Shrinking in Tabletop RPGs

Discuss all the SW in the media and share links to videos etc.
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foreverlurk
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Shrinking in Tabletop RPGs

Post by foreverlurk » Tue May 16, 2023 4:50 pm

There's already a thread for video games, but there's a few oldschool tabletop role playing games out there with some SW/size content. I'll start the thread with a module that contains two such occurences, "Caravans" set in the Al Qadim Arabian Adventures settings (for AD&D 2nd Edition).

https://archive.org/details/tsr09459add ... s/mode/2up

1- The ruins of Vahtov, a city where a Djinn shrunk all inhabitants to insect size as a way to stop a civil war.
But in time, the relationship soured. The humans grew weary of risking their lives to defend the city; the dwarves
resented the humans reluctance to dirty their hands in the mines. A civil war erupted after an emerald mine
collapsed and the humans refused to assist in rescue operations. The dwarves responded by destroying all the
remaining mines. Human sorcerers toppled dwarven temples with lightning bolts; the dwarves poisoned an
artesian well favored by the humans. The conflict continued to escalate, and within a year, the city was
reduced to rubble.

A desperate human called on a djinni for help, begging for an end to the hostilities. The djinni caused
all of the citizens of Vahtov to shrink to the size of insects. No longer able to lift their weapons, the
diminutive combatants soon lost their taste for war. A week later, a flock of monstrous ravens from the Pit of
the Ghuls swarmed into the city to feast on the tiny citizens, plucking them from the streets like berries from
a bush. A handful of survivors retreated into the wilderness. They set aside their differences, entered a
crack in the ground, and established a new settlement deep inside the earth. Their descendants, none of them
larger than a man's thumb, are said to still occupy this secret underground city. As for the treasure, it all has
been appropriated by scavengers from the Pit of the Ghuls
2- "The Talking Tent", a short adventure / encounter featuring a shrunken girl, Iyda.
Once calmed, Dhiba explains that she is a homeless widow who makes a modest living selling straw dolls in
the bazaar. Her only child, a 12-year-old girl named Iyda, recently contracted a disease that caused blisters to break
out all over her body. Unable to pay for medicine, Dhiba contacted Fahad, who arranged for Fayiz to treat Iyda at
no charge. She left Iyda in Fayiz's medicine tent, assured that her daughter was making progress.

If the PCs express interest in retrieving Iyda themselves, Fayiz perks up. "An excellent idea. I'm sure
Khafaz would approve." Fayiz offers two pieces of information to help them.

First, Fayiz says that Iyda is "smaller than average." How small? Fayiz holds his hands about 6 inches apart.
He explains that he was treating Iyda with a salve made from wasp eggs and rare herbs from the High Desert. But
I had only a small amount of salve and I had to cover her entire body. So two days ago Fayiz gave the girl a special
potion of diminution that caused her to shrink. The effects of the potion last for a week
While she is recovering from the treatment in the healer's tent, a zin (sort of demon snake) attacks and captures her. Talk about being shrunk at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Thankfully, this story has a happy ending:
If Iyda's fate is up to the DM, consider the following possibility: She tips over her bottle, avoids the serpents, and follows
the zin down her hole. A day later, a fisherman discovers the tiny Iyda near a riverbank and returns her to Tajar,
where she finds her mother.
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Re: Shrinking in Tabletop RPGs

Post by Laboki » Tue May 16, 2023 6:29 pm

Ooooh I can add three different ones! The first one is the desk in room 8-10 it is a level 1 module using mutant crawl classics system
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/414579

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Re: Shrinking in Tabletop RPGs

Post by Laboki » Tue May 16, 2023 6:31 pm

The next one is Honey I shrunk the party set in Dnd 5e
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10l21LY ... p=drivesdk

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Re: Shrinking in Tabletop RPGs

Post by Laboki » Tue May 16, 2023 6:33 pm

The last one is called chadranthers bane set in Ad&d it’s the last one in the magazine
https://annarchive.com/files/Dungeon%20 ... %23018.pdf

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Re: Shrinking in Tabletop RPGs

Post by foreverlurk » Wed May 17, 2023 2:08 pm

Thanks, Laboki! Chadranther's Bane is my favorite, seems very hard too since the shrinking is PERMANENT unless you can break the artifact (not an easy task for adventurers barely an inch tall).
If diminutive characters ever want to return to their natural sizes, they must
break the sphere. This would be easy to do for a normal size character. The
sphere is made of a substance with the fragility of normal glass (though it gets a
+ 2 on the Item Saving Throw table, on page 80 of the DMG , because it is a magi-
cal item). However, diminutive creatures, only an inch or so tall, may not be strong
enough to destroy the sphere with brute force alone. For ideas on how to destroy
the sphere, see encounter area R (the fountain).

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Re: Shrinking in Tabletop RPGs

Post by foreverlurk » Wed May 17, 2023 2:16 pm

Dungeonland is another one, written by none other than Gary Gygax himself. It's an Alice in Wonderland spoof, meant for light-hearted sessions, but with some deadly encounters against "giant" normal sized cats, owls, etc. once the player characters are shrunken.

https://archive.org/details/tsr09072add ... 2/mode/2up

Another interesting aspect is that the PCs shrink out of their clothes (and armors, etc) initially...
Only living things are affected. All clothing, armor, and weapons will fall off and remain behind if the party chooses to pass into the area beyond the door. Small items gained in the descent are all that can be taken beyond the doorway. Items hidden beneath the rubbish pile, however, will be safe from harm.
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Re: Shrinking in Tabletop RPGs

Post by Formula » Thu May 18, 2023 6:04 am

Here’s another. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Book of Lairs II. Page 31 and 32 is the Pseudodragon. Long story short: An enlarged ring of miniaturization surrounds the doorway to the wizard’s workroom, thereby shrinking anyone who walks in.
https://archive.org/details/tsr09198ref ... 1/mode/2up

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