Peter Hook Spambot Carnival EX Plus α

The Acorn Afloats, and so I must answer, albeit a month later.

PETER HOOK, aka PETER THE HOOK, aka HOOKY PETE, aka the SOUL FISHER: Armour 14 (as leather), Move 150’, 2* Hit Dice, 9hp, Big Chuffing Hook 1d10, Morale 6, Number Appearing 1. Immune to non-magical damage and weapons.

PETER HOOK may have been a man once, in the distant past, or perhaps was some sort of pixie or sprite, but is now a cruel and predatory spirit. He sneaks into your home at night and, if you sleep with your mouth open, he reaches in with his big shiny fish hook and snatches out your soul! You live, but as a cold, flat, emotionless robot-shark person, perfect for a job in the financial sector.

PETER HOOK keeps the souls in jars and then trades them for trinkets, the sort of garish junk you find in seaside shops; the tackier, the better for PETER HOOK.

• Very quiet: effective Stealth of 3 in 6 (LotFP rules) and surprises on 1-4.
• Immune to non-magical damage and weapons.
• Sees perfectly well in the dark.
• Can open any door or window using his hook (see below).
• Cannot cross a line of salt.
• Cowardly, and must make a Morale check if discovered sneaking about, or if attacked.
• Knows all the entities that desire souls, and how to contact and find them.

The Soulless: Those with their souls taken by PETER HOOK have Charisma and Wisdom scores of 0, or the lowest possible value, if your game doesn't like 0 statistics. If the soul is recovered, it can be "drunk" to restore the original values. Can you drink someone else's soul and get their statistics? Try it and find out!

Peter's House: A green wooden door you don't notice unless you concentrate. Perhaps it's down an alley, perhaps it's in the corner of a garden wall, perhaps it's in your house! The door leads through interdimensional space to a cramped grotto packed full of soul jars and PETER HOOK's assorted trinkets, few of which have any value; there is a 1 in 12 chance of finding a single normal treasure item, generated as you like.

Peter Hook's Hook: A huge, shiny fish hook. It's an Oversized item, a two-handed weapon, and counts as magical for the purposes of damage immunities. Anyone but PETER HOOK finds it unwieldy and has a -2 penalty to attack rolls, and only PETER HOOK can use it for fishing souls. The hook also picks any door or window, even magical locks.

And for Troika! and similar games of fantasy fighting:

SKILL 8 (10 for sneaking purposes)
STAMINA 8
Initiative 1
Armour 0 (but immune to non-magical damage)
Damage as Greatsword

The Soulless: Victims have a LUCK of 0 and can never regain LUCK by normal means, although a generous Referee may allow magic items to provide a boost.

Peter Hook's Hook: Two-handed; counts as magical for purposes of damage immunities; imposes a -2 Attack Skill penalty to anyone but PETER HOOK; unlocks any door or window, even those sealed with magic.

PINKROBES

PINKROBES, not fluffy: Armour 14 (as leather), Move 120', 3+1* Hit Dice, 14hp, two-handed sword 1d10, Morale 9, Number Appearing 1 or 2. Half damage from bludgeoning or crushing weapons.

PINKROBES are pink, malevolent -- possibly fey -- spirits that take the form of floating, ragged monk-like robes. Cruel and mischievous, they delight in capturing and murdering sentient beings. They favour large two-handed swords, as they think they look cool. They have no physical form beyond the robes themselves; as such they are very quiet -- they surprise unaware opponents on 1-3 -- except when they communicate with each other, which they do in howls and moans.

Once per day a PINKROBE can go into a berzerk fury and attack 1d6 times in a Round.

PINKROBES are not undead, although they seem similar, and are intelligent and spiteful enough to pretend to be in order to trick, for example, clerics into wasting their turning abilities. Bastards.

PINKROBES obey the howling, moany, commands of higher-ranked *ROBES, and can order REDROBES, YELLOWROBES, GREENROBES, BROWNROBES, and BLUEROBES about.

BROWNROBES

BROWNROBES, but fire isn't brown: Armour 14 (as leather), Move 120', 2+1* Hit Dice, 10hp, two-handed sword 1d10, Morale 9, Number Appearing 1 or 2. Half damage from bludgeoning or crushing weapons.

BROWNROBES are -- you will find this surprising -- malevolent -- possibly fey -- spirits that take the form of floating, ragged monk-like robes. Cruel and mischievous, they delight in capturing and murdering sentient beings. They favour large two-handed swords, as they think they look cool. They have no physical form beyond the robes themselves; as such they are very quiet -- they surprise unaware opponents on 1-3 -- except when they communicate with each other, which they do in howls and moans.

Once per day a BROWNROBE can, instead of attacking, produce a fireball with a range of 240' that causes 3d6 damage to anyone in a 20' area.

BROWNROBES are not undead, although they seem similar, and are intelligent and spiteful enough to pretend to be in order to trick, for example, clerics into wasting their turning abilities. Bastards.

BROWNROBES obey the howling, moany, commands of higher-ranked *ROBES, and can order REDROBES, YELLOWROBES, and GREENROBES about.

DIMENSIONAL FISHER

DIMENSIONAL FISHER, fishing for condiments: Armour 14 (as leather), Move 0’ (at least in our reality), 6* Hit Dice, 27hp, spiky leg (1d8) x3 plus grab, Morale 7, Number Appearing 1. Only half there, good at surprising, almost-instant kill.

The DIMENSIONAL FISHER is something like a crab or spider; it’s not clear because people have only ever seen the legs. If they are legs. The DIMENSIONAL FISHER lives in lower dimensions but hunts in ours, grabbing prey and pulling it into Dimension F -- not the actual name -- where the local conditions turn the victim into a tasty nutrient jelly, ready for eating. It manifests as a set of three fuzzy, indistinct let’s-call-them-legs, emerging from overhead, sometimes from an object or surface, sometimes from thin air!

The DIMENSIONAL FISHER makes three leg attacks and if all three hit a single target, it is grabbed; the next Round the victim is dragged to Dimension F, where they are killed by the hostile conditions.

The DIMENSIONAL FISHER is only half-present in our reality, so surprises victims on 1-3 on 1d6, and odd attack rolls always miss as the strikes pass through the creature. If the DIMENSIONAL FISHER is forced to make a save, it is unaffected on an odd roll, even if the result would be a failure. Generous Referees may allow weapons with phasing qualities to hit as normal.

Opponents can target the DIMENSIONAL FISHER in general or can attack the individual legs. Each limb has a quarter -- round up -- of the DIMENSIONAL FISHER’s total Hit Points; it is presumed that the body has the remaining quarter, but no one has seen that and lived so (shrugs). If one of the legs is crippled or severed, the DIMENSIONAL FISHER must make a Morale roll or retreats to Dimension F. If it stays, it can only grab immobile or unresisting prey with its remaining limb(s). The DIMENSIONAL FISHER’s legs can heal and even grow back, at a rate of 2 Hit Points per day, and once all three are at least at 50% of their total, the DIMENSIONAL FISHER can hunt lively prey once more.

DIMENSIONAL FISHERS ignore constructs and other unfleshy beings, and have a particular taste for halfling meat.

CLAWED BASTARD

CLAWED BASTARD, will **** you up: Armour 18 (as plate), Move 90’, 5* Hit Dice, 22hp, claw/claw/peck 2d4/2d4/2d4, Morale 10, Number Appearing 1, thank the gods. Difficult to surprise, infravision 60', immune to charm and similar effects, heals through necrophagy.

The CLAWED BASTARD is some sort of unholy mix of bird, reptile, and a box of butcher knives. No natural process could have led to the development of such a horror, and most sages agree that the CLAWED BASTARD must be the work of a wizard even more misanthropic than usual.

Excessively violent and aggressive, the CLAWED BASTARD attacks on sight and is relentless; it seems to enjoy killing for no other reason than the act itself, although it has been observed eating the corpses of the fallen. If the CLAWED BASTARD fails a Morale roll it does not flee, rather it stops to eat any nearby dead. Or wounded, it’s not a fussy eater.

The CLAWED BASTARD takes a single Turn to consume a body, and in doing so restores Hit Points up to a maximum of the body’s original Hit Points, or the CLAWED BASTARD’s original Hit Points, whichever limit is reached first. The CLAWED BASTARD does not like being interrupted during lunch and will immediately spring back into violent action. Wise dungeon delvers learn to run away as fast as possible while the CLAWED BASTARD is eating.

Culinary habits aside, the CLAWED BASTARD is not stupid and will retreat if in actual danger. It has infravision out to 60’ and despite only having a single eye, does not seem to have any problems with depth perception. The CLAWED BASTARD is difficult to surprise (1 on 1d6) but its aggression -- and its incessant screeching -- makes it easy to spot, so it never surprises opponents. The CLAWED BASTARD is so belligerent that it is immune to spells that calm or charm or otherwise reduce aggression.

No communities of CLAWED BASTARDS have ever been seen, so it is unknown how or even if they breed. Most scholars hope that they don’t.

GREENROBES

GREENROBES, so healthy: Armour 14 (as leather), Move 120', 2* Hit Dice, 9hp, two-handed sword 1d10, Morale 9, Number Appearing 1d3. Half damage from bludgeoning or crushing weapons.

GREENROBES are, guess what, malevolent -- possibly fey -- spirits that take the form of floating, ragged monk-like robes. Cruel and mischievous, they delight in capturing and murdering sentient beings. They favour large two-handed swords, as they think they look cool. They have no physical form beyond the robes themselves; as such they are very quiet -- they surprise unaware opponents on 1-3 -- except when they communicate with each other, which they do in howls and moans.

A GREENROBE can, instead of attacking, touch another being and heal 1d4 hit points. GREENROBES can, um, touch themselves.

GREENROBES are not undead, although they seem similar, and are intelligent and spiteful enough to pretend to be in order to trick, for example, clerics into wasting their turning abilities. Bastards.

GREENROBES obey the howling, moany, commands of higher-ranked *ROBES, and can order REDROBES and YELLOWROBES about.

BLUEROBES

BLUEROBES, reflective gits: Armour 14 (as leather), Move 120', 3* Hit Dice, 13hp, two-handed sword 1d10, Morale 8, Number Appearing 1d3. Half damage from bludgeoning or crushing weapons.

BLUEROBES are, yes, malevolent -- possibly fey -- spirits that take the form of floating, ragged monk-like robes. Cruel and mischievous, they delight in capturing and murdering sentient beings. They favour large two-handed swords, as they think they look cool. They have no physical form beyond the robes themselves; as such they are very quiet -- they surprise unaware opponents on 1-3 -- except when they communicate with each other, which they do in howls and moans.

BLUEROBES reflect spells and magical effects directed at them. Spells cast by a character of first or second level are reflected back at the caster; effects directed by a caster of third level or higher rebound if the BLUEROBE saves versus Magic.

BLUEROBES are not undead, although they seem similar, and are intelligent and spiteful enough to pretend to be in order to trick, for example, clerics into wasting their turning abilities. Bastards.

BLUEROBES obey the howling, moany, commands of higher-ranked *ROBES, and can order REDROBES, YELLOWROBES, GREENROBES, and BROWNROBES about.

YELLOWROBES

YELLOWROBES, floaty gits: Armour 14 (as leather), Move 120', 1+1 Hit Dice, 5hp, two-handed sword 1d10, Morale 8, Number Appearing 1d10. Half damage from bludgeoning or crushing weapons.

YELLOWROBES are also malevolent -- possibly fey -- spirits that take the form of floating, ragged monk-like robes. Cruel and mischievous, they delight in capturing and murdering sentient beings. They favour large two-handed swords, as they think they look cool. They have no physical form beyond the robes themselves; as such they are very quiet -- they surprise unaware opponents on 1-3 -- except when they communicate with each other, which they do in howls and moans.

YELLOWROBES seem to have a cheering effect on other *ROBES within 30' and increase their Morale by +1. This is already included in the YELLOWROBES' own Morale score.

YELLOWROBES are not undead, although they seem similar, and are intelligent and spiteful enough to pretend to be in order to trick, for example, clerics into wasting their turning abilities. Bastards.

YELLOWROBES obey the howling, moany, commands of higher-ranked *ROBES, and can order REDROBES about.

REDROBES

REDROBES, floaty gits: Armour 14 (as leather), Move 120', 1 Hit Dice, 4hp, two-handed sword 1d10, Morale 7, Number Appearing 1d12. Half damage from bludgeoning or crushing weapons, immune to fire damage.

REDROBES are malevolent -- possibly fey -- spirits that take the form of floating, ragged monk-like robes. Cruel and mischievous, they delight in capturing and murdering sentient beings. They favour large two-handed swords, as they think they look cool. They have no physical form beyond the robes themselves; as such they are very quiet -- they surprise unaware opponents on 1-3 -- except when they communicate with each other, which they do in howls and moans.

REDROBES are not undead, although they seem similar, and are intelligent and spiteful enough to pretend to be in order to trick, for example, clerics into wasting their turning abilities. Bastards.

REDROBES obey the howling, moany, commands of higher-ranked *ROBES.

IRON BRUTE

This is all based on me misreading (Sir) Ian Livingstone's handwriting on this map.

RUST MINOTAURS, also known as "IRON BRUTES" by northern folk, are aggressive and terrifying hybrids of -- wait for it -- minotaurs and rust monsters, although they seem to take more of their characteristics from the homicidal bovine side. Those ever-clueless sages speculate that the iron brutes were first created by a mad wizard, but that's their excuse for anything they can't explain, and is probably a result of professional jealousy.

RUST MINOTAUR: Armour 15, Move 120’, 6* Hit Dice, 27hp, rusty horns or weapon +2, Morale 12.

Rust minotaurs can attack with either their horns or a weapon, not both, in a single Round. The iron brute's horns destroy metal at a touch. Magical armour and weapons get 10% resistance per "plus" of enchantment.

The rust minotaur can metabolise enchanted metal and convert it into temporary armour plating, taking the form of hexagonal metallic scales. Every "plus" destroyed by the creature's touch, is converted to a point of armour, which erupts from the monster's hide a Round after it is absorbed. This bonus armour flakes away after a day.

If you are playing Troika! or a similar game of fantasy fighting, then you can use the following statistics:

SKILL 9
STAMINA 9
Initiative 3
Armour 0 (but see below)
Damage as Weapon or Rusty Horns

If a Rust Minotaur hits with its Rusty Horns attack, the target takes no damage but instead loses 1 point of armour, to a minimum of 0. If the armour was magical, the iron brute gains this point of absorbed armour at the End of the Round. These bonus points of protection have no maximum, but on the plus side, they disappear after a day. Good luck!

A Compulsive Liar Who Has Betrayed Every Single Person He Has Ever Had Any Dealings With

This is old(ish), but it seemed appropriate to post it now.

PREVARICATOR

Philosophers claim that Prevaricators arise when someone lies again and again and is never found out, so that reality shapes itself to fit the falsehoods and the liar becomes a twisted monster. As examples, they point to how a jury can define someone as a criminal even if they did nothing, or how what was a planet yesterday is a dwarf planet today. Philosophers are dangerous idiots and this origin story is nonsense, but what is true is that whatever a Prevaricator says is believed by anyone that hears it.

Prevaricators are weak, and look and smell horrible, but even so are often found at the heart of communities or organisations, bleeding them of resources until the whole socio-political structure collapses and then the nasty thing at the centre of the whole mess slinks off to start afresh somewhere else. Even if discovered the wretches are difficult to root out because they almost always convince their persecutors that there’s nothing to see here, nope, but there is something over in the next village that needs urgent investigation.

PREVARICATOR: Armour 12, Move 120’, 8* Hit Dice, 36hp, Ragged Claw 1d4, Morale 7.

The baby-faced monstrosity has a smooth voice, like honey, with a hint of the upper classes to it. The things it says are often not true but listeners believe them to be so, which is good enough. Be creative with the lies. Have fun. That’s what the Prevaricator does! The cherubic abomination understands and speaks all languages, even those of animals, fungi, and plants.

Characters can save versus Magic to disbelieve the Prevaricator’s words, but only if there is good reason to do so. If the creature tells them that quite a lot of treasure is in a cart that left not two minutes ago and if they go now they can catch it, then they probably won’t get a saving throw. If the statement is demonstrably false -- “You can’t see me” for example -- then a saving throw is appropriate.

Of course, a save versus Magic is of no use if the thing has already told fifty armed villagers that the characters are here to take all their children and sell them to a Duvan’Ku cult. You can’t disbelieve your way out of a stabbing.

Spells and abilities that interfere with the creature’s capability to speak or an audience’s capability to listen, such as Confusion or Silence, will be effective against the thing. Spells like Heal and Remove Curse can make a victim unbelieve what the Prevaricator has told them.

Prevaricator brains are in high demand by alchemists and wizards for use in magical research into speech and language. Mash a brain up with some rosewater and paprika, for example, give it a shake, and you’ve got a potion of Comprehend Languages.

Why the bastarding thing has the face of a child, no one knows. Maybe the philosophers have an idea.

WHAT THE HORRIBLE, BUT ODDLY PERSUASIVE, THING WANTS (1d8)

1. Food! It’s hungry or greedy or both, and wants to be fed.
2. Worship! It speaks like a god, so why should it not be treated like one?
3. Sex! If it was human once then it maybe still has sex organs. I don’t want to think about it, to be honest.
4. Money! Money buys anything and opens every door. It is also shiny and makes a pleasant clinky noise.
5. Power! Being able to tell people what to do and how to feel is thrilling, like a drug!
6. Drugs! Also like a drug. Obviously.
7. Chaos! It’s quite fun seeing everything fall apart and the little people panicking.
8. Friends. Horrible monsters can be lonely too.

---

I created this monster for LotFP's GenCon catalogue in 2019 -- which now feels a lot longer ago than it was -- so if you weren't there, you're getting a bit of an exclusive. At the time there was a bit of a fuss because some people got the idea in their heads that the Prevaricator was some sort of defence of Zak S. In fact it's a parody of Boris Johnson, which I would have thought was obvious; I even tried drawing the thing with his hair. Oh well.

FLYING IDIOT DEATH SPIDER

About the size of a chubby pigeon and twice as stupid, these giant insectoid* idiots are most common in the late summer and early autumn months. They are attracted to light, fly like they've chugged 13 barrels of ale, and seem to do everything in their limited, ungainly power to get themselves killed. How they manage to survive long enough to breed is a mystery that has baffled sages everywhere.

*(As any pedant will tell you, they are not true spiders. Ettercaps get quite exasperated if you mention them as they are a bit of a PR disaster for spider-kind.)

Suicidal Tendencies (roll 1d6 once per round/turn per FLYING IDIOT DEATH SPIDER):

1. Wibbles into the middle of combat and takes a hit meant for something else.
2. Flumps into a lantern or torch, extinguishing it, then flies about in a panic, setting fire to 1d4 random items before burning up.
3. Bumps into a random character's face, causing penalties (-2, disadvantage, whatever) to all rolls until it flies off to do something else.
4. Blunders into the nearest trap, setting it off.
5. Plunges face first into the nearest liquid, drowning itself, and potentially ruining lunch if the nearest liquid was your soup.
   
6. Flip-flops around, bumping into things and causing a surprising amount of noise, alerting any nearby creatures.

FLYING IDIOT DEATH SPIDERS in Troika! and similar games of fantasy fighting:
SKILL 2
STAMINA 2
Initiative 3
Armour 0
Damage 0


FLYING IDIOT DEATH SPIDERS in LotFP and other old-school games of dungeon-based adventuring:
FLYING IDIOT DEATH SPIDER, Armour None (12), Move 120', 1 Hit Dice, 1hp, annoying flapping (no damage), Morale 12 (fearless because of stupidity)

Fly my pretties!

Gnoming Me, Gnoming You

TLDR; all the little beardy dudes are the same species, but everyone thinks they are not.

Gnomes live in the woods, talk to badgers, carve houses into giant mushrooms, and despite being a little eccentric are otherwise okay. Ish. If you can have a normal conversation with a little man or woman and they are not ignoring you while they dig a hole or trying cut your head off, it's probably a gnome.

Dwarves are the incel brodude dickholes. They go off into the mountains, spend all their time drinking beer and bulking up by mining and fighting and working out. They grow enormous beards as a sign of overcompensation masculine power and women are not allowed, which is why everyone else thinks there are no female dwarves. They recruit disgruntled young gnomes by distributing their androcentric philosophies via their "cool" runic language that no one else uses. Magic is for girls, obvs.

Kobolds are gnomes that went to live deep underground where there are no badgers to talk to, and have gone a little mad as a result. Some paint themselves blue, some wear the skins of lizards or dogs. All are mischievous to some extent. They often run around on all fours, and have developed a weird yelping language that sounds like those irritating yapping dogs your great aunt keeps. What no one realises is that this is a dialect of the language of ghouls.

Redcaps are gnomes that have gone beyond "eccentric" into "completely unhinged". The serial killers of gnomish society, these nutters think that if they murder everything they will live forever, or become all-powerful, or some such nonsense. Tiny Ted Bundy in a fancy hat.

Gnomes will, at a push, acknowledge that dwarves and kobolds are their -- misguided -- kin, but prefer not to talk about redcaps and fob off any claims of similarity. They would say it's a case of convergent evolution if they knew those words. Dwarves, for their part, deny any relation to the -- clearly inferior -- others and often try to eliminate kobold communities. Kobolds don't talk sense long enough to answer the question in any useful way, but do seem friendly enough to the others, if encountered. Good luck getting an answer from a redcap.

All of the varieties of gnome-kind -- even kobolds and redcaps! -- get quite, um, bashful at the mention of leprechauns.

Spider/Man

Spiders are intelligent. At some basic level everyone knows this, even if they don't admit it to themselves, because admitting it invites all sorts of existential horror.

The little ones aren't much for conversation or philosophy but have a keen and innate understanding of geometry and structural engineering that dwarfs that of any other species except for perhaps the, er, dwarves.

The big ones -- the ones the size of people -- are as intelligent as people, if not more so. The phase spiders are geniuses but they're also weird, even by the standards of spiders, because they're thinking in more than one dimension at once.

The problem is that spiders are obsessed with order and see everything in terms of its place in the grand structure of the universe -- thanks China Miéville! -- so when they try to interact with other sentient species they come across as detached and a bit alien at best, and AIEE! MONSTERS! at worst.

Being clever sorts the spiders realised that they needed some sort of go-between to help them deal with other species and convey their great plans without the encounter descending into stabbing, which is just the sort of inconvenient and tiresome business that upsets the order of things. No spider would be able to deal with the limited and erratic viewpoints of the non-arachnid species for long so they created the ettercaps, hybrids of spider and humanoid and the intended ambassadors of spider kind.

Ettercaps are created when a humanoid is captured -- elves and orcs are favoured because they're the most chaotic and removing them is seen as an efficient way to tidy up the universe -- and encased in a cocoon which is then subjected to a phasey-wasey process that changes the creature within. A few days later the cocoon rips open and an ettercap is released.

Alas, ettercaps are frightening creatures in their own right and despite their best attempts at peaceful discourse often invoke the AIEE! MONSTERS! response -- and that's before anyone finds out how they're made -- but the spiders are working on that.

Man (Robot) Fights Dog

There they were, the heroes of the 13th Age, on the top floor of a rickety wooden tower in the middle of a town that was literally alive, in a stand-off with a fireball-chucking wizard and his angry-looking dog, and all Amras had on his mind was that the wizard about to immolate them all seemed very familiar.

The party inched around the room in an attempt to surround the wizard Hallas without provoking him and as a distraction Amras attempted to engage him in conversation. The party discovered that Hallas had odd gaps in his story; he didn't remember arriving in Shadow Port and while he did remember the box -- in which they had assumed the item they had been sent to retrieve had been kept -- he had no memory of its contents. This was all very suspicious and odd and then the dog said "Get out of here now and you may live", which was something of a surprise.

Ne-0n pointed at the talking dog and asked Hallas what was going on. Hallas indicated that he heard nothing but a bark. The dog bit Ne-0n on the leg, crumpling the robotic sorcerer's metallic skin. Then there was a big fight.

Hallas' spells either failed or were countered by Amras' own magical abilities and the dog was hacked and blasted into bits. Literal bits, as it exploded into rainbow coloured light when they got it to zero hit points; they began to suspect that it was not a normal dog. Meanwhile Hallas was beaten into unconsciousness and the party was just about to tie him up and loot his study when the tower shook as something huge approached. Poking their heads out the window they saw a gigantic shadow thing -- perhaps some sort of amalgamation of the smaller creatures they had fought earlier -- half-stomping and half-slithering towards them.

GIANT BLOBBY SHADOW THING THAT CRIES

Huge 6th level spoiler
Initiative + 11
Vulnerability: light (yes, I know there is no light damage type in 13th Age, so what?)

Inky black tentacles +11 vs PD (3 attacks) - 21 negative energy damage.
Natural roll is above target's Constitution: the target loses a recovery as they feel their life force draining away.

C: Shadow Wail + 11 vs MD (2d4 nearby enemies) - targets are stunned (save ends) as each of the thing's masks lets out an agonised moan.

AC 22    PD 20    MD 20    HP 270

Ooh! A boss monster! Ooh! A boss monster that couldn't roll above a five and so missed with each and every attack except for the wail and that was no good if it couldn't follow up with any other attacks. Never mind then.

At some point during the one-sided mugging of the Giant Blobby Shadow Thing Hallas woke up and tried to crawl into a corner to hide from the enormous monster smashing holes in his house, but Amras executed him with a ray of frost, an act that seemed a little disproportionate.

As the wounded and helpless wizard froze to death a strange magical burst erupted from his body and shattered the windows of the tower; Sartheen the Red was occupied chopping the Giant Blobby Shadow Thing to bits but did feel the weight of the Blue's geas lift as Hallas expired. Was the geas that bound the Blue to the Emperor's service somehow contained, not in the wooden box Sartheen had seen, but in the human being Sartheen had seen carrying the box?

(Spoiler: Yes.)

Then came the looting and as the party ransacked Hallas' study they uncovered a strange and lifelike statue of an armoured half-orc, with a silver vial on a cord hanging around its neck. They opened the vial and poured the contents into the statue's mouth, and to the great surprise of no one the statue transformed into a real little boy a confused half-orc paladin. Before anyone could ask the half-orc who he was or why he had been petrified and stood in the corner of a wizard's study, the whole tower began shaking as the sentient town took control of it and tried to crush the party inside.

They escaped the tower just as it shaped itself into an enormous fist and tried to squash them, then they legged it to the edge of town -- Amras' keen intelligence helping him to plot a course through the shifting streets -- where a group of shadow things blocked their path. Amras teleported past the mob and ran into the woods while the rest of the party hacked their way through the shadows.

Once in the relative safety of the hills above Shadow Port, the party -- and their new addition, Gothrog Thickskull, paladin of, er, Communism -- discussed their next move. Some wanted to return to the cave with the magic portal but others pointed out that this would take them straight back to the Blue. Shadow Port was on an island so the only other way off -- given their current resources -- was to steal a boat, but that would have required returning to town and they were about as keen to do that as they were to face the Blue again.

Sartheen suggested a third option. He knew -- via an Icon relationship roll -- of a small gang of smugglers who had tried to circumvent the established order of things in Shadow Port and while the smugglers themselves had been forced into early retirement by the thieves' guild it was possible that their hideout -- and their boats -- would be intact. The dragonspawn's hunch paid off and the party escaped the island in a sloop with Rarity falling back on her skills as a former pearl diver to guide them to a safe port. Alas, those skills were a bit rusty and by the time they slouched into Glitterhaegen the party was battered, bruised and half-drowned.

They knew that they had burned their bridges with some Icons and made enemies of others, so they booked into an obscure inn far from the main thoroughfares of the city and kept their heads down. As the party convalesced, Ne-0n meditated and when he emerged from his trance, days later, the robot announced that he was tired of being manipulated by powerful beings and that it was time to take the Icons on.

With the summer holidays upon us and regular attendance due to become sporadic as a result we decided that we'd arrived at a good point to pause the campaign. The characters have reached fifth level and so a new tier of play has opened up; when we return to the 13th Age in the autumn we'll see how the player-characters intend to oppose the Icons. Until then it's board games for us and we may even have a go at this new Dungeons and Dragons thing everyone's talking about.

Street Fighter

The party were in Shadow Port -- the 13th Age's generic hive of scum and villainy -- searching for a box that they believed to contain some sort of focus for the geas that kept the Blue -- the sorcerous dragon overlord -- on the side of civilisation and decency. After battling some ruffians -- and seeing Jordan Young beheaded -- they had found the box but they had found it empty.

They found this a bit puzzling. Ne-0n attempted to interface with the fabric of reality around him in order to glean some clues about the box but was soon assaulted by an overwhelming presence that threatened to drown his psyche. No closer to having an answer, the party decided to head back to the portal through which they'd been sent by the Blue; as they left the temple they spotted a gloopy shadowy thing following them at a short distance.

This shady -- ho ho -- fellow seemed to be some sort of scout and didn't put up much resistance when the group assaulted it. Moving on, they got lost again and this time noticed that the streets were reshaping around them and seemed to be herding them towards the centre of the town; Amras floated up to the rooftops to get a better look and was attacked as more of the dark blobby things pulled themselves from the shadows.

SHADOW THINGS NOT AT ALL LIKE THAT ONE FROM SPIRITED AWAY

6th level spoiler
Initiative + 11
Vulnerability: light (yes, I know there is no light damage type in 13th Age, so what?)

Inky black tentacle +10 vs PD - 18 negative energy damage.
Natural roll is above target's Constitution: the target loses a recovery as they feel their life force draining away.

AC 21    PD 19    MD 19    HP 72

The creatures proved to be a bit more effective in a group, until Amras dropped a fireball on them. One hundred points of damage will tend to discourage resistance from even the most tenacious of opponents.

After the battle the party was beckoned into a house by a portly fellow; they were of course suspicious but the alternative was a series of running battles with energy-draining shadows through streets that were always changing. A spot of tea and cake with a rotund stranger seemed like the lesser evil.

As the party ducked inside the man's cottage he introduced himself as Robul the Holy -- or Robul the Wet -- a priest of "the sea god"; Ne-0n spotted a small shrine in one corner of the living room devoted to a vaguely anthropoid deity with an octopus-like head and a mass of feelers for a face, and knew right away what kind of sea god Robul worshipped. This revelation didn't make anyone feel any safer.

The interior of the house was covered in all sorts of charms and symbols; Robul explained that these were intended to keep him hidden from agents of the Prince of Shadows. As the priest shared his dinner with the party -- glancing at Amras' burning third eye with considerable suspicion -- he explained that he had been sent by the Priestess to keep an eye on Shadow Port but that he also had a personal goal; to reconsecrate the temple from which the party had fled.

Robul told them that the town was alive -- 13th Age has living dungeons, so why not? -- and had taken a disliking to the party for some reason, and that while they would be safe under the protection of his charms, he wouldn't be able to help them escape. He did recognise the description of the albino man who Sartheen had seen carrying the pyramidic box; this was a wizard named Hallas, who was not associated with the Shadow Port thieves' guild but dwelled unmolested by both the guild and the living settlement in a ramshackle wooden tower towards the centre of the town.

After a night's rest under the many watchful eyes of Cthulhu the party decided to further investigate the box. Sartheen thought the best way to test if it was indeed the object of their quest was to smash it -- if it was the focus of a geas, the dragonspawn surmised, it would resist destruction -- but Ne-0n argued that tampering with a geas would be dangerous and Amras made up some guff that demonstrated that he hadn't paid any attention during geas lessons at wizard school.

The box was smashed to bits and nothing happened. Sartheen felt that the geas the Blue had placed on him was still active and so the party decided that they would visit the wizard Hallas, hoping he would know more, but were in no mood to venture out into the malevolent streets. Sartheen used his helm of communication to check in with Drakkenhall and request aid, asking first for a dragon -- a bold opening gambit -- but he was told by a black, assassiny-looking dragonspawn that there was a squad of assassins hiding out in the same cave that contained the portal through which the party travelled, and that they were ready to help.

Having realised that they had murdered their own extraction team the day before, the party decided to sneak towards Hallas' tower to see if the town reacted against them. They left Jordan Young's body with Robul for a proper burial, but Sartheen kept some of Jordan's toes, according to the custom of his tribe; he planned to have them with a honey mustard sauce when the party stopped for lunch.

Shadow Port seemed to unaware of their exit from Robul's safehouse -- or its attention was elsewhere -- so the party made good progress towards Halls' home, but were interrupted as a fiery mass fell screaming from the sky, shattering a nearby building. As they picked themselves up the party watched a figure stride from the smoking crater. It seemed to be a suit of black armour topped by a black skull wreathed in bright green flame; the blazing skull turned to Ne-0n and cackled.

Amras tossed a spiky seed pellet he'd found in a previous adventure and thorny roots, er, rooted the skull-thing to the spot. It stopped cackling.

The party then blasted the creature to bits. The armour survived the onslaught, a sure sign that it was enchanted; it seemed to be a good fit for Ne-0n but when it was identified as being made of halfling skin, the robot sorcerer declined the opportunity to wear it. He did keep the garment though, because player-characters never turn down loot, even on moral grounds.

After the briefest of rests the party staggered at last to the base of Hallas' tower without any interference from the sentient settlement -- eat your heart out, Stan Lee! -- and rang the door bell. No answer came and so the player-characters spent a few minutes discussing whether to break in before realising that yes, they were player-characters in a Dungeons and Dragons variant so of course they were going to break into the wizard's tower.

The building was of unusual construction, in that all the rooms were stuffed into the top two floors and the five storeys below that were empty save for a rickety wooden staircase looping around the inside walls. The stairs were trapped, of course, and the party suspected as much and so were careful about checking for traps as they went. Although Rarity spotted the traps, their magical nature meant that Sartheen could not disarm them and so instead I asked the players to roll a single d20 each as they stepped over the glyphs; on a one, they would slip and set off the trap.

Stuart has appalling luck -- although I would challenge him in the next session -- and seems to roll at least three or four ones each session; these had been saved up for the stair climbing and so by the time the party reached the top, Sartheen the Red was more Sartheen the Crispy Fried. After passing through some living quarters the party reached the top floor of the tower and a wizard's study, complete with a wizard cooking up a fireball in each hand and demanding to know why they were in his house.