Sobek's Children//Werecrocs

Lycanthropy-Werecrocodile

One of the greatest blessings bestowed by the god Sobek is the ability to change into a human-crocodile hybrid, a werecrocodile. This strain of lycanthropy is only found in Egypt due to the transformation’s dependence on the Nile river. An unusual strain since the ability is not passed by the usual vector, a bite, but is passdowned hereditarily. Scribes believe this restriction may be connected to Sobek’s association with fertility, others say it was done to prevent enemies from contracting the strain. Werecrocodiles do not undergo their first transformation until after puberty is reached and only during Akhet, the Season of Inundation when the nile floods, which happens from June to September. As per my generic lycanthropy rules I’ll be using LotFP’s RAW disease rules as a base for this strain of lycanthropy.

• Incubation- The incubation time is from birth to the first Akhet after puberty.
• Infection- During Akhet, the Season of Inundation.
• Interval- Whenever human blood is detected. A Save vs. Magic may be made to resist the transformation with a +4 due to Sobek's Blessing.
• Effect- Transform into a werecrocodile(see below). Takes 2 minutes and is excruciatingly painful. Reverting back to human takes a round.

This strain was created to be a combat boon for Sobek's most devout followers and thus is dependent on detecting human blood to transform. Unlike the werewolf, werecrocs are fully in control of themselves until a kill is made, only then does the lure to devour take hold. 

Werecrocodile Stats

Armor 16, Move 120’(Swim speed 160'), 5 Hit Dice, 30hp, 1x Bite 1d12 damage 1x Tail Slap 1d6 damage, Morale 10. Whenever a kill is made a Save vs. Magic must be made to resist wasting a round devouring the corpse. Double damage from Silver Weapons(triggers a immediate morale check when hit, will flee on a fail)

Appearance & Traits

When transformed werecrocs stand over 6 feet tall and have a huge snout and rows of jagged teeth as well as an equally deadly serrated tail. Werecrocs have an excellent sense of smell, especially when it comes to blood. Those infected are able to differentiate the blood types and can even tell which pool or spray belongs to which victim. Any wounds received from non-silver, non-magic weapons while transformed heal at a rate of 1hp per hour.

The Cure

There is no known cure for this strain of Lycanthropy, mostly due to the small number of recorded infected.

Context

If you've been following my blog you'll know I'm planning on running a LotFP game set in 17th century Egypt. One of the bullet points I wanted was for the players to act as one of the many factions running around gathering treasure and macguffins. My players decided on playing as a forgotten cult of Sobek worshipers that are werecrocodiles. Yup.

I've never actually run a "monster" game so I'm interested to see how they handle a little power at the start of the campaign. The goal I gave them is to find a way to revive their dead god Sobek to reign over Egypt like the good old days. Should be pretty interesting. I'll probably come back here and update this strain after I've seen it in action.

Death Masks

"L'Inconnue de la Seine"

Death Masks

have been been used to preserve a person's likeness from the time of the pharaohs to relatively recently when photography became prevalent. However a hidden family of morticians in Egypt known as the Coin Eaters(the process is very expensive) have passed down an ancient ritual to imbue death masks with the deceased's personality and memories. This allows one to continue existing on the material plane using a surrogate body after death.

Ritual of Transference

The following components are required to begin the ritual:

• The deceased's head(with/without body) which is cleaned, sutured, and painted to the look alive to the best of the mortician's ability*. This done to ease the transference of the deceased's persona and to shape the mold of the face with wax. Requires a successful Cosmetology Skill roll to complete. A failed roll means the process must be redone from scratch wasting 1d10 x 10sp worth of materials. The client of course foots the bill.
• Offerings of precious metals equal to 1000sp x the character's level that is smelted down to construct the mask. The stronger the personality the more expensive the mask to house it. Requires a Successful Mask Making Skill roll to complete. A failure means the mask must be melted down and recast again, costing the family 1d10 x 25sp worth of materials. The client of courses foots the bill.
• A whole corpse to wear the mask. The family will provide the body for an additional charge of 100sp or will work with whatever the client provides. When the ritual is completed and the mask worn, the corpse takes the physical appearance of the character the mask was made for.

*Mortician Skills- Usually the family requires a substantial donation to allow one of their more experience members to forge the mask. In lieu of coin, the family may also ask for an errand(of varying difficulty) to be completed at their behest. 

1. Novice Mortician- 250sp, 3-in-6 Cosmetology Skill, 3-in-6 Mask Making Skill
2. Experienced Mortician-  500sp 4-in-6 Cosmetology Skill, 4-in-6 Mask Making Skill
3. Expert Mortician-  1000sp 5-in-6 Cosmetology Skill, 5-in-6 Mask Making Skill
4. Master Mortician- 2000sp 6-in-6 Cosmetology Skill, 6-in-6 Mask Making Skill

Once the mask has been forged(and the fees paid) the Ritual of Transference may commence. The family allows the clients to view the forging of the mask but the actual magic is done behind closed doors. Its a family secret after all. In my game the process involves a certain piece of music...and takes three days to complete.

Once completed the mask holds the deceased's Class Level/XP, Mental Stats(INT,WIS,CHA), personality, and memories. The body procured earlier provides the Physical Stats(STR,CON,DEX) and holds any gained XP. As long as the mask stays intact(the mask has 50hp), the character only needs a new body upon death to continue. Though they begin with the stats they had when the mask was constructed and any new xp or levels are lost. I'll let you decided if they get to keep memories or not.

Moon Baby//Lycanthropy

For my upcoming Egypt campaign one of my players expressed his desire to play as a werespider. Yes, a werespider. I was perplexed and hesitant at first but after thinking about it, why not? Lifespans in lamentations tend to be quickly and brutally extinguished. So, in order to fulfill this wish I had to do some research into Lycanthropy and how I would implement it into my game. I asked around the official LotFP Facebook page, the OSR discord and did some googling and got a lot of good feedback. I did struggle because I wanted to the curse to be powerful but with powerful consequences. Also I didn’t want it to be overly complex. Thankfully I was inspired by listening to one of Fantastic Dimension’s Rogue to Riches sessions and how he used the LotFP disease rules in his game. *Update* 08/31/19 Thanks to some great random encounter rolls 2 of my players are werewolves now. I had to tweak some things here after some testing.

Lycanthropy-Werewolf Strain

The curse of Lycanthropy acts much as a disease would so we’ll be using LotFP’s Rules & Magic disease rules as the base for the curse. The curse is transferred through bodily fluids, most commonly saliva via bite. On page.35 in the Rules & Magic book you’ll see diseases are broken up into four stages: incubation, infection, interval, and effect. We’ll use these to fill in what actually happens when your infected by Lycanthropy.
Note: I’ll be using the traditional werewolf as the example for this strain of Lycanthropy, in future posts I’ll be going over some other strains, the werespider and werecroc.

• Incubation- The incubation time is from first infected to the time of the next full moon and every full moon after.
• Infection- Every night that hosts a full Moon.
• Interval- From the Moon's Peak to Dawn.
• Effect- Transform into a werewolf.(see below). Takes 2 minutes and is excruciatingly painful. Reverting back to human at dawn takes a round.

So in other words once infected to the time of the next full moon(incubation) and every full moon after(infection) the infected transforms into a Werewolf(effect) from the full moon's peak to dawn(interval).

Werewolf Stats

Armor 16, Move 180’, 5 Hit Dice, 28hp, 2x Claw 1d8 damage, 1x Bite 1d6 damage, Morale 10. Those injured by a Werewolf that survive must make a Save versus Magic or become infected with Lycanthropy. Double damage from Silver Weapons(triggers a immediate morale check when hit, will flee on a fail)

Retaining Control

The real reason anyone would even want to play a Lycanthrope, the possibility of harnessing the curse. So, how do you do it? Certain packs have devised religious rituals to soothe their bestial side. Others have had tamed the beast through sheer will and an overpowering persona, though these individuals are a rare breed, 18 Charisma maybe? Check out the Lunar Lullaby below for an example of how to tame the curse.

The Lunar Lullaby

Music is a gateway to the soul and some would say the key to one's humanity. One pack in southern France devised a way to keep control of themselves during their transformation by playing a secret piece of music written and known only to them. Learning this piece and having it played during your transformation grants a a Save vs. Magic with a +4 to during the transformation phase of the curse. Success means your are fully in control of your character while transformed.

Lingering Consequences

The biggest would be a TPK after the referee gains control of the werewolf. If you've seen An American Werewolf in London after the protagonist killed his best friend he was haunted by him, which is a great idea for a lingering consequence. Here are some side effects for those afflicted with Lycanthropy.

•  Aversion to Silver, touching silver with bare skin causes the afflicted to lose 1d100 experience points.
• Aversion to non-meaty meals: Food without meat tastes bland and terrible not matter how well made it is. It takes twice the amount of food/rations to satisfy a werewolf if it has no meat.
• Add a +1 Modifier to Strength & Constitution. Does not increase the ability score, just the modifier.
• Death Friend: If the afflicted kills a Player Character that character may haunt the afflicted a number of times per week equal to twice their Charisma Score Modifier, Minimum 1. The "Death Friend's" spirit may never rest until the werewolf that killed them is dead.
• NPCs killed can haunt the afflicted but they tend to crowd together to judge from a distance.

The Cure

A Remove Curse spell during the incubation phase will cure the infected. However once the first transformation has occurred the only way to remove the curse is a lengthy quest(at referee's discretion).

Campaign Bucket List

Every DM/GM/Referee/Story Teller has a bucket list of campaigns they want to run. Here’s mine in no order:

• Dark Sun not the 4e one, the OG one.
• Egyptian themed campaign using LotFP (Currently working on this one)
• Campaign set in Hell, heavily influenced by Dante’s Inferno.
• Campaign set during the Judeo/Christian Apocalypse.
• Space Horror. Mothership seems to fit the bill…
• A Star Wars game set in the Old Republic.
• 17th Century Japan using LotFP, heavy emphasis on demons.
• A Fantasy campaign with a Isekai twist.
• A monster of the week episodic game inspired by Supernatural.

Monkey Paws and Relics (Threads of Fate, Session II Recap)

Session II of my new ongoing Lamentations of the Flame Princess Campaign. See Session I here.

Boy oh boy was this Session a disaster. First the session failed to fire on the scheduled date due to peeps personal lives(understandable). Then after I managed to pity party everyone into playing the next day Discord managed to bite me in the ass. I don’t know if it was my internet connection or Discord being wack but the first half of the session was choppy and it was hard for me to hear and be heard. Finally out of frustration I moved the game over to Google Hangouts to try to salvage this session but by then the momentum was lost. Thankfully my players are awesome and bore through it. Once we moved to hangouts everything was working as it should and some laughs were had. If my players are reading this(as they should be since I post it in our group) thanks guys for being awesome! Anyways here’s what happened, bullet point style since it was a really short session.

The Cast

Cillian McCleary, Specialist 1:

Irishman in a hostile land.

Aki Ashina, Fighter 1:

A young woman hailing from the far eastern lands of Japan. Wears a eyepatch, speaks broken english and is looking for something or someone...

Otto Kuchin, Fighter 1:

Nobleman's son, turned sellsword, turned monster hunter. From Prussia.

Richard Islands, Fighter 1:
Ex-soldier, now poor mercenary. Looking for work.

Mildred Hubble, Magic-User 1: 

A horny 12 year old girl from a very secretive school for young spellcasters.

Linehart Helsbert, Magic-User 1:
Landlocked pirate looking for treasure and secrets. Extremely violent.

• Party plots to steal St.Margaret’s holy mummified monkey from the crypt under the church. No plans are made to steal the saint’s relic...
• They wait until nightfall then send the irishman Mcleary to scout out the church.
• During the day they had wandered around town and discovered other(old) Nonsbeck was home to a convent behind the church. Seems the nuns are guarding St.Margaret's remains.
• Mcleary rolls a successful stealth skill. He scopes out the area and memorizes the church grounds layout without being see by a nun sentry. Afterwards he returns to the inn and relays the information to his party members.
• Party convenes on church, Mcleary is chosen to open the church doors, due to his roguish skills.
• Mcleary checks for traps, then cracks the door halfway before hearing a voice from inside. A woman's voice. "H-hello?..." she says. "Is someone there?"
• The party begins to make various kinds of animal noises, for some reason?
• The party can hear the woman inside running further inside. Kuchin kicks the door open and sees a nun running towards the altar in the back of the church. He throws his detachable pommel and hurls it at the nun. He hits.
• The woman falls over and the thieves shuffle towards her and gag and bound her, the Islands hides her in the confessional. 
• They swabble a bit then search the church for the donation box. Mcleary finds it and gains +18sp.
• Helsbert finds a musket the nun must have been going for and Islands finds a small bronze bell. (Ref's Note: The bell is rung ever hour to alert the outside sentry's that everything is ok.)
• Mcleary & Ashina light torches and take the point and rear respectively in the marching order. The party descends into the crypt.
• The party sees a well kept crypt with the western wall filled with graves and offerings. They spend a turn searching for traps then hear a rattling of chains before Mcleary almost trips over them.
• More squabbling before Kuchin takes a torch and shines into the darkness revealing a young woman with a long chain tied to her ankle. "Please help me, the nuns keep me down here." she says.
• The girl explains the nuns took her away and believe her to be possessed. They keep her tied down here at night. 
• The party talks amongst themselves(more time wasted) then they free her when she says her parents will happily pay to have her back. She lives in London.
• (Ref's Notes: me when they freed her.)
• With nameless girl in tow the party continues down the crypt and comes across their prize, the holy monkey. 
  
• Mcleary checked for traps(MVP this session) and after confirming there were none, the glass case is removed and the monkey stolen.
• The party moves back upstairs into the church then waste more time squabbling before heading to the church door but the doors open to reveal three nuns with muskets standing before them.
• The head nun questions why they freed the nameless girl then they level their muskets.
• Kuchin quickly shoots the main nun then the other party members scatter behind pews while Islands retrieves the nun from the confessional and uses her as a human shield.
• I decided to simplify initiative by using the opposed d6 roll for each side rule. Turns out this is extremely deadly for the losing side. The party wins initiative and I roll morale to see if the remaining nuns stay to fight after seeing their leader killed. They do. (Ref's Notes: In hindsight I should have rolled a surprise check. Oh well.)
• The two remaining nuns are quickly dispatched brutally and efficiently.
• The party escapes into the night.

-After 3 days travel and no random encounters the party arrives at Nonsbeck.-

• They hide the monkey paws in the woods then return the pawless monkey to the quest giver Lonna. She looks a little disappointed but Kuchin assures her it was like that when they found it. She thanks them and hands them the deed to the manor.
• Ashina inquires about Lonna's younger sister.
• The party looks around and sees the nameless young woman from the church playing in the field with Lonna's younger sister Cremilia. The party is creeped out.
• The party talks to the blacksmith in Nonsbeck for a bit before returning to the woods to reclaim their monkey paws. 
• They gather around in a circle and begin making wishes of the monkey paws.

The Wishes

Each party member states their wish then breaks a finger on the paw.

Aki Ashina wishes to speak fluent english, then silence.

Otto Kuchin wishes to be a millionaire, then silence.

Richard Islands wishes for prosperity for his future brothel, then silence.

Mildred Hubble wishes for spellbook with all the spells, then silence.

Linehart Helsbert wishes for more guns, then silence.

The party waits a moment then concludes the wishes must have a delayed effect...

• Helsbert becomes furious and threatens to shoot people after realizing the wishes were a lie.
• They party argues for a bit, again.
• Then they decided to return to London to sell back the church woman to her parents and the monkey paws to Vespero.
• When they go to speak with the nameless church woman they notice she's gone.
• They shrug their shoulders and plan their trip to London. "I'm sure she'll turn up." Kuchin says.

Treasure gained: 18sp, A bronze bell, Two mummified monkey paws and feet.

Bonus XP: +100 for Session attendance, +5 to each character for the nuns.

Session III here.

Nábrók (Corpse Trousers)/Necropants

I was listening to the newest Last Podcast on the Left episode about Icelandic Sorcery and was inspired to make a magic item from one of the occult objects they talked about, Necropants.

-Nábrók (Corpse Trousers)/Necropants.
Allows the wearer to reach into their Necropants(the scrotum pocket) and pull a silver coin from it once a day. 1-in-6 chance to pull a gold coin. Works as long as the original widow's coin isn't removed.

In order to create a pair of Necropants a Magic-User must first complete the following ancient ritual:

• Make a true male friend.(Why male? We need that scrotum pocket!)
• Ask said friend to let you skin them from the waist down upon their natural death.
• If yes, proceed. If no, make a new friend.
• Wait until friend is buried, then dig him up and skin him. Make a relevant skill check to not damage it or hire a flesh tailor.
• Once you have the skinned flesh of your friend, steal a coin from a poor widow.
• Place stolen coin in scrotum along with a runic symbol.
• Put Necropants on and bathe in goats milk under the moon.
• Profit???

Congrats your now the proud owner of a pair of Necropants! Taking them off requires a Remove Curse spell.

These'll make a great addition to the magic items for sale at the Ghoul Market. Or make your insane Magic-User NPCs wear them. Anyways let me know what you think!

Familiar Binding, Redux

Samuel's arms fell limp as he slumped to his knees before the gruesome scene before him. Her body lay contorted and strewn across the hay smothered floor in sea of red. The girl's once sky blue eyes stared dulled and vacantly towards one of the shadow soaked corners of the room. From the darkness appeared two hellish points of lights, crimson in color, followed a fiendish voice that croaked from the dark. "The pact is complete young Samuel, thine sibling's soul for the unnatural knowledge thy so desired." "Take thine hand and dab her cooling essence unto the book." A few somber moments passed before the boy sheepishly rose with inky black tome in hand. He took just enough steps before collapsing beside his sister's ruined form. The boy caressed her cheek careful of the torn parts then closed her eyes. After he soaked his hand in the thickened pool around him and pawed into his grimoire the hurried whispers of his familiar.

I was feeling lazy so I decided to steal an old post from my dead blog and update it here. I was pleasantly surprised to find the above scene, I dont even remember writing it.
Anyways the spell to summon a familiar has been done so many times already but I wanted to add my own take to it. I wrote this last year but here it is cleaned up & updated.

The following is a 1st level spell for Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

-Familiar Binding-

Throughout history witches & warlocks have taken beastial familiars as aids to their spellcraft. This spell allows the magic-user to bind a otherworldly entity into a contract, bestowing gifts of knowledge and power in exchange for sacrifices. The process takes 8 hours of constant chanting and spell weaving and must not be interrupted by outside forces. The spell must be cast at night.

The entity requires a vessel to house it while it lingers on this plane. The caster must provide the corpse of one of the following:

1. Hare
2. Monkey
3. Crow
4. Lizard
5. Snake
6. Rat
7. Cat
8. Goat
9. Toad
10. Dog
11. Owl
12. Tarantula

or...

1. A child.
2. A Beautiful person.
3. A Hideous person.
4. A Party Member.

The following may be offered during the casting to increase the chance of success:

• Burning of 500sp worth of incense. +1 to Save.
• Ritual Sacrifice of a sapient innocent. +1 to Save per HD of sacrifice(s).
• Burning of elaborate candles wrought from human fat. +1 to save.

After the end of the casting make a Save vs Magic.

• If successful, continue to the bargaining portion of the spell.
• If failed, the spell must be performed again from the beginning with fresh components.

The Bargain & Contract

Once contact has been established, the bargaining process begins. The player rolls randomly to determine the familiar's demands but may choose a boon.

The Familiar demands...

1. Blood fed from your breast, 1d3 hp's worth per week.
2. Ritual Sacrifice of a Virgin, 1 HD's worth per week. 
3. No hair to be on your body, you must groom daily.
4. One of your limbs which it devours once the bargain is complete.
5. You only consume live insects for sustenance.
6. Wealth, to be burned in ritual sacrifice. 50% of all treasure/income gained each week.
7. Pain, you must inflict X points of damage to a human being each week. X equals your hit points.
8. Your offspring(all of them, forever), if none your fertility, if none your genitals. Roll again if you possess none of these things.
9. You worship it. You must dedicate an entire day(12 hours) to worship once a week.
10. You always lie or tell the truth, flip a coin each day to determine.
11. You consume the blood of a whore, 1 cup per day. (Diseases may apply.)
12. You are always intoxicated. See Drunk rules in Rules & Magic book.

In exchange...

1. You are able to use your familiar as a magical conduit, you may cast an additional spell per day without penalties, of any level.
2. You get the Devil's luck, you may reroll any of your dice rolls, once per day and take the better result. Twice per day at 6th level & after.
3. The familiar has denied your death, you resurrect 13 hours after you died in a nearby cemetery/graveyard. Roll on a Dismemberment chart and add that deformity to your body. You will only be resurrected a number of times equal to your Charisma score.
4. Your left hand turns to gold. Anything you touch with this hand turns to gold.
5. Your iris turns blood red when this ability is used, you instantly learn any spell you see cast. Save vs magic for each time you use this ability more than once a day. Failure means you go blind in one eye then the other if failed again.
6. The familiar grants you the tongue of babel allowing you to be understood in any language.
7. Your blood has healing properties for others. 1 HP worth of blood heals 1d2+1 hit points.
8. Your familiar has stolen a angel's voice, you may cast the cleric spell Command once per day. Twice at 6th level & after.
9. Your familiar revels in combat, you gain the Fighter's Attack Bonus and progression.
10. You may cast Dispel Magic as the Cleric spell, once per day. Has no effect on the Familiar and it'll mock you relentlessly if tried.
11. You gain supernatural beauty,  +1 to CHA mod. You may cast Charm Person once per day without expending a spell slot.
12. The familiar whispers demonic knowledge to you in your sleep. You gain 2 Skill points and have a 1-in-30 chance to gain a skill point each night.

Additionally having a familiar reduces all costs and time associated with spell research. This represents the familiar's knowledge as it aids your research.

-Final Notes-

• The Familiar is its own entity, not a slave to be commanded at will, it has its own goals and ambitions and should be played as such by the Referee.
• If the magic-user does not perform his/her's sacrifices, the Familiar will redact it's boon & bestow a curse it it's place. Only a great tribute please the familiar.
• If the Familiar is not given its sacrifices after a week it will drag its master to hell, killing them in the process.
• The familiar has HD equal to the caster's level and is immune to non-magic attacks. Should the familiar die it will reappear 3 days later in the same form it was summoned in.
• Breaching the contract with the familiar is a quest in of itself.
• Should the Caster be killed their familiar will explode into a summon spell equal to twice the caster's level and automatically be out of control. 

Thanks for reading! Make sure to follow for a new post every week! Sometimes 2 posts!

Physical LotFP Collection

Here's my physical book collection for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. I used to have the Grindhouse Box but sadly it was lost to time.