Hirelings, Mercenaries and Pack Animals

Hirelings, Mercenaries and Pack Animals

When setting out into the depths of The Gloom, a party might need to hire extra help or supplies to aid in their travels, and to bolster their forces. These creatures (referred to as Hirelings from this point on) receive no share of the treasure, do not level up and are not under the control of players directly – if asked to do something dangerous a loyalty check will determine whether they comply. As such, they have their own motivations, fears and limits. They do not receive death saves. They will supply their own equipment but not their own supplies which the party must pay for.  Each PC may only have a single hireling per expedition.

Loyalty Check
Each hireling must make a loyalty check if their resolve or loyalty is tested. This is a D20 roll which must roll below their loyalty score in order to pass. (For example, if a Mercenary has a Loyalty Score of 15, a roll of 14 would pass but 16 would not.) If a loyalty test is failed the character’s loyalty will decrease for that expedition and they will refuse to take that action, or may flee the danger. Success and good treatment will increase a character’s loyalty.

Pack Animals and War-Animals

Pack Animals are used to increase a party’s effective carrying capacity or bolster their forces. They will require one food and one water ration a day just like a player-character. Animals do not eat normal Food Rations but instead eat cheaper Animal Feed (1EU, 1 SP). (Stat blocks at end of article.)

The Animal Handling skill is used to interact with animals and ensure they follow instructions.
Unlike other hirelings, animals are owned by the character once bought.

Animal	Cost	Loyalty
Mule – a surefooted and stubborn pack-mule. (Mule)	30	15
Guard Dog – man’s best friend, even in The Gloom.  (Mastiff)	30	18
Messenger Owl – It can carry your last words through the dark on silent wings. (Owl)	10	8

Hirelings

These are people who will offer their services to adventurers, but they are themselves not accustomed to combat and will be little use in a fight.  For a price, they will venture into The Gloom to aid you but they will avoid being put in harm’s way wherever possible. Use the Commoner stats should they be attacked.

Hireling	Wage per Day	Loyalty
Torchbearer – he will carry your torch and your bags, leaving your hands free.  He will watch over you while you sleep.	10	10
Sage – A wise and learned figure who can offer knowledge at critical junctures.	15	8
Barber-Surgeon – This figure can splint bones and prepare a poultice for your wounds.	20	10
Sherpa – He has knowledge of survival, and many tales of the dangers of the Gloom to offer.	20	10

Mercenaries

Some people fight and kill for money – a well-remunerated skill-set in the wilds of The Gloom.  Mercenaries will fight in the melee for you but will flee if the danger is too great.

For each mercenary hired, your DM will roll on the Random Adventurers table to generate their stats.

Hireling	Wage per Day	Loyalty
Mercenary	30	16

More Inspiration for The Gloom

Here's some recent sources of inspiration for the strange world of perpetual darkness which is The Gloom:

William Beebe's Bathysphere

This great podcast touches on two Gloom-adjacent themes: exploration in a place of complete darkness and the strangeness of distant biology. Not only that, but the quotes of Beebe are a kind of taxonomic Lovecraft - a verifiable horror story of what lurks beyond. This podcast has inspired a number of Gloom creatures  I shall post later.

Here's an appetiser of Beebe's prose:

"These descents of mine beneath the sea seemed to partake of a real cosmic character. First of all there was the complete and utter loneliness and isolation, a feeling wholly unlike the isolation felt when removed from fellow men by mere distance … . It was a loneliness more akin to a first venture upon the moon or Venus than that from a plane in mid-ocean or a stance on Mount Everest: no whit more wonderful than these feats, but different."

John Carpenter's The Thing
Oh man but I love this movie and I doubt a single reader of mine is not intimately familiar with it. It's gore, its protean horror of a monster, its gruff fatalism - all are Gloom in the extreme. A recent rewatch has inspired me to try and capture that same sense of terror and isolation and paranoia in The Gloom.
It's a difficult atmosphere to capture in an essentially D&Dish game, but I am considering systems for betrayal and in our pre-game discussion we discussed a soft tolerance for PvP - provided it did not dominate sessions and result in an overall bad experience. Introducing some 'Thing-like creature which could imitate and replace players would require considerable buy-in and an incentive for players to keep playing. Its definitely something to consider, perhaps for some kind of Gloom Halloween one-shot.

A History of the World in 100 Objects
A truly great series. Much of the treasure players find is from the 'Preumbral' civilisation that predates the Gloom, and much of the exposition and story-telling they're going to receive about the continent is going to come from that source. To that end, I need each treasure-artefact to tell a story. Each of these objects is layered with incredible depth and nuance and meaning, and says so much about the civilisation to which they belong. Some are almost mythic in their story-telling potential (the Harappan Dancing Girl, for example.)

Random Adventurers - A Gothic grab-bag of stat-blocks for 5e.

Here are some of the original Random Adventurers from the Random Adventurer Table for The Gloom. I think they are appropriately Gloom.

 D20 Roll
 1 A Penitent Soul. A lowly and elderly Mendicant in sackcloth and a hairshirt, clutching a religious icon.

 2 A Knife Dancer. A faded beauty dressed in a once grand but now tatterdemalion coat., concealing knives in her many pockets and petticoats.

 3 A Fallen Knight. His armour is rusted and has darkened to a blood-soaked shade. He hefts his dented sword with reluctance.

 4 A Thug. A quiet giant in battered leathers wields a blackjack and hatchet with a stoic commitment to his purpose.

5 A Heretic. He clutches his forbidden texts close to his heart and wears a much-weathered robe. His bright, passionate eyes glint.

 6 An Occultist. This bookish, bespectacled youth moves with a manic energy.

 7 A Scion of Salt. Every inch of this old sailor is covered in tattoos, many of which are sexually explicit. He grins in a mouth missing many teeth and wields an old cutlass.

 8 A Grizzled Veteran. Missing an eye, this old solider project a sturdy confidence from beneath his wide-brimmed helmet. He trudges, despite the weight of his armour, with the studied nonchalance of a veteran campaigner.

 9 A Fallen Woman. This old matron was perhaps a fair sight in her youth, and she still wears a face masked in extensive make-up. Beneath her torn dress bulge a brace of pistols and a knife-belt.

 10 A Flagellant Dervish. This exhausted man with circles on his eyes is bare-chested – his back covered in thick, blood-red welts.

 11 A Drunkard Priest. In one hand a rosary hangs, in the other a hip-flask. This portly priest’s soiled robe and red face depict a life spent in indolence, not prayer.

 12 A Hobgoblin Legionary. Stiff-backed and formal, this heavily-armour Hobgoblin carries a large blunderbuss over his back.

 13 A Charlatan. In faded motley, his clownish make-up seeping from his face, this street-entertained has turned his skills to violence.

 14 A Duellist. With the grace and poise of a panther, this exiled noble plies his deadly trade far from home. He wears a masquerade mask and a pistol and rapier slung nonchalantly into a fine belt.

Prophesy in The Gloom - A System using Tarot Cards

Inspired by my own love of Tarot conceptually and Zak Smith's use of it is as a resolution mechanic, I've added it to the Gothic milleu of The Gloom, mechanically and in fluff:

Prophesy.

During your Haven Turn in the Gloom you may have chosen Prophesy, which means you sought out a back-alley palm-reader or haruspex to give you some inclination of your future. Fate and fortune often hang on the blade of a knife. At the start of your next expedition, your DM will perform a four-card Tarot reading for you, with the cards granting certain boons or follies. It is necessary that this reading be performed for you alone and without the knowledge of your team-mates.

Minor Arcana

The Suit of Swords: For any card in The Suit of Swords, the DM will give you the card to hold. You may expend it to add that number to an attack roll.  Page, Knight, Queen or King, you may expend it to turn any attack roll into a critical hit. You must use this ability after rolling the attack but before hearing the results of your roll.

The Suit of Cups: For any card in The Suit of Cups, the DM will give you the Page, Knight or Queen of Cups, you may expend it to automatically succeed on a survival check to find forage, provided such a check is possible. If you receive a King, you may expend it to remove one Foible. 

The Suit of Wands: For any card in The Suit of Wands, the DM will give you the card to hold in your play area until you choose to use it. You gain a one-use bonus to an Investigation, Perception, History, Arcana or Religion check, adding a bonus equal to the bonus on the card (1-10). You must use this ability after rolling but before learning the results of your roll.  If you receive a Page, Knight or Queen, you may expend the card to reroll a Spell Attack roll or Saving Throw against one of your spells, or your own Saving Throw against a magical effect. If you receive a King of Wands, you may expend the card to cast any first-level Wizard spell without expending any slots or material components, using any mental stat as your casting stat. This is fluffed as a prophesised event rather than your casting.

The Suit of Pentacles: For any card in The Suit of Pentacles, your DM will take the card and place it in their play area. Your DM may expend a card in the Suit of Pentacles to add sanity damage to a roll, with the damage reflecting the number on the card (1-10), expending the card. If your DM receives the Page, Knight or Queen of the Suit of Pentacles, they may expend it to add an extra monster to a random encounter. If your DM receives the King of Pentacles, they may expend it to curse one character with a Foible of their choice.  

The Major Arcana:

(00) The Fool—Give this card to your DM. He may expend it to turn any critical roll into a critical failure.

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(1) The Magician— Place this card in your play-area. You may use a Wizard spell up to third level without expending a spell-slot or material components, using any mental stat as your casting stat, expending the card.

(2) The High Priestess— Place this card in your play area. Once per day for this expedition, you may freely cast the Sanctuary Spell on yourself using any mental stat as your casting stat.

(3) The Empress— Place this card in your play-area. You have a moment of rapturous aura. You may charm all creatures that can perceive you within ten feet, expending the card.

(4) The Emperor— Place this card in your play-area. You have a moment of command and leadership, and may expend it to gain advantage on Persuasion, Intimidation and Deception for one day.

(5) The Hierophant— Place this card in your play-area. For this expedition, you have advantage on saves against supernatural possession and in performing exorcisms or other holy rites.

(6) The Lovers— Place this card in your play-area. You may expend it and tell a love-story from your characters past and be rewarded with immunity to all charm effects for this expedition. Alternatively, you may nominate one other character as your lover. This will enable you to have a shared pool of sanity points, but you will both gain a foible if you hit 0.

(7) The Chariot—Place this card in your play-area. You may expend it to either dash without spending any Action or Movement in combat, or to have your party travel twice as fast in an Adventuring Turn.

(8) Strength—Place this card in your play-area. Your carrying capacity increases by ten for this expedition.

(9) The Hermit— Give this card to your DM. He may expend it to give any character the Paranoia, Fatalistic Despair, This is a Game, Solipsism or Photophobia Foible.

(10) The Wheel of Fortune— Place this card in your play-area. You and the DM both gain a pool of three rerolls which you may expend through the expedition. They cannot be used to reroll the same die.

(11) Justice— . Place this card in your play-area. You may expend it to succeed at an Investigation, Insight or Religion check once in the expedition.

(12) The Hanged Man— Give this card to your DM. He may expend it at any time to add an extra complication or hazard to any encounter.

(13) Death— Give this card to your DM. He may expend it to force a player-character to fail two death saves immediately.

(14) Temperance—Place this card in your play area. You need only expend a food and water ration every two days to avoid exhaustion for this expedition.

(15) The Devil— Oh fuck. Give this card to your DM.  They will walk you to one side to discuss this. SPOILER FOR THOSE PLAYING THE GLOOM.

The Devil grants the player the 'Betrayer' Foible. Essentially, they must undermine the party and try to cause the expedition to fail whilst evading notice. If they successfully do so, grant a level for every character lost.

(16) The Tower— Place this card in your play area. You may expend it in an Adventure Locale and the DM will give you prophesied knowledge of the layout and character of the dungeon you are in, the location of several hazards or traps, and some hint at the greatest concentration of moveable wealth.

(17) The Star— Place this card in your play area. You cannot become lost during the next Expedition.

(18) The Moon— Give this card to your DM. He may expend it to add a pack of therianthropes otoany encounter or adventure locale.

(19) The Sun— Place this card in your play area. You may expend it at the start of an adventuring day in The Gloom to force the ‘Sunburst’ weather condition.

(20) Judgement—Place this card in your play area. If you commit an evil deed (murder, cannibalism, betrayal, rape, killing a prisoner, ambushing a neutral force…) you must pass this card to your DM. You lose all Sanity if above 0, and you gain two Foibles and a Curse. If you still have this card in your play area at the end of an expedition, lose one Foible.

(21) The World—Place this card in your play area. On your next expedition, you may ask the DM to look at the encounter tables and hazards of any region you enter.

Warforged for Into The Gloom - The Alloyed [5e]

 1. mix (metals) to make an alloy.
"alloying tin with copper to make bronze"

2. debase (something) by adding something inferior.
"a salutary fear alloyed their admiration"

With the release of Ebberron, I thought I'd give a riff on Warforged for The Gloom campaign. I've tried to make them feel very different from mortal characters - especially in a survival-focused game like The Gloom.

The Alloyed, The Talosophic
 From the Imperial Punishment Factories they creep back into every walk of life: The Alloyed. Men of steam, and steel, and brass. On metallic feet they click along, lungs and hearts working in tandem with steam-pipes; oil-black ichor mixing in uneasy communion with scarlet blood. Under metallic shells run the same tendons and ligaments as mortal men, and many Alloyed claim they are the same as any Unalloyed. Others hint at a permanent chill, the unshakable sensation of a phantom limb, occasional unwarranted movement of mechanical parts; a sense of ticking purpose and dreadful ennui.

The Alloyed are a race made to represent those who, willingly or otherwise, have replaced a considerable part of their bodies with machinery. These indomitable creatures have been packed off to The Gloom in numbers – whether this is due to their utility or expendability is anyone’s guess

The Alloyed/The Talosophic
Ability Score Increase: Your strength and constitution increase by one.
Size:  The Alloyed are wedded enough to their mortal form to be Medium.
Speed: Your movement is a little ungainly: your base walking speed is 20”.
Organs of Steel and Steam: You do not eat or drink mortal food, and lack of sleep does not cause you exhaustion. However, you must refuel yourself daily with Ichor and become paralysed if immersed in water. You may not gain the benefit from magical healing.
Languages: You speak Common and one additional language of your choice.

Subtype: Choose one of the below subtypes that best reflects your method of construction and purpose.

Walking Fortress:  You are made with innate armour: an indomitable steel shell cocooning your mortal parts. You gain +1 AC and take one less damage from non-magical piercing, bludgeoning and slashing attacks.
Robota: You were made for hard and tedious labour unsuited to those limited to flesh. Gain +1 strength. Part of your body is a tool (hammer, saw, axe etc) which deals 1d6 + STR damage as a weapon you are proficient with.
Nerves of Steel: You have had much of your lymph nodes and nervous system stripped away, and you feel your emotions only as far away things, of little consequence. You gain advantage on saves against being frightened and the charmed condition. You gain +1 Wisdom.

Into the Gloom - Sanity and Foibles

Sanity
Each character in Into the Gloom has a Sanity Points score, determined by the formula below in the same way as hit points. Each class has a Sanity Hit Die pe level and adds the highest modifier of Wisdom, Intelligence or Charisma to their roll each level – just as Constitution determines a character’s hit points. Add the sanity hit die per level and highest modifier to a base of eight. (Eg a Warlock of Level 2 with 16 Charisma would have 2d4 + 3 + 10 Sanity Points – leading to a total of 19 is averages were taken.) Players may take the average as with hit points.  Some classes are more vulnerable or resilient to sanity depletion.  Sanity is recovered by a Long Rest.

D4	D6	D8	D10	D12
Warlock	Barbarian Sorcerer	Druid Rogue Wizard Ranger Bard Monk	Cleric Fighter	Paladin

Numerous things afflict sanity damage, as detailed below:

D6	D8	D10	D12
Being afflicted by a status affliction: Poison, Paralysis, Frightened, Charmed, Slowed, Possession, Exhaustion. Spending one day in The Gloom. Running out of light.	Being struck with an attack that has the Horrifying tag, eg a Banshee’s Wail or an Anophelli’s proboscis. Being hit by a brutal critical.	Being knocked unconscious. Failing a death-save. Running out of supplies or being engaged in a hopeless situation.	Witnessing a party member’s death. Engaging in a serious taboo eg cannibalism. Cosmic horror.

Hitting 0 Sanity will result in a breakdown, causing the acquisition of a Foible. These will have both role-playing and mechanical effects. If you work against your Foible, you will take D6 sanity damage. Working with the Foible will give you bonuses to sanity recovery and inspiration die. Should you hit minus half your Sanity Point Total, your character will die.

ROLL D20	FOIBLE
1	PARANOIA: “I trust my comrades less and less with every passing moment. They are madmen all, who dragged me to this place.” Your character must take all actions for self-preservation, hoarding food and trusting only himself. You automatically fail on saves against Fear effects – characters immune to Fear no longer are. You must argue against trust or diplomacy. Taking actions that harm the party in line with this trait will earn you inspiration and sanity recovery.
2	MAD BRAVADO:  “Three against one? Finally a test!” Your character cares not an inch for self-preservation and will throw themselves into any danger or challenge. You will gain inspiration for every risk you take and will take sanity damage if you attempt to mitigate risk at all.
3	FATALISTIC DESPAIR: “Why fight on? All hope is lost.” You have disadvantage on all mental saving throws. You desire only to give up and surrender yourself to an inevitable doom.
4	FAITHLESS, AT THE END:   “We are the forgotten children of dead gods…”. Your character has lost all faith. Clerics and Paladins lose access to their spells. You are now an Atheist convinced that you live in a cruel and unloving cosmos. You must tear down the faith of your party or risk sanity damage. OR PENITENTIAL: “Oh sweet gods shelter this unworthy form…” You are a fanatic. Only God has spared you from the horrors that abound so far, and only in that faith can you be spared. You must convert the others in your party or risk sanity damage.
5	THE HUNGER: “Just a few more mouthfuls…” You must make a WIS 14 saving throw to not eat and drink double rations whenever rations are consumed. You progress through exhaustion from starvation at double the rate of normal. It will never be enough.
6	CHEMICAL DEPENDENCY:  “A tincture to ease the pain…” Upon returning to town, you find solace in some manner of drug or alcohol. You must consume or utilise that drug every day with your rations of suffer withdrawal (use rules for exhaustion) or in moments of extreme stress. Choose/agree with DM: Laudanum: 5GP a dose. If taken immediately before combat, use the MAD BRAVADO rules to adjudicate the subsequent euphoria. Long-term use results in damage to Constitution (1point per week of addiction). Gin: 1gp a dose. If taken enough to become drunk, take disadvantage on anything requiring rolls link to Intelligence, Dexterity or Wisdom.
7	EATING DISORDER:  You are too shaken to eat, and sustenance does little to dampen your despair. You must pass a 12 WILL save to eat when rations are consumed. Normal starvation penalties apply.
8	BLOODLUST: “I will spill your intestines in the dirt and trample them, Gloomling!” You exult only in carnage and death. You only find peace in war, mutilation and combat. You do not recover sanity damage through rest, but upon killing a foe you may gain 1d4 sanity recovery. You may spend an action mutilating their corpse for a further 1d6.  You take sanity damage if you seek a peaceful or diplomatic solution.
9	THIS IS A GAME: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players…” You are a aware of living in a reality controlled by the rules of a mad and careless god known as DE-EM, and that you are merely the pawn of some otherworldly avatar. You hear all table conversation in character – adjudicate sanity loss or gain as appropriate.
10	Photophobia:  “Away from the burning light, a blanket of perfect night.” You fear the light. You gain the Bright Light Sensitivity of many Gloom monsters (disadvantage on attack rolls in bright light) but gain 20” of Darkvision. You can recover sanity by resting in perfect darkness.
11	Nyctophobia: “It is not the dark I fear but what lurks within it.” You fear the pervasive dark of The Gloom more than anything. You take sanity damage if in anything less than bright light and must roll a WIS 10 or become frightened of areas of severe darkness.
12	Pyromania: “A righteous fire would scour clean the world.” You are obsessed with burning things and the power of fire. You may recover sanity by burning objects, buildings, creatures and fellow adventurers. Magic you cast that does fire damage does an extra 1d4 damage.
13	Compulsive: “Eighteen times around the candle so the Grue doesn’t get us.” You develop a debilitating compulsion eg: You must open and close every door five times. You must have an even number of torches burning at any one time. You must be on guard in the same order each night. You take sanity damage if you fail to live up to your compulsion.
14	Anthrophobia/Introversion: “……….”.  Noone understands you, so increasingly you prefer solitude and silence and the self. You have disadvantage on Persuasion and Performance rolls and will rest physically removed from other adventurers, with attendant dangers. If placed in crowds of some kind, you take sanity damage.
15	Solipsism: “A dream within a dream.” You believe that you alone are real, and the rest are mere shades in an endless dream. You couldn’t be expected to take this charade seriously, or care too much for the well-being of the other ‘people’. You gain inspiration for foregrounding yourself and taking the stage. You take sanity damage if you become a minor character in your own dream.
16	Gallows-Humour. “First the physician told me the good news – they’d name the disease after me…”  You can find the mirth in the darkest quagmire and make others revel at the absurdity of the macabre. Once per short rest when an ally would take sanity damage, you may make a witty remark and reduce that damage by your Charisma modifier (minimum 1).
17	Masochist: “My tastes are…unconventional.”  Whenever you would take sanity damage from physical harm, recover that sanity damage instead.
18	Serenity:  “What is this but a quintessence of dust?”  You possess the unerring calm of a Bodhisattva. If you spend an adventuring turn in meditation, you recover your sanity. If at full sanity, you gain a buffer of temporary sanity points equivalent to your level.
19	Stoic:  “This too shall pass.” You have faced many horrors and survived. Every time you would take sanity damage, roll a d4 and subtract the result from the damage. If this would result in a minus number, you regain sanity.
20	Valiant: “Once more into the breach!” You are unbroken by the horrors around you. Recover to your sanity total. If you commit an act of self-sacrifice or bravery, you may recover 1d4 sanity for yourself or an ally.