Here there Be Dragons: Aži Dahāka

We have the first monster we want to show off for Liam's book "Here There Be Dragons". This one has roots in ancient myths, and also something we have wanted to use for a while.

BTW we are not 100% set on what version of the game system we want to use.  I opted for Basic tonight since I have been in a Basic mood.  Liam wants 3.5.

I am releasing the following text as Open under the Open Gaming License.
Aži Dahāka, the Demon Dragon is copyright 2011, Liam Brannan

Aži Dahāka
Armor Class: -5 [24]
Hit Dice: 22d8+21** (120 hp)
No. of Attacks: 3 bites or Breath Weapon or Claws
Damage: 3d6 / 3d6 / 3d6
Special: Claw Attack, Breath weapons, Poison
Movement: 60 ft. / Fly 120 ft.
No. Appearing: 1 (Unique)
Saves As: Fighter 24
Morale: 11
Treasure: Fx3
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 10,000

Aži Dahāka is believed to be the offspring of the Mother of All Dragons and the Prince of Demons. Certainly his heritage is evident in his form. He has three dragon heads, each of red, blue and black dragons. He has a long black, serpent like body with two tails and four wings.

Aži Dahāka is a unique creature and has been worshiped as a god in the past. He has divine parentage but is wholly a mortal beast and can be slain, though with difficulty.

Aži Dahāka is not the smartest of dragon- or even demon-kind, he is however a very clever combatant and knows how to take advantage of many situations. If he is out numbered he will attempt to reduce the opposition with his breath weapons.

Bite: The primary attack of Aži Dahāka is his massive bite. He may attack with all three heads per round on separate targets. On a roll of a natural 20 Aži Dahāka bites the victim whole and swallows.
Aži Dahāka has a second set of teeth in his throat that can automatically do 1d8 points of damage per round unless the victim is freed.

The bite of Aži Dahāka also includes a very deadly poison. Each successful hit that causes at least 1 point of damage will require the victim to make a saving through vs. Poison.

Breath Weapons: Aži Dahāka as appropriate has a breath weapon for each head. Though the chaotic nature of his birth has gifted the black head emits an electrical blast, the blue head breathes fire and the red one spits acid. Each head will do 2d10 (2-20) hitpoints of damage per attack. Aži Dahāka may attack with two heads simultaneously per round.

Claw Attack: Aži Dahāka can rear up on his hind legs to make a claw based attack. This is the only attack he can make in that round. He can rise up and attack with both claws. The attacks do 1d10 points of damage each and can hit creatures normally immune to normal attacks, i.e. requiring magic to hit.

Aži Dahāka is a strong fighter, but knows the value of retreat if the combat is going against him. If forced to retreat, he can alter his skin color like that of a octopus and blend into the background. This gives him 95% invisibility. Since this is a natural effect, See Invisible or Detect Magic will not locate him.

Diana Warrior Princess (aka getting sidetracked)

Ok. So. I am supposed to be doing some research.  I have Ghosts of Albion games to run.  Need to come up with stats for the first batch of dragons my son has written for his book and then there is my Witch book that needs to be completed.

So of course I am distracted by a game.

This game is very distracting cause I have not quite figured out what to do with it.

So in lieu of real work and postings, here is a review.

Diana: Warrior Princess

Diana: Warrior Princess is a game that is so out there it is hard to quantify it.
Lets start with the easy part first, the game system. The game is very cinematic and focuses largely on characters can do that is cool, amazing or fun. So no stats for cooking here, unless of course one of your characters is a notorious Iron Chef (which would totally work with this game).

Now the premise. Take our world, but go many thousand of years in the future. Now make a TV show of our times, but give it the same historical accuracy (and sense of over the top cinema and fun) as Xena: Warrior Princess. That is D: WP, except you are playing in that world and it is all real to you. So tons of characters make appearances that we know of today. England is a land ruled by Queens Victoria and Elizabeth II with the undead Thatcher in control. Just tons of over the top things like that. Adding stuff is easy. There might be this new Robber-Baron from the USA that uses technology to suck the lives out of people into his magical book that keeps a representation of their face. This dreaded artifact of the ancient 21st century was known as "The Facebook"! Just like that. Hard to say what being Googled will mean!

Don't take this game too seriously and you will have a lot of fun.
If you are the type though that looks for internal consistency in your worlds and retcon is a dirty word, then maybe don't get this.

But everyone will have a really fun time.
4 out of 5 stars

DriveThru RPG Xmas in July

DriveThruRPG is doing their Christmas in July sale again.
Ton of products at 25% off.

Stop by and have a look.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/

More Dinosauria Characters

Lady Fionna
Faerie Lady
Drama Points 10
Life Points 38

Attributes
Strength 3
Dexterity 4
Constitution 4
Intelligence 5
Perception 4
Willpower 5

Qualities
Age (+100 years) (2)
Attractiveness +4 (Court Faerie)
Artist (Court Faerie)
Contact (Supernatural—Seelie Court) 2 (Court Faerie)
Court Faerie (Unseelie Court)
Glamour (Court Faerie)
Innate Magic (Court Faerie)
Regeneration (4 Life Points per hour) (Court Faerie)
Resources (Gentry)
Mesmerise (Hear Me) (Court Faerie)
Seeming (Court Faerie)

Drawbacks
Adversary (Seelie Court) 1 (Age)
Archaic (Primitive) (Court Faerie)
Mental Problems (Deranged Faerie Arrogance) (Court Faerie)
Mental Problems (Severe Intolerance) (Court Faerie)
Mental Problem (Severe Obsession—Defend her territory) (2)
Minority (Woman) (2)
Natural Barrier (Cannot enter a church or church yard) (3)
Obligation (Total—Unseelie Court) (Court Faerie)
Vulnerability (Minor—Iron) (Court Faerie)

Skills
Armed Mayhem 6
Art 2 (+1 Artist)
Athletics 3
Crime 0
Driving/Riding 2
Engineering 0
Fisticuffs 3
Influence 3
Knowledge 4
Languages 3 (English, Faerie, Latin)
Marksmanship 3
Notice 1
Occultism 4 (+2 Court Faerie)
Physician 0
Science 0
Wild Card 0

Useful Information
Observation: 1d10 +5
Initiative: +4
Armor: +1 (Glamoured Armor)
Fear: +5
Actions: 2 Mental /1 Physical

Combat
Manoeuvre Bonus Base Damage Notes
Rapier +10 12 Slash/stab (Faerie steel)
Dodge +10 — Defence
Grapple +10 — Resisted by dodge

Deflect +12 — Deflects spells 45º
Lesser Sensing +8 — Active magical perception
Mending +12 — Healing or repair
Mesmerise (Hear Me) +8 — Resisted by Willpower (doubled)


Xian “Jane”
House Girl / Tong Assassin
Drama Points 20
Life Points 36

Attributes
Strength 2
Dexterity 3
Constitution 3
Intelligence 3
Perception 4
Willpower 3

Qualities
Athlete
Attractiveness +2
Charisma 1
Contact (Supernatural) 2
Hard to Kill 2
Nerves of Steel

Drawbacks
Honourable (Serious) (2)
Minority (Chinese Woman) (2)
Secret (Former Tong Assassin) (3)

Skills
Armed Mayhem 5
Art 1
Athletics 4 (+2 Athlete)
Crime 1
Driving/Riding 0
Engineering 0
Fisticuffs 5
Influence 0
Knowledge 2
Languages 2 (Chinese, English)
Marksmanship 0
Notice 3
Occultism 2
Physician 1
Science 0
Wild Card (Housekeeping) 1

Useful Information
Observation: 1d10 +7
Initiative: +4
Armor: +1 (leather waistcoat worn under clothes)
Fear:
Actions: 1 Mental /1 Physical

Combat
Manoeuvre Bonus Base Damage Notes
Sword +8 6 Slash/Stab
Dodge +8 — Defence
Grapple +6 — Resisted by dodge
Punch (kung-fu) +4 4 Bash
Kick +6 6
- Flying Spin +5 8
- Roundhouse +6 6

If there is an odder pair found on the streets of Victorian London, then this chronicler does not know about them. Lady Fiona Seelis comes from old, old money though most do not know how old. Her guise is that of a wealthy widow whose family owns many lands in Wales and north of London. She has a bit of an accent that she claims she got due living in France for a number of years after her husband’s death. No one seems to recall ever meeting her husband, but after a few moments with the lovely Lady they know they must have met the poor devil before his untimely death. Accident it was, at least that is what you heard someone say.

Lady Fiona though has never been married, indeed she is no human either. She is in fact a lesser noble of the Unseelie Court. Her Mistress, Queen Mab herself, has sent Fiona into exile to study the humans. She is supposed to report back on them in a number of years.

The girl known only as “Jane” (Xian in her own country) is a young girl from China. At first she was like any number of the thousands of immigrants to England’s shores till the night she tried to kill Lady Fiona. To be fair Lady Fiona had been stalking the streets of London looking trouble of her own. Her Faerie nature driving her to defend her territory from intruding monsters, not out of altruism or care for the humans, but because this territory was hers.

Jane had secrets of her own. She was a young Tong assassin in training. Her job was supposed to be a simple one of killing a rival. But the rival gang learned of this and kill all in Jane’s group. All, including Jane were suspected dead. Her Tong never search for her since she was only a girl. Fiona saved her that night and the two now hunt the streets of London together.

Neither woman is what you call “good”, they are very apt at playing the roles they have created for themselves. Fiona will appear as the rich widow with more money than sense and Jane will play the role of the quiet maid servant of the east. Fiona, due to her wealth, beauty and more than a little faerie magic is given unprecedented access to places where no other woman is allowed. Jane is constantly near her and Fiona will claim that Jane must always be there to attend to her. In reality Jane is on constant vigil for Lady Fiona’s enemies and she carries her mistress and her own swords.

Fiona has been invited to the New Year’s Eve party in thanks for her generous financial contributions over the years.

Turning off Anonymous Posts for a while

I am turning off anonymous comments for a bit.

I have too much spam and too many people wanting to use my blog as a place to snipe at others from behind a veil.

I do not like to or want to delete comments. But I also don't have much of a choice here.

Zatannurday: Ryan Sook

To followup on last weeks Justice League Dark, here are some Zatanna images by artist Ryan Sook.
You can find his website here, http://www.ryansook.com/

Dinosauria! Characters

I have been promising to get some characters up for Dinosauria.  Here is the first.  John is not just the first one to be posted but he was the first character to be created for Dinosauria proper.  He is actually the idea of my good friend Steven Todd and this character is actually registered with the Screen Writers Guild in Hollywood since he was to appear in one of the movies Steven worked on.  So it is a really treat that I am getting to work on him here and use him in my adventure.

John Mulgrew
Frmr. U.S. Marshall
Drama Points: 10
Life Points: 47

Attributes (20)
Strength: 3
Dexterity: 5
Constitution: 4
Intelligence: 3
Perception: 3
Willpower: 2

Qualities (20)
Acute Sense (Vision) (2)
Hard to Kill 3 (3)
Ex-Soldier (5) (Ex-Marshall)
Nerves of Steel (3)
Renown/Reputation (Known/Good) (3)
Resources Moderate (2)
Special: Magical Sight (2)

Drawbacks (up to 10)
Addiction (minor, smoking, drinking) (1)
Honourable (1)
Mental Problems (Severe Obsession – Avenge Dead Family) (2)
Obligation (1)
Recurring Nightmares (1)
Secret (deals with supernatural) (2)

Skills (25) (+8 from Drawbacks)
Armed Mayhem 4
Art 1
Athletics 2
Crime 2
Drive / Ride 3
Engineering 0
Fisticuffs 4
Influence 1
Knowledge 2
Languages 1
Marksmanship 5
Notice 5
Occultism 2
Physician
Science 1
Wild Card

Useful Information
Observation: 1d10 +8
Initiative: +5
Armor: +1 (leather duster)
Fear: +5
Actions: 1 Mental /2 Physical

Combat
Name Bonus Damage Notes
Punch +9 6 Bash
Rifle +10 20 Bullet
Pistols +10 12 Bullet* John has two Colts, one with regular rounds, the other with his special gold rounds. Once empty a Pistol needs 1 round to reload.

John Mulgrew is a former U.S. Marshall. Back in the days when was a Marshall he and his family lived in the new state of Texas where his job was to make sure that the local population was “controlled”. This meant he hunted down American Indians that had broken the law.

After a particularly long a bloody battle, John came home to find his wife and two children killed. Not just murdered, but ripped apart. Insane with grief he ran off to find out who did this. He was discharged from the Marshalls, but he didn’t care he only wanted to find who killed his family. He was convinced it was an Indian and had tracked the culprit to the Dakotas.

One night he made his camp near a cross roads only to be awoken by a strange man dressed as a gentleman cooking a foul smelling diner over his campfire. John raised his gun to the man, but the man only asked John to give him his gun. John, without thinking, handed it him. The man unloaded John’s revolver, a .44 Colt Dragoon, and reloaded it with cartridges made of pure gold. He loaded in six and handed John a seventh. He then told John that he knew what he was hunting and this gun will give him the ability to kill it. If he didn’t want the gun, just leave on the ground, but if he took it up then he only had seven shots to kill seven monsters and then John’s soul would be his.

John woke up the next morning with no sight that the man had been there, but his gun was still loaded with the gold bullets. Tucking it deep in his saddle bag, John rode on.

John had followed a trail of destruction all the way to the Dakotas. There he found an Indian. The two men tried to kill each other till they were stopped by a beast with long claws and blood stained white fur. It stood as a man, but thin and nearly 9 feet tall. The creature attacked them both. The Indian seemed to be using some sort of magic to attack the creature which harmed it, even while John’s shots from his normal gun were ignored. John recalled the gun with the gold bullets and he shot the creature which killed it instantly.

John and Indian, who he learned was named Husun, tended their wounds. Husun told John that the creature was a Wendigo and it had killed everyone in his camp. It was also the creature that had killed John’s family and all the families between here and Texas. He told John his gun was an evil thing, but now that he had used it he could not be rid of it.

John and Husun, whom the locals called “Blackfoot”, traveled together for a while investigating the paranormal. John tends to drink a little too much, but it is the only way he can sleep at night without the nightmares of the Wendigo killing his family.

John and Husun have come to England as Guests of the wealthy Lord Dyus Paton. Lord Paton has been unable to attend tonight’s diner at the Crystal Palace due to illness, but has sent along John and Husun in his stead, knowing the august crowd would enjoy seeing a real live American Cowboy and Indian.