Skip to main content

Underlog - A Pocket Setting

The RPG Blog Carnival 


I wrote this was an experiment with the following goals: 

  1. To try to put together a setting that was useful for a game master using
    an old school game such as B/X or Old School Essentials, or a game 
    inspired by them, such as Knave or Shadowdark.
  2. To create a setting for the invertebrate ancestries I made.
  3. Put together something that can be used physically, as a trifold pamphlet.
  4. To provide something for this month's Blog Carnival, hosted by Errant Thinking, on the topic of "Tiny Epics".  
I've copied the text from the trifold pamphlet document, for your reading pleasure.  You can find the actual trifold document here: https://empedocles.itch.io/underlog.


Sheila Brown, “Moss On Fallen Tree” released under CC0.
Source: https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=314623 

Underlog - A Pocket Setting

Somewhat like our world, the creatures are about fifty times larger. The people player characters interact with are intelligent invertebrates.

This trading town is nestled in the hollow under a gargantuan log almost a mile long. At the town’s center is a giant coin monument about 7 ½ ft. tall made of an unknown alloy embedded in the bottom of the log.  The coin monument also connects to other worlds. Merchants from other worlds use a ritual of travel to the coin and back. 

Underlog’s inhabitants are a community of various beetloids, spiderkin¹, and giant humanoid pill bugs called “bushboars”¹. 

Resources: giant snail and riding-worm herds in the lower reaches for food, leather, and snail shell.

Goods: strange fungi, aphid syrup, various alchemical materials, and herbal balms and elixirs of various sorts.

A few very odd dwarven, gnomish, and goblin traders are also based here. 
-----
¹ See Invertebrate Ancestries for details. https://empedocles.itch.io/ancestries-invertebrates

Goods

Locals pay quadruple the going rate for metal items, instead using chitin and giant snail shells as hard materials. Both are non-magnetic, and do not corrode.

Weapons are usually spears and pole arms.  Brittle blades are available, made from materials harvested from livestock or defeated creatures.

Goods for Sale

Centipede Mandible Blades: Sharp but brittle.  On a natural 18+ to hit, do double damage.  On natural 1, damage die size drops by 1 step (e.g. d8->d6).  50 gp.

Chitin Lamellar: As chain, x2 price..  

Snail Plate Mail: As plate, triple price.  

Spider Silk Shirt: Half damage from piercing attacks. 100 gp.

Alchemical Poisoned Snail Mucus: Three types, one for each physical stat. Rub on a weapon: 1d3 dmg to stat on hit, effect ends if  3 is rolled. 300 gp/ vial/use.

Snail Mucus Salves: Heals ½ dmg from the worst hit taken this turn. 50 gp.

Aphid Syrup: Full meal. First dose eaten each day also heals 1 attribute dmg. 5 gp.

Services

Alchemical Sage: Identify a poison or potion without using it up: 100 gp, 1/day.
Pheromone Dealer: you are invisible to one animal bug for 1d6+4 hrs, 100 gp.
Snail Shell Smiths: triple price, takes 1 day/25 gp. Make swords, shields, plate.
Training: Advanced Spear techniques: 500 gp, 1 month. +1 to strike foes moving 20 ft. towards you in a straight line and stopping next to you. Double damage against foes two sizes larger than you.

Time

Above Underlog, on the surface, the Sun moves very slowly, with each day and night taking four standard months to pass.

Ecology

Underloggers depend on domesticated giant snails, cockroaches, aphids, and worms, as well as nearby plants for food.
This world’s mammals and birds are kaiju, with a skunk bigger than an ancient dragon.  They all have damage reduction of 3-10, and can only be driven away, not killed.  Most are completely uninterested in Underdog and its inhabitants.

Beetloid Ancestry

Move as human, winged flight (below)

Major Trait: Winged flight

Fly for one turn at double move. Rest 1 hour to reuse.  

Minor Trait: Beetloid Body

Long antennae: Navigate in darkness by touch, sensing objects within ten feet.
Hard carapace: as leather armor.
Eat wood: 4 lbs in place of ration.

Drawback:  

Sun-Fearing: -1 to all d20 checks when it is in direct sunlight.  

Ritual Magic

Ritual of Travel

Activation: 1 caster, 1 turn, 1d6 hp.  
Effect: Teleport creatures within 30 ft. to a known activated monument.

Deter Kaiju

Activation: 20 MUs, 1 day, 2 charisma
Effect: Creatures bigger than 120 ft. in length take no interest in area within 3 miles of casting location for 90 days.

Divine Route

Activation: 1 caster, 1 hour, 1d6 hp.  
Effect: For 2 weeks, the caster knows how to get to a named town with 250+ people, which the caster learns permanently by completing the journey. 

Quests and Missions

  1. Slay Clickclack the Wyrm–see 2 under Encounters Around Underlog.
  2. Find missing youth foraging outside. 
  3. Escort a caravan: 350 sp 7-10 days. 
    1. To Bogmound, a lakeside town. 
    2. To Beacon, a glowing town on a pillar.

Encounters in Underlog

  1. Agtros the Alchemist: looks for exotic materials for research. Curious genius.
  2. Lieutenant Bod F6, militia leader: Suspicious, active, respected.
  3. Cadut the Cobbler T8: Spiderkin who trades in footwear and rumors.  Sly.
  4. Dorn the Weaver:  Spiderkin trades silk goods for spellbooks. Curious, apt.
  5. Elgrid, Priest of Nutritious Decay C7: Helps proven allies. Jovial, imposing.
  6. Flugbutton the Mayor T2: links moneyed to what they need. Greedy, proud of town.

Encounters Near Underlog

Beetloids, bushboars, and spiderkin all predominantly (especially guards) use spears and wear chitin lamellar (as chain) and level as demi-humans.

Kaiju have damage reduction 3-10 and area attack based on size, can’t be killed.

Encounter Table

Roll 2d6. Day: 1/watch, Night: 1/hour. 
2. Kaiju Skunk digging under Underlog, 4 damage reduction, 20 dmg. makes it leave.  Claws -4/2d8 dmg 20 ft. on line. 
3. Clickclack the Wyrm looking to eat folks.  AC 4 HD 14 HP 63 Sv 7 Mr 9 Att +14 15 ft. range mandibles 2d8, Stinger +9 1d6 dmg + save or 1d6 Strength dmg. Mv 40 ft., on walls or ceilings as well.  
4. 1d3 Flail Snails on a rampage AC 5 HD 10 HP 45 Sv 9 Att 4x +7 1d6 10 ft. reach flails, Mv 40 ft.
5. Giant Slug AC 5 HD 8 HP 36  +4/10 ft. lick 2x/rnd d8 dmg, swallow on 19-20.
6. 2d6 Horseflyfolk Bandits 
7. 1d6+1 Bush Boar Scavengers
8. 1d3 Cricket Rangers
9. 1d6+2 Giant Worm Beetloid Cavalry
10. 3d6 Beetloid Guard Patrol 
11. 1d3+3 Spiderkin Merchants with 2d6  Beetloid Guards
12. Jean-Bombardier du Bomb MU8: Bombardomancer ruddy beetloid proud dandy with 1d6+3 guards. 
Level 4 spell Bombard: Pick a 40 ft. cube, concentrate.  Round 1: everything in it takes 1d6 fire dmg. Round 2: 3d6,  Round 3: 6d6 fire damage.  Round 4 (final): 10d6.

My Thoughts On This Project

The core of this is the core of my general preparation for an old school elf game town.  What I didn't have:

  • Art: I didn't want to give up ideas for images, at least for this experiment.  I'm not sure that was the right trade off, but I'm also a horrible artist, and couldn't find much art that would convey the images I imagine when I think about this place.
  • A map: This would be tricky, because my thoughts on the exact geometry of the town change over time.  I imagine a hollow between the bottom of the log and the rocky surface underneath covered with decomposing wood, built up with structures, with enormous web bridges or stalks to connect the two sides.  In my mind's eye, there are sections of loose bark curving up the sides of the log that have further communities built up.
  • Any LLM-generated content: First, I don't agree with how LLMs are trained on unlicensed material.  Second, I don't see any benefit to using it when I'm already trying to mercilessly trim down my ideas to fit into the format.  Every poke I've taken at using AI to generate adventures has been embarrassingly lackluster.  Third, I don't think the environment needs to be tortured that badly to get ideas for a setting.

I think it would be reasonably useful, because I've already generated similar content informally for my own games.  If anything, I'm concerned that I might have cut too much, but I'm also quite happy with the ideas:words ratio, even if similar things have been done before. The real test will be seeing if it's useful to game masters who aren't me, especially new game masters.

Your Thoughts On This Project

First, if you made it this far, thank you for your interest.  I appreciate your time, and would also appreciate your input.

How useful would this be for a game you're running?  What do you like? What's would you like to see added or changed?  What would you take out to make space?

Let me know how useful it was if you end up using it at your table.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Item Durability

Item Quality Items come in three grades: Superior: masterwork items, four notches.  They usually cost ten times the normal cost of such items.  Most magic items are always made from masterwork base items.  They may provide a minor intrinsic non-magical bonus (+1 to hit for weapons, a reduction of 1 to armor item penalties, or a +2 on tool use checks). Standard: a typical item, three notches. Poor: a poor quality item, two notches.  They have a -1 penalty (-1 to damage for weapons, -1 AC for armor, or -2 on tool use checks for items). Notches Notches represent wear and tear equipment has taken.  They affect performance in the following ways: Weapons Odd notches (first, third, etc.) inflict a -1 penalty to damage. Even notches (second, fourth, etc.) inflict a cumulative -1 penalty to hit. Armor Odd notches inflict a -1 penalty to checks due to damage. Even  notches inflict a cumulative -1 penalty to AC. Items This requires some interpretation by the GM. In...
Post a Comment
Read more

RPG Blog Carnival: Beyond Vancian Magic

  Hello Friends! I'm thrilled to be hosting December's RPG Blog Carnival topic, Beyond Vancian Magic ! I'm not a hater, but I'll admit I prefer different systems being different, and clerical and magic user magic systems are basically the same.   I'm looking forward to seeing your interesting takes and contributions on evolving past that kind of magic system.  While I chose this topic about half a year ago, it's come up recently on r/osr, in the post Vancian Magic - What It Is How It Works and Where Did It Come From? Here are some ideas to get you started if you don't already have something in mind: Creating entirely new magic systems, or emulating those of other works, such as those by Brandon Sanderson or Jim Butcher. Spellcasting based on the undead turning table, as illustrated by ktrey of d4 Caltrops suggested using in Alternative Spell Casting . Expand on existing the existing "Vancian" system: Make spells truly Vancian, so that they a...
5 comments
Read more

On Names

  Note : There are a lot of external links in this post. None of them should be affiliate links If they are, please let me know . Note2 : This has been bouncing around in my brain informally for a while, but putting it to pixel was prompted by Rook’s post on names on Beneath Foreign Planets as part of the RPG Blog Carnival .  There’s a lot of great material that comes from these prompts. I encourage you, dear reader, to check that out. Note3 : Link to the GDoc version this post was originally composed in. On Names One of the holes new Game Masters fall into while playing D&D-esque games is names. I’ll start with random NPC names first, to get the subject out of the way:  Make a d20 or d100 list of names for each gender, and for families.  Either stick it on the fourth panel of your DM screen, or pre-roll five of each, and stick those lists on your fourth panel. If you need a list of real world names, use an onomastikon .   Onomastikon “What is an on...
2 comments
Read more