Play Report: Amazonian Rivercrawl

My first session of my more-or-less open table Amazon exploration LotFP game was this weekend. Seven friends from college came from out of town to play. We had a blast, spending about 4 hours on Friday night playing and another 12 hours on Saturday. When we game, we game seriously.

Dungeon: The First Foray
For Friday's session, I had them generate completely random characters using +Ramanan S's Random LotFP Character Generator, and then sent them through a version of +Dyson Logos's Ruins of the Gorgon that was reskinned for the Amazon Rainforest setting. They ended up forcing one of the hostile native men that they encountered in the ruins outside to poke around the first few rooms of the dungeon with them. He had the wherewithal to escape the moment they turned their backs, but the party didn't get out of the dungeon until a giant capybara felled one of them. The surviving characters soon packed up and left, but not before digging through the capybaras' disgusting nests to pick up some silver trinkets, and then hauling out one of the beautiful ceramic statues in the entry room while under the watch of a ceramic fresco of a harpy eagle with a woman's head tearing apart a man's body under her talons.

The next day, all my players were available and we began running through the actual rivercrawl. I took a hint from +Zzarchov Kowolski's Thulian Echos and placed the dungeon from the night before on the map of the river, and gave the players vague directions on how to get there. They'd encountered one of the last party back in town, who gave them their map and some warnings about hostile natives, giant rodents, and valuable statues. The players then got to start the exploration of the tributary they've been assigned to map and conquer for the Spanish crown by the Viceroy of the Maranon, the one-eyed conquistador Francisco de Orellana.

The players choose to go back to the dungeon from the night before to try to loot more of it. Being as this was the main adventure and for them was going to be a one shot, they were playing 2nd level characters and each had a 1st level NPC retainer (whose gear was chosen by running through +Jeff Russell's Gears and Careers Secret Santicore entry). They had a riverboat they'd pooled up to buy, as well as a number of oarsmen, dogs, horses, and personal retainers. This was as I'd hoped, and the amount of loot they had mimicked the conquistador expeditions of the early 16th century—as did the losses they would later suffer.

Crawling the River: Social Encounters
The first day on their way to the probable location of the dungeon, they had to scare off an otter that was trying to gather food from their stores. The next day they saw a pink river dolphin shapeshift into a native and join what looked to be a festival at a particularly large river village. They made landfall and contact with the natives in order to discover more about the shapeshifting dolphin, but were distracted by the excitement of their first native contact going so well that they were invited to join in with the festivities. Since this was a festival, I gave them the chance to give away their possessions as gifts in return for gaining their worth in SP back as XP, then had them save verses Poison or roll on +Jeff Rients' Carousing Table.

The next morning they woke up hung over, closer to level 3, and with a Magic User beaten up and naked, and a Native Guide madly in love with a local Indian girl. A few of their oarsmen had gone native (failed morale checks), but four of the natives, young cocky men, wanted to come explore and adventure with these crazy white people (successful morale checks).

It was only then that they remembered about the dolphin that had brought them there in the first place, just in time to hear the commotion caused when one of the women in the village found out that she was unexpectedly about to give birth even though she had only had a one night stand with a stranger the night before. Turns out those dolphins don't necessarily have the best intentions. (This outcome I DnDified from an actual Amazonian myth about the river dolphins.) The party made the mistake of admitting that they'd known about the dolphin's presence without telling anyone, and were asked to leave under less pleasant terms than expected.

The Bobs

They then continued up the river with their new native hirelings (who they called "the Bobs"). They did some exploring, and came across another small hostile native village who drove them off, then to a final friendly native village near the dungeon. This village was cold but not hostile, and gave them reports of strange black magic that had happened up the river, and promised to convert to Christianity if the party could resolve it.

The Jungle and the Dungeon, Again
So into the forest they trudged, dogs, retainers, and Bobs in tow. On the way, a jaguar and a poorly-aimed crossbow shot managed to take down one of the party's henchmen. Once they got to the dungeon, they left the Bobs, a retainer, and one of the dogs up top, fought off the dungeon's guardian tree which had regrown since the last party's foray under ground, and descended below the forest's floor.

Below, they found the remaining ceramic statues re-arranged, and the entrance to part of the dungeon they'd cleared before now blocked off. An Open Doors check catastrophically failed thanks to my helping houserules and one of the fighters sprained a wrist, so they went the other direction to explore new parts.

They found a storeroom with more smaller ceramic statues, and then came across a party of warrior women with feathered bodies and taloned feet who tried to drive out the invading party. While the carnivorous Harpy Eagle Women had won a surprise round, some earlier smart thinking on the part of the Magic User—blocking off a door with an unseen servant that was not being used—managed to prevent too much damage from happening.

In the resulting combat (which, quite frankly, took much too long because of my own poor handling of combat with such a large party—lessons learned for future sessions), another henchman died and some of the PCs were taken out of combat with spells or taken down in HP, but they eventually got the upper hand of the five harpy eagle women due to good tactics and overwhelming numbers. At one point an expended Magic User brought a set of hand puppets into play, and it actually did the party good.

The party was supremely disappointed to find out that the dreadful black magic harpy eagle women were defending nothing more than the dungeon's fresh water supply, so went back to loot the dungeon they'd explored so far. They set up guards on all the doors and had the remaining party (+ the Bobs) ferry the statues out. They made easy work of all the wandering monsters the commotion brought to them.

Back to Civilization: Dealing with Consequences

On their way back to the boat with all their loot (statues made of glazed ceramic which were more beautiful than any ceramic work they knew of in Europe), they encountered a golden lion tamarind. Another of the party's Magic Users cast darkness on its eyes—a spell he hadn't used in the big fight for some reason—and the party managed to capture the creature. The spectacle of the characters running around chasing a monkey was one of the funniest things the Bobs had ever seen.

They made it back to the last village that afternoon, and after some negotiating and giving a gift of one of the statues, the village agreed to be converted. They spent the night there after erecting a large cross in the middle of the village (an actual tactic of the Spanish missionaries when converting native populations).

They traveled downriver quickly, making it to the Bobs' village before nightfall. They gave each of the Bobs a small looted statue as a parting gift. The Bobs' tale of adventure was the talk of the town, and their favorite part was recounting the party running around in circles trying to capture a blinded monkey.

The next day, the village made a gift of one of the finest bows that the party had ever seen, and they left having established excellent diplomatic ties with one of the larger villages on the lower reaches of the river. On the way back down the river, one of the specialists (a gnarled old Greek sailor who doesn't speak any Spanish, the only non-Spaniard European in the party) spent the whole time trying to teach the monkey pickpocketing skills.

The party made it back to town quickly, and sold off their loot for a pretty penny. They declined to sell the monkey, hoping instead of fetch a better price by finding a female of the species and selling them together as a mating pair. The Greek sailor specialist, who had stolen some extra loot when others weren't looking and had made full use of the carousing rules, managed to just level up to level 3, and after that succeeded in teaching the monkey just enough pickpocketing skills for it to be dangerous.

Conclusion: What Does it all Mean?
We left our adventure there, as it was nearly 10pm and time to meet some other friends for drinks. Overall, the adventure had been a lot of fun. The players all told me they enjoyed the exploration and social encounters more than the dungeon, and in the future they will likely seek out more exploration. Part of that was probably my own fault for letting the combat drag as much as I did, and in the future I'm going to be more limiting of who can go into dungeons and who can participate in combats, while still allowing the players to have a large party that is necessary for jungle-based overland scenarios to work out.

One thing that I was quite pleased with was the way that the game mechanics came together. Gaining silver and gold through adventuring is the only way to level up in +James Raggi's Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and it encourages the players to be greedy in a way that puts them in the conquistador mindset much better than any storygame rules could, I believe. Multiple times out of game they discussed wanting to play the game in a way that was not exploitative or overtly colonialist. They wanted to do first contact right. Even so, they were willing to exploit the natives the characters encountered both directly and indirectly, even as the players discussed openly the discomfort they felt with those actions. It was interesting to me to see the players' moral guilt at the actions of their characters, even while they enacted Raggi's principles of Heavy Metal DnD. It was exactly the kind of game I wanted to run.

The average Spanish explorer of the new world was someone out for dangerous work in order to gain lands, a name of themselves, and most importantly a fortune. Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana's quest into the Andes that led to them discovering the Amazon river started as a search for cinnamon trees, whose spice would have made Pizarro a rich man. His older brother Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca was predicated on extracting as much of the gold form the civilization as he could, and in return for those riches the Spanish crown granted him governorship over the Peruvian province that conquest created. The conquistadors were truly the original murderhobos: they went to people's homes, killed and enslaved their men, and took their things.

In some ways, this makes it the ideal setting for an open-world DnD game. It is the age of exploration and adventure, and some of the stories of the Spanish conquest of the new world are more DnD than DnD is. (For instance: A group of four Spaniards lead by Cabeza de Vaca were shipwrecked in Florida in 1527 and trudged their way across N. America to the Pacific over the next eight years, the first Europeans to do so. They started out occasionally enslaved by and escaping various tribes, but by the end of their journey were known as shamans and messiahs amongst the native populations.)

It also makes running a game of DnD in this setting problematic, but in a way that is hopefully useful and good. In DnD, every player is accountable to only themselves. Their choices are completely their own and are not constrained by the rules. No player has to try to level up, and even further no player has to try to harm others, enslave natives, take what isn't theirs, etc., even if they are trying to level up. While the characters did bad things, and did so at only the conscious urging of their players, it's useful and good to be able to ask why they did.

When a group whose players are variously Christian, atheist, Buddhist, and Jewish; are male and female; are progressive, conservative, and libertarian; are white, black, and even Native American; when that group still opts in-game to exploit native characters, all because its in their best interest in-game due to the structures of that game, it hints at the importance of structure and ideology in our day to day lives.

This is why a work of art's being problematic can be a good thing, and should not be a reason for us to shun that art. It gives us a somewhat safe space to actually examine what makes it problematic, how it got to be that way. It can fully be enjoyed as art, analyzed as a piece of ideology, and used to better understand the world, all at the same time. That said, I do think that one can have badwrong reactions to art. The moral discomfort my players felt was good—an enjoyment of those same character actions, an unwillingness to admit that they were wrong or to further analyze the inputs that went into making those decisions, would all be terrible reactions to the problematic work we created together.

Anyway, this is all a longwinded way of saying that the game went very well, and I'm very much looking forward to running more in this setting, with these and other players. Anyone who wants to play in person or on G+ should get in touch—I hope to get to the point where the rivercrawl is a living open table, a sort of New World West Marches.

"The Archery Skill": A Houserule for LotFP

Archery Skill
All classes start out with a -1 in Archery, except Fighters who start out with a 0. Any character with skill points to spend can increase their Archery Bonus by +1 for each skill point that they spend in Archery. The Archery Bonus is added to the Ranged Attack Bonus when the character is firing a bow, but is not applied to crossbows, guns, or other ranged attacks. The maximum Archery Bonus is +4. 

Credit Andreas Øverland.

Graphic Design Note
On the character sheet draw a horizontal line underneath the first two pips of the Archery skill. This line represents skills parity: pips beneath the line bring Archery to 0, and pips above the line represent positive bonuses. This makes it easier to calculate the bonus in play, and stops advancement at +4. So one pip = -1, two pips = 0, three pips = +1, so on up to six pips = +4.

Mechanical Notes
Firing a bow is hard. Not only does it take strength and dexterity, it takes a lot of skill to get an arrow to go where you want it to go. Guns changed warfare not because they were more effective than bows (they were less effective for a very long time), but because it's so much easier to train someone to use a gun. Put it in their hand, show them how to point and shoot and how to reload, and they're good to go.

The Archery skill has the benefit of making guns and crossbows more valuable to the players. I've had people ask me why they'd want guns or crossbows when they don't do more damage, have penalties to reloading time, and are more expensive to boot. Now the tradeoff is clear: you buy a crossbow or gun because you are more likely to hit with it.

In addition, with the Archery skill, a "ranger-type" Specialist becomes more feasible. Specialists are now the only class other than the Fighter that can possibly get better at fighting, but the way in which they get better is very tightly constrained.

Fighters start out with a 0 in Archery because it is assumed that their weapons training includes basic training with bows. If your game allows Elves, then they should start at 0 as well. My Amazon Rivercrawl game allows Native American characters to also start at 0, for thematic reasons. You should do the same with any homebrew classes that it makes thematic sense for.

Playtest Notes
Overall, I was very happy with how this houserule ended up in play. It didn't add much more power to the party as a whole, but it did differentiate the classes and offered some interesting tactics.

I liked the range that this brings to the Specialist a lot, and found more players attracted to this often overlooked class. I also liked that it helped make the tradeoff between bows and mechanical projectile weapons more intuitive.

The one thing to note is that when Sneak Attack and Archery stack, it can often lead to nearly guaranteed one-hit kills of even 3HD creatures. I wouldn't allow anything other than the very first arrow fired from a completely hidden location count for Sneak Attack. Once a single arrow is loosed the enemy knows an enemy exists even if they're under cover, so the whole party is considered no longer sneaking.

I had added both this and another skill (Boating) to the skill list, so I gave Specialists 5 skill points at character generation. Having 12 skills and 5 points allowed the Specialists to differentiate from each other better than I've seen in other games. In the future though, I'll add the restriction that first-level players cannot be at 6 pips in any skill.

"Helping", a Houserule for LotFP Skills

The Rule
One player's character can attempt to help another's at a skill test. To do this, the helping player rolls a d4 on their skill. If they succeed by rolling at or under their skill, then the helped player gets +1 pip for their skill roll.

However, if the helping player rolls a 4, they must check their skill on a d4 again. If they fail the second check, the helped player immediately suffers a catastrophic failure caused by the ineptitude of the helper.

Once one player has make a skill check to attempt something, no other player can make a skill check to attempt that same thing. Either help out, or accept that you've used your one chance to use the rules to get something done for you, and you'll have to come up with more creative solutions if you fail.

Clarifications
Players with a 5 or a 6 in a skill don't need to roll to help, they automatically give +1 pip in help.

Players with 4 pips in a skill cause a catastrophic failure on double-4's, and otherwise successfully help.

If the helped player's skill moves beyond 5 pips due to help, they roll another d6 for each additional pip beyond 5, and only fail if they receive 6s on all the dice that they roll. 2d6 at 6 pips, 3d6 at 7 pips, etc.

Catastrophic failures are context-dependent and up to the GM. On a "bushcraft" roll this might mean an immediate random encounter roll, on a "language" roll it might mean a hostile misinterpretation. The general rule is that more or less the opposite of what the players wanted to happen, will happen.

Multiple players can help if it makes sense in-game, but a single catastrophic failure means doom for the attempt. Roll all the help rolls together first.

Helping characters must have the same or fewer pips as the helped character.

NPCs, retainers, etc., cannot help or be helped by these rules, even if they have skill points. The exception is henchmen, who can help or be helped only by their corresponding PC.

What's up with that random Amazonian village?

Village size (1d20):
1d20 x 5 dwellings, except on rolls of a 1. Then, 2d20 x 10 dwellings.

Dwellings are (2d4):
2. Treehouses
3. Floating on the river
4. Grass huts on stilts
5. Wooden, set back from the water on a high bank
6. Wooden, abandoned during floods
7. Buoyant grass huts, so they float during floods
8. Watertight with rooftop entrances

Wealth (2d4):

	2. Great	3-5. Healthy	6. Hard	7. Sickly	8. Starving
Food	d6 rations / dwelling	d4 rations / dwelling	d2 rations / dwelling	d4 rations / dwelling	d2-1 rations / dwelling
Warriors	+5%	+0	-5%	-10%	-15%
Decoration	Silver, rare woods	Animal pelts	Grass, wood	Grass, wood	Decrepit

Population:
Average 4 people per dwelling.
15% 1-lvl fighters
1% 3-lvl fighters
1% 2-lvl magic users
0.1% 5-lvl magic user
75% women/children/elderly
The rest are 0-lvl fighters.

Contacted before (1d8):
1. Yes
2-8. No

Weapon types (1d8, 1d4):

Warriors wield:
1. Spears (d6, thrown or melee)
2. Atlatl and dart (d8 thrown)
3. Bow + arrow (d6 distance, 1 in 12 poisoned)
4. Clubs (d4 melee, d6 if sharktooth)
5. Poison blowdarts (-2 to hit, save vs. poison or fall ill)
6. Net + spear (save vs. paralyze or get trapped and stabbed)
7. Trickery
8. Roll 2d6.

Made of:
1. Wood
2. Sharktooth
3. Bone
4. Stone

Reaction Roll (1d4):
Word of the party travels more quickly than they do. For each of the last two encountered villages, apply a modifier of -1, 0, or +1 to this roll based on whether the encounter ended as hostile, neutral, or friendly.

-1. Hostile (active)
0. Hostile (active)
1. Hostile (passive)
2. Standoffish
3. Cautious
4. Curious
5. Friendly
6. Friendly

Encounters (d12):
Roll on this table if the party is able to land. Whether they land in peace or in the fray will determine how it plays out. Once an encounter is rolled, cross it out and add the next down on the list in its place. Or just roll d20 and accept that you'll get repeats.

1. Young girl wants to be taken away.
2. "Christians? Oh yeah, we got some of them, funny looking guys who live about 50 miles inland."
3. Giant turtle farms.
4. Giant tree trunk with map of the area carved on it. At least one point of major interest. Vassal village of the "amazons".
5. Shaman warriors. Every two turns the shaman go uninjured, everyone in the party must save vs. magic or suffer -2 to hit for d6 rounds.
6. The leaders wear gold jewelry. Total 2d100 GP worth of gold jewelry and decorations in the village.
7. Temple with prayer idols made from brilliantly colored sewn feathers. The temple itself is made from two kinds of wood, one perfectly white and one perfectly black.
8. Weapons storeroom. Sharktooth clubs, atlatls, manatee skin shields, etc..
9. Chief owns a diary from a fallen conquistador from Pizarro's trip.
10. As a protest against colonial rule, a monkey has been appointed chief.
11. Someone stole their writing, and they want it back.
12. They're in the middle of a potlatch, players can join if they bring gifts. Treat as per carousing rules.
13. Ambush! 2d8 1-lvl fighters lead by 1 3-lvl fighter.
14. Beautiful pottery with lifelike figures painted on it.
15. Everyone wears silver jewelry. 10 SP worth of silver jewelry per person in the village.
16. A freshly killed tapir rests in the town square. ~100 rations worth of meat, ~50 of offal.
17. Players are offered a gourd of yajé.
18. The indians plan on capturing and enslaving the characters in order to harvest their knowledge of metallurgy.
19. The village is having major skirmishes with some villages further inland.
20. The villages need some sacred item buried with Esur the Red but it's taboo for any of them to set foot in the burial mound.
21. The village is in shock as one of its lost children just returned telling tales of the Pale Lady.

Bronze Shiva

This is a three inch high bronze statue of a young man with three closed eyes sitting in lotus position, a snake coiled around his neck. Some well-traveled PCs might know that this is a depiction of the Hindu god Shiva. Shiva is the god of death and rebirth, of balance and transformation brought about by destruction. Detect Evil shows nothing evil about the statue (it is a holy relic), but detect magic works and even gives the player a hint about how to use it.

Any sentient creature can use the statue as a yogic meditation focus. When focusing on the statue and stilling the mind, they will regain one hit point every 30 minutes, for up to their level in hit points. Alternatively, someone magically inclined who focuses on the statue while preparing spells will take only half the normal time to do so.

If someone focuses on the statue after it has already been used that day, then those who previously used it lose their effects. Hit points are reduced, spells are dispelled, and where possible the rolled effect is transferred to the new beneficiary. If multiple people meditate on it at the same time, then only the one who mediates the longest receives any benefit or effect. The exception to this is when a Cleric of Shiva is leading the meditation process—then all receive the full benefits of the meditation, but the GM should roll on the effects table separately for each participant.

If a Cleric of any other god blasphemes by meditating on the statue in order to prepare their spells more quickly, they will immediately lose favor with their old god and become a Cleric of Shiva. It's a good idea to prepare a new list of spells focused on destruction and re-creation for this eventuality. Feel free to use some Magic User spells, but remember that Shiva and his clerics stand for Law, not Chaos. It just happens to be the law of Entropy. 

Each time the statue is used, the GM should surreptitiously roll a d100 on the table below and play out the effect as makes most sense. The purpose of these effects is to add some of the destructive transformation that Shiva represents to the campaign. While a character might receive an immediate bonus from the use of the statue, it is only by causing the entropy of the world around them to increase to preserve balance.

As a GM, do not give your players reasons to associate these effects with the statue. Each should have a normal cause in-game, even if it means ret-conning, fudging, or changing plans. Does a wound not heal? Then that must have been a magic sword. Are the bees going to attack? Wait until the next encounter check and fudge the roll. Did their house burn down? They won't find out about it until they go back or a hireling seeks them out. 

Once an effect is rolled, scratch it out and add something new. 

1-74: Nothing happens.

75: The next time the character wants something from an NPC, no matter how well they negotiate or roll the answer is "no".

76: The next time initiative is rolled, increase the hit dice of all the creatures the players are fighting by 1.

77: Before the end of the day it will begin raining. If it is below freezing where the characters are, it will not fall as snow, but rather ice rain.

78: The next time it thunders, lightening will strike the most heavily armored character in the party.

79: The character's closest relative just died.

80: The character's house just caught fire.

81: From the next blow to the head, the character will develop prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces) for 5 days.

82: The next time the character takes damage, they permanently lose that damage from their total hit points.

83: The character is unable to close their next wound without magical healing.

84: One of the character's hirelings (or close contacts) will sever all ties and never speak to the character again.

85: The next time the character is outside for more than an hour, they will be attacked by a swarm of bees.

86: If the character is a magic user, they mysteriously gain the summon spell the next time they prepare spells en lieu of one of their first level spells. It will continue to take a first level slot until it is used. If the character is not a magic user, then at some point today they are going to step in some poo.

87: The next time the character levels up, they do not gain a new hit die. 

88: Alcohol no longer gets the character drunk. It is still a poison, however.

89: The character's hair will permanently turn grey over the next month. Any attempts to dye it will result in it falling out.

90: The character develops stage fright and must save vs. paralysis to speak in the presence of more than 15 people. Public places and fights included. This lasts 6 sessions or until leveling up, whichever is longer. 

91: Horses absolutely refuse to be ridden by the character. Donkey's don't mind.

92: With the next blow to the head, the character loses the ability to read for 5 days.

93: The next time the sun sets, it will not rise for another 29 hours. 

94: The next time the character attempts a disguise, a childhood friend will recognize them at an inopportune time and attempt friendly discourse.

95: The character will receive a vision of love and aid from a dead love one.

96: The character gains one hit point to their total the next time they accept magical healing.

97: A lost item or pet unexpectedly and happily returns.

98: The next time the character negotiates when selling items, they will receive 25% more than the expected amount. This counts towards XP.

99: The next three days are beautiful weather.

00: The statue is lost and will not be found again.

Secret Santicore Reference: "Places"

Here's my final installment of the Secret Santicore table of contents. You can find it all together, with added information, in this viewable google spreadsheet.

James has posted the Adventures table on his blog, and will be bringing us all Monsters soon.

Title	Pages	Description
Trollheim	2-3	A city inhabited by a Dark Dwarf and his followers. Description and lore type text, + monster statblocks and some NPCs. A sort of arcane lovecraftian architectural horror city.
Fort Delierium	4-5	A keyed map of a walled fort and surrounding small village. Map itself is perfectly detailed, the keys offer the most bare of building names. Will require some GM work, but the right kind of GM work.
Across the Mountains	6-8	Notes on several cultures "across the mountains" from your current campaign location. Includes rules for gunpowder, special spells for the location, setting lore, and more. A mini-campaign setting.
The Portal Collector	9-12	Various pieces of fine art that also act as extra-dimensional portals. Their function is related to their form. Includes a dice drop table where you drop dice on one of the pieces of art, an included collage.
Fantasy Shoppes	13-14	d20 table of shops you might find in a fantasy city. Includes info on shopkeeper, how they are, what they do.
The Other Side of Mirrors	15-16	Rules for entering the other side of a mirror. Includes a spell, "Window Walk", and what to do with Vampires and mirrors that face each other. Behind the mirror is the world of the ID and Ego, those animal instincts that bubble up to our minds in our fantasies.
Zero-G Encounter	17	A zero-g encounter / room in a Wizard Tower. Added rules for combat make it more tricksy than usual. Hilarious description text.
The Cosmic Sinkhole	18	A neat little encounter created when the room the players are in phases in / overlaps with a giant ant colony, and the only way out is to let the pupea they face kill them.
Just Another Town	19-21	Three d20 tables for generating an interesting happening at any given random village, as well as an NPC who can introduct the players to that happening.
Welcome to Fantasy Islands	22-24	Tables and worldbuilding information to help you build islands quickly. Includes a random encounters table for each island type.
Interstellar Discoveries	25-27	d17 (?) table of random encounters on uncharted planets. What happens when your spaceship lands?
The Plurality of Hives	28-29	Description of a multi-dimensional portalway ruled by sentient insects who allow traveling caravans to trade between the plans. Each doorway enters a different RPG system.
Drawing: Dank and Slimy Location	30	A great ink drawing of an adventurer being killed by some slimy slime in some dark underground dungeon cavern.
Prisons on the Vegland Borders	31-35	Rules for creating and stocking prisons of vegetable people. Since veggiefolk don't exist in any OSR RPG, there are also rules for creating and running them and how they should interact with animalfolk.
Orobor	36-40	Rules for running a 7-roomed, 7-inhabitanted extraplanar dungeon thing. Reading it is better than me trying to sum it up in any way, so go do that.
Wilderness Area Trap Generator	41-43	Tables and rules for creating and running both hunting and defensive traps in wilderness areas.
Jessup's Tree	44	This is one of the best secret santicore instructions I've ever read, and the entry lives up to the ask. A description of a tree that has seen so many lynchings that it wants more, and is corrupting a nearby village so that it can feed on more hanged souls.
Turtle Monestary	45	What appears to be a monestary built into the shell of a giant three-headed turtle. Sadly, the image is a little washed out so it's hard to see too much detail.
Citadel of the Goblimites	46	Detailed isometric one-page dungeon style map. Includes various rooms with adventure suggestions in the name. Map = detailed, descriptions = sparse, perfect combo.
All the Greats on Your Favorite Station	47-49	Two space stations for a Star Wars-esque getting, both with a fantasy/horror vibe. One is keyed and mapped as a node map, the other is pure description. Both are clever and would make a good session of play.
The Taking Trap	50	A trap inspired by "The Giving Tree". You befriend a creature who gets you out of a deadly trap, but then asks a little bit too much in return.

Secret Santicore Reference: "Things"

And so is finished the table of contents for the "Things" Secret Santicore 2014 PDF.

There were a tonne of great rules and systems in here. "Diseases and Cures" is definitely finding its way into my Rivercrawl game, and "Gear and Careers" is just going to be my new normal for "defining player gear at chargen".

When the Monster is the Treasure	2-3	Rules for harvesting parts from monsters/animals. Tables for what you get, what they do, what it's worth, etc..
Things Found in an Abandoned Hospital or Asylum	4-5	A d66 (or 11d6?) list of things found in a modern abandoned medical facility. Each item comes with a modifier to make it work for a horror or medieval game.
An Arsenal and Armoury Pertaining to the Shed and Stolen Nails of Giants, Giantesses, and Giant Brood	6-7	A listing of items created from the use of the finger and toe nails of Giants. Arrayed in several tables depending on if found wild or as spoils of war. All pretty nasty in a body-horror type way, but also useful if you're OK with the nasty. Includes rules for several weird diseases you can catch from using the objects.
What is That up There, My Lord?	8-9	Four d10 tables that can be used to generate a "Buck Rogers-type" spaceship, including the craft, the pilots, the weaponry, and its mission.
Deep Dungeon Transports	10-14	Discussion of the viability of various types of non-magical transport options in the deep underdark. Breaks the general problem into more specific instances, describes ways of solving each instance. Includes putting something in the belly of a Purple Worm, getting transport across the deep underground sea, and using Beholders to carve out large tunnels.
Black Magic Alphabet	15-16	d26 alphabet tables for generating tomes of black magic, including their name and what's contained inside them.
The Alchemist Store	17-18	Eight d6 tables for generating an alchemist's store, including items in the shop, other customers, the owner, etc.
Games of Irradiated Wastelands	19	Five short descriptions of games played by peoples in a post-apocalyptic setting. Gonzo/silly in the best way.
Dangerous Technology for Stupid People	20-28	100(?) dangerous technology items, such as the Fez of Protection, the Soup Bowl of Death, and a Spinning Bow Tie that knocks down missile attacks. Great fun list.
The Seven Vestments of Sutoyar the Mad	29-32	Seven magical clothing items enchanted by a mad historical figure. Each has advantages and disadvantages when worn, as well as a magical and mundane history.
Amulet of Flawed Majesty	33-35	A magic item which gives the character a permanent +1 to Charisma and the occasional +6 to charisma and random super power, but at the cost of the characters' soul.
12 Wizard Hats	36-38	Twelve wizard hats, each with an image and a description, each of which offers certain advantages and disadvantages in play.
Alien Bionics	39-43	A d20 list of alien bionics with descriptions on how to use each. These are fairly serious scifi technomagic items, and rules are provided for using each one in play including advantages and disadvantages.
Thirteen Tomes	44-45	A list of 13 magical books, each with a paragraph description detailing what they do. Any would make great loot in a D&D campaign.
Random Effects for Eating Mushrooms or Other Bizarre Foods	46-49	d100 table of effects from eating weird, dangerous, rotten, unknown, etc foodstuffs. Most are short and fun in play, offering more flavor than mechanical (dis)advantage, although mechanics are there.
Magic Cutlery	50-51	Backstory and a list of 15 magical eating implements. Can be left in a wizard's tower, a magical school, etc.. The effects tend to be small but useful in a dining setting. I'm sure players can find a way to make them useful for killing things and taking their loot.
The Five Blades of the Dead Titan	52-54	Five magical, sentient swords, each with different magical abilities that they grant their users, but also each has its own goals and will attempt to take over the character to achieve those goals.
Clerical Spells	55-57	A number of clerical spells for three different deities: The Builder (Structure and Self), the Lady (Blessing and Light), and the Shipbuilder (Sails and Storms). Excellent list to help add flavor to different types of clerics.
Organizational Events for a Fantasy City	58-61	A d100 table of events that might happen in a fantasy city that pertain to its management and government. Often will affect a party of PCs, lead to adventure hooks, etc.. Great way to make the city feel alive and bureaucratic.
Gear and Careers	62-64	A method for determining starting gear of a newly rolled character that doesn't involve buying it. The character will get different gear depending on their ability scores and their class. Low scores don't get bad gear, just different gear. Really neat, versatile, and fast system.
Accessories of Exacerbating Transformation	65	Three magical clothing items that in some way transform their wearer. Switch mental/physical attributes, mutate them, etc..
Plastic Model Spaceships	66-67	Tables for quickly rolling up Gonzo Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy style spaceships of varying size and functionality. Comes with illustrations, is both hilarious and functional.
Magical Medical Marvels	68-72	Various items, spells, NPCs, and adventure hooks, all of questionable healing power. Oh, they'll heal you all right, but they'll also grow you weird limbs you didn't know you wanted (and probably didn't).
Uncommon Skills of the Second Age of Adventuring	73-74	A list of narrow skills / non-weapon proficiencies for your Old School game. All are helpful, most are a little funny too. Great way to round out a skill or feat list.
Random Potion Effects	75	d20 effects a random potion might have. Some are gross and deadly, some are useful, and some are window dressing. Given the context of "Wizard creates these, force feeds them to prisoners to see what's up", that's a pretty good mix.
Quick and Dirty B/X Vehicle Rules for Science Fantasy or Sci-Fi	76-77	Really quick and easy to use rules for deteriming the speed, handling, cargo load, etc of random vehicles in play.
Strange and Terrible Artifacts from the Bleak	78-79	d19 magical scifi artifacts. The short descriptions leave a lot to the GM to decide, but give some great flavor text.
Diseases and Cures	80-83	Two d20 tables. The first is long descriptions and rules for various diseases that a character might catch. Some might even appear to be helpful on the surface. The second is a d20 list of "rumors of cures", which do a good job of suggesting adventures for the player to go on to get cured.
Galdr Rune Magic	84-87	A totally new magic system + class for DnD-type games. Uses runes, which can be either invoked by speaking them or inscribed on something. Different effects come about depending on how they're used.
Tapestries, Murals, and Mosaics	88-89	Various wall decorations. Mostly flavor, no real mechanical effects. Really great flavor.
Mundane Magic	90-94	30 items whose magic focuses on day to day life, rather than adventuring or combat. Magic as daily technology, if you will. Great list.
Wizard Treasure	95-97	Tables detailing wizard loot! This is what Seclusium of Orphone should have been. Great system that emergently allows for having more, and more rare, loot for higher level wizards.
Yuletide Playbook for Dungeon World	98-100	Moves, monsters, and more for your Christmas-themed Dungeon World game.
Items that Grow with the Characters	101-102	Six whimsical magic items that grow more powerful as the character who is wielding them levels up.

The whole table of contents can be found in our handy-dandy Google Spreadsheet link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11nXs4Tv-XkKC2RD8Y3f5g4MQnnTclm7bzXZ2s7hPiGo/edit?usp=sharing

Secret Santicore Reference: "People"

A table of contents of the "people" PDF for this year's Secret Santicore. 

Flower Devils vs. Silk Demons	2-4	Two "meta-organizations", decentralized occult alliances that are somewhat at odds with each other. Each organization has several abilities, flaws, items, etc associated with it. Gives rules on generating NPCs of each organization. Describes how they interact with each other, and gives a timeline of events that are happening in the background of the campaign world.
The Order of the Machine	5	A "meta-organization" for Fate games. Occult group that worships AI. Gives several NPC templates for high-level occultists.
The Eternally Young	6-7	Description of an early modern herbal health company/cult. Ideas on how to use this in a campaign. Includes stat block for "Grace Meeks, Undead Beauty Guru" and an alien/god thing which is using the company to its own ends.
The Death Cult	8-9	Description of a death cult. Details its founding and evolution into several states. Includes punishment for those found worshiping death: eternal life.
The Secret Cults and Guilds of the Desert Kingdoms	10-14	d30 Cults and Guilds for a desert setting. Each gets a long paragraph description. Laid out to be easy to roll on.
Horror Barbarians	15-16	Three horror/weird-themed barbarian tribes. Description, flavor text, and some campaign tie-ins.
Interplanetary Pirate Ragamuffins	17	Seven NPCs biographies. Each a sort of pirate ragamuffin. Given 4e classes but no other stats.
Garden Sports Oriented Combat and Dungeonering Moves	18-19	Moves built for Dungeon World that are all focused on some form of garden sport. Also gives a list of moves for Robot Characters ("Danger, Will Robinson") and Mi-Go Characters ("Wretched Humans").
What Does This NPC Do in His / Her / Its Spare Time?	20-23	Various tables to roll on to deterimine the hobbies, activities, and abilities of general NPCs.
30 Reaons not to Murder NPCs	24-25	d30 table of reasons a party might not want to randomly murder a given NPC.
Rival NPCs	26-28	An essay on the nature of what makes a good "nemisis" or "big baddy" in play, how to build them up and get the players invested while still leaving them agency, etc.. Includes several nemises of different form from the author's own game (statted for 3.5 from what I can tell?).
The Lonely Heir	29-33	A fully-statted class for Dungeon Crawl Classics that is modeled after the typical Lovecraftian protagonist: a lonely pampered young man who falls into something greater than himself, which slowly destroys him.
d12 Sorceror-Queen Generation Table	34-35	Seven d12 tables that, when rolled on together, generate a playable Sorceror-Queen.
Super Powers in D&D Type Fantasy	36-40	Various tables and rules for generating and playing D&D characters who have super powers. Presented as "things to do after usual chargen".
Table of Adventuring Parties	41-46	d10 table of adventuring parties, each with a short back-story and multiple fully-statted NPCs for LotFP.
Four Monastic Orders	47-50	Descriptive text + rules for 4 different monastic orders, including a 5e "path" for each one. Includes schisms and relationships amongst the orders.
NPC Faction Cartomancy	51-52	Rules for using playing cards to build various types of NPC factions—whether nations, guilds, etc.. Describes how to lay out the cards and what different types of cards mean in context. Elegant and fast. Includes examples.
People	53-57	d100 tables for generating NPCs to be found at a market quickly. Includes name, business at the bazzar, and a secret for each.
Three Robbable NPCs	58-60	Descriptive text of three rich/robbable NPCs, what they have, and how they hide/guard it. Each scenario could lead to muliple sessions of play.
The Hunted—A Gonzo Racial Class for OSR Games	61-64	Instructions for building a racial class of forrest-dwelling giants for your OSR system of choice. Includes descriptive text of their culture, rules for their special abilities, and how to generate the class regardless of your system.
Rats!	65	A picture of a party lowering one of their own on a rope into a well, while giant rats at the bottom scramble for his delicious flesh.

More information and references for other PDFs is / will be available in this spreadsheet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11nXs4Tv-XkKC2RD8Y3f5g4MQnnTclm7bzXZ2s7hPiGo/edit?usp=sharing