Doom Cave of the Crystal-Headed Contest: The Winner

But can you really "win" a negadungeon? ANYWAY IT'S +Arnold K. !
Arnold, email me your mailing address to receive my physical copy of The Doom Cave of the Crystal-Headed Children from Free RPG Day 2014, plus a miniature, plus a drawing of something you request!

He submitted a whole adventure, ready to go, with maps, critters, NPCs, the works. You could run this as written with just a tiny bit of prep. It's a great example of "letting the PCs be the catalyst", where if the PCs behaved themselves and abided by the law etc, things might be a bit boring, but...you know PCs...

Click the map to go to his blog entry with a PDF of the adventure!

If you're not checking out his blog on the regular, you should be! He has a lot of swell ideas.

Thanks everyone for participating!

+Paul Schaefer at http://mutantsmagic.blogspot.com with Tempest Everlasting, a mythical island/wave crawl

+Noah Stevens at http://noahms456.blogspot.com with the folktale creepiness of The Clockwork Head of Genbo Gashodokuro

+Björn Wärmedal at http://nakedknightinn.blogspot.com with The Poor Man's Mountain Keep Adventure Seed (and the fearsome Limb Worm!)

+Ed Hackett at http://chainsawchirurgeon.blogspot.jp/ with some swell maps and the dreaded Grynspar

+Cédric Plante at http://chaudronchromatique.blogspot.ca with the creative table and great drawing of the Monks of the Holyphant Hanging Monastery

Doom Cave of the Crystal-Headed Contest: 2nd Place

It's really more of a tie for first place with my super secret alternate backup prize resolving the conflict.

+Paul Schaefer , whose entry I'll feature today, gets my paperback copy of +Jason Sholtis 's Dungeon Dozen as his prize, in addition to one miniature (unpainted), and a drawing from me of something he requests (or something else I can make with pen/paper/pixels on one page).

Click on the hexmap below to go to his blog entry for a great wave/island crawl with an interesting mythology, neat fantasy cultures, swell prophecies, random tables, and a NSFW drawing of a sphinx.
BEWARE THE TEMPEST EVERLASTING!

Doom Cave of the Crystal-Headed Contest: 3rd Place

With all the creativity, whimsical folk-tale creepiness, and the drawing, it was hard to know where to put this. Ultimately I had to break the 3-way tie for first place.

+Noah Stevens , email me your physical mailing address to receive a gaggle of miniatures (unpainted), and a drawing request or something else I can make for you with pen and paper and pixels.

Click on Noah's radical map/drawing to go to his blog entry with more details and descriptions. And nightmares! I hope someone runs this on G+, I want to play it and have a bad enough memory that I'd still be surprised and creeped out! In a good way.

If you find the formatting on his blog a bit hard to read, try the mobile version, I found the formatting a bit better.

Doom Contest of the Crystal-Headed Runners Up

The first results from my contest! MEET YOUR JUDGEMENT.

These are the runners up. I'll post the top 3 over the next few days. Currently untangling a tie for 2nd.

I got 6 entries total. The following three were great entries, and I was psyched to see them. Some great ideas and great drawings here. I am so honored people made this stuff for my silly contest.

+Cédric Plante , +Ed Hackett , and +Björn Wärmedal , email me a request for a drawing, and I'll get it to ya (digitally) as soon as I finish. If there's something else you'd like that I can deliver digitally, let me know!

+Cédric Plante did an amazing drawing, and then when I gave a little more time, did a really great table with lots of rad ideas. Click on his drawing below to go to his blog entry with the table.

+Björn Wärmedal sent me a nifty little map with adventure seeds, and a GREAT new monster, ready to drop into your next dungeon. Click his drawing of the Limb Worm below for a copy of his entry in PDF, and click here for his blog. The July 10th entry has a larger version of this drawing, I think.

+Ed Hackett sent along a couple of neat maps and flavorful critter. The images he sent are below, and if you click 'em, they'll get bigger. His blog is here.

THANKS, GUYS! If any of y'all want me to change the way I put these up here, let me know.

The Seclusium of Hambone of the Free Acids

(I wrote this on September 1st, 2013, and will never finish it. Instead of lingering in my DRAFTS, I thought I'd unleash it's embarrassing rambles upon the world. I don't usually write so much about my personal life on here, but I did this time for some reason.)

I have stepped in pee a lot this past week. I mean, I moved to San Francisco, the human-outdoor-peeingest city in the US. Today, I knew the name of the person whose pee I stepped in. He is three years old and loves trains.

After chasing me across the country, my hardcopy of The Seclusium of Orphone of the Three Visions caught up with me, and goddamn it is gorgeous. I love the cover, despite some issues I have with how the faces are painted. DEM EELS, to use obsequious internet slang. Lamentations of the Flame Princess publish the best looking RPG books. There are no words one can take away from that sentence. I await their next round eagerly.

My friend Derek paints things. One time I stopped having a crush on a girl because she thought it was some big revelation that he used projected stencils to make his paintings when anyone with eyes and a brain could tell you that just by looking at them. When I finally had the money to buy a painting, he had to triple his prices because he was losing sales of new paintings to other people selling his old paintings on Ebay for high prices. Somehow raising his prices for new paintings was going to fix that. 

Anyway, he sold me a small thing for the old price, and the point is he said (and drew, and painted) the words "H A M B U R G E R" and "HAMBONE!" a lot. I mean, A LOT. He is short and round and funny looking and could basically go home with any woman that listened to him for five minutes. Many people thought he was some kind of wizard. He once ate a bite of my sandwich then denied it. He once punched me in the side while I was on a ladder filing CDs and I chased him in circles around a pinstripe-suited businessman shopping in the store Derek managed.

Why do you care about any of this? Maybe you don't. I haven't read a lick of text and am turning to page 96 and rolling things and writing them down. In many places the result was boring so I made something up that is probably inspired by someone I knew (not all the same person). OK I made some new tables when inspired.

The Seclusium of Hambone of the Free Acids is...

1. in a bad part of town, 

2. behind an unmarked door, 

3. up some metal stairs. 

4. It is full of finished...

5. and unfinished works, 

6. and on the patio out back there is a mostly-destroyed piano that Hambone plays when it rains.

The Hambone is...

1. bipolar...sometimes supremely confident and other times tortured and nervous

2. has a vast library of obscure and difficult works

3. utterly charming...

4. ...causing some people to come into conflict because jealousy.

5. trying to help those around him, but through ways which seem callow and cruel.

6. experimenting with self-medicating via trendy, homemade drugs.

The Hambone has abandoned the Seclusium, Why?
1. Time for his shift at his other job

2. He has departed to another realm, world, or mode of existence, to pursue his ambitions, perhaps never to return. (that's like moving to Seattle, right?)

3. Busy talking up someone he will later describe as "like being in bed with an alligator"
4. Creating a strange, confusing scene for others to stumble upon later
5. The land is devoid of Hamburgers
6. There's a really great record store somewhere else

Known Facts:

20. The Wizard used to visit us in our sleep, robbing our dreams of their treasures.

18. The Wizard was prone to fits of malice and rage.

9. The Wizard was a great traveller, and could be seen coming and going.

How did the Wizard appear?
1. Full beard, wild hair, military dress
2. Shaven, cherubic, unctuous
3. Severe, angular fashion of a different profession
4. covered in blood and cuts, mumbling to self
5. detached, madly scribbling, pulsing with dark energy
6. adorned in wild shapes and bright colors, slightly out of focus

I am totally bored. Skipping to the Seclusium itself...

THE BURNING EYE OF TRUTH

Sir Ward art by +Sara Machajewski; note holy symbol on the shield 

GORGATHON IS PLEASED. His paladin Sir Ward, Knight of Jet and Gold, bearer of the torch of knowledge, has been returned to mortal form by the efforts of his comrades. EACH of these comrades has gained Gorgathon's blessing, and each may use the following ONCE*:

THE BURNING EYE OF TRUTH
Light a torch while saying Gorgathon's prayer. All within this torch's light is revealed: magik, invisibility, alignment, lies, traps, doors. The one who lit the torch can see all in it's light, no matter how far away from it.
These effects last until the torch goes out. The flame is not artificially sustained, and is subject to environmental conditions as normal flame.

SIR WARD and other PALADINS of Gorgathon may use this ability once per week, or once every 3 sessions.
CLERICS of Gorgathon may cast this as a Spell, choosing one of the things listed above to be revealed for each spell level  - if cast as a 6th level spell, all is revealed. If cast as a 3rd level spell, three things from the above list are revealed.

In both cases, a torch must still be lit, and the effects fade when the torch goes out.

*Note that the light of Gorgathon does not shine in every plane, and if the DM decides this doesn't work in their game, the player shall not pout or argue.

SIR WARD, you seek purpose.
-Gain and apply your knowledge to restore life where you have taken it in error

-Spread the word of the Eye of Fire to other planes; gain converts and new followers of Gorgathon; encourage them to adventure and seek knowledge as you do

-Make (or help make) a place such that adventurers may gather there, and spread their gathered knowledge to each other

-Should your companions seek that like which came from Manzarin and was expired, let them seek it in the Interstices

I do not hide knowledge behind awesome poems. May the light of knowledge shine upon you.

The Demonaist (Class)

This is for a setting that I probably won't use D&D rules for, but I wanted to jot the idea down in general since I won't have time to work on it again for awhile and don't have my Stormbringer/Pendragon/Boot Hill hack worked out yet.
I also thought this is the kind of madness some of you DMs might allow or encourage in your games.

A DEMONAIST is one who has dedicated themselves to channeling entities from Beyond the Prime Material Plane into their own body, hoping to control the entity's powers for a time. Sometimes, it even works out.

XP Progression / HP / Saves / Attack: As Cleric

Weapons and Armor: due to the physical toll of their practice, Demonaists can typically only use light weapons and armor, and receive a penalty to hit with heavy or two-handed weapons. They cannot wear Chain Mail or heavier armor.

Possession: 

The Demonaist spends a round summoning an entity, which takes over his or her body, changing and contorting it to resemble the entity's preferred form. The Demonaist can take no other action this round, nor can the summoned entity.
Mechanically, this is resolved as the LotFP Summon spell, but the entity fades in a number of turns* equal to the caster's level plus any INT bonus. Additional rounds can be wagered for when casting, but are counted as if the creature were that many more Hit Dice when Domination is determined. The thing summoned is in the caster's body, not separate. I like to use this generator here.
If the caster dominates, he or she is in control of the entity's powers until it fades.
If the entity dominates, it is in control, under no obligations, and does not care what happens to the caster's body. It may attack everyone present, run off to do an errand in this plane, or something else.

When the entity fades, the caster loses half the number of HP the entity did while possessing his or her body. The Demonaist is wracked with pain after, and has -3 to STR, -3 WIS, and can only move at half speed for a number of rounds equal to the time of possession.

*EDIT: At the DM's discretion, the entity may only last a number of rounds equal to the caster's level, not turns.

Sense The Beyond:
Demonaists can sense summoned creatures and those under the influence of entities from Beyond their realm with a successful Wisdom check (add PC level as a bonus to this check.)

Take in the Unclean Spirit:
Entities from Beyond that are encountered on the Prime Material Plane can be absorbed into the Demonaists' body as if summoned; if the creature dominates, the attempt to absorb it failed.

Banishment:
Demonaists can Turn creatures summoned by others; use the Turn Undead chart.

The End?