Threats encountered in System G33

Even in the abandoned and isolated G33 system, the life of a House Council Agent is not without danger. A collection of non-human threats encountered in recent weeks by mission bound House agents is outlined below.

(The following entities, in White Star terms, fall under the "Creature" category. I have tried to emulate the statistic listing as per the rule book, but there is minor ordering changes to reflect my personal preference for reading  statistics. There is also the addition of "Number Encountered" statistic because I enjoy the  power it has to change the importance of an encounter, plus an "Emanation" listing."Emanation" rules, description and explanation can be found here. )

Location, G33 System House Council Spacestation: Operating at a vastly understaffed level, many once thriving areas of the G33 Spacestation have fallen in to disrepair. Cog engineers often weld off these areas with massive sheets of durasteel plating, before the council abandons them for good. Though rudimentary unmanned security system are installed, a tide of exotic and dangerous vermin eventually take up residence.

Ice Bat:

Number Encountered: d12, 
HD: 1hp, AC: 12 (Small and winged, dart and dodge with speed), 
Special: Can fly. Any entity bitten by an ice bat must make a Saving Throw or be infected with "Ice Veins". "Ice Veins" is a mild, slightly debilitating infection, easily cured. The victim will suffer from inescapable cold, shiver constantly and have their physical speed,  vigour and reaction times slowed down. 
Total Hit Bonus: +2, Attacks: Bite (1d4). 
Saving Throw: 15, Movement: 16, XP: 20, 
Emanation: Large icicles covered in small claw marks, rodents or larger prey dead and encased in cubes of ice, soft piles of white fur, ceilings covered in small claw marks and scratches, black piles of guano. 
Description: About the size of winged chihuahua, these blue skinned, white furred bats make their nests in the freezing, defunct climate-control tunnels. Those perceptive enough to notice them nesting, will see only masses of white fur clouded together between large icicles - a colony bunched together for warmth. Once disturbed the Ice Bats bright, blue leathery wings make it much easier to see as it flies towards its prey, fangs reared. 

Gas Bug:

Number Encountered: 1d6, 
HD: 1, AC: 18 (Thick carapace plating),
Special: Gas bugs will latch on to and constantly feed upon a foe after a successful bite attack, target must make a Saving throw or find themselves suffering d4 damage every round until the gas bug is removed or they/it are dead. Upon death gas bugs will explode in a plume of green gas, those nearby must making a Saving throw or feel woozy and disorientated for the next day. 
Total Hit Bonus: +1, Attacks: Bite (1d6), 
Saving Throw: 14, Movement: 1, XP: 50, 
Emanation: Gnawed and destroyed gas pipes, brown stained and gnawed upon durasteel plating, colonies of gas bugs infested in walls - feasting upon broken gas pipes, shed carapaces, clouds of stenchous digested gas. 
Description: A galaxy wide pest, well known to any space station maintenance crew. Thick brown shelled insects, similar in size and physiology to a giant horse shoe crab. Powerful jaws and teeth on the underside of the protective carapace have the ability to slowly crack and grind through metal. This ability allows gas bugs to leech on to gas piping, which is the creatures main force of nutrition. When feeding they are enter a hibernation like state and will suck on gas lines until the supply is cut off - growing and reproducing unconsciously the entire time. They dumbly ignore entities around them but will become aggressive  if disturbed from gas feeding, or if something stands between them and a potential gas supply.

Spider Electroganic Drone:

Number Encountered: d6,

HD: 1, AC: 12 (Skittish and wiley),
Special: Can climb and scale sheer surfaces,
Total Hit Bonus: 1, Attacks: 1 or 2 (depending on model) re-purposed sentry laser (d6+2), 
Saving Throw: 14, Movement: 10, XP: 50, 
Emanation: Removed durasteel panelling - wires, cords and cables clearly scavenged, makeshift work benches featuring chunks of flesh encased in wiring, hanging cords of electroganic parts, destroyed security lasers, distant clanking and scuttling, removed air vent panels. 
Description: Leaking dark red black oil and ramshackle to the point being in operable - spider electroganic drones are the handiwork of a crazed practitioner of the outlawed craft. Set to patrol heavily scavenged and destroyed areas of the station, or rudimentary work labs they will attack all beings on sight. It is currently unknown who is creating or controlling the drones. Their very existence is illegal and acknowledging having seen, fought, or other wise interact with one is cause for reprimand or imprisonment.

Location, Bube: Once the breadbasket of the system the dying sun of of G33 no longer supports the growing of grains or meat cattle. The ever gloomy purple tinged planet is currently overrun with mushrooms forest  which are thriving in the low light and fertile soil. These mushrooms do form the system's main food supply, but Cog researchers are yet to comprehend the dark arts of fungoid baking. 

Bube Beast:

Number Encountered: d4,
HD: 4, AC: 14 (Fattened flesh and muscle),
Special: Upon dying, or upon a blow targeted towards its pustule covered backside the large boils and lesions on the bube beasts will explode releasing a cloud of spores. A Saving throw is required upon contact with this spore cloud. If failed erratic and confused behaviour involving nearby mushrooms will occur for about an hour. 
Total Hit Bonus: +4, Attacks: Bite (d8) and Hooven Stomp (d8)  
Saving Throw: 13, Movement: 14,  XP: 150, 
Emanation: Destroyed and devoured mushroom trees, distant bovine howls and warbling, distant stomping and falling of mushroom trees, mucus smeared mushroom tree trunks, squirming puddles of yellow goo a few feet across. 
Description:  An enormous bovine creature distantly related to long abandoned Bube cattle stock. Bube beasts wander the endless fields of mushrooms, ever feasting and growing. They are almost always seen with their backsides covered in swelling and jiggling pustules filled with spores bathing in a yellow goo. No natural predators exist for the beast and the eating of their flesh results in severe diarrhoea in humans. They are a menace and pest to the settlements of Bube which erect thick durasteel walls, armed with laser turrets around themselves to keep the beasts at bay. Odd, almost ceremonious behaviour and attacks on settlements which appears  intelligent and guided has been observed. 

Location, Top Secret and Unknown:  The following entities do not exist and additionally there existence is illegal. Acknowledging having seen, fought, or other wise interacted with the following is cause for reprimand or imprisonment.

Crystalline Men: 

Number Encountered: d6,
HD: 2, AC: 14 (Flesh of crystal brittle but absorbent),
Special: Immune to laser fire and other energy based weapons (Laser Sword attacks cause half damage), May hold consumable mind control orb which acts as a once off Charm Person as cast by a level 2 Star Knight. 
Total Hit Bonus: +2, Attacks: Crystalline sword hand (d8), 
Saving Throw: 12, Movement: 12, XP: 100, 
Emanation: Crystalline drones, crystalline hive infestation, humans coming too from being mind controlled or in the throes of it - will act disorientated and confused perhaps muttering about the men, expertly destroyed human power systems and utilities, distant hums, distant whisperings. 
Description: The Crystalline men are silent, incomprehensible beings. Their technology is composed of the same material as their bodies. They have the ability to mentally seduce, confuse and overpower humans. Not much else is known about the Crystalline men. 

Non Combat Skills for The Decline of Overhouse August (White Star)

Players in my White Star campaign, "The Decline of Overhouse August", have been requesting a skill system added to the game to help differentiate their characters a little more. I think this fair, as they can currently only pick from three White Star character classes, Mercenary, Bureaucrat and Pilot (Regul Guard, Spark Agent and Cog Pilot in campaign terms). With most of their Experience Points deriving from mission completion rewarded Credits, I felt it also important to implement another meaningful credit sink for players to spend their money on. Most players already having had their pick from the default purchasable equipment list and, other than the pilots, no one is looking to purchase their own Spacecraft. I've implemented an Ad Hoc cybernetics system (See Cybernetics heading) and eventually I hope to add scope for weapon and spacecraft modification.

Ultimately, I envision four paths in which players can customise there character beyond level advancement; Non Combat Skills, Cybernetics, Weapon Modification and Vehicle Modification.

Rationale: The skill system uses the"Skills: The Middle Road" , modified slightly to better suit the economy of the game, and to reflect the quicker turn around for training I assume in a Sci-Fi world. I envision most of the skills to be against a preordained Skill Check number (the player trying to roll to hit a certain value on the dice) rather than two entities competing against one another. Because of this I have opted to use an increasing bonus to the same type of dice roll, rather than the original system of increasing die type with additional skill training. Originally, this was going to be a d20 because I grasp ascending armour class enough to be able to easily eyeball Skill Check Levels quickly. But, I realised the maximum +1 for attributes bonus in White Star makes this kind of sucky. This, and the fact I feel like I don't get to use d12's enough made me change the system to use d12, with skill check levels ranging from 2 to 17. The impact of a +1 in a range of 2 to 17 is much more so than in a range of 2 to 28 (which would be the swing using d20).

 The g33 House Council Space Station, home of the Academy (Space Station - John Berkey)

Now, onto presenting the The Decline of Overhouse August Non Combat Skill System! 

All skills involve rolling a d12 either against another entity's d12 roll in an opposed skill check, or against a preordained Skill Check number to attempt to roll that number or higher. Skill Check levels range from 2 to 17. All skills receive a +1 from the relevant attribute if the player has a value of 15 or more in said attribute. 


There are four levels of training for each skill level, each giving an increasing bonus to the d12 skill roll. The price in time and credits for training to each level is as follows:

Unskilled:

Obviously free and the initial training stage of each credit. Skills in red can not be attempted unskilled.

No bonuses to die rolls

Skilled:

Training:1 week and 2000 Credits

+2 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a d12

Expert:

Training: 2 weeks and 5000 Credits

+4 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a1d12

Master:

Training: 1 month and 15,000 Credits

+5 bonus when making skill-related rolls with a d12

At gradation from the House Council Academy (character creation):

Level 1 House Spark Agents may pick 2 of any type of skill to be “Skilled” in.

Level 1 Cog Pilots may pick any “Intelligence” based skill to be "Skilled" in.

Level 1 Regul Guards are "Skilled" in either Space or World based Survival.

The G33 House Council Space Station offers the following skills for training at its Academy, listed under their bonus giving attribute. (Also listed are current rumoured of, but illegal and not offered by the Academy skills).  

Charisma:

Merchantalism

Worship of Overhouse August Lore (Religion)  

Artistry/Performance (Pick an artform)

Intelligence:

Human Dialectical Knowledge

Interstellar Navigation Mathematics (A fast dying area of study)    

Nefarious and Intrusive Holonet/Commlink Operation

Nefarious and Intrusive Security Hardware Operations

Repair and Modification of Starships

Repair and Modification of Worldcrafts

Researchification (Choose a field)

Rumoured and illegal Intelligence based skills:

Electroganic Drone Creation/Manipulation/Operation (illegal and not available publicly)

Electroganic Sentient Creation/Manipulation/Operation (illegal and not available publicly)

Non-Human Dialectical Knowledge (illegal and not available publicly)

Wisdom:

Non-Sentient Lifeform Lore

Bureaucratic Lore (Includes House Council Procedures)

Space-based Survival

World-based Survival

Galactical Planetary Lore (A fast dying area of study)

Rumoured and illegal Wisdom based skills:

Underworld Lore (illegal and not available publicly)

Non-Human-Sentient Lifeform Lore (illegal and not available publicly)

Non-Human-Sentient Lifeform Cultural Lore (illegal and not available publicly)

The Decline of Overhouse August

Once a bustling bastion of Overhouse August order in the outer galactic arm, System G33 is now decrepit, abandoned and irrelevant enough to only be known by its solar identification code. Deprived of employment outside of fungal farming and platinum mining, citizens of ambition's only recourse is recruitment to the House Council. Once employed to either House Cog, Spark or Regul agents are tasked with maintaining the Augustan Peace for the meagre population of G33. Tasks are assigned from the decaying and dusty House Council space station, where teams are drawn and combined from each house. While animosity sparking from House loyalty is common, individual bonds formed on combined House missions keep the Council Houses from open conflict. The fear of disapproval and disgrace from the Golden Overhouse August also stifles the emboldenment  of any singular Underhouse. 

Overhouse August extracted itself from the system generations ago, taking with them the plasma fuel required for interstellar travel.  The last recorded visit of an Augustan Emperor (the name for any agent of Overouse August) was decades ago. Regardless, the gold plated Overhouse August station on the outskirts of G33 is dutifully maintained in the hope of an Emperors return. Such an event could help bring the end of  the system's isolation and decline. 

"The Decline of House August" is my bizarro Star Wars campaign. I'm currently using the White Star ruleset because it's dead simple and written more or less exactly how I would transpose Star Wars into a D&D chassis. It's also simple enough to easily chop, change and modulate as many GM's are want to do. These Hungarian Star Wars posters are quite influential to the campaign:

Campaign Rules: Players may create a character using the following classes from White Star rulebook: Mercenary (House Regul Guard), Bureaucrat (House Spark Special Agent) or Pilot (House Cog Engineer). No other classes are currently allowed.  All players begin on the G33 Council Spacestation assuming to have gone through basic training and been rewarded their initial 3d6 x 10 credits recruitment bonus. Equipment and transport required for House Council jobs are provided for duration of said mission. Credits rewarded for completion of House Council missions also grant Experience Points.

Overhouse Augustan Law: Under the enlightened and glorious rule of House August the galaxy has experienced untold aeons of peace, justice and bounty. All citizens of advised to follow the following precepts with the utmost solemnity:

• Overhouse August is to be your light, guidance and protector. The goodness of Overhouse August fuels your nearest Solar Body. Give daily praise to the Overhouse. 
• Magic, Sorcery or Psychic Ability of any kind is to be avoided, cleansed and destroyed. Citizens experiencing such things should notify their nearest House Agent. 
• Non Human Sentient beings are the harbingers of disorder, disarray and disharmony. All Non Human Sentient beings are outlawed. Also outlawed is the communication, sighting, hearing, touching or sensical interaction with such beings by any and all citizens. 
• Non Human Sentient beings do not exist - citizens should report rumours of their re-existence immediately to their nearest House Agent. 

An Overhouse August Emperor Agent.

The House Council: Made up of the bickering Underhouses left waiting for the return of Overhouse August, the following groups maintain order in the G33 system. Players elect to join one of these three houses when they create a character.

Loyalty to one's house is expected: Overhouse edict states that House agents may only be paid, equipped and rewarded by their chosen house. Ensuring the betterment of one's house is in one's best interest. Overhouse edict also states that council tasks must be approved by all houses and tasked by teams composed of agents from all houses. A staggering array of Overhouse August edicts exist to ensure healthy competition, reward, resentment and division of purpose and power within the Underhouses. Taskmaster representatives from each house are allocated as liaisons for council teams on each specific mission. 

House Regul: Focus on martial conflict and the enforcement of peace via the barrel of a laser pistol. House Regul Guards are the heavy armed peacekeepers of the system.

Regul Commander Corrine Nysyth - her lower face and neck destroyed in battle is replaced  by golden cybernetic plating.

House Cog: Engineers and pilots only just holding together the ageing and decaying fleet remaining in the G33 system. Also in charge of a number of mining and terraforming operations throughout the system. 

Cog Industrial Commander Noven Trumenko - flexing his  cybernetic hands designed specifically to interface with and pilot star ships. 

House Spark: The intelligence arm of the House Council. House Spark make up for the roughness of the other two houses with their ability to charm and beguile.

Spark Head of Intelligence Darius Graydon - his rotating cybernetic eye is rumoured to be a  purely aesthetic non-visually functioning gemstone. 

Additional Campaign Rules: 

Cybernetics: After a 20 year hiatus, GX33 Council Station once again has a  cybernetics installer (the previous installer was found guilty of working with somewhat mystically, enchanted or otherwise unlawfully magically equipment and was put under Overhouse August arrest). A variety of modifications are available but a consultation session with the installer, outlining your desired augmentations, is required and costs 500 credits. At the end of the consultation you will be provided a quote and general outline of the results your procedure (will hopefully) give you.

Please bear in mind the installer will accept no responsibility for quality and operability differences between quoted and actual user results.

Procedures will cost any where from 500c to 50 000c (exclusive of consultation fee).

Additionally investment in your procedure is recommended (Each additional 500c invested in procedures will decrease chances of gross negligence, operational failure,  poor quality parts and/or other wise shoddy workmanship.)

Links to "The Decline of Overhouse August" stuff:


Non Combat Skill System.
Star Witch Character Class.
Threats encountered in the g33 system.
Khybe Monk Character Class. 
Random Space Encounter Table. 
The Pan System. 
The Shargon, Character Race. 

Drawings from the Pale Kingdom

Here are some drawings of some of the entities from my 1 Page Dungeon "The Kingdom of the Pale Giants". Stats are soon to follow! 

Berserker 

 "Wild eyed, tattooed and scarification, naked, bone swords and axes, boiling with animosity". 

The King

"Horn crown, corpulent, ever seated, naked, beclaw handed, spike fingered, droop eyed, slobbering, ever eating".

Kingsman

"Grim, grunting, stone/bone shields and spears, well muscled, neat loin cloth, milky pale eyed, roar prone, undying loyalty to king".

Mutant

 "Two ed, one head dead/mad/diseased, gnarled clubs and rocks, rotting body, boils, claw handed, limping, crazed, cowed by other giants, intense stupidity, inbred".

Pygmies

Pygmy Slave: "Diffident, scared, mopey, ragged and sick. Will only attack adventurers when commanded to  by giants".

Pygmy Shaman: pygmies when giants absent, burlap cloaked, crude fetishes and effigies, minor healing and divination magic, strong willed and crafty".

Horned Ratdog

 "Pink and hairless, red eyed, curved horns, some quills and spines, slavering, foul tempered, rabid".

Seer

"Female, blind, claw handed and footed, decorative and elaborate bone dressings, skin cloak, horns, intense powers of divination, distracted by visions, signs omens". ("elaborate bone dressings" is a typo I picked up after submission. I'm not sure what word I was actually intending to use but I now believe it's "canon" that the Seers wrap cloth interlaced with bone around various parts of their bodies.) 

The Kingdom of the Pale Giants, 1 Page Dungeon 2015 Entry

The city’s sewage system always collects and funnels towards a great underground river. When the moulding stone and rotting iron of the sewers fade away, the river is housed within a looming whitestone caverns. Within these caverns the Pale Giants live. Here they have hewn the whitestone to construct a vast fortress, embedded in the earth.  In the darkness, the polluted river warping and maddening them, the abhorrence of their civilization grows. 

Rumours of naked, pale giants stalking the sewers, missing women throughout the city and panicked pygmies appearing from nowhere and gibbering of an evil kingdom beneath the ground may spark adventurer’s interest in venturing here.

PDF View/Download: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B43TA_QRzeKqcXRia1dNdlhZUW8/view?usp=sharing

(Further descriptions/drawings/stats for the giants can be found here.)

Drawings from "The Land Beneath The Winds"

I've not had the time to write recently. To keep the creative juices flowing I put out the call (in the OSR G+ Community) to see if any one would like me to do some drawings for anything they were working on. John from http://www.sycarion.com/ graciously gave me the low-down on a campaign setting and ruleset he's writing. His world is right up my alley, being a weird (but upbeat) fusion of fantasy and sci-fi, with a bunch of weird races and factions. Here is the result: 

Mud Crab Golem

Crabman Water Pipe Smoker

Crabman Warrior

Crabman Shooter

Dolphin Warrior 

Dolphin Magic User

Tigerman Rogue

Tigerman Mouth Wizard

Mimic True Form

Mimic Adventurer

Mimic Mouth Wizard

Mountain Goblin Shooter

Mountain Goblin Dervish

View of Mountain Goblin Settlement

Walrus Totem

Dolphin Totem

Shark Totem

Octopus Totem

d6 Fantasy City Sewers Random Encounter Table (Including Emanations and Reaction Based Prior Activity)

The following beings and creatures are intended for the random encounter table when adventuring in my campaign world's City of Bexley. For entry's that seemed overly specific to my campaign I have tried to place a more generic name or analogous entity group name in parenthesis. The things listed on the random encounter table could all foreseeably be encountered in the bowels of a fantasy city sewage system. This being a random encounter table for the first level underground seems about right.

(If your Fantasy City is in need of a Sewer, generate one here.) 

Emanations: (This is basically wholesale theft of an idea outlined by +Tom Fitzgerald much more proficiently and poetically as "Foreshadowings" in the post "Howling Across the Chasm" at his blog Middenmurk. Emanations is my clumsier, less eloquent version of his random encounter Foreshadowings.)

When rolling for random encounters (a 1 in 6 chance when I am DM'ing) an "Emanation" occurs when a 2 is rolled on a d6.  Roll on the random encounter table and refer to the "Emanation" listed for the entity rolled - the party will now encounter said emanation. The next random encounter will automatically be the entity for which the emanation was previously experienced.

You could also just take a 2 on a random encounter check to mean a delayed encounter: The emanation occurs, followed by the encounter itself in d4 rooms.

Alternate Emanation rules: A 1 in 6 result on random encounter check results in an Emanation occurring. A random encounter will now occur with a 2 in 6 chance, the being encountered matching the Emanation the party experienced earlier.

Reaction Based Prior Activity: Each entity has three different "Reaction based prior activity" 's listed. This is  what the entity was doing before the PC's bumped into it, derived from a Reaction Check Roll. If the entity is unaware of the PC's, pre-roll the reaction to give it something to do! This is based on the Labyrinth Lord d12 low is friendly high is angry reaction roll. Many of the entries on the table have reaction roll modifiers, making the chance they will be doing some activities rare.

A rogue beset by Ratdogs. 

d6 Fantasy City Sewers Random Encounter Table:

1) Maddened Filthy Wanderers: 
Emanation: Dirty, ramshackle wood and paper lean-to's, makeshift tables or refuse buckets nearby to oddly arranged bricks, insane graffiti, rotting books with incoherent scrawl or pages torn out and hung along string.
Description: Rag wearing down-troddens. Visibly crazed. May have a penchant for collecting certain mundane items/refuse and wearing them.  
Number Encountered: d6,
Reaction Roll Modifier: +2,
Reaction Based Prior Activity: Friendly: Drinking, smoking, conversing with one another in an almost pleasant manner, Neutral: Sleeping, scrawling in journals or on walls, Aggressive: Ranting, staggering in circles, arguing incoherently with one another, fisticuffs with one another.  
HD: 1, AC: 10,
Attacks: 1, Fist/Clawed hand/Club/Shiv, Damage: d6,
Saves: F0, Morale: 4,
Alignment: Neutral, Movement: 120', XP: 20.


2) Pirate Refugee (Escaped convict/fugitive): 
Emanation: Empty booze bottles, Emptied/smashed wooden chests, recently broken doors or furniture, a murdered member of the Pirate (convict) group (animosity) and evidence of a scuffle/blood trail, distant raucous singing or conversation.
Description: Ragged tired pirate (or criminal), on the run from local law enforcement. Spirits and supplies are down. Dirty, irritable, reckless.
Number Encountered: d6,
Reaction Roll Modifier: + 4,
Reaction Based Prior Activity: Friendly: Drunk, singing raucously, feasting, telling tall tales around a bonfire/campfire, Neutral: Drinking, not quite drunk, singing somberly, eating food of a poor and stingy quality, Aggressive: Discovering they are completely out of supplies (food, drink, gold), Engaged in a yelling tirade regarding the series of unfortunately events that led to their predicament.    
HD: 2, AC: 12 (Leather, flamboyant pirate accouterments),
Attacks: 1, pistol (ranged) or cutlass, Damage: d6,
Saves: F2, Morale: 6,
Alignment: Chaotic, Movement: 120', XP: 40.

3) Reanimated Fungi Corpse: 
Emanation: Copses of thick black mushrooms up to 4 feet tall, dismembered body parts flourishing with the growth of dark mushrooms, dead body/bodies covered in dark mushrooms twitching sporadically.
Description: The decaying bodies of dead humanoids, reanimated by a parasitical forest of dark brown, black and purple mushrooms.
Number Encountered: d10,
Reaction Roll Modifier: None,
Reaction Based Prior Activity: Friendly: Swaying softly, hands linked, jerkingly/robotically tending mushroom growths, if interrupted will softly embrace PC's to spread mushroom infection (see special), Neutral: Collecting rat and other sewer animal corpses into a pile and picking mushrooms from their bodies to plant on the flesh, will not let PC's interupt their work, Aggressive: Planting mushrooms on a human corpse,   
HD: 1, AC: 13 (Unusual, contorting movements, spongy flesh),
Attacks: 2, Punch, Damage: d4,
Saves: F1, Morale: 11,
Alignment: Neutral, Movement: 100', XP: 50,
Special: Any one touching/struck by a reanimated fungi corpse must Save Vs. Poison to avoid necrotic mushroom infection. On their death the body will erupt in fungi growth and mindlessly re-animate in d6 hours.

4) Reed Man. 
Emanation: A heavily bruised corpse missing all jewelry, buttons, shoelaces, turned out pockets (perhaps striped to underwear and clothes folded neatly next to it), Masses of extremely adhesive sticks and reeds, clumps of seemingly out of place mud (extremely rich, dark fertile soil), worms, distant riddling followed by screams.
Description: A 10 foot tall, heavy set, vaguely humanoid shaped mass of mud, twigs and reeds. Topped by a black beak and piercing black eyes. Shambolic in movement. Intelligent, with irresistible urges towards riddles and the collection of small treasures. A reed man will ask those it encounters a single riddle, letting those who answer correctly pass, and killing those that answer incorrectly - stealing their small treasures. (Its reaction roll may deterine the difficulty of the riddle and likelihood of a second chance). A pink octopi/worm like body writhes in the center mass of the mud and reeds.
Number Encountered: 1,
Reaction Roll Modifier: 0,
Reaction Based Prior Activity: Friendly: Whistling sweetly, sounding like water-side birds, resting nonchalantly, will ask its riddle in a sing-song voice. Neutral: Laying on the ground, face up, breathing slowly, Aggressive: Squatting directly in front of the party, chanting in a croaking voice "Treasures, treasures, treasures...",   
HD: 6, AC: 15 (Mud and twig mass unnecessary for worm like inner form),
Attacks: 2, heavy fist bash x 2, Damage: d8, d8.
Saves: F5, Morale: 8,
Alignment: Lawful, Movement: 140', XP: 350,
Special: Can release a stinking, stinging cloud of poisonous gas d4 times a day, doing d6 damage to those around it. Will often have a nearby burrow (the entrance of which is often underwater or hidden), filled with stick mud and stick masses and carefully arranged treasures of previous victims.

5) Pack of Rat Dogs (Rabid dogs). 
Emanation: Dog like foot prints on walls and ceilings, Scratched and ruined furniture/doors, savagely bitten and gored corpses of people/animals, masses of dog like excrement, Rat like tails the size of dogs left bleeding and severed, distant howling or growling.
Description: Drooling, scab covered near furless pink bodied dogs. Pink, watery, milky eyes. Mean ragged snouts. Extremely lean and agile. Long furless pink rat tails.
Number Encountered: d4,
Reaction Roll Modifier: + 6,
Reaction Based Prior Activity: Friendly: Full and content from a recent meal, dozing, pawing playfully at one another, tail waggings, Neutral: Clawing at a nearby door, barking, prowling purposelessly, Howling mournfully as a group Aggressive: Most of the group paces back and forth, guarding a female rat dog feeding a sickly pup, gnawing on the flesh of a fresh kill.    
HD: 3, AC: 13 (Lithe and agile, thickened scabs),
Attacks: 2, Bite and Claw Damage: d8 bite (Save Vs Poison or rabies infection occurs), d6 claw.
Saves: F3, Morale: 10 as pack, 4 as singular.
Alignment: Chaotic, Movement: 140', XP: 150,
Special: Can scale sheer surfaces with beclawed paws with a 3 in 6 chance. Can hide in shadows with a 2 in 6 chance.

6) Rat-like man Ruffian (Rat cult thug, Anarchist, Pyromaniac). 
Emanation: Scorch marks, evidence of explosions, burnt corpses, broken discarded vials and glass canisters, Pro "Old Kingdom" graffiti "The betrayed king will rise again, death to the houses, etc" (Pro cult, poltical group messages), bone shard piles, wooden refuse - neatly piled and dried/drying, smoke wafting from a fire elsewhere, fires.
Description: Hunched over men, wearing rotting rags, scabbed covered skin, patches of fur and wrongly placed hair, bones stitched into and decorate rag outfits, claw like hands. Torches and vials tied to ruined belts about waist.
Number Encountered: d6,
Reaction Roll Modifier: +4,
Reaction Based Prior Activity: Friendly: Dancing frantically around a roaring bonfire, a blackened skeleton strung to a crucifix burns in the center, Neutral: Preparing wood for a bonfire, arranging bones and skulls in a state of reverence. Aggressive: Attempting to dry wood around a failing fire, they are wet and soggy,   
HD: 2, AC: 14 (Leather beneath bone re-enforced rags),
Attacks: 1, Sword or Wooden bow Damage: d8,
Saves: F2, Morale: 8,
Alignment: Chaotic, Movement: 120, XP: 50,
Special: Each has d2 firebombs (d6 damage to 10 foot area).

A Magic User and  Fighting Man discover a Rat-like man bonfire ceremony.