Swords Against Madness

The party attempts to help the Nilkin clear the Ravenous Caterpillars from their sacred garden, only to find the threat is much greater than anyone anticipated. Mythic Game Master Emulator throws a number of crazy curve-balls at the PCs this session, showing just how wild and unpredictable it can make a game become… …Especially when you are willing to truly let your imagination run wild with the prompts it creates. This is the first fully AI free episode of Swords Against Madness. Cast This episode includes performances by: Jon Cohen from Tale of the Manticore Carl White from The Lone Adventurer This episode includes two home-brewed monsters. Ravening Caterpillar Ravening Caterpillar: HD: 4; AC: 4 [15]; Att: bite (d6) or silk (ranged, entangle); SV: 15; Special: poison spines, regeneration; MV: 3; AL: Neutrality; ML: 7; No. Appearing: 1d4; CL/XP: 8/900 poison spines: any creature attacking a ravenous caterpillar with a melee or natural weapon takes 1d2 damage and must save (at +2) vs. poison or die. regeneration: regains 1 hp at the beginning of every round, cannot regenerate damage done by fire or acid. Silk: has a range of 60′. A hit target is entangled and may not move unless it first makes a save to break free. The Dread Silkworm The Dread Silkworm: HD: 6 (27 hp); AC: 4 [15]; Att: bite (d8) or silk (ranged, entangle); SV: 15; Special: poison spines, regeneration, spells; MV: 3; AL: Neutrality; ML: 10; No. Appearing: 1 (unique) CL/XP: 11/2,400 poison spines: any creature attacking a ravenous caterpillar with a melee or natural weapon takes 1d2 damage and must save vs. poison or die. regeneration: regains 1 hp at the beginning of every round, cannot regenerate damage done by fire or acid. silk: has a range of 60′. A hit target is entangled and may not move unless it first makes a save to break free. spells: Casts spells as a 5th level Druid. Spells prepared: 1st level: Faerie Fire, Entangle, Darkness; 2nd: web; 3rd: plant growth Music in this Episode From the Free Music Alliance: King Edward by Mister Smith (CC-BY) from the Free Music Archive From Pixabay: “Zulu Sunrise” by LumineWeave “Acid Lands” by Emmeraan “The Wanderer” by OB-LIX “Deep Forest” By NNChannel “Brain Implant” by Soundbay “War Metal” by Lite Saturation “Suspense Tension Background” by DELOSound “Heavy Cyberpunk Metal” by Bertsz “Stylish Blues Rock (Wild West)” by Brightest Avenue “Outlaw’s Reckoning” by Moodmode “Dark Marimba” by Grand_Project “Valhalla” by Nakaradalexander “Acidcore” by Jumping Bunny

Miria, Edryk, Raxon, Berle, & Kale brave the untamed norther jungles of Nar, to find that the wilderness itself seems to hunger for them… This episode features a reinterpretation of the Vine Horror from the epic Dungeon Crawl Classic RPG module Sailors on the Starless Sea, a legendary module that helped define DCCRPG and secure it as the most popular Old-School RPG around. It also features my Swords & Wizardry adaptation of the Kuji Bird from the equally epic (and edition agnostic) D&D module Hot Springs Island. Creatures in this Episode Strangling Vine: HD: 2; AC: 6[13]; Atk: vine (1d3 + grab); Special: grab, strangle; MV: 5; SV: 17; AL: N; ML: 10; CL/XP: 3/60 When a strangling vine hits with a vine attack the target becomes tangled in the vine. They automatically take 1d3 damage on the strangling vine’s turn until the Strangling Vine is destroyed, another character spends a round cutting them free or they take an action and succeed a saving throw to break free on their own. Kuji Bird: HD: 3+3; AC 2 [17]; Bite: 1d4; MV: 12; SV: 16; AL: N; ML: 7; CL/XP: 3/60 Kujibirds have naturally ocurring gold feathers and talons. A kuji bird’s body is worth 300gp. Wild Halflings: HD: 1d5; AC 6 [13]; Atk: sling (1d3) or short sword (1d6); SVL 19; AL: N; ML: 8; CL/XP: B/10 Music in this Episode From the Free Music Alliance: King Edward by Mister Smith (CC-BY) from the Free Music Archive From Pixabay:Underwater Mysterious Ambient by Harumachi MusicAwesome Pink Floydish Guitar by Palle1958Dark and Suspenseful Atmosphere by SoulProdMusicWords of a Sermon No One will Hear, Ambient Nod to Elanor Rigby by ODennehyWestern Duel Rock by Abydos MusicIron Cathedral by JYProjectA Place of Calm and Wonder by UniqueCreativeAudioMidnight Quirk by Top-FlowOminous Tones by UniversFieldDeadite Ash vs Evil Dead Song by Anon Generated with SunoReign of ShadowsEternal Nightmare Initiation

The Miria, Edryk, Berle, Raxon, and Kale have their showdown with Haalu; we explore a piece of Edryk’s past, where it crosses with doctor Haidran. This episode includes my quick and dirty rules for fighting manoeuvres in OSR games: Roll your attack as normal. If you hit, the DM will cut damage dealt in half or down to 0. The effect goes through. In the case of grappling, the target cannot move or use a weapon bigger than a dagger until they make a save to break free, If they cannot break free they become pinned and helpless until they are released. The Music in this Episode includes: “COMBAT COOKIE TIN” by Jon Cohen, used with permission “Fallen” by Mr. Smith (CC-BY) “Cave 1” by HolzinaCC0 (CC-BY) “A Scar on Your Soul” by Soularflare (CC0) “Emergent Phenomena” by Soularflare (CC0) “Spirit Elixir Drunkard” by Megalith Levitation (CC0)

Miria and Edryk recruit new followers and head into the jungle, but discover that one of their own party is plotting against the rest… Episode 21 begins a fresh hex crawl with 3 additional PCs: Berle a human fighter. Raxon, a human fighter. Kale, a half-elf fighter/mage. Kale uses a simplified half-elf for Swords and wizardry. The party has also hired Haalu, who will be treated as a Hireling. Half-Elf You hare a mixture of human and elf. You see twice as far in the dark as a human. You gain a +2 to saves against ghoul paralysis. You may reach 9th level as a fighter, thief, or assassin, 7th level as a magic-user, or 4th level as a cleric. You may also multiclass as a fighter/magic-user, fighter/thief, magic-user/cleric, or fighter/magic-user/cleric. Multiclass magic users have the same restrictions as elf magic users. This episode features the vocal talents of Jon Cohen of Tale of the Manticore Owen Rideout of Boy in the Submarine Coop the GM from Echoes of Eshaton

Miria & Edryk return to Nar with the All-Knowing and another pile of treasure. The All-Knowing reveals a path forward, but will the people of Nar trust Miria enough to risk more lives to help her? Apologies for the delay! This episode is coming out 1 week late due to extreme illness. In this Episode, Miria & Edryk both return safely to the village of Nar with a pile of treasure, enough for them both to gain a level. I am borrowing the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons method of handling levelling up for Magic-users: PCs can pick one spell from the PHB they would like to know and roll their INT-based chance to learn a spell. If they do not learn that one, they cannot try it again until they gain a level. We have a fairly substantial treasure hoard this level, and so I wanted to talk about my treasure generation method. Swords & Wizardry does treasure generation by taking the total XP value of monsters that were guarding the treasure and multiplying it by a base 1d3+1. With 1gp = 1xp for character growth, this means that on average gold will make up 50-75% of your experience gains, which is about the same ratio as using the original treasure types system. Once you have that base value, it directs you to a d4 table that will tell you how many coins, gems & jewels, & magic items you generate from a number of sub-tables. To this I added my own tweaks: For large numbers of coins I roll +1d100 and then -1d100 to give a number that doesn’t always end in a 0. In alien treasure hoards, I roll 1d100 to determine what percentage of coins are an alien currency, and then roll an additional d100 to determine how much of that is federation credits, and how much is some kind of hard currency like pressed indium bars. Credits weigh nothing. Indium bars weigh 1/100th of a pund (rather than 1/10th for gold.) For gems & jewellery, Swords & Wizardry does not give any guidance on how to determine what kind of jewel or gen you have discovered, only a gold piece value: it is up to the GM to decide its description. To make this easy on me I created a simple d4 table: 1: a gem; 2: a piece of jewelry or art object; 3: a piece of alien tech; 4. a piece of alien art. The treasure hoard in the Fane of the All-Know ended up being: 5,209 gp 3,088 pressed indium bars (1gp ea.) 1,712 Federation Credits gauntlets of swimming & climbing 7 +1 sling stones a jewelled urim from the early days of the Order of Stars (350gp) a trans-com array – alien ship part (123gp) a large amethyst (480gp) jade and turquoise necklace made by jungle halflings (540gp) trance projector, an alien device that projects soothing psychedelic holograms (120gp) a pair of jade and turquoise earrings made by jungle halflings (3gp) Miria and Edryk could not carry it all out, and left behind over 2,009 gp Special Announcement! If you like Swords Against Madness, I have great news for you! SvM is now part of the Solo Roleplayers Network, a collaboration between over a dozen solo semi-actual-play podcasts like Swords Against Madness, Tale of the Manticore, Legend of the Bones, Stories from the First Watch, Legends from the Fireside, Errant Adventures, Roll by Myself, A Wasteland Story, The Chronicles of Nephes, and many more! Come check out our curated list of some of the finest, highest-quality solo roleplaying podcasts out there at soloroleplayersnetwork.com

While Miria & Edryk face a deadly trap, The Master & his acolyte Halu conspire to murder Miria, and Yanghu extracts a bloody revenge on the crew of the pirate ship Xur. This epsiode uses a ship layout diagram from Cepheus Deluxe as its dungeon map, but is played entirely with Swords 7 Wizardry. It focuses primarily on the activity of the campaign’s villains. It includes several encounters with human bandits, soldiers, and sergeants at arms as described in Swords & Wizardry. Yanghu Yanghu is a very old and powerful Ogre Mage who has been a captain in the Trassi smuggling and irate fleet for centuries. 400 years ago, he discovered a crashed Gorum prison ship on Orbos, and turned it into a thriving business in living weapons. Selling the Gorum as weapons is so heinous that even the rest of the Trassi Syndicate might rebuke him if they knew… which is why he wants to make sure Miria is silenced. The destruction of his Corsair-class starship, the Ko-Dan has put him in a position where he needs to capture a new ship and a new crew. Hit Dice: 5+4; 44 hp Armor Class: 4 [15] Attack: Naginata (1d12) Saving Throw: 12 Special: Magic, Regeneration Move: 12/18 (flying) Alignment: Chaotic Morale: 10 Int: 16 No. Appearing: unique Challenge Level / XP: 7 / 600 Like all Ogre Magi, Yanghu can cast a fly spell and invisibility at will. He can also cast the following spells one per day: darkness 15ft. radius, charm person, polymorph self (into humanoid forms from 5-12′ tall), and cone of cold (8d6 damage, save for half) Yanghu regains 1 hit point per round unless he is harmed by fire (including lasers) or acid.

As Miria, Edryk, and Nala press deeper into the trap-laden Fane of the All-Knowing, the Ogre-Mage crime-lord Yanghu deals with a vicious sneak attack on his starship. This adventure mixes classic RPGs, using Swords & Wizardry to simulate D&D as it was played in 1977, along with scenes from Cepheus Deluxe, a modern re-imagining of the 1977 version of the classic Sci-Fi TTRPG Traveller. Fair warning: This episode includes some mild profanity that, while within the limits of the 1980s PG limit, is worth mentioning. In this episode I handled outer space conflict using the game Cepeheus Deluxe: Enhanced Edition, by Stellagamma Games, which is a slightly modernized clone of the original 1977 rules to the Science Fiction TTRPG Traveller.