RPG blog carnival - march 2020 - Alchemy

Hello dear Carnival community, my name is killerklown and i'll be your host this month !

What is the Carnival of Blogs?

The carnival has been running for several years and you can find the full listing of locations and topic in the RPG Blog Carnival Archive
Blogger carnivals are a way for a group of bloggers to all simultaneously write about the same topic. They are a great way to build community and dialogue across many different blogs at once.
This benefits fans and readers of those blogs because they have the opportunity to explore lots of different viewpoints in a short period of time.
It also benefits the bloggers because they get new readers to stop by. It also helps with SEO. Everyone wins.

Last month

Last month was on the topic of Legends & Lore, and hosted by Enderra

How to Participate

Have a blog? Want to write for the RPG Bloggers Carnival? Easy – just write a post on the current month’s topic and in your post link to the Host’s blog post that announced the topic (see below). You can also drop by their blog and leave a comment on the announcement post.
That’s it. At the end of the month, I will write a round-up and include a link back to your article.

Why Alchemy ?

• For what you might have seen on this blog, alchemy plays a big part in my DREAD setting.
• The whole idea for the setting is based on a really silly yet great idea from Sheep and sorcery: Using monster parts as alchemical ingredients
• Later on, I discovered a table listing what could be looted from creatures, on medievalmelodies.blogspot.com. 
• But my favorite find is an article written by Zedeck Siew (originally on Zak S.'s blog) where he describes a way to develop rituals. Sexually transmitted centipedes made an article about this and created rituals for fantasy that are great. I'm sure this framework can be used to create alchemical recipies... (I'm not linking to Zak's blog on purpose. Zedeck Siew told me he will repost on his own blog his piece of writing, but until then, I'll only link to Sexually transmitted centipedes, where I discovered the method)

What my plan for the future is:

I want an alchemy subsystem :

• based on monster parts and quest  ingredients (very MMO, i know) like aplles from the Tree of Idunn
• that permits to create low quality potions and high quality potions from the same "recipe", using a potency scale depending on the ingredients used
• a kind of addiction to potions, related to their potency
• some side effects for drinking different potions during the same day

What I expect from you

Well, the subject of this carnival is "Alchemy", not "create me my subsystem", so write whatever you feel like to...

Inspiration

Sill, allow me to present you a few ideas that could trigger your imagination:

• Rules to recognize a potion whithout "identifying" them
• side effect tables
• crazy ingredients for crazy potions
• influence of cheap potions increasing an attribute on society
• What happens when you roll a nat20 during brewing? and a nat1?
• Is perfume a low potency "potion of seduction"?
• How is someone supposed to drink a potion while unconscious?
• What are alternative to potions? (ointment, intraveinous solution, sniffing pulver, chewing mass, ... others?) How does it change the paradigm or consuming them?
• Battlefield laboratory - what could that be like?
• Is hunting humanoids for alchemical components ethical? (like hunting innocent goblins for their liver or something)
• What should be more expensive? A "cure Syphilis" potion or a "cure Hangover" potion?
• Shouldn't brewing potions require a kind of licence ( like distilling alcohol)?
• what happens if you bind the spirit of a shortly deceased creature into a potion?
• How much "historical" alchemy is ok in rpg?

More inspiration?

It is not the first time that someone will write on alchemy. The DM's guild is full of half destilled alchemist classes and unsavory crafting systems.
It's even not the first time the Carnival adopts this theme. Last batch of alchemical articals was 2016 and there were great entries ! Go check them out ! http://ofdiceanddragons.com/put-a-cork-in-it-october-2016-blog-carnival-wrap-up/
Searching for my alchemical Magnus Opus, I came around a few great posts that i'd like to share with you:

• https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-glog-alchemy-and-oozes.html
• https://thethingswedoforxp.blogspot.com/2019/09/bottoms-up-5e-glog-bolt-on-mechanic-for.html
• http://insidethegiantseye.blogspot.com/2019/11/2d6-potions-in-vending-machine.html
• https://diaghilevsdice.blogspot.com/2019/12/secret-santicorn-2019-field-alchemy.html
• https://goodberrymonthly.blogspot.com/2020/01/intravenous-solutions.html
• https://rogues-repast.blogspot.com/2018/12/secret-santicorn-alchemists-basement.html
• http://eldritchfields.blogspot.com/2019/12/1d6-things-that-happen-when-you-smoke.html (not exactly alchemy, but near enough)
• http://eldritchfields.blogspot.com/2019/12/d66-things-that-happen-when-you-inject.html (is injecting liquefied Henchmen already alchemy or is it still plain insanity? - i'll let you be the judge of that)
• https://magickuser.wordpress.com/2019/11/08/i-eat-the-monster-now-see-what-happens/
• https://magickuser.wordpress.com/2019/12/04/1d10-things-that-happen-when-you-inhale-the-ashes-of-the-outer-god-you-just-killed/

I really hope this topic will set your imagination ablaze and surprise me with loads of creative approaches I never could have imagined...

On your destillers, ready, Write !

[DIY/OSR] D10 Table: Who profits from the troubles? 2020 RPG blog carnival - random encounter tables

Who profits from the troubles?

Thomas Bewick - Wood engraving from a Robin Hood book - 1795

Buisiness as usual

We all know the drill. You arrive at a village at the edge of the civilised world. The atmosphere is gloomy, the good folk is suspicious of strangers and the town elder comes to you as soon as you get your beer at the obligatory tavern.
This village has a problem. And you are here to solve it, because your are the heroic protagonist of this story.
Still, researching in the village you happen to find out that a group or a person is profiteering from the troubles in the village.
It can be related to the story or a red herring, that’s up to the DM, but it brings depth to the story.
It's the kind of encounter that allows you to flesh out a settlement, presenting new NPCs and clues to follow, while improvising...

So who profits from the troubles?

D10	Profiteer
1	A cleric of an infamous god has declared the troubles to be announcing the end of the world! He is quickly recruiting desperate villagers into his apocalyptic cult. Will the PCs resolve the troubles swiftly enough to prevent a mass suicide?
2	A travelling peddler offers goods at prohibitive prices that are ideal to resolve the troubles. He doesn’t seem to have anything else for sale. Fortunately for him, demand is high and he’s the only one stocking these items/services
3	A local druggist sells very cheaply small hemp dolls to protect from bad luck. At first it works well and their owners are safeguarded from the troubles. But soon they turn pale and look exhausted. The druggist appears to be younger by the day…
4	The lord of the barony downstream delivers free food and help, while bad-mouthing the local holder of the authority, who is away on a diplomatic mission
5	A caravan of merchants from the neighbouring duchy has installed their camp near the village. They offer "relocation-serfdom-contracts" to those who lost everything to the troubles. That particular duchy has not abolished slavery, but the villagers do not know that...
6	An archmage from BigTown upon GreatRiver arrived and proposed to eradicate the problem. As a reward, he only asks for a small favor: to be allowed to raise the dead and use them as workforce for the next 10 avernian years
7	A hero pretends to be able to resolve the troubles by himself “for free”  IF but only IF the whole village swears to praise his name at every occasion, declare their unlimited admiration for him to every out-of-towner & rename the village after him. Maybe write a song about his heroic deeds, too?
8	A band of adventurers claiming to have cleared an unholy temple near Troll-Forsaken-Hamlet offers their protection for a hefty sum to the isolated farmhouses. Sure they bleed the farmers dry, but nothing happens to them anymore. Only Old MacDonald who wanted to terminate his business relationship with them was brutally hit by the troubles only a week after booting them from his farm…
9	The main political adversary of the lord mayor always arrives first on any site hit by the troubles and sow clues implicating his rival. Who informs him of the incidents, though? Is he an accomplice of the Baddies™?
10	Doctor John Georges Darkfist asserts to protect anyone from the troubles, all you have to do is sign (in blood) a contract surrendering your shade to the doctor, but only if you were to die within the next 50 years (small print nullifies that clause and specifies that the shade is the resting place of the soul)

Acknowledgement:

This table partly stems from a discussion on a french discord channel, on the discord from CasusNO, which has now taken it's own life. Half of the entries are mine, but a big thanks for their entries to :

• Loris 
• Boulash
• AsgardOdin 🦉

RPG Blog Carnival: What is that?

Blogger carnivals are a way for a group of bloggers to all simultaneously write about the same topic. They are a great way to build community and dialogue across many different blogs at once.
This benefits fans and readers of those blogs because they have the opportunity to explore lots of different viewpoints in a short period of time.
It also benefits the bloggers because they get new readers to stop by. It also helps with SEO. Everyone wins.

Our host this month is www.geeknative.com

RPG Blog Carnival: My point of view

I read about this online and loved the idea. I had already posted something on this topic at the beginning of the month, but I decided to created this post from our little brainstorm on discord, to bring more stuff to read to the table. And I really liked the entries on this D6-democracy (that bloated a bit over 6 entries).
And since i'm a dumbass, I had not seen it is about ENCOUNTER tables...
So i'm a bit off-topic - but not completly, since all these are also possible encounters, in the broad acception of the word...
I guess i'll have to work on  proper encounter table until the end of the month