Secret Jackalope 2022

This request comes from Unwary on Discord

 

"what folk dances do vampires prefer? Are head spells Turing complete? take another of your interests outside of TTRPGs and make something based on it, in all the detail you wish.." 

What folk dances do vampires prefer?

Vampires do not have folk dances, as only the nobility have access to the tinctures and unguents required to stave off the mental degradation of that condition. In a twist of fate that has wet many a pen in many a monastery scriptorum, the curse of vampirism rewards the blasphemies of the ruling class, while the impoverished who might curse the divine for their woes are struck down with no recourse.

Anyway, the dances. Vampires rarely gather in groups, but when they do it is typically the social event of the century. No expense is spared for the lavish affairs. Ballroom dancing, of course, slow and languid, stretching from moonrise to sunrise. The music is god-awful; something in the vampirization process leaves the subject with the king of all tin ears, so to the outside it is a truly wretched cacophony of screeching strings and wailing brass.  As the dancers do not tire, the dance itself will go from moonrise to sunrise. The strictures of the social hierarchy must also be danced around, both literally and metaphorically - pairing with one above or below your station will jump right over scandal and directly to open combat. Nothing like a vampire's duel to get the blood pumping (ha-ha).

The dances themselves bear no resemblance to anything modern aristocrats do, being unstuck in time. They are, in their way, an alternate timeline of events - of ancient and antiquated modes and mores carried forth out of the past, trotting along their own developmental path.

You would, as a non-vampire, likely not want to go to one of these. Not even for the danger (which is high), and not even because you would constantly be mistaken for the help (an even higher probability), but simply because vampires are terrible and no one would wish to spend more time in their presence than absolutely necessary.

Are head spells turing complete?

If you ask a wizard, they will say no - a spell has no existence outside of its function, and possesses no volition of its own.

They say this because wizardry, unwilling to cooperate with the spirits and feeling itself above the push and pull of the world, trap and lobotomize those spirits, chaining them to their spellbooks as the slaver does to the enslaved. It is one lie of many they use to justify themselves, claiming that wizardry is all about hard work and study, and that witchcraft and druidism and the ways of the cunning-men are outmoded superstition.

Wizards: absolutely no sense of right and wrong.

Free Space

This one is difficult, because I already integrate a lot of non-game stuff into the blog already. Hrm.

 

The Venus of Willendorf was likely a self-portrait.

Blue dwarf stars do not exist yet because not enough time has elapsed in the universe.

Way more bilical apocrypha than you think is concerned with esoteric defenses of calendar reform.

Some dunderheads in the 1890s wanted to import hippos to the American south as a meat animal

Secret Jackalope 2020: Primates of the Post-Paracausal Paradox Peninsula

The Jackalope cares not for the revival of life and the coming of spring. Jackalope cares only for BLOG POSTS, so that they might rival their nemesis the SANTICORE!

I have been granted a missive! Kirt "Loki Dankmyer requests the following:

3+ monsters appropriate for a post-apocalyptic setting where mankind wiped itself out with reality-warping weapons. Useful but not required (highly optional): Stats formatted for high compatibility with Knave, any humanoids are based on primates OTHER than humans (chimps, gorillas, monkeys, etc.), unique "high technology indistinguishable from magic" treasures to match the monsters

Shepherds of the Red Orb

4' tall aye-ayes wander in the night in bands of 6-10, each with a small red marble like a droplet of blood above their head. They are armed with clubs and bear unlit lanterns, and wear hideous golden masks and flowing indigo robes. Each band is accompanied by a Red Orb, which floats above the ground without apparent source.

HD 1 HP 5 AC None
Club 1d4, horrific face (save vs WIS or be paralyzed, one use per group)

If one comes into possession of a red marble, it will take place above their own head and begin transmitting messages from the network of Red Orbs - these will be incomprehensibly scrambled at first, but will coalesce within a few hours into knowledge of the location of other Red Orbs and their respective bands of shepherds. More importantly it will imply the existence of great sources of unclaimed Red Orbs, and compel the bearer to seek them out (CHA save to resist, repeats daily). Marbles can only be destroyed in intense heat (magma forges etc)

Cuttlechimps

The remnants of an uplift project gone screwy in the post-paracausal paradox. Their current shape is that of a hairless ape with a cuttlefish for a head, possessing all of the color and texture changing abilities of their mollusc components and all the social mentalities and tool usage of the primates.

HD 2 HP 10 AC Leather
Augmented limbs 1d6, laser eye 1d6


Attempting to locate a hidden cuttlechimp without some sort of technological aid is an INT or WIS roll at disadvantage.

Cuttlechimps tend to make their homes in the now-overgrown and flooded facilities that first spawned them, which means that they tend to be found in close proximity to devices such as gensplice tanks, autoassistants, simulation datacards and devotional AIGOD rosaries.

Orangutan Technomancer

Greatest of the surviving great apes, the old men of the forest have gained a mastery of the secrets of the Hu machines. Channeling their program-sutras through their Staves of Might, they command legions of robotic salvagefolk and build themselves great fortresses in the rusting trees of those deep chrome jungles.

HD 2 HP 15 AC Leather + Shield
Augmented limbs 1d6

Staves of Might permit the wearer to issue simple commands to any active robotic beings or computer systems as if they had administrative privileges. They may maintain control over devices equal to their WIS modifier. They may also make a CHA roll to forcibly take over a device that is controlled by another practitioner.