Fish of the Nether - for the Nether Depthcrawl

Fish want me, I fear Women, something along those lines

     The following is an adaptation of an existing Minecraft Mod, "Nether Depths Upgrade". For the sake of this project, some details have been omitted or changed, and this write-up does not reflect the functionality or design goals of the original mod. Permission to use these concepts has been acquired from the Author, though no assets or code may be reused. Please support the artists and coders by giving the original mod a try the next time you play Minecraft.

Also, this Post was partly written as a thank you for a generous monetary donation that arrived during a moment of need! The Farmhand requested that in lieu of a bespoke post, that I put the energy into completing a fun draft! 

Thank you so much for your support, Suzy!

Howdy, Farmhands!

    You wanna go... fishing in the Nether? I mean, you could, with a Rod and Line capable of handling the heat. And despite the Nether oceans being filled with Lava, a number of fish-like creatures seem to thrive there. So sure, cast that line, see what you reel in!

 

    As I'm sure your system of choice already has a fishing minigame to use, I'm not going to offer any mechanics or procedures here. Just a simple d10 table, and data on what's swimming about down there. If I were to give you Advice, however, I'd suggest using a d6 instead of a flat d10, and have the quality of the Rod and Bait add bonuses to aim for the more valuable and larger fish on the tail end of that table. Whatever you choose, I hope you have a fun and relaxing time, taking a fishing trip in Hell.

Until Next Time,

    Farmer Gadda

Fishing Table

Roll 1d10	Result
1	Lava Pufferfish
2	Obsidianfish
3	Searing Cod
4	Bonefish
5	Blazefish
6	Magmacubefish
7	Glowdine
8	Soul Sucker
9	Fortress Grouper
10	You've caught a BIGGUN! Roll on this table again, increasing the catch's Size Rating by 1!

 

Fishing Bestiary

 

Any fish that drops "Itself" leaves behind enough to count as 1 Ration per Scale Category. If it's drop is (Bulky), roll 1d4 + Scale Category to determine how many Rations it can make once prepared.

Also, as I have been very lazy with drawing out the fish, some entries will use placeholder art made by a member of my Discord Server. Thank you for enabling me, Discord User FishFondler

 

Lava Pufferfish	Scale: ★  Drops: Itself
	A Pufferfish.                                                           It's Red.

Obsidianfish	Scale: ★  Drops: Itself, Obsidian Scales
	A pitch black fish with searing red eyes. It's dorsal fins cut through the lava, making it look like a hellish shark.

Searing Cod	Scale: ★  Drops: Itself, Charcoal
	A long, orange fish that is somehow as warm as the lava  you fished it from. In the open air it produces smoke as it's temperature burns the surrounding atmosphere.

Bonefish	Scale: ★  Drops: Bones
	A fish made of bones. How is it alive and moving? Can you even eat this?

Blazefish	Scale: ★  Drops: 1d4 Blaze Rods
	A lamprey-like fish with 4 blaze rods rotating around it. You don't want to know what it's like to have one of these latch onto you.

Magmacubefish	Scale: ★  Drops: Magma Cream
	A Magmacube that developed fins and a fish tail. Otherwise, it's a regular Magmacube. It looks ridiculous.

Glowdine	Scale: ★  Drops: Itself, Glowstone Dust
	A small and thin fish with scales made entirely of glowstone fragments. It's value lies in the usefulness of it's glow as there's not a lot of meat on it.

Soul Sucker	Scale: ★  Drops: Itself (Bulky)
	A fish who's skin camouflages it against the sand of the Soulsand Valley. It's eyes burn with an unnatural blue light. It eats remnants of soul energy off the Lava Sea floor. It's scales can be tanned into a leather-like material, which retains the necromantic properties of the original fish.

Fortress Grouper	Scale: ★★  Drops: Itself (Bulky), Nether Brick Scales
	A MASSIVE Goldfish with a protective mask on it's face made of Nether Brick. The scales on it's face can be used to craft Armor

 

The Nether - A Depthcrawl for OSR/POSR games

 

Welcome to the Underground
(Minecraft Dungeons via Minecraft.net)

 

Howdy, Farmhands

    Yes, The Nether. Yes, like in Minecraft. No, I don't ever tire of making half-baked adaptations of media I enjoy separately from the TTRPG hobby. Here's what a Depthcrawl is. Here's what the Nether is. You're basically all caught up now.

    The purpose of introducing such a thing into an OSR game is twofold. Firstly - the option to take a quick kip to HELL is just fun. There's resources and adventures to be had without needing to invest in a whole campaign centered around the setting. Second of all - the Minecraft Nether is famous for its ability to act as a shortcut for travel. In-game, every 1 block is equal to 8, allowing you to blaze (heh) past difficult terrain, so long as you're willing to risk a fiery death in exchange for time saved. In an OSR game where an area may be straight up impassable, a dip into the Nether might get you onto the other side of that mountain range, supposing you survive it.

    This post is acting as a sort of proof of concept for now; some things like specific Adventure Sites will need their own pages with internal details, and I'm not about to sit here and write out an entire Minecraft Bestiary. What is going to follow is a series of posts where I take a Nether Biome, either from Vanilla or Modded (and won't that be a fun email to some poor coder, wondering what on earth I'm talking about when I ask permission to use their IP), and produce some simple tables with their unique content. Feel free to use as many or as few of these as you like for your own personal experience. I, for one, will be overloading myself until I burn out from the effort. Heh. Burn.

    Until Next Time,

        Farmer Gadda