Every time I come up with an idea for a blog post, the thing ends up taking a life of its own and eventually becomes something much bigger (and much less condensed) than I initially intended it to be. Sometimes a single idea sprawls a whole subset of mechanics, and sometimes a seemingly simple concept (old man with ravens) gives birth to an entire class with far too many options and movable parts. The reason for this, I believe, has a lot to do with my nearly pathological need to systematize EVERYTHING and make EVERYTHING fit neatly into a bigger system or picture.
This is not one such posts. I write this as an exercise of restraint and an attempt at minimalistic world-building. Following Michael Prescott's initiative "13 Items of Equipment", it is my intention to keep expanding the savage world of Amongst the Ruins through implication rather than mere description. In the end, it is the physicality and sensorial immediacy of the game-world that the players experience through their characters.
So, to curb my verbose enthusiasm, I'm going to impose the following rules on myself while trying to adhere to a very strict format. The rules and precepts are thus:
- This is a post about weapons. Anything on this list must be able to cause harm, one way or another. This must be implied in the item's description even if it wasn't a weapon originally.
- All weapons deal 1d6 damage. This is not about which objects is the most deadly. If anything, it is about the threat of pain. This means no subsystems, no fiddly bits and no sub-tables.
- A rose is a rose. Any item on this list can do all the things it could normally do besides inflicting damage, even if not stated. Daggers are cool and all, but what about oversized stone ladles or thumb-thick knitting needles?
The structure of the entries must be clear and concise. To that end, I'm going to stick to the following:
Evocative Item Name. Brief sensorial description first and mechanical effects last.
The Evocative Item Name must be 1 to 3 words long and hint at both the descriptive and mechanical bits. EVERYTHING MUST FLOW!!!
The brief sensorial description appeals to the character's senses and anchor the item to the setting, while the mechanical effects must derive naturally from the item's description.
Finally, every single item described on this list must be obtainable in Amongst the Ruins. This means that the item exists somewhere in the world, has been created by something or someone for some purpose and can be found somewhere specific. Each description must necessarily be informed by these factors.
Without further ado, I present to you...
1d20 Instruments of Harm
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| Amarildo Grotto |
1. Broken Sword. A broken inscription inlaid in silver runs deep along the fuller: Obedire/ +4 to Reaction rolls vs lowlifes and criminal scum. Lictors and members of La Castra will attack you on sight.
2. Spiteful Words. Full of scorn and contempt. Roll Presence to tear away at your victim's self-worth. Once you fail this roll against a creature, you can never abuse the same creature again with your words. 1 Memory slot.
3. Chipped Cleaver. A thin layer of rust has started to eat away the handspan blade. On a critical hit, chop a target's limb. On a fumble, chop one of yours.
4. Iron-Bound Tome. A rusty chain of thumb-thick links keeps the book anchored to the manacle on your wrist. The Proclamator's Oath on the shackle has almost faded away. Reach 10'.
5. Depleted Power Lance. Heavy and cumbersome, yet oddly well balanced. Its dormant inertial core rumbles softly when swung. You have advantage on your damage rolls. Two-handed. 2 slots.
6. Serrated Dirk. Fashioned after the cruel bite of a tyrant beast, wreaks havoc to muscle and tissue. Deals 1d8 damage to unarmored targets.
7. Inkstained Paper Knife. A span of carefully carved Koyaanis ivory depicting scenes from the Castra Vencida Accords. Needlessly sharp and elegantly fragile. Deals x3 damage on a critical strike but breaks on a fumble.
8. Reinforced Shepherd's Crook. A pole of lignum wood with a hook at one end, strengthened by duraluminum sheets to resist the pull of Asturan cattle. You can choose to trip your target instead of dealing damage with a successful Attack roll.
9. Crude Palewhip. Made with the dried proboscis of a white stalker from the frozen plains of Parma. The ice blue craze lines along the lash turn pure white when the whip is cracked. On a critical hit, disables random limb for 1 turn.
10. Decree of Annihilation. A useless blurb in untrained lips, potentially lethal when coming from a Proclamator's mouth. You have advantage on your Attack roll if your target has committed a crime sanctioned by La Castra. 1 Memory slot.
11. Mouthshutter. A fluctuasteel chain with a weight on one and a handle on the other. Trailblazers and poachers use it to seal shut maws and snouts of perilous beasts. Reach 20'. You can forego doing damage to disable a beast's maw.
12. Discarded Bone Skewer. A serrated harpoon made with the carved tooth of a sewer lamprey. A severed span of braided rope is tied to an iron ring at the base of the handle. Deals 1d8 damage to scaled opponents.
13. Beaked Fire Poker. A fancy rod of polished brass with a lump of burnt iron shaped like the skull of a buzzing bird on one end. When rolling damage, the beak gets stuck on the target on a 6. Vitality test to remove it, causes 1d6 damage.
14. Worn Iron Pan. Has seen much travel. A thin, unwashable crust of meals past rests at the bottom, giving any food prepared with this pan an extra something. -1 Exhaustion when eating meals from this pan.
15. Brass Knitting Needles. Kept in a crimson lacquer case. The blooming rose of the Scarlet Daughters has been engraved on the top end. The case can store up to three needles. When rolling damage, the needles bend and become unusable on a 6.
16. Feathered Piolet. Made with the tibia and beak of an Asturan lithocorax. The arcing beak pierces stone as if it was mud. +1 to climbing rolls, +1 Attack against anything softer than rock.
17. Meditation Handbell. The endlessly recursive patterns adorning the bronze waist spell the word Patientia when in perfect silence. When rolling damage, the target is struck by a sudden realization on a 6 and is stunned for 1 turn.
18. Ragged Banner. A remnant from times past before La Castra purged Gaúl of seditious families. The outline of a hanged man with three stakes to his heart refuses to fade away from worn cloth. +2 Attack when above your Threshold. Two-handed.
19. Bloodstained Brick. A splash of deep red mars the city's crest carved on a heavy chunk of white marble. When rolling damage, the brick breaks down into three smaller pieces on a 6. Reach 30'.
20. Broken Blade. The base is wrapped in filthy rags to be gripped safely. Along the flawless blade, inlaid in silver, shine the last words of an orphaned prayer: /est vivere.
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| Daniel Essig |
Notes and Comments on Specificity
The idea for this blogpost came to me while I was writing a bow generator. After doing some research on archery, types of wood and string materials, I felt the need to find out more about the different types of arrow shafts and arrowheads and their effects on armor types and naked flesh. When I was almost done, a costly realization struck me: while I had tried to make every single movable part as setting bound as possible, I could feel that something was missing. Every part of the generator was in place and doing exactly what it was supposed to: the bow type, the stave, the string, some quirks to spice things up and even a neat exclusive mechanic... but the bows were still too shiny, too new, too... unlived. While they were mechanically interesting, they were simply that, mechanical bits to fill inventory slots.
The twenty items on this list have that thing the bows lacked. I'm talking, of course, about specificity. Most of these items have been used, worn, damaged, broken, or repaired in ways both implicit and explicit. While it is simply understood that a Longsword must have been forged by someone, a Broken Sword has a story to tell, as does a Bloodstained Brick or a Depleted Power Lance. These exist not in a vacuum like the equipment presented in, say, the 5th edition Player's Handbook, but in a very particular context and bound to the setting by their specificity and implicit history... which is exactly what my bows were lacking.
My intention is to follow this trend and see where it leads me. I would like to write a post about defensive equipment to try and understand the different threats the people from Amongst the Ruins face. Similarly, I would like to write a post about objects of care exploring the several ways in which the Ruined Folk look after themselves and others, since I feel this is a largely overlooked aspect in roleplaying game, and I would like to see more of it more often.
