The Antalop

Here is the antelope, from a Latin bestiary (antalops) interpreted as a fearsome critter.

The Antalop (source: Wikimedia Commons).

The antalop is about the size and shape of a deer, except that its antlers are like saw blades. It uses these to cut branches off trees and graze on the leafy upper foliage, but in a pinch it can also use them to collapse trees on pursuers or defend itself directly. Owing to this and its notable speed, it is difficult and dangerous to hunt, although if its antlers become entangled in something it may be caught.

An antalop has stats as a mule, but with an antler attack as a short sword.

Modular Dice

I've been using "d50"s without noticing for some time. You can get huge, strange 50-sided dice, but that's not what I'm talking about. Instead, I roll d% and if the tens-place is greater than 5, I "wrap around". I'm sure this is something that's not uncommon, it saves re-rolling if the die is an even multiple.

I decided to investigate this further. For a uniform distribution it's not that interesting, but starting from a normal distribution it's a neat way to get two peaks. Figure 1 shows the effects of different moduli on the 3d6 distribution.

Figure 1

If you'd like to play with this in anydice here's the function I've written:

function: A:n mod B:n {
    if A > B {result: [(A - B) mod B]}
    result: A
}

How to Get by Dangerous Monsters

An old birthday present from one of my cousins, scanned and traced over in Inkscape:
How to Get By Dangerous Monsters

The Monsters:

• Octopus Fish
• Electric Eel Fish
• Killer One
• Killer Double-Headed Bee
• Giant Monster Cat
• Guardian Monster
• Giant Snake
• Guardian Demon of the Wall
• Killer Kangaroo House
• Cyclops
• Kung-Kong Fish
• Meteor Fish
• Duckfish

Other Locations:

• Start
• Troll Bridge
• Witch's House

Interpretation:

The mixture of aquatic and land monsters suggests a swampy location to me, and the choice of orange color for the paths suggests a boardwalk. Not sure what the purple was, but maybe its some kind of older, more dangerous pathway.

Pub Names

I made up a table for naming "the local":

Pub Names

A half-dozen samples:

• The Wizard & Bear Tavern
• The Hog Lounge
• The Wooden Club
• The White Arms
• The Orange Ghost Roasted Saloon
• The Helpful Angel Abundant House

Yes, columns B & C are identical to columns D and E. Use "The", "&", "'s", etc. as necessary. A d8, rather than a d20, can be rolled on column F to limit the results to more "standard" fantasy names.

If you don't end up with any nouns or adjectives (a 1-in-16 chance), substitute the place-name in before column F. If you don't have a place-name, there are some here, here, & here. For example:

• The Griefstanz Brewery-tap
• The Trennov Cantina

Pulp Materials

Over the summer I've been reading some old Doc Savage books, where I found references to duralumin and pliofilm. These were both materials I had never heard of before, which intrigued me. I assembled this table in case I ever run a pulp-style game and need to name some new wonder-material, without having to submit to realism.

Fantastic Pulp Materials

A half-dozen samples:

• hypergel
• maloplast
• cellusol
• formicast
• lumisil
• lumilite

Rarely, you may get the trade-name of an actual product (it is cobbled together from those), as I have no mechanism to prevent that.

Spider Racial Track

This is for a game called Legend, which is pretty cool, but doesn't have enough monsters (they're working on it). It's also undergoing major revisions, so this may not always work perfectly.

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The Spider Racial Track

Of course, I had a lot of help with this track, and credit goes out to the cool people on the forums.

Snake Oil

I don't have a campaign running at the moment, but I'm considering something Wampus-y for the future. I've devised a table of names for things that might be found in a Wampus Country medicine cabinet, sold by shady street vendors or sworn-by by old farm-hands. Most things generated are probably just alcohol, but some of them are possibly admixtures of unrelated potions, and some of them might even be good as actual potions, expertly brewed.

Wampus Country Medicine

A half-dozen samples:

• Master Totenkinder's Carbonated Tablets
• Senor Edward's Syrup of Magic
• Mistress Turner's Original Tincture
• Doctor Paracelcius' Krynoid-ash Embrocation
• Madame Gingery's Tablets
• Doctor Wace's Peculiar Pills

The column "Quaffable" is an alternative to "Substance" if you'd prefer that all your things be potions. The columns "Adjective" and "Descriptor" each appear with 50% probability. The first 10 items in the "Animal" column correspond to the "Setting Specific" columns.

Eventually, I plan to script the table to take the work of rolling out, but I'm not sure how I want to do it yet.