Crypts and Things by Angrymog

Intro

posted by Angrymog Original SA post

I'm not planning to do a full write up of any games, but I'm going back to an old project which was to create characters for every game I own, which will also include a brief overview of the game in question; I've just completed the write up for Crypts and Things.



Crypts and things is a retro-clone based on Swords and Wizardry, with a strong Swords and Sorcery, doomed world, weird fantasy theme. Unlike a lot of other OSR games with the same themes it stays away from inappropriately creepy fetish fuel – the worst I can find is a personality type for henchmen is “Pervert – A depraved excuse of a human being”, and one evil sorcerer who it mentions degrades his apprentices in especially humiliating ways. Crucially that’s about all the detail it goes into, and the GM advice chapter specifically states that you should respect your player’s comfort levels.

The system is based on D&D with a few tweaks – for example, the plethora of saves are replaced by a Fighting Fantasy style Luck stat, which can also be tested for other effects such as doing maximum damage on an attack, not losing a spell after you’ve cast it, or just happening to have a useful bit of equipment with you.

Characters in Crypts and Things are a bit tougher than their D&D equivalents – HP represent superficial damage, and once a character is down to 0 HP they have a penalty to Attack Rolls and Skill Tests; further damage is taken against their Constitution with a Luck test required to stay conscious after each blow (or optionally a roll on the Dangerous Wounds table with results ranging from Winded to Heroic Impalement – take one point more damage and get a free attack against your attacker.) Once per day a C&T character can restore 1d4 HP by having a stiff drink.

There are no Clerics; healing magic is the domain of Sorcerers instead. Magic is divided into White, Grey and Black magic. Of the three, only Grey Magic is mostly safe to cast, White magic can draw the attention of nearby Undead or Others (malevolent entities from outside the world), and Black Magic causes corruption.

Combat is mostly free form, notable rules are that anyone can Back stab, you generally can’t decide who to hit if you’re firing into melee, Initiative is round to round rather than per engagement, and spells are declared before Initiative is rolled.

The world of C&T hits all the standard Sword and Sorcery tropes – jungles full of Snake-Men, Ice wastes, decadent empires, pirate ports, ruins of past civilisations all over the place and so on. Some of the location names are a bit on the nose – Death Wind Steppe or the Terror Lizard Run, anyone?

On the whole there’s enough interesting stuff that it’s not a total write-off, and the write-ups both have a sense of enthusiasm about them and are useful for gaming purposes. Most locations are given a brief overview, a couple of adventure hooks and an encounter table. Port Blackmire is an exception – a pirate and demon controlled city detailed at the District and Landmark level, which feels quite inspired by Fighting Fantasy’s Port Blacksand. (The Fighting Fantasy series and 80s UK fantasy gets a callout in the inspirations section, and I can definitely see a lot of the influences.)
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Character Creation

The Core classes are Barbarian, Fighter, Thief and Sorcerer. Optional classes are Beast Hybrid (descendants of people experimented on by Serpent Men, with the ability to shift into a bestial form), Disciples (Your fantasy warrior monk), Elementalists (Followers of the four elemental lords), Lizard People (One of the last surviving Elder races, relatively peaceful), Serpent Noble (A Serpent Man noble who can take human form). It’s up to the GM whether they want to allow players to pick anything except the Core classes.

C&T uses the standard six ability scores – Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma. The Implication is 3d6 down the line, so that’s what we’ll do.

The character would be reasonable as either a Fighter, Sorcerer or Elementalist. I’m going to skip ahead to the Life Events section and make my choice based on what I roll there.

The character originates on the Reapers Sea, giving them a +1 to Strength or Dexterity, and was born into the family of a Captain, gaining +1 Intelligence. We’re going to put that +1 in Strength, and then become a Sorcerer. A roll on the Sorcerer Life event gives me ‘Ship wrecked on the isle of skulls’, which grants me Curse, Magic Missile and Wailing Lament as bonus starting spells.
Luck is generated on 1d6+6
Skill is a flat value based on level, with your class and some backgrounds giving you a bonus in specific circumstances.
Sanity starts equal to your Wisdom score.

A level 1 Sorcerer has 6 HP, can memorise 1 spell, and starts knowing three first level and one second level spell. They also get a +3 bonus to Skill checks related to Reading Arcane languages, and detecting magic in the area.

You can select spells from any of the three colours of magic, in this case I go for Sleep, Divination, Cure Light Wounds, and Bless

You start with 3d6 x 10 gold to spend on equipment, with an equipment list straight out of D&D. I’ve rolled 110 gold and spend it on Leather Armour, a Scimitar (there'll be a one point penalty to damage which is offset by the Strength score), 2 daggers, a Backpack, Bedroll, Fishing net, grappling hook, 50’ of silk rope, a hooded lantern, 10 pints of oil, a tent, a waterskin, 7 days of dried rations, A heavy crossbow, and 20 bolts.

We’re also going to generate a Henchman to accompany our Sorcerer on their first adventure.

Henchmen are rolled on 5 tables to determine their Speciality, Personality, how they want paying, how they’ll take revenge if they don’t get paid and how they’re armed.


Henchmen all have the same stats which may be adjusted by their Speciality. In this case our rather horrible bowman has AC 12 (leather Armour), a d8 HD, Move 12, Attack 1, Damage 1d6 or 1d4.

Each character can potentially have a Companion – an NPC friend, someone who actually likes the character and can be trusted. Some life path events give you companion, and NPCs that you befriend in play might become one. Companions have stats that increase as you level and a cut down version of a class’s abilities. They controlled by the player. The downside is that if they die your character may take a sanity hit and will spend some time in mourning.
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Are people interested in seeing more of these quick looks with a focus on character generation?

I'm also planning to, where there is a sample adventure included, run the characters through it, but that feels very outside the scope of this thread.