Scoutships Without Number

I thought I should stat out the Dolphin under Stars Without Number, and here she is. I’ve used the SWN stats to work out some SW ones as well, because I’m not sure which rules I’d use for space combat, should it occur.

SCOUTSHIP

Power: 10/5 free. Mass: 15/4 free.

Cost: 2,820,000. Hit Points: 20. Crew: 1/10. Speed: 5. Armour: 0. AC: 5.

Weaponry: None.

Defences: None.

Fittings: Spike Drive-3; Atmospheric Configuration, Fuel Scoops (both integral to courier hull); Cargo Lighter, Cargo Space (3 tons), Cold Sleep Pods, Fuel Bunker, Ship’s Locker.

The scoutship is a modified Naval Courier (Skyward Steel p. 46), intended for long-range exploration and courier duties. It is unarmed, relying on its speed and high spike drive rating to evade combat.

Savage Worlds: Acc/TS 70/800, Toughness 16 (4), Crew 1+9, Cost $28M. Notes: Climb-3. (I’m assuming that SW performance is basically like a space shuttle.)

AI

The Dolphin is controlled by a braked AI, working off its debt as a Scout Service ship. This is built using the AI rules in chapter 12 of SWN Core Edition.

I start with the standard Tolerance score of 20, and decide to reserve 5 for armatures, which is enough for any of them. I spend 13 points to buy Int 14, Wis 14 and Cha 12. A further point buys the Basic skills package, and one extra package – Pilot. This leaves me with 6 points; I’ve noticed in using the SWN point buy character system that it is often difficult to use up the last point, and use the last free point to buy an increased saving throw progression of +1 per 3 levels.

As the Dolphin normally wears a starship, I pick a Squawkbox armature to begin with, which costs no Tolerance. I’d like to merge the two Vehicle skills to give it Vehicle/Space-1, but since you can’t do that with skills from the same package, I use the Vehicle/Any skill for Vehicle/Grav, the Culture/World skill for Culture/Homeworld, and allocate the Combat/Any skill as Combat/Unarmed (still usable whatever weapons have been taken away from you).

Str 3, Dex 7, Con 3, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 12. Level 1 AI. HP 4, AC 6, AB +0, Saves 15.

Skills: Combat/Gunnery, Combat/Unarmed, Computer, Culture/Homeworld, Culture/Spacer, Navigation, Tech/Astronautics, Tech/Postech, Tech/Pretech, Vehicle/Grav, Vehicle/Space.

Weapons/Armour: None. Armature costs Cr 500.

Savage Worlds: Ag d4, Sm d8, Sp d8, St d4, Vi d4. Pace 6, Parry 4, Toughness 4, Charisma 0. Fighting d6, Knowledge/Astrogation d6, Piloting d6, Repair d6, Shooting d6.

REPAIR SWARM

The Dolphin‘s repair swarm is composed of bots based on Squawkbox armatures, each with an expert system granting them +0 on anything relating to repairing the ship. They’re good enough to do routine maintenance, but if anything is seriously damaged, Arion or the Dolphin need to get involved.

AC: 6. HD: 1 (4 HP). AB: +0. Cost: Cr 1,000. No. Appearing: 1d6. Saving Throw: 15. Move: 30′. Morale: 12. Skill Bonus: +0.

Savage Worlds: In SW, I’ll just use the standard statistics for a swarm.

Arion Without Number

When I get to running Arion again, I’m thinking of using a mixture of Savage Worlds, Stars Without Number and Larger Than Life for the rules, so I need some sort of conversion rulings. LTL is easy; Rep is half Spirit die type plus one. SWN is a little more complex, but I’ll assign the SWN modifier as how many die types a trait is above or below d6. Edges and Hindrances in SW are basically how you play the role in SWN, so I only need to consider attributes, skills, powers and Charisma.

Under SWN, all of the crew have woven body armour, semi-auto pistol, and knife.

ARION

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigor d6. Skills: Fighting d4, Knowledge (Astrogation) d4, Notice d8+2, Piloting d10+2, Repair d6, Shooting d6. Charisma -2.

This becomes: Str 10, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 3. Level 1 Expert. HP 4, AC 5, AB +0. Saves: P16, M15, E12, T11, L14. Skills: Combat/Projectile, Combat/Primitive, Perception-1, Tech/Astronautics, Tech/Postech, Vehicle/Space-2.

CORIANDER

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d6, Vigor d6. Skills: Fighting d4, Intimidation d6, Notice d6, Persuasion d10+2, Psionics d6, Shooting d4, Streetwise d6+2. Charisma +2. Powers: Boost/Lower Trait, Healing, Mind Reading.

I’ll convert that as: Str 10, Dex 10, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 18. Level 1 Psychic. HP 3, AC 5, AB +0. Saves: P13, M12, E15, T16, L14. Skills: Culture/Criminal, Perception, Persuade-2. Disciplines: Biopsionics-1 (primary), Telepathy-1. (Properly, Coriander should have Biopsionics level 2 to gain access to Psychic Succor, but this is a broad-brush conversion here.)

DMITRI

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d8, Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigor d6. Skills: Fighting d6, Investigation d8+2, Notice d8, Persuasion d6, Shooting d6, Streetwise d8+2. Charisma 0.

For SWN, I’d rate Dmitri as: Str 10, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 3. Level 1 Expert. HP 4, AC 5, AB +0. Saves: P16, M15, E12, T11, L14. Skills: Combat/Projectile, Combat/Primitive, Culture/Criminal-1, Perception-1, Persuade.

Murad

I think the next session could well see the party back in town, so I need to work out what’s there quickly. Out comes Red Tide and its GM aids; we’ve already established that the Temple of Athena has influence and that there is a powerful wizard nearby, so I pick the city tags of Important Temple (p. 107) and Magical School (p.108). Much though I like Thegn Ragnvald as an NPC, nobody has gone near him since he was created nearly a year ago, so he fades into the background.

The Temple of Athena

The Temple is the local headquarters of the Order of the Minewatch, which sponsors paladin PCs. Like the historical Knights Templar, this is a religious fighting order established to protect travellers – in this case, those on the main east-west caravan route from Ezhdan to Skulos, and the river route from the Sea of Marenos north to Hjemland. The biggest danger in both cases was posed by the monstrous inhabitants of Irongrave, so the Order founded its headquarters and largest temple in the nearest town – Murad. Play has already established that friends at the Temple include Bishop Otus, high priest and Grand Master of the order, and his acolyte Galen; likewise we know that there is a relic, the Holy Handkerchief of St Veronica. Galen doesn’t fit into the “official” version of the tag, but useful as these GM tools are, they serve me, not the other way around.

As preparation for a scenario involving the Temple, should one be needed, I crack open Stars Without Number and roll percentile dice on the adventure seeds table on pp 133-136. A score of 44 tells me that “A librarian Friend has discovered an antique databank with the coordinates of a long-lost pretech cache hidden in a Place sacred to a long-vanished religion. The librarian is totally unsuited for danger, but necessary to decipher the obscure religious iconography needed to unlock the cache. The cache is not the anticipated Thing, but something more dangerous to the finder.”

No need to create another NPC, Galen seems perfectly suited to this. Galen has recently bought a scroll from a caravan merchant, and on reading it discovers directions to a lost shrine of Minerva, as Athena was known to the vanished Empire of the Wolf, in the depths of the forest north east of Murad. This shrine contains the Helm of Minerva, a powerful artefact. On fighting their way through various encounters to the shrine, the PCs discover the Helm long gone, if it was ever there, and some suitably heinous undead in residence instead. If they survive that, they can go looking for the Helm.

The Magical School

I know from previous sessions that Myrrdin the wizard lives near Murad, and that one of his former apprentices turned to the Dark Side. That gives me a Friend, again not one on the list in Red Tide but never mind, and a Complication, which is on the list.

Rolling again on the SWN adventure seed table, I get 41; “A Friend who is a skilled precognitive has just received a flash of an impending atrocity to be committed by an Enemy. He or she needs the party to help them steal the Thing that will prove the Enemy’s plans while dodging the assassins sent to eliminate the precog.”

Again reusing an existing NPC, I make Myrrdin the precognitive. Looking at p. 108 of Red Tide, I decide the head of a rival school will do for the Enemy, and a tome of forbidden lore for the Thing. That triggers an association for me with SPI’s Demons, which I’m using for the wilderness map.

If this scenario seems appropriate, Myrrdin summons the PCs to tell them that he has had a premonition that his old rival, Kyryl the Skulan, has acquired a copy of the forbidden Lamegeton, a tome of demonology, and that Kyryl plans to use this to kill him and loot his tower. The party’s tasks are to protect Myrrdin from demonic assassins (which fortunately can only be sent during specific phases of the moon) and recover the book (which Kyryl is bringing with him as he travels into Gardar in pursuit of his dark goals).

Job done, in about 15 minutes. All I need now is players. I’m now covered for one session if they turn around and march out of the dungeon, and two sessions if they don’t; time to down tools for the moment.

Ancient Constructs

I switched over to using Black Hand Source’s Dwarven Kingdom as the Irongrave dungeon map a couple of sessions ago, and allocated each page in that document a group of dominant monsters – Orcs rule the complex shown on page 5, for instance. When last seen, the party were marching in a determined manner into an area set aside for Ancient Constructs (Red Tide p. 117).

So, what I thought I needed for the next session were some statistics for them, and I was all set to convert them; but after a little thought I decided I could use the One Page Bestiary (see tab above) and save myself the effort.

Based on their hit dice, Men of Jade and Clay and Porcelain Servitors are Novice stock NPCs, while War Golems and Black Jade Juggernauts are Veteran ones; the Juggernaut retains its immunity to normal weapons as a monstrous ability, and of course they all have the Construct ability.

Novice parties have a Weak encounter, Seasoned ones an Average encounter, and Veteran ones a Strong encounter. I’ll assume that each construct is armed with something that allows it to make full use of its Strength die in melee, and that they do not use ranged weapons.

Job done. This new ruthless attitude to preparation is working well. All I need now is to get the players together again, and we’re off.

Archetypes in Action – 1

A brief digression from Deep Black into Archetypes, one of my favourite features of Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition. I’m having a lot of fun playing with these, and here’s the first set – the crew of the Dolphin as SW archetypes. I like these so much I’ll probably swap them for the current incarnations.

• Arion: Pilot archetype, using the extra skill point to buy Knowledge (Astrogation) d4, with Hindrances of Heroic, Loyal: Friends, and Outsider (scouts are scruffy and insubordinate).
• Coriander: There isn’t a Psion archetype, so I used the “Face”, swapping the Strong Will Edge for Arcane Background (Psionics) and Taunt for Psionics. Her powers are Boost/Lower Trait, Healing, and Mind Reading, and her Hindrances are Clueless (she grew up on a Lost World), Loyal: Friends and Wanted (psions are classed as criminals on some planets).
• Dmitri: The Investigator archetype, with Hindrances of Curious, Loyal: Friends, and Wanted (by rival espionage agencies).

It’s an extremely fast and easy way of building characters. The only thing to watch out for is that the bonuses from Edges aren’t applied to the archetypes’ skills in the book.

Of the 16 archetypes listed in the book, 9 are applicable to any setting as they stand, three really only work in a fantasy setting, and four are aimed at a modern or SF setting. However, by swapping around a couple of skills and edges, even those can be used elsewhere.

Persistence of Vision

I like my campaigns to be a persistent environment; if you scrawl graffiti on a wall during one adventure, the next time anyone goes past the wall, it should still be there.

However, the level of carnage and vandalism the current PCs are wreaking in the dungeon of Irongrave is making this problematical – the voluminous notes and extra marks on the map required by this will be too much effort to keep up under my new ruthless regime

So, I need some way to make the regular disappearance of their graffiti and stripped corpses reinforce the persistence of the environment. Luckily, old school dungeons already have the concept of a clean-up crew to address this issue – assorted giant insects and scavengers clean up the bodies, and since I’ve already established Red Tide‘s ancient constructs as inhabitants of the complex, they can be maintenance crews, cleaning and repairing the dungeon as best they can.

Once the PCs notice that the evidence of their passing has been removed, they can encounter a work crew of Men of Jade and Clay, supervised by a Porcelain Servitor and protected by more militant constructs. Should they encounter constructs before then, I know that they will be carrying buckets, mops and tools, and that other monsters generally leave them alone, the beasts because they are inedible and intelligent monsters because otherwise they’ll have to clean up their own mess.

Deep Black, Episode 2

A solo game really needs some sort of random event generator, which SWN itself doesn’t really have, not being intended for that sort of play. However, while Deep Black 19 is in the investigative phase of its current scenario, I can use the GM aids from the Polychrome worldbook.

-o0o-

While the team is approaching the orbital jumpgate, with a flight plan declaring them to be private security consultants checking the place out for a later visit by a senior corporate official, HQ contacts them on a secure channel. Identification handshakes complete, they move to the meat of the call.

“We’re sending you an image from the security cameras onsite now. This is Javed Cole, suspected maltech smuggler. He’s the only shady character facial recognition and gait analysis picked out of visitors in the right time period, so he’s our prime suspect. Unless you can recover the key immediately, capture him for interrogation.” Snakebite mutes the shuttle pickups from the pilot’s console.

“That means we need him alive, Die-Die,” he says, before unmuting the line.

“Understood. Capture for interrogation. Out.” Snakebite glances back over his shoulder at the other three. “Suggestions?”

To move things forward, one of the party should have a useful contact on the station. I roll 1d3 to decide which, and Die-Die wins. I now roll a few dice on tables in the NPC Resource Sheet on p. 27 of Polychrome to flesh out the NPC, and learn that Die-Die’s contact is a woman called Leila Patel, who values money, has heavy scarring, can be found in a church and is really working for a loved one who needs her help – this last is not initially known by the PCs. Leila knows Die-Die from “council files on outworlders”. That needs a bit of editing, so…

“I know someone,” says Die-Die. “Ex-Marine. She works in the station chapel, knows a lot of the corridor people. They might have seen something.”

“No such thing as an ex-Marine,” Snow Dog comments from under his hat, currently pulled down over his eyes as he slouches in his seat.

“Urrah,” Die-Die affirms.

The jumpgate would have a large orbital station attached, I suppose, and it would be cheaper to reuse that for the spaceport than build a new one. I imagine that like an airport, it has a multi-denominational chapel for travellers, and also like most large modern airports has a number of homeless people living there. Leila’s ex-Marine status explains both the scarring and her acquaintance with Die-Die.

Shuttle docked, and flashing their fake weapons permits at security, the team makes its way to the chapel and talks to Leila.

“Tanya!” Leila mumbles around her scars as she clasps hands with Die-Die. “Long time. These guys with you?”

“Yeah. Listen, we’re on a clock, mind if I get straight to it?”

“Of course. What do you need?”

“We’re looking for Javed Cole. You know where he is?”

A good opportunity to introduce Leila’s loved one.

“Maybe. What do you want with him?”

“We think he might have something that doesn’t belong to him. We’d like it back.”

“Wouldn’t be the first thing. Look, if I tell you where he might be, will you do something for me?”

“If I can.”

“My kid brother runs with Cole’s gang. You know how it is in my neighbourhood, you wind up either in a gang or the Marines, right? Jamal chose the wrong one. Get him out of there alive, will you?”

“Like I say, if I can. How would I recognise him?”

Leila digs into a shirt pocket and pulls out a picture.

“This is him last year. Keep it; you bring him back, I won’t need the picture.”

I select another Gateway place at random for Javed’s current whereabouts, and get Ancient Cache.

“The word is Cole lives in a pre-Scream villas in the hills just north of Silverline. You might try there.”

“Thanks. We will. Take care, huh?” Leila nods.

“Don’t bunch up,” she says as they turn and leave.

Next: Into the villa…

Drew, 01 March 2013

ATZ in a phone booth again – I like working with the small maps, they’re very convenient for me. Having escaped from Capt. Flack’s team, Drew’s crew need to tool up again. That means it’s back into town… A Discover encounter (p. 41) in daylight. There are 3d6+3 = 14 zombies (p. 29) who are placed 12” away as follows (p. 30): 6 towards the top of the table, 5 towards the left, 3 towards the bottom.

As the table is so small, many of the zombies have to be moved around clockwise until they fit (p. 30). This puts inside a building with no way out, but Our Heroes have to get lucky sometimes.

Drew: Star, Rep 5, Star Power 5, Born Leader, Brawler.

Vince: Officer, Rep 4, Runt.

Sylvia: Veteran, Rep 5, Brawler.

 

The weather is starting to improve a little, and not before time for our heroes, who have been living rough most of the winter and are feeling somewhat the worse for wear. Hungry and weaponless, they decide to try their luck in a nearby city.

Start of Turn 1

Turn 1

Activation: Humans 3, zombies 5. Zombies fail to activate.

Walking up the main drag into town brings Drew & Co. to an abandoned car, which they ignore, knowing how zombies are attracted by noise. Passing it, they see that the building on their left has no doors on-map (probably rubbled) so they turn right towards the nearest door and prepare to stack up for entry. No reason to fast move yet.

Turn 2

Activation: Humans 6, zombies 5. Nobody moves.

Turn 3

Activation: Humans 5, zombies 4. Both activate, but none of the zombies on the map can get to the humans.

While Sylvia scans the area behind the team for unseen threats, Drew and Vince get ready to break in the door.

“On three. One… two…”

Turn 4

Activation: Humans 4, zombies 1. Both activate.

Drew and Vince kick down the door and barge inside, improvised melee weapons at the ready.

I now roll 2d6 on the table on p. 43 to see what’s in the building. 7 + 2 (urban area) –1 (daytime) = 8; 1/2d6 zombies, which turns out to be three. I now roll for surprise; 1d6+3 (one per zombie) = 8, 1d6+Rep for the humans; both roll a 6 so Drew gets 11, Vince gets 10. I also roll for Sylvia just in case, she gets 8.

“Crap! Zombies! Kill ‘em!” shouts Drew.

“Aren’t they already dead?” Sylvia mutters; but no-one can hear her over the screams and hacking.

Drew rolls 6d6 in melee, 1d6 per Rep and an extra one for being a Brawler. Vince rolls 4d6. The zeds get 1d6 each, so getting up close and personal is an acceptable risk with three of them. Drew takes on two zombies and splits his dice evenly between them rolls 3, 3, 4 and gets one success against the one on the left, which rolls 4 and gets one success; that zombie is Out Of the Fight, but ass per p. 35 this escalates to Obviously Dead for a zombie. Drew gets 5, 5, 6 and 3 successes against the one on the right, which 2 and gets no successes – scratch one zombie. Vince rolls 1, 1, 4, 6 and gets two successes, his opponent rolls 1 and gets none – another zed down.

“I can hear some screams and hacking – a definite struggle…”

I decide the building is a small shop, and roll 2d6 + 2 (urban area) for loot. A 9 means we found some food, not unreasonable for a shop.

Turns 5-10

We move up to the next building. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This took five turns because of some really sucky activation dice. Lucky none of the surviving zombies can get at us.

“Two more zombies!” warns Vince, but these are quickly smashed down by the experienced detectives, who find more food inside.

“That one must have been here a while, it’s gone green!”

Turns 11-13

We break into the third building, but it is vacant. Searching it, we find medical supplies – must be a pharmacist.

Turn 14

We move off the board, richer than before.

Campaign Book-Keeping

The team started with nothing; it now has 2 units of food and 1 unit of medical supplies, leaving 58 and 19 respectively in the urban area they are now scavenging in. The total cargo value is 2.5, which is quite a bit less than the team can carry – fortunate, as we have no base in which to store it. The team consumes one unit of food each per month, so we don’t have enough – luckily there are 4 encounters per month in an urban area, so we can go shopping again before hunger starts to reduce our Rep.

Drew and Vince have now met all the requirements to choose a class – see at least 3 zombies, kill one, and fight an armed human (p. 5). Sylvia still has to kill a zombie. Drew and Vince decide they will be Survivors rather than Gangers, and will use those reaction tables rather than the Civilian ones in future.

Drew and Vince both succeeded in this encounter, and roll for improvement (p. 61); no change for either of them. Sylvia failed (didn’t kill any zombies) and rolled a 1 for improvement, so her Rep is now 4. The team is now:

Drew: Star, Rep 5, Star Power 5, Born Leader, Brawler.

Vince: Rep 4, Runt.

Sylvia: Rep 4, Brawler.

Lessons Learned

• The yellow Cry Havoc! maps work a lot better for batrep photos than the more naturally-coloured Wydraz ones. I should switch back to those.
• The decision that I could place zombies somewhere they couldn’t get out meant that the team could deal with those they encountered piecemeal, and made it a lot easier for them to clear the board.
• To avoid characters losing Rep after an encounter, I should have them take it in turns to look for resources and fight – everybody has to find one to avoid the chance of losing Rep. I forgot to let Sylvia do that this game.
• This session took a couple of minutes to set up and knock down, and about half an hour to play. I’m content with easing back into the game slowly as I haven’t played for a while. It used three human figures and 21 zombie pawns. (This last statistic because a common question on the boards is “How many zombie figures do I need?”)

One lesson I hope readers are learning is that you don’t need beautiful figures and terrain to have fun, nice though they look. As Ed says, just play the game!

Credits

Figures and pawns by eM4. Map by Wydraz. Rules by Two Hour Wargames.

Deep Black One Niner – January 3200

As part of my general move to a low-bit diet, I’m parking Heart of the Scorpion, Arion & Co. for now. I want to continue exploring Stars Without Number, but with a zero-preparation approach.
A Deep Black team in the Hydra Sector is the perfect vehicle for this. The sector is already detailed in the core rulebook, and DB teams (introduced in Skyward Steel) allow me to jump directly into the action without needing any solo roleplaying rules or random encounters – or if I do, I’ll merge them in from the numerous THW products on my hard drive.

For characters, I’ll use the Quick NPC statistics on pp. 223-224 of the Core Edition; one Expert (callsign Snakebite), one Psychic (Winter), and two Warriors (Snow Dog and Die-Die). The personalities are recycled – favourite NPCs from earlier campaigns.

Quick NPCs tend to have 2-3 fewer skills than ones generated fully, but in my limited experience that’s how many Culture skills full PCs have, so I’ll ignore that. The Psychic and Warrior Quick NPCs have skills preallocated, and everyone has gear allocated, but I do need to specify skills for the Expert… Snakebite, the nominal team leader by virtue of rank, is a former dropship pilot and has Combat/Projectile-0, Exosuit-0, Navigation-1, Tech/Astronautics-0, Tech/Postech-0, Vehicle/Grav-0 and Vehicle/Space-1. (While doing this, I notice for the first time that the table allows a level 1 Expert three level 0 skills, but the text below offers him four. I’ll go with four, because as stated earlier a full PC would have more skills than a Quick NPC.)

I need nothing more than a mission now, and a roll of 73 gives me the following: A Thing is the token of rulership on this world, and it’s gone missing. If it’s not found rapidly, the existing ruler will be deposed. Evidence left at a Place suggests that an Enemy has it, but extralegal means are necessary to investigate fully.

Randomly selecting the Thing, the Place and the Enemy from those available on Gateway tells me that the Thing is the key to a sealed cache, the Place is the ruins of the ancient jump gate, and the Enemy is Javed Cole the maltech smuggler.

-o0o-

Snakebite marches into the team ready room with the speed and decorum expected of a naval officer in a crisis, to find his people engaged in their normal pursuits in such circumstances; Snow Dog is dozing in a corner, Winter is watching some trashy soap opera, and Die-Die is affectionately cleaning an improbably large gun. She appears to be talking to it, quietly.

“Listen up, we have a mission,” says Snakebite, immediately attracting everyone’s attention.

“The access alarm on the orbital jumpgate just went off. Somebody used the Presidential Key, and President Santos is unhappy because she was nowhere near the gate when it happened. Our objective is to recover the Key before she has to open Republic House in two days’ time, without anyone ever knowing it went missing. Our first step is recon of the gate site for clues. We’re going in covert in a tourist attraction, so leave the heavy stuff at home – that means you, Die-Die. Gear up, we lift in twenty.”

Souped-Up Monsters

Compared to most fantasy RPGs, Savage Worlds has a limited number of monster types.

My guess is that this is because games like D&D apply the Sorting Algorithm of Evil; as PCs level up, their goblinoid opponents likewise have to scale up from goblins to orcs to bugbears and so on. D&D 3e gave intelligent monsters levels to compensate for this, and D&D 4e has different variants of the same monster for this reason.

It’s easy to apply trappings to monsters – use the same stats with a different description – but it’s also easy to buff monsters while you do so, much along the same lines I mentioned in the One Page Bestiary. You can:

• Increase all the creature’s die types by one – this gives +1 Toughness as well each time you do it.
• Make them Wild Cards.
• Increase their Size and/or Armour.
• Apply other weirdness to taste.

For example, a mummies might be Wild Card zombies, with a Weakness to fire. The ancient dust stirred up in combat with them causes an airborne, long-term, minorly debilitating disease as per SW Deluxe p. 87. The zombies themselves might be Soldiers with the Undead monstrous ability applied, if I’m playing away from home.