Ordinary folk
Danger appears in their path
Heroes return home— A bard
Fantasy is about many things, foremost among which is confronting threats – to oneself, to one's home, to one's way of life. Confronting perils, be they physical or more abstract, perhaps even from within, is the defining act of the fantasy hero. Of course, in a roleplaying game, the GM has to come up with these challenges, and it isn't easy to invent dangers to test a diverse group PCs without blasting some of them out of existence while boring the rest. A little help is always welcome.
That's the goal of
Pyramid #3/80: Fantasy Threats. It offers a range of menaces suited to many different flavor of fantasy, from the hack 'n' slash variety to the more thoughtful kind. They may or may not suit your campaign as written, but all are colorful and original enough to inspire. Think of what you could do with the following:
- Though the mighty dragon is probably the most iconic of fantasy monsters, facing the same Dragons & Dungeons grows boring after a while. Fortunately, Christopher Rice is here to warn you of The Gryndel Menace. These predators are a threat from the moment they're born, but the most insidious danger is the "dracovirus" they carry. In a world where dragonslayers risk becoming that which they hate, ruthless others make use of this strange resource to become (or create armies of) hybrid warriors.
- As GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level explains, goblin-kin evolve and adapt to new situations, as demonstrated perfectly in Gog and Magog. Two tribes have settled in a vast cave system, with a third terrifying threat between them. The Garguk have tamed fierce hell-hounds and live in perpetual smoke, while the Skrixid have become one with the spiders. Whether your PCs prefer negotiation and diplomacy, skulking, or rampant murder, this hotspot is sure to provide them with plenty to chew on (possibly on them).
- The story of Baron Vordag and The Knights of the Iron Table seems lifted straight from a fairytale: the lost son returning to depose a pretender and restore the barony to glory! In this month's Eidetic Memory, David Pulver offers the perfect setting for heroic PCs to similarly make a name for themselves, embarking on Iron Quests to clear out monsters and join the baron's elite (or, using GURPS Mass Combat, to lead his armies against the "evil" elves). Except that as they climb that ladder, they gradually see more and more of the picture . . . that Baron Vordag's tale is built on lies and death, and the few who know the truth won't hesitate to add more bodies to the pile.
- Sometimes doing the right thing means running afoul of the law. Maybe it's a fair cop, maybe it's just a misunderstanding, or maybe it's an outright lie told by a rival who happens to have the ear of the town guard. Either way, being On the Bounty Board makes life a lot harder. When bounty-hunters and the guard are looking for you, even interacting with simple townsfolk takes on a dangerous edge, and GURPS Social Engineering becomes your new survival guide.
- One of the niftiest things GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 14: Psi introduced was the idea that merely using psychic powers could attract psi-related threats. The only downside is that repetitive fights can make the game stale, so the GM always needs More Psionic Threats. These six new horrors range from "nuisance" to "boss monster," including outliers that are more disease or trap than creature. With all this variety, even your ESP-loving mentalists won't be able to predict their next encounter.
- And finally, you must face the triple threat of usual features: a Random Thought Table that explains how ignorance isn't bliss, an Odds and Ends that will challenge your intuition and manual dexterity, and a Murphy's Rules that may change the next Valentine's Day gift you buy.