Church of Nature's Bounty

      The building is nestled in second growth woodlands above the head of a ravine.  The area was formerly a source of lead ore (galena), but the mines have played out and production has moved elsewhere.

Country Chapel from Woodward's Country Homes 
Copyright expired

    The building is constructed of the native stone.  Anyone walking up to the door will notice that it's built right over the end of the ravine (dark green area on the right) that Fever Creek flows down.  Looking back a few steps along the edge of the ravine, onlookers will see that there is a partial wall under the building, with a ten to twelve foot gap in the center.  Unless someone is under the chapel with a light source, it's pitch black underneath.

     The interior is strikingly bare, with only a few pews around the walls.  Any one examining the stained glass windows will see illustrations of various scenes from the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.  Eve being tempted, Moses and the bronze serpent on the pole; Isaiah 14:29 and such.  The floor is scuffed and scratched in the center as if groups of people often milled around in the same area.  The investigators footsteps echo from below as the cross the room.

     In the vestibule is an overhead trapdoor, accessible by a stepladder found in the room behind the pulpit.  The trapdoor has a padlock on it.

    Across from the vestibule is a small area containing a narrow staircase leading down.

    Chained to the pulpit is an English language translation of Creencias de los Salvajes Indios.

Church of Nature's Bounty - Main Floor

     The lower level is essentially one big open room, the walls of the ravine have been roughly finished with the native stone to provide a level foundation for the building above.  The right hand side is open to the ravine, the left hand side is a ten foot passage hewed out of the stone, it Y's a few feet in - possibly an entrance to one of the old lead mines.

Church of Nature's Bounty - Ravine level

 

     

Ten Strike Mine

      Needed an abandoned mine for an adventure, so thought I'd give the cavern generation rules from Wilderlands a spin.  Going to say I'm not impressed, with a 10% of the tunnel ending each roll the mines are quite small, especially as there is only a 5% chance of a branch or cross tunnel to generate alternate paths.  Caverns are encountered, but there are no rules for generating multiple exits from them.  As short as it is, it will work for the adventure I'm working on, but the Random Dungeon rules from the AD&D DMG are better.

Ten Strike Mine

 

  

Free Building Plans Resources

At one point I had intended to do a series of gridded building plans based on one of these resources. Years later, I only ever did one. I find these old architecture books on Gutenburg to be a valuable way to quickly come up with a building layout I can describe to the players.
The trick to these is to find the list of illustrations or plates, these usually provide clickable short cuts to the floor plans. Otherwise keep scrolling, they're in there somewhere.

The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius - classical roman architecture, covers temples, forums, villas and houses    

History of Indian and Eastern Architecture by James Ferguson - mostly building elevations and details, but there are some floor plans in there, including a couple of temples located in caves. 

Chaitya Cave, Bhaja

The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles by Ella S. Armitage - what it says on the cover. You don't get interior layouts, but you do get site plans of castles for intrepid adventurers to sneak into or assault.

Problems in Periclean Buildings by G. W. Elderkin - plans of classical Greek temples and buildings.

Virginia Architecture in the Seventeenth Century by Henry Chandlee Foreman - not a lot of plans and many lack detail, but there are a number of drawings of Native American structures that can be used by your barbarian and orc villages.

Palace and Mosque at Ukhaidir by Gertrude Lowthain Bell - despite the name it includes Greek house plans, a plan of the Roman fort at Housesteads as well as more oriental dwelling plans, along with the palace and mosque layouts. 

Rural Architecture by Lewis Falley Allen - moving to America this book has detailed floor plans for farms and plantations. It includes plans for outbuilding such as a piggery and smokehouse. 

Woodward's Country Homes by Geo. E. and F. W. Woodward - a couple of dozen house designs from the Reconstruction period. Also plans for outbuildings like an ice house and carriage house

Bennett's Small House Catalog 1920 by Ray H Bennett Lumber Company - dozens of floor plans suitable for eldritch horrors to ooze out of when playing Call of Cthulhu. With price lists and pictures of internal details.

Convenient Houses by Louis Henry Gibson. Fifty Gilded Age domiciles 

     There's more books on Architecture at Gutenberg, but they are mostly antiquarian volumes on specific architectural details, rather than floor plans. Nice for color, but don't help design an adventure.

Update:  All the links broke overnight, don't know if it's Blogger not letting me link to Gutenberg or what happened.  Fixed them 11/08/20.  If not just search for the titles on Gutenberg and you'll find them. SOrry if you came and none of the links worked - RDT

Call of Cthulhu Text - "Creencias de los Salvajes Indios"

      I'm writing up a CoC adventure and needed a text behind the cult.  After following some very interesting rabbit holes on the Internet, I came up with this.

More of my bad art work

    Creencias de los Salvajes Indios (English: Beliefs of the Indian Savages) attributed to Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Chaplain to the conquistador Bernal Diaz.

     The manuscript is a description of pre-conquest Mesoamerican religious rites, including those of ‘Ik’ more commonly called Yig in the Cthulhu Mythos.  Certain of these rites are said to produce a startling agricultural bounty. 

     History:  The manuscript was obtained by Antonio del Ulloa (later governor of Spanish Louisiana) during his travels to South America, where he first described the metal platinum.  After the capture of his ship by the English, he was taken captive to England where he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and a close friend of Sir Joseph Danvers, 1st Baronet of Swithland.  

     At Swithland’s request at least one copy of the original Spanish manuscript was made, which has been retained by the Royal Society.  Rumors of an English translation in the possession of the Danvers family persist, but it has never surfaced.   There is some speculation that it may have been lost when a great grandson of the Baronet migrated to America in the 1830s.  

      The original manuscript known to have been kept on the Blasphemous Shelves of the library of Monastario del Escorial in Spain prior to the Spanish Civil War.

Call of Cthulhu 3rd Edition Statistics 

Editions                                                   Language        + to Knowledge     Spell Multiplier     SAN Loss

Creencias de los Salvajes Indios     Asturian (Spanish)            +12%                       x3                  -2d4

Beliefs of the Indian Savages                   English                      +9%                       x2                  -1d6

Halloween 2020

The damn scariest RPG illustration I've ever come across.  Les Edwards "Groglin Vampire" Plate VI in Sandy Peterson's Call of Cthulhu 3rd Edition.

i think it may be the Uncanny Valley effect, the appearance is so close to human, but subtly not at first glance.  Then a closer look makes it really creepy.

Anyway, working on a CoC adventure to run when I get out of lockdown.  Covid is but a household away.  Watching my older granddaughter while her mother's family deals with a case.  No worries, few to no correlated co-morbidities, and a better understanding of statistics  and the actual infection pattern than the average reporter.

Cross System Conversions

     I like mixing and matching between multiple systems, genres and milieus, as my various random encounter tables will show.  One of the things I have somewhere is a sheet of paper detailing my cross system AC conversions.  But I can't find it so I'm going to rebuild it with a little help.

     My basic approach for conversions has been to use armor description as the starting point, if you know what chainmail is in AD&D and Runequest, then you can figure out the rest of the armor classes from there.  And since monsters are rated on the same scale as humans (at least for all the systems I can think of); the process is to look at the table I just derived and assign the appropriate AC.

    THAC0, %to hit, attack roll - whatever you want to call is more subjective for me.  Usually, I'll look for a comparable monster in the system I'm converting to and peg the attack roll to the comparable.   Take for example, the 'Great Kommata', a gigantic Martian flying beast from Space 1889: it has two attacks Talons and Drop (rocks).  Comparable is a Roc from AD&D, two 3-18 attacks at 18HD.  Add in a rock attack like a stone giant throwing, but can only hit one character.  Presto, all I need to run a combat encounter with one.

     Converting to Chivalry & Sorcery is a bit different, as I all have to do is select the appropriately sized attack form, say 'MLB' or Monster Large Bite and it gives me the attack rolls against every armor class.  

     Magic is either a spell for spell translation to the target system or I need to define the effect in the target system.  For example, "Crumble Wall" in Warhammer FRP is  similar effects to "Transmute Rock to Mud", the stone dissolves into sand instead of collapsing into mud.  The description is different, but the effect and therefore the level is really the same. 

    This shouldn't be a surprise to the grognards, system conversion has been around since at least the AD&D DMG, right there starting on page 113 where they give conversions for Boot Hill and Gamma World to AD&D (The text mentions both Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World, even though Jame Ward wrote both, they use different armor scales).

   What I didn't realize until I was looking the the C&S Saurians book, which I was sure I'd reviewed last year, but haven't, is this little gem.

     Look at that conversion from D&D and Runequest to C&S.  Of course, the Runequest conversion is handwaving the difference between bronze and iron armor in RQ (iron is 1.5x as strong); so I'd take it with a grain of salt.  Still it's a good reason to rebuild my AC conversion table that I've misplaced.

 

Description	From	AD&D	C&S	ACKS	WFRP	MA	GW	RQ
Banded Plate	ACKS, C&S, AD&D	4	4	5	1	4	4	5
Brigantine / Brigandine	C&S, RQ	7	3	3	1	5	7	5
Chain Mail	ACKS, AD&D	5	5	4	1	4	6	5
Chain Mail Hauberk	C&S	4	7	5	1	4	5	5
Chain Mail Shirt	C&S, WFRP, RQ	5	5	4	1	4	6	5
Chain Mail Shirt & Plate Cuirass	C&S	2	9	6	1	3	6	5
Cuirbolli	RQ	8	2	2	0/1	7	8	3
Cured Hide	MA, GW	7	3	3	0/1	5	6	3
Duralloy Shield	MA	+4	+4	+4	+1	1	+4	16
Energized Armor	GW	-4	15	14	3	-6	2	14
Full Carapace	MA, GW	5	5	4	1	3	4	5
Full Plate	C&S	1	10	7	1	2	4	6
Furs or Skins	GW	8	1	1	0/1	7	8	2
Hardened Leather Cuirass	C&S	8	1	2	0/1	7	8	2
Heavy Furs or Skins	MA	8	1	1	0/1	7	8	2
Heavy Scale Armor	RQ	6	4	3	1	5	7	5
Heavy Shield	C&S	+1	+2	+1	+1	6	+1	12
Hide & Fur Armor	ACKS	8	1	1	0/1	7	8	2
Inertial Armor	GW	-4	15	14	3	-6	2	14
Lamellar Armor	ACKS	4	4	5	1	4	4	5
Leather Armor	ACKS, AD&D	8	1	2	0/1	7	8	2
Leather Jack/ Jerkin	WFRP	8	1	2	0/1	7	8	2
Light Scale Armor	RQ	6	4	3	1	5	7	4
Light Shield	C&S	+1	+1	+1	+1	6	+1	8
Linen Armor	RQ	8	1	2	0/1	7	8	2
Mail Coat & Hose	C&S, WFRP	4	7	5	1	4	5	5
None	AD&D	10	0	0	0	8	10	0
Padded Armor	AD&D	8	1	2	0/1	7	8	2
Partial Carapace	MA, GW	7	3	3	1	6	6	5
Piece Metal Armor	GW	5	5	4	1	3	4	6
Plant Fiber Armor	MA, GW	7	3	3	0/1	5	6	4
Plastic Armor	GW	0	11	9	3	-2	3	10
Plate Armor	ACKS, AD&D, RQ	2	9	6	1	2	3	6
Plate Cuirass	C&S, WFRP	3	6	5	1	4	5	6
Power Scout Armor	GW	-4	15	14	3	-6	2	14
Powered Alloy Armor	GW	-4	15	14	3	-6	2	14
Powered Assault Armor	GW	-8	19	18	4	-10	1	18
Powered Attack Armor	GW	-8	19	18	4	-10	1	18
Powered Battle Armor	GW	-4	15	14	3	-6	2	14
Powered Plate Armor	GW	0	11	9	3	-2	3	10
Ring Mail	ACKS, AD&D	7	3	3	1	5	7	4
Scale Mail	ACKS, C&S, AD&D	6	4	3	1	5	7	4
Shield	ACKS, AD&D, WFRP, GW	+1	+1	+1	+1	6	+1	12
Shield of Non-metallic Substance	MA	+1	+1	+1	+1	6	+1	8
Soft Leather	C&S, RQ	9	1	1	0/1	7	9	1
Splint Armor	C&S, AD&D	4	3	3	1	5	4	4
Studded Leather	AD&D	7	3	3	1	6	7	5
Superior Chain Mail	C&S	4	8	5	1	4	5	5
Thin Metal Armor	MA	5	5	4	1	3	5	4
None	AD&D	10	0	0	0	8	0	8
None	AD&D	10	0	0	0	8	0	8
None	AD&D	10	0	0	0	8	0	8
None	AD&D	10	0	0	0	8	0	8
None	AD&D	10	0	0	0	8	0	8
None	AD&D	10	0	0	0	8	0	8

ACKS - Adventurer, Conqueror, King:  Ascending armor class

AD&D - Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Descending Armor Class 

C&S - Chivalry & Sorcery: Ascending Armor Class

GW - Gamma World: Descending Armor Class

MA - Metamorphosis Alpha: Descending Armor Class, starts at 8

RQ - Runequest: Armor absorbs damage rather than setting the target to hit.  Also the armor can vary by body part, i.e. you can wear a plate cuirass and have only soft leather on you legs.  Note, I hand waved the difference the system makes between bronze and iron armor.

WFRP - Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing: Armor absorbs damage rather than setting the target to hit.  Also, the armor only protects certain body parts. Leather is rated 0/1, as it only absorbs damage from blows where the damage is <=3.  If the damage is 4 or greater, all of the damage affects the character.

Converting RQ and WFRP armor to other systems, I'll use the highest value provided. 

 

Feudal Wilderlands: Severnais Random Encounters

   The final aid I'll develop for adventuring in the Severnais is a set of random encounter tables.  As before, I'm pulling in creatures from pretty much every game in my library to give encounters that sense of whimsy I enjoy.  

     I should also note that I have a set of Random Encounter Generation home rules that are consulted before I get to these tables.  Over the years I've moved from most of my random encounters being combat and experience point oriented to designing a system that will generate information for the players about the area.  What I have below are tables of challenges they may encounter, or they may just see evidence of and start looking over their shoulders for the monster to appear.

     Encounter areas follow natural ecosystem and movement boundaries.  Looking at the map of the Sverenais, I determined that there are four encounter areas.

     North Dearthwood  The area of the forest north of river flowing out of the Dearthwood into the Roglaroon and the tributary of the Conqueror's River as well as the Conqueror's river upstream from there.  Looking at the Wilderlands of High Fantasy booklet, there are three "Lurid Lairs" listed in the area for Wood Nypmphs, Pixies and Hippogriffs.  From that I have determined that I will use the "Fairy or Sylvan" table in AD&D and the "Elf Wood" table in Runequest when generating the appropriate encounters.  I also ended up with two encounters from Call of Cthulhu in that area, so I've decided that the entire area is subject to planar instability, where 'nexus points' to use the Empire of the Petal Throne terminology naturally appear and enable all sorts of beings to enter the Wilderlands.

     Victory Hills  Not a canonical name, but what I'm calling the hills where the Conqueror's River rises.  They extend up to the River Stillring, most of them are outside of the Severnais proper, so I can re-use them as an area when I detail the heartlands around the City State itself.

     North of Severn  and South of Severn The Severn provides a natural barrier to movement dividing the encounter areas.

     Note that I'm leaving the actual boundaries of the encounter areas rather vague.  These are all or almost all mobile creatures that can have overlapping ranges.  Also, I can roll the encounter and if there's a reasonably close boundary, decide which challenge I want the party to encounter. 

About half the challenge encounters are from AD&D and I expect are familiar to most readers, the source of others are indicated below.

Roll	North Dearthwood	Victory Hills	North of Severn	South of Severn
1	Elf War Party (RQ)	Humanoid #4 (MA)	Centisteed (GW)	Snake Python
2	Chimera	NPC Party	Halfling	Changer (MA)
3	Al'mi-raj (FF)	Giant Skunk	Orc	Ankheg
4	Wood Nymphs Lair Hex 2818 (5)	Apparition (FF)	Gnome	Wild Dogs Lair Hex 3515 (18)
5	Star Spawn of Cthulhu (CoC)	Sphinx (ACKS)	Wild Horses Lair Hex 3311 (12)	Amoeba (WFRP)
6	Men, Bandit	Weretiger (ACKS)	Patrol	Men, Merchant
7	Bearoid (MA)	Giant Ant	Merchants (EPT)	Arn (GW)
8	Patrol	Wild Boar	Fire Lizards Lair Hex 3011 (3)	Hawk (normal)
9	Cthonians (CoC)	Leprechaun	Yexil (GW)	Buzzers (MA)
10	Needlemen (FF)	Patrol	Llama (Dreamlands)	Rust Monster
11	Elf	Chénlh (EPT)	Men, Brigands	Wolves
12	Sprite	Stirge	Kobold	Cockatrice
13	Troll	Giant Stag Beetle	Basilisk	Throgrin (ACKS)
14	Hippogriffs Lair Hex 3318 (2)	Men, Berserker	Goblin	Demon, Artificer (Infernum)
15	Pineto (GW)	Men, Dervish	Elf	Giant Centipedes Lair Hex 3612 (10)
16	Harpy	Elf	Url-worm (Dreamlands)	Sun Worm (WFRP)
17	Cockatrice	Men, Brigand	Men, Bandit	Rakox (GW)
18	Pixies Lair Hex 3017 (40)	Dark Fungus (MA)	Men, Merchant	Patrol
19	Su-monster	Rényu (EPT)	Giant Toads Lair Hex 311 (11)	Men, Merchant
20	Giant Stag	Hlýss (EPT)	Small Warrior (MA)	Wolves

(ACKS) Adventurer Conqueror King,    (CoC) Call of Cthulhu,    (Dreamlands) H.P Lovecraft's Dreamlands, a CoC Supplement,    (EPT) Empire of the Petal Throne,    (FF) Fiend Folio,    (GW) Gamma World,    (Infernum) Mongoose's Infernum - Role Playing in Hell,    (MA) Metamorphosis Alpha,    (WFRP)  Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing

(#) - A number in parentheses indicates the number encountered in the lair.  All are from The WIlderlands of High Fantasy.

Creature notes:

Al'mi-raj (Fiend Folio) - Chaotic unicorn bunny

Amoeba (Warhammer FRP) - converted this one to Chivalry & Sorcery earlier

Apparition (Fiend Folio) - ethereal skeleton, can cause heart attacks

Arn (Gamma World) - a 1.3 meter bug that can be used as a riding mount by very small humanoids

Bearoid (Metamorphosis Alpha) - 12' tall golden psionic golden bear.  Uses bows and clubs.

Buzzers (Metamorphosis Alpha) - mutated bees that can blast a party with pure energy.  Enraged by psionics and magic use.

Centisteed (Gamma World) - 16 legged horse that can carry two.  Comes equipped with a force field.  No cupholders.

Change (Metamorphosis Alpha) - mutated robin with chameleon powers.  No attacks, immune to spells and psionics (too bird-brained).

Chnélh (Empire of the Petal Throne) - ape mutants.  Sharp claws and teeth.  Use spears and clubs.  Treat as cavemen, but look like Australopithecus 

Cthonian (Call of Cthulhu) - immense thing squidly worms.  Can crush with their bodies, constrict and drain blood with their tentacles.  Oh, they can cause earthquakes too. 

Dark Fungus (Metamorphosis Alpha) - psionic fungus brain.  Don't touch

Demon, Artificer (Infernum) - a squat little demon, one of the Engineers of Hell.  This one can understand and fix mechanical devices on a roll of 5+; has +3 natural armor and weeps poison tears that it uses to coat it weapons.

Elf War Party (Runequest) - 1d6 brown elves (look like deciduous trees) armed with bows and swords (bronze) .  They have a decided resemblence to the local trees, oaks, chestnuts, laurel and pine, with bark like skin, interweaving bracnhes for hair and knobby fingers like twigs.  They will be neutral or hostile to halflings and humans; friendly or neutral to 'meat elves' and down right aggressive to other races.

Hawk (normal) (Adventurer Conqueror King) - just a normal small raptor.  If a character can plausibly attract it, it can be trained to hunt small game.  Otherwise, 50% chance it attacks a wizard's familiar.

Hlýss (Empire of the Petal Throne) - six legs and a chitinous shell.  FIght with weapons and a sting, ofetn have jewels set in their shell.  Collect humans, probably for hosts for their eggs.

Humanoid #4 (Metamorphosis Alpha) - Walks on all fours, has poison claws, low intelligence.

Llama (H.P Lovecraft's Dreamlands) - all the possible monstrosities and I roll a normal llama.  Treat as a pony that climbs like a goat

Merchants (Empire of the Petal Throne) - 3 merchants, 8 guards, 23 slave bearers with merchandise.  Merchants and guards have elaborate chlen-hide armor (treat as scale mail, but less cumbersome) and weapons (have 5% chance of being broken if parried by iron/steel weapons).  They have exotic glass wear and chlen hide armor for sale - preferably will trade for iron.  The leader has an "Eye of Abominable Detestation" (treat as double strength wand of fear) and an "Eye of Incomparable Understanding" (treat as area effect Comprehend Languages spell).

Needlemen (Fiend Folio) - humanoid zombie plant.  Shoots needles at you

Patrol (Chivalry & Sorcery) - one knight, a squire and two sergeants from a local fortress.  In the Dearthwood, 75% chance that it is instead 1d4+2 Duneal foresters (treat as rangers) or elves.

Pineto (Gamma World) - ambulatory plant that can carry heavy loads.  Can be ridden, but without the proper saddle, you take damage every turn.

Rakox (Gamma World) - oxen with eight horns and a carapace.  

Rényu (Empire of the Petal Throne) - Humanoid dogs.  Can speak and use weapons, can't use magic.  Can be captured and trained, exceedingly loyal servants.  Detect secret doors like elves.

Small Warrior (Metamorphosis Alpha) - mutated ants with a mass mind that can generate a force field

Sphinx (Adventurer Conqueror King) - I called this out to remind myself to check for the differences between sphinxes in ACKS vs AD&D.  Turns out you can generate a random encounter with a sphinx in ACKS, but there is no entry in the Monster section for it.  Treat as a Criosphinx. - 

Star Spawn of Cthulhu (Call of Cthulhu) - miniature, but still gigantic copies of Great Cthulhu, 60 feet tall.  Tentacles claws to match their size.  Use magic and cause insanity.

Su-monster (AD&D) - forty years of gaming, never encountered one of these or added it to one of my adventures.  Cross between an ape and an opossum with psionic attacks.

Sun Worm (Warhammer FRP)  Shjockingly, a 6' maggot that discharges electricity.  Double damage if you're wearing metal armor. 

Throgrin (Adventurer Conqueror King) - looks like a hobgoblin, paralyzes like a ghoul, regenerates as a troll.  Nasty little buggers.

Url-worm (H.P Lovecraft's Dreamlands) - man sized worms that feed off oils secreted by the dhole.  Used by the halflings of D'haz for unspeakable practices.

Weretiger  (Adventurer Conqueror King)  - treat as AD&D weretiger, with they are naturally stealthy and have a -2 on surprise checks

Yexil (Gamma World) - big (3 meter long with 8 meter wing span) orange furred mammal.  Shoot frickin' laser beams from it's eyes.

Previous Posts in this Series

Wilderlands Trade Radius

Wilderlands Market Areas

Wilderlands Where the Barbarians Roam

Wilderlands Baronies

Wilderlands Baronies, Further Considerations

Wilderlands The Roglaroon

Feudal Wilderlands Part I

Feudal Wilderlands Part II - The Heartlands

Feudal Wilderlands Part III - The Restless North

Feudal Wilderlands Part IV - The Imperial West

Feudal Wilderlands Part V - The Changing South

Feudal Wilderlands: Fiefs - Severnais

Feudal Wilderlands Part VI - Notes on Towns and Villages

Feudal Wilderlands: Part VII - Elves