Clerics as monster slayers

"My life... my job... my curse... is to vanquish evil."

-Van Helsing, 2004

As the story goes, clerics were introduced to the game when the players wanted a character class that could slay a vampire. Peter Cushing's Van Helsing in the Hammer horror films was the foundation, to which (Wikipedia says) Gygax later added a more knights-templar-religious-militant flavor to the class.

 

I appreciate the knights templar healer-tank cleric but in a sense they get overshadowed by paladins. Meanwhile, I love the concept of a Van Helsing-style hunter and expert of supernatural fiends. And also the Exorcist—not like Damien Karras but Lankester Merrin and Father Morning, holy men pulled by fate into conflict with the enemies of god. 

So for a while I've been sitting on this idea and I had the thought that in a lot of media focused around vampire/monster slaying, starting perhaps in Stoker's Dracula but most likely before, there's a big emphasis on stuff—the tools and weapons used in the practice of slaying. Wooden stakes, garlic, holy water, even the fanciful gadgets in later monster slayer films like Van Helsing, Blade, and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. 

What that led me to was this: you know the Hammer horror props like garlic and wolfsbane gathering dust on the adventuring gear list because no one buys them? Anyone can use them for their implied purpose, but a cleric's special training and covenant with god grants new capabilities, as follows: 

Wolfsbane. A dried bundle (about the size of a torch) forces lycanthropes to check morale if a character whacks them with one in melee combat. In the hands of a cleric, wolfsbane takes on the properties of a mace +1 against lycanthropes. Additionally, wolfsbane's potent medicinal properties allows clerics to treat a recently poisoned character by beating the poison out of them. The poisoned character takes 1d6 damage and is granted another saving throw with a bonus equal to the damage received. 

Holy water. Undead creatures doused in holy water take 1d8 damage for 2 turns. Clerics can sprinkle holy water on undead and demons while saying a prayer to deal 1d8 damage or remove any mundane damage immunity until the end of the turn. This counts as a close-range attack but uses the cleric's ranged attack bonus. One vial holds enough for 6 sprays.

• An Aspergillum can hold up to two vials worth of holy water and doubles as a mace. One can be purchased at a church for 500 sp by clerics of at least 3rd level.  

Wooden stake. Piercing a vampire’s heart with one will destroy it, but this typically requires hammering in the stake with a mallet. In the hands of a cleric, a successful melee attack with a stake will slay the vampire if it has 4 hp or less. At level 9 clerics can throw stakes as if they were daggers. 

Salt. A cleric can pour a line on the ground to create a barrier undead and creatures of the lower planes cannot cross. One sack has enough salt for a 30’ line. Effect lasts for one turn before the line degrades. Creatures with HD greater than the cleric are only warded for 1d4 rounds. 

Bell. A cleric can spend a round standing stationary, ringing a bell, and chanting a prayer to cause creatures possessed by chaotic entities, including constructs and animated objects, to save vs. paralysis or be unable to move or attack (cleric’s choice) until the next round. 

Garlic. Normally, a character can chew a clove of garlic to avoid being attacked by a vampire. A cleric can crush a head of garlic while uttering a blessing to prevent vampires and other creatures of chaos from using charm and mind-control abilities as well as prevent the transmission of curses and diseases within a 20’ radius. The effect lasts for 1 minute, after which the crushed garlic loses its potency.    

Is giving these extra capabilities to clerics overpowered? Maybe, but these features are limited by the fact that they require gear, meaning players still have to plan in advance based on what they are going up against, and only function against specific types of enemies. Undead are some of the most dangerous foes in the game, so granting clerics more options to engage allows the party to be more proactive. This isn't a flat buff so much as it is a retuning of certain encounters to be more puzzle-like. 

Slayer clerics

To make the cleric less templar and more slayer, the easy way would be to swap the weapon and armor restrictions such that they can wield any weapon but can't wear plate mail. That way they can use thematically appropriate weapons like crossbows and throwing knives while not wearing heavy armor, which figures in slayer media never seem to wear. 

For a more robust subclass I put this together:

SLAYERS. Clerics sworn to vanquish creatures of chaos. Everything as the base class with the following changes.

• 2:6 chance to climb, hide, move silently, and know lore about a creature of chaos, gaining 1 skill point per level.
• Ability to use firearms, crossbows, and one-handed bladed weapons except against humans and demihumans.
• Turn functions against fiends and extraplanar creatures as well as undead—however, instead of destroying such creatures, they are sent back to their plane of origin.
• Borderline heretical practices prevent slayers from benefiting from cleric services in settlements. Other clerics have a flat 50% chance of not recognizing you as legitimate.
• Slayers require mobility to fight and use their abilities and so may only wear leather armor. 
• Destined for a lifetime of conflict against the enemies of their god, slayers may not construct strongholds after reaching 9th level.
• A wide-brim hat is standard headgear. 

Inspiration:

From top to bottom: Gabriel Van Helsing from Van Helsing, D from Vampire Hunter D, Solomon Kane, Grégoire de Fronsac and Mani from Brotherhood of the Wolf

How I'm doing thieves' cant from now on

Jasper, this month, is the Word. 

Jasper is the pass/code/warning that the Singers of the Cities (who, last month, sang “Opal” from their divine injuries; and on Mars I’d heard the Word and used it thrice, along with devious imitations, to fix possession of what was not rightfully my own; and even there I pondered Singers and their wounds) relay by word of mouth for that loose and roguish fraternity with which I have been involved (in various guises) these nine years. It goes out new every thirty days; and within hours every brother knows it, throughout six worlds and worldlets. Usually it’s grunted at you by some blood-soaked bastard staggering into your arms from a dark doorway; hissed at you as you pass a shadowed alley; scrawled on a paper scrap pressed into your palm by some nasty-grimy moving too fast through the crowd. And this month, it was: Jasper. 

Here are some alternate translations: 

Help! 

or 

I need help! 

or 

I can help you! 

or 

You are being watched! 

or 

They’re not watching now, so move! 

Final point of syntax: If the Word is used properly, you should never have to think twice about what it means in a given situation. Fine point of usage: Never trust anyone who uses it improperly.

From "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" by Samuel Delany

Some dungeon fauna

Add these to the list of troublesome resource-consuming creatures like rust monsters, oozes, and the like.

Tongue crab

Ornery crustaceans that come to about mid-thigh with a dull teal shell and big slimy purple tongue.

HD 2+1 AC 5 Att. +2 Pincer (1d4) x 2 or tongue (1d6 + special) Mv. 60’(20’) Save 14 ML 8 Xp 50 NA 2d8 (4d6)

• Anklegrabber: if a pincer attack hits for full damage, target is knocked prone.
• Tongue: Leaves fast-drying gluey slime on hit, subject gets a cumulative -1 to attacks and AC until PC spends a turn cleaning off. Stains terribly. 
• Slime from their tongue can be harvested and used as an adhesive. Must be stored in an airtight container. 

Festerling

Scrawny dingo-creatures with pale greenish fur and equally pale fishy eyes. The bloated sacs beneath their chins lets them breath a gas that rapidly decays organic matter, which they have a rabid appetite for. 

HD 3 AC 6 Att. +2 bite (1d4+1) or rotting breath Mv. 120’(40’)  Save 14 ML 7 Xp 50 NA 2d6 (3d8)

• Appetite: First priority will always be to rot and eat organic matter. 
• Rotting breath: save vs. breath or take 1d6 damage. Destroys leather armor and held rations.
• Gas sac can be harvested; contains 1 attack-worth of rotting breath.  

Rune-eater

Serpentine reptiles with iridescent scales and too many legs. Their head exists fully within the Weird—to mundane viewers, it appears their body terminates at the neck, above which is a shimmery nimbus through which the outline of a wedge-shaped lizard head is visible in certain light. 

HD 4+1 AC 6 Att. +3 claw x 2 (1d6) and bite (2d4) Ml. 7 Mv. 150’(50’) NA 1d6 (2d12) 

• Only harmed by mundane attacks. 
• Target spellcasters. Attacks always disrupt spells, even if they miss. A successful bite attack against a foe with prepared spells causes them to lose a spell at random. 
• Devours the dweomer within magic symbols and glyphs, depowering them. 
• During the pursuit/evasion sequence, rune-eaters will be distracted by dropped spell books and scrolls.
• Their intestinal tract can be excised and unraveled to serve as a magic scroll with 1d4 random spells

Tar men

Bloated goopy bog bodies filled with pitch and tar. Drawn to flame like a moth; their hatred of the living is matched only by their desire to burn. 

HD 2 AC 9 Att. +1 slam (1d4 on a 4 target is stuck and automatically damaged next round) Ml. 12 Mv. 60’(20’) NA 1d8 (3d6) 

• Highly flammable. If damaged by fire, a tar man takes 2 damage every round and its attacks deal +2 damage.
• Can be damaged by mundane weapons but can only be killed by magic or fire.
• Weapons get stuck, requiring a full round of effort to dislodge. 
• Immune to poison and mind control.

Hobgoblins

To live is to be at war. Some liken the world to a vast wilderness, where dangers silently roam the forests and hills beyond the safe confines of civilization. This is false. The world is like an open ocean filled with creatures that exist solely to destroy one another. There is nowhere to hide, nowhere to flee to escape the world of slaughter. All one can do to survive is kill as much as they can before they in turn meet their demise. 

That is life for a hobgoblin. Everything is a threat. Every other living being wants to subjugate or enslave or kill you and if they say they aren’t they’re lying or too weak to survive.

Their warbands aren't merely tactical formations, but survival mechanisms in a reality where isolation means death. By combining strength, hobgoblins create islands of relative stability in an endless sea of enemies. 

Though amenable to diplomacy when practicality demands, their fundamental worldview prevents true trust or alliance. The warband represents the only viable response to their existential condition: the means to survive amid the unceasing slaughter they believe defines all existence.

Mythic origins

Long ago, when the many heads of Idnach were at war with one another, the most vengeful bit off her right hand in an act of spite. From the red stump blood flowed profusely, and from each drop a hobgoblin was born. 

Hobgoblins spawn in pools of blood where trace amounts of Idnach’s blood remain. The pools are fed with the blood of other creatures, which is consumed by the great demon's blood so that it may grow. 

Locating and securing these blood pools is of utmost interest to hobgoblins. There are 39 active pools in the known lands, 22 controlled by the empire and the rest by rival legions. Many have been lost or destroyed; many due to inter-hobgoblin wars, and some from dwarven campaigns, which explains the bone-deep racial animus the hobgoblins have toward them. 

The hobgoblin emperor currently plots to send an army to Idnach's domain and reopen her ancient wound so that fresh blood might flow once more. 

Civilization

The basic unit of hobgoblin society is the warband. Smaller groups are nomadic and subsist mostly on raids and pillaging, Larger groups occupy castles or fortresses and slowly conquer the territory surrounding them. An orc horde might plunder a town and move on to the next, but hobgoblins have much more perspective. Captured villages are occupied and converted to closely monitored labor camps that fuel the hobgoblins' conquest. 

Warbands rarely subsume one another. Instead, defeated warbands simply fall under the others command, keeping their name and iconography. The mightiest hobgoblin legions are made up of dozens if not hundreds of warbands.

The only other thing that can be said to shape hobgoblin society as much as the military is the bureaucracy, though in truth no clear distinction can be made. The bureaucracy is an atavistically convoluted, dizzying nightmare of overlapping authority and nonsensical priorities. Extreme compartmentalization between departments and incompatible coding systems, layers and layers of mandatory verification conducted by mutually hostile agencies, betrayal officers with the sole purpose of sabotaging incomplete processes, ranks within ranks where authority is both absolute and constantly undermined; no hobgoblin administration would be complete without all this and more.

The paradox is that despite—or because of—this brutal inefficiency, hobgoblin bureaucracies function staggeringly well. Hobgoblins simply operate on an alien logic; their reality bends and tumbles into a shape that lets their systems work, while they find human organizing structures as ghastly and we find theirs. 

This bizarre logic extends to their design sensibility. Everything not covered in spikes is adorned with anguished gargoyles, severed limbs, vulgar blasphemies, barbed wire, and the like. Warband camps are like carnivals of horror and fortresses like disorienting cathedrals, every surface a riot of maddening ornamentation.

Hobgoblins & magic

Hobgoblins, like all children of Idnach, exist partially in the Weird. As other races must channel the etheric potencies of the Weird through precise ritual and craft, for hobgoblins it behaves like soft mud, where manipulating it is as straightforward as picking up a clod and molded it as one fancies. It can be said that hobgoblin warlocks have a “study” of magic as do magic-users of other races, but their practice is far more impressionistic, associated more with the honing of instinctive behaviors and bizarre compulsions than the application of formula. 

Hobgoblin magic items typically involve subverting a tool's conventional purpose. A lantern that spews occluding smoke. A whetstone that leaves any blade it passes over as malleable as soft clay. A hammer that pulls apart structures, freeing nails and fasteners with every swing. 

Warband generator

Roll 5d6. That's the number of basic grunts in the squad. 

A quarter of the basic grunts will be mounted, riding... (1d6)

1. Wolves
2. Boars
3. Axebeaks
4. Giant spiders 
5. Giant bats
6. Perytons

For every 8 basic grunts, the warband will be accompanied by a... (1d20)

1. Ogre
2. Troll
3. Ettin
4. Cyclops
5. Manticore
6. Hag
7. Tirapheg
8. Minotaur
9. Evil treant carrying 1d4 hobgoblin sharpshooters in its branches
10. Morningstar scorpion
11. Otyugh
12. Squad of 1d4+1 harpies carrying barbed nets and flaming oil
13. Catoblepas
14. Chimera
15. Wyvern
16. Squad of 1d6+1  bugbear shock troopers
17. Flaywheel (like one of those circus wheel things covered in spikes and blades; moves 50'/round and anyone in its path must save vs. paralysis or takes 2d6 damage) piloted by 2 hobgoblin acrobats
18. Giant crab w/ howdah carrying 1d4 hobgoblin grenadiers
19. Rhagodessa
20. Giant horned lizard

The warband will be led by a hobgoblin with 1d3+2 HD accompanied by 2 lieutenants with 1 fewer HD. 

There is a 50% chance that 1d4 of the basic grunts are hobgoblin warlocks—3 HD magic-users capable of doing one of the following every other round (choose or roll randomly):

1. Cause an object within 60' to break (if it's held or worn by someone they get a save to resist).
2. Create a 30' radius cloud of thick, chocking smoke anywhere within 120'.
3. Throw a fireball up to 90' away that deals 3d6 damage in a 15' radius (save vs. spells for half).
4. Levitate up to 20' for the next turn.
5. Create an illusion that causes supernatural fear in up to 8 Hit Dice of creatures of 4 HD or lower.
6. Undo the last damage suffered by an ally within 30'.

This post would be incomplete without the much-beloved Hayami Rasenjin hobgoblin, which I learned he submitted to a D&D monster drawing contest organized by the great Tony DiTerlizzi. 

DiTerlizzi's own take on the hobgoblin, which he said was inspired by the Tolmekians from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. 

And now, time for passive abilities

After discussing active abilities a little while ago I've been thinking more about passive features and ways to make them interesting. 

Many mischaracterize passive abilities as being boring or forgettable and then use an example like "the players aren't going to care if they find a ring that grants +1 to a single save." But using something like that as an example like saying active abilities are boring or forgettable because no one cares if they acquire a feature that lets them mimic the sound of a cow 1/day. Actually I know some people that would totally get a kick out of that, but the point both active and passive features can be engaging if they have some consequential impact on how a player approaches the game. Here are three thoughts I have on giving passive features more consequence:

1. Conditions

A condition that must be satisfied before a passive feature is applied lends it a bit of dynamism. "You can travel 3x as fast in complete darkness," "You never have to rest when below half health," "you get +5 to attacks and damage while on fire" — on its own a feature might be bland, but building in a necessary condition allows you to play with tradeoffs, flavor, and scale. 

+2 to using an undead as an improvised weapon when standing naked in a field

2. Capabilities, not statistics

If your players find a feather that lets them jump 20' into the air and land safely I guarantee they won't forget about it—even though it's technically a passive, numerical bonus. Why? Because it effects the PC's capacity to explore and interact with the game world. 

There are undoubtably many exceptions to this but the conclusion I've come to is that the aspects that have the most bearing on how PCs exist and interact with the game world have greater capacity to promote different approaches than the aspects of characters that deal in abstractions, like saving throws and ability scores.   

3. Distinction through specificity

I don't like features that just amount to tacking on modifiers to a roll. An easy way around this is to just use dice modifiers (+d4) instead of flat numbers (+2), but that doesn't really get to the root of the problem, which is the lack of some resonance to make the feature stand out. This resonance can be approximated through adding specific details that add thematic heft. Being able to smell all magic is kind of vanilla, but being able to smell magic cast by elves, or magic cast by those with positive intentions, or being able to tell what someone fears based on how their magic smells, all add a dimension of particularity to the feature. Adding these kinds of details takes a bit more thought, but they also allow you to convey more of whatever theme the feature was meant to embody. 

PSICLASH: Quick rules for psionic duels

 

Two psions can choose to engage in psychic battle. 

Duels are conducted by rolling attack dice and adding to a shared total called PRESSURE.
Attacks come in 3 forms: 

• HEAVY (d8) 
• VARIED (d6) 
• SUBTLE (d4) 

Initiative is rolled each round; the winner chooses whether they act first or second. Whoever goes first decides which form of attack to make, rolls the dice, and adds the result to the PRESSURE score.

The psion that causes the PRESSURE to exceed 21 becomes overwhelmed by their opponent. The opponent rolls their power dice and inflicts that much damage. For every power a psion has above their first, they can once per round roll their attack dice twice and choose the result. 

If a psion raises the PRESSURE to exactly 21, they overwhelm their foe and make two power dice rolls instead of one to determine damage.

Duels continue until one side would be reduced to 0 hp, at which point the victor can either kill their opponent (typically by exploding their head) or forego dealing damage and choose one of the following: 

• PHASE: foe suffers a psychic shock of the victor's choosing. 
• DOMINATE: victor overrides the foe’s nervous system and controls them for 2d6 days, after which the foe becomes permanently catatonic.
• CRUSH: victor destroys all or part of the foe's mind. Can erase memories, remove certain faculties and abilities, or extinguish their cognition (as per the Feeblemind spell).

Regardless of what is chosen, there is a 50% chance after the duel that the victor learns one of their foe's psionic powers.

No other action can be performed during a duel. One round in a duel is equal to one round in real time. Psions are only vaguely aware of what is happening outside of a duel—they are otherwise completely engrossed psychic combat. Sustaining damage from a source external to the duel imposes a -1 penalty to initiative but otherwise does nothing to break a psion's concentration. 

Both sides can agree to end the duel at the start of a round. If only one side wishes to break free, they must succeed on a saving throw vs. spells before rolling initiative.

1, 10, or 1000000

 I’ve been kicking around a design rule recently I’m calling “1, 10, or 1000000.” The idea is that when you’re determining how prevalent something should be in your game there should either be one of them, 10 of them, or a million. 

Maybe not exactly those numbers. More accurately, if you’re thinking about how prevalent something should be in the campaign, any given thing should either be unique, part of a small coherent grouping, or common if not ubiquitous. What this means specifically varies from thing to thing so here are some examples:

Dragons

There is one dragon. Maybe not the only dragon in the entire game world, but for the purposes of the campaign there is only the one. This will likely be the most dragon-y dragon a DM could muster. The players might encounter it in passing or hear about it from time to time as they progress but they wouldn’t hope to have any chance of slaying it (or convincing it to be their ally, subduing it, etc.) until late in the game. The dragon is probably tied to the history of the setting or has some significant influence on the current circumstances. There’s only one dragon, so it has to count. 

There are 10 dragons. They all know each other, and people know about them—if not all then enough to know that there are several dragons in the area. Each dragon has their own domain, goals, tastes, and their own of opinions of one another. Each dragon probably has a couple unique features in addition to the normal dragon stuff that make them distinct both from the other dragons and the stereotypical “fantasy dragon” that exists in the mind of the players. Some of the dragons are mean, some are nice, all are menacing yet for different reasons. 

There are 1000000 dragons. They’re everywhere, from the tallest mountains to the depths of the sea. In every cave there dwells a dragon, in every forest they stalk and prey. Some rule city states, others hide in abandoned cellars. They come in all shapes, sizes, and temperaments. This is probably the baseline monster the PCs will be dealing with throughout the campaign.

Sages

There is one sage. She lives somewhere rather inconvenient to get to and it takes at least a session worth of adventuring to find her for the first time. Being the only sage, she’s knowledgeable on just about everything worth asking about, though she exacts a steep price for her services. She's probably an important figure in the setting despite being a recluse. A possible quest for the PCs would be if a powerful political leader tasks them to bribe her so that she gives false info to his adversaries.  

There are 10 sages. They are the current members of a secret order that’s been around for centuries. They’re scattered all over the map, some in settlements, some in the wilderness, some traveling from place to place. In addition to their respective areas of knowledge each one’s got a “schtick:” one’s the mad scientist who wants to do experiments on the PCs, one’s the fogey hermit who might or might not be a badass kung fu master, one’s the eccentric inventor that always has stuff blowing up in his face, and maybe one is like a talking cat or a sentient ooze or something. They definitely have a bunch of secret signs and rites. If the player need information on a given subject and none of the sages they are buddies with know about it, they would tell them who the right sage is to look for and it would be a whole thing like “go to this distant barbarian village and show the chief this special sign and he will lead you to a clearing where in the light of the moon Umru the Clever will appear on the back of a three-horned rhino. At first he will refuse to help you but ask him three times and he will tell you what you seek to know.”  

There are 1000000 sages. You can find one in just about every town, next to the blacksmith’s or the local tavern. They’re on the wilderness encounter table and maybe the dungeon one too, at least for the earlier levels. On the spectrum of background character to fully fleshed out NPC, sages lean toward the former, along with shopkeepers and city guards. Using a sage would be a pretty streamlined process—you pay them some money and they have a percentile chance of answering your question. High level PCs can hire out sages just like any other kind of specialist to have on staff in their stronghold. 

Races

There is one race: the human ra- For the purposes of this kind of campaign there are humans and then everything else. If there are elves and dwarves and halflings they’d be so minor they aren’t relevant to the campaign setting (so you won’t be hanging out in the elf kingdom or helping the dwarves in their war effort against the goblins). Humanoids like orcs and gnolls are soulless monsters in the same category as chimeras and vampires and other things that want you dead. 

There are 10 races. Humans might be the one the campaign is centered around, but demihumans, monstrous humanoids, and a handful of other sapient creatures have a significant presence in the campaign setting. Some are playable, definitely more than one, but probably not all. Within each population is probably a decent amount of variation—there’s more than one type of elf, dwarf, and so on. Each race has at least vaguely defined customs and characteristics that distinguish them mechanically as well as narratively. For instance, if orcs of different tribes encounter each other they may need to save or immediately turn hostile. There may be another, separate intelligent species in a specific adventure location or two, but the point is if you have the four basic races and lizardmen, bird people, and hobgoblins, then the players aren’t going to be regularly running into bugbears, kobolds, and gnomes on their adventures.  

There are 1000000 races. Everything and the kitchen sink. There’s probably a nice meaty d20 list of races to roll on for character creation and implied even more in the game world. One session the players might be fighting the axolotl-men, the next they might be trying to impress the king of the coatimundi-men, the next they’re stealing treasure from the red-lipped-batfish-men. Here, races are treated less as distinct species and more as distinct people-groups. There’s almost certainly going to be that ren-faire quality some settings have where when you go to the city you’re greeted by a minotaur guard as a family of myconids walk by.

Magic items.

There is (around) one magic item (per player). In this kind of game finding a magic item is a huge, campaign-defining moment. Any magic item that shows up would be an incredible differentiator for the party and also potentially the mcguffin around which an entire adventure is centered. 

There are 10 magic items. Maybe in this circumstance there are 10 of a certain major kind (10 swords, 10 pieces of enchanted jewelry) that have similar provenance and make up the main focus as far as magical treasure is concerned, with other magic items being largely auxiliary. Each item would have one or several open-ended qualities that make them broadly useful while also having some definite drawbacks to limit their utility. Perhaps the drawbacks of one can be mitigated by another, creating a sense of momentum as the players acquire them. The ten magic items could make up the premise of the campaign—"gather each segment of the rod of seven parts"—or they could just be more incidental marks of distinction—"be wary, for the warlord you oppose is said to wield one of the 12 legendary demon blades." The ten magic items don’t also have to have the same origin or be the same kind of object, but they ought to be at least distinguishable as in the same class as one another. Patrick Stuart’s proposed World of 100 Wonders is an example of this kind of setup. 

There are 1000000 magic items. Most are minor, with specific and limited functions that make them handy to have around but not totally gamebreaking. As the PCs explore and find more items it would be like they’re filling out their utility belts, getting more tools to handle incrementally greater challenges and to facilitate new approaches. A lot of these items would probably be consumable like potions or can only be used a set number of times like wands. I’ve never played Numenera but I think it does something like this with cyphers.  

Dungeons

There is one dungeon. The mega one. This is a classic-style dungeon big enough to accommodate an entire campaign. This is where the DM crams every one of their dungeony ideas. There are levels, sublevels, secret levels, and enough interconnectivity between them to make the dungeon less a thing to get to the end of and more an open environment to explore and manipulate. 

There are 10 dungeons. This is like Legend of Zelda, where each dungeon has some motifs that show up in the puzzles and traps and monsters. Despite the preponderance of dungeons in D&D games I feel this is a rather underutilized concept: a set number of dungeons from the outset, each distinctly themed, where in one you’d find an item or a clue that would help you circumvent an obstacle in another. This kind of game might also represent an inversion of the BX game play progression that starts into players in the dungeon until they get strong enough to explore the wilderness—here players may begin the game with wilderness exploration, with the goal of making it to a dungeon, and then progress as far as they can until they get bored or hit roadblock, and then explore the overworld again until they find another dungeon. 

There are 1000000 dungeons. Everything the players that isn’t exploring dungeons is either moving between dungeons, coming back to town from a dungeon, or setting out to go to a dungeon. Aside from a couple prepared ones, the dungeons in this campaign would likely be procedurally generated on an as-needed basis; players enter a new hex, dice determine they find a dungeon, and then the DM pulls out the geomorphs and the party is on their way. The dungeons would probably be pretty short, punchy, and dense, to prevent them from getting stale and keep the players going through them at a decent clip. 

Further elaboration

• Truth be told, in most circumstances I can think of 10 is probably too many of a thing to accommodate in one campaign. Five (+ or - 2 of course) is a much more workable number. But I went with 10 to keep it a consistent powers of 10 thing. 
• If it’s not already clear, the number does not always need to refer to the literal number of people or things—giving knights a 1 could mean there is 1 knight in your campaign or 1 knightly order. 10 could also refer to a knightly order of 10 knights—the difference is that a “1” knightly order would have a strong theme that carries over to every member, but one knight might not be that different than the other. On the other hand in a “10” knightly order each knight is their own character with their own traits and personalities. There might be overlap between the knights to reflect the theme of the knightly order, but each member would reflect the theme in their own way (so if it was an order of space knights, one might have a laser sword and a suit of robot armor, one might be like an astrologer-mystic, one might be a void guy who wears black and doesn’t speak, and so on).
• I use the term “campaign setting” here a lot, which I mean to refer to the specific locale that the campaign occupies—it could be the entire planet, or it could just be a specific region. If all or most of your campaign takes place within the confines of a 12x12 hex map, that’s the campaign setting regardless of what exists elsewhere in that fantasy world. A thing that you assign a 1 to for your campaign could be much more common elsewhere in the game world, but for the sake of your campaign specifically there is only one. 

What this solves

Every now and then when I’m coming up with stuff for the campaign I struggle to establish how much weight a concept ought to have. Usually I sort of get attached to one approach but then don’t want to close the possibility of a different approach and then I end up with a noncommittal in between that lacks any kind of satisfaction, so I scrap it all and start over. 

The 1, 10, or 1000000 rule is a nice little creative constraint to bounce off of. It provides a concrete metric of prevalence so there's no more having to sort through competing visions for an ambiguous desired outcome, that being the sort of attention I want something to have in the campaign. 

If I, say, want a lot of different kinds of mercenaries in my game but I’m also mostly just excited about one specific idea I have for a mercenary band, I would have once had that mercenary band be the most fully fleshed out and only vaguely gesture at the existence of other mercenary armies through random encounters and rumors the players may not even pay attention to. The 1, 10, or 1000000 rule resolves this by dictating that mercenary bands should either be ubiquitous enough that any distinction is no more than window dressing, there should be a defined amount of different mercenary bands in the area, or there should just be the one band that about every mercenary in the campaign belongs to. Each is a valid course, and more importantly they do away with the ambiguity that exists between my concept for the mercenary band and how mercenaries actually show up in the campaign. 

Ultimately, the rule is for clarity and decisiveness. Using it lets each choice feel intentional.

It might go without saying but this rule isn't applicable to every circumstance. Sometimes it's fine to have a group of things somewhere in the middle of 1 and 10 or 10 and 1000000. Traps in a dungeon, for instance—the should be prevalent but not everywhere, they don't need to be put into a categorizable, and there shouldn't just be one trap or kind of trap unless your dungeons really small. 

So like most rules of thumb, it's best to use when you get stuck or want to try a new approach.