If you have never read any of the Hawkmoon novels, the
setting is the future (and hopefully alternate) Tragic Millennium, where the
Dark Empire of Granbretan (Great Britain) is in the process of conquering what
remains of Europe. It is a post-Apocalyptic setting where there is still a fair
amount of technology being used, especially by Granbretan. Judges who wish may
find Mutant
Crawl Classics and/or the Umerica
setting useful if they are creating campaigns in the Tragic Millennium. This
series of posts will assume the use of Dungeon Crawl Classics, with the
goal of converting the material to a usable DCC adventure.
Hawkmoon has a very different take on skills, artifacts, and
statistics than Dungeon Crawl Classics or Mutant Crawl Classics. We will need
to decide whether or not we want to take things as they are, turn technology
into magic, or make other adjustments to move closer to mainline DCC. If you’ve
ever read or run Silent
Nightfall, you will know that mixing magic and technology doesn’t
bother me in the slightest. In addition, I think it is worthwhile to preserve
the flavor of the original adventure when converting it.
Getting
There
The text provides a hook and discusses skill checks that might be
needed to shorten the journey to the adventure location. It is probably
somewhat worthwhile to consider other hooks that might be dropped later in the
campaign if the players do not jump at the first one. I would also strongly
urge you to consider what might happen during a 60-mile journey through hilly
woodlands infested with mutant animals.
If the NPC providing the hook had some form of “wondrous artifact”
said to come from the ruin, the players might be more likely to follow up on
the hook. For instance, he could have a butane lighter. Even if the PCs steal
it from him, the judge has done little harm to the campaign. Expectation of greater
things could easily whet the players’ interests.
Likewise, the judge could create a random encounter list and/or
place set encounters en route to the main adventure location. The remains of
other ancient buildings (intact or not, and possibly inhabited) act as
signposts that the PCs are heading in the right direction. The aforementioned Silent
Nightfall has a simple method of creating mutant animals that could be
of some use. Likewise, other remains of “the black road” (Point Four in the
“Outside the Compound” section) might still remain and help guide the PCs to
the main adventure location.
Remember, in a sandbox setting, it is entirely okay for the PCs to
miss things, including whole adventure locations. The judge can (and should)
place hooks to other adventure sites in every location they create or use. This
might draw players’ interest back to the things that they missed, or simply
supply a sense of mystery and verisimilitude. Either way is okay.
If you are running a one-shot, on the other hand, it is not only
reasonable to narrate the hook and journey as part of the adventure setup – it
is in this case recommended. Neither adds anything significant to the adventure
as written.
Outside
the Compound
There are four areas (or “points”) described outside the
compound (the main adventure site). The first two of these provide potential
camping/resting spots. The fourth (the black road) is color. The third (the
stream) provides a challenge, so I will take a closer look at it. The text of
the adventure reads:
Water dragons are carnivorous
plants. They somewhat resemble water lilies, but have black flowers and the
edges of their floating leaf pads are extremely sharp and coated with an
anticoagulant chemical. Water dragons can whip their leaf pads around with lightning
speed, but cannot reach more than a half-meter or so from where they are rooted
in the river shallows. A successful Biological Lore is needed to recognize
these plants and know the danger.
Anyone walking though a mass of
water dragons is attacked 1d8 times a round by the plants. Each ford takes two
rounds to wade through. An adventurer can try to run, taking one round to get
through the ford, but he must also succeed at a DEX x 3 roll or he trips and
falls, taking 1d3 more rounds to get up and scramble out of the river, during
which time the water dragons flail madly.
Each water dragon attack has a 30%
chance of striking home. Any successful attack does 1d3 damage. If the damage
penetrates the target’s armor, the anticoagulant causes him to suffer an
additional hit point loss each turn until a successful First Aid stops the
bleeding.
The adventurers can attack the
water dragons if they want. The plants only have a single hit point each and no
armor. Any successful attack severs the stalk and sends the plant floating down
stream. If the adventurers try to destroy the plants by spreading burning oil
or something similar on the water, the plants pull their pads and flower
beneath the surface until the stream’s current floats the annoyance away. Each
ford has 20-30 separate water dragons. Perhaps some kind of sharp-toothed rake
could be improvised to dredge a path through the plants. But the quickest
solution is to run through as fast as possible, trusting in your armor to
protect you.
If the adventurers are discouraged
from using the fords because of the water dragons, they might try to swim a
deeper part of the stream. Even here, the shallows are infested with the
bothersome plants, but a successful Jump roll will carry the leaper right over
the plants into the deeper part of the stream. A successful Swim roll gets the
user safely across, and a second successful Jump roll gets him over the far
shore’s accumulation of plants.
In DCC terms, we might say:
It takes two rounds to wade through
the ford. Water dragons attack once each character 1d8 times each round, -5
melee (1d3 damage). Those hit suffer an additional 1 hp damage per turn until
the bleeding is stopped with a DC 7 Intelligence check (remember untrained PCs
make this check with 1d10). Characters can run through with a successful DC 12
Reflex save; otherwise they fall and take an additional 1d3 rounds to clear the
ford. Away from the fords, the plants can be avoided by a DC 5 Strength or
Agility check, a DC 10 Strength check to swim across the stream, and a DC 10
Strength or Agility check to leap out of the stream over the plants on the far
side – Armor Check Penalties apply to all these rolls.
The water dragons are too dense for
melee attacks to be effective, but an area-affect attack which does 25 hp
damage is effective. Floating burning oil on the surface is not, as the plants
can simply submerge until the stream’s current floats the oil away.
The attack modifier was based on a 30% chance of hitting an
unarmored average person (15+ to hit AC 10), with AC modifiers rather than
damage reduction helping to protect better protected PCs. You will notice that
I gave no check to recognize the danger. This is in keeping with the general
“Make Monsters Mysterious” vibe of DCC. Dangers of all sorts may be mysterious.
Alternatively, the judge could create a potential encounter
with water dragons leading to this sight, which would give the PCs a chance to
recognize them. If your players are anything like mine, though, the black
flowers are probably enough to prompt a cautious approach.
Inside the Compound
There are three things we need to deal with here: (1) the
treasure, (2) creature statblocks, and (3) the Bio-Warfare Lab.
In terms of (1), it is probably safe to acknowledge that
your PCs will not be ripping out the commodes to install them in their home
base. There are, however, a lot of books and some weapons that the PCs may
certainly appreciate. I assume that “23s” is the equivalent of 23 sp, and this
works in most cases, although you may occasionally wish to raise this to gp
value, so that a “gold ring holding a sapphire” is worth 30 gp instead of 30
sp/3 gp.
If a book has a potential to raise a PC’s level in a skill
(Chemical Lore, for instance), we can just say that the PC’s die for related
skill checks goes up. Untrained is 1d10, and trained is 1d20, so there are
three steps in the standard dice chain (d12, d14, d16) we could use. Or we
could grant a +1 bonus per +5% otherwise gained. Finally, we could link some of
these books to specific spells, possibly with unique Mercurial Magic based off
the books themselves.
For weapons, I have no problem with a .38 revolver doing
1d8+2 damage if the rounds misfire half the time and you need to figure out how
to clean and oil the weapon before using it. I would suggest an initial DC 20
Intelligence check (on 1d20) to determine what needs to be done, with a
cumulative +2 bonus for every week spent examining the weapon.
Nonetheless, there is very little in this adventure for DCC
characters to scavenge. The judge may wish to include a few generic odds and
ends which the PCs may recover and find some use for. Crawling Under a Broken Moon,
Umerica,
and (to a lesser extent) Mutant Crawl Classics have random
tables that might be of some use here. The judge may also simply turn out their
own pockets or look around their own homes for inspiration. Pencils, pens, a
manual coffee grinder, tweezers, fingernail clips, and a grater are all items
within my immediate surroundings as I write this, for instance. Items like
paper clips, a stapler, and bull clips are more valuable in a world where they
are no longer easily purchasable.
Creature Statblocks
This adventure includes handwolves, sabrecats, and a group
of five mutants as primary opponents.
Handwolves are mutants descended from domesticated dogs,
whose forepaws have become manipulative appendages like hands. They are able to
walk on their hind legs and wield weapons. Providing statistics for these
creatures should not be hard; simply modify the wolf statblock from the core rulebook like so:
Wolf, common: Init +3; Atk bite +2 melee (1d4); AC 12; HD 1d6; MV
40’; Act 1d20; SV Fort +3, Ref +2, Will +1; AL L.
Handwolf: Init +3; Atk bite +2 melee (1d4) or by weapon +3 melee
(by weapon); AC 12; HD 1d6; MV 40’ or 20’ on hind legs; Act 1d20; SV Fort +3,
Ref +2, Will +1; AL N.
If you wish your handwolves to be more dangerous, you could
modify the dire wolf statblock instead:
Dire Handwolf: Init +5; Atk bite +6 melee (1d6+2) or be weapon +7
melee (by weapon+2); AC 14; HD 2d6; MV 40’ or 20’ on hind legs; Act 1d20; SV
Fort +4, Ref +4, Will +3; AL N.
You will note that I made the use of weapons slightly
advantageous to the creatures. I penalized movement on their hind legs, and I
shifted alignment from lawful to neutral because only three handwolves are
present in the scenario, suggesting that they may be less apt to form packs
than their canine forebears.
Likewise, the five mutants can be built off of the bandit
statblock, with modifications for the weapons, armor, and mutations given in
the text. I am also going to modify hit dice to better represent what is seen
in the text, and to reflect the mutants’ position as the primary antagonists in
the adventure.
Bandit: Init +2; Atk scimitar +2 melee (1d8+1) or javelin +3
missile fire (1d6); AC 15; HD 1d8; MV 20’; Act 1d20; SV Fort +2, Ref +2, Will
+0; AL C.
“Orlo’s skin is tough and leathery, and covered with great
calloused lumps, giving him 1d6-1 points of armor, but greatly reducing his
DEX. He wears leather armor in addition to his tough skin. He does not have
enough DEX to use his poleaxe, so the damage he does is halved.”
In DCC, your Agility doesn’t have to meet any threshold to
use a polearm, but we want to keep the “tough but clumsy” flavor. He takes 2
points less damage from any attack, and his leather armor doesn’t fit any
normal humanoid. Here is our Orlo:
Orlo: Init +0; Atk polearm +0 melee (1d10); AC 14; HD 2d8; hp 12;
MV 20’; Act 1d20; SP DR 2; SV Fort +4, Ref +0, Will +0; AL C.
“Uvas is a giant, over 2.5 meters tall (nearly 9 feet). He
has not stopped growing since he was 13 years old. Someday, he will grow too
big, and his legs will snap.” Ulvas is given a CHA (Personality) of 4 and a CON
(Stamina ) of 21, as well as an 18 STR (Strength), reflected below:
Uvas: Init +1; Atk spear +5 melee (1d8+3) or short bow +3 ranged
(1d6); AC 11; HD 3d8+18; hp 37; MV 30’; Act 1d20; SV Fort +9, Ref +1, Will -2;
AL C.
“Egrinn’s skin is slate-blue, with large raised purple
blemishes. She has no other mutations. Her mutations did not manifest
themselves until after puberty, and she remembers her former life well. If
adventurers could somehow offer her a reasonable chance to rejoin human
society, she’d leap at it. She wears chain armor.” She is also listed as having
“Ambush 72%, Cut Purse 72%, Dodge 55%” so I am going to give her some
thief-like skills. Her low Will save is based off of a listed CHA (Personality)
of 2.
Egrinn: Init +1; Atk cudgel +2 melee (1d4+1) or short bow +3
missile fire (1d6); AC 16; HD 2d8; hp 14; MV 20’; Act 1d20; SP stealth +7, Pick
Pockets +7; SV Fort +2, Ref +4, Will -4; AL C.
“Zharge has extremely delicate bones. Any damage that
penetrates his half-plate armor is doubled.” Because DCC doesn’t use armor as
damage resistance under most circumstances, it is far easier to lower Zharge’s
hit points that double damage every time he is hurt.
Zharge: Init +0; Atk warhammer +3 melee (1d10+1); AC 17; HD 2d8-4; hp
10; MV 20’; Act 1d20; SV Fort +0, Ref +2, Will +0; AL C.
“Igoa has a third eye in the left-middle of her forehead,
and her left arm ends in a whip of gristle and skin. She wears crudely
sewn-together leather armor.” For some reason, that whip doesn’t do anything to
Igoa’s stats in the original adventure, but we will fix that. I gave her an
extra action die so that she can use the gristle-whip in addition to another
attack:
Igoa: Init +2; Atk cudgel +1 melee (1d4) or gristle-whip +2 melee
(1d3) or thrown rock +2 ranged (1d3); AC 12; HD 2d8+8; hp 20; MV 30’; Act 2d20;
SV Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +0; AL C.
In Hawkmoon, each creature in a group
is given its own statblock. In the case of the five mutants, above, this allows
each individual to have its own flavor and abilities. In the case of
near-homogenous creatures, like the three handwolves described above, or the
four sabrecats we are going to look at below, this doesn’t add enough in DCC to
make the effort worthwhile.
Sabrecats “are descended from wildcats and have grown
somewhat. Their forepaws have been transformed into knife-sharp scythes of
bone, and they rear onto their hind legs to fight. If the adventurers can get
away from the cats into the open, they can easily outrun the sabrecats, whose
ground movement is impeded by their enormous fighting claws, though they can
still climb just fine.”
Init: The four sample sabrecats have DEX 15 to 21, and Dexterity
corresponds to Agility in DCC. I am inclined to average this out at a +2 bonus.
Atk: Again, we are dealing with four separate ranges, but I think
1d6 as a baseline for their claw attacks works, as it is analogous to a short
sword. The cats can also bite, so we’ll make that 1d3 damage is it is not their
primary attack. I think that +3 to hit works for the claws, and +1 for the
bite.
AC: The monster has Parry 48-59% and 2 points of Armor. Assuming
the armor is for thick fur, let’s make it AC 13 (+2 for Agility, and +1 for the
fur).
HD: Hit points are listed as 5, 12, 13, and 14. HD 2d8 allows for
this range.
MV: If the PCs can easily outrun the sabrecats in an open area,
let’s give them MV 10’. Since climbing is unimpeded, we can add a 20’ climb
speed as well.
Act: Because we want the sabrecats to be able to use both claws, we
give them 2d20. We could raise that to 3d20 to allow for a bite each round, but
I don’t see them biting instead of clawing. If a claw is damaged (due to a
critical hit or mighty deed), the creature can start using its teeth.
SP: There are no indications of special abilities.
SV: Looking at the listed DEX and CON for these creatures can give
us an idea as to how Reflex and Fortitude saves should be converted. We’ve
already granted +2 to Initiative, and I am inclined to raise Reflex save
modifiers to +4. Fortitude is a matter of Stamina (CON), which seems to average
to a +1 bonus. That fur might help to, so we can say +2. We don’t have any real
guidance for Will, and I see no reason to go higher than +0. Fort +2, Ref +4,
Will +0.
AL: As normal (albeit mutated) animals, Neutral is appropriate.
Crit: Following the table on page 385 of the core rulebook, we get
a result of M/1d8.
Put altogether, our statblock looks like this:
Sabrecat: Init +2; Atk claw +3 melee (1d6) or bite +0 melee (1d3); AC
13; HD 2d8; MV 10’ or climb 20’; Act 2d20; SV Fort +2, Ref +4, Will +0; AL N;
Crit M/1d8.
Bio-Warfare
Lab
If this vial is broken, everyone
within the room will die of super-pneumonia in 2d10 hours. If any of the
outside doors or windows are opened, the disease will escape and eventually
wipe out all human life within fifty kilometers (before the rulers of Bavaria
and Shekia quarantine the entire region, preventing all entry upon pain of
death).
If you are going to use this adventure in DCC, you need to realize
that the PCs may well take the vial, and not open it until reaching some more
populated area. If this happens, my recommendation would be to just roll with
it.
In terms of game mechanics, there is no save to prevent infection
if you are present when the vial is opened. Later, allow a DC 20 Fort save each
time to contagion is encountered to avoid contracting it. Every hour, an
infected person is allowed a DC 15 Fort save to avoid 1d3 damage to Strength,
Agility, and Stamina (determine each point randomly), with death occurring at 0
Strength or Stamina. Even if the disease is cured by magic, the victim remains
susceptible to future infection. At the judge’s secretion, a neutralize poison or disease spell with
a result of 34+ may destroy the released super-pneumonia while it is still
contained (either by the vial or within the Bio-Warfare lab).
It takes an hour for the first symptoms to manifest, so if the PCs
have opened the vial, the disease has probably escaped before they are aware of
it.
Next: Hawkmoon: The
Chatillon Caverns
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