An Abominable Fancy

Here is the ruleset I've cobbled together to run the Anomalous Subsurface Environment, Patrick Wetmore 's gonzo megadungeon: Anomalous Subsurface Microlite The chassis is Microlite20,  although I slowed down skill progressions a lot . There's a DCC -style meat-grinder attached, and the weapons list and combat stances are highly influenced/ripped off from Beyond the Wall. Some favorite house-rules from here and there (but mostly from Goblin Punch ) got chunked in, too. The setting and the Scientist and Robot classes are, of course, from the ASE modules . A powerful impetus behind this is to play a game where I can use The Dungeon Dozen as a straight resource. This is intended as the Players' document, and doesn't contain things like advancement. And it only goes up to about level 6, because I'm intending this for PbP and holy geez, we'll all be long dead before anyone gets to level 6 via PbP.

Mi-Go, Frog, Shoggoth, Robot. Drawings ©Joel Priddy 2014 Frogs (Innsmouths, Seb Sadu): Big, burly saber-toothed amphibians. +2 STR. Move in water as normal movement. Can learn human languages but cannot speak them, just as humans can learn but not speak Elder Tongue. Humans (Tasty Morsels): +1 to any 2 attributes. Mi-Go (Caulies, Yuggothi): Pale, knobbly fungus creatures with great plumes of sense organs sprouting from their eyeless heads. +2 MND. Multi-spectrum sense organs: +1 Perception, not reliant on light. Robots: Robots begin as spindly motorized armatures with positronic brain-cases perched on top. Pincer-grip attack (1d4 dmg). As robots gain levels, they scavenge parts to upgrade themselves according to the Robot Enhancement Schedule. Shoggoths (Gibbers, Protties, Droolers): Amorphous blobs of eyes and teeth. Hold and manipulate objects with their mouths. +2 DEX, extra biting attacks (1 + Level, 1d2 dmg each). Immune to undead effects, except mum

I finally got around to ordering Patrick Wetmore 's gonzo* megadungeon, the Anomalous Subsurface Environment. It is just as fun and inspiring as everyone else said it was a few years ago. The modules are written for Labyrinth Lord, and as a B/X fan, that should have been good enough for me. But I'm an idiot with poor time-management skills, so instead I wrote a Microlite20 variant for it. I also wrote it as a DCC-style meat-grinder. This obviously owes a huge debt to both the DCC funnel and Austin Schaefer's AES Character Tumbler . By huge debt, I mean "look! I can hit copy and paste!" Backgrounds 1-3       Acolyte of an orbital god (1d20 to determine deity)/ Mace / Sacred symbol, Book of Orisons 4-6       Acolyte of Science / Broken Robot Arm (as club) / Religious tattoos 6-8       Acolyte of Starry Wisdom / Sacrificial dagger / Incense burner, foul-smelling incense 9           Apprentice Scribe / Penknife / Bottle of Ink, 10 sheets of paper

image from one of my tumblrs, The Minds Project Here is a good litmus test as to whether or not you're interested in my thoughts in gaming: My favorite house rule, which I will shoehorn into every setting and ruleset that I possibly can, is Goblin Punch's rule for fashion counting towards armor class . Here's how I wrote it up for a Microlite20 campaign: Style Even squamous horrors feel the power of a well-put-together ensemble. Style will save you. Stylish clothes are expensive. And fashion is fickle, so be prepared to buy new clothes every season. Stylish Clothes (10 x Normal Clothes prices) = +2 AC Exquisite Clothes (100 x Normal Clothes prices, must have a Maid or Valet to maintain clothes) =+4AC Stylish clothes are mussed beyond hope on a critical hit, losing all their AC benefit. A tailor can fix it up in a few hours, however. Wearing Stylish Clothes It takes a certain sophistication to bring an ensemble together. Your Communicatio