I think we just won . . .

 Just caught the news that WotC and the "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" crew in their upper echelons publicly claimed the irrevocable status of the OGL 1.0a and released all of the D&D 5.1 SRD under Creative Commons. I hope it's true, and it feels like something of a real victory. 

I've never particularly trusted WotC, I don't much care for their products, and I never really had full trust in the OGL 1.0a, but it was an industry standard that made other publishers feel safe. I've used it in some of my books and declined it in others. I still don't trust WotC, but it feels like maybe, just maybe, we actually earned that big "W" despite what looked like a destined "L."

I'm gonna sleep well tonight, and I'll post some more Gathox goodies soon!

New Gathox Mechanic: "Clear20"

 Howdy folks!

In my endless quest to make combat faster and less mathy, I've brainstormed a simple mechanic for attacking and saving that I believes alleviates two problems:

1) The absurd and seemingly endless statistical inflation of ascending armor class; and
2) The confusing and tiresome math of To-Hit scores combined with subtractive armor.

That mechanic is called "Clear20."

A Clear20 roll happens (surprise!) on a 1d20, where the player needs to roll a 20 or higher. It's used for combat and saves, as follows:

Attack Rolls
---------------------
Once intitiative has been determined, PCs and NPCs may attack on their respective initiatives. Defense is passive; no one rolls for Defense. Combatants only roll to Attack, and this is achieved with the "Clear20" die mechanic.

Clear20: roll 1d20 and add the appropriate modifiers. If the resulting number equals or exceeds 20, the roll is a success.

In the case of attacking, a combatant adds the following:

1. Base Attack number. All L1 PCs begin play with at least 1.
2. The opponent's Defense value. This ranges from 9 at worst to 0 at best.
3. Situational modifiers.
4. Environmental modifiers (optional).

Situational modifiers include:
* All PCs add or subtract their DEX modifier to ranged attacks.
* Militants add or subtract their STR modifier to melee attacks.
* Mentalists add or subtract their INT modifier to physical attacks with magic weapons.
* Mutants add or subtract their CON modifier to physical attacks with bodily mutations.

Environmental modifiers include:
* -1 for fighting in fog, noxious clouds, rain, snow, loose debris (sand/rubble), starlight, or fighting from low ground.
* -2 for fighting in sandstorms, monsoons, confined quarters (less than 10' wide), mud, viscera, or while surprised.
* -3 for fighting in water/liquids, low/zero gravity, darkness, blinding light, the psychosphere, or while bound, flying, or falling.
* -4 for fighting after reduced to 0 HP and rolling for Death and Dismemberment (assuming the PC lives and can somehow fight).

The Slumlord may adjudicate additional situational or environmental modifiers as they see fit. The severity of additional modifiers ought to be in accordance with those listed above.

Saving Rolls
----------------------
A Saving Roll is required when a PC is subject to a life threatening situation or condition. This may include falling, poison, shock, magic, being reduced to 0 or fewer HP, or deadly traps. Unless mandated by an effect, the Slumlord judges the necessity of a Saving Roll on a case by case basis. These rolls ought to be infrequent, and are also governed by the "Clear20" rule:

Roll 1d20 and add the appropriate modifiers. If the resulting number equals or exceeds 20, the roll is a success.

PCs making a Saving Roll add the following:

1. Their base Save score. All L1 PCs begin with a base Save of 4.
2. Their level.
3. Explicit modifiers from  gear, magical or technologically advanced items, magic, and psychic abilities.

The Slumlord may assign additional modifiers as deemed appropriate. Keep in mind that successful Saving Rolls may:
* negate a situation
* halve an effect
* forestall a condition
* avoid death
* create room for a less harmful outcome
* halt a perpetual or active condition which otherwise cannot be halted

Saving Rolls should not apply to:
* social interactions or roleplaying interactions
* negotiations or bartering
* melee or ranged combat damage
* carousing, downtime activities, or spending RP
* situations in which lethality is not of immediate, paramount concern

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Gathox, the OGL, and the new Gathox!

Sorry for the deep pause in posts! I've been in hibernation, working away on some new gaming products, tweaking my house rules, getting married, branching out into fine art, and getting some real mental health assistance which has been life-changing. I'm doing great, and I hope you are too!

I'm posting here today to let you know the following: I'm working on the Encyclopedia Gathoxica, a complete, all-in-one, Gathox tome with new rules, classes, spells, monsters, and adventures. Everything needed to play will be self-contained and the rules will be published under a copyleft license, not the OGL. If you've followed TTRPG news lately, you'll know why.

I've got hundreds of pages of gaming content scattered across three notebooks, ready to be compiled into a newer, faster, meaner, meatier, more mutated Gathox. It's my baby, after all, and no matter whatever else I work on, I find myself thinking, writing, and playing about Gathox. I'm super stoked for the future, and if the malice and anti-open source actions and intentions of the singular industry monolith provided me with enough fire and excitement to move out of the germination phase and into the make new shit phase, all the better. I honestly haven't been this stoked about working on gaming material since 2019. It's been a long time coming.

Lastly, there are going to be GLOG components in the Encyclopedia Gathoxica! I've chatted with Arnold Kemp from Goblin Punch (go read his blog, and then re-read it, it's dope), and I have his blessing to use GLOG components in the new edition! 

• Don't know what the GLOG is? Check it out here. 

• Anne from DIY & Dragons has a great outline of who is posting GLOG material here. 

• Skerples from Coins and Scrolls has made some great GLOG material here.

• Chris Wilson from Through the Spyglass is the reason I first began tinkering with GLOG components, and he's done his own Gathox GLOG conversions here. Thanks Chris!
  

 

The Mutant Insurrectionist: Talking about zines

Okay, here's an awesome new thing I made for Gathox - it's a zine. I'm gonna post the link first, so you can go get a copy, and then I'm going to talk about this zine and other zines.

If the image link doesn't work for you, click here. 

The Mutant Insurrectionist

I haven't made a zine since the 90's, when I was going to all-ages shows in my old hometown and first figuring out how to use words and pictures. And honestly, I've enjoyed making this so much more than I expected and at least as much as I did when I was a kid. 

First off, the zine has gameable bits from my home campaign. Almost everything has been used at my table by myself or by players, and I know that they work. The Mutant Insurrectionist contains adventure seeds presented in the form of newspaper classifieds. There's also unique items, a fresh spell, a new class, a new adventure location, some hirelings, the dungeon encounter table I included in a previous blog post, and more.

Second off, since this is a zine, I get to play with the content in ways I couldn't for other books. The jokes can be overt and very much on the nose:

While I certainly included a generous portion of humor in both GVS1 and GVS2, there was no room in there for cheeky mock editorials featuring pickled pigs' feet and casual violence. Likewise, there was no room for diegetic hireling advertisements:

These brief, playable experiments get me stoked on the freedom of making things for their own sake, and I think that excitement shows through in the results. One of the key choices I made early on was to treat the authorial voice as if the zine existed in Gathox - it's a publication put together by the pompous and exploitative Turtle Tattlers Union Local 386, who has essentially cobbled together news bits and advertisements from around the city and repackaged them for their own profit. Sure, they've added some of their own content (mostly marks they've unsuccessfully attempted to hit), but by and large they're engaging in that laissez-faire casual theft which defines the attitudes of so many gangs in Gathox. 

Another facet of The Mutant Insurrectionist being a zine is that the pressure is gone of having to make 'the perfect thing.' Not that I've ever made a perfect thing, but the point of the zine is to experiment with the presentation of things I've made for Gathox and share those results with other folks. It's not meant to win any awards, it's meant to entertain readers and give me a chance to test new ideas. I love it, and I intend to make more of them.

Zines are good: go make the thing

Why a zine? Why not just put more content together in a bigger book? Why not atomize what you've got into individual blog posts?

Sure, I could have spent a year or more making tons of this content in the quiet recesses of my spare time, eventually toiling over a big tome of miscellanea. Honestly, that sounds daunting and I'd likely bog down on it. At the other end, I could have turned it into 20 blog posts, but I truly doubt I would have tied those ideas together in a cohesive manner. 

The zine is the right length for keeping things tight, keeping the gears moving, and continuing to make the thing. Should I attempt to write an interview with a wizard who wrote what essentially amounts to a glorified Pong spell? Make the thing. Should I write real estate advertisements for gangland territories? Make the thing. Making the thing is the answer to having ideas - ideas are a dime a dozen, but a thing made is an idea with follow-through.

I want to make the thing.

Underneath the Skin: Random Encounters for Gathoxan Dungeons

I'm generally one to make custom random encounter tables for each individual location - you can see examples of this in both the starter module in chapter 7 of GVS1 as well as in the tournament module GVS2. It makes sense - take only what you need for a customized location, stock it with a sensible array of likely culprits, and determine the frequency and odds of checks. Done and done.

However, I've been running a series of connected dungeons, including a megadungeon, in my home Gathox game for a number of years. I've got a bunch of screwy encounter tables from earlier iterations of these dungeons, and I've decided that enough's enough. No more mish-mash of incoherent and dubious rolls for these locations. I need a consistent master table of random encounters, and anyone who runs Gathox at home ought to have it as well. The master table is linked below along with a brief description of the design process.

The Master Dungeon Encounter Table

First, I categorized and grouped all the monsters in GVS1: Gathox Vertical Slum by their Hit Dice Equivalent (HDE) as determined in Chapter 8 of Swords & Wizardry White Box. Then I laid out the HDE spread for each of 6 dungeon levels like so:

Level 1: 1-4 HDE

Level 2: 1-5 HDE

Level 3: 2-6 HDE

Level 4: 2-7 HDE

Level 5: 3-8 HDE

Level 6: 3-9 HDE

This spread keeps the imbalances and variability of encounters intact without ridiculous results, like having 9 HD creatures roaming level 1 or half-HD creatures roaming levels 4-6. Monsters with HD ranges may be encountered on multiple levels with appropriate shifts in HD, and groups of lower level monsters increase their ranks the deeper they're encountered.

And at last we come to the master encounter table, which streamlines a lot of the mess I had made earlier and hopefully dispels future headaches. Enjoy!

***THE MASTER GATHOXAN SUBSURFACE ENCOUNTER TABLE***

Let me know if you find this useful. If you think it's too underpowered or that you'd like tables that extend deeper than 6 megadungeon levels, let me know. I'll be publishing this table in my upcoming 'zine, The Mutant Insurrectionist, so your feedback is always appreciated!

From the Mutant Insurrectionist: Interview with a Cosmic Doctor

So I'm starting a Gathox 'zine called The Mutant Insurrectionist, featuring news snippets, gang territories, new items/spells/classes/monsters, playable locations, and absurdist advertisements. Here's a news snippet from the monthly magazine for the rich part of town, which includes a custom 1st level Mentalist spell:

Excerpted from the Vaclavellian Digest for the Month of Morning Fog:

. . . and after bypassing the Riddle of Chitin in Cheery Orchard, our crew finally caught up with renowned Cosmic Doctor, Arimena the Parallelizer. What follows is a distillation of that momentous interview.

VD: My god, I've never even seen a Zhezhn before, let alone pass through an entire grotto of them . . .

AP: I'm sure you haven't!

VD: The thrumming down here is turning the stomachs of my crew, and one just had a seizure from the pulsing lights. Any way you could dismiss those . . . things?

(AP smiles wryly and emits a series of polyphonic grunts - the Zhezhn phase through the floors and our sickness subsides.)

AP: You're a daisy for coming down here. What can I do for you?

VD: We're writing a feature on the Deflector fad. The spell's being used for new toeball game variants, public duels, drinking contests - it's on fire! How did you develop your namesake spell?

AP: And here I was, thinking you wanted a sneak peek at my Doppleganger Invasion manuscript! (chuckles) So anyway, in my travels I noticed a trend - each technologically advanced species eventually develops 'lightbox' technology, and shortly thereafter devises games for lightboxes.

VD: You're talking about face-screens?

AP: That's what the Mokron call them, yeah. The true marker of an advanced civilization is developing a lightbox game wherein two opponents compete by passing a dot back and forth using lit up lines or paddles. If a player sends the dot across the box and their opponent does not return the dot with the paddle, they score a point. Each advanced civilization across this galaxy has developed this game independently. I don't even waste my time trying to communicate with species that haven't developed it somewhere in spacetime.

VD: So this lightbox game inspired the spell?

AP: Yes. The Deflector is a three dimensional representation of one of those paddles, useful for deflecting incoming attacks. It works even better than the game version, because it automatically rotates around the body to intercept strikes or missiles. I wanted to make sure that even the least experienced of Mentalists could access the spell.

VD: There's been a glut in the market recently, so many scrolls of Arimena's Deflector are available on the cheap. There are even variations with custom colors and pyrotechnics! Did you think you'd set off a sea change in the spell market?

AP: Well, if you can cast at all, folks on the surface take notice pretty quickly. If you don't seek the protection of a gang, and sometimes even if you do, as a Mentalist you have to watch your back at all times. The Deflector is a great way to put up real resistance against a team of ruffians trying to steal your wizard brain for their boss. It makes sense that the Deflector is making the rounds, and I'm just chuffed!

VD: You should be! We risked life and limb to get the scoop on the Deflector, because our audience loves the spell so deeply. We'll be offering a briefing on your Deflector alongside this interview in the next issue of the Vaclavellian Digest. I want to thank you so much for your time, Arimena!

AP: Thanks for the house call, Vaclav! Here's a Gate back to the surface . . .
(air ionizes, lights pulse rapidly)

VD: No, wait! Aaaagh!


Arimena's Deflector
Spell Level: M1
Range: 5' radius
Duration: 5 rounds

This spell conjures a rotating quarter-globe paddle of thin, crackling magical energy which can quickly move around the caster to intercept physical attacks. The Deflector can automatically intercept up to 3 +1/lvl attacks per round. The Deflector requires an opponent's attack to first overcome the Deflector's AC of 5 before rerolling a To-Hit caster’s AC. Lasts 5 rounds.

Gathox updates and new player-made optional rules!

Hello, folks! It's been a while sussing out what I'm going to do with the Gathox blog and communities since the announcement that G+ is getting shut down. It's a shame, a lot of my close friends and a large chunk of my career came from G+, and the dust hasn't yet settled on where everyone is going. You can find me a couple of places:

1) Here, at the Gathox blog.

2) Over on MeWe, as D.L. Johnson and with a fresh Gathox gaming group: https://mewe.com/group/5bbe73faa5f4e54433c5447a

3) On Facebook, although I only show up there about once a week, again as D.L. Johnson.

4) Very soon, you can find excellent Gathox gaming content on Patreon. I'm starting a regular Gathox zine called The Mutant Insurrectionist, and it features weekly in-game news from all three neighborhoods, new adventure hooks, new classes and monsters, custom spells, and a new detailed location each issue! I plan to make the zine for at least a year, and release the zines to the general public through DrivethruRPG. I'l post links to that when it starts up!

Next, I'm stoked to announce that GVS1: Gathox Vertical Slum and GVS2: Quake Alley Mayhem! have gone Electrum and Copper bestsellers on DrivethruRPG.com accordingly! Thank y'all so much for interest in my gonzo science fantasy game, I cannot thank you guys enough!

Next, I'd like to share with you a player creation for Gathox. Paul Thompson has been a regular Gathox player and playtester since 2015, and he recently dreamed up some optional rules for gang management that I think a lot of Gathox Referees would be interested in seeing. It's so cool to see people create things for Gathox totally independent of what I have planned, and I'm glad to have the opportunity to share his work with you! Paul wanted me to stress that this is a rough draft, and has granted me permission to share them here. Here it is:

"Chief Mastermind”: Gang Business Game

Description

This mini-game will simulate limited contact with a chief mastermind/Brainiac overseeing the entirety of the gang’s businesses. The DM will roll on two tables at the beginning of the week; the News/ Threat Avenue table generates the nature of a news item the chief mastermind will deliver to the PCs at the week’s start, the Actual Value table determines the percentage of the gang’s profits the chief is destined to deliver at week’s end. If disastrous profits are looming, the DM then rolls the chief’s savvy stats to see if he or his staff will take care of the impending problem and avert disaster on their own (report of this triumph becomes that week’s news tidbit). If staff fail to avert disaster, then they’ve failed to uncover it at all. That week’s news item may now be a clue as to the impending disaster, which savvy and intuitive PCs may follow up on diegetically to avert disaster themselves.

Chief’s Savvy Stats (1-10) *currently this is an arbitrary DM assignation:

• Internal Savvy: The chief excels at training personnel, creating protocols, and is adept at monitoring internal discord and adherence to policy.
• Larger Market Savvy: The chief keeps a passive eye on larger market trends and larger news items.
• Local Market Savvy: The chief keeps a watchful eye on neighbors’ competing businesses, especially for nonviolent but cutthroat practices.
• Security Savvy: The chief orchestrates a lively and ever-ready security apparatus.

Procedure

At the beginning of the week, roll on both Actual Value and News/ Threat Avenue tables. The News Avenue roll indicates the nature of that week’s news item (and by extension the threat-avenue should the Actual Value come up Trouble or Boom). Then follow the appropriate section below (Steady Business, or Trouble/ Boom):

Actual Value Table: Roll 2d6.

Trouble. (roll Avenue Table and follow Trouble procedure)
2	50% drain from the company/ party coffers
3	25% drain from the company/ party coffers
4	Company/ party is barely in the black; no profit this cycle
Steady Business. (roll Avenue Table for normal news item)
5	50% Bluebook
6	75% Bluebook
7	100% Bluebook
8	110% Bluebook
9	120% Bluebook
Boom. (roll Avenue table and follow Boon procedure)
10	150% Bluebook
11	200% Bluebook
12	300% Bluebook

News/ Threat-Avenue Table: Roll 1d5.

Following is a table for determining the avenue by which news, trouble, and boons collide with the party each cycle:

1	Internal Threats (Embezzling, Loose lips, Employee Theft)
2	Larger Market Threats (Foreign supply and demand shifts)
3	Local Market Threats (Direct competitors’ business tactics and operations)
4	Security Threats (Vulnerability to outright attacks/ hijacks)
5	*Mysterious Threats or “All Quiet”

*If Mystery is rolled with Steady Business, then that week “no news is good news.” If Mystery is rolled with Trouble or Boom, the avenue is mysterious or supernatural.

Actual Value Results (DM performs one of the following):

Steady Business:

If a Steady Business result is rolled, multiply the total bluebook profits for gang’s businesses by the percentage indicated. These are the real profits for the gang that week. Next roll on the Avenue table for news-item inspiration. It is important to include a news item for most cycles so the presence of news itself does not become a “tell” alerting players they should investigate.

Trouble/ Boom

If Trouble or Boon is rolled, the News Avenue becomes the Threat Avenue for that week’s incident:

1. Determine auto-defense. DM rolls the threat (1d10) versus the chief’s stat (1-10) in this area.

• If the roll is equal or beneath the stat, the threat was neutralized by the company without the characters’ intervention. The tale of this near-disaster is that week’s news item.
  • Roll 1d6+3 on the profit table for the new, trouble-free profit if the disaster was Trouble. Skip to step 3: Special Boom for a successfully navigated Boom result.
• If the roll is above the stat, the event will manifest and take its toll on company profits unless the players intervene. The PCs may, however, receive a clue about its looming presence.

2. Determine News Clue. The event will manifest unmodified at the end of the week unless the characters intervene. Roll 1d10 again against the chief’s relevant stat. Success on this roll means a news item pops up that includes some peripheral “clue” about the threat looming at the week’s end. Failure means the DM treats the news result as if it were 5/ All Quiet and will surprise the players with the bombshell loss at week’s end.
3. Special Boom. If the Actual Value result was a Boom, then the danger was a potential loss resulting from a high-risk situation. If staff or the players mitigate the boom, it yields the listed bonanza amount, but failing to do so means rerolling 1d3+1 (a guaranteed loss) on the Actual Value table.

Future Directions:

 Specific Chief Masterminds, complete with Savvy stats, appear in a rogue’s gallery for hire as would any hireling | The week’s news might result in a lead for headhunting/ poaching opportunities | Regular (but slightly more or less valuable) masterminds might appear for hire and contribute a +1 or -1 modifier to the chief’s stats | Players with the right wheelhouse might decide to devote their downtime to add a modifier to the chief’s weekly rolls.

The Glaatu: optional alien race class for Gathox

This week I'd like to focus on a new optional class for Gathox - this time, the Glaatu. The Glaatu are a race of foul-mouthed, split-limbed space pirates whose ships habitually and inexplicably tend to crash land on worlds the godling repeatedly visits. Their population remains diffuse in the city, with some living “homefree,” or homeless, in Berchan Favela and others seeking refuge in the shifting stomach-dungeons deep beneath the surface.

Here's their stats as monsters from GVS1:

Armor Class: 7[12]
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: 2
Special: Multilimbed
Move: 15
HDE/XP: 3/60

As Big As: A skinnier version of a bear.
Smells Like: Sulphur and pyramid-scheme perfume.
Sounds Like: A drunk speaking in reverse.
Favorite Pastime: Playing poker, drunk speaking in reverse.
Turnoffs: Thick limbs.

These foul-mouthed, polyglot alien pirates occasionally mine for legitimate work. Their ships have an uncanny knack for picking up on Gathox's magnetic signature in the cosmos and accidentally crash landing nearby. They travel in scavenger teams of 2-20 and prefer to dig to safety when on solid ground. Their split limbs allow them to wield two weapons at once without penalty, including two-handed weapons.

The Glaatu as a class

Glaatu make for natural adventurers, swindlers, thieves, and brigands. They advance as Militants (using the S&W White Box Fighter advancement tables) and possess a number of innate racial abilities.

Character Advancement: The Glaatu are considered Militants for all purposes and may typically only advance as high as 5th level unless the Referee rules otherwise.

Weapon and Armor Restrictions: Like any other Militant, the Glaatu can use any weapons and armor without restriction and without the price increases for possessing a strange body shape. As space pirates, the Glaatu adapted to scavenging fitting armor pieces eons ago.

Dual Wielding: Due to their split limbs, the Glaatu can wield two weapons without penalty, including two-handed weapons.

Double Attacks: The Glaatu may make two attacks per round if dual wielding weapons - which means that for each attack, a dual wielding Glaatu may roll damage twice and take the higher damage value.

Saving Throws: The Glaatu are less susceptible to magical attacks, and thus receive a +4 bonus on Saving Throws against magic, even if the Referee only uses single saving throws.

The Mi-Chiw: an optional alien race class for Gathox!

Howdy, folks! Some quick housekeeping:

1) Quake Alley Mayhem is available in print now. That means you can go here:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/244989/Gathox-Vertical-Slum-Quake-Alley-Mayhem

to grab a physical copy! Go get some and murder your PCs, it'll always be worth it!

2) Jesse Goldshear from the Yenemvelt blog wrote a kickass carousing table for Gathox. You should check it out here:

http://yenemvelt.blogspot.com/2018/09/party-like-you-mean-it-gathoxian.html

I dig the three-axis generation process for the results, that's super hot - and everything's tied tightly into the functional fiction and geography to boot. Jesse's also been kind enough to assist in organizing a collection of player-made game content for Gathox, which will eventually be a free .pdf! Huzzah!

The Mi-Chiw optional class for Gathox

From GVS1, Chapter 6 Monster Section

The short, violent, and hideous turtle people known as the Mi-Chiw ("MEE-chyoo") grew from a single crate of eggs thoughtlessly brought into the city on a world not visited for hundreds of years. The Mi-Chiw are barely tolerated, but they occasionally find work as death squads for the elite when on the surface. They naturally go to ground in Gathox, establishing wet warrens and complex hatcheries. Mi-Chiw possess a species-wide instinctual desire to build ladders, stacking them on the surface at night in an attempt to ascend to the sun at dawn and touch Dzak-Molu, their god. 

As monsters, they typically travel in bands of 3d4 members and warren with anywhere from 12-60 individuals. Every group of 5 or more Mi-Chiw will be accompanied by a mutated 4+2 HD Shell Priest, who casts as a 3rd level Mentalist.

As PCs, the lives of Mi-Chiw trend toward short and brutal. Their horrific countenances and penchant for violence render them simultaneously unsuited to lives of socialization and talented at adventuring. 

Mi-Chiw Race Abilities

Character Advancement: Mi-Chiw advance as Militants, and may typically advance as far as 6th level. They use Militant Hit Dice, To-Hit scores, and Saving Throws.

Weapon and Armor Restrictions: Because of their strange shape and hard shells, Mi-Chiw may only wear armor on their arms and legs, and can wear up to four pieces of armor. They may carry a small shield as well. They may only use one-handed melee or ranged weapons.

Natural Weapons and Armor: The Mi-Chiw's shell provides natural armor, which continues to harden through age and exposure to the hardships of adventuring. At level 1, a Mi-Chiw has a natural AC of 7[12]; this improves by one point each level, until at level 6, where a Mi-Chiw has a natural AC of 2[17]. Additionally, the Mi-Chiw possesses jagged, devastating claws that function as incredible natural weapons. At level 1, the Mi-Chiw's barehanded attacks do 1d6 damage. At level 3, damage improves to 1d4+2. At level 5, damage improves again, this time to 1d6+3. At level 6, their claw attacks continue to do 1d6+3 damage and are treated as magical weapons in terms of ability to damage enemies resistant to mundane attacks.

Fighting Zhezhn: Gathox's antibodies, the Zhezhn, have a difficult time adapting to the bizarre psychology of the Mi-Chiw, and thus find them difficult to engage in combat; Zhezhn only inflict half the normal damage against Mi-Chiw.

Keen Detection: Mi-Chiw are naturally subterranean and can navigate below ground with ease. On checks for spatial orientation underground, detecting slanting passages, or spotting traps, Mi-Chiw are considered to have a +2 to WIS.

Saving Throws: The Mi-Chiw intellect is so foreign that psychic attacks, whether magical or biological, trend toward failure. The Mi-Chiw has a +4 bonus on Saving Throws against all psychic attacks.

The Great Gathoxan Giveaway!

First thing's first - I'm gonna give away some original art! Here's the rules of the Great Gathoxan Giveaway:

1) As a GM, you need to run a full session of GVS2: Quake Alley Mayhem.

2) You need to write up a full session report, including traps solved, treasure gained, and a list of the dead.

3) Share that session report either on your blog, or on G+. Tag me in on your post or let me know that you've posted your session report.

4) The first 5 GMs to run GVS2 will receive an original piece of Gathox art in the mail, and we'll trade contact info to make that happen.

5) I'm down to ship anywhere in the continental US. If you're outside of the lower 48 states, you gotta cover the costs of shipping.

That's it - just run the module for friends, post about it online, and the first five folks to do so get original Gathox art! Go get some!

Gathox Process: The Cover Art . . . also, updates!

Today I'd like to feature a step-by-step of my construction of the Gathox cover art, which follows below. But first, I'd like to make a few brief updates as to all things going on over here at the official Gathox Home Base Headquarters Neighborhood Friendship Society (TM) (R).

Update 1: Gathox Print Edition

You can get your digital copy of Gathox Vertical Slum HERE!!!!!

Mike and I had to make some changes and modifications to the original print files we sent to OBS. Those changes are complete (we hope!!!) and a final test print is on its way to Mike's hands as we speak. If it looks good, we will be turning that live on all of the OBS sites (DriveThruRPG.com, et. al.). Anyone who bought a .pdf will be getting an email with a discount off the print copy equal to the value of what they paid for their digital copy (in this case, $10). I'm super excited!

Update 2: GVS2: Quake Alley Mayhem!

Over the last year and a half I have playtested and drafted an awesome tournament-style module for Gathox, called GVS2: Quake Alley Mayhem! It features a 'Get The McGuffin' style mission full of traps and deadly consequences, and runs on a unique timer with escalating deadliness. The manuscript for GVS2 is complete and ready for edits, and the art is almost done as well. Ideally, I'd like to have this PC-killer ready for folks by Christmas time; cross your fingers, no guarantees! Also, the custom Gathox Character Sheet is almost ready for upload to DTRPG, and will be totally free for download.

Update 3: Life Stuff

I've been fairly quiet on the blog front as well as on G+ and Fb, and for good reason. I figure that I owe you a brief explanation as to why.

First, the committed relationship I was in for the last 4+ years ended, necessitating a move to a different part of the state. I now live in a remote part of Montana with my dog, and the internet here is essentially held together with chicken bones and hope :) The upside is that I recently was able to acquire an 18' Roadrunner camp trailer (for a song, no less) which I'm converting into a full-time home and off-grid mobile art studio - and I'm super pumped!

Second, shortly after I moved, I suffered a series of illnesses which kept me from working as much as I normally do. I've since healed up and am back up to par. The uptick is that my immune system is that much stronger, and I likely won't get ill again for some time to come (knock on wood).

Third, I've been given the opportunity to write and illustrate a book for Lamentations of the Flame Princess!!!!!!!!! The book is tentatively titled, "The Goddess Who Sleeps in Bile," and features a procedurally generated hex crawl, nightmare inputs from the players, and lots of level-agnostic deadliness. The research and drafting of the book eats up lots of my time, in the best possible way.

That's it for the updates; now on to a discussion about making the cover for Gathox!!!

Gathox Process: The Cover Art

I employed a mixture of physical and digital processes to make the GVS cover come to life. My goal was to make it look as natural and physical as possible, so I simply started with pencils on a standard 11"x17" sheet of Bristol board (100 lbs., lined for comics).

As you can see, I went for a unified, single-point perspective that would let me emphasize the verticality of the city environment. I set the horizon line far enough up from the bottom of the page so that I could detail a full street battle, but not so far that I couldn't communicate the steepness of the surrounding buildings. Also, the giant head belongs to Jackie Zhao, the gear-vomiting recluse featured in the chapter fiction written by Josh Wagner. There's a tiny gear on his tongue, but I like to think it could be mistaken for a tab of acid ;)

I chose gangs and characters that featured prominently in the year-long first campaign I ran for Gathox. On the left you see early and eager versions of The Firestarters (the PCs' gang), and on the right I've begun to illustrate a one-eyed hypercapitalist Kermen warrior getting punched out.

Here, I've continued to add in more Firestarters and Kermen, as well as some mangled hirelings and a Gongwarped Fisherman (the players had a hell of a time with the Fishermen in the first campaign, and I figured they deserved a spot on the cover as well).

Here I've added to the cluster of bodies on the page with some additional FPA gangsters and a laser-shooting Zhezhn known as a Pyramid Eye (which falls squarely under the heading of "Things in Gathox Inspired by Conspiracy Culture.") It's almost ready for ink . . .

I decided to start the inking process by blacking in the border of the image. I used permanent black ink and a flat, angled brush from a pack of kids' paint brushes (like $2 at Target). Blocking in the black border helps me see everything I'm doing better and gives me some leeway when I am working close to the edges of the image - I don't have to gauge where to terminate a line and can more easily avoid tangents along the sides of the illustration.

Like a lot of my friends and colleagues, I tend to ink from top to bottom. Because I'm left-handed, I also tend to ink from right to left. This keeps my hands out of the wet stuff. As an old crew boss of mine used to say, "Keep you hands, feet, and other objects outta the shit!"

Occasionally I'll switch over to working from the outside of the image toward the middle. Sometimes this is to frame up everything outside of the subjects, sometimes it's to work in line weight variation, and sometimes I do it just to switch things up.

After I finish inking my lines, I go through and add my spot blacks, beef up line weight as needed, hatch or texture parts that scream for more detail, and find ways to clarify an image with ink. I prefer to use ink washes on most of my black and white ink drawings, but decided against that technique for the cover. First and most important, I knew I wanted to colorize this piece with as much active color as I could, and washes would dull that out. Second, and really only a minor consideration, I knew that I had to scan this drawing in four different pieces (because I have a tiny scanner), and stitching the image together with washes was going to be labor-intensive with no guarantee that it would look good.

After everything was ready to go in terms of line art, I turned my attention to color.

I cut four sheets of cold-press watercolor paper in half and applied some paint in an abstract fashion. I used kid's neon tempura paint to get those super bright colors you see above, as well as some runny washes of gouache paint. I let gravity do some of the work, taping the paper at odd angles to my tilted drafting table to dry before applying another layer. I allowed the paints to mix a bit, working sufficiently wet that my dry time was slow and the pigments could interact.

Finally, I used acrylics to paint a large abstract background. I first covered my 16"x20" canvas with Open Acrylic additive, applied thinly with a palette knife, which slows the drying time and allows me to mix colors on the canvas, wet-on-wet, like oils. I knew I wanted a light source at the top with pooled darkness below, and the patchy mix above is what I ended up with. I dig this canvas on its own and might do more of these in the future for their own sake.

The next step took a while, but I was very pleased with the results. I used the canvas painting as my background, and began cutting selections from the scans of the watercolor paper and pasting them underneath different figures in the line art. I took inspiration from the old, brightly colored plastic toy action figures you could buy in bulk at the dollar store, and did my best to make the figures brighter than the background. Finally, I took several passes at shading and highlighting all the figures and surfaces digitally, paying attention to whether or not I was obliterating too much of the natural texture and detail from the color scans.

To finish the cover off, I got the print specs from Mike, built a template in Inkscape, imported my artwork, and built the graphics. I had made font choices for the book long before I finished the cover, so it was more a matter of toying with the fonts and box elements to get everything looking nice. I decided I didn't want to cover any of the art up with text, and given that Gathox is, well, vertical, I figured that a vertical title bar would fit nicely with everything else. Oh, and also neon green, because neon fucking green, that's why.

Cheers!

Tools of the Trade: Things I use to write, draw, and play Gathox

I thought I'd take a slightly different tack and walk folks through all of the various tools I use to do Gathox things. I'll break it down into writing tools, art tools, and gaming tools, but keep in mind that all those things feed into one another. I'd also love to hear about what you use to make your game world, run your game, or participate in another's game. Hit me up in the comments or on G+!

Writing for Gathox

I use a few different tools for writing. I've met many die-hards who proclaim that one word processing program is all you need, and futzing around with anything else is just a distraction. Honestly, if you believe that, then that's great! You've found what works for you! Generally, I like to switch things up depending on what phase I'm working through in terms of process.

The Master Notebook

That's right, a ton of my initial bits of writing happen in my master game book, which is basically just a classic composition notebook filled with square-gridded paper. Dungeon designs feed into writing which feeds into tables and so forth, and the graph paper makes this process just seamless. I tape little flaps onto sections of the book to separate my ideas and maps, and also happens to be an organic way to organize stuff after it's created. I really believe no GM should run a game without it.

The Distraction-Free Text Editor

You know how the Game of Thrones guy is famous for writing his books in old school DOS? He does that to keep distractions down to a minimum and focus on content generation. DOS is whatever, I have fond memories of it from my youth (writing Basic-A programs to generate characters and monsters, etc.), but I don't touch Microsoft stuff unless I have no other options. I use Linux exclusively, but these options are cross-platform to the best of my knowledge.

Focuswriter is a distraction-free text editor which hides it's interface unless you mouse over it, drops in a pretty background across your entire screen, and lets you just write. You can do word count, spellcheck, export to a decent selection of formats, and customize how it looks. A lot of folks swear by it, and I've clocked plenty of productive hours in it.

PyRoom is another distraction-free text editor that I've spent hours writing in. It looks like a Matrix terminal, can shoot typewriter sounds at you if you're into that sort of thing, and basically does everything Focuswriter does - namely, block out the nonsense and let you just simply write.

My favorite distraction-free text editor, though, is the blindingly fast, tiny overhead, amazing terminal word processor called Wordgrinder. This thing has all the features you'd expect and it runs straight in a terminal, which means you could use it on a computer from the 80's and it would still be Johnny On The Spot. There's just something sexy about doing creative work in the terminal, and honestly I don't see myself ever giving up on this tool. You can use it on OSX's terminal, and in Windows you can use it in Putty or whatever sort of terminal with bash implementation they have in Win 10 (I heard they have something new there, but that's none of my concern).

The Big Office Program for Edits and Formatting

I use LibreOffice, which is a fork of OpenOffice. Unless you're dropping cash to Microsoft on a regular basis to use Microsoft Word, you've likely used one of these two programs. LibreOffice is a bit newer, with a larger group of folks working on the codebase, and it does every single thing you need an office suite to do. Edits and suggestions carry over nicely from Google Docs and from MS Word edits, and document versioning is easy to control. It can handle hordes of different document types and extensions. It isn't exactly a small program though, and if you needed a lighter substitute for an aging machine or you just don't want to waste the RAM overhead because of heavy multitasking, I would suggest AbiWord. AbiWord also looks pretty, so there's that.

The Big Layout Program

Hey, if you're sold and set on the Adobe office suite, I'm not here to dissuade you. But, having worked with Pagemaker, In-Design, Corel Ventura, and Quark Express over the years on various platforms, I have to say that Scribus has all the tools I personally need to get layout done. Now, I really don't like doing layout and when possible I will offer someone else money to do it, but sometimes you gotta layout a bunch of pages on your own and get the job done. Scribus handles all the things you would expect it to and even handles postscript stuff pretty solidly (with ghostscript).Also, if you're publishing through any of the OBS sites, they've got tutorials for doing it with Scribus.

Art-making for Gathox

 

The Basics

There's nothing that beats a pencil and some blank paper - if you're not starting there with your art career, you're selling yourself short. And quite frankly, there are a number of illustrations in Gathox Vertical Slum that are nothing more than fully-rendered pencil drawings that I scanned in and cleaned up. I suggest using some 0.9mm mechanical pencils with #2 lead and some typing paper. Computer paper? Whatever. For finished pieces I use cold press watercolor paper or bristol board, but basic reams of white paper will get the job done. Use a soft white eraser or a gummy eraser - the pink ones are paper-tearing garbage and should be treated as such.

I'll ink pencil work, usually with a crow quill and/or a thin rigger brush for more expressive lines and fills. Once in a while I'll switch to a set of Microns if I'm going deep in on hatching or contour lines, or if I need to draw a lot of architectural stuff - the Microns excel at not bleeding everything to shit when drawing hard lines with a ruler.

I often mix up a wash with my permanent ink and some water if I want some tonal fills or more natural looking shadows. Many people are better at this than I am, but I keep at it and am steadily making progress.

For color painting, I'll use either gouache (for quick color studies or brief finished pieces) or acrylic. With acrylics, I often use open acrylics to keep my canvas able to do lots of wet-on-wet technique. I personally do not mess with oils; if I need that oil painted look, I'll either get my acrylics close to that look through a combination of wet-on-wet and glazes, or I'll do it digitally. I know that someone reading this is screaming inside, but I just don't need the literal and figurative headache of oils right now. Maybe someday . . . 

Photo Clean-up

Hands down I choose the GIMP as my raster graphics program to clean up my scans, beef up my black line work, and stitch together a large piece from multiple smaller scans. Unless you're already dropping hundreds or thousands on Adobe products, there's no reason to live without this tool. A lot of people make great art in it as well, but for digital drawing I have other, more specific tools.

Digital Drawing and Painting

Krita. Krita Krita Krita . . . Krita. This thing is a powerhouse! Krita has 13 brush engines which can be combined into multibrushes and do multi-layer multibrush painting. It can emulate natural media or do weird, digital-specific kinds of rendering. It handles all the layer effects you'd expect from PS or anything else, it can handle animation, some vector stuff, and has tons of perspective and layout tools. Also, it's got a subsystem for setting up comic books, which is pretty cool. I cannot suggest this enough, it has literally made me tens of thousands of dollars over the last 5 + years. Also, it can share files with GIMP and Mypaint through a special filetype called .ora (open raster archive).

Mypaint

If you want an infinite canvas, a nice selection of easily-accessible brushes, or you just really want to do some digital artwork but don't have a beefy computer to handle Krita, I would suggest Mypaint. You can get really nice, layered illustrations done without a lot of RAM overhead. You may need to trim your pieces in another editor like GIMP, but Mypaint really is a useful tool. I have it installed on my 900mhz, 1 GB RAM, 8.9" wide Asus eeepc netbook, and manage to get sketches done on that piece of super-underpowered hardware with Mypaint and a little $80 Wacom tablet.

Vector Graphics

Inkscape is my go-to for vector editing, whether it's putting together a poster for a con event, tracing a bitmap to vectorize a drawing for a logo, or building dungeon maps that look nice. If you don't know what vector art is, it's basically art that maintains resolution at any size because it is rendered with points and calculus instead of colored pixels. Not great for everything, but indispensable for design problems.

Running Gathox

In putting together a campaign setting and actually running countless hours of Gathox, I've come to rely pretty heavily on some traditional tools. Others are just things that help with GMing in general.

The Master Notebook

I had to mention it twice - if I lost my master notebook, the one with the graph paper and dungeon notation taped to it and my homemade tabs, I would be lost. Most sessions I can just flip this thing open and run a dungeon or ten. Given that GMs pretty quickly establish their own shorthand and notational conceits, information becomes super densely packed in the master notebook. Something that looks like a simple dungeon level and some brief numbered lines might actually constitute dozens of hours of gaming and just as many pages when fully-written. If you don't have a master notebook (preferably filled with graph paper), you might just try it.

The Big Burly Binder

This is sort of a slush pile of things, from extra character sheets, hireling cards, maps, and player aids to an archive of dead characters, rules revisions, design notes, sketches, and player feedback. Every so often I go through and flush it out, moving things out of the binder and into long term files, but I keep adding new bits. And really, I can't think of a GM who couldn't or doesn't find use in a Big Burly Binder, or something very much like it.

The Session Tracker

I keep many copies of this sheet handy, because this is really where the rubber hits the road. It gives me a handy Death and Dismemberment table, allows me to track all of the ailments of the PCs, do marching order, keep track of time, and make notes on player needs and campaign changes. I've come to rely on it so much that the last time I had to run game without it, I manually rewrote the entire thing on paper beforehand. I hope you find it useful!

The Whiteboard/ Really Big Paper

Having a giant pad of paper for the entire table to see is amazing in helping to quickly visualize battles, spatial relationships, allow for player planning, and to track marching order or anything else. Also, sometimes you have to draw large genitalia at game to keep the . . . juices flowing. Also, you can use it to do the math to figure out who's buying beer this time.

People are making gaming goodies for Gathox!!!

Gathox has been out for just over two weeks now, and I couldn't be happier! We've already made copper bestseller on drivethrurpg.com and the print version isn't even out yet. People are posting reviews and talking about the setting. And most importantly, which seems to indicate to me that I've made something worth playing and using, is that people are making things for Gathox already. I wanted to take the opportunity to show off a few things that folks have made thus far and brought to my attention.

First up, Karl Stjernberg has posted some things on G+, including a character he rolled up and illustrated:

"Name: Dukk
STR: 11
DEX: 13
CON: 11
INT: 11
WIS: 7
CHA: 12 (Diseased skin)

Mutations: Fur & Scaled skin (+1 AC), Nible Tail (3rd limb), Tentacle Arm, Diseased Skin (-1 CHA)
Psychic Power: Bleeding Heart
Wheelhouses: The Underworld, Slum Acrobat

Armed with: Polearm, Morningstar, 2 x Throwing Hammers
Armor: Shin guards, shoulder pads, elbow and kneepads

I picture it dressed in rags, some kind of hoodie and wrapped in bandages to cover its disease ridden skin."

Karl has also recently posted some very Gathoxan die drop tables - one for random NPCs:

. . . and another for random post-apocalyptic gear:

 These just tickle me shitless - they look great, they're in the spirit of Gathox as Karl sees it, and he's making awesome, usable stuff.

Another individual who has taken off running with Gathox is Dan D. He runs a gaming blog called Throne of Salt. He's a world builder in his own right, and runs a wonderful blog. The most recent thing I've seen is his OSR module map - which is basically a hex map where he's placed a bunch of his favorite OSR modules together on a continent (Gathox is bottom left near Hubris).

You can find an expandable version of the map as well as a more detailed discussion of it here on his blog.

Another person making stuff for Gathox, and quite a bit at that, is Michael Fraker.

One thing Michael made was a set of house rules for Gathox, which are particularly useful if you're adapting it to B/X or other OD&D-like systems with a bit a statistical inflation. For those who don't know, Gathox uses the "All d6's" and single Saving Throw from Swords & Wizardry White Box Edition, so if you like a bit more variation, crunch, and statistical inflation then this document, entitled Apocrypha Gathoxian, has got you covered. He's even compiled the Cleric and Magic User spells into a single master list for Mentalists, and provided sample characters and drop-in gangs.

Oh, and holy shit, Michael added an instant random Gathox Gang Generator to Abulafia! Fuck me running!

If you need some plot hooks, ones that possibly intertwine, to start off your new Gathox campaign, here's some hooks that Michael designed:

"Plot/Adventure Idea:

The Warriors: a very zoomed in point crawl across The Kettle.

Hook 1: The PC gang crashed a party of west side gang conglomerate coming together. The organizer was killed and the PCs got blamed. The PCs must get out of the area and back to the east side where the west side gangs will back off. They don't want to look like they are an army invading. PCs get RP points for the reputation of having killed the organizer and also enemies!

Hook 2: The Great Gang Race is happening. Alleycat gangs are competing for money/sponsorship from a large settled gang (and RP for the PCs). It's a deadly flight across the Kettle and the first gang to reach the 3rd floor in Tanner Tower on the east side wins.

- There is a time element. For Hook 1, each time they delay there is a chance that gang members from their chief nemesis (or the whole gang!) shows up. For Hook 2, each time the party rests or delays, increment how far along their chief competitor is. Also, when delaying, there is a chance another competing gang encounters them.

- Each point is about 10 minutes apart

- Other gangs/organizations do what they can to stop the PC gang either because of the assassination or because its part of the trial by fire for the competing gangs.

- Plot out 3 or 4 "lateral" lines to cross the City from west to east. The lateral lines have 6 points in them and several locations let players connect between the lines.

- Need random chart for what happens when the players go off the grid (could use one given in Mudlings Mansion adventure)."

Here's Michael's possible tie-ins between Gathox and the City of Bastion from Chris Mcdowall's wonderful Into The Odd game and setting.


*"And on the 7th day, Gathox rested."*

"I keep trying to imagine that Bastion from Into the Odd is the same city as Gathox, but for some reason it stopped walking and sat down never to get up again. It didn't stop growing and feeding off of the psyches of its inhabitants though.

d6 Rumors and half-truths on the relationship between Gathox and Bastion:

1. It transported to (the now named) Bastionland ages ago and discovered the Underground. Gathox is able to create or open micro-cosminsions in the Underground and feed off of them. Perhaps it is possible to get to the essence of Gathox through the Underground.

2. Gathox is still alive, but just barely. Somehow it has been trapped or bound to the ground and no longer possesses the material strength to move. Most construction now a days is from conventional imported materials, but the occasional mysteriously generated structure or disappeared burrough is all Gathox. Who will be Gathox's savior?

3. Originally Bastion was actually Gathox's other half cleaved from it at the separation of High from Low at the beginning of the Time of Halves. Gathox's travels were in search of its half. Now they are joined and travelling is not necessay. Who will speak with the Restored Sojourner and learn its oddesy?

4. Gathox is sleeping and dreaming after millenia of walking and travelling. Some of what we think is real may not be. Who can tell what will happen when Gathox wakes from it's slumber (with strange eons and all) and who can rouse it?

5. Bastion is a spawn or spore from Gathox. Gathox moved on centuries ago. Soon, when enough psychic energy has been fed to the spores by the psche-antibodies, they will sprout their own multitudes of legs and Bastion will be ripped apart as the clutch of little Gathi take off or transport away. Who can find the Gothax spore pods and destroy them before this apacolypse, and what would their destruction mean for Bastion?

6. It's actually the other way around: Bastion spawned Gathox. It escaped from the Underground below the city during a team of explorer's expedition and is possessed of the Underground's sentient quirkiness."

I provided my own 6a) subheading, because I just had to join in on the fun:

"6a) Gathox and Bastion can both be controlled like giant mecha. Which is the parent, which is the child? Only a battle to the death will sort this out!!!"

As more people make stuff, I'll continue to post it here and boost the signal. Speaking of which, have you made something for Gathox? Wanna share it with as many folks as possible? I'd be happy to write about your creations here. Just hit me up in the comments or on G+. RADNESS.