Monday 31 December 2018

Monster: Avoral

Monster: Avoral

Guardinals are animalistic champions of pure good. Monster Manual describes only two types of guardinals - avorals and leonals. Here is my attempt at converting the avian avoral. Includes two new Sorcery spells.

Sunday 30 December 2018

Monster: Grimlock

Monster: Grimlock

Grimlocks are blind underground-dwelling humanoids. Despite their lack of eyes, they can form a picture of their surroundings by combining aural and olfactory sensory input.

Saturday 29 December 2018

Monster: Grick

Monster: Grick

Gricks are quite simple monster that should be thrown at inexperienced adventurers. They are pictured with no eyes, but their description and statblock do not have anything about them being blind. Strange.

Friday 28 December 2018

Monster: Gray Render

Monster: Gray Render

The gray render is a very simple monster. It has a kangaroo pouch and it sometimes becomes very attached to other creatures.

Thursday 27 December 2018

Sorcery: Flight Spells

Sorcery: Flight Spells

In my fantasy setting, sorcerers with a dragon bloodline are granted access to flight spells. This category already contains such spells as Flight, Hawk Flight, Personal Flight, but I feel that this category needs something extra.

Wednesday 26 December 2018

Monster: Gorgon

Monster: Gorgon

No, not the snake one. I don't remember ever using gorgons, but I've always liked them.

Tuesday 25 December 2018

Alchemy: Alchemical Capsules

Alchemy: Alchemical Capsules

Most adventurers prefer to be constantly ready for any dangerous situation. Alchemical elixirs take some time to use or even find in the pockets or bags, so alchemists have devised a way to concentrate their elixirs to be able to fit into small capsules that can be used swiftly. Such capsules were introduced in Complete Adventurer for D&D 3.5.

Monday 24 December 2018

Monsters: Stone Golems

Monsters: Stone Golems

Here we have the last golems from D&D 3.5 Monster Manual. Stone golems come in two variations - standard SM+1 ones and hulking SM+3 ones. Slow piles of hit points.

Sunday 23 December 2018

Monster: Iron Golem

Monster: Iron Golem

The iron golem is tough, strong, and has a poisonous cloud attack.

Saturday 22 December 2018

Hazards: Horror Environments

Hazards: Horror Environments

Here we have environmental hazards from Heroes of Horror and Lords of Madness converted to GURPS.

Friday 21 December 2018

D&D Taint in GURPS

D&D Taint in GURPS

Heroes of Horror introduces a new mechanic to D&D 3.5 – taint. It is practically identical to the corruption mechanic found in GURPS Horror, pp. 22, 146-128, but somebody still might want to tweak it to have D&D flavor. Let us delve into that, but I expect the delve not to be very deep and thorough.

Thursday 20 December 2018

Powers: Psicrystals

Powers: Psicrystals

A common concept in fantasy is a spellcaster having a familiar, typically an animal imbued with increased intelligence, special abilities, and/or speech. In D&D, familiars provided minor (usually) benefits, but were often discarded in favor of an alternative ability because having a vulnerable critter that will cause you to lose XP upon death is not something many players wanted. In GURPS, familiars are described in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 5 – Allies and expanded upon in Pyramid #3-75. Sure, mages get all the fun things, but what about the psis? Expanded Psionic Handbook for D&D 3.5 has psicrystals – psionic analogues of the familiars. Let us try to convert them, using existing frameworks.

Wednesday 19 December 2018

Tuesday 18 December 2018

Monsters/NPCs: Gnolls

Monsters/NPCs: Gnolls

Here we have gnolls from Monster Manual and Monster Manual IV for D&D 3.5. Their racial template is very cheap - fits for a player character.

Monday 17 December 2018

Lens/NPC: Half-Fiend/Half-Fiend Human Cleric

Lens/NPC: Half-Fiend/Half-Fiend Human Cleric

While fiendish creatures are distant relatives of the fiends, half-fiends are direct progenies of a fiend and another creature. In this example, we apply the half-fiend lens to a human cleric of Erythnul.

Sunday 16 December 2018

SM+2 Low-Tech

SM+2 Low-Tech

And here we have GCS Libraries for SM+2 Low-Tech gear for giants and all other SM+2 humanoids

Weapon Table - link
LT GCS Library - link
LT Instant Armor GCS Library - link

Saturday 15 December 2018

SM+1 Low-Tech

SM+1 Low-Tech

And here we have GCS Libraries for SM+1 Low-Tech gear for ogres and all other SM+1 humanoids

Weapon Table - link
LT GCS Library - link
LT Instant Armor GCS Library - link

Friday 14 December 2018

SM-2 Low-Tech

SM-2 Low-Tech

And here we have GCS Libraries for SM-2 Low-Tech gear for halflings, goblins, gnomes, kobolds, and other SM-2 humanoids.

Weapon Table - link
LT GCS Library - link
LT Instant Armor GCS Library - link

Thursday 13 December 2018

SM-1 Low-Tech

SM-1 Low-Tech

I have encountered a problem in games with non-human characters with SM lower or higher than 0. The problem is the amount of time and effort required to redo the weight, damage, reach, and prices for items of different SM values using the rules from GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2 - Weapons and Warriors. So, I've decided to make a table for SM-1 weapons and GCS libraries for all other items from GURPS Low-Tech and GURPS Low-Tech - Instant Armor. Obviously, some items are not to scale, such as firearms, so I've omitted them from the libraries, but might have left other inappropriate items in - user discretion is advised.

Weapon Table - link
LT GCS Library - link
LT Instant Armor GCS Library - link

Wednesday 12 December 2018

Pantheon: Archomentals

Pantheon: Archomentals

Archomentals, again, do not have definitive dogma, but ask their worshipers to forward their goals. Good archomentals, just like celestial paragons, do not encourage the formation of their cults, so only evil archomentals are listed.

Tuesday 11 December 2018

Pantheon: Archdevils

Pantheon: Archdevils

Again, just as demon lords, the archdevils do not have a definitive dogma. Most of them require their priests to find ways of them to gain power on the Material Plane.

Monday 10 December 2018

Pantheon: Demon Lords

Pantheon: Demon Lords

While I am done with the truly divine part of the pantheon, I still have to cover three categories of quasi-divine beings that still can grant spells to their worshipers. Demon lords usually do not have a clear dogma, and their clerics take a generic demonic disadvantage for the Pact limitation or something appropriate to the goals of the demon lord.

Sunday 9 December 2018

Monster/NPC: Githzerai

Monster/NPC: Githzerai

The githzerai are chaotic relatives of the githyanki that live on the chaotic plane of Limbo.

Saturday 8 December 2018

Monsters/NPCs: Githyanki

Monsters/NPCs: Githyanki

Githyanki are evil humanoids that were enslaved by the mind flayers a long time ago, but since then have broken free and relocated to the Astral Plane. Some of their warriors, called gish, possess magical abilities. High-ranking githyanki wield special silver swords that disrupt psionic abilities.

Friday 7 December 2018

Alchemy: Alchemical Styles

Alchemy: Alchemical Styles

GURPS Thaumatology – Magical Styles provides an engine to build various styles of magic, and GURPS Powers – The Weird has a framework for weird science styles. I feel that my Metatronic Alchemy system is robust enough to handle its own styles. I just have to create a similar framework.

Thursday 6 December 2018

Planar Traits

Planar Traits

In D&D, each plane of existence has its own properties that can be split into four categories – physical traits, elemental and energy traits, alignment traits, and magic traits. Let us try to represent these traits in GURPS. Many of the planes have more specific traits that deserve expanding upon in separate posts, but now right now.

Wednesday 5 December 2018

Powers: Outsider Channeling

Powers: Outsider Channeling

Here is a worked example of a divine magic tradition that is based on loa from GURPS Horror – Madness Dossier and corruption from GURPS Horror. While it has some similarities to Pact Magic, it has both flavor and mechanical differences.

Tuesday 4 December 2018

Monster: Girallon

Monster: Girallon

Girallons are four-armed gorillas. And that's pretty much it.

Monday 3 December 2018

Pantheon: Other Deities

Pantheon: Other Deities

And here we have the rest of D&D deities that are more or less relevant to my setting. Again, most of the info is taken from Wikipedia, D&D splatbooks, and AuldDragon's blog.

Sunday 2 December 2018

Pantheon: Other Racial Gods II

Pantheon: Other Racial Gods II

Again, some more racial deities with information based on Wikipedia articles, AuldDragon's blog, and excerpts from the D&D books.

Saturday 1 December 2018

Pantheon: Other Racial Gods I

Pantheon: Other Racial Gods I

Here we have some more deities for less common races in my setting. Again, a big thank you to AuldDragon for providing extended lore for deities that feel quite lacking otherwise.