Category Archives: Tunnels & Trolls

Posts about, related to, or featuring content for Flying Buffalo’s Tunnels & Trolls and other related roleplaying games, like Monsters! Monsters!

Adharma & Anjani Against Airi & Allies

Wherein your humble scribe presents two characters and two monsters for Tunnels & Trolls. These are best enjoyed with some saag paneer and a mango lassi.

“How many more days until we reach Dharamir, sister?” Adharma asked as he drew the kettle from the fire.

“Two, perhaps three days if we slowed by your incessant need to ask questions about the roots and berries we see along the way,” Anjani replied with a smile.

“So we shall be celebrating Kaashti in the midst of the jungle,” the warrior sighed as he poured the water over the leaves and spices he had prepared for their evening chai. “I fear that we will have little luck gaining an audience with Princess Jita Ramana, even though we bring news of her beloved.”

“You are likely correct, brother. The fate of Sash Rajeer…” her voice trailed off as she gave Adharma their mutually understood sign for complete silence.

In the middle distance an unearthly howling – like that of a dozen dying dogs – had sprung up. Anjani signaled for her brother to prepare for combat. They would soon have company of a sort that would not be interested in his recipes…

Adharma / Warrior / Human / 2
STR 15 CON 20 DEX 13 SPD 9
INT 11 WIZ 7 LK 17 CHR 10

Height 5′ 7″ Weight 170 lbs.

Adventure Points 0
Combat Adds +10

Talents Cooking (+2), Kalaripayat (+4)
Languages Kalaadhari

Tulwar (4+4), Kukri (2+5), Mail (24), Target Shield (8)

Anjani / Ranger / Human / 2
STR 14 CON 11 DEX 15 SPD 14
INT 13 WIZ 6 LK 11 CHR 20

Height 5′ 3″ Weight 110 lbs.

Adventure Points 0
Combat Adds +7

Talents Missile Mastery (+4), Ayurveda (+5)
Languages Kalaadhari, Ancient Vedic

5 Chakram (2), 2 Sickle Swords (3+1), Scale Mail (8)

Airi

“Those who see Airi face to face are burnt up by the flash of his eye, or are torn to pieces by his dogs…” – (Crooke, P.R.I., Vol. I., p. 262; Ethnologie du Bengale, p. 100).

Monster Rating: 66
Combat Dice: 6d6+33
Special Damage: 2/Call Flame – “the flash of his eye”
Special Abilities: Airi can fly and ignore all 1s rolled as damage against them.

Airi are the ghosts of those who died while hunting. They travel the world with a pack of spectral hounds, seeking out the living to visit some kind of vengeance upon them. Why would these spirits seek to punish innocent individuals who had nothing to do with their death? Because they’re insane, that’s why.

The Hounds of Airi
Monster Rating: 34
Combat Dice: 5d6+16
Special Damage: 1/2, The Hounds of Airi are truly vicious.
Special Abilities: The Hounds cannot be outrun by any normal being.

The Hounds of Airi are a ghostly pack of baying dogs with burning red eyes and dripping jaws.

Meet The New Trolls

I’ve been meaning to buy the box set of the 7.5 edition of Tunnels & Trolls for a while now. Sure, I know there are people out there who really prefer the older 5.5 edition, which is still readily available. Sure, I already have the “30th Anniversary” mini-tin of the 7th edition. Sure, I prefer the classic Liz Danforth cover art to Claudio Pozas‘ reverent rendering of the classic T&T party.

All of these reasons – coupled with laziness, miserliness, and plain ol’ procrastination stayed my hand. Until Friday night, when I discovered not just the main set, but also the Delver’s Pack, on the shelves of the inventory clearance sale (50% off!) at my friendly local game store, Dragon’s Lair (whose RPG section appears to be shrinking, a disconcerting concept for a different discussion).

I couldn’t really pass up what amounted to a twofer deal on something I’d been resisting getting even though I really wanted it, so I yielded to temptation. Like all things T&T I want very much to like these things more than I actually do – which is not to say that I don’t like them. I like them quite a bit. But when I take the lids off the boxes I want the room to be flooded with mystical light that transports me to a place where I can game whenever I want, with whomever I want, and the Dublin Dr. Pepper & Newcastle Brown Ale both flow as freely as water. That’s not really too much to ask from an RPG, is it?

Anyway, I’m glad I snagged these and I hope to actually do something with them sooner rather than later. Not that I don’t already have enough systems waiting on me to do something with them as well (*cough* BRP *cough* BoL *cough* Labyrinth Lord *cough* E-T-C). Speaking of which, you’re allowed to ask me why the hell I’ve been so quiet lately, since SXSW has come and gone. The short answer is that my fantasy baseball league is in the thick of its player acquisition period and that’s been eating my brain. Plus, I must confess, a little malaise has crept into the Pao’s brain and I’m not quite as chock full of ideas as I was recently. That’s ok, it’s part of a natural cycle. And maybe this experiment in nerdly materialism will spark my imagination and spur me on to a fresh round of posts. Or I can just knuckle down and focus on finishing the things I said I’d finish and let the actual friction of writing do the trick. Either way, bear with me just a bit longer, amigos!

In the meantime, let’s meet the (no longer all that) New Trolls:

T&T In Spaaaaaace!

Wherein your humble scribe presents an homage to a certain introspective & philosophical scifi program from the 1970s in the form of characters written up using the 7th Edition Tunnels & Trolls rules. Because he’s a very weird man.

I’ve only played a handful of Tunnels & Trolls games in my life. And I’ve never played (or even read) Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes – which I believe to be essentially an iteration of the base T&T rules for modern non-fantasy gaming, though I could be wrong about that.

In any case, the core T&T rules seem ideally suited to adaptation for other genres, especially ones that (a) don’t benefit from an obsessively detailed combat system and (b) might appear on the surface to be exceptionally weird for RPGs (or, perhaps, ones lacking the appropriate degree of dour seriousness we’re all supposed to aim for as the avant garde, improvisational theatricians we’re supposed to be).

So from time to time the simplicity of T&T calls to me from the 30th Anniversary Edition’s little tin box I bought a few years back when a gas leak combined with an ice storm forced me and my wife to live in a hotel for a few days. And when that happens, I do weird things. Like write up several key cast members from a TV show I love as a test run for what it would be like to use T&T for a scifi game…

On September 13th, 1999, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon’s far side exploded catastrophically, knocking the Moon out of orbit, sending it and the inhabitants of Moonbase Landau hurtling uncontrollably into space. Led by the noble Commander Ivan King and featuring a talented multicultural crew, these unintentional explorers of the universe will often come face-to-face with strange aliens, questions of cosmic importance, and even death itself.

Ivan King / Leader / Human / 2
STR 13 CON 15 DEX 14 SPD 12
INT 15 PSI 12 LK 20 CHR 18

Height 6′ 3″ Weight 195 lbs.

Adventure Points 0
Combat Adds +11

Talents Philosophy 18, Piloting 17, History 18
Languages English, Others

CommKey, Laser Pistol (4d6+16), Woven TechSuit (4)

Dr. Olympia Bertrand / Explorer / Human / 1
STR 10 CON 14 DEX 13 SPD 14
INT 17 PSI 15 LK 14 CHR 15

Height 5′ 9″ Weight 150 lbs.

Adventure Points 0
Combat Adds +5

Talents Medical 23, Dancing 15
Languages English, Others

CommKey, Medical Kit, Woven TechSuit (4)

Prof. Sigurd Ernst / Explorer / Human / 2
STR 11 CON 11 DEX 13 SPD 12
INT 21 PSI 13 LK 15 CHR 12

Height 5′ 10″ Weight 175 lbs.

Adventure Points 0
Combat Adds +5

Talents Science! 26, Philosophy 25, Religion 22
Languages English, Others

Wealth 1,000 Cr
CommKey, Woven TechSuit (4)

Chief Pilot Kevin Tate / Soldier / Human / 1
STR 15 CON 16 DEX 14 SPD 13
INT 12 PSI 9 LK 18 CHR 16

Height 5′ 11″ Weight 170 lbs.

Adventure Points 0
Combat Adds +13

Talents Piloting 22, Fisticuffs 17
Languages English

Wealth 1,000 Cr
CommKey, Laser Pistol (4d6+16), Woven TechSuit (4)

Game Notes

I changed the T&T character class names a bit (Citizen is now Explorer, Warrior is now Soldier) and turned the WIZ stat into PSI.

None of the characters above have any PSI powers, which is good, since I don’t have any idea (or inclination, at the moment) to figure out how to handle such things. The short answer is that I’d probably just use a selection of the T&T spells (renamed, probably) to represent PSI abilities and either tweak the Wizard class a bit to be a Psionicist class or else do away with it entirely and come up with some way of letting the psionics develop in other character classes.

If this were going any further I’d probably tweak the Explorer class to be more than just the Citizen class with a different name, but for now making the distinction between combatants and not-really-combatants seemed fair.

Oh, and I also upped the starting number of Talents to two in anticipation of the crew running into tough aliens who have significant stat modifiers. Those plucky humans are always showing up the creatures who should rightly kick their tails. Hmm, maybe Humans ought to have a mod to their LK stat? Maybe. But that’s a discussion for a different time.

T&T: Draago, Boris & Max Vs. The Hoolabees

Wherein your humble scribe, unable to focus on anything he’s “seriously” working on, presents a trio of 7th edition Tunnels & Trolls characters and a new monster for the game.

Max – the exceptionally charmless leprechaun – winked back to the camp where Draago and Boris were waiting for his report. The dwarf and elf were, as usual, bickering about whose ancestors slew what dragon and which of their kings would win in an arm-wrestling match, if it were held on the second moon at noon on a Tuesday. They were so involved in this same old discussion that they didn’t even notice Max’s arrival. So he did what came naturally and began to insult them both so deeply and profanely that we simply can’t reprint his words here. After the two quarreling warriors finally calmed Max down he began to tell them what he’d seen.

“Sure’n the tunnel’s up there. Tha’ old man in the tavern wasna lyin’ – even though he were wearing a skirt. In any case, there’s tree large hives hanging down from the cave entrance. I cold just make out a few o’ them green bees he tol’ us about. I was thinking that if we used some fire to smoke ’em out…”

“NO!” cried Boris. “We can’t use fire! We might burn the trees or scare the squirrels and bambis!”

“Oh damn you and yer damn nature,” replied Draago. “I’m not going to get stung just because the critters out here might get upset over a little fire.”

“Well, y’see lads,” Max continued, “Here’s the problem. Just as I was about to pop back over here, a right big hoor of a troll came out of th’ cave, whacked the nests and went back inside. So the bees are buzzin’ all o’er the front of the cave noo.

“What a terrible creature! Using those poor little fuzzy bees for her own evil ends!” hissed the elf.

“No more terrible than yer own Queen Silvermoonleafraindrop. I’m sure you recall your own history well enough to remember when that foul witch enslaved a full army of…”

“Right! You two! Shut it! Noo! We’re going to have to face the damn bees, lads. Rather than goin’ on and on about your insipid histories, let’s figure out what we need to do to get inside tha’ cave and get our hands on herself’s piles o’ gold.”

Draago / Warrior / Dwarf / 2
STR 20 CON 24 DEX 11 SPD 13
INT 10 WIZ 8 LK 9 CHR 11

Height 3′ 7″ Weight 300 lbs.

Adventure Points 0
Combat Adds +11

Talents Gambling 14
Languages Common, Dwarven

Wealth 10 gp
Dwarven War Axe (6d+13), Buckler (6), Soft Leather Armor (10)

Boris / Warrior / Elf / 1
STR 17 CON 10 DEX 15 SPD 10
INT 12 WIZ 30 LK 18 CHR 22

Height 6′ 1″ Weight 134 lbs.

Adventure Points 0
Combat Adds +15

Talents Archery 20
Languages Common, Elven

Wealth 5 gp
Medium Longbow (4d+18) & Sheaf of Arrows, Broadsword (3d+24), Scale Mail (16)

Max / Wizard / Leprechaun / 2
STR 5 CON 13 DEX 15 SPD 9
INT 21 WIZ 15 LK 17 CHR 5

Height 2′ 7″ Weight 50 lbs.

Adventure Points 0
Combat Adds +4

Magic Wink-Wing (innate), All 1st Level Spells

Talents Persuasion 11
Languages Common, Leprechaun, 9 more

Wealth 100 gp
Shillelagh (2d+4), Brass Knuckles (2d+4), Quilted Silk Armor (3)

Hoolabee Swarm
Monster Rating: 44/ 88 / 176
Combat Dice: 5d6 +22 / 9d6 +44 / 18d6 +88
Special Damage: 1/2 Those Hoolabee stings sure do sting!
Special Abilities: Fly Me – Not surprisingly, Hoolabees can fly. Hard To Hit – Missile attacks against a Hoolabee Swarm are very difficult – double the level of the DEX save needed to hit them with such weapons.

Hoolabees are small, aggressive flying insects whose sting (which does not cause them to die) packs a painful punch. An individual hoolabee is about 1″ long and distinguished from other more common bees by the deep green “tufts” of fuzz that encircle their abdomens. The potency of a hoolabee swarm is entirely dependent upon its size.

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