Cog - A stolen part from the Weather Advancement Institute's Gingerbread Mecha. Needed to repair Knee #3. 

Rolling Pin (d6) - While functional as a club, using this pin to bake creates sentient pastries. 

 Inside the cottage -A stove loaded with gingerbread limbs, unbaked and poorly made. The stove's fuel is empty. Amongst crayon drawings of happy gingerbread families, there is a blueprint for putting all the gingerbread pieces together to form a gingerbread man.

  

Rogue Like Character Generation

I’ve been weaning my players off the sour milk of 5e and supplementing them on the udder delight of the OSR. The transition, though mostly smooth, has one chaffing point: character creation. 

 

Trying Knave 2e, Carin 2e, or Holmes Basic, my players quibbled at the random & minimal character creation process. Characters are meant to be simple and quick to make, given the lethal nature of most OSR games. But my players like their blorbos, they like feeling like a bigger part of the world a la a backstory, and they like customization (Side note: did you know there are over 40 ancestries in 5e (2014) now? Where are these guys living?) 

 

In the intersection of these two dichotomies, I present the “rogue-like” character generator. It’s fast and allows for a good deal of player choice. It’ll leave characters stronger than the typical level 1 grave robber, and the general process is compatible with any class-less system (Knave, Mausritter, Into the Odd, etc). Here’s how it works:

 

1. Generate a list of abilities. Write them down on pieces of paper or into a digital generator (I use Perchance).

1. This list should be easy to make. Steal from other classes, magic items, etc. “Turn Undead” or “Immovable Rod” are good choices. 

2. I prefer toolbox abilities that give my players more interaction with the world. I do include a few raw stat boosts for the more numerically inclined players. 
3. This is also an excellent opportunity to slip in Dark Souls world building or minimalist lore.

2. Put the paper slips in a cup and have a player pick 3. They choose 1 to keep and put the rest back. Repeat twice (or however many times you feel like being generous). 

1. This guarantees each ability is unique to a character. 

2. Very quick! It’s picking slips three times and writing it down (or just taping the paper to their character sheet). 
3. Obviously, the more abilities you hand out, the stronger the players will be.

3. Viola! The character is done. Fill out other ability scores as normal.

 

Trompe l’oeil of playing cards, matches, posters and watercolour landscapes (1903) E. Delcroix

Variants

A.    Categories. I like to put each ability into a category (Martial, Arcane, or Item/Misc.) and have the players pick one slip from each category. This ensures if someone really wants magic, they’ll always get one magic option. 

B.    Draw 5, pick 2. Players draw 5 slips and choose 2 of them. Allows for more limited choices, but since they pick two, they can guarantee the two they pick go together (as best as they can). 

C.    Leveling Up. When characters advance, they can roll for a new ability. An additional variant would be they could replace an old ability. 

D.    Ancestries. Some slips say “Elf,” “Dwarf,” “Killer Robot,” etc. with the ancestry tag. These traits can only be chosen if they haven't claimed ancestry (so no Dwarven Killer Robots). 

 

If you’re curious what list I pull from, you can take a look here. I curate it some, depending on what adventure I’m running (so nobody gets Swamp resistance in the campaign set in the desert). I stole a lot from blogs and games, so if you see something that's yours, thank you!

 

d66 Power Sources

Crystals, what can’t they do? If you need to trap an ancient evil, power up a doomsday device, or send a small child on a series of world-defining fetch quests, crystals have got you covered. One might say too well covered. 

 

I think crystals have become a lazy McGuffin in lieu of any other power source for magic, robots, or rituals. Here’s a d66 list of alternative energy sources to help you escape from the crystal caves:

 11. Blood vials. Life essence, drained thin and red. 

12. Star fragment. Cast off skin of a cosmic body, glowing with otherworldly light. 

13. Imp in a hamster wheel. If idle hands are the devil’s play things, then busy feet are the devil’s business. 

14. Dinosaur Bones. Hidden within the earth, remnants of the forms of extinct megafauna. Bird bones will do in a pinch. 

15. Ectoplasm. Spiritual residue from hauntings, things powered by this have eerie afterglows and erratic behavior. 

16.  Hair of an Elf. Rich and radiant, worth more than if it was spun from pure gold. 

 

21. Ahab’s Hatred. Pure and fanatical energy, enough to drive a man to the end of the world. Enough to make a man grand, godly, and un-godly. 

22. Moon Fragment. Stones from Earth’s sister, wanting to return to their progenitor. 

23. Goblin in a hamster wheel. Nobody work ‘arder than da green guys. 

24. Bark of the World Tree. All the world's fates are written on the bark; to change the bark is to change the fabric of life.

25. Raw Amber. Crystalline tree life-fluid from primordial titans. 

26. Another monster. Need to trap a fiend? Hire an archfiend? Need to power your staff of fireballs? Enlist a very small dragon. 

 

31. Faerie Dust. Twinkling, tricksy magic from twinkling tricksy folk. 

32. Fruit of the Jub Jub Tree. Fiercely guarded by the bipedal jubjub bird, naturally. Swelling with ripeness, fit to provide nutrients for months. 

33. Skulls of Saints. Divine in life, with all impure thoughts driven from their mortal vessels, they are doubly divine in death. 

34. Money. A commodity so powerful as to make the world turn. 

35. Electro-plasma. Residue from when a ghost is hit by lightning. Shockingly efficient. 

36. Vibrant Song. Choral resonances coupled and folded over each other in spiritual unity.

 

41. Oil & Steel. That which powers machines and gives metal thoughts. Steel to construct and replace flesh. 

42. Uranium. Hey, if it works in real life, why can't it work in fantasy land? Give your demon a uranium reactor core, see who cares. 

43. Mathematical certainty. Nothing more irrefutable than a well postulated formula. Nothing holds greater weight in the courts of order. 

44. Never melt ice. Frozen in the deepest heart of the northern most polar, this ice never thaws in the face of the hottest flame. 

45. Giant Hamster in a hamster wheel. When a hamster, imp, or goblin won’t cut it.

46. Rasputin’s seed. Potency sourced straight from a warlock. Comes in a small flask

 

51. Tris(bipyridine) ruthenium (II). Small, red crystals that amplify any light shown on them. A common catalyst for alchemists. 

52. Lost innocence. The kind found discarded after a coming of age story. Fragile and ephemeral.

53. Mirror that’s seen the face of god. Looking into it, it seems to only reflect your visage. 

54. Philosophical zen. Power found in asserting “All things are as they should be, and all things will be as they must.”

55. Chains forged in the fires of Mt Doom. Hellish steel, imbued with the hatred of the flames that forged them, strong enough to restrain a god. 

56. Dream of the sleeping leviathan. As the leviathan sleeps, the world turns. As it dreams, it reshapes the turning of the world.

 

61.  Small tornados. Marginally easier to control than wind elementals, pure rotational energy.

62. Gravity. The force to push and pull, typically given only to heavenly bodies.

63. Tears of the Monarch. Whose golden brow gives us succor, and who weeps for wretched humanity. 

64. Books of Knowledge. Wizards and the illiterate hoard these for the same reason: not for the ink on the page, but for the power within. 

65.  Experience points. If leveling up via XP turns a common farmhand into a potent fighter, would else can raw experience do?

66. Friendship. There’s nothing more powerful. 

 

Is Dark Souls the greatest time travel story ever?

 

No, the greatest time travel story is clearly Time Bandits, closely followed by Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Apologies for the click bait title. 

 

Time travel stories are notoriously difficult to write satisfactorily, given the plethora of paradoxes and fallacies one can fall into. This is especially true for TTRPGs where the players have far more narrative control than characters in a scripted story. But temporal manipulation calls to me like the swan song of an albatross to a crossbow man. 

 

The Dark Souls series has quite the habit of putting in time travel in unexpected places. From fighting a corrupted knight with a huge sword in the 1st game’s DLC, to fighting the memories of giants in the 2nd, to fighting a corrupted knight with a huge sword in the 3rd game’s DLC, I think there’s some rich fruit on the vine to steal, with minimal temporal paradoxes. After all, all games are Souls-likes. 

 

 

1. The Failed Hero. Legend recalls that Artorias sacrificed himself and banished great evil. He did not. After being corrupted, the player must first slay Artorias then finish his task of banishing the great evil. 

1. How to use: Basically 1-to-1. Seed the legend of a hero who saved the world, then time travel the players to the past. They must first overcome the corrupted hero then become the hero themselves. 

2.  Issues: This is “cool fight DnD” not “door DnD,” more appropriate for 5e or Pathfinder than OSE, Knave, or Carin. Are there paradoxes? I’d say a minimal amount. If the heroes fail, maybe there’s another group who succeeds. Place this far away, temporally and spatially so any reverberations to the present are small. 

 

2.     Memories of You. Touch a tree, and relive the memories of giants invading the continent. 

a.     How to use: “Memory” as a time-travel device is much more malleable than actual time-travel. The players travel to the Sphinx’s memory of an otherwise forgotten crypt. 

b.    Issues: Can objects travel out of memories? Maybe they just need lore hidden in the past. Also requires a bit more framing -- whose memory is this? Paradoxes could be more common, but easily resolved by saying “Hmm, that isn’t quite how I remembered it.” You’d have to decide whether the player’s actions have real effects on current events. 

 

3.     The Future Martyr. At the end of the world, Gael has devoured the dark souls of all pygmies, save one. Yours. 

a.     How to use: The arch-villain and/or MacGuffin lies in the far flung future, at the end of the world. The players must travel there, do what needs to be done, and return. 

b.     Paradoxes? By setting the destination in the far future, you make it so any ripple effects aren’t felt. Setting the destination at the end of the world means no ripple effects are felt. 

c.     Issues: Again, this cool fight DnD. This premise does need more massaging to compel players more. Dark Souls 3 doesn’t need to do this because the aim of the game is having cool fights. Maybe a future temple to plunder? Or a treasure vault set to open in 10,000 from the player’s time?

4.     Stealing from Borrowed Time. A precious relic has been lost to the ages. The player must travel back before it's lost to recover it. Ok, this one isn’t from Dark Souls, but I still really like it. 

a.     How to use: As on the tin. Fits a nice little causal time loop too! (The relic only goes missing because the players stole it). 

b.    Issues: Again, setting things in the far distant past and spatially far away can minimize any timeline tampering. Similar to (1), if the players fail, maybe another group succeeds. Could also place the relic in the present day in a hard to find area. This is a bit of quantum ogre-ing, but one could argue that’s appropriate for time travel plots. 

5.     Ocarina of Time. The great demon lord takes over the kingdom while you, the hero of destiny, are but a child. You skip forward in time to face them as an adult. Ok, this one isn’t from Dark Souls either, but it would be silly not to mention it.

a.     How to use: Have two timelines -- one where the players are children and one where they are adults. As children, they cannot fight but can explore and influence the world around them. As adults, they are taken seriously by NPCs and can solve problems with violence. 

b.    Issues: Yeah this one is tough. You’re going to have to juggle two timelines and see how one influences the other, making potential paradoxes rife. One solution is to minimize the impact of the players as children. Maybe they can’t alter fate entirely (can’t kill NPCs because they are children, can’t convince anyone with any power to change), but can make more subtle changes (hide a cache of goods to find in the future, take out long term bonds (?), change a minor NPC’s disposition, save a marriage, etc). 

 

And those are my current thoughts on time travel. I’ve used Memories of You in a 5e campaign and it worked out well, especially to drop some lore on my players. Why have them learn about a historic NPC when they could meet them?