Hireling Names

I'm convinced a good hireling name is one that instantly gives you everything you need to know about them just from their name. I took ten minutes and brainstormed a bunch for handy use in the vein of Scrap Princess's awesome name list over here.

Of similarly awesome use is Ian's recently posted list of things psychotic people will yell at you pulled from the Borderlands game.

Torchbearers:

• Pig
• Old Mottley
• Huggert
• Li'l Zed
• Stinky
• Len Dumbass
• Stickfoot
• Nigel Sodpants
• Louse

Men-(and women)-at-arms:

• Droig
• Black Maggie
• Rufus
• Elonzo
• Vosh Vestra
• Angry Jenny
• Grumble Crumbles
• Beagelwitz
• Kur Bulgestein
• Gustvolt von Pike

Veterans:

• Bertha
• Van Duggen
• Grimes
• Eggers
• Gram Stabbo
• Reverend Slurry
• Sister Magdalena
• Gunt Whistler

Packhorses (aka treasure carriers):

• Bob
• Gus
• Chronic
• Lazy Ned
• Mule
• Lefty
• Curtis
• Tunk

Thieves:

• Los Loster
• Midnight
• Jack Shadow
• Whisper
• Scuttles
• Sausage Fingers
• Silas the Glove
• Eliza Cabbage

Magicians:

• Delzor
• Voth the Mundane
• El Hadazar
• James Brown
• Casper Varley
• Carlito Maglioni

Dwarves:

• Grim Grimmorson
• Podge
• Vargas
• Dirty Krodo
• Loambeard Stoutgut
• Unger Derpson
• Frugal Sal

Elves:

• "Doug" Silverspear
• Amaril
• Leandra
• Mute Fortha
• Beaumont
• Maple Maloney

Other:

• Carnage the Wardog
• Drazzle (doppleganger)
• Handsome Jack (asshole Aasimar)
• E. Lester Hicks, time traveler
• Puddin' (polymorphed ooze)

Edit: Updated with some fun contributions from the G+ crowd.

Mid-Level Starting Character Random Quirk Table

"What happened to them?"

Good things, bad things, but most importantly interesting things. Compiled with help from cool people on G+. It's a d50 table - you could just do the d100/subtract 50 if over 50 thing.

1. Has a cursed (but bonused) shield that cannot be taken off, making eating, sleeping, hugging, etc. difficult.
2. Two fingers once bitten off by a bullywug, including the family ring. The Bullywug got away.
3. Love/hate relationship with a pixie who has taken up residence in beard, hair or hat.
4. Somehow learned how to speak to oozes.
5. Spellbook has acquired intelligence, may require charisma rolls to convince it to let you learn spells.
6. Character has started growing vestigial wings. Can't wear plate mail (and has to have other armor adjusted), but can fly for level in rounds, after which exhausted.
7. Feet replaced by cloven hooves.
8. Always smells of cinnamon.
9. Looks exactly like famous prince/infamous baron.
10. Blood replaced by tiny insects after jaunt in Carcosa, terrified of insects.
11. Had renounced money - spends it as quickly as possible on insect themed totems for 'protection' (but really on any other grandiose project or odd addiction.)
12. Former Henchwoman now assassin for one woman death cult - still friendly though.
13. Has an arrow stuck in their head.  Removing the arrow would cause brain damage. No other effects.
14. Has acquired a touch of lycanthropy, body part may occasional become furry and violent.
15. Heterochromia (different colored eyes) -- one normal, and one with complete light blindness, but sees perfectly in dark/low-light settings.  Now wears an eye-patch and switches it back and forth, depending on lighting. Depth perception is totally screwed up now and can't shoot worth a darn.
16. Touch of undeath - Brought to 0hp so many times the character can now be turned like the undead.
17. Has developed an awkward, and outwardly obvious twitch when around or discussing gold.
18. IT BUUUURNS!: Was hit by green slime in the past and lived, but with horrible scarring. 1d6: (1-3 head/face, 4 torso, 5 arm, 6 leg)
19. Papa/Mama?: Took in a kobold baby, now grown up. Treat as fanatically loyal henchman with kobold stats. Unless they learns the truth of what happened to their parents...
20. After years of dungeon crawling, has developed a taste for spider webs. Yes, eating them. 
21. After a chance encounter that nearly killed them, the character has become terrified of certain vegetables and fruit.
22. Was a living sacrifice, and had his heart ripped out by Lolth.  Shortly after, his body was "liberated" and resurrected, but the Priestess still has his now-beating heart in a jar in her bedroom on a side table.
23. Starts uncontrollably itching under the armor when near poisonous traps and monsters.
24. Stalked: An invisible stalker has somehow become infatuated with the character. They won't attack the character directly, but will be hostile towards any who show affection towards the character.
25. Magic Robot Hand. What it says on the tin, partially translucent.
26. Teeth are filed to sharp points.
27. Tattoo in checkerboard pattern, all over.
28. Swallowed by a whale. Survived, but can now breathe underwater.
29. PC only requires alcohol to satisfy nutritional and hydrational needs. Only alcohol satisfies these needs. PC still gets drunk at normal rate.
30. Tinkerbell: You can animate your shadow, but it doesn't always follow orders. 
31. You are the familiar for a wizard no one has seen for one thousand years. 
32. Half a treasure map is tattooed on your back.
33. You are a person transported from 21st century earth to the setting by mysterious means.
34. Pie In The Sky: Every week you go without a piece of pie, you lose a finger. Extra pie can help grow lost digits back...
35. Your urine heals wounds. 
36. Teeth can be pulled out and used as grenades. For each goblin you blast away, you travel another mile on the ugly road...
37. Cool tail, bro.
38. Immune to fear because the voices in your head tell you not to worry. 
39. In complete darkness, your eyes shine like spotlights.
40. There is a demon seed implanted in your chest. 1 in 6 chance direct blows to body damage the demon instead of you. 
41. You have a reputation as a great swordsman, wizard, whatever. Losers come crawling out of the woodwork to challenge you.
42. Your skin is green from radioactive stirge bites back at level one.
43. You are covered with inexplicable scars, including bullet holes, sword cuts, claw marks, burns, frostbite discolorations, a Y shaped autopsy suture and inexplicably a suture completely encircling the neck - may actually be a Frankenstein.
44. Keeps trophies of slain monsters. Others terribly creeped out by collection of untanned goblin ears, dark elf scalps, fire beetle antenna, pixie skulls and giant rat tails. Of course the stinking mess is proudly displyed on your armor/clothes at all times.
45. Addicted to gambling, ogre gland extract and/or psychedelic cave lichen.
46. You sold your soul to the devil in exchange for something you have yet to claim. He gets to call in the debt as soon as you complete the wishing. 
47. You own a magical horse, and can summon it with a whistle. It's pretty clever and brave, and can survive on its own without supervision when you send it off.
48. The local cat community owes you one, and will help you out when it can. This is just housecats and the smaller wildcats, though, no lions or magical beasts.
49. You now age backwards at twice the natural rate. If you don't get magically aged you'll have to give up adventuring very quickly.
50. Due to transdimensional mind-shift, you actually DO know everything your player knows. 

In the Halls of The Dread Prince

Desiring some amusement, and perhaps a thinning of the adventuring herd, The Dread Prince, ruler of the land of Yem, has summoned The Riders of Lohan to his royal pressence. To what end? A simple task. One so simple you would think any of his army could accomplish it, but when you live eternally you need all the entertainment you can get, and what better entertainment is their than convincing some warm-fleshies to go on a dangerous mission with no promise of reward?

So, off to the library... an ancient place with no apparent name; at least not one that was discovered. Fortunately, The Dread Prince said nothing about not looting the library, nor about taking a cut (perhaps the tax man will have something to say there).

Ultimately, here is the experience and gold breakdown per character:

Total gold split: 42,000gp
Total fighting experience split: 59xp
Total XP: 42,059xp each

Sadly, you can only gain one level at a time, so much of this xp will go to waste, but money is money, eh?

Itemized bill of sale:

Treasure

12,000ep (6000gp)
15 pieces of jewelry, 162,000gp total
2 potions, healing and invisibility
scroll of knock
ring of invisibility (went to John)

gp total: 168,000

split: 42,000gp

Experience

Enemy party
 * Dwarf (1) - 5
 * Halfling (1) - 5
 * Thief (1) - 5
 * Cleric (1) - 5
 * Magic-user, level 3 (Dr. Peabody) (3**) - 50

XP: 70

3D Portal
 * Elf (1+1*) - 19

XP: 19

Library
 * Crab Spider (2*) - 25
 * Medusa librarian (4*) - 125

XP: 150

Total: 239xp
Split: 59

XP Total: 42,059

Vampires can Suck It, right?

We finished the Sequestrium of Transformative Incantations this evening!

Bill the Mauler and Mindark the Wise hired three more unsuspecting dupes to venture into the clusterfuck up in the Tower of Unfathomable Secrets, only to encounter Ghosts, Doppleglimmers, Werewolves and Vampires (oh my!).

Let it be known that the fell creature known as Magus Otto Von Brisbane and his vicious concubines met their end in the master tower on this date, Brisbane himself skewered through the heart by a gold Varsguard cross, and Mindark the Wise now possesses his arcane secrets as well as his Robe of Eyes. Bill the Mauler now possesses a headache and a lingering feeling of guilt over trying to kill his ex-Stripper henchwoman "Jersey" Caramel while dominated.

Here's my master map, all secrets revealed:

The Sequestrium of Transformative Incantations

Mindark the Wise (Wisdom: 4), magician and thumb-separator, has decided to try this whole "Adventuring" thing on for size and has managed to convince Bill the Mauler to help him clean out a wing of the Tower of Unfathomable Secrets known as The Sequestrium of Transformative Incantations or more colloquially "that clusterfuck of towers there on the left".

Rumor has it that old Magus Otto Von Brisbane is holed up in there somewhere but according to the mad mage Doug Douglason he's "never been quite the same since he started eating human flesh". Nonetheless the council of wizards has promised Mindark that if they manage to find him they'll finally teach him how to cast Read Magic.

Here's where they've explored so far:

Hireling Vladimir Putin got his head bitten off by a massive Tarantella Spider in the north tower but otherwise there's been a significant haul from the Sequestrium so far, including a spellbook with Mirror Image and Magic Missile, as well as three scrolls and a magic dagger and some 1500 gold pieces.

Edit: A lucky roll on my Narrative Critical Hit table has resulting in Mindark also acquiring a dagger coated in Tarantella poison, which promises potential entertainment at parties and nightclub fights.

Followers of the Twisted Gear

It is a mistake to think that all Dwarves act alike.  Sure, most of the Dwarves you meet will love to mine, have a fondness for gold and would happily spend entire lifetimes digging, finding secret doors and collecting gold.  That is because the other kind of Dwarves don’t hang out in bars and mines.  They are too busy making really weird shit.

They call themselves the Followers of the Twisted Gear.  These Dwarves have left their homes in search of something more intellectual than digging and mining.  Many times their numbers include adolescent Dwarves who are rebelling against the old ways.  They have shave their beards in an act of defiance for the old ways and instead let their hair grow to ridiculous heights; often using the blood of others for their hair gel.  They pierce their skin with gears and tools.  The Followers of the Twisted Gear is a refuge for Dwarves of a Chaotic alignment.

And what do these Twisted Gear Dwarves do?  They invent.  They seek out dark places of wicked evil to absorb inspiration.  They lurk in infamous tombs.  They have long drinking parties in cursed cemeteries.  They squat in abandoned hideouts of long dead villains.  Anywhere that evil once reigned; the Followers of the Twisted Gear will take residence for inspiration.

In time, one Dwarf will get an inspiration.  He will develop a mania to build a great device.  The device is almost always made from the remains of living creatures and these devices are often mistaken as tools of necromancers.  Sometimes living creatures are trapped in the devices as if their very suffering is part of the mechanism.  These manic Dwarves will incorporate magic and technology in strange hybrid manners that

The purpose of the device vary from creation to creation.  They rarely create something practical as that is too much like the normal Dwarves that they scorn.  No, the Followers of the Twisted Gear might make a mirror that shows you random events across time and space.  They might make a ship that travels through underwater but it never stops traveling; condemning the passengers to eternal wondering.  Or they might make a pair of pointy shoes that bestows any effect on the potion table every time you put them on. 

Dwarves of the Twisted Gear will have the same stats and organization of normal Dwarves in your campaign.  Despite their desire to be different, some habits are just hard to break.  Each lair of the Followers will have D3 random devices that are each unique in the world.   

Barbaric Math

After a two week delay, I have finally had enough peace of mind to do some party math.

The players received 315 gold pieces each.  Filling in the fog of the map doesn't pay much.

Because the experience points was split three ways between the survivors, the exp is 143.  Kind of measly but dungeoning ain't easy.