Showing posts with label science-fantasy weirdness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science-fantasy weirdness. Show all posts

Monday, April 11, 2022

130 Weird Treasures From Across The Spheres


  1. An emperor's tea set that transforms into porcelain swans
  2. Arachnid woven tapestry, bulky, but eye-wateringly sublime
  3. Stack of golden arm rings forged from the war trophies of conquering lord
  4. Elegant carriage dubbed the silver phantom, it once propelled itself but no longer
  5. A river spirit trapped within a jeweled goblet, water cannot touch you
  6. Twin rings of beetle-esq design, whisper a message to it and it will fly away to find its partner
  7. Powdered quadracorn horn from the farthest burning savannas, cures impotency
  8. Immaculate suit of bone armour, parasitically fuels itself off the weavers lifeblood
  9. Packages of excellent, smooth, fine smelling soap
  10. Gem studded broad-belt of office stolen from some petty prince
  11. Skeleton warrior seeds, in neat little pouch
  12. Cultiver of a rare singing orchid, its melodies open the hearts of all present
  13. Careful forgeries of the Somnambulist Padishah’s official seals
  14. Egg sacks of the Century-Worm, a delicacy, a cure-all, a poison
  15. Panacea potion, healing, heartening, ever so addictive, red stained lips and little vials
  16. Gilded sub-machine guns, masterworks of Van Ranj the genius gunsmith
  17. Coins sewn together into an armoured shirt, proof of the owners mercantile prowess
  18. Fossilized trilobites made potent good luck charms
  19. Glowing greenish radioactive glassware, it's all the rage right now
  20. Powdered god-corpse brain matter to fuel sorcerous magics
  21. Seven salts distilled from the soul’s base chemicals to invigour 
  22. Cheaply bound pamphlets detailing obscure and somewhat useless martial arts
  23. Lifetime membership pass for the League of Fisticuffs, the name is someone else's
  24. Coat of dogs-wool that grants sure friendship with any canine beast 
  25. Gold & silver plate bound in enchanted twine
  26. Treatise on astral fauna, rare, damaged by the gut of the creature it was pulled from 
  27. Key to a door you never knew needed unlocking
  28. Portrait of a long lost duke, handsome, oddly melancholic
  29. Apotropaic lamp made in the grand necropolis to ward off unruly spirits
  30. Helm wired with cables and tubes, it grants extension of the mind and will
  31. Pocket watch set to tell the time on a dozen different spheres
  32. Simple pieces of chalk, anything drawn comes alive in chalk form
  33. Blade of the pontiff-executioner, it will only bite the neck of a rightfully condemned priest 
  34. Letters of free passage writ all githyanki held dominions
  35. Antique furnitures, thirteenth solar empire, polished mahogany, delicate joinery
  36. Cask of mulled devil’s liquor, it eats at the seals, smelling of motor oil and cinnamon
  37. Charts of the Astral inscribed on decaying papyrus, speaks in terms of dreams and allegory
  38. A crop of wizard lettuce, growing improbably in mouldering crate
  39. Iron sarcophagus bound in chains, a captured devil with an enormous bounty upon its head
  40. Bezoar extracted from a kamadan, compressed dreams and nightmares 
  41. Writhing baby astral eel trapped inside a glass and bone containment jar
  42. Exotic dyes, colors like none you’ve seen, in carefully labeled bottles
  43. Contraband souls hidden inside amphora, packed tightly, miserably, and diluted
  44. A godly fetus hovering in an metaphysical womb, minor miracles flow off it like mist
  45. Ice packed, insulated box of rare thalassic trench-squid, succulent beyond belief
  46. The precise measurements of all a sphere neatly jotted down in a little notebook
  47. Fashionable nudibranchs meant to be worn upon your clothes or doted upon as a pet
  48. Yards long necklace-shawl of lustrous pearls, each one representing the owners virtuous deeds
  49. Driftwood mask carved into a shark’s snarl that fills the viewer with instinctual unease
  50. Crown of delicately smithed gold shaped into flowers, thorns, and leaves
  51. An angle-knife which can cut passage between the reality’s corners 
  52. A tube of door-paste, half used up, smear it upon a wall to create temporary passage 
  53. Chirurgeon’s lacquered wood box, filled with delicate steel and silver instruments
  54. Serpentine golden torcs that seem to writhe when worn
  55. Manticore balm, rub to cure aches and pains of the joints and to relieve cursed hungers 
  56. Humorous engravings of a political nature likely to see imprisonment if caught with
  57. Cones of incense tailored to make spirits sluggish and sleepy
  58. Magnificently feathered and decorated hat that stuns onlookers and collides with door frames
  59. Sheaf of forger’s trick-paper that can be written upon twice, to show two differing things
  60. Midnight ink, made of pooled shadow, only harsh light can erase it
  61. Indecipherable twisted knot of letters peeled from the page, explodes if agitated 
  62. Clockwork toy, a little landship that marches on twirling legs
  63. Smoky blue glass spectacles that shows the immaterial world of spirits 
  64. Improbably deep wicker baskets made by hand
  65. Impudent machine-spirit locked inside a pyramidal prism, answers questions at a price
  66. Trunk of sekem, ducats, marks, and a thousand other coinage, heavy to lift, a small fortune
  67. Mobile throne carved with golden lion imagery, it walks about on its own plodding legs
  68. Ever-glowing argon lamps from the ancient paleotechnic dynasties
  69. Ceremonial copper-breaking club carved in the shape of a whale, symbol of authority 
  70. Levitating prayer rug, threadbare, floats up and down at the sitter’s command
  71. Void crystal decanter and matching cups, rings perfect notes when struck
  72. Jade figurine of a curled up vampire bat, fits in palm, heals injury by leaching from another
  73. Set of bronze armour, bull motifs, fills wearer with bovine strength but also rage
  74. The dice of a notoriously lucky gambler, always rolls your way, but are not loaded in any way
  75. Bag of catnip-laced kibble, hot item on the black market for the cat-kings 
  76. Flowering wooden phallus charm that imbibes great fertility into the owner
  77. Beautifully wrought iron sculpture of a twisting woman part-wolf 
  78. Colossal sturgeon, packed in ice, fit for a king’s feast 
  79. Bits of caddisfly made jewelry, encrusted tubes and shells of precious gems and gold flakes
  80. Jar of devilspawn stock, worth good money to a biomancer, little imps writhe vestigially
  81. Mottled protective suit of tardigrade-skin, incredibly resistant to the elements 
  82. Metal turtle brazier, remove the shell to add more fuel, always burns for twice as long
  83. Delicate beetle shell earrings, quite dashing
  84. Newfangled ink-pen, easy to write with, the quill-maker guilds will flay you for having it
  85. A crested carnyx, relic of some ancient campaign, still stirs with the moods of battle
  86. Leashed baku, secretly one of the Somnambulist Padishah’s many spies
  87. A slumbering paleodemon locked in thrice warded stone
  88. Spool of soul-tether snipped off some poor astral traveller, great for sewing immaterial things
  89. Miniature model of a temple complete with tiny praying priests, extravagantly detailed
  90. Vials of anti-sun matter, shine un-radiantly with darkness 
  91. Token of the guild of unseeming corners & assassins, good for one free assassination
  92. Occlusion needles, block the soul’s flow rendering limbs inert and severing spirit connections
  93. Paper parasol patterned with intertwined peacocks that seem to dance displaying feathers
  94. Portable cabinet filled with a chirurgeon’s expensive and rare medicines
  95. A claviger’s personal doorspace map, written in coded doubletalk within a little journal
  96. Sidesword of an astral pirate-queen, lucky red tassels hang from the pommel 
  97. Shard of archaic pottery, infested with dream-plague, draws to the dreamlands of dead world
  98. Velvet gloves so silky soft it almost doesn’t register that your touching them
  99. Fulgurous powder, thrice as volatile as black, carefully corked casks, anti-spark measures 
  100. Ghostly peppercorn, phantom cinnamon, a whole variety of spirit spices 
  101. Drinking cup in the shape of a curling fish with gaping mouth, blue-green and gold trim
  102. Box of hand rolled cigars, rare out-world tobacco enjoyed by the haughtiest of connoisseurs
  103. Fermentation demon trapped inside a clay jar of pickles, barters to be freed
  104. Silver wrought fox clasp, each hair on the fur lovingly detailed 
  105. A dram of crystallized luck, potent, warps reality round it
  106. Primordial sourdough starter, stolen from the vinegar knights
  107. Fur-coat of the rarest svelte seal, impossibly warm and soft, highly fashionable
  108. Cup carved from a solid emerald, decorated with elegant poetry, an emperor's prize
  109. Gold bars stamped with the seals of the 57th merchant house, will need to be removed
  110. Unguent box, paneled in ivory inlaid with precious gems, stinking ointments within
  111. Crooning phoenix in a brass cage, the fiery feathers it sheds fetch high prices
  112. Tapestry sewn from the tunics and coats of dead soldiers, a testament to battle
  113. Delicate lace, gloves, trim, collars, cuffs, tears all too easily
  114. Matching signet rings done up in gold and cinnabar, shaped like miniature knights
  115. Saint’s tears, bottled, wards off sin and protects from evil, reputedly
  116. Necromantic auto-chair, climbs about on mismatched boney legs, macabre in style
  117. Three ceremonial daggers in a crocodile foot sheathe, jade inlays 
  118. Casket ringed with golden llamas and studded with rubies
  119. Fireproof aluminum caftan, worn in the Hells to protect from cinderstorms
  120. Ghost-Leopard fur mantle, intangible, half-alive, spirits shudder in its presence 
  121. Golden ring, blossoming carnelian carved rose 
  122. Clay figure with a disproportionate apotropaic phallus, black ink decoration
  123. Side-sword, the hilt carved from ivory with a conglomerate of screaming skulls
  124. Spiraling gold arm band in the shape of a lusty, serpentine merman
  125. Juvenile hate-star in a lead lined casket, souls are pulled inward by its horrid gravity
  126. Crate of smuggled boltlocks, the maker's marks scratched off
  127. Flask for capturing spirits, etched with runes, lead stopper
  128. A writ for dreaming within an onierocrat’s kingdom
  129. Polish for the nails that traps a whispered secret when painted on
  130. Boxed set for an obscure pen & paper game, little dice and everything

Saturday, December 4, 2021

LEKADS


Long ago upon an irradiated war-torn planet a sorcerer-scientist plotted to save his species, creating from the mutated population a lineage of xenophobic squid-things locked within armored shells. A perfect race in their estimate. And the damned things have stuck around ever since.

Lekad (warrior)

Hovering cone, eye-stalk protruding from dome head, plunger manipulator and ray-gun arms
  • Reactionary, xenophobic mutant squid-things locked in sturdy armour.
  • Their ray-guns kill or stun at range and preference.
  • Plunger manipulator grapples poorly but suffices for interaction.
  • Vulnerable to blinding and close range attack.

Subtypes

  • Coordinators
    • Big spherical head full of stratagems and orthodoxy.
    • Ringed with manipulator arms for maximum coordination.
    • Individually egotistically though this is a heresy.
  • Heavies
    • Driven insane by radiation, feared as abominations by the other soldiery.
    • No manipulator, only a heavy-duty ray-cannon.
    • Bulky, thickly armored shells resistant to most damage.
  • Drones
    • Dull, nearly mindless, perform rote maintenance tasks.
    • Two manipulators instead of a plunger and ray-gun.
    • Lose power if taken off their city conduit floors.
  • Slaves
    • Face shields to hide their 'ugliness' from the masters.
    • Psionic dampener helmets make them compliant.
    • Considered vulgar if necessary and useful.
  • Beasts
    • Genemodded mutant critters from their homeworld and the stars.
    • Specialized for tracking, guarding, or other capacities.
    • Controlled with obvious psionic collars, go feral if removed.

Statblock

5 HD, AC as Plate, 2d6 Ray-Gun Attack
Inner Creature : 1/2 HD, AC as Unarmored, 1d4 Strangle Attack

Running Lekads :

  • Reoccurring villain-of-the-week antagonists, let them become a known variable for players to manipulate, occasionally throw some sub-types or such in to mix it up.
  • Dangerous but easily thwartible, play up their goofiness but keep them deadly in a straight confrontation.
  • They have two modes, elaborate monologuing or amusingly abrupt declarations.
  • Shout TERMINATE! a lot.

Lekad Rumours :

  1. A distant emperor, arch-coordinator, commands the lekad imperium.
  2. Longstanding (and one sided) rivalry with a creed of robot men.
  3. In the recent past there was a fanatical civil war dividing the lekads in two, it still echoes on.
  4. Travel in teleporting invasion spheres and saucers.
  5. Their ancient creator controls them in secret from their laboratory-bunker.
  6. Whacking lekad armour at close range will knock it open, exposing the wriggling pilot.
  7. They are color coded into different caste-roles. 
  8. Brutally factional over petty issues and differences.
  9. Hate change and difference to the point of refuting all but the most critical of improvements.
  10. Love to gloat, keep them talking to survive.

Saturday, November 27, 2021

The Wizards Capsule - Pocket Module


Getcher' weird minimalist module Eight whole pages! Get it right here while its hot! Easily insertable into a game on the fly or in a random table! Featuring weird wizard shit! Extra-dimensional possessions! Sabotage! Bickering familiars! 

You can find it here.

Saturday, March 20, 2021

Weird History Of The Earth & Solar System


Pre-Hadeon Eons (4.6+ billion years ago)

  • The flutist god-priests of Azathoth, the Daemon Sultan, Gaping Maw, Nuclear Chaos At The Center Of The Spiral Arms begin the eons long construction process of building the Throne of Azathoth, a grand singularity palace-enclosure.
  • The Eldest-Upon-Eldest-Ones emerge onto the cosmic stage from their nebula nursery home.

Hadeon Eon (4.6 billion years ago)

  • The solar system is formed from primordial starstuff. 
  • An Eldest-Upon-Eldest-Ones nomad treasure fleet strips the fifth inner planet bare as they replenish their stocks. The destabilized planetary remnants collide with earth forming the moon when the leave. 
  • An injured factory-shipling is abandoned, upon their departure, eventually coming to form the core of the Jovian moon Thebe.
  • Nuclearlithic lifeforms develop in Earth's mantle.
  • Nuclearlithics build spacecraft and settle several of the still molten planets and planetoids. Certain clades adapt themselves to quicker and smaller (by their geological standards) forms. Develop substantial orbital industry.
  • The body of Gatekeeper (Yog-Sothoth) passes through the solar system for the first time.
  • Yithians mind swap with several courtiers in the nuclearlithic courts. Record their history.
  •  Nuclearlithics are cut off from one another as planetary crusts cool, on tectonically inactive worlds their civilizations stagnate and collapse. Spaceborn nuclearlithics slowly die off or leave for other star systems. Asteroid belt is left littered with the corpses of nuclearlithic ships and construction projects.
  • Late Heavy Bombardment caused by de-orbiting of nuclearlithic corpses and structures.

Archaean Eon (4 billion years ago)

  • Early microbial life develops on the now cool and liquid water supporting earth.
  • The first shoggoths awaken in the primordial microbial soup.
  • Primitive life develops on Mars, is coaxed rapidly towards intelligence by the machinations of trans-dimensional sorcerers.
  • Martian civilization arises on the warm and wet planet.
  • Mars begins to lose its atmosphere, becoming colder and dryer. Civilization declines. The great polar machine brains are built in order to create a solution to the crises. 
  • Mars devolves into war over limited resources. First tripods are fielded. Water-rationing autocracies led by warlords hermetically sealed in their tripods soon develop.
  • Martians retreat entirely into polar bunkers under the watchful eyes of the machine brains.
  • Protoplasmic shoggoth ur-mind expands across the globe.
  • Machine brains deem Earth prospective but unsuited for habitation currently and enter into a hibernation state awaiting a future earth ripe for colonization.
  • Shoggoth ur-mind discovers the secret of photosynthesis, breakaway accelerationist cyanobacteria architect sects construct stromatolite fortress plains and do battle with the ur-mind.
  • Resulting Great Oxidation War kills off much life and fragments the ur-mind, remaining shoggoths retreat to the still anorexic depths of the oceans. Cyanobacteria sects inherit earth. 

Proterozoic Eon (2.5 billion years ago)

  • Eukaryotic life begins to develop.
  • The godling H Y P E R I O N arrives in the solar system hunting a fleeing god-priest of Azathoth, settles into orbit around Saturn to slumber while its heralds search every last inch of the system.
  • Huronian glaciation creates a snowball earth.
  • Martian machine brains forced into complete dormancy to hide from the godling's searching mind.
  • Factory-ship at the core of Thebe is discovered but ignored by herald-spawn.
  • After many many millennia in hiding the flutist god-priest kills? H Y P E R I O N in its sleep and the godling's corpse? becomes the methane moon Titan. God-priest flees solar system.
  • Distraught and masterless herald-spawn disperse, many hiding themselves away in the Oort Cloud.
  • A small number of herald-spawn come to the icy Earth. They manipulate biomass into more complex forms, shoggoths dredged out of their deep ocean homes and enslaved for the first time.
  • Monument on the moon is built by shoggoth slaves.
  • Herald-spawn depart en-mass with the extrasolar flyby of another minor godling, shoggoth slaves are taken along. Some spawn stay behind on the periphery of the solar system.

Paleozoic Era (542 million years ago)

  • The first complex multicellular life emerges.
  • Crinoid hive minds develop in the psychic landscape leftover from H Y P E R I O N 's dreaming. 
  • Crinoids slowly evolve the ability to manipulate other minds. Soon develop complex society, with enslaved nautiloid builder castes, eurypterid warrior drones, and other still carrying out their whims.
  • First vascular land dwelling plants.
  • The Great Race of Yith hijack the minds of a crinoid sub-species. Begin to build the basalt pillared library-city of Pnakotus on 'unoccupied' herald-spawn ruins. Heavy trapdoors are installed
  • Yithians collect knowledge from across time and space.
  • Crinoid hive minds angered by the theft of their brethren's bodies wage a multi-millennia long war on the Yithians. Remaining earthbound herald-spawn join in.
  • Pnakotus eventually destroyed and its library scattered. Yithian elites escape to far future and hijack the minds of a post-human clade to rebuild their library anew.
  • Crinoids enter a golden age of philosophy and thought poetry.
  • For a brief time a society of sentient Prototaxites fungus pillar-trees thrives in partnership with the Crinoid hive minds. But are soon outcompeted by other land dwelling plants. They escape to a sidereal dimension as beings of pure thought. 
  • Land dwelling tetrapods develop.
  • Crinoids hive minds languish in the ocean, unable to explore inland. Begin to construct massive reef palaces.
  • The Eldest-Upon-Eldest-Ones factory ship at the heart of Thebe, is discovered by Elder Thing scavengers who had come to harvest god brain-matter from the depths of Titan. 
  • Elder Things colonize Europa's oceans, introduce worker-shoggoths (descendants of herald-spawn enslaved shoggoths that we're taken from earth so long ago).
  • A city is built on Earth, in the place that will become Antarctica many megaannuam from now. Elder Things curiosly observe the declining Crinoid civilizations from afar. Some artifacts from Pnakotus are collected.
  • Slaveborn shoggoths brought to Earth come into contact with the original freeborn shoggoths. A massive revolt breaks out, nearly collapsing the Elder Things civilization. The factory-ship at the heart of Thebe is lost.
  • Meanwhile, amphibians dwelling in the coal swamps of Earth begin to worship Tsathogga the corpulent frog god.
  • Stagnated Crinoid civilization, using techniques learned from the records of Pnakotus, hijack the minds of their starfish cousins in order to lead a simpler, more ambulatory existence. Ancient reef palaces abandoned to the wild. 
  • Elder Things pan-stellar empire eventually does collapse under widespread shoggoth revolt, Europa sea-cities under siege. Antarctic city is cut off.
  • The amphibians lose their position of dominance with the rise of amniotes.
  • An attempt by earthbound nuclearlithics to reconnect with their spaceborn cousins fails. Rather bombastically. Creating the volcanic Siberian Traps and triggering the beginning of the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event.

Mesozoic Era (252 million years ago)

  • Earth gradually recovers.
  • The Long-Toothed God is born from the collective murmuring dreams of crocodilian archosaurs who have come to rule the land.
  • The Elder Things antarctic city falls, bastions on Europa still stand firm.
  • A singular soldier-instance of Ada Rigel, is stranded in orbit around Jupiter after passing through the body of Gatekeeper far in the future. Lands upon Ganymede and births further instances of herself beginning a time-displaced empire.
  • Instances of Ada Rigel make contact with slow thinking nuclearlithics on Io, trade philosophy, and astronomical data for heavy metals, isotopes, and engineering expertise.
  • Ada Rigel discovers the heavily damaged factory-ship at Thebe's core. Overhauls it and soon it becomes the center of their quick expanding empire.
  • Elder Things on Europa request assistance in breaking the shoggoth siege of their few remaining cities. Ada Rigel debates before agreeing in exchange for Elder Things bioengineering expertise. 
  • Ada Rigel expands to Saturn, then Neptune. Scouts sent to observe but not interfere with Earth. 
  • This new and fast growing mind attracts the attention of the herald-spawn in the Oort Cloud. They descend on Ada Rigel intent on ensuring the gestalt being. A vicious war is fought.
  • Herald-spawn decimated, retreat to their icy haunts. 
  • Triassic extinction.
  • Psychic reverberations attract a swarm of Polycrystalline Polyps to the solar system. Half of Oort Cloud dwelling herald-spawn are incorporated into the polycrystalline nodes. Polyps land on Mars, Venus, and other planetoids. Ada Rigel beats back polyps from Earth and Jupiter.
  • Ancient nuclearlithic ships are salvaged from the asteroid belt and refurbished by Ada Rigel. Europan Elder Thing biogenetic knowledge used to create a polyp derived star drive. Remaining instances of Ada Rigel depart for interstellar space with small contingents of Elder Things and at least one Ionian nuclearlithic.
  • Several instances of Ada Rigel are left behind on Luna and Ganymede in deep storage cry-bunkers.
  • Martian machine brains rewaken to drive off polycrystalline polyp incursion.
  • The Chicxulub Impactor wipes out dinosaurs.

Cenozoic Era (66 million years ago)

  • Mammals rise to dominance.
  • Weakened martian machine brains overthrown in a rebellion by hermetic cephalopod overseer class. 
  • Continents attain their present day arrangement.
  • A lone Polycrystalline Polyp breaks up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering pieces of itself across the world.
  • First hominids begin to evolve.
  • Psychic parasitoids detecting the emergence of higher stage sentience flock to earth, some species gradually achieve symbiosis and becoming humanities soul. 
  • Qiggish slavers following the migration of psychic parasitoids land on Earth and collect early hominids for use as cloned slave labour gene-stock.
  • Humans spread across the earth.
  • A Polycrystalline Polyp node deep in the caucuses begins to build an empire of brain-slaved humans during the early neolithic. Efforts of a sorcerer king and several tribes defeat it.
  • Rebellious cephalopod overseers force machine brains to plot an invasion of Earth, but damage from their incredibly long dormancy and the rebellion hinders efficacy.
  • Society to assist mind-jacking Yithian scholars originated.
  • Martian invasion is launched and promptly fails since highly complex contagions and microbes were not accounted for, easily dispatching many of the cellularly simple and immunally weakened invaders. Red weed becomes an invasive species. 
  • Nuclearlithics disturbed by human nuclear testing. Renewed interest in the study of the surface. Contact likely inevitable. 
  • Soviet Cosmonauts accidentally attract the attention of a polycrystalline polyp, build starships whose pilots are psychically tied to the crystalline control interface using its corpse (killed when a Vostok rammed it on re-entry). 
  • Present Day.

Friday, February 12, 2021

Big Bundle Of Setting Questions & Such

Firstly, the 13 Items World but for my setting I do not have a name for yet...
  1. Blue-grey moonsilk parasol.
  2. Boltlock rifle, chipped and scratched, tied with prayer scarves and charms, the gun-spirit is old and grumpy, hates the black powder & paper cartridges that foul itself.
  3. Oily rainbow rock of ancient compressed plastics.
  4. Duelling sabre in an eel-leather scabbard. 
  5. A gilded sub-machine gun, the nearly scratched out makers mark places it as once belonging to the Serpent King's Secret Police. It's gun-spirit is young, spoiled, and energetic.
  6. A Samovar, made of brass, accompanied by bricks of tea and bags of coffee.
  7. Several stick grenades.
  8. Bio-mantic organ sacks, squishy and highly valuable.
  9. A penny-pamphlet adventure novel set among the "exotic" Boatlords of the Zum Delta.
  10. Helmet & splatter mask with a mail veil, decorated with apotropaic eyes.
  11. Bathhouse token tied to a dues letter from the Courtesans Union.
  12. Perfumes & lip-paint in little tins.
  13. A pyramidal prism, containing an insightful machine-spirit, taken off a sorcerer's corpse.
Next, answering Locheil's setting questions for the same yet-to-be-named setting...

1. Which specific NPC do I want to piss of the least?
        The Lady of the Blue Spire who controls the Hierophant and its great machine-spirit. Tangling with her and her vast network of bureaucrat-sorcerers is not recommended.

2. Which god should I want to piss off the most?
        Perhaps the Orbital War Gods? It does take some effort to make them properly angry. But if you manage you might be able to trick them into blowing up a mountain range or city you don't like.

3. What's the worst thing I could meet at a crossroads?
        Probably a devil's incarnation offering you tantalizing contracts, for an arguable definition of 'worst'.

4. What's the nearest thing that can utterly destroy me to your starting town? Or starting town equivalent?
        Oh there is a lot of stuff. Ancient Auto-Machine Basilisks, thunderheads full of Lightning Wyrms, raiding party of Lunar Fae, pack of gun toting Baboons. The list goes on.

5. Is apotheosis open to my character? If not, why not?
        Oh heck yes and in so many ways. Plug yourself into oldtech machinery, make a deal with an alien godling, abscond off into trans-dimensional space. So many options.

6. Do people in your world have souls? Why?
        Sort of? It's complicated and there's much debate on the subject. Suffice to say people have got something that can be hijacked, stolen, used as legal tender with some para-dimensional beings, and bound to artificial bodies to achieve immortality. 

7. Does jazz exist in your setting yet? Can I invent it and not be stoned to death?
        Yes it does (of a sort) but only in the big Industrial Cities where they can afford to make the instruments. 

8. What's the weirdest country/polity/region/area on your map?
        Most places are pretty dang weird, but the giant space elevator is pretty weird even by the local's standards. There's also the Glass Desert which as the name suggests is all glassy sand and half-melted cities haunted by immortals kept alive with arcano-tech machinery.

9. Do guns exist yet? If they do, is there anything making them weird/different?
        They most certainly exist! Gun-spirits mainly are what distinguishes them. That and a tendency towards ornamentation.

10. Is there a divide between mundane/magical animals?
        Not really, some animals just do weird stuff. Others don't. Sometimes animals that don't do, do do weird stuff for reasons.

Gael Bertrand

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Art For Sky Whalers Of Jupiter!




The wonderful Bordercholly over on the Bastionland Discord made this beautiful piece of art for my Sky Whalers Of Jupiter! hack. If you haven't checked out their submission to the Bastionjam yet I'd highly recommend doing so.