Comparing 4 TTRPGs on the Ides of March

This is not a serious post. Yes, I am making light of the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar, Dictator for life of the late Roman Republic. Anybody trying to convince me that over two millennia is too soon is going to be in for a rough time.

Anybody in the mood for salad?

Let's observe the Ides of March by examining four TTRPGs from my collection on the basis of:

• Does the game support stabbing as an in-game activity? What quality of stabbing can player characters achieve?
• Is assassination supported as an in-game activity?
• How savage are the politics in the setting? Are they brutal enough that assassination is seen as a viable and even legitimate political tool? What role does stabbing play in such assassinations?

The four TTRPGs I've selected have been previously featured on this blog. In no particular order:

• Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy
• Mothership 1e
• Robert E Howard's Conan Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of
• Star Trek Adventures 1e

Stabbiness

OSE Advanced Fantasy
This should be a fabulous opportunity for player characters to indulge in real quality stabbing. However, stabbing is but one option available among many here. And those other options are often more efficient.

Mothership
Although guns are favored, player characters have options for knives and other stabbing weapons. The vibechete has great potential here, but does seem to be more of a slicing weapon. On the other hand, the player characters may not be the ones getting in the majority of the stabbing. Many of the things that lurk in the long dark have claws and pointy tails that put them ahead in the business of stabbing.

Robert E Howard's Conan
The genre is called swords and sorcery, but could just as easily be swords versus sorcery. With swords in the name, there's plenty of opportunity for stabbing. And the game offers a variety of options with all kinds of bladed weapons. It even supports viable archer builds for stabbing at range. Which is ideal for player characters who don't want to walk all the way over there to stab somebody.

Star Trek Adventures
Stabbing isn't really a strong focus of Starfleet. Although Andorians preserve it as part of their cultural heritage. Klingons, on the other hand, make sure to get in some stabbing on a daily basis. They stab their enemies, their still-living food, and each other. It gets even better during the Dominion War, when the Jem'Hadar show up with their bayonets and knives. A close quarters fight between Klingons and Jem'Hadar could quickly devolve into nothing but a stabbing match.


Assassinations

OSE Advanced Fantasy
The game literally has the Assassin class available. And the Thief can also work as a perfectly competent stealth killer. Even more so in some cases, since the OSE version of the Assassin lacks the ability to deal with locks, traps, and other security measures.

Mothership
Corporations and the greed they inspire are the real baddies in space horror. Quietly eliminating a corporate executive at the direction of a rival or to send a message are possible scenarios. Most higher ranking corporate officers with an ounce of sense will likely have security measures in place. There may also be complicating factors like something going wrong with their latest corporate-backed pet projects at the same time as the attempt. Nothing like cloned alien critters breaking out of containment to spice up an otherwise straightforward scenario.

Robert E Howard's Conan
It could be argued that a warrior like Conan would prefer to prove himself on the field of battle. Of course, Conan was never particularly scrupulous about how he made his money. And Conan was the target of assassination attempts when he became too much of a pain for somebody in power. There should be plenty of opportunity in the setting for those seeking employment as assassins or avoiding those employed as assassins.

Star Trek Adventures
Starfleet doesn't condone assassinations. Except for those dodgy Section 31 types. And Sisko that one time. And those times when Worf takes an interest in Klingon politics. On the other hand, polities other than the Federation have even less restraint. Klingons are perfectly content to send warriors with blades to strike their foes from the shadows, although using poison is a no-no. Romulans and Cardassians are happy to rid themselves of troublesome folks using a variety of means, including hired assassins. Solving the mystery of just who killed somebody with a long list of enemies could be a fun exercise in the Star Trek setting.

How about ordering pizza?

Ruthless Politics

OSE Advanced Fantasy
There doesn't seem to be an official setting for OSE, but adopting settings from other F20 games seems simple enough. Most published F20 settings are politically stable. Upheavals typically come around the time of edition changes rather than arising organically within the setting. However, internal conflicts that don't threaten the established order are another matter. A noble title could be made available with the removal of the current holder. In fact, this is routine business in the more chaotic and/or evil parts of F20 settings, such as the Underdark.

Mothership
Although the corporations themselves are too big to fail, individual corporate officers and their pet projects come and go. Sometimes right out the airlock. Corporate politics can get literally cutthroat when little things like laws, ethics, and morals stop getting in the way.

Robert E Howard's Conan
Politics is a lively affair in this setting. Backstabbing and betrayal seem to be the norm rather than the exception in the original stories. Conan himself involved himself in local politics on occasion - commanding armies, involving himself with royalty (sometimes intimately), participating in (usually doomed) rebellions, and often enriching himself at some potentate's expense. And there was the whole business of him leading a mercenary army to claim the throne of Aquilonia. Of course, keeping that throne took significant effort from those who sought it for themselves. Politics in this setting is a good way for a player character to end up with a fat purse and a knife in the back.

Star Trek Adventures
Politics within the Federation seems to be a sedate affair outside of the occasional coup or conspiracy. And, in theory, the Prime Directive should keep Starfleet personnel out of political business outside of the Federation. In practice, Starfleet crews get dragged into some local skullduggery on the regular. The usual scenario is some dark secret concealed down on the planet of the week. Intervening in local politics is more defensible when the locals run their civilization on human sacrifice or something. Of course, they may not welcome the proposed changes.


That concludes my tongue-in-cheek observance of this year's Ides of March. Maybe I'll make this a regular thing. Let's see if I remember next year.

6 Lessons I Learned from the 2025 Character Creation Challenge

I took on the 2025 Character Creation Challenge back in January. The biggest clue can be found in the thirty-odd blog posts I made about it. One of those was a wrap up post. Now that I've had more time to process, I realized that I had more notes. Here's what I'm carrying forward from the experience.

The 2025 Character Creation Challenge completion image.

Tackling a month long project? Have a plan. And be prepared to change that plan.

A plan is an expression of strategy. It moves you closer to a goal. It is not a process - that comes later. Any plan is better than starting off with no idea of how things are going to get done. Modifying an existing plan is less fraught than coming up with a way to move towards a goal in mid-stream.

I started the challenge with a list of games and a schedule covering the first couple of weeks. That simple plan didn't survive for long. It was never intended to. I had no experience with this challenge when it kicked off. Any detailed plan was going to be bad and wrong. I went with a simple plan that I could easily modify as I learned more about what I was doing. Games were added and dropped from the list. The schedule changed constantly depending on how much time and effort I had available. Circumstances changed and my plans changed with them.


Don't be afraid to use the best ideas early on.

There is the temptation to save ideas for an ideal time. Bury that temptation out back. There's no need to save ideas. Execute them now. New ideas will come with painful experience.

I was afraid that I was going to run out of ideas halfway through the challenge. And my well of ideas did run low around that time. However, inspiration struck. Many of my best ideas didn't even occur to me until well after the challenge began.


It's okay to use okay ideas.

There is also the temptation to rule out lackluster ideas. That temptation leads to either not starting or falling behind. Again, gave that temptation the fate it deserves. Wanting to put your best foot forward is understandable, but pushing out something less than amazing is generally better than nothing.

I'll admit that not every character and post represented my best possible effort. That wasn't the goal. The challenge was to create thirty one characters and post them online. I would've preferred to produce more polished work, but not at the cost of falling behind on the challenge.


Defy convention.

Don't get stuck inside the box. It's confining and the cats that are already inside won't appreciate it. Go ahead and use the weird ideas that might not work for everybody. It makes things more interesting.

There are multiple examples of my not coloring inside the lines during the challenge. Going back to the "ship as a character" concept more than once. Generating characters for solo TTRPGs. Creating NPCs that I may use in my home campaign. Reincarnating a necromancer in one game after another. Starfleet officers with some darkness adding contrast to their backgrounds. All of these made my contributions to the challenge uniquely mine.


Processes will develop. There might be pain involved.

Just as my planning had to change to meet the needs of the challenge, I had to develop processes for how to carry out those plans. The distinction between process and plan can be illustrated with a comparison. A checklist is not a plan. It is a process that instructs the user on what to do, not how (plan) or why (strategy).

My approaches to creating characters, writing posts, and getting everything online where folks could see it were all evolving processes. Those processes were all streamlined over a month of me banging my head up against this challenge. Repetition led to a Darwinian process. What worked was kept and what didn't was ruthlessly weeded out.


Falling behind is no reason to quit.

The idea of quitting can be a tempting one. It is the path of least resistance. And it looks awfully relaxing. Remember what to do with temptations? It involves a shovel.

I ran out of gas about two-thirds of the way through January. I was running out of games and ideas. There was grit getting into the gears of the processes. Things weren't flowing anymore. It was getting harder to crank things out. And the buffer I had built up ran out.

Getting back to the mental state where I could "just" do the things I needed to do was the hard part. It came down to a couple of things. I wanted to finish more than I wanted to regret quitting. And I had to ease up, stop beating myself up, and find a way to enjoy the challenge. I decided to treat it like a game. One of those video games where grinding away makes the eventual outcome more rewarding.

After that, it was "just" a matter of getting back on that horse.

Paying Rent with Eels? - A Weird Form of Money

"Adventurers! Your quest is to collect what the peasants owe to their lord!"

"Taxes?"

"Rent."

"Silver?"

"Eels."

"What."

"Y'all wouldn't shut up about historical accuracy."


One way to make a setting distinct is by introducing weird forms of money. The eels thing came up while I was researching something completely different. I haven't found a use for it yet. But now I'm inflicting it on y'all.

A stick of smoked eels. From Surprised Eel Historian (@greenleejw) on X/Twitter.

Medieval English paid rent to their lords with smoked eels. The eels were counted in sticks (25 eels). Sticks were based on the number of eels that could be skewered and smoked at one time. Ten sticks of eels were called a bind. There were significant logistical issues with producing, storing, and transporting binds and sticks of eels from renters to lords. Such payments were increasingly replaced by coins starting in the 13th century, but the practice continued into the 17th.

The main online source I've found is at Historia Cartarum. Details presented there include where in England eels were used for rent, how far eel rents traveled, and the value of a stick of eels. There's more information on the history of eels as currency than y'all can shake a stick at.

I also found a document on smoked eels as a medieval commodity on dropbox.

Players may take issue with their characters collecting rent payments in the form of smoked eels. Some might object to being rent collectors for medieval landlords. Others may not be thrilled with transporting smoked eels by the bind. Solutions range from leading an uprising to promoting the use of coinage, depending on the campaign.

2025 Character Creation Challenge - After Action Review

I did the Character Creation Challenge last month. You make a character for any TTRPG, every day, through the month of January. That works out to 31 characters. And I'm the type who likes to make a little backstory for each of my characters. It usually isn't much. It could fit on a postcard. A paragraph is plenty. But I'm not used to doing it day in and day out.

I have notes.

So many, in fact, that I took a few days to sort through my notes and thoughts.

Here you go.

Simple tools for a big job. Not pictured: My PC with an internet connection and my TTRPG collection.

Posting More

One of my goals this year is to post more on this blog. 31 posts is more than I've posted in most years all in one month. I could not post on this blog for the rest of this year and still make my goal. Not that I will, of course.


Planning

31 characters is a big sandwich to eat, even when it's spread over 31 days. I had a plan for what TTRPGs to use, building up a decent buffer, and a rough calendar for the opening weeks. An outline of my initial plans was presented in the post announcing my participation in the challenge.

My plans for a comfortable buffer of characters and posts fell apart quickly. That made falling behind harder to deal with as I had to double up to catch up. The scenario came to be during middle of the challenge. I wasn't feeling well and had to cut non-critical tasks to rest. More than anything else, the lack of a solid buffer almost killed this challenge for me.

The planning I put into the challenge was always subject to change. I had never done this challenge before, so I had no experience to base an extensive plan on. The goal of my planning was to provide enough organization to give me the confidence to take on the challenge. In that, it worked this time, but I'll need to do better next time.


Starting Off: My Concerns

My big worry was running out of ideas. The weird thing was that the more characters I made, the easier it was to come up with more. My ideas started to build on each other. By the end of the first week, I had a big chunk of the month mapped out.

My other concern was running out of motivation. Again, that first week was critical. By the end of it, I had developed a process. Things began to flow.


Developing a Process

Here's the list of the TTRPG products I used and how many posts they were featured in:

• 13th Age (1e) - 2
• Bucket of Bolts - 2
• Entity - 1
• Kaiju Generator - 1
• Lemuria Space Station - 1
• Mothership - 4
• Nekropol - 1
• Old School Essentials - 9
• Robert E. Howard's Conan - 1
• Rogue Zone - 1
• Star Trek Adventures (1e) - 8

Over time, I refined the process of creating characters. The first step in making things more efficient was favoring less mechanically complex games, those with an online character generator, or the ones I could jump into with minimal review. That favored the TTRPGs on my original "almost certainly" list and doomed those on my "might use" list. I didn't have the luxury of learning or re-learning complex rules if I was going to keep up the pace demanded of the challenge. The next step was standardizing the process. Making a character for any TTRPG is a similar procedure. The posts I wrote for each character also started following a format, even though I didn't consciously come up with one. This all allowed me to put more focus on making characters and communicating my thoughts about it.


The Marathon of the Middle

I wasn't feeling well during the middle of the challenge. And I lost motivation. Twice. Plus, as my early confidence vanished, I ran dry on ideas a couple of times. Remember when I said the ideas began to flow? The flow stopped. I walked in a creative wasteland.

It didn't help that the buffer I started with wasn't the one I planned on. Starting off, I had two or three days of characters ready to post. That ran out as I lost focus until I got behind and stayed behind. Buffering several days worth of characters - what I originally planned on - would've worked out much better.


Exploring My TTRPG Collection

The challenge gave me a chance to explore my TTRPG collection in a way that I never had before. I particularly enjoyed making characters for a variety of indie and solo TTRPGs. They'll come in handy when I dip my toe into some of those games later this year. I also want to do my modest part in bringing some attention to theses titles.

Making characters for the indie and solo TTRPGs I used felt straightforward. There's an odd combination of raw enthusiasm and professional polish to them. This helped me catch up when I fell behind during the challenge.


Going the Distance

Going into the last couple of weeks, I gritted my teeth and tackled the grind. I became less discriminating about my character concepts. Being picky about quality is not the way to get caught up. In that scenario, good enough is good enough.

It wasn't until the last week that I again had posts ready to go the night before they were needed. That week was a matter of getting characters made and posts written. I felt like I was driving a car. One hand on the wheel and the other shifting gears, coaxing a little more performance out of the process, trying to get where I need to be.


Past the Finish Line

The day after the challenge was weird. I had the feeling that there was something I needed to get done. 31 days is more than long enough for something to become a habit.

That said, I do have other uses for the time.


Looking Back

The challenge has certainly been that.

Doing things like this builds up creative muscles. It forces the mind to adapt and find new solutions. I could obviously make a character before the challenge. However, I now feel a mastery of the process that previously lacked.

It's good to take on challenges. Still, I don't think I be making another character for another week or two.

2025 Character Creation Challenge, Day 31: Selina Kai, Tiefling Acrobat

It's thirty-first and final day of the challenge! Making thirty-one characters in a month is, indeed, a challenge. However, I'll discuss that in a follow up post. For today's post, I'll return to Old School Essentials and make a tiefling acrobat.

All Old School Essentials characters generated for this challenge use the Advanced Fantasy rules and the Advanced Method of character creation. Rules for tieflings were published in Carrion Crawler #3. A list of optional and house rules I use are provided in my day two post.

Selina Kai, Tiefling Acrobat, 1 of 2

Comparing the AD&D Thief-Acrobat and the OSE Acrobat

The AD&D thief-acrobat first appeared in Unearthed Arcana. The thief-acrobat, along with the barbarian and cavalier classes introduced in the same book, was inspired by the Dungeons & Dragons animated series (TV, 1983-1985). This was at the beginning of the whole "plop kids in front of episode after episode of thirty minute advertisements" thing. Those children would then pressure their parents to buy the products featured in those shows. Mechanically, the AD&D thief-acrobat was not a completely separate class, but something a fifth level thief could transition into. After making the change, the former thief would retain their skills at opening locks, picking pockets, and countering traps, but could never improve them further. Instead, the new thief-acrobat focused on mobility. They could leap, tumble, jump, and tightrope walk like the cat buglers they were modeled on.

The OSE acrobat, in contrast, is an independent class from the OSE thief. The OSE acrobat lacks any lock picking, pocket pilfering, or trap countering skills. They are able to use shadows to hide and move stealthily like a thief. Their focus is on using mobility to bypass obstacles. An open window or unguarded balcony is an open invitation to an acrobat. Their mobility also extends to combat with acrobats being able to evade and execute tumbling attacks. This all comes with a limitation - an encumbered acrobat loses many of their abilities.


Character Generation

My dice results for ability scores were all over the place. I put the lowest result in WIS, which the modifier for being a tiefling made even lower. An 18 in DEX is nice, though. A pretty good STR and CHA made sense for the character.

Tiefling characters roll on a couple of charts for the fiendish influence on their appearance and gift they receive from their heritage. Kai has small horns on her temples. She can also cast darkness once per day. Which is probably useful in her line of work.

If it is possible for somebody to get there by climbing, walking on a tightrope, or jumping, an acrobat has a chance of doing it. They also get damage reduction for falling damage. Their big move in combat is making a tumbling attack while jumping or falling. Which seems like one of those things that depends on how generous the GM happens to be.

I made my option on the hit dice that rogue-types get in OSE known in my day 28 post. Thieves, assassins, and acrobats really want to stay on the edges of a fight. d4 hit points per level just doesn't cut it.

Rolling jeweler for a secondary skill was an incredible coincidence.

Selina Kai, Tiefling Acrobat, 2 of 2

Background

She's Catwoman, but in OSE and tiefling instead of human.


Resources

Rules for OSE tiefling player characters were published by Necrotic Gnome in Carrion Crawler issue #3.

The character sheet is by William Braidis Lee and is available on itch.io. It has its limitations, but otherwise works fine.

2025 Character Creation Challenge, Day 30: The Bombastic Buzzard

It's day thirty of the challenge, the finish line is in sight, and I'm just throwing stuff at the wall at this point. It's been established that ships are characters for the purpose of this blog. Let's make another ship using Bucket of Bolts.

The Bombastic Buzzard

Previously featured on day seventeen, Bucket of Bolts is a solo journal RPG by Jack Harrison of Mousehole Press. Even without playing through the journaling part of the game, Bucket of Bolts is handy for coming up with ships and backgrounds in a hurry. The implied setting is vague enough for these ships to fit in many space games. The core assumptions are that space commerce is common enough for private ownership of spacecraft. And that spacecraft about the size of modern aircraft can operate independently.

Bucket of Bolts includes software that generates a name and picture of a ship. There are also rules in the book for naming and drawing a ship, but a mouse click is the kind of minimal effort that I can get into. That stated, some of the images generated by the software feature ship parts that don't seem attached to the ship. They just float nearby. It's easy enough to fix - just generate another ship image.

Figuring out three traits for the ship mostly involves staring at the picture until words came to mind. In this case: rugged, reliable, and outdated.

Finally, the backstory:

Hera Quixada gazed over the inventory languishing in the back of the spaceship lot. Tucker was busy hitting the salvage yards looking for a hulk with some life in it. Neither held out much hope, but there was no other ticket off this rock.

Quixada's eyes lighted in a crude looking brick of a ship. The model name and number escaped her, but she recognized the design. It was built to hold up to rough handling and frontier conditions. The systems were a generation out of date, but they were easy to maintain and spare parts were plentiful.

A ship like this is exactly what they needed. She spoke into her communicator, telling Tucker to drop what he was doing and rush on over. He would be able to size up the ship. Then they could make a deal in the lot offices.

In the meantime, The Bombastic Buzzard waited.

Bucket of Bolts is available on itch.io.

2025 Character Creation Challenge, Day 29: Morzana Onyx, Necromancer (13th Age)

It's day twenty-nine! Having created Morzana Onyx in Old School Essentials and sent to her to Nekropol, let's reimagine her in 13th Age (1e). The 13th Age version of the necromancer class is presented in 13 True Ways.

One of the things that caught my attention about 13th Age was the inclusion of the necromancer as a not automatically evil aligned class. As a #ForeverGM, I never got a chance to explore the concept. In a way, Morzana Onyx is as much as character I never got to play as Sol Brightheart.

Morzana Onyx, Necromancer

I'm keeping the same numbers I rolled for Morzana's ability scores as an OSE character. However, I am rearranging those numbers in response to the different rules that 13th Age has for necromancers. The Wasting Away class feature, in particular, makes having a positive CON bonus a liability for necromancers. Humans in 13th Age get a +2 bonus to any ability score. Necromancers get a +2 bonus to either INT or CHA, as along as it's not the same score increased by the racial bonus. I picked INT and CHA for the bonuses.

One Unique Thing: Morzana Onxy's soul is cursed to wander from world to world, reborn in body after body, seeking necromantic lore for some lost purpose, but never able to retain that knowledge from one existence to the next.

Icon Relationships: Onyx has a conflicted (1 point) relationship with the Lich King. The One-Eyed King is the greatest source of necromantic knowledge walking this world, but is also a danger almost beyond comprehension. She also has a conflicted (1 point) relationship with the Archmage. His broad mastery of the arcane also includes secrets Onyx is seeking, but that well is not deep. Finally, Onyx has a positive (1 point) relationship with the Priestess. Some of the gods have necromancy in their portfolios, after all.

Backgrounds: Onyx began her studies as a student of the arcane, but left when it became clear that it wasn't her path. She served, for a time, as an acolyte in the One-Eyed King's city of the undead. She left after deciding that undeath was something that she wasn't quite ready to embrace. After that, Onyx learned the art of studying ancient civilizations from their buried remains. At some point, she developed a habit of smoking dreamweed. The visions were helpful for a time, but she has sworn off the stuff. Or so she says.

Talents: I picked three that seemed fun. Dead Wizard reflects Onyx's past as an arcane student. It gives her access to Wizard cantrips, which makes her a more flexible caster. Redeemer frees the spirits of any undead she summons once they complete their service. In other words, any undead summoned by Onyx release a burst of holy energy once they drop to 0 hp. It also doesn't make the Lich King entirely happy with her. Finally, Sorta Dead means that she's already one foot in the grave. She sometimes counts as undead, depending on player choice. Onyx is also better able to deal with dying than most necromancers, who could already deal with it pretty well.

Feats: Humans get two feats at first level in 13th Age. The first is the one under Wasting Away. It grants a +1 bonus to necromancer spell effects when Onyx's CON modifier is negative. The second is the one under Sorta Dead. Onyx gains a resist poison 16+ and resist negative energy 16+.

Equipment: Since Onyx is Sorta Dead, she doesn't need to eat or sleep. That means many of the things I would purchase for a starting adventurer are irrelevant. She'll pocket her gold for now.

Spells: Chant of Endings and Death's Gauntlet are both at-will attack spells. I picked Command Undead and Summon Undead because both fit the theme.

Resource: The character sheet I used is by Evenglare and is available as a free download on the Pelgrane Press site.

2025 Character Creation Challenge, Day 28: Snik-Snak, Goblin Assassin

It's day twenty-eight and we're in the home stretch of the challenge! Let's circle back to Old School Essentials to give my brain a breather. Today I'm making a sneaky goblin who is really into stabbing and poisons.

All Old School Essentials characters generated for this challenge use the Advanced Fantasy rules and the Advanced Method of character creation. Rules for goblins as player characters were published in Carrion Crawler #1. A list of optional and house rules I use are provided in my day two post.


A Comparison Between AD&D and OSE Assassins

AD&D assassins are AD&D thieves, but with more murder. AD&D assassins can do all the lockpicking that thieves do, but not quite as well. It says something that the AD&D assassin got slapped with the evil label. Gary Gygax wrote "the killing of humans and other intelligent life forms for the purposes of profit is basically held to be the antithesis of weal" in the AD&D Player's Handbook. Which is a curious choice in a game that rewards invading the homes of intelligent life forms, killing them, and looting their possessions for profit.

OSE assassins have certain thief abilities, but pared back to make room for the additional murder abilities. For example, OSE assassins have no lockpicking ability. This is likely to preserve the utility of the thief class. OSE also takes a more nuanced approach to the moral questions by allowing assassins to be neutral or chaotic. However, OSE assassins cannot be lawful.

Snik-Snak, Goblin Assassin, 1 of 2

Back to Character Generation

On one hand, all my rolls for ability scores were in the double dights. On other hand, half the results were twelves. Which, of course, is a point too low to generate any bonuses. But having no penalties to deal with is nice.

Goblin characters in OSE get +1 DEX and -1 STR. Which is fine for an assassin or thief. I used the Adjust Ability Scores rule to lower his WIS by 2 to bump up his DEX to an 18. This won't directly help him be a better assassin, but would speed up his progression.

Being a goblin and an assassin offers up a long and varied list of abilities. The affinity with wolves goblins get is interesting, but depends on the campaign. Otherwise, goblins share many features with gnomes. As mentioned above, OSE assassins don't get the full range of thief features. This may mean a closer relationship between assassins and thieves in OSE settings. A thief's abilities to pick locks and counter traps might be necessary to carry out an assassination. This might lead an assassins' guild and a thieves' guild to work out a partnership to the detriment of folks who are important enough to be assassination targets and wealthy enough to rob.

I rolled the maximum for hit points. With is a whopping 4. His CON bonus pushed that up to 5. OSE assassins and thieves have underwhelming durability for characters who are expected to get anywhere near combat. Sure, a successful assassination or backstab could drop an opponent, but then there's a character with d4 hit dice within easy reach of that opponent's buddies. There's the DEX bonus to AC, but that only goes so far with leather armor. I can see why later D&D bumped the hit dice of roguish types to d6.

Snik-Snak, Goblin Assassin, 2 of 2

Background

Snik-Snak started life as an apprentice blacksmith in a community of goblins large enough for such specialization, but too small to attract the wrong kind of attention. The goblins conducted the occasional raid, but found hiring out their services as mercenaries and cheap labor to be more lucrative. A nearby drow enclave found the goblins to be useful.

Snik-Snak's agility and fairly sturdy frame led to an invitation from a drow organization to learn certain skills. That training came with a price, but working as an assassin wasn't too different from raiding or mercenary work. Except for working alone, being much quieter, and coming with better pay.

Times were good until the drow launched a wave of assassinations in a nearby city-state using goblins to do the work. Snik-Snak got out before the drow disavowed the goblin assassins and left the goblin community holding the bag. They scattered into the mountains. Snik-Snak looked for a place to market his skills.

He eventually fell in with a band of adventurers. Doing quests and delving dungeons isn't much different from what he did before. He does miss working alone, though.


Resources

The rules for goblin player characters on OSE were published by Necrotic Gnome in issue #3 of Carrion Crawler.

The character sheet is by William Braidis Lee and is available on itch.io. It only supports ascending AC when it wants to and there's no place for spells. It's fine other than those things.

2025 Character Creation Challenge, Day 27: Olivarius, Archer

Since I'm done with Star Trek Adventures for this challenge, let's look at the other 2d20 system in my collection. That's Robert E. Howard's Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of. Conan runs on a mechanically more complex version of 2d20 than Star Trek Adventures. This is partly due to the greater emphasis on combat in Conan. Which, in turn, reflects the increase in the number of folks trying to stab the protagonists compared to Star Trek. However, the stab factor in Star Trek is not zero, mostly due to all the Klingons running around.

I'm going against the gain and not making a thickly thewed fella or a lass with an aversion to clothes. Instead, let's explore somebody with the broad back and shoulders of an archer. Fortunately, archers have been fairly prominent in popular media over the last decade or so. That gives me a variety of material to steal.

This guy even brought his own bow!

I used the online Conan Character Generator to make Olivarius. Unfortunately, the .pdf export feature wasn't working at the time of this post. This means I'll be taking y'all through the process step by step. Cool?

Cool.

I used the normal rules for character creation and restricted myself to the Core book for options. I wanted Olivarius to have a relatively privileged background, so he's from Aquilonia. This gives him Cosmopolitan, which is a situational talent that allows him to speak with NPCs who also have Cosmopolitan.

I opted not to lower or raise his base attributes. Eagle-eyed seemed like a thematic choice for his first attribute aspect. The second aspect was less clear, but I settled on brave. I gave Coordination a boost and Agility a nerf, followed by buffing both Intelligence and Brawn.

Continuing with the privileged background concept, I chose Petty Nobility as his caste. This gave him a boost to Social Standing, the talents Sheltered and Subject, and perks in Command. I picked Left to Your Own Devices as his story. This gave Olivarius the trait Adventurous.

The choice of Archer for his archetype seemed straightforward. This gave Olivarius boosts to Ranged Weapons, Animal Handling, Observation, Stealth, and Survival as well as the Accurate trait. I selected Athletics and Melee as his elective skills. He got a bow, two reloads, and a helmet. For additional equipment, I selected a boot knife, a riding horse, and a brigandine vest and trousers.

Given the inspiration, I picked Stoic for his nature. This gave Olivarius a bump to his Willpower attribute and his Discipline, Lore, and Resistance skills. I selected Healing and Parry for his elective skills. The Deflection talent looked handy for reducing the flow of Doom when using Parry.

I decided that Olivarius received a solid education before being sent off into the world, so he gets Educated by Masterful Tutors. This boosts Discipline, Lore, and Ranged Weapons. His elective skills are Resistance and Survival. I chose Marksman as his talent. He also gets a letter of praise and introduction from his tutor!

The Core rules didn't give me any choice other than a War Story for a notable event. Within War Stories, I picked Shipwrecked as the most thematic option. This bumped up Athletics and Sailing.

The next steps allows for improvements at the player's discretion. I put points into his Agility and Brawn attributes and his Acrobatics, Ranged Weapons, and Stealth skills. The choice of talent was tough, but I decided on Sharp Senses to give him a re-roll for Observation tests. I figured that he picked up some Pirate Code after getting shipwrecked. Finally, I chose not to burn a Fortune point for a boost to an attribute or skill.

For his starting gear (in addition to the stuff he received in earlier steps), I picked a tattoo from his time being shipwrecked, a hooded mantle (for reasons), and a hunting bow from a friend that died in battle.


The final stats for Olivarius are:

HOMELAND Aquilonia
ATTRIBUTE ASPECTS Eagle-eyed & Brave or Foolhardy
CASTE Petty Nobility
ARCHETYPE Archer
NATURE Stoic
EDUCATION Educated by Masterful Tutors
STORY Left to Your Own Devices
TRAIT Adventurous
WAR STORY Shipwrecked
SOCIAL STANDING 2
GOLD 7
FORTUNE POINTS 3
VIGOR 11
RESOLVE 12

AGILITY 9
ACROBATICS 1 1
MELEE 1 1
STEALTH 2 2

AWARENESS 9
INSIGHT 0 0
OBSERVATION 1 1
SURVIVAL 2 2
THIEVERY 0 0

BRAWN 9
ATHLETICS 2 2
RESISTANCE 2 2

COORDINATION 10
PARRY 1 1
RANGED WEAPONS 4 4
SAILING 1 1

INTELLIGENCE 8
ALCHEMY 0 0
CRAFT 0 0
HEALING 1 1
LINGUISTICS 0 0
LORE 2 2
WARFARE 0 0

PERSONALITY 7
ANIMAL HANDLING 1 1
COMMAND 1 1
COUNSEL 0 0
PERSUADE 0 0
SOCIETY 0 0

WILLPOWER 10
DISCIPLINE 2 2
SORCERY 0 0

TALENTS
Cosmopolitan
Sheltered
Subject
Accurate
Deflection
Marksman
Agile

EQUIPMENT
Hunting Bow
2 reloads for bow
Helmet (Armor 3: Head; Heavy)
Boot Blade
Riding horse
Brigandine vest and trousers (Armor 2: Torso/Legs)
Letter of praise and introduction from your tutor.
Tribal/ritual/prestige tattoos and/or piercings.
A hooded mantle, with gilt thread at the edge.
Your friend's Hunting Bow, they died in battle. Better you take it then some stranger!

LANGUAGES
Aquilonian
Pirate Code

2025 Character Creation Challenge, Day 26: Morzana Onyx Ends Up in Nekropol

Day twenty-six of the challenge. Today I'm going to convert a character from one system to another. I created Morzana Onyx in Old School Essentials a few days back. Now I'm taking that character, killing a hypothetical future version of her, and tossing her into Nekropol by BugbearSlug.

Nekropol cover art

Nekropol isn't so much a complete game as it is a system-neutral setting designed to be dropped into a game. Nekropol is a city-state of post-mortals sculpted by surgery to suit the needs of its rulers. If that seems a little dark, you're right. Which reminds me: BugbearSlug is careful to put content warnings in the book.

I'll repeat those content warnings here: Cannibalism, Body Horror, Necromancy.

There are two ways of making a character for Nekropol. The first is to create a character that is part of the setting. Such characters come complete with backgrounds and careers in Nekropol. The second is what I'm doing here - taking an outsider, killing them, and reanimating them as undead.

Onyx is not in for a good time.

Morzana Onyx lived a long, magically-extended life. During it, she searched long and hard to expand her knowledge of necromancy. She reached the diminishing returns stage before tasting the potion that added a decade to her life. Infamous necromancers that knew no more than she did. Fragments that revealed what she already knew. The flow of secrets slowed to a trickle. By the time Onyx was contemplating the choice between becoming a vampire or a lich, she was wasting vast resources for hints of greater knowledge.

Then she learned of a place of where undead flesh was remade to fit the functions decreed by factional leaders. Here necromancy was made into industry. The evidence was before her - an imitation of life made of ivory. The craftsmanship was beyond any she had ever seen. It claimed to be an agent of one of those factions. The creature offered her a journey to this place. All she had to lose was her life.

Onyx is an outsider to Nekropol. Which cuts out about two-thirds of character generation. That leaves me with rolling three dice and making some decisions on exactly what kind of undead horror is coming out of this process. Just the thing for a cold and gloomy Sunday.

Rolling the dice and consulting the tables under the "Deflesh and Reanimate" step, I got: A 4 ("Stately"), 1 ("Abattoir"), and 3 ("Post-Mortals"). This tells me where in the book I can select options from (pages 4, 7, and 15 in this case). If I were making a character from Nekropol, these results would also indicate workforce, district, and faction.

Given the choices available, I pick the "Phasing Skull" from the Abattoir Promenade. It enables Onyx to push any part of her body except her skull through non-organic solid material. Next I choose the "Proto-Phylactery" skeleton from the Post-Mortal faction. Onyx can tear off any of the bones that now make up her body to regenerate a replacement immediately. This ability only applies to body parts that are not a skull or graft (enhancements built into an undead body).

There was no sudden intake of breath or quickening of pulse. Such things were now alien to Onyx's body, but her soul was safely encased in her bare skull. Tall buildings and vast industrial spaces erupted from the blasted earth around her and clawed for the skies.

Where to begin?

Nekropol by BearbugSlug is available on itch.io as a free download.