Colorful Orcs

Human skin tone varies a lot. It's not just one-dimensional, from light to dark. There's shades and there's undertones, making it a little more accurate to map skin tone two-dimensionally (though that's still not perfect). Fantasy races should be at least as varied, if not more - why should all Orcs be green? This can be used as part of DCC's philosophy around keeping things mysterious - skin color is even a part of the table on p. 380. Players will know the big buff green dude is an Orc, but they might not be so sure about a blue or yellow dude.

There are environmental factors that appear to affect the skin tone of a population. We know, for instance, that darker skin protects from the sun and lighter skin helps to produce vitamin D. Humans are adaptable and awesome. Below is a map that uses environmental factors to predict the distribution of skin colors of native populations across the globe - it's not always accurate when you start zooming in to specific places, but the general trend is close enough to actual data be interesting.

The obvious conclusion to draw is that skin tone tends darker near the equator and tends lighter near the poles. In Orcs, we are going to represent this as a gradient from green to red. Orcs in the cooler climates away from the equator will tend toward green, and Orcs in the warmer climates will tend toward red. Humans who are ignorant of biology (i.e. nearly everybody in a pseudo-medieval fantasy setting) will call these populations things like "Woods Orcs", "Plains Orcs" and "Desert Orcs".

As the chart tends downward, we see the Orcish equivalent to undertone. This is a bit more complex in humans than the overtones but it has something to do with the structure of our skin and blood vessels - we don't need to get too noodly with that here. What I'm going to roughly correlate this axis to is altitude, which lets us have populations in mountain ranges and mesa that vary from blue "Snow Orcs", to grey "Stone Orcs", to light reddish "Clay Orcs".

These colors often match relatively well with the colors of their biomes (some exceptions), so we can say that camouflage is an additional environmental pressure that could contribute to these colorings. Orcs are hunters, so camouflage is a useful tool.

While humans (and indeed, players) may assume these different varieties of Orc come with special abilities, any difference between populations is more significantly a cultural one than a biological one. This is up to and including their magic, which would come from different Patrons. The environment a population is found in should absolutely be considered when developing their culture, which will likely fuel stereotypes about the differences between Snow Orcs and Sands Orcs. Travelling bands of Orcs should have one or two that stand out from the rest, maybe with an item of cultural significance on them, hinting at faraway lands.

Similar charts can be built for species like Elves which often have variations (High Elves, Dark Elves, Wood Elves) rather than putting each Elf into a clear, discrete category. Goblins, however, don't have this kind of variation due to their less naturalistic origins.

Goblins Can't Die

Goblins are gross little weirdos. They're known for being quick to violence, even among themselves. Some say they're cowardly fighters. That's not entirely accurate. They're just smart enough to know when they can't beat someone in a fair fight - not that they have much concern for your idea of fair. When they can't win fairly, they win unfairly instead. This might come across as cowardly, but wanting to win doesn't mean they're afraid to die. Why should they be? Goblins can't die.

Goblin Death

Many a Warrior has slain a goblin or five, many a man-at-arms has helped to ward off a raid at the skirts of their village. Any experienced fighter can tell you that a goblin goes down easier than a man. It's laughable to suggest they cannot die. They seem to die quite easily, in fact.

When a goblin is rent in twain by the Warrior's blade, its body ceases to live. The jury is still out on whether these unsavoury little bastards have souls, but something remains. We know this because the goblin comes back. Goblins who have been slain have occasionally been known to recognize the person who slew them, and to be extra clever, extra sneaky, extra cruel the next time they encounter their would-be murderer. They'll still often make the same mistake twice, and they'll be even angrier about it the third time.

This easily explains their lack of fear in the face of certain death, quickness to violence, and even goes some way to explaining why they have no apparent sanitary standards. Illness isn't exactly going to kill them, is it?

Goblin Birth

Goblins are born from a fleshy orifice, much like the rest of us. Motherhood is something usually associated with nice words like "nurturing" and "beautiful". A goblin mother is much less nurturing and a whole lot more fleshy and orificey. They tend to be associated with words like "mound", "heap", or if the goblins are on the move, "ball".

It appears that when a goblin is slain, its body and mind return to its mother as it decomposes. The mechanism through which this occurs is unknown, though many have noted that a goblin corpse decays at an alarmingly rapid rate. If this process were understood, it might be possible to prevent goblin reincarnation; a useful tactic for pushing back against their oppressive horde. There may be some magic ritual, some binding seal, or a particular method of slaughter which makes them stay dead. There are certainly a lot of superstitions about this.

Perhaps the bane of the goblin varies from brood to brood, which has contributed to any consistent method remaining undiscovered.

Goblin Mothers

The green-skinned, hairy-moled mass of flesh the goblins call "mom" usually has only one orifice. It often (though not always) resembles a humanoid orifice, along with any related foul secretions. Goblins are born from it.

A mother can be anywhere from the size of a workhorse to the size of a castle's keep, depending on the numbers of its brood. Small goblin crews will roll their mother around, with a handful of scouts ahead, clearing a path through violent means if necessary. The goblins are more protective of their mother than themselves. They seek a permanent home for their mother, for once she grows beyond a certain size she will be effectively impossible to move any more, first becoming unreasonably heavy and then physically attaching herself to the inside of a cavern wall.

Below table is intentionally unpleasant.

d12 disgusting orifices:

1. A weeping, yellowed, bloodshot eye
2. A waxy ear
3. A drooling mouth, tongue hanging out
4. A vomiting mouth
5. A snorting, sneezing, crooked goblin nose
6. A smooth fleshy tube that you can't see the end of, pulsating
7. A gaping wound
8. A pustule
9. Skin pores, like the suriname toad
10. No orifice - the goblins just burst out Alien-style, and feeding is a mystery
11. A birth canal
12. An anus

Hobgoblins and Bugbears

Hobgoblins and bugbears are commonly known to be a variety of goblin, though their true nature is known by few. Hobgoblins have been noted to be slightly more human-like - they stand straighter, fight smarter, and seem to sit higher in the goblin hierarchy than your garden-variety goblin. Bugbears have been noted to be more animal-like - they are bulky, hairy, stupid, and can only exert dominance over the other goblins by bullying them into submission.

These observations are no coincidence.

Unlucky victims of a goblin gang are sometimes ritualistically fed to the goblin mother as a celebration of the clan's growth. Human and demihuman victims of these rituals lead to the creation of a hobgoblin, sometimes sharing traits of the original person but never retaining memories or personality. If there is anything remaining of the individual after the metamorphosis, it is hidden deep beneath the goblin savagery that displaces it.

Similarly, bugbears appear to form when the mother is fed a large animal. Bears may be the origin of the name, though bugbears have been identified in bovine, equine, and crocodilian varieties. No such creatures form when the mother is fed its usual diet of small animals such as rats - it is uncertain whether mass is a critical factor or the goblins simply don't perform the necessary rituals with small creatures.

The Goblin Grandmother

It was noted by goblinographers and goblinologists that goblins don't seem to have nearly the regard for their mothers that they ought to. This isn't just a moral criticism; it makes sense that goblins do not fear death when death is not permanent, but what if their mother were destroyed? The goblins try to protect her, but not like their life depends on it. More like it would be a huge pain in the ass to have to roll her all the way back out there again.

This observation led to the discovery of the Goblin Grandmother at the site where the paths of travelling goblin squads converge. A great pit of goblin flesh exists hidden in a valley, far from civilization. You'd notice the odor long before you reached it. You'd be ambushed by goblins soon after that. It is hypothesized that the Grandmother is a large enough creature to physically enter and explore the innards of, and that to stop the goblin menace once and for all, one would have to destroy its heart from within.

The Great Gran̵d̷m̴o̸̱͑t̸͉̍h̶̝̒e̶͙͎͗r

Don't be ridiculous. There is no Great Grandmother, and you'll do well to put that thought away for good. Don't go looking for her now, will you?

Review: Wasteland Without Epithet

Judge Toast has given me a copy of Wasteland Without Epithet to review. Sorry it took so long, Toast.

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The Joys of Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding is one of the great joys of RPGs. For many of us, it's the thing that drew us toward RPGs. As a kid, I used to doodle maps of islands and mark where there were monsters and treasure. I had no idea RPGs existed, it was just something I liked doing. I never really stopped.

As the DM/referee/judge, the joy of worldbuilding can be a lonely one. That isn't entirely a bad thing - it's nice to have that outlet and be able to "play" solo in a way that will eventually come to fruition at the table. On the flip side, it often doesn't come to fruition. It's something that is difficult to share with the players in a way that they can enjoy it too. Nobody enjoys a lore dump, so you usually have to give them the juicy details the long way around by making them matter to the game. This can take weeks or months and sometimes the players never discover the things you've invested yourself in.

Wasteland Without Epithet gives you a process to do it the other way around; make the players a part of the setting's creation and then build the game within the world they want. I first learned of this concept from players of Dungeon World, which is presented as almost being more narrative than game, so the players being invested in the narrative is far more important there. It's a powerful concept. Your players go into the game already attached to the world and any detail you add automatically becomes an interesting twist.

How to Play

The introductory section says that you can run through the activity with anyone, jokingly suggesting that you "accost strangers on the bus". I decided to use this tactic, and the people I accosted were a colleague, my wife (not the same person) and two friends. I ran into a roadblock toward the latter end of the activity when one step asks you to "go around the table" and to have discussions about each answer in turn. I did not have a table to go around, so this took me a long time to do as I asked people one by one individually and had to relay answers along to the next person. It technically still worked, but I suggest that if you're going to use Wasteland Without Epithet you do it in a session-0-like setting, with the players you intend to play with.

The Questions Within

There are a few questions in there that ask you to assign points to categories - one of those is the classic Law, Good, Evil and Chaos, which I initially wasn't a huge fan of because of my preference for three-point Alignment but it doesn't necessitate actually using Good or Evil in your game, so it still works as a way to develop a world's cultures. The other question had 7 categories to do with aspects of culture, but what I really liked about these was the use of numbers that aren't easily divisible so my victims players were forced to think a little harder about how they wanted their points divvied out. Oddly, all of these seven categories are positive other than "Paranoia". This doesn't really matter either, it just seemed strange to me, but I see what Toast was going for.

In the above sections, my players all assumed you needed to place at least 1 point in all categories. This doesn't seem intended, because all that really does is give you less points to spend while making the baseline 1 instead of 0. Wasteland Without Epithet doesn't explicitly mention whether or not you can leave a category at zero, which seems to be an oversight because it does give examples that are impossible otherwise - but those examples aren't visible to the players.

A few of the questions are a bit difficult for players who aren't used to building worlds of their own, but everyone came up with interesting answers. Occasionally, later questions were already answered by previous questions - in those cases we chose to simply expand further on the concept or shuffle the answers around. By the end of it we had a world with unique twists on Drow, Centaurs, Goblins, and some sort of primitive society of madly religious geese (thank my wife for that one - she hasn't much experience with RPGs but she certainly got into the spirit of it!), on top of at least as many adventure hooks and plenty of room to create more.

Closing Thoughts

You can just about guarantee that if you run a group of prospective players through this, you'll end up with an interesting world that they are all attached to. This might even be the thing that convinces my wife to try my hobby, though she insists she'll only play if she can be a goose. Perhaps I'll have to give her the Invincible Chicken class.

Check out Wasteland Without Epithet here!

Everyone's a Warrior

These variant rules are just something I came up with for fun. They almost certainly aren't suitable for campaign play, but perhaps for a one-shot where everyone gets to play with a zany mechanic of various flavors. Alternatively, I can imagine a scenario where a Warrior gets body-swapped with another class and has to use that character's abilities in his own way until he can find a way to return to his old self.

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Mighty Deeds for Everyone

All characters have a Deed Die as a Warrior of the same level, which replaces their attack modifier. The use of these dice varies slightly depending on class.

Fighty Deeds

The standard Mighty Deed of a Warrior is a Fighty Deed, which can only be used as part of an attack. They are mundane, physically skilled actions performed by an athletic character. The mechanics are unchanged, but the name signifies how they differ from the other classes' new Mighty Deed types.

Smitey Deeds

Clerics lose their standard casting capabilities, including Turn unholy and Lay on hands, in favor of Smitey Deeds.

The Deeds of a Cleric physically enforce the will of their god, and their god pays back in miraculous power. This can cause unholy creatures to flee, or even cleric-spell-like effects. Similarly, a Smitey Deed can invigorate a nearby ally, healing them through the sheer holy awesomeness of witnessing an abomination being pulverized by a mighty morningstar, and being touched by the Lord's Light as it spills forth from the monster's skull.

The Smitey Deed Die result applies to damage only when attacking a creature that is unholy to your deity, but it always applies to the attack roll.

Disapproval occurs when you roll a 1 (or up to your current disapproval range) on your Deed Die AND miss your attack. Disapproval immediately occurs when you attempt to use a Smitey Deed against a creature that is aligned with or holy to your deity. Some fights must be fought alone.

Sleighty Deeds

The Deeds of a Thief are dirty Deeds indeed. The Thief has a particular set of skills, and always has those tricks up their sleeve, even when you think they're caught off-guard or unprepared. A Thief can even be captured and hide their tricks and tools from their captors until the moment they are used. Thieves are able to perform Deeds that would be impossible to a Warrior, such a moving in combat without their opponents noticing (perhaps in a puff of smoke), dealing ability damage with a hidden poison (which you just happened to prepare earlier), running up a wall and clinging to the corner to avoid opponents, or bashing an enemy's head against a locked chest at just the right angle to rattle it open.

The Sleighty Deed Die result applies to damage only when sneakily attacking (attacking an unaware creature from behind, while they are distracted by an ally in combat, or similar), but it always applies to the attack roll.

The Sleighty Deed Die also replaces any Thief Skill checks (except Cast spell from Scroll). 3 or better is a success, regardless of the skill being used and your Alignment.

For Cast spell from scroll, see Blighty Deeds below. Owning a scroll essentially gives a Thief limited access to one Blighty Deed.

Blighty Deeds

What? Okay, it's a stretch, but corruption is a blight! There wasn't a better rhyme.

Wizards can perform Deeds based on the spells in their spellbook. A blood sacrifice is required: a successful attack with a weapon. This is double-edged: Wizards can essentially cast and attack at the same time but they must harm someone to cast at all.

The Deed Die determines the power of the Deed effect. 1 or 2 is a failure and loss. 3 correlates with the lowest successful spell result, a 4 correlates with the second successful spell result, and so on. Each level of spell above 1st requires 1 result higher on the Deed Die; for instance, a 3rd level spell fails (but is not lost) on Deed results of 3 and 4.

Deed Die results by Spell Level:

Deed Die	1st level	2nd level	3rd level	4th level	5th level
1	Corruption	Corruption	Corruption	Corruption	Corruption
2	Lost	Lost	Lost	Lost	Lost
3	1st result	Failure	Failure	Failure	Failure
4	2nd result	1st result	Failure	Failure	Failure
5	3rd result	2nd result	1st result	Failure	Failure
6	4th result	3rd result	2nd result	1st result	Failure
7	5th result	4th result	3rd result	2nd result	1st result
8	6th result	5th result	4th result	3rd result	2nd result
9	7th result	6th result	5th result	4th result	3rd result
10	8th result	7th result	6th result	5th result	4th result

Rolling a 1 on the Deed Die always afflicts with Wizard with Corruption, unless Luck is spent to prevent it. This makes Corruption significantly more likely than standard Wizards.

Spellburn cost increases depending on how much you wish to increase the Deed Die by.

Deed Die Increase	Ability Cost
+1	1
+2	3
+3	6
+4	10
+5	15
+6	21