Serial Four

 You can watch all of Serial Four HERE

Cost of Living and Timeline Between Serials

   In Stars Without Number, an OSR sci-fi game that is not the ruleset I use for the show/campaign but it has useful Equipment sections and all that good stuff. It states that:

"Poor lifestyles involve barracks-like quarters, public transport, and small and infrequent luxuries."

and

"Common lifestyles usually allow for a private urban apartment or rural home, a rented personal vehicle, a respectable wardrobe, and regular small indulgences."

  In the past when I created the Crimson Hound I considered the rental price of his apartment using prices listed in LotFP. I then never bothered to consider things like food and public transportation. I'd stated "He rents an apartment in a bad part of town that costs 30 GP/month, 1 month is already deducted from his current GP."

  Stars Without Number gives us this table for overall cost of life instead of tracking down every single expense:

  So far in the Serial it's been established that The Crimson Hound has an apartment but no vehicle and uses public transportation. So in other words he's somewhere between a Poor and Common lifestyle, which we'll average at 12.5 GP/Day.

  But it's also stated that: "Prices given here assume short-term rentals and contracts, plus the inevitable premium charged to outsiders in almost any society. Natives might be able to enjoy a given level of lifestyle for only half as much, but such savings usually rely on a local’s connections."

  The Crimson Hound rents his apartment under the name of Adamus Ward and permanently resides in it, he is therefore a 'native'. So that takes us to 6.25 GP/Day.

  Unless a Serial happens to expressly last longer than one week in the story or logic dictates a different timeline, I will default on average that each Serial takes place the week following the previous Serial. (Which yes, means that the Crimson Hound has very action-packed months!)

  So 7 times 6.25 GP gives us 43.75 GP. In other words, every week/Serial costs the Crimson Hound 43 GP, 7 SP, 5 CP. A bit cumbersome so let's clean t up to 43.75 times 4 for a clean 175 GP/4 weeks.

  Every 4 Serials the Crimson Hound has 175 GP removed from his character sheet. If he ever happens to not have enough then he is in debt and/or in danger of being evicted.

Serial Three

 WATCH IT HERE!

The Crimson Hound

 

OSR Crossover

 

  Elevator pitch: This post is an invitation to anyone with an OSR Actual Play show (no matter the platform) to contact me to do a crossover story that would span across different participating shows.

More Context:  I have an Actual Play OSR show titled CHRONICLES OF THE CRIMSON HOUND. The quick description of the show is that it's Horror Cyberpunk instead of Medieval Fantasy and that I am the Player Character in my show, with every Serial (A game session edited into episodes) having a different Guest GM. Since most OSR out there is Medieval Fantasy, some dimension-crossing would be involved in the story to make this crossover happen.

  The goal is to have a single story that would begin on my channel, then the next episode would continue in the channel of the next crossover participant, and so on. The amount of parts to the story would depend on how many shows would like to participate, but each episode would have the Crimson Hound finding himself in the world of one of the shows that chose to participate, playing with the show's regular group under its regular GM.

  There are more details to the logistics of this of course, but I don't want to make this post too long so if you're interested in this idea or have any questions, contact me at <titleoftheshow>@gmail.com or on any of my social media.

  Talk to you soon I hope!

DHAMPIR VIGILANTE Class Updated!

 

  This is the most up-to-date version of the Dhampir Vigilante class, if you're curious about the original version it's HERE.

DHAMPIR VIGILANTE

Requirements: Minimum Str 13, Minimum Dex 13

Prime requisite: STR

Hit Dice: 1d8

Combat Progression: As Fighter

Saving Throws: As Dwarf

Maximum Level: 14 (Or no limit if your game doesn't stop at Level 14 for Humans.)

Armour/Shields: Any

Weapons: Any

Languages: Common, Shadows

Abilities, Skills & Weaknesses

• Combat Machine: Extra attacks up to current level on enemies of 1HD or less.
• Infravision 30 ft.
• Unarmed Combat: Fists or fangs, 1d4
• Skill, Supernatural Lore: 3 in 6 chance to have useful information about the supernatural. If a roll fails about a specific subject matter, the information can only be learned through the story. A new roll can be attempted after a level has been gained as long as the character had some downtime to do research in the meantime. The GM can give penalties for obscure lore or declare that a roll can't be made in the first place.
• Skill, Urban Tracking: 3 in 6, the ability to track someone or something down in a city via gathering clues and talking to people. It's always possible that no clues at all are out there for the time being and thus that such a roll fails automatically. How long such an investigation takes is up to the GM, but the Player can always stop searching before the end if it's taking too long, the roll is then automatically declared failed.
• Climb Sheer Surfaces: Same progression as a Thief
• Hear Noise: Same progression as a Thief
• Hide in Shadows: Same progression as a Thief
• Move Silently: Same progression as a Thief
• Immunity to Ghoul Paralysis.
• Immunity to Blood Diseases.
• Supernatural Healing: The Dhampir Vigilante can heal faster than humans once per day. Mechanically this is the same as the spell Cure Light Wounds but the Dhampir Vigilante can only do it on himself.
• Stronghold: At any level as long as the Dhampir Vigilante has the funds for it.
• Vulnerable to Holy Water: Contact with Holy Water will cause 1d4 damage to the Dhampir Vigilante.
• Weakened by Daylight: When exposed to daylight directly, all Saving Throw rolls take a -1 penalty.
• One Foot in the Grave: While the Dhampir Vigilante is not Undead, their connection to their Vampiric ancestry means that they can be affected by a Turn Undead attack. They can only be Turned however, never destroyed by it.
• Bloodlust: All Dhampirs thirst for the blood of humans. Some try to keep it in check, others don't. The GM decides when this comes into play or not, and how to handle it rules-wise. If the GM deems it appropriate there are rare moments when this could be an advantage, such as allowing a Dhampir to track a bleeding person from the scent of their blood for example.
• Vampiric Gifts: Starting at Level 2, a Dhampir Vigilante can choose to roll 1d4 HP instead of 1d8 when levelling up in exchange for a Level 1 Arcane Spell that he can use 1/day. The same spell can be chosen many times, in that case it adds an extra use per day. A Dhampir Vigilante can never have more Level 1 spells than an Elf of the same level. No spellbook is required for this.

XP CHART

• Level 1: 0 xp
• Level 2: 4000 xp
• Level 3: 8000 xp
• Level 4: 16 000 xp
• Level 5: 32 000 xp
• Level 6: 64 000 xp
• Level 7: 128 000 xp
• Level 8: 240 000 xp
• Level 9 Onwards: +120 000 xp /additional level

  

The Crimson Hound's Suit

   I have to admit that for something as important as the look of a masked vigilante, the Crimson Hound's look has remained somewhat vague so far. 

 During Serial 1 this is what he looked like from the neck up, based on an awful drawing I made just because the Old-School Essentials character sheet I was filling out had room for a character sketch:

  So a red domino mask and a black cloak is what we see of his costume. In Serial 1 and 2 he wears leather armor and since his name is The Crimson Hound, I'll clarify right now that leather armor is red.

  During Serial 1 I tried to bring the Crimson Hound to life for the intro and made a comic-book style domino mask out of construction goggles:

  A work in progress and you can easily see the flaws. The white eyes are made with a sheet of kleenex and they folded a bit too much, they were hard to straighten out. A friend of mine pointed out the mask looked like a VR set and that gave me the idea that the Crimson Hound's portable computer could be incorporated into his mask and made into Augmented Reality goggles in the story. The outside of the goggles is actually a screen that can be modified by the Crimson Hound to show a few templates, the default one being the comic-book style red domino mask. The eyes can go from white empty eyes to letting the eyes section 'peel' back and allow others to see his actual eyes behind the screen of the goggles, although with a red hue. Hard for me to create such a device but thankfully a filter allowed me to make it look right: 

  So starting in Serial 2, the Crimson Hound now has AR goggles instead of a traditional domino mask and we can see his black cloak now has a Dracula-style collar and is big enough to cover his shoulders and chest. Fun fact, the cloak is actually my real-life winter coat, which has a collar that can be pulled up for when it's cold.

  For what that can look like overall, I imagine an overall style similar to that of Luke Skywalker in Dark Empire:

 

LINKS

 WATCH THE SHOW

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM 

INTRODUCTION TO THE SHOW

Serial 2

WATCH SERIAL 2 HERE!

Crimson Hound - Updated Character Sheet

  THE CRIMSON HOUND (ADAMUS WARD)

Dhampir Vigilante Level 1

Experience: 1000 /3400 xp

HD: 1d8

HP: 11

STR: 17 (+2)

DEX: 14 (+1)

CON: 18 (+3)

INT: 13 (+1)

WIS: 14 (+1)

CHA: 10 (--)

SAVING THROWS: D (8) W (9) P (10) B (13) S(12)

AC: 13 (10 + 2 Leather Armor +1 Dexterity Bonus)

Bonus To Hit:+0

Melee Attack Bonus: +2

Ranged Attack Bonus: +1

Class Abilities

• Can use all Weapons and Armors
• Combat Machine: Extra attacks up to current level on enemies of 1HD or less.
• Infravision 30 ft.
• Unarmed Combat: Fists or fangs, 1d8
• +2 on Saving Throws v.s Death/Poison
• Skill, Supernatural Lore: 3 in 6 chance to have useful information about the supernatural. If a roll fails about a specific subject matter, the information can only be learned through the story. A new roll can be attempted after a level has been gained as long as the character had some downtime to do research in the meantime. The GM can give penalties for obscure lore or declare that a roll can't be made in the first place.
• Skill, Urban Tracking: 3 in 6, the ability to track someone or something down in a city via gathering clues and talking to people. It's always possible that no clues at all are out there for the time being and thus that such a roll fails automatically. How long such an investigation takes is up to the GM, but the Player can always stop searching before the end if it's taking too long, the roll is then automatically declared failed.
• Climb Sheer Surfaces: 87%
• Hear Noise: 2/6
• Hide in Shadows: 10%
• Move Silently: 20%
• Supernatural Healing: The Dhampir Vigilante can cast Cure Light Wounds once per day but only on himself/herself.
• Vulnerable to Holy Water: Contact with Holy Water will cause 1d4 damage to the Dhampir Vigilante.
• Weakened by Daylight: When exposed to daylight directly, all Saving Throw rolls take a -1 penalty.
• One Foot in the Grave: While the Dhampir Vigilante is not Undead, their connection to their Vampiric ancestry means that they can be affected by a Turn Undead attack. They can only be Turned however, never destroyed by it.
• Languages Known: Common and the Language of Shadows

Equipment: Handgun  (1d6, Rate of Fire 2) + 20 bullets, 3 Electric Batons (1d6, +1d4 Dam. when using a charge. 10 charges each. Can potentially Stun, details up to the current GM), Leather Armor, Slim Backpack (Easily detachable when needed via a clips system, hidden beneath the cape), Mini-Computer with access to Augmented Reality (Built into mask/visor), 1 Med Kit (1 round to apply, heals 2d4 HP), 42 GP. 

  He rents an apartment in a bad part of town that costs 30 GP/month, 1 month is already deducted from his current GP.

Story: Adamus Ward is nothing but a fake I.D illegally bought by the Crimson Hound to disappear within the masses of Glumengrad, but he's taken a liking to it. Born with the designated name of Hound #6, Adamus knows nothing of the details of his birth. All he knows is that he was raised from childhood to be a soldier in humanity's war against the supernatural. 

  The fact that he was fed with blood injections was just a normal part of his life, although since on his own he has grown to love food. He was one of many Hounds, an elite secret team of monster hunters, none of them entirely normal. One night as they were trying to capture a creature inside an abandoned building, he heard his superiors give the order over the comlink; The building was to be destroyed with the Hounds inside. 

  He alone survived the explosion it seems. To this day he does not know if the organisation who raised and trained him was the government, a corporation or something else entirely. He does not know why he and his brothers and sisters were to be sacrificed. What he knows is that he used to not question these things, everything was a bit of a blur really. He now suspects there was something in the blood they gave him to numb his mind as well, because after he escaped his mind became more and more clear with each passing day. 

  He now continues to do what he's always done, hunt down monsters, only he does it on his own terms as the Crimson Hound. He suspects it will eventually attract the attention of his old patrons who betrayed him and the others. He welcomes that, for it would give him a path to revenge.

P.S: The character sheet and stats can be temporarily changed to fit a Guest GM's rules and/or system, it is used as a starting point and nothing is written in stone.

Serial 1: Conclusion!