campaign/contact

Included here is a brief adventure, designed for 1 gm and 3 players, which will allow you to test the combat mechanics of the game. If you are not the game master, you may wish to stop reading after the initial description of the premise to avoid spoiling the encounters and information that can be obtained in the research phase. Alternatively if you are the gm and only wish to test the combat system with your group, you may skip reading the premise and research phase entirely and go straight into encounters. While the impetus behind the adventure and chance for your players to explore the town they are helping should give your players reason to be more invested in the combat and enjoy the experience more overall, it is not necessary if all you and your friends want to do is see how the mechanics work in practice.

Premise

Our tale begins in slime vale, a peaceful stretch of nowhere nestled in the base of a gently curving mountain range. So called because the verdant perpetually half-flooded fields of the river basin, created by surging streams of runoff from the nearby snow capped mountains and fertilized by intermittent volcanic activity, make the perfect spawning ground for slimes and other lesser entities due to the presence of strong elemental and life forces, slime vale is an excellent place to begin a career as an adventurer.

The only human settlement for miles, slime village, exists mainly as a bastion for those obsess- preoccupied let's say, with slimes. They compose the main body of its settlers, as well as their relatives and descendants. While many of its denizens study the slimes for research or academic purposes, other residents of slime village simply find the cheerful and normally docile, even friendly creatures endearing. Some of them are even capable of taming and keeping them as pets.

Many of the towns temporary visitors make a detour for slime vale on wider travels, expressly for the chance to see the spectacle of so many inorganic creatures congregated near one small town. Their colorful bodies, almost like giant dancing gumdrops as their gelatinous forms vibrates with every move, presenting a much more interesting and safer sight than the occasional fox, wolf, or man eating rabbit one is likely to encounter in the less fertile, drabber plains attached to the main road.

More road side attraction than tourist trap, research outpost than academic center, during most times the biggest news out of slime town even annually would be a small domestic animal being consumed by a slime that got big enough to consider it prey. However, all is not well in slime valley. The normally docile slimes that explore the fields and slide, in rare cases walk, through town have become more aggressive. Slimes are slipping into homes to steal food or absorb leftovers from discarded refuse, some even going so far as to attack the townsfolk when they venture outside of town, and researchers fear the worst is yet to come.

And so, a bounty has been set. Any brave adventurers that are willing to venture forth into epicenter of abnormal slime activity and discover, or even directly combat, the source of the problem will receive a reward of 1000 standard gold coins (one coin only being enough to buy a days worth of food since the supply of gold was flooded by advancements in alchemy). You are one such adventurer. Whether you are in it for the money, the town or even for the sake of the slimes themselves, a resident of slime town or a visitor, you have decided to rise to the challenge and, after a period investigating what can be found out in the village itself, gather what allies you can to neutralize the threat before it becomes a disaster.

Good luck, and thank you for playing my game.

Additional details and character backstories

An important detail for the backstory of a player character in this adventure is how they feel about slimes. Slimes are thought by most to be minor water elementals. While it is observable that they pop into existence in areas of great life and elemental force (as many elementals do), near water especially, this does not really prove their nature, particularly since spontaneous generation is not their only way of coming to be. Their size and many other features such as color can vary but they tend to be round blobs with the image of two eye like circles an a curved mouth like line that moves across their surface. The reason for these likely functionless features is unknown. More about their behavior and methods of, so to speak, reproduction can be found in the bestiary. Whether a particular player character has an affinity for slimes, as many residents of slime town do, is neutral toward them, or dislikes them will likely have an effect on how they behave in the research phase and later once encounters begin.

A detail that relates both to the landscape of the town and character creation is what non-human beings might be about town or playable. While there are not any differences between these options in terms of attributes or abilities in this version of the game, two non-human beings common to the area are slimelings and golems. Golems are beings created, often out of clay, by learned scholars. Not much is known about the process of their creation by the general populace, but it is rumored to involve the power of a single chosen word. In a town with as many researchers as slime town, there is bound to be at least one person with the ability to create golems, and as a result there may be one or two about town or in their creators lodgings at any given time, though it is against tradition to let any of them persist for too long.

Slimelings are slimes that take on a humanoid form. Your typical slimeling is a mother slime (see mother slime in bestiary for more information on what one is as well as another origin for slimelings) that became fascinated with human society and changed their form to imitate them. Directly after its transformation a slimeling is featureless and barely capable of speech. As it's life force grows overtime so does its intelligence and ability to develop its form, slowly gaining the imitation of eyes, a more human mouth, tendrils resembling hair and even the translucent semblance of clothes formed of inorganic flesh. More details on character creation options will be available in later versions.

Slimelings and golems are both theoretically genderless beings, but what is theorized by others speaks to nothing of the self. Slimelings often develop in imitation of a male or female form/clothing, but not always and what determines the way a slimelings appearance develops as it does is not known. The appearance of a golem is determined by those that created them, though any level of detail or design more complicated than a child might sculpt when trying to create a human figure may be difficult to produce, if how most golems appear is anything to go off of. You can read a short passages about golems and slimes in the concept art/writing section if a more story based approach to their description interests you.

For a human, the motivation for joining the adventure could be money or altruism, but for a slimeling (unless it is possessed of a more human kind of intelligence, something unlikely at low level/health) motivation is more likely to come from a desire to observe the other adventurers or a draw it feels toward the source of the change in slimeling behavior. A golem when first created is almost certainly subject to their masters commands, and thus a golem pc was likely commanded to investigate or is an aberration, allowed to persist despite developing or inherently possessing free will, in which case their motives are their own.

Research phase.

The research phase is a time for the players to ask around slime town and find out more about what could be causing the change in slime behavior and what the dangers they face might be. If the characters are not already acquainted with each other or part of the same adventuring party it might be a good time to role-play their first meeting as well.

The more experienced gm's reading this may have already spotted a potential problem here. Having no combat in a populated town can be a little hard to enforce if players act in a way that draws the attention of the local law enforcement/guards (Supposing there are any the details of how slime town functions are not set in stone) or actively attack civilians. While if you are a experienced gm ignoring the guidance to avoid combat in town may prove fruitful, finding a way to combine the encounter and research phases, or even adapt some of the bestiary entries into your own encounters and ignore the provided structure for the adventure entirely, those among you with less experience may find it helpful to shut down player attempts at starting trouble in slime town entirely.

Being open with your players before the session starts about what your expectations for them is a vastly important tool. If you tell your players that they will start in a town that they are able to explore and ask questions in, but should avoid starting fights in town as it is just a jumping off point for them to introduce their characters and learn about the quest they are about to embark on, the likelihood of a fight starting in slime town should be much lower. It is also important to establish at the beginning of the session that you have the ability to veto player choices and do not hesitate to do so if a player choice makes you uncomfortable, or would result in a scenario you are unsure how to solve, particularly if they try to start a fight in town despite advised not to do so. If you prefer a lighter touch in terms of directing player actions, you can instead have them be immediately overpowered by a large force of guards, and then told that to make up for their crimes they must go on a quest to aid the town and work from there. That approach only works if the player has enough restraint to work for the guards after starting trouble with them though.

Whether slime town is a full established setting (either one you pre write or improvise), or a series of important locations that the player characters choose from or show up in a set order without roleplaying travel between them or having to ask around to navigate to, is entirely up to you. As the focus of this adventure is providing a chance to play the rules of the game largely in the context of combat, no layout of the town or specific npcs are provided here, but some ideas for what the players can discover or obtain and how they might do so can be found below.

The direction where the unusual slime activity is at its peak. While given that the bounty is to go towards the epicenter of the activity it would be odd if that information was not readily available, having it readily available to the more pragmatic players/player characters might cause problems. If one of the player characters finds out the direction of the problem and decides to just immediately confront it either without allowing the rest of the players a chance to investigate or even meeting up with the rest of the party at all, that would be problematic.

Information on the enemies they may encounter on their quest, especially the secret boss and final boss. While information on any of the enemies in the bestiary, particularly their weaknesses, could prove useful to the party, information on the bosses could even prove vital. Knowing the weakness of the crystalid, what to do during its second phase, and even that it is the source of the valleys woes for example, could turn the tide. Taking down the 100 health boss without knowing its weakness can be quite difficult, and the sooner that weakness is known the better they can develop their characters to take advantage of it. that it summons enemies that are weak to ice (slimes) is important information as well. Knowing the timing element of the second phase will prevent them from allowing it to grow to strong in power, and knowing what the main threat is will stop them from assuming that it is the mother slime and engaging it unnescearilly. Speaking of the mother slime, more knowledge of it can allow them to control whether or not they encounter it (if they know that escaping slimes can regroup together later), and how hostile it is to them if they do. Information on the bosses would likely come from a slime researcher that believes the cause of the issues is a crystalid and explains why that is (see crystalid behavior in bestiary). Simply some of the information on slimes provided in additional details, may help pique player interest if it is related through npcs rather than immediately told to them up front.

Along with information there is the chance to obtain items/equipment. Say a set of three health potions, each one with heals five when drunk or a sword imbued with elemental power that does fire damage. In the case of the sword or other weapon, only the base damage of the basic attack would have elemental typing applied, any abilities or leveling benefits that add damage add damage without type, but the elemental damage the weapon does do ignores threshold, always dealing double damage+1 as long as the enemy is weak to that damage type. An easy way to allow the players to acquire these things would be to have them visit a shop or the guard Baracks and give them the chance to convince the occupants to lend or gift them the items for their quest.

Running Combat

Many physical classes make mention of weapons either in basic attacks or free techniques. In this version of the game, it is to be assumed that each player character has access to whatever weapons they need at any given moment ignoring aquisisition. If weapons had to be bought say, certain classes like armsman would be inherently more expensive. This issue should be fixed later down the line but for now assume each pc has access to any weapon they need, and remember that after using one weapon, it would normally take spending a turn to put it away in preparation for another's use.

Player characters have hit points, however, when a player characters hit points reach zero rather than dying they simply fall unconscious. For the remainder of the battle they are unable to do anything and their hit points cannot be restored even with potions, however they are in no danger of dying and at the end of the battle they regain consciousness with at least one hit point. This feature may be carried over to later versions with some exceptions, depending on efficacy and the lore of the setting.

While it was previously established that combat is turn based in how to play, how turn order, or in what order each entity in combat gets their turn, is determined was not. The player that goes first is whichever player the party decides amongst themselves goes first, if a decision cannot be reached then each player rolls and the player who rolled highest goes first. After the first player takes their turn, the gm marks down that they went first and picks an enemy to take their turn marking that down as well. Next the party picks a player who has not gone yet and after that the gm picks an enemy, marking down the order all entities had their turn in. Once only players or enemies remain, the party picks the order the remaining players go in or the gm the remaining enemies without alternation. When all entities in the encounter, both players and enemies have gone once, each of them takes turn in the same order they took their first turn in, which the gm should have been writing down to keep track of. This method is used instead of rolling to see who goes when with higher numbers going first and keeping track of and repeating that order, because it allows the players to choose what order they go in for greater synergy and to make it easier to have enemies attack based on who attacked them as many would, but rolling works well enough if you find it more convenient.

Combat phase

After leaving slime town, the party will head out into slime vale and eventually reach a mountainside cave. Along they way, they will encounter groups of hostile entities until reaching the end of the cave facing the source of slime vales troubles. Effectively they will face a series of 10 back to back encounters. After the first encounter the party should level up, fully healing and regain all elemental charges. The party will continue to level up after each encounter, but you can begin delaying the number of encounters it takes for them to heal and regain charges as the adventure continues every two should work well enough beyond the fist couple of encounters. Alternatively you can let the party choose how many encounters it takes for them to heal or regain charges/how often they rest between encounters, offering some sort of reward for resting less.

On the subject of difficulty, as a gm you will likely wish to provide an engaging challenge for your players. While the encounters that are provided are set, how you modify enemy behavior matters. How intelligent, or perhaps observant, you play the enemies in your encounter as in general can have a large effect on difficulty. Do enemies move out of the way of effects that have not triggered but will damage them if they stay still? Do they avoid players that are resistant to damage and seek out ranged attackers? Do they use their abilities to effectively mitigate status effects like distraction, or work around environmental effects that limit their movement? It may depend on the enemy, or you may leave it up to rolls and let chance decide. It is important to remember, that having an encounter be too easy is probably better than one that is to hard, and that you should not increase difficulty as soon as players discover a new strategy or start playing better, allow them time to enjoy the fruits of their labor or improving is not satisfying.

On the subject of enemy behavior, one aspect of slime behavior that is not directly linked to difficulty will be important to the adventure nonetheless. Slimes can escape a battle completely using their seep ability, this is important not only to allow a player character that has an affinity for slimes to avoid killing them, but because it has ramifications for whether the secret boss is encountered. If 25 hp worth of slimes are allowed to escape, the escaped slimes will be encountered near the end of the cave, combining with undamaged slimes to form a mother slime. The mother slime retains the memories of the slimes that formed it, and is aware of those memories in ways they weren't, being more intelligent than smaller slimes. If the slimes were allowed to escape without being attacked, the mother slime will be friendly to the party, if they were attacked while escaping or saw other escaping slimes being attacked while escaping the mother slime will be hostile, and must be fought. If the behavior of the party towards escaping slimes is split, the mother slime will be neutral, likely allowing the party to pass by if they do not antagonize it.

It is important not to forget to designate certain spaces on the grid (either a drawn one or just give coordinates for where the cover would be) as cover each encounter, or at least allow players the chance to ask about natural features that might act as cover. Cover can be useful as protection from ranged attacks and the sniper class relies on it for some of its abilities.

Encounters

The party will face the following encounters, see the bestiary to learn more about the individual entities in each encounter. These encounters were designed with a party of 3 players in mind, see modifying encounters for suggestions on how to balance things for more or less players.

At level 1, 4 5 health slimes. One of these slimes should attempt to escape using seep on its first turn, preferably an undamaged one, in order to demonstrate the mechanic. Whether any others try to escape is up to you. Other than the slime that leaves immediately, these slimes are hostile, however the party will have passed by several largely non hostile slimes before this encounter though you may not need to explicitly state this.

At level 2, 2 wolves. Wolves can move further than player characters in a turn, and may avoid fighting melee focused player characters in favor of attacking ranged ones. 6(2) 4 overall

At level 3, 3 wolves and a 5 health slime. 11(4) 5 overall? yeah 5 for 1

At level 4, 1 wolf? two wolves and a 5 health slime. The wolf? is partially based on folklore or urban legends where an individual unfortunate enough to encounter a ghost or mythical being must respond in a specific way to avoid their untimely death. It is one of the few opportunities players will have to end an encounter through nonviolent means in this adventure, and could be a nice change of pace from straight combat. In terms of combat, the wolf? can do a large amount of damage for this level, but moves quite slowly. The wolves, conversely, do minimal damage but move quite fast. This may result in melee combatants with damage mitigation fighting the wolf? while wolves attack any spell casters, or players may avoid the wolf? entirely, never letting it get a chance to get a hit in. 13 (4) 7 for 1

At level 5, 4 bandits. Bandits are fairly versatile in that they do high damage up close and a lesser amount at range. Cover may be useful here for players, and the bandits will try to use it themselves if attacked with range. You may have these bandits engage in conversation with the players or try to flee when losing, but it is not necessary. 16 (4) 10 for 1

At level 6, two field scorpions. This is the first enemy that has charges of its own and how you manage those will be part of what determines how the encounter goes. The field scorpion can do quite a bit of damage, particularly with poison being applied to the same player character and is hard to escape given its extra movement. Limiting that movement so that those with damage mitigation can engage it may be effective as its range attack requires charges and does less damage. Status effects may be able to shut down a scorpion entirely, though it can block while distracted, not doing damage itself but preventing damage from player characters at least. This encounter may act as something of a mid boss. 16 (2) 14 for 1

At level 7, 1 cave in critter 1 bandit and 1 15 health slime. The cavern the cave in critter should be encountered in a cavern that has ceiling that is higher than 6 spaces up in a couple places, but is mostly about six spaces up. This allows it to attack players while it is mostly inaccessible to them, either by throwing rocks slightly out of their range, or dropping them from the ceiling though that is easier for players to avoid. The player characters must stay out of its range to encourage it to move into lower ceiling areas or else use attacks with greater than typical range. In addition, it begins the encounter hidden. You may choose to have it throw a rock revealing itself after causing just one to fall from the ceiling, or you may have it try to remain hidden as long as possible, draining charges on its rock falls. The bandits presence here does not entirely make sense for a normal bandit, perhaps they are some sort of crazed hermit if that works better for you. The 15 health slime is the first slime large enough to do significant damage and effectively use the slime launch ability. 20 (3) 18 for 2, 16 for 1

At level 8, one wyvernling 1 25 health slime 1 10 health slime. The wyvernling is the main threat here and is the first opportunity to damage multiple player characters with a single attack that is likely to actually hit, though the cave in critter introduces the concept. Make sure you don't use this combined with other high damage sources like the 25 health slime to decimate the party, as they may not be prepared for multiple players being damaged at once at this point.

At level 9, 2 cave scorpions. These are not exclusively better than the fields scorpions, they lack some of the mobility and, due to charge having less charges some of the uses of ranged attacks. Their mobility is less of a limiting factor on them as they can immobilize player characters with their ranged attack, and they can block if they are immobilized themselves.

Level 10, mother slime? The mother slime is only encountered if 25 hp of slimes have escaped the players, in which case they combine with unencountered slimes in a cavern the players enter, to form a mother slime. If escaping slimes were ignored by players the mother slime is non-hostile and, if they interact with it, may coat them with a substance that deters any slimes summoned by the crystalid from attacking them. If they only attacked or were seen attacking some escaping slimes the mother slime is ambivalent toward them, and will not attack unless provoked. If the attacked many escaping slimes and either did not manage to kill them or were seen by slimes that did escape doing so, the mother slime is hostile and will attack. The mother slime will be producing normal slimes regardless of its temperament, if these are attacked the mother slime will likely become hostile. You should describe the mother slime and its reaction to the player characters as well as how they feel its attitude is based on whether the mother slime is hostile, non hostile, and ambivalent.

This encounter could be quite difficult and complex. If the mother slime approaches a player undamaged and attacks that way that's 50 damage straight away, but players are unlikely to let that happen given its low movement. The second most damage it can do is by launching, it can spend up to 30 of its max hp to do so, doing 30 damage to a target 6 spaces away even if it is in water (moves one space, launches four, that slime hits a target one space away from it), enough to kill most player characters while creating a separate distinct threat. If its movement is locked down completely or no players within 6 spaces of it it can do 15 damage to anything within 8 spaces of it. All the while it is producing 5 health times in random spots with can themselves combine into larger threats. still, using status effects effectively, flying which it can't do anything against, using flood and trying to avoid everything except its 15 damage attack, exploiting its weakness or just using heavily damaging attacks on it it should allow for its defeat.

Level 10 (11 if they defeated the mother slime) crystalid. This enemy I will admit, may be a little bit overcomplicated, and potentially very difficult depending on how it is fought. That said, the one time I had the opportunity to run this encounter, it went pretty well. The size of the room it is fought in will be quite important, as summoned slimes start at the rooms walls.

The first phase it would be best for players to avoid damage and spending too many charges, which may be possible given the low movement of both slimes and the crystalid itself. The second phase it is important that players destroy the cocoon as fast as possible in order to stop the crystalid from growing in power. Depending on how much health they lose in the first phase, you may want to change things slightly so that it does not start spending charges to gain power until its starts its turn in the cocoon. On the plus side, the longer it stays in the cocoon the less slimes it can summon when it comes out, but that's a small consolation. Wich player you choose the crystalid to entomb will have a major effect on how fast they can break the cocoon so keep that in mind.

The third phase is where the fight really starts. Avoiding damage here is significantly less possible due to the increased movement and number of abilities the crystalid has without the use of status effects. Speaking of those limiting its movement is certainly possible, but it has ranged attacks, distracting it is feasible but silk surge is still usable and that is potentially its strongest ability, constraining players giving slimes a chance to attack them as well as doing damage itself, finally incapacitating it is useful, but not that many spells can impose that status effect and if it is incapacitated two turns in a row it summons more slimes. Still if players discovered what the monster likely responsible for the towns woes, its weakness, and to break it out of the cocoon as quickly as possible from the research phase. It should be quite doable. Meteor can do 31 damage to it at the cost of only five charges. Survivalists call the storm can cut through slimes since they are weak to ice. You may wish to tell your players aspects of this fight before it begins even if they did not obtain information about it in the research phase. Also, it used to have an ability where if it started its turn next to a constrained player character it could reenter the second phase with them, but that seemed like over kill, use at your discretion.

Designing and Modifying Encounters

Feel free to modify encounters to fit the party if need be. Slimes can more easily deal with distraction as they can launch a new undistracted slime to attack rather than attacking themselves, scorpions can block damage as long as they are not incapacitated and wait out the charges on other status effects, flying or climbing enemies can avoid environmental effects, wolf?s can distract high damage player characters, and enemies with range can attack despite their movement being limited.

In understanding the best way to switch out or add monsters looking at the difficulty value for each encounter can be helpful. If you want to keep things simple do not let the sum of the difficulty of the enemies in the encounter exceed that difficulty value when switching out monsters to make encounters more difficulty, and only increase it a little if adding monsters whole sale. If you have more or less party members than 3, try adding or subtracting 3 from the difficulty value of the encounter per extra/absent party member, and then add or remove enemies to make the sum of their difficulty roughly match the new difficult of the encounter.

Adding a monster with a difficulty level of 2 would increase the difficulty of the encounter by 2, and switching out a monster with a difficulty of two with another of 2 should change things up without making them too much more difficult. If you have more or less party members than 3, try adding or subtracting 3 from the difficulty of the encounter per extra/absent party member.

You may have noticed that adding the difficulty of all the monsters in an encounter sometimes exceeds the difficulty value of the encounter in the examples I have provided. This is because when building encounter, I allow the sum of enemy difficulties to be greater than the difficulty value of the encounter by 2 for each enemy there is beyond one. In exchange, I decrease the maximum difficulty any one monster in the encounter can be (which starts at the difficulty value of the encounter) by 2. This is because fight a lot of weaker enemies can often be easier than fighting a few large ones if difficulty is not designed to account for that. Feel free to use this method when building or modifying encounters yourself, but the simpler method described in the paragraph above should work well enough in most cases.

Beastiary

Monster abilities generally spend their turn.

Monsters do not have to spend a turn to switch weapons.

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Slime:

Health: 5-49

Movement: 4 spaces.

Weakness: ice

Threshold: 1 at under ten max hp 2 at under 20 max hp 3 at 20 max hp and above.

Difficulty: 2 for every 5 max hp

Charges: none

Abilities:

Acidic touch: a slime can deal damage equal to its current health to an entity within one space of it

Consume: a slime can absorb another slime over a single turn, or another entity at zero health over a much longer period of time, gaining current and max health equal to the current and max health of the consumed slime.

Slime launch: a slime can, losing up to 3/5 of its max health and the same amount of current health in the process, create a slime with the same amount of health that it lost and send it flying up to three spaces. This slime is added to the turn order after the slime that created it, but cannot move or use slime launch on its first turn. A slime can launch at least 4 of its health on a turn even if that is greater than 3/5 of its max.

Seep: slimes can pass through solid objects if moving slowly, and can use this ability to escape into the floor/ground. A slime will begin to visibly sink to the the ground/floor to escape and will exit the encounter at the start of its next turn.

Description:

formed of gelatinous goo of unclear nature, their size and many other features such as color can vary, but they tend to be round blobs with of two eye like circles an a curved mouth like line that moves across or slightly under their surface.

Behavior:

slimes are relatively innocent creatures of low intelligence, typically only attacking prey animals clearly smaller and weaker than them, then consuming them to increase their mass. This is not necessary for their survival, but is one of their methods of reproduction, as increasing their size allows them to more easily and safely split into separate entities. Their behavior and intelligence changes as their size increases. The "face" may be intended to scare off predators or give the impression or give prey the impression it has not "seen" them or will not attempting consumption as its "mouth" remains closed.

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Wolf:

Health: 10

Movement: 8 spaces

Weakness: fire

Threshold: 1

Difficulty: 3

Charges: none

Description:

a wolf, likely a particularly feral one.

Behavior:

most wolves will ignore entities other than obvious prey animals, some however have a particularly violent nature and will pursue human and non-human beings even when overpowered by them. Rarely hunts alone.

Abilities:

Bite: deals four hits to an entity within one space of it.

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Wolf?:

Health: 20

Movement: 4 spaces

Weakness: fire

Threshold: 3

Difficulty: 5

Charges: none

Description:

a bipedal wolf like being, like a wolf standing on its hind legs but with thicker limbs and a flatter more human-like chest, the wolf? can often be seen sporting a top hat, monocle, dress pants, jacket, and socks. These clothes cannot be removed and are not shifted by the wind or another entities touch. It carries a cane, often leads a group of wolves, and, other than assaulting those it has decided to prey on, comports itself in a gentlemanly matter. Fond of phrases such as good day and beg pardon.

Behavior:

the wolf? is an inherently confusing creature. During combat it will great player characters politely and enthusiastically respond if engaged in conversation while at the same time trying to kill them. If asked the why it is attacking it will state, "because I am a wolf of course!" or something to that effect. If it can be convinced through conversation that attacking random travelers is not something that a wolf would do it will leave, potentially consulting or amending a hand written note book or set of stage directions first, taking the wolves with it. If a player tries to convince the wolf? that it is not a wolf or fails to convince it that wolves do not typically attack random passersby, the circular reasoning and odd speech of the wolf? will leave them confused, inflicting them with the distracted status effect.

Abilities:

Sword cane: the wolf? will draw its sword cane and strike an entity within one space of it, dealing 10 hits.

Bite: the wolf will bite an entity within one space of it for 6 hits, less powerful than the sword cane but it may use this ability if it feels the need to prove it is a wolf.

Distract: if you feel like using the wolf? in later encounters it may be best to give it the ability to distract a player character within 6 spaces of it with its confusing speech.

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Bandit:

Health: 10

Movement: 6 spaces

Weakness: none

Threshold: 2

Difficulty: 4

Charges: none

Description:

a bandit. You may change this to another human combatant say a guard or crazed cultist.

Behavior:

no specific behaviors other than attacking passersby.

Abilities:

Stab: deals 8 hits to an entity within 1 space of it

Crossbow: deals 5 hits to an enemy within 6 spaces of it

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Field scorpion:

Health: 25

Movement: 7 spaces

Weakness: rock

Threshold: 3

Difficulty: 8

Charges: 6

Appearance:

a massive scorpion that hunts through open fields. Faster and more poisonous than the cave variety but somewhat smaller and weaker, large pincers.

Behavior:

confident in its speed and power, cave scorpions hunts in open fields and will often kill other entities it does not intend to eat if it believes them to be predators, decreasing competition. Travels in mating pairs.

Abilities:

Poison: an entity that accrues 5 or more poison stacks immediately takes 5 damage, removing 5 poison stacks in the process.

Pincer attack: the field scorpion does 1o hits to an entity within one space of it.

Tail attack: the field scorpion does 15 hits to an entity within one space of it and adds 4 poison stacks. Costs 3 charges.

Poison shot: the field scorpion does 5 hits and adds 3 poison stacks. Costs 2 charges.

Block: the scorpion begins blocking with one of its massive pincers. All damage to the scorpion is halved until it attacks. To be clear, entering this state ends its turn and incapacitation ends this state. If it remains blocking for 4 turns it regains all charges. (It will typically only block if it is incapable of damaging a player character on a given turn).

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Cave in critter:

Health: 20

Movement: 9 spaces

Weakness: sky

Threshold: 3

Difficulty: 10

Charges: 6

Description:

resembling a skinless man with a bladed tail, the cave in critter has its tooth ringed mouth on what, if it were a man, would be the back of its neck.

Behavior:

vicious and hateful towards those that live in the light, the cave in critter hunts by crawling across ceilings, stabbing downward with its tail in low ceiling areas and dropping rocks on those in areas with high ceilings. It drags the bodies of its victims up to the tallest point of a cave to protect its kill and holds the body with its tail while eating it with its neck mouth, using its four limbs to cling to the ceiling.

Abilities:

the cave in critter begins the encounter hidden. As typical with hidden entities, it cannot be attacked directly though an area of effect in its general area may hit it. It becomes unhidden if damaged or if it attacks directly. A spell that generates a large amount of light near the ceiling may also reveal it.

if the cave in critter is incapacitated it falls to its death.

Rock drop: the cave in critter slams the ceiling with its fists, using a rock charge to weaken the ceiling and quiet the blows. At the start of its next turn a rock falls on the space beneath it, dealing 15 hits. The rumbling from the ceiling and falling dust preceding the rocks fall is very noticeable, giving player characters time to move.

Rock throw: the cave in critter throws a rock at a creature within 7 spaces of it, dealing 7 hits. This reveals it if it was hidden.

Cave in: the cave in critter expends its remaining charges assaulting the cave ceiling in a final desperate attempt to kill the intruders into its cave. At the start of its next turn a rock falls every space within 5 spaces of the space under the cave in critter, dealing damage equal to the charges spent times 10. The cave in critter falls to its death along with the rocks. Dust falls on every space that a rock will next turn.

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Wyvernling

Health: 25

Movement: 12 spaces omni directional while flying, 5 spaces while grounded.

Weakness: sky

Threshold: 5

Difficulty: 10

charges: 20

Description:

a young wyvern, not as large or dangerous as a fully developed one but still very dangerous. It looks like you might imagine a wyvern to, but with leathery skin instead of scales which will grow in later, and its wings and limbs more like that of a bat but with only one blade like protrusion extending from the elbow and supporting the membrane of its wing.

Behavior:

wyvernlings are quite territorial and will attempt to kill any entities approaching the ground that its nest rest's above and that it perceives to be a threat, which excludes most weak entities.

Abilities:

The wyvernling is already flying when encountered.

If the wyvernling is incapacitated in the air, it falls gently to earth without taking any damage from falling, but is grounded.

Flame spot: the wyvernling spits fire at an enemy within four spaces of it, dealing ten hits. Costs 2 charges.

Wyverns fury: the wyvern spits fire over an 2 by 3 space rectangle somewhere underneath it dealing 12 hits to each entity within that rectangle. The wyvernling must be at least more than one and no more than six spaces above the ground when using this ability, and glides to the ground as it ends its turn. This ability costs five charges.

Flight: the wyvern returns to the air from the ground. This does not spend the wyverns turn but it cannot use any other abilities his turn. It can start flying and then get mostly out of range of player characters with its movement before swooping down to attack on the next turn. Costs 5 charges.

Razor wing: the wyvernling does 20 hits to an enemy within one space of it, it can only use this move while grounded unless it is on a flying entity.

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Cave scorpion:

Health: 45

Movement: 4 spaces movement.

Weakness: fire

Threshold: 3

Difficulty: 12

Charges: 6

Appearance:

a massive scorpion that looks deep within cave systems. Larger and stronger than field scorpions but slower and less poisonous, massive pincers.

Behavior:

The king and queen of the cave system they inhabit, a cave scorpion and its mate are well equipped to deal with most other cave born entities (though aerial ones can be a chalenge) and work together to solidify their dominance. Strong newcomers are a challenge to their authority.

Abilities:

Poison: an entity with 5 or more poison stacks immediately takes 5 damage.

Pincer attack: the field scorpion does 15 hits to an entity within one space of it.

Tail attack: the field scorpion does 20 hits to an entity within one space of it and adds 3 poison stacks. Costs 3 charges.

Poison glob: the cave scorpion does 10 hits, adds 2 poison stacks, and constrains an entity within 3 spaces to the space it currently occupies. This grounds flying or climbing creatures. Costs 3 charges.

Block: the scorpion begins blocking with one of its massive pincers. All damage to the scorpion is halved until it attacks. To be clear, entering this state ends its turn and incapacitation ends this state. If it remains blocking for 3 turns it regains all charges. (It will typically only block if it is incapable of damaging a player character on a given turn).

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Mother slime:

Health: 50

Movement: 3 spaces.

Weakness: ice

Threshold: 4

Difficulty: 25

charges: none

Description:

a massive typically pink slime with smaller slimes forming underneath, pressing against, and sliding down its surface.

Behavior:

A mother slime, created by the fusion of 50 hp of normal slimes, is significantly more intelligent than a typical slime and remembers some of the things that happened to the slimes that fused to create it despite them not being capable of knowing their own memories in their original form. Rarely hostile and often quite curious about being possessed of higher intelligence, humans in particular, it may attempt to communicate with or even manipulate its form to imitate them, becoming a slimeling.

Mother slimes constantly produce lesser slimes, and view them and lesser slimes in general as its children, being very protective of them while they are in its presence. A a result, they will almost never use the consume ability on a slime despite being capable of doing so. They have no predatory desires as it does not need to increase its mass to reproduce, though it may scavenge dead or dying entities.

It produces humming noises and that and the way it vibrates can be a good indicator of its mood. If happy or welcoming it will purr pleasantly and bounce around, if ambivalent it will release a flat droning town and remain motionless, if angry it will produce a sound halfway between a hum and a shrill scream and vibrate furiously. Beings consumed by a mother slime may be reborn as slimelings. Any levels they have will be lost and their intelligence will be vastly diminished and memories buried until their max health increases and they develop as slimelings do. A being is unlikely to be consumed by a mother slime unless they attack it or are dying already. A player, after being defeated along with their party and consumed, may choose to be reborn as a slimeling thought that would not allow for continuing to the next encounter unless you overlook the norm of this causing a loss of all levels. Would be an interesting jumping off point for a campaign though.

Abilities:

Acidic touch: a slime can deal damage equal to its current health to an entity within one space of it

Consume: a slime can absorb another slime, or another entity at zero health over a much longer period of time, gaining current and max health equal to the current and max health of the consumed slime.

Greater slime launch: a mother slime can, losing up to 3/5 of its max health but no current health if its max health is still above its current after launch, create a slime with the same amount of health that it lost and send it flying up to four spaces. This slime is added to the turn order after the slime that created it, but cannot move on its first turn. This means a mother slime with 25 current health and 50 max, may spend 25 max health to create a 25 health slime without losing current health, but to create a 30 health slime while at 50 max and 25 current, it must lose 5 current health as well as the 25 max.

Slime shot: a mother slime can spend 15 of its max hp to create as slime with the same amount of health that it lost and sent it flying up to six spaces. This slime is added to the turn order after the slime that created it, but cannot move on its first turn.

Slime spawn: each turn, whether hostile or not, the mother slime will create a 5 health slime and send it 6 spaces away in a random cardinal direction (this can be determined with a d8 or a random number generator) without spending its turn. The slimes have the same attitude toward the party that their mother does, and thus are nonhostile unless the mother slime is hostile. If created during combat, this slime is added to the turn order after the mother slime but cannot move or launch on its first turn.

Crystalid:

Health: 100

Movement: 3 spaces at form 1, 7 at form 3.

Weakness: rock

Threshold: 3

Difficulty: 25-40

Charges: 33

Appearance:

The crystalid has 3 phases, larval with looks like a giant grub of some kind, crystalis, where it produces a crystal cocoon around itself and another player, and mothman, a bipedal mothlike creature, perhaps with bits of human flesh growing off of it it it was able to absorb a player in its crystal over a few turns.

Behavior:

The crystalid is a powerful monster deeply associated with crystal. It has been sending out waves of crystal energy, growing slimes in the valley and encouraging them to seek rapid growth and reproduction so that it may then feed on them more readily, speeding its own development.

Abilities:

Elemental resistance: while meeting threshold with a damage type it is weak to will still double damage dealt+1, going over threshold will not triple it.

Resonant call: if incapacitated by a a player character for more than 1 turn, the crystalid vibrates, its exoskeleton creating a tune that summons 10 hp of slimes the second turn it is incapacitated in a row.

Larval stage:

Scream: Each time its health has decreased by fifteen, it will scream, summoning 10 hp of slimes, distributed as you choose. They ooze through the walls of the cavern.

Smack: the crystalid does 15 hits damage to an entity within one space.

Snare: the crystalid does 10 hits damage to an entity within four spaces and they lose their movement on their next turn. Costs 4 charges.

Heal: heals 5 hits without spending its turn. Costs 3 charges.

Charge: rushes a player on its first turn that it is at 60 health or under and not incapacitated, and entombs them both in its crystalis.

Crystalis:

The player entombed is incapacitated.

Of damage directed at the crystalis, 3/4 goes to destroying the cocoon and 1/4 to the creature itself.

Each turn that the crystalid is in this form, including the turn it enters it, it spends 3 charges and does 2 damage to the entombed player, partially dissolving them as it sucks out nutrients and life force from their body. Keep track of how many charges were spent in this way.

This form ends when the crystalid has spent 12 charges or the cocoon has taken 20 damage.

Mothman:

Power surge: the healing and damage the crystalid does increases by 2 for each 3 charges that was spent in the last form.

Crystal surge: upon entering this form, subtract the charges spent in the last form from 12, the Crystalid may spend up to half this amount of charges to summon twice as much hp in slimes.

Healing surge: all remaining slimes heal 2 and gain 2 max hp, this costs 2 charges

Silk surge: all player characters within 6 spaces of the crystalid take 3 hits and are constrained to their current space. This costs 6 charges.

Probuster: the crystalid strikes 3 spaces on a line extending from itself, dealing 3 hits of damage and healing it 3 hits for each slime that it damaged with this attack.

Moth dust: player characters within 6 spaces of of motorman are distracted. This costs 4 charges.

Prism beam: the crystalid does 5 hits to an enemy within 6 spaces. This costs 3 charges.

Difficulty guidelines for custom monsters

When designing a monster, the standard is 2 difficulty for every 5 health it has, 6 spaces of movement, no ranged attacks, and damage equal to over half of its health, though not typically more than 3/4s of it and the ratio tends to decrease as difficulty increases, player health not advancing as quickly as player damage output. Any time you add a factor that to this, more health, more movement, range, special abilities, increase that monsters difficulty. Decrease the difficulty when lowering movement, damage output, etc from the base.

If you ran or played in the campaign please send a message saying that you did and whether you were a player or a GM. If you have any criticism of it or the game and site in general and the time to write it I would love to heart it as well, regardless of whether you played the campaign or not. The version of the contact form with the email field I will be able to respond to, but I would also know what your email account is so if you don't want that use the first form.

"credits"

While I made the site and the rules, they would be even rougher than they are now if not for the people who have given me advice and played in my test campaigns, one of which was the one included here. Thank you for your support.

Thank you for playing the game.