The Snow Elves

“Each winter, inevitably, the snow elves come. Descending from the freezing mountains like an insidious creeping avalanche, their raiders prey upon the rural settlers of the foothills, ravaging their towns and stealing what they can before disappearing into the cold snow.”

Continuing our series of articles to fit the local weather patterns, here are the snow elves, and it’s -30 Celsius outside. I’m very happily writing this while sitting next to a roaring fireplace, but the obvious downside is that I’m not leaving the house anytime soon.

Snow elves are actually the result of multiple unfortunate rolls: my Monday group fumbled a random encounter check while traveling in the winter, had to roll twice on the encounter table, both of these rolls resulting in the same notation of “Bandits!”. Weather and misfortune conspired to created the wretched elven race, and they’ve been a stable in my campaign world ever since. This article ties in nicely with the previous week’s description of Lady Wyel.

Finally, I’d like to welcome our new art contributor into the Lance! Justell’s illustration caught my eye recently, and she was kind enough to join the growing ranks of our creative family. Have a look at her bio entry for more information and links.

Cheers,

AMP

DCC Race – Snow Elves

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DCC Race – Snow Elves

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Justell Vonk

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Illustration: Justell Vonk – “Festive”; ink on paper, A4.

 

The Sanctum of Space!

The inaugural post for the new year is another collaboration with the Sanctum Secorum podcast. Check out the space dwarf race in the companion volume, along with other excellent content!

The space dwarves are actually based on a really vivid dream I had a few months back. I’ll eventually work them out to a full story, but it was great fun to explore their culture and behaviour for this article. And Joni’s illustrations are damn great, the man is a wizard with inks!

Check out Sanctum Secorum ep. #42 – Arena and the episode companion zine though the links below!

Cheers,

AMP

Sanctum Secorum episode #42: Arena

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Sanctum Secorum ep. #42 companion on DriveThruRPG

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Illustration by the ever on-the-nose Joni Kesti.

Half-Breeds & Mongrels

“Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”

– some irritating Frenchman, Arthurian times

Now, I suspect that this may be a little controversial, especially for Judges who like their DCC clean-cut, with none of this newfangled race-template silliness. Nevertheless, I’ve always liked the idea of half-breed characters, and wanted to include them at my table, so I made some rules for it.

The article below contains two separate systems: rules of introducing some more traditional half-breed types into DCC as race-templates, and a system for having mongrelbred gongfarmers, saddled with strange and unseemly genes, as part of your 0-level groups. Pick and choose, mix and match, or completely ignore as blasphemous.

Cheers,

AMP

DCC_Halfbreeds&Mongrels_AMP&JK

Half-breeds and mongrels for DCC

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Illustration by the oddly elfin Joni Kesti.

Tinmen

It was just a jumble of tubes and screws and metal plates. But the group decided to fuel it with the blood of their dead and take it with them. And thus, I had to write the following rules for the rickety race of tinmen. They are a weird bunch but should provide some tank-y power in combat and some useful utility skills for the group.

Have fun!

– VIR

DCC race – Tinman

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DCC sheet – Tinman

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The Elven Knight

“‘E were ‘aughty as all hell! Paid in queer coin too! ‘An talked to ‘is ‘orse!”

Due to popular demand, here are the rules for an elven knight in DCC!

Lizardman, lizardman and lizardman.

“Now lookit’ that! ‘E must’ve ran afoul of some powerful magic, that one. All scaly like, and did’ja see the tail? An’ he did’nae want ‘is meat cooked, jus’ ate it raw an bleedin’-like!

Still, ‘e paid like the rest of ’em, with queer, oddly marked silver. As long as ya pay, ya stay, tha’s what me old pa used ta say.

I jus’ wish ‘e would’nae’ve looked at me like that. Them eyes’ll haunt me dreams tonite!”

The satyrs are here!

“From the forest they all came!

Proud of heart, quick to revel!

And their dance, will stop NEVER!”

This has been a long while coming, but I finally finished the rules for satyrs as a DCC race!

Sanctum of Hyperborea!

“The hyperboreans are an ancient, antediluvian race, who ruled the world back when
the earliest men were still but mewling apes.

Their civilization was brought low by a dimension-spanning curse, a creeping doom from beyond the lurid veils of reality. For the hyperboreans were wizard-kings, molding reality with forgotten magics, and consorting with all manner of daemons, elder entities and starbeasts from the Great Nether.”

Collaboration with the Sanctum Secorum podcast continues, this time with a description of the ancient hyperboreans, complete with rules to generate hyperborean characters.

I had a lot of fun writing this article, as it was based on an adventure seed born of storytelling collaboration last winter. But please, read the details in the zine, and as always, check out the podcast!

Cheers,

AMP

Sanctum Secorum episode #32: Attack from Atlantis

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Sanctum Secorum ep. #32 companion on DriveThruRPG

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Halfling Graverobber

“Lookit that skinny little git! All gaunt and spindly, an’ she smells like the grave! She’s a queer one to be sure!

…to be ‘onest I’d kick ‘er outta the inn if it were up to me. But the missus insisted we let ‘er stay, on account of ‘er paying up front with these weird old coins. Pure silver, says the missus, an’ ‘er teef are never wrong about these things.”

The Dwarven Runepriest

“Man is the favourite child of the gods: fickle, easily enticed and subjugated. Thus the great temples and churches of this age are built on the blood, sweat and faith of human worshipers.

This being so, the gods sometimes call forth the souls of other races as well. Among the dwarves these believers are known as runepriests, for their clothing, armour and weaponry are always inscribed with the runic scriptures of their faith.

Often shunned by their more pragmatic brethren, these fanatical devotees to the gods are always exceptional, and often integral tools in the great struggle between law and chaos.”