Star Trek: Nero Returns...

Atomic Rockets: Professor Bernard Quartermass

Professor Bernard Quartermass. We definately need a remake of all four as animated films.

Quartermass Experiment
Quartermass II
Quartermass and the Pit
Quartermass

Dungeon Mastery: Coded Messages from the BBEG

The BBEG says Hi!

"Another one." Rothgar knelt down and lifted the coded note from the corpse and held it aloft. "Why can't your magic break the codes Akanus?"
"There is not much I can do." The Wizard snatched the note from Rothgar's hand and examined it. "It's neither magical, nor a Language."

Your PCs are investigating a series of crimes, each more brutal than the last, and the methodology cannot be tied down to a single style other than the appearance of coded letters left to confuse the investigators, and terrify the masses. The Streets and alleys are abandoned as people huddle in their homes in fear.

Character Intelligence Vs Player Intelligence

In the end its up to you as DM, but as this is about the stats of individual characters, a simple Dice Check (1d20) vs a difficulty level should suffice. Otherwise you might prefer to give the PC the dice check, and the player gets the opportunity to then break the code. Rather than provide the player a single option decoder and allow them to solve the message, you might prefer to hand them a set of potential decoders and allow them to have a number of tries at cracking the code.

I though I recognized it...

The BBEG is a genius level evil with an 18 intelligence. He or she creates a Code to communicate with minions or the PCs or both. At this point the code can be broken with a read language spell. But to avoid that the villain uses the code to disguise numbers. The numbers can then describe the shapes of letters on a grid that spell out the message. A single letter will be described by a collection of Numbers.
If divine intervention is preventing code-breaking, Then the PC might recieve instruction to hunt down a duplicate artefact that the code was created with.

Dungeon Mastery: 20 Treasures from the Vault of Gyges

There are many large Cups, Chalices, Tankards, Goblets, and Steins in the Treasury of Gyges...

    20 Miscelaneous Magic Items       

   1d20         Item                                     

    01             Tankard of Terror             

    02             Tankard of Ale                   

    03             Chalice of Moonlight        

    04              Chalice of Life                   

    05             Chalice of the Void            

    06              Cup of Jo                            

    07              Cup of Tea                         

    08              Cup of Flour                      

    09              Goblet of Fire                    

    10              Goblet of Fire-casting      

    11              Goblet of Book Burning  

    12              Stein of Beer                      

    13              Stein of Maggok                

    14              Stein of Ulissa                    

    15              Stein of Ants                      

    16              Mug of Coffee                    

    17              Mug of Hot Cocoa             

    18              Glass of Water                   

    19             Glass of Wine                      

    20              Glass of Milk                      

Something Important: I'm opening how I vote to those who cannot

This just arrived in the mail (Thursday) I'm opening what I lodge as a vote on the Australian Same Sex Marriage to the Seven Billion people who dont have the right to vote in this.

You need to get you and your friends to Reddit

Ten Days is our window of opportunity.

Young who cant vote, and Non Australians...vote now.

 We go forward together, or not at all.

Dungeon Mastery: The Knight's Well mini adventure

The Knight's Well

"There is a fine stone Well in the Courtyard of the Monastary." Lort Arno rubbed his finger beneath his itchy nose. "My spies have seen the Abbot go to it every morning with a heavy bucket and having lowered the bucket down the Well, come away with a bucket much lighter, yet filled with water."

"I want you to scale the Monastary wall sometime past midnight and investigate the Well." Guildmaster Arno looks at you across the table. "If I am right, it is the only entrance to some otherwise inacessible Dungeon."

Down the Well
There is a fifty foot drop down the shaft (overlooked by engraved stone faces which can be climbed as footholds) to water, but there is a secret door thirty feet down that can be opened by triggering a release in an eysocket of a stone face above the door.

Beyond the Door
There is a chamber here with racks of kitchen implements and pots. It connects to a network of old subterranean barracks where cultists, outlawed on pain of death in these parts, hide.

Dungeon Mastery: You are hit by a falling rock

Tarfin of the Free Company has journied far to explore the lost Treasure Vault of Gyges, and having fought the creatures that call this slave-crafted edifice home, kicked in the door to the treasury itself, his prize in full view, a stone block drops from the ceiling and he is struck. The stone crushes his head in view of his compatriots.

A Falling Block of Stone vs Falling Damage
In D&D, when Tarfin the Warrior falls ten feet, he takes 1d6 damage from the stop at the end. His damage increasing +1d6/10' of extra fall distance. but what about a stone block of varying weight? If Tarfin's weight of 200lbs striking the ground after falling ten feet causes him to take 1d6 damage, then being hit by a block of stone of equal weight dropping ten feet should inflict the same damage. If Tarfin's weight is the determining factor then Nissa the Elf who only weighs a hundred pounds would take double damage from the same falling stone block had she been in his place.

Damage from a falling block
Damage would thus be calculated as:

((Ws x distance of fall)/(Wpc x 10)) x 1d6

This means Tarfin having taken 1d6 from the 200lb block of stone falling from the ceiling survives. Unfortunately it means that out on the surface in the ruins, where Tarfin is examining his share of the loot, a quake hits and a twelve cubic feet stone falls ten feet from a toppled pillar, our generic stone weighing 168lb/cubic foot our block of stone is 2016lb so the difference is 10.08. Tarfin takes 10d6+1 (we can round any discrepency off as a minimal fixed injury) from the stone block falling ten feet crushing him utterly.

Nissa, having outlived another human companion, wipes the bloody spray of Tarfin's demise from her face and goes off to spend her ill gotten gains in a Tavern.

Killed by a Stick of Butter in a Tavern Brawl
Now by these same rules an object thrown over a distance should inflict damage according to similar rules. A thrown object (in this case a cubic foot of butter in a churn skin weighing 57lb/cubic ft) is thrown across the room by someone with enough strength to hurl it twenty feet so it hits for (((57x20)/(10x100))=1.14) or 1d6+1 damage.

Nissa the Elf is killed in a Tavern Brawl by a churn skin of butter. The Curse of Gyges Treasure claiming another victim.