Crab Temple Random Encounters

So my PCs for a DCC game went through the Time Portal in Frozen in Time. The time and world they arrive on is somewhat inspired by a Dungeon Dozen post and contains Marlinko and the Slumbering Ursine Dunes. But all that worldbuilding ain't where we're at; we're in a crab temple! The upper levels contain ships that fly through the sky (thanks to a large fluffy plant stalk embedded as the main mast); the lower level is full of somewhat hostile crab folk.

Crab Folk Stats

They're about 4 to 5 feet tall crabs wearing belts, with spears or crossbows. They have wet sponges and 1d6 coppers in their belt pouches and bleed blue blood. They can speak to humans via translator orbs (a chittering-to-Common Ioun Stone, DC 19 to steal, AC 19, hp 2), if they bother to have them.

HD 1d8. +1 to hit. 12 AC. Mov 30' (or whatever a human can do). Spear (1d8) or Crossbow (1d6) and 10 bolts. +1 to all saves.

Max HP: Elite. Has a d3 attack/damage bonus, 14 AC in built-up excess temporary chitin. Can use Mighty Deeds as a lvl 1 warrior.

Tactics: Pincer attack! Flank! Fall back! Defend crossbowmen! Acquire human ghosts! Deploy Horseshoe Crab Dogs! Establish outpost and grow another Crab Folk City!

Horseshoe Crab Dogs

HD 1d6. 12 AC. +1 Atk. 1d6 damage (biting). Mov 40'. 

Max HP: Extra aggressive. Attack has 50/50 change to either cause 1d4 damage from bleeding or knock victim prone (DC 17 Reflex save to stay on foot).

Temple Encounters

1. Crab tourist family. Dad (crossbow crab). Mom (spear crab). Daughter (gas grenade, DC 15 save or blinded for 1d4+1 rounds). Son (2 short swords, 1d6 dmg each, 2d16 to attack). Want to escape alive, parents will save kids over themselves. All kitted out in religious paraphernalia of their god, Brachyura.
2. Horseshoe crab trainers (2) armed with crossbows and knives. 2d8 Horseshoe crab dogs on leashes. One trainer has a training gong.
3.  Wandering ghost. Use a reaction roll, higher means not dangerously insane. Or less so.
4. Old man pacifist crab. Translator orb, 6 smoke bombs (humans in the smoke are blinded, infravision works through it), dagger. Wants to find snacks. Comes in and out through panels that connect him to the sewers below the temple.
5. 6 crossbow crabs with two spear-bearers. Just back from target practice.
6. Priest (blunted spear, 1d6), bearing a ghost in a lead bottle. 3 guards with lightening whips (1d4, double damage to ghosts). Priest can cast Word of Command (language difference won't matter in the eyes of Brachyura) and Paralysis. +5 to cast rolls. 3x spells a day, or can use the spell slot to cause/cure 1d6+1 HP. The ghost is as above, only 50/50 chance of being hostile, but a) the crabs can drive it about with their lightening whips and b) its hideous countenance requires a DC 12 Wil save or you freeze up for a round. The crabs are used to ghosts and do not have to make this save.
7. Stray Horseshoe crab dog. Reaction roll for hostility! Can be bribed with food; potentially a loyal and happy ally, though has a 50% chance of running off if ordered to attack crab folk.
8. 2d4 Crab sneaks. Slingshots (1d4, 2d20 action roll to use, or x2 attacks per round). +5 to sneak and picking pockets. Good at running - DC 18 to catch in a chase. Backstabbers - crit on a sneak attack.
9. 1d6+2 Opium-addled crab folk. -1 to hit (other than any Warriors). Reroll HP with advantage (pick higher of two) when rolling HP. Want to repel invaders and PARTY!
10. 1d6+3 patrolling guards. Escorting a human prisoner (level 0, occupation: sky skipper crew) to the Ghost-maker chamber for deconstitution. 

Running The Nightlight Circus

So if you have not gotten Odditional Materials, and you like Into the Odd, I heartily recommend it. It's got rules hacks like Maze Rats and Odd Dungeons, arcanum and new monstrous beings, and adventures like The Nightlight Circus, which I ran recently.

And if you don't want it spoiled, stop reading! It's a fun adventure with well-thought-out room descriptions, which describe both the rooms and the liminal connections between them (dusky smells versus fresh smells versus a staircase with light leaking through), which is great for making informed decisions. And it's got gambling and creepy folk!

The adventure is a location, the aforementioned Circus, a gambling den fronting for joy-missionaries waiting to brainwash more poor souls clapped in irons. There's a rumors table, but I figured I'd give the players more of a job or mission to have a reason to be there. The husband of a missing City Council troubleshooter hired the PCs to rescue him. Errol Brightlow, John's husband, knew the passphrase to let the PCs in, and gave them 20 pence up front to gamble with and blend in. Errol was a great reason to have them start in the Circus, rather than trying to shake the password out of random gamblers in various other parts of Bastion.

(Gambling in Into the Odd is fun! I imagine this maps to most OSR games. I decided games of chance would pay out on a 5-6 on d6, since the house clearly has an advantage. Games of skill required a WIL save to win. In games with a Wisdom score, I'd have them roll under that, possibly with a +1 per opponent.)

One of our players was rousing up a distraction, winning at cards, whilst the other used his starter package to try to read a grinning cultist's mind. Failing, he cast about for a familiar face and found... Santos Barbato, a confidant and bomb enthusiast. They spoke of the place at length and I rolled for a random encounter, discovering that a grinner had brought in vicious dogs who got loose. Toby, the professional duelist PC, ascended the bar and shot one dog down, while Lazarus abandoned his card table and rushed the south doorway, leading past the gaming front and into the quarters of the cultists.

The players killed a waiter rushing out of the gambling room, as the remaining dog caused an enormous mess of things. The waiter managed to down a companion, but they dragged him south and entered a room with a fire pit and couches, where a hugely muscled man hunkered down, captured and iron-clapped sailors imprisoned behind him. The PCs bested said man in combat, incapacitating him and stealing his thoughts, thanks to Toby's starting gear/traits - low stats and alright HP had given him telepathy. They freed prisoners and had them go through a doorway which smelt of fresh air.

Each room describes the passages out quite succinctly - well enough for the players to make decisions, without giving away more than their characters could get from standing at the threshhold. This is incredibly helpful when they're deciding where to go next.

The seriously injured strongman gave some clues as to Brightlow's location, due to our thought-stealing PC, and then was summarily thrown partway through an illusory wall, which electrified him to death. The PCs jumped through into... the Loot Room. My only regret is not pondering the loot room's description a bit more.

The loot room paragraph states that anyone disturbing the treasure would be known to the Joy Machine. That's well and good... but it is an immobile column of light, which has no obvious means of communicating with its people. If I had thought things through in advance, I would've decided that it could communicate with Copper, a beastly and mobile fellow, and send it after interlopers. As is, I figured it'll know who did things, and the cultists will be after the thieves... So a reaction perhaps more suitable to a second session, and less towards a one-shot. Hopefully I'll manage some time to run this again, and when the same players can return.

(The other question I would've answered with a bit more forethought: what happens if the players cut or destroy the electrical cables between 3 and 11? I'm sure that they could cause serious damage (d10), but what happens? Terrible, wonderful things, I'm sure. Copper running around on fire, dogs running around on fire, etc.)

Suffice to say, the players wisely snuck around / away from the Joy Machine (one had a Smart Arm oddity which was gnashing its mental teeth near it). They killed another enslaver, freed more prisoners (so now 10 random Bastiards owe the PCs their lives) and escaped, leaving an enraged/joyful Copper and company to hunt for them. Errol and John, reunited, headed home. The PCs got away with 125 silver each, and a 10g piece of Golden Lands jewelry with a melt value of 4g - they intend to find a very discreet fence and get a fuller price for it.

Twas a great adventure! The Circus-folk are wonderful, creepy characters, and it was nice that their lair has a public-facing front where the PCs can pretend to be about for legitimate reasons. I regret not thinking through the Loot Room implications, but I think it worked out fiiiine. And certainly the adventure does a good job of making dangerous things obvious - like the Joy Machine, which seemed to creep folks out.

Into the Polar Ocean: Things Get Worse

Things to do in the Polar Ocean
- Die horribly.
- Never return.
- Barely make it back to civilization as a babbling husk of your former self.

Polar exploration is something of a last resort here. There are plenty of unexplored islands and a whole continent to your South. Anyone that tries to solve the mysteries of the world by sailing North deserves what they get.

From a 2012 post Chris wrote about the Polar Ocean.

If you decide to run the awesome detachment-and-boat focused mini-module, Into the Polar Ocean, you will inevitably run into lots of times where the daily rolls indicate that things get worse, somehow.

Now if things get worse once in some unforeseen way, or twice, a GM can probably improvise and roll with it. But when things get worse in 5 different categories at once, you need something that hurts the PCs without the classic 'Rocks fall, you all die.' Unless there were several tons of floating rocks levitating above the PCs' boats, in defiance of God's Will and all Natural Law.

If things can't get worse, they find a way.

Gravity

1. A deck collapses! Lose d6 days of rations.
2. Another deck collapses! The weapons and gear of a detachment are rendered useless; their attacks are impaired.
3. Taking on super-dense water! A battalion must bail it out or the boat will not be able to move.
4. A few tons of granite appear above the ship. At least it's shady. If re-rolled, they fall, dealing d6 damage to the ship and anyone abovedeck.
5. Low gravity! Ranged attacks are enhanced, melee attacks impaired, and if the ship hits waves the wrong way it'll be floating in the air. Can be subject to falling damage if gravity ratchets back up.
6. The boats develop their own gravity! One can walk along the walls or the sides of the hull. If in close proximity to one another, the ships may ram into one another for d6 damage to each.

Perception

1. One battalion sees the other as Agents of The Enemy, and will attack! Getting between the two to stop this brawl is a risky act.
2. Darkness blots all but your peripheral vision. All attacks are impaired. There are good chances (50/50 or make a WIL save) to go in the direction you want to go in, otherwise you go the opposite direction.
3. There's too much static screaming in your ears for any verbal communication. You can barely think.
4. A shuddering, jumpy image of an Astral God's Human Form is on deck. d4 WIL damage if you have business up there. Battalions will need to be cajoled or beaten to get up there and work.
5. The PCs appear to be Agents of the Enemy, and at least one battalion will hunt the ship for them today.
6. A giant crab swims up to the ship and begins attacking it! This is entirely illusory, but a battalion may fire on it and damage the ship, or any neighboring ships. WIL save to get them to cease fire, if you can even tell this is an illusion.

Time

1. You and your crew need d4 Rations to get through today, as it seems to never end.
2. 50/50 chance you do the opposite of your stated intentions, as you have fallen into the wrong timeline.
3. Future-version of your ship sails by. d4 WIL damage, but each PC can reroll any one roll thanks to their (terrified, terrifying) advice. Touching your time-duplicate will do d6 damage; the applies to ships as well. Basically, Timecop rules. Remember Timecop?
4. Accelerated entropy. Boat takes d6 dmg. If it is armored, armor can reduce damage, but is damaged in turn and will provide 1 fewer point of protection until repaired.
5. Fast time! You may skip one level of dice-rolling (d4 can go straight to d8, or vice versa) because of the velocity you gain. Also age 2 years and 10 years go by in Bastion.
6. Time loop! You start each day with this day's stats, in the same place, and must figure out a way to get out. After a day or two some Astral God vision should start giving clues about how to get out, feel free to make up more scenarios/ways out. WAYS OUT: a) everyone must be Good To One Another. Requires at least a WIL save, probably some extra rations burned up making bathtub gin. b) Break the Flying Hour Glass that suddenly started circling the ships. 8 hp 1 armor, d10 dmg (slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. literally slings and arrows.).  

Matter

1. Organic beings corrupted! Role on a mutations table. 
2. Boat becomes sentient, may or may not want to be a part of this foolishness. Does not want to die. 2d6 WIL.
3. Water is a powerful intoxicant. Beer and rum doubly so. Battalions may become totally (and understandably) wasted, given how bad everything probably is.
4. Wood grows. You have to hack through doors (d4 hp), the mast is twice as tall, rigging and sails must be improvised or cannibalized from other boats.
5. Rations scurry about! A battalion must hunt for them today or you will lose d6 rations. If they hunt them, the scurrying parts of the rations will count as an extra ration, if you can choke that down or sufficiently disguise it.
6. Gunpowder works too well! If firearms or cannons are used, they work once and then are rendered broken.

Energy

1. All organic beings sparkle with electricity. Contact deals d6 dmg to both. 
2. All organic beings are incredibly fast today! You can run at super-speeds but it's a DEX save or slam into something for d8 damage. DEX save for any fine or delicate work.
3. It seems to require more force to achieve the same acceleration. Battalions must be encouraged to get any work done, and an extra d4 rations will be consumed.
4. So cold, icebergs form in jagged, submerged masses. The boats must be carefully piloted to avoid d6 damage.
5. Light is slowed. Ranged attacks impossible, nothing is quite where it appears to be. Good luck driving the boat through any obstacles.
6. Standing water boils, always. The water already inside your body is fine. No one can drink water, giving a disadvantage on any rolls requiring cerebral acts or endurance (disadvantage: roll twice, take the worse of the two rolls). If injured (STR damage), then the wound may expose blood and deal an extra d4 damage as it boils.

Into the Odd: One Page Ruleset is awesome

I ran Into the Odd for a friend, using the Underground area generator in the one-page edition, which was awesome. I had zero prep, other than reading one-page encounters and locations, and playing a bit of this solo through the same area. It was my friend's first time playing any tabletop game; he enjoyed it enough that he's bought his own set of dice and will probably try to run ItO on his own at some point.

His character, Trent, and Trent's companions, Finn and Kathi, awoke in the Underground after fleeing a failing expedition. We began at location (4), the horrible merging machine. After creating a terrible weapon - a throwing club - and an over-large brick that was soft as shale, and no random encounters wandered through, they moved on. There were 4 exits to the room, and it was at this point I realized I didn't want the player to have to pick a direction blindly. I rolled for the next 4 areas, and improvised some artifact or sound or smell which would let him make some kind of decision. Due South was area (9), an abandoned train station full of luggage and blood, so he saw a single sock in the corridor. (8) was East, with its mounted guns, so he could see a dull brass cartridge. North was (11), so, a smell of mildew and the sounds of faint singing, from a lake and its talking fish. West was a fighting pit (10), so he could smell sweat.

I was rather proud of this detail; I didn't want him to make navigational decisions without any clues to what he could find. He kept the Northern route in mind, but headed South, where he gathered up 4 silver in goods and his first random encounter: Ivo Calico, hungover aristo. After sufficiently insulting the three, going on about parties and how the Golden Lands are a Bastion city council conspiracy, Ivo offers them a gold each to walk him out of the Underground and back to Bastion. Trent accepts.

The first monstrous random encounter occurs, where a huge block of flesh clomps down the train-tracks. Trent and co. hide and, DEX save made, are not discovered. They head North and North again, arriving at the lake of talking, lying fish.

The fish tell Trent to take the stairs down, if he finds any, to leave the Underground (in reality this makes encounters more frequent). They say that the Underground is upside-down, and the way out the top is further down. They also say they'll trade rations for silver coins, which excites Trent's avarice. He throws a ration into the lake and waits. And waits. He concludes the fish are full of shit, and moves on East-South-East, towards the sounds of chanting.

Naked old men worshiping Arcanum awaited the four. A WIL save and humble pleading meant that one of them could direct Trent and co. out, due North.

The way out turned out to be an ambush; Finn fell in combat, but Trent and Kathi and even Ivo managed to drive off the mutant weirdos. Finn, bandaged, recovered as they marched out into Bastion. Ivo insisted they all sit down for a daguerreotype, so he could remember these common-blooded idiots in perpetuity, and later paid them their due.

Forlorn North / Frozen in Time hexcrawl encounters

An encounter table for the Forlorn North, the setting in Goodman Games' Frozen in Time. This was, of course, heavily influenced by Goblinpunch's Have a Nicer Trip, which does random encounters so well.

1. Death Yaks
   1. Charging at you, chased by 1d20 wolves
   2. 3d4 Herders, 6d10 death yaks. Herders looking for a missing one in a nearby summit/vale, will pay for its return
2. Flying Laser Ursine - stats are in Crawling Under a Broken Moon, issue 10. If you cannot pony up the dosh, take bear stats, add a laser attack, flight, and laser grapple. They serious business.
   1. 1d2 adorable, friendly cubs. Mother arrives in 2d6 rounds. She will not be happy if the PCs are doing roughly anything other than fleeing.
   2. Caught in a Portable Prison, some old cage-generating relic. Lockpick to free, dc 10 if you use DC. 2d4 rounds till a Hill Giant nomad comes by to check his trap.
   3. Fighting an owlbear. Dead death yak is burning low off to one side, 50% a small localized forest fire results.
3. Hermit
   1. Actually Tsrura, Petty God of Time's Wintery Death(#176). Watching frozen trees drop branches, or ice crystalize over a puddle. Friendly PCs will be ignored, angry/bitchy PCs will get Hexed, Cursed, or Geas'd to wander 100 miles away. Those PCs will end up somewhere else, very short on supplies.
   2. Hiding in a tree. 1d5+1 wolves below. Will join party as a Level 1 Cleric of Crom. Not initially an exemplary example of Crom's devout. 9hp, STR 9 AGI 9 CON 7 INT 9 PER/WIS 16 Luck 9. Sack, 4 torches, 3 days rations, waterskin, thick fur cloak (+2 AC), empty longsword sheath.
4. White Ape Science Villains
   1. Escorting 2d4 captured tribesfolk to a nearby Crystal Dome habitat.
   2. Trying to repair their crashed Ornithopter. Sloppy perimeter established as the boss is too busy chewing everyone out.
   3. Raiding a tribesfolk tent-town, set up around an old Hyperborean statue. The tribesfolk are all Bentbacked, hobbit-sized, and vicious, bleeding black blood and suicide bombing the White Apes, who fire some kind of ray emitter. The village is burning.
5. Sabre-toothed tigers
   1. Eating a mammoth carcass. The bones are scrimshawed and look to be made of silver. The smilodons will not appreciate PCs trying to walk away with part of their kill.
   2. Starving, mangy. Will stalk PCs and attack at night. Bite attacks: save (vs poison) or start developing rabies.
6. Meks: War refugees
   1. Seeking guides to Gonewater, a Hyperborean (space) port
   2. Pursued by Last Castle deathbots, 1 hour lead at present.
7. Krib Mountain Cultists
   1. Carting a vat full of the cut-up remains of a upper-level member. Will be reincarnated at Krib Mountain.
   2. Disguised as merchants, looking for 'escorts,' sacrifices. Hollow Ones.
   3. Conducting a ritual around standing stones. A few nomads are inside and cannot seem to leave - the air itself seems to wall them in.
8. Nomads
   1. Religious pilgrims to Moothill. Accepting of PCs tagging along.
   2. Successful hunters w/ furs and food to trade. One has an emerald plucked from a demon's eye socket in Whitethorpe.
9. Merchants
   1. Lost. Cheap prices for guides to Moothill.
   2. Flush with gems, riding yak-pulled floating disks. Willing to take passengers.
10. Bentback tribesfolk. Hateful mutant-things, can be bargained with if you're clearly outclassing them, 50% they follow and try to ambush you when you sleep. 1HD, d6 spears, AC as leather, darkvision 80'. Have 1d4-1 bombs (2d6 dmg) and will make traps and try to lead you into them with fake retreats, or just rush you and detonate them.
    1. Besieging a human tribe's current location, holed up in a hillside ruin.
    2. Turning their village into a multi-level Siege Tower! At the top the PCs can see a golden saucer-shaped device. (Given a few more weeks work, it may be rolled towards a human village. The device at the top can fire a beam which sets buildings afire. 3d12 damage, save (reflex or breathe) for half. It would require a small army to move and is worth 3000 gp to a king, if you can wash it out first.)
11. Odobenmen - walrus-folk. Bipedal walruses. If you don't have stats from Frozen in Time, 1HD, d6 swords, AC as leather.
    1. Wearing mind-control collars, carrying a poorly-drawn map, heavily armed and wary. Crossbowmen with AC as leather, chain mail clad warriors.
    2. Desperate refugees, trying to escape mind control. One wears a control collar in secret and is scouting for adventurers with treasure.

The joke is, my players jumped through time and/or space and are no longer in the Forlorn North, but hopefully this will serve someone else well!

To make an encounter table you must first create a world

Fortunately, part of the world was given to me, thanks to the Forlorn North Gazetteer in Frozen in Time. It is a land of semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers, yetis, white-ape science villains, and Hyperborean ruins of ancient, advanced technology.

To the North is the Rime King and his Palace of Jewels. Between the Forlorn North and him, a glacier of frost wights, bore bugs, sabre-toothed ice bears. Not many non-combat encounters. Lots of harsh conditions.

To the West is a frozen ocean. PCs could boat through it in the summer, or sled on it in the winter, as long as they expect the ice to melt and plan accordingly.

Eastwards, tundra and taiga give way to volcanoes. Pterodactyls loft through the skies, and Hyperborean ruins still dot the lands. In an ancient castle, the Perilous League houses a local planetary chapter. Elementals of fire and earth rage against one another. Probably some Meks or Castle-bred or Aetherians seek to ally themselves with one set of elementals or another, possibly to have some kind of proxy war.

To the South, I see the Sanctum Sanctorum's Last Castle supplement for DCC coming in handy. Meks and Aristocrats and Freemen, fighting it out. Also, possibly, Aetherians as presented in Crawling Under a Broken Moon, number 5.

Even Further North/South/East/West: I'll probably start making stuff from Mutant Crawl Classics. Hopefully I have it by the time the PCs go that far.

To create an Encounter Table, you also need Regional Assholes

I'm taking this out of An Echo, Resounding, because I steal all my ideas from Kevin Crawford. Basically, if you want to unleash the PCs in a sandbox, you want it to already have some regional assholes - people or things that are making life worse for everyone, people who the PCs might hear about, but they sure as hell feel the impact of the douchers being around. You don't want them to reach level 5 and suddenly hear about some warlord with an army - it's going to feel like the warlord teleported in, which, if true, that's fine. But otherwise it's going to be obvious you're gating your world to the PCs level.

From Frozen in Time, I have some regional assholes and some others I'm making up.

Mutant Frost Giant, 'Mammoth Master.' He's big, he's a frost giant, he has +21 to hit and will fucking eat you. He's trapping mammoths so the tribes are getting hungry; he wants to rule the region and is extorting people by messing with the food supply. Also he wants the nomads to fight among themselves so the meanest, fightiest rise to the top and work for him. He has an enslaved cyclops ghost-binder, hill giant lieutenants, nomadic tribal quislings who figure they'll rule some hill as proxies. And a fort/dungeon/mammoth pen. He's the biggest bad. PCs are going to start knowing their people need food badly. (Taken from FiT.)

Odobenmen Enslaver, Technology Quester. Someone or some thing is enslaving odobenmen, the walrus-men of the Forlorn North, and forcing them to search ancient hyperborean ruins for... something. Lots of families and walrus-kids are hostages. Odobenmen are traditionally not friendly with the human and demihuman tribes, but PCs should find both enslaved, mind-controlled Odobenmen and fleeing, harried refugees begging for help. (Taken from FiT.)

Krib Mountain Cultists. Something slumbers in the Krib Mountains, and the Krib Mountain Cultists are trying to wake it. They raid tribesfolk for sacrifices and slaves, often disguised as traveling merchants. They have Hollow Ones in their ranks. Whatever they seek to awaken will wreck havoc on the Forlorn North. (Sleeping Elder God implied heavily in FiT.)

Then you need some people who are less powerful, but still people or things those in the region would hear about.

Broken Tooth, Warlord. A failed noble exiled from the Last Castle, Broken Tooth is amassing warriors to take the fight to the South. He's not above conscripting and press-ganging, though he'll probably present a good face to the PCs. At first. He has airs of being above everyone, somewhat belied by shattered front teeth. People learn quickly not to discuss this feature.

Man-thinking smilodons. The peoples of the North are used to the saber-toothed cats - fearsome predators, but they tend to hunt alone, and take those who wander alone. They rarely approach groups of humans but for the direst circumstances. Something has changed. Gossip portrays of packs of smilodons, speaking to one another in sibilant, coarse language. Your people say that the Warfire tribe was decimated by such, with few survivors fleeing into the night. On the wind, the refugees could hear the mocking laughter of smilodons. 

Temple of Asara, Goddess of Peace. The pilgrims and crusaders of Asara have come to the Forlorn North to battle the adherents of Crom, which is a lot of the tribesfolk. Asara desires not the peace of families or friends, but the peace of nothingness, and no one to regard it. Humans are a plague against this, and the Forlorn North has many who strive against such, who have eaked out life for generations without the tender ministrations of Asara. Her crusaders carry steel maces, often dipped in pitch, and light them on fire as they quietly rush spear-wielding warriors. The roughshod wooden temple is a fortress, attempting to stop a major merchant route from bringing goods to the Northfolk.

Earth Elemental Recruiters. They have shattered an Eastward forest on their way to the Krib Mountains, and will probably crush more underfoot, seeking allies to arouse in their wars to the East. Few in number, but quite disruptive to hunters and gatherers. 

Mek FOB. From the South, the once-enslaved bug-men of the Castled Nobles have marched on the North. For now they content themselves to invade ancestral structures and Hyperborean ruins. They have taken over a traditional meeting place of Northfolk, Moothill, where tribes (and goblins and ogres) could come together in peace and trade words. The Meks drove out the Windwarders and their guests, and seem to be disassembling parts of the ancient tower.

Solo DCC Funnel for Fun and Practice

I wanted to run a funnel in some spare time, for practice. I really like using a solo engine to learn about a given system, and to suss out anything I'd want to change about a module in advance. Running a solo game gives me a better feel for the ergonomics of a module. It's not everyone's cup o' tea, but I enjoy it. There are some modifications to the rules, described below.

I snagged Kevin Crawford's wonderful Stellar Heroes. You can also use the more fantasy-oriented Black Streams: Solo Heroes. I use his model for damage, and fray dice. Each PC gets a 1d4 Fray die, and can use it the way a wizard in Solo Heroes would - so they can use it on any enemy, regardless of HD, as long as they could plausibly make an attack against said enemy. Once the PCs level up, they'll get whichever fray dice make sense for their class - for DCC, this is described best in Black Streams. Wizards get the 1d4, warriors get 1d8, everyone else gets 1d6. Elves pick between 1d4 and 1d6.

Level-0 scrubs are not experts in their fields, but I figure I'd give each one an auto-success per game on one non-combat check. I didn't use Defy Death at all, as it doesn't seem appropriate for a level 0 funnel. Really, DCC is supposed to be a bit more lethal, so I imagine I'm not going to be using it at all. I'm also not adhering as strongly to the idea that there can be only one PC - DCC really suggests at low levels that you have more than one character, and I want that kind of atmosphere.

For module running, I use the Scarlet Heroes General Oracle (a 'yes/yes, but/no, but/ no' machine) to see what the 'player' does. This way my knowledge of the module doesn't mean the PCs always do the Most Optimal Thing. Here's a free alternative oracle if you're curious. Really stupid things may be more or less likely, but I tend to go with Unknown for most of these questions, which gives 50/50 odds.

For the solo player in a funnel, you start with 4 level 0 PCs, randomly created. I gave them all 4 + Endurance modifier hit points; after first level, they'll roll to see how much they get as per normal.

With this, I managed to clear through most of Frozen in Time, with half . Two PCs died climbing the glacier, hilariously. I forgot about the noncombat auto-succeed, first time around, then the last person to climb fell and no one climbed down to check the body. No one wanted to risk the rope climb again. Of the surviving 2, one dropped to 0 HP fighting Robby the Robot, but recovered thanks to his decent luck score. My oracular rolling indicated the place blew up before my PCs could explore 5-1 or 5-2, which probably would've claimed one of the PCs, at the very least.

I did decide to throw in some extra swag - Zepes' shimmering bathrobe basically counts as leather armor, the plant pot in the hallway outside is room has a spare palm-key and copper nuggets in the bottom. I'd imagine his kitchen-area has a bit of preserved, emergency food, which the PCs will eagerly take back to their village. Zepes' right hand was clutched around a tiny crystal which, when held, plays La Vie En Rose. The PCs had to frantically leave things behind to climb out of the glacial base before it exploded, which is what I want to deliver when I run this for other folks.

What's next is filling in some adventures, running this module for some other folks, and probably using Scarlet Heroes to generate some dungeons and wilderness adventures. Definitely will adapt this adventure about cave people exploring a crashed star, meeting a telepathic future-human. Also working out random encounters for the Forlorn North for the hexcrawling.