Magic Items

So it's time for another Swords and Wizardry homebrew post! This time, I'm handing out magic items. So without further ado, onto the items!

Cube of Unreality

The Cube of Unreality is a powerful magic item. It appears as a silver box, engraved with maddening patterns and ancient runes. It contains 2-7 silvery darts. Each dart contains a small sliver of absolute nothingness contained within rune-covered silver. The darts will, upon contact with a creature on its home plane, create a destructive chain reaction with the stuff of reality absolutely consuming the target unless it makes its save vs. magic. A Cube of Unreality may also fire all darts placed within on the same round. It regenerates 1 dart each time a Shadow is fed to the box, and 1-4 each time a creature capable of level drain is sacrificed.

Sceptre of the Sovereign

This item has 3-18 charges. It appears as a silver sceptre with the design of an ancient empire at its tip. This staff has four functions: Casting Charm Person and Command, both of which consume but 1 charge, and the raising of a fortress. The last function consumes 10 charges. Additionally, it attacks as a +1 quarterstaff and will generally inspire respect in people

Hungry Weapon
A Hungry Weapon is a dangerous cursed item. It attacks as a +1 weapon but must kill a foe each day or it will begin to feed on its owner. Each day the Hungry Weapon goes without being fed, it causes damage to its owner on a to-hit roll equal to or less than the day's number, so that on the first day only rolls of 1 cause damage, on the second day rolls of 1 or 2 cause damage, and so on.

Ring of Entropy
This powerful ring has 4 charges and recharges 1 each day. It has the ability, draining a charge, to fire a blast of pure chaos energy. There is no save, and upon striking the target the firer rolls a d10 on the following table:

1. Target is teleported to a random location
2. Target's gear loses all curses upon it
3. Target takes 3d6 damage
4. Target heals 3d6 HP
5. The target must save vs. magic or die
6. The user is consumed within a storm of chaos, roll 3 effects on the table for the user
7. Roll again twice, ignoring even results
8. Roll again twice, ignoring odd results
9. Roll again twice
10. Roll again three times

Fearsome Critters

So today I was looking for some interesting creatures and during my extensive research, I came across an interesting bunch. So I'm going to stat a selection out for S&W complete. I picked them from the ones that sound like interesting opponents, and hope to kickstart your creativity. So without further ado, the critters

Axehandle Hound

HD: 1
AC: 8 [11]
Attacks: 1d6 (bite)
Saving Throw: 17
Special: Chew through wooden handles in 1 turn
Move: 12
Alignment: Neutrality
Challenge/XP:  2/30
Axehandle Hounds are doglike creatures which eat wood. They will sneak up on camping characters and eat the handles of their tools, because the treating process creates a taste which they enjoy. Elf-worked wood they like most of all, but they will settle for natural wood if need be.

Ball-Tailed Cat

HD: 4+2

AC: 6 [13]

Attacks: 1d4/1d4/1d8/1d6 (claw/claw/bite/club)

Saving Throw: 13

Special: None

Move: 12

Alignment: Neutrality

Challenge/XP: 4/120

At a passing glance, the ball-tailed cat appears to simply be a black-furred big cat. Upon a closer look, however, the critter's true nature is revealed, as a large flail-like ball lies at the end of its tail

Cactus Cat

HD: 3+2

AC: 5 [14]

Attacks: 1d4/1d4/1d6/1d12 (Claw/claw/bite/bodyslam)

Saving Throw: 12

Special: Anyone attacking with short melee weapons takes 1d4 damage

Move: 9

Alignment: Neutrality

Challenge/XP: 4/120

This critter is a deadly beast, appearing as a big cat with dirty yellow fur rather like a hyena. However, its relatively humble appearance hides the truly deadly nature of the beast. This critter has deadly spiked fur, which it uses to great effect by slamming its foes. It resides in desert regions, and drinks cactus juice which it finds intoxicating.

Glumberoo

HD: 2

AC: 9 [10]

Attacks: 1d4/1d4/1d6 (Claw/claw/bite)

Saving Throw: 15

Special: Immune to all damage except from fire, instantly explodes if exposed to fire.

Move: 6

Alignment: Neutrality

Challenge/XP: 5/240

This creature appears like a walking ball, with thick, elephant-like legs and tiny ears. It has a tough, black hide, but secretes a highly flammable oil that dries up 1d8 days after the creature dies unless bottled. The explosion of the beast causes 10d6 damage to all creatures around and leaves enough oil behind for 1d4 flasks of the oil, which cause 2d6 damage.

Hidebehind

HD: 3

AC: 5 (14)

Attacks: 1d4/1d4/1d8 (Claw/claw/bite)

Saving Throw: 15

Special: Rolls 4d6 in grapple if it attacks by surprise, surprise 4 in 6 in wooded areas

Move: 15

Alignment: Chaos

Challenge/XP: 4/120

This creature looks like a black bear walking on 2 legs. It moves unnaturally quickly and typically lives in wooded areas, hiding behind trees (hence the name) and picking off woodsmen by grappling them and dragging them back to its lair to be devoured.

Joint Snake

HD: 2

AC: 6

Attacks: 1d4 (Bite)
Saving Throw: 16

Special: Lethal poison bite, regenerates 2 HP per round.

Move: 9

Alignment: Neutrality

Challenge/XP: 5/240

This critter looks to be a simple snake, but can reassemble itself. Its poison is highly deadly, and a single lethal dose can be extracted from the snake. The snake's venom is also a powerful ingredient for healing potions.

Wampus Cat

HD: 4

AC: 4

Attacks: 1d4/1d4/1d8 (Claw/claw/bite)

Saving Throw: 14

Special: Can roar at a creature, causing that creature to save vs. magic or take double damage from all sources and make all saving throws at -2.

Move: 12

Alignment: Chaos

Challenge/XP: 6/400

The Wampus Cat is a ghostly beast, appearing as a panther. It will howl at creatures, often heralding their imminent doom. It is not known whether it is the cause of this effect or merely the herald of terrible fortune. 

Ruins of the Lizard part 1

This is the first proper session of my Swords and Wizardry campaign. This time I managed to rope in another player, and thus the tale of Elebereth Silverblood, elf magic-user, and Gabriel, elf fighter and brother of the other elf fighter from the last session.

The elves had entered uncharted (well, very recently charted) territory, heading upriver to find the remnants of the previous expedition. They decided to head to the Great Tree for a better vantage, stopping by the Ruins of the Lizard on their way.

Approaching from the western edge, they snuck around to the gnollish buildings on the South side. Seeing his brother's head mounted on a pike, Gabriel flew into a rage and fired on one of the patrolling hyenas with his longbow. The hyena howled long and loud, while the other lunged at him. The beast, not seeing the pit trap between him and his target, fell in.

Elebereth threw a spray of darts at the hyenas, injuring but not killing. Suddenly, the 4 gnolls who survived from the previous expedition opened the door to investigate the commotion. Seeing Gabriel, one lifted Galadril's bow high and yelled a taunt.

Elebereth, acting quickly, cast a sleep spell and knocked out all of the gnolls and hyenas when three more burst out through the door, drawn to the sound of battle like moths unto flame. Failing to disentangle themselves from the door, Gabriel and Elebreth flung lamp oil. Gabriel followed up with an arrow which pierced the poorly-crafted helmet and thick skull of a gnoll, killing it instantly.

Thus the first session with the full party of our Ruins of the Lizard campaign ended, on a hell of a cliffhanger. This is the stuff which great campaigns are built on!

Ruins of the Lizard part 0

I played this session with only one player, so consider it a kind of prologue to other reports to follow. I'm playing in a partially-complete homebrew megadungeon for Swords and Wizardry complete. The only real houserule I'm using is that all monsters have 1d6 hit dice, instead of 1d8. This means that A: it's compatible with S&W light, and B: players can plow through much more in one session than they could otherwise. I'll give you guys a link to the maps and notes here. This isn't my actual notes document, but I'll update it before every report, the reason being that this one has read-only maps.

The session began in the wreckage of an expedition into the wilderness that had been utterly destroyed by gnolls. The player had 2 characters, Galadril (an elf archer) and Alatar (a human magic-user). They tracked the gnolls to their hideout, carefully avoiding any form of random encounter.

The party approached the clearing (Upper Works) from the north. They slowly made their way around to the east, when suddenly they found two of the captives from the expedition! Attempting to sneak over and set them free, they were noticed by the gnolls and hyenas which used to live at 9. Galadril set the prisoners free, while Alatar knocked down the gnolls with Sleep. They proceeded to sneak over to 8, where they promptly killed 2 gnolls and were picked off one at a time by hyenas.

Thus ended the first session of my megadungeon. There'll be more next time I give it a shot (hopefully), and at the end there'll be a full megadungeon developed through actual play. I think that removing some monsters will make it much more fun, and will allow the players to experience much more of the dungeon. These changes have been noted in the Upper Works section.