Holidays

Ghosts of Christmas Past

/ jstater

When I was a kid in the late 70’s and early 80’s, I was a lucky son of a gun. An intact family, lots of love, food on the table, etc. I also got plenty of toys to play with – legos, Star Wars figures, Hot Wheels, a bike – no complaints.

But there were a few items circled in the annual Christmas catalogs that didn’t appear beneath the tree. As good as I had it, we weren’t rich, so there were a few items that didn’t make the cut. I suppose that’s true with most folks – and maybe more for some than others. I also suppose most folks, when they’re my age, look back with gratitude for all they got, and just a little nostalgia for the ones that got away.

Here are my top three presents I never got … but still kinda want:

#3 – Mouse Trap

A good friend had this one, and it was in the category of stuff I desperately wanted to play with, but which she never wanted to play with. Drat the luck. This thing absolutely fascinated me, but to this day I have never laid hands on it, and have no idea how it actually works.

When I mentioned this to my daughter, she remarked that she remembered seeing one at grandma’s house (i.e. my mother) when she was little. I have no idea how it got there, or where it went … but I know I never saw the darn thing!

#2 – The Millennium Falcon

Another toy that was just across the street at my friend’s house, I at least got to play with this one. I’ll admit that I felt, at the time, that being a boy, and my friend a girl, that it was mildly unfair that she had a Falcon and I didn’t. Now I’m much more mature … I realize that it was unfair that a non-nerd had one, and a big old nerd like me didn’t.

#1 – Mazinga

Or, as I would have called it then – that big shogun warrior with missile fingers that really shoot. If there’s one really expensive piece of nostalgia that I get tempted to buy, this guy is it. I had one chance to see one in real life – a kid that moved in next door for a very short period of time. As usual for my luck, he didn’t want to play with it, preferring to play poker instead. If that sounds weird, keep in mind that my generation were raised on re-runs of M*A*S*H, and while we didn’t have stills in our bedrooms, we were able to imitate all that poker playing the doctors did.

So which Christmas wishes didn’t come true for you? Leave a comment below – misery loves company!

When we’re done crying, let’s be thankful for all our blessings and get ready for a groovy Christmas!

Not Since the Leg Lamp …

/ jstater / 5 Comments

… has an old man been so excited about something.

In this case, a gift I gave myself, which I know sounds bad, but this was one thing I could not resist:

The C64 – a retro computer based on the Commodore 64 and Vic-20!

All my friends had Ataris, and I wanted one sooooo much, but my dad wanted a computer that did more than play games, so I got a Vic-20. To this day, I am thankful for how responsible he was. The Vic-20 had games, of course, and I love them – Radar Rat Race and Gorf come immediately to mind. But I also learned some basic BASIC on the old Vic-20, and I still use a little of that knowledge to this day. I can still remember cracking open a computer magazine and spending hours typing in pokes and peeks to generate a static image of a jack-o-lantern or Christmas tree on the TV … only to know that when the computer was turned off, all that work was gone!

For the  children in the audience … let me take you back to time when console TVs doubled as computer monitors and programs were lost when you turned off the computer (unless you had the Commodore datasette!) It also meant that when dad got home from work and it was time for the news, you were done playing with your computer without some serious begging!

Flash forward to 2020 – I come across the C64 retro computer (I already do not remember where I saw it). It is apparently already released in Europe … but an unknown release date in North America. I had to have it. I hit Amazon, and lo and behold, it was available for pre-order. Pre-order I did!

I was not, however, going to hold my breath until it arrived, because I was pretty sure it wouldn’t. Just seemed to good to be true, and without a set release date – probably was not going to happen. Sure enough, a week or so after ordering it the shipping date was pushed back. And then pushed back again. Now it was supposed to arrive in mid-December. Yeah – right!

Out of sight, out of mind, and then I get an email notice … sometime around mid-December … that an order has shipped. I had a couple Christmas gifts for the fam on order, so I assumed it was one of those. Happily, I was wrong.

Here it is folks:

It’s a beaut!

And someday, if I’m really good and my puppy gives me a couple free minutes, I’ll get to play with it. I can’t wait!

(By the way – I still have that Vic-20 stored away in the closet – it’s the stuff I’ve gotten rid of that I regret, not the stuff I kept.)

I hope you folks get something you want for Christmas this year, or whatever holiday you might celebrate, and I also hope you get something you need.

Love and peace, folks!

Happy Halloween Kids!

/ jstater / 1 Comment

Hey all you little ghosts and ghouls – maybe the most appropriate holiday of 2020 is upon us – HALLOWEEN!

However you’re planning to celebrate (and I hope you’re planning to celebrate in some way – don’t let all the bastards out there get you down!), maybe this little wallpaper I made will help get you in the … spirit!

(Special No-Prize if you can name all the namable characters in there!)

I actually turned this thing into a poster, which I had printed at bestofsigns.com … and they did an absolutely fantastic job. Just a free plug for some folks who really came through. Oh – and no, the poster isn’t for sale anywhere. Just a personal project.

In the various and sundry category … RIP Sean Connery. I have a tremendous fondness for Roger Moore’s James Bond, since he’s the one I grew up with (mostly seeing the movies on TV – always a big event!), but you cannot deny the greatness of Connery in the roll. Then there’s his turn in The Hunt for Red October, Outland, Indiana Jones, Darby O’Gill and the Little People (in which he sings!) … Old Tam will be missed on the silver screen.

Also – I make a solemn oath to have the next issue of NOD, and the High Frontier supplement for GRIT & VIGOR out this November. I’ve dragged my feet on finishing them off and uploading them for sale (a process that becomes more tedious with each passing year and each passing revision to the process) for a couple months, so I need to finally cross that finish line.

Finally … I messed around with turning a classic piece of art by J. C. Leyendecker into a template for designing old-time football uniforms. Why? Because I’m writing a second edition of Pen & Paper Football with rules modifications for different eras of professional football, plus rules for the Canadian game, recreating old rosters (i.e. the last blog post I did) and some rules tweaks that I think improve the game. Of course, if I was going to playtest a league in the 1930’s, I needed to design helmets and uniforms! Here are a couple of my designs. My league is up to 1937 … I’m going to play it through to the 1980’s to test everything out, and then spend a couple weeks playtesting the Canadian rules. Fun fun fun!

Have a Happy Halloween folks! Eat some treats, watch a movie (I think we’re doing Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein tonight), and please choose love and fun over hate and despair!

Daddy-o Appreciation Day

/ jstater

Hey all you cats and kittens – just a quick note today in between Father’s Day festivities (my dad and fam was over yesterday, wife’s dad and fam today) to wish all the dads and their loved ones out there a happy day.

Hey all you cats and kittens – just a quick note today in between Father’s Day festivities (my dad and fam was over yesterday, wife’s dad and fam today) to wish all the dads and their loved ones out there a happy day.

In case you have some time today for fine cinema, enjoy this little gem from MST3K (ah, the old Comedy Central days – MST3K, Kids in the Hall) … Daddy-O:

Fun side note – a guy I worked with at the Video Park was friends with Dick Contino’s son. It’s a small world afterall!

For GRIT & VIGOR fans out there, here are some game stats for good old Daddy-O (or just about any other similar character from an old misunderstood-teenager b-movie)

Daddy-O

Grease-Monkey

AL NG, LVL 3, HP 14, AC 12, ATK +1, SV F12 R10 W12

Str 12 Int 11 Wis 13 Dex 16 Con 12 Cha 14

Special: Fearless (+2 save vs. fear), temporarily increase physical ability score (+1 for 3 rd), use wrenches as maces in combat, maximum performance from motor vehicles, +10% to motor vehicle’s top speed, apply combat feats to vehicles, +1 to attack and +1 damage to constructs

Knacks: Communicate, Mechanics, Perform

Skills: Appraise Value (Cars), Drive Car, Endure, Mechanics, Ride Bike, Search

Feats: Fancy Driving, Leadership, Stuntman

Weapons: None

A Gaggle of Gobblers

/ jstater

To celebrate Thanksgiving, when we give thanks to God by feasting on a slain dinosaur, I present a multitude of monsters based on the humble turkey.

We begin with the original:

Turkey, Wild Forest

Size: Small (30 lb., 4’ tall)
Type: Animal
Hit Dice: 0 (1d4 hp)
Armor Class: 12
Attack: 1 scratch (1d2)
Movement: 30 (Fly 60)
Saves: F14 R12 W19
Alignment: Neutral (N)
Intelligence: Animal
No. Appearing: 1d2
XP: 25 (CL 0)

Wild forest turkeys have excellent daytime vision, and are only surprised on a roll of 1 on 1d8. At night, their vision is far worse, and they are surprised on a roll of 1-3 on 1d6. They dwell in meadows in woodlands.

Turkey, Giant Wild Forest

Size: Medium (60 lb., 8’ tall)
Type: Animal
Hit Dice: 1
Armor Class: 13
Attack: 1 scratch (1d4)
Movement: 30 (Fly 60)
Saves: F13 R12 W18
Alignment: Neutral (N)
Intelligence: Animal
No. Appearing: 1d2
XP: 50 (CL 1)

Giant wild forest turkeys are known to prey on small creatures, like gnomes, when they are particularly hungry. Like their smaller kin, they have excellent daytime vision, and are only surprised on a roll of 1 on 1d8. At night, their vision is far worse, and they are surprised on a roll of 1-3 on 1d6. They dwell in meadows in woodlands.

Turkey-Men

Size: Medium (200 lb., 8’ tall)
Type: Monstrous Humanoid
Hit Dice: 1
Armor Class: 13
Attack: 1 scratch (1d4) or by weapon
Movement: 30
Saves: F13 R15 W16
Alignment: Neutral (N)
Intelligence: Low
No. Appearing: 1 male + 2d6 females
XP: 50 (CL 1)

Turkey-men are somewhat dull-witted woodland humanoids. Males live alone, and are quite territorial. They keep harems of 2d6 females, who make up the fabric of turkey-man society. Males maintain alliances with their brothers, and with them control a larger territory against other brotherhoods.

Turkey-men are tall and gangling, with the heads of turkeys and tufts of feathers around their necks. Their feet resemble those of turkeys, and their fingers are talons as well. They often wear cloaks of wild turkey feathers, and usually carry simple spears or war clubs and hide shields in combat.

Like wild turkeys, they have excellent daytime vision, and are only surprised on a roll of 1 on 1d8. At night, their vision is far worse, and they are surprised on a roll of 1-3 on 1d6. They dwell in hide lodges on woodland meadows.

Draco-Turkey

Size: Medium (300 lb., 8’ tall)
Type: Dragon
Hit Dice: 5
Armor Class: 15
Attack: 2 claws (1d4) and bite (1d6)
Special: Gobble (30’ cone, sonic damage)
Movement: 30 (Fly 60)
Saves: F11 R10 W11
Immune: Sleep and paralysis
Alignment: Chaotic (NE)
Intelligence: Average
No. Appearing: 1
XP: 500 (CL 6)

Listen, the woodlands can get a bit boring. Sometimes a green dragon finds a cask of wine, drinks it, gets a little crazy and, well, draco-turkeys happen. Like their normal turkeys, they have excellent daytime vision, and are only surprised on a roll of 1 on 1d8. At night, their vision is far worse, and they are surprised on a roll of 1-3 on 1d6. They make their lairs in wooded hollows, felling trees into something resembling a crude lodge.

Galliraptor

Size: Medium (330 lb., 8’ tall)
Type: Animal
Hit Dice: 3
Armor Class: 15
Attack: 1 talon (1d6) and bite (1d4)
Movement: 45 (Fly 60)
Saves: F12 R11 W17
Alignment: Neutral (N)
Intelligence: Animal
No. Appearing: 1d4
XP: 150 (CL 3)

These creatures are hybrids of giant wild forest turkeys and deinonychuses. They are leaner than giant turkeys, and faster. Like their smaller kin, they have excellent daytime vision, and are only surprised on a roll of 1 on 1d8. At night, their vision is far worse, and they are surprised on a roll of 1-3 on 1d6. They dwell in meadows in woodlands.

Gruesome Gobbler

Size: Medium (330 lb., 8’ tall)
Type: Magical Beasts
Hit Dice: 4
Armor Class: 15 [+1]
Attack: 1 talon (1d6) and bite (1d4)
Movement: 45 (Fly 60)
Saves: F11 R10 W15
Resistance: Fire, magic 10%
Alignment: Chaotic (CE)
Intelligence: Low
No. Appearing: 1d4
XP: 150 (CL 3)

Gruesome gobblers are galliraptors infused with demonic power. They are sometimes summoned and bound by shamans to keep people away from evil places. Like their smaller kin, they have excellent daytime vision, and are only surprised on a roll of 1 on 1d8. At night, their vision is far worse, and they are surprised on a roll of 1-3 on 1d6. They are +2 to hit and damage Lawful (Good) creatures.

Were-Turkey

Size: Medium (60 lb., 8’ tall)
Type: Monstrous Humanoid
Hit Dice: 2 [Silver]
Armor Class: 15
Attack: 1 scratch (1d4) or bite (1d4) or by weapon
Movement: 30 (Fly 60)
Saves: F15 R12 W12
Alignment: Neutral (N)
Intelligence: Average
No. Appearing: 1
XP: 200 (CL 3)

When the full moon is rising, you can find the were-turkeys scrambling for the woodlands, mostly to avoid the embarrassment of turning into a turkey in front of their friends. “Why”, they ask, “why couldn’t I have been bitten by a werewolf?” They have excellent daytime vision, and are only surprised on a roll of 1 on 1d8. At night, their vision is far worse, and they are surprised on a roll of 1-3 on 1d6. Were-turkeys can communicate with turkeys.

By the way – I put my five latest print titles at Lulu on sale at 25% off – today only. Pick one up if you’ve a mind to.

Fun with Halloween Magic

/ jstater / 3 Comments

Happy Halloween boys and girls. Here are a few spells inspired by the season:

JACK-O’-LANTERN

Level: Druid 4
Range: See below
Duration: See below

To cast this spell, a druid carves a jack-o’-lantern from a pumpkin or similar gourd and places a candle inside it. The light emanating from the jack-o’-lantern’s face has a magical effect, as follows:

If the face is frightening, creatures caught in the light (including allies, so be careful) are subject to the effects of the cause fear spell. If the face is amusing, creatures caught in the light are subject to the calm emotions spell.

The light from the jack-o’-lantern also negates magical invisibility, and causes magic items to glow orange.

The magic lasts as long as the candle lasts (probably 1 or 2 hours), and the range is per a normal lantern.

TRANSPLANT

Level: Magic-User 6
Range: Close (30′)
Duration: 1 hour (then permanent)

If during the duration of this spell the magic-user is killed, his or her head immediately teleports to and is transplanted on the nearest humanoid creature within 30 feet. The victim’s head remains on the body as well.

The magic-user and his subject will be dazed for 1 minute afterwards, and the magic-user will be unable to cast spells until it takes control over the victim’s body. Each day, the magic-user can attempt a contest of wills against the victim; each rolls a Will saving throw. If the magic-user succeeds at his save, and succeeds by more than the victim, he gains control of one arm. Another success wins him the other arm, and a third the legs. A failure over the same period loses him an arm or the legs. When the magic-user has control of the arms, he can cast magic spells again as normal.

(Yeah, The Thing With Two Heads was on TV this morning).

HIDEOUS CACKLE

Level: Magic-User 4
Range: Close (30′)
Duration: 10 minutes

As hideous laughter, with the following differences: The victim is not completely helpless – they can move and even attack, but cannot stop cackling. Any strenuous activity causes fatigue for 10 minutes. Also, the cackling forces those who hear it to pass a Will save vs. fear or be affected as per the cause fear spell.

BONE TO STEEL

Level: Magic-User 3
Range: Close (30′)
Duration: 1 hour

This spell turns bone into steel. Only dead bones (i.e. not part of a living creature) are affected. Bones like femurs are turned into the equivalent of light maces. Animated skeletons gain AC 17.

ALTER GAZE

Level: Magic-User 5
Range: Personal or 1 creature touched
Duration: 2 hours

The beneficiary of this spell does not suffer from gaze attacks as normal. If the gaze normally causes fear or blindness, it now instead reduces the victim’s Wisdom by half. If the gaze normally causes petrification, it now instead reduces the victim’s Dexterity by half. Other effects can be determined by the TK as necessary. The effects of the gaze attack last for 3 hours.

GRIMACE

Mr. Sardonicus

Level: Magic-User 2
Range: Touch
Duration: 24 hours

The touched victim must pass a Fortitude save or their face is twisted into a terrible grimace, reducing their Charisma score to 3 for the duration of the spell.

Have fun, folks – don’t eat too much candy!

TERRIBLE OBSESSION

Level: Magic-User 2
Range: Close (30′)
Duration: 10 minutes

The magic-user holds an object (any object) up and focuses on a single victim. If the victim fails a Will saving throw, they become obsessed with possessing the object for 10 minutes, to the exclusion of all other goals. When they get the object, they crouch on the floor, petting it and proclaiming it their “precious”.

What I Did Over My Christmas Vacation

/ jstater / 8 Comments

Back to work today (real work, where I get a paycheck), and I thought I’d get the first post of the new year knocked out before I have to get down to business.

What did I do on my Christmas vacation this year?

But it didn’t stop there. Let’s take a trip down memory lane …

When I was but a young slip of a boy, I was obsessed with three things: Star Wars, World War Two, and Football. I was the original football geek – knew all the stats, knew the team histories, watched the games (rooted for the Steelers first and then the Raiders – I was a Las Vegas kid, so I didn’t have a home team to root for), etc.

While I had never heard of D&D, I was already a gamer at heart. One summer, I invented my own football league. Lots of teams organized into conferences and divisions. Teams like the Las Vegas Aces, Billings Mountaineers, New Jersey Battleships (there’s my WW2 obsession leaking through), Jacksonville Oranges, Birmingham Yellowhammers, Canton Bulldogs (I was retro before retro was cool), Georgia Peaches and my personal favorite, the Ottumwa Hogs (my family hails from Ottumwa, IA, thus the placement of a professional team in such a small market).

I designed helmets and team colors, and then I invented a very simple way to play games between them using a dice (and when I say dice, I mean d6 – back in those days, that was just a plain old dice, no extra description required). For each quarter of the game, I rolled the dice for each team to see how many points they scored. I don’t remember the exact scheme now, but I’m sure it went something like this:

1 = 0 points
2 = 3 points
3 = 6 points
4 = 7 points
5 = 10 points
6 = 14 points

For example: Ottumwa Hogs vs. Las Vegas Aces

I would roll those dice, total up the scores, and have a winner. Then I recorded the wins and losses and ties, and eventually had them in playoffs and a championship game. I kept it all in a notebook, figuring out the schedules, etc. On a long road trip back to Iowa, it kept me occupied and entertained as only a geek can be entertained by rolling dice.

Flash forward to 2015.

My brother-in-law gets me that electronic football game. I start playing with it, and realize quickly that all those game scores I’m generating are going to waste. What if I resurrected those old pretend football teams, plus a few others, and made a sort of tournament. Yeah. A tournament.

Four conferences – North, South, East and West. Eight teams per conference, so a round of games, then conference playoffs, then conference championship, then league playoffs and league championship.

And I can organize the teams in Excel, with team logos and colors.

Oooh – what if I make a random table for determining off-season stuff, like teams folding or moving to new cities or picking up or losing star players.

Yeah – star players. They can give bonus offense and defense rolls that change the final score of the electronic games.

AND – I can grab demographics on the different MSA’s in the US (metropolitan statistical areas) and the different stadiums, and come up with a random way to determine attendance and TV viewership and generate money earned for each team. Then they could spend money to build the teams even more.

Now I’m trying to figure out how to put together a pen & paper version of this, a little more in depth.

So, that’s what I did with my Christmas vacation, along with writing about half the next issue of NOD (which will cover the Klarkash Mountains) and finishing up the first draft of GRIT & VIGOR.

Oh, and the Ottumwa Hogs are playing for the North Conference championship, against either the throwback Browns (with their classic Brownie logo) or the Minneapolis Marines.

Rankin-Bass is My Dungeon Master

/ jstater / 10 Comments
A party of misfits

If you ever spent time as an American kid in the 1970’s or 1980’s, you surely are aware of Rankin-Bass holiday specials. And back then, they were special. No VCR’s, DVD’s or internet, so you had once chance each year to see Rudolph, and if you weren’t home, you didn’t see it! Egad!

R-B did more than just Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1964 though. In Christmas specials alone, they produced The Little Drummer Boy (1968), Frosty the Snowman (1969), Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town (1970, my favorite), The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974), The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow (1975), Rudolph’s Shiny New Year (1976), The Little Drummer Boy, Book II (1976), Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey (1977), Jack Frost (1979), Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July (1979), Pinocchio’s Christmas (1980), The Leprechaun’s Christmas Gold (1981), and The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1985).

So many holiday specials … and thus so much material to mine for a little RPG nonsense. So, in the spirit of Mother Goose is my Dungeon Master …

Races and Classes

First and foremost, we don’t have adventurers in Rankin-Bass D&D. We have “misfits”. Characters in this game are weirdos who don’t quite fit in, and thus leave Santa’s Castle or the Island of Misfit Toys to do some adventuring! Silver and Gold!

I’ll be your narrator for this adventure

Moreover, the DM isn’t a DM. He or she is the narrator, and they have to do the whole game impersonating an old celebrity. Something like The Caves of Christmas Chaos narrated by Sean Connery.

Humans have to be included as a playable race because of Yukon Cornelius. Other options could be elves (shorter than the traditional D&D elves) and reindeer (definitely a candidate for “race as class”). How about toys? Winter sprites? Lots of options there.

Classes – prospector, knight, winter warlock, dentist? Dentist!? Heck, you could even just stick with the old fighter, cleric, thief, magic-user standbys. A 3rd level elf magic-user, a 5th level reindeer fighter, a 2nd level dolly thief. How can you beat that?

Clerics need divine patrons, and R-B gives you Father Time, Mother Nature, Father Winter and of course Old Saint Nick himself.

Monsters

Only high-level misfits better tangle with this character

The bumble, King Moonracer (a shedu), giant vultures, town guards, elemental misers and their miserlings (mephits fit the bill very nicely for these guys), keh-nights (mechanical knights from Jack Frost) – many options here. Rankin-Bass adventures seem to be more centered around big villains with a collection of minions around them. That villain had better be threatening Christmas or New Years, too, or what’s the point?

Adventure Sites

You’re just loaded here. The North Pole, with Santa’s Castle and the reindeer caves and Yukon’s peppermint mine is a good home base. Burrow heavily from Candy Land and get a candy cane forest and gumdrop mountains. The Island of Misfit Toys is nearby, with its Shedu ruler King Moonracer. The weird Sea of Time that shows up in Rudolph’s Shiny New Year could and should be the site of a mega-campaign all on its own. Seriously – if you haven’t watched it, watch it. Great imagination fuel. You can go further afield with the Holy Land, Sombertown (apparently somewhere in Central Europe), the Russian Steppe and its Miserable Mountain, Southtown, etc.

The Game

It’s Christmas Eve, and your friends are over. Pull out Basic D&D or one of its clones, pick a place to adventure, make up a villain or bring back Burgermeister Meisterburger or Kubla Kraus, figure out how they’re trying to screw up the holidays and then roll up some elven dentists and human knights and jack-in-the-box whatevers and get to adventuring.

Oh, and don’t forget to put a little of that goodwill towards men in your hearts. Share your +1 short sword. Don’t be stingy with the healing potions. Give a little love, and get a little love back. It is Christmas, after all.

And no pouting and shouting if your character dies. Santa’s got his eye on you!

Note – All images are the property of their copyright owners. No intended infringement in this post – just a bit of holiday fun.

Hippity-Hop Into the Dungeon – The Easter Bunny Class!

/ jstater / 2 Comments

Easter bunnies are fey creatures who are the heralds and servants of Ys, the goddess of spring and fertility (substitute your own campaign’s spring goddess if you please). When not performing their Easter functions for children all over Nod, they are adventurers bold and daring.
[Okay – this was a brainstorm Easter morning, so this is a bit scanty – please forgive and, most importantly, have a Happy Easter, even if you’re not a Christian. A happy day and a chocolate bunny are fundamentally good things, regardless of your beliefs!]

Hit Dice: d6 / +2 hit points per level after 10th level

Advance as: Thief

Attack as: Thief

Save as: Bard

Armor: Padded and leather

Weapons: Any weapon that does not involve metal; they can use flint-tipped spears and arrows, which deal one dice size less damage than their metal counterparts

Skills: Find Secret Doors, Hide in Shadows, Jump, Listen at Doors, Move Silently, Trickery

Special Abilities
Easter bunnies can charge into combat with a mighty leap that carries them up to 15 feet forward.

Easter bunnies can speak with animals and plants at will. They also have “faerie fire vision”, which they can invoke for up to 2 rounds per level each day.

Easter bunnies cannot use iron or steel weapons, and in fact suffer +1 damage per hit from such weapons.

Easter bunnies can lay magic eggs. An Easter bunny can lay one egg per day, each one imbued with a magic ability of the Easter bunny’s choice as limited by their level. A first level Easter bunny starts with three magic eggs.

For a magic egg to affect a person (willingly or not), it must be cracked over them or it must strike them. To affect an area, it need only be thrown into that area. To summon nature’s ally, it is cracked and the creature sort of magically pours out of it.

Magic eggs can have the following effects – one effect per egg – based on the Easter bunny’s level:

Level 1 – bless, charm person, cure light wounds, entangle, grease, hold person, light, obscuring mist, phantasmal force, sleep, summon nature’s ally I, explosive (1d6 damage in 10’ radius)

Level 3 – animal messenger, blindness, calm emotions, cure moderate wounds, darkness, fog cloud, glitterdust, gust of wind, hypnotic pattern, improved phantasmal force, mirror image, reduce animal, silence, sound burst, summon nature’s ally II, summon swarm

Level 6 – charm monster, confusion, cure disease, cure serious wounds, daylight, deep slumber, diminish plants, dispel magic, fear, good hope, phantom steed, plant growth, remove curse, slow, spectral force, spike growth, summon nature’s ally III, wind wall

Level 9 – command plants, cure critical wounds, dimension door, dominate person, hallucinatory terrain, hold monster, rainbow pattern, spike stones, summon nature’s ally IV, zone of silence