Share your settings for TFT

[Seraphim_72]

Oddly, mine went the other way as it were. I loved the idea of Cidri and as I moved to AD&D and Rolemaster it moved with me. Every campaign in any medieval type rpg (and a few space ones as well) has been set there to this very day.

[JLV]

Cidri was very appealing as a framework -- really sparked the imagination. I hafta admit I always sort of thought of the Banestorm world as being Cidri, and the actual continent as simply being one on Cidri...

[larsdangly]

An overview of one of the three major groups of soldiers to be found in the great fortress of Dag Kule that overlooks my TFT city setting...

The Outer Guard: The Outer Guard is tasked with manning the lower curtain walls, courtyards and gates of Dag Kule. They constitute a large company (~200 individuals) and are organized into squads of 10, each of whom is responsible for one major tower, court or stretch of wall. They typically divide their duties into three eight-hour watches, each manned by 6-7 squads, with one member of each squad serving as sergeant to the others. An outer guardsman is expected to be attentive, aggressive and an expert marksmen with a an arquebus. They wear chainmail and are armed for melee combat (usually with a sword), but rarely mass for close battle — they are tasked with protecting the walls and repelling trespassers but little more. Anyone approaching with hailing distance of the walls of Dag Kule can expect to be challenged. If they do not have good reason to approach closer, they will be fired on without warning, and all guardsmen within line of sight will join in until a sortie of Dragoons (below) can be organized.

Joining the outer guard: Members of the outer guard are expected to have Guns, Missile Weapons and Sword talents, and to be sturdy, seasoned soldiers capable of moving and fighting efficiently in armor. Anyone interested in joining the outer guard must pass a basic inspection of fitness and skills (abstracted as a minimum ST of 12, DX of 14). An additional tradition is that the candidate must hold his or her own in an unarmed fight, stripped to the waist, with a tough current guardsman (typicallyST 14 or 15, DX 16, and Unarmed Combat I talent). Anyone who runs away or is defeated in fewer than 5 turns is mocked and turned way. All members of the outer guard are issued chainmail armor, an arquebus, and a sword appropriate for the user's ST. A character employed as an Outer Guard has pay of $100 and a risk roll of 4/16.

[larsdangly]

Another snippet about the inhabitants of Dag Kule...

The Gate Wardens: The great bronze gates through which one passes the main entrance of Dag Kule are guarded by two wardens — a pair of monstrous giants hailing from the wild craggy flanks of Mount Shahdagh.

These two are both always present when the gates are open for several hours in the middle of each day; when the great gates are shut all entrance and exit is through a small but stout postern door (or one of the other small steel doors higher up on the fortress’s outer works); during these times, one of the two giants will be pacing, eating or dozing on the back side of the gates while the other sleeps in their nearby barracks.

The Wardens are undisciplined, and listen to no one other than The Three (who they fear) or the Captain of the Dragoons (who they like for some inexplicable reason). And almost no one can listen to them: they speak only a handful of words in the Bok Sehir’s local patois, and speak to each other only in the dialect of tribesmen in the high mountain passes.

But they take their job seriously, they are well paid, and they enjoy their work. They are uninterested in bribes and will let no one pass under their eyes unless accompanied by a known guardsman, dragoon or other member of the court. The only simple ways past them are an excellent disguise, perfect stealth, or a fight. The last option is madness: Both giants are horrifically strong, surprisingly skilled, and eat anyone they defeat in combat – raw and on the spot.

Skull Grinder
ST 45 DX 10 IQ 10 MA 10
Talents: Shield, Thrown Weapons, Alertness, Veteran, Warrior
Equipment: Chainmail, Tower Shield (total protection 8), 1H Club (3d+4), Several throwing rocks in a bag (adj. DX 12, 3d+1)
Notes: When Skull Grinder is fighting a single, smaller foe, he prefers to enter HTH combat, pin his foe to the ground and bite his helpless foe, doing 2d damage with his sharp teeth. Skull Grinder is relatively talkative and outgoing and generally makes any complicated decisions and speaks for the Wardens.

Kva
ST 52 DX 10 IQ 10
Talents: Climbing, Veteran, Warrior, Naturalist, Tracking
Equipment: Chainmail (total protection 5), 2H Club (4d+5)
Notes: Kva lived a relatively solitary, wild life, hunting and gathering with his bare hands and scaling cliffs. He is enormous and hard muscled, and rarely speaks even to Skull Grinder. But he is cunning and has great skills in the chase. He will always lead pursuits if the Wardens are searching for infiltrators within the fortress.

[Steve Jackson]

I like those. Good Cidri feel to them.

[David L Pulver]

I just found "Beyond the Dragon Lord's Mountain" my first TFT labyrinth...

Man, this was OLD! It dates to 1979 - it predates In the Labyrinth...

It is a 24-room dungeon. I drew Death Test-style individual hex maps of major rooms, but the dungeon itself consists of 24 single hex-sized locations (each representing a melee or wizard-sized map) connected by lengthy lines to represent corridors at a much greater scale.

Shadow curtains like those in Death Test are used in place of doors.

The encounters are:

1. entry hall, with a skeleton who rises up to give a cryptic clue.

2. 4 hob-goblins (basic warriors).

3. cavern with a half ogre named Grendel (ST 22, DX 9, IQ 7) and a hidden door leading to a room with goblin wizards guarding a blood-drinking sword (temporarily drains 1 ST from victims and transfers it).

4. Hall of images with several illusions - wolf, myrmidon, bear, etc. (and one real wolf) and a trap in the room that any wizard making illusions will have them turn against him and attack...

5. Chamber of deep magic with a powerful staff of sorcery item and a 4-hex dragon. Treasure includes some Death Test-influence: gold bars.

6. Room of the Bear with a powerful bear and treasure.

7. Temple of set with a "priest lord" - a powerful mage and some potions and magic items including a crown that can turn into a giant snake and a ring that grants some spells. Obviously I was making up items using Wizard spells.

8. Goblin mines with bubbling fire pits, three goblins and some more goblin wizards, and an item called a live blade that draws itself and, if you defend with it, the attacker rolls 5d to hit hit you.

9. Long "Corridor of doom" with a sloping corridor that penalizes missile attacks down slope and enhances them up slope, and a trio of archers to take advantage of it. Some potions that heal points and a magic spear that does extra damage.

10. Wolf cave with 3 wolves.

11. Tombs of Anubis with several shadow hexes to create some hidden movement and ambushes. Lots of smaller crypts in the area on the battle map:

- 3 wolves (temple guardian jackals, actually) among the shadows

- A "living shadow" creature:
- a "shadow ghast" who appears as a shadow hex as well, but is ST 10, DX 12, IQ 12, only harmed by fire, death spells, magic weapons, or illusions, attacks in HTH and drains 1 ST, DX, and IQ per hit from the victim, adding it to its own stats; victims reduced to 0 turn into shadows-ghasts like it; if not recover in 12 turns.

various magic items including a wand of "chill sleep" (as per freeze spell, wizards only), and shadow ring (create shadow hex around self) and a few other exotic items ("jewels of darkness" t hat when smashed summon a freezing hex of shadow that does fire-like damage, but is actually cold),

12. An encounter with a 6-hex "wyrm" (presumably a wingless dragon) with ST 35, DX 12, IQ 12, move 8/16, damage 3d-2, armor 6.

[larsdangly]

That's the stuff; groovy, baby!

[JLV]

@ David L. Pulver:

Man! I'd LOVE to see that written up and revised by you now, given your extra 38 years of experience and knowledge of the ITL rules! I sincerely hope you do so -- it would be a fantastic "fan" dungeon, even if SJG didn't do anything with something like that. Plus, honestly, since you wrote it that way, you are clearly on the brink of a major solo adventure right there!

Alas, all my original gaming material was lost in a divorce about 12 years ago -- I had stuff for Call of Cthulhu going back to 1981, and TFT going back to 1977 in there... I've been slowly rebuilding the pertinent portions of my game collection (forget the over 1000 war games dating back to 1967; I've got a couple of dozen now), especially my CoC and TFT materials. But all the original work; the dungeons, the wilderness maps (I had a lovely colored-pencil map of an area of five major islands loosely based on a map for a PBM fantasy game I saw in The Space Gamer) drawn on shelf-lining paper), the castles, the haunted houses, the maps of parts of Arkham -- all long gone (and presumably destroyed) by my unlamented ex (more fool her -- the wargames alone were worth a minimum of $5K, had she bothered to sell them). So I will never stumble across a "forgotten dungeon of yore" like you lucky sods keep doing!

[larsdangly]

I'm up to my ears in bits of paper from my decades of notes on my main TFT setting, and focusing first on getting the NPC's into a computer, with standardized formats and removing stuff from my house rules (so its all official TFT-compatible). Here is a couple more goof balls who I rediscovered in my notes on the tangled warrens of Bok Sehir's lower class neighborhoods:

Inago de Salamanca: Possibly the world’s most gifted and dedicated rat catcher, with a lemonade stand as a side business
ST 10 DX 12 (14) IQ 19 MA 10 (12)
Talents: Axe/Mace, Thrown Weapons, Running, Silent Movement, Alertness, Animal Handler, Naturalist, Business Sense, Tracking, Mechanician
Gear: Hammer (really a twisted lead pipe; usually thrown; 1d+1), lamps, torches and small nets
Job: Rat Catcher Residence: Shack behind 'The Glade' [a bar] Haunts: Any city district
Notes: Inago is always accompanied by his brilliant and well-trained terrier, Scrappy Doo (see Beasts, below). Inago’s daily business consists of clearing rats from the basements and walls of wealthy homes and businesses, and selling flagons of the tartest lemonade. But he and Scrappy also find their way into all manner of plots and adventures, as their tremendous skills, and knowledge of and access to the city make them more useful than most expert thieves or spies in many situations.

Scrappy Doo: Brilliant trained terrier of the rat catcher, Inago de Salamanca.
ST 5 DX 16 IQ 7 MA 12 (14)
Talents: Running, Swimming, Detect Traps, Alertness, Acute Hearing, Silent Movement, Spy, Recognize Value, Climbing, Naturalist, Tracking, Thief
Gear: Jaunty collar; Bite attack: 1d-2
Job: Rat Catcher’s assistant Residence: Inago's home Haunts: Always with Inago
Notes: Scrappy Doo has limited intelligence by human standards, but is a gifted genius in his own milieu. His gifts are represented by a list of talents that does not conform to the normal rules governing IQ requirements (noted by showing them in italics). He has effectively perfect knowledge of the city and most sections of the underlying sewers, basements and ruins. He follows Iago’s complex commands on a roll of 4d vs. an IQ sum of 26.

[larsdangly]

Another fun one I did today...

Florian the Soggy Smith: A gifted sword maker (and fine swordsman), on a years-long alcoholic bender and living in a gutter
ST 12 DX 15 (16) IQ 15 MA 10
Talents: Sword, Recognize Value, Fencing, Armorer, Mechanician, Assess Value, Master Armorer, Master Mechanician
Gear: ‘Muriel’, a simple looking but exceptionally fine (+2 dam./+1 DX) Broadsward (2d+2)
Job: Drunk Residence: Street outside the Cracked Cup (a bar) Haunts: The Mews (a city district)