Witches Gone GLOG

I was thinking about these mythologically classic figures and decided I could come up with something interesting for GLOG versions
WITCHES
Firstly, they're essentially wizards, though you do need to specify 'Witch.' The only difference is how their magic dice work.

I was very largely inspired by http://chaudronchromatique.blogspot.com/2016/05/hagborn-character-class.html so go read that. It's doing something different than what I'm doing but its cool.

 The deal with a Witch is that they have INFINITE MAGIC DICE!!! The downside is that they age [sum-Level] years of age whenever they cast a spell. They get an extra 'level' for old age calculation if they take double time to cast a spell.
 This means that witches prefer to cast small, slow, careful, cantrippy spells in their day-to-day lives, but if you piss them off royally they can unleash unholy cans of curse-ass that wizards simply can't rival. So that fits my idea of them being reclusive and prone to using herbalism and countercultural common sense to advise whatever small village they live in/near rather than spells, but at the same time nobody wants to get on a witches bad side, not even squads of trained warriors. But kings and such don't want them around because of their mishaps and cultural baggage.

As an unintended but not unwelcome side effect, this also means they have no reason to wear silly magic robes for extra magic dice. While noncombat witches may dress as a classic witch for effect, or simply stick to sensible, comfortable clothing, combat witches could strap on a full suit of plate and be just as magically potent. And I'm fine with this, because this marks another divide between them and wussy academy wizards. Battlewitches, hell yeah.

But inside is an elderly lady who's sick of your shit

Witches probably used to be mighty Witch-Queens and ruler of vaguely druidic tribal peoples before the establishment came along and forced witches into the shadows. I imagine the Witch-Queens won every single battle they fought in, but ultimately lost the war due to unnatural old age, and now the Old Ways are largely forgotten and taboo, not because they're actually evil, but because the establishment doesn't want the covens to organize and get the idea to reinstate the ancient reign of Witch-Queens.

WITCH MISHAPS
The mishaps from Witchery make it hard for normal folks to look kindly upon them. As the witches are actually drawing on their own life force as much as they can, this feels very unfair, but sometimes the spells just damage or warp the life force of others.
1-Mutation, save or it is permanent. If any pregnant things are nearby, a random unborn child gets the mutation instead. Yes, you are allowed to cart a pregnant goat around to act as a lightning rod, but you have only yourself to blame when it births an honest-to-glog Monster with a capital M.
2-Toads, snakes, and worms spill from mouth when speech is attempted for 1d6 rounds.
3-Nearby milk spoils, wine sours, etc, and a random target fails their next save.
4-Animals save or get scared and angry. Horses flee, dogs probably bite the witch. Cats immune.
5-Rainclouds show up and rain on witch for 1d6 days. Rain is mildly acidic and doesn't nourish anything but swamps, will kill crops.
6-Nearby being saves, or is stricken barren/sterile.
WITCH DOOMS
Luckily(?) witches have no dooms. The rapid aging sure to occur from using their full power incautiously is doom enough. And unlike lecauldronchomatique, the age of these witches is only one-way- no eating babies to fend off old age, no matter how much you may want to.

It takes a long time (or the Cantrip Trait) to be able to cast spells safely, but I think players might appreciate the idea of being an intelligent character who views spells as their last choice, rather than their first, but has a trump card hidden away in case things get bad.
Note that you don't have to be a witch to cast spells in the Witch fashion, but you do have to be trained by a witch, and you won't actually have witch levels so you'll shrivel up and die of old age only slightly slower than that Nazi from Indiana Jones III.

'Local Heleognostic not so tough after culturally appropriating witch secrets'

ALTERNATE EVIL WITCH OPTIONS
Witches can draw on other people's life forces. Sacrificing sapient beings during spellcasting blocks an extra 1d6 years of age loss, +1 if they're a baby or something. With this option though, I don't think the Witch-Queens would have lost the war, I think they and their altars of blood-sacrifices would still rule over the land in Aztec fashion and the motto of the land would be 'It takes a witch to stop a witch.' Witchpunk!

Dispel Magic Is Dumb...

...In most settings. Most settings have a piss-poor definition of what magic actually is.
This is an issue of semantics that can become huge. You see it to a lesser extent with issues like 'is a hippogriff an 'animal?' What about a genius talking snake?' People loaded up with Charm Animal and Speak with Animal and Animal Husbandry need to know!

But 'magic' is the worst for this. Here's some examples

Is a 360 spin attack magic? What about 720?

 

Giant defies square-cube law- magic or not?

What about your ENTIRE setting that the gods forged with their magic powers out of primeval chaos?

Is wuv, tru wuv, magic?

Not to mention the genre problems of a spell that basically comes down to a magical powerlevel argument or worse, a spammable RNG check. Either Dark Lord Drolkrad is too high level and you can't dispel his wicked dweomers anyway, or 'Dispel Magic' becomes an unstoppable cheatcode to bruteforce problems. Oh, the Tower Perilous is surrounded by flames? Dispel magic! The townsfolk have been turned to frogs? Dispel magic! Princess cursed to sleep until true loves kiss OR any jackass wizard with Dispel magic has a free spell slot? RIP conflict. And no, D&D, splitting up remove curse and dispel magic isn't solving anything! If you wanna wake up Sleeping Beauty you gotta find her true love, that's just how it works. Maybe you can enter the dream realm and woo her yourself if there's no designated prince charming. Given that you're an adventurer you'll probably decide to have her be possessed by a local ghost and sleep-walked to a wedding with Baron von Rotund so you can earn 2000 coins but whatever, that just shows off what great plot points emerge without dispel magic. But 'dispel otherwise permanent effect just cuz I'm level 5' is terrible, simply terrible. Warriors don't get 'dispel army' at level 5, they gotta slaughter their way through the hard way, and it should be the same for wizards facing magical malarkey.

Now, you can solve this by making a 10 page list of everything that is and isn't 'magic,' maybe establish success rolls power hierarchies to keep things 'balanced' in terms of mathematical combat exercises

OR you can agree that I am the brainiest brain to ever brain and that for 99% of fantasy settings, everything is functionally magic and you should either revamp or do away with stuff like 'dispel magic.'

CONSERVATIVE OPTIONS
'Counterspell'- Lord Sicknasty tries to cast his patented 'Sicknasty Scorcher' but Gandolfo the Original Character is having none of it and casts 'Counterspell' and so the status quo of 'whoever has the brawniest sword-dude wins' is upheld. In more freeform systems this can manifest in classic wizard-duel fashion of counters countering counters- Sicknasty Scorcher is countered by Gandolfo's Invocation of Ice rather than a generic 'counterspell' that sorta thing. But the key here is that you are countering specific things, not ''magic'' itself so it is easier to have lore-friendly magic busting.

'Wizardly Knowledge'- Rather than have the wizard be the solution, the wizard can at least always know the solution. If you're leaning more storygame, the wizard can actually just make up what has to be done to overcome the magical obstacle, or they can relate information from the GM to the party.

'Pain In The Ass Ritual Dispel' If you need to find 6 other spellcasters and then dance in a ring on the full moon as you ritually burn 2000GP worth of gold-embossed prayer scrips, it becomes serious business again, and a question of time and resource management, which is classic goodstuff for dungeon delvy campaigns.

"Reduce Duration" Dispel magic does have a place in ending buffs and debuffs so a spell that cuts remaining duration of a spell down by a round per level or so fulfills that niche without becoming a one-size fits all option. Alternate modes like 'Diminish Area' or 'Weaken Effect'  or 'temporary suppression' could also be viable 'dispel' choices that allow the wizard to protect people from magical effects.

'Into the bin' The Greek Gods either couldn't or wouldn't undo the various curses they slapped on mortals. With this option, there's no takebacks on magic, which I think is appropriate. Actions have consequences, being a wizard means knowing when it is wise to use magic and when its better to just stroke your beard mysteriously, that sorta thing. Magic run amok stays amok.

RADICAL OPTIONS
"Dispel Magic" Also known as "Double Forbidden Void Unraveling" because guess what, the world is magic, souls are magic, feelings are magic, and this spell takes something of this wondrous world of magic and straight up unmakes it, leaving an unspeakable gulf of nothing behind. Because THAT'S the sort of blunt instrument for brute forcing problems you give the players, just to see how much trouble they get themselves into with it.

"Divert Magic" What if you could get rid of curses by moving them onto willing subjects? Get rid of that wall of fire around Brunhild by setting it free as a roaming fire-monster? As you can probably tell, I'm fond of solving conflict in 'messy' ways that leave more loose ends then they resolve, because you can take those loose ends and weave a long campaign out of them.

"Dispel Fantasy" Save or lose genre. The dragon becomes a poorly-lit crocodile, the treasure hoard becomes a shipment of cloves in an abandoned wagon, and the party is declared outlaws upon attempting to sell stolen cloves without a spice permit, and they die of dysentery after drinking water without boiling it.

Near-Neth Experiences

Around the 3-walled, 4-districted city of Neth, home of the eastern caliphate of Saresare, there are some places of note.

Image and concept altered from default Nightmares Underneath

Firstly, from the spring and underground aquifer of Neth's mountain, there flow from the city the Twin Streams. Many small villages follow these streams, and for the most part are unremarkable sleepy goat herding villages. The streams eventually lead to Alnarij and Akbarang, renamed for their princes, which are a few days ride apart and are governed by jealous princes in constant dispute over water.

Alnarij is known for its impressive orchards, peaceful lands, marble quarries, and allegedly beautiful women. Their 'Prince of Flowers' is also regarded as weak in battle but wily in mercantilism and so more often favored by the Sultan of Neth. Higher-class political criminals chased out of Geth sometimes seek refuge in the loosely-policed lands of Alnarij if Neth itself seems too high profile, and if such things get out of control Akbarang usually assists in hunting down these escaped nobles and whatever support they rustle up. In terms of Nightmares Underneath Alignment, institutions in Alnarij tend to be Chaotic.

Akbarang is known for its disciplined and wide ranging oasis guard, merciless persecution of banditry, and voracious appetite for military conscription. Their 'Steel Prince' is regarded as a bold and courageous in battle and poetry alike, but draconian policies lead to constant unrest among the populace and there are a great many seditious revolutionaries lurking in the area, coming in and out with the many trading caravans from the sea. Akbarang is a fortified city and is the first real line of defense against serious invasions from across the lost bay. Institutions in Akbarang tend to be Evil due to the city's identity being defined by its enemies, within and without, and either Chaotic if they are revolutionary, or Lawful if they are part of the establishment.

The Road of the Warring Fish is not a paved road, simply a well-worn path through the dry lands of Saresare to the Lost Bay that nearly half of all Neth-bound caravans travel. Banditry is not uncommon in times of peace, but in wartime there are too many armies traveling via the road for any but the boldest bandits to try their luck.

To the northeast of Neth, there is a winding road that goes through several mountain passes. Stone pillars line this road, and gloomy Vulch often perch atop them, patiently waiting for disaster to befall travelers.As for the human inhabitants, mountain villages tend to be off the beaten path, and they do not advertise their presence. The Vulch nest in ancient ruins atop Mount Nasir, which are said to contain fabulous ancient treasures but probably contain nothing but the gnawed bones of fools and the sighs of the Vulch.

But past this bandit (and at times, monster) infested path, there is the town of Simurk, where nomads, silk wizards, and yet stranger things all clamor and trade in a mining town that has surpassed Neth in terms of raw ore production, though Neth's gemstone mines remain unparalleled.  From here, there are two more paths- one high into the mountains, and one into the dark Moonland deserts. Simurk has no prevailing institution alignment tendency.

On a high mountain plateau is the unfortunate Lenghul Monastery, which alternates between Silk Wizard library, bandit fortress, Lotus-Eater dervish cult, Nightmare incursion, military outpost, and moon-haunted ruin as often as the wind changes. It has been sacked and razed to the ground multiple times, but inevitably is reconstructed again and again.

The last major settlement to the east is Nightsand, a vast collection of tents around an oasis that despite the fragile construction of the buildings, has proved a stable settlement. Lamp oil burns in the eternal night and astronomers study the passing moons as laborers harvest crops from the banks of the central oasis, which is large, dark, still, and deep, and referred to as 'The Pool of Night'.

Most of these towns are often menaced by nightmare incursions and must petition Neth to deploy hapless adventurers from the Halls of Charity, but do not have official institutions to reward those adventurers, meaning most nightmare adventurers prefer to remain situated in Neth when possible.

As for Neth Itself...

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 Neth is a central mountain, upon which the palace of the sultan and the unknown palace rest, and at the base of which miners dig for gemstones.
Around the mountain is the Wall of Iron, a delicate looking lattice that separates the 1st district of the nobles from the hoi polloi, though the miners traverse through every day for work and may marvel at many sights seen dimly from their pit, which breeds some jealousy but for the most part means that Nethian gemstone miners are some of the most cultured and informed miners to be found in all the lands. There are relatively few structures in the 1st district- the highest Temple-Court to the Law in Neth, the Vault of Neth, which is the palace's treasury and a bank that doesn't deal in anything less valuable than gold and thieves idly dream about robbing, and the Embassy, which is practically a castle unto itself with all the hosted ambassadors of various nomad tribes, western barbarian princes, and other VIPs, to say nothing of the infrastructure required to entertain all those high-upkeep people. Residing here requires more than mere money.

Past that is the 2nd district, which is behind a stone wall adorned with the bodies of hung thieves, who hang for a few days and then are thrown out to the vulch in the 4th district. Fortified and wealthy, this is where successful craftsmen. merchants, and other specialists reside. An immediately notable building are the Halls of Charity, where dozens of legal and spiritual disputes are had every day, foreign barbarians and layabouts are assigned jobs to help them become faithful and lawful citizens of Neth (and adventurers are set out as bounty hunters against criminals and nightmare incursions alike). There is also the Hexacombs, a great cathedral/prison/vault where priests of the Law entombed the old gods, the new heretics, and recovered Nightmare Anchors, and now stand guard over this container of all things unseemly in the eyes of the Law. Living in this district requires 200 coins per month, but it is secure and full of business opportunities.

The 3rd district is behind an impressive wooden palisade wall, and the guards are bribed to direct newcomers to The Stallion Inn, which houses anyone for just 20 coins a month and is full of interesting characters like visiting merchants, nomads, adventurers, and so on. The 3rd district is full of laborers, layabouts, discount flea markets, and thieves, but the very fact that they reside IN the city gives these lower-class citizens airs of superiority and attempts at refined behavior, as opposed to the gormless worms that inhabit

The 4th District. Outside the walls of the city are ruined slums inhabited by scavenging Vulch who preach their detached philosophy to those able to bear the presence of the corpse-eating birdmen, nomad tents of wanderers too poor or too savage to be allowed inside the walls, endless hordes of lepers, beggars, and thugs, and the Twin Streams emerging from the springs and wells and aqueducts of the inner city to water the penniless hordes of Neth. Notable areas include the Grave Trees, a copse of huge, dead, hollow trees where the dead are stashed to avoid the light of Skull. Finally there are the Mound Men, a subculture of vagrants who rather than ever rise above their poverty, burrowed below it, becoming a subterranean culture living within mounds of trash and dunes of sand and by simple virtue of having some security in the lawless 4th district, became the most influential faction within it. Living within the 4th district costs a mere 2 coins per month, but will likely be as adventurous, if not moreso, than any wilderness travel.

The Happy Hunt and Dreamwraiths

MEGA EDITED- If you've seen the old version of this post, fuhgeddaboutit, this new version I wrote in 15 minutes at 4AM is way better


This is pretty much my take on Dark Souls invasions in D&D mashed up with The Nightmares Underneath

There is a spell, The Happy Hunt, that comes and goes in waves of cultish aristocratic fancy. "I am so bored" a foppish noble youth exclaims in some den of decadence, and some figure or another smirks and says, "Well, I have something fun in mind you've yet to try, I guarantee" and after some simple rituals, they dream of going off to dream of murdering someone and take a bit of their soul if successful, and the rumors and dreams of murder spread and spread until eventually the cult  grows too large and self destructs as they attack each others nightmare realms over imagined and real wrongs, or some moral authority shuts the whole thing down via torch and pitchfork. But copies of the ritual always escape or are dug up elsewhere or revealed unto mad wizards in swirling and churning nightmares.


The Happy Hunt
Target- One individual, who can be specified by name. If they are more than 10 miles away, part of their body must be in the possession of the caster, and it must be eaten. Alternately, random targets can be chosen.
Duration- [level] or [sum] hours or until the target is slain. The caster will remain asleep for the duration.
Range- 10 miles or Infinite(provided requirements are met)

Effect-The caster falls into slumber for the duration, and their psyche astrally projects to appear somewhere near their target... or so it seems. The astral projection is clearly some sort of magical entity, but it is recognizable as the caster and functions exactly as the caster would, with a few exceptions.

If the caster's projection is killed, they simply wake up.
If the caster's target is killed, they ALSO simply wake up, the events of the day being retconned into a bad dream.
However, successfully killing the target drains them of a level (or HD) of experience, and grants the Happy Hunter XP for the combat. Variants may allow other things to be stolen- spells, secrets, statistics, even the dream-versions of magic items, but the loss of level from the target is a given- the psychic trauma of being 'slain' and having bits of ones soul pillaged is extreme.

If the target is killed enough times to reduce their HD or level to 0, they are truly slain, and their body may be possessed by the offending Happy Hunter. Furthermore, the displaced and damaged soul of the slain will likely persist as a Dreamwraith.

Dreamwraiths- Not true undead, these are souls that linger in the dream realm, delaying whatever final destination their souls are drawn to. Though able to interact only with dreaming mortals typically, one salient point to make is that Dreamwraiths are perfectly capable of casting The Happy Hunt and menacing the waking world even when their bodies are long dead. However, Dreamwraiths still need an anchor to the living world, which will typically end up as the skull of their old body. Without such an anchor, they have no focal point from which to stage Hunts and will be unable to further menace the world.

Powerful Dreamwraiths can create mental palaces in the dream realm where they store pillaged and imagined dreamstuffs to create a more pleasant abode for themselves. This is an alluring alternative to any promised afterlife, as successful Happy Hunters could begin enjoying such psychic demenses even while still alive. In The Nightmares Underneath terms, these palaces would be Nightmare Realms, with the skull of the Dreamwraith/Happy Hunter serving as the Anchor.

Plots

1. A long-dead shaman lies somewhere in a Mound, his dreamwraith hunting those to sustain its existence in Dream and slaying those who attempt to find his hidden body.
2. In the distant past, there was a kingdom that delved deeply into the Happy Hunt and while the dreaming knights and lords and ladies fell into ruin in reality, in the dream realm they live on in immortal palaces of fancy, occasionally devouring the minds of those who trespass their ruined castles and estates. Still, that only means there's a crumbling palace in reality AND in dream to loot!
3. A serial killer uses this spell to kill without fear of reprisal. In a city of thousands of people, the reward for his capture is stupendous, but how to find him?
4. The spell has grown popular among drug-addled nobles, who hire outside help to assist construction of their fanciful dream-realms and to guard them from rival Hunters.
5.  A plot to kill the Emperor with this spell has been uncovered, and hysterical witch-hunts wrack the land.
6. A dead past PC or NPC has become a Dream Wraith, and targets the players out of vengeance or madness. Can they be reasoned with, or is a trek back to where their body is a necessity? Hopefully it's not like, at the bottom of the ocean or something.

 

Make Spider Encounters Spidery

When it comes to spiders in RPGs, I think they mostly just get worse as they get bigger, because they diverge from their mystique and become a mass of HP, poison, and poorly thought out web rules.

SPIDERS

A. Too many legs, they move weird
B. Webs in your face ack
C. Clearly cleverer than other bugs
D. Other stuff like poison and reading over your shoulder when you browse the internet

We can actually have them move strangely within the game's movement system. Spiders get to move after every player action. They sense who is next in the initiative order, via spider-sense, and even what they are planning to do and so try to move somewhere disadvantageous for them. Anyone who has thrown a shoe at a spider can attest to this power.

If a player does nothing, the spider doesn't move after their inaction. Anyone who has had a silent staring match with a spider can attest to the truth of this.

Now lets talk about spider webs. Turns out they aren't flammable like that old D&D example encounter describes. The proteins just denature and coagulate. Spider webs melt, so a torch is handy to escape with, but you can't toast a nest with a single match.
 Also, spiders aren't immune to their own sticky webs, they just have maps of where the safe silk to walk on is. Spiders can totally be owned by their own webs if the fighter throws them into the wrong spot. This means that you can make spider-web mazes that are actually puzzles and not just deathtraps. And other neat stuff too. There are spiders that weave scuba gear for themselves, spiders that weave bolas, spiders that weave doors, all sorts of stuff. Also, they are designed to catch stuff with mandibles and razor exoskeletons. Just cuz you have a sword doesn't mean you can cut your way out if you get wrapped up. Maybe a magic sword, but if this is a spider that big, it's probably a little magic itself too, so a generically magic sword probably won't cut it. If you get totally caught up, you can't rescue yourself. That's a game over. Like being petrified.
STAGES OF STICKINESS
1.After the first failed save, Half movement. If you stop moving, you may be able to carefully extricate yourself. It doesn't matter what you try to do, the web design has anticipated 90% of all possible prey-actions and whether you charge forward, flee backwards, or stand there flailing around in combat, you'll have to make a save each round or get more webbed up

2. Walking impossible, hindered attacks and actions. Disadvantage or a bane or whatever. This probably takes like, a minute or more to escape from. Or fire to melt the strands.

3. Following the 'three saves and you're out' rule, you're all tied up and all you can do is wriggle. You'd need a long, long time to escape and will definitely be eaten before you manage unless you have a really good trick up your sleeve.

Now we get to cleverosity. Spiders have 8 eyes, one for each side of the d8 HD. This means spiders can tell how many HP things have, and so they can tell when they should or should not pick a fight. This also means if you communicate with spiders, you could keep a friendly one around and ask it what the powerlevel of your enemies is. Also they have websense and all that but you knew that already.

And culturally, spiders have ok odds of being friendly and intelligent. Bad spiders tend to poison people with their mere presence and also have tricksy abilities, but good spiders tend to be wise and full of secrets. Mythologically speaking, they're similar to snakes- clearly not man's best friend, but not man's worst enemy either.

In any case, if you have spiders be pretty much just a tiger with a poison bite, or functionally identical to a bunch of swarming poison centipedes, you're not doing spiders justice. And by the way I've totally used spiders lamely to no effect so I'm speaking from experience. If you want to translate the spookiness of a spider to tabletop, you hafta go the extra distance.

So here's some approaches, that all feel like they're from different genres.

 Leper Spider-Poison Spider- If the poison does 1d6 con damage and you get two saves, of course no one is gonna be scared. If the poison is save or instadie, there's not much the players can do but shrug and carry on.
The happy middle ground is of course, horrible maiming.

These spiders cause intense, chronic vasoconstriction. Afflicted limbs lose bloodflow, turn white, and rot. Amputation is necessary or the victim will probably die of gangrene. You get three saves- the first is to see if the spider actually bothered injecting venom or if it was a warning bite (known in the business as a 'dry bite'.)

The second save is to see if your limb loses functionality over the course of the next minute and stays that way for a few days. It's pale and weak from no blood and you can barely move it. If you make your save it's just debilitated for an hour or so.

The final save is vs gangrene as your flesh necrotizes. You can choose amputation and avoid having to make this save, but if you fail this save, you die of gangrene as you stubbornly cling to your rotting limb. At this stage cure poison can't help you because the poison wore off as the rot set in.

These spiders can be a swarm, a single coin sized one that has descended to your backpack on silken thread for inscrutable reasons, or varying degrees of bigger and bigger. They are more hunters than lurkers and only use thread for climbing.

Leper spider venom, if properly applied, can be really good for disguising yourself as, well, a leper.

Jorōgumo-I think every animal in Japan has a myth where it turned into a cute girl and ate somebody. No exceptions.

kawaii

Making them arachnid succubi is pretty weak though. I think it's better if they're just hopelessly romantic giant (or even regular)sized spiders that can't transform into anything but attempt to court people anyway via gifts of silk robes, messages delivered in embroidery (or just regular writing if the spider can get a pen). They might set up secret meetings where they use shadow-puppetry to give the impression of being a fancy lady/mysterious gentleman behind a curtain. Maybe they hire human maids to aid in this deception. Hey, gold is gold, and working for a spider probably means less workplace politics.

In any case, this probably won't end well. The adventurers might appreciate free gifts from their mysterious fan, but probably will fail to reciprocate feelings, and so the spider will feel hurt and betrayed. Depending on how far things get, the players may be hounded by divorce lawyers, or pressured into a wedding by the spider's burly parent. Depending on how magical the spider is, breaking a promise made could result in the character being whisked away by an invisible dragline thread. Or maybe the spider will get increasingly desperate and become a jealous stalker out to sabotage all other romantic prospects. Maybe the spider will sell their soul to demons for a hot human body and try to guilt the character with the ol' 'I sold myself into eternal damnation because I love you' line.

Or maybe the player will decide to go along with it. Before they can retire in marital bliss though, they probably need to find a polymorph spell, and definitely need to find 8 wedding rings. Comedy, tragedy, drama, all sorts of fun could be had. It might even be spooky as the players investigate and find out this adoring fan is something weird and uncanny.

Fiery Spiders- The Choctaw say Grandmother Spider stole fire and presented it to animals, but animals refused it and so she gave it to humans. Jorōgumo are also sometimes depicted as controlling fire-breathing spiders. Fire sometimes gets used as an 'upgrade' from poisons, as you see with dragons. Old dragons tend to be poisonous, while it's the newer ones that breathe fire. Anyway, poison and fire as spreading, hard to control dangers makes sense.

But just making the spider breathe fire is no good. That turns our encounter from a spider encounter to essentially a 8 legged dragon encounter. Suppose it's the silk- it looks normal, but you feel heat radiating from it. It sears wood and scalds flesh. Naturally it can't be burned, and structurally a burning web is more barrier than snare. Drifting strands turn a hallway deadly, a wispy web stretched across a doorway is like a wall of fire.  The Spider could leave silk behind it as it scurries around, a scorching tripwire. This is a web that works like a burning house- still with themes of entrapment and building danger though. The venom burns, of course. This sort of scenario is less horror and more terror though. Similar to a dragon attack, perhaps. Maybe in place of.  The players set out to hunt a fiery dragon, find a cave strewn with burning webs instead, and a monster that is trying to lure the players in, rather than one that's trying to ward the players away.


Wise Spiders and Wiseass Spiders
 Sure there's sagely spiders like Grandmother Spider, but there's also tricksy spiders who use their wits to get up to all sorts of shenanigans like Anansi. If a spider steals something or other, all the powers of a spider could be put into escape rather than entrapment. Spiders could be master thieves (or assassins), all they need is a bit of motivation, and then a pursuit is on!

Spider steals priceless diamond as players enter room, retreats beneath floorboards. Shenanigans ensue. It writes itself, really.

Cosmic Spiders And no I definitely don't mean in the 'has 2 million HD and eats neutronium golems' way. Spider webs look like they're strewn with stars when dew is on them and the light is right. No doubt they're chock full of secret cosmic wisdom, but if you don't have time to cajole and bargain for the info, you can divine it yourself with the proper ritual.

Read Spiderweb
This spell alters a wizard's thinking so that they may understand the secret clues hidden in spider webs.
The targeted web...

1. contains a dead fly
2. contains partial spell information. The spider in question can probably cast it.
3. contains a juicy secret, ranging from gossip to forbidden lore
4. is a treasure map. The spider deserves a 5% share if you're being fair and just.
5. is a prophecy telling of events yet to come.
6. acts as a dreamcatcher. It may have an errant nightmare trapped within. 

The caster rolls 1 die per magic die invested, and picks whichever rolled result they prefer.

Turning 3.5 dungeon encounters into a dungeon, part 10/10

If you thought slopping the last couple of dungeon encounter charts into a weird post-apocalyptic power ranger scenario was weird and lame, rest assured that this will just be 100% lame. This is levels 16-20, and trust me when I say it's all the same damn thing again and again. These aren't bloated with 20 entries, but now they're not just MOSTLY dragons, demons, and angels, that's literally all there is except for a few exceptions. We'll talk about the exceptions first.

First off, NPCs went so far as to follow the monster upgrade pattern. So now we have 1d3 15th level hobgob fighters, and, bizarrely enough, the 15th level kobold sorcerer teamed up with the werewolf lord for an entry on the 18th level chart. The awesome gnoll ranger with 3 invisible servants and a greater shadow have been 'upgraded' into 1d3+1 level 15 gnoll rangers.

We got various 'greaterester whatever golems' and 'd3' golems, which I suppose can be giant superrobot sentries watching over the dragon breeding grounds. Rather than being monsters, we can say they're like loot and a genre change, and after slogging through this crap who wouldn't want a genre change?

We've got 1d4+2 ropers as an encounter, which seems amazingly out of place but maybe they're dragon-predators that lurk in tunnels and pull down young ones to eat.
An Aboleth Mage, because giving a giant mind control squid monster spells is definitely a way to make it scarier and not just a stupid jumble of arbitrary abilities that will ironically be MORE familiar to players than innate monster powers would be.
And a mind flayer sorcerer because it's a regular sized mind control squidmonster so that's totally different. Whatever, tentacles, let's have another Pit of No Return here.

1d4+2 beholders. I'm pretty sure beholders are supposed to be solitary so clearly this is just one really big beholder with like 40 eyeballs like some disco ball of death

Frost Giant Jarl. His only excuse for being here is being the rider of the Very old white dragon, so there you go, a dynamic duo of chilliness.

A Nightcrawler, which we'll say is a massive Itava parasite. There's a Nightwalker too and I'll use that as an excuse to link to this post
http://melancholiesandmirth.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-giant-despair-horror-isolation.html
and say the Nightwalker is a giant despair, perhaps related to that big spooky skull from earlier.

2d4+5 Abyssal Basilisks. We'll say they have a nest of petrified dragons because that sounds badass and we'll ignore that they're a numerical upgrade encounter.

And then, for the rest of 5 encounter charts, everything is demons, dragons, or angels. And mostly dragons. Very old white, old brass, mature adult bronze, it just goes on and on and on. The final chart is just Balor, Pit Fiend, Wyrm Black Dragon, Old Dragon (red or silver) Ancient Brass dragon, very old copper dragon.

I have to reveal my inner 12 year old and admit this could be a really "cool" mental image tho

So yeah, I'm done with this dungeon and its dragons. I could handle bloated encounter charts, but I couldn't handle charts that were nigh-exact rehashes of old charts, but with bigger numbers. At that point I'm not 'putting a creative spin' on things I'm just having to make stuff up out of whole cloth and may as well be staring at a blank piece of paper for all the good these encounter charts are doing.

If I had the inclination, I probably would have saved levels 9 and 10 by reducing the total numbers of dragons to 2, and then had the whole Underest conflict be a religious war over whose dragon was better, and made it weird by having angel fighting angel and demon fighting demon because they had opposing dragon-alignments. Each side could have undead, each side could have heroes and villains, etc etc, and it would be a bizarre and hopefully memorable affair that the players could interact with.

But if I'm going to do something as in-depth as that, I'm not gonna do it with the ball and chain of "1d3+1 level 15 gnoll rangers" attached to my creative process.

Turning 3.5 Dungeon Encounters into a dungeon, part 9/10

This here is the abandoned subterranean city of the Underest men. The Wyrm Road does not lead here, and this level is a composite of the dungeon encounters 11-15, just as level 8 was a composite of the encounters 8-10.

In any case, the theme of this place is that it was destroyed decades ago in a nigh-apocalyptic civilization ending war, and though the place is in ruins, the war is STILL GOING ON. No contact with the outside world, barely any context for the conflict, just ancient and unspeakable powers in an endless feud for generations.

THE FACTIONS
The Last of the Underest Men
The human survivors have all become unrealistically, ludicrously powerful badasses. Those who didn't are already dead. They fight a guerilla war for survival against enemies mortals were never meant to fight. Also, they are the only good thing about the later levels of the dungeon encounter charts which are all pretty much 'hurr durr big demondragonangel'
Anyway, this is an actually intriguing encounter entry.
5th level gnoll (underest man) ranger, 1d3 invisible stalkers, 1 greater shadow.

So we have a martially skilled warrior who also somehow has the command of one or more invisible, extremely fast, and strong entities. Stop me if you're heard this one before

minimum effort jojoke but trust me it's the only good thing that's coming out of this garbage

Also we got a half celestial paladin, no level given. Naturally, they're probably the offspring of one of the original defenders of the city and a angelic being that was called to defend it, and continues in those footsteps.

A pairing of 10th level berserker and 10th level cleric, who I'll arbitrarily decide are a legless cripple cleric who hangs around the neck of the hulking berserker to whisper battle prayers. 'Cuz that's cute

Also, a 10th level wizard(supposed to be drow), who I'll say is responsible for the Clay Golems that stalk about the ruined city, and his partner, a 10th level rogue who is supported by 1d4+2 more 10th level thieves. All supposed to be goblins, but this works just as well.

Finally, a 15th level fighter (hobgoblin) and a 15th level sorceror (kobold) who I declare will fight together inside a Stone Golem like mecha pilots, the fighter providing the martial combat and the sorceror providing magical blasts and power for their stone colossus. They're probably ancient veterans of the war doing their best to prepare the survivors for when they die of old age.

And these 8+1d4 are the only Underest folk left to scrabble a living in their dark city of broken stone and awful monsters. They're probably pretty decked out with magic items, though treasure is useless and they wouldn't bother with gold.

The Dead of Underest
There's an 11th level Lich wizard, who is probably some kind of dark lord squatting in one of the few remaining towers and vowing to destroy those 'puny heroes' once and for all. He can have the Iron Golem as his mighty mecha and unleash various monsters to inevitably fail to destroy the heroes. His monsters being an Elder Black Pudding, a Dread Wraith, various demonic hordes (which trigger the remnant defense systems of the city and cause ancient runes to summon angels of defunct gods to do battle with the demons), an Abyssal Greater Basilisk, a 'truly horrid umber hulk,' a 12-headed immortal pyrohydra that grows another head every time it is defeated and returns to life, and a nightwing (giant spooky shadow not-dragon) to make escapes on.

His lieutenants can be a werewolf lord, a mummy lord, and an 'elite' vampire, though at this stage of ruination it is highly questionable what, exactly, they are meant to be the lords of. Also the existence of these classic monsters makes this whole sorry scenario feel even more like a cheezy B-movie of monster mashups. The Blob! Dracula! Wolf Man! The Mummy! All vs some Power-rangeresque
 heroes!

The City of Underest
Ancient malfunctioning spells of protection are built into the stones of the city, and summon angels to defeat demons and the occasional inevitable (sucky law robots that are admittedly better than Slaad, who are also all over these encounters in color coded and d3+1 variants). This helps keep the Lich in check.

The Dragons And Random Monsters of the Deep Earth
Dragons from level 10 occasionally show up hoping to pillage the place. Though it would be nice if they could succeed and put everyone out of their schlocky misery, it ain't gonna happen unless someone helps them. Some giants sometimes awake from deep caverns, remember that they planned to conquer this place centuries ago, and show up to get really disappointed and leave. Also displacer beast pack lords WITH NO PACK, and the occasional beholder. Maybe those weird cave eyes are beholder eggs.

Cripes. Well, on to level 10, the final destination of the Wyrm Road and the end of this whole once-promising method of inspiration.