[Dog Variant] The Basilisk Hound

In the Tafilalt desert, where basilisks are common, the local tribesmen breed a dog known as the sijil masabaq, or 'eyeless dog'. It is usually known to outsiders as the Basilisk Hound, because its special use is the hunting of those beasts.

Despite their original name, Basilisk Hounds do have vestigial eyes, but are entirely blind. This is thanks to a deliberate process of selective breeding that has continued for centuries, and the reason for it is obvious - it allows the dogs to resist the main threat of the basilisk: its ability to petrify those who meet its gaze.

Basilisk Hounds are rangy and tough, but they are hounds, not fighting dogs. Their task in the hunt is to distract and harass the prey, drawing its attention (and its gaze) away from the human hunters, who can then approach and attack from the rear with long spears. The hounds have an excellent sense of smell and hearing which guide them in the chase; but this does not entirely compensate for their blindness, so they typically do not approach within striking distance. Instead they circle, dart, bark and snap out of arm's reach. (They suffer a -2 penalty to their attack rolls.)

Basilisk Hounds are not usually sold, but are sometimes given by tribesmen to outsiders as gifts, or traded for opium, which they prize.

Basilisk Hound

Armour Class: 6
Hit Dice: 1+1
Move: 180' (60')
Attacks: 1 bite
Damage: 1d6
No. App: Never appear in the wild
Save As: F2
Morale: 8
Treasure Type: U
Intelligence: 2
Alignment: Neutral
XP: 15

[Dog Variants] The Orc Mastiff

The Orc Mastiff is a large, powerful type of fighting dog specially bred for hunting and killing orcs. They are large and muscular, often weighing over 200 lbs, and are covered with thick, coarse black hair.

These dogs are prized for their ability to both detect and fight orcs. They have an excellent sense of smell and are usually raised from puppyhood to recognise the scent of orcs and distinguish it from other humanoid beings. This allows them to detect orcs at a range of 120', and also means that they can track the creatures if their trail is less than a week old (70% chance if the trail is a day old or less, 60% for two days or less, and so on.) Their thick black fur insulates their body heat against infravision during the night or when they are underground; all infravision is ineffective against them, allowing them to operate in near-invisibility when in an orcish lair. Finally, they are highly intelligent and assertive, and can be trained to fight against armoured humanoid opponents; a favourite tactic is to grab an ankle and pull an enemy to the ground before attacking it at the neck.

Naturally, Orc Mastiffs are extremely expensive. A single one will cost 75 gold pieces or more, so that a pack of a dozen or so of these dogs may cost 1,000 gold pieces; and typically they will also be given special padded armour by their owners, which costs a considerable additional sum (25 gold pieces per dog). But noblemen in remote and uncivilised areas which orcs frequent will often have ancestral packs, bred by their families down the generations. These packs are rarely used in open battle but instead as guards or terror weapons for rooting out and killing orc females and children, or hunting and slaying males routed in a fight.

Orc Mastiff

Armour Class: 6 (4 with padded armour)
Hit Dice: 3+3*
Move: 180' (60')
Attacks: 1 bite
Damage: 2d4
No. App: Never appear in the wild
Save As: F3
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: U
Intelligence: 4
Alignment: Neutral
XP: 75

But the Dogs, Well They're Only Dogs

Having just read this piece, in which a modern-day war-dog (a Belgian Malinois) plays a starring role, I got to thinking about dogs in RPGs. As any old schooler knows, dogs are indispensable to an adventurer - especially to magic-users. They give muscle, an extra set of eyes, an extra nose, and, if push comes to shove, meat. Forget hirelings. No 1st level character should ever leave home without a dog or three.

They're also historically accurate. Real-world D and D parties - for instance, bandeirantes and conquistadors - were constantly surrounded by dogs and pigs wherever they went. Dogs were used for hunting and fighting (the conquistadors used armoured mastiffs specially trained to disembowel their semi-naked native American adversaries), and pigs were slaughtered for food (it is believed that escapee pigs were one of the major disease spreaders in native populaces). It would be extremely unusual for a group of roguish adventurers in a fantasy world to venture out into the wilds without a pack of hounds.

I've always been fond of the AD&D 2nd Edition DMG's 'Horse Personality' table, which allowed you to randomly determine a set of traits for any given horse (from being a good jumper to being a notorious biter). So without further ado, here's the equivalent for a conquistador's best friend:

Dog Personality Table

A dog will have d2 traits, randomly determined from the following table (roll 1d12); if the dog is expensive (+10% cost), add +1 to the roll, and if it is particularly expensive (+25% cost), add +2 to the roll; corresponding negative penalties should be applied to the roll for cheap and particularly cheap dogs respectively.

-2: The dog is extremely bad tempered. It will attack anybody except for the owner who approaches within 5 feet.
-1: The dog has only three legs. It moves at half rate.
0: The dog is very bad tempered. There is a 25% chance it will attack anybody except for the owner who approaches within 5 feet.
1: The dog is a coward. Before a fight it has to check morale (10) or it will cower behind its owner.
2: The dog is stupid. It cannot be trained to do anything, though it will attack enemies of its owner and is generally docile otherwise.
3: The dog has an unfortunate body odour that doesn't seem to go away. The stench can be detected within 15 yards.
4: The dog is easily distracted. It will try to chase anything fast-moving that it sees.
5: The dog is a nipper. Anybody except the owner who tries to touch it will be bitten (roll for attack as normal; damage is 1 hp).
6: The dog has a strange taste for a certain type of food (player's choice). It will try, remorselessly, to eat this food if it ever comes across it.
7: The dog is greedy. It will eat uncontrollably at any chance it gets, and if it kills an opponent will stop to feed rather than continue the fight.
8: The dog is very intelligent. It can pick up new tricks very easily (+3 bonus to Animal Training proficiency checks).
9: The dog is very tough (maximum hit points).
10: The dog is very fast (+2 to initiative rolls).
11: The dog seems to be a very good judge of character (will growl at any evil human it comes across).
12: The dog is extremely brave and loyal (always passes morale checks).
13: The dog has animal perception (can see invisible things on a 25% chance).
14: The dog is immensely powerful (+4 damage)

The Most Mammoth rpg.net Bestiary Related Thread(s) Ever; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Ankhegs

Once upon a time there was an Englishman sitting in an office in Ichigao, Yokohama. It was a boring office and he was a very bored Englishman, so approximately once an hour he would visit rpg.net in an attempt to get some sort of creative and intellectual input into his life. What he mostly found were a lot of very pretentious people talking about 'doing' Cyberpunk 2020 with Spirit of the Century using ORE mechanics. But he also discovered that there was a large and silent majority of very interesting people indeed.

The bored Englishman noticed that every so often somebody on rpg.net - usually on the DandD Spotlight forum - would post a "Let's Read" thread. These threads, often insanely long, usually halted before ever reaching their goal, consisted of a single poster 'reading' an RPG text and posting their thoughts as they went along, with other posters chiming in and a dialogue developing. The bored Englishman liked these threads. He thought there were a capital opportunity to pontificate at length with ready-made starting material, and the Englishman was fond of pontificating.

He had also recently got his hands the ADandD 2nd edition Monstrous Manual from a fellow ex-pat fleeing Japan and heading back to Canada, and overcome with feelings of nostalgia and childish excitement (because it was the first RPG book he had ever bought - from a shop in Tel Aviv, no less) he decided to write one of these threads. Every day he would post a new 'entry' - a comment on one single monster entry - and invite readers to offer their thoughts. He was expecting perhaps one or two people contributing their thoughts each day. What he got was something entirely different: over 5000 posts spread over 5 separate threads, spanning nearly 2 years. Those 5000 posts are quite literally some of the best bad craziness that RPG geeks can offer, a smorgasbord of creative, unique, and often silly ideas that no self-respecting DM should be without.

The threads are here: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. But the Englishman is currently undergoing the arduous process of editing them all into one big fat PDF file for the enjoyment of the reading public. Watch this space for details.

Count 'Em

Somebody has counted the number of games of each RPG booked in to be played at Gen Con this year.

Normally I couldn't give a flea-sized shit about what goes on at Gen Con, and we should be wary of sample bias - people who go to Gen Con are by definition among the strangest and silliest people on earth - but I found some of these results interesting. For instance:

• AD&D (1st edition) is the second most popular variant of D&D after 4E, with 3.5 and 2nd edition some way behind. 2nd edition is the least popular by a considerable distance - which is not altogether surprising, if regrettable in my eyes. Of the other games, HERO seems quite popular, along with Savage Worlds (depressingly).
• Indie RPGs are even less popular than I would have expected, with only 20 games being played in total, as opposed to 97 of Shadowrun and 98 of Call of Cthulu alone. Given the prevalence of one-shot-based games within the 'Indie' community, I find this especially surprising: you would have thought such throwaway systems would be perfect for convention play.
• Rolemaster is now so unfashionable that there appears to be no sign of it at the convention at all. Thankfully, it seems White Wolf games are seeing a long-awaited decline in popularity, though this is off-set by a strong LARP showing. (There will be nearly 8000 people LARPing at Gen Con, a figure which staggers me from numerous directions. How do these people even tie their own shoelaces, let along get it together enough to make their way to Indianapolis?)
• There is a bit of a showing for the OSR, but not much.

Gen Con is not a representative sample, but food for thought, nonetheless.

Back in Action

Hello like before, Monsters & Manuals. I'd never have come here if I'd known that you were here. I must admit though, that it's nice to see you, dear...

I've missed writing this blog. It's been a long time since the heady days of 2008/2009 when updates flowed daily. They've since slowed to a slow drip. But, to continue this rather hackneyed metaphor, there is a melting glacier of good ideas at the top of the mountain, and it's about to come pouring downstream.

Picture yourselves, dear readers, as a hydroelectric dam of role playing, ready to be re-energised by all that water.

Or something.

Anyway, to everybody who hasn't deleted my RSS feed; thanks. To everybody who has; I'd say fuck you, but you won't be reading this anyway. To anybody who is new: this blog was great once. Read through the archives and see. It'll be like that again.

If I Ruled the World

Speaking of escapism, what about a campaign based around winning the lottery?

I'm not talking about a group of people sitting around masturbating while imagining the wonderful things they could do with millions of pounds, nor a horrible emo-trip in which people imagine how being filthy rich wouldn't make you happy. I'm imagining something like an Unknown Armies campaign in which a group of friends who acted as a euromillions syndicate decide to use their £185 million jackpot as seed money for discovering what really happened at Area 51. Or to build a submarine to find the lost city of Atlantis. Or to buy a ship for exploring and exploiting shipwreck sites. Or to try to find out who Jack the Ripper really was....

Ass Goblins of Auschwitz

In a land where black snow falls in the shape of swastikas, there exists a nightmarish prison camp known as Auschwitz. It is run by a fascist, flatulent race of aliens called the Ass Goblins, who travel in apple-shaped spaceships to abduct children from the neighboring world of Kidland. Prisoners 999 and 1001 are conjoined twin brothers forced to endure the sadistic tortures of these ass-shaped monsters. To survive, they must eat kid skin and work all day constructing bicycles and sex dolls out of dead children.

While the Ass Goblins become drunk on cider made from fermented children, the twins plot their escape. But it won't be easy. They must overcome toilet toads, cockrats, ass dolls, and the surgical experiments that are slowly mutating them into goblin-child hybrids.

Forget everything you know about Auschwitz...you're about to be Shit Slaughtered.

Do I want to download this for my kindle or not? I'm torn in two minds as to whether or not I admire the ingenuity or despise the obvious flirtation with controversy. (Perhaps "slutting up to controversy" would be more apt...)

d100 FTW!

I went to see China Mieville do a reading from his new book, Embassytown, along with a Q&A session, at a local bookshop on Friday evening. And a nice and interesting guy he was too. I was particularly impressed that he openly and merrily sang the praises of roleplaying games; even though I should have been expecting this, as it is something he is wont to do, it bears repeating just how rare and precious a thing this is: a respected writer on his way to becoming a giant in the field, and a genuine crossover success, who has absolutely no shame saying he likes D&D and RuneQuest.

Anyway, I duly queued up with the herd (which also included local fantasy/horror luminary Ramsay Campbell) and got my copy of Embassytown signed. I think this just about says it all:

The Great Escape

I've written before about escapism on more than one occasion. Suffice to say (for those who can't be bothered clicking links or opening new tabs) I'm one of those people who thinks that escapism is one of the most noble of human pursuits, perhaps the noblest of all, and it should be trumpeted to the heavens as one of the finest features of the hobby which you and I enjoy. The fact that 'escapism' is treated as a dirty word by the intellectual elites in our societies is rather a sad indictment of prevailing sentiments of the age.

This is why, generally speaking, I think that fantasy and SF are the genres which gamers tend to love. At the moment I'm running a quasi-historical gonzo-horror affair and it's nice - nothing to complain about - but I've found a certain sense of malaise setting in when I sit down to plan the next session. The real world is a wonderful place, but there is something lacking when using it as the basis for an RPG campaign; the creativity that goes into that process feels impure somehow, and pales in comparison to the flights of fancy the imagination can go on when unrestrained by "reality".

I believe this is the real reason for the prevailing popularity of familiar brands such as D&D, Traveller, and the like. Escaping to Timbuktu is all well and good, but escaping to Waterdeep or the Planet Zong is better; why have cotton when you can have silk?