Things to Steal (Borrow): Death & Dismemberment

So this is a little different then the past two installment of Things to Steal (Borrow), this is a mechanic I've brewed up in my games for my Dragonlands version of B/X, that can also be extended to 5th edition if I want to make it even rougher on my players.

First a little background, I've always been tinkering with D&D to get it closer to my ideal game/experience, one of the bigger concepts I've been tinkering with is Limb Health mostly via trying to tweak Dark Heresy's version of it, but it ended up being too convoluted at higher levels. My simple solution to achieve that gritty mood is via Death Saving Throws!

Instead of death or dying when you hit 0 Hit Points you get to make a Death Saving throw. If you roll equal to our lower than you Level, you live, however something nasty happens, either you lose an arm, your hand gets mangled, you lose an eye or something nasty, but hey, you lived! If you roll above your level, you die, that's it.

Now, I'm not going to give you a table of Injuries, you can find that all across the internet if you look, and I'd just be remaking the wheel, but poorly. But, I would just make up an Injury that makes narrative sense.

For older editions like B/X, it actually makes the Players heartier and more likely to live, barely, but if they do, they'll have a story they'll never forget. For newer editions, it will feel more dangerous, because you don't get to slowly die, you just die if you fail that save.

Threats & Dangers: The Cult of Rebirth, Part 2

(This is a continuation of Part 1)

The City of Dronter, nestled in the southern hills at the edge of the now declining Dragon Empire, the last walled city along the road to what was once the Southern Dragonlands. This city, a bastion against Hobgoblins & other Monstrous creatures hided a dark secret. A cult that manipulated every aspect of the city, like a puppeteer.

The Cult draws its membership from wounded military veterans, from Orcs to Humans they offer a better life, and a purpose. For the Orcs that served in the Dragon Honor Legions, it's a chance to become akin to their masters & leaders, for humans its a chance of elevating their status, at least within Dronter.

The cult's front is a spa, where their motto is "All is Welcome", besides performing normal spa services, their basement has been transformed into a twisted spa of the macabre, where barrels of Half-Dragon blood are stored to be used in rituals of rebirth.

Members of the Cult who can no longer walk in daylight due to their twisted visage of being Half way between humanoid and Half-Dragon are hidden in a cave two miles to the west of Dronter, returning only to assist in acquiring new "Donors" or to patrol the area.

Dronter however is seen from the outside as a place of freedom and safety, no bandits stalk their roads or Hobgoblins besieging their walls. A new arrival might be concerned at the lack of Half-Dragons in the city, the hungry eyes they might see in the shadows, or that fact that everyone keeps inserting the phrase, "Born Again" or "Renewal" into common conversations. However, everyone is so friendly, and that last merchant gave you some free fruit, so things must be fine!

The cult prefers to take their foes alive, putting them through the Draconic Transformation process, in the hopes that their new existence might make them allies, after all, their goal is to take over the Dragon Empire, and put everyone through this process, they have to desire to fight everyone.

Their Leader is a human by the name of Horace Shimmerscale. He was a warrior a crusade to the Lake Kingdoms, fighting alongside a Red Dragon who was slain in battle. The Dragon's blood covered his platoon and mutated them all. Horace realized that this transformation could be harnessed for good of common man, and returned home to Dronter to found his cult after the crusade failed. In a fight Horace is consider a 12th level Fighter and has the appearance of an aging Red-Half Dragon, however his age is catching up with him and he prefers not to fight if possible.

The Cult aims to slowly turn it's members into enough Dragon's to claim the right to rule and give the Dragon Empire a Rebirth of its own. Assuming no player interaction, the cult will take the following actions with the following results.

• Capture a Dragon to Create new Dragon via their Draconic Transformation 
• Result: Young Dragons will begin raiding and pillaging the landscape, creating new lairs for themselves.
• Create Half-Dragons via the Draconic Transformation process, and have them replace critical leaders throughout the remaining Dragon Empire.
• Result: The cult will have influence over town leaders and businessmen when the time comes to take control, in addition these replacements will provide aid or hardship to players depending on how the cults opinion of the players.
• Seek the blessing of The Eternal, by getting another group to sacrifice for them, or by subjugating another group.
• Result: The Eternal grants it's blessing, mechanically this can be in the form of a +1 to +2 bonus to their actions, or via a magical artifact.
• Create a magical artifact to help control their now out of control Young Dragons.
• Result: The Young Dragons follow the cult into battle without question, and the artifact even helps influence Half-Dragons.
• Take their new army of Dragons and march on every major city, giving them the choice to join them, or be conquered, cities with their Disguised Agents will likely submit.
• Result: The cult will have control of all major cities, places of trade, and businesses.
• A Final battle at the Dragon Keep, where the remaining loyalists will poise a last ditch defense.
• Result: The Cult will seize control of the Dragon Keep, and the Dragon Empire, and will begin forcing the Draconic Transformation on all citizens before attempting to expand and rebuild their new glorious empire.

Additional Player Interaction:

1. The Cult knows of a Dragon's Lair, Empty, and offer the Party the location in exchange for a 10% finders fee, taken from magical artifacts or lore. The Cult is secretly looking for information that be used to reanimate Dragons.
2. A Mildly-Heretical  (By cultist standards) wizard has been experimenting on the results of the Draconic Transformation on Undead creatures with mixed results. He needs the Amulet of Vitality for his work.

Things to Steal (Borrow): Resource Die

 This one will be a short one, because A. The concept is simple, and b. You'll love it, or hate it and go away. The concept for this week is the Resource Die from the Forbidden Lands, now the concept of a time keep mechanic isn't exactly a new concept, but I like the Resource Die from the Forbidden Lands for its simplicity, and that is where I first got exposed to the concept.

So, the Resource Die at its core is a die of any size, when you would expend a resource such as, light a torch, eat a ration, shoot an arrow, maybe even using a wand, you would roll the die, and if it rolled a 1-2 (Or any number you want), the die gets one size smaller, d12 --> d10 --> d8 --> d6 --> Gone. It's a simple way of tracking resources that also adds a little bit of tension, by the players not know how much they should push their luck, "Should we keep delving into the Dungeon? Our torches are on a d8, I'm not sure how much longer they'll last."

Now, there are flaws in the mechanic, which is why you'll love it or hate it. For one, it can feel a little silly when you're down to your 1d4 and ask your DM "How would I not know exactly how many arrows are left?" or you might get REALLY unlucky and only get 4 shots before your arrows run out, and because of this you have to suspend your disbelief a little bit, maybe in the heat of battle you forgot to keep exact count or that merchant sold you bad arrows, maybe some of the rations spoiled, or the torches burnt out faster than normal.

The second issue is it actually can slow the game down in some instances. For Example, I was running Out of the Abyss modified to be above ground for my Dragonlands setting, and the party was escaping a ravine via a lift that had to be manually operated by a crank at the ravine fortress or at the top of the ravine. In the fortress, Hobgoblins pushed against the crank to pull the party back down, at the top, the other freed slaves were doing their best to pull the party up. The poor party was stuck in the middle, slowly moving up and down in this life and death tug of war, thankfully one of the ranged characters was in the elevator, and fired off every single one of his arrows, all 40 of them (Making 40 Attack Rolls), and killed a few Hobgoblins, enough that they were able to escape. Now, making 40 Attack Rolls is already tedious, but imagine having to make 40 Resource Die checks as well to see if you ran out of arrows, that would bog things down like crazy.

I personally think this is a mechanic that should only be selected if the party will groove with the mechanic, but I think the value of this mechanic should not be understated, it's a great tool for randomly determining how long it will take before the party encounters a wandering monster, higher the die, safer the area, how long the Fighter has till he bleeds out, or how long the evil ritual will take to complete, so apply this mechanic where you think it will do the most good, I for one will be replacing the standard 50 charge wand with this mechanic.