A Death and Dismemberment table for 5e

...it only just now hits me that "Death and Dismemberment" abbreviates to D&D. Anyway.

As soon as I get Trail of Cthulhu out of my system, D&D is probably next on the menu. In brief: I love me some GLOG, my players prefer something more robustD&D 5e. Table fun trumps rules details, so 5e it will be - with some other mechanics ported in.

Here's a table to track character injuries and death, based with gratitude on the good work by +ArnoldK (core idea) and +Skerples (additions and further horrification).

Most useful site while writing this up: thesaurus.com.


>> DOWNLOAD AS PDF

HANG ON, WHY NOT JUST HAVE CHARACTERS DIE AT 0 HIT POINTS?

Let's pretend you haven't heard this argument a thousand times before. Why not indeed? D&D hit points are a pretty bloodless affair with you and your opponent stoically trade blows to bring each other down to 0 hit points. You can add flavour when you narrate, but those hit points basically represent the effort you can make to not get hit too badly. I get why this runs faster at the table than checking for lost digits with Every. Single. Attack. Roll. But it does up the expectations for when the hit points run out and the hurting starts. Something interesting should happen and "game over" is just one of the options.

So how does D&D handle a character dipping below 0 hit points?

In D&D 3, you drop unconscious and wait to bleed out, get a lucky roll and stabilize, or get healed. 5th edition has you KO again, rolling death saves to see if you recover or die at three failed saves.

Notice the conspicuous absence of scorched flesh, smashed skulls and shattered limbs.

I love throwing my players skull and scarab tokens for each death save.

Death and Dismemberment tables add real consequences and long term risk to combat. These rules stay out of the way until hit points run out and you can have them basic or insanely complex. The version by +ArnoldK / +Skerples is pretty fast. I've expanded it by adding effects for all of 5e's many damage types. Also upgraded nonlethal damage - I don't care if you're kicking instead of stabbing, hit someone too hard and things will break.

Enough talk. Let's get slicey.

THE BASICS OF HURT

Damage you take to your hit points represents the effort of turning big blows into grazing hits. Track as usual. Once you hit 0 hp, you start to take really fun Injuries.

Roll Severity (X) to see how bad the wound is:
        Severity (X) = 1d10 + damage beyond 0 hp + number of existing injuries

Find the line for the damage type you took in the table below, or the body part hit by a weapon (d6). Take this Injury and any lower category ones. Example: you roll X=12 for a hit to a (d6=2) arm, and you get not one, but two Injuries: "Disabled 12 days" AND "1 Fatal Wound + Mangled".

Damage to/by	X=1+ (lesser injury)	X=11+ (greater injury)	X=16+
Arm (1-2)	Disabled X days	1 Fatal Wound, Dex 15 or Mangled	X-15 Fatal Wounds
Leg (3)	Disabled X days	1 Fatal Wound, Str 15 or Mangled	X-15 Fatal Wounds
Torso (4-5)	Cracked ribs X days	1 Fatal Wound, Con 15 or Crushed	X-15 Fatal Wounds
Head (6)	Concussed X days	1 Fatal Wound, Con 15 or Skullcracked	X-15 Fatal Wounds
Acid / Fire	Burned X days	1 Fatal Wound, Dex 15 or Blind	X-15 Fatal Wounds
Cold	Frostbite X days	1 Fatal Wound, Con 15 or Frozen	X-15 Fatal Wounds
Force	Cracked ribs X days	1 Fatal Wound, Str 15 or Crushed	X-15 Fatal Wounds
Lightning	Burned X days	1 Fatal Wound, Con 15 or Seared	X-15 Fatal Wounds
Necrotic	Anathema X days	1 Fatal Wound, Con 15 or Abomination	X-15 Fatal Wounds
Nonlethal	KO'd X rounds	Mangled, Crushed or Skullcracked (d6)	1 Fatal Wound
Poison	Wracked X days	1 Fatal Wound, Con 15 or Harrowed	X-15 Fatal Wounds
Psychic	Wracked X days	1 Fatal Wound, Wis 15 or Shattered	X-15 Fatal Wounds
Radiant	Burned X days	1 Fatal Wound, Wis 15 or Marked	X-15 Fatal Wounds
Thunder	Concussed X rounds	1 Fatal Wound, Str 15 or Deaf	X-15 Fatal Wounds

LESSER INJURIES

With the exception of going KO, these leave you sort of functional. Enough to run away or get yourself into worse trouble. Can be removed with a lesser restoration spell, or their duration shortened by 1 day with a day of rest and care (heal check, difficulty 15).

Anathema - Cannot benefit from healing magic. Remove with Blessed or Remove Curse.
Burned - Cannot wear armor; disadvantage on all checks (not saves) while wearing one.
Concussed - Disadvantage on initiative checks. Spells have a 1-in-6 failure chance.
Cracked ribs - Maximum hit points reduced by character level or hit dice.
Disabled - A disabled arm drops anything held; a leg collapses and reduce your speed by half.
Frostbite - Fingertips, ears, and nose go black and (Con save, difficulty 10) 1d3 may fall off. Disadvantage on checks for purposes of delicate tasks (card tricks, lockpicking, tying shoelaces).
KO - Unconscious, incapable of any action, autofail all saves except Con. If suffered again, add the new duration to the existing one.
Wracked - 20% chance of fumbling an action due to palsy or fugue.

FATAL WOUND

A Fatal Wound is deadly after three rounds. On your turn, roll a Death save (Con save, difficulty 20) for every Fatal Wound you have: a succesful save gets rid of it. Every 5 hp of magical healing doesn't heal hit points but instead gets rid of a Fatal Wound. A Heal check DC 15 also gets rid of one (you can receive Heal check-care from one person each round).

Fatal Wounds incapacitate you: you may go unconscious, scream at the stump of your arm, or gibber like a lunatic, but you cannot move, take actions, cast spells or even talk coherently.

You can push yourself to move, talk or take on action, but you then go KO and automatically fail the next round's Death saves. It takes a Constitution save, difficulty 20 to cast a spell or perform first aid on yourself - the spell fizzles if you fail your save.

GREATER INJURIES

Roll the indicated save in the table against difficulty 18. If no specific scar is spelled out under the fail effect, you get the scar under the pass effect. These are permanent until removed through specific means.

Abomination - Pass: wicked scar tissue forms unclean glyphs. Fail: cannot benefit from divine magic. Getting the bad juju out will take a donation at the temple for a purification rite (remove curse, banishment, hallow). Or fall in love with an angel.
Blind - Pass: cool facial scar. Fail: permanently blinded. (Lesser or greater restoration, heal, regeneration.)
Crushed - Pass: scar. Fail: roll d6 below. Can be cured with greater restoration, heal, regeneration.

1. Permanently lose 1 Str. Tendons or muscle hit. Scar.
2. Permanently lose 1 Dex. Broken bones not set properly. Scar.
3. Permanently lose 1 Con. Pierced lung. Scar.
4. Crushed throat. You cannot speak louder than a whisper. Evil scar.
5. Crushed ribs. Disadvantage when performing gross physical actions (combat, athletics). Scar.
6. Your spine is broken and you are paralyzed from the neck down. You can recover from this by making a Con 15 save after 1d6 days, and again after 1d6 weeks if you fail the first check. If you fail both, it is permanent. Regeneration or Heal spell helps. A Heal check by an expert, difficulty 18, gives you advantage on this save. Evil scar.

Deaf - Pass: no effect. Fail: permanently deaf. (Lesser or greater restoration, heal, regeneration)
Frozen - Can be cured with greater restoration, heal, regeneration. Pass: scar and 1d6 digits lost (fingers and toes). Need at least one hand with 4 digits to cast spells. Fail: roll d6.

1. Lose 2d6 digits (random chosen). Scar.
2. Lose all but 1 digit (randomly chosen). Evil scar.
3. Lose a hand. Evil scar.
4. Lose a foot. Scar.
5. Lose two hands or feet, and nose (-2 Charisma). Evil scar.
6. Lose both hands, both feet, nose, and eyes (-2 permanent Charisma, Blind). Wicked scar.

Harrowed - Pass: wicked scar; sickening, discolored flesh. Fail: disadvantage on Constitution checks and saves. Cure with lesser or greater restoration, heal, regeneration. Or hunt down a bezoar to cleanse yourself.
Mangled - Pass: scar - digit lopped off. Fail: limb lopped off or otherwise permanently inoperable. Evil scar. Cure with greater restoration, heal, regeneration.
Marked - Pass: wicked scar - bleached scar tissue forms glyphs of censure. Fail: disadvantage on saves versus divine spells. Undergo a purification rite to remove (remove curse, banishment, hallow) or undergo the Seven Trials of Purgation.

Seared: like this, but faster and in your skin.
Lichtenberg figures are scary. (source)

Seared - Pass: awesome scar - full body marked by discharge. Fail: disadvantage on Dexterity checks and saves. Can be removed with lesser or greater restoration, heal, regeneration.
Shattered - Pass: scar - hair turns white. Fail: disadvantage on Int and Wisdom checks and saves. Can be removed with greater restoration, heal, dream, modify memory, true seeing, mind blank.
Skullcracked - Pass: Scar on head or face. Fail: roll d6. Can be cured with greater restoration, heal, regeneration.

1. Permanently lose 1 Intelligence. Scar.
2. Permanently lose 1 Wisdom. Scar.
3. Permanently lose 1 Charisma. Evil scar.
4. Left eye lost. -1 to ranged attacks. If both eyes lost, Blind. Scar.
5. Right eye lost. -1 to ranged attacked. If both eyes lost, Blind. Scar.
6. Coma. Save to recover after 1d6 days. If failed, Save again after 1d6 weeks. If both Saves are failed, the PC is permanently unconscious. Evil scar.

RANKING THE SCARS

Did you take enough damage to get a scar? Then you can use these for bragging. Good for intimidating brawlers, impressing barbarians, getting a meal for your tale. Not all scars are created equal - the lower on this table, the more awesome. Save the best for last when you're trying to outbid someone.

• scar - could be you saw combat. Could be you're a klutz with the kitchen knife.
• evil scar - impressive scar tissue shows your mettle.
• wicked scar - something deeply unwholesome happened to you and it puts people off.
• awesome scar - you were either blessed or cursed to survive such punishment.

FIN.

There - isn't that better than just falling to the ground?

A Trail of Cthulhu campaign idea

Players - highlight the text below only if you want a spoiler for the upcoming campaign. All the rest of you: feel free to have a laugh.

Atlantis was a city of marvels, bright under the stars out on the ocean. But the stars shifted and
25000 years ago, Atlantis slipped beneath the waves. Now the stars return as the city rises again. Will you be the first to explore its wonders? Follow the Trail of Atlantis. 
CTHULHU FHTAGN.

Sunless Sea - a review and stealworthy ideas

What I did on my holidays (I think I have a Hobbit thing going): mostly lay about in our garden, read books and play the hell out of Sunless Sea. A report and an inventory of stealable content.

This game from 2015 had me at "lovecraftian steamship" and the tagline only sunk the hooks deeper. "Lose your mind, eat your crew", indeed. I did both on my first trip and wanted more right away. Sunless Sea has you captain a rickety steam boat out of the port of Fallen London, relocated a mile under the surface of the Earth by bats. (The city itself is explored in more detail in a forerunning browser game - I haven't played that one yet. Holidays are over.) Fallen London is the shining light of civilisation and you, you sweet idiot, head out to the pitch black Sunless Sea with a crew that's increasingly afraid of the dark.

Smart folks, your crew.

Sunless Sea pushes you to explore and punishes you for not paying attention to food, fuel and morale. Or Terror, as the game calls the ever increasing bar of "how much more sailing in utter darkness can the crew take before their collective fear crystallizes into mutiny or horrid tentacle monsters".

Never explained in game. Any story would be more prosaic than what you make up yourself.

GAME PLAY - CHOOSE YOUR TERROR

Sunless Sea is a roguelike - randomised events, hard to survive, permanent death by auto-erasing your save file, and very quick to start a new character and set out again for more punishment. It looks like a game of trading and resource management at first, and this is at the core of the game. Your character has five stats that are boosted by officers and equipment, your boat has hard points for weapons, engines and equipment, and a crew capacity that influences handling and rationing.

You juggle space in your hold between fuel for the engine, supplies for the crew and cargo for trade. But margins are slim (and smuggling is dangerous) so you quickly find yourself looking for more profitable options. Try to kill sea monsters for dubious supplies or secrets buried in their flesh. Raid pirate ships for a quick restock of fuel and food. Treat with any number of dangerous and counteracting factions. Get free food at the Chapel of Lights or risk becoming a cannibal when supplies run out.

Free food. Red decor.

A more robust taste.

There's a lot to do out there on the zee, as the game's slang has it. The further you roam, the weirder the world - shades of Exalted's elemental poles and Into the Odd. Bring reports on those far and weird places back to Fallen London to get favors, fuel and funding from the Admiralcy. Placate sentient coral reefs and uplifted hamsters while you’re out there.

Sunless Sea is a balancing act. You are strapped for fuel, supplies and cargo space unless you pay exorbitant sums for better ships; you choose whether to burn extra fuel to run the lights, or run dark and see your zailors' Terror skyrocket. Constantly you choose between safeish quests with marginal benefits, and dangerous ventures with huge profits. Stat drain and Terror-hikes lurk everywhere.

The constant juggle of risk, resources and rising mental stress is the essence of Sunless Sea. Creep across the map because your ship moves slowly -so journeys feel far- plan out how much food and coal to bring and how much profit you can make with the cargo space that will have opened up once you arrive. Conversely, once I had enough ill gains to buy a huge freighter, I could carry enough supplies and fuel to cross the map without restocking and still have a cavernous hold for trade. This allowed me to trade vast quantities of rare trade goods for upgraded weaponry and engines. A couple of high end quests turned my freighter into a murder speedboat - and most of the game's horrific appeal went away as I was passably safe for the first time.

FLUID REALITY

You never learn what happened to Fallen London or why the Islands in the Sunless Sea change location from time to time. This fascinates me. There's bits and pieces hidden in flavour text, hints of an alien invasion, a war with Hell a generation ago, earlier civilisations forcibly relocated into the depths - people don't question it anymore. The game hints at its backstory and you never learn the deep secrets of the setting. Instead, you accrete a vague and personal network of ideas and relations in your mind. It reminded me of exposition in Dune, or the Malazan Books of the Fallen. Dreamlike and impressionist and absorbing.

Expensive trips up the locks to the surface cities of Naples and Vienna show you that the world has moved on in a way after London fell. Your cargo and knowledge are of vast interest to the surfacers, and diplomatic games cross the mile of darkness to the Sunless Sea. Your skin burns. The sun whispers seductively. Get out of the light. Head back to the lake of Avernus, where mythology sites the entrance to the underworld and find the cool darkness again.

Go on, go in. You don't need your Sanity, captain.

Hold on. Are you sailing into Purgatory? How much have your kind changed in their generation of darkness?

It all doesn't matter. Reality seems fluid. People got used. And handily, your character isn't expected to understand their world any better than you do. What you need to know? There's a good reward for people willing to ship out and explore.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE DOING

Hosting a devil enclave, for instance. Squatting in the shell of a giant tortoise or on the door step of a titan ice fortress that will drive explorers stark raving mad. Ferrying the not-dying in their wrappings to the tomb colonies or on Grand Tours. Smuggling souls, or red honey.

Sweet lord, the evil that is red honey. 

Catching addictive sunlight, or dream snakes from the other sides of mirrors. Hunting for pirates and mythical beasties with nothing more than a piss weak deck cannon while the chief engineer's eyes are about to hatch and the first mate is whispering to the tattoo that's growing across his face. There's conspiracies and mysteries and monsters and secrets out in the dark. Sail off the edge of the map.

Fire blind or wait for the gunner to complete his firing solution?
Run dark and be hard to find, or light up the thing?

THE APPEAL - HORROR MADE MUNDANE MADE HORRIBLE

People in the setting of Sunless Sea seem used to horrible things being everywhere. One of your starting officers can have an affliction of "eyes about to hatch". Fallen London openly trades caskets of souls and hosts an Embassy of Hell! It's all described matter-of-fact, the terrible made mundane. This doesn't make it boring. Instead, you absorb the fact that nothing is safe, nothing can be trusted.

Your boat moves slowly, so slowly across the zee. The starting ship and engine just aren't very fast, and upgrades are out of reach of safe players for a long time. Get used to risking Terror rise to save fuel and maybe make port. A monstrous crab bigger than your ship creeps onto the screen, its angler-fish light waving. Detour. Avoid. Glance at the fuel gage. Reduce throttle and save fuel? Your crew mutters to dark candles.

What will your next captain be like?

From the Zubmariner expansion. I think this is actually a port.

IDEAS TO STEAL

These are 90% written down from memory, two weeks after the last time I played and they're just a fraction of what's in the game. Impressive content and eminently stealable to build a hex crawl out of.

• A hidden research station pays well for closed caskets of plague sufferers. From their flesh a strange metal is harvested that binds and shields against spirits.
• An island where the high cavern roof is broken and sunlight streams down. Write fast - the light scars. Supplies are crazy bountiful, and the right contraption can bind and store the light for Sun Addicts. If you can resist the burning light and the siren song from the hold.
• A bucolic island of peaceful farmers that suddenly gets barricaded by the imperial fleet.
• A ruler referred to on the streets as the Traitor Empress, in power since the city went into the deeps.
• An intelligent coral reef where chess competitions prepare you to treat with the reef itself. It is growing and hinting at its horrible origin, and will give you a servant if you bring strange items to become its next Pieces.
• The Chapel of Lights out on the edge of the map is always lit with candles and offers free food for all comers. Will you donate supplies and join their red mass?
• The Dawn Machine is waking. Its ships shine with Sunlight.
• An embargoed island where sentient monkeys pay well to obtain your soul. They are building a zeppelin to escape their confinement.
• The Uttershroom, a titanic fungus bigger than some islands. It will reward you if you spread its carnivorous fungus-creatures to other islands.
• Facing stone Sphinxes that rise out of the seas, being excavated to appease the mysterious Bazaar that squats in Fallen London since it was stolen from the surface - haul this precious cargo and keep your ears open for other parties that may be interested in the spirit stone.
• The floating Khanate where war trimarans treat your people as newcomers in the dark - Fallen London is hardly the first Great City to be stolen into the darkness.
• The island where every thing is alive, from the drinking cups to the cobblestones. The King only receives stone idols with a watchful presence inside them. Docile Clay Men are available for transport to work in Fallen London - or other places if you have found out how to make creative use of their animating spirit.
• Travel to the southern continent where the Mountain has influenced three cities along its coast in startling ways. One you can only visit by bringing a story. One is lit with lights and mirrors in constant fear of the dark. One gives you a fast-growing tree to time the hours you have left in your visit.
• The isle of Visage, where all wear a mask that constrains the role they may play in society.
• The pirate enclave halfway up a stalactite to the cavern roof.
• A fallen stalactite fortress, crashed into the zee ages ago. Its depths are best not explored in the dark, and hold darks hints of forces already at play when Fallen London was London still.
• The city of Irem of the Pillars that trades in exotic tales. (Yeah, I ran away from THAT myth on first hearing, but it turns out to be a nice place in game and a real world legend to boot!
• Fallen London where the Dark-Spectacled Admiral pays for port reports and strategic information, where the Voracious Ambassador pays more but has a hidden agenda; where you can get commisions to insert spy networks in power centers, trade with the Embassy of Hell to track down its traitors, or bring exotic finds to the Alarming Scholar. And find love and a reason to retire, perhaps, to safety.
• No names for NPCs. Works wonderfully alienating. Only your captain can be named, all others have descriptors: the Bandaged Poissonnier, Brisk Campaigner, Carnelian Exile, Disillusioned Doctor, Gall-Eyed Engineer, Guinea Page, Haunted Doctor, Irrepressible Cannoneer, Maybe's Daughter, Nacreous Outcast, Plausible Surgeon, Presbyterate Adventuress, Scrimshaw Chronicler, Shady Cook, Sigil-Ridden Navigator, Lady in Lilac, Merciless Modiste, Prudent Magician, Scarred Sister, Tireless Mechanic, Wistful Deviless, Dark-Spectacled Admiral, First Curator, Merchant Venturer, Voracious Diplomat, the Alarming Scholar.

Wonderful little creatures to seed on other islands.

MECHANICS TO ADAPT

The big attraction of the computer game is resource management; you're constantly paying attention to that. I can imagine this getting stale in a tabletop rpg. Probably need to abstract this further, but still give players a good reason to avoid running out of food. Build a web of ports and track where trade goods are cheap to buy or good to sell.

A very stealable mechanic is Terror. As an inverted Sanity/Morale score, it tracks how afraid and superstitious you and your crew are getting, how many unsettling events have happened, the risk you're willing to take, how deep and unexplored the sea around you and how much money you'll spend in well-lit establishments once you're back home. If terror rises too high, unexplained horrors start to happen on board - lose crew, lose cargo, lose your life. Some sites are only accessible if your terror is low enough. Others, only when your grip on mundane reality is weak enough.

Of course an rpg of exploration by ship needs rules for boats. Skerples is putting together good stuff. I'd like to detail upgrades for boats: engines, weapons, lights and smuggling spaces and golems to shovel coal. And downgrades for the hard at luck captain who needs to cut corners. I'd also like to add a mechanic to track the health, abilities and sanity of the zailors or marines - treated as an aggregate with a common health pool, not individuals except for a few officers. Unless someone wants to play the Extras, that is!

Get them to ration - at least three meals per day

This started as a post on getting players to track how many rations they have, inspired by James Young at Ten Foot Polemic. See if you can spot where my mind took a side track. I maintain that the ideas below will stimulate zealous ration tracking.

WHY YOU MUST EAT

I'l like to have the party think of the little things in life. How much longer will the light last? Does the ranger have enough arrows for all these goblins? When do we run out of food? And normally D&D doesn't give players a whole lot of incentive to track that. James tackles how to change that - either by motivating players or building resource depletion into your overloaded encounter die (SUCH a great innovation).

MEALS AND HEALTH

Nice, solid meals are how you recover hit points without ending up in debt to the local surgeon or cultistcleric. They're also good for social interaction, and are a nice way to not die of starvation.

Stolen / adapted from the GLOG:

• Long rest: a good night's sleep, eight hours at least, and a solid meal at the start or finish. Heals up to half your hit points of damage if you can sleep somewhere safe, dry and warm. Lacking this, you only heal 1d6+level hit points. Either way, recover a level of fatigue. Takes 8 hours and a full ration. Can do this once per day.
• Short rest: either...
• a relaxed meal time somewhere safe and comfortable to take your mind off things: heal 1d6+level hit points. Takes an hour of time and a full ration. Can do this once per day.
• a quick bite - fifteen minutes of breathing space in a safe, uninterrupted lunch: heal 1d4 hit points. Takes a half-ration.

From Asterix and the Chieftain’s Shield, a childhood favorite.            
The chief is going to a spa to diet, and has planned a trip
along all his favorite eateries. If I was home sick and could
stomach this page, I knew I was getting better.

MEALS PER DAY

Adventurers can benefit from up to three meals per day, most often breakfast, lunch and dinner. Only one of these can count as the full meal as described above - you do not benefit from a second full meal on the same day.

Second breakfast, elevenses and supper are for Hobbits. Their special cultural background and reinforced stomach lining allows to them to handle and benefit from double rations. This works out to six meals per day, two of which may be full meals BUT they only recover half as many hit points on a day where these dietary requirements aren't met.

AN INTERLUDE ON NAMES

• Hobbit - cultural signifier of Halfling eating at "a comfortable level" (i.e. "appalling gluttony" to the rest of us).
• Halfling - neutral identifier of the race. Also used by Hobbits as pitying term for one who is being consistently and cruelly underfed. Ironically: "he's trying to avoid becoming a Halfling".
• Goblin - a Hobbit or Halfling who, after suffering crippling deprivation, has done what Hobbits and Halflings refer to as Going on a Diet. This is considered to be taboo, repulsive behaviour and as such is not a topic of polite conversation. If the topic comes up, Hobbits will take care to emphasize that "it was not just them as was at fault". If you starve one of them, you clearly deserve what's coming for you. Finding your soap replaced with special sauce, most likely.

(+ArnoldK has great backstory to this, that I won't be using. Read it anyway - he's good.)

HOBBITS GONE HUNGRY

A week of hard work at "subsistence level" (an ordinary person's food intake) will allow a Hobbit to switch to gritty survival mode. Their emergency metabolism kicks in as they learn to survive on one full meal and two quick bites per day.

Hobbits starved even beyond the requirements of this emergency metabolism -and really, what monster would do such a thing?- can get Bad Ideas and turn into Goblins. Halfling families talk darkly of great-uncles and -aunts who went exploring with the big folk and were forced to Go on a Diet out in the wastes. Kids will asked returned heroes is they ever "went paleo". Beware the vacant eyed Halfling who has stopped complaining about being hungry. Odds are, they are now eyeing your meaty calfs as you march.

WHEN THE CRAVING COMES

Exact time scales for Hobbits to get Dietary Ideas are hard to pin down. Most can survive 2xCon days in survival mode without more than grumbling. (Grumbling A LOT). Days of true starvation (without full meals or with less than three meals per day) count double for this timer to cannibalism. After 2xCon days, the Hobbit or Halfling makes a Wisdom check with a penalty equal to the number of saves already made.They failed? Then they failed to spot that the idea they just had is a Bad one.

Treat your Halfling to an extravagant feast at least monthly, and they can go double the number of days (so 4xCon) on what Humans call "standard meals". You will have to pay for at least three full meals and six quick bites to have a day qualify for a feast. Do this too often, and risk full Hobbit metabolism reasserting itself (Any feast triggers a Constitution check with a penalty of the number of feast days + starvation days in the last month to avoid this happy return to Hobbitdom).

HAVE YOU TRIED NOT EATING BIG FOLK?

Many tragic stories exist of Hobbit families adopting Goblins to try and cure them of their unfortunate eating habits. This can end in celebration (Uncle Folco recovered!), rejection (Uncle Folco was too far gone and has gone to live in the country) or conversion (Is Uncle Folco perhaps onto something?)

Feed your Halflings.

Something wriggling this way comes

One or two more sessions of Pathinder / Eberron, a short interlude as a player, and then it's time for a completely new campaign. I'm torn between trying to run a campaign of Trail of Cthulhu (extreme pulp / Night's Black Agents style), or to try and build Sunless Sea into a seacrawl.

Either way, yesterday's visit to the record shop turned up this beauty for theme music and inspiration. Horrors from the deep it is.

The Ocean - Rhyacian