DisgaeaRPG/Monsterland for B/X

Welcome to Monsterland. Here is my B/X Disgaea hack.

1. No classes, everyone starts as 1-1 HD monster (Prinny)*, which is basically the Monsterland equivalent to 0level nobodies.

2. No XP, instead: Karma. Karma is earned by beating people up, lording it over humans in nasty, capitalist schemes, but mostly by stealing, theft, robbery, larceny, etc. Steal gold from other monsters, steal it from humans, steal it whenever you can. Every piece of gold stolen earns you one bad Karma. At the first 1,000 Karma and every 2,000 after that (so at 1,000, 3,000, 5,000, etc) you earn an incremental increase. Roll on this table.  At the first 2,000 Karma and every 2,000 after that (so at 2,000, 4,000, 6,000, etc), you can descend further into samsara when you next die. Of course, to earn any of these rewards, you need to die and be reborn.

(EDIT: WHOOPS! Forgot the interim increase table, my mistake)

Roll	1to3 HD	4to6 HD	7to9 HD	10+ HD
1	+1 HD in hp	+1 HD in hp	+1 HD in hp	+1 HD in hp
2	+1 HD in hp	+1 HD in hp	+1 HD in hp	+2 to hit
3	+1 HD in hp	+1 HD in hp	+2 to hit	+2 to hit
4	+1 to hit	+2 to hit	+2 to hit	+2 to damage
5	+1 to hit	+2 to hit	+2 to damage	+2 to damage
6	+1 to hit	+2 to damage	+2 to damage	+1 to crit
7	+1 to damage	+2 to damage	+1 to crit	+1 to crit
8	+1 to damage	+1 to crit	+1 to crit	retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again)
9	+1 to crit	+1 to crit	retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again)	retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again)
10	retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again)	retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again)	retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again)	retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again)

3. When you die, the gods of death and justice check your Karma to determine how awful you've been; you may earn an incremental increase that carries through from incarnation to incarnation or you may descend further into pain, fury, nastiness, glory, sex and violence and reincarnate as a more powerful monster (ie, +1 HD, roll your new form [alternatively, use the wandering monster tables by level from B/X]). After dying, you can be reborn on the battlefield, but usually you'll wake up in a pit of stinking bodyparts back in town.

4. Monster society is run by an evil Overlord and its various princes and princesses. Day-to-day life is more or less a popularity contest to see who can be the biggest, richest asshole around, with regular monster courts being held to condemn acts of kindness an reward villainy with citations and demerits.

Gold and slaves are all well and good, but citations and demerits for acts of villainy are the true currency of monsterland and can be exchanged for magical items, and super-powerful drugs, a night out on the town with some skeleton girls or zombie boys.

So, bribe your way into a court date, then lobby the members of the court, offer bribes, threaten or kill jurors and be well-known for being a real asshole. The GM will determine the president Judge (see Judges chart). The court is composed of six jurors, a president Judge and two angels.

Roll	Judge's Name	Title	Predilection	Monster Type	Variation
1	Marshall	Hack-nose	enjoys eating children	Ancient Red Dragon	+2 HD
2	Bork	Rot-face	enjoys candies from other planes	Vampire Lord	+2 Damage
3	Earlwarren	Cut-tongue	cannot abide a certain color	Demi-Lich in a pimp suit	Stern gaze attack can petrify in fear (save)
4	Ow Holmes	Long-finger	always lies, all verdicts and statements must be taken as opposite	Wyvern-Hyrdra hybrid	Outraged bellow cause lesser creatures to flee in terror (save)
5	Brandeis	Shit-stomper	is addicted to secrets, always wants more, but you've got to find a way to get them the secret “intact”	Small child, world-eater	Can swallow whole anything
6	Harlan	Gut-chewer	delights in fireworks from mass Prinny deaths	Ghoul King	Has another body hidden somewhere, ready to revenge any slight should this body be harmed

On the day of the trial, show up, state your case for how awesome a monster you are and roll a Morale check. Subtract from the roll a one for every juror present that hasn't been successfully cowed or bought. If you beat the Morale roll (ie, roll a 9+), you earn a mark of demerit and, for every point above 9, you also earn a citation of villainy. If you roll a six or less, the angels have successfully won their case and you are, to your horror and shame, considered largely a redeemable and OK person. No one will want to hang out with you and you can't get another court date until you've amassed some seriously nasty Karma and money.

5. Combat is basically B/X, but:

a. When attacking, you can choose to go "all out": this means you attack without concern for your own safety. You have a +3 chance to crit and do +3 damage, but wind up with damage equal to half the damage you ultimately cause.

b. Successful critical strikes do another attack die's worth of damage UNLESS you or someone else in the party has gone all out in a turn, in which case, critical strikes are now a team attack: you and anyone else that has gone all out that turn attack in a coordinated manner. Your attacks all hit automatically and you roll a damage die for each of your attack AND rolling the highest damage possible (ie a 4 on a d4, a 6 on a d6) explodes (ie, roll another damage die, if you get the max again, roll again, etc).

c. Note that anyone can do the same thing to you, so stay close and try to separate your foes.

d. You heal up your HP to max after resting uninterrupted for about a turn (10 min). You can also heal a quarter of your hp by eating a corpse (1 quarter/round) and doing nothing else. Prinnies leave no corpses.

e. you attack with the weapons your form has given you, unless the B/X entry says you attack with a weapon. In which case you can also attack with a weapon.

6. Magic weapons, armour and devices are all intelligent monsters, are purchased from the backs of intergalactic chevys driven by shady vampires and can only be bought with lots of citations of villainy and marks of demerit. You can sometimes flag one of these vampires down, but mostly you have to wait until they show up in town. Magic weapons, armour and devices can also be "levelled up" by clearing out these intelligent monster's brains. Basically, all magical weapons, armours and devices are split personalities of a single corporate mindgod. The mindgod is a megadungeon. Clear the monsters out of your gear's section of the megadungeon and the weapon becomes more of its former self. Watch out for pirates, though.

Getting into and out of the mindgod's megadungeon just takes a portal ticket and a portal, same as getting to anywhere outside of Monsterland. Portals are in all major cities and located throughout the mindgod's megadungeon brain and portal tickets aren't too expensive (be sure to buy one for the return trip as Charon charges you like crazy if you're stuck in humanworld or the mindgod's megadungeon without a way home [because Charon is a monster and is therefore a dick]). You can't use the item you're exploring while you're exploring it (duh).

6.a. See below for what levelling up the item does and what's going on in the item that's blocking its chakras.

Roll	Devices	Weapons/Swords with one ability or a single +1 bonus	Weapons/Swords with +2 bonus	Weapons/Swords with +3 bonus	What's going on its portion of the megadungons?
1	+10 charges	+1 bonus	+1 bonus	Add a new special purpose	Dungeon is having a nightmare. Run from the invincible boogeyman, make it through to the next level without getting caught!
2	+10 charges	+1 bonus	+1 bonus	Add a new special purpose	Dungeon likes you so much it wants to make it easy for you. All monsters in the level in one room, fighting.
3	+10 charges	+1 bonus	+1 bonus	Add a new special purpose	Dungeon is being invaded! There is a portal to some humanworld here and there are heroes clearing out the dungeon. Stop them!
4	+10 charges	+1 bonus	Add a new special purpose	Add a point of intelligence	Dungeon is schizo. Two factions in a pitched, prolonged battle
5	New, alternate ability of current ability's spell level or lower	Add a new special purpose	Add a new special purpose	Add a point of intelligence	Dungeon is even more schizo. Three factions.
6	New, alternate ability of current spell level or lower	Add a new special purpose	Add a new special purpose	Add a point of intelligence	Dungeon is being invaded! Space pirates and scavenging vampires are culling its depths for treasure. Stop them!
7	New, alternate ability of current spell level or lower	Add a new special purpose	Add a point of intelligence	Add a point of intelligence	Roll again, all dungeon monsters at -1 HD, but do +2 damage
8	can be used to open portals in lieu of portal tickets	Add a point of intelligence	Add a point of intelligence	Primary power changes	Roll again, all dungeon monsters sick! Half HP but its catching! (save after combat or get sick, death in 4 days)
9	can be used to open portals in lieu of portal tickets	Add a point of intelligence	Primary power changes	Primary power changes	Roll again, all dungeon on roids, attack on sight, +2 HD, -2 to hit
10	New, alternate ability of current spell level or d3 higher	Primary power changes	Primary power changes	Primary power changes	Roll again, all treasure in dungeon is in one big hoard

7. When you're a Prinny, the only retainers you can get are other Prinnies (prinnies come in packs of d3+2). If you're of a higher power than a Prinny, you can recruit other monsters or non-monster (human, elven, dwarven, etc) mercenaries, but note that monsters and mercenaries are dicks so for every level higher they are than you, you suffer a -1 penalty to their reaction roll. Probably a good idea to start on the small fries first.

*Prinnies are basically re-skinned goblins, look like peg-legged penguins, dual-wield machete-like daggers and have fanny packs of supplies strapped to their chests. Note the crucial difference in the creature description:

Prinny
AC 6
HD 1-1*
Move 60'(20')
Attacks 1, with weapons
Damage d6 or weapon
# appearing 3-5 (3-300)
Save as Normal Man
Morale 7 (or 10 around a Boss, who they call Dood)
Treasure Type Nil
Alignment Bad Guys

Whenever struck for more than 3 hp damage and whenever reduced to half their hp, there is a 3 in 6 chance that the Prinny explodes in a 20' radius, doing d6+1 damage to everyone in the vicinity (including other Prinnies).

pictures: Prinny by Imson, rest are from the games or promotional materials

DUNgeon Crawl 3

I got this free copy of #3 of this Dungeon Crawl zine that +Wayne Rossi  puts out. I wanted to spend more time with it and maybe use some of it before writing this but it's clear I'm not going to have time do any of that for a while...

Most of the zine is by Wayne but there's a bit from +Zach Howard and a couple of other people.

1. It's really mostly tables and lists. This is ideal.

2. There is a d20 list of minor magic items to toss at new characters in a low-level, small party to beef them up a bit. They're mostly utility belt-style magic items, which are my favourite kind. And I love tossing one or two random things at each character at the start. Gives them something interesting to have or do that has nothing to do with their class. There is a lot here you could probably do with character creation, especially in iterative/meat grinder games. Everyone starts as a random level 1 with some random, cool item. This was my favourite bit.

3. There's an article on "Thinking Like a Fantasy Character," and it's a pretty good, short, look at ancient perspectives on the immanence of magic and divinity (it references a particular historical report of a Spartan army being delayed for religious reasons - I think this might be the same document detailing the delay of certain ancient soldiers that inspired Gene Wolfe to write the Soldiers of Sidon stories). Only a few pages long and might be useful to help create consensus around the table in re the setting's cosmology and its impact on daily life, especially if you've got newer players.

4. There are tables to populate empty rooms that have a lot of interesting options. Wayne (and Zach too, but these particular tables are Wayne's) is really good at populating tables with entries terse enough that you don't feel like you've got to do a ton of work to use the table, but also evocative/strange enough that it's worth using (like, we can all come up with "rotten, mouldy chairs"). My only complaint is that I wish there was a ton more of entries on each table.

5. There is a gonzo, pastiche dungeon that looks like it'd be a lot of fun. I kind of wished there was a bit more to tie it together, especially something in the way of an indication of what happens in the neighbouring rooms when you do something loud, like get in a fight. And there is a giant lobster and you can eat it but no butter is provided. Can you milk a goblin and get churn that into butter? Goblin butter is: 1. Gross, 2. Peppery, 3. Cinamonny, 4. Tastes like gravy, 5. Causes vomiting, or 6. Re-roll twice.

6. There's also a long-ish hex/exploration area that started out boring me to death and ended up being pretty interesting. It's packed to the gills with faction stuff and potential conflicts. Clearly a lot of consideration has gone into how this would be run, with the conflicts between NPCs and changes the players can affect to the area so even should you not use it, it's an interesting presentation of how to run a hex with moving parts. It's also generic enough that you can drop it in and out of any desert/badlands area and just file off the names/numbers that don't quite work for your campaign.

7. There's also a new class, some monsters, another magical item (that's pretty cool), and another set of tables on gas traps.

So there's a lot here. It's all clearly meant to be and is presented to be used easily and widely, which I really like and respect. To that end, I kind of wish something more was done with the layout of the hexbits and adventure that made cross-referencing a bit easier than flipping/clicking back and forth, but hey, this is a zine. 

Here are links.


Announcements:http://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2013/08/dungeon-crawl-3-now-available.html

Contents:http://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2013/08/dungeon-crawl-3-contents.html 

Lulu (Print):http://www.lulu.com/shop/wayne-rossi/dungeon-crawl-3/paperback/product-21162919.html

RPGNow (PDF):http://www.rpgnow.com/product/118117/Dungeon-Crawl-%233

Monsterparts (attribute-less D&D)

You are all children. No younger than 7, no older than 14. You live on the same block or nearby and you probably attend the same school. Something is wrong and only children and animals can see it.

The night is longer than it ought to be, the temperature drops and there are wolves bigger than cars in the streets. At night, the shutters clap against the house, brushed aside by the enormous grey-black, craggy knuckles of a vast and careless hand, the sidewalk is wet with ropey drool. "Always so rainy," the adults say, as the step over the puddles.

Something goes from house to house, tapping at the windows. It has large reflective eyes, like an owl. The adults do not see and they do not understand why they must not open the windows. Next door, they are all different. They are cold and you saw one killing a squirrel while its parents watched. Next door, all the windows are always open.

Childhood rhymes hold new secrets, open doors. Crouch down in hiding places and the branches grow wide and long, the bush becomes a knot of trunks, the trunks roads and everywhere they go strange and terrible, full of knights dead in their armour and beautiful women in beautiful dresses covering spider legs and they will try to drown you in a vat full of other small, floating bodies or wear you like earings or walk you like a dog.

There are signs and symbols. A threadbare shirt worn by your grandfather, a riddle in Latin, a saying in Greek. The broach in your mother's sock drawer. You present them against the dark and the worst things to turn them aside for a time.

And still things change. The world grows dark and shadows lengthen, take on new forms. From the trunks of passing cars, voices call your name. Under the floorboards, scratches. Things want to be let out, they want to be let in and they are always hungry, curious, violent, terrible.

Characters
Roll d8+6. This is your age.

Choose a character class/type: there are Tough, Studious and Truant.

Tough characters have 6 Endurance Points. 0 Secrets. Damage die: d6. Starting stuff: clothes, 2 other things.

Studious characters have 4 Endurance Points. 1 Secret. Damage die: d4. Starting stuff: clothes, books, notebooks, 2 other things.

Truant characters have 5(4) Endurance Points. 2 Secrets. Damage die: d6. Starting stuff: clothes, cigarettes and/or a key to a safe place or one other thing.

Stuff
Jelly or Jam & Toast (heals EP when eaten at leasure)
Compass (works as normal, goes crazy around some bad things)
Vintage Nimrod Pipe Lighter w/ fluid
Whittling/carving knife
empty glass milk jug with twine around the neck for carrying
pet cricket, salamander or turtle
an old, tattered book of Latin verbs with your Father's name in the front cover
notebooks
old, reliable, favourite pen
a really good sweater
a really good scarf
a really good pair of shoes
galoshes
really sticky tape
a dusty plastic ink well full of holy water, stoppered
chalk
glasses frames
twine
10' rope
A long stick
your backpack
golf club
baseball bat
swiss army knife

Secrets/Rewards
Secrets are rumours you hear whispered during recess or things you see out your window at night, clutching bedsheets. They are strange facts you overhear recounted on the news or They are the things in your weird Aunt's basement and they are the reason it's spring and none of the trees have grown any leaves. None of the adults will believe you. You can only know one Secret before they start weighing on you. Every Secret known past the first does Endurance Points damage (ie, if you learn a second secret, subtract 1 from your EP). For each of these additional Secrets resolved, restore one to your EP. Truants start with 1 point of EP damage.

Every week in the game or so, you learn of a new secret.

Resolve Secrets
Resolving secrets is also something only you can do, so things will just get worse, more families going missing or strange, until you do something about them. If you don't do something about what's happening, you'll slowly fall into darkness, despair, anxiety.

Resolving secrets usually gets you some kind of in-game reward. At least one special thing each. You also get better at doing something tricky or you know something special or you've made some kind of connection with something special. Discuss with the GM and write it down on your character sheet.

Special Things
d4 uses each.
Box with the body of your cat/hamster. Hamster ghost can unlock doors or find secret places if you point it in the right direction. Cat can unlock doors or defend you against a single attack (takes the attack instead of you).

Urn of Great Aunt Edna. Held aloft, produces light as bright as the sun. All bad things are held in place for a turn.

Old Flute. When played, will open a door or lock one against any force.

Cape from the School Play. When worn, may hide you in shadows as if invisible.

Anything that is really good will keep you safe against something bad, but only that one time. Afterwards, it's just normal, whatever was special or awesome about it has been ruined or effaced by the bad things and dark places.

Safe Places
Your fort, your bed, your friend's house.

If you're here, you can't be got at by the bad things.

Endurance Points
Tick down 1/round while in bad places, being pursued by bad thing or in combat. At 0, you can no longer forestall any attacks and start taking wounds, are exhausted. You can take a single wound. A second and you're dead.

A Warm, Square Meal
Restores all EP to current max. You can choose to forget extra secrets and restore all EP lost that way too.

Some Secrets
1. The neighbours were meant to come back a week from now, but they showed up in the middle of the night. But where's their car? They also don't go to work or school, they just stand around, looking out the windows as their house gets dirtier and their clothes more filthy.

2. Mr. Jensen's been staring into space ever since that trip to the museum and they've taken his wife away. They say his house smells terrible, like rotten fish.

3. All the cats are missing and all the single women in town are carrying fashionable, fur-lined gloves. Do they all know?

4. All the dogs won't go near the principal's house. He's friendly enough but they say there isn't any furniture inside.

5. Paul's parents go every night to that old factory but we've not seen Paul in weeks. One of your parents were just invited to some club that meets at the factory...

6. Put your ear against a pipe to hear the next person to go missing. You can't quite make it out, but it sounds like the name of your little brother.

7. Mirrors are doors and they break the doors when they climb through them. There are broken mirrors everywhere...

8. There are two of Judy. The one the adults see and the one we see. Both are pale and so cold and falling apart. The one we see is begging for help but she can't do much because the other Judy has her all tied up.

9. So many people have a little worm sticking out of the back of their neck. Pull on it and the person dies. Everyone with the worm spends the night in graveyards or old cellars, stuffing dirt into their mouths.

10.  The giant animals that stalk the night are all going to one specific place in the woods that only exists at night. The floor rattles with human bones and a talking big with a crown of fire sits on a throne of thorns and bones.

11. There are weird lights out on the mountain. The dead are dancing and holding an enormous celebration. Terrible things happen when the party ends.

12. Every night, a horn sounds right outside your window. It used to be so loud that it shook the panes, but it's getting quieter and quieter. You can hear things outside, climbing the walls now too, they get closer and closer.

Imagines: Donn/John Kenn and Edward Gorey.

You will be wondering about that sugar bowl, I imagine

+Scrap Princess asked what these potions did and this was my answer. I guess it was well liked enough that I want to put it here so I don't forget about it & I've tweaked some of the original post.

THERE ARE FOUR KINDS OF POTION...

Each character consumes one of four potions. There are as many potions as there are characters. Nearby, you discover empty vials, some of which are broken, crushed. It's hard to guess how many others have consumed these potions.

...AND THEY WILL KILL YOU...

All potions are lethal after 48 hours, though this final affect can be delayed an additional 48 hours if you consume the liver of someone who has also consumed one of these four potions (any of the four will do).

...UNLESS YOU DRINK ONE OF EACH.

Consuming all four variety of potion (either directly or via liver) delays the final  affect indefinitely. "Special affects" of consumption fade, with weird after affects persisting. Information to this affect will be relayed to the characters by a talking fox with two tails and seven eyes once the last potion is drunk. Or maybe they just know it to be true. Or maybe some creepy consigliere types lets them in on the situation. Flavour to taste.

THE POTIONS

  i. Blue Moon Jelly This is an exceedingly rare deep-sea creature. Consuming the creature grants you a rubbery consistency (you can't wear armour or bear heavy loads but  you're immune to most bludgeoning damage). You are virtually immune to high-gravity affects and being above deep-sea pressure levels lets you leap incredible distances (like 50' horizontally and 30' vertically) by compressing your body and shooting away, like a spring. Your skin dries and cracks, longs for salt water and by the end of the second day you either die of dehydration or dissolve into sea water.

After affect: if this is the potion you first consumed and you manage to consume all other varieties before they kill you, you survive, but you are always cold, clammy, your hair hangs wet and you may add up to 10' to any distance you could otherwise jump and you take falling damage only after you've fallen 30' (ie, d6 for each ten after 30).

  ii. The Frog Your knees snap and your leg joints invert. Your jawline joins your shoulders as your neck vanishes and your mouth grows enormous. You can dance across water and tree tops if unencumbered and you can swallow whole things half your size. Eventually, your mind fails, grows strange, hateful as your organs de-acclimate to this environment and you die, hyperventilating, suffocating on now-poisonous air, longing for steaming green jungles of a planet far, far from here. 

After affect: if this is the potion you first consumed and you manage to consume all other varieties before they kill you, you survive, but you are never happy, always longing for a land you've never actually seen outside of dreams. Similarly stranded brothers and sisters will send you a map to a possible way home.

  iii. The Shrimp Your eyes bulge, extend on stalks and you have all-around vision and wide spectrum vision. Your skin hardens and becomes chitinous  You cannot wear armour but your skin counts as plate. You eat trash, smaller creatures, whatever you can find and you become strange, secretive. Eventually, your skin grows too heavy and gravity peels it from the flesh below, killing you in the process.

After affect: if this is the potion you first consumed and you manage to consume all other varieties before they kill you, you survive, but your skin is now translucent and your hair becomes a stiff and brittle mass, like coral. Your eyes remain larger-than normal and brilliantly-hued, and you retain wide-spectrum vision.

  iv. The Fish You bud scales, gills and you can see  and breathe underwater as on land. When under water, you can attack and evade by darting suddenly. Save v paralysis instead of rolling to hit or using your AC; attacks made in this way ignore armour and attacks avoided in this way deal no partial damage if missed and require no additional save for area/breath affect damage. Eventually, you can no longer breathe in water or land and die in a panic, asphyxiating, flopping.

After affect: if this is the potion you first consumed and you manage to consume all other varieties before they kill you, you survive, and you can breathe under water but you're totally hairless and you've got fluttering gills from the side of your face down to your nipples.

The Wild Hunt

You saw something you shouldn't have...

When your fever breaks, you find you've no job, barely any money - just weapons, gear, an address for the huntmaster's meeting, a pass sign for the meeting, a bit of food and this mask.

Choose a class (Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric, Thief) (or really, just be a Fighter or Magic-User), roll for mask, how you get to the meeting called by the huntmaster and then join the hunt.

The Masks (d12)
1.The Cock
Immune to sleep and charm.
2. The Crow
Eat the dead for sustenance and health.
3. The Fox
Flee pursuit; can hide in a 2' cube.
4. The Hound
Tireless pursuit of fleeing foes.
5. The Hippo
Swallow something your size whole.
6. The Hare
Burrow deep.
7. The Badger
Defend your allies long after others would have died.
8. The Owl
Never surprised.
9. The Owlbear
Deadly embrace.
10. The Wolf
You've got a vorpal knife.
11. The Heron
Handily navigate rough terrain.
12. The Bat
Can see in the dark.

How to get to the meeting? (d8)
1. Tavern under a bridge, blue lights, only ghosts come here anymore.
2. Room full of corpses, most of which looks just like the party. Close your eyes, whisper a childhood prayer and open one of several doors to get there.
3. Long-abandoned shrine. Offer a blooded sacrifice.
4. String up the outline of the door in the entrails of an innocent, a bully, a liar, a thief, a vagrant or a magic-user, and then step through.
5. Light a branch of a hazel tree and use it to burn a sprig of holly and a sprig of mint. Breath deep.
6. Eat the flesh of the plague-slain.
7. Douse your mask in arterial blood of a sentient creature.
8. Consume unclean meat.

The Huntmaster
Waits for you at the meeting; is someone you've never seen before but once you've met them you'll see them all the time, rummaging through garbage, dead in a gutter, arguing in a coffee shop, on a wanted poster, as a barkeep, as distant relative of the Empress.

In ceremonial garb, when leading a hunt or celebrating a glorious kill, the huntmaster appears differently:

A man or woman well-muscled, tattooed, nude but for the trophy heads it wears about its neck, wrists, shoulders and waist.

In the Spring, the heads are all alive and each knows a great secret (the name of the rock, where the last of the first dragon's slumbers, how to unwind time, etc, etc); the huntmaster's head is the head of an elk and it speaks thunderously, telepathically. It walks upon the ground barefoot and each footfall leaves behind cinnamon-scented ferns of curative potency.

In the Summer, the heads are dead and rotting. The huntmaster's head is that of an eyeless stag. The huntmaster rides a rotten, limping boar, wears a coat of feathers and hangs from its antlers the tongues and fingers of each sort of people in the race of man. Its touch brings pestilence, its mere presence sours food but it may also consume any disease, decay or rot, if it so desires.

In the Fall, the heads are mummified and the huntmaster's antlers are hung with glistening glass shards. The huntmaster's head will be a skeletal stag's head. The huntmaster will ride upon an enormous elk and be attended by two deaf mutes, each of which will bear a legendary weapon or armour on a silken pillow.

In the Winter, the huntmaster appears to be an emaciated human wearing a stag mask. It wears a cloak of quills and will speak as if human. It is born on a palanquin to its court by the Grugach and his son and two daughters. On the palanquin lays more wealth than any can imagine.

The Hunt is called to (d10)
1. Kill all of the royal line, their children, their bastards, their most distant relatives. Their power, secrets and treasure are yours.
2. Ruin the wealthy and raise up the poor, including yourself.
3. Empty the area of all human life so that something stranger can grow there. What takes root will call you an ally for long after your death.
4. Find a lost relic of the hunt (The huntmaster has lost its shield, the effaced Shield of Galahad, and its dagger, Carnwennan. Should the Shield be found and returned to the huntmaster, the wild creatures of the wood will rise up on two legs, speak as man and overthrow all his works. Should the dagger by found and returned, a great, tangled highway will appear and run through each city and town; the highway will lead back to the fairy court and other, even worse domains and hell will empty its outhouses, lounges and barracks onto the earth.)
5. Find and kill the last huntmaster
6. Destroy a city but leave its buildings intact, for a dungeon to soon take root. The wealth of the city is yours for the plundering.
7. Wage a war in fairy country with lances made from holly trees. Castles and lands to the survivors.
8-10. The huntmaster simply wants you to hunt and consecrate each kill to it.

Traits for Older D&D (v2)

TRAITS

Traits are facts about the character's background, skills, characteristics.

THE BASICS
Characters start with up to two Traits. Traits might have some kind of non-combat benefit (maybe a Cave Elf knows something about this kind of cave, maybe a rat picker could recognize this disease). 

Pick a Birth and non-birth Trait from the below or roll a d20 on the one and 3d20 on the other.

These are some recently used traits. 

BIRTH TRAITS

1  Tinkering Gnome
2  Elf (either City or Cave)
3  Dwarf
4  Human
5  Halfling (68% chance City-born; 23% chance sewer-born; 9% jungle born)
6  Roma
7  Genasi (d4: Voltaic; Clod; Ember; Diluvian)
8  Tiefling 
9  Dungeon Folk (either Orc or Goblin)
10 Dryad Child
11 A Titan's Chosen (Wolf-rider, Thunder talker, Stormcloud, Puddle, Rust, Ice, Honey or  Glass)
12 Ghoul (alchemical, cursed or necromantic)
13 Gith
14 Foreigner (either Rhodian or Wookie)
15 Mutant (30% chance Fly-Headed, 50% chance Goat-Headed, 20% Frog)
16 Kobold
17 Construct (either Gearforged or Homunculus)
18 Viking
19 Star-Cousin (gold-skinned, tick-like mandibles)
20 Gill-Necked/Head in a Jar (50% chance of Vestigial Tentacles (d6: Neck fringe; Above mouth; shoulder fringe; hands; knees; feet))

BACKGROUND AND CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS

3   Forked tongue 
4   Large Nose
5   Long Fingers
6   Extra Fingers (roll d3 for how many)
7   Missing Fingers (roll d6 for how many)
8   No Nose
9   Cool Hair
10  Piercings (roll d6 for how many)
11 Tattoo (roll d6 for how many)
12 Prestidigitator
13 Ship Rat
14 Wharf Rat
15 Farmer's kid
16 Merchant's kid
17 Child of Privilege
18 Good with Animals
19 Gutter Punk
20 Birthmark (s) (roll d4 for how many and again for location: 1 is head, 2 is torso, 3 is legs, 4 is arms)
21 Great facial hair
22 Hunter gatherer
23 From the Dye towns around Black Mt
24 From the cairn stackers
25 Pig Farmer
26 Child
27 Really Old
28 Fat
29 Third Nipple
30 Vestigial Tail or Leg (50/50)
31 Missing Teeth
32 Filed Teeth
33 Clothier Guild raised
34 Schoolkid
35 Heterochromia Iridium
36 Forester
37 Miner (for ore, gems or through weird tech dumps)
38 Glider Pilot
39 College/Academy raised
40 Missing Eye
41 Missing Ear
42 Rat Catcher
43 Rag Picker
44 Bald
45 Alopecia areata
46 Albino
47 Limner
48 Tenter
49 Brewer
50 Cobbler
51 Quarrier
52 Tax Samurai
53 Sword sharpener
54 Cultist (True Green, Black Mountain, Witch-Cult, Dunwitch)
55 Hermit
56 Starlet/Actor
57 Musician
58 Well-thewed
59 Sparklepony
60 You have a secret (log lady)

pictures: some cover or something cool, Paul Reid,  Masateru Ikeda

Stopwatch HP, no HP

Josie mentioned treating HP like a stopwatch. We played around with this for a while and here's what's been extruded through our game and come out the other end:

NO HIT POINTS
Get rid of hit points. No hit points, "endurance points." Fending off attacks, hurting yourself in a non-debilitating way (bruises, bumps, scrapes, cuts that aren't going to kill you) and particularly strenuous or taxing actions cost endurance points. Endurance points represent your energy level and, accordingly, your capacity to forestall some immediate, debilitating danger; when someone lands a successful attack, the loss of endurance points represents how much it costs you to fend off the attack and prevent it from doing serious damage and being reduced to 0 EP means you're too drained to do anything. Losing EP is being "worn down."

SO... SAVING THROWS
Catastrophes and calamities (ingesting lethal poison, falling ceilings, being stepped on by a giant) are systemic traumas you can't avert with endurance or force of will. Saves cover this. Save as normal or here. Generally, save or die, earn a wound or suffer an enormous reduction in EP.

0 ENDURANCE POINTS
Being reduced to zero endurance means that you are exhausted, can barely move, lift a sword, everything feels like it costs a ton to do it. There's no "extra exhausted," so no negatives. When you're at 0 EP, anything that would otherwise result in a loss of endurance points but isn't the result of a deliberate effort to kill you (like, falling) automatically causes a wound. If the attacker is trying to kill you, save v death or die; a successful save earns you a wound. If an attacker is trying to knock you out, save v paralysis or get knocked out; a successful save earns you a wound.

BEING WORN DOWN, ESCALATION
Being encumbered, swimming in medium or heavier armour, running in armour with a heavy pack for more than a few minutes, holding your breath too long, being in combat or any other highly stressful, dangerous, tiring situation wears you down.

Each go round the table (in whatever time metric the GM deems appropriate, given the current action), everyone being worn down loses an EP.

WOUNDS, RESTING AND HEALING
If you can spend a round catching your breath without having to do anything else (including patching up an ally), your EP increases up to half its maximum. So like, you flee combat with a couple of ogres; if someone has to hold the door against the ogres, then they don't regain any EP but if you spike the door, then everyone can get EP back.

Resting for a turn restores all EP.

Wounded characters must be treated before they can regain EP and their max EP is halved until they can get some bed rest and serious medical attention (likely takes a few days or weeks, depending on the wound) or sufficient magical healing. A second wound is automatically fatal (no save).