The Alphabet of Outer Beings - Y is for Yeoman

Author's Note: When I started this project on somewhat of an unplanned whim earlier this year I created a list of topic ideas and was able to get about 25 of the letters. Y, was the holdout. I wracked my brain, and even talked with a bunch of folks at Gary Con about what a good "Y is for..." would be that wouldn't also get overly specific (such as Yog-sothoth, or Yellow Sign). Ultimately I figured "That's December Marc's problem," since I had a whole lot of other letters, all with good ideas already lined up. As the letters tick-tocked by and this became less a "that could be fun" and more a "I can really do something cool if I finish this" I started to sweat that maybe "Y is for..." would be my downfall. I'm therefore doubly pleased to not only have a great idea for Y but to present it early to you all (strike while the iron is hot and all that), and let some other letter be the final post of this series. 

Y is for Yeoman

Yeoman are the servants and attendants of clergy, wizards, nobles, and kings. They are the faithful servants who go nearly unseen, and often unrecognized. Some may be born into their station, others sold into it, and still others chosen for the great honor of service. Regardless these men, women, and children are often in the room when great and powerful people do important things, but their names are seldom recorded for posterity.

Table Y1: Yeoman Origins (roll 1d6)
Yeoman are brought into their service in a number of ways and often their origins are very specific to the station they serve.

1. Orphans - The yeoman are ophans, taken from the local orphanages between a certain age (often 10-12 years old) to serve. They may or may not considered slaves.
2. Volunteers - The yeoman are volunteers who serve at thier will, often for defined terms of 1, 3, 5, or 10 years at a time.
3. Slaves - The yeoman are simple slaves, bought into service with their freedom revoked. 
4. Chosen - The yeoman are chosen to serve, with service often being considered a great honor. Unlike volunteers, above, the yeoman are chosen from the population, and may not wish to serve.
5. Tithed - The yeoman are part of a tithe owed to the church or patron, chosen by the people, and given, either as slaves or as defined term laborers, to the service of the clergy or wizards.
6. Matrons (only post-menopausal women may serve)

Table Y2: Yeoman Requirements (roll 1d10)

Not all yeoman are created the same. Many religions or wizardly patrons require that only a certain type of individual serve as yeoman. 

1. Virgins (often also a specific sex)
2. Eunuchs 
3. Children (not older than post-pubescent, once yeoman age out of service they often join the ranks of the clergy or sorcerous acolytes)
4. Blind (or blinded after being brought into service) 
5. Mute (or rendered mute after being brought into service)
6. Deaf (or rendered deaf after being brought into service)
7. Specific Sex (male, female, intersex, etc)
8. Physical Appearance (eye color, hair color, subjective attractiveness, etc) (often also a specific sex)
9. Natural Ability (intellect, psionic power, physical fitness, etc)
10. Roll again twice and combine

Table Y3: Yeoman Duties (roll 2d4)

Yeoman are sometimes given to a particular service, apart from the general housekeeping and other such work executed by more common servants.

• 2: Sexual Services (the yeomen are required to perform sexual services in addition to, or in place of, other work)
• 3: Inner Circle (the yeomen are the sole servants of the highest ranking clergy or wizards only)
• 4-6: Standard duties, the yeomen act as general purpose servants for their masters.
• 7: Translators (yeoman is fluent in at least 1d4 additional spoken languages)
• 8: Scribes (yeoman is literate in at least 1d4 languages)

MCC Mighty Deeds of Artifacts (Glowburn Episode 16)

For my 2nd episode of Glowburn as an official co-host I proposed a rules modification. For completeness sake I present it here for those who may want to review.

Might Deeds of Artifacts

• Yes, that’s right, Mighty Deeds … of Artifacts! I think I’m actually going to test bed this in my monthly game, but the idea is that a Sentinel using an artifact already gets a bonus die, I’m not seeing any downside to allowing them to declare a Mighty Deed that uses that artifact (e.g. a ricochet shot with a gauzer pistol, or trying to melt a lock with a laser rifle). Just like in DCC a 3+ result on the Sentinel’s artifact die would declare success of the deed in some degree. 
• It’s simple enough I think, and will help Sentinel’s shine so long as they are using artifacts (which also will incentivize them to use artifacts).
• So the basics here are:
• The deed must be related to an artifact weapon or armor used by the sentinel!
• The Sentinel's Artifact die must come up a 3+ for the deed to happen!
• The attack (or other action) must also succeed!
• The Artifact die does not add to damage (unlike a Warrior's deed die) this is expected to be offset by the higher damage output of artifact weapons.

That's about that. I'm going to try this in my monthly campaign and we'll see how well it works. 

MCC Recap - Wabbit Season

Last Wednesday I ran the another session of my monthly(ish) MCC game.

Meet the Seekers:

• Thorn the Plantient (level 1)
• Played by Craig McCullough
• Sinclair the Mutant (Chitinous armor) (level 2)
• Played by Andrew Lyon
• Agutter the Healer (level 2)
• Played by Paul Go  
• Bo Goodboy the Yorkie Manimal (level 1)
• Played by Jon Hook
• Piertramp the Sentinel (level 2)
• Played by Forrest Aguirre
• And William Keller as:
• Fliver, a Pure Strain Human
• Ringo, a beetle Manimal
• Arthur, a Plantient
• Winona, a beaver Manimal

Prior Session Reports:

• A Branch to the Head for All
• A Door Too Far
• Things Get Blue
• Hot hot hot!
• Purple Pit of the Mole Men
• On the Trail of Tibbar
• Entering The Ruined Citadel

Elmer Fudd Would be Proud

I hand waved some character change outs by explaining that some of the PCs were really tuckered out by the combat that ended last session and others had arrived from their camp/village late. With 3 hour game sessions (at best) expediency is key. This brought Forrest's Piertramp back into the fold and introduced a quartet of new zeroes helmed by Will.

The tibbar chief had fled into the main structure of the ruins, a large, partially intact building that had a pair of functioning doors. Piertrap looked around and noticed that a corner of the structure was collapsing however and went to investigate. Peering through the rubble they could see inside a small ruined room clear of debris and spread with pallets for sleeping. Piertramp lucked out and back away as a nest of giant hornets higher up in the ruined walls decided to defend their turf. Ringo stepped forward and much to everybody's surprise he spoke with the hornets and convinced them that they weren't any trouble!

Figuring that the tibbar would be expecting a frontal assault the group decided to remove the rubble and come in through the broken corner of the room. Sinclair used his massive war-hammer (now festooned with tibbar ears) and easily smashed the rubble inward until there was a traversible path. The group piled into the room, weapons ready, expecting the tibbar to come in through the door opposite their entry. Instead, nothing.

Moving to the door the trio of Sinclair, Piertramp, and Thorn flung the door open to a ruined hall, and nothing more. Clearly their quarry were further in the ruins already. They explored the immediate area briefly before determining that the closed room next door must contain the remaining tibbar.

Once more the trio of Sinclair, Piertramp, and Thorn flanked the door on either side with thorn in the middle. Piertramp flung the door open revealing the last few tibbar; the cheif, two other warriors, a shaman, and a number of females and children. Thorn spared no time and shot an arrow into the shaman who was standing between the door and the chief. The old tibbar went to one knee but he was not out of the fight. Reacting instinctively he reached out to drain the life from his enemies and restore his own, a natural 20 resulted in draining nearly a dozen hit points from the three explorers.

Enraged by the attacks the tibbar launched into combat and the fighting got intense quickly. Bo tried to sneak a peek at the door but slipped on some gravel and slid into the doorway where he became a target for the enraged rabbit-folk. On his next turn Bo attempted to use his Devolution mutation on the tibbar shaman, with 6 points of glowburn added to the attack. A natural 1 was the exact opposite roll he wanted to see, and I was forced to request a luck check. Success and only 1 point of the glowburn would be permanently lost, failure and all of it would be. The resulting 18 was not welcomed by the poor manimal.

Thorn became target for the ranged attacks of the and was dropped to zero by a combination of life drain, arrows, and explosive cadmium bullets. Agutter was quick to rush to Thorn's aid, but the use of a medipack proved too much for the plantient, restoring 9 more HP than needed Thorn had a 45% chance of having a mutation "healed." I grabbed my dice and rolled a 44! With no other mutations the revived Thorn was left in a vegetative state (I wish I'd had that pun on deck during play!).

Bo and Sinclair both went down during the remaining fight, and Agutter was forced to risk the medipack again with Craig rooting for more devolution to join him. Ultimately it was not to be and the seekers pressed with attack until first the shaman, then the chief and finally the last of the warriors were slain. With barely a second thought the group massacred the females and children and exterminated the tibbar entirely. Wow, that got dark. Good place to break for the evening...

In Memoriam: 

• Fliver, an arrow pincushion
• Ringo, drained of all life force by the Tibbar shaman
• Arthur, exploded by a cadmium rifle shot

In a Pot:

• Thorn, the Cactus