20 occupations (criminals)

 

1. Mugger
2. Body Snatcher
3. Pickpocket
4. Burgler
5. Assassin
6. Charlatan
7. Forger
8. Cutthroat
9. Grave Robber
10. Smuggler
11. Fence
12. Embezzler
13. Impersonator
14. Racketeer
15. Shoplifter
16. Instigator
17. Pimp
18. Highwayman
19. Moneylender
20. Beguiler

More fantasy names!

These names are taken from the awesome Dungeon Raid game for Android. Check it out!

1. Welved Keaar
2. Rinmon
3. Zarved Vamyet
4. Zilbea
5. Gamgren
6. Rozkenn Peykenn
7. Sojat
8. Gamten Fanjel
9. Rozhet 
10. Oartkaf
11. Peymud
12. Xinlyt Xinhob
13. Jenlyt Arten
14. Rinjel Angrog
15. Qoufet
16. Roz Gamzin
17. Mercor Zarure
18. Zilgap
19. Vinpent
20. Xer

Seven Noble Houses of the Citadel of Rust (Charon Prime)

Alcanter -known because of eccentric behavior and baroque aesthetics. They have some dark secrets, probably about mutations and madness.

Croyle - they conduct twisted, forbidden experiments with humans and artifacts of the Hollow Ones. Rulers of the Tower of Mirrors.

Cedia - masters of the Excavation Station. They have long tradition of assassination and betrayal within the family ranks.

Wynter - many members of the family are the clones. Some people say that their blood is tainted in some way (by the blood of the Hollow Ones? who knows...)

Strakarson - they have ritualized almost every aspect of their lives. Current maintainers of the Alchemist's Outpost.

Taro - they say that they possessed arcane powers of Necromancy. Probably they are using the Black Dust as a drug, thus their bodies are twisted and damaged.

Drayton - masters of cybernetics, their founding members are still alive (mostly because extensive using of bionics and synthetic implants).

Charon Prime - the Hollow Ones

As almost nothing is certain about the Hollow Ones, I present you a rumor table with some basic information about them. It's up to you which of these rumors are true and which are not.

Roll 1d12:

1. They don't have souls. That's why we call them the Hollow Ones.
2. Their science was far more advanced than ours.
3. Their name came from a fact that we never found their bodies - only empty husks or exoskeletons made from strange, semi-organic stuff.
4. Their science remains totally incomprehensible for us.
5. Some kind of bio-engineered plague killed them all.
6. Hollow Ones created us to use humans in their experiments.
7. They ruled the Unnamed World for more than one hundred thousand years.
8. Everything seems that they just left the planet.
9. Hollow Ones created us to use humans as bank of spare parts for their imperfect bodies.
10. Typical Hollow One was about 3 metres tall.
11. Empty husks and remains that we name the Hollow Ones have nothing to do with them. They was only servants of the real rulers of the Charon Prime.
12. First humans worshipped the Hollow Ones as gods.

Charon Prime - Rumors about the Citadel of Rust

Click on the image to visit its author's DA page

1. City is built around the wreck of a spaceship.
2. There are some pre-human crypts beneath the city.
3. Some say that city’s power sources are located in the ancient complex located miles beneath the surface.
4. In the past Tower of Mirrors was used to communicate with other outposts and cities.
5. Somewhere in the city there is a large hidden mortuary, controlled by a sect of mystics.
6. City is being infiltrated by the androids.
7. Members of the Excavators Sect has found strange underground chambers with sarcophagi-like containers connected with the city’s superstructure. No one was able to open the containers.
8. There is eighth Noble House of the Citadel of Rust, the hidden rulers of the city.
9. At least one AI is located in the city. They say that they was used by the Noble Houses but went insane or rebelled against them.
10. Last king of the Citadel disappeared without a trace about 300 years ago.

Tomb Day!

Still the Underworld Day, but themed one. First one from the longer (I don't know exactly how long) series of posts. I think that they are pretty inspiring. What do you think about them?

Charon Prime - Dying World

Third (and last) post about some basic features of the Charon Prime. This one will be even more general - these ideas aren't mandatory and each Referee may freely pick the ones that best fit into his vision of the campaign.

• Charon, planet's sun, is dying. It may be a reason why the Hollow Ones disappeared from the Unnamed World. Or maybe some ancient machinery hidden inside the Charon Prime is slowly killing the sun, draining its energy?
• Planet is dying. Its internal machines are slowly running out of energy or otherwise stop working. It may lead to some really nasty effects. Or maybe Charon Prime was built like a prison (or laboratory)? Maybe something really evil is trapped inside the stasis cells deep inside planet's guts and if it awakes universe will be doomed?
• Hollow Ones will return and clean their creation from the pest called mankind. Or maybe they never left and just let humans flourish to use them in their experiments?
• There are some really strange and nasty plagues ravaging the outer surface. Maybe things like monster-breeding crustacean plague (soon I will describe it) will spit out something bigger, big enough to destroy mankind?
• Or finally, maybe mankind will destroy themselves? There are many strange and powerful artifacts left by the Hollow Ones but even if humans can use them in some way, their real purposes remains unknown. Of course, it may lead to disaster.

20 occupations (science / mystical)

For use with my classless D&D or any other classless stuff (i.e. Brendan's thingie). Of course you can use it with more "traditional" class system if you want (and can divide it in some way).

1. Sage 
2. Hypnotist 
3. Scribe 
4. Demonologist 
5. Apothecary 
6. Astronomer 
7. Astrologer 
8. Student 
9. Herbalist 
10. Alchemist 
11. Charlatan 
12. Poison Maker
13. Necromancer 
14. Dowser 
15. Engineer 
16. Enchanter 
17. Seer 
18. Lecturer 
19. Elementalist 
20. Sorcerer

Charon Prime - Artificial World

Inner Surface.

Yesterday I told you about reasons why Unnamed World is unnamed. Today I want to reveal something more. As I'm writing this post in the middle of the night, it will have rather loose, modular form.

• As I mentioned before, humans are rather young race on Charon Prime. Its original rulers, now called the Hollow Ones, disappeared without a trace long before the first humans landed on the planet (about eight thousand years before it) and ruled for maybe 100000 years.
• Hollow Ones weren't the first visitors of Charon Prime. In fact, there was no Charon Prime before their arrival. Hollow Ones created the Charon Prime.
• Charon Prime fits into the Hollow Earth model, but there is no sun inside it - there is only darkness. Inner layer of the world seems to be dead and abandoned but who knows what nightmares lurk there...
• Almost no one knows about the "inner world".
• Some of the ancient machinery of the Hollow Ones are still active, buried deep inside the planet. At least one of them is used by humans (power core of the City of Rust) but it's almost certain that no one knows a shit about the origin and nature of this machinery.
• Several megadungeons (or even something like gigadungeon) may be placed between the outer and inner surfaces of the planet. It's highly possible that they are really dangerous places.
• Even the outer surface of the Charon Prime is not very similar to our Earth. It's barren and dead, landscapes have surreal shapes and it's dotted by immense ruins of strange buildings of unknown purpose. Inner surface is even more alien and hard to describe. Generally, some regions of the "regular surface" were inspired by landscapes by Zdzisław Beksiński (especially from 80s), while the inner one was greatly inspired by bio-mechanical landscapes of H.R. Giger. Kinda obvious, eh?

Charon Prime - Unnamed World

He Was The Man.

Do you remember this post by Blair? It has a really big impact on me, especially that I've used his "method" in 1997-1999 and later forgotten about it. Now I plan to use it in Charon Prime.

Unnamed World is very old, much older than human civilization. Probably there is only one human city, the Citadel of Rust. Except this metropolis, there are only few inhabited outposts, which farthest is about 200km away from the city. Rest of the world remains unexplored, unknown and unmapped and fact that humans live on Charon Prime for over 2000 years means nothing.

As Blair stated in his post - PCs will be the ones who will name the places. In addition, if there will be other groups of adventurers (NPCs), it's highly possible that their names will be totally different from the names given by player characters.

Finally, something more creative - fate of NPC adventurers. If Referee has no ideas for handling groups of non-player expeditions in the dangerous world of Charon Prime, he may roll a dice and pick appropriate result from below:

1-5: They disappeared without a trace. No one knows what happened to them.

6-8: They are all dead. Someone has found shattered bones and tattered clothes.

9-10: Only one member of expedition has returned. He is now half-mad and constantly babbles about "crustacean nightmares".

11-13: Some of them returned but they are somehow "changed" - they became grim, silent and generally strange. I'm tellin' ya, things will get really ugly if they don't disappear...

14-17: Some of them returned but they haven't found anything.

18: They returned with some strange alien artifact. I hope that it will not bring destruction to the city.

19: They returned without any treasures, but I've heard that they have mapped solid portion of the world (direction dice) of the Citadel.

20: They returned with lots of treasure!

Supernatural Horror in the Old School Science Fiction Gaming

Click on the image to go to its DA page

1. Worlds are dying.
2. Everything Alien is Evil.
3. Everything Evil is Evil beyond human comprehension.
4. AI are only pretending to be your friends.
5. You are always lost.
6. Communication channels die at the worst moment.
7. Hope lies only in Gods.
8. There are no Gods.
9. Absolute prohibition of using common, traditional monsters. Fear of the unknown is the worst kind of fear.
10. Everything which purpose is unknown is potentially dangerous.
11. Purposes of the most artifacts are unknown.
12. Purposes of the most treasures are uknown.
13. Be Prepared That Your Light Sources Will Fail You.
14. There are no better traps than ones that separates the party.
15. Monsters always hunt down the alone.
16. The Ones Who Hired You Will Betray You.
17. Mankind is only a toy.
18. Do not use lovecraftian evil. Is too well-known.
19. Human-alien hybrids.
20. Deformed beings.
21. Undead aren't scary, unless you've known them.
22. Every Spaceship Has Dark, Uknown Chambers And Corridors.
23. Worst moment is when you discover that your best friend is just cold, inhuman android.
24. Relief is better reward than XP.
25. Flickering lights are GM's best friends.

If you can live with it, you are ready for the Charon Prime ;)

"Is the OSR dead?" - everyone must write a shit about it...

...even myself.

My English sucks so it will be very short - I'm not good at lamenting in foreign languages :D

OSR is not dead and probably nothing can change it. 5e cannot change it and any other "big game" cannot change it. Reason (in my opinion) is simple - big games are made for cash, while most of OSR products are made for fun. While it's highly possible that one day RPGs will be no longer profitable, I don't believe that one day there will be no one to game. At least until we're alive. Period.

This is big game