Another Assassin Post - The Swindle Pig

Here is another look at assassins. You can download the full file here as a pdf.

I generally don't do single page character sheets, but this assassin popped into my head fully formed.

The Swindle Pig is an atypical assassin. His real name is unknown, but he goes by “Patch”, “Plug” and “Paully”. Sometimes, in the same conversation.

He specializes in information gathering. He is able to provide the player characters with many useful details.

From the DM side, The Swindle Pig excels at spycraft so he knows what the party needs. He is horrible at negotiation,  so he doesn’t bother. He offers his information for “free” at the outset and explains that people should repay him according to their means once the information proves useful.

This sort of indebted exchange rubs a lot of people wrong, but they still pay accordingly. 

Many player characters will realize that The Swindle Pig is an excellent assassin and fighter but he sees no value in killing people if he doesn’t have to. On the other hand, people who try to cross him or the people he networks with will end up very dead. He will never double cross honest people and won’t work with honorless people.

The Swindle Pig has two journals or notebooks. He is very educated and has excellent penmanship. When he gives out information, he writes it on a page in the red book and tears it out. When someone gives him a reward, he places their names in the black book, no matter the amount.   

There is a story about him rescuing someone who came to harm from his information. It’s an ugly tale, but also proof positive that he is honorable.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 071 – March 11th.

We are all patched up, sitting at the Talitar Spaceport. We are flush with cash and I need to get stuff done.

Meta-note: I have flubbed up my character inventory over the past couple of days. I need to fix that. But let’s get today done before I do it. I have 10 rolls to make.

I need fuel units, life support units and a hopper. I also need sale-able goods. I get the hopper, which helps. It costs 900.

At this point, I am going to impose an penalty on myself for not keeping good records. If I can’t easily find a record of an item, I am going to delete it. This isn’t exactly punishment, I just don’t want to drive myself nuts. If you notice a mistake, it’s true, I made mistakes. I have also been cheating a bit, which isn’t going to end, so that is that.

Lost items... Maybe the pirates got them or perhaps they got blown out of the cargo hold in the fighting with the scout ship.

Better luck tomorrow.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.

Cargo of note:
1 Boat guns, TL-2,
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
7 Side Arms TL-1,
2 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects,
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

1 Alicorn starship with TL-1 Guns. We owe nothing.
1 Hopper with no boat guns.

Cargo of note:
1 TL-2 Boat guns,
5 Military U-suits (e044)
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

I have 49,196 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 070 – March 10th.

We take another day of RRR to get the Antelope patched up.

Why is it so important to have undamaged ships? If you attempt to enter hyperspace with a damaged ship, you have a 1 in six of being destroyed, per hit. More than 5 hits and you are automatically destroyed on jumping.

There is also another form of risk, being to close to a planet. Jumping from the surface has a 5 in 6 chance of destroying the ship. From low orbit, an asteroid or a space station, it drops to 4 in six. Each level of out reduces this number by one. Four levels of "out" is a zero chance.

Why take any of those chances?

Today, I realized that I didn't update the record sheets for the Alicorn and Antelope and now they are a complete hash. I will have to go over my inventory and fix them both.

Rather than plug another product, would you mind taking some time to answer a poll for an upcoming product?

Here is the poll link.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.

Cargo:
1 Boat guns, TL-2,
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
2 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects,
5 Military U-suits (e044),
7 Side Arms TL-1,
10 repair units,
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

1 Alicorn starship with TL-1 Guns. We owe nothing.

Cargo:
1 TL-2 Boat guns,
10 repair units,
5 Military U-suits (e044)
10 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

I have 50,096 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 069 – March 9th

We take a day of RRR to get the ships patched up. It takes one day per hit, per engineer, per ship. Alicorn is ready at the end of today, while the Antelope needs another day of RRR.

It’s midterms, so I won’t bore you with more ads. I will simply offer the game design books, I mentioned before. They are very interesting, packed full of good ideas I wish I was reading, but am not because of midterms.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.

Cargo:
1 Boat guns, TL-2,
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
2 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects,
5 Military U-suits (e044),
7 Side Arms TL-1,
10 repair units,
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

1 Alicorn starship with TL-1 Guns. We owe nothing.

Cargo:
1 TL-2 Boat guns,
10 repair units,
5 Military U-suits (e044)
10 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

I have 50,096 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 068 – March 8th.

We are heading back to the Spaceport. On entry, we learn of a person we can bribe to enter an area on this planet without a contact/entry roll. It’s costs 25 secs times the multiplier table number. Cool. We select the military base. We pay at the time of entry.

We wasted time getting here and we need a day of RRR to fix the damage to the ships. We should also pick up some repair units, fuel and other stuff for the future. We are running low.

It takes all day, but we get the repair units we need. I buy 30 of them, at a price of 60. Not bad.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.

Cargo:
1 Boat guns, TL-2,
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
2 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects,
5 Military U-suits (e044),
7 Side Arms TL-1,
10 repair units,
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

1 Alicorn starship with TL-1 Guns. We owe nothing.

Cargo:
1 TL-2 Boat guns,
10 repair units,
5 Military U-suits (e044)
10 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

I have 50,096 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

The Skin Wolf Golem

The Skin Golem or more commonly named, "The Skin Wolf" is a unique creation of the Coven of Ash.

The witches of the Coven of Ash wear these pelts as a stole or cape, which conveys the Skin Wolf's armor class to the wearer. The Coven of Ash tends to use the largest martens as Skin Wolves, which has 9 hit points. Wolves are not common in the area. Theoretically, any fur bearing mundane animal can be used to create a Skin Wolf, such as a weasel, a bear, dog or actual wolf. The witches of the Coven of Ash have tried to make gnoll, elf and human skin golems, but it doesn't work. It also does not work on giant variants of mundane animals like Worgs, Giant Weasels or Elk. The name "Skin Wolf" is colloquial, it isn't actually description of what they are made of. The humans of Empire are aware of these creatures and are terrified by them.

If a victim survives an attack by Skin Wolves, they will notice a particular smell about them which will alert them to future attacks and foils surprise one third of the time. Note: this also applies to the witches themselves if they are wearing one. The number of Skin Wolves appearing is always equal to the number of witches. These golems are only useful to the creator, they are powerless in other people's hands. 

Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1-3
Armor Class: 7
Move: 18"
Hit Dice: Equal the living creature's hit dice.
% in lair: 100%
Treasure Type: Nil
Number of Attacks: 3
Damage/Attack: 1d4/1d4/1d4
Special Attacks: See Below
Special Defenses: See Below
Magical Resistance: See Below
Intelligence: Non Intelligent
Alignment: Neutral
Size: Various
Psionic Ability: Nil
 Attack/Defense: Nil/Nil

Skin Golems are relatively low level golems, which require a pelt and skull, special incense and the following spells: Friends, Clairaudience, Clairvoyance, and Fly. It requires a minimum of a 6th level caster and a piece of incense valued at ten times the number of hit points the golem will have. The pelt and skull must be pristine. It requires one day to create a skin golem with the materials on hand. Hit Points are determined by the size of the animal, but the living creature must have had at least one hit die.

The creation process requires gluing the pelt to the skull which looks far from natural. Sometimes the ears and eyes don't line up between the pelt and skull. Also, the witch may choose to dye the pelt to either be stylish or fearsome. The Coven of Ash has a tendency to consume the flesh of the animal, however this is an alarming life-style choice and is not a part of the ritual of creation.

The Skin Wolf is a weapon of terror. They fly up to 30 feet from the ground and sound like a bullroarer in motion. They can strike up to 3 different targets, once each along their 24" per round flight path. They target the people closest to the witch first and work outwards. They are very maneuverable, but cannot flip end for end and require momentum to do damage. Therefore they tend to strike 3 different targets in one round, not the same person over and over again. Since they are simply flying pelts, they cannot grab, bite or otherwise manipulate objects. They can knock things over which makes noise and a mess. On a natural 20, they hit so hard that they knock the victim down rather than doing double damage.

The witch can choose to directly order the skin wolf to attack a single target, however, this limits the Skin Wolf to one attack and only allows a strike on a target the witch can actually see. It also precludes the witch from casting spells or making their own attacks. If  a witch feels like they are in control of the combat, they will make gestures like they are direct control of the Skin Wolf to terrify victims. If a witch is invisible and wearing a Skin Wolf, issuing it commands counts as an attack and ends the invisibility for both. Skin Wolves cannot be silenced or turned invisible, it defeats their terrifying purpose.

If the Skin Wolf is not engaged in combat, the witch can see and hear (not smell) what the pelt can perceive. Usually, the witch will place the Skin Wolf someplace to watch an area not command it to fly around looking for targets, however that can be done, too.

They have a special defense, bolts and arrows do only 1 point of damage per hit. Also, grenade-like weapons have a -4 to hit and they can dodge splashes. This is not true of thrown daggers, darts and other hefty weapons. They do full damage.

Holy water does 1d3 points of damage. It is often more effective to pour the holy water on one's self than try to make a grenade like attack as this damages the Skin Wolf every time it successfully lands a hit.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 067 – March 7th

It takes 2 hours to get to the base. On our way in we meet a patrol who is looking for people without papers. We have them and proceed after losing another hour.

If only U-Suits looked like this. 

We get military u-suits on the first roll, which is great. I buy 12. That suits everyone with 10 extra for 540 secs. On the second roll, we can slip into an unguarded office and search it. It is so not worth it, so the day ends.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.

Cargo:
1 Boat guns, TL-2,
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
2 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects,
5 Military U-suits (e044),
7 Side Arms TL-1,
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

1 Alicorn starship with TL-1 Guns. We owe nothing.

Cargo:
1 Ship's boat
1 TL-2 Boat guns (as cargo, not installed)
5 Military U-suits (e044)
10 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

I have 50,156 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Legion of Assassins

Earlier this week, I posted 3 assassins, which I intend to use as Romanesque Legionaries. Why not fighters? Well, with a theoretical background as Citizen Soldiers, legionaries should have some atypical skills for a soldier because they are citizens first. Right within the AD&D description are examples of soft skills: disguise, poisoning, spying, plus a couple of others. In order to do these things, the assassin needs to have people skills. They also need to have other non-combat skills which support this.

Ideally, assassins should always have some sort of secondary professional skill. AD&D assumes that the assassin will take out the wizard, the lord or the high level cleric, but those people are surrounded by eyes. The ability to pass one's self off as a cook, a herald, a guard is paramount. It doesn't mean the assassin can actually do those tasks, they merely need to make someone else think that they can.

This is one of the reasons I wrote Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners. The players need a host of reasonable skills to get into the head of their characters so it is beneficial to have NPC's which operate in that mundane capacity. Zero to Hero gives mechanical statistics to these characters, which might not always be necessary, but can be helpful to everyone. The players are acting out the adventures of a fantastic person which is hard enough, the addition of relatively common folk gives them a scaffold to get there. Plus all of the classes in Zero to Hero have relatively few combat abilities which doesn't increase the mechanical risk to players, it levels the playing field so a small handful of heroes can deal with a huge ensemble of characters on a basic level.

Assassins aren't all about assassination. They break into the sausage factory to make extra special sausage.

This was the operational method of the Romans. They could hand anyone their butt on the battlefield, but after that, then what? Soft skills to get the defeated to continue to defeat themselves. Assassins as soldiers make a lot of sense. Someone needs to collect information and do dastardly things. If you think about it, a legionary was probably eyeing up his compatriots and leaders as much as the enemy. Sometimes, they were looking homeward for any news about family or politics which often ingratiated them to the very people they were looking to take advantage of or wipe out. Assassins make a lot of sense as fighting men.

Even if you don't want to introduce the complexity of a class of classes like Zero to Hero, I hope this changes how you consider placement of assassins in your world.