Exorcists and Wizard-Hunters: Alternate D&D Frameworks

(This is another ancient draft, probably going on two years and 3 or 4 versions old at this point.) 

The basic D&D / OSR outline provides us with two very important and equally under-appreciated facts.

Fact 1: Clerics have "Turn Away Undead" as a class feature.

Fact 2: "Charm Person" is a 1st-level wizard spell.

These can be extrapolated out into an entire campaign with little effort, and I think they can provide fruitful alternatives to the assumed modes of play.

Campaign Framework: Exorcists

Of the four core classes, the cleric's main mechanical specialty provides it with a clear direction in how it interacts with the rest of the setting: they’re anti-undead specialists.

This is typically overshadowed by their use as healers, especially in modern editions, but the implication remains of a setting where undead and/or demonic threats are both common enough and understood enough that there are people specially trained to deal with them. That leads to some very fruitful questions.

• What is the parent religion of this cleric?
• How centralized is this religion?
• How does this religion view these entities?
• How common are these entities?
• How well-understood are these entities?
• What is the relationship between the religion and its neighboring traditions?
• What is the relationship between the religion and the apparatus of the state?
• What is the relationship between the specialists and the rest of their religion?
• How much of the religion’s beliefs actually reflect the metaphysics in play here?
• What social standing does this religion (and by extension, clerics of this religion) have in this particular region and among this particular population?

Put all together, and the campaign practically writes itself. Build around the cleric, either as a PC or NPC. Take a hex or point crawl, dump some settlements and dungeons on it, stick some demons and undead in the points of interest, figure out what influence those demons and undead have on their surroundings, and let the rest come up as it will.

(It would be remiss of me to not mention Donn Stroud's exorcism system as featured in The Lesser Key, which is much better than bog-standard Turn Away Undead)

• Why does the party exist? - They're the cleric's protectors while out on the road, and will provide a lot of the muscle of the operation. They too are specialists, covering for the things that the cleric cannot do.
• Why is the party adventuring in dungeons? - They've been sent there specifically to deal with the undead/demons, either a single instance or a greater outbreak.
• But what about treasure? - Maybe  the bishop writes you a check. Maybe you get paid by the demon. Maybe basic supplies aren't a problem because you're agents of the church. Maybe the alms are enough. Maybe the demon-infested ruins still have a lot of stuff in them that people might offer rewards for, or maybe no one will mind if it goes missing. And so on.

Campaign Framework: Wizard-Killers

Imagine a setting where Charm Person sits within reach of every sociopath, malignant narcissist, fascist ideologue, sexual predator, human trafficker, abusive spouse and undifferentiated Just Kind of a Piece of Shit in the world. Think for a moment about how easy it would be to kill someone with Mage Hand and Shape Water.

That alone is more than sufficient to build a wizard-hunting campaign on, but wizards provide a great deal more practical benefit than just that. Why is there a dungeon that violates the laws of nature? Wizard did it. Why are their horrible monsters shambling through the hills feasting on travelers? Wizard did it. Why is there a nameless horror from beyond the stars with its sights set on our placid isle of ignorance? A wizard god-damn did it. Power corrupts because power is the ability to get what you want, and the more power you have the less anyone can get in between you and the thing you want.

Like before, we can get ourselves some good places with some follow up questions:

• Who is this wizard and what did he do that made people call in the wizard-killers?
• Are you part of a wizard-killing organization, representatives of state power, or an informal posse?
• How are wizards, evil or otherwise, handled in this society anyway? Why aren’t the wizards in charge, if they aren’t already in charge?
• What safeguards does this society normally have against evil wizards?
• What does this culture consider good vs bad magic, and why?
• What are this wizard’s obsessions?
• What are this wizard’s relations with other wizards?

The wizard-killer framework lends itself to a sort of fantasy Delta Green. Here’s the wizard of the week, go raid his sanctum and 86 the bastard. String a few of these together and you have a campaign.

(The sandbox approach could also work here, just as demon-of-the-week could work for the exorcist framework - I’m dividing the two primarily just to have symmetry. You could very easily merge them, since evil wizards no doubt are dabbling with dark forces people want exorcized. Honestly, why would you even become an evil wizard if not to dabble in dark forces and ponder your orb.)

• Why does the party exist? - You're specialists called in to kill the evil wizard.
• Why is the party adventuring in dungeons? - The evil wizard is in there.
• But what about treasure? - Wizards, naturally, are sitting on enormous hoards of weird / valuable / plot-relevant items and they certainly aren't going to have any use for them now that you've shown them a bit of praxis. This will definitely have no downsides and cannot possibly be part of a tragic cycle of hubris and violence.

Blog Carnival: Code Talking

This month’s Blog Carnival prompt is language, which means it may as well be pandering directly to me. I still ended up wasting the entire month hemming and hawing over what to do - dreaming up conlang plans because why not add more to my already enormous backlog - but thankfully I finally realized that I could just do the sensible thing and write about something I have actually used in an actual game.

**

Back in the Delta Green campaign I ran last fall, one of the sessions included a puzzle that used the Navajo code talker cipher as its central component. It went like this:

The players found a scrap of paper with some code words scribbled on it by a dead agent, a SIGINT check identified it as pulled from the code talker lexicon, and I provided the translations as if they had the booklet with them. When converted into English and then converted out of the alphabetic cipher, the string of end result was

S-L-P-Y-T-M-N-N APRIL

which after a couple minutes of puzzling out, they decoded as pointing them towards the Sleepy Time Inn on the other side of town, Room 4. Key in hand and the next breadcrumb in sight, the players went off to the next stage of the investigation. I had several players comment after the session that they really enjoyed the puzzle and felt it was just the right amount of complexity and difficulty.

That is practically the holy grail of rpgs. Naturally, I’ve been cooking up how to use it in the future.

The first and most obvious improvement is to just print it out and hand it to the players (minus the vintage racism and with better formatting) when they open up Clyde Baughman’s footlocker (or other similar green box) and just let them hold onto it as a resource for whenever coded phrases show up later in the game. This is basically the same principle as the Field Guide to Hot Springs Island, though much more compact.

Second step is to make more complex messages - a basic alphabetic one works well as an introduction, but the code was a lot bigger than that and by virtue of it being a military code the wordlist covers most most player-character actions right from go - tracking enemy movements, describing field conditions, commands to attack and retrieve and secure and so on. Beyond that it can be easily modified or used in novel ways: months for numbers, using the alphabet cipher for code names (ex: if I wanted to describe a ghoul I would probably use CHINDI LACHAEH, which would translate literally here as DEVIL DOG but also as the letter sequence DD) , mixing the alphabet cipher with other words (ex: the term used for “when” would be rendered in English as “weasel hen”), and so on.

The major caveat here is that using the code as-is really only works for games that take place in our-world-but-different - something where you can take advantage of its existence as a historical artifact. Finding it in a green box can open up an entire implied plot of marines coming back from the Pacific Theater having seen some things they shouldn’t have and continuing to use the code in secret, passing around booklets during the Cowboy Years as a quick and dirty way of securing messages - all that would be lost in a world not our own. In those cases I’d still say that it’s a great model to use with a word generator and a bit of elbow grease - that approach can be easily tweaked to the setting in question, and you can indulge your conlang compulsions without having to do anything with grammar or bogging down players without having to learn the words for utensils or whatever.

(It should go without saying that while the code uses Navajo, the booklet was not meant to teach anything about the language or how it works  - any pronunciation you’re going to attempt will bear only minimal resemblance to how it actually sounds and there won't be anything of Navajo's beautifully complex grammar.)

I don’t have a particularly good conclusion for this post - out of practice, I suppose - so I’ll wrap up by saying that this was one of the highlights of that campaign (I really should share my notes, shouldn’t I?), especially for something that took very little effort on my end. Goes to show you that a bit of verisimilitude in the right place can go a long way.

Minimalism II

Right then, we're at it again.

[BACKDOOR PROTOCOL] is live. Immediate response needed.

No cover is provided. There is no time.

MISSION OBJECTIVES

• Exfiltration of ally [IDAHO] from [COLLECTIVE OF THE STONE] commune on [GRAHAM ISLAND].
• Bring POI [ALIA] into custody if possible.
• Remove any present anomalous items.
• Disrupt any ongoing anomalous practices.
• Avoid detection.

INTEL BRIEFING

• 23 members; four military veterans; multiple non-felony criminal records.
• 8 cabins plus multi-use meeting hall. Storage shed. Outhouses. Garden plot. Pig pen. Chicken coop.
• Type 2A NRM Ideology (New Age Derivative, non-violent)
• POI [ALIA] considered prophet by group; seeks to make contact with extra-terragen entity to serve as guide during ascent to afterlife of the group's creation.
• Known Item-of-Interest: [LITHIC SEED OF EOS]

ARRIVAL

Insertion by boat. 11 PM local time. Skies overcast. Water choppy. Light drizzle. 48 degrees Fahrenheit. Team undetected.

PARAMETER UPDATE

• Extraterragen entity [ANTIMONY PRIME] confirmed.
• [POSSESSIVE-MENTAL] subversion of multiple commune members confirmed.
• Hostility confirmed; violence underway at arrival.
• Additional IOI: [BOOK OF EOS]

OBJECTIVE UPDATE

• Identify and nullify subverted group members.
• Prevent escape from island by subverted members.
• Sever [ANTIMONY PRIME] ontological umbilical.
• All initial objectives remain active.

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

Miniposts: Commedia del Donjoniers, More Lost Media, GLOGtober and more

Another minipost collection.

Commedia del Arte del Donjoniers

The stock characters of traveling commedia plays. (CosmicOrrery told me to do this.)

• The Fighter - The typical lead. Oblivious-to-danger and overly showy do-gooder.
  
• The Thief - Best friend and confidant of the Fighter. Greedy, lustful, and eternally in debt.
  
• The Cleric - A wandering preacher. Holier-than-thou attitude undercut by constant gluttony and lust played for laughs (They never catch the irony).
  
• The Wizard - Pompous, inept, egomaniacal, always tries to solve the problem first (but makes it worse)
  
• The Barbarian - The foreigner, constantly misunderstanding words and customs; framed as comedy relief, is actually the level-headed one (that no one listens to until the end.)
  
• The Elf - The preening noble who only gets involved because they are cast out from their family. Lightens up considerably when drunk,
  
• The Dwarf - A habitual drunk, stubborn and garrulous. Hopelessly in love with the Elf, hates this state of affairs.
  
• The Halfling - The country bumpkin who gets dragged along in the plot and is always trying and failing to escape.
  

More Lost Media

It's a dusty VHS tape. No label. Generic box. Someone wrote on it in permanent marker but the handwriting is indiscernible. 

Put it in the VCR, watch the static band cascade down a black screen before an image appears.

There is a car traveling down an empty stretch of desert highway. The sun has set, but the light has not yet left the sky - a faint wash of pink-orange against sinks into the background, silhouetting wind turbines and wind-sculpted bluffs. The edges are deepening blue. Muted music, piano with a back-beat, pours out of the speakers. The dim green glow of dashboard lights light up the lines of the driver's face. The four other women are all asleep, crowded together among fast food bags, the scattered remnants of a first aid kit and duffels with guns poking out from the zippers. Ammo cartridges are stuffed into cupholders.

Driver's Seat: Black. Deep blue eyes. Red hair, shorn down to fuzz. Arms are sleeved with tattoos of sigil circles.

Passenger's Seat: Enormous. Thick black dreadlocks. Shirtless: chest is covered in bandages, medical tape, gauze pads, smears of antiseptic ointment. Tattoo of a snarling demon face on her stomach.

Rear Driver:  Poofy brown hair. Thin rectangular glasses with bottom-half frames. Chainmail; white tabard with a vertical red stripe. A circular seal written in theban on the left. Mace sits upright in the crook of her arm.

Rear Passenger: Lanky. Long, tangled, dirty blonde hair. Torn jeans. Black t-shirt with circular red symbol (Save point from Silent Hill 3 - ed.) Rubber rottweiler mask in her lap.

Rear Middle: Short. Glasses. Red hijab. Sweatshirt with out of context hentai panels printed on it.

"Hey," the driver says. She's keeping her eyes on the road, but you know she's talking to you. "Little bird told me you needed some help. Glad you reached out. You're not alone out there. I know it doesn't feel like it, and it's hard to believe, but it's true. Just hang in there."

She pauses, and there is only the music and the engine for a moment.

"There's a foreclosed house right next to the lot where the Perkins used to be. The storm cellar is locked but your key will fit. Hang tight in there until someone comes to get you. Help yourself to whatever is in the pantry. Don't open up for anyone unless they call you by your middle name, especially if they say that they know us. We'll try to meet up with you soon as we can."

The camera shifts back to outside the car, stationary this time, and its tail-lights and song fade off into the distance as the screen dissolves into static.

*

Sumerian narrative following the plot beats of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, now featuring the copper merchant Ea-Nasir who is visited by the mušḫuššu, the lamassu, and finally the demon Asag, who attempt to encourage the merchant to give up his wicked and avaricious ways, and so avoid terrible punishment by the gods both in life and in the underworld. In noted divergence from the source text, Ea-Nasir learns absolutely nothing about the meaning of Christmas, kicks the spirits out of his house, and ends the narrative by revealing his collected hoard of complaint tablets from dissatisfied customers.

*

US War Crime Trials Tapes 134-146 - 12 corroded VHS tapes containing footage of war crimes trails held against members of the George H.W. Bush and Obama administrations at The Hague, as well as multiple members of United States congress in office between 2002-2011. Tape 146 cuts off just as former vice president Dick Cheney is taking the stand, which likely explains why the tape was labeled as "fucking blueballs".

 

GLOGtober Prompts

Later than they were before because I accidentally deleted the draft.

Hell + Artifact

Hell is a state of being trapped inside one's head. The senses cannot extend past the skull, and the imprisoned is beset by constant fears and phantasms drawn up from the subconscious. Hell-bound are considered a variety of zoanthrope - the body acts according to its animal instincts, severed from the rational mind.

Spirits bound in hellstates can be A) freed, providing (horrifically traumatized) ghosts B) interrogated C) used to focus magic or D) used to run simulations. Three of these four are absolutely monstrous.

Swirling Rainbow Vortice + Quirky Magic Item

A washing machine whose depthless drum is a resplendent maelstrom of color. Clothing placed within will by dyed and granted a magical effect (ordinary clothing only, one piece per user)

• Red - Observers believe you to be covered in blood.
  
• Orange  - You smell very, very strongly of citrus.
  
• Yellow - You give off a very soft light.
  
• Green - You track dirt everywhere, moss grows on you, you can speak with plants.
  
• Blue - You can breathe in water, but lose all ability to swim or float.
  
• Indigo  - You gain nightvision, but also "horrible-ghost-vision".
  
• Violet - Observers believe you are royalty, for good and for ill.
  

Goblins + Table

Primary Goblotype

1. Raccoon
2. Possum
3. Sphinx cat
4. Weird bat
5. Felt puppet
   
6. Lemur
   

Detail A

1. Gangly
2. Portly
3. Pimply
4. Bitey
5. Spiky
6. Filthy
   

Detail B

1. Striped
2. Furred
3. Spotted
4. Scaled
5. Scabbed
6. Knobbled
   

Goblogang

1. Bog Tribe
2. Crypt Tribe
3. Victorian Urchin Tribe
4. Market Tribe
5. Volcano Tribe
6. Food Truck Tribe
   

Regarding Dwarves

(I wrote this for a friend some years ago, found it in my drafts)

Dwarves are born of the earth, of the Molten Womb deep below the mountains. Their bones are of stone, their hearts of magma. They are older than gods, older than beasts, older than the first proteins to emerge from the acidic muck, as old as the cooling crust of the world itself.

The typical dwarf operates on geological time-scales. The simple act of greeting one another might take millennia. This makes it exceptionally difficult for a dwarf and anyone of any other species to have any sort of meaningful contact, barring magical interference. Those dwarfs that do interact with other races on a regular basis are, by necessity, “sped up” - at lower temperatures, their silicon-crystal nervous systems conduct electricity more efficiently. At magical temperatures approaching absolute zero, they can live at speeds roughly equivalent to human beings.

The source of these enchantments is fuzzy. Some blame gods, some blame wizards with nothing better to do, some say it is an offshoot of the dwarves themselves.

Dwarves do not die. They erode. Wind and water and time do their toil, but the stuff of their bodies remains and might be reshaped. The dwarvish sense of self reflects this – what it is now is their what it was before, or what it will be.

A Note on Appearance

Dwarves as they are generally known are stocky humanoids between 3 and 5 feet tall, on average. They are neither male nor female, and appear to be roughly carved from their parent rock. Their featureless heads are wreathed in halos of frozen crystal – mostly water, but close to the surface it is a latticed film of metalicized oxygen and nitrogen.

But this is only a minority population of dwarves – the majority are often quite larger, are rarely humanoid, and are often confused for nearby buttes.

A Note on Etymology

“Dwarf” is a clumsy and ill fitting term for these beings, being a Westron misconstruction of the Ghaztlani “Dorof” (“one who lives inside a mountain”), but as they have no name for themselves, it shall be used.

Three Varieties of Dwarves

Igneous dwarves are young and still cooling. Their insides are a molten mass, their shells are rough and ragged. By dwarf standards, they are quick and volatile. Eventually, their hearts will cool, and after a few more millennia they will fall asleep.

Sedimentary dwarves are formed at incredible pressures under the ocean, from the ground-down bodies of igneous dwarves. These are the common mountain dwarves (as they have emerged from the mountains that used to be sea floors). Sedimentary dwarves are ancient and fastidious, and set dwarf standards.

Metamorphic dwarves were once dwarves of other varieties, but changed under immense heat and pressure. They are the rarest of dwarves, and each is unique, often forged for a specific purpose. In time they might be ground down to sedimentary form again, when their glory has passed.

Trolls

(TheLawfulNeutral was behind this one)

Metastatic Scions of the Red Law

• Pointed, sharklike head
• Large, drooping ears
• Teeth are jagged, uneven, and ill-fitting.
• Leprous skin - boils, legions, warts, teratomas. Burt to crispy leather by the sun.
• Hair black and stringy, patches and clumps
• Cartilaginous skeleton, can squeeze through anything bigger than their eyeballs if given time.
• Can regenerate basically any damage. Old ones will have odd sets of limbs and sense organs
• Incredibly dense
• Infected individuals will develop troll-cancer.
• Lucky ones can catch it early through treatment and kill it
• Somewhat lucky ones can have it removed
• The rest are consumed by it. The cancer will kill them long before the troll's "gestation" is complete - incineration is recommended. 
• Do not let it spread.

 

Miniposts: Tower Wizards, Funeral Customs, Paracausality

This Place is Not a Place of Honor

Tower-wizards are the great weapons of deterrence. Any conflict that escalates to the point of releasing them is one where, at the very minimum, entire cities are going to have to be rendered uninhabitable. Simply implying that wizards should be used to resolve a conflict is considered a war crime. Not even the most amoral members of the Cartographer's Guild would welcome a wizarding war, though if any of them survived they would certainly become very rich in the aftermath.

Wizards (or more specifically, wizards that have reached the point where they have begun to build themselves a Tower) are paranoid, megalomaniacal, obsessive, and long ago threw away any ethical compunctions that might have once possessed. They will do unspeakably cruel things simple because the thought crossed their mind, and will abandon such fancies the moment another idea crosses their mind. The prospect of the horrific deaths of tens of thousands or more would not even register as an event, so blinded they are by their depthless and all-consuming hatred of all other wizards.

And so, for those nations that house Tower-Wizards within their borders, the goal becomes containment above all else.

Towers are placed far away from human habitation (or, rather, no normal humans would ever habitate close to an inhabited Tower), though not far enough away to weaken surveillance. Each is  surrounded by acres of hostile architecture - angular earthworks, enormous concrete spikes, fields of broken glass. Warnings of death written in ten languages or more are carved in monolithic stones along the perimeter.

The Tower's interior is combination private study, labyrinth, prison and playground, filled with their creations and projects. Space and time are malleable there - always bigger on the inside than the outside, stretching up far taller and digging down far deeper than its stone shell would suggest.

The best way to keep a wizard in his Tower is to keep him distracted - and the best way to do this is some combination of short-term dopamine feedback loops.

Petty arguments and pornography.

For the former; through the tireless efforts of skilled necromancers, a lobotomized spider-godling, and the entire priesthood of a god of communication, an incredibly elaborate means of scrying directly with the countless souls of the dead was created. Specifically so that the wizard might never run out of people to argue with, that the people he argues with are in no danger of death, and so that he is perpetually distracted from attempting to contact other wizards. It is an astounding success, but the countless souls of the dead have made it clear that they do this purely to prevent overwhelming the cthonic bureaucracy, and refuse outright to participate in a wider application.

For the latter, a thaumovore is used - a simple arcane parasite that feeds off of excess atmospheric orgone, and in exchange will provide the host with whatever visions and illusions will provide them with the most energy to feed on.

Many wizards will brag of their expansive succubi harems - these projection-manifestations are always the work of a clever thaumovore rather than any actual demonology work, and for that we should be thankful.

Should containment fail and a wizard go rogue, it instantly becomes an international crisis. Better have no wizards at all than be the nation that let one run amok and start conflict with another wizard. A single indication of a change in the wizard's behavior, even his mere contemplating leaving the Tower, is enough reason to kill the wizard. Containment breaches cannot be risked.

To do so, a covert insertions is necessary when - mobilizing an entire army would simply alert him faster. Small parties of specialists kept on retainer by the government responsible will be inserted through the exterior defenses in such a way that they cannot get out again until the Wizard is dead - an unfortunate but necessary precaution.

Common wizard's servitors found inside towers include:

• Vigilant Sentries - The wizard plucks out one of their eyes and feeds it all of their paranoia and spite until it has become a bloated, raving, bloodshot guardian. It will wander the halls of the tower babbling conspiracies to itself.
  
• Homunculi - Mandrake roots (a potent alchemical reagent), infused with semen (provided by the wizard) and fermented in a warm bath of humours inside a horse's womb. Why? Because they fucking can.
  
• Animated Objects and Armor - A menial task of wizardry. Given simple "If–then(–else)" programming while the wizard waits for the kettle to boil, and then let loose in the house.
  
• Imps - Wizards will often summon and bind minor demons such as these for single tasks and leave them collecting dust in their cages for decades. Eventually they escape, but without being dismissed they are forced to live in the walls like mice.
  
• Gargoyles - Statues embedded with the spirits of the dead. Transmit recordings of events to outside observers.
  

Hill Country Funeral Customs

And Chonagah asked the heron "Is it true then, that you know the way to the land of my fathers?"

"Ah, yes, that way. A swift way, a dark road through a dark forest. It is not a way one can turn back upon."

Certain spirits are fond of unattended bodies, and so funerary customs around the world must take on a third responsibility: beyond consoling of the family and safe internment of the body,there is the prevention of dangerous undead. In the hill country, the process goes like this.

The town witch (or her apprentice) will be called to the home or the House of Departing as soon as the death has occurred. She will lead the preparation of the body - in her absence, family or other community members can still safely prepare the body so long as they follow the appropriate customs.

The deceased will be carefully cleaned and dressed in a funeral garment - in these parts, funeral shrouds are traditionally given as wedding gifts from parents to children. Fungal shrouds from Llaphedon are becoming a common alternative in these days of greater connection in the world, as is the bequeathing of bones to necromancers

Two copper coins are placed on the eyes of the deceased. They are stamped with a quartering cross, and the quarters are marked with four signs.

• A heron, traditional psychopomp of the region
• A sun crossing the horizon, marking a point of transition.
• A river trout, leaping up out of the water, a symbol of travelers and journeys.
• The North Star with attendants, symbol of eternity, stability, and peace.
  

If the body is to be cremated, a face veil will be used as a substitute and the coins added later, when the bones are interred. For unclaimed or unknown bodies, it is traditional to present them for cremation wearing a wooden crown, according to ancient hospitality custom - any stranger among you might be a honored person in their own land.

A vigil will be kept through the night, with the town witch and family members taking shifts. This is the most delicate time, where the body is most vulnerable to possession, but so long as at least one person is awake and sitting vigil, the deceased will come to no harm. If no family or community members are present (a rare occurrence), the witch will sit for the entire night.

The funeral will take place at dawn the following day, led by the town priest (if possible, a priest of a funeral god; if needed, anyone in the community can say the rites). The body will be cremated (typical) or buried (becoming more common with fungal shrouds). Bones and ashes will be interred in catacombs or otherwise buried.

From there, the funeral concerns itself with the living, and if all has gone well the danger has passed.

Should something go wrong, or rites not be performed at all, the appearance of an undead is not guaranteed, but is likely. The most common are:

• Ghosts are the embers of souls, stirred into activity by the desecration of their burial sites or the mishandling of a corpse.
• Ambulmorts are bodies that have been possessed by ghosts or minor demons. These are most commonly caused by improper preparation of the deceased or failure to maintain vigil. Most are incapable of much more than stumbling about, but those possessed by particularly potent ghosts or demons are much more active and capable of a great deal more, sometimes even speech. Possessed bodies will still decompose at the normal rate.

Commonly misconceived as undead are:

• Ghouls are humans that have contracted ghul-disease (corporophagia) through consumption of human corpses. Primary symptoms are hair loss, weight loss, nerve degeneration, sensitivity to light, the drive to consume more corpses, greying rashes/boils over the entire body, and changes to the teeth, fingers, cartilaginous structures, etc. The disease is not related to leprosy, but resembles it in its early stages close enough that "ghoul-leper" is still a common term. No cure or effective treatment is yet known.
  
• It should be noted that cultures that practice funerary cannibalism will have customs and practices in place to prevent contraction of disease, through consumption of an analeptic during the meal.
• Vampires are humans that have been infected with victiscolex.
  
  

Paracausality and You

As best I can tell, "paracausality" first occurred in Destiny, a game I have never played and don't particularly plan on playing (I only know it because certain Youtube folks I enjoy talk about it on occasion). 

It is a good word, and good words invite brazen theft.

On the SCP Wiki, "anomaly" would be used (or "scip" if you're really in deep). Lobotomy Corporation uses "abnomality". Control uses "objects of power". Paranormal or supernatural are common parlance. I like paracausality more than all of them because like any good faux-scientific term, it is specific: something is bypassing steps in the chain of cause and effect. It is not dependent on perceptions of "normal" or "natural", and eliminates any wiggle room for principles we have yet to understand. It is set apart from miracles (which have the same function but involve intervening gods) and magic (which involves  knowable, consistent, replicatable systems)

At its most simple, I can whittle down paracausalities into three very, very broad categories.

• Type A: Existence Without Cause
• There is no way for the subject to exist or occur within the framework of cause-and-effect found in the rest of the universe.  
• Ex: A pristine late medieval French castle at the bottom of the Pacific.
  
• Type B: Disconnected Effect
• The cause should produce effect A, but instead produces effect Z (or sometimes A+Z). 
• Ex: Antique lamp that triggers whale beachings when turned on.
  
• Type C: Mess Plate
  
• The subject possesses traits of both A and B types. Honestly this is the grab bag catch-all.
  
• Ex: Moths fighting with thorns, in the style of samurai movies. The loser commits seppuku.
  
• Type D: Parallel Processing
• Multiple subjects operating along the cause and effect chain that is nonetheless incompatible with the rest of the universe.
  

A post hoc schema to describe something that is supposed to be ineffable within the hoc.

I get a decent (that is, non-zero) number of comments praising my Lighthouse field guide posts and the contents therein, so I will round out this minipost with the writing techniques I use.

• Be specific - Describe the paracausality as it is, with as much detail as you can within the space you have alloted. Avoid using "it appears to be", unless you can confirm that it is not what it looks like. Write me an image.
  
• Avoid judgement terms - Describe the paracausality in as neutral a tone as you can manage. Let the reader make the judgement calls.
  
• Be inconsistent on the broad scale - Resist the urge to make too many links between paracausalities. It's a great deal of fun, but it will shift your genre into a more traditional fantasy mold.
  
• Use the weirdness of the mundane world to your advantage - You see plenty of weird or unsettling things just going out for a drive. Let that do the heavy lifting for you.
• Reject genre expectations - Those just impose different cause and effect schemas to fulfill a plot. Bin them.
  
• The interaction with the world we know is where the meat is - The paracausality is in many cases the launching point - it exists in conjunction with those observing it and interacting with it. This interaction might only be implied or briefly stated, but it will be there - while the subject itself bypasses cause and effect, those who interact with it are not so free.

Dredge are the Coolest Orcs

Igor Artyomenko

This post contains MASSIVE, UNMARKED, UNCIPHERED spoilers for The Banner Saga. And not just plot spoilers either, these are huge emotional and thematic spoilers.

The dredge are introduced in the first game as typical orc stand-ins: an invading horde of implacable monsters with glowing eyes and stone armor, humans stolen and twisted by an unnamed god into his army to depose of the other deities, sweeping down from the furthest frozen north to sack and pillage everything in their wake, lead by a handful of immortal warchiefs (The Sundr definitely give me vibes of the Ten Who Were Taken from The Black Company books). No one is able to communicate with them, they are feared and hated by all, so on and so forth.

So far so orcish.

Move along to game two. Near the midway point you come across a godstone site that the dredge have already visited, and find there the corpse of a dredge woman and a still-living infant. The characters, already suspicious that the encroaching darkness is not all it seems to be, piece together that the dredge are not an invading army - they're refugees, fleeing from the darkness with increasing desperation, putting every able body on the front lines whether or not they are a fighter by trade because there are no other options.

Exactly like you have been doing for a game and a half.

Game three. You get the closest to the dredge that you'll get in the series, with a handful of dredge party members and a human translator (a witch who has learned how to replicate and understand the vibrations they use to communicate.)

Here we get the big bombshell. After the end of the war that killed the gods, the dredge made a secret treaty with the Velka (the council of the most powerful mages) - in exchange for an end to hostilities, they would be taught magic and other crafts they could use to build their own civilization outside of the influence of their god - the survivors had grown resentful of their nameless deity making them for war alone and giving them none of the knowledge and gifts the other peoples possessed.

The second and third generations of dredge are less inclined to war then their forbears, but then the inner sun goes dark and old wounds are re-opened (atop all else, the dredge believe that the Velka have darkened the inner sun and broken their treaty) and the games run their course.

I'll always love LotR's "elves-minus-maslow's-hierarchy" orcs (I'll eat my hat if the thematic parallels between the dredge and Tolkien's orcs weren't intentional.), but the dredge go the extra step of showing what happens when the influence of the Great Evil is no longer at play. You aren't fighting them because they're evil, you're fighting them because there's not enough food.

And that's just it, at the end of the day. An orc is just a man who, broken through the engines of desperation, oppression, ignorance or greed, has been driven to commit terrible violence against his neighbor. 

For further reading on the matter, I recommend Emmy Allen's fantastic post and followup tweet. Also Skerples' post. And Arnold's.

Notes from my First Game

I was clearing out a box of old notebooks and stumbled across the few pages that I didn't want to shred just yet - my first notes as a DM, from back during freshman year of college. Only two pages survive but it's got an NPC list and a city map so all's good.

I had based this (rather short-lived) campaign on an old, old thread on rpg.net about a city built around a tarrasque (Which got kickstarted and turned into the Salt in Wounds books). It was short-lived mostly because one of my players (who was the group's normal DM) went and murdered an entire tavern with some Book of Nine Swords crazy stuff and I didn't know how to respond to that.

I apologize ahead of time for the quality being a good bit lower than my usual output. I was learning the ropes. Everything not here has been forgotten or lost.

The City of Anterras

Description of a Map: A river running northeast to southwest. A canyon carved in the red-orange badlands stone.

The River Red cuts through the valley city from north to south. It was originally named so for the red clay of the riverbed, and later for the tarrasque blood that leaks into the southern flow through the Low City.

The Citadel was built atop the great beast, to contain it, to flense and carve and cut away at its flesh.  A fortress-abattoir-prison on an island in the river.

The Inner City surrounds the Citadel. Here are found the foundries, butchers and chimericists that make the tarrasque their trade.

The Low City consists of the southern arc of Anterras, and contains within it all the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

High City contains the rich bourgeois neighborhoods, with manicured parks and beautiful boulevards. The offices of the city government may be found here, as well as the trade houses, courts of law, and university.

The Outer City sits atop the cliff and is reachable only by secret elevator or lengthy staircase. The palaces of the fantastically, obscenely wealthy cling as barnacles to the time-carved stone.

The Riverside slums are split by the Citadel and Inner City, but they are the same either way. Docks and warehouses and teamsters unions and easy access to vices.

The Downs are the undercity, the buried ruins of the city here before Anterras was raised. The parts still (marginally) inhabited are mostly under the Low City.

Smokeside  is the northwest quarter of the city, downwind of the foundries. It is a proper Gehennic hellscape, doubling as the plague quarter in times of prion disease flareups.

Breezeside consists of the High and Outer districts. Money = clean air, in Anterras.

NPCs

Mara-Oversandhill - Halfling trader who does business in and out of the city. Her caravan is the primary means for outsiders to find their way there.

Dr. Percival De Laquoris - Doctor in the plague quarter of Smokeside, runs a clinic there. Infuriatingly deliberate and slow to act. Good standing in the Low City.

Dr. Shil Caster - Percival's assistant. Alchemist. Never takes off his mask. More tolerable to deal with than his employer.

Shady Traw - A shopkeeper in the Downs

Hoskar Torn - Dwarf, lead representative of the Forgeworker's Guild.

Min - Runs a Low City boarding house and post office.

Thud - A domesticated troll in the employ of Min.

Fulwood, Shiv, Osten - Boarders at Min's, foreigners.

Seward the Steward - A steward for the city council offices

Shykana - Orc chieftainess here representing the nomad clans outside the city.

Winras Vadier - Head of the city military, currently preparing for the next crusade against the outside.

Mad Ferbi - A wizard. Lives inside an asbestos suit due to repeated fireball mishaps.

The Greatest Table Ever Made

This is from the quickstart rules for Call of Cthulhu 7e. It's not in the main book, and that's a shame, because I think this might be the best table in RPGs.

With this table, we can toss out weapon-specific damage amounts and the mundane combat parts of bestiary entries entirely. All that boring stuff about firearm range and worrying about the damage difference between a machete and a crowbar, gone. Fumbling around shopping at WeaponMart, gone. All that chaff about precisely how much damage a betentacled horror can do, gone. Everything is boiled down into "what makes sense in this particular moment for this particular scenario". Any weapon could be anywhere on the list. All you have to do is look at the table.

I want more games to do this. I possibly want all games to do this.

I really don't have anything else to say on the matter. It's a good table.

The Fellows at the Bottom of the Stairs

I gotcha covered, Furt.

Blame LawfulNeutral for egging me on.

Playing with the Big Boys Now

Look, you knew it was going to be those chuckleheads from The Prince of Egypt. The guardians of the Gate of Deeper Slumber could not possibly be anyone else. They've been at it for four and a half thousand years plus and they're showing no signs of stopping. The only thing worse than living with each other is living with anyone else. Besides, who would look after the cats? Mix with Ningauble and Sheelba, to taste.

1. "Quickly! Go fetch medicine. Nasht is ill. Very terrible, bound to die any moment. Free me from the agony of his presence. Can't leave him alone for a moment. Vomit all over the futon. You'll find the herb on Mt. Ngranek. Get going!"

2. "The Lady Bast has invited her elder sister Lady Sekhmet to a banquet in honor of her birthday. It seems that the two have not entirely settled the matter of their ancient and obscure quarrels and an insult was loosed; now the Lady Sekhmet has murdered most of the guests and is, at the time of the penning of this message, eating the clown. I believe that a rescue is in order."

3. "Look at this! Absolute rubbish. Last time I buy a used golden barge. You may have it. There is a tiger inside. You must deal with it."

4. "I have an appointment this afternoon with some members of the ordo obscurum librorum. Refreshments are available but I seem to have misplaced my copy of the book of the month. Go forth to the Library Stygian and retrieve a replacement. Here is my card."

5. "Alzabo in the garden. Ruining my tomatoes. Take care of it."

6. "The nightgaunts that deliver the mail have ceased operations, claiming they are on strike against poor working conditions. I applaud this. Deliver these baked goods to the picketers. I am certain nothing bad will happen."

If you find yourself unable to reach the Dreamlands, these two certainly fit in some cave up on Vungelbraeskulnuk in the central Discape.

A Layman's Guide to Being Horrible

A follow-up to my previous layman's guide and applicable still to Mothership, no less, lets talk a bit about horror.

The core of horror is the emotion of "I have no idea what is going on and I am unequipped to handle it". Something is wrong. It's a confrontation with what you don't know and don't understand in a liminal intersection between the perceived rules of reality and that reality itself.

If you ask people what they are frightened of you'll get seven billion different answers and change. Everything comes back to "something is wrong", and further categorization is an exercise in missing the forest.

The horrific element can be as mundane or fantastic, banal or supernatural as you want, but it all comes down to the great violation.

"There is a tiger in the room", "the government is feeding people to tigers" and "the tiger stands up and begins to speak in slurred and broken words" all roost in the fact that there is a tiger not where (you think) it is supposed to be e.g. very far away from you.

Now then: how to use this in games.

My experience: ratchet up that imagery. Burn the wrongness of it all into your players heads. You can make anything scary with a good description, even if it's a single goblin with a kitchen knife. Names and boundaries make people comfortable - get rid of them. Turn them on their head. Don't play by the narrative rules your players expect. Get grotesque. Let things build up over time instead of cashing all your chips at once. Let the players' imaginations do the legwork for you.

Prime example, the man in the car from when I played Esoteric Enterprises. Ordinary enough start followed by the ramp-up. The audible "oh shit" when it was revealed that he had shot himself in the head three times was music to my ears. But, having now used that trick, I won't be able to get the same effect if I try it again because it will no longer be a violation of the normal-predictable-knowable world.

I've written a bit about how horror can evolve into less-horrible things over time before and there's a huge flaw in that essay: sometimes shit just refuses to be understood. The mythic underworld is the mythic underworld and no amount of self-assured Enlightenment era skepticism changes that. Sometimes there are no answers. This is best to keep it horrible. Do not explain.

(Spoilers for US, presented in Rot-13 cipher)

Vg znxrf zr zvssrq gb urne crbcyr pbzcynva nobhg ubj gur ghaaryf va HF qba'g znxr nal ybtvpny frafr - bs pbhefr gurl qba'g znxr ybtvpny frafr! Gung'f jung znxrf gurz ubeevslvat! Gurl erwrpg lbhe ernyvgl! Erq jnf whfg bssrevat gur orfg rkcynangvba fur pbhyq guvax bs naq vg vf pyrneyl jebat!

Now then: How to use this for Mothership in particular.

"Xenomorph" and "gigantic fleshblob" are classics for good reason, but they are known quantities. It's still possible to get people creeped out by them, but you really need to pull out the stops. Kinda like using Mythos monsters when running Call of Cthulhu - players expect certain things. But, that can be used to one's advantage.

Somewhat counter-productively, I'd say to aim for something that doesn't immediately get people thinking about Alien or Event Horizon. Even if you are using xenomorphs and gigantic fleshblobs. Use horror that doesn't normally "belong" in space (it belongs wherever it pleases to). Lean into your own fears.

• You wake up from hibernation and there's a live tiger in the cryobay.
• You return home to find that everything swerved to some sort of Brazil meets Repeairer of Reputations setup and everyone talks like it's always been like this.
• The colony you were supposed to land on is filled with farming drones doing a really bad LARP of the Wizard of Oz and you can't find any of the colonists.
• A ship emerges with hyperspace, every available cubic meter filled with asphyxiated corpses.
• You've missed three generations of your family; you can't understand them and they don't like or understand you.

This post brought to you by Great Lakes Brewing Co. Holy Moses Raspberry White Ale.

Making Dungeons with AI, Dan Edition

Skerples did this. Now I will do this as well. You can do it too!

The door burst open! Three goblins atop each other's shoulders and wielding a mighty thwacking paddle entered the room!

"It's going to be a hard fight but… the Lord said to have a battle!" Zhang Xuan thought.

"The Lord said you had to fight against a Goblin to the death." Han Yan smiled.

"No matter how hard you fight, you'll always be a burden to the Lord." Zhang Xuan smiled. "Besides, it's only three. I guess it's hard for you the most. If I'm lucky, I've already gotten away."

After he finished explaining of the process of entering the room and preparing for the battle, the three goblins disappeared in a flash.

"Phew, he really took care of me in a hurry. Even I haven't seen another guy of his caliber in over 2,000 years…" Han Yan looked at the goblins to his left and right. "You must still be wondering about the remaining three!" He turned around and looked.

Wow Zhang Huan is a dick. And apparently really good at just vaporizing goblins.

**

It was at this point, however, that the Council of Wizards decided to suspend its action. When you think about it, it made perfect sense. Once it became clear that the Council was doing nothing, the first thing that occurred to everyone was, "Oh well, I won't bother anymore with that... but we'll give them time to prepare," and once they were ready to go to court it seemed like a perfectly rational thing to do.

If you're interested in what actually happened you can read the official statement from the Wizards of the Coast team which was published with the information released by them. You can also watch the video at the top of this article, or the video at the bottom of this article.

If you haven't been following the events surrounding the trial, I strongly urge that you read every single word that's been written over the last couple of days.

Wizard Justice!
**

Random Encounters in the City of Red Pyramids:
1. Procession of ghoul-priests
2: Elephant philosopher
3: Temple prostitutes on lunch break
4. Bazaar of bones
6. Temple-serpent god
7. Blood-sucking fiends in a cage
Bonus Level: 1/2
- The Temple-Servant
A very powerful priestess with an almost limitless power and access to magic items, who runs a temple in Red Pyramids. Also has a "special" ability – she can make the victims of her spells (including her own) become her servants, or even her personal bodyguards, and they can live in other people's homes when they're asleep, and even do stuff like take over their minds and kill their own souls!
Languages: Gnome. -2 Strength, -2 Constitution. -1 to Dexterity, -1 to Intelligence, -2 to Charisma. -2 Luck.
- The Temple-Sorceress
A half-breed half-tiefling and half-ling half-orc who was forced to marry the wizard to avoid being killed. While she was alive, she had a daughter (

Temple-Servant got absolutely wrecked on attribute scores. Maybe horrific injury? Temple-Sorceress doesn't seem to be doing much better, being the demonspawn of a halfling who was already half-orc. Does halfling + orc = normal sized human? Doesn't look like marrying the wizard did her any good, she's dead anyway.

**

It was clear from the beginning that the witch had no patience for any of the prince's bullshit.

She kept her gaze fixed on the two men beside her, their faces obscured by dust. But she couldn't ignore what they were doing. The Prince would have to find them if he wanted to get information about her location. How would they make that happen?

The dust on the ground continued to pile up.

As she glanced down to the dust, she saw it was coming from the prince's hands. He was trying to grab something, grabbing it, grabbing it—but as she watched, he was being pulled back from the dust and the men were pulling at him with their hands.

At that, the blonde mage could only stare. A sudden, intense surge of excitement began to surge through her body as she heard the first of the shouts. She couldn't believe what was happening. Something had to be done. Her thoughts raced and in a flash of lightning, she knew, the guards rushed

Damn dustmen, getting dust everywhere.

**

The train of refugees, over a thousand strong, was fleeing orc raids in the west. They were coming to safety, but the orcs were trying to keep them from leaving.

"I'd like to make you an offer," the orc said slowly and hesitantly, as he stood in the doorway near the exit, "but I'm afraid your head would just hit the pillow. What's your name?"

He raised his head. An ancient orc sat by the window staring. The train in front of him had stopped, and the other people were staring as well. This Orc was the first person to speak, and the second to leave, as she took in his face and looked him over.

"I'm sorry, lady orc."

The orc nodded to her. "That's a shame. I knew you could do it. You were my mentor and I watched you grow into a dangerous and proud warrior. I saw how much you loved men and the world, and I'm proud to watch you grow into what you are today." In an attempt to hide her disgust at first, she nodded

These are terribly civil orcs. I wonder why they want the refugees to stay? Can't possibly be good.

**

This promised to be an excellent space adventure.
From: Michael Sager

Subject: Re: Space Battleships?

Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2004 11:22:45 -0700

I am sure he is aware of the games that are going on. I will update when I get any details about that. Michael Sager

Man this one is just an enigma. There are games going on, some third party who is aware of them, and the potential for space battleships.

**

Bar the gates! The army is on its way!
[Chorus: "Gods, the gates are closing against us!"] [Chorus: "If we stand strong at the gate, everything will turn for good.] [Chorus: "All of this will go from us.") [Chorus: "No one will save us now, there will never be any return"]

I imagine this is a Greek Chorus, in which case, it seems that they are going back and forth between the two armies. Dual choruses.

**

The haruspex was stumped, the case was going cold and now a new murder had emerged.

The victim, who didn't want to be named, said she was sitting on her balcony with her two small children when a man came out of the bushes looking for her.

You know things are good when the murder victim shows up to get the case solved.

**

The cults took to the inner rainforest, practicing their secret rites on the altar of the tiger-god.

Eventually, the great jungle forest became a kind of city of its own. When a shaman could not get through to the spirits within the forest, he had to go into the temple of Ganesha to reach the jungle itself. Ganesha was very important and sacred to the jungle people -- he served as a god who helped the people maintain peace in the jungle.

Eventually the city came to exist along rivers as an enormous temple of Hindu gods where people came to be worshipped like this. The jungle people who lived there were called the gansharana. A great forest temple, like the one in the Indian jungle, was surrounded by a great temple of Hindu deities to be worshiped like this.

The great tree of Ganesha was the chief god to the jungle tribes. It is thought by the Hindus

 Not gonna lie, huge rainforest ewok-city filled with statues of Hindu gods sounds cool as hell.

Three Miniposts

My muse is a fickle one. An idea will possess me for a brief and brilliant moment, then vanish. Drafts will languish untouched for months and when i finally return the excitement that once possessed me has passed.

Here's some of that brain-detritus: unfinished, incomplete, fragmentary.

Playing Around with World States

You know how Zelda has the Dark World? It's like that. Take your map and add a new plane on top of it as a new layer. If there's a city in that spot, there's still a city there now, but it's changed according to whatever plane the adventurers find themselves on. If there's a mountain there, there will continue to be a mountain there.

It's a sort of hyper-dense Planescape, expanding deeper instead of outwards. Your map can be far smaller than it would be normally but contain more content. You can have fun with portals. Puzzles can cross worlds. You can get more material put of prepping one map and just adding variants. String together modules.

Binding of Isaac: OSRbirth Double Plus Platinum God Edition

It had to happen eventually. I've sunk too many hours into these games to avoid it. And thanks to Nick over at Papers & Pencils and his Legend of Zelda ruleset, it may now come to fruition, even in this unfinished state.

If the stars could not possibly get more aligned, there's a multiplayer Binding of Isaac card game out there that has mechanics that can be hacked into the aforementioned Zelda rules, plus the rules and all the cards are just listed on the official site.

1 heart = 2 HP

• Soul hearts cannot be replenished. When they are gone, they're gone.
• Black hearts are like soul hearts, but upon depletion do 2 damage to every enemy in the room.
• Bone hearts have 3 HP each. After taking a 3rd point of damage (if it has not been restored), it shatters and is permanently lost. 

Characters

• Isaac - 3 hearts - The D6 (reroll an item)
• Maggie - 4 hearts - Yum Heart (gain 2 HP)
• Cain - 2 hearts - Lucky Foot (1 point of luck)
• Judas - 1 heart - Book of Belial (+1 damage to attacks in this room)
• Eve - 2 hearts - Whore of Babylon (gain +1 damage when at 2 HP or less)
• Samson - 3 HP - Bloody Lust (gain +1 damage after killing 5 enemies and taking no damage)
• ??? - 3 soul hearts - Poop (hide behind it for 1 armor)
• Azazel - 3 black hearts - Flight, short brimstone (gain +1 damage / turn of charging)
• Lazarus - 3/1 hearts - Resurrects with 1 heart after death, leaving 1 damage blood trail.
• Eden - Random, up to 3 of any combination - 2 random items
• The Lost - 0 - Flight, spectral, Holy Mantle (negates 1 attack / room)
• Lilith - 1 heart, 2 black hearts - Incubus (Familiar), Cambion Conception (gain new familiar each 15 points of damage)
• Keeper - 2 coins (1HP each) - Wooden nickel (gain 1 penny)
• Apollyon - 2 hearts - Void (permanently trade item for stat boost)
• The Forgotten - 2 bone hearts / 1 soul heart - Physical form has club only. Spectral has tears.

Religion As Alignment

Some time ago now, I caught an NPR segment (or was it a completely unrelated podcast? I honestly don't know) that broke down religion into five core questions.

• How am I here? (The cosmological question)
• Why am I here? (The existential question)
• Why do bad things happen? (The problem of evil)
• How do I know right from wrong? (The morality question)
• What happens when I die? (The afterlife question)

You can see the random tables practically generating themselves.

The answers to those questions becomes alignment. It's social alignment, it's cultural alignment, it's political alignment, it's incredibly important when dealing with the relationships between large groups of people. If you are dealing with people, you can't escape it: atheism doesn't mean that religion disappears, it just means that the answers to the questions come from different sources.

So the religious alignment chart ends up turning into a nifty little spreadsheet (James Young over at Ten Foot Polemic already did something like this years ago) where you can easily see what the general relationship is between two religions. To whit, I say there are four relationships:

• Peaceable
• Neutral
• Dislike and Distrust
• Open Hostility

But religions themselves have alignment of their own. I shouldn't have to go into detail on all the issues with defining gods (and their followers) as objectively lawful or good or chaotic or evil, but the idea of using a short hand to determine where a religion sits shouldn't necessarily be thrown out with the bathwater. It just needs a little edit.This part is helpful for people who are running 5e for folks who have yet to come out of the shallow end of the pool, I suppose.

The Law / Chaos axis is replaced by one representing organization, hierarchy, and orthodoxy.

The Good / Evil axis is replaced by one representing a religion's social acceptance.

So a religion previously labeled as "Lawful Good" now becomes "high organization, high acceptance". It might be awful as hell, but this alignment chart doesn't care about that.

Both of these factors can change according to where and when the religion in question is situated.

Unironic Use of Fake Jacobean Speech

E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros ends on a pristine moment of horror: the four protagonists are granted a wish by the gods, and they wish to endlessly repeat the brutal four-year war they just finished fighting, forever.

This book was written in 1922.  There are no signs of satire.

(This is where I plug Jack and Kate over at Bad Books for Bad People, they have a great episode all about this).

Anyway! Games. Whilst unspeakably horrifying to any human being even remotely on the spectrum of decency, the cyclic forever war is damn good gaming material. So for that purpose I shall use it.

War, huh? What's it good for?

The two main belligerents in the Ouroboros War are Demonland (led by the Lords Juss, Spitfire, and Goldry Bluszco) and Witchland (led by King Gorice XII). Everyone seems to be human for whatever reason.

Witchland has a bunch of minor client nations allied to them (Goblinland, Pixieland, Impland, etc. All of varying reliability), at least one competent political advisor, and a black magician. Demonland tends to field Big Strong Distressingly-Aryan Big Strong Men What Fight Good And They Are The Best And Noblest Because They Are Big and Strong And Also Manchildren.

Actual foot soldiers? Ha, fuck them, they don't matter in this story. All the actual consequences of war get a single sentence.

The important thing is that everyone remembers what happened in the last loop. The world state resets, the dead are now alive again, but no one forgets. Each time it will be different, but the end result will always be the same.

Everything Old is New Again

Game premise: You are all soldiers and peasantry who have been on the receiving end of the Ouroboros War for 3 / 5 / 10 / 20 / 50 / 100 cycles. You are engaged in a desperate attempt to stop the cycle and depose the Lords, if possible. By now you know that Juss' queen, Sophonisba, is responsible for the hell the world finds itself in. She called upon the gods, and they answered her. Perhaps she can call upon them again, if she had a conscience.

But she is always in the presence of the Lords, and that is a great problem: the Lords are either at the head of their army, or wandering around in the wilderness halfway around the world. Defeating them in direct combat is unlikely, given how Big and Strong they are. There are potential allies to be found in certain members of the court of Witchland (though that nation is likewise filled with meatheaded manchildren) and perhaps among the minor nations, but that must be saved until the cycle is broken. Killing the Lords now will do nothing but give Witchland the round.

It is likely that you will all die. This is only a temporary problem, because you will return in the next cycle with all the knowledge you gained the last time.

Edit: And then Dark Souls Happens

Type1Ninja in the OSR Discord said that my description sounded a lot like Dark Souls III. Lords of Cinder constantly perpetuating a cycle, rejected nobody ends up either perpetuating or ending the cycle. Aesthetically, Souls games are the polar opposite of The Worm Ouroboros, which can only mean that the interaction and synthesis of the two is a great idea.

An Account of Inherited Books

You can learn a lot about someone by their bookshelf. These were once my dad's, and now they have passed to me.

• The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
• The Annotated Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
• The Annotated Alice, Lewis Carrol
• Histories, Heroditus
• Beowulf, Norton Critical Edition
• The Aenead of Vergil, trans. Rolfe Humphries
• Private Life in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Roger Virgoe
• Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, Norman Cantor
• Civilization of the Middle Ages,  Norman Cantor
• Castle, David Macauley
• In Praise of Folly, Erasmus
• The Black Death, Philip Ziegler
• The Travels, Marco Polo
• Spells of Enchantment: The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture, ed. Jack Zipes
• Leonardo Da Vinci: the Complete Paintings, Pietro Marani 
• The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle
• Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee, trans. Robert van Gulik
• Judge Dee at Work, Robert van Gulik
• The Emperor's Pearl, Robert van Gulik
• The Chinese Gold Murders, Robert van Gulik
• The Chinese Bell Murders, Robert van Gulik 
• The Lacquer Screen, Robert van Gulik
• Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse
• Second copy of Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves
• Mulliner Nights, P.G. Wodehouse
• The Feudal Spirit, P.G. Wodehouse
• Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, P.G. Wodehouse
• Cocktail Time, P.G. Wodehouse
• Luck of the Bodkins, P.G. Wodehouse
• The Man Upstairs, P.G. Wodehouse
• Very Good, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse
• The League of Frightened Men, Rex Stout
• A second copy of The League of Frightened Men
• Please Pass the Guilt, Rex Stout
• Plot it Yourself, Rex Stout
• Representing Reality: Readings in Non-Fiction, John Warnock
• Sister Wendy's Grand Tour, Sr. Wendy Beckett
• Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers
• Hush Money, Robert Parker
• Jack, Knave, and Fool, Bruce Alexander
• Murder at the Vicarage, Agatha Christie
• Noble Radiance, Donna Leon
• Acqua Alta, Donna Leon
• The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
• Valediction, Robert Parker
• The Lies of Fair Ladies, Jonathan Grant
• Armadillos and Old Lace, Kinky Friedman
• Murder at the ABA, Isaac Asimov
• Fletch Reflected, Gregory Mcdonald
• The Road to Rhuine, Simon Troy
• The World of Giotto, Sarel Eimerl
• The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe
• Style (3rd Ed.), Joseph Williams
• The Well-Tempered Sentence, Karen Elizabeth Gordon
• The Transitive Vampire, Karen Elizabeth Gordon
• Citizen Sherman, Michael Fellman
• Atlas of the Civil War, Time-Life
• The Pythons, the Pythons
• Monty Python's Flying Circus DVD box set
• 2 daily calendars compatible with 2020 and 2026.
• Several books of crossword puzzles, partially completed in pen.
• A wooden mask, laughing. 
• Desk sign: "English Department: Sentences diagrammed, infinitives split, participles dangled, while you wait."
• A finger painting I made in preschool. 

Now if I can't make an adventure or ten out of this list I might as well just quit this whole RPG thing. To avoid this grievous disappointment, here is the skeleton of a campaign come up with on the fly. Given the nature of most of the books on this list, this would probably be best suited for BRP or GURPS.

Session 1: Judge Dee and his lieutenants are confronted with the case of the "Laughing Mask Murders". Judge Dee, unsettled by the events, sends the wooden mask into the care of the Imperial Censors in the capital.

Session 2: Beowulf and his Geats come to the aid of Hrothgar, kill the monster Grendel and his mother. Great and wonderful treasures are found: among them, a golden mask with a terrible visage. All are taken back to Götaland.

Session 3: A short comedic interlude wherein Marco Polo and companions assist the Khan's men to solve a mystery. They are given the Laughing Mask as a reward, and it is taken back to Italy.

Session 4: The Plague has reached northern Italy. A monastery, spared of the sickness thus far, is struck with a string of mysterious deaths. All the while, the Laughing Mask sits in the main alcove of the library.

Session 5: Da Vinci's anatomical lessons get out of hand as the dead seem to leap up from the table. One of the corpses gets its hold on the Laughing Mask (Leonardo had acquired it some time before) and goes on a rampage.

Session 6: A band of Union soldiers separated from Sherman's main force find themselves lost in the Georgia backwoods, stalked by a monstrous being in a weeping stone mask.

Session 7: Sherlock Holmes is brought in to solve the theft of the Terrible Mask from the British Museum. While doing so he meets an old American soldier who shares the story of the Weeping Mask. The soldier steals the Terrible Mask and smuggles it over to America, for reasons unknown.

Session 8: Bertie Wooster and his butler Jeeves have a rather silly little adventure of no greater consequence.

Phase 9: Chaos is unleashed as the three masks are joined during Game 4 of the 1966 World Series. Yes, this is a JoJo reference.


Not half bad for off the top of my head. Had to finish it off with baseball, the old man was a gigantic Orioles fan and he'd at least be entertained by all the musical gags in JoJo.

All Purpose Mad Libs Late Capitalist Scenario Generator

You better believe this is for Mothership.

1. [Company 1] releases [Wildly successful product]

2. [Company 2+], envious of the success of [Company 1], draws up plans for [Copycat product]. They completely abandon [Once popular product], under patently untrue claims that no one wants it anymore.

3. It is obvious to even casual observers that [Copycat product] will never reach the heights of [Wildly successful product] due to [Crippling oversight] and [Missing features] born of risk aversion and lack of any practical understanding of [Product field].

4. To make [Copycat product], [Company 2+] hires expendable contractors at low wages to fulfill [Task] under crushing deadlines. These contractors have no love for the company or their conditions, but are forced into service to afford [Necessary expense]. Many will die.

5. [Copycat product] is either a complete failure or otherwise performs below shareholder expectations, surprising fucking no one who has two functioning neurons. Contractors are terminated and development teams are closed, cancelling whatever good ideas they might have had.

5b. [Copycat product] is successful and [Company 2+] devotes all possible man power to iterating upon it. This inevitably results in failure.

6. This cycle continues until [Company 1] fucks up and [Wildly successful product] is no longer wildly successful. The buyer base will move on to [Different trending product], and it repeats.

A Few of My Favorite Things (Plus a Extra Stuff for Starters)

House rules! There are a lot of them out there. Here are some that I like. I threw in some general resources at the end that I've found useful.

Most veteran readers will be aware of some or all of these, so I am treating this post as something of a quick-start guide for people new to the DIY sphere who want some good places to start customizing.

House Rules

Shields Shall be Splintered
The classic: sacrifice your shield to negate damage from an attack.

Equipment Tags
While the example is for sci-fi there's no reason this can't be applied wherever for many more varied and special weapons and armor.

Powerful Weapons
Less of a house rule and more of just a class feature that adapts firearm rules to other powerful weapons, but I really like the mechanic: Ignore AC from armor and apply DR instead, roll 1 size higher damage die if you are using two hands.

Horrible Wounds
Instead of just dropping dead, you can get a fancy scar and lingering trauma! It's fun - players can survive a bit more, but there's always consequence and choices to follow - keep going, or retire? See if it can heal, or make a new character? Having it split up by damage type is also great fun.

Heavy vs Fast Weapons
It just makes sense, you know?  Use STR for bows and weapons of d8 damage or higher, and DEX for d6 or lower and other ranged weapons. Simple, easy, sensible.

Luck Rolls
DCC's luck stat is so good it should be used everywhere. It's a tool to solve problems on the fly, a means for players to have additional input on goings, and a resource to manage and make decisions with. 3d6 as normal, burn a point to gain +1 on a roll, roll under for a check. That's it.

Vaginas are Magic Casting
You can safely cast a number of spells equal to your level per day. Any further, and you have to make a save vs magic or roll on a terrible magical feedback table. (See AuraTwilight's wild magic for ultra funtimes)

Knave Inventory
You have slots = to your CON. No fuss. Heavier armor and weapons take up additional slots.

Extra Stuff for Starters

Darkest Dungeon Character Kits
I will recommend this to everyone who will listen and quite a few people who won't. It's the single best starting point for pre-made characters that really get the old school motif, and a great way to demonstrate to new players that classes are not monolithic: not all fighters are the same.

Corpathium
Is fucking awesome, is what it is. If you need a hub city, this is your hub city. Modify to taste. Use it for Sigil, for Ravnica, for Throne, the Yellow City, whatever.

The Infinigrad Tables 
The best way to populate Corpathium.The job tables in Blasphemous Roster have saved my bacon before and they certainly will in the future.

Every god damn Trilemma adventure
They're short, they're free, they're great.

100 Minor Magical Items and 100 Problem-Solvers
Gives treasure some personality and use.

Other Stuff

"The Coolest Thing Ray Ever Did" by Jeff Rients

"Orcs, Violence, and Evil" by Emmy Allen.

Ramanan's automatic level 1 character generator

Purple Sorcerer's level 0 party generator.

Links to Wisdom and the OSR Planet

Benton Molina's Incunabuli is some bloody fantastic prose and I can't wait for the book.

Signs in the Wilderness is mythic Americana and I can't wait for the book.

There's more, there's always more, but these are the ones first in line.

Everyone is Human

I've played around with this idea before, and got to thinking of expanding it upon seeing Trey Causey over at Sorcerer's Skull do something similar, as well as Joe Fatula's stuff over at Signs in the Wilderness.

Reverse-engineering the Standard Fantasy Races (TM) into primates that exist in the real-world has fourfold purpose: one, stale fantasy tropes are stale and mythologizing the real world is much more fun and meaningful for me. Two, it's the easy go between of "humans only" and "lots of choice of fantasy peoples", since both are true. Third, it allows you to focus on the really weird fantasy species that can be thrown into the world to interact with. Fourth, I have a feeling it's a solid way to circumvent "let's go into the caves and just murder everyone". We have chaos-spawn for that.

Human Species

Humans - Homo sapiens sapiens - This is us.

Dwarves - Homo sapiens neanderthalensis - A bit shorter, a bit stockier, live up in the lands of ice and snow. Possibly deceptively high-pitched voices.

Elves - Homo sapiens idaltu - Immediate ancestors of humans, now fading out.

Halflings / gnomes - Homo sapiens floresiensis - The little people. Tend to come from small, remote islands.

Orcs - Homo sapiens denisova - Closely related to dwarves, significant cross-pollination between the two peoples. Live in a vast and rugged wilderness, far from civilization.

Ogres - Homo sapiens carnifex - The result of heavy arcane reagent poisoning. Gigantism, mental degradation, violent cannibalistic tendencies.

Tiefling - Homo sapiens cambionis - The result of a cubus transferring sperm between a male and female victim. Sterile, generally mutated.

Aasimar - Homo sapiens nephilli - The result of a angelic siring and miraculous birth. Sterile, generally mutated.
 

Other Primates

Goblins - Lemurs and tarsiers - Loud, rowdy, huge tribes, downright bizarre looking really.

Hobgoblins - Chimpanzees and bonobos - Tool usage, have figured out war and raiding parties.

Bugbears - Mandrills - Ye gods, look at those teeth.

Firbolgs - Orangutans and gorillas - Eminently chill dwellers of the inner forests.

Trolls - A hunchbacked, ape-like mass of tumors. No one knows what it used to be.

Giants - Gigantopithicus - Huge, rarely seen.

Project Updates for 2019

With the new year of 12019 upon us (Holocene Era calendar for life), here's some of the stuff I've been working on and hopefully will be working on in the future.

Unicorn Meat

(This is a module about an abandoned backwoods factory farm for unicorns that has gone full True Detective / LISA the Painful)

The first draft of the module is complete, but first drafts have a way of revealing to you that completion is a fair way away. I've got potential revisions all written down and ready for addition once the mental batteries recharge.

The main change will be one of framing and focus. All of the playtests so far have been about a adventuring party happening upon the events at the farm, and this has brought with it issues of motivation and confusion of what to do. To address this, I feel that a switcheroo is in order: "carvergirls attempting to escape the farm" gets bumped up to the primary hook, while "adventurers from the outside" gets bumped down the list.

All the rest is just cleanup and reorganization of what I've already got down, with a bit of expansion where needed. With the carvergirls bumped up as the primary player option adding a Nightwatch class and their spells is going to happen.

There's a ways to go, but I'm excited. It's gonna be great.

The Great Discape

(This is a weirdo setting of a bunch of strange places on the back of a giant whale.)

I haven't forgotten about it.

The Danscape, while loads of fun to play and run,was a bit of a big, unguided mess. Setting was so big that it might as well not have existed or could have been a single planet, maybe even within walking distance. The 100-long list of species went mostly untouched and unused. It's all diluted, and in the heat of the moment it is too much for a DM to use adequately on the fly.

I had some thoughts of paring the setting down, perhaps adding the Wanderers as the main races, but that didn't come to fruition.

Because I've already got a project with "scape" in it already. (Draft here.)

After some feedback from folks and a good time of thinking, I've got some notions of combining the two, so that everyone is far less confused about everything.

Some ideas and edits that have taken hold.

• Cutting down the number of major regions - already done in the draft, down to 14.
• Adding a list of minor regions (which will include abridged versions of those cut)
• Consolidating the places of note from Danscape to Discape.
• The Discape itself is made of dead gods, because why not?
• There is no off switch to the K6BD influences.
• Filling out the Discape with some more random tables.
• There was that huge race table made for the Danscape. I don't think it will be added in, but I'll figure something out for it.

One of the advantages of jumping from half-baked project to half-baked project is that you can occasionally bake an entire project out of the pieces.

Mother Stole Fire

(This is my "default" fantasy setting)

Broad-view plans for all this is to make a sort of setting gazetteer, in the vein of Chromatic Soup. A map of the Olen River Valley adventure region and a series of background equipment kits have been sketched out and I've got a decent short list of  pre-existing posts to polish and throw together.

Untitled Post Apocalyptic Project

(This has yet to be made)

There is in my head the shape of a game. An apocalyptic game, but after a revelatory apocalypse rather than a destructive one. Fit for fighting monsters and paranormal investigation, but more in the vein of Hellboy and the BPRD than Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green. Something that scratches the Degenesis itch more than a hack can.

If Hellboy + Dreamlands + Esoteric Enterprises + Degenesis + Warframe for some fucking reason sounds like a good time to you, this is one to keep tabs on.

Games I Want to Run

Got plenty of stuff on the docket for this year, but the main plans are:

• Mothership - Got plenty of stuff to use already and I can't wait to get started.
• Warhammer 40k via SWN - Using John B's excellent little hack, I can finally knock 40k off the bucket list.
• DCC - Want to try a longer campaign on this one, I've got plenty of material for it. Once my copy of Chained Coffin comes in that'll definitely see some use.
• Other stuff - Who knows? There shall always be more opportunities.