Tag Archives: Cards and Quests

Cards & Quests

Strange Steeds: The Boar

Power Level: Medium
Attributes
•Physical: 5
•Mental: 2
•Spirit: 3
•HP: 30
•Hand Size: 4
Damage Negation: 0
Melee Attack: Gore
•Damage: 6 HP + Card Value
•Range: 5ft
•Target is knocked down. Target cannot attack while knocked down, but can defend. They must standup during the next Move or Skill Phase to attack agaian.
Ranged Attack: Charge
•Damage: 5 HP + Card Value
•The boar dashes in a straight line with blinding speed towards its target. The boar must stop charging as soon as it hits its first obstacle
•Range: 30ft
ECD: 1
TCD: 0
For boss or named monsters only:
Element: Thunder
Combat Action Suit: Diamonds

The wild ancestor of the common pig, boars are much larger, stronger, and more aggressive than their domesticated cousins. They occupy a wide array of habitats, ranging from forests to deserts to swamps to plains and are versatile omnivores, consuming whatever food sources are available in the environ they are occupying. If captured when a juvenile, a boar may be trained as a mount, but boar steeds are rarely found at city bazaars and are somewhat costly (175 gp). Due to their size, most boars can only be ridden by humans of small to moderate size and stature; however, at the GM’s discretion, an especially robust boar may support a fully grown human wearing heavy armor.

Reminder: Mounts and other animals under your command require a separate “Animal Deck.” All animals under your control draw from this single Animal Deck for the animals Hand Size. Once this second deck is finished, discarded cards are reshuffled at no penalty (similar to a GM deck).

boar

Cards & Quests, Main

Rumor Card Draws for a city tavern

There are three things that make for a good tavern; strong drinks, a skillful bard, and the patrons’ gossip regarding local happenings. But, sometimes even the best of Game Masters can get caught off guard when it comes to the more inconsequential aspects of a gaming session, like alehouse rumors. The next time your players ask what their characters overhear while enjoying a round in a city tavern, just draw the top card off your deck and provide them with the rumor that corresponds to the card’s value:

Ace = Mysterious figures, clad in gray robes with purple sashes, have been spotted recently throughout the city. No one knows who they are or what they are doing in town.

2 = The Thieves’ Guild has been training ravens to steal keys and coin purses from people shopping at the bazaar.

3 = The statue in front of the Magistrate’s citadel is no statue at all, but actually a magically petrified criminal.

4 = A chandler sells candles that burn for three times as long as those made by others because he uses tallow rendered from the carcasses of a particular species of monster.

5 = If you look at the sundial in the central plaza under the light of a full moon, strange symbols become visible on its surface.

6 = The notorious highwayman that has been robbing merchant caravans headed for the city is the Duke’s illegitimate son.

7 = Unusual gold pieces from a foreign land have been circulating recently and become especially sought after, the foreign coins contain slightly more gold than domestic coinage.

8 = The holy relics of several temples have disappeared, sometimes during the middle of ceremonies and worship.

9 = The Magistrate plants to impose heavy taxes on all sellswords in the city who are not members of the Adventurers’ Guild.

10 = A spectral watchman can be seen at night, patrolling the alleyways of the city’s slums.

Jack = There’s a blacksmith renowned for the quality of the weapons he creates and for his massive stature. He will make a masterwork quality weapon for the price of finely crafted one, but only if the customer can best him in a feat of strength.

Queen = A horde of giant rats lives in the city’s sewers. They come out at night to feed and are responsible for the recent disappearances of several beggars & vagrants.

King = If you see a watchman with a dagger sheathed on the right side of his belt, it means he works for the Thieves’ Guild.

The Game Master may use these as nothing more than drunken canards to add ambiance to a session or decide there is some truth to the rumors and employ them as adventure hooks. Even the most innocuous rumor can be developed into an adventure. Take #4; perhaps the chandler hires the characters to slay some of the monsters he needs to produce the tallow for his candles. Or, a less scrupulous rival may employ the characters to steal the chandler’s tallow recipe or force him out of business.

Tavern

Cards & Quests, Main

Monstrous Menagerie: the Olgoi Khorkhoi

Olgoi Khorkhoi

Power Level: High
Skill Modifier: +10
Attributes
• Physical: 11
• Mental: 4
• Spirit: 6
• HP: 70
• Hand Size: 7
Damage Negation: -7, chitin scales
Melee Attack: Bite
• Damage: 20HP + Card Value
• Range: 5ft
Ranged: Spew Acid
• Damage: 10HP + Card Value
• Range: 30ft
Magic: Electrical Discharge
• Damage: 15HP + Card Value
• Range: 10ft x 10ft area damage, must be centered around the Olgoi Khorkhoi
Skill: Burrow
Skill Check: none
• The Olgoi Khorkhoi is able to move through sand at a speed of 10ft times the value of the card played.
ECD: 4
TCD: 1/party
Element: Mountain
Combat Action Suit: Clubs

Olgoi Khorkhois resemble gigantic worms, 10 feet long and 2 feet wide, with lamprey-like mouths and thick, blood red chitin. Inhabiting the most remote and acrid desert regions, they spend their time burrowing though the sand in a continuous search for prey. Having voracious appetites, Olgoi Khorkhois will continue to attack any creature they encounter until it is dead. Their acidic spray is corrosive and, if left undisturbed for an hour, will eat through any substance other than glass or magically protected objects. Olgoi Khorkhoi are known to devour their victims fully, leaving undigested treasure items or coinage in their intestinal tracts. The chitin of a dead Olgoi Khorkhoi can be fashioned into armor using the Leather Working skill (Primary Mountain), costing 2x what the equivalent leather armor would, but offering an additional -1 Damage Negation (see pg. 129 in the core rulebook).

Allghoikhorkhoi

Cards & Quests, Main

Monstrous Menagerie: the Erinyes

Erinyes

Power Level: High
Skill Modifier: +10
Attributes
•Physical: 15
•Mental: 6
•Spirit: 11
•HP: 100
•Hand Size: 12
Damage Negation: -10 (only if armored)
Melee Attack: Long Sword
•Damage: 20HP + Card Value
•Range: 5ft
Melee Attack: Spear or Whip
•Damage: 20HP + Card Value
•Range: 10ft
Ranged Attack: Bow
•Damage: 10HP + Card Value
•Range: 30ft
Skill: Whiplash
Skill Check: Highest Value
•The Erinyes can use a long whip to knock down one opponent, which must use the next Move or Skill Phase to stand up to attack again. While on the ground, the victim can defend itself but not attack.
Required Time: None
Duration: Target is knocked down until able to stand up in the next Move or Skill Phase
Range: 15ft
Skill: Guardian
Skill Check: None
•If the Erinyes is guarding something secret, she will make an illusion that protects and hides the object. Killing the Erinyes does not necessarily dispel the illusion and a character must use Detect Magic or a Mental Attribute Check to identify or eliminate it.
Required Time: 5 minutes
Duration: Illusion lasts one month before fading.
ECD: 4
TCD: 2/Party
Element: Thunder
Combat Action Suit: Diamonds

These vengeful spirits are native to outer planes like Hades and Tartarus and generally take the form of enraged, winged women armed with swords, daggers, bows, whips, or ropes that they use to entangle victims. Erinyes are often used as guardians of secret, sacred, or profane places, are dispatched by deities of all alignments on special missions, or are summoned by powerful spellcasters in pursuance of their own ends.

CCE

The Erinyes and 50 other monsters of the Classical world can be found in the Cards & Quests Bestiary 1: Monsters of Kos supplement. All of the monsters presented in this fully-illustrated, 42-page manual are associated with the system-free Swords of Kos Fantasy Campaign Setting and can be easily incorporated both into games that use it or other settings altogether.

Cards & Quests, Main

Of Lights and Little Men: A Cards & Quests Adventure

An adventure outline for the Swords of Kos setting.

The characters are spending a leisurely afternoon at the Four Winds Bar in the city of Kos when they witness an unusual sight. An elderly woman hobbles through the tavern doors to the bar’s notice board, where she pins up a small placard and hobbles back out. Overcome with curiosity as to why an old woman would need the service of sellswords, the characters examine her note. It reads that she has seen “lights and little men” at night in the abandoned warehouse adjacent to her home in the Slum Quarter. Concerned, she reported it to the town guard, who haven’t looked into the matter. She offers to pay 3 gold pieces and a hot meal to anyone willing to investigate. While most of the bar’s patrons laugh off the old woman’s note as senility, the players either have their curiosity piqued or take pity on her.

The old woman is not senile and the “little men” she has seen in the warehouse at night are goblin operatives from the Tetrarchy of Anatolia. They’ve slowly been tunneling through the floor of the abandoned warehouse down to the sewers, which open into the Bay of Kos, to create a concealed pipeline into the heart of the city. If the players manage to take any of the goblins captive, they will initially claim to be smugglers, but their finely crafted equipment and weapons will betray them as military agents. Further interrogation will reveal that these goblins are part of a group based in Pserimos, which is ripe for the characters to raid.

Main

ApolloCon: Here We Come

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ApolloCon
1FireDeckfix2
Fire Deck along with the 7 other element decks are now available online!

We will have a table in the dealer room at ApolloCon and we will be running two Cards & Quests events on Friday the 19th at 8PM and Saturday the 20th at 2PM!  Though we have not attended this convention before, we think it overlaps nicely with our first game.  We are looking to meet other fiction writers and fellow gamers in the Houston Area.

In other news, all eight custom element decks for Cards & Quests are now available online at Drivethrurpg.com!  Our publisher, Skirmisher, has done an awesome job getting this online.  We will be working to release a new Game Master deck that has helpful tips and rules.

Lastly, we are finishing up our first boardgame, Bureaunauts. Brian, our artist for this project, has been hard at work clicking pixels into place for the last components for the game. We have also been polishing the all important instruction booklet. Here is a sneak peek of what the game will offer:SneakpeekBureaunauts