Scraps of Inspiration

I read a lot of roleplaying game materials. Often a title or concept catches my eye but the material itself is lacking. But every so often there's a paragraph or a footnote, or a campaign hook, or something similar that catches my attention. These attention-grabbing scraps are rarely something I have a clear use for. I just see them and think "that's a neat idea" before filing them away. I've decide to share a few of the scraps I've collected.

I think that if you've been reading this blog you may have guessed that I don't like Dungeons & Dragons 3.x or Pathfinder much. In fact, you may have realized that I really fucking despise those games. I'm not a big fan of Mongoose Publishing either but this chart from Slayer's Guide to Sahuagin is actually a pretty nifty tool.

This little excerpt comes from an issue of Dragon magazine, around 212 or so if memory serves. The Masque of the Red Death setting has never really clicked with me. The "Victorian times but with D&D monsters" gimmick is a little lackluster in my opinion. But I do like this bit about drugs, brains, and monsters. Better yet, you can replace opium with a fantasy drug and literal brain-eaters with mind-eating extradimensional entities that possess drug users. I think this has potential.

The details on the process for becoming a D&Desque Lich have always been quite sparse. I like the above article (from Dragon Magazine?) because it lays out the steps for lichdom, makes it risky, and shows why it can be considered evil (the need for fresh corpses).

Last is a cursed portrait from a Paizo-era Dragon module Maure Castle.Like most Paizo modules this one failed to impress me but I do like this haunted/cursed painting .