The Metamorphica: A Book of Random Mutation Tables

As promised, the book is finally done!

The Metamorphica is a very large system-agnostic collection of random mutation tables, for any table-top role-playing game. The digest-sized PAPERBACK VERSION is available from lulu.com for only US$4.90 plus shipping, but you can download the pdf version for free (either FROM LULU or FROM HERE for less hassle).

How did this happen? Good question!

I was originally inspired to make this when I started using the old Realm of Chaos mutation tables while I was running old Red Box D&D. We had a lot of fun with mutagenic substances so I decided to make a much larger collection that included mutation ideas from a whole range of other role-playing games. Along the way I added a lot of new ones as well, and when it became too big to be a stapled booklet, I decided to add procedures for creating all sorts of monsters and mutants. And also to make it available as a printed book and not just a pdf.

The Metamorphica is system-agnostic, meaning there aren’t any rules in it per se: no attack bonuses, no hit points, and no task or conflict resolution systems. I intend to use this for more than just D&D, but making the book compatible with such disparate systems as Metamorphosis Alpha, Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, and Diaspora would make it way too long, and take way too much time. You can just make up rules in play if you need them, that’s what I do. It’s really not that hard.

The Metamorphica was written by Johnstone Metzger and illustrated by Andrew Gillis, Nathan Jones, Johnstone Metzger, and Nathan Orlando Wilson. If you need to get in touch with anyone about this book, Red Box Vancouver (no spaces) has a standard gmail address that will accept your inquiries.

Also? It’s free!

Yes, this is (essentially) a free book. But if you would like to not-so-subtly encourage future products of a similar nature, or just buy me and/or the artists a drink by way of thanks, feel free to donate whatever you feel is appropriate.

Or, if you would really like to do me a favour (warning, real-life bummer stuff follows):
I find the violence surrounding coltan mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the economics of the electronics industry that encourage it, particularly concerning. Especially since this book would not have been possible without such electronics. However, I have neither the time nor the expertise to track down and properly vet charitable organizations working to solve this issue. If you know of one, and can make an adequate case as to their accountability and their work in the DRC, please let me know. If you don’t know any charities working in this area specifically, don’t worry about it, just enjoy the book. And if you are unaware of this issue, please look it up, the information is readily available. Thank you.

Book Announcement: Random Mutation Tables Collection

So it has been a long time since either cr0m or I updated this blog. But things are still happening!

I have been working on a book of random mutation tables, which is now in the final stages of preparation. The Red Box Vancouver guys always get excited when I pull out the Realms of Chaos books, so I decided to make my own thing that’s got more mutation stuff and none of the stuff I don’t need (because those books are thick and heavy). And since I started doing that, I figured why not just make it a product, too, right? I might as well, so…

It’s called The Metamorphica and it should be ready for public consumption before the end of May. It will be available as a free PDF, or as a print-on demand softcover for I-don’t-know-how-much, but hopefully pretty damn cheap. It’s 160 pages, digest-sized, with the occasional illustration. It’s system-agnostic, so you still have to make up your own rules, but I figure that’s a lot easier for you to do than it is for me.

How does The Metamorphica compare to the mutation tables you already have? It’s basically an amalgamation of every mutation idea in every role-playing book I’ve ever looked at, plus a bunch of my own research. It’s no cut-and-paste job, though, it’s original text and interpretations, even if some of the ideas are old and/or classic.

Here’s the back matter:

From the sorcerous influence of the Gods of Chaos to the ferocious inhabitants of hostile and unexplored planets, from uncontrolled experiments conducted in top secret laboratories to the demonic hordes of Hell, table-top role-playing games the world over teem with monstrous and bizarre creatures. If your game has a need for random mutation tables and procedures for creating all sorts of mutant abominations or unnatural things, whether they are corrupt demons and unique monsters or strange aliens and new superheroes, The Metamorphica is the book for you. As a collection of biological, psychic, and supernatural mutations, all grouped into tables so results can be randomly selected using dice, this book is a system-agnostic resource for campaigns of such diverse genres as dark fantasy, four-colour comic book, post-apocalypse, modern horror, science fiction, transhumanism, and weird high fantasy.

The Metamorphica contains:
Over 650 individual mutations, all with their own descriptions.
Physical and metal mutations, as well as psychic and supernatural powers.
Several different types of mutation-generating tables.
Lengthy random creature tables.
Procedures for using mutations in four different campaign types.
Procedures for creating aliens and demons.
Procedures for creating mutant animals, humans, and plants.

I’ll post again when it’s ready.

And these arrived as well…

Shown with eraser, highlighter, and one of Blair’s old digest-sized Planet Algol booklets for scale.

I got this in the mail today…

It’s a print of the cover art from Adventurer Conqueror King. Was I supposed to know I was getting this? Was it listed as part of the reward level I donated at? I don’t remember at all. It’s nice though. It says it’s number 4 of 8 on it, which is amusing because as far as Red Box Vancouver DMs go, I am number 4 of 6. I guess we need to get two more DMs.

Semi-related, for whatever reason, I did not realize that Ryan Browning the ACKS artist was Ryan Browning the guy who did Cloak of Invisibility until after I’d already sent him money for original ACKS artwork (which I’ll post pictures of when it arrives). I had one of those “wait… this guy is that guy?” moments.

Revenge of Carcosa and Isle of the Unknown

I received the actual physical books in the mail not too long ago. Aside from a few typos here and there, the art and layout is quite pleasing, but you have likely seen other peoples’ pictures of them already.

A couple of observations:

1.
Isle of the Unknown isn’t a fully-conceptualized setting, but Carcosa is. However, it’s a minimalist setting, with a fairly tight, singular premise around which the whole book revolves. And while I admire that, artistically, I actually prefer maximalism, when it’s done right (i.e. integrated maximalism, not pastiche overcrowdingism). Not that I think either book should be less minimalist and more maximalist, it’s just a personal preference I’ve noticed. Luckily for me, I don’t think either product is too weird to be easily incorporated as one layer of a maximalist setting.

2.
In the poster map, the races of men are colour-coded, which is interesting because there are three fictional colours on Carcosa.* While this adds to the book’s tone of otherworldly strangeness, it is also somewhat difficult to actually imagine and picture mentally. To take a couple examples from other sources, when I imagine garrow, I think it looks like both black and yellow simultaneously (not mixed together), and I think of Terry Pratchett’s octarine as looking similar, but with blue and orange, also simultaneously.

(*Never mind that adding one new primary colour actually results in at least five new colours, that’s something to take up with David Lindsay.)

On the Carcosa poster, Dolm Men are colour-coded with light blue and cream, Jale Men are coded with dark blue and red, and Ulfire Men are coded with cream and deep purple. But when I think of ulfire, I think of red, green, and white at the same time (this might be partly due to some bird that was covered in ulfire-coloured flames in one of Blair’s early Planet Algol reports). Jale and dolm, though… I’m not entirely sure. Sometimes I imagine dolm being a bit like olive green, and other times I can’t imagine what either of them looks like. Maybe jale is similar to yellow and pink and neon colours. I mean, sure, it’s “dreamlike, feverish, and voluptuous,” but so is purple.

If there is just one fictional colour, then it’s easy to imagine, because every person’s different interpretation can stand without interfering with each other, as long as they imagine some kind of fictional, hitherto-unimagined colour. When you have to differentiate between fictional colours, that can start to get weird.

That’s not a criticism, just an observation. What do you imagine dolm, ulfire, and jale look like?

I do have some actual criticisms of the two books, though. There are a few things that could have made the books easier to use, at least for me.

1.
I think both maps could have benefited greatly from the addition of roads being marked. Even without them, Isle of the Unknown’s keyed map is pretty good, but Carcosa’s is slightly less so. The poster has a map keyed with the locations of rituals and Great Old Ones, but there is no map with settlements or the colours of the men that live in them. When the locations of certain colours of settlements—such as we find around the other lake (the one that isn’t Hali)—are mentioned as plot points in the hex descriptions, it would help to have this information in map format. Likewise, there is a mention of a trade route road winding around the icy wastes, but no indication of where this road is coming from or where it is going.

The political situation isn’t the most useful aspect of this information, however. Terrain, and especially roads, determines how fast characters can move across the map, and how fast characters can move across the map determines how much the DM has to prep between sessions in order to respond to the players’ choices. If there is a road that stretches across three hexes, on either Carcosa or the Isle, it’s entirely possible that the PCs could travel the whole way in a single day, walking from dawn to dusk. Without having roads on the map, the DM basically needs to prep three hexes away from the PC’s present location in every direction, in order to get an idea of where to even place roads. It seems to me that adding even just major roads is not much additional work when all major settlements are already plotted out, which is the case for both books, and some hex descriptions even mention roads, which is at least the case for Carcosa.

Being able to see the roads helps to envision the possibilities of PC movement, which makes the DM’s job easier.

2.
Any hint of motivation or personality is missing from most of the magic-users and clerics in Isle of the Unknown. They are treated simply like monsters—if you want to kill them, all the problems you’ll face and the lack of rewards you’ll receive (in most cases) are listed, but not much else. It makes me wonder why anybody would want to interact with these characters in the first place. Even a little bit of information would have been useful, evocative, and inspirational—the way threats are summarized in Apocalypse World, for example. Describing a warlord’s personality with “Dictator (impulse: to control)” or the character of a landscape with “Maze (impulse: to trap, to frustrate passage)” goes a long way with a short amount of text.

While Carcosa has numerous settlements with motivation-less leaders and populations listed, there are also many characters who do have goals, connections to other parts of the map, and even some small semblance of personality. It would have been nice to have a little bit of that in Isle of the Unknown as well, though it’s by no means a dealbreaker. And while I think including something like the Carcosan Ethnography supplemental material in the book itself would have been fantastic, so that DMs can just randomly generate genre-appropriate population details and character motivations, it’s good enough without it that I’m not really upset.

3.
Similarly, there are a few occasions in both books where the material is essentially a tableau to be presented to the players, with little opportunity for them to interact successfully with it, or to use it in combination with other setting elements. When the text describes something the PCs can see but never do anything with, when some magical effect can only happen once in one location by accident, or when the benefits of braving obscene risks turns out to be a measly +1, I’m a little underwhelmed. I much prefer the part of Carcosa’s premise that includes finding a giant laser cannon and deciding to kill Cthulhu with it. Especially if it doesn’t work because you used up all the charges destroying castles and fortresses that asked you to pay tithes for safe passage, and now you’re facing Cthulhu with no ammo and no castles or fortresses to hide in. There’s slightly less of that in Isle of the Unknown, but both books should have had a little more, in my opinion.

Those are all relatively minor concerns, though. Overall, I think the good things everybody says about these two books are pretty accurate.

Carcosa and Isle of the Unknown

In case you are unaware of these two titles, they are a pair of books written by Geoffrey McKinney and published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Naturally, I picked them up and have been perusing the pdfs of late. I have an earlier version of Carcosa, but am very pleased with this new edition, while Isle of the Unknown is completely new. They are both old-school D&D hex-crawl campaigns, although Carcosa has a certain amount of premise and theme built into it. There is some controversy about this, which I have no interest in and do not want to know your opinion of.

Instead, I have a completely different problem. In a word, my problem is: Blair.

You may know Blair as the guy with the Planet Algol blog, as a local Vancouver gamer, or as a regular Vancouver Red Box player and DM (or all three). He’s the one who got me to check out McKinney’s Carcosa in the first place, so it’s no surprise he’s had it longer and read more of it than I have. He’ll no doubt get this new version as well, which means running it for him may lack a litle bit of surprise and mystery. I can assume he’ll be likely to pick up Isle of the Unknown too, if he can stop himself from spending too much money on obscure black/death/doom metal LPs that can double as DM screens. So, while he won’t be memorizing either book in their entirety, if I were to run either of them straight, some of that “unknown” would be slightly less so. Like when I decided to run Tower of the Stargazer without knowing he’d read it already.

Don’t get me wrong, I like having Blair running and playing RBV games, but this is another one of those awkward points of overlap in our collections. The rest of the Red Box crew might have some interest in McKinney’s works, but are more likely to ask Blair or I to DM them than they are to buy and read them. It’s just that I’ll need to modify them somewhat in order to bring back the uncertainty and suspense lost by Blair’s familiarity with them (or at least Carcosa), which unfortunately can sometimes be as much work as making up a new setting from scratch.

However! The books themselves offer up an interesting suggestion for circumventing this awkwardness, in the simple fact that they both use the same numbered hex template.

The obvious solution is just to run both of them. At the same time.

That’s a McKinney Combo Platter, kids. You might remember what’s in this hex on Carcosa, and you might remember what’s in this hex on the Isle of the Unknown, but you have no idea what will happen when worlds collide.

What I Have Learned from Random Mutation Tables

Here is a lesson I have learned from using random mutation tables in D&D. I normally use the old Realms of Chaos books for mutations, and usually it’s because characters come into contact with a mutagenic substance like warpstone or liquid derived from it.

First, let me define a term: All fiction, including role-playing games are composed of certain elements: characters, setting, props, and situation. Props are things that are important to the story but aren’t characterized, and aren’t just part of the setting. Right? Mostly, I’m ‘a talk about props here.

One of my main joys in being a DM is putting the players into a strange situation, with a whole bunch of moving parts they can interact with, and seeing them invent solutions to their problems that I would never have thought of in a million years. When you introduce a puzzle, the payoff is pretty minimal, because either the players figure out the solution you’ve already devised, or they don’t and there’s failure and disappointment. But when there’s no set solution, you can be surprised and have to improvise. This is one reason why I like random tables as well, and certainly other DMs will agree. I know Tavis Allison has written a post or two about improvising based on random tables.

However, random tables are a means to encourage improvisation on the DM’s side. What I want to discuss here is improv on the players’ side, and one of the key ways to do this is to introduce complicated props.

In a typical D&D game, your average treasure haul will include mostly coins and swords +1. The problem with these is that the only thing coins actually do is buy stuff, and the only thing a weapon or armour +1 does is change the probabilities of your dice rolls. Having a magic weapon or not might make the difference between fighting a certain creature or running away, but it’s a pretty minimal encouragement to creative problem-solving.

Props that Do a Thing

Better is a prop that does a specific thing: A sword that glows when goblins are near, a staff that casts cure light wounds, a sword that bursts into flames. Now you have a prop that does a thing, and the player’s options just increased by one (and a very visible option, too).

Sometimes, doing a thing can put extra work on a DM, though. Take an example from Playing D&D with Pornstars: Snakes are Books. The one disadvantage to this prop is that whenever the players read a snake, they look at the DM and ask “what does it say?” If you don’t have a random table for book subjects, that can be a lot of stuff to think up. There’s a magic spell from Postmodern Magick (the Unknown Armies supplement) that lets you read any book you know of, just by opening any other book. It’s pretty cool, as long as you don’t have to sit there inventing books and texts for hours on end to entertain the players. But if you have some really awesome random book tables (or a really cool library), this is dope.

In essence, though, these are props that create more props. They get your character access to information, which hopefully leads to some sort of action, because the action is where the game is really at. I want to see how the players combine the various props and spells and stuff that they have, and create some sort of plan. Especially when it involves props I introduced, and the players use them in some way that totally surprises me. And a sword +1 is never going to do that. What will? Let’s think of some examples…

Ring of Protection
Your average ring of protection +1 gives you a slightly better armour class. Whoop-de-doo. How about a Ring of the Untouchable? Whoever wears this ring cannot be touched by another living being, or by that beings clothes. This is an effective mosquito repellant, and it protects against viruses and bacteria that are not already infecting the wearer. Other creatures cannot touch the wearer, even if they are wearing metal gauntlets. Natural attacks, such as claws or bite, have no effect. The wearer cannot be pushed around, unless the pusher uses a tool. Weapons still have full effect, even lassos. Whatever the wearer is wearing or carrying is also affected, so it defeats pickpockets as well. The wearer can be touched by the undead, and by demons and other extra-planar entities.

Sword +1, +3 versus Gnocchi
This sword may or may not give a bonus to hit and damage. However, it hates all gnolls and gnomes and anything else whose name begins with a gn-, even Pietro Gnocchi. Anytime it hits one of these creatures, the wielder may immediately make another attack against anything close enough to hit. If the wielder chooses not to make an attack, he must quench the blade’s thirst with his own blood. Even a small amount will do, but he must take 1 point of damage.

Stonecutter
This sword does not actually cut through stone, it’s blade just ignores all non-organic material. It can pass through stone, metal, fabric, dirt etc. as if it were not even there. Stonecutter ignores AC bonuses from metal armour, but not leather, and can attack through doors and walls that are thin enough. Keeping it in a scabbard can be a problem, although the hilt of the sword does not share the properties of the blade. The hilt can be strapped to a belt and will not pass through walls, doors, or armour.

Potion of Mutation
If you drink it, you gain a random mutation! Actually, this is a lot like the snake-books, in that it’s a prop that makes new props. Instead of, say, a book that tells you how to kill trolls, it gives you, say, a third arm which ends in a giant lobster pincer. Good thing I have some random mutation tables!

That was pretty rambly, but I’ve got stuff to do so there it is.

Under the Chimera, another home-made module

Here is another short module I made for Red Box Vancouver. We enjoyed this one for a total of four zany sessions, mostly owing to the mutagenic liquid. You can read the session summaries starting here.

This one was also created using Dave’s Mapper and the Moldvay Basic rules. There are no mutation tables provided in the adventure, but I would recommend either this or these, since the giant system-agnostic compilation of all mutation tables everywhere that I’m working on is not yet finished.

So, here it is for you. Again, the last two pages are just the map on page 2, but bigger, just in case you need it. Anything I haven’t provided, use that book you see to the right!

Under the Chimera

The Hidden Ziggurat, a home-made module

This is a short module I made for Red Box Vancouver. I ran three sessions of it, and short summaries can be found on the RBV forums, starting here.

I used Dave’s Mapper to generate a random dungeon map, and made a few slight modifications in Photoshop. I then stocked the dungeon using the rules in Moldvay’s Basic D&D, then added my own ideas so that the dungeon made sense in the end, including some nice colour text culled from a previous phase of black ziggurat enthusiasm. And with the addition of a few short wandering monster tables, I was done.

So here it is for you, if you want it. The last two pages are just the map on page 2 but bigger. If you don’t need them, don’t print them out. There are no monster stats here, because you can get those from the Moldvay Basic book.

The Hidden Ziggurat

Planet Algol Microfiction

This is more or less the first piece of fiction I’ve written since Sexy Deadly, I think. It’s one of several ideas I had for a campaign set in the Verdant Lands of Skla.

Lieutenant Vivian Holloway Among the Bone Men.
Part 7: A Mocking Show of Contempt for the Agogi Oligarchs to the South-East.

Moztar Thegg brought him to the edge of the circle and sat him down by the sandy floor. He was still reeling from the orichalcum-inspired visions, his stomach roiling like a nest of vipers. But he could tell the great hall was much quieter now.

The revellers had stopped up their incessant chatter. The slow and steady tattoo of fingers on a lizard-skin drum rang out through the smoky air.

Thegg and some serving woman, swaddled like her master in black and white from head to toe, eased him down upon a pile of cushions. All at once, knew what it was like to be paint on a Gérôme canvas, or maybe a Delacroix.

How many years has it been since I last felt such luxury? Vivian asked himself. Before the war, surely. Before he had become used to sleeping through the sound of exploding trenches full of mud, used to the sight of death and dismemberment, the world drained of all its colour.

But that was a life he barely remembered, yet another casualty of the shelling and the snipers and the useless charges across No-Man’s Land. Even the war itself paled in comparison to this strange place, this so-called Verdant Land of Skla, with its fogs out of London legend and its natives with skin he could see right through, all the way down to their bones.

Vivian gaped as Thegg’s grey skull inclined itself politely from within its voluminous hood. He wondered for a moment if those transparent lips were stretched in a reassuring smile, or if that was just a trick of the light.

“Now, my friend from Earth so far away,” purred Moztar Thegg, “you will see what arts we have on Planet Algol, in the land of Skla.”

He turned to the sandy ground, surrounded by cloaked and hooded bone men, on their own piles of cushions or standing further back. Some men around the edges had drums and more curious instruments, strangely-shaped flutes and horns and even bronze fiddles they played in their laps. In the middle of the ground lay a large, low brazier, its fire casting a flickering, changeable light across the crowd. He could see two more atop tall spires, standing amongst those who sat at the edge of the bare ground to either side of him. There were women, he saw over the fire, directly opposite him, a huddled mass who hid even their skull faces behind dark-coloured scarves and veils. But now they seemed to part, jostling and pushing against the men around them, until a lone figure emerged.

Through the brazier’s dancing flames, Vivian saw a skeleton step forth onto the sandy ground. Its head was not a skull, but instead that of a beautiful girl, young and pink and hairless. More than just a head, she had a long pink neck as well, perfectly shaped.

But then Vivian realized the truth. She was a bone woman, completely naked but for the bells on her ankles, the bracelets on her wrists, and the pink paint that covered her head and neck and the very edges of her chest and shoulders. At first she swayed, eyes closed, but then the music swooped up and she was dancing, a flurry of twisting arms and shaking hips and stamping feet that sent the sand below her flying in all directions. Her face remained still while her body writhed and shook and leapt around the brazier. As the fire’s elusive light washed over her, Vivian could make out hints of her voluptuous curves, highlighted by tiny golden stars. A thin dusting of some sparkling metallic powder covered her, moved with her, showed her to his eyes that could not see her flesh.

As she danced, the pink paint began to mix with her sweat, and run down her arms and body. Growing thin upon her face and neck, it ran all the way down her spine to her rump, and down her chest, between her breasts and to her belly. It ran not in waves, but in rivulets, enough to suggest, to hint and tease, but only that.

Just like the gamma orichalcum, he thought. I see everything and nothing both.

But as soon as he was sure he had a grasp on that which he beheld, she was gone, spirited away through that wall of women on the crowd’s far side. A roar of cheers and clapping erupted all around him as the fire dimmed and guttered. He felt dizzy, almost as if he were falling from a great height. Thegg appeared before him and seemed to hold him up with his hands.

“My friend, are you not pleased? You are pale as our children’s bones!”

“The fire…” Vivian replied in a mutter, his lips like stone slabs. “Relight the fire…” But then he realized it was not the fire that was growing dim, but his own two eyes.

“Ah, so.” He heard the regret in Moztar Thegg’s raspy breath. “It is the orichalcum vapour. You had too much, too much!”

Yes, thought Vivian as he settled back into the darkness. Too much vapour. Much too much.