The Triple Door

Made of solid oak with birdseye maple veneer and patinated copper hardware, the Triple Door is a tasteful addition to any dungeon and the ultimate in discontinuous dimensional transportation. The top and bottom halves of this spatially untethered dutch door open onto different places, and lead to a third location when opened together as a unit.

Call 1-800-FUN-HOUS today to discuss financing and schedule your installation!

Troika! Background-Writing Tips

A while ago on the MAC discord server I shared a list of the things I try to do when writing backgrounds for Troika!. I'm posting it again here in case it might be useful to someone and so it's not lost in the scroll of channels.

The best advice on writing backgrounds comes from page 2 of the core rules: "Balance the enjoyment rather than the numbers."

The most important thing is to try and make something that's fun to play as. Something that will spark a player's imagination and inspire ideas about who this person they've rolled is.

Keeping that in mind, here are the rules of thumb that I try to follow when writing backgrounds:

1 Focus on a specific flavor and write only as much as it takes to convey that flavor.
2 Don't repeat information, unless you specifically want to make the repetition a joke or an important detail.
3 Imply information more than you actually write details.
4 When you do give details make them interesting and something that readers wouldn't automatically assume. (ex: An immortal hero background would obviously have a legendary weapon, so don't list their sword in their possessions. Instead list a battered photo album of their past companions.)
5 Don't go overboard with possessions and skills, only give the key elements of the flavor.
6 Only give a special ability if it's vital to enhancing the flavor.
7 Keep the background open enough that it can apply to multiple sequential characters. It's a background for a group/profession of people, not an individual.

Troika! Lists Reference

Troika! only uses d6's which means most of the lists in the game are numbered in base-6 or base-3 instead of base-10. I was curious and felt like doing some basic math, so here's the most common Troika! lists in ascending order by size with how many entries you'll need to write for each noted in base-10. Lists that generate bell curves/standard distributions are noted, the rest produce linear results.

d6 - 6

3d3 - 7, curve

d33 - 9
2d6 - 11, curve
d26 - 12
3d6 - 16, curve
d36 - 18
d66c - 21*
d333 - 27
d66 - 36
d3333 - 81
d666 - 216
d33333 - 243
d6666 - 1296

*d66c is d66 combo, where the order of the numbers rolled doesn't matter (ex: 12 = 21, 23 = 32, 56 = 65, etc.) It's numbered 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 33, 34, 35, 36, 44, 45, 46, 55, 56, 66.

A few more that I find aesthetically displeasing but do exist:

d222 - 8

d226 - 24

d336 - 54

d266 - 72
d366 - 108

Do not do this to yourself:
d66666 - 7776

d66 Elder God Exposure Side Effects

Treat elder gods, their avatars, and spawn like the existential hazards they are. 

They're cosmically awful and unspeakable entities beyond the scope of our reality. Exposure to them is physically dangerous and mutagenic in profound, unpredictable ways. Like standing unshielded in front of a living, baleful sun. 

Elder God Exposure Side Effects (d66)
11 Begin coughing up worms every Ud20 minutes after initial exposure.
12 Eyes skin over and migrate to somewhere else on your body.
13 Fingers begin to split and bud into a fractal net of phalanges.
14 Glowing cilia starts sprouting from your mucus membranes.
15 Perfectly round holes begin appearing on your body 1d3 days after initial exposure. Number increases exponentially after first appearance.
16 Webs of mycelium spread under your skin, fruiting bodies erupt through cracks and shed spores.
21 Your bones slowly transmute into jade ridged with fine networks of spirals.
22 Spontaneous second and third-degree burns forming unknown scripts appear on your skin 2d8 hours after initial exposure.
23 First-degree burns develop on any uncovered skin, immediately begins peeling in thick sheets.
24 Your teeth become deciduous and grow in rows across the roof and floor of your mouth.
25 Salivary glands begin producing silk alongside spit.
26 Begin seeing colors beyond the visible spectrum.
31 Teeth fuse into a single sharp bone ridge.
32 Your flesh automatically grafts itself to other living tissue on contact.
33 Your reflection is replaced by Something Else. Only some people notice the change.
34 Tears replaced by a thin black fluid that clots blood instantly.
35 You can't digest normal food anymore.
36 Blood begins to glow pale violet, pulsing in irregular rhythms.
41 Injuries heal quickly with rusty orange chitin instead of new skin.
42 Bones turn cartilaginous and connective tissues become elastic.
43 Your shadow billows and reaches towards light sources.
44 You can taste electromagnetic fields and radiation.
45 Flesh becomes transparent as glass in irregular blotches.
46 Begin hearing sound frequencies outside the normal human range.
51 Sweat turns pale milky green and corrosive to metals.
52 Fully comprehend every language except your first.
53 Eyes segment into compound eyes surrounded by smaller supplementary ocelli.
54 Begin experiencing detailed, accurate premonitions in dreams.
55 Begin accidentally initiating time loops during periods of high stress.
56 You can hear the things crawling behind the walls of reality and gnawing at the edges.
61 Begin reproducing asexually by budding.
62 You can see and walk through the spaces between acute angles.
63 Bond between spirit and body becomes attenuated.
64 Inanimate objects become warped and gnarled after a few hours in your presence.
65 You can see the things living inside others and behind illusions.
66 Die in 1d3 days, then get back up and continue as normal. Repeat.

Bonus!
* Something begins listening to your prayers and answering.
* Constant awareness of where the god and its children are.

Tiny Coffins Challenge: November

 Welcome back! This month's prompt is:

"deep water, cisterns, and the harvest"

Fall is my favorite time of year. The weather's beautiful, leaves are changing color, and there's all the harvest time celebrations. I try to make it up north to the Lakes at least once during the season each year. When I was little it was Lake Huron and we'd camp and fish for salmon. The past few years it's been Lake Michigan for rock hunting. Standing at the edge of a body of water that huge is peaceful in a way that's hard to describe. A view of nothing but water across the entire horizon. It's beautiful enough to make you forget just how many ships and people the Lakes have swallowed over the centuries.