Eyes of the Overworld

With all credit due to Jack Vance.

Like this, only pink

Eyes of the Overworld are brittle, concave cups of a slightly pinkish material. The inner edge keeps itself moist through some mystical method or other.

When placed over the eyes, Eyes of the Overworld shrink to fit over the eye. Anyone wearing them is obvious; they look like pink globules over the eyes. They are very slightly sticky on the interior surface and so will stay in place through all manner of exertion after placement, but they are easy to remove, with a single Ready action per eye if done in combat.

When worn, the world appears a happier, more beauteous place to the world. Ordinary men and women appear as queens and kings, as does the wearer himself; the ugly is rendered beautiful. It affects all senses, so that the dumpy hermit with a speech impediment appears instead to have regal features and raiments and to speak with refinement. This has several beneficial effects:

• Immunity to Sense-Based attacks. You cannot be affected by a basilisk's gaze or a ghast's stench while wearing the Eyes.
• Immunity to Fright Checks and all fear effects.
• Temporary annulment of some disadvantages like Chronic Depression or Manic Depressive
• Other small effects as the GM sees fit. Examples might include a reduction in cost of living, since you're now satisfied with a broken-down hovel and slop, and a bonus to reaction rolls from some people since you're liable to treat them courteously.

However, there are a few drawbacks as well:

• Between -5 and -10 on Naturalist, Hidden Lore, and other skills used to identify monsters and items, depending on how much the GM feels the Eyes of the Overworld change the appearance to make it presentable to you.
• Complete inability to use Merchant or other value-appraisal skills.
• The Eyes are very easy to shatter. Any attack to the eyes that does at least HP/10 points of damage shatters an Eye and drives the shards into your eye, causing an additional HP/5 injury.
• The Eyes are mildly addictive. Each day spent continuously wearing them, the wearer must make a Will +4 roll or refuse to take them off. If they are forcibly removed, make another Will roll. the wearer suffers Chronic Depression (15 or less) for (24 +- margin of success) hours.

The Eyes must be worn on all eyes to be effective. If not enough Eyes are worn,  the user gets a splitting headache - treat it as being in Medium Pain for as long as the wearer keeps the Eye(s) on, and for 1d seconds after.

Nobody knows the origins of the Eyes of the Overworld. Some say that a wizard of old perfected a technique for creating them from the lenses of Eyes of Death. Others claim they are relics of a god who was slain for his beautiful scales, and these scales are the Eyes themselves. Still others claim they are excreted as spore casings by certain types of fungi that live at magical nexi.

Honey I shrunk the PCs: After play report 3

Cast:
Calawas - Elf Thief (Katz)
Amalia - High Elf Cleric (Paraj)
Volbak - Dwarf Knight (Jim)
Lamaevhun - Wood Elf Scout (Tim)
Ilsildel - High Elf Wizard (Martin)
Chief - Wood Elf Barbarian (Catherine)

Last session ended with the ignominous death of my beloved bandits. (Actually brigands - there is a difference.) The thief, undeterred by his wounds, immediately set about casing their quarters, finding some small change, a few rations, and the Manual of the Sea, a manual of Shiphandling written by the mad Dwarf Durgin Ulubad. It's quite ornate, quite magical, quite valuable (the letters are inlaid aquamarines!) and also 1,400 lbs - the pages are slabs of stone. Yep. This was actually the slab that Calawas was tossed onto for later interrogation in the last session - the book protector is just light enough that the Barbarian could move it without herniating himself.

Cue appropriate amounts of dickering about treasure, spurred on when the party found silver and even a bit of gold on the bodies of their enemies. (I'm using the bog-standard DF values for copper, silver, and gold, which makes gold very valuable.)

Funnily enough, the thief and the scout (who were, for pretty much the whole session, in single-digit HP range - more on this later) were stuck in the bandit hole-up when this noise attracted a swarm of dire rats from the pantry. Things were looking a bit sticky, because your typical ROUS brings friends, until the resident Problem Solv-err, I mean wizard Glued them to the floor. Let's see: rats with ST 9 need to make a ST-5 check to move one hex, then do it again to move another...nope. Like shooting fish in a barrel. Or rats in a trap. Still, this stirred up the indigenous wildlife a tad, so that after folks were done looting the bodies, things had been riled up.

Rather than waiting for healing, Calawas hobbled ahead, going down the southern corridor to check out - oh, hey, wait, is that a bloated decomposing body? Awesome! Does it have any stuff? What? No? Sure it does! Let me squish around in it a bit!

And that's how he didn't notice the Huge Fierce Green Snake Barring the Way! -I mean, curled up in the corner. Or rather, shortly afterward he did, after it missed him. Cue hijinks that involved setting a corner of the moathouse on fire, the already half-dead thief getting poisoned and narrowly escaping with his life thanks to the attentions of the party cleric and the barbarian not killing everyone simply because the wizard prepared Sleep that day. (As noted before, Berserk and Sense of Duty to Adventuring companions creates some powerful synergy for DF.)

Well, that's all well and good - off to the nearby room! What's in here?

At the same time, the scout and wizard, who had wanted to go down the other hallway, get ambushed by a tick. Yes, not that impressive, though it was the size of a human head. More of a freakish annoyance than anything else. After that, there was serious talk of going home - it was around 1900 game time - or at least resting. They eventually decided to clear out one of the rooms, bring the horses into the Great Hall, and post a watch, hoping for the best. Well, what do you know, the best happened - they weren't molested in the slightest, despite the swamp being thick with prowling wildlife. Good thing, too, because the cleric is their only source of healing, and she's beginning to feel stretched. Part of that is that she didn't even focus on healing so much as being a "divine caster" - i.e. the one who deals with undead and other icky stuff.

Afterward they tossed more rooms, finding a few pieces of worthwhile treasure but not much. They finally approached the last room, having already found the stairs and cordoned them off for later exploration, and discovered that the room was an old barracks with a giant lizard. Well, that was easy. The barbarian and the knight took care of him, and we broke there. I fully anticipate the thief going through its guts and trying to swallow anything he finds.

===========

Okay, so I'm coming to realize that I need to help rein in Calawas' player. He likes the limelight, and most of the time other people enjoy him having it up to a point, because he's a good actor and a funny guy. However, other people need to be able and allowed to do things. I need to work on including them.

Also, I need to work on presenting random encounters in a better way. The Moathouse is especially egregious, what with wandering nasty wildlife and ghouls and so on, to the point where there were a few jokes about Gygaxian ecology and spontaneous generation. I think this will die down as the random encounters make more sense, i.e. are more able to be rationally integrated into the backdrop. However, we'll see. It's still an area to work on.

The party badly needs a leader. This is related to the first issue, but the whole session was effectively them flailing around - getting things done, certainly, but mostly because everyone was rescuing the thief when he went off and did stupid stuff on his own. It's in some way self-correcting; if he keeps wandering off alone while bleeding out and barely able to move, something will eat him. As it is, he only survived because I drew the interior of the Moathouse two sizes too small.

Finally, the Manual of the Sea really makes me happy. It's quite valuable, but also quite heavy, and a little crazy to boot. It presents a conundrum to the players and is also the reward to that conundrum. There was talk of clearing out the Moathouse and setting up a museum, even. And it's all thanks to the random tables in Dungeon Fantasy 8

Dashing hats

I have an affectation for hats. Yes, you read that right: an affectation, not an affection. I'm not really a clothes-horse; I just like to pretend to be on the internet.

There's something about hats as distinct from other articles of clothing. Sure, suits can be stylish, trousers can exhibit taste, shirts can be slick. Even socks can be suave. But a hat, well, the hat makes the man. Especially a hat like this:

And of course, some hats show your admirers and fellow adventurers just how clever you are:

Dashing hats as treasure:

Unless otherwise stated, any of these hats will give a +2 reaction bonus from townsfolk, neutral bystanders, and intelligent humanoids you find in the dungeon, who will say things like, "Nice hat; you've got style," and, "That, sir, is the right model of a gentleman's haberdashery. Bravo!" In addition, all of these hats provide DR 3/1* to the skull. (If it matters, the effects are magical. Unless you decide otherwise.)

Hat of Faultless Coiffure: This hat looks like a flamboyant cavalier hat made of deep purple, blue, or red felt with the feather of some flamboyant creature, and in most respects behaves like one. However, it provides DR 10 (rigid, instead of the DR noted above) to the skull (and, if using partial hit locations, on a 2/6 to the face), doubled vs. toxic or corrosion attacks. In addition, it always is in prime condition and never soiled. Even if you swim through a lake of blood, all you need to do with your hat is briskly brush it off.

Of course, as every real connoisseur knows, the truly valuable power of this hat is that it also keeps your hair in faultless condition as long as it is worn.

Hat of Irresistible Allure: This homburg of black felt takes the usual powers of dashing hats and amplifies them. It gives you a +6 (!) reaction bonus on any request that will allow the requestee to stay near you. Mostly this is helpful, though it may occasionally become a nuisance, since creatures will behave according to their disadvantages, so that Greedy folks will try to steal or con you out of the hat, Lecherous ones will...well, let's not go there. Specifically, people or intelligent humanoids with the Jealous disadvantage will instead react at -4, as they envy your fine hat.

Hearty Haberdash: This is a pork pie that has earned its name. Specifically, usually it's an understated piece of headgear, suitable for natty suits and walking about town. However, thrice per day on command (usually something suitable like "If the thief is honest I'll eat my hat!") it will turn into a meal's worth of fine victuals of the owner's preference. Furthermore, the meal is so refreshing it restores all lost FP and ER as well as 1 HP.

Cap of the Wilds: This hat can be any of a number of sorts, with popular options being a papakhi, a kolpik, or among the more quixotic a deerstalker. Instead of the usual reaction bonus, it incurs a -1 reaction modifer penalty with most intelligent humanoids. However, with wood elves and mountain elves as well as all faery creatures and wild animals, it confers a +3 reaction bonus. In addition, it grants a series of woodland skills, either giving them at Attribute+2 or conferring a +4 on those who already have the skills. Popular choices are Survival (Woodlands or Tundra), Tracking, Camouflage, Weather Sense, Naturalist, Animal Handling, and Fishing.
  
Mitre of Holy Might: Of-times a tiara despite the name, this highly-coveted headgear acts as a personal Mana Enhancer 1 for Sanctity to Good religions plus allows divine intervention once per day as per the Cleric power-up in Dungeon Fantasy 11. However, on sight it instantly enrages all demons and undead, who will attack the wearer ruthlessly and exclusively in an effort to destroy him and his fancy-schmancy hat. In addition, any time the wearer comes into proximity to an evil altar, roll 3d: a 6 or less indicates that he has drawn the personal ire of the deity to which the altar belongs, gaining that god/dess as a personal Enemy (Hunter, but with intervention usually restrained to high-powered minions and occasional bolts of unholy fire) with an appearance of 6 or less. Subsequent enemies can either be new deities or increase the frequency of appearance; GM's choice.