Continuing through the door of Room #23, the hallway continues there is a cell on your immediate right.
Inside this room are three (3) large Giant Crab Spiders. They have maximum hp. Their bite has poison as per the B/X rules.
There is a glow coming from a portal 10' from the ground. If the PCs stay in this room for longer than 1 hour three more crab spiders will appear.
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Another dip into my Monster and Treasure Assortment tonight!
I have a little project going on, and it would be nice to make a formal introduction to the NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars Role-Playing Game.
What is NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars?
NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars is a modern urban fantasy role-playing game with horror roots but with multi-genre elements as well. It is designed to be played the way you want, from light and fast to gritty and complex. It also features of examples of play thanks to our various Night Worlds. So you can be a student in Chicago's only school for Magical Youths and partake in various magic-fueled hijinks, all the way to a post-apocalyptic Earth where the forces of Good and Evil battle it out in the skies above and the streets below. Or to play a supernatural creature that just wants to live and get by in a world full of humans trying to hunt them down.
Play it silly, straight, dangerous or just fun, NIGHT SHIFT can do it.
Wait. What is a Role-Playing Game?
Role-playing games have a LONG history. But the modern role-playing game (RPG) began, roughly, in 1974 with the publication of the Dungeons & Dragons rules. You can read more about what a role-playing game is in this excerpt from the NIGHT SHIFT core rules book.
NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars is self-contained. Meaning every rule you need to play is found in the covers of the core book. You will need dice (available nearly everywhere now), some paper, some pencils, but most of all some good friends to play with. No computers, no phones, and if your internet goes down, you can still play!
What Can I do With NIGHT SHIFT VSW?
Anything you want! As a multi-genre game NIGHT SHIFT VSW is open to all sorts of situations and ways to play. Have a favorite TV show, movie, or book series? NIGHT SHIFT VSW with its varying degrees of play difficulty (Cinematic, Normal, and Gritty) allows the players to set the tone of the game.
Players take on the roles of various characters of their own creations. It's the game of Chosen Ones, Survivors, Witches, and Something Weird. YOU decide what you want to play and how to do it.
NIGHT SHIFT is an urban fantasy, horror, and dark modern supernatural game that uses a brand new system of old-school mechanics inspired by and derived from the original, basic, expert, and advanced versions of the World's Most Famous Role Playing Game. It allows you to mimic all the tropes of just about any film, TV series, or novel you like.
All of the following are possible with NIGHT SHIFT VSW:
What is Old-School Play?
Old-school play in RPGs refers to a style of play that emphasizes fewer rules and more freedom to play. This is why NIGHT SHIFT VSW is complete as a single book. Players familiar with new RPGs can still do all the same things they had done before or want to do, now it just depends on how they all want to do it. It is more about how you play with each other rather than how you play with the rules.
But if you want more details here is co-Author and lead designer Jason Vey on what Old-School play means for NIGHT SHIFT VSW over on his blog for Elf Lair Games.
Sounds Great! How Do I Get Started?
Well, start with some friends who all want to play. One person (maybe you!) will be the Game Master or the one that builds the adventures that everyone goes on. They are like the writer, director, and producer of a movie or TV show. As everyone gets more familiar with the rules you switch off Game Master roles so everyone has a chance to build your new world. Unlike watching a movie or reading a book, everyone playing gets to decide what is happening in the world.
You can certainly buy the NIGHT SHIFT VSW core rules and supplements. But in the meantime here are free resources to get you started right now.
Not to mention all the free NIGHT SHIFT content found on the authors' personal blogs and websites.
If you are a fan of physical books you can get NIGHT SHIFT VSW directly from the publisher or if PDFs are your thing you can buy NIGHT SHIFT VSW from DriveThruRPG.
We hope to see you on the NIGHT SHIFT!
Returning to Room #20, the characters can now go to the right (previously left).
This hallway leads to a closed door. The door is not locked. Inside is a circular chamber. There is a door just like the one the PCs entered on the other side.
On the walls above the characters are 2 Gargoyles. As soon as the PCs are all in the room, they will swoop down and attack.
Behind a loose stone near their roosts is their treasure hoard. There is C x2 treasure, as well as an additional 1,000 gp in assorted gems.
Everyone knows I love horror. I watch more than I can ever review here to be honest and don't always talk about the ones I enjoy.
Case in point I rather love "American Mary." It is so twisted, and really Katharine Isabelle (the star as Mary) is just so great to watch in everything she is in.
But the real stars of the movie are the directors (and occasional actresses) Jen and Sylvia Soska, aka the Soska Sisters, aka the Twisted Twins.
They were having a special on their Etsy webstore before closing it down for a bit and I knew I needed something.
Well, I got it over the weekend, and I am pretty happy.
I mean really? "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" "Blessed Be!!" "Wanna Join our Coven?"
How could I possibly say no!
Yeah sorry for the glare, but I wanted to get them into frames before I scratched them.
They would also make great "live-action" stand-ins for my two blood witches Kimbra & Kelleigh.
Now I need to find a place on my game room walls to hang them. Though knowing the Soskas they would want me to hang these with a meat hook!
Going straight takes the characters to a large room with wooden doors. There is an eerie glow from the inside of the room.
This is a storage chamber for various items needed to keep and feed the monsters here. All the food is long gone, but there are a few normal weapons here as well as the following magical ones.
A sword +1 / +2 vs Lycanthropes.
A gem of light (casts light 3 times per day) This is causing the glow.
A shield +2
A dagger +1
A mace +1 / +2 vs Undead
Finding these items is worth 1,500 xp total.
This room is a dead end.
Did quite a bit of work on my Basic Bestiaries last week. Mostly edits and some large-scale moving around of content. I am close to publishing yet, though I have more art for BB1.
Here is where I am on content.
So, nearly 600 monsters are complete, and nearly 1,000 total started in one form or another.
A couple of things.
Basic Bestiary I has shrunk while Basic Bestiary III has grown. I moved over about 20-25 creatures from I to III since they fit better.
Also, you might notice Basic Bestiary IV, aka Dragons. I have talked about it, but not much. Mostly because I kept it closer to my chest, but really because so little of it was done.
This project grew out of something my oldest had been working on for a while, a book about dragons we were calling "Here There Be Dragons." It has been an on-again, off-again project for a while (ok 11 years) but I was leaving it in the hands of a then 11-year-old to work on. We resurrected it a while back and I have been slowly converting material from it to my Basic Bestiary format. But that is not all, I also want to come up with a good monster stat block that will really take advantage of how awesome (in all senses of the word) dragons are. I experimented with this one, but it is not 100% where I want it to be yet.
I love the idea of Dragons getting their own book. I mean if I am going to do a book of Undead and Demons then Dragons really should get their own too.
In addition to the stat block, I have other issues to work out. Should Tiamat be in the Demon book or the Dragon book? Right now she is in both. What about one of my favorites, the Piasa Bird? Is it a dragon?
Next year, 2024, is not just the 50th Anniversary of D&D but it is also the Chinese year of the Dragon. Feels like to me that an Old School monster book about dragons would be perfect.
I just need to get my ass moving on these.
I am also ditching the current covers I have for them and looking for something new. Still figuring out what to use. I want the same artist for all four and they must feature the creature types covered. Still searching.
BTW if you want some cool dragon content now, Bruce Heard has a bunch up on his blog.
This room is another semi-circular chamber, like Room #12. The room has a hallway to the left, and the hallway continues straight.
This room, like Room 12, shows signs of a recent battle. There is a dead orc here with a usable sword, non-magical. He has a pouch of 23 cp that his "killers" missed. There is a poison dart in his neck.
The orc is lying on top of a trap trigger; this is what killed him. Moving the orc will trigger it again.
Finding the trap and disarming before it fires is worth 50xp. After it fires, it is only worth 0 xp.
