Scribbles and Horrors

Here is a further map of my Redux dungeon–This is Level Zeta III (-1,0), a continuation of level Zeta III.

It is located directly north of Zeta III (0,0); here is them bolted together:

There’s not much to say about this map other than I had the idea and pretty quickly made it happen. I’m happy with most of it, thought the shading kind of falls apart near the top–this is the fault of the alcohol pens I’m using. It took me all of today to draw, which is the fastest I’ve done one of these. Perhaps some of that speed shows up as sloppiness in parts. A good way to spend a Sunday tho.

This map is a little less dense than my usual maps, although no less colossal. You might notice that it only has 5 rooms. A 5 room dungeon is incomplete without a key, so here is one:

The Palace of the Snail Men

(The name was coined by enthusiastic human explorers–of course, the Snail Men do not call it that. Nor do they call themselves “Snail Men”.)

The Snail Men are caretakers and denizens of the treasures here. They are 10-18′ tall snails. The Snail Men are divine beings–to strike their shell while they are living, or to touch it without consent, is death (Save or die). HD 6, Mv. 3”, AC 4 (flesh, shell is invulnerable). They are slow, hitting only 1 in 3 turns. They can retract into their shell and remain so for many months. Number appearing 2-24.

4-pointed star — The Shattered Egg Humperdinck

Humperdinck set up a wall, he did,
and clambered himself upon it.
But as he labored a shale-stone slid
and shatter’d poor Humperdink’s bonnet.

Pieces of the shell still tower 15”, althout all the yolk has long since been sucked dry. A pilgrimage spot for wry nobles and vagrant philosophers.

5-pointed star — Strands of Light

This room is webbed with strands of Pure Light, spun by the Great Spider Uxorlantha nearly 3500 years ago. The room is lightly brit, and one finds themselves full of airy thoughts here. Stealing strands of light is possible, but would be a great crime.

6-pointed star — The þ Toad

The þ Toad is spiky and grumpy and knows everything there is to know about slime and muck. Bring the þ Toad a sample of any kind of gross sludge and it will explain at length where it came from, who lived there, etc.

The þ Toad eats giant insects, but will make do with people in a pinch.

9HD, 6”, powerful tongue

7-pointed Star — Empty

An empty room is its own reward.

8-Pointed Star — Myocallix Machine

The machine is 50” tall and is constantly and thunderously motionless. The work it does is constant and overwhelming–one cannot stand to be in the room for more than a few minutes–but it is entirely unclear what it is doing. Lights flash on and off, but there is no product, no input controls. There are no vents, no screws, only monolithic steel and the sense that great work is being done.

Whatever it’s doing, it’s probably best not to try and put a stop to it.

————-
A friend suggested I start a Byzantine 5-room Dungeon Jam inspired by this map

Watching E.R. has fried my brain, so here’s a Realm of Yolmi creature:

Medical Doctors

These professionals will insist on treating anyone who has been hurt, by force if necessary. Treatment heals all damage and takes one day. Their personal lives are quite chaotic, however, and there is a 20% chance that they will become overwhelmed and kill a patient.

Type: Men
N.A.: 2-12
Armor Type: 9
Move: 15”
Hit Die: 4
T.P.: G
% Lair: 35%
L.N.A.: 2-24
T.L.: H

Attacks: Openhanded, 1-4 + treatment (20% chance of death)

This post is a summary of one unusual mechanic in Avalon Hill’s Starship Troopers (1976), which addresses noncombatant deaths.

Starship Troopers presents seven scenarios, with each scenario adding increasingly complex mechanics. This can be a little frustrating–there’s no way to play the whole game at once–but if you think about it as seven closely-related games it’s not too bad. The scenarios carefully reproduce the battles described in the novel Starship Troopers.

In Scenario One, the terran marines overrun a humanoid colony. The humanoids are allies of the arachnids in this scenario, but later on in the story, after many sound defeats, they are forced into allying with the terrans. As a faction, the humanoids are squeezed between two overwhelming imperial powers, and struggle to find their own way of survival within them.

Here’s the information for Scenario One:

The alien player controls 12 Warrior and 6 Worker units, and has freedom to place Strong Points, Vital Installations, and Decoys. The terran player controls 9 marines and must navigate to and destroy Critical Installations within a set number of turns.

As you can see, most of the victory points for the terran player are in destroying infrastructure: Water, Power, Communications. Token VPs are granted for killing enemy Warriors (1 each), and negative VPs for killing enemy Workers (-1 each). As it states, “SPECIAL RULE: Noncombatant casualties are to be avoided.”

I have played this scenario as the humanoids, and the negative VP mechanic incentivized me to intentionally move worker units into Critical Installations in order to slow down and dissuade the terran player from destroying them. The rules encourage the alien player to use workers as shields to delay the inevitable: force the marines to suffer VP loss to win objectives.

It models a horrifying desperation on the part of the humanoid side. On the terran side, it simulates a callous “rules of engagement” style positioning: It’s a shame, but if we want to destroy the water supply it must be done! Rather than disincentivize the war crimes committed by the terrans in this scenario, the negative VP mechanic includes those crimes as part of an acceptable calculus. The cost of murdering civilians is diplomatic inconvenience, a PR problem.

The inconvenience is juxtaposed against the goal of the scenario, which is the wholesale destruction of infrastructure. How many more civilians are affected by the elimination of those power and water installations? How many further deaths and displacements do the terrans cause in this scenario for their operational feint, after they leave? The terrans lose no victory points for those noncombatant deaths. They play no part in the calculus.

I’m not sure if this was the intent as designed, but this little mechanic strengthens my understanding of the profound (American) evil that the terrans represent in Starship Troopers. The futility of the gesture towards humanity underscores its horrific context.

I put this up about 2 weeks ago and took it down after a couple of hours. I wasn’t embarrassed about the product–this is a good and funny table and I stand by it–but I worried that, without context, a post like this could be misconstrued as LotFP boyish fuckery.

I regret taking it down, and have decided to get over myself about it. And by now I guess the Sex Bandwagon has probably picked up sufficient steam to give me the cover of micro-subcultural zeitgeist. I just didn’t want the readers of my blog to think I was into dick jokes.

Very few of these entries are sexual, and none of them feature sexual violence. I don’t like sex in my games.