Bryce, The Spirit of Plenty and Good Cheer

"I awoke to a commotion outside. As I rubbed my eyes, wondering the time, I could swear I heard the animals in the barn in an uproar. Dozens of voices, from cows, horses, ducks and geese, all babbling at the same time. Assuming there was a wolf or fox harassing the barn animals, I grabbed my pitch fork and lantern and went to investigate. As I left the house, I became aware that there was a rhythm to the noise, as though they all were singing. Was that a harmonica I heard? Was someone in my barn? I saw a dim, flickering from between the planks walling the barn. Approaching cautiously, I peered in the crack between the two, weathered doors to see a most amazing sight.

Suspended in the air about the barn were several will-o-the-wisps. The animals were gathered around a short, round bellied fellow that dipped a ladle into a cauldron, from which he produced a variety of victuals. For the horses and cows, what appeared to be cabbage or lettuces. For the ducks and geese, each a ladle-full of corn. He then retrieved from the cauldron what seemed a small bit of steak or ham, which an owl fluttered down and took from his fingers. A loaf of bread for a family of mice perched on a hay bail. A rat climbed up his leggings to his shoulder, and for it the fellow produced a bit of cheese which it carried down and ate next to the barn cat, who paid it no heed she sat, patiently awaiting her meal.

After giving out foodstuffs, the fat man set the ladle in the cauldron pulled a harmonica out of his pocket. He reclined against a bail of hay, and began to toot out a lively tune, to which the animals began to sway and stamp their feet. Was he bewitching my animals? My livelyhood? Was he going to steal my livestock? In a few moments the mice, having finished their meal, climbed aboard his paunch and--I could not believe it--stood on their hind legs, dancing in a circle. Joining forepaws they circled to the left, then the right, hopping to the jolly tune. I found myself bobbing my head, almost unable to resist joining in the catchy rhythm. And then I sneezed.

Abruptly, the music stopped, the animals were still, and the fat fellow removed the harmonica from his lips, and turned toward me, looking at me through the gap in the doors. He extended a pudgy finger and beckoned to me. I couldn't help myself. I let my pitchfork thump to the ground, and entered, seeing all the animals of the farm gathered around this fat man and his cauldron.

At once the bouncy tune began again, and the larger animals bobbed their heads, and the mice danced. From behind the milking stall came a raccoon rolling the milking pail, which he flipped over, and began to drum on the underside to the rhythm of the song. Enchanted, I too found myself hopping in gaiety about the room, round and round the fat man as he tooted on his harmonica, the will-o-wisps pulsing to the music...."

In the woodlands, there is rumor of a short, round bellied fellow with a gray beard known as Bryce. Descriptions vary from person to person, as indeed few get a chance to have a look at this creature. He's said to carry a magical iron cauldron, from which he can produce all kinds of edible goodness. Sometimes he is seen off the woodland trails, other times in barns, in orchards, in the fields. This person was Bryce, the spirit of plenty and celebration. Animals that normally would not get along, hunter and hunted, put aside their differences for the festivities.

PCs approaching with goodwill or gentle caution are spelled, and join in the festivities. It is said that even rampaging ogres and trolls are stilled, some even joining the meal. PCs may test luck if they desire to not join. Any approaching with violent intent must pass a Test of Luck or be entranced by his magic. During this time he will gather his cauldron and attempt escape from the aggressor. From his pot, Bryce will get for them their favorite meats, breads, soups, vegetables, anything their hearts (and their stomachs) desire. After food, drink and dancing the night away, the fat fellow will take his cauldron and disappear, in search of the next site to celebrate.

Anyone passing a test of luck and aggressively disturbing the party will find Bryce a fierce opponent. While not evil in nature, he will defend himself and those invited to his parties. In one hand his ladle serves as a club, and in the other he will grip the handle of his cauldron and thump enemies with it for 4 points of damage per hit. In addition, any creature at the celebration has a 2 in 6 chance to join in Bryce's defense, the rest have the spell of joy broken and returning to their normal proclivities. Bryce can summon magical flying lights for illumination as well as control them to confuse and blind his adversaries, allowing his escape.

Should his cauldron be taken, the thief will find it filled with 1d6 worth of provisions of his favorite food. The ladle can be used to draw 1 provision per day, per person using it, from the cauldron. Bryce will do everything in his power to get his cauldron back.

Bryce, The Spirit of Plenty and Good Cheer
SKILL: 10
STAMINA: 14
ATTACKS: 2

Magical Light
SKILL 8
STAMINA: 1
ATTACKS: 1 (special)
A successful attack will bewilder or confuse a sighted adversary, giving a -1 penalty to SKILL the following round.

Holiday Themed NPCs

Originally posted to Rpggeek.

Frost the Snow Demon

SKILL 10
STAMINA 20 (varies, see below)
ATTACKS 2
Intelligence: High
Reaction: Friendly at first, then Hostile
Armor: varies with size and thickness of figure
Weapon: Any

Frost is a demon attached to an enchanted hat which will animate any figure built of snow. He likes to inflict cold, frosty doom upon anyone he can get his hands on, especially children. He's been known to bury victims in snow, or throwing them into frozen lakes, or impaling them with icicles. Anyone who tries on his hat will become obsessed with building a snowman at the first opportunity (with all the typical accouterments) and placing the hat upon it. It will not be obvious to anyone but the wisest that there's something wrong with the hat.

Frost takes double damage from heat based attacks and spells but is resistant to cold. Frost can use additional snow to repair injuries. Removing the magic hat from his head will de-animate the snowy figure.

Frost's Stamina and Armor will vary with the size of the snow creature. If Frost will inevitably melt in the spring weather, he'll pick a place where his magical hat is likely to be found by some child to be used the following year.

Santa Claus
SKILL 9
MAGIC 9
STAMINA 20
ATTACKS 4
Armor: Light Monster Armor (Heavy coat and fat belly)
Intelligence: High
Reaction: Friendly

Santa Claus can gain Stamina from any number of provisions in a day. He knows Sorcery spells. Santa Claus carries a magic sack of gifts. He will give a gift to any well behaved character. He will not give a gift to any character who has behaved badly in this or the previous game session. Such as: Killing a surrendered or defenseless creature, stealing, telling lies to cover up evil. To such persons he will give a small pouch of coal.

Santa will attempt to strike any attacker with a large chunk of coal. Anyone hit by the coal will be cursed with intense shame and take -2 Penalty to all actions. May test Luck each hour to remove the curse or wait 24 hours for the curse to be lifted.

Santa is loathe to hurt anyone and will use his knowledge of sorcery for defense, escape, and to help deliver gifts. Santa can use the spell GOB to summon a small elfish servant (rather than a goblin).

If Santa's Sack is stolen, it will contain 1d6 random items (spoons, socks,chalk and slate, wooden toys, etc), 1d6 items useful for adventurers, 1d6 magical items, and luxury gifts worth 1d6 x 100 gold pieces.

Encounter: Swamp Witch

The Swamp Witch

In a hot, thick, foggy swamp resides this witch to whom the local swamp dwellers come for favors, medicinal aid, to get their fortunes told.  Moss grows on all sides of the exterior of her shack, and from the eaves hangs two hornet's nests with insects busily buzzing around.

Inside of this shack is the usual assortment of witch's equipment.  Through the smoke from the fireplace  or incense one can see flasks of potions and powders, a few books on a shelf, assorted dried ingredients for spells.

The witch will cast one of many beneficial spells or cantrips, or produce potions, for a price. Perhaps she needs the party to fetch some spell components from a dangerous area, such blood-flowers that grow in a cemetery haunted by ghouls and zombies or even worse things.  

Anyone attacking the witch will be set upon by the hornets in the two nests outside.  The hornets will cause 1 stamina damage per round and put the offender at -2 to all actions until he escapes.  The witch will use her spells to help her escape, as she is not a strong fighter.

The Swamp Witch Stats

SKILL 5   STAMINA 14   MAGIC 10  MP 20

Suggested Spells

Cantrips: Attraction, Burn, Cool, Dry, Enhance, Inebriate, Instil, Mistake, Repulsion

Wizardry Spells: Befuddle, Flash!, Thunder, Weakness, Fog, Find, Weather Control

NPC Encounter

I've been obsessing over "filler" encounters for some time and figured I'd start sharing them to get them off my mind. I hope you find them useful.

Wood Cutters

A logging crew working just off the road, felling trees. Roll 2d6 for their temperament. Low rolls are hostile or fearful, high rolls are especially helpful, near 7 are neutral.

The logging crews could be working for a sawmill, or felling trees for ship masts, firewood or getting logs for log houses. If undecided, roll d6:

1-2 Sawmill 3-4 Masts 5 firewood 6 building a log house

The crew consists of 6+2d6 men equipped with typical logging implements: axes, hatchets and huge two-man saws. The crew will have one or more teams of draft horses nearby to haul away the logs or will be awaiting a team to arrive to take the logs away. There also may be tents or pavilions and a pot of stew on a fire. There will be someone working a grinding wheel to sharpen implements, someone tending to the animals, someone on watch if the region is dangerous.

These men are hardy, used to working long hours and hauling heavy loads, but are not warriors. Some suggested stats: SKILL 6 STAMINA 8.

If you use minions in your campaign, then make most of them 1 hit minions.

Neutral or friendly loggers may be willing to trade food or services with the party. They may welcome a good bard or story teller in the evening in exchange for a meal and a bed.

Fearful or hostile loggers will encourage the party to move on. They may act violently if they feel threatened.

Plot hooks

The loggers may be harassed by some beast that picks off their horses or their workers.
They may be slaves to an evil baron or other power.
They may want to hire the PCs to escort the shipment of logs to their destination.

Converting NPC races to PC characters: First Attempt

The AFF manual includes guidelines for converting any NPC to a playable race. A few days ago, I converted Orcs. I do not have the "Out Of the Pit" suppliment, so I'm doing this based on the basic entry in the AFF Manual for Orcs and my general understanding of orcs based on fantasy literature and my experience with Role Playing Games in general.

So I began with the entry for Orc. Skill 6, Stamina 5. subtract 3 points from Skill. That is the base skill for this race. Then divide the stamina by two, and add that to the base skill. This becomes a base value for the race.

So we get Skill 3 + Stamina 2 = 5. If this total is less than 8 (and it is, obviously), note the difference and add it as points in the next phase. If the total exceeds 8, then deduct the difference from the default Luck value of 8.

The next phase I determine any racial stats that apply to Orcs. You normally get 6 points to buy talents, stat bonuses, or skills. Here is where it gets tricky. Each race should have a bonus to one characteristic or another. So thats Skill, Luck, Stamina or Magic.

I picked Stamina, because Orcs are hardy. So I spend 2 points from the (6+3=9) 9 points to give +2 to to Stamina (2 points to get +1 to a characteristic, and +1 to Stamina gives 2 points).

Combat Talents cost 4 points, non-combat cost 2.

Orcs have Darkvision in OSR games, so I gave them Darkvisions here. A 2 point Talent. I have 5 points left to spend. They're divided as follows:

Any Weapon 1
Brawling 1
Strength 1
Underground Lore 1
Any Movement 1

Language skills are not included. So I gave the Orc:

Orcish 4
Common 2

The player then has 8 Characteristic points to spend on Skill, Luck, Magic and Stamina per the standard character building rules, and 12 points to customize the character's Special Skills. Lastly, pick one additional Talent at no extra charge.

I am not entirely happy with this build, because the default starting Stamina exceeds the stamina of the NPC Orc. So I must either conclude that I should put the bonus in another stat (like Luck), or that a PC adventurer will tend to have a little more Stamina than your run-of-the-mill Orc.

So my final Orc (for now):

SK 3, LK 8, ST 7, MG 0, Darkvision, Weapon 1, Brawling 1, Strength 1, Underground Lore 1, Any Movement skill 1, Orcish 4, Common 2


After finish the Orc, I picked something a little more challenging. Here is my Ogre PC.

Ogres NPCs have SKILL 8 and STAMINA 10.

Subtract 3 from SKILL (SK = 5).

Add half of Stamina (5) to SKILL to get base value (10).

10 Exceeds default LUCK of 8 by 2 points, so LUCK is reduced to 6.

The NPC Ogre gets 2 attacks per round, and +1 to damage rolls. I see no reason to deny this to a PC Ogre. So these are two combat talents. Only 6 points are allowed at this phase, so 4 points are spent on 2-attacks and 4 points are spent on +1 to damage, resulting in a balance of -2. If you're going to give the Ogre a bonus to a Characteristic, then that's another 2 points. Let's say they get 2 extra points to stamina (2 points, Resulting in a balance of -4. If you skip buying a Characteristic bonus to SK, LK, or ST, then the balance is -2. I'm going to skip the Stamina bonus.

This negative balance is deducted from the special skill points allowed for the player to customize the Ogre. So the Ogre gets 8 (or 10) points for Special Skills instead of 12.

I'll give it language skills of:
Ogreish (if it exists) 4
Common 2

Would there even be such thing as Ogreish language skill of 4? It all depends on what AFF Ogres are supposed to be like. I imagine their tongue to be crude, so even the most eloquent speakers might be a skill of 3. But I will, for now, assume a possible fluency rating of 4.

So we're left with base Ogre PC stats of:

SK 5, LK 6, STA 10, MG 0, 2 Attacks/Round, +1 Damage rolls, 8 (or 10) build points for Special Skills

The manual gives the Ogre Light Monster Armor. I don't know if this is due to tough skin or just the scraps of animal hide that it might wear for armor. Without "Out of the Pit", I can't say whether a proper ogre should have naturally tough skin and what the cost would be.

The reason I'm unsure about the cost of Light Monster Armor, is that the sample Rhinoman has medium Monster Armor because of it's Rhinoceros skin, and the cost is 4 points for that. So would Light Monster Armor also cost 4 because it's a combat Talent? Or would it cost 3, perhaps, and Heavy Monster Armor would be 5 or 6, or even 8?

The Ogres I'm familiar with aren't especially bright or talented, so going into the player build phase with only 10 points makes sense to me. There's no generic racial special skills because it was all blown on fighting talents. I don't think they need tough skin, so I'm going to assume their armor is just leather hides or scraps of metal sewn together.

After I acquire Out Of the Pit, I look forward to creating more playable races.