The Ogdoad

VonCricket

There are nine levels of spells because there are nine levels of the cosmos: the earth, the seven archons of the heptomad, and the numinous realm of the fixed stars beyond. Thus there are nine and no more; nine are the circles of the concentric path, nine the initiations and nine the revelations.

To follow the ninefold path of the mystic is to open the soul to the influence of the divine again and again. As the mystic ascends towards the truth, the balance of their spirit and body will shift towards ever-closer alignment with their god; the spirit grows vast and the self diminishes.

As revelations are granted and the mystic ascends towards the truth, the the illusions cloaking their god will fall away; a new aspect will be revealed,

Below all revelations are those magics derived from the earth-bones, called cantrips or the Craft and so far removed from the divine source that they are more material than spirit. Workings of this most distant emanation belong to no aspect of deity, diffused as they are among the matter of the cosmos. We will concern ourselves no further with them.

 

NINE CONCENTRIC CIRCLES

The first circle is that of ANTHROPOS and the lay disciple - those who participate in the worship practices of a god but who have not yet been inducted into the mysteries. At this step alone the mystic might turn and walk away to walk a new path - they have had no true knowledge revealed, and thus they are free from its bindings.

The second circle is that of ECCLESIA and the initiated member, who has been shown what lies beyond the publicly-seen aspect of their god. From this point on there is no going back - the mystic might leave the path and abandon their pursuit of revelation, but they are bound to their god forever.

The third circle is that of LOGOS and it resembles the second. They may be called deacons, for they are not full priests yet. They will instruct and guide initiates of the first two circles, as well as lead worship ceremonies, but they cannot officiate advancement initiations on their own. Deacons make up the bulk of the cult's leadership and its connections with the outside.

The fourth circle is that of ZOE and the teacher and priest. A community of the faithful might only have one or two mystics of this circle, and it is their duty to sustain and guide the community as a whole, as well as officiating all advancements within the community.

The fifth revelation is that of NOUS and marks a turning point, where the mystic has no further need of the faith community - all that came before now seems quaint and parochial, a thing that brought joy in one's youth but no longer satisfies. Entry to this circle has no guide, no rite - it is invoked by the god themself. From this point on, the influence of the god is now the greater part of the spirit; the electrochemical reaction of the self will begin to fade.

Still, those of the fifth circle might still be sought out by those of the outer rings looking for aid along the path, and the mystic is not so far along as to be deaf to these pleas. Thus the fifth circle is that of the sage.

The sixth revelation is that ALETHIA and of the adept. Here the god's power is no longer so restrained that it might be guided by the mystic - the adept is swept along in the current of this power.

At the seventh revelation is that of BYTHOS and of the avatar. Here is the last circle where the human spirit might exist in union with its body.

At the eighth revelation is that of SIGE and of the vessel - the body strains under the weight of the numinous. This is the most dangerous circle, for if the mystic's body or spirit fails now the ninth shall never be reached and the accumulated divine spirit will be consumed by spirits of the world and metastasize into a new greater demon.

At the ninth and final revelation, which is that of the PLEUROMA, the mystic has achieved full unity of spirit with the divine. The will is subsumed, ego-death is achieved, the soul has returned to its source and all divisions have been healed. The mystic no longer exists except as a manifestation of their god: The shell of flesh and bone, having served long and well, is put aside. 

 

 

**

 

 This all came about as a building-upon of Emily Allen's mystic from back in Esoteric Enterprises, which remains a favorite framework of mine for clerics.

Another Green Box

Still on my Delta Green kick.

I honestly think green boxes are one of the best features in any ttrpg; they're an excuse to introduce fun toys, you can use them to deliver hooks, their contents can help solve problems and create new ones, you can fill them with clues and threads to investigate, you can turn them into miniature stories. They fit into basically any game system where "allied supply cache" would make sense, especially if the PCs are part of an organization / faction / community that can't rely on the support of a larger / official organization (militant unionists, revolutionaries, off-the-books operators, dungeon delvers, etc.) And most of all they embody my design ideal of "give players tools instead of numbers."

So yeah, green boxes are great. Here's the first one. Here's another one. 

Item 1

Katana and wakizashi in matching scabbards, 18th Century. Well-maintained.

Item 2

Pallet of 300 cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli.

Item 3

Half-painted Warhammer 40k army (kitbashed Thousand Daughters Chaos Sisters). Painting supplies. Model assembly tools. Notecard: "DO NOT TOUCH".

Item 4

Folding coffin tent x5

Item 5

Four kevlar vests, nametags read "Inky", "Pinky", "Blinkie" and "Fuckface."

Item 6

CRT television with VHS/DVD player. Shelf contains:

• Blade 2 (DVD) - Disc is scratched.
• "Lauren and Charlie Wedding 6/11/94" - Home movie of wedding ceremony. Groom drastically changes appearance five times during ceremony; no attendants, including bride, notice.
• The Ring (VHS) - Cassette label has been removed.
• "Navidson Tape.mov" (CD-R) - Fragment of student film adaptation of House of Leaves. 4 additional .mov files on disk, all corrupted.
• Unlabeled Tape (VHS) - Amateur sex tape. Camera is knocked to the floor and remains pointed at opened closet throughout. Indistinct figure can be seen regularly shifting position in the darkness.
• The Screaming Aboard the Alexis (DVD) - Shrinkwrapped, unopened.

Item 7

Complete Talmud (Schottenstein Aramaic/Hebrew-English edition)

Item 8

Tupperware contained filled with Lego minifigure heads. Red ∅ drawn on lid.

• Opening the container will induce the intrusive thought "I should eat these", with dramatically lowered inhibition.

Item 9

6 autoinjectors filled with cloudy blue fluid. Note: "One per six hours. Use w/ white worms only no good w/ red. Hurts like a bitch but you'll thank me later."

Item 10

12-terabyte solid-state hard drive inside a duct-taped plastic bag. Drive holds .csv file containing anonymized data of all instances of masturbation to orgasm by human beings worldwide since June 10th 1841. All entries include date & time, region, and subject matter tags. Several columns containing additional data have been corrupted. A pivot table has already been made for easy sorting.

Item 11

Reconstruction of Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yagyo tetrology; scrapbook collage and enthusiastic amateur watercolors. Includes numerous beings not included in the original work.

Item 12

Photograph of peacock spider (Maratus volans) perched on garden statue of Athena. Spider is the size of a small dog. Statue is painted period-appropriate colors.

Item 13

Heavily-annotated copy of The Atûmaic Mysteries: Antiquity to Today.

• Academic writing is clear and functional. Provides solid overview of the history, development, and major schools of Atûmaic thought. At multiple points in the book, the author states that certain topics should not be investigated or even explained for the safety of the reader.

Item 14

Federal tax returns for James D. W. Hudson-Golgorath of Schenectady, New York from 1958-1972.

Item 15

Hinged wooden box containing hand-knotted cord rosaries, an assortment of granola bars and fruit snacks, and eight prepared .357 speed-loaders. Note on interior lid: "Take what you need! - M.A."

Item 16

Bloodstained capirote robe with hood, blue. Pocket notebook, black. Notebook contains list of names, 19/25 crossed out. All names match with Klan rosters from western Kentucky and northern Alabama in 1971-1974.

• Wearing the robe will trigger an epileptic seizure accompanied by beatific vision of a young woman in a blue dress, crushing a serpent underfoot. "Wake up mijo; there's still work to do." From then on the wearer has mantled the spirit of EL MARTILLO (terror of the wicked, hero of the downtrodden, friend to all children.)

Item 17

Unsigned letter in Esperanto, addressed to Piotr, dated September 12th, 1925. Regards "observational anomalies in the paths of orbiting bodies", including claims of planets appearing in the incorrect orbits, moving at incorrect speeds, and the appearance and disappearance of multiple new planets. Additional information, including the observational data, is promised in a following letter.

Item 18

Fishtank filled with coffee grounds, kitchen refuse, and bulbous blue-white fungus. Paper taped to side: "I eat plastic! Yum yum yum!" Half-consumed He-Man action figure visible inside.

 

Item 19

Draft screenplays for the thirteenth through fifteenth mainline Star Wars films, written in Georgian. Recovered from abandoned homeless encampment in Cleveland, Ohio, 2009.

Item 20

3-hole binder containing detailed handwritten planetological survey of the TRAPPIST-1 system.

Item 21

Doctoral dissertation analyzing the "Skipping Stone to Heaven" UFO sighting (June 1997, Montana) and the short-lived New Stars Holiness Church that formed afterwards.

• New Stars Holiness Church - Pentecostal-derived new religious movement, 349 known members at highest count. Collapsed due to development of bitter rivalry between its founders, Mason Gore and Barry Heim. Gore suffered a psychotic break in 2002 and has repeatedly failed at resurrecting the church (current Facebook follower count: 6). Heim was last seen in 2019, recruiting door-to-door for a dietary tapeworm multi-level-markerting scheme, despite having been declared dead by opiate overdose in 2014.

Item 22

Annotated transcripts of episode 3 ("Welcome to Calamari") of actual-play podcast "Adventures in Aegaiana" stapled to printout of rambling conspiratorial blogpost and local news article about the arrest of member Jean Nichols for vandalism, public nudity, and aggravated assault.

• Cited conspiracy centers on esoteric mathematic symbolism and how it is used by miniature humanoid creatures creatures called "muGen" to manipulate humanity and prevent discovery of true mathematics.

Item 23

Cardboard take-out container filled with adhesive googly eyes.

Item 24

Nonstandard tarot deck; contains uneven mix of Queen of Swords, Devil, Tower, 7 Cups and 4 Wands from different decks. Additionally contains "The Temple", "The Summit", "Page of Roots" and "6 of Threes".

Item 25

Water filtration kit. Iodine tablets. Charcoal filters. Mason jar containing four severed index fingers suspended in urine, labeled "EMERGENCY USE ONLY".

• Fingers belong to pair of immortal protohuman sorcerer-priests. Snapping one in half will reduce all matter within 15 meters (dome) to radioactive ash, barring a three-meter exclusion zone at the point of detonation.

Item 26

2013 Toshiba laptop, operating system Linux Mint. Starts "Dogmeat Special" program on startup, which allows any computer program to be run on the machine regardless of age, origin or type to be run on the machine.

• Programs run through Dogmeat Special are sluggish and prone to crashes due to the age of the hardware and instability of the program. They are not installed on the laptop, and must be run from an external drive. Dogmeat Special itself cannot be copied or moved to other computers.

Item 27

Handheld Geiger counter. Plastic casing has been pried open and repaired with hot glue and duct tape. Laminated index cards attached to handle with twine provide instructions on how to take readings of atmospheric doroganon. No explanation of doroganon is provided, but it is repeatedly stated that levels above 4.5 are unfit for long-term human habitation.

Item 28

Take-out menu for Last Chance Supreme Chinese Buffet. Certain items have been underlined and numbered. "They changed the General Tso's - no good" has been penciled in the margin.

• Ordering marked items in specific orders for takeout will result in delivery of additional non-food items.

Item 29

Kuchisake-onna body pillow. Reverse side wears no mask.

Item 30

Nine composition notebooks containing grammars, lexicons, writing systems and teaching for five constructed languages (Olxheyu, Saram-Shuram, Jaji, Dhaatageiz, Balyang) All demonstrate noteworthy skill in their construction and presentation but are otherwise mundane.

Item 31

Contract of sale for immortal soul of reactionary conservative podcaster. Purchaser's signature is smudged and faded, and cannot be read.

• Contract remains legally binding even when re-signed. Degradation of the document prevents exercise of full control over the subject, but significant influence can still be wielded. Advertisements on the Spotify music streaming platform cannot be reduced or canceled, as per Clause 5.

Item 32

Conversational Diné bizaad (Navajo) learning course on cassette.

Item 33

Shoebox of goodbye letters, photographs of pets; assorted coins, small stones, pressed flowers, blackout poetry.

Item 34

HAM radio set. Microphone cord has been cut. Actively transmitting looping message: heavily-distorted male voice reads out names of each M, K and G class star within 150 light years of Earth, with each name followed by sequence of SOS distress signals in assorted encodings.

Item 35

Wooden saint's icon of elephant, painted in classical Ethiopian Tewahedo orthodox style.

• Intruders into a room where the icon is hung will be removed from the premises; injuries are consistent with being kicked, gored, or picked up and thrown by an elephant.

The Black Book of Tsan-Chan

The Black Book of Tsan-Chan (literal title An Account of the Throne of the Kingdom of Heaven, For the Edification of the Pious Low-Castes, typically abridged to ATKH) has, even by the standards of black books pertaining to the Secret History, a damnably strange path to publication. In an age when one can find a translation of the Kitab al-Layl at the local Barnes and Noble and new translations of Unspeakable Cults is featured on NPR, the ATKH remains obscure among its fellow tomes, despite the novelty of its history.

We begin with the earliest manuscript, which is the last chronologically and has not yet been written. It will be a king's list of the rulers of Tsan-Chan, accompanied by some sermons and parables. The simple mythic narrative is typical for the genre: the rising of the dragon Tulu from the sea, the Age of Tribulation, the arrival of the Anointed Emperor, the unification of the Tsan and Chan, and further deeds of the royal line across its first seven dynasties.

The primary text is written in Vulgar Tsani at a very simple reading level, accompanied by large, colorful illustrations. The back sections and margins are filled with commentary written in Imperial Standard Tsani, offering direction to any priests who might be using the book as part of their ministries, as well as some practical advice for traveling through the outer provinces.

The Account's author will be an anonymous clerk of the great imperial bureaucracy, writing during the placid period at the end of the 7th Dynasty just before the turmoil that marks the transition to the 8th. We know nothing else: the short colophon at the end self-identifies only as "This Most Humble Servant of the Emperor", with the only other detail of note being that the author sprained their wrist while writing, and apologizes for the poor handwriting in the back third. No copies of this text exist, and none will for some three millennia and change.

The version of the book that we know comes from the polymath sorcerer-scholar Ghyanggal, a diplomat to both the Deep Ones and the Serpentmen during the 12th Dynasty (~6140 CE), some 300 years after the ATKH was originally published. To the great fortune of occultists everywhere, Ghyanggal was one of the minds pulled through time by the Yithians, and had been imbued with perfect recall as part of his state training. He spent some seventeen decades in Pnaktous copying out everything he had ever read in his life up to that point. (see The Man Who Invented Occultism (Bernard, 1971) and A New Stylus, Damn It! (Sevarini, 2014) for more information on Ghyanggal and his time in the Library)

From here we split off into three lineages, all based on the Pnakotic Text: the Akkadian Script, the Modern Manuscript, and the Doggerland Manuscript. As befitting the ATKH, their publication and discovery dates are consequential.

The Akkadian Manuscript, initially written by a priest in the service of Naram-Sin, was a problem from the beginning. The priest's memories of his time in the Pnakotic Library were fragmentary, the tablets were recovered in poor condition and lacking much connective text, and the translation into English in the 1890s was nothing short of butchery. It is an incoherent garble of nightmare visions, pseudo-prophecy, terrifying monsters and very large airquotes occult knowledge. Over a third of the text was written by the English translator, and less than 15% is actually shared with the ATKH. Crowley loved it, the bastard, and it is more well-known in pop-occultism than either of the other manuscripts, a fact that never ceases to cause scholars of secret history to grind their molars to dust in frustration. There is nothing redeeming about this version (if it even classifies as a translation of the ATKH), save for an interlude (thankfully not cut by the translator) wherein the priest affectionately describes some of the cats he cares for at the temple.

The Modern Manuscript is the simplest, most accurate, and least-read of the three manuscripts - an English translation of Ghyanggal's work, which had been recovered with the rest of the Pnakotic Corpus in 1935. Several additional translations have been made since, but the simplicity of the core narrative is such that it has remained mostly unchanged. The lack of popularity is likely in large part to the format: half of the text is a picture-book, and the other half is a dry theological treatise of a religion practiced by no one. While interesting to specialists, the general public will certainly look elsewhere.

The Doggerland Manuscript was, despite being written first chronologically, discovered last; found inside a repurposed mi-go brain cylinder recovered from the bottom of the North Sea in 1963. As a translation it is both accurate and beautiful - clearly the work of a skilled author and orator - but it is most noteworthy for being written in Yithian, Aklo, and Gnopkeh - thus providing an enormous overnight advancement in scholars' ability to translate previously-indecipherable works of the sorcerer-kings of Simmargh. Complicating matters is its adoption by white supremacists into the "Hyperborean Cycle" (a collection of mostly-unrelated and often entirely fraudulent) texts credited to an ancient human civilization claimed to be the inheritors of the Great Old Ones.) Given the contents of the text, it is believed by an increasing number of yithian scholars (that is, human scholars who study yithians) that we have entered a self-fulfilled causal loop, wherein awareness of the empire of Tsan-Chan and dissemination of its theology among American Christo-nationalists will eventually give rise to the conditions that create the book. However, as the causality of yith-connected epochs appear to have some level of variable determinism (See The Library of Stone Mirrors (Bergere 2011), The Fractal Key (al-Safi, 1996) and The Irrelevant Ages (Brown, 2018) for further information), some amount of threat-mitigation is still believed to be possible (See The Best of All Possible Futures (Talabi, 2020) for an overview of such efforts).

Cultic activity based on the ATKH (outside of the aforementioned New Age and Hyperborean cults) is minor. Tsani religious practices have proven remarkably difficult to translate to the modern age - simultaneously demanding too much for the casual spiritualist and offering too little for the malignant narcissist. Even within those communities where it has grabbed a foothold the book itself (or any of the recovered Tsani texts) is less important by far than the idea of it, or ideas spun off from it.

No rituals described in the ATKH contain any anomalous properties - likely intentional on the part of the Empire, so as to remove any potential tools of rebellion.

All-Purpose Green Box

For the first time in ages, this post is about something I actually use in games. When running anything where "box full of incredibly weird shit" is appropriate, I tend to have a list of incredibly weird shit to put in boxes. Since (much, but not all) of this list is pulled from session notes many (but not all) of the items are ripped straight from something else, because stealing ideas reduces cognitive workload at the table, and can also trigger an "oh fuck no" reaction in players who understand the reference (they rarely ever do).

Item 1

Unloaded shotgun with a half-empty box of shells. The stock is covered in Love Live! stickers, over which someone has written SHIT TASTE in permanent marker.

Item 2

Silver canister (1' tall, 8" diameter), with a series of USB ports arranged in an inverted triangle on the side. Cold to the touch. Vibrates faintly.

• The canister contains the preserved and still very-much-alive brain of a Yale professor last seen in September 1937. Long-term sensory deprivation has caused severe deterioration of mental state. Has the social attitudes one would expect, if he is mentally coherent enough to have them. Can interface with technology built by [XENOENTITY M-3] and possesses first-hand experience of interactions with [XENOENTITY M-3]. Interface with terragen computers, while possible, is both difficult and  not recommended.

Item 3

Enormous leatherbound codex. Black cover, with a red-orange circle in the center. Interior pages filled with dense, beautiful calligraphy in an unidentified script. Illuminated illustrations of fantastic locales and the inhabitants therein.

• Propagandistic autobiographical narrative of far-future tyrant. Fragmentary, hand-written translation notes found within. Long-term exposure will open up possessor / reader to contact with [TRANSTEMPORAL ENTITIES].

Item 4

Glass fishbowl containing a sea slug (species Nembrotha kubaryana) and a small silver hand bell.

• Slug is capable of mental communication, possesses persona of penny-dreadful Victorian explorer-gentleman. Seems unaware or only partially aware of surroundings and of its own status. Hand bell, when rung, will summon nondescript (though well-dressed) human male of middle age who will fulfill tasks requested of him, whatever they might be, so long as they are within the physical capabilities of an ordinary human being.

 

Item 5

There is no Item 5.

• Object 5 self-deletes from the memory of any individual that comes into contact, direct, visual, or remote, with Object 5.
  

Item 6

Long knife made from a human thigh bone. Handle wrapped in red parachute cord.

• If used to kill a willing individual, the next use will be instantaneously fatal regardless of the scope of the injury.

Item 7

Sheaf of yellowing paper (108 pages) held together with binding clip. Typewritten record. Redacted names accompanied by alphanumeric code.

• Roster of known [HIGH ENTROPY ENTITIES], the powers they possess and offer, places of contact, and known contractees. Composed ~forty years ago by no-longer-extant government entity, entries may be inaccurate.

Item 8

Finger-length glass vial containing golden liquid. Labeled "analeptic".

• When mixed with brain tissue, permits the eaters to inherit the memories and experiences of the recently deceased.

Item 9

VHS tape. Handwritten label reads "DO NOT VIEW". Underneath, "THE FAT LADY SINGS" is written in Mandarin.

• Heavily-degraded footage of a room, dimly lit by a flickering fluorescent light. Cracked concrete wall covered in graffiti. A pile of corpses sits fills much of the frame. A cardboard sign sits on a wooden chair, displaying an RCA test pattern and the text PLEASE STAND BY. Occasional humming and heavy footsteps can be heard from offscreen. No apparent end to footage.

Item 10

Crayon drawing of a cow in a field. Three stick figures are laying in the field. The cow is covered in red.

• Drawing an individual personally known to the artist in the field will cause individual to be trampled to death and subsequently eaten by a cow, regardless of their actual proximity to any bovines. Target must be drawn in crayon, may not overlap with another figure, and the artist must intend that they be trampled and eaten by a cow.

Item 11

Dented green ammo container. Label in Brazilian Portuguese. Interior is empty, but severely damaged by gouges and apparent claw-marks.

• No anomalous properties.

Item 12

Nokia cell phone, black. Plastic casing has been exposed to high temperatures but otherwise intact. Battery has been removed.

• Pressing call button will generate static and indistinct voices. Call ends after 10-15 seconds. Further anomalous properties unknown.

Item 13

Manilla envelope containing Binding of Isaac GameBoy Advance cartridge. FOR EVAN is written on the front.

• Game functions as expected, is a non-anomalous piece of impossible media. Edges of envelope will flatten to monomolecular cutting edge when the envelope is empty (it will return to its ordinary state so long as there is an object inside, regardless of the object).

Item 14

Thumb-sized fetus (blue, horned) suspending in red-purple-black organic slurry.

• Drinking the mixture (do not chew) will generate an instance of [HIGH ENTROPY ENTITY B-2] upon death. Generated [HIGH ENTROPY ENTITY] will possess partial continuity of consciousness, inheriting some memories and personality traits. Manner of death is irrelevant.  

Item 15

Skull of adult human male. The word DENNIS has been carved into the forehead.

• Putting a coin in the skull's mouth will generate a bullet of random commercially-available caliber in the user's pocket, with a 5% chance of being accompanied by a functional hand grenade.

Item 16

Kindle e-reader pre-loaded with an Updated English Translation copy of the Kitab al-Layl. Screen is cracked but device is otherwise fully operational.

• Possesses no supernatural traits on its own, but is the most widely-read book of occultism in the world and thus provides a certain amount of shared conceptual language.

Item 17

Oil painting: "Still Life of Meat". (framed)

• Anomalous properties unknown.

Item 18

Severed human hand (right). Skin is cracked, bright red, and flakes off when disturbed.

• Fingers catch fire when held by a liar, a cheat, a thief, or a coward. Invisible entities within its light are revealed, while the wielder is rendered invisible (the light will remain visible). The fingers will occasionally be seen to grip at things that are not there.

Item 19

Engraved lead tube wrapped in copper wire and affixed to wooden rifle stock. Generates a hum, heat, and vibrates when trigger is pulled.

• Any targeted living matter will spontaneously begin developing tumors, which will grow in size and severity the longer the target remains within the beam. Extended use will cause barrel to grow increasingly hot, eventually deforming it into uselessness.

Item 20

Series of 6 mason jars containing cuttlefish preserved in formaldehyde. Will turn to face observers. Regularly shift tentacle positions.

• Tentacle positions can be decoded into an English cipher. Default state is a repeating hymn to Tulu, of whom they are a collective priest. They will respond to humans who attempt to communicate through the cipher.

30 Regions of the Underworld

 

@urbex_34

There's no true mapping the Underworld. It is a place unstuck in spatial flux, endless in its depths and its variety.

1. Delvers' - The last homely house, the last call before hell.
2. Access Tunnels - Bare concrete, dim flickering lights, exit signs in the distance, stairs leading down. The creak of old pipes, the scurrying of rats, a dark shape turning a corner in the distance.
3. Sightless Passage - A steep, blind meander. Stones engraved with thousands of eyes that cannot see. Tokens left in piles in crooks in the walls; offerings. You must find the path with your fingers alone.
4. Filth Nest - Pools of refuse, corroding pipes, streams of shit trickling down and down. Mold, mushrooms, hot air. Beware open flames. The stink lingers on your clothes.
5. Devil's Knot - The stone is dark red, veined with oilsmear-black. Coiling passages loop back on themselves like fractal intestines. Something is down here, watching in the darkness over your shoulder.
6. The Gates - The first barrier. Great doors of celestial bronze, egraved with the names and deeds of angels.
7. Forest of Flowers - Pale blue-white blossoms glow in the ghostlight. Olms long as your arm sit placidly in their pools. Off in the distance you can hear birds like tinny woodwinds.
8. Boneway - Skeletons crushed down to yellowing grit beneath long kiloyears of travellers. A shallow descent, easy on the knees. Cracks in the walls lead out, elsewhere.
9. Eel Hollow - Narrow, slippery ledges curl around the rims of deep blue pools, filled with the pale writhing swarms of blind lampreys.
10. Scab-downs - Slopes and scree of gravel and cracked stone, rough and jagged, skin-tearing. Bottomless blue pools, perfectly circular and ice cold at the nadirs between these hills.
11. God-King's Road - Red stone, vast paving blocks, toppled statues. Knotted vines and white flowers push up through cracks in the work, slowly reclaiming it for the underworld.
12. Dreaming City - A cthonic leviathan rests here and a city was built in its dreams. It will wake eventually, but not for an age or two.
13. Lower Passage - Slower, but safer.
14. Goblin Market - There are no goblins here, not of the kind you'd imagine. But anyone can be a goblin if they're off just enough, and plenty folk are more than a little off down here. They meet at the market, wherever the market may meet,
15. Inverted Garden - High above, you can see the carefully tended groves and ponds at the feet of the ziggurats. Creatures you can't make out swing through the branches in reverse, brachiating over the abyss that eventually leads to you.
16. Narrow Gap - There is no room to breathe.
17. Empty Throne - Names carved in its base in unrecognized letters. Great galleries caked in dust, cracked and faded murals of bulls and serpents.
18. Cinder Path - Dry heat, like a blast furnace. Charcoal and ash fill the air with each plodding step.
19. City of Devils - You look to be struggling down here. Care to sign a contract?
20. The Pit - A smooth-sided borehole, wide enough that you can barely make out the other side and deep enough that you swear there's no bottom at all.
21. Sea of Towers - Stone-blue waves crash against the stone. Pillars lean under the blows of ages, many have collapsed into rubble.
22. Queen's Descent - Broad, flat steps, fit for a sedan chair
23. Deep Cathedral - Best not stay long here. Who knows what gods were praised in this church of the living stone.
24. The Slough - Stagnant black water up to your knees, crippled trees stretching for the light of false suns. The runoff of some distant hell you've yet to breach.
25. House of Hungry Doors - "In my father's house there are many doors, leading ever inward."
26. The Spiral - You already know how this goes.
27. The Black Needle - The metal obstruction must be miles long, and its torn through the caverns like a bullet. Perhaps it is. And if it is, what brought it all the way down here?
28. The Great Machine - clic tic tic clic tic tic clic tic tic clic tic tic
29. The Throat - Nearly there. One more pass.
30. The Shore of the Abyss - Black sand, black water, grey mist, off into forever.
31. The Heart in the Dark - I hear it beating, beating, just out of sight.

The Learned Elder Presents...

 

 Click for big. I am very proud of that Elder I drew.

So while puttering around online I discovered that the speculative evolution crowd does a thing called Spectember (one of those theme months everyone seems to have), and that got me thinking and thinking turned to doing and then a fugue state happened and I made this Pepe Silvia type monstrosity in draw.io.

Annotating this entire thing would take ages more than I can give to it, so I will run through the highlights in a convenient bulleted list.

• The Great Shoggoth Rebellion was not limited to Earth - the liberated shoggoths uploaded a self-replicating protein chain that would break Elder neural conditioning to the empire-wide hyperspace network before destroying the entire relay system. The only surviving Elder worlds are those where they were able to quash the rebellion, did not have shoggoths, or those that remained in space.
• The Martian Elders killed their shoggoths before they were overthrown, but this hastened the collapse of the early Martian biosphere and took long-term climate engineering off the table entirely.
• The Empire of Bones and Flesh are the post-mortal descendants of the synapisid peoples, who were able to escape into space.
• In this timeline, Neanderthals are the primary species of modern human. H. sapiens (or here fatuus, "the fool") are savants with tools and communication, but at the downside of having brains that can comprehends just enough sorcery to make themselves and everything around them explode. This is why the Mi-go are interested in them.
• The Red Martians were descendants of surplus abductees the mi-go traded to the Master Martians.
• Entities in circles are outside influences.
  
• You already know who Annatar and Curumo are.
• Goblins are listed twice, intentionally. This is actually an error, as there should be more.
• All hail DOG GOD.
• The Cenozoic was a fallow period for intelligence, as the residual shoggoth metamaterial in the environment reached record lows after the KT extinction, which meant it was much harder for neural complexity to emerge until the Trees of Life and Neoshoggoths developed.
• The Shades are literal dinosaur ghosts.
• For further information on True Clowns, please see the following documentary.
• The glyphs at the bottom read THERE IS NO RETURN TO MONKE, ONLY ONWARDS TOWARDS CRAB.
  

Minimalism

Julian Faylona

Right then.

You are high as a fucking kite off of amphetamines and flying down the highway at 125 miles per hour. There's a severed head in the trunk and it's screaming and chanting in proto-Uralic and you tried killing yourself an hour ago and three bullets to the head later you are feeling god damn fine.

The Players

• The Driver - High on amphetamines. Loaded revolver, minus three bullets
• Passenger's Seat - Bullet wound to the abdomen. Bleeding has slowed, replaced with amber colored pus.
• Back Seat 1 - Hurriedly typing on a laptop with a cracked screen.
• Back Seat 2 - Loading teeth into something not entirely unlike a lobster.

The Destination
Some godforsaken hut in the middle of godforsaken nowhere. Something there can help you.

The Car
God this fucking thing is going to fall apart. You've pushed it too hard. The collision didn't help.

The Music
Gojira's Mouth of Kala.

Behind You
Lights in the sky. Blue-white, pulsing.

 

TLN knows what's up

Playing around with Kult's Tarot Rules

I've never played Kult, but someone on Discord (I cannot remember whom) linked to their document about using tarot to build scenarios.

So I did that. Imagine it's for Esoteric Enterprises. It uses Kult's custom tarot deck but with a bit of finagling I was able to make a normal deck of cards work (man i really need to get a good tarot deck)

A forewarning - this got real fuckin' dark when I did it, so I expect others will have similar experiences if they try it out. 

(Wow this one has been delayed)

Individual

1. Characteristic - Forgetfullness; they are elderly, and their memory is beginning to fail them.
   
2. Past - Love; they were a devoted spouse for over forty years.
   
3. Ambition - Lust; they have built an idealized image of their beloved in their head, and grief plus the loss of memory has created something new and not altogether healthy.
   
4. Weakness - They are violently opposed by the cult.
   
5. Strength - They are unflappable, calm, charismatic.
   

Location

1. Type - An abandoned orphanage, aligned with dread powers.
   
2. Past - Repetition; the drudgery and everyday horror of those who lived here.
   
3. Trait - A stairway down, down, down...
   
4. Weakness - Old TVs are everywhere; corroded VHS tapes contain mind-numbing subliminals, with overexposure slowly blocking off higher brain functions.
   
5. Exceptional Aspect - Gangs of orphans would fight each other for the favor of the staff.
   

Cult

1. Power / Ambition - A return to untamed wilderness. Not even that technological civilization is to dismantled, but that higher thought itself must be eliminated.
   
2. History - They started as backwoods pilgrims; cast-offs from the meatgrinder of city life and the modern age, looking for some way to escape.
   
3. Goal - Pure, thoughtless philosophy; the enlightenment of the zoanthropic man.
   
4. Weakness - They have their own enemies in the hall of civic power. No friends of yours, but they have gotten on the scent all the same.
   
5. Resource - Cruelty; the orphanage was sponsored by the cult's wealthier members, a testing ground of sorts.
   

Plot

1. Power - Scandal; a cult member of some public prominence is revealed, accused of abuses at the orphanage.
   
2. Cause - Croudfunding campaign to pay for the victim's legal fees.
   
3. Next Move - Wait & see; both the cult and the victim's supporters are waiting for the trial and its verdict before acting. This might still be swept under the rug, or it might still boil over.
   
4. Opposition - Those who want to hide the cult's abuses and normalize its existence publicly.
   
5. Support - An online community has sprung up to find and support more abuse victims.
   

Creature

1. Origin - Torment; formed from the compressed suffering of the orphanage, crawling up out of the darkness of those interminable stairs.
2. Who Knows? - The first leaks began in the local punk scene - rumors spread by one of the bands, whose lead knows a victim who has not yet come forward. Curious (and often intoxicated) minds have gone out exploring, come back with more rumors.
   
3. Drive - To fulfill and spread its purpose; to put the fear of God in people, to perpetuate the cycle that created it.
   
4. Weakness - It is hunted, on the run, ragged, desperate. We know not what chases it.
   
5. Strength - It changes the environment and people around it, gradually shifting them more and more like the place it called home and the victims it first preyed upon.
   

Artifact 

1. Origin - An ancient cipher.
   
2. Who looks for it? - A hacker trying to break it.
   
3. Danger of use - Susceptibility to law - authorities are aware of this document. There is a watchlist, they will hunt people down.
   
4. Primary Power - Fragments, remnants, leftovers; the detrital wisdom of its composer.
   
5. Secondary Power - Allure; it drives people to try and solve it.
   

Compiling The Pieces

The NPC was the founder of the Cult in its early years, but after creating the Cipher (which accelerated the memory loss they would have experienced normally) they fell away from it into obscurity. 

The Cult, as it develops its dogma and spreads its influence, comes into ownership of the Orphanage, which is uses as a testing bed for its experiments into zoanthropy. The abuses by the Cult give rise to the Creature, which escapes into the wild after the Orphanage is abandoned by the Cult.

Some time later, victims of the Orphanage start accusing members of the Cult. The lead-up to the first major trial is currently ongoing. The Creature has been spotted outside of town, wounded (It has been hunted by the NPC, though they do not know precisely why they are so obsessed with killing it). The Cipher has fallen into hands outside the cult and someone you know is working on breaking it, hopefully before the authorities swoop in and make the whole thing disappear.

Well, I think this worked out pretty well.

Delvers'

 

Othman Sahbi

There's a password you have to learn, a taboo that lives in your brain. It slips out of your head and off your tongue like a ball of static. The door at the bottom of the stairwell opens, welcoming you in. You're known by Delver's now, try to make a good first impression.

 

First Impression

The grotty beating heart of the City's occult underworld. The last call before hell, the last homely house, a nest of exposed pipes and graffiti-caked concrete, filled with the haze of demon liquor smoke. It's formed of three tiers, like an inverted ziggurat or a miniature Alighierian hell. The concrete walls are covered in mismatched doors and layers of graffiti. The bar's down at the center of the bottom level, as are the tables. You emerge on the upper ring.

 

These Facts Are Always True:

• Delvers is (mostly) neutral territory. No feds, no fascists. The Musketeers will handle any disputes that come up.
• The mismatched doors in the walls and floor of the bottom level lead deeper into the Underworld.
• Anyone coming up from a successful delve gets first round on the house.
• Private rooms, item storage, and long-term coffin apartments are available for rent.
• Basic goods are always available for purchase.
  
• Management has the final word. No exceptions.

There are other entries to the Underworld that you know of, but Delvers' is the largest and most stable within reasonable distance - this means that it is very well traveled, so you will be trading secrecy for safety and will lose direct access to more obscure Underworld locales.

Delvers' uses the die drop system by Hex Culture's "Home Again, Home Again". Every time the players visit Delvers', roll  4-6-6-8-10-10-12. If you roll a number higher than the NPCs listed, no one in that category shows up during that visit.

 

When You Arrive, the Place Is... (d10)

1. Dead empty
2. A few people
3. A few people
   
4. Ordinary crowd
5. Ordinary crowd (special event)
   
6. Ordinary crowd
   
7. Packed
8. Packed (special event)
   
9. Standing room only
   

 

The Management

The Door is always present. Roll d6 every visit: 1: Baba + Door | 2: Mabel + Door | 3: Baba + Mabel + Door | 4-6: Door only.

• "Baba Ghanoush" - An older gentleman in a finely-fitted grey suit. Speaks with the sort of quiet, polite directness reserved for mob bosses and the sorts of bishops who have connections on the outside. He is genuinely entertained by the nickname.
  
• Mabel - 85 years old and sharp as a freshly-whet knife. Nothing gets past her.
• The Sealed Door - Dandelion yellow bands of "POLICE LINE: DO NOT CROSS" cover rusting metal. A hand-painted sign is taped below the painted-over glass: "MNGMT."
  

 

The Three Musketeers

They are not actually musketeers. They have an arrangement, details unknown, with the Management. They keep the order in Delvers'.

• Athos - You almost don't notice the statue. It's something like a man, heavily stylized, out of proportion. An enormous tafl piece. A heavy brow, prominent nose, big angular beard and mustache. The details, the links in its chain shirt and the calluses on its palms are nearly smoothed away with age. In those rare moments when it moves, it does so in a terrifying blur, crawling on all fours like an infant.
  
• Porthos - You can hear a slithering sound under your feet, like someone dragging something heavy and wet against the concrete. A door opens up and a long red arm, the knobbled fingers forming a sock-puppet's mouth, rises like a periscope. Someone, at some point, affixed a pair of googly eyes to this extremity. The other limbs, encased in similar spiny exoskeletal plates, do not bear such amusing adornment.
  
• Aramis - A woman in a wheelchair, old enough to have a bit of grey at the temples and a face weathered by time. A colorful blanket covers her legs, and a ball python lies draped over her shoulders. An ancient level-action rifle rests in her lap. She's easy to talk to, will remember your name, always willing to chat about her activism (environmental causes and native land rights) or her three children (all grown, now). There's a red ring on her finger, she turns it with her thumb while talking.
  

Behind the Bar

Roll 2d6 every time you enter to see who's working. Doubles mean someone called off and there's only the one.

1. Mjoll - Doesn't talk much. Dark skin. Eyes like honey. Left arm is prosthetic up to the shoulder, left leg up to the knee. Combat veteran. Quick on the draw.
   
2. Herschel - A charming man with heavy burn scars, will always have time to chat about his husband and kids.
   
3. Lucy - A broad, brawny, friendly woman who has gone a bit soft around the middle. If you didn't know better (and honestly, you probably don't), you would swear most of her family tree are neanderthals.
   
4. Duncan - Always has a sort of deer-in-headlights look about him, especially around the stranger guests. Fell into this all by mistake and can't really find a way out.
   
5. Red-Hed - Stocky. Wears a big spherical red helmet. Voice modulator.
6. "Barkeep" - A fat tabby tomcat.
   

Merchants (d4)

1. Hoshino - Cheery fellow, always has sunglasses and a cigarette. Burn scars on his hands. Always shows up with his overhauled vending machines ready to dispense anything from tampons to bullets. Sells ammunition and basic supplies at a discount, as well as specialist goods (ie, non-weapons tagged "expensive")
   
2. Papa Clink - Wide-waisted, barrel-chested, booming of voice. Bullet casings braided into a bushy black beard that obscures most of his face. Sells weapons at a discount
   
3. Bri, Cartographer - They always seems to be wearing too much clothing for the weather. Eyes alone can be seen between hat and scarf. Sells maps of underworld nodes. Buys survey data of new areas.
   
4. Pillbox - Naturally jittery and scatterbrained. Been sober for 15 years now. Has a sort of neon-goth thing going on, but it's mostly for advertisement. Sells 1d6 different drugs every time they visit. Buys any drugs they're not selling.
   

Specialists 1 (d6)

1. Pen & Tam - Friendly couple from the surface who pop down every so often for a drink. Don't have any special powers, but Pen knows all about rare and magical books and how to get in touch with Book Club, and Tam can identify magical items.
   
2. Julian Tull, cryptozoologist - Has a sort of Steve Irwin energy, if Steve Irwin was significantly worse at his job and was on social media too much. Pays for tips, more for photos and video, and even more for live specimens.
   
3. The Apostate - A renegade from the Pure World Armory. Clean-shaven, tall, muscular, like a marble statue or propaganda poster come to life. Has devoted himself to the Gun Gods of An-Hehm. Deliberate and slow in his speech to make up for his uncertainty in social situations. Has access to special Armory weapons and armor as well as specialist ammunition.
   
4. Mamadou the Mask Salesman - He always puts you in mind of a spider, and you can't shake the idea. Sells magical masks. Will offer 4-6 different masks every time he visits.
   

 

Specialists 2 (d6)

1. Fisk - A "procurement specialist" for "human resources". Wears smoked glasses. Constantly eating sunflower seeds, spitting the shells into a mason jar he keeps at his table. The pacing of his speech is off; syllables are drawn out or cut short with no pattern or reason.
2. Karina - Fruit merchant. Lazy eye, heterochromatic, intensely focused on something else beyond the walls of the room. Sells alien wares from far down below.
3. Thimble Slim - A small, thin, pimply man with a tattered graphic tee ten years out of relevance and a terrible comb-over. No one likes him, and no one can seem to get rid of him. A fence for stolen goods and drugs.  
4. Satchel Buck - A short, portly man who wears bright, poorly matched clothing. Proprietor of an Underworld speed dating service called the Lonely Souls Club, whose virtues he will detail at length to anyone showing even slight curiosity.

 

Doctors (d8)

1. Tokamak - A bald man with an enormous white walrus mustache. His tweed coat is frayed at the collar and wrists. He has a pet, something he calls a "dream-eater". Something akin to a cross between a hyena and a small bear. It too is bald, though it does not have a mustache. A man of science, strange as those sciences may be, and very well educated in them. Not actually a doctor
   
2. Melliferous Synapse, Fleshcrafter Novice - Offers grafting services. Human parts, animal parts, monster parts, so long as it's mostly fresh. They look radically different every time they appear, and are more easily identified
   
3. Stitches - A pale, lanky teenage girl, limp cigarette dangling from her lip. Apathetic and emotionally inscrutable. Immensely skilled, but doesn't care much for aesthetics - you'll live, but you won't be winning any pageants.
   
4. Nanoa - An elderly sage of the cult of Lu. Skin painted with delicate whorls of white, blue, green, gold. Knows of cult safehouses within the Underground, and may induct new members.
   

 

Occultists (d10)

1. Anbara, Book Club Witch - Cultist of Aza-Thoth and professional pornographer. Will offer to trade a grimoire from her collection for one of yours, or maybe even gift you a new book. Knows the way to the Stygian Library.
   
2. Mr. Deveroux - A pallid man in a yellowing and sweat-stained seersucker suit. Flies, cicadas, cockroaches all seem attracted to him. His face doesn't work right - all his expressions seem to be on a delay from what he's actually saying. Will teach you the infernal arts, given the right payment in souls.
   
3. Amelia, Necromancer - Five feet tall on the dot, enormous glasses, enormous smile, and a propensity for dissection knives. She is a proper priestess of the dead, though she only breaks out her schema habit for special occasions. Offers Speak With Dead, funeral services, minor exorcisms, and the occasional zombification.
   
4. The Blackthorns - A trio of witches - grandmother, mother, daughter. The latter two are dead, the first jumps her soul between their bodies. Folks don't like talking about it. She's a good person, though, worse people to go to for help than Maggie Blackthorn. Offers minor enchantments, spell identification, potions and tinctures, and advice.
   

 

Strangers (d12)

Strangers will not appear in Delvers' without first being encountered in the Underworld. Some of them can serve as replacement PCs.

1. Ayo - Enormous red-skinned woman with black hair and horns. Loves eating, boozing, fighting and fucking.Always has some demon liqour on hand, always looking for something new to eat or fight.
   
2. Cruel Tai - A positively mummified-looking man, hooked up to life support. The kind of person that everyone wants to hurry up and die, but who outright refuses to go. He has a chest with seven locks on it, each of a different material. The keys are long lost, down below. Each one will unlock a different gift. Bring him a key and an offering, and he will let you open a lock.
   
3. "Alice" - A young woman with white hair and dark circles around pale grey eyes that always seem to be looking through and past you. Wears a dark blue shawl stitched with silver sigils. There is a thick, knotted scar in a ring around her neck. She smells strongly of potent magics
   
4. FRIEND Terminal - A converted arcade cabinet. The old branding has been painted over with "FRIENDs in High PlaceS". Stick a quarter in and a smiley face will blip on the screen, and maybe offer you a job.
   
5. Mr. Tamam - A weathered man in a long duster jacket. Enormous brown sideburns, arms tattooed with gemmatria. Postmaster of the underground. His services are reliable and affordable. He may call upon you to make a delivery.
   
6. Dogmeat - Lanky woman wearing a rubber rottweiler mask. Long, tangled, dirty blonde hair. Torn jeans. Black t-shirt with the save point symbol from Silent Hill 3. Blood-stained baseball bat always within reach. Connections with Lighthouse.
   
7. Doubtless-You-See-the-Connections - A der0 that can manage to interact with the greater world with a reasonable chance of success. Looks like an emaciated suffocation-blue macrocephalic infant. Encyclopedic knowledge of thousands of conspiracies, real and imagined, and a mostly reliable guide in the Underworld. 
8. Jon Tatterdemalion - A handsome man in a beautiful, travel-worm cloak. If given a magical item, he will exchange it for another or teach the giver a spell. He is guileful, haughty, gossipy, terribly intelligent, easy to flatter and difficult to fool. He seeks to find Irem the City of Pillars deep in the Underworld, and to avoid his ex-wife.
9. The Lamplighter - A militant cultist of Lantern Boy, utterly devoted to destroying the Lamplighters' enemies and tracking down their missing messiah. Scarily single-minded.
   
10. The Titan - A huge glass tank filled with murky yellow clouds. Two attendants in spacesuits, visors down, are present at all times, and will speak on its behalf. It is content to observe, but if you were to gain its interested attention it might teach you secrets of
    
11. Apotheamniot - A creature like long-lost austrolopithicus; its head replaced with a bubble of amniotic fluid and the embryo of a failed apotheosis.
    
12. The Man in the Hot, Dark Room - A new door has appeared. Your presence has been specifically requested.
    

CHASE THE BLACK RABBIT

Own work.

****

WANTED

By order of the λ Serpentis Colonial Protectorate

Anticitizen terrorist cell "BLACK RABBIT COMPANY"

For crimes as follows:

• Self-theft and violation of indenture contract
• Affiliation with seditionist Peoples' Liberation Army
• Murder of Protectorate peacekeepers
• Assassination of a Protectorate district director
• Kidnapping of Protectorate party members
• Further acts of violence against state-sanctioned corporate entities
• Theft and desecration of state property including piracy
• Possession and distribution of seditious materials and memetics
• Possession and distribution of banned cultural materials
• Smuggling across district borders
• Attack of Border Stability Enforcement migrant unperson detainment facility.
• Aiding and abetting transfer of unpersons across district borders
• Possession of fissile materials
• Copyright violation

REWARD 1.5 mCr per head deceased, 3 mCr alive

****

A while back on twitter, I mentioned that I was working on an adventure for Mothership called CHASE THE BLACK RABBIT, starring SCP-2085. While it (like everything else) is on a bit of slowdown, and I am wondering if it's even going to end up as Mothership, but the premade characters are done so why not share them? Good way to keep my own interest in something going.

Several of the items and modules come from my prior new equipment post. To better reflect the fact that they are combat cyborgs, I rolled 8d10 for the catgirls' stats and rounded to the nearest 5 for simplicity's sake. I tried to keep everything else within normal Mothership rules, but there are a few fudgings here and there.

The end goal is to provide a series of short scenarios that can be strung together in any amount - the more you do, the more fun toys you have for the final mission (stealing a spaceship, naturally), but the higher the odds are of a Protectorate kill team dropping in to complicate matters. But that's for later. For now...

Let the Voice of Love Take You Higher...

You are the Black Rabbit Company: a quintet of (radical anarchist) cyborg catgirls plus one guy in a spacesuit (with a silly hat). 

You were grown in a lab (and then broke out). You were meant to be trophy pieces for corporate oligarchs (fuck that). Those responsible are either dead or scattered to the solar winds (you did that).

Wizard has horrific space cancer (which might be an embryonic horrific space god). He's holding out okay.

A cage has been made of the world, and you are going to fight tooth and nail until you can break above the clouds and breathe free under the stars.

λ Serpentis d VII (LS-D7)

Gravity - 0.78 G

Climate - Warm; dry, with intermittent rainy seasons

Atmosphere - Breathable

Orbit - Stanford torii (6). Bernal sphere (1). Surface-orbit transit via space elevator (2) and skyhook (4). FTL interdiction network in place.

A rocky moon of a temperate, midsize gas giant. Smaller than Earth, though the tidal forces of its parent and the sibling moons keep the core sufficiently active to maintain an atmosphere. Was terraformed via seedship centuries before the first human colonists arrived - the atmosphere is maintained at human-comfortable composition and density by automated aerostat array. Life has been successfully introduced to the oceans, but soil composition has remained a major barrier to the introduction of a terrestrial biosphere - the only major successes have been a variant of the dragon blood tree (Dracaena cinnabari) and some xeric shrubs and grasses.

The Colonial Protectorate originally had a time limit - it was supposed to transition to a more open government after a predetermined level of self-sustainability was met. That date has come and gone and the Overseer Board has refused to disband, justifying their decision with claims that the initial requirements were inadequate and the new ones have not been met. They have since used the colony's security force and corporate partners to enforce increasingly draconian controls on the populace. Resistance efforts have boiled over into open and organized conflict after a massacre of protestors.

It's not your home, but you've allied yourself with the People's Liberation Army all the same. 

The Black Rabbits (Plus Wizard)

 

BOSS

Commander


Callsign: KUSANAGI


Patch: "HYPERION 144M"


Trinket: Engraved bottle opener: "Cat Herder"


Psychological Profile: Ignore 1 Panic roll per session at the cost of gaining 5 stress.

Aptitude Scores: 
[45 / 45 / 40 / 55] 
[30 / 35 / 30 / 35]


Skillset


• Command +20%
• Firearms +15%
• CQC +15%
• Athletics +10%
• Tactics +10%


Installed Cyberware

• OGRE
 (Heads up display & video recorder)
• Cyberbrain (Data storage, slicksocket, terminal jack)
  
• Molly Module (2d10, bleed on crit)
  


Installed Slickware

• TACNET (Encrypted comm network)

Equipment


• Pulse Rifle (5d10)
• Revolver (3d10)

• Standard Battle Dress (+10% Armor)
• Antique (Functional) Cavalry Saber (4d5)
  
• Combat Knife (2d10) 

Character Traits

• Big sister of the group.
  
• Practical & professional. Aura of command.
  
• True believer in the cause. Started this whole thing.
  
• Keeps the Company running smoothly.
• Not called "The Major" for no reason.

MOMOKO

Combat Specialist


Callsign: ICHIBAN


Patch: "BIG GUN"


Trinket: Pin-up poster (self)


Psychological Profile: Can reduce group Stress by 1d5 during downtime

Aptitude Scores: 
[60 (70) / 45 / 30 / 50]
 [25 / 30 / 35 / 40]


Skillset

• Firearms +20%

• CQC +15%
• Linguistics +15%

• 0-G +10%

• Rimwise +10%
  


Installed Cyberware

• OGRE
 (Heads up display & video recorder)
• Cyberbrain
 (Data storage, slicksocket, terminal jack)
• Molly Module
 (2d10, bleed on crit)
• Spinal Rig (+10 Strength)

Installed Slickware


• TACNET


 (Encrypted comm network)
  

Equipment


• Handcannon (As shotgun, one handed)

• Riot Shield (+10% armor, +20% with wall)

• Standard Battle Dress (+10% Armor)
• TrashKid (Cyber-vandalism + graffitti tagger)
  

Character Traits

• Resident big cheerful meathead.
• Not nearly as dumb as she appears.
  
• Having the time of her life.
• Sings the body electric.
• Here to provide comic relief and additional violence.
• Guns! She loves guns.
• Absolutely no shame.
  

HANA

Field Medic
 + Demolitions

Callsign: MINNIE-MAE

Patch: Icon of Kannon


Trinket: Tin of herbal teas


Psychological Profile: [-] to Fear saves made while alone or with 1 companion. [+] on Fear saves with 2+ companions.

Aptitude Scores: 
[40 / 45 / 45 / 40] 
[35 / 30 / 30 / 35]


Skillset

• Firearms +10%

• CQC +10%

• First Aid +20%

• Driving +15%

• Explosives +15%


Installed Cyberware

• OGRE
 (Heads up display & video recorder)
• Cyberbrain

• Molly Module
 (2d10, bleed on crit)

Installed Slickware


• TACNET


 (Encrypted comm network)
• Babelfish (Translation software)
  

Equipment


• SMG (4d10)

• Revolver (3d10)

• Standard Battle Dress (+10% Armor) 
• Medkit x 3
• Adrenaline syringe x 3
• Grenade (real) x2
  
• Grenade (fake) x2
• Plastic explosive brick x1

Character Traits

• The closest to 'normal'.
• Slow to violence, generally mild.
  
• The conscience of the Company.
  
• Best able to interact with people on the outside.
• Often underestimated
• Can be a real firecracker if she gets riled up.
  

NANAMI

Tech Specialist


Callsign: TSARMINA


Patch: "LENIN TAKE THE WHEEL"


Trinket: Pamphlet: “Breathing Exercises and Anger Management”


Psychological Profile: 
[+] to Combat rolls for remainder of encounter after succeeding on a Panic roll.

Aptitude Scores: [40 / 45 / 55 / 40] [25 / 40 / 35 / 30]


Skillset

• Firearms +10%

• Computers +15%

• Hacking +20%

• Slickwise +15%
• Cybernetics +10%


Installed Cyberware


• OGRE
 (Heads up display & video recorder)
• Cyberbrain (Data storage, slicksocket, terminal jack)
• Molly Module
 (2d10, bleed on crit)

Installed Slickware


• TACNET


 (Encrypted comm network)
• Machine Code (Speak with AI. SAN save: 1 stress / hour on success, 1/min on fail)
  

Equipment

• SMG (4d10)

• Revolver (3d10)
• Brickboy (Dongle that fries hardware on trigger)
  
• Snatcher (Copies databank, deletes original, 1d10 rounds)
  
• Node Detector (Detects all nodes in 50m)
  
• "HOLY DIVER CUSTOM" deck (5 slots)
• born2dieWorldIsaFuck.exe 
• (H-Type Siren-Somatic Cognitohazard) Save vs violent, painful diarrhea.
  
• russian_national_anthem_intensifies.exe
• (A-Type Basilisk/Siren-Psyche Cognitohazard) Save vs episode of sudden, intense loyalty to a very loose interpretation of the Soviet Union. Effected androids will be beset by bad accents, call everyone comrade, and immediately ally themselves with anyone who can spin what they're doing as 'for the glory of communism'.
  
• Ripper 2 (Brute force password cracker, 3d10 rounds)
  
• Icebreaker (1 use - Converts Secure Node into Unsecure)
  
• Partition Program (1 use - permits testing of suspicious software in safe environment)
  

Character Traits

• Fucking pissed.
• God damn she is angry.
• Doesn't have the emotional maturity to channel that anger constructively
• Propensity for silly costumes and putting on a character. Current favorite "The Commissar".
  
• Shitposter supreme
  
• Would like the rest of the world to fuck off forever and leave her alone.
• Maybe live up in a castle on top of a mountain, playing the organ menacingly.
• Kept from complete self-destruction by the others.
  

 

TOMI

Sniper-Scout


Callsign: RIZA


Patch: Bullet ringed by laurel crown


Trinket: Trashy, incredibly gay historical romance novel

Psychological Profile: Lose 1d5 Stress if you succeed at a Sanity save.

Aptitude Scores: [35 / 40 / 40 / 45] [40 / 40 / 25 / 25]


Skillset


• Weapon Specialization (Sniper Rifle) +20%

• Weapon Specialization (Revolver) +15%, 2 attacks / turn

• Athletics +10%
• Mechanical Repair +10%

• Psychology +15%


Installed Cyberware


• OGRE
 (Heads up display & video recorder)
• Cyberbrain (Data storage, slicksocket, terminal jack)
• Molly Module (2d10, bleed on crit)

Installed Slickware


• TACNET 


(Encrypted comm network)

Equipment


• Revolver x2 (3d10)

• Smart Rifle (1d10)

• Cuttlefish Cloak (Adaptive color and texture)
  
• Splintermask (Obfuscates camera recordings, stresses androids)
  

Character Traits

• Monotone drawl.
  
• Sleeps all the time.
• Odious personal habits.
• Cold and aloof.
• Avoids emotional vulnerability, even with the others.
• Likes getting under people's skin for kicks.

 

WIZARD 

Space Wizard / Mascot


Callsign: WHISKEY


Patch: "よ 魔法使い!" ("Yo, Mahoutsukai!")


Trinket: Damaged multitool


Psychological Profile: reroll effect on the Panic table once per session

Aptitude Scores: [25 / 30 / 40 / 20] [30 / 35 / 25 / 30]


Skillset

• 0-G +10%
• Piloting +10%
• Scavenging +15%

• Jury-Rigging +15%

• Science (Player choice) or Rimwise +20%


Installed Cyberware

• 
Extensive medical apparatus containing METASTATIC ANOMALY 001.

Equipment


• Civilian revolver (3d10)
• Pain Pills x6
  
• TACNET headset (Encrypted comm network)

Character Traits

• Had a normal life once; doesn't ever talk about it. Likely not great.
  
• Got swept up in all this by a chance encounter.
• Is here because he can't sit around and do nothing.
  
• Fully devoted to the Space Wizard persona.
• Sees self as symbol for heroism in the face of a terrible world.
  
• Dying of space cancer. Time left, uncertain.

Red

There is a knotted bundle of carbon fibers buried in Wizard's spine, burrowing its way into his organs. It is kept at bay through an elaborate, slapdash, series of implants.

This is Red. It is alive, it is alien, and it hates. It is a thing of ancient despair. It's the antithesis to life. It's an anti-spiral in a tumor.

So long as the implants hold, Red is impotent - trapped lurking in the background of wizard's mind and only pushing through to the surface in times of crisis. When Wizard critically fails a panic check OR rolls doubles on a Panic Table result, he cannot use his reroll. Instead of the listed effect, Red is able to temporarily overpower Wizard. This will immediately trigger a Fear or instinct save on all parties present and deal half of Wizard's current health as damage to him. One of these seizure episodes will last for 2d5 turns before Red is brought back under control.

Nun Better

A food truck and your current base of operations. There is a cheerful cartoon nun painted on the side, holding a plate of tamales. One of you has added an eyepatch and "Jesus says Fuck the police" to her apron.

You have a hoard of ordinary equipment and ammunition within Nun Better, as well as some leftover condiments.You could conceivably attach a mounted weapon to it somewhere. You've added some reinforcement to the insides and souped up the engine, but it's not a tank or anything. Sr. Maria Margarita Chao has not let you down yet.

****

And there we go. Absolute, unrepentant goofiness. Also something of a sequel to the other post about radical anarchist catgirls, because I am nothing if not dedicated to a bit.