Winter in Lanthanum Chromate

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David McGrogan wanted more Lanthanum Chromate. This is an old, old idea from the blog, the City Without a Name.

I did give it a name, pretty quickly too. It’s still one of the most popular posts. if you go to the original you can still has the original old-style Courier font.

A lot of people have asked me if or when I am going back to Lanthanum Chromate. Well, I have a lot on. But for a short while; now.

......................................

Snow boils to steam. A wet and gloomy city, cooked in the steam of dying ice, looks out on a frozen world, a great white plain dotted with migrations of the passing megabeasts and on the fractured and aggressive slate-grey Sea of Eons (not yet broken).

The Hell Mouth glitters with encrustations of coagulated hate and glistering gems of pain.

Sulphurous winds howl - gales from the Sea of Eons tilt the hell-tongue of smoke from the volcanoes lip and lie it flat across the snow, wind so cold that even the ghosts of wolves that haunt the cities ruins will curl up smaller than dreams and hide themselves in drifting thoughts, turning them bloody and wild.

The frozen wind leaves sparkling piss-yellow crystals of hellish discontent blazoned like lateral icicles from glutted gutters and overhanging eaves.

Out on the Stompodont Plains a bright tail of hateful yellow ice lies blazed across the clear land and wild Perytons lunge and bark at each other as they fall from the ashy sky like black leaves to lick the bad ice.

Soot stains the glowing clouds with crawling black demonic signs which hang like poisoned graffiti over the head of the somnolent, unaware world.

The powers of Hell grow strong. Demons skip across the rooftops in the night, dodging the silver-sign strung cables of the Enochian War Kites made to ward against just such attacks. Creatures of the Gibbonomicon, they clamber and cling, chittering and screaming that the last season of the city has come, that spring will never rise for Hell calls, finally, for Lanthanum Chromate.

(Are they the souls of evil monkeys? or simply monkeys from Hell? An ancient riddle, for another time.)

Yet, for all that, they are swiftly beheaded by the silver chakram of the YvesGuard, long-sworn rooftop stalkers of Lanthanum Chromate. Thier heads bite the cobblestones like hail, a sober benediction for a still season, and out in the painfields the Perytons scatter like flies from glimmering shit as, from the North, the Stompodont Mammoth-Centuar-Men arrive to complete their yearly pilgrimage and fulfil, or end, their ancient pledge to the Thane of Sorrows.

The form of the enormous Centuar-Men varies. All have the lower bodies of huge woolly mammoths and the upper bodies of enormous men, or thick-set apes. Some have near-human heads with freezing cyclopean eyes, some the heads of elephants which blast gales of freezing snow from hairy tractomorphic face nozzles.

They wield clubs formed from boulders clutched by tree-roots or axes shaped from huge flint rocks. Others carry small siege bows as men might hold a crossbow - products of their trade with Lanthanum Chromate.

In greeting, the Ultimate Horns are sounded and what population remains gathers in the buildings that line the Brimstone Road, the ceremonial dog-leg thoroughfare up and into the core of Lanthanum Chromate. Spectators rattle demon bones in bags and a confetti of orc-teeth falls from the windows (most local orcs being exterminated, pig teeth are often used instead). Old family Carnyx's are hustled out and roar out greetings.

One by one, the Stompadonts pass, climbing slowly into the burning city core, nodding gravely at those who cheer. Seemingly impassive.

As night falls the Stompodonts arrive before the Grieving Hall. The Thane of Sorrows awaits, armed only with his ceremonial axe Hearts-Edge, he stands alone before the gathered centaur men.

Silence falls. Every year, every time, the hell fire burns upwards like a crowd peeping over a fence, its glow cast down into the waiting city. perhaps this year, it seems to say,  perhaps this time.

The Thane raises Hearts-Edge and runs screaming towards the Stompodont-Men.

The High Smasher of the Stompodonts stamps forth and, by eye or by truck, by whisper or breath, blasts the Thane of Sorrows with a long-stored blue-black plume of murderous ice drawn from the well of cold at the worlds quiet end.

The Thane is frozen.

For so it must be, in memory of the first alliance of the Stompodonts and Lanthanum Chromate, which began at first, not in friendship, but in cruel Demon-born war.

The Thane stands. Froze in a spike-ridged rapid motion blur of solid ice.

Should they fail, they die, and the old alliance fail as well, and the Stompodonts no more return.

So it must be, for ancient wrongs, and the dead and their memory never rest easy, here of all places.

A creak, like birdsong barely heard. A skreel.

The smallest of cracks.

Stillness. The city waits. The Hellfire waves.

The Thane stands immovable beneath the black sheen.

Perhaps this year, says the fire.

A shivering, like the rattling of teacups.

The Stompodonts observe. The High Smasher of all Stompodonts is utterly still, fixated on the cage of death-born black ice.

If a Thane cannot escape, then no Thane they be.

A crack. Unmistakable.

And then a crashing roar!

Black ice explodes, first from flexing muscle, then in a radial torrent from the Thanes whole form as, in one great flex, they hurl off the cage of ice and clamber forwards, smashing through the last remains - advancing on the High Smasher..

Who kneels and embraces their old ally.

Cheers erupt. The great flares are lit. The Hellfire loops and breaches in frustrated rage.

First there will be a great celebration, with much feasting and telling of old tales.

Then, together, the Thane of Sorrows, with all the Old Guard of Lanthanum Chromate, and the High Smasher of the Arctic Stompadonts, will advance to the Calderas Rim.

The Centaur-Men will drive back the flames with their ice eyes and blasting loud noses - and form a road of bright ice, piercing the borders of the damned underworld.

Hearts-Edge is raised.

The Winter Invasion of Hell has begun!

Some Dwarves

So Dwarves

They won't see race, or barely, but they will see what you make. So if you do something to alter your appearance then they will see that. So the races of the Dwarves (that is, until we get to stuff like Derro or Duergar), are the materials they generally work with.

The Dwarves we are familiar with are big on steel as they have a lot of it but other Dwarves tend to think of that as their specialist ethnic material. (Handy, hard, but how do you stop it rusting?)


Dwarves of Gold and Ivory.

Make elaborate mail of glass beads, which helps to keep them cool in their hot climates. Super curly hair means they tend to think of is as a kind of construction material for the head, forming beards and haircuts into asymmetric wedges, or sometimes three dimensional models of their home city or mountain.

Tend to break down laughing whilst trying to relate a joke they told a week ago, (these Dwarves laugh) its so funny in their memory that they can't get all the way through it without breaking down.

Really want to tell you about their family, in depth, for hours. Family is huge and has collectively done and experienced some of everything so no topic so strange that they do not have a handy homily about it.

Tend to announce that they are going to speak to you before, or as, they speak to you. i.e. sits down and says "I will speak to you now."

Iron is a currency to them and they wear thick torcs of raw iron around their arms and waists.

Most are very black and they smear fine gold dust all over themselves as a kind of makeup or war-paid, the dust catches in the folds of their skin and  makes them seem to glow like bronze. Other dwarves think looking like this is pretty cool and are slightly annoyed they can't really carry it off.


Dwarves of Jade and Wine.

These have wild black bristles that stick straight out. Very distinct mustaches. Tend to wear a lot of jade, including a kind of closely arranged mail of jade pieces that jingles softly as they walk, a distinct sound for each clan.

These Dwarves are named so as they are one of the few kinds of Dwarf that actively enjoys wine more than Beer or Spirits. (All Dwarves will drink wine if available, but these will actively seek it out.)

Brutal calligraphy duels with two-handed calligraphy brushes, if a dwarf dies they can still win the duel if they leave behind the superior poem on the paper floor where it is fought. The loser will always accept the superiority of the poem if it is better, even if they killed their enemy. In fact they will make a point of mentioning it in the future. "I bested Shan Lun in the Poets-cage, but only his flesh is dead, his words will burn through time when I am dead." Then they recite the poem.

These Dwarves are so friendly and luxurious when drunk, and so often drunk, that they are the only Dwarves that sometimes seem lazy. (They aren't really, but can sometimes give that impression.)

They like monkeys, are friends with them and even have a monkey god. (Very unusual.)


Dwarves of Obsidian and Bone

These very fierce Dwarves have even less metal available to them than most. Amazingly, they ritually shave themselves and tattoo elaborate abstract beard designs onto their faces and chests (presumably slowly expanding over the body during their life). They wear a kind of elaborate gorget/mask of obsidian shards which takes the place of a beard and which is fucking terrifying.

Their weapons are obsidian and hardwood, as well as other organic materials such as bone. They are always on the lookout for new kinds of bone and will raise incredible animals over centuries, simply to harvest the bone when they die.

In their homelands they are called 'Cave-Lords' and actually rule as an upper caste from very well-developed terraced farmlands on the shoulders of high mountains. They travel beneath the earth through the caves that are common to that part of the world and generally do not bother low-living peoples much, or at all, unless monsters threaten, in which case they issue forth with great violence




(Our (Western-standard) Dwarves call themselves the 'Dwarves of Stone and Steel', but really everyone likes stone, so when not present they tend to be called the Dwarves of Steel and Beer. Although most Dwarves are pretty fond of beer too.)

I was going to go for an Indian-Standard set but its hard to get a strong material signature for Indian crafts. Is there any material or set of materials that brings that culture strongly to mind? (Obviously dwarves with Bakh Nakh are a must so they have to have those. I was thinking of making them the only dwarves that actively use a wide range of weapons instead of just impact-damage stuff. Sikhs are so close to the cultural dwarf-zone that its hard to not just re-make them shorter.)

Timing, Alignment and Lanthanum Chromate

No big thoughts today. Instead, have three small ones.

Timing

What’s up with your timing? Where are you getting the time to read this, where are you getting the hours to play that game?

This shit is a specific skill set. Playing D&D. Running it. First you have to be the kind of person who can comfortably read a potentially huge book of rules, for pleasure, remember them and use them.

There is shit at work that is less complicated than the rules artefacts I use in games. It’s vital to my job, I get paid to think about it. I can’t remember it, I don’t pay attention to it. I hate thinking about it. I absorb just enough to coast. But I can run a stacked decision tree in real time with imagined physics and shifting chronology and input from four different people in a world that I invented, using a compressed version of rules that were originally the size of a phone book. I compressed the rules because I read the phonebook for fun and then I came up with ‘better’ rules, also for fun.

I have occasionally persuaded a bunch of people, some of whom didn’t know each other, to sit around a table doing something some of them had never tried, with rules that only I had read.

I can deal with a bunch of conflicting personalities and patterns of attention and reasons to be there in a bunch of different people and the whole thing can come out ok. I can do the same thing with a bunch of teenage boys. Not every time, but enough times to keep people coming back. 

I can be a challenging adversary who forces people to think and adapt and a trusted guide they know won’t fuck them up or mess them around. I can do both of these things at the same time. If that sounds simple, it isn’t. Many people would have trouble doing that. Many people do. They play card games.

You need to be a strangely specific kind of person to play D&D and you need to be an even more specific person to play old school D&D and be any good at it. A lot of rules stuff, a lot of imagination stuff and a shitload of social competence. If you are thinking ‘ha ha social competence and D&D ha ha, then, Yes. How many normal people do you know in your life who could do all this shit, even if they wanted to, even if you paid them. It is a narrow slice of the venn diagram.

(I didn’t say better I said specific.)

Who amongst you can’t say the same? I bet most of you can do that shit, or all of you. Which raises the question, where do you find the time to do it?

Because if you are good with rules and you can handle people a bit and you can put together a game then you probably have a well paying job, that you actually enjoy. Because that arrangement of qualities is rare. And if you have enough drive and ambition and skill to have that job then how are you finding enough time to game?

The Pendragon game is down. The DM is a Doctor of the Philosophy of Law, one of the players is a Doctor of Mathematics. They have shit to do. They have wives (and families soon). People drop out because they have kids, they have kids because they have lives they have lives because they are competent creative human beings who get things done, if they weren’t, they wouldn’t have been able to play the game in the first place.

So for people actually doing this shit. Is there something odd about you?

(I said ‘odd’ not ‘wrong’, I am leaving my view of myself out of this along with customary internet gamer-shame because that shit is noise.)

If you are capable of playing D&D, in particular Old-School creatively intensive real-thinking D&D. (and there is nothing wrong with any other kind because games are games first) then what’s your schedule like? You have a family? A job? Student? Weird artist? How many hours of focused attention do you get per day? TELL ME ABOUT YOUR LIFE.

Alignment

Has anyone ever done D&D char gen as a product of alignment?

Like:-

Lawful is 4^th ed style point-point buy.

Neutral is 5d6 down the line, take the highest and lowest away. (Would that actually effect the probability curve or is that dumbass maths?)

Chaotic is 1d20 down the line?

I don’t know how you work in good and evil to stats? What’s a good stat? Whats’ an evil one?

We could thing deeply about this, but why bother? Lets do it quickly.

Good stats are WIS, STR, CON. 

Wise is good, Yoda, Gandalf. 

Strong is good. Superman, Gilgamesh. There are not many weak good guys, way under 50 per cent anyway. 

Toughness is good. Good guys resist, they hang on for just one more round. Leia, Marlowe, Indy, Rocky.

Evil stats are CHA, INT and DEX. 

Charisma is obvious, Dracula, Kurtz, Richard III, Satan. 

A high INT is obviously a bad ‘un. Hans Gruber, every bond villain, Sauron. 

Dexterity? Well, maybe. Ninja’s? The Joker? Effete Nazi’s all playing with their cards and coat hangers. It measures less perfectly than the rest but I would bet that where there are characters that are strong and those that are dexterous in the same fiction and that fiction has a visible, tangible moral code, then the dexterous guys are more likely to be bad than the strong ones, not by much, but about 65%. You know it’s real cause I have statistics.

Lawful Good guys are boring, strong, wise and tough, but not by much. A little bit better. They are also predictable. So if you are the kind of player who has to know what character you are going to be then your characters are all lawful. 

Chaotic ones are the opposite. If you like having no idea who will turn up then all your characters are chaotic.

Chaotic Evil characters are Intelligent, Charismatic and Dexterous, but you never know when they will turn up. You can decide to play Lawful good or Lawful evil but you can’t decide to play chaotic good or chaotic evil because it depends what stats get  good rolls, it’s in the hands of fate, you can only decide to be chaotic.

And if you decide to be neutral? Well you get someone dull.

A world where all intelligent charismatic people are evil but also weak and vulnerable and unperceptive would be an interesting one.

Lanthanum Chromate

I think Lanthanum Chromate will be the name of the Dwarven City Without a Name. I like the sound of it. 

“Most of the greatest deposits of ore for chromium were produced by early settling of the weighty mineral chromite within the magma chamber. Black, dense bands of chromite form dull layers of booty; the chromium miner is like the naughty boy scraping all the meatiest bits from the bottom of the stew.”

“The sample heater has to be immune to the temperatures of the experiment, which rules out any materials familiar to us in the home. Lanthanum chromate (LaCrO3) has just the right properties, when encased within a zirconia (ZrO2) sleeve. Tungsten carbides’s atomic structure has something of the three-dimensional fortitude of diamond; a trace of added cobalt improves the toughness.

Kamikaze Librarian

 Extra class thing based on the LOTFP ruleset. 

The idea and one or two of the entries yanked from Zak Smiths Fighter, Wizard and Thief

Its this-

 Plus this-

 

No shields, no plate mail, Its Kamikaze Librarian.

 This can be applied when you level up to either .

A Specialist; when you level up add  d6 Hp,  or

A Dwarf; add d6 Hp

And also, roll twice on the table below for each level gained.

(All references to books can also count for equivalent cultural artefacts, paintings, sculpture etc, so long as it makes sense in context.)

(Elves and Halflings cannot be Kamikaze Librarians, they are not Punk enough. Elves are Disco, Halflings are Folk.)

1-15 A dull day out indeed, add 2 skill points if a Specialist, if a Dwarf, either roll a d10 for hitpoints, or add one skill point to any skill of your choice.

16-30 RAAAAAGGGHH!!! Either +1 to hit (continual) or attacks equal to your level for one fight per game or one extra move action whenever you like, so long as you use it to get into melee combat with something bigger than you.

31-50 I have a book on that… Name a book, its contents and subject. You own it. Once per game you can use it to add your level to a roll regarding something relevant to the subject of the book.

51-52 Bookzerker. If a book (or equivalent cultural artefact) is in immediate danger of destruction, then you gain +1 to hit AND +1 attack AND +1 move action for each item that is threatened, up to 1/2 your level (rounding up . So a level 10 bookzerker gets +5 things they can do and can decide each as they wish. Only in effect while the item is in danger. (If you deliberately put it in danger then fucking shoot yourself, don’t play this class.) If you roll this again, add one to your total  of actions each time.

53-54“It belongs in a MUSEUM” Once per fight, as a free action you can grab an item of cultural/historical significance from someone adjacent to you. No roll or penalty. (Significance, i.e.  A Sword, no, but The Sword Of The King Of Tazadun, yes.)  roll this again and on a dex test they didn’t notice, 3 times and they definitely didn’t notice plus you get a free move action.

55-56 Bookclub/ Scrollknife You can roll up any scroll and turn it into an impromptu D4 weapon Jason-Bourne style. A book likewise. A big book you need two hands for becomes a d6 weapon, though that is less of a surprise. If it’s a magic book or scroll then the dice ‘explodes’ on a max roll. Add a die size every time you roll this result.

57-58 ‘Oh..  My… God’  The daVinci Mode. This carving on the wall, detail on the cup, marginal note, the sculptures eyes, concerto’s notation, the temples alignment, THE RAYS COMING FROM THE STAFF. It breaks the whole thing open, now you see what’s really going on. Once per game you can talk for exactly thirty seconds, no more, without pause or prep, about some detail you have found and how it REVEALS EVERYTHING. If the DM and players buy it, then can re-write reality equivalent to a limited wish spell. It must make sense in the context of the game.

59-60 Alexandrian Fire Brigade. You are really good at stopping things (and people) being on fire very very quickly. Books, buildings, city states. It scales up if you have the time and resources.  Roughly one second for a painting or book,  Takes about 10 seconds per man-sized-mass-equivalent. 

61-62 Curatorial Expertise. You can tell when any organised group of physical things is out of place or other than it should be given the system in which it is arranged. Books in a library, statues in a row, paintings in a gallery, knives in a cupboard. There must be five or more things. Time taken to inspect is relative to the size of the grouping. It tells you nothing else about the thing, what it is or why it is there. Not people, unless they are arranged like objects to an abstract logic. The assassin in a dancehall, no, one of the red queens playing-card guards, yes.

63-64 An Angel of Formaldehyde. Give you a jar big enough and a solid place to stand and you could pickle the world. You can pickle any dead once-living thing you find. Assuming you have a jar big enough and the chemicals.  If you take it home, every day of study will grant you some piece of knowledge about the thing. Up to your level. (Base expectation is a vulnerability or a +1 to hit or damage). If you only have part of a thing then it might take you more time or more examinations to works stuff out proportionate to the chunk that you have. As you increase in level you can go back to your old specimens and maybe find new things about them.

65-66 An Axe to Smash the Face of Time.  Time is the enemy of Librarians, a book is a stony dam in the torrent of Lethe, a museum is like the Hoover Dam. If carrying an Axe in Tragic circumstances (i.e. witness to things being subject to inevitable loss) then you may enter a screaming fit and hew your Axe into the face of Chronos. Chronos is currently incarnated,( in the manner of Moby Dick) as the people/things pissing you off at this particular moment. (It’s an Ahab thing). The Axe will wipe their memories. By smashing their fucking brains out of their head. Every blow is to the head of humanoid enemies, d20 damage each time. One fight per game. Add one for each time you roll this. Any survivors suffer amnesia. If you are not carrying an Axe, why not? Not even a small one? A tomahawk? What kind of librarian are you?

67-68 Five Thousand Furies in the Teeth of the Gods. You know the names of 5000 furies from scraping for weeks through broken cuneiform script. Well you sort of know them, you kind of forgot most and they blur a little into one after a while. If you can point at a person (or intelligent monster) and name correctly the thing they have done that would enrage the Kindly Ones then the Fury of that particular act will plunger out of the heavens and fill you with divine rage. So long as you are trying to kill that particular person. Plus (=your level) attacks and plus (=your level) damage for each hit so long as you fight that person. Pass out for minutes =your level after fight is over. Once per game for every time rolled. 

69-70 An oath of bone, and eye of stone. Your word is as a rock, and that rock is for caving skulls. You may single out one opponent whose name you know and describe in sonorous pseudo-celtic or plastic anglo-saxon verse, exactly how you will kill them in this fight. If you score a critical against them in this conflict, and if at all possible, the oath comes true. Once per game per times rolled. 

71-72 Raw Punk Hair. You get a new haircut and it looks punk as fuck. You now stand out as an opponent of Authority. Anyone who has been oppressed by the Man will find it hard to distrust you. Anyone working for the Man will peg you straight on as trouble. (Who the Man is shifts relative to circumstances). Hair effect disappears with skull shaving or a helmet, but reappears once the hair grows back or helmet (or hat) is removed. You will not change the hair. Why would you? +1 CHA to those opposed to authority each roll. No-one suspects you are a narc.

73-74 Sharp Motherfucker.  You look like a detective in an off-kilter tv series, a teacher who reads Vice magazine, a social worker whose sister owns a boutique.  Kind of a low-level vaguely beneficial authority figure who dresses really well. Police will trust you. The mayor likes you shoes. If you ask about the crime scene people will just assume you are supposed to know. You going to that thing later? +1 CHA to authority figures each time, plus no questions at the door. (if you roll both Raw Punk Hair and Sharp Motherfucker then you will confuse the fuck out of people, you can decide how people take you, but you better act the part, you also look amazing).

75-76 Dewy Decimal Deathsong.  As your life bleeds from you, in a flurry of doomstruck blows you categorise the fuck out of everything you can see. Add your WIS and INT modifiers together. When at half hit points or below, you may have this many extra attacks per round, so long as you (the player) shout the category of each individual thing you are hitting as you (the character) swing. Once per game. Plus once for every  time you roll this.

77-78 Flynnsertion. One per fight, as a free action, you can grab a rope or curtain or chain or anything like that and freely swing anywhere it could reasonably take you. If you are swinging into danger, there is no roll involved. If trying to get out of danger, roll your DEX, unless you are carrying a book away from someone who shouldn’t have it. Once per fight every time you reroll this.

78-79 ‘lefthanded writer,  just ate lunch, hates his mother’  You can analyse handwriting, ink types, paper scars, all kinds of pseudo forensic bullshit. Reading any piece of handwritten text lets you describe/discover nouns and adjectives equal to your level about the writer. If you get it wrong (if the identity is already set in game) then the DM has to give you the correct word.

80-81 We Have Heard of Those Princes Heroic Campaigns. You remember these guys from somewhere.. When confronted with a high level noble, king, merchant house, church, guild or equivalent you can recall the real story as to where they come from, they source of their power, it rarely what they say it is. The DM must provide any and all information about this family/organisation. The information must be at least 100 years old. Once per game per roll.

82-83 Chomskarian Rhetoric. With an opposed CHA vs WIS roll and a long (an hour at least) conversation, you can use reductive logic, carefully chosen evidence and shocking confidence to  temporarily  convince low level members of any group that EVERYTHNG THEY KNOW IS WRONG. Up is down, black is white, THEY are US. Wears off after a day or so. Once per game per roll.

83-84 Divine Mandala Telephone. Pick a god of knowledge or writing from the setting or from real history. You know them. You don’t necessarily worship them. They don’t necessarily like you or owe you anything. But you know them and can contact them by making a complex mandala of special sand (takes d6 – DEX mod hours and no wind or interruption)

85-90 ‘dammn my eyes’ Your eyes are fucked, you now need glasses to see. Roll this twice and your glasses can see one thing normal glasses can’t (Infrared, ghosts etc) Add one thing for each time you roll this result. Make sure to clean them carefully after each blood-spattered brainbashing.

91 My Axe is my Bookmark. +1 Str to racial max, excess goes to Str or Con.

92 You are the steely-eyed one at the end of the bar. +1 Wis to racial max, excess goes to Int or Cha.

93 Reading pays off. +1 Int to racial max, excess goes to Wis or Cha. Note: You look no smarter.

94 You actually DO know what you’re talking about. +1 Cha. to racial max, excess goes to Wis or Int.

95-96 Cartographers guild party crasher You were at this party, with these map guys, you think, you were pretty drunk. Anyway they had this map that looked a bit like where we are now. Probably…  Player can close their eyes and draw, with pencil, and their off hand, one thing on the DM’s map. It’s probably there, or roughly there. Something like that anyway. Once per game per roll.

97-98 I only read the action scenes You actually read a prophecy about this exact event ages ago somewhere, actually you skipped most of it and you forgot how it ends but the death scenes were really specific. 2+ save against the next thing that would have killed you as you suddenly remember what it was. Of course now the prophecy is useless because you broke it. Once for each reroll.

99-100 Marcus Brody You have a Brody,

 an excellent, decent, civilised, knowledgeable friend at home. They consistently advise you no to go on adventures. They will never (no matter how much the Dm wants them to) betray you. If you make it home wounded or broken they will patch you up. They will look after your stuff while you are not around. If you are captured and they hear about it they will bravely (and stupidly) set out to rescue you. This rescue will, amazingly, considering how utterly useless they are at adventuring, be successful. As soon as you are rescued, the Brody will themselves be captured by someone horrible. Should you fail to rescue them, they will be killed. Who’s going to look after your stuff now you self-centred piece of shit?

And you get this

‘Another piece for the collection’ You have a place, somewhere, it’s safe. Like a small off the beaten track museum, library or gallery. You can keep your stuff there (reasonably) safe from DM interference. Name it.

For each exhibit of a type (sword, vase, picture, style, era, genre, author, smith.) retrieved and preserved safely by you. Once per game you may assess any item of that type. Roll a percentage dice.

-if the first d10 is under the number retreieved, the price, makup, creator, likely owner and any other mundane information within reason are known.

-if the 2 d10s, taken as a 2-digit number, are lower than the total slain, you know EVERYTHING that may be useful about that item. Including magical effects, strange conspiracies, likelt plot relavence e.t.c

Identicals or multiple mundane examples don't count, max is 90, collected after that just goes to bragging rights at your FLGS.

GMs are free to determine what constitutes a "type", Librarians are free to bore everyone by buying endless books in little second hand shops for no reason just to notch up, and the other players are free to have a little talk with them if they abuse these rights and perhaps should view them doing so as a nice little red flag.