Strange Prehistoric Roleplaying
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Strange Prehistoric Roleplaying Rules, Setting and Layout by Emmy Allen System Inspiration includes First and foremost, Dungeons and Dragons, by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax and similarly, various games in the old school revival, particularly Lamentations of the Flame Princess, by James Raggi Beyond the Wall, by John Cocking and Peter S Williams Adventurer, Conqueror, King by Alexander Macris And the rules published online at lastgaspgrimoire.com All images used are in the public domain. Thanks go to recidingrules.blogspot.co.uk, who has a wonderful collection of them. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution - Non-Commercial 4.0 International Li- cense. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. You are free to share (including copying and distributing) and adapt (by altering, adapting or building on) this material as you wish, so long as the author is given appropriate credit and any reuse is on a non -commercial basis. 2 Contents Index - 3 Introduction - 4 Spells –54 Spells by Level –54 The Basics – 5 Spells (A-C) -56 Spells (D-G) -61 Character Creation - 6 Spells (H-L) -66 Classes - 8 Spells (M-Q) -70 The Expert - 8 Spells (R-S) -75 The Hunter - 9 Spells (T-U) -81 The Magician - 10 Spells (V-Z) -83 The Neanderthal- 12 Equipment – 13 Running the Game–85 Randomness –85 The Rules -15 Running Scenes -86 Attributes - 15 Running Campaigns –87 Flesh and Grit -15 Death and New Characters - 88 Healing,Time – 16 Doing Things - 16 When to require rolls - 16 Exploring Caves–90 Skill Rolls - 17 Terrain, Poisonous Gasses and Spores – 90 Saving Throws, Attribute Rolls, Attack Slimes - 92 Rolls, - 19 Water –93 Encumbrance , Gaining Experience- 20 Traps -94 The Inhabitants -95 Creating Random Caves -96 Dangers – 22 Ability Score Loss, Breaking Equipment, The Wilderness–99 Cannibalism - 22 Travel Over Hazardous Terrain – 99 Cave-Ins, Climbing, Digging, Falling, Fire , Random Encounters, Adding Detail – 100 Getting Left in the Dark- 23 Exploring in More Depth- 101 Injury to Locations - 24 Creating Randomized Maps – 106 Poison, Sickness, Swimming - 25 Sleep Deprivation, Starvation - 26 Normal Animals–107 Weather - 27 Fantastic Monsters–113 Altitude Sickness, Cold Weather –27 Fog, Hot Weather, Lightning Strikes, Snow People–119 Blindness, Wet Weather, Wind – 28 The Undead–127 Encounters - 29 Feral Undead – 127 Resurrected Undead - 129 - 131 Tribes – 31 Spiritual Activity Other Worlds, Haunted Locations –131 Attracting a Tribe - 31 Managing a Tribe - 32 Dealing with Hauntings, Creating Hauntings - 132 Assign Followers Roles - 32 Fabricated Beings - 133 Putting it all together, Structures - 34 Statistics for Fabricated Beings - 133 Neanderthal Tribes, Bringing them With You - 35 Crafting Fabricated Beings - 133 Going to War, Taming Animals – 36 Sample Fabricated Beings - 135 Getting Supplies – 43 - 136 Day to Day Life – 37 Encounter Tables Herbalism – 38 - 140 Alternate Classes The Aberrant - 141 Magic – 41 The Morlock - 143 A magician and their Sanctum, Casting Spells - The Mystic - 146 41 The Orphan - 149 Binding Spells - 42 The Wendigo - 151 Researching New Spells, Magical Reagents, Magical Backlash - 43 - 153 Non-magicians –44 Other OSR games - 154 Random Tables for Magic – 45 List of Tables 3 Introduction This is a game about a fantasy version of hu- alive. The winter is cold, and the unprepared man pre-history. This is a time before writing, can freeze to death over night. Many of the money, walled settlements and the many other wild creatures will take a dislike to people, comforts of civilization. The ice-age wilder- and have the strength and ferocity to kill them ness is harsh, and filled with dangerous easily unless the people they hunt are cunning beasts, the largest and most well known of enough to avoid them. which are the herds of migratory Mammoths. In short, it is a time period that naturally pro- In dark forests and the depths of caves, there duces heroes. exist other, stranger creatures; mad beasts that are the products of magic. Player characters Player characters form a small band of hunter- take on the roles of cave dwelling humans and gatherers. Most people at this time lived in Neanderthals living just south of the northern small groups, ranging from a single family of icecaps. During the time period where the maybe four individuals to larger tribes of sev- game takes place, the ice age is coming to an eral dozen. Life was largely nomadic at this end. Retreating ice-sheets reveal tracts of land point, with settlements and camp-sites only unseen for millennia with each spring, and in temporary before the people moved on to their wake leave the environment in turmoil. somewhere else. In this way, player characters Each year, rivers change their course as gla- will be just another group of people trying to ciers shift positions, and strange creatures survive as they wander across the landscape. emerge from the ice sheets or travel further What sets player characters apart, however, is north. As the snow withdraws, modern hu- daring. Most people know that the inner for- mans follow, and every year new tribes of hu- ests, deep caves and northern ice-caps are bad mans enter the Neanderthal‘s ancestral lands. news, and so avoid them. Similarly, most peo- Against this backdrop, magic begins to ple know that dangerous predators and super- emerge as a force in the world. Driving the natural monsters are far more dangerous than rise in art – jewellery, cave paintings and figu- they are, and will avoid confrontations. Player rines - that will fascinate later historians, some characters, however, are not most people. humans begin experimenting with the super- Through a combination of skilful play, calcu- natural, learning to shape the wild forces of lated risk taking and reckless bravery, player the world into controllable spells and items of characters can quickly become experienced power. In the depths of the earth, and hidden and powerful. They might become mighty in beneath the icecaps, there are places of magi- ways that those content to merely survive cal significance, and even rare magical arte- aren‘t, and could begin to attract tribes of fol- facts that no human has seen. Some of these lowers or work on creating grand works of are naturally occurring, whilst others are rem- magic. nants of ancient pre-human civilizations. Of course, this is if they get lucky. They The end of the ice age is, in many ways, not a might equally find themselves bleeding to bad time to be alive. There are food and sup- death in a howling blizzard as wolves circle plies to be had for anybody clever enough to them, and die alone and unceremoniously. take them, and vast unexplored tracts of wil- The world is not a nice place, and player char- derness for the ambitious to settle in. There is acters are small, fragile mortals in a huge, no drudge work, no crushing pressure of so- hostile pre-historic landscape. cial conformity, no nations with their wars, taxes and oppressive laws. Things are simple, The game is based around the framework and society fluid and egalitarian. laid down by the first roleplaying game, However, it is also not an easy time to be 4 Dungeons and Dragons. This game (and many warped and altered by strange forces. This others based on it) makes a number of as- book states where a given rule or option deals sumptions based on a fantasy setting, such as with fantasy elements; by leaving these ele- written spell-books, and access to coinage. ments out the game can be played perfectly This game, whilst using the core of those first well as a purely historical game. rules, makes a number of changes both to streamline play and to fit the structure into a The Basics Palaeolithic setting. Many of the rules in this One person acts as the Game Master game are inspired by those in other popular (abbreviated to GM), who is the referee, sto- old-school games. ryteller, and narrator for the game. Each other player takes on the role of one brave pre- The game gives each class a niche that they historic adventurer, created using the rules excel in. Hunters are the best in combat, able below. to strike more surely and survive fights more easily. Experts excel at dealing with chal- You‘ll need: lenges outside of combat such as environ- -A copy of this book, which you seem to al- mental hazards. Magicians are fragile and ready have. relatively weak, but with time to prepare have - A set of dice for each player (at least one spells that can potentially solve an encounter four, six, eight, ten, twelve and twenty sided or elegantly bypass a challenge. Finally Nean- dice), derthals occupy a middle ground, with some - A record of their character that they can fighting ability and a few useful skills outside make notes and alterations to (a sheet of paper of combat; where they excel, though, is in and a pencil if you‘re playing in person, or a sheer ability to survive. notepad document if you‘re playing online is The intended purpose of this game is as a plenty), ‗dungeon crawl‘ through unexplored caves, a - A few friends (three to eight players is ideal) hunting expedition into dangerous territory or -and some time. some other action-packed adventure. Deep The GM is advised to put some planning into characterization, intrigue, philosophical ram- the game before hand, plotting out the adven- blings and shiny cosmic metaplot are all very ture‘s layout and what might be encountered well, but there are other games that do that there.