B is for Bridget's Whip

It's April 2, so here's B for the A to Z April Blogging Challenge. (NUELOW Games isn't an official participant, but we're playing along anyway!)

Here's another artifact for use in OGL d20 and OpenD6 system games. If you want to participate, drop us an email at stevemillermail@gmail.com with your own original creations.

All text in this post is considered Open Gaming Content and is published under this license. If you wish to reuse this material, please give credit and copyright acknowledgement to NUELOW Games and Steve Miller.



Bridget's Whip (By Steve Miller)
Lady Bridget of Fairwater Crossing was an evil and twisted woman who enjoyed inflicting pain almost as much as she enjoyed being subjected to it. The day she beat a maid who was much-loved among the other servants to death, the rest of the staff put an end to her as well. Whether she died shrieking or laughing, none could say, but as the butler struck the killing blow with the silver-covered handle of her bullwhip he thought he saw insane glee in her eyes.

The servants looted the house of its valuables and scattered to the four winds. The butler kept the whip and eventually became infamous as a particularly brutal leader of a gang of bandits. The end he eventually came to was very similar to that of Lady Bridget--he was slain by his own underlings after they got tired of taking the brunt of his sadistic ways. Almost every person who has possessed Bridget's Whip over the decades has some to a similar violent end.

OGL d20 and OpenD6 System Stats
This black and silver bullwhip radiates magic and appears to give a +2 bonus to damage. In truth, the weapon deals double damage on a successful hit (roll normal whip damage and multiply the result by two). In addition, whenever the whip inflicts maximum damage, it inflicts such a deep and terrible gash that the target loses 1 hit point per round following until he receives first aid or magical healing.

Drawbacks: Whenever a character wields Bridget's Whip, he or she must roll a Will save with a Difficulty of 15. If the saving throw fails, the character immediately becomes a gleeful sadistic maniac who goes out of his or her way to torment helpless people and animals. Whenever he or she encounters a character who is higher level, that character must roll a Will check with a Difficulty of 18. If the check fails, the higher level character will become dedicated to destroying the wielder of the whip

A is for Amaterasu's Cloak

Although we're not an official participant in the A to Z Blogging Challenge, we here at NUELOW Games will nonetheless partipate by posting a different item for use in d20 System, d6 System, or ROLF! RPGs every Monday - Saturday this month, or until we run out of letters in the alphabet. (If you want to participate, drop us an email at stevemillermail@gmail.com with your own original creations.)

All text in this post is considered Open Gaming Content and is published under this license. If you wish to reuse this material, please give credit and copyright acknowledgement to NUELOW Games and Steve Miller.

Amaterasu's Cloak (Design by Steve Miller)
Reported to having been spun on the loom of the sun goddess Amaterasu, this cloak of fine golden threads, and rich red and orange silks was first discovered floating on a sea in the aftermath of a wild winter storm. When draped over the shoulders of a medium-sized humanoid, it gives the wearer the ability to channel the power of the sun itself.

D20 System and D6 System Stats
This artifact has two effects that each can be activated by the wearer once per day through an act of will. (One former owner was known to say "Here Comes the Sun" when activating the cloak, but that was just a personal flourish.)
:
Effect 1: Radiate sunlight, illuminating up to 120 feet area around him or her. Creatures who are weakened or harmed by sunlight suffer as if they are exposed to the actual sun. This effect lasts for three hours or until dismissed by the wearer.

Effect 2: Radiate intense heat that deals 4d6 points of damage to creatures within melee range, 2d6 points of damage to creatures within a 10 feet radius, and 1d6 points of damage to creatures more than 15 feet away but within 25 feet. Easily flammable objects and substances catch fire within 15 feet of the wearer's location.

Drawbacks: As soon as the character wears the cloak, he or she begins to suffer from night blindness. All attacks and detail-oriented actions at night are subject to a +4 modifier to difficulty ratings in both the D20 System and D6 Systems. Even if the character stops using the cloak, the night blindness persists until he or she personally returns to cloak to its rightful owner--Amaterasu herself.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

If you need a last-minute time-filler for any St. Patrick's Day gamer gatherings, you can't go wrong with our Irish-themed ROLF! supplements!

There's St. Patty vs. The Snake where Ireland's own superhero must stop her two greatest foes, The Snake and Tee-totaler, from turning all the world's beer into apple juice and all redheads into Spaniards.

Click here to see previews or download a copy.

And there's Jennifer vs. the L, where Conan O'Brien and Jennifer Aniston must fend off the Monster o' the Irish! (BTW, it's the 20th anniversary of Jennifer Aniston's first major  role in the original Leprechaun film. Click here to read more about that landmark movie series.)

Click here to see previews or to download a copy.

Horror Feats, Part One

As you may or may not know, NUELOW Games's Steve Miller used to write for the famous Ravenloft gothic horror setting for AD&D and D&D Third Edition. He also contributed to a couple Storyteller products from White Wolf. And he loves watching and reviewing horror movies, as he demonstates weekly at the Terror Titans blog. With that in mind, here are some feats that will let you bring some horror movie and slasher movie vibes to your OGL Modern games. (They compliment any product in the Modern Basics or Modern Advances series.)



(The rest of this post is Open Game Content, as defined by the Open Game License v1.0a. If you should wish to make your OGL d20 game products, please include "Horror Movie Feats, Part One by L.L Hundal. Copyright 2013 Steve Miller and NUELOW Games" in the copyright section.)

HORROR MOVIE FEATS, PART ONE

By L.L. Hundal (with a friendly tip-of-the-hat to Steve Miller for outloud design musings.)

Danger Sense [General]
You have an uncanny ability for sensing trouble just before it strikes.
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus to all Spot and Sense Motive checks.

Survivor [General]
This feat is suitable for monsters and victims alike. It makes them exceptionally hard to kill.
Prerequisite: Too Cute To Die
Benefit: When the character drops below half of her full hit points, she instantly recovers 2d6 hit points. Whenever the character suffers damage while below half of her full hit points, she recovers 1d6 hit points after the damage has been resolved. This benefit only applies if the character is between zero and half their total hit points.
 When the character drops below 0 hit points, she rolls a Fort save with a +4 bonus. If the save is successful, she instantly regains 2d6 hit points.

Too Cute to Die [Genera]
You are either so funny, cute, or sexy that it sometimes seems as if you are deathproof.
Prequisite: Cha 15 or higher.
Benefit: You add your Charisma bonus to your Defense Rating and Reflex saving throws.



(If you enjoyed those feats, please check out NUELOW Games's OGL d20 Sysetm products. Click here to see previews at RPGNow, or to even buy copies.)

On the cutting edge for 20 years!

It has come to our attention that a certain d20 OGL-based RPG is being prasied as the ultimate roleplaying game because it features overtly gay NPCs and is therefore the most "inclusive" RPG in the history of universe.

While we congratulate the designers and developers and marketeers behind the "ultimate roleplaying game" for the buzz they're generating we feel here at NUELOW Games are scratching our heads in bemusement that gay themes suddenly seem to be something gamers are celebrating. We've been including gay characters and game mechanics in our games for 20 years--since the very earliest days of the NUELOW game series--and no one has ever celebrated us as "celebrating diversity."

Similarly, our current flagship line, ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game, seems to be more of an ultimate ultimate RPG, as from its earliest edition not only featured a "gay iconic character," but even allowed for the creation of overtly gay player characters. (Check out that hoary classic for free by downloading it here.) To this day, we regularly feature gay characters in ROLF! supplements--and they're not just there so we can proclaim how "diverse" we are to the world.. Hell, in ROLF!: Black Kitten vs, June Collyer we were even quietly turning Golden Age Superheroes gay well before DC Comics decided to make a marketing stunt.

But maybe that's where we went wrong. We should have been jumping up and down and shouting "Hey! Hey! Look at us! We've got gay characters!"... and maybe NUELOW "Fairies!" would have been the ORIGINAL ulitmate RPG! In fact, we are so casual about including gay characters in our products that we can't even remember which ones has them and which ones don't, with the exception of one mentioned above and ROLF!: The Breast Hope for Peace.

Yes... we're jealous. We are, first and foremost, attention whores here at NUELOW Games--inept attention whores obviously, but attention whores nonetheless. We need to jump on this "ultimate inclusive RPG" band-wagon before it becomes worn and tattered, and L.L. Hundal has come up with the perfect way for us to do it.

For your enjoyment (and our ability to say "hey... we're inclusive, and we've been inclusive since Nineteen-bloody-Ninety-Two! and we're still inclusive and full of diversity and ultimateness") here are some OGL d20 feats that will let gamers turn ANY OGL d20 game into an ULTIMATE RPG that's even more inclusive and ultimate than the ultimate RPG that triggered this post (and our envy and desperate need for attention)!!

Take it away, Ms. Hundal!

(Everything in this post below here, apart from the image, is Open Game Content, as defined by the Open Game License v1.0a. If you should wish to make your OGL d20 game products into ULTIMATE OGL game products, please include "Everyone's Gay! by L.L Hundal. Copyright 2013 Steve Miller and NUELOW Games" in the copyright section.)

MODERN BASICS: FEATS OF DIVERSITY AND ULTIMATENESS

Feats to make any OGL d20 system into the Ultimate RPG

By L.L Hundal

Gay [General]
Your character has a sexual preference toward his or her own gender/sex.
  Benefit: You receive a +2 bonus to all Craft and Perform skill checks.
  Special: You receive a +2 bonus to Will saves when resisting charm person and all other mind-effecting spells and extraordinary powers and abilities from a character or monster of the opposite sex. If no saving throw is normally allowed, you may roll a Will save with a -4 penalty.

Gaydar [Social]
Your character can recognize other gay characters across a crowded room... across time and space even!
  Prereq: Gay feat.
  Benefit: Upon making a successful Spot skill check (DC12) the character can identify other characters who have the Gay feat within a 60-foot radius. If detected characters are out of line-of-sight, your character has a vague sense that there is another gay character nearby. If a target is hiding their gayness, the DC is the "closeted" characters's Disguise skill check.
  Special: Characters with 5 or more ranks in Knowledge (literature) Knowledge (history) or Knowledge (conspiracy theories) may roll Spot checks to recognize gay persons in history or fiction.

Ghey [Social]
Your character is a bit of fool who is likely to write articles titled Feats of Diversity and Ultimateness.
  Prereq: Wis 10 or lower, Cha 10 or lower.
  Benefit: You receive a +2 competency bonus to all Bluff checks.
  Special: Characters with the Ghey feat are inherently cowardly. They receive a -2 penalty to Will saves to resist intimidation and peer pressure..

(If you enjoyed those feats, please check out NUELOW Games's other OGL d20 Sysetm products. Click here to check them out. Heck, you might find that Feats of Seduction and Subterfuge will fit right in with your game if Gay and Gaydar work for you.)

Remember the time the world didn't end?

For all of 2012, we here at NUELOW Games hedged our bets that it was not pure idiocy to claim that the end of the ancient Mayan calendar predicted the end of the world/time/universe/whatever. Each month, we released what might have been final game product ever.

As it turned out, it was pure idiocy to believe the end of the Mayan calendar was the end of the world. The end of the Mayan calendar no more predicted the end of the world than the end of the 2012 Maxfield Parrish calendar in Steve Miller's office predicted the end of the world by coming to an end.

The end result is that history carries on... and we're offering you a chance to remember the year the world didn't end by getting all 12 Final Battles in one easy download and at a reduced price. From The Grim Reaper vs. the Fertility Goddess to Apocalypse Not, these supplements cover with width and breadth of what you and your friends can do with ROLF!: The Rollplaying of Big Dumb Fighters. New Combat Maneuvers and Traits, new Spellings, and rules for taking ROLF! in entirely new directions, such as into the superhero genre and giving gamers an opportunity to create and play angels, demons, and gods.

Click here to read details about each of the 12 Final Battles, or to download them all for just $4.

(Re)Introducting 'Hawkshaw the Detective'

Every great artist, writer, or circus clown starts their career somewhere. In the case of Robert E. Howard, creator of the iconic fantasy character Conan and other great adventure fiction characters like Steve Costigan, Breckinridge Elkins, and El Borak (all of which are featured in e-books published by NUELOW Games), the start came with fan fiction.

In 1923, the young Robert E. Howard published two fan fictions inspired by Gus Mager's Hawkshaw the Detective comic strip in his high school newspaper. Mager, working under the penname Watso, had initiated the character as a Sherlock Holmes spoof named Sherlocko. The name-change to Hawkshaw came when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle threatened to sue Mager and his syndicate for copyright infringement. ("Hawkshaw" was a once-widespread American slang-term for "private detective" that fell out of vogue during the 1930s.)

"Hawkshaw the Detective" was published on and off from 1913 through 1947 when it met its final demise and faded into comic strip history. Modern readers will relate to Howard's Hawkshaw stories as spoofs of Sherlock Holmes rather than the fan fiction inspired by a Sherlock Holmes spoof that they are.

In another display of our deep love for writings of Robert E. Howard--Steve Miller for everything but a number of his Conan stories, L.L. Hundal for his humor stories--NUELOW Games offers one of those early fan stories, along with ROLF! game stats for the Great Hawkshaw and his sidekick Colonel Watso.

ROLF!: HAWKSHAW THE DETECTIVE

By L.L. Hundal

Hawkshaw the Detective (Male)

Brawn 14, Body 13, Brains 6

Traits: Nimble

Combat Maneuvers:  Basic Attack, Debate Philosophy, Disarm, Dodge, Run Away, Walk and Chew Gum

Important Items Worn/Wielded: Tweed Coat and Matching Deerstalker Hat (Clothes), Magnifying Glass (grants -1 modifier to Brain checks while searching for clews). Revolver (Small Ranged Weapon. Four Shots. Deals 3 points of damage that ignore armor).

Colonel Watso (Male)

Brawn 12, Body 10, Brains 4

Traits:  Honorable

Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Disarm, Dodge, Strike Pose

Important Items Worn/Wielded: Howitzer (Large Ranged Weapon. One Shot. Deals 5 points of damage that ignore armor).

* - *

THE MYSTERY OF THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE

By Robert Ervin Howard

First published in The Tattler, the Brownwood High School paper, March 1, 1923.

Inspired by Gus Mager's Hawkshaw the Detective.

Hawkshaw, the great detective, was smoking a stogy reflectively when the Colonel burst into the room.

"Have you heard—" he began excitedly, but Hawkshaw raised his hand depreciatingly.

  "My dear Colonel," he said. "You excite yourself unduly: you were about to tell me that the Queen's necklace, valued at fifteen million shillings, was stolen from her boudoir and that so far Scotland Yard has found no trace of the thief although they have ransacked London."

  "You are a wonder, Hawkshaw," exclaimed the Colonel admirlingly. "How did you know that?"

  "Deduction, my dear Colonel," replied Hawkshaw, surreptitiously concealing the newspaper in which was a full account of the robbery.

  "Have you been to the palace?" he asked.

  "I have," was the reply. "And I brought the only clew to be found. This cigar stub was found just beneath the palace window.

  Hawkshaw seized the stub and examined it carefully. He stated, "The man who stole the necklace was a very tall, lank, gangling person, with very large feet and cross-eyed. He wears a number 5 hat."

  "Wonderful!" exclaimed the Colonel, "and how may I ask do you deduce that? How do you even know that a person who smoked that cigar stole the necklace?"

  "The stub is flattened on one side. That proves that its smoker had a large foot. He stepped on it and it would take a great deal of weight to even dent a cigar like that. I know that its smoker is the thief because it is a long stub and anyone who could stand one whiff of that cigar would smoke it entirely up. He would be that kind of man. He evidently dropped it in his haste to make his getaway."

  "But that hat? And his tallness and cross-eyes?"

  "Any man that would smoke a cigar like that would wear about a number 5 hat. As for the tallness and cross-eyes I will explain later."

  Just then there came a tap at the door. The Colonel opened it and an old man entered. He wore large green glasses, was a great deal stooped and had white hair and a long white beard.

  "You are the famous detective?" he addressed Hawkshaw. "I believe I have a clew to this theft. I passed along the opposite side of the street about the time the robbery was supposed to have taken place. A man jumped out of the palace window and walked rapidly up the street."

  "Umhum," remarked Hawkshaw, "what kind of man was this?"

  "He was about five feet tall and weighed perhaps three hundred lbs.," was the reply.

  "Umhum," commented Hawkshaw, "would you mind listening to my theory?"

  "I would be delighted," answered the old man as he seated himself in the best chair.

  "Well, then!" began Hawkshaw, rising and walking to the middle of the room so that he could gesture without knocking the table over. "At the time of robbery was committed a man was returning home from a fishing trip on the Thames. He carried a fishing pole on his shoulder and as he walked along he looked into the windows of houses he had passed while seemingly gazing straight ahead for he was very cross-eyed."

  Here the visitor started, but Hawkshaw went on, apparently oblivous. "The gentleman at last arrived in Windsor and passing the palace saw the necklace lying on the mahogany table. The window was open and though it was high off the ground he saw a way to get it. He was (and is) a very tall man and he had a long rod and line. Standing on tiptoes he made a cast through the window as if casting for trout. He hooked the necklace at the first throw and fled, dropping his cigar in his flight. He also stepped on the cigar. He eluded the police easily and thought to elude me by coming to me in disguise and seeking to divert suspicion in another direction."

  And with that Hawkshaw leaped upon the old man and gripped him by the beard and gave a terrific jerk. The old man gave a yell as he was jerked erect and yanked across the floor. Hawkshaw turned pale. He had made a mistake in identity? He placed a foot against the old gentleman's face and grasping the beard firmly in both hands gave another jerk. Something gave way and Hawkshaw and his victim sprawled on the floor, Hawkshaw holding in his hands the false beard and wig. While the impostor was trying to rise, encumbered by his long coat the detective sprang nimbly up and with great dexterity kicked the huge green glasses from his face.

  The "old man" was revealed as a tall, gangling man with huge feet and cross-eyes!

  “You're under arrest,” Hawkshaw said, advancing toward him with a pair of handcuffs.

  The man sprang to his feet and drew a glittering butter knife from his pocket. "I am a desperate man! Beware!"

  At that moment the Colonel recovered from his amazement enough to push the muzzle of a howitzer against the villain and he was soon handcuffed.

  "Call the police, Colonel," directed Hawkshaw, taking the necklace out of the fellow's pocket.

  "Curses!" hissed the villain, "tricked, foiled, baffled! Curses!"

"But, Hawkshaw," asked the Colonel a few hours later, after they had collected the enormous reward that had been offered for the recovery of the necklace. "But Hawkshaw, how did you know that was the man?"

"My dear Colonel," answered Hawkshaw as with a smile he lighted a stogy, "I smelt the fish on his hands."

The End