Friday 28 March 2014

A very old school critical hit chart...


In real life, I've recently been reading a little about medical illustration. And I came across this brilliant image:



Now then. What I'm thinking is that something like this would make an excellent die-drop table, of the kind seen in Zak S' excellent Vornheim. Suitable for all manner of OSR games, but probably particularly suited to Lamentations of the Flame Princess. I'm imagining that, as with the supplemental critical hit tables for WFRP1e, there would be a different die-drop table for a different sources of injury, all graphically realised in gory faux-woodcut detail. In order to 'bulk' the supplement out to 16 pages (or whatever), there could be a few pages of similarly illustrated diseases, poisons, and 'advice' on healing. It would masquerade as a 'real' manual, complete with a pun-tastic 'German' name in the classic WFRP style.

Here's the front cover to von Gersdorff's manual. Now that has some serious Old School vibe!

But I can't draw, so someone else has to do it! And anyone who can draw probably wouldn't need me to supply the words. Especially the person that immediately sprang to mind when this idea popped into my head.

4 comments:

  1. The person that popped into my head immediately was Hannibal Lector, Harris kind of spoiled the charm of the wound man!

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    1. I read that on the Wikipedia page, but I've not seen the Hannibal TV series (is it any good?). I'm unlikely to read the books any time soon, what with learning to draw in a woodcut style and critical hit (or rather, death and dismemberment) tables to write!

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    2. No idea about the tv series I'm afraid, I have to be pretty discerning about what I watch because of the rampant one-year old devouring so much of my time and energy. I also find all the murdery stuff a bit less appealing since too much GoT and Walking Dead have left me jaded! Can I recommend the medieval fighting manual by Hans Talhoffer while you're on this subject, if you aren't familiar with it already that it.

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  2. I think RPGs would be much more interesting if there was no magical healing.

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