My next project...

I'm entering the home stretch on the writing of Great & Small's extended rules.  I should be finishing the final draft in a couple of weeks, then moving into laying it out.  After that, I will go forward with some kind of crowd-funding effort to pay some artists and get it available for sale in hard-copy and PDF (with art), but with an art-free PDF version always available at no charge.

Anyway, since my brain feels like the end is in sight with this project (which it's not; I'm gonna maintain this blog indefinitely, adding support material, reviews, etc.), it's starting to let some of the other ideas down in my creative dungeon scratch at the door, demanding to be the Next Big Thing.

The one that's scratching loudest is one I've wanted to try for a long time, but just seemed too... niche, I guess: a musical horror fantasy setting inspired by vintage monster rock songs. 

To scratch that itch, I wrote up a little ditty and started a second blog, so I could have a foundation in  place if the idea proves popular.  You can read about here: Tales from the Haunted Jukebox.

Hope you like it.  If it grows some legs, I'll add more over there intermittently, but Great & Small remains my top priority.

Belated Halloween Post -- Featured Creature (Crocodilian) and An Animal Darklord

So, there's been a delay in my posting schedule, because meatspace reasons.

But not to worry: Halloween season at my house runs right up til Christmas, so I can still legitimately post my promised game stats for crocodile (and alligator) PCs, along with Great & Small stats for Death Bringer, the animal darklord of Ravenloft's Wildlands.

Crocodilian
Other than the great cats, crocodilians are perhaps the most feared predators on land, for they will eat anything or anyone they can catch in their powerful jaws.  They specialize in striking suddenly from a well-hidden position; so suddenly, in fact, that potential allies have little time to notice them, let alone establish parley, and so often become victims.  Despite their prowess, though, crocodilians rarely leave their habitat, and thus have limited knowledge of the world beyond their swamps and wetlands.  Like lizards and snakes, they are deliberative and ponderous, but swift and deadly when finally taking action.

There are three main kinds of crocodilians: alligators (which includes caimans), crocodiles, and gharials.  In a reality-lite setting, they will occupy separate continents but have very similar habits, while in a fantasy setting, they can mingle more or less freely.  The listed game stats cover all three types.

     AC: 5
     AT (Dam): Bite 1d7 [1d8], Tail slap 1d5 [1d6]
     Beginning HP: 7 [8]
     Habitat: Semitropical, tropical swamps & wetlands
     MV: 5, swim 6
     SZ: Small

Species Traits:

• Death Roll
• Fast Swimmer:  Crocodilians can use the run action while swimming, provided they only move in a straight line.
• Growth Spurt: Crocodilians become Medium at 2nd Total Level
• Hold Breath: Crocodilians can hold their breath for 10 minutes + 1 minute per Total Level/Hit Dice.
• Low-Light Vision
• Surprise Attack:  If successfully hidden at the beginning of a combat round, crocodilians surprise their foes on a roll of 1-3.
• +4 bonus on all lore checks that involve swimming.
• +2 bonus on checks to hide or move silently in the water.  This bonus becomes +5  if the character lies under the water with only her eyes and nostrils above the surface.
• Suitable Niches: Any

Death Bringer, King Crocodile, Darklord of Ravenloft's Wildlands
This great monster began life as a typical crocodile in a distant land that closely resembled sub-Saharan Africa.  When longpaws first arrived in this land, the other animals lived in fear of their weapons and mastery of fire, finding themselves driven further and further from their original home habitats.  It was then that Death Bringer seized his opportunity.  He visited all the other animals of his land, and made a pact with them: in exchange for a bit of their power, he would slay all the longpaws.  The other animals quickly agreed to this pact, for none of them had been able to defeat the longpaws on their own.

With each ritual infusion of other animals' power, Death Bringer grew larger in size and more versatile in his capabilities.  After the last longpaw was slain, he declared himself King Crocodile, and refused to return any of the other animals' power to them.  Instead, he began to prey upon his fellows, and became a horrible tyrant.  It was then that the Mists claimed him, and created the Wildlands as his domain.

The following stats use the Rules Cyclopedia entry for a giant crocodile as their base, with spandrels added on from each of the other species in the Wildlands, representing the powers Death Bringer claimed from them.

Death Bringer possesses all the standard crocodilian traits, except as noted below.

Death Bringer, 15th-level giant crocodile (Warrior)
     AC: 1
     AT (Dam): Bite 3d7 [3d8], tail slap 3d5 [3d6]
     HP: 98
     SZ: Huge

Spandrels:  In addition to the standard crocodilian traits, Death Bringer possess the following traits claimed from other species of animals through dark pacts born of fear and vengeance.

• Brachiation (claimed from the apes)
• Prehensile Tail (claimed from the monkeys)
• MV 8 on land (claimed from the elephants)
• Nine Lives (claimed from the lions) 
• Scent (claimed from the herdbeasts)
• Venom Resistance (claimed from the boars)

Halloween Setting Spotlight -- Ravenloft's Wildlands

Who says animal fantasy can’t be dark and gloomy with the best of them?

Islands Of Terror, the old AD&D 2nd supplement for the Ravenloft campaign setting, contained a fascinating domain called the Wildlands, which was populated entirely by talking animals, and ruled by a crocodile darklord.

The main problem with the domain is that it provided few Gothic horror role-playing opportunities for standard longpaw characters, and seemed designed to serve mostly as a meat-grinder where every creature you meet is out to kill you.

But the Wildlands can make an excellent Gothic horror-fantasy setting for animal player characters, whether native to the domain, or drawn in by the Mists.

The darklord -- Death Bringer, King Crocodile -- is actually pretty good, as throw-away one-shot villains go.  His backstory is a classic tale of greed and power-lust:  the other animals of the wilderness realm from which the Wildlands was formed made a pact with the Crocodile.  He vowed to slay all the "hairless apes" in the land, if each of the animals there would give him some of their power.  This, they did eagerly... and of course, when the slaughter was done, Crocodile refused to return the borrowed powers. Instead, he began hunting the other beasts. He was now the greatest animal in the realm, but his hubris and ambition doomed him to be claimed by the Mists.  Though not before a python prophesied that Death Bringer would die either by the hand of a "hairless ape," or from something he felt was beneath his notice.

Death Bringer can be greatly fleshed-out using Great & Small's spandrels system.  I'd start him as a standard crocodile Warrior (I'll post game stats for crocs in the next couple of days), then advance him by granting him a signature Species Trait from each of the animal types listed in his back story.  Say, Nine Lives from the lions, an increased SZ from the elephants, Brachiation from the monkeys, Scent from the apes, and so forth.  This makes him a much more versatile villain, something more like the monster from The Relic in terms of his capabilities, rather than just being the "smarty pants giant croc" he was in the original supplement. 

The land itself is full of potential adventure seeds, too, including:

• An elephant graveyard where elephant skeletons and ghosts walk at night, and the bones of the dead are rumored to turn into silver and gold
• A war for supremacy between lions and tigers (who weren't originally part of the land, but were apparently brought in by Ravenloft's Dark Powers for... reasons) that is consuming the savannah
• Colonies of gorillas who relish combat (especially with "hairless apes"), and try to enslave chimpanzees and monkeys
• A whole society of young crocodiles scheming to replace Death Bringer, the King Crocodile who serves as darklord of the realm
• The python's prophecy, and a total absence of snakes in the land (imagine the repercussions if a snake -- say, a snake player character -- arrived from beyond the Mists)

As a whole, the Wildlands exudes a "dark Africa" feel, a sort of Lion-King-gone-sideways ambiance where longpaws would come to dread an encounter with even the lowly monkeys.

But the Gothic horror elements -- especially the sense of foreboding, of isolation, of being trapped in a doomed realm, of looming curses and twisted fates -- can be ramped up even better with animal PCs.  Longpaws would be walking targets everywhere they went, and Death Bringer's agents would inform their master of the presence of any humans in the realm long before those humans became aware of their ultimate enemy's nature.

Animals, however, would have more freedom to roam, to interact with NPCs, to pursue side-quests unrelated to the Crocodile metaplot.  Their time in the Wildlands wouldn't (necessarily) turn into a gauntlet-running race against the clock, as it probably would with longpaws in the mix.

African animals would be most appropriate to the setting, of course, but any species -- especially prey species -- would find the place terrifying and alienating in all the classic Gothic horror ways that Ravenloft sought to evoke with longpaw characters. 

So, if you're in the mood for some old-school fantasy horror this Halloween, I challenge you to put away I6 for a while, and treat your players to a session or two of Great & Small set in the Wildlands.  You could adapt any of the short adventures from Ravenloft supplements like the Book of Crypts or Chilling Tales -- plot and all -- simply by replacing the human NPCs with animal ones.

In fact, I might try this myself...