Floor Plans - Igmans Boarding House

 Here's a floor plan from my still being written Call of Cthulhu adventure.  Igman's is a slightly disreputable boarding house that can be used (freely by anyone, but please give me some credit) as an adventure local.  It's based off of Design No. 30 - A Model Suburban Cottage in Woodward's Country Homes.  I added a 3rd floor as a copy of the 2nd floor, and removed the indoor bathroom on those floors to create a servant's stair leading to their rooms in the attic.  The grid scale is 5 feet or 1.5 meters, the actual plan sizes are listed in many of the rooms, and may appear to vary slightly from the grid - the perils of electronic formatting, reformatting and resizing.

Attic and Roof

A number of small servants' quarters and storage areas are reachable by the backstairs.

3rd Floor

Five bedrooms of varying sizes.

2nd Floor
Five bedrooms of varying sizes.  Balconies rest on top of the
roof of the veranda from E and the backstairs F

Main Floor

D = Dining Room, P- Parlor, L = Library

C is the land lady's private room.

Basement

     The basement includes a 10' wide Area covered by the Main Floor Veranda

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.