Glåugust Challenge 1: “Magic Amulets”

 

I’m doing a thing. It’s called “Glåugust” and from context, it seems to be about GLOG stuff. Being an incorrigible contrarian, I’m trying to do the challenge but with DCC RPG.

Soul-Binding Scarab
This rare antiquity appears as a fist-sized, red or green, semi-precious stone carving of a scarab with a skull in place of the thorax, often backed/mounted in silver; the chain, if any, may be of any material, but those aware of its power prefer materials that do not rot or corrode. It is said that in Ancient Khem, when Men where thirty-three feet tall and lived three-hundred thirty-three years, these scarabs were the settings of rings for the legendary princes of those days. These amulets can be great boons or terrible banes, for if the wearer dies, the soul remains tethered to the body, existing a near-adjacent reality, able to perceive everything within 3’ and experiencing anything that happens to the corpse. The tethered soul remains bound to its corpse as long as the amulet is in contact with any part of the body, but once contact is broken, it slowly marches to its final rest in 1d7 days. Tethered souls cannot communicate with mortal unless magic is employed. A soul keeps the Intelligence, Personality, and Luck scores it had in life, unless factors change it.

The tethered soul can be forced back into the body to restore it to life via a number of methods, none of which are truly safe for either the caster or the deceased. Note that a severely damaged body may result in an immediate death again, or worse yet, an un-dead existence, and that none of the methods described below heal the body; that requires more magic or technology. Also note that in the case of clerics, deities will be EXTREMELY picky about whom is revived using their divinely-apportioned gifts, possibly annihilating a cleric in same cases (such as a priestess of Justicia reviving a chaotic bandit lord, or a priest of Ahriman reviving anyone BUT a someone with outrageous skill to kill lots of people). A brief sampling of possible spell applications follows:
- Find Familiar: Cast at -1d, a 20+ result forces the soul back into the body. Unfortunately, the revived loses 2d3 Personality (to a minimum of 1) and all but 1 point of Luck, while also becoming a random familiar type (determined by the revived’s alignment) bound to the caster who restored them. The revived can no longer gain levels and has all the drawbacks common to other familiars (such as total loyalty to the caster).
- Forget: Cast at -1d, a 22+ result can make the deceased’s soul forget they’ve died. Unfortunately, they also forget other things too. The revived loses 1 point of Luck, 1 point of Stamina, and then roll 1d7 to see what else is lost: (1) a whole character level, going down to the minimum XP for the previous character level; (2) a language; (3) their occupation; (4) how to shout; (5) how to whisper; (6) how to write if literate, or how to eat with utensils if illiterate; (7)
- Breathe Life: Cast at -1d, a 27+ result forces the soul to rejoin the body. This causes a loss of 1d3 points of Luck, and due to mythopoeic resonances causes an immediate re-roll of Birth Augur using the revived’s current Luck modifiers to determine the bonus or penalty.
- Command: Cast at -1d, a 28+ result using “LIVE!”, “REVIVE!”, etc. restores the deceased to life. However, their face is branded with the god’s holy symbol, and they suffer the effects of divine disapproval on any roll of a natural 1.
- Binding: Cast at -1d, a 26+ result restores the deceased to life. However, the revived’s life force is bound to the caster’s, and if either dies, they both die.
- Animate Dead: Cast at -2d (as a reversed animate living), 20+ result fully restores the deceased to life, with no apparent ill-effects.

 

As previously stated, the tethered soul can “see” its own corpse and feel anything done to it. This can be an exceedingly terrible thing, for it is one thing to be eaten by rats, but it is an entirely more excruciating thing to watch one’s own body be eaten by rats. Or to be drawn and quartered, then mutilated. There are many dark legends of souls tortured for trespasses both real or imagined. The first incident of torture/pain/suffering (judge’s discretion on what unit an incident is), the soul loses 1d3 points of Personality and must make a DC 10 + cumulative Personality lost to this form of harm (judge’s discretion) Will save; a success means that the soul has become desensitized, and the next incidence of the same only causes the loss of 1 point of Personality, with another Will save: Success on that means the soul has become numb to that form of suffering. Revival into a damaged body that cannot sustain life causes the loss of 2d3 Personality, and intentionally doing or repeating this to a victim is so wicked that gods and patrons may smite their servants who do so (unless they themselves are similarly wicked). A soul reduced to 0 or less Personality is irrevocably insane.

Following up on the last post, conversion thoughts and an alternate Jackalwere

By Boccob's Beard, a new post! I've already matched 2025 productivity on the first day of 2026, the only place we can go from here is UP!

In my last post, I converted a Jackalwere from Advanced Dungeon & Dragons to Dungeon Crawl Classics, reposted below for convenience:

Jackalwere: Init +4; Atk bite +4 melee (1d4+2) or weapon +4 melee (varies +2); Crit 20 M/d10; AC 16; HD 4d8+2 (20 hp); MV 30’; Act 2d20; SP shape-shifting, sleep gaze, half damage from non-magical and non-iron; SV Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +3; AL C. 

These wicked creatures have two forms: A notable large jackal and a humanoid jackal. They delight in the slaughter of men and the taking of loot. They are 20% likely to be accompanied by 1d6 normal jackals (Init +2; Atk bite +0 melee (1d3-1)Crit 20 M/d3; AC 13; HD 1d4 (2 hp); MV 30’; Act 1d20; SV Fort +0, Ref +4, Will -2; AL N.), who will not actively aid the jackalwere but will not flee unless it is killed or disabled, and will attack in defense or retaliation of the pack.

Shape-shifting: May appear as a large jackal or a humanoid jackal. In humanoid form they may wield weapons (a d7 may be rolled: 1-longsword; 2-battleaxe; 3-polearm; 4-spear; 5-two-handed sword; 6-handaxe; 7- a magical weapon of judge’s choosing). Held weapons are dropped during transformation, although magical weapons may meld into the new form and be loosed after death, at judge’s discretion.

Sleep Gaze: The weird eyes of the jackalwere can lull the unwary into slumber. During the jackalwere’s first turn in a combat (and potentially if new combatants appear), it casts sleep using 1d12+11, treating a natural 1 as a 12 result. The only targets that may be selected are those who have not yet acted in this combat

Now here is a version converted to DCC but using the 3rd Edition Fiend Folio as the basis:

Jackalwere: Init +3; Atk bite +5 melee (1d5+1) or weapon +5 melee (varies +1); Crit 20 M/d10; AC 15; HD 4d8+6 (24 hp); MV 40’; Act 2d20; SP shape-shifting, sleep gaze, half damage from non-magical; SV Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +3; AL C. 

These wicked creatures have many forms: A notable large jackal, a humanoid jackal, and the guise of non-specific humanoids. They delight in the slaughter of men and the taking of loot. They are 20% likely to be accompanied by 1d6 normal jackals (Init +2; Atk bite +0 melee (1d3-1)Crit 20 M/d3; AC 13; HD 1d4 (2 hp); MV 30’; Act 1d20; SV Fort +0, Ref +4, Will -2; AL N.), who will not actively aid the jackalwere but will not flee unless it is killed or disabled, and will attack in defense or retaliation of the pack.

Shape-shifting: May appear as a large jackal, a humanoid jackal, or any man-sized humanoid. In humanoid form they may wield weapons (a d7 may be rolled: 1-longsword; 2-battleaxe; 3-polearm; 4-spear; 5-two-handed sword; 6-handaxe; 7- a magical weapon of judge’s choosing). Weapons and equipment may nonfunctionally meld into the new form and be loosed after death, at judge’s discretion.

Sleep Gaze: The weird eyes of the jackalwere can lull foes into slumber. Any enemy within 30' that meets the gaze of the jackalwere in any form must make a DC 10 Will save or fall into deep but natural sleep for 5 minutes. Those in combat receive +1d to the save. Those who avert their eyes need not save but make all attacks at -1d.

You'll notice that despite being the same creature of different levels of challenge (Dungeon Level VI in AD&D 1e/Challenge Rating 2 in D&D 3e), both end up relatively close (in fact, I'm surprised how close my 1e>DCC version is to the 3e version that I specifically didn't reference). While lots of little numbers shift around, I want to point out three big ones:

Shape-shifting: The AD&D Monster Manual implies but does not elaborate on whether Jackalweres can assume the forms of (demi-)human(oid)s. While it may seem "logical" to assume so, remember that many of the lycanthropes in the AD&D Monster Manual only have two forms: Werebears turn into bears, werewolves turn into bipedal wolves (unless they're wolweres [sic], who turn into wolves, because they're wolves who turn into men), so limiting the jackalwere to two forms - canid and canid humanoid seemed appropriate. In my imagination, it seemed like a lone or small group of wild dogs (jackals) approaching a camp before one suddenly stands and rushed with a weapon in hand. The 3e Fiend Folio, one the other hand, explicitly identifies mimickry of medium-sized humanoids, which includes essentially everything that's between 3.5' and 7' tall.

Half-damage from X: AD&D uses a very simple "can't be hit except by +N or better magic weapons" system, to which iron weapons is another factor in the jackalwere's case. This has been a controversial issue since steel is an alloy of iron; obviously, if steel counts as iron then the jackalwere has some pretty crappy defenses, but if steel doesn't count as iron then what else is effective? Did Gary Gygax intend for PCs to hammer an iron spike into a jackalwere's skull or whack him with a cast-iron skillet? I wasn't quite sure myself, so half damage except magic and iron seemed good enough. Meanwhile, 3e's solution to the question was to remove the iron and give this guy Damage Reduction 15 (FIFTEEN)/+1, which means any weapon without a +1 magic bonus is reduced by 15 (FIFTEEN) points. Needless to say, I think that's a terrible mechanical decision because it's effectively the same as "can only be hit by magic weapons" but with uglier jargon. So half damage except from magical.

Sleep Gaze: Probably the biggest difference between conversions. The AD&D Monster Manual specifies that the gaze can only affect "unsuspecting" creatures and notes that "hostile creature are not unsuspecting!" While flavorful, it's also limiting. So how can it work? Surprise most likely, which I expanded to include initiative. The image is thus: The adventurer goes to toss some food to or scare off  the wild dogs (jackals) and his eyes meet the gaze of the big one's swirling, glowing green-and-pink eyes. Winning initiative in this scenario represents tearing your eyes from that hypnotic gaze, or an unconscious act of mental resistance. So, for the AD&D>DCC version, this gaze is a rocket tag event at the jackalwere's first initiative: explosive and potentially deadly as up to 4 targets are likely to pass out, but once that one trick is done for, the fight is relatively easy because it has relatively low hp and saves. The 3e version specifies that it's every round. It's easier to save against, but it's persistent, and the best way to avoid it dramatically reduces accuracy.

In closing, my advice is this: When converting things, whether from old D&D, new D&D, or media, it's good to unburden yourself of the accumulated "common knowledge" about those things and interpret using only the source in question. Things may get too weird, and that's okay; Your conversion might end up too close to the accepted default, and that's okay too; the important thing is that (You) are recontextualizing things, and by doing so, finding new paths to trod upon.

Until next time, fight on!