From the author of The Dungeon Dozen! A weird underworld adventure and campaign setting for Swords & Wizardry and other old school rpgs
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Hi folks,
We know you've been waiting patiently, and we've got some excellent news: Jason just sent over the final draft of Odious Uplands!
We're looking forward to getting this prepped and out to everyone as soon as we can. More updates coming soon -- including a preview of Kraken Lake, one of the major exploration sites of the module, brought to you by Thoolphloo (cephalopod sorceress from the Sea of Calamities).*
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us through Kickstarter or drop us a line at [email protected] . Thanks!
- The OU Team
* Jason Sholtis and the Hydra Cooperative disclaim any and all liability from any death, injury, maiming, or malefic enchantment of adventurers brought about from reliance on Thoolphloo's advice or guidance.
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While I have been flailing away at the final tidying-up of the manuscript, Mystic Bull Games' Paul Wolfe has been making the necessary adaptations for the Dungeon Crawl Classics version of Completely Unfathomable (the single-volume compilation of both OUs). Here's another short sampler of the beasts stalking Upper Mastodonia, this time featuring stats for DCC. More (and hopefully substantial and definitive) update soon!
Ape, Saber-toothed: Init +1; Atk bite +2 melee (1d6) or two wild fists +4 (1d4-1 each) or by weapon; AC 13; HD 1d10; MV 30’; Act 1d20; SP Will save (DC 13) or drop weapon in favor of bite attack once per round; SV Ref +4, Fort +2, Will +1; AL C.
Saber-toothed apes, prodigiously befanged hominids roughly the same size as humans, have earned the enmity of most sentient beings of the Uplands through their wanton behavior and hostile dispositions. Carnivores, they hunt in packs (sometimes aided by a polite symbiotic relationship with the bald ravens) and dwell together in loose confederations of family groups lorded over by mighty alpha apes in constant lethal competition for supremacy.
These creatures possess basic if generally below average human intelligence, though they never developed written expression and use only a rough spoken language of their own to convey very basic concepts (generally nasty). Exceptional individuals have come to grasp the common tongue, though these are few and far between.
Their material culture also remains an embarrassment, as historic reliance on massive saber-like tusks for hunting, fighting, and more general purposes has left them lagging even their Stone Age cousins, the woolly Neanderthals. They are not complete idiots, however, and seek to steal or otherwise acquire human-made weapons and other handy implements whenever possible.
If armed with human-made weapons, saber-toothed apes attempt to defy the instincts honed by millennia and must make a Will save (DC 13) each round of combat to avoid dropping their weapons and attacking the old fashioned way.
Bardolph, Giant: Init +0; Atk by weapon +5 (by weapon+1); AC 14; HD 4d12+2; MV 20’; Act 1d20; SP Glimmer of human spirit; SV Ref +2, Fort +6, Will +2; AL C.
In a rare lapse of judgement, the adventurer Bardolph, plucked from the works of William Shakespeare just prior to his scheduled execution and deposited roughly in the Underworld, volunteered a tissue specimen to a science fungoid researcher in exchange for a case of puffball grenades. A few months later, the first giant Bardolphs began to appear on the Underworld scene as vicious goons and manual labor for ambitious fungoid projects.
Their unmatchable courage in battle, unquestioning loyalty to their fungoid masters, and, following recent breakthroughs at the fungoid’s Human Studies Institute (on the Black Ooze River), low production costs have made them the go-to goon of choice for fungoid research commanders.
An imperfection in their mental coding allows the giant Bardolphs to retain a glimmer of the dark, twisted spirit of the original article. If convinced to take a drink of strong spirits and engaged in one-to-one discourse (either role-played or with a successful Personality check – DC 15), it is possible to convince a giant Bardolph of its innate agency as a sentient being. Thus enlightened, the giant Bardolph will embark upon a booze-fueled murderhobo career.
Coelacanth, Giant: Init +4; Atk bite melee +12 (2d6); AC 18; HD 10d8; MV 10’/ swim 30’; Act 2d20; SP swallow man-sized creatures or smaller; SV Ref +10, Fort +8, Will +2; AL N.
These mighty predators bide their time for attacks of opportunity against their chief source of nourishment, the lake kraken. Time is one resource the coelacanths have in spades as their seemingly unlimited lifetimes measure in centuries, their ages-long juvenile stage and painful adolescent period spent hiding on the lake bottom taking kraken eggs and spawn for sustenance.
Among their most successful feeding strategies, giant coelacanths take a page from the orca playbook and propel themselves toward shore to forcefully beach smaller kraken, where terrible mayhem ensues. They enjoy limited maneuverability on land thanks to their powerful clawed fins.
They generally pose no threat to human beings, though barbarian anglers have had the misfortune to be caught in one of their beaching attacks. Humans swallowed in these frenzies (Reflex save DC 18 on a successful bite attack to avoid) are usually disgorged unceremoniously on the shore, their crumpled forms available for looters and scavengers.
Crab, Forest: Init +4; Atk Pinch melee -2 (stings like hell; 1 damage on a critical); AC 14; HD 1 hp; MV 20’; Act 1d20; SP mob attack; SV Ref +4, Fort -2, Will +0; AL N.
Roused from their daytime torpor at sundown to swarm the plains in a nightly feeding migration, these Alaskan king crab-sized crustaceans choke their home forest by day, lying about in heaps, clinging to trees, and tucked into every nook and cranny.
When active, they ambulate about their environment with an eerie ease, limbs and bodies moving in dream-like slow motion and an uncanny buoyancy, almost as if underwater.
While seemingly curious observers of all forest activity, they pose no threat to adventurers, relying almost exclusively on megafauna carrion for sustenance. However, if their uncanny egg-sack in the heart of the forest is in any way molested, the crabs suddenly activate in their thousands to seek out and destroy the interloper(s). Under these conditions, attacks are made en masse, up to 20 per round if their quarry is overtaken.
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