Thursday 6 February 2014

Al-mi’raj for DCC

An al-mi’raj appears to be a large rabbit, often with yellowish, blue, or black fur.  It has a one-foot-long pearly horn rising from its forehead.  Al-mi’raj have a natural ability to sense open spaces within 15 feet of them, as well as a limited ability to teleport.  They live in warrens, often built around abandoned burrows, sealed tombs, and other spaces without any obvious entrance or egress.  They are not aggressive, unless their warrens are breached.  Even then, al-mi’raj tend to flee rather than fight.  To many treasure-seekers, al-mi’raj are less of a challenge than an indication that a hidden tomb might exist nearby. Any treasure thus found is incidental, being part of the al-mi’raj lair rather than something intentionally collected by the creatures.

Al-mi’raj can teleport up to a distance of 20 feet as part of their movement each round.  They can also do so when, gaining a Reflex (DC equal to attack roll total) to avoid the attack.  An al-mi’raj who makes this save may automatically places itself into a position where it gains a +2 bonus to its own attack roll.

whenever possible, al-mi'raj flee via teleportation, teleporting into any hidden open space within 15 feet.  Since al-mi’raj burrows tend to be rabbit-like warrens, there is almost always such a space available.  In their lair, however, al-mi’raj stand to fight.  In this case, they gain a +2 bonus on their attack rolls anytime they successfully teleport away from an attack.

Attempts to domesticate these creatures have, thus far, been utter failures.  Indeed, with their ability to teleport, even managing to keep them captive is nearly impossible.

Al-mi'raj:  Init +4; Atk impale +0 melee (1d3); AC 12; HD 1d4; MV 20’ plus teleport; Act 1d16; SP teleport; SV Fort -2, Ref +8, Will +0; AL N.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Ravencrowking,

    In a recent post of yours you asked for input on what we'd like to hear from you, and you got nothing but the loud sound of crickets in response. I've read all your posts on this site and found the ones on designing sandboxes and player agency to be very interesting stuff. Can you offer more comments on player agency? Some things to consider might be along the lines of introducing PC choice.

    If the referee is offering meaningful choices, how can he/she do it without being too heavy handed and obvious, in a way that is still plausible and minimally damages immersion?

    Is offering any advice on techniques of employing player skills advisable? If magazines provide tips and tricks for players to survive delves and hex crawls, is there any reason the referee can't also do the same before play begins?

    How lethal should an adventure be? That's a broad question, but reading something like LotFP, Raggi makes it clear he thinks it's a responsibility of the Ref to make sure the game is lethal, but has means to survive it. Do you have any guides for frequency of encounters being beneath/ at the same approximate level/ and beyond the levels of the PCs' party? How do you handle ambushes, since I think if they are played realistically, they should typically end in TPKs. Thanks for any ideas on these.

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.