Arcon 32-modul

Arcon 32 er akkurat ferdig, og jeg tenkte jeg skulle legge ut modulen jeg skrev for D&D 5e til årets festival. Modulen fikk gode tilbakemeldinger fra spillerne, og selv er jeg veldig fornøyd med den. Den er skrevet i et forsøk på å tilpasse sandbox-formatet til con-spilling. Vet ikke hvor vellykket dette har vært, men jeg innbiller meg at den er relativt åpen sammenlignet med mange con-moduler. Jeg har forsøkt å lage en verden og en situasjon spillerne kan agere i, i stedet for å tvinge dem gjennom et ferdig skript, samtidig som de av praktiske grunner tvinges inn i en handling de ikke selv har valgt å delta i.

Jeg har også forsøkt en vri på rolleskrivingen i år som jeg ikke har gjort før. I fjor skrev jeg kjønnsnøytrale roller, slik at spillerne selv kunne velge om de ville spille mann eller kvinne. Det har jeg også gjort i år, men i tillegg har jeg lagt inn noen andre valgmuligheter i rollene, ved å legge inn veiskiller i bakgrunnshistoriene. Her får spilleren selv velge hvordan de har reagert på en hendelse eller hvorfor de gjorde ting på en bestemt måte, litt på samme måte som det gjøres i en del moderne dataspill (f.eks. Mass Effect og Dragon Age). Dette gir spillerne mulighet til å ha litt kontroll over rollenes personlighet, selv om bakgrunnshistorien i og for seg er satt.

Grunnen til  at jeg ville gjøre det slik er at jeg vet av egen erfaring og gjennom tilbakemeldinger fra andre at det kan være vanskelig å spille en rolle man ikke har skapt selv. Det føles kunstig og tilgjort, særlig hvis man får en rolle man ikke er komfortabel med. Tanken er at disse valgmulighetene skal gi spillerne en sterkere følelse av å eie rollen sin, og dermed kanskje føle seg mer berettiget til å tolke den og gjøre den til sin, også i spill.

Det største problemet med modulen, slik jeg ser det, er at den ble alt for lang. Det er jo et klassisk con-problem. Jeg burde nok ha tatt i bruk en dose mer selvkontroll i den kreative prossessen, men alt var hektisk og gjort i siste liten, og man kan jo ikke tenke på alt heller. Sånn det står tror jeg det er rimelig å regne med at du trenger to kvelder, kanskje rundt 8 timer til sammen, for å spille hele eventyret, litt avhengig av i hvor stor grad du spiller ut alle småhendelsene og i hvor stor grad spillerne velger å utforske alle deler av slottet.

Jeg har lagt mye arbeid i dette manuset, så jeg håper noen velger å laste det ned og helst også spille det. Jeg tror det er mulig å ha mye moro med dette. Jeg setter også pris på om du legger igjen en kommentar i kommentarfeltet under hvis du har spilt den. Konstruktiv ris og ros blir alltid godt mottatt. Du finner filen her:
Fuglekongen - D&D 5e-modul skrevet til Arcon 32

(Og her er også link til fjorårets modul, hvis du skulle ha lyst til å ta en titt på den):
Kvitjernets Ild - Arcon 31 

Tabell: Hvor finner spillerne informasjon?

Ny tabell til dere på Fredag:

Hvor kan spillerne finne den skjulte informasjonen?

1. I et bortgjemt lite tempel langt inne den gjenngrodde urskogen, lever en mann som en gang for mange år siden ofret øynene sine i bytte mot synske evner. Han skal være den største seeren i alle landene, og kan se hendelser både i fremtiden, fortiden og nåtiden. Tempelet tjenes av medlemmer av en underlig rase – en slags apekatter med menneskelige ansiktstrekk og intelligens.
2. Det sies at en bok ligger bortgjemt et sted i det store biblioteket i hovedstaden. Den er ofte referert til i gamle tekster, men for 200 år siden forsvant den. Historier forteller om at den har blitt sett siden, og at den fortsatt er i biblioteket, men det er umulig å oppdrive noen som har sett den med egne øyne. Boken er innbundet i lær som skal være laget av skinnet til en eldgammel øgledemon som forfatteren i sin tid beseiret.
3. På bunnen av en dyp og kald innsjø ligger et sunkent tempel til en glemt gud. Ypperstepresten inngikk en avtale med guden sin om evig liv, men da tempelet ble tatt av en flodbølge druknet han, og kroppen hans døde. Han levde videre som levende død på sjøbunnen, helt til alt kjøttet på kroppen hans råtnet bort og det tomme skjellettet falt fra hverandre i dypet. Yppersteprestens bevissthet er fortsatt fanget i hodeskallen hans, uten mulighet til å handle. Han vet mye om mange ting, og kan være villig til å bytte informasjon mot at spillerne utfører et rituale som kan bringe sjelen hans til hvile på den andre siden.
4. Legender forteller om Iordas stein, en ildrød rubin som gir svar på ett spørsmål til den som legger den på pannen. Steinen ligger i hjertet av en vulkan, våknet av et fryktelig, sovende beist. En besvergelse fremsagt av trollmenn fra gammel tid hindrer noen i å ta den med ut fra kammeret den ligger i, men den som kan komme seg levende frem til den kan erhverve kunnskap som ikke kan finnes noe annet sted i verden.
5. I den ville skogen nord for byen skal det finnes en lund som man bare kan oppdage ved fullmåne. I denne lunden bor det en skøyeraktig ånd som vet svaret på mange ting, men hun er sleip og svikefull av seg. Hun lever for en god latter, og ingenting får henne til å le mer enn det å lure dødelige opp i stry. Dessuten gir hun ingenting fra seg gratis, så en bør sørge for å inngå en avtale om betaling før en stiller noen spørsmål, ellers kan kunnskapen fort bli dyrkjøpt.
6. Før han døde, skal vismannen ha skrevet noe av dette ned på en skriftrull som han siden gjemte bort. Ingen vet nøyaktig hvor skriftrullen ligger gjemt. Noen sier han la den i et hult tre i skogen i nærheten av tårnet sitt, andre sier han har skjult den i en hemmelig nisje eller hylle et sted inne i selve tårnet. Igjen andre sier han lagde en portal til en annen verden og gjemte rullen der. Uansett er alle enige om at tårnet er det beste stedet å lete etter ledetråder til hvor den kan være. Tårnet står fortsatt, forlatt og forfallent, langt ute på det vindblåste slettelandet i vest.

Kvitjernets ild - Arcon 2015

Legger ut spilloppsettet jeg lagde til Arcon 2015. Oppsettet er skrevet for femteutgaven av det der dødsberømte rollespillet du vet. Etter at arrangementet var gjennomført var det noen som spurte om å få dette digitalt, så jeg tenkte det var like greit å legge det ut her. Dessuten har jeg lagt mye arbeid i å skrive og legge opp dette på en slik måte at det skal være enkelt for andre enn meg selv å lede det. Fint at det arbeidet får noen frukter utover at det spilles en gang på Arccon.
Oppsettet er laget slik at det kan spilles som enkeltspill (tar ca. 6 timer å gjennomføre) med figurene som følger med og alt det der, men det er også enkelt å putte inn i ens egen kampanje. Rollefigurene jeg har laget er ikke nødvendige for at spillet skal fungere, og det er lite setting-spesifikk informasjon i manuset, så det bør gå uten problemer.
Jeg vil veldig gjerne ha konstruktive tilbakemeldinger på oppsettet. Hva fungerte? Hva fungerte ikke? Var det noe som var vanskelig å forstå? Osv. Det hjelper meg å skrive bedre oppsett i fremtiden.
Kos dykk:

Kvitjernets ild - manus
Rollefigurer
Kart - nivå 1
Kart - nivå 2

5e sorcerous origin - Abyssal Bloodline

The lack of sorcerous origins options in the PHB is one of it's very few failings. One of my players played a sorcerer with an Abyssal Bloodline in our Pathfinder campaign. That character has now been converted to  5e, and none of the options listed in the book really cut it, flavourwise, so I created an Abyssal Bloodline for use in my game.

Note: The Hellfire feature was invented by a user named Afrodyte on the EnWorld forum, so I'm not taking credit. Anyway, this may be useful to some:

Abyssal Bloodline

Demonic Ancestor. Your demon blood strengthens your body and grants you resistance to cold, fire and lightning damage. You can speak, read and write Abyssal.

Demonic Claws. As a bonus action, you can cause claws to grow on both or either of your hands. They will persist until you choose to withdraw them. Once each round, as a bonus action, you may make a claw attack. The claws count as natural finesse weapons with a base damage of 1d4.

Hellfire. Starting at 6th level, when casting a spell that does fire damage, you can spend 1 sorcery point to add your Charisma modifier to that damage. At the same time, you can spend 2 sorcery points to force the creature hit by the spell to make a Constitution save or gain the Incapacitated condition for 1 round from the pain inflicted by intense heat of the flames.

Demonic senses. At 14th level, you can spend 5 sorcery points to gain the ability to see 120 ft. in normal and magical darkness, see invisible creatures and objects, automatically detect visual illusions and succeed on saving throws against them, and perceive the original form of a shapechanger or a creature that is transformed by magic. You can also see into the Ethereal Plain at the same range as the above.

Demonic Form. At 18^th level, you gain the ability to take on your true demonic shape. Changing to demonic form counts as an action and costs 10 sorcery points.

In demonic form, your size changes to huge, and any worn equipment will be destroyed unless removed prior to the transformation. Your stats change as follows (your demonic form stats can exceed the normal 20 point limit): STR:+10 DEX:+5 CON:+10 INT:- WIS:-  CHA+5. Your hit points equals 1d12 (7)+ your constitiution bonus per sorcerer level, and your armor class is 19 (natural armor). You gain resistance to bludgeoning, slashing and piercing damage from nonmagical weapons, and are immune to fire and poison damage. Your demonic wings give you a flying speed of 80 ft.

As part of your demonic form, you manifest two magical weapons – a lightning sword doing 3d8+strength slashing damage plus 3d8 lightning damage, and a flaming whip doing 2d6+strength slashing damage plus 3d6 fire damage. While in demonic form, you may make one attack with each of these weapons each round, and you are considered proficient with both weapons. You cannot cast spells while in demonic form.

Your demonic form is unstable and lasts for 1 minute, after which time you revert to human form. If you wish to change back to demonic form, you must spend 10 more sorcery points.

Religious procession generator - roll all dice

Roll all dice table of random magical sword features

I first published this table in directly from the blogger text editor, but the result looked like boiled spinach, so here it is an image instead:

D10 Reasons informant knows about secret entrance to the dungeon

D10 REASONS INFORMANT KNOWS ABOUT SECRET ENTRANCE TO DUNGEON

1. Used to play there as a child
2. Did some work connected to the place. Discovered by accident.
3. Heard about it from adventurers who never came back
4. That's how they lost their arm.
5. It's a family secret told from parent to child. Ancestor had some involvement in the building of the dungeon.
6. An apparition imparted the knowledge
7. They dreamed of it, then later checked and found it true.
8. What? Everyone in town knows this! Did no one else tell you?
9. Claims to be clairvoyant. Charges 1d6 GP for the information.
10. Local explorer – likes to roam about. Happened upon secret under exploration run. Not keen on going back, though will offer services as wilderness guide if asked.

d12 Really Bad Omens

d12 Really Bad Omens

1.	A flock of birds are flying over head. Suddenly they loose momentum in flight and plummet to the ground. Upon inspection, the birds have all gotten their stomachs turned inside out, all their internal organs and intestines hanging out.
2.	A large patch of nature has withered and/or rotted, seemingly suddenly.
3.	An animal with obviously mortal wounds staggers across their path and continues into the wilderness.
4.	Some commoners are lowering the body of a woman into the dirt. Beside the grave stands her husband holding a newborn baby with large goatlike horns in its forehead.
5.	Some people are talking about how a bunch of graves have been opened. One of them insists that they were dug up from the inside.
6.	A water source has become poisonous. Several of the creatures that normally use it lie scattered around it dead in evidence of its condition.
7.	The ground shakes for 1d4 minutes, opening narrow fissures in the ground. All PC’s must make a dexterity save or fall over.
8.	A downpour of what appears to be hail sets on. The hails are actually human eyeballs.
9.	A group of people lies dead on the ground, all flesh seemingly eaten from their bones. Their clothes are still intact, so it is obvious the flesh hasn’t rotted away. A swarm of locusts can be seen in the distance, receding towards the horizon.
10.	A headless woman is crawling around on all fours, apparently searching for something. Some ways off, her head lies facing downwards. The head and body still function as normal though separated. If asked, she will say it just suddenly fell off and she lost track of it in her bewilderment. Then she will tuck it under her arm and wander off.
11.	All food in the characters packs is suddenly spoiled, along with everything edible in a 10 mile radius.
12.	Monster appears from a planar gate: 1.Gibbering Mouther 2.Grell 3.Spectator 4.Chuul 5.Otyugh 6.Beholder. 10% chance the gate appears right in front of the characters, otherwise it will be some way off or facing in a different direction, giving the them a chance to attempt to hide or flee.

Stivellos shocking pole

Stivello was a legendary trap maker who lived and worked in the classical era. Perhaps as legendary as his trap making skills was his aptness at the seducing of women, and it is said he finally met his demise at the hands of the jealous lover of one of his conquests. His traps also seem to also have this certain aspect to them.

The shocking pole is a thick, shiny metal pole placed at the center of a room. Anyone who enters will be hit with a shock of lightning doing 2d8 damage. No large problem in itself, but there is also a spell upon the room making the air thick and viscous like tar, rendering it impossible for any humanoid to advance at a faster rate than 5 ft. per round.

There are two versions of this trap. The original version has no actual trigger. It is allways in operation, but will only affect objects inside the room. Any object thrown into the room will be affected by the thick air. Any organic or metal object will be struck by the lightning. Another, slightly more cruel version places a trigger at the center of the room, making it hard for the trapped creature to get out without experiencing death.

Future posts

Looking over some of my posts here I realize that most of them aren't really interesting, so I've decided I will concentrate on posting useful stuff instead of my opinions about this and that. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to post a trap each week for some time to come. Then we'll see what happens next.

Gnomish lobster trap

The lobster trap was originally designed by the legendary gnomish trap engineer Erwil Snogglesnoutbottom to guard the entrance to the kings vaults. It consists of a room floored with an iron grid suspended some inches above a shallow body of water. The entrance door is set with a spring, causing it to close by itself unless impeded. Upon closing, the door triggers the trap. The flooring underneath the water starts to heat up, quickly filling the room with steam.

On the first round after triggering the trapped room becomes uncomfortable. On the secound round, any creatures trapped inside will start taking damage (1d6) as they are being steam boiled alive. The amount of damage increases each round (2d6 on the third round, then 4d6 each round thereafter). In addition, some dungeon masters may enjoy making players roll appropriate saving rolls to avoid claustrophobic panic taking a hold of their minds, rendering them unable to act.

The original lobster trap had no way of getting out once the trap had sprung - it could only be avoided by keeping the door from closing while crossing the room. Since then, many versions of the trap has been constructed - some with various ways of letting unintentional victims get out before being cooked. Some versions are made with the keyhole accessible from the inside, allowing someone with a key (or adventures with lockpicks) to open the door. Other versions have a hatch in the roof supplying an exit for anyone with a grappling hook and a length of rope.

The original trap had two exits, but versions have also been made with only one exit and some kind of bait at the other end of the room, luring foolhardy explorers to a hot, steamy doom.

A perspective on the Quantum Ogre and wasting work

It is easy to see why many would feel they are wasting work if they have spent a lot of time creating a scene and then not having it come to pass because of player choices. Yet, the principle of the Quantum Ogre states that you should indeed do just that.
So. Are you indeed wasting work? The curious thing is that before having read about agency and the Quantum Ogre, I thought that I was, so I made shure my players always where exposed to my orchestrated scenes one way or another. In short, I was an illusionist and a railroader. But at the same time, I was spending an enormous amount of time working out elaborate background stories for my games that very seldom came into play in a very significant way.
I think this perspective is a good way to get around some of that resistance to agency i RPG's. Creating backstories like that, and creating elaborate scenes is part of the fun of DMing. So what if the players were to late to witness the inidious offering to the Snake God! So what if they were too late and came in there after it happened! So what if they chose another way in and managed to prevent the whole ting!
In those cases, the scene you have created is part of the backstory. It has still happened, even if the PC's didn't witness it.

A short note on originality

A critisism of the OSR that I often see is that it is conservative. This seems self-evident, and even members of the OSR themselves don't really make an effort to dispute it. Going back to an older way of doing things. Playing earlier versions of the game. Conservative, right?
Well, not necesseraly. The OSR, as I see it, goes back to the roots of the game, trying to discover the ideas behind the original concept - ideas that were lost because people didn't understand them or weren't exposed to them - and then developing them in a new direction. Many of the theoretical concepts I see differ quite a bit from what the 1e DMG proposes.
I won't go into that in detail, but there are other examples of this same phenomenon in other art forms as well. Many times you see the artists deemed to be the most original claim outdated artists as their idols. In fact, looking backwards in history allows you to see past the shackles of contemporary trends and find a truer meaning behind the thing you do. Think about this the next time you hear your favorite musician talk about who (s)he is inspired by.
In the OSR, this is all about finding out how the game was intended to be played, and then finding new ways to make that play happen.

Robbers in the city

Now, what kind of people would actually try to rob someone who wanders around town in full plate wielding battle axes?

D20 random villain weakness table

My first attempt at a random table. Find that making such tables is a great way of activating creativity and storing ideas for later. This probably won't be my last one.

D20 random villain weakness table

1. Power derived from magic item.
2. Addicted to some substance, will die if bereft.
3. Paralyzing phobia.
4. Becomes weak when in vicinity of a certain substance, object or type of object (kryptonite, color, religious symbol erc.).
5. Unable to harm one specific person (obsessive love, bound by spell, fear, cause equal harm to self etc.)
6. Cannot move except by magic.
7. Dependent on a certain environment (scorching hot, breathes certain gas, etc.) to survive.
8. Receives massive amounts of extra damage from weapons crafted from a certain material.
9. Has no body or body helpless. Dependent on henchmen to interact with the world.
10. Must perform a certain ritual, bathe in a certain substance, drink some rare potion, sleep in a coffin or the like at regular intervals to replenish power
11. Paranoid schizophrenic. Hears voices, experiences hallucinations.
12. Power derived from a captive creature or person under his/her control.
13. Villains true nature unknown to subjects, who will revolt if truth comes out.
14. Cowardly when faced with personal danger. Hides behind henchmen. Will surrender if caught alone.
15. Has a great power that through some method (mirrors, certain magic item, certain color etc.) may be reflected back upon him/her.
16. Shape shifter – changes to helpless or almost helpless form at regular intervals or when certain conditions are met.
17. Inverse – what harms others will heal him/her, and what heals others will harm him/her.
18. Blind, deaf, dumb or some combination of the three.
19. Overpowering hatred for person, creature, type of creature, people community etc. Loses control and attacks in blinding rage if encountered.
20. Compulsive behavior – must follow a certain routine each day.

The balance of power in RPGs

Many of the discussions around how to play seem to be centered around who gets power to define what in the setting and story. I'm going to try my hand at analyzing the balance of power between the different actors in a game. You'll have to excuse me if this seems clumsy or unoriginal. I'm not writing in my own language, and am a total noob at writing out RPG theory. Still, it seems useful to sort things out and get a clear view of one's options before taking a stand in regards to what style one wants to use. This is my attempt at such a clarification.

The way I see it, there are five power factors in a typical game: The GM, the players, the system, the characters and chance

The players: Traditionally holds power only over their own actions, while the system and the GM determine the outcome of those actions. In some newer systems, the players are given control of certain elements that would normally be outside their characters control. This includes systems that give players certain resources that let them favorably influence die rolls or directly change things in the game world.

The GM: The GM normally controls the actions of all characters who are not controlled by the players. He is also the referee who decides on how the rules are to be interpreted and if certain rules should be left out or added. He also decides the outcome of actions that are not handled by the system.

The system: The system is the main balancing factor that decides who gets power over what. It also decides how the different actors may use their power in-game.

The Character: Through their character sheets, the in-game characters themselves are actually given a certain amount of power. This indeed applies to anything that has stats in a game, not just characters, but I'll call them characters for simplicities sake. When a character has a score in some ability, that gives the character himself some measure of control over how the other actors may control what happens to him. This most commonly pertains to die rolls, but some systems also has rules on how to roleplay a character based on stats. And even when there are no such rules, most players will let stats influence their roleplaying in some ways. This point also includes the discussion on player knowledge vs. character knowledge, which seems to be a basic issue in the OSR.

Chance: At certain points in the game, the GM delegates his power over the outcomes of actions to chance. When this happens is to some extent dictated by the system, but often the GM must make a ruling on whether let chance decide the outcome or whether he should decide for himself what happens.

Deciding on the balance of power has a profound effect on how you play the game. The newer "narrativist" games for example, tend to give the players a lot of power to define the story, and some of them removes chance as a factor entirely. The reasons for this is an argument that this mode of play encourages telling of stories  as opposed to playing a game.
Eliminating chance gives the sentient participants in the projects more control to determine the flow of the story, essentially making it more their own creation. Giving the players more power relative to the GM and the system seems to be motivated by the idea that more heads generate more ideas than one, and the feeling that freedom from restraints lets the imagination work easier.
To me, the argument for keeping chance in the game is the feeling of excitement it provides. Not knowing what is going to happen is close to being a definition of what excitement is all about. You could say that if the GM decides what's going to happen, the player still would not know, but a GM is a person who could be influenced by social interactions and so the outcome would be less unpredictable. This could be taken further and made into an argument for why the GM shouldn't fudge die rolls, but I won't go into that at this point.
I think the same argument could be made towards limiting power to the players. It intensifies the excitement created by chance. There is a certain quality to being left to ones own in the face of chance that invokes a feeling of the sublime in a game, making it grittier and more "realistic". And when I say realistic, I mean that as an aestethic quality and not as having anything to do with actual reality. It is more the feeling of actually being there, or immersion if you like, than being in fact like reality itself.
Chracter power is an interesting subject. How much should the stats on your character sheet influence play? This is not just a question of whether to let your alignment dictate how you play your character. It is also a question of which abilities to include in your game and how to handle those abilities. When should a skill roll be used, and when should the players skill instead be tested? Should a player be allowed to use knowledge that he has but his character does not?
This may be the most challenging topic I have encountered through being exposed to the OSR. Especially the first question seems hard to answer. The second is easier, as it seems to me artificial and contrived to demand that a person overlook it's own knowledge while playing. I think part of my reason for writing this entire post was indeed an effort to come closer to an answer to the first question, though it seems it has not helped.
Seems I will have to do some more thinking on this subject.

The empty rooms generator

Making empty rooms interesting can be a strain on the imagination. Here's a great piece of work to help out with that problem, from the Hack & Slash blog, which you should read anyway. This guy is producing what is essentially a high quality gaming article almost every day, and it's on his spare time it seems. Check it out!

RPG diary - Playing with kids. First session

My son and daughter are 5 and 7 years old, and I've been wanting to start playing RPG's with them for some time. It gives us something to do together that's fun for all of us, and at the same time it gives me a chance to introduce them to the hobby that has meant so much to me through the years. Playing with young kids is quite different from playing with adults, and I'm going to use this blog to think out loud about how things are going, perhaps in the end reahing a good format for this kind of game.
I use the rules from Corey's game presented in the first issue of Gygax mag. It's a simple system were better skill is represented with bigger dice, and the die rolls in combat are reduced. It was designed for even younger children, so I may up the complexity somewhat. I don't have any miniatures, so we use toy figurines of roughly 1:10 scale from Schleich and Papo. We also have a cool wooden castle to go with it.
First session was a simple story where the characters set out to free the fairy princess who was being held captive in the tower of the evil sorceress Abraxas (improvised name, sorry :D ), and it ended badly with a TPK. I figured it was better to let them die on their first go because of bad decisions (they went for the frontal assault approach and did not help eachother when needed), than to have to deal with a bad gaming culture where the players are thoughtless and rash. Nobody started crying, so it went fine. So, I guess my first advice is: don't be afraid to kill off your childrens characters.
Other than that, they are very eager to contribute with their own ideas, so flexibility is important. My daughter wanted to play a unicorn who was a fighter, but had something called "world magic", and so I had to make room for that, even though the system divides sharply between fighters and magic-users. In the end, her world magic became an ability that could be charged using a strange glittering toy of some sort that her character kept in her home, and could only be used once for each charging. It could not be used offensively, but could open locked doors and the like.
One problem I had was that the children seemed to get bored while waiting their turn. I'm unsure wether to do anything about this and if so, what. It may not be such a bad thing that they are bored for short periods of time as long as they are mostly having fun. This is also something children need to learn, that nothing's fun all the time. I will be considering it.

Tongue Biter - a Dungeon Parasite

This is, unpleasantly enough, based on an actual marine parasite that attacks fish. I just modified it to fit land based creatures.

The Tongue Biter lives in cracks in the stone and other small spaces in underground environments. After it is born, it can live for about a week before it dies of hunger. Before this time, it has to find a host to live off. When it does, it creeps into this sleeping creature's mouth, injects a powerful anesthetic into it's tongue, which bodypart it then devours. After having eaten the whole tongue (this takes about six hours), it hooks on to the stump, eventually grafting itself on, in essence becoming part of the hosts body.
Once latched on, it starts sucking the blood of it's victim for nourishment, and starts to produce young. These young crawl out of the hosts mouth at an amount of 1d20 twice a month. The Tongue Biter is very hard to get rid of, as it connects itself to the hosts nervous system after about 24 hours, and at that time, any pain felt by the parasite is felt by the host as if it was part of it's own body. It requires no attack rolls to kill, but may require other rolls to tolerate the pain, at the DM's discretion. Once off, the spell Regenerate is required to grow back the victim's tongue.
While the Tongue Biter lives within an adventurer's tonuge, it does no actual damage, but causes a number of inconveniences, the chief of which is an inability to speak. While the he will be able to eat, the character can not experience any sense of taste, which may carry some implications. For example, depression and loss of weight may plague the adventurer, common side effects losing one's sense of taste. In other unfortunate side effects of not having a tongue will apply as the DM sees fit.

Inspirational photo

I took this picture in the Norwegian highlands a month or so ago. The rocky soil and the cold climate combine to make the trees short and bent, giving them an almost ghostly appearance.