Monster Jars

With a prompt from one Chris Wilson from the OSR Discord server - "Monster Jars".

Here, have a class. It assumes silver standard.

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A likely Jarrymonsterer | Original | Artist

You have studied the art of uniting monsters and jars, in multiple forms and kinds. You harness the powers and abilities of monsters this way.

Class: Jarrymonsterer

Your HD, to-hit, saves, equipment restrictions, and XP track are as magic-user.

Your Jars: in order to perform your jarring abilities, you need jars treated in advance. Any glass jar may be treated and is measured in doses. At most, a jar you treat may contain up to 3 doses and needs to be appropriately large, but each dose in a single jar costs more to treat: a single dose jar costs 50sp to treat, a 2-dose jar costs 150sp to treat, and a 3-dose jar costs 300sp to treat. Treating jars takes an entire day, though you may treat multiple jars at a time. A treated jar takes up a single equipment slot.
When all doses in a jar are expended, it remains treated, but will require cleaning before new doses may be put in. This takes 10 minutes per dose the jar can contain and all doses must be cleaned before reuse.
Treated jars are hard to break. Treat as reinforced wood for breakage rules.
You may carry as many jars at one time you have levels in Jarrymonsterer.

Salvaging Jars: at any time, you may spend a day with a jar to salvage it for materials and costs. Salvaging this way gives you materials to be used in treatment and rituals on other jars. When you salvage a jar, you lose the jar itself as well.

Exotic Jars: if you have jars made to order, or find particularly special ones, they may be exotic jars. Exotic jars have several advantages over regular glass jars, depending on their features:

• if it is made from an exotic glass or glass-like material, it becomes as hard as steel to break when treated.
• if its glass is stained with art, it may contain an extra dose at no cost (single dose becomes 2-dose and so on).
• if its lid is etched or inscribed with art, pickles from pickling and monstrous jars are done a single sunrise quicker, while a monster-in-a-jar may be recalled without pinning it down, from a 10' distance.

Additionally, you might find Ancient Monster Jars, treated with long lost techniques. These jars are unbreakable, are not lost when salvaging or if not fed as monstrous jars or jar monsters on time, come in all 3 sizes, and have both art features even if they are plain and possibly not even made out of glass. You can tell them apart from other jars without error.

Jarring Ethics: you can jar nearly anything. The line is drawn at a certain degree of humanoidness. Any humanoid you can safely say is a civilized kind of humanoid, goblins and orcs and kobolds included, for instance, cannot be jarred. Consult your GM for some exceptions, like mind flayers.

Monster Food: each dose contained in a jar also counts as a ration when you eat it, but you do not necessarily need to eat a ration to consume a dose. In addition, roll with advantage when saving against effects of ingested hazards, like poisons, since your stomach has become hardy.

Monster Pickles: the simplest method of jarring monster is monster pickles. Pickling requires a freshly dead monster, a means to scoop out its innards, and 10 minutes of work per jar you want to fill. A monster can provide a number of doses equal to its HD. Monster pickles must rest in their jar for 1 full day before they are usable. If strict day time is not kept, assume 2 sunrises need to pass before the pickles are ready.
Monster pickles provide a monster's ability or trait for a duration equal to your level in Jarrymonsterer per dose. This ability or trait is chosen when scooping out the innards of the monster. Consult your GM what is available and how it works.
If a jar containing monster pickles is broken, you have one round to eat the spilled doses before they lose all potency.

Monstrous Jar: you can treat a jar into a monstrous jar with an hour-long ritual and an unconscious monster. This ritual costs 100sp in materials per HD the monster has. When the ritual is finished, your jar is now part monster.
A monstrous jar requires a single ration per day to live. It needs to be fed after the sun rises and no later than noon. It will complain until it gets fed. It will die and melt away, along with the jar, if not fed in time.
In its jar stomach, a monstrous jar can hold a number of rations equal to the number of doses it can hold. These doses are treated as pickles, including the time it takes for pickling to finish. You now essentially have a self-refilling pickle jar.
A monstrous jar can't be broken, but it can be killed or punctured into non-usability. It has 1 HP per HD the monster had and an AC like platemail. Any saves you make against area of effect spells apply to the jar as well.

An example Monstrous Jar | Original

Monster-in-a-Jar: a particularly complex technique allows you to squeeze and entire monster into a jar. This requires an unconscious or willing monster and a 3-hour long ritual. You may put a monster with HD equal to or less than the number of doses the jar can contain and each jar may only contain a single monster this way. The ritual costs 200sp per HD the monster has.
Monsters jarred this way are not automatically tamed, merely forced into a small space. They may be released at any time and rejarring them does not require the ritual be performed again, as long as no more than a day has passed since release and you are able to pin it down for a single round while the jar's mouth is firmly placed against the monster.
If the jar breaks, the monster inside it is immediately expelled out and has to be rejarred with a new ritual.

Jar Monster: the most complex monster jarring technique, the jar monster acts as a companion to the Jarrymonsterer. You may only have a single jar monster at a time. Creating your jar monster requires a monstrous jar as a base, a day-long ritual, and 300sp per HD the monstrous jar has. The monstrous jar is consumed in this process. In its place, you get a practically identical jar, but it is now a type of combination between a monstrous jar and a monster-in-a-jar.
Your jar monster begins with the ability the monstrous jar used as its base has, and can expand into this monster on command and is obedient to you. Additionally, this jar can accept as many doses from other jars as the monstrous jar could contain as additional abilities when expanded. These abilities last 10 minutes times your level in Jarrymonsterer, and the timer runs from the moment it first expands with doses inside it, even if it reverts back to jar form.
The jar monster needs to be fed like a monstrous jar, as well, although it can last an entire day extra if fed double rations at the next feeding time.
The jar monster has normal HP for its HD, based on its HD as a monstrous jar. Other rules apply the same. It has AC equal to its regular monster base when expanded, and as monstrous jar when in jar form.

The Dragon

A discussion on race-as-class over on the OSR Discord server led to the idea of a dragon race-as-class, where your experience points are your hoard are your power and age. So here.

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Contrary to popular belief, dragons don't age as other creatures and races do. An old dragon is not necessarily strong, and a strong one not necessarily old, at least if what you count are the years it lived. Dragons appear to age, and gain power, as their hoard gains size.

A player playing The Dragon uses the following rules:

HD: d12.
Experience Point Track: as magic-user. See class features.
To-hit: as fighter.
Saves: special. Use the class that gives the best saves vs. magic and magic device, if such saves are separate from the rest, with other saves being inverted (becoming worse as The Dragon levels up). Otherwise, as magic-user.
Weapons and Armor: special. See class features.

Great Hoard, Great Power: The Dragon draws their power from the size of their hoard, gaining levels as it grows. To gain levels as The Dragon, you must invest gold as experience points into the hoard. Gold invested this way cannot be used for other purposes, with one exception: if you put in copper coins, you may trade them up for an equal number of silver or better coins. Experience points are gained at a 1:1 ratio to gold value.
Gold that is removed from the hoard, by pesky adventurers for instance, lowers your experience points but not your level, and you will need to work up new wealth again.

A Place for your Hoard: for your hoard to affect you, it must be concentrated in one place, as either a big pile or a set of linked chambers. At first, you might be able to carry the hoard on your person or with you in a wagon. By the time you become a young adult, though, you are likely to need a permanent lair, for the hoard could become very great in size.

Stages of Growth: while dragons have 12 stages of growth, The Dragon only reaches the 6th stage before needing to retire if they want to continue growing, due to the need to protect their now very large hoard. When The Dragon reaches 6th level and its stage, they cannot gain enough experience points to advance to the next level and stage, by gaining no more than 1 experience point less than the requirement for the next level. Any more experience points gained beyond this limit are lost.
The 6 relevant stages are: wyrmling, very young, young, juvenile, young adult, and adult.
As your stages of growth progress, you grow in size, gain AC, improve your breath weapon, and gain more access to your special features, in addition to standard improvements.

A young adult atop his relatively sizeable hoard | Original

Size and Length: dragons start big and only grow bigger. Your length is separated into 2: your body and your tail, with the tail making up nearly half your full length. As a wyrmling, your body length is 1d12+5 feet and your tail is 1d3 feet shorter. For every stage you grow, your body grows 1d3+10 feet longer, and your tail 1 foot less than that.

Draconic Hide: your AC as a wyrmling is as good as leather armor. For every 3 stages you grow, starting from young, improve your AC by 2. When you become a young adult, your hide begins to resist magic naturally and you roll saves vs magic and magic device with advantage.

Breath Weapon: you can breathe fire in order to attack others. Your breath weapon is a cone that erupts from your mouth to a distance of 10 feet, 5 feet wide at the base. For every stage you grow, the cone becomes 10 feet longer. Every other stage you grow, starting from very young, the cone becomes 5 feet wider at the base. When you become a young adult, you may choose to breathe a jet of fire instead of a cone. Double the length of the cone and keep it a uniform 5 foot width.
Your breath weapon deals damage equal to your HP, and after use you may not use it again for 10 minutes.

Natural Weapons: you have natural weapons in the forms of your claws, your mouth, and your tail. as a wyrmling, you may only use one of the three at a time in a given round. When you become a juvenile, you may use two of them in a single round.
All of your attacks add your level to their damage. In addition, each of your claws deals 1d6 damage, your mouth 1d10 damage, and your tail 1d4 damage in an arc behind you.

Treasures in the Hoard: whenever you include gems or magical items and equipment in your hoard, you may choose to forgo the experience point reward and instead use them for abilities and special benefits by attuning yourself to them. This feature essentially replaces equipment for The Dragon:

• Gems: starting with the first gem, you may detect gems 1/day in a 100 foot radius. Each gem included this way allows you to detect that type and up to that value in gold. You gain another daily use if you have at least 1 gem worth 500 gold, and a third daily use if you have one worth 5000 gold. Gems never need attunement, and also always give their experience point value as well.
• Magical Weapons: a weapon that provides a magical bonus to-hit and damage may be attuned to provide that bonus to your natural weapons. If multiple weapons are attuned this way, you only receive the highest bonus.
• Magical Armor: an armor that provides a magical bonus to AC may be attuned to provide that bonus to you. If multiple armors are attuned this way, you only receive the highest bonus.
• All Magical Items and Equipment: items and equipment providing special abilities may be attuned to provide them to you. Consult your GM how that manifests, with the following limitations - each attunement can provide only a single daily use with a duration in rounds no longer than you have levels in this class.
• Consumable Magical Items: require attunement and provide their effect on use. When used this way, they are consumed as usual.

Magical items and equipment you put in your hoard this way will never provide you experience points and can never be converted back to experience points in exchange for their benefits.
You may attune yourself to as many benefits and abilities from magical items and equipment as you have levels. However, each item or piece of equipment may only provide a single effect from itself per attunement. To get a weapon's bonus and its abilities, for instance, 2 or more attunments are necessary.

The OG Dragon on Hoard, Smaug | Original

Mighty Wings: you have mighty wings, which at first allow only short flight. Before you become a young adult, you may fly ten times your total length in feet at a time, in a largely straight line. After that distance, you need to rest for a minute before flying again. Once you become a young adult, you may fly for extended periods of time. Consult your GM how that works out. Your flight speed is 100 feet plus 10 feet per level per round.

Draconic Greed: your lust of gold and treasure leads your decisions and moral compass more than anything. Whenever shares of loot or payout are at stake, you must roll 10 plus your level or more on a d20. If you fail, you must demand a bigger share or payout. Additionally, if cutting your shares are ever brought up, roll the same saving throw, but twice. If you fail in either or both, you must stand your ground. Failing in either of these could lead to violence.
If you succeed at the saving throw, you will not be content with what you will be given, but you will accept it. Never forget the grievance, though.

Draconic Pride: up until you are a young adult, your draconic pride will not let you allow others to touch your hoard. It is yours and yours alone. Once you become a young adult you will demand, threaten, or hire others to do the work you once deemed your own. At this point, you will be too proud as a proper dragon to do the type of menial labor of carrying treasure.

Kobold Attraction: whenever you interact with kobolds, your draconic lineage will make them more compelled to help you. When you encounter kobolds, roll reactions at +3, and kobolds will require great compulsion to be hostile towards you. In addition, kobolds will agree to become hirelings for very little, if at all. If you gain a large amount of them, treat them as kobold Extras. Once you become a young adult, you may spend an entire day to instantly gain a first level kobold Extras if you have none.

On Adenheim I: The Big Picture

My latest campaign had its setting created on the day I ran it, with the gracious help of Perttu Vedenoja and Xsi on the OSR Discord server.
I wanted my own Neverwinter and what we came up with is awesome, so I’m sharing.

Preamble

Welcome to Adenheim, the largest trade hub on the shores of the Myravar. Keep your mask with you at all times, try not to stray too far away from the city, and for the love of the Sea God, do not listen to the cultists over there.

Dust Storms

The weather in Adenheim comes in 3 ways relevant to the locals: clear of dust, dusty, and lethally dusty. The first is cause of celebration, causing impromptu festivals and generosity. The second is daily life, sometimes you get to walk the streets with just your mask on, other times you’re better off home. The third is a real threat, the kind that claimed many lives before the bell system.
Incoming dust can change day to day, hour to hour. The locals are normally adequately prepared, while visitors suffer through a few bad decisions until they learn.

Food

There isn’t enough food in Adenheim for everyone in there. The people living in the slums and shanty towns regularly go through days without food, sometimes to the point of death.
In the richer area, food isn’t necessarily good. Dust is a common spice and everything has a salty taste as well. It takes incredible wealth to eat good food, free from the dust and salt carried in from the seabed.

Religion

The locals are split between 2 religions in the city:
The first is the longstanding Church of the Sea God, established back when there was actually a sea and trade over it began. They are proper conservatives, thinking their belief will bring back the sea and the population’s lack of it is what’s causing it to recede. The common believer is somewhat jaded and a bit cynical, but otherwise slightly hopeful.
The other, in nearly direct opposition, is the cult of the Saltstone God, started when he walked into the city during the very first years of the drain. He advocates letting the sea dry up, particularly when his blessing allows the blessed to go without much food or water and survive worse temperatures. The common believer is a bit fanatic.

The Uncovered Shores and Seabed

The receding sea had uncovered many things, and those things attracted adventurers looking for fame and fortune. On the shores, natural caves with curious treasures were revealed, and strange structures were found built in odd locations. From within both came dessicated undead and tougher specimens of aggressive amphibians.
Further into the desert and away from the city, undead came up from sunken ships of more and less familiar design. In addition, more structures were revealed, host to strange humanoids living in lone buildings or small settlements. The greater depths are stalked by giant crabs, ready to take anything tasty that comes along.

State of the City

As it was built, the city was intended for the seaside kind of weather: breezes coming from the sea, rains, and the occasional storm. What it was never prepared for was the dust. The exteriors of buildings are scratched and rough from the more dire of dust storms, while the dust itself easily piles in the streets.
The poor crowd in their slums while distressed villagers from nearby have set up shanty towns outside the walls. Those with enough money, either move away or make more in the new business climate. The absolute richest believe that they could outlive the drain and continue with their decadent lives.

Shape of the City

Adenheim has 5 important areas:

• The island side of the bridge district, where the richest live. The architecture is sturdy and impressive, even after the effects of the dust, and the residents high and mighty. The council rules the city from the keep at the center of the island.
• The bridge district, which connects the island to the shore. It is now considered high class since they closed it off from the top and built large gates on either side, keeping the vast majority of dust from coming in during storms. The architecture is cluttered but efficient. 
• The shore side of the bridge district, but away from the walls, where the middle class live. Most adventurers coming in stay in this area, where there’s a balance between price, quality of life, security, and density of dust.
• The slums, near the walls, where the poorest live, or at least try to. The slums are dense, unsafe, but also a bit homely. The dust isn’t as pervasive due to the density of buildings preventing the storms from hitting too hard. Many of the residents in the slums are regular drunks and drug users.
• The shanty towns, extending both out from the walls and on the seabed near the city, are where refugees from nearby shore villages and towns have come to live. They barely have any food and hardly any clear water, but the relative safety afforded by living near the city assures them.

Things for Adventurers to do in Adenheim

As able individuals with an interest in fame and fortune, adventurers have multiple things they get done in the city:

• Entertainment is constantly in too short a supply. Organized fights and performances garner large crowds eager to part with some money for an hour of distraction. The slums are particularly eager.
• Expeditions to the shores and the seabed are always being planned by multiple interested parties. There’s treasure to be found and things to kill, all for possible extra profit.
• The church and the cult are always struggling, looking to strengthen themselves or weaken the other. Asking them after things they want or need is a surefire way to find something to do.
• The city is old enough to have a hidden history. Things can be found behind walls, beneath houses, and the places in between.

So, Blog No. 3(?)

Well, time to give RPG blogging another try. This time, I'll try and stick to it.

My name is Nadav, I'm 26 years old and I've been playing since I was at least 3 years old.
Over the past several years I've tried blogging about RPGs - campaigns I've run, ideas I've come up. Neither of the 2 blogs had lasted. Encouraged to try again by seeing others at the OSR Discord server starting their own, I opened a new blog. This time, it even has a name I don't feel is forced.

I've decided to give an entire post to the first one, despite having other things to write about right now, because I'm normally a person of few words and I want to break out of that habit. I want to provide a full look into what goes on in my head and around my table. I plan to start breaking that habit by being wordy here and now.
I've got a couple of topics.

The Name of the Blog
I was struggling for at least 10 minutes, trying to come up with a name I like. I went through some names I put in video games and rejected them all. Then I thought about emulating other new, recent blogs. Rejected quickly. Then I tried really thinking and it dawned on me - the single most consistent frustration I have with the hobby is that I run it bilingually. I constantly shift from my native Hebrew to the English of the games, making translation a mess I need to deal with, and one in which errors can regularly crop up. So I frequently need to save vs translation error. Hence the name. I like it.

Immediate Post Plans
The nearest upcoming posts will involve 2 sides of the same topic - my home campaign, played IRL. I'll be putting up 2 more posts immediately following this one, no later than Monday evening (GMT+3). The first will be about the setting, the second will be session reports for the first 2 sessions of the campaign.
That said, I'll give you a taste, if you don't have one (or several) from the OSR Discord server: the setting is called Adenheim, a large city-state in a relatively typical fantasy world. The campaign is set in the city and home to, right now, 2 players and their 2 characters. I already know a thing about the setting and a thing about the campaign - the setting is more than I can make use of as I am right now, the campaign is probably going to shift gears with a TPK sooner rather than later (more on this in the session reports).

Long-term Post Plans
Longer term, I have more plans for the blog besides Adenheim. First and foremost is putting down the ideas and thoughts I have about house rules and other cool stuff. Beyond that, I want to explore other setting and general OSR stuff. I know I'll get some house rules posts going in the immediate future, but not precisely sure when.

So there you have it, my plans for this blog. I hope you enjoy the ride.
See you soon.