Expanded Pantheon Generator

The Manse has a really good pantheon generator. I'm adding some modifications.

One of the primary changes is the idea of Moiety. Gods can either be Hot (active, chaotic, expansive, passionate) or Cold (passive, orderly, controlled, introspective). You can only have viable godly offspring between gods of different moieties (I mean, it's possible to get double hot and double cold, but that's where you get legendary monsters) - the god's typical physical representation has nothing to do with it.

Honestly, this should probably be called the Big Old Divine Clusterfuck Generator.

Where Did They Come From? (d8)

1. Born of primordial being, usurped it.
2. Born of corpse of primordial being.
3. Crawled out of chaotic nothingness.
4. Did not form, have always been there.
5. Nobody knows, nobody really cares.
6. Some fanciful and clearly false story.
7. Some fanciful and very true story.
8. Existence unproven, only surmised.

The Godhead (d8)

Who is at the center of the pantheon?

1. Monadic - A single being or force from which all others spawn. Both Hot and Cold.
2. Duality - Two complimentary and/or rival beings 1 Hot, 1 Cold.
3. Tripartite - Three equal beings (or trinitarian aspects). 1 Hot, 1 Cold, 1 Both or 3 Both.
4. Quartet - Two pairs of Hot and Cold
5. Five Powers - Either 2 Hot + 2 Cold + 1 Both or 5 Both
6. The Hextet - Three pairs of Hot and Cold 
7. Absent - The throne is empty. Begin with the 1st Generation
   
8. Distributed - There is no central authority. Begin with the 1st Generation + 1d3 gods.
   

For the 1st generation of gods, roll 1d6+2 for each pairing. You can do this once and split them between the entire godhead, or once for each pairing among them.

For the 2nd generation, roll 1d3-1 for each pairing

For the 3rd generation, roll 1d2 -1 for each pairing.

The 4th generation, should you choose to go that far, cannot have offspring. This is because they are celestial Hapsbrugs if you are playing with high Hellenistic ick, and it's indicative of a major cultural shift if you are playing without Hellenistic ick.

If you would like to avoid Hellenistic ick in your pantheon, choose one (or more as needed) member of pairings that got  and declare them to be an Old God (that is, one of the gods from the culture that was here before the current main culture.)

If you want to get real extreme, start over with a new godhead and pantheon once you hit the stopping point. Gods have a base 40% of getting killed off, increasing if...

• Their moiety is weak (+10%)
• They are of third or fourth generation (+10%)
  
• Their domain is culturally or politically specific.(+10%)
• They are part of the godhead (+30%)
• Draw 3 tarot - these aspects (upright or reversed) are considered unfavorable by the new culture (+10%)

Those that survive will be renamed and married into the new pantheon.

Typical Representation (d8)

Gods being gods, gender is more of a vague suggestion wafted in their general direction.

1. Male
2. Male
3. Female
4. Female
5. Androgynous
6. Both: Male and female portrayals.
7. Both: Male and female features.
8. Nonhumanoid

Moiety (d6)

Strong-embodiment gods will, as a rule, be more active and widely worshiped than weak-aspect gods.

1. Hot (Strong)
2. Hot (Weak)
3. Cold (Strong)
4. Cold (Weak)
5. Both (Strong)
6. Both (Weak)

Primary Relationship (d12)

This is where everything becomes an actual, ridiculous mess. What you want to do is...

• Pair off all compatible gods
• Roll for each relationship
• Adjust if you get rolls that entail additional parties
• For additional parties, number compatible gods and roll accordingly.
• Single gods may have 1 offspring via divine mitosis.

I am so terribly sorry for the shitshow that is going to be unleashed.

1. One-Time Fling: -1 offspring
2. Good terms with ex: Normal offspring
3. Passionate Lovers: +1 offspring
4. Bitter Rivals: -1 offspring
5. Slept Around: Offspring split between 2d3 compatible partners (round down if lovers > offspring)
6. Open: +1d3 gods join, + 2 offspring split between compatible pairings.
7. Married (Dedicated): Normal offspring roll.
8. Married (Unhappy party): -1 offspring, 1d4 bastards by other god(s)
9. Married (Mutual Beards): Both get normal offspring rolls with other compatible gods.
10. Mentor / Apprentice: Secret romance. Normal offspring roll.
11. All by design: Single designer offspring
12. Asexual: 0 offspring, 50% of romantic partner.
13. Same result twice in a row: Taboo - must be with god of same moiety. -1 offspring. Produces monsters.

Divine Domains (Tarot Draw + 1d4)

Alternate domains 1: Roll on the Manse table and use the tarot card for flavor

Alternate domains 2: Choose 1 from each category.

Upright	Reversed
0. Fool
1. Travel	1. Fools
2. Messages	2. Transitions
3. Youth	3. The Trickster
4. Discovery	4. The Stranger
I. Magician
1. Knowledge	1. Hubris
2. Invention	2. Dark Arts
3. Magic	3. Gateways
4. Inspiration	4. Science / Alchemy
II. High Priestess
1. Witchcraft	1. Cats
2. The Old Gods	2. Autumn
3. Mystics	3. Poetry
4. Memory	4. Truth
III. Empress
1. Motherhood	1. Beauty
2. Fertility	2. Harvest
3. Abundance	3. The Hearth
4. The Earth	4. Diplomacy
IV. Emperor
1. Kings	1. Tyranny
2. Authority	2. Warfare
3. Fatherhood	3. Cities
4. Law	4. The Nobility
V. Heirophant
1. Guilds	1. Government Office
2. Tradition	2. Tax Collectors
3. Ritual Magic	3. Charity
4. Sacrifice	4. Priests
VI. Lovers
1. Love	1. Lust
2.Sex	2. Music
3. Fertility	3. The Arts
4. Marriage	4. Spring
VII. Chariot
1. Horses	1. Warfare (Mounted)
2. The Hunt	2. Sloth
3. Transportation	3. Lost Things
4. Roads	4. Sailors
VIII. Strength
1. Protection	1. Soldiers
2. Athletes	2.War
3. Self-Improvement	3.Glory
4. Forge	4. Weaponry
IX. Hermit
1. Silence	1. Healing
2. Reflection	2. Winter
3. The Inner Life	3. Isolation
4. Books	4. Hedge Magic
X. Wheel of Fortune
1. Chance	1. The Seasons
2. Good Fortune	2. Bad Fortune
3. Divination	3. The Marketplace
4. Debt	4. The Inevitable
XI. Justice
1. Justice	1. Injustice
2. Law	2. Poverty
3. Peace	3. Nightwatchmen
4. Hospitality	4. Lawyers
XII. Hanged Man
1. Criminals	1. Fear
2. Law	2. Thieves
3. Repentance	3. Commoners
4. Imprisonment	4. Freedom
XIII. Death
1. Death (Incarnate)	1. Murder
2. Death (Psychopomp)	2. Grief
3. The Underworld	3. Loss
4. Funeral Rites	4. Disease
XIV. Temperance
1. Balance	1. Wealth
2. Virtue	2. Gluttony
3. Rationality	3. Alcohol
4. Old Age	4. Self-destruction
XV. Devil
1. Demons	1. Enslavement
2. Corruption	2. Dark Arts
3. Addiction	3. Destruction
4. Heresy	4. Sin
XVI. Tower
1. Chaos	1. Destruction
2. Change	2. Disaster
3. Craft	3. The Ancients
4. The Sky	4. Construction
XVII. Star
1. The Stars	1. The Unknown
2. Time	2. Distant Lands
3. Hope	3. Pestilence
4. Imagination	4. Omens
XVIII. Moon
1. The Moon	1. Madness
2. Secrets	2. Blood
3. Magic	3. Monsters
4. The Night	4. Dreams
XIX. Sun
1. The Sun	1. Blindness
2. Light	2. Drought
3. Fire	3. The Day
4. The Forge	4. Summer
XX. Judgment
1. Justice	1. Punishment
2. Repentance	2. Assumption
3. Forgiveness	3. Ignorance
4. Law	4. Guilt / Shame
XXI. World
1. The World (In totality)	1. Animals
2. Nature	2. Rebirth
3. The Ocean	3. Eternity
4. The Cosmos	4. Other Worlds

The Book of the Night

David Bourassa

The method and structure I'm using here are stolen wholesale from reddit user fxktn and ancepsinfans.

Furt helped me with the translations.

The Book of the Night

"Through my reason I know that I am mad, and all the world mad with me."

So begins the Kitab al-Layl of Abd-al-Hazra (d. 738), the seminal work of Umayyad occultism. The work of the self-described "mad Arab" has been subject to over a millennium of religious and secular censure, shoddy translation, misinformation, additions and moral panics.

While the Kitab al-Layl contains notable treatises on alchemy, medicine, and astronomy, what has remained the work's defining characteristic are the sections named as "Conversations with a Learned Elder", in which al-Hazra engages in a lengthy dialogue with an unnamed individual regarding the nature of the universe and the powers that sustain it.

In the Conversations, al-Hazra divides the universe into three primary aspects: the purely physical, the purely spiritual, and the transitory territory between. This third category he posits as the most potent, consisting of the fundamental aspects and powers that govern the other two.

The al-Hazran universe is modeled as a dodecohedron. Each face of the polygon represents a different power, and maps to those powers which are considered opposites, and those which are more liable to overlap. The powers are further divided into "hot/feminine" and "cold/masculine" groupings, though al-Hazra notes that this is his own invention and the Learned Elder is dismissive of this structure.

al-Hazran admits that other powers might indeed exist outside of his schema and that none of the powers he details are sharply separated from the others, but thus far his design remains the most popular structure for organizing the Outer Powers.

Notable translations and editions of the Kitab al-Layl are as follows:

• Original manuscript - All known copies of the original manuscript have additions and edits by al-Hazra's students, including the excising of at least two chapters. The last of these (until new manuscripts were found in 2008) were lost in the sacking of Baghdad in 1258.
• 950 Greek translation -The first major translation. Several significant additions of Byzantine occult philosophy dilute the original content, but more accurate than many to follow.
• 1228 Latin translation - Despite its spread (it was the most-read pre-modern edition) it fell out of favor by the mid 17th century.
• 1597 Sussex Manuscript - Based upon the Latin. First English translation. Clunky and difficult to read due to overt literalism.
  
• ~1600 English translation - John Dee's unfinished English translation of the Latin. The fragments that exist indicate that it was mostly used as a vehicle for the aggrandizement of Dee's own beliefs and theories.
• 1938 Miskatonic University Press edition - The "Necronomicon" - a serviceable but heavily flawed (in some cases properly botched) translation of the Greek. Known for being quite flowery and dense compared to the often prosaic original (the "much discussed couplet" was purely a creation of the translator)
  
• 1967 Mass-market paperback - Fed by the American counterculture, this reprint of the MUP edition brought the works of al-Hazra out of academia and to the public.
• 1998 Updated English Translation - A revised and much more readable English translation, based on both Latin and Greek sources.
  
• 2010 Revised, Annotated, and Expanded International Edition - Based upon pristine copies of the original manuscript found in 2008. Held to be the most-accurate translation available by scholars and quite lively by readers.
• 2018 Living Text Edition - A public-domain, crowd-sourced translation project based on the 2010 edition. Seeks to translate the text into as many languages as possible, and with the greatest diversity of translator voices. Contains apocrypha and additional occult theories related to al-Hazra's work.
• ???? Pnakotic Library Text - A hypothetical version of the book compiled by intra-temporal scholars under Yithian patronage. If it exists, it would contain the full truth of the matter.
  

The Outer Powers

The names provided are a mix of Arabic and Greek, accompanied by a common English name. While the names used in the 1938 Miskatonic edition are widespread in common usage, they are fabrications of the translator and have no basis in any language.

1. Khaíno (Yawning Chaos, The Dark and Seething Fire)

That which is the untameable chaos from which the cosmos is formed and to which it is fed in destructive return.

It has only ever manifested in the form of a roiling cloud of superheated hydrogen, fusing into heavier elements and shrouded in mantles of dark matter. Sites where it has manifested remain permanently inculcated by radiation and prone to gravitational abnormality.

12. Bāb al-Lanhaya (The Gate of Infinity)

That which is the impassive, unchanging imposition of order. That which maintains the passage of days and the circuits of the heavenly bodies in their course.

1. The door was never meant to be there, that leads where it was never supposed to go.
2. A patch of time that runs too fast, too slow, backwards, upside-down.
3. Through the telescope it is clear that the outer planets are gone, replaced by alien worlds.
4. Quantum foam bubbles out of a gash in the air, containing within infinite refraction.
5. A star the size of an apple and the lifespan of a mouse, giving off all the radiation befitting its station.
6. The constellations dance, and then wink out one by one with the coming of dawn.
   

2. Najis (Decay)

That which is rot, sickness, corruption, the making-wrong of things, the fundamentally unclean and irredeemable.

1.  A lake of rotting slurry, enough to drown in. Ripples of something big out there in the distance.
2. The house of a hoarder, bigger on the inside. They haven't been seen in years. Dead? 
3. A parade of roadkill, with jugglers and clowns and an elephant for the Master of Ceremonies. 
4. You cannot scrub the smell out. It spreads to anything you touch.
5. A sudden and pervasive cloud of malaise descends, a fog of shit and rust.
6. The cow corpses spell out "The worms are waiting, but there is no hurry" in their spilled viscera.

11. Erêmos (The Desolate Place)

That which destroys utterly, which sterilizes, which excises, which ends and leaves nothing behind. The severing of continuity.

1.  A column of aurora-fire, rising up tall as a mountain. All the land around its base is stripped of life, rendered down to grey dust.
2. Flashes of bitter white light burst in the night sky. Those who see it will go blind by dawn.
3. A loving partner turns cold and distant, painful to the touch.
4. A man aflame, complaining of the cold as his skin blackens and his clothes turn to white ash.
5. Patches of oily sheen, slowly spreading, killing whatever cells pass through it.
6. An old building is torn down; the overnight replacement is minimalist and stark white and filled with plastic mannequins. No one can say who bought it.

3. al-Hayik (The Weaver)

That which weaves and spins, drawing all things together and moving without seeing. The loom of causality.

1.  A winning lottery ticket. You don't remember ever buying it, and the prizes keep arriving in unmarked parcels on the front step. You never asked for these. You do not want them. They keep appearing on the front step
2. Cobwebs thick as tapestries, displaying the potential horrors the viewer might commit.
3. Each room leads to more, deeper and deeper and never finding an exit. Footsteps thud from a few rooms away.
4. Rooms full of bloody bodies, each clutching to a severed rope and blunt scissors.
5. A loom strung with muscle fiber and sinew, halfway through clothing a skeleton.
6. The cobweb in the corner spells out, in nice neat letters, " SOME LONG PIG."

10. Khthónios (The Dark Beneath the Earth)

That which is sleeping, stagnant, slothful. The warm stillness of the primordial dark. Unmoving in its passivity, slinking down into dreamless, thoughtless night.

1. Hot black tar, a faint orange fire glowing in its depths, oozing through the cracks in the walls.
2. A hole in the basement's concrete floor, a tunnel leading down. 
3. A coma patient tattooed across the chest: "wake me up when everyone else is dead".
4. As dawn breaks, the earth shifts beneath your feet, vibrations in your bones, as if something is stirring awake.
5. A persistent fuzz in the mind, as if woken up from a dream. 
6. A room filled wall to wall to floor to ceiling with sleeping, naked forms.

4. Pankólpos (The All-Womb)

That which is generation, fecundity, birth. That which grows until the point of death. That which eats and kills and shits and fucks and changes.

1. A bloated black goat that gives birth to human infants.
2. A quivering mass of teats and vulvas, forever eating its newborns.
3. A gnarled black tree; ancient, monstrous. Bleeds sweet sap like milk. 
4. Tide pools full of amniotic fluid, forever restarting the dance of life and death.
5. Each corpse had a fetus within it. Most looked to have been killed by others trying to free their passengers.
6. An unlabeled VHS tape, containing a grainy nature documentary that devolves into hundreds of hours of increasing grotesquery.

9. al-Shamal (The Winter Wind)

That which is hunger, loss, lack, emptiness, abandoned. The bitter edge, the gnawing cold. The curse of want, the wasting away.

1. The sandstorm that never ceases, the blizzard that never wanes.
2. The form of a lone man on the desolate horizon. He turns to face you, and begins to run.
3. A debt collected in pounds of flesh. Not carved out, but starved out.
4. A pervasive smell of cold metal. Objects seem hyper-focused, their edges sharp and invisible, cutting. 
5. A broken sword, so sharp that it might flense the memories from the brain and the senses from their organs if one stands too close.
6. They found the widower frozen to death in the middle of a heat wave. No friends, no family, no one there but him.

5. Laímargos (The Glutton)

That which brings suffering, the knife whose point is cruelty. That which is agonies, ecstasies, self-destruction.

1. The implication of a hidden dungeon of depravity, just behind the wall or beneath the floor.
2. A fat, headless man sealed behind a damp brick wall, laughing to himself.
3. The chants at the rally slur and shift, descending to a hateful language not spoken for a hundred thousand years.
4. A gang of teens beat a homeless man to death. Tomorrow, they will kill him again.
5. A lash of thorns, dried blood on the fronds. It wriggles when it detects hidden and pleasurable guilts.
6. A mouth opens up in each palm, licking its lips and demanding to be fed broken taboos, making promises if obeyed.

8. al-Nihaya (The End)

That which is the threat to come. Far away now it sleeps and dreams, but it will come in time and reshape the world. A thing so great and vast that to comprehend even its pieces is to know it cannot be fought nor diverted.

1. Dreams of hovering in the endless blue of the open ocean, just below the surface. Far below, where the blue shifts to black, sinuous shapes impossibly large twist and writhe.
2. Mass-panics strike coastal cities; hallucinations of tidal waves and hurricanes.
3. An unpublished concerto: The Song of Abaia. Never performed; the composer drowned himself.
4. A school of cuttlefish arranges itself into displays of hypergeometric equations.
5. Misshapen whales beach themselves, cry out in human voices, die.
6. A form the blots out the stars, descending from above, descending from outside. 

6. Sah Weitn (Maker of Lies, The Bloody Tongue)

That which is disruption and lies. The dancer and the piper, the masked stranger. The face of chaos. The hand that guides towards undoing.

1. A tall, dark man of regal bearing and soft voice, who advises even the poorest of men as if they are kings.
2. A crooked old man with a twisted leg and broken, yellowed teeth. He'll give you guns and alcohol and sympathize with with your grievances and encourage you to do something about it.
3. A woman so monstrously obese that she smothers her consorts and breaks her servants' backs.
4. A shambling, leathery-skinned thing, its head a lashing wet red tendril, howling at the moon.
5.  The virus, once released, will pry out any electronic secret and spread it to those who will make the most use of it.
6. A winged black cat without a face, slinking ouit of the shadows to watch one's deepest despair.

It ought to be noted that this power is named in Coptic, the only such use of the language in the book.

7.  Al-Malik fi al'asfar (Xanthous King)

The distant throne which troubles the mind and disrupts its workings. That which corrupts word and thought and draws all things under its mantle until neither word nor thought may escape.

1.  A slim manuscript of a two-act play, no author known, appears in the library.
2. The cultural legacy and material culture of an empire that never existed.
3. The phone rings, the authorities are on their way, lie face first on the floor with your hands above your head. You do not recognize the name, you are certain it can't be real.
4. Invasive thoughts that cannot be shaken.
5. An ever-deepening hole of deep fakes responding to each other, branching off, growing wild.
6. Rats scrabble in the walls. The faded portrait of a beloved leader in his pallid mask. A curious pattern in the wallpaper.

Gods of Man, Great Powers, Blessings

Stephanie Chan

The gods are created by man. This is a plain truth of the world, acknowledged by all. Their nature is human, their domains are the domains of humanity, they are inextricably linked to the hopes/fears/longings/beings of man.

There is no god of the sea, but there are a thousand gods of sailors.  Domains overlap, shift, are endlessly subdivided and rejoined. Time wears on; the gods change as man changes, but man is also shaped by the gods.

The Church, in common parlance, refers to the casual confederacy of religious traditions among most gods, barring the Lords of Hell and some fringe deities who do not play nice with others. You are all brothers and sisters, after all - even if you hate their guts, they're still family.

The domains listed below are not exhaustive in the slightest. Major gods can be guaranteed have regional variants in name, appearance, and domain. The primary divine family listed consists on those most widely agreed upon - certain traditions extend the children of Ama and Baba beyond the agreed-upon six. They will be marked with a (*) on the table.

The Gods of Man

Ama Adimatha, Mother of Multitudes

• Mothers, wives, childbirth, fertility, protection, trickery

Baba Tubalkhan, All-Father

• Craft, labor, patience, wise council, protection, fair judgement

DOG, the Greatest Friend

• Loyalty, love, friendship, being a dog

Do-yo-da-no, the Twins

• Emesh Diyu - Herding, hunting, fishing, tobacco smoking
• Enten Daetgah - Farming, brewing, building, metallurgy

Nike, the Elder Sister

• Achievement, athletics, sport, competition, sportsmanship

Calliope, the Younger Sister

• Poetry, art, music, melodrama, theater, emotional highs and lows
  

The Stillborn

• Loss, grief, mourning, mortality, empathy to the suffering of others   

Quisest, the Strangeling

• The marginal, the stranger, the hidden, change, deviance

God	Domains
1) Abeona (*)	Exploration, travel, leaving and returning home
2) Ahuiateteo	Excess, pleasure, gluttony, drunkenness
3) Aisling (*)	Artists, dreams, inspiration, madness, imagination
4) Anachronia	Being too late or too early; out of place and time
5) Anansi	Storytelling trickster
6) Atzalini	Storytelling, friendship, hosts and cooks
7) Aza-Thoth	Libraries, secrets, hidden knowledge
8) Azad	Craftmaster of the Néandr
9) Baron Samedi	Graves, smoking, drinking, obscenity
10) Bluebeard	The killer you know, gory secrets
11) Bokka	Humility, acceptance
12) Bramblejohn	Paths untaken, places returning to nature
13) Brendan	Sailors, whalers
14) Browning & Colt	Firearms, gunpowder, explosives
15) Brukkit	Idiot bravery, the dunning-kruger effect
16) Caliban	Madness, eccentricity, rages, passions
17) Ceo-Coo-Exe	Investors, advertisers, marketers; Lord of Hell
18) Chain-Breaker	Emancipation
19) Cloacina	Sewer systems, hygiene
20) Coprolalia	Lies, libel, brags, smears, shit-talking
21) Crab-Crusher	Paleolithic food-gatherer; context forgotten
22) Crocana	Lazy afternoons; recreation, fishing
23) Cthon	Journeys into unknown places
24) Dada	Nonsense
25) Darvatius I	Conquest, empire, oppression; Lord of Hell
26) Dhurum	Endurance, laconism, straightforwardness
27) Dord	Density, stupidity, being slow on the uptake
28) Double-Tongue	Hypocrisy, liars, cheats, grifters
29) Dustfoot (*)	Poverty, rock bottom, beggars, hobos, cripples
30) Dyeuz	Tyrant-kings, rapists, abusive fathers
31) Ebonikil	Cross-cultural exchange (food and art)
32) Ekwensu	Bargains, trade, trickery
33) Ganesha	The placer and remover of obstacles
34) Gordianos	Puzzles, brute force solutions
35) Goth-Amok	Rebellion, catharsis, chaotic noise
36) Guanyin	Mercy, compassion
37) Hachiman	Agriculture, warfare; conscripted soldiers
38) Hain (*)	Rhetoric, logic, scholarship, natural science
39) Hammu-Amun (*)	Law, order, the written word, kings
40) Hastur	Shepherds, the Lake of Hali, the city Carcosa
41) Hestia	Hospitality, hearth and home
42) Hi'iaka	Golden Goddess of Pa'O Pa'O
43) Hotei	Gregariousness, good cheer, abundance
44) Indahonten	Teachers, mentors, bookmakers, writers
45) Jabim	Broken things, repaired things
46) Janus	Beginnings, doorways, endings
47) Kent	Mundane life, ordinary folk, small acts of kindness
48) Know-Nothing	Malignant ignorance
49) Limpang-Tung	Mirth, melodies, minstrels
50) Llaro	Drums, pipes, song-writers, bards
51) Lu Ban	Builders, carpenters, construction workers
52) Mammon	Greed, gold, coin, corruption; Lord of Hell
53) Mara	Attachment, passion
54) Maya Diogenes	Cynics, swordmasters, noodle-makers
55) Menhit	Mindless violence; "she who massacres"
56) Mithras	Mystery-cult
57) Mmou-Shaub	Slothfulness, restful sleep, patience
58) Moloch	'Who Rapes the World"; Great Lord of Hell
59) Mung	Death, silence, secret signs
60) Neirnnen	The socially inept and ostracized
61) Nodoun	Forgetting the needed; remembering the trivial
62) Oannes	Esoteric wisdom; kinship with Deep Folk
63) Old Jim Brook	Hard times, necessity and invention
64) Old Scratch	Corruption, temptation, cutting bad deals
65) Onan	Victims of disproportionate punishment
66) Orang-Utan	Ape-god
67) Oxomoco	Astronomy, calendars, study of the stars
68) Oxossi	Hunting, contemplation, meals, crafts
69) Pan-Pongo	Ape-god
70) Papa Legba	Crossroads, communication
71) Phobos & Deimos	Fear and terror
72) Pikanpe	Exuberance, free-spirits, excitement, expectation
73) Postmaster Fennic	Mail and the postal service
74) Pyrrhus Gradivus (*)	Soldiers, veterans, scars of mind and body
75) Pythagoras	Mathematics, triangles, sacred geometry
76) Red-Cap	Anarchy, tearing down the powerful
77) Rokesh	Swift and decisive victory, forward with speed
78) Sappho	Homosexual women
79) Shi Yang (*)	Pirates, sailors, prostitutes, fishermen, trade
80) Ta'xet & Tia	Violent death, peaceful death
81) Temazcalteci	Steam baths, doctors
82) Temu Schann	Secrets we cannot utter, dark places in the heart
83) The Forge Baron	Industry, enslavement; Lord of Hell
84) The Sable Maid	Protection of the weak
85) The Tolling, Ticitok	The measuring and loss of time
86) The Worm	War unending; Lord of Hell
87) Tlazolteotl	Filth and purification, usually sexual
88) Tūmatauenga	Hunting, fishing, cultivation, war, cooking
89) Turus	Prisoners of mind and body
90) Uastyrdzhi	Monster-slaying, traveling, oath-keeping
91) Vellamo	Fishermen of the lakes and rivers; water travel
92) Venn	Journalists, muckrackers, activists
93) Whiskey Jack	Bartenders, alcoholics
94) Xochipili	Homosexual men
95) Yama	Death, justice, moral ethics
96) Yhewen	Vengeance, war, jealousy
97) Zangobat	Necromancers, gravediggers, bonesetters
98) Zanni (*)	Fools, comedy truth, nostalgia, fernweh
99) Zorko	Ineffectual, comedic villainy
100) Zyre	OH GOD THE DRUGS

Great Powers Among the Folk

These are those whose names are known far and wide.

• Akerbeltz - The Black Billy Goat. Consorts with witches, gives questionable advice.
• Ao Akupara Zaratan - The Great Turtle, has lived in this form longer than anything else.
• Bast - Queen of All Cats
• Br'er Rabbit - Trickster in the East.
• Cernunnos - The Horned One, the Wild Man, the Big-Foot
• Coyote - Trickster in the West.
• The Four Goblin Kings - Masters of music and dance, missing now and foretold to return.
• The Four High Courts of the Álfar.
• La Fata Turchina - Blue-haired collector of puppets. Fascinated by the art of parentage.
• La Fée Verte - Intoxicating muse of wormwood and anise.
• Mab - The Midwife of Dreams. 
• The Mountain King - King of the Dwarves, host of the great Feasting Hall.
• Mundo - Magnificent Mundo, silky bastard!
• Orca - Lady Leviathan, Queen of the Northern Seas
• Pan - The Black Goat, bringer and embodiment of chaos and madness
• Pangur Bán - The White Cat, the lurker in libraries.
• Pele - Flying Fire, Queen of the Burning Mountain
• Raven - Trickster in the North, creator, thief of the sun, an old friend of Mother.
• Rainbow Serpent - Shaper of the world, bringer of the rains.

Blessings

Making an appropriate offering at the shrine of a god or fulfilling their rites will grant a bonus until sunset for rolls within their domain. For general OSR games, just use Bless. Use a Boon if it's Shadow of the Demon Lord.

Shrines can be found just about anywhere (dungeons will be loaded with them) and you could raise your own without much trouble (especially if you have a priest).

Clerical Relics

Fun fact: St. Anthony's chapel in Pittsburgh contains
the second largest collection of Catholic relics in the world.

The D&D cleric spell list is, as +Skerples  has pointed out, rooted in Sunday School miracles and Hammer horror movies. This is fine and good if you want to play as Peter Cushing (and let us be fair, that is hardly ever a bad thing), but it perhaps does not get you the most bang for your buck in the field of religious fun-times in your games.

Now, there won't be any new mechanics here, just a method to provide some extra flavor. As such, it should be compatible with whatever cleric variant you are using. (For alternate clerics, see  +Lungfungus' hierophant, +Skerples  generic cleric, or Logan Knight's mystic.) 

Sacraments

First level spells are sacraments. These are the rites and outward signs sacred to your god and the basic building block of the religion. DMs, this is the easy way to change the ground-level flavor of your clerics. Swap out spells, give them some kind of spiritual / symbolic purpose, backronym till your heart is content.  (A single sentence will get you by. Dark Souls away!)

Relics

Mechanically, relics are just scrolls and wands. (But don't tell the wizards that, they'll have a fit. There are three categories of relics, courtesy of the Catholic Church (providing quality gameable material since AD 325.)

First-Class Relics are the physical remains of a saint. Items of direct divine influence or origin would also fall under this category. 

Second-Class Relics are possessions and other objects notable within the saint's life or work. If they belonged to a central figure of the religion, they may classify as first-class.


Third-Class Relics are items touched to a first-class relic, and so have inherited some of the mojo through the commutative property of holiness. Game Usage: treat these as scrolls - a single cast, then it's all used. Note: the wording here might indicate that you could make thousands of third class relics with a single first-class. For game purposes I would say limit it to 1d4, unless you want the big mess.

Based on this, what is to follow is geared towards a pretty standard not-Catholic fantasy church, for the sake of making a baseline example. It's also what I'm more familiar with, so don't be beholden to it on my account - relic classes can easily be swapped out for whatever hierarchy or lack thereof you wish, they all cast the same.

Die-Drop Relic Generator

d4: What Kind of Relic Is it? 

1. First Class (see d12)
2. Second Class (see d10)
3. Third Class (see d8)
4. Fake (roll 2d6)
   

d6+1: What Level Spell Does it Hold?

• Roll on whatever spell table you happen to use for the spell in question.
• Optional: for second-class relics, only count 1-4. For first-class relics, only count 4-6.

d12: First-Class Relics

1. Blood
2. Bone
3. Skin
4. Flesh
5. Hair
6. Head
7. Limb
8. Organ 
9. Tongue
10. Eye
11. Other bodily fluids
12. Entire body

d10: Second-Class Relics

1. Walking stick
2. Book of psalms
3. Prayer beads
4. Sandals
5. Item associated with their trade
6. The means of their execution
7. Original manuscript of a theological treatise
8. Piece of artwork
9. Holy symbol
10. Mark of office

d8: Third-Class Relics

1. Piece of cloth
2. Jar of oil
3. Medallion
4. Holy symbol
5. Prayer card
6. Icon
7. Vial of holy water
8. Incense

d20: Who is This Relic From?

1. Minor, obscure saint
2. Companion to a martyr
3. Popular local saint
4. Warrior saint
5. National patron
6. Martyr
7. Foreign convert
8. Amalgamation of several historical individuals and local folklore
9. Noted scientist or artist
10. Developer of important doctrine
11. Spearheaded reform movement
12. Founder of notable religious order
13. Origin and deeds hidden by time
14. Famous debater of heterodox factions
15. Doctor of the church
16. Figure of legend
17. World-traveling missionary
18. Potent hierarch
19. Prophet
20. Angel or equivalent celestial being

d20 alternate version: Who is This Relic From?

1. Argrabahd, who would preach until he turned purple and passed out.
2. Lox, who could read a man's heart like a book.
3. Shejen, who was almost entirely unmartyable (not for lack of trying, mind).
4. Brother Coal, who ministered to the Russet Country miners for forty years.
5. Altook, who was cooked up in a stew and eaten by yetis.
6. Quen-Liu the Pirate Queen, who bought her canonization alongside amnesty from the government.
7. Elia, who decided that being a virgin martyr wasn't all it was cracked up to be and escaped her captors. Died at 104 after the birth of her fifth great-great-grandchild.
8. Percival Tuckett, who survived thirteen nights of goblin pranks in a failed attempt to convert the warren on Puckawanakee Hill.
9. Anne of Redrosen; gambler, cheat, patroness of the out-of luck. Had her fingers cut off for trying to con the House of Silver Dreaming.
10. Henry Parson, the first priest to come to Tin Jacobstown; chartered the first agreement with the Black Amazons.
11. [Redacted], who has been stripped from the record for posthumously-revealed crimes.
12. The Sable Maid of Orlei, who led the campaign against the Dukes of Hell, and challenged Darvatius himself before the walls of Dis.
13. Orichus Alm, tender of the Angelic Engine and wise teacher of technical theology.
14. Stossisan, who oversaw the building of the  Obsidian Cathedral on the slopes of Mt. Kathualo.
15. Hauteliwika, who lived on nothing but the morning mist and a single acorn a day.
16. Bogab the Ogre, who held the gates of Dunson shut against the invaders with one hand and blessed the soldiers' weapons with the other.
17. Iridalus, one of the rare wizard-converts and author of a masterful catalog of spirits.
18. Grey, who forsook his name and tended to the ghoul-lepers of Janashkut.
19. Kaeltophe, who is said to have fought off ten thousand demons with his enchanted spear, and ridden a gigantic bristleback boar.
20. Navima, who crossed a sea a neophyte, and returned from unknown lands wise beyond all telling.

I am an Idiot and Bought a Fake Relic, What Happens? (2d6)

1. Your knowing and unrepentent blasphemy has called down doom upon you. 
2. Horrific spell backfire! Gain 1d4 mutations.
3. Normal spell backfire. Gain a mutation.
4. You are blocked from intoning the gods for 24 hours
5. You are blocked from intoning the gods for 1d6 days.
6. Nothing happens. Save vs fear, as your faith has failed in time of need.
7. Nothing happens. A spell die is burnt / a spell slot is lost until tomorrow.
8. Nothing happens. There is a sense of relief.
9. Take 1d4 damage from the relic melting in your hands.
10. It works, but the spell's effects (duration, range, damage, etc) are halved.
11. It works, but casts a different spell of 1d4 levels lower.
12. Well what do you know? It was actually real.

Mother Stole Fire

 

Ama Adimatha, Mother of Multitudes

The gods of man number in the countless thousands, but Ama Adimatha stands honored above all of them. Go anywhere in the world, even to the top of Sky-Eater Mountain or the deepest pits of Hell, and you will find her.

She is the soft voice you heard in the womb, the gentle arms that held you close, the guiding hand of your first tottering steps. She is the shield against evil, the keeper of woman's secret wisdom, the source of love and bountiful life. She is strong as the pillars of the earth. She's a joker, a japester, a right-up prankster. Vast is her compassion, unbreakable is her spirit, clever is her tongue, and most terrible is her wrath.

She is our mother.

Here is a story of how she stole fire.

*****

Long ago, in the green and timeless days before the coming of the ice, there was a goddess of the ape-men named Clever Lu. She was always getting into trouble: playing pranks on the tribe chiefs, gossiping with songbirds, stealing fruit from the highest trees, racing the gazelles, dancing with the Folk come the rains. And she she got it in her head that she ought to steal the crown of fire from Hō-ō, King of the Heavens and Highest of the Dragon Lords.

Clever as she was, Lu could not match the guile and power of the king. Not just yet. She went forth into the world to find her greatest trick and had a great many adventures, some of which were even true.

She escaped the clutches of Pan-Pongo, savage god-chief of the ape-men, by getting him drunk on palm-wine and leaving him lost in the woods. She ventured into the halls of the star-nosed Mountain King and feasted there with the dwarves. She wrestled the great catfish Tija Gnood for four days and four nights, and then cooked him up for breakfast. She stole the words out of the mouth of Fantool the River Serpent and sold them back to him. She made friends of the Old Ones, made enemies of the Álfar, and started a war in the process. She belched out a song to impress the Great Goblin Queen. She beat Aran Stone-Brow in a game of riddles, and walked all the way to the edge of the world. She moved a mountain from Here to There Over the Horizon by chaining it to the sun with a braid of her hair, and so won a cloak of feathers from Raven.

When finally she came to climb the Crown of the World, she was no longer the nut-brown girl who had left the forest domain of Pan-Pongo; She was now a goddess grown, taught well by time and trial. By the magics of Raven's black cloak, she disguised herself as a saurian priestess come from the distant deserts to give homage to the Mesozoic King, and so gained entry to his milk white palace on the mountain peak.

She was brought before Hō-ō, who was as glorious as the setting sun. Clever Lu bowed before him, and presented her most honeyed words. The king was taken by her tribute and by the comeliness of her disguise, and so agreed when she offered to dance for him. This was her trap, for she wove a spell into her dance so that the king and all his court would fall into a deep and dreamless sleep, and so it was.

Grinning to herself, Clever Lu shed her disguise, shimmied up the throne, and stole the crown of fire right from Hō-ō's head. The great dragon snuffled in his sleep. She departed the throne room by tiptoe.

But dragons have potent magic of their own, and her spell of sleep quickly faded. Hō-ō awoke, and realizing that he had been tricked, roared up to the night sky:

"THIEF! THIEEEEEEEEEEEEF!"

He tore through the his chambers, following the scent of ape. The milk-white palace collapsed around him in his rage. Claws glistening, teeth alight with dragonsfire, thunderous wings outstretched, he bore down on the escaping Lu, chasing her to the very edge of the mountain peak.

She stood there upon the cliff, knee-deep in the snow, the burning crown in her hands, and realized that she had made a terrible mistake.

She offered to return the crown, to leave and never return, but Hō-ō, blinded by rage, ignored her pleas and tears. The King of the Heavens vowed to her that he and his kind, their children and all their children's children, would hunt the ape-men to the ends of the world, to slaughter them to the last. None would be spared. Their forests would be put to the torch, their plains made barren, their gods broken and cast aside. To the last mewling child Hō-ō would see them devoured. With a terrible howl he summoned the ranks of his dragons, and Lu watched in horror as they flew out from the Crown of the World.

There was a moment, where Lu thought of throwing herself from the mountain there, but despair melted in the blast furnace of newborn anger. They had threatened her people, her children... 

Her fury a-burning about her, Lu reached up a hand to the sky and grasped a star in her fist. With all her rage and love and hate and hope, she tore that iron star out of the sky, screaming...

"FUCK YOU!"

 ...and brought it down upon Hō-ō, his castle, his mountain, and all the world: the fist of an angry goddess.

Thus the world was broken and remade, and passed from dragons to man. The green and timeless days gave way to a white and frozen age. Continents and seas were shaped and re-shaped. The dragons and their children died. Mankind was born of the ape-men. The Folk warred among themselves.

Standing over the corpse of Hō-ō, Mother placed the crown of fire upon her head, and led her children into winter.

*****

This is it, then, the proper opening to this setting I've been working on. There will be more to come, of course, most of it far more gamable than this. Next up should be the famous 40 questions.

But to prevent this post from being totally ungamable, I present the following table for other stories about Mother:

How true is it? (1d12)

1. Bullshit
2. Double bullshit
3. Absolutely true
4. Embellished
5. Not entirely false
6. Jury is still out
7. Way more truth than you wanted
8. Given value of true
9. Have to squint at it
10. The truth you needed
11. All of the above
12. Roll twice

1d20 +1d6 Cults

+Joseph Manola had a really good post about cults recently, and I wanted to make a follow-up to that.

If you find yourself in need of a quick cult / new religious movement that's more than just scary guys in scary robes, roll below.

There's no prize for guessing the origins, but feel free to try.

1. Indigenous religion decapitated and banned by colonial occupier. The old ways die out slowly as the younger generations are educated in the ways of their colonizers.
2. Foreign religion deemed dangerous to the political and social order due to widespread popularity with the underclass. Believers are driven underground, practices are carried on in secret and undergo syncretic mutation over decades of isolation.
3. Modern resurgence of previously extinct historical religion.
4. Tax haven founded to exploit the ennui and disenfranchisement of the nobility. Aggressive policies towards any party deemed even a minor threat.
5. Demagogue exploits nationalist narratives, racial tensions, lingering resentment over economic misfortune, occultism and pseudoscience to gather support. Scapegoats are named, violence breaks out.
6. Ethnic and religious minority targeted with persistent slander by majority group: blood sacrifice, desecration of holy sites, conspiracy against the state, spreading disease, and so on. Claims are easily disproven, but damnably and dangerously persistent.
7. Group leader orders series of murders in attempt to trigger wide-scale conflict across social fault lines. Beliefs based on interpretations of popular song lyrics and apocryphal symbolism of mainstream religion.
8. Approaching celestial event claimed to provide passage to paradise in reborn bodies. Believers gathering in isolated compound to await the end.
9. Ultraconservative reading of scripture used as justification for reign of terror. "Sinful influences" banned and punished by death. Widespread and violent oppression of women, scholars, homosexuals, political dissidents, foreign influences, and all of the above.
10. Millennial microbranch of mainstream religion. Strange beliefs and practices that are often distrusted and mocked, but generally harmless and permitted free practice. Send people door-to-door with literature.
11. Subvertive / transgressive movement targeting mainstream religion by positioning itself as the opposition. Adversarial imagery adopted to this end.
12. Non-religious works of dead, foreign philosopher treated as holy writ. Orthodoxy enforced with brutal efficiency. Leader treated as god-king despite disavowal of religion by both the group and the founding document.
13. Native religion of slaves mixes with beliefs of their masters. The resulting faith retains strong ties to a specific, limited geographic region even after emancipation.
14. Traveler returns from a distant land with incorrect but enthusiastic recollections of religious experiences. Half-informed variant takes off like wildfire, bearing little resemblance to its parent.
15. Group declares distant king to be a god-on-earth. The king in question does not encourage this belief.
16. Practitioners proclaim in-depth knowledge of the secret manipulators of the world and all the schemes and conspiracies thereof. They obsess over revealing truth to unthinking masses: Hidden celestial bodies, secret races of puppet-masters, false histories, impossible geographies, and all the things they don't want you to know
17. Parody religion emphasizes absurdity, chaos, and disorder. It's all for a good laugh.
18. Scripture interpreted as associating material wealth and financial success with divine blessing and moral uprightness. Tends to ignore the parts of the book about taking care of the poor.
19. The world operates according to a grand order, but is also filled with all manner of bizarre and obtuse spirits that must be dealt with appropriately. This calls for some creative use of ritual.
20. It was aliens all along.

Bonus Table

1.  An adoring crowd has formed a commune near a dragon's roost, wishing to witness its power and majesty and seek to expand their consciousness through their proximity to such a creature. In truth, the dragon is neither powerful nor majestic and is going about the ordinary dragon business of hunting, shitting, and sleeping, but that's celebrity for you.
2.  Leftover war materiel from a distant superpower's arcane conflict has formed the basis of a new mythology. Old gods have been retired, a new age has been declared, mutations from thaumaturgical runoff are now considered blessings, totems and images of weapons used as major symbols of good fortune, mock-battles attempting to re-enact the distant battles of gods held.
3.  Bored temple-goers begin carving graffitti faces into the pews during sermons. Several centuries later, these have evolved into detailed characters who have filled books of parables and religious commentary. Theological academia scoffs, the common folk love it.
4. Ad hoc messianic prophecies spread between dungeons to give the monstrous humanoids hope that they will not be utterly destroyed, may be exploited by canny warlord later.
5.  Apocalyptic cults are just maintenance crews for the turning of the Wheel. Gambling karma on what disaster ushers in the new age is a popular pastime for rival cultic schools.
6. A single god has thousands of facets, and all must be worshiped according to the proper forms, no matter how bizarre the form and what it represents might be.

Magical Sewers

The Crossness pumping station

 

O Cloacina, Goddess of this place,

Look on thy suppliants with a smiling face

Soft, yet cohesive let their offerings flow

Not rashly swift nor insolently slow.

People out in the countryside have a privy out back, with last year’s almanac nailed to the wall. A distant king might be proud of the hot water running through the lead pipes of his palace. Bears shit in the woods.

They are barbarians and fools, the lot of them. Civilization – real, honest-to-gods civilization – is built upon the porcelain back of the Merde Grande.

The Building of a Merde Grande

The creation of a modern magical sewer is a work-intensive process, but the methods of Dr. P. T. Krappier have remained generally unchanged since their introduction over a century ago.

First, a live donjon must be acquired. Most cities of healthy size (and many of unhealthy size) have at least one spare keep going unused. If the city donjon has died, it is possible (though often prohibitively expensive) to transplant one from the wilderness, though those structures have an even higher chance of being long dead or having gone to rot.

Second, the donjon is refurbished (for they are often ruined even if still alive) and consecrated to Cloacina. This change of metaphysical nature will shift the donjon’s root system into something viable for the movement and processing of waste. This was, and in many ways still is, a revolutionary technique; wizards that are willing to dabble in the affairs and powers of the gods of man are few in number, and gods that are willing to put up with wizards are just as rare.

Third, surveyors and excavators will disperse throughout the city, planting markers that will attract the donjon’s roots. Once the major points have been set up, citizens can purchase minor markers for their own dwellings for relatively low cost.

Fourth, the combined workforce of priests and wizards will populate the sewer-donjon with the necessary enchantments, constructs, and beings for it to function: animated water, enchanted pumps, domesticated oozes, wards against gas buildup and clogging, waste-eating beasts, bacteria cultures. After the floodgates are opened their duties will be overseeing and maintaining the Grande.

The end of all this is threefold:

• A complex maze of layered, tangled additions and recursive expansions exists beneath the feet of thousands of people who ignore the fact that it’s there.
• An incredibly important, powerful, and wealthy faction that can potentially bring a city to its knees is always sitting there behind the scenes.
• Easy access to hot running water and toilet paper.

Hellboy on the left, Pokemon Sage on the right

Cloacina, the Cleanser

Cloacina is the doer of dirty deeds (not always dirt cheap). Her image and variants thereof, in icon and idol, are common throughout the world. In places where her sewers have not reached, she tends towards her classic patronage of cleanliness, aqueducts and the sexual act in marriage.

She is immensely popular. An approachable, down-to-earth personality does a great deal, but more important is that Cloacina doesn’t take anyone’s shit. She doesn’t put up with shit. Cloacina deals with shit. Cloacina gets shit done.

Most importantly, Cloacina has the skill, know-how, and immaculate, infinite patience to deal with your shit.

Yes, even that.

When the toilet is clogged, you don’t call on thunder gods. When there’s intestinal distress, you don’t go asking for the god of war. When you hit up the wrong curry stand and have lived to regret it, it is Cloacina that you seek.

She’s a practical goddess, for practical problems.

Nightsoil Priests and Shitwizards

The clergy of Cloacina are difficult to distinguish from academic wizards, and the opposite remains true. The two factions have been forced to work together for so long that they have more or less merged to the point of interchangeability.

They are integral to society, and they know it. Unlike the overwhelming majority of wizards, they demonstrate little desire to lord it over other people – they’re important by default, there’s nothing to prove. Everyone knows it already.

Plus, it’s difficult to be full of shit when you’re dealing with everyone else’s.

Nightsoil priests and shitwizards are easily discernible by their garb, as follows.

• White jumpsuit marked with sigils of protection against poison and disease.
• Images or samples of Outhouse Mrytle, a plant sacred to Cloacina
• Heavy rubberized gloves and boots, the latter of which are often part of overalls or hip waders.
• A hood (in the case of priests) or a pointed hat with brim (in the case of wizards), with attached mask and goggles in the case of poisonous fumes.

They also instinctively know how to navigate the sewers without getting lost, no matter the city.

The actual Cloaca Maxima

Random Encounters in the Sewers

Sewers, like all donjon-derived environments, tend to develop their own niche ecosystems. Each city’s sewer will be different, but certain creatures can be found nearly everywhere.

1. Rat-faced Bastards – A non-indicative name, as they are actually rats with the face of men. They are disgusting creatures, can grow up to the size of a dog, and breed excessively. It’s a common prank for drunkards to give one of their friends a sword and send him down collecting rat tails.
2. Alkahest Ooze – The strongest of the varieties of janitorial slimes employed in the sewers. They are called in to clean out clogs, undo blockages, and have a tendency to dissolve almost anything in their path. Hedge alchemists will pay a shipload for samples, as the creation of alkahest is guild property.
3. Methane-Eater – Little gasbag creatures that glow with a faint phosphorescence. They are harmless, but a good indicator that the air in a region might be dangerous to breathe.
4. Cloagator – There are, in fact, alligators that live in the sewers, feeding on blind fish and wayward adventurers. Scraggle-feathered birds with hooked beaks pick shitshrimp out of their teeth. The lack of decent food has made them astoundingly patient, and terribly emaciated.
5. Merde-morloc – It’s very easy to get lost in the Grande, and these unfortunates have made the best of it. Sure, it’s best not to ask what they eat or how they entertain themselves, but just because they’re pallid inbreds doesn’t mean that they’re evil. Often cannibalistic, but then again, who isn’t sometimes?
6. Cleaner Crabs – Colonies of these hardened crustaceans feed on the slime molds and bacterial mats that coat the walls of older sections of the Grande.
7. Maintenance Zombies – Nothing much to see here, just the boys from the 509 Local. Sometimes accompanied by a priest or wizard on their rounds.
8. Digesticative Maw – It has to go somewhere, doesn't it? Processed waste is excreted on the surface.
9. Fatberg – An ambulatory mass of hair, grease, feces, used condoms, and the occasional corpse. Tend to weigh dozens to hundreds of tons. Always hungry for more.
10. Sewer-stalker – Stiltlike legs and claws like carving knives, eyes bugging out of their sockets as if ready to bursting and a crook-hooked beak. Runs too fast, for something that never seems able to take a steady step. A distant figure at the end of the tunnel, a moment in the light, then it runs.
11. Someone who isn’t supposed to be there – The sewers are a good place for bad people.
12. THE BULLWORM – It fills the entire tunnel with its bulk. Coming out of nowhere, going into nothing, an ouroboros with no destination but the endless crawl through the dark.

Traveling in the Merde Grande

When using the Grande as a means of transit between surface locations, treat it as a wilderness environment instead of a dungeon. Random encounters happen, people can get lost, but you don’t need the room-by room breakdown.

If the players do get lost, there is a 1-in-6 chance of discovering an exit. This will, of course, be in a completely different district of the city, but it will be an exit.

It is entirely possible for the roots of the Merde Grande to go too deep. Feel free to break out the Veins of the Earth here.

A pool at Hearst Castle

Shitwizard Spells

Honey Pot

R: 30’ T: Area D: Indefinite

Cleans the area of blood, feces, ooze, slime, grime, gristle, gunk, rust, dust, detritus and effluvia, storing it in an enchanted jar or other sealed container. This container can store [dice] uses of this spell before it can be used no further. The jar can be thrown as a grenade, doing [dice]d6 damage and spraying its contents everywhere.

Cleaning House

R: Sight T: [dice] persons D: Instant

The target is cured of disease, but must succeed on a CON or Poison save. On failure they will be cured by violent expulsion and take a -2 penalty to all checks until the next morning.

Unblock the Path

R: Touch T: Material D: 1 hour ÷ [sum]

A material obstruction is removed from a path, passage, or doorway. This takes 1 hour ÷ [sum] and dispersing the matter makes significant noise.

Fertilize

R: 10’ square T: Plants within AOE D: Indefinite

Plants within the effected area grow at an unnatural rate. Crops mature in minutes, trees grow gigantic, plant-based creatures gain [dice] HD.

Gasmask

R: Touch T: Piece of cloth D: [dice] hours

When held over the mouth, the affected material provides immunity to airborne toxins.

Rites of Cleansing

R: Touch T: Person D: [dice] charges

Target gains advantage on saves against poison, possession, and disease.

Drain Snake

R: N/A T: Rope D: [dice] x5 minutes

Conjures an animated rope of [sum] x10 feet. 50% chance of being a tapeworm.

Dowsing

R: ½ mile T: Self D: 1 hour

Target can find a lost item within the sewers with [dice]-in-6 odds. Requires another item owned by the same person to work.

(The poem up top is traditionally credited to Lord Byron, though there's no hard evidence for that.)