Some evil transcends space, time and even the barriers of reality. Turbo Hitler is but one manifestation from the Liga der Unendlichen Nazis (League of Infinite Nazis) who constantly probe at the barriers between realities from Vampire Himmler’s Transdimensional Fortress Wewelsburg. Many a hapless world has fallen to fleets of saucers bearing the crooked cross, the howling madness of the were-macht or the legions of storm-giant troopers.
Turbo Hitler is but one manifestation of the Infinite Fuhrer, albeit a dangerous one. Resurrected by the elixirs of Herbert West when a dead German corporal was brought to his trench-lab, the undead Hitler spent weeks in No-Man’s Land feasting on the bodies of the fallen until he recovered his senses.
Decapitated in a climactic battle with Iron Joe’s gorilla-soldiers the still-living head was spirited away as the remnants of his Reich fled across the dimensions in Wewelsburg, finally settling in a dead reality to rebuild – and be rebuilt.
***
The absolute madman.
Challenge accepted.
Etc.
There’s an adage in gaming, ‘if you stat it, they will kill it’. So, let’s kill (turbo) Hitler.
Well that about wraps that up! I hope you’ve enjoyed Starfinder Month here on the blog. If you think you might be interested in seeing me give Starfinder a more full re-working for Machinations of the Space Princess, let me know. Also let me know what other RPGs you think might be worth giving some love to another month!
CE god of data, networks, hacking, pranks and cruelty.
Centres of Worship: QuadFreq bulletin board, black market relays and darknet sites.
Symbol: A golden frog
The advent of cheap and readily available communications technology changed society on every world and, for a rareified few who could afford or steal interplanetary communication bandwidth, on that scale too. There were benefits – of course – to the sciences, to the study of magic and to businesses, not to mention the ability of people to organise and make their voice heard easily, but there was also a dark side.
People were mean when they didn’t have to face the consequences of their antisocial behaviour and the more people who were communicating the more opportunity there was for scamming, confidence tricks, intimidation, hacking, spying and laughing at people’s expense.
The collective darkness that gathered in the deepest, nastiest recesses of mass communication gradually took on a spiritual nature suited to the massed minds that fed it. A cold, damp, grotesque being that most envision as some sort of squat, amphibian creature.
Mystics of Keck are most commonly Akashic or Mindbreakers.
Roffle
Avatar of Sharing
CN god of data, networks, sharing, humour and data piracy.
Centers of Worship: Public network channels, grey market relays and media centres.
Symbol: A smiling face
While Keck was bubbling up from the shadows, Roffle descended from the light. The positive side of the data networks was everywhere as well, people sharing the joy in their lives, jokes, stories and pictures. This spirit of sharing and happiness manifested in the form of Roffle, a smiling, felinoid being of laughter and good humour – but with no respect for boundaries or legality.
Where Keck is malicious, Roffle is capricious, ever-changing, giving and taking with equal measure but always, always laughing.
Psibernetic prosthesis use synthetic synapses and hardware to convert energy into raw magic and then to channel it through a number of pre-loaded chips to produce magical effects. There is no truth to the persistent rumours that this technology depends on harvesting nervous tissue from magic-capable androids.
Fitting a psibernetic prosthesis uses your Brain and Spinal Column systems and is made up of two parts.
There was a time when the noble houses of many cities would hire specialist chefs to prepare – or conjure – fantastical meals. These were the times of the pastamancer, the saucerer and the Clerical order of the Miracle Whip. None were so prized for their skills, however, as the great culinary wizard, Anton Burdo.
Burdo’s foods were a spellbinding delight, sugarplum fairies that flew into your mouth, fountains of chocolate and his turducken one-upped the owlbear by combining three creatures into one, raised purely for the eating. His garlic-chilli dire-chicken was to die for, and many did die in battle with dire chickens to ensure a steady supply for the high tables.
Then it all went wrong.
The wastage from uneaten food and continuous kitchen-spellcasting began to have side effects, trolls in the pantry, mutations in the wait-staff and then – most spectacularly – the emergence of an entirely new breed of beholder in the sewers beneath the kitchens.
Burdo quit in disgrace and fled to the south in a personal quest to explore as many dungeons and drive-ins, and dragons and dives as he could, providing the spoils to the people as an apology. His lost spellbook is said to be in the hands of a cakeholder and to contain a wealth of lost magic. These apocryphally include:
Splashback, Onion Ward, Chilli Touch, Pilot Light, Condiment Spray, Ray of Frosting, Disguise Food, Expeditious Service, Protection from Haute Cuisine, Food Coma, Unseen Sous-Chef, Enlarge/Shrink Portion, Melf’s Acid Reflux, Animate Food, Barbecue Ball, Leomund’s Tiny Kitchen, Appetising Cloud, Banish Calories, Control Lard, Leomund’s Secret Pantry, Wall of Cake, Create Omnomculous, Otto’s Irresistable Cookies, Finger of Fudge, Ramsey’s Harsh Power Word and Profiterole Swarm.
As to the cakeholders themselves, they continue to proliferate, a strange being made of your actual cake, layer upon layer of sponge, chocolate, jam, cream and berries, brought to some unholy life. An unsavoury beast, in every meaning of the word.
(Not to be confused with other sub-species such as the cupholder or the cuckolder)
Cakeholder
Large Aberration, lawful-delicious or delicious-evil Armour Class: 16 (Natural Armour)
Hit Points: 180 (19d10+76)
Speed: 0 ft, fly 20 ft (hover)
Strength 10 (+0)
Dex 12 (+1)
Con 18 (+4)
Int 16 (+3)
Wis 15 (+2)
Cha 20 (+5)
Saving Throws: Int +8, Wis +7, Cha +10
Skills: Perception +7, Deception +10
Senses: Darkvision 120 ft, Passive Perception 17 (Cakeholder’s cast dim light from their candles in a 10 ft radius)
Cakeholders have low-level telekinesis, enough to use kitchen equipment.
Language: Deep Speech, Undercommon, Baker’s Tongue
Challenge 13 (10,000 xp)
Ice Cream Cone: The cakeholder’s central eye creates an area of rich, creamy coolness in a 150 ft cone. At the start of each turn, any character within that cone must make a Constitution Save against a DC of 17 or suffer an ice cream headache (so long as they remain within the area). They are considered to be three levels of exhausted, and this adds on to any existing levels of exhaustion.
Actions Bite: Despite rampant tooth decay, the cakeholder is still a formidable biter, their remaining teeth honed to razor edges on day-old bran muffins. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, Reach 5 ft, one target. Hit: 11 (3d6) piercing damage.
Eye/Stalk Rays: The cakeholder shoots three of the following magical rays at random (reroll duplicates) choosing one to three targets it can see within 150 feet of it. Roll a d8
Ray of Frosting: A character struck by the Ray of Frosting (DC 13 Dexterity Save to avoid) is covered in a delicious sugary coating. Any character or enemy in a neighbouring space must make a Will Save DC 13 or only be able to grapple and/or lick the afflicted character for their action. The frosting effect remains until a whole turn is spent cleaning it off, or the Dungeon Master rules it has been removed by some other means (or excessive licking).
Ray of Deliciousness: A character struck by the Ray of Deliciousness (DC 13 Dexterity Save to avoid) is made magically delicious. Any character or enemy who has them in their field of view must make a Will Save DC 13 or try to move in and bite them – and only bite them, no other attacks are allowed. The effect lasts for ten turns.
Flesh to Cake Ray: The target of the ray must make a DC 12 Constitution Save or start to turn into cake, appropriate type to be determined by the Games Master. On a failed save they are Restrained and must make additional Constitution Saves on the following two turns. If they fail all three times they are turned into (immobile) cake. While in cake form they have the same weaknesses and immunities as the cakeholder.
Candle Flare: The candles atop the cakeholder flare into brilliant light, lighting everything for 50 ft as bright as day, and sending out a blast of harmful radiance. This harmful blast has an area of 15 ft centred on the cakeholder and creatures within that area must make a Dexterity Saving Throw or take 3d6 radiant damage on a failed save or half as much if they succeed.
Ray of Obesity: A target struck with the Ray of Obesity must make a Strength Save against a DC of 12 or start to become fat. Each time they are struck they gain a level of obesity from ‘A’ through ‘F’. While many halflings and dwarves are healthy at any size, this ray causes unhealthy obesity. Removing this obesity take a month of harsh diet and exercise per level.
A: Buxom – You have disadvantage on Strength checks. B: Plump – You have disadvantage on Strength and Constitution checks. C: Rubenesque – You have disadvantage on all physical ability checks. D: Big Boned – You have disadvantage on all physical ability checks and move at half speed. E: Fat – You have disadvantage on all physical ability checks, move at half speed and halve your maximum hit-points. F: Hambeast – You have disadvantage on all ability checks, can no longer move and divide your maximum hit points by 4. You can – however – now reduce all incoming damage by two points, due to a thick, protective layer of blubber.
Tooth-Rotting Ray: A target struck by this ray, provided that they have teeth, must make a Constitution Save against a DC of 17 or take 1d4 damage as though from a disease. A second strike does 1d6 damage and a third rots their teeth out of their head.
Berry Blast: The target of this ray must make a DC 13 Dexterity Save or be struck by a hail of berries. The force with which they are blasted does 1d4 x 1d4 damage and the staining makes them sticky and causes them disadvantage on Charisma-based rolls until they can get clean. They will also be the preferred target of both giant and conventional insect attacks until they are cleaned.
Trick or Treat: A target struck by this ray must roll a d20 to make a Saving Throw on behalf of their rations. Standard rations just roll a d20, iron rations add +2 to their total, both rolling against a DC of 12. If they fail, the rations are turned into sweet, delicious, but fattening treats. They can still be eaten but now require a Strength Save against a DC of 12, or the person who eats the rations gains a level of obesity (see above). This change is permanent.
NB: This is just for fun, but it’s entirely usable if you really wanted to. Hanging out with Satine and Ruty (Rudy?) warped my fragile little mind and reminded me of one of the times I helped with the D&D School Competition back in the 2nd Ed AD&D days. One of the adventures involved a candy/sugar-themed dungeon and a peppermint dragon!
Integrated systems are an armament company based on the frozen moon of Gelida. Colonists there have had to deal with some of the harshest environments in the cosmos, but settled there to explore and to identify the life that exists beneath the icy crust. With every join and module a potential weakness, their environment suits are designed as a single whole with full integrated systems – efficient, but unable to be modified further.
ISEA Squad: Level 12, Cost 35000, EAC +17, KAC +13, Max Dex Bonus +7, Armour Check Penalty -, Speed Adjustment -, Upgrade Slots 0, Bulk L, Comes fitted with Gray Force Field, Mk 2 Thermal Capacitor, Radiation Buffer and Tensile Reinforcement.
ISEA Elite: Level 15, Cost 250000, EAC +20, KAC +16, Max Dex Bonus +8, Armour Check Penalty -, Speed Adjustment -, Upgrade Slots 0, Bulk L, Comes fitted with Green Force Field, Mk 2 Thermal Capacitor, Radiation Buffer & Tensile Reinforcement.
ISEA Specialist: Level 20, Price 2050000, EAC +24, KAC +20, Max Dex Bonus +9, Armour Check Penalty -, Speed Adjustment -, Upgrade Slots 0, Bulk L, Comes fitted with Prismatic Force Field, Mk 3 Thermal Capacitor, Radiation Buffer, Tensile Reinforcement, Backup Generator and Close Combat Computer (Ignore penalties to close combat attacks).
Prismatic Force Field 2 (2), Mk 3 Thermal Capacitor 1 (3), Radiation Buffer 1 (4), Tensile Reinforcement 1 (5), Backup Generator 1 (6), Close Combat Computer 1 (7)
IS Combat Picks
Primarily meant as an aid to climbing and capable of penetrating even Gelida’s super-dense ice, the IS Combat Picks have also become a weapon of choice for some special forces operatives and bounty hunters.
IS Combat Picks, Level 6, Cost 5000, Damage 1d4 P, Bulk L, Special: Analog, Penetrating, Bonus to climbing of +2/+3 (single/pair).
MoshTec makes weapons and gear for those who want something a little different, a little more stylish, a little more individual. Their model, here, is kitted out with four pieces of popular MoshTec gear.
MoshTec Armburst
MoshTec Armbursts fit a weapon into your armour, leaving your hand free for other things (even holding an additional gun!). Basic sensors and motorised compensators help your aim stay true, despite the awkward placing of the gun! The devil makes work for idle hands, MoshTec makes guns for busy hands!
The MoshTec VariMass uses patented technology to decrease and increase the mass of your weapon depending on whether you are striking or using it. On a violent stroke it rapidly increases in mass, smashing through armour, cartilage and bone while, at rest, it is as light as a feather!
MoshTec’s advanced bio-synthetic technology now allows you to graft the organs and other appendages of alien species to your own – even if you have incompatible biology or DNA! Simply buy the grafting gel (1500), find a qualified medic, locate a donor and cut and paste! Lagomorph ears here were donated and grafted to our human model, fitting her System: Ears and providing her with a +2 Racial Bonus to Perception rolls that involve hearing!
MoshTec Showskin
You spent all that money on fine clothes or high-tech tattoos, only to hide it all beneath heavy armour plating. What’s the point? MoshTec’s Showskin armour combines light, agile armour plating with a tensile, planar forcefield to provide you with constant protection, while still letting you show off your duds.
X-Cards have been doing the rounds for some time. I’ve expressed my opinion on them before, so I’ll leave the commentary to the end. I want to introduce you to a different concept, a mirror concept, a counter concept.
M-Cards.
You don’t need to credit me or anything, I’m not going to bother with licensing or anything. If you want to use it, just use it.
M-Cards
The M-Card is an optional tool (created by James ‘Grim’ Desborough) that allows you to assert control over your game and to ensure a certain level of maturity and buy-in in your games. There are few situations where this might be needed – convention games, shop games and pick up games or games with new players, but I hope you’ll find it useful.
To use them, at the start of your game, simply say:
“I’d like your help to keep this game fun. By playing at this table, with the M-Card on show, you are accepting that we’re all mature individuals who are capable of handling adult themes, fictional violence, sexuality and other difficult content. You are accepting that if you have an issue with anything in the game it’s on you to excuse yourself from the scene or game with minimal disruption to everyone else at the table.”
What is it?
The M-Card is a card with an ‘M’ drawn on it.
That’s it.
It is placed on the table to let people know that this is a mature table with a game that may involve mature themes (sex, violence, horror, drugs, torture and so on, anything that might get an R/18 rating if it were a film).
Why use it?
Most of the time you won’t have to. Most people who play RPGs do so with a regular group of friends who know each others’ boundaries, issues and so on. When you’re playing with new people, however, they’re an unknown quantity and there has been a rather disruptive culture of entitlement and ‘calling out’ within the hobby community. The M-Card is a way to reassert control of the game and the table and to warn away people who might disrupt your game and who wouldn’t enjoy it anyway.
How should you use it?
All you do it note down ‘M’ on a card and place it in the middle. You can add some more information if you like in just the same way movie ratings do, but these should be general. Things like ‘violence’, ‘gore’, ‘drug use’, ‘sex’ and so on. Specifics can give away the plot or story and that impinges on everyone’s fun. There’s no way you can account for anything and everything that might upset someone anyway, so it’s pointless to try. It’s just good to give people a general heads up.
The M-Card isn’t intended to create an atmosphere of hostility, nor of license to bully someone or subject them to harrowing scenes without them being able to withdraw or fade to black. All it is really intended to do is to put the onus of responsibility back onto the individual player, to mind their own mental health and to show consideration to everyone else at the table – should they find they have a problem.
The M-Card isn’t to display edginess, political affiliation, to excuse bullying or anything of the sort. It’s just a way to help you filter problem players before they sit at your table and to assert control over the game and remind people to take responsibility for themselves.
That’s all.
***
Commentary
X-Cards are a thing, created by John Stavropoulos. They’re kind of a step-up from the more complex and obscure ‘lines and veils’. Those are ways of defining your hard line things you don’t want to play or moments you’d rather fade to black. I think they stem from LARP, but whatever the case they – and X-Cards have been turning up more and more.
Like most multi-lane highways to hell, X-Cards were created with good intentions. The idea was to create a way to have a ‘safe’ table where people had a mechanism by which they could show they were uncomfortable with something in the game and wanted to skip past it, without recrimination.
They were intended to be optional, but the attitude of entitlement that exists around them has been creeping ever further into the gaming space. At conventions and other public games, people now seem to expect to be coddled, from fiction. Some conventions now even make it policy that any game played under the auspices of that con must use X-Cards.
I believe this is a bad idea, not because I want to psychologically torture players (except when they split the party) but because this whole idea is wildly disruptive and impolite to the rest of the people around the table. If you sign up to a game called Temple of the Spider God and then X-Card every time the GM mentions spiders, you’re an arsehole, whether you’re phobic or not. Games have themes, which are usually obvious from the game description, or even just the game being played.
Let’s try and explain why I loathe these things, by way of analogy. Do you think any of these would be fun?
A rollercoaster where anyone can press a button to slow it down or stop it if they get scared.
A cinema where every person has access to a black-out and fast forward button and it only takes one person to black out a scene or skip it.
A magical button that removes food you don’t like from a meal, but everyone’s meal. Imagine how vegans would abuse that.
You get the point, I hope. This tool that is supposed to guarantee someone’s ‘safety’ (absurd notion, it’s all just words and mathematics around a table, you’re only at risk from dropped D4s) endangers everyone’s fun and empowers a single individual to screw up the game for all the other players.
This is also why I’m against anti-harassment policies at conventions. It’s not because I condone harassment, but because these things tend to be poorly written and to contain rhetorical trojans that could be abused to censor, attack and – ironically – harass people.
The M-Card which I introduce above, shouldn’t be necessary. People should be willing and able to take responsibility for their own conduct and their own mental health. Your gaming group aren’t your fucking therapists. That said, there’s no safer environment to encounter your fears and triggers – on an imaginary basis – and to exert power over them.
That’s how you process these things and move past them, not by being coddled like a low-level magic user.
I hope M-Cards take, and if not, at least it’ll further the discussion.
In this adventure for the Tales of Gor roleplaying game, the characters are charged with investigating peculiar tales of a golden cave on the fringes of the Northern Forest.
Jailbreaks, bandits, panther girls and strange monsters all stand in their way, before they finally uncover a plot that has been unfurling for almost fifty years.
This book also contains Games Master tips for portraying alien mindsets and using smell in your games, especially with reference to the Priest Kings.
The galoboar is an enormous beast, much prized as prey for hunters on safari. The galoboar is a tough foe, covered in thick rubbery skin and bristly hairs which absorb impacts and burn off, absorbing energy fire. The galoboar’s tusks are valued for inlays and carving, its flesh for meat and its – prodigious – stink glands in the production of perfume. Only sanctioned hunting is currently permitted in order to maintain the galoboar’s numbers.
Buohteesian Galoboar CR 10 XP 9600
N Huge Animal
Init +0, Senses: Low-light vision, Perception +19
Defence: Hit Points 200 EAC 20 KAC 28
Fort +14, Ref +10, Will +13
Defensive Abilities: Stinking Aura (ex): (10 ft, DC 17 Fortitude) causes those afflicted to be sickened, Ferocity (ex): At zero hit points the creature can fight on for one more round.
Ecology Environment: Plains and grasslands.
Organisation: Solitary, Mated pair, Mother and 2d4 young.
The Snark Turbiner is a great vehicle for people on a budget. Designed as a simple to use transport and gunnery platform for hunters and safari tourists, it’s a relatively tough, no-nonsense machine that can put up with a good deal of abuse. It is, however, rather noisy and its heavy duty cargo arms cause a great deal of drag.
Snark Turbiner
Tier 1 Huge Vehicle
EAC 9, KAC 9, TL 8
Speed: 40 ft, full 400 ft, 75 mph, Manoeuvrability: Average, +0 Piloting, Turn 2
HP: 200, Hardness 10
Expansion Bays: Passenger Bay
Crew: Minimum Crew 1: Maximum Crew: 2, Passengers: Up to 16
Micron Superlight Powerplant, T8 Thrusters, Basic Computer, Budget short-range sensors, Manipulator arms (1d4 B damage).
TurboHitler
Crush (As standard melee attack, but after leaping onto the target, pins them)
The Cakeholder
In this adventure for the Tales of Gor roleplaying game, the characters are charged with investigating peculiar tales of a golden cave on the fringes of the Northern Forest.
For the next couple of days you can use the check-out code FIFTEEN to get a discount on the PoD.
Postmortem Studios 