Saturday, May 7, 2022

Swords, Sails, & Sorcery

Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser by Mike Mignola V1 by MrZkinandBonez on  DeviantArt

Sword and sorcery adventure upon the seas! Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser in the lands of Earthsea, with the colorful devonian wildlife of Ponyo.

Beneath the waves the ocean teems with prehistoric sea life. Devonian fish, coelacanths, sharks, pliosaurs, ammonites, trilobites. Giant leviathans, mosasaurs, and whales too. 

The strange isles range from coral atolls, to sweltering jungle mountains, to cold boreal rocks. Sunken cities abounded. Ruins hide themselves above and below water. 


Ponyo on the Cliff 崖の上のポニョ” Background Art | © Studio Ghibli* •  Blog/Website | (www.ghibli.jp) ☆ || CHARACTER DESIGN REFERENCES (ht… |  Ghibli art, Ponyo, Ghibli

1d10 Strange Places
  1. The sunken city of Ub, where you can peer down through the turquoise waters to see fish languidly swim ancient streets, some spires still pierce the waves allowing for descent into air pockets.
  2. Smoldering volcanic peaks belching fumes that trail across the horizon, said to houses temples to strange gods carven into the very bowls of their caldera. 
  3. The coral fortresses rising from the Thousandfold Atolls in a riot of colors. 
  4. Vertical jungles growing on a maze of sea-stack islands inhabited by tattooist-magicians. 
  5. A yawning pit beneath the water, like the inky blue eye of some antediluvian leviathan, punctuating an otherwise mundane reef, what do its depths hold?
  6. The impenetrable pink marble city of the Faceless Merchants who silently trade their fabulous riches for slaves, saltes, and alchemical ingredients. 
  7. A tangled floating market of galleries and barques moored above a seamount. 
  8. Whalefall city-states of the hagfish sorcerer covens deep in the abyssal depths.
  9. The crocodile infested deltas of Pag where the content people traffic in lotuses with outsiders.
  10. Far Inquonok to the north from which pale faced merchants sail to trade ivory and fur.
1d10 Strange Folk
  1. Dancing swordsman from the canal & ziggurat city, every cut and thrust is poised with symbolism and artful precision, they seek a paramour lost at sea.
  2. A fishy representative of the undersea kingdoms, attended by attendants constantly moisturizing him. 
  3. A salt witch, already succumbing to her magic's price, the cysts consume more of her each day.
  4. Runaway scholar of an obscure sect, hunted by stilt-walking assassins. 
  5. A man once drowned, now the host to an ancient abyssal star god. 
  6. A cannoneer from the southern reaches, babying slow-burning matches and the snarling spirit of an iron handgonne.
  7. A simple minded, burly roustabout and his clever octopus companion, touring the world.
  8. Barbarians from a foreign city who eat pungent vegetables which smell worse than corpses.
  9. Tattooed devil-eater, each inking represents another defeated demon, he is suspicious and boisterous.
  10. A burly thief and a slight barbarian duo, annoyed pawns of two mysterious sorcerers.
1d10 Strange Treasures 
  1. The basalt carved idol of the martial crab god, patron to wandering pugilists.
  2. Lockbox containing rare curative barks and herbs from a distant island beyond the known seas.
  3. Bronze panoply of a Urgish warrior with high feathered crest.
  4. Corked and wax sealed jugs of matured wine, salvaged from a shipwreck.
  5. Scrolls of thin aluminum inscribed with ancient spells.  
  6. Obsidian sacrificial dagger, sharp as a scalpel but brittle.
  7. Armful of hacksilver torcs accrued in hundreds of raids. 
  8. Ambergris from a leviathan belly, destined for the perfumeries. 
  9. Polished dunkleosteus skull, scrimshawed with the secret names of ancient pelagic spirits.
  10. Fermented squid caught in secret sea-caves, a delicacy of high order. 

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