DCC Patron: The May Queen

I really like the idea of Patrons in Dungeon Crawl Classics.  The crazy things that demons, arch-fey, and other otherworldly beings demand of their mortal lackeys makes the whole "mad wizard" concept make sense, as well as differentiating wizards from each other a lot more than calling one a necromancer and another a conjuror when they share about 50% of their spell list.

The one thing that hasn't sat too well with me is how weirdly disfiguring the corruption is for most of the Patrons I've seen, either the official ones in the book or homebrews.  Not that this is 100% a bad thing, but it seems to me that elves in general are not too into giving up their looks for power.  Of course, there are always renegades who don't mind turning into some slobbering frog-beast, but most elves are too haughty to demean themselves that way.  On the other hand, to my way of thinking, elves don't care a bit about going bat-shit insane if it gets them more power...there's a reason elves are kind of scary in the old stories.  And also, if a Patron taint improves their looks in some way, most elves would be all over that.

So I've decided to make a couple of Patrons that (to my mind) hold more appeal for elves than the average currently available ones.  Here's the first one...I should have the next ready in a week or so.

The May Queen

The Queen of the Spring is a favored patron among the elves. She holds power over flowers, butterflies, and things of beauty, and she presides over the end of winter and return of life to the world.

Invoke Patron check results:

12-13	A swarm of colorful butterflies swirl around a designated enemy, effectively blinding them for 1d4 rounds.
14-17	A swarm of bees surrounds 1d3 enemies, stinging for 1 point of damage each round for 1d6 rounds.
18-19	A swarm of bees surrounds 1d4+2 enemies, stinging for 2 points of damage each round for 2d4 rounds.
20-23	A group of 2d4 killer bees flies into the area, attacking the caster's enemies for 1 full turn. If all enemies are dispatched while bees remain, they will fetch and carry small objects for the caster until the turn is over.
24-27	A swarm of 3d6 giant bees flies in, attacking the caster's enemies for 1d3 turns, fetching and carrying as above.
28-29	A giant dragonfly zips into the area, attacking the caster's enemies for 2d4 turns. If the caster is of elf-size or smaller, they can use the dragonfly as a mount. Neither the caster nor the dragonfly can attack in the round the caster mounts it. Giant Dragonfly: Init +2; Atk +5 (dmg 3d4 bite); AC 17; HD 7d8; MV 90' flying; Act 1d20; SV Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +2; AL N.
30-31	A group of 1d4+1 giant dragonflies swarms into the area, attacking the caster's enemies for 3d4 turns. The dragonflies can be used as mounts as above.
32+	A pair of pastel colored fairy wyverns with butterfly wings swoops in to attack the caster's enemies, serve as mounts for up to human-size creatures, and be generally helpful until the next sunset. Fairy Wyvern: Atk +7 (dmg 2d8 bite/1d6 tail sting); AC 16; HD 7d12; MV 15 ground/60 flying; Act 2d20; SP poison sting (DC 17 Fort save, lose 2d6 Stamina on successful save, 4d6 on fail); SV Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +5; AL C.

Patron Taint: The May Queen

Roll Result

1 The caster exudes a strong floral scent whenever they cast a spell. The second time this

result is rolled, the caster smells like flowers all the time. The third time this result is

rolled, flowers bud and grow as part of the caster's hair.

2 The caster is always surrounded by a number of bees, butterflies, fireflies, and other

nectar-eating insects. The second time this result is rolled, the caster's skin becomes

somewhat sticky, causing small lightweight objects to adhere. The third time this result

is rolled, the caster's body begins to sweat honey. Any time the caster breaks a sweat

their clothes and belongings become saturated with sweet stickiness.

3 The caster's spells are accompanied by the sounds of birdsong. The second time this

result is rolled, the sounds of birds can always be heard in the caster's presence. The

third time this result is rolled, birds will always be physically present with the caster.

They may occasionally help with housework, but usually just perch here and there, and

make stealth extremely difficult.

4 Plants in the caster's footsteps become noticeably greener. The second time this result is

rolled, small seedlings spring up in the caster's footprints. Even walking across bare

rock, cracks in the rock and small accumulations of dirt will hold tiny seedlings

wherever the caster has stepped. The third time this result is rolled, the seedlings

quickly bloom in beautiful and unmistakable colors, making the caster easy to track.

5 Wood that remains in contact with the caster for any length of time (walking staff, a

chair that is sat in for more than an hour or so, a cart being ridden in) begins to ooze

fresh sap from the end grain. The second time this result is rolled, roots begin to grow

from wood that remains in contact with the caster. The third time this is rolled, wood

that remains in contact with the caster buds and eventually grows green leaves.

6 The caster becomes a very heavy sleeper, and must make a DC 10 Will save to wake up

in the night, even with melee raging around their bed. The second time this result is

rolled, the caster falls into a deep sleep, almost a coma whenever the sun goes down in

the winter. They can only be awakened by forceful shaking or outright pain and with a

DC 15 Will save. The third time this result is rolled, the caster falls into a deep coma at

the first heavy frost of the winter, curling into a fetal position and turning hard (AC 15)

and dark brown, like a seed. They will remain this way until the spring. Methods of

“sprouting” the caster before spring are left to the GM's imagination.

Patron Spells: The May Queen

1. Fairy Jewels

2. Peaceful Night

3. Reawakening

Spellburn: The May Queen

Roll Spellburn Result

1 Bees swarm the caster's ears, eyes, nose, and mouth attempting to collect blood instead

of nectar. The pain and blood loss manifest as stat point loss.

2 A rose vine sprouts at the caster's feet and wraps around their legs, digging thorns into

flesh. Each point of spellburn causes a white rose to bloom and slowly turn red as the

vine drains blood from the caster.

3 The caster's life force glows forth, shedding light and heat in the immediate area. Any

plants in the area will grow quickly and lushly for several days afterwards.

4 The caster falls dormant as though dead until spellburn damage heals fully.

Fairy Jewels

Level: 1 (The May Queen) Range: 100' Duration: Varies Casting Time: 1 action

Save: Will save vs spell check

General: The ground is scattered with small jewel-like gleams, with the potential to distract

greedy enemies.

Manifestation: Roll 1d4: (1) the end of a rainbow descends on the area for a few seconds, before

disappearing and leaving behind the gleaming fairy jewels; (2) disembodied child-like

laughter is heard just as the glint of fairy jewels is noticed; (3) small flowers sprout and

bloom, revealing a jewel within; (4) small glimmers of light in different colors fly

around the area in erratic loops and curves before settling to the ground

12-13	The fairy jewels cover an area approximately 5' across. Intelligent foes and animals attracted by shiny objects who fail a Will save and are within 5' of the jewels take a -2 penalty to AC for 1 round while they work out whether these are real gems or not. Closer inspection reveals that they are drops of dew that refract light falling on them.
14-17	The fairy jewels cover an area approximately 10' across. Intelligent foes and animals attracted by shiny objects who fail a Will save and are within 5' of the jewels take a -2 penalty to AC and attack rolls for 1d3 rounds while they work out whether these are real gems or not. Closer inspection reveals that they are drops of dew that refract light falling on them.
18-19	The fairy jewels cover an area approximately 10' across. Intelligent foes and animals attracted by shiny objects who fail a Will save and are within 10' of the jewels take a -2 penalty to AC and attack rolls for 1d6 rounds while they work out whether these are real gems or not. Closer inspection reveals that they are small crystals of quartz of no real value.
20-23	The fairy jewels cover an area approximately 15' across. Intelligent foes and animals attracted by shiny objects who are within 10' of the jewels take a -2 penalty to AC and attack rolls for 1d8 rounds while they work out whether these are real gems or not. Those who fail a Will save are unable to attack during this time. Closer inspection reveals that they are small crystals of quartz of no real value.
24-27	The fairy jewels cover an area approximately 15' across. Intelligent foes and animals attracted by shiny objects who are within 10' of the jewels take a -2 penalty to AC for 2d6 rounds while they work out whether these are real gems or not. They are unable to attack during this time. Those who fail a Will save fall to arguing among themselves over the jewels. Closer inspection reveals that they are small crystals of quartz of no real value interspersed with 1d6 semiprecious stones worth d10x10 gp each.
28-29	The fairy jewels cover an area approximately 20' across. Intelligent foes and animals attracted by shiny objects who are within 10' of the jewels take a -2 penalty to AC for 2d8 rounds while they work out whether these are real gems or not. They are unable to attack during this time. Those who fail a Will save fall to arguing among themselves over the jewels. Closer inspection reveals that they are small crystals of quartz of no real value interspersed with 1d8 semiprecious stones worth d10x10 gp each.
30-31	The fairy jewels cover an area approximately 20' across. Intelligent foes and animals attracted by shiny objects who are within 15' of the jewels fall to arguing among themselves over the jewels for 2d10 rounds. Those who fail a Will save will come to blows. Closer inspection reveals that they are small crystals of quartz of no real value interspersed with 1d8 gemstones worth d10x100 gp each.
32+	The fairy jewels cover an area approximately 30' across. Intelligent foes and animals attracted by shiny objects who are within 15' of the jewels fall to fighting among themselves over the jewels for 2d12 rounds . Closer inspection reveals that they are small crystals of quartz of no real value interspersed with 1d10 gemstones worth d10x100 gp each.

Peaceful Night

Level: 2 (The May Queen) Range: None Duration: Varies Casting Time: 1 action

Save: Will save vs spell check where allowed

General: Creates a warm(er), safe(r) environment for resting and/or healing.

Manifestation: Roll 1d3: (1) the air sparkles and magical tinkling sounds are heard as the local

environment alters to a spring evening; (2) a portal opens into a fairy forest (the portal

remains open throughout the spell's duration); (3) a warm wind blows, causing plants to

grow and flourish as in the springtime

14-15	An area of 10' radius is raised or lowered 10 degrees towards 75 degrees Fahrenheit for 2d4 hours. Small flecks of light like fireflies or lightning bugs drift around the area, creating enough light to see, but not quite enough to read by.
16-19	An area of 15' radius is raised or lowered 20 degrees towards 75 degrees Fahrenheit for 2d4 hours. Small flecks of light like fireflies or lightning bugs drift around the area, creating enough light to see, but not quite enough to read by. Additionally, dandelions and morels spring up in the area, enough to feed 1d3 people for one meal.
20-21	An area of 15' radius is raised or lowered 30 degrees towards 75 degrees Fahrenheit for 1d6+2 hours. Resting in this area is especially restorative; six hours of sleep here counts as a full night. Small flecks of light like fireflies or lightning bugs drift around the area, creating enough light to see, but not quite enough to read by. Additionally, dandelions and morels spring up in the area, enough to feed 1d6 people for one meal. Lastly, the sounds of crickets, frogs, and katydids will stop suddenly if any creature approaches within 100' of the site, making the guard's job easier.
22-25	An area of 20' radius is raised or lowered 40 degrees towards 75 degrees Fahrenheit for 1d6+2 hours. Resting in this area is especially restorative; four hours of sleep here counts as a full night, and eight hours counts as two nights for purposes of natural healing or regaining stat point loss. The sky is lit as if the sun has just set, or is just about to rise, giving enough light to see by. Anyone who needs more light, to read for instance, is obliged by the fireflies, who group near enough to shed enough light. Additionally, dandelions and morels spring up in the area, enough to feed 1d10 people for one meal. Lastly, the sounds of crickets, frogs, and katydids will stop suddenly if any creature approaches within 100' of the site, making the guard's job easier.
26-29	An area of 25' radius is raised or lowered 50 degrees towards 75 degrees Fahrenheit for 1d4+4 hours. Resting in this area is especially restorative; four hours of sleep here counts as a full night, and eight hours counts as two nights for purposes of natural healing or regaining stat point loss. The sky is lit as if the sun has just set, or is just about to rise, giving enough light to see by. Anyone who needs more light, to read for instance, is obliged by the fireflies, who group near enough to shed enough light. Additionally, dandelions and morels spring up in the area, enough to feed 1d14 people for one meal. Lastly, the sounds of crickets, frogs, and katydids are so soothing, that approaching enemies must make a Will save vs the spell check or fall asleep for the remainder of the spell's duration. If any enemies make the save, the sounds stop as above.
30-31	An area of 30' radius is raised or lowered 60 degrees towards 75 degrees Fahrenheit for 1d4+4 hours. Resting in this area is especially restorative; three hours of sleep here counts as a full night, and every three hours after that counts as another night for purposes of natural healing or regaining stat point loss. The sky is lit as if the sun has just set, or is just about to rise, giving enough light to see by. Anyone who needs more light, to read for instance, is obliged by the fireflies, who group near enough to shed enough light. Additionally, dandelions and morels spring up in the area, enough to feed 1d20 people for one meal. Lastly, the sounds of crickets, frogs, and katydids are so soothing, that approaching enemies must make a Will save vs the spell check or fall asleep for the remainder of the spell's duration. If any enemies make the save, the sounds stop as above.
32-33	An area of 30' radius is raised or lowered 60 degrees towards 75 degrees Fahrenheit for 2d4+4 hours. Resting in this area is especially restorative; three hours of sleep here counts as a full night, and every three hours after that counts as another night for purposes of natural healing or regaining stat point loss. The sky is lit as if the sun has just set, or is just about to rise, giving enough light to see by. Anyone who needs more light, to read for instance, is obliged by the fireflies, who group near enough to shed enough light. Additionally, dandelions and morels spring up in the area, enough to feed 1d30 people for one meal, and are so nutritious that they provide one hit die of healing (as per clerical healing) for those who eat them fresh. Lastly, the sounds of crickets, frogs, and katydids are so soothing, that approaching enemies must make a Will save vs the spell check or fall asleep for the remainder of the spell's duration. If any enemies make the save, the sounds stop as above.
34+	An area of 50' radius is raised or lowered to 75 degrees Fahrenheit for 3d4+4 hours. Resting in this area is especially restorative; three hours of sleep here counts as a full night, and every three hours after that counts as another night for purposes of natural healing or regaining stat point loss. The sky is lit as if the sun has just set, or is just about to rise, giving enough light to see by. Anyone who needs more light, to read for instance, is obliged by the fireflies, who group near enough to shed enough light. Additionally, dandelions and morels spring up in the area, enough to feed 2d30 people for one meal, and are so nutritious that they provide one hit die of healing (as per clerical healing) for those who eat them fresh. Lastly, the sounds of crickets, frogs, and katydids are so soothing, that approaching enemies must make a Will save vs the spell check or fall asleep for the remainder of the spell's duration. If any enemies make the save, the sounds stop as above.

Reawakening

Level: 3 (The May Queen) Range: 10' Duration: Varies Casting Time: 1 turn Save: None

General: Like seeds sprouting in the spring, or withered plants putting forth fresh green shoots,

an unresponsive character is roused from unconsciousness (or worse) with renewed

vigor.

Manifestation: Roll 1d4: (1) a warm ray of light shines on the target causing them to awaken; (2) the

target's skin splits and a seedling sprouts from the now-dead body, growing into an exact

duplicate of the target; (3) herbs and flowers with a stimulating fragrance spring up

around the caster; (4) time seems to stand still as fairy maidens whisk the target away to

Avalon, returning days, weeks, or months later with a recovered target

16-17	The target is awakened from a normal or drugged sleep, for 1d4 rounds. If the duration of the drugs is still in effect when the spell expires, the target will fall back into a stupor at that time.
18-21	As above, but also affecting magical sleep or coma. Duration is 2d4 rounds.
22-23	As above, but also healing 1 hit point, assuming a roll the body check is passed, if applicable. Spell duration is 1d4 turns.
24-26	As above, but also providing a +2 bonus to roll the body checks. Spell duration is 2d4 turns.
27-31	As above, but healing is 1d3 hit points, and the bonus for roll the body checks is +4. Spell duration is 1d4 hours.
32-33	As above, but the target automatically passes roll the body checks. Spell duration is 2d4 hours.
34-35	As above, but the target regenerates lost limbs or organs. Spell duration is 2d12 hours.
36+	As above, but the target rises from the dead, as long as the body is reasonably intact and hasn't been dead for more than 1d4 days. Spell duration is indefinite (target does not fall back to sleep under due to existing outside influences).

Some Traveller Economics

I've kind of got Traveller on my mind now.  I was looking in the encounter tables and saw that encountered police are always armed with revolvers.  I know that while many police departments use revolvers, many also use automatics, and then that got me to thinking that in some places and in certain circumstances, the police also use shotguns, submachine guns, and assault rifles, and there's really no reason that future cops in similar circumstances wouldn't use advanced combat rifles or some of the other higher tech level weapons in the game.  The most basic constraint on what the department uses is going to be its budget, and that is going to depend on how many taxpayers they have paying in and how much they pay in taxes.  So now I have to figure out some basic economics here.

There are listings for salaries of starship crew, and Mercenary has wages for all ranks of mercenary forces, but the best, most general indicator of the income of regular people in the Traveller game is the listing of food and lodging costs.  We can take the "starvation diet" and "dismal lodging" as the bare minimum you can pay without becoming homeless and hungry, and the "excellent" levels of food and lodging as the upper limit of actual quality increases, as opposed to conspicuous consumption.  This leaves two in-between levels of apparent middle class costs. 

Now, if you've studied statistics at all, you should know the difference between median and mean.  The median is what you get when you line up all your data points in order and find the one in the middle.  For incomes, the median is the point where half the population makes less and half makes more.  Mean is what you get when you add up all the incomes and divide by the population...per capita income, in other words.  When you're talking about incomes, the median will almost always be less than the mean, and will never be more.  This is pretty obvious if you think about it: the half of the population that makes more than the median income drives up the mean, and while the half making less than median income pulls it down, there's a lower limit to how low they can go and survive, whereas no one's survival is impacted by having too much money.  I propose we take the "reasonable diet" and "acceptable lodging" as the median, with the "good" levels as the mean.

Since we know how much is spent on food and lodging per capita, we can ballpark the total income.  In 1977, consumers (Americans at least) spent 25% of their income on food and 33% on housing.  Since "good" food and lodging both cost 200 Credits per month, we can see this doesn't map exactly.  To be honest, I'm not too surprised that Marc Miller didn't bother getting that far into the weeds on this, but I'm going to go with it anyway; he surely had some impression of how the economy was supposed to work just from living in it.  And I'm specifically using 1977, because using current costs would end up looking more like cyberpunk.  So, if 400 Cr/month is about 58% of the total income, then the total should be about 690 Cr...let's just call that 700 Cr/month as the mean.  For what it's worth, the median income (closer to what the average man on the street would be making) is just over 500.

I originally was going to work out an income distribution chart or something, to figure out how many people we had on any given planet or any given sector of space living in poverty, and how many living just above poverty, and so on, and then work out the size of the economy, but then I realized that since I already have the mean (per capita) income, I just need to multiply that by the number of people to get a GDP for that particular political division.

So, a planet with 10,000 people on it would have a monthly GDP of 7 million Credits, and if we assume that police departments take up 1% of GDP (which is about what they did in 1977), this planet's police would have a monthly budget of 70,000 Credits for salaries and equipment.  If they're paying their officers the mean income (and police do tend to make more than the median income), they could have somewhat less than 100 officers, depending exactly on what their costs are for equipment procurement and maintenance.  I'll give some more thought to what kind of costs that will entail and post about it later.