TEXT: On the Ecology
  Of the Mud Dragon
  By Ben Lehman in Nostalgia Studio
  (c) 2005 Ben Lehman
  Absolutely every singly little itty bitty right reserved.
  (Yes, even that one.)
  
  1) Dragons and Mud Dragons
  Dragons are great creatures, majestic, wise, and magical, possessed 
  of great treasures, fiery breath, jeweled scales, ferocious appetites, 
  and knowledge beyond the ken of mortal man.  Once, they soared through 
  the airs over the land, leaving shadows miles long, devouring whole herds 
  of sheep and cows, kidnapping princesses, demanding tribute from even 
  the greatest of kings and the mightiest of sorcerers.
  Unfortunately, not even regarding such trivialities as the square-cube 
  law, the local ecology could scarcely support such gargantuan megafauna, 
  let alone one that reproduced in clutches!  Food pressure has driven 
  such the great beasts to near or total extinction, leaving only a few 
  hibernating on the highest mountaintops, deep beneath the earth, and at 
  the bottom of the sea.
  In truth, what with the industrialization and rationalization and possibly 
  other -alizations, there is little place for the dragons of old within 
  the modern world.
  
  That's not to say that dragonkind has gone extinct, though!  Far 
  from it, they are more numerous than ever.  Evolutionary pressure has 
  bred them smaller, darker, and more camoflauged, resulting in the 
  common mud dragon.  Traveller and farmers will be familiar with these 
  creatures, topping out at nearly two foot in length, largely content to 
  doze dreamily in swamps and, although they do bite occasional ankle and 
  sometimes have been known to steal small, shiny objects from children 
  and even, on one isolated instance, impersonated Her Majesty The Queen 
  over the course of three days (resulting in the infamous "GIVE MORE 
  CANDY" Act of 1574). everyone can agree that they are much less of a 
  hassle than their larger cousins.
  Mud dragons have been known, though, to get cravings that can only be 
  described as throwbacks to their former glory, from time to time.  
  When they are acting on such impulses, it is better not to approach 
  them unless heavily armed.
  Their exact methods of eating and reproduction are, like those of 
  their larger cousins, somewhat mysterious and possible Far Beyond Our 
  Fragile Understanding, but that is hardly of any account to a 
  reputable biologist.
  
  2) The Game
  You all play Mud Dragons, up to some sort of hijinks such as: stealing 
  candy from children, fighting over shiny glass beads, having a farting 
  contest, trying to capture a princess, or building a flying machine.
  Except for the GM, of course, who pretty much just exists to make 
  your life miserable.  GM stands for Ginormous Mudhole, by the way, but 
  you already knew that from other role-playing games.
  
  3) Character Creation
  Making up a Mud Dragon is super-simple.  This is what you do.
  1) Record initial values of Patheticness, Laziness, Stupidity, 
  Clumsiness, and Petty Greed.
  2) Roll twice on the Heritage and Name table
  3) Roll on the Starting Loot table
  4) Take two Tokens.
  The Attributes:
  Patheticness: This measures the depths to which the Mud Dragon's 
  bloodline has fallen.  To impress someone, scare someone, or breath 
  little farts of fire you need to fail a Patheticness check.
  Laziness: This is the degree of atrophy to what, generations ago, 
  were muscles that could lift mountains.  To lift something, push 
  something, or carry anything a decent distance, you need to fail a 
  Laziness check.
  Stupidity: This measures the amount of degeneration of the Mud 
  Dragon's brains.  To successfully communicate with a human, use a word 
  over two syllables, or operate machinery, the you need to fail a 
  Stupidity check.
  Clumsiness: This measures the awkwardness of the Mud Dragon's form.  
  To sneak around, get in a tight space, or fly a short distance, you 
  
  need to fail a Clumsiness check.
  Petty Greed: This measures the Mud Dragon's impulses to hoard 
  pretty things.  To avoid going after the closest pretty thing 
  available, the Mud Dragon must fail a Petty Greed roll.
  All attributes start at 14, except for Petty Greed, which starts at 
  11.
  3.1 Name and Heritage Table (Roll Twice)
  Roll
  First Name
  Last Name Effect
  1-2
  Fire
  Heart
  -4 Patheticness, -1 Token
  3-4
  Swift
  Wing
  -4 Clumsiness, -1 Token
  5-6
  Stone
  Claw
  -4 Laziness, -1 Token
  7-8
  Ancient
  Blood
  -4 Stupidity, -1 Token
  9-10
  Poopy
  Butt
  +3 Patheticness, +1 Token
  11-12
  Stupid
  Booger
  +3 Stupidity, +1 Token
  13-14
  Watery
  Belly
  +3 Clumsiness, +1 Token
  15-16
  Goopy
  Nose
  +3 Petty Greed, +1 Token
  17-18
  Sleepy
  Spleen
  +3 Laziness, +1 Token
  19-20
  Mud
  Worm
  +2 Tokens, -4 Petty Greed
  3.2 Starting Loot Table
  Roll
  Loot
  Suggested Effect
  1-4
  Uh, some mud?
  Nuttin'
  5-7
  Pretty Beads!
  Shiny!
  8-9
  Two copper kopeks
  Shiny and humans might want them
  10
  A hawaiian shirt
  You look sorta human
  11
  Groucho glasses
  You look really human
  12
  Stained underoos
  +2 Laziness, -4 Petty Greed 
  13
  A pointed stick
  -2 for combat
  14
  A glass ball
  -2 Stupidity
  15
  A magnifying glass
  -4 Stupidity
  16
  A ten foot pole
  Useful!
  17
  A quartz crystal
  Extra Shiny
  18
  A bone from a dog
  -4 Patheticness
  19
  Real Gold!
  Super shiny, plus humans want it
  20
  Not even mud
  Extra-super nuttin'
  
  4) Scenario Generation
  The players get together and roll on the following charts.  If 
  they don't like their roll, they can ask the GM to roll again, but then 
  the GM gets to choose between the two results.
  4.1 The Setting
  Roll
  Setting
  1-4
  The Swamp
  5-8
  The Farmland
  9-11
  A Village
  12-14
  The City
  15-16
  On the Road
  17
  Haunted House
  18
  Dark Caves Beneath the Earth
  19
  An Abandoned Temple / Tower
  20
  Other Planes
  4.2 What you can get
  1-4
  Boredom Alleviation
  5-6
  Credibility amongst Mud Dragons
  7-10
  Candy
  11-13
  Shiny things
  14
  LOTS of shiny things
  15-16
  Respect or Acknowledgement from a Human
  17
  Stuff about old Dragons
  18-19
  A Princess! (roll on the Princess Hotness Subtable)
  20
  Roll Twice
  4.3 The Opposition
  Roll
  Opposition
  1-4
  Your Own Ineptitude
  5-8
  Fighting Amongst Each Other
  9
  Other Mud Dragon Pack
  10-12
  A few humans
  13-14
  Organized group of humans
  15
  A whole kingdom
  16
  Monsters!
  17
  Magic!
  18
  Gods
  19-20
  Roll Twice
  
  4.4 Your Plan Involves (two rolls)
  Roll
  Thing
  1
  Brute Force
  2-3
  Sneakiness
  4
  Acrobatics
  5
  Fast-talking
  6
  Impressing a human with your draconic might
  7-8
  Indigestion
  9
  Really loud farting sounds
  10-11
  A device with more than three moving parts
  12
  Reading
  13
  A stripper
  14
  Lots of stupid non-shiny paper money
  15
  At least two different types of animals
  16
  Starting a Religion
  17-18
  Combat
  19
  Grave-robbing
  20
  Roll two more times
  4.2.1  Princess Hotness Subtable
  Roll
  How hot?
  1
  So beautiful that all men who look upon her are 
  instantly struck mad with longing and must wander the 
  world singing her praises and commit themselves to her 
  every whim.
  2
  So beautiful that even the sun, moon, and sky are 
  jealous of her beauty.
  3
  So beautiful that to look upon her is to love her, and 
  princes from as far away as Arabia have sought her hand 
  in marriage.
  4
  So beautiful that flowers and grasses spring up when she 
  walks, and her voice is more lovely than the song of the 
  nightingale.
  5
  So beautiful that the greatest poets of the land cut out 
  their own tongues for shame.
  6
  So beautiful that her father has hidden her away from 
  the sight of any other man for fear of losing her.
  7-9
  A massive babe.
  10-11
  Like, totally hot.
  12
  Penthouse letters hot.
  13-15
  Pretty cute.
  17-16
  A nice smile.
  18
  Really great personality.
  19
  Actually, not so great of a personality.
  20
  Roll twice.
  The Cheat and cut straight to the Princess rule
  If you're only playing the game for one session, just go ahead and 
  add a princess to whatever stakes you rolled.
  
  5) Playing the Game
  The players play their Mud Dragons up to whatever the scenario 
  dictates.  The GM plays all the other parts of the environment, 
  including other Mud Dragons, humans, and assorted other things that 
  the Mud Dragons encounter in the world.  The players job is to play 
  their goofy dragons and pursue the scenario goals with vigor.  The GMs 
  job is to make the dragon's lives even more difficult.
  Doing Things
  The dragons will probably want to attempt some things which are 
  outside of their (admittedly quite meager) natural capacities.  When 
  doing this, the player must first state what their dragon is hoping to 
  achieve (convince the human to let him by, climb over the wall, catch the 
  sheep from behind, whatever) and what attribute they think is most 
  likely to get in their way.  The GM gets to give final say over what 
  attribute is used, though.
  Then, the player rolls a die.  If the roll is lower than or equal to the 
  attribute value, the attribute has succeeded -- the dragon's lower 
  nature manifests and he fails miserably.  If the roll is higher than the 
  attribute value, the attribute has failed -- the dragon has actually 
  called on some of his old heritage and succeeded through a shocking 
  reserve of competence.  Either way, the player and GM work together 
  to describe the outcome.
  
  However, the player may choose to alter the result after the roll.  If 
  the player spends a token after the attribute succeeds, they can 
  narrate how, despite the dragon's total ineptitude, they manage to 
  succeed in spite of themselves.  If the attribute fails, the player may 
  choose to gain a token, in exchange for describing how, despite the 
  sudden competence of their dragon, they fail anyway.
  Another attempt at the same thing or a similar thing must be hindered 
  by a different Attribute and gets a -4 to the roll.  Another thing 
  which is helped by a previous successful roll gets a +4 to the roll.
  In addition, a roll can result in injury (+1 to an attribute) at the GMs 
  discretion, but only if the attribute succeeds.
  Combat  
  Combat works in three phases, each of which is just an ordinary "doing 
  things" test.  Combat can be used to resolve any disputes -- the goal is 
  to get the other guy to back down.  If the goals is actually to hurt 
  and kill the other person -- well, go play any other role-playing game.
  Consider this an example of how an extended conflict could work.  For 
  instance, you could easily insert a "name-calling" phase before "posturing" 
  that would be Stupidity based.
  
  Stage one: Posturing.  The initiator of the conflict starts by making a 
  Patheticness test.  If he wins -- he won the conflict and the other guy 
  backs down.  If he loses, the other guy wins and he backs down.  If 
  that's fine, end.  If the guy who backed down doesn't want to, move to 
  the next stage.
  Stage two: Whacking at each other, biting of ankles.  Whoever lost the 
  last stage rolls against Clumsiness, with the usual -4 penalty.  If he 
  succeeds, he wins the fight and the other guy backs down.  If he fails, 
  he loses the fight and backs down.  Regardless, whoever lost gets hurt 
  and takes a +1 Clumsiness penalty (permanent.)  If the guy who backed 
  down doesn't want to, move to the next stage.
  Stage three: Wrestling.  Now the fight is on the ground.  Whoever lost 
  the last stage rolls against Laziness, with the usual -4 penalty.  If he 
  succeeds, he wins the fight and the other guy calls uncle.  If he fails, he 
  loses the fight and cries uncle.  Regardless, whoever lost gets hurt and 
  takes a +1 Clumsiness penalty (permanent.)  This is the final stage.  You 
  can't keep going further.
  Shiny Things  
  Petty Greed is a bit of a strange attribute.  You usually don't roll 
  against it to do stuff.  Rather, any time you are trying to do 
  something when there is a shiny thing readily available, you need to 
  overcome your Petty Greed first.  Good luck!  Note that Mud Dragons 
  
  have little sense of delayed gratification -- they will pounce on a 
  copper kopek at hand rather than try to get the pile of gold 
  further away.
  Not-necessarily-shiny-things  
  If you can use an object to help you, you get between +2 and +4 on your 
  roll.  If you actually find a use for swamp mud, it's always +4.
  
  6) Other Stuff
  Experience  
  Every time you spend a Token, it gives you an experience.  In addition, 
  everyone gets 2 experience at the end of the scenario, 4 if you actually 
  accomplished your goals, 6 if you successfully abducted a princess.  
  Lastly, if everyone agrees on one player who was totally awesome that 
  session, give that player 3 extra experience.
  You can spend two experience to lower an attribute by one, or one 
  experience to raise an attribute by one.
  Throwback  
  If a player has no Tokens remaining, but really wants to succeed a roll 
  that they just failed, they may opt to Throwback.  Their Mud Dragon 
  manifests it's true draconic heritage.  All attributes drop to 1.  This 
  effect lasts until the end of the scene, when the now-great dragon 
  must part from his muddy brethren, bound for great things.  The GM 
  narrates how he perishes in a particularly embarrassing way.
  Throwback is automatically triggered if any Mud Dragon rolls over his 
  attribute 5 times in a row, or if any attribute goes below 5.
  
  Embarrassment and Death  
  If any attribute goes to 21, the Mud Dragon is either dead or just so 
  whammied that they can't participate in the rest of the scenario.
  Easy Come, Easy Go  
  Each Mud Dragon may only keep two things.  All other things are lost, 
  forgotten, destroyed, or spent between scenarios..
  
  7) Example
  Anders, Ben, and Calder sit down to play some On The Ecology and 
  Behaviour of the Mud Dragon.  Anders is GMing.
  Ben makes a character.  He rolls 1, 9 and 13.  He is playing Fire Butt, who 
  starts with a pointed stick.  His attributes are Patheticess 13, Petty 
  Greed 11, everything else 14.  He gets 2 tokens.
  Calder also makes a character.  He rolls 18, 6 and 9.  He is playing Sleepy 
  Wing, who starts with two copper kopeks.  His attributes are 
  Patheticness 14, Laziness 17, Stupidity 14, Clumsiness 10, Petty Greed 11.  
  He also gets two tokens.
  Now that characters are made, it's time to determine the situation.  
  Calder says that Ben has to roll first, because he wrote the damn 
  game.  Ben rolls a 10 -- the situation is in a village.  No one minds, so 
  there aren't any rerolls.  Calder rolls next and gets a 14 -- what the 
  dragons can get is LOTS of shiny things.  Calder really wants to shoot 
  for a Princess, though, so he asks Anders to reroll.  Anders rolls a 2 
  -- Boredom alleviation.  Being, as all good GMs are, naturally sadistic, he 
  takes his own roll.  Ben shoots Calder a dirty look.
  Now Ben rolls for the opposition and gets 8 -- fighting amongst each 
  other.  He, too, goes for the reroll.  Anders rolls a 13 -- an organized 
  group of humans, and keeps it.
  
  Finally, both Ben and Calder roll for elements of their plan.  They get 
  a 5 and a 9 -- fast-talking and really loud farting sounds.  Ben asks 
  for a reroll on the 5 -- he doesn't like how that works out.  Anders 
  rolls a 14 -- lots of stupid non-shiny paper money.  He keeps the fast-
  talking, instead.
  Anders quickly jots down the scenario -- a group of biologists from 
  the Royal Society have travelled out to the swamp to capture some 
  specimens of Mud Dragons.  The unwitting Mud Dragons are going to bump 
  into them when they come into town.  He doesn't worry about the fast-
  talking and farting sounds.  Those are for Ben and Calder to work out.
  Sometime in the game, Fire Butt and Sleepy Wing pound on a farmer's 
  door, trying to seek shelter for the manic biologists.  Fire Butt, apt 
  to his name sake, starts making horrible groaning sounds and farting 
  noises, while Sleepy Wing tries to explain to the farmer how his friend 
  is sick and needs help.  Calder tests against Sleepy Wing's Stupidity 
  (since he is trying to communicate with a human).  Calder rolls an 11 -- the 
  attribute wins!  He decides not to spend a Token, and so describes 
  Sleepy Wing saying "uh... pretty human... uh... sick... so hot..." and the aging 
  farmer's wife takes that as a pick-up line and is offended.  Anders 
  says that she starts screeching loudly and beating him about the head 
  and shoulders.
  
  Ben still wants to try to get inside, so Fire Butt tries to look so 
  impressive that she backs down and lets them in.  He rolls against 
  Patheticness, rolling a 14, which would be a victory, except for he gets 
  a -4 penalty because he's trying something a second time.  He decides to 
  spend a token, and so Fire Butt succeeds despite himself.  He 
  describes how his attempts to look fearsome are so unbelievably cute 
  that the farm wife oohs and ahws and grabs them both and pull them 
  inside.  Ben marks down one experience for the spent token.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/On the Ecology of the Mud Dragon/On the Ecology of the Mud Dragon Corebook.pdf