BEARDED DEVIL

Monsters, Horror, Gaming

Tag: Genial Jack

Jack is Back!

By

On February 1, 2021

In Roleplaying

At long last, the second volume of Genial Jack, by Lost Pages Press, is available for purchase at DriveThruRPG.

Cover art by Bronwyn McIvor.

Genial Jack is a serialized setting of nautical weirdness and whimsy – cursed sailors, mutant shark-people, lost treasures, mysterious shipwrecks, mythic monstrosities, and, of course, Jack himself, a whale the size of a mountain. This 69-page (nice) volume details the endless darkness of Jack’s Entrails, the bizarrely brachiating intestines of the Godwhale: a living labyrinth filled with half-digested derelicts, fragments of swallowed islands, ambergris miners, strange parasites, and tatterdemalion outlaws on the run from Jackburg law. Within you’ll find:

  • A sprawling dungeon environment with 45 keyed locations suitable for a full mini-campaign within the Entrails, with multiple adventure hooks.
  • A gazetteer of Herniaheim, the rickety pirate town twixt the Small and Large Intestines.
  • Three detailed maps of the Entrails.
  • 16 new monsters and NPCs, including such horrors as the pestiferous thrushspawn with their swollen tongues, the toxically affectionate amoeboids, the true vampire squid, and the Dog-Nymph Skulla, the Swallowed Sea-Devil.
  • 8 new equipment items and 14 magic items, such as the corpse-locating Thanatometer, the obscenity-barking Rude Shield, and the Bristling Blade of the fallen hero Horkus the Hirsute.
  • Rules for the Gutgardeners, an order of druid-scientists able to commune with the “animalcules” in the microbiomes of living creatures.

Inspired by the likes of Gulliver’s Travels, the tales of Baron Munchausen, and New Weird urban fantasy, Genial Jack is written for 5th edition but easily adaptable to any fantasy tabletop game.

Reviews:

Questing Beast – “This is dungeon-crawling through the intestines – which sounds really gross, because it is.”

Halls of the Nephilim – “I’m pretty sure this release has cemented my resolve to run a nautical 5e game as soon as I can.”

Planet X – “I can’t recommend both Genial Jack books any higher. Jonathan Newell has created a fresh and exciting landscape for your #ttrpgs.”

I’m really pleased with how this volume turned out. There’s a mixture of whimsy and horror, the ludicrous and the grotesque – jaunty intesintal pirates, sea-urchin assassins, cannibals, gladiators, buried treasure, mutant parasites, ancient ruins slowly dissolving in Jack’s digestive juices, and much more.

Here’s a preview- the map for the pirate town of Herniaheim, where the Gutreavers hole up after their raids on the ambergris mines, drinking till they forget they live inside the bowels of a giant whale and gambling away their ill-gotten gains in seedy chance-houses and saloons like the Slippery Sea Slug and the Brown Pearl.

Many thanks again to my playtesters for this volume, both from the original Hex campaign crew and my old friends over at the Campaign Builders’ Guild Discord.

Genial Jack is now available from Exalted Funeral

By

On February 17, 2020

In Roleplaying

Print copies of Genial Jack: Volume 1 are now available from Exalted Funeral at a discounted rate!

In the meantime, I am hard at work on Volume 2, set the dripping depths of Jack’s Entrails…

The Barnacle Barrow of Blunderbuss Cairn

By

On January 25, 2020

In Roleplaying

Mark L. Chance of Spes Magna Games gave the first issue of Genial Jack a very nice review and also wrote up two Fomorian subraces, which are a perfect addition to Volume 1.

In addition, he’s put together a full adventure set on Jack, The Barnacle Barrow of Blunderbuss Cairn, written for Dungeon World, though it could be easily adapted to plenty of other systems. It’s a great little dungeon that fits very well with the other content for Jack and Hex. The undead pirahnas, walrus-based curses, and horrific wound-pit are especially good (also The Slimy Salmon is a great name for a Jackburg tavern).

If I were running this I would probably cut down the travel time to reach the Flukefort, but that’s about it. I’m very pleased people are enjoying the first volume and making stuff inspired by it!

Preview of Genial Jack: Volume 2 and a Lost Pages Store Update

By

On December 16, 2019

In Roleplaying

Just a head’s up to anyone looking to snag a copy of Genial Jack: Volume 1 – the Lost Pages store will be closed the rest of this year. The PDF remains available at DriveThruRPG.

Update: The store has been re-opened.

In the meantime, enjoy this preview from Volume 2, which details the Entrails…

PRIMEVAL OCTOPOID RUINS

Sound: Dry, rasping echoes rebound through the stone columns, emanating from the eroded beak of the idol within.

Smell: Damp stone, rotten seaweed, the inscrutable must of forgotten aeons.

Sight: A series of bizarre structures are embedded in Jack’s guts: shattered columns of stone, partially eaten-away by acid, covered in barnacles and seaweed. Coiled columns flank a sloping ramp leading up into the remnants of some broken temple, a ruin from one of the Ancient Jackburgs of the past, lodged here half-digested. Inside the ruins, bas-reliefs on the walls indicate the temple was built by an octopoid civilization, depicting many of that tentacular people offering sacrifices to the Thousand-Suckered-One. An idol of the many-tendrilled deity looms in the darkness; its eyes are huge, yellow jewels. An Intelligence (Religion) check of DC 10 identifies the Thousand-Suckered-One as a deity said to hail from a different universe, having squirmed its way into this one for reasons unknown. It is devoted to change and mutation, delighting in metamorphoses of all kinds.

Peril: Anyone removing one of the jewels by hand suffers a curse and must make a DC 20 Charisma saving throw to avoid one of the following effects; using a tool or Mage Hand grants advantage on this save. The only way to avoid the curse entirely is to somehow dislodge the jewels without touching them directly. Remove Curse or its equivalent removes any permanent effects.

1d6 Effect
1 A swarm of crabs hatches in your stomach. They claw their way out, dealing 4d6 piercing damage as they rip through your belly and gush out in a chitinous torrent.
2 Lose your fingernails and then your finger-bones and cartilage as your hands gradually transform into starfish-like tube-feet, permanently decreasing your Dexterity by 2.
3 Your tongue swells and sprouts suckers as it becomes a massive tentacle. It is highly prehensile and can be used to manipulate objects up to 10′ away. It is so big, however, that you can no longer speak and must use writing or hand-signals to communicate.
4 You are wracked with excruciating pain dealing 6d6 necrotic damage as your bones metamorphose, pushing their way to the surface of your skin to become a chitin exoskeleton. If you survive the transformation your AC is increased by 2.
5 A bioluminescent bulb sprouts from a stalk on your forehead, glowing with the intensity of a torch. Stealth becomes impossible unless you are fully covered or totally unseen. Cutting off the stalk deals 1d6 damage and leaves you badly scarred.
6 Your legs meld together and swell, bones dissolving, as your lower body becomes that of a giant slug-like creature. You can now climb on vertical surfaces with your normal movement speed but jumping is impossible and boots unwearable.

Plunder: The Eyes of the Octopus-Idol are worth 1000 gp each to a collector; there are six in total. Once removed, the jewels themselves are not cursed. These scrying stones grant disadvantage on the saving throw of anyone being scried through them. However, anyone who uses one of the Eyes to scry in this fashion will dream of ink, atramental darkness, and the cold, coiling embrace of tendrils, cursing them with nightmares and denying them the effect of one restful night’s sleep.

Jack is Here!

By

On December 2, 2019

In Roleplaying

The first issue of Genial Jack is available for purchase in Print + PDF from DriveThruRPG!

Some reviews of Genial Jack: Volume 1:

Cover art by Bronwyn McIvor.

Genial Jack is a serialized setting of nautical weirdness and whimsy – horrors and wonders from the deep, mysterious isles, absurd pirates, surreal monsters, sentient storms, and, of course, a whale the size of a mountain. Each volume will reveal some aspect of the bizarre seascape traversed by Genial Jack, beginning with an account of Jackburg itself – the ramshackle, symbiotic city built atop and within the beneficent Godwhale.

Within the first volume you’ll find:

  • 12 playable species, the chief denizens of Jackburg.
  • A gazetteer of the myriad districts of Outer and Inner Jackburg
  • Descriptions of the government, laws, and criminal organizations of the town
  • Jackburg slang
  • 20 quick NPCs
  • A centerfold map

Inspired by the likes of Gulliver’s Travels, Tales of Baron Munchausen, and New Weird urban fantasy, Genial Jack iswritten for 5th edition but easily adaptable to any fantasy tabletop game.

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