10 Sapient Aliens For Mothership

Juniorwoodchuck

And here we go, the last of my series of patreon-exclusive posts from back in the halcyon days of February.

10 Sapient Alien Species for Mothership (and other games)

1) A decaying satellite crying tightband radio bursts into the night, orbiting a world of desertified continents, sterile acidic oceans, and unbreathable CO2 haze.

• The satellite will respond to attempts at communication using the 1420 MHz band. Its first messages will be used to establish baseline proficiency in math and chemistry with whomever it is talking to, growing in complexity and steadily increasing the amount of data transferred. (Example puzzles: Prime numbers. Fibbonaci sequence, hypotenuse calculation, identifying elements (hydrogen, then helium, carbon, oxygen, uranium etc, chemical compounds like water, sucrose, caffeine etc.)
• The satellite will be able to form a basic vocabulary in a few days if provided with sufficient data. It will try for sympathy. It will lie.
• The satellite contains 2861 digitized minds - all that could be saved of the eleven billion beings that once inhabited the planet below. All of these are close enough in complexity to a human mind that they can be loaded onto a run on an android logic core. Makeup of the population is:
• 00-23 - Chrysocratic landowning caste
• 24-30 - Diplomatic stratoeunuch caste
• 31-50 - Petrofascist party leadership
• 51-65 - Cryptotechnocratic monopolists
• 66-89 - Retainers of the above parties (roll again, ignore 66+)
• 90-99 - Literate scientists and scholars.

2) Colonial organisms like tube worm pipe organs, living simple lives and thinking simple thoughts around the deep-sea vents at the bottom of a subglacial ocean.

• Observation can tell that they are thinking, but can’t tell what they are communicating to each other, or to what extent they are aware of their observers.
• The beings can, very slowly, guide the growth of structures from dead segments of the colony (akin to coral formation) that appear akin to cathedrals to the human eye - these have no practical purpose, and so are considered art and thus valuable.
• Pressure differences would kill these creatures long before they ever made it to the surface. This does not stop a certain secretive band of investment firms who want to transplant one of the colonies and sell it as an art installation.

3) Dolphin analogues (highly social aquatic pack predators) from the shallow oceans of a high-gravity superhabitable world. Sleek pointed cylindrical bodies with powerful tails and steering fins.

• A rough lexicon has been established, basic communication is possible with machine intermediaries.
• The beings have shown great curiosity in human researchers and AI probes. Several have volunteered to be taken offworld.
• This is less good, because someone found that they are delicious.

4) A terrestrial planet orbiting an ordinary K-class star, spitting out tightband radio signals contining sequences of prime numbers at every nearby star. Every probe sent to the system, and all have been destroyed within a few hours of exiting hyperspace, providing only partial images of the planet’s surface. Light-tracery resembling major cities can be seen on the night side.

• Nearby planetary governments have issued a general lockdown - attempts to contact the planet in any way are considered an act of terrorism and will be dealt with militarily.
• Someone claiming to be a listening station on the ANONNET claims to have received a different message from the system - prime numbers in descending sequence, from somewhere in the oort cloud of that sun.

5) Beings whose homeworld is on a very pronounced elliptical orbit and so spends the majority of its year frozen solid. These creatures cocoon themselves in clusters around geological hotspots, favoring those rich in the radioactive materials they feed off in this stage. Clusters are connected by complex webs of neural ganglia that have burrowed through the rock - they clearly are talking to each other, but we don’t yet know what they’re saying. No direct contact has been made, only ground-penetrating scans.

• The planet is due to move back into a temperate zone relatively soon, which means the next stage of these creatures’ lives, if such things exist, is bound to happen. There’s an actual low-key war going on between the members of different university xenology departments over who gets first exploration rights, and thus first publishing on papers.

6) A very simple machine species - glossy metal spheres from marbles to soccer balls, running around the near-Martian desert on their little spider legs. They have a symbiotic relationship with equally-artificial solar trees that they use to recharge. There have been no signs of any sort of civilization beyond the artificial ecosystem, and it doesn’t look like the planet has ever had native life.

• Remarkably quick to pick up human language, but they only seem to mimic it so far. Common source phrases (often cut up into pieces) include:
• [Repeatedly babbling] “Hi!”
• [Passable imitation of Alec Guiness] “Hello there!”
• “God fucking damn it where did I put the tablet?”
• “Have you seen Fareeha?”
• “Hold this, I need to go take a shit.”
• “Pickup’s been delayed by three months.”
• “I swear the little bastards are listening to us.”

7) A solitary ambush predator, something similar to an amphibious octopus, native to the shorelines of hydrocarbon seas on a frigid methane world. Old, cold, and terribly, impossibly patient.

• The single specimen kept in containment by the KeterDevelopment Corporation has attempted to escape twice. After nearly dying in the first attempt due to the atmosphere and pressure outside its containment unit, it managed to kill an inspecting caretaker, steal their pressure suit, fill it with the appropriate gas mixture, and crawl out the airlock in the space of seven minutes.
• Video from a planetary probe has been leaked to the public: in it, one of the creatures is seen brutally murdering another using an ice hand axe before dragging the victim’s corpse back into the lake.

8) Long-range space telescopes have picked up a distant patch of space lit up like a bonfire in the infrared, without a visible star. Consensus is that the anomaly is an alien dyson sphere dumping waste heat. No coherent radio transmissions have been detected from the civilization, and no nearby stars show any signs of dimming or other drastic change.

• The expeditionary force to the sphere has been a cavalcade of disaster and it hasn’t even left yet. It’s burned through six directors, three expedition leads, an armed revolt by the shipwrights’ union, a breakout of Red Death, a major political scandal involving coverup money paid to specialist fetish simulation designers, and the performative suicide of its bookkeeper as an act of protest. Launch is still scheduled for two years from now.

9) A space-faring civilization that, some four million years ago, had managed to colonize over twenty solar systems before suddenly vanishing. Very little is left now, mostly crumbling orbital infrastructure, the buried remnants of surface settlements, and the shared biospheres among their disparate worlds. Most of their material culture is gone, and few partial bodies have been recovered.

• These beings had managed to create a quantum-entangled communication network that was linked directly to the brains of each individual and most of their active technology, allowing for constant real-time communication among the entire species.
• Some corruption in the ansible, either deliberately introduced or a naturally-occurring anomaly, was able to wipe out the entire species in a matter of minutes. The exact method is still unknown.
• Accessing the ansible is still possible through elaborate workarounds, connecting old implants to newer devices. The interior mindscape is universally described as hell.

10) Social, adaptable, omnivorous, migrating across the temperate plains and river deltas of their homeworld. They have fire, they have tools and specialized crafts, they have oral history and artwork. Six legs, humpbacks, and mottled blue skin aside, they are more like us than anything else in the universe.

• The political battle over these beings has drawn lines between the Preservationists (no interference whatsoever), the Gradualists (minimal guided interference) and the Immediatists (Immediate absorption into interstellar civilization), with religious groups siding with all three. Shots have been fired, ships have been sunk.
• The taboo has already been broken in secret by factions within both the Gradualists and Immediatists. Preservationists have been moving towards sabotaging these programs before they go too far.

DEAD LOOP - January Patreon Post

An underworld complex for Esoteric Enterprises, generated using the tables in that book. There won't be many more of these posts, now that I have switched over to hosting WIPs on my patreon - while they weren't really working out, I have to admit I liked them

Dead Loop

The Green Extension of the city subway was built to service the wealthy neighborhood of Bramble Hill, and had the luck of opening a month and a half before the recession hit. As the bouzhi folks lost all their money and fled town, leaving a neighborhood filled with mcmansions too expensive and ugly to sell, it became obvious to City Hall that there wouldn’t be enough passes sold to maintain the Extension, and they decided to sundown the route until things got better.

Things never got better, and now over a decade later the derelict Green Extension has become home to a wide variety of underworld denizens: a surface of smugglers and crime families atop the substrata cadres of sorcerers and chthonic beings.

Locations in the Dead Loop

Baker St. Station

The primary point of access to the Dead Loop, as it is still an operational stop along the subway’s Blue Line.

Laurel St. Station

Provides easy access to Club Iapetus. Watched over by underlings of the Titans. Surface access has been sealed off.

Nix Avenue Station

Provides easy access to the Bastille. Watched over by members of La Croix. Surface access has been sealed off.

The Knot

The sewers underneath Bramble Hill do not see much usage anymore, leaving them as a relatively-easy means of transit between the upper layers of the underworld here.

Club Iapetus

A den of debauchery operated by the Titans. Most folks coming to the Dead Loop from the surface do so to come here, to get their fill of illicit goods and eardrum-rending base. There are usually a few dero of the Conspiracy lurking in the walls: stealing snack wrappers, keeping an eye on the Titans, and whispering very bad advice to people.

The Bastille

Subterranean fortress of the La Croix, built in the expanded sub-basements of the Nix Avenue Station. Heavily fortified, the La Croix toll all passage through the Bastille, occasionally press-ganging travelers into service for Genevieve’s special tasks.

The Catacombs

Built not by the humans above but by the morlocks below to inter their dead. Contains the remnants of all of the pack’s former eloi, which have as of yet gone undisturbed. The primary inhabitants are I Found This Humerus, though Court Basalt did attempt to send an emissary to meet with Zyraximander, to disastrous, melty results.

Zyraximander’s Sanctum

An ancient morlock who successfully decoded the works of their former masters, Zyraximander is a sleepy, slothful being whose incredible age and predisposition to introversion has left him out of most affairs in the Dead Loop, despite his incredible power. Mostly, he just wants to keep I Found This Humerus out of his sanctum and occasionally check up on the Gandobog Pack.

Lab of Dr. Cunningham

Cunningham is, at core, a fraud. Most of his method and techniques were pulled from scavenged serpent-men tablets from deeper in the caves. He has a crippling inferiority complex about this, and so makes up for it with his aggressive, aggrandizing demeanor. His work is good, don’t be misled there, but it’s good because the serpent-man methods of body modification were nearly idiot-proof.

Location means he services the La Croix regularly, though he has no particular allegiance with them.

Caves (Upper)

Natural limestone caves inhabited by Gandobog Pack and a few holdout pockets of the Conspiracy.

Caves (Lower)

Burned into service by Lithic geomancy, the entirety of the lower caves has been turned into the embassy of Court Basalt.

Factions of the Dead Loop

The Illuminated

A minor cult of Vor Glaurung, notable in their tattooing their scriptures (illuminated, of course) across their entire bodies. A newer cult, so none of them has received the entire manuscript yet.

• Has been infiltrated by members of the Zamboni family, intending to subvert them against the Titans and gain access to Book Club.
• Is regularly hired by Book Club for support, trades surface goods with the Gandobog Pack.

Zamboni Family

Antonio Zamboni used to be the top dog around here, back before the economy went belly up. The family still owns a good number of properties up on the surface and has their fingers on city politics, but they’ve almost entirely been driven out of the underworld by La Croix and the Titans. But, a change in leadership (Anthony’s brother Benito has taken over) has seen a revival of underworld interest, and attempts to wrest control back in their favor are underway. The Zamboni core of power is on the surface.

• Lost an heir to the Benthic Congregation, but managed to hammer out a peace treaty
• Has infiltrated the Illuminated as a way of getting close to Book Club and the Titans.
• Has an informant in the Coyote Crew, scouting out business opportunities.

La Croix Family

Genevieve La Croix and her clan operate out of the Bastille, a sub-basement stronghold below the Nix Avenue station. Genevieve is something of a gigantic heretic: adores the pomp and circumstance of the church, hates the whole morals thing, offers huge bonuses for anyone able to bring her a demon. So she can eat it.

• Low-key conflict with both the Conspiracy and the Gandobog Pack.
• Infrequent but violent fights with the Titans over territory and supplies

The Titans

Brothers Atlas, Prometheus, and Menoetius (Epimetheus seems to be missing), real names unknown, run the den of sin and pounding music that is Club Iapetus. They are all wannabe sorcerors of their own, using spoils from Book Club to further their own rivalries with each other.

• Infrequent but violent fights with the La Croix over territory and supplies.
• Exert significant control over the local chapter of Book Club, monopolizing their services.
• Forced into neutrality by the Conspiracy, who threaten to reveal Club Iapetus and all its illicit dealings to the surface authorities.

Benthic Congregation

These worshipers of the Leviathan have been blessed with the emergence of a true avatar, a Bentheoson. While the avatar serves as the spiritual leader, the practical leadership remains where it was, in Carol Dietrich. The two do not see eye-to-eye on anything and tensions are building. Haven’t established their own stronghold yet, have been looking at moving down into the Catacombs once the war is over.

• Careful truce with the Zamboni family, formed after one of the heirs joined the cult.
• Has planted informants within the Coyote Crew, looking for ways to help cultists on the surface escape their lives and make their way to the underworld.
• Open warfare with I Found This Humerus, believing (mostly correctly) that Zyraximander means to kill the Bentheoson.

Coyote Crew

A small smuggling band, specializing in the forging and sale of fake IDs. Headquartered on the surface, do business with the crime families.

• Both the Benthic Congregation and the Zamboni Family have planted informants within the group, though they’ve yet to attempt active subversion.
• Has recently assassinated a member of the Court Basalt, for reasons that no one can figure out. It’s properly baffling, but the Crew is doubling down.

I Found This Humerus

A band of experimental and terribly irreverent necromancers, attempting to recreate the methods of the lich Zyraximander. They make their camp in the Catacombs.

• In conflict with Court Basalt over the Court’s melting of an undelved wing of the catacombs.
• Open warfare with the Benthic Congregation, believing (mostly correctly) that the Bentheoson will seek out and kill Zyraximander to establish itself as the primary supernatural power in the Dead Loop.

Book Club

The local chapter of grimoire smugglers. Primarily a surface organization, descending either for trade or salvage.

• Hire out The Illuminated for support.
• Low-key conflict with the Gandobog Pack, over possession of surviving ophidian texts.
• Puppeted by the Titans, who use them to gain a monopoly on occult texts.

Court Basalt

A band of exiled Lithics, come up from the mantle to establish a new court. Found in the Lower Caves.

• Looking to strike back at the Coyote Crew for the death of one of their clerks.
• Cold war with I Found This Humerus and The Conspiracy

The Conspiracy

The local dero have recently accumulated around a new genius, who has introduced the meme of secret messages hidden in food packaging that filters down from above to his flock. Av dero always do, they have jumped into the belief whole-heartedly. They can be found basically everywhere.

• Have forced neutrality with the Titans, who had previously tried to stamp out the Conspiracy, through threats of toppling Club Iapetus.
• Low-key conflict with Gandobog Pack over surface food brought down by The Illuminated.

Gandobog Pack

The ophidian city that once stood here is long gone, but morlocks have long memories. This pack is particularly blessed in having two eloi, one of which was recently born. They live primarily in the Upper Caves.

• Rely on The Illuminated for shipments of surface goods.
• In conflict with the Conspiracy over food brought to them by The Illuminated.
• In conflict with Book Club over the possession of surviving ophidian texts.

A Patreon Update and Unicorn Meat!

Hey so, I have changed things up over on my patreon and switched out the old Grab-Bag posts with access to my drafts folder, where all my projects-in-progress will go. This is open to all backers at all levels.

So far, there are two in there:

#1 - Lighthouse 0.2 rules are go!

This is mostly an outline expanding on the ideas I put together in the first post for now, but it has all the major headings I want to flesh out and will be filled in as we go along in this plague-stricken hell timeline. I hope to have a major update worth talking about every month for it

#2 - UNICORN MEAT IS GO

It's an ashcan draft - playtested but not edited beyond my own doing and some commentary from helpful blogfriends. It's rough to look at and there's nary a page number or internal hyperlink to be seen, but it's feature-complete as far as words go.

Unicorn Meat has been a regular victim of a whole host of executive dysfunctions and anxieties, and frankly I am rather ashamed over how long I have stretched it out with no progress / ghosted on people after a short burst of enthusiasm last summer. I'm still working on overcoming that part of myself.

But here is the text, and the text is done. You can get it and play it for a dollar if you want. I'll do my best to chip away at this leviathan in my head piece by piece until it is completed. If you do end up playing it, hit me up on twitter or discord and let me know how it went.

"I do not know what Unicorn Meat is, please elucidate"

Unicorn Meat is a horror module I wrote about a factory farm in the monster-infested backwood swamps where kidnapped children hunt and kill unicorns for the profit of distant masters. But now the taskmasters have vanished and the carvergirls of Sunny Smiles Unicorn Farm have been left to the mercy of the swamps. These are your PCs.

It's LISA the Painful + Lord of the Flies + True Detective S1 - which is to say, make sure you let folks know what they are getting into if you run it.

It's a rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born, but it's mine. I made it. And after all the shit we've all had to wade through today, yesterday, this week month year half decade, I'll take that little victory.

I'll keep you posted on further updates.

The Wizard's Fugue - December Patreon Post

Sam Carr

Anyone can become a wizard. Phenomenal cosmic power can be yours at the low low cost of being driven irrevocably insane.

This is fine. Wizards do not give a shit about safety.

The Wizard’s Fugue is a single-player game, of sorts. Maybe more of a writing exercise. Always start with FOOL. Choose randomly if you want, choose a limited number if you want.

0 FOOL

Property is bequeathed, goodbyes are said, affairs are put in order. From hereon, the initiate is dead to themselves and the world. You descend into the Fugue, where there is mad dancing and the droning of tuneless pipes.

• What did you give away? To whom? What parts of your life did you have to set straight? What are you leaving behind? 

I MAGICIAN

Here is created the book that will contain your spells and soul, built by your own hand. Without it, you are a madman.

• Describe your grimoire - its cover, its binding, its pages and contents. What part of yourself did you put into it, to form the necessary spiritual link?

II HIGH PRIESTESS

The art manifests in a mark on the wizard: a brand, an emblem, a sign, unique to each one.

• What have you been marked with? Does the sign have any meaning?

III EMPRESS

The wizard must live in the world, alas, and the world will push back at them.

• Who among the earthly powers will you have to deal with? What kings and ministers will you have to navigate?

IV EMPEROR

A wizard’s authority is made manifest in the binding of their familiar.

• What have you called up from places unknown? What is its nature, its temperament, its form and power?

V HIEROPHANT

A wizard must know the powers in whose shadow they play. The Fugue is too delicate a time to make contact

• What beings beyond the veil have you seen? Did one attempt to make contact with you?

VI LOVERS

The Fugue severs the past, but cannot erase it. Memories without context will haunt the wizard.

• What images float through your mind? Who have you left behind? What relationships did you burn and set to ghostly wandering in your unstable memory?

VII CHARIOT

No wizard’s retinue is complete without a mystic means of conveyance.

• How are you carried along. How might you make your appearance? How did you make it, buy it, steal it?

VIII STRENGTH

The Fugue grants power, and the means to taming it.

• What arcane art has the Fugue granted you the greatest power in?

IX HERMIT

The wizard’s lot is isolation. They must raise their sanctum by their hands and arts alone.

• Where will you make your hermitage? What shape will it take? Who will you permit entry? How will you defend your solitude?

X WHEEL OF FORTUNE

The Fugue is not without its favors. It will grant a vision of a further power: an artifact, a sacred place, the grimoire of a dead wizard.

• What did the Fugue show you? Where is it? What must you do to attain it?

XI JUSTICE

Wizards have rivals. This is how they do not destroy everything - they are too busy overthrowing each other. The Fugue will bind you with another, a second half to resist and oppose you.

• Who is your rival? Who challenges your power and overturns your schemes, and whose schemes do you overthrow in turn? What was the first interaction you had with them.

XII HANGED MAN

As the initiate is born into wizardry, they must witness a death. Not from a distance, nor from the intimacy of the connections they must burn. A complete stranger, breathing a last, shuddering moment

• Who did you watch die? How did they die? Where? What have you learned?

XIII DEATH

Within the Fugue, a wizard catches a glimpse of their own death. Just a glimpse, an image, an impression. Neither day nor hour is known.

• What did you see? Can you make out anything at all? What image are you left with?

XIV TEMPERANCE

The Fugue will destroy an initiate utterly if they cannot maintain their center. Great energy is given to maintaining

• What chain have you placed upon yourself, to prevent complete dissolution? What principle binds you?

XV DEVIL

The Fugue reveals all, everything that lurks in the dark corners of the initiate’s mind. These demons must be dealt with.

• What demons of your mind has the Fugue dredged up? Did you submit to their power over you, did you suppress, did you synthesize, did you cling to denial and ignorance?

XVI TOWER

In each wizard’s spellbook is an ars magna, a most terrifying and powerful spell that may only be uttered once.

• What great art has been formed from your Fugue-broken soul? What would make you use it?

XVII STAR

Without ambition the wizard is nothing.

• What shall you strive for, when the Fugue is done? Why did you grasp at power in the first place, if not for some hoped-for goal?

XVIII MOON

The dark night contains greater fears for the wizard. The last test is to be confronted by that which will haunt you until death.

• What did you see in the moon’s dim light? What will be the grim terror of your life?

XIX SUN

Dawn is here. You have survived the Fugue.

• How do you feel? What changes have been wrought on your mind and body?

XX JUDGEMENT

Surviving the Fugue is the first step. Surviving the judgement of your peers is the second.

• Who served upon your Council of Three? What did they say to you? How did they treat you? What was their verdict of your transformation?

XXI WORLD

It is done. All complete. You are an initiate no longer, but a full wizard of the arts of mastery.

• Where do you go now? What goes on in the world around you? What revelations have clicked into place?

RiseAndShine.Exe - November Patreon Post

Jasper Francis Cropsey

Referee Forward: I built this as a way of introducing people to Eclipse Phase blind - use a simulation to run folks through character generation and the basic mechanics without overloading them on rules and setting fluff. Still works with people who know what they are getting into, but I want to experiment with those who don’t and see how it works out (This is as-yet untested, by-the-by.)

Basically, as the players progress through this scenario they will be posed questions. Their answers will determine the skill packages (background, career, interest, and faction) that will make up their character on the outside.

Treat everyone as having a 30 or 40 in all skills. Don’t worry about what packages give people until session 2 - those will be determined by how they answer the questions of the locks. (See the core 2e rulebook for those)


The Players: Modern-day vacationers (In reality the infomorphs of Firewall agents)
The Setting: A secluded campsite; rustic cabins around a mountain lake. A summer evening.
The Hook: There’s a cry from down at the beach: a corpse has washed ashore.

Before Everything Begins

All players should answer the following question and take the appropriate aptitude template. If this is a meatspace game, I suggest putting this front and center on the character sheet / index card.

Stats are Cognition / Intuition / Reflexes / Savvy / Somatics / Will

I would describe myself as…

• Physical and athletic - 10/15/20/10/20/15
• Extroverted and outgoing - 10/20/15/20/15/10
• Good at planning and organizing - 15/15/10/20/10/20
• Never really sticking out - 15/15/15/15/15/15
• Creative and inquisitive - 20/20/10/15/10/15
• Hardy and adaptable - 15/10/15/10/20/20
• Adventurous and thrill-seeking - 20/10/20/15/15/10

The Corpse

A pale, waterlogged man, chained to a steamer trunk sealed with five sturdy locks. There is a heavy iron key tied to his wrist.

When the first lock is opened, the players will all receive a text message (if they do not have their phones on them, which is likely, they have appeared in their pockets)

First Question: What was your childhood like?

• We wanted to start a new life somewhere else (Colonist)
• We had a safe and stable life (Enclaver)
• We moved around a lot (Freelancer)
• My parents had gigantic debts they couldn’t pay off (Indenture)
• I spent most of my time online (Infolife)
• My parents were never around (Lost)
• We were always just scraping by (Underclass)
• I got a lot of shit for who I was (Uplift)

The Phone Call

After the question is answered, one of the phones rings. No one should be getting service up here. Caller ID is blank. It keeps ringing until it is picked up.

“You are in danger. Get that chest open as soon as possible. The keys are around here. I promise it will make sense as soon as you open up that chest.”

The Campground

Ten rustic cabins, clustered on one side of the egg-shaped lake. No cell reception. If the players try to leave by car, the batteries are dead. Also of note:

• An old fire-tower.
• An island in the middle of the lake. A bonfire appears there after the phone call.
• A small ranger’s cabin.

The Four Remaining Keys

These may be found and used in any order.

• At the top of the fire tower.
• A player will have to climb up a rusty, unstable ladder without falling. The edges are sharp and will injure their hands without protection (difficult to hold or grab things).
• In a computer-controlled safe in the ranger’s cabin.
• The computer can be hacked, or with more time the lock can be picked (triggers monster).
• On a 12’ tall pole in the center of the bonfire on the island.
• Attempting to put out the bonfire will take enough time to trigger the monster
• Hanging from the belt of the monster.
• The monster will appear after the third key is found, or when triggered.

The Monster

A huge, slow, hunchbacked thing with a single red eye like an ember, dragging a heavy maul behind it.

It can always be outrun, but has a tendency to show up out of nowhere.

Can be distracted, tripped up, snuck up upon, etc. It can smash down walls and recover, but it will always take a second blow.

It is scared of being burned, but not so scared that it ceases to be a threat at all.

A successful hit will cripple / incapacitate a player. A second will kill. We’re not worried much about HP at this point.

Dead players are, of course, not actually dead. They can communicate with other players via their cellphones. Any questions not answered will be randomly rolled.

Questions of the Keys

Each new key will ask a new question of the players

Second Question: Tell me how you see yourself.

No matter their answer,  roll 2d5

• 11 -Arachnoid
• 12 - Bouncer
• 13 - Dragonfly
• 14 - Exalt
• 15 - Fury
• 21 - Futura
• 22 - Galatea
• 23 - Ghost
• 24 - Hibernoid
• 25 - Menton
• 31 - Neo-Avian
• 32 - Neo-Ape (1. Chimp / 2. Bonobo / 3. Gorilla / 4. Orangutan)
• 33 - Neo-Neanderthal
• 34 - Neo-Octopus
• 35 - Neotenic
• 41 - Novacrab
• 42 - Olympian
• 43 - Pleasure Pod
• 44 - Ruster
• 45 - Security Pod
• 51 - Slitheroid
• 52 - Splicer
• 53 - Steel Morph
• 54 - Sylph
• 55 - Synth

Third Question: Which statement do you agree with most?

• I love teaching people new knowledge and skills (Academic)
• I like working behind the scenes (Covert Ops)
• Sometimes you have to be rough to get things done (Enforcer)
• I like going new places (Explorer)
• I like meeting new people (Face)
• I like studying plants and animals (Genehacker)
• People come to me to fix their computer (Hacker)
• I like solving difficult problems (Investigator)
• Healthy living is a priority (Medic)
• I want to know how people think (Mindhacker)
• One man’s trash is you know the rest (Scavenger)
• I’m always looking to discover and learn (Scientist)
• It’s important to protect your country (Soldier)
• I like tinkering with things and seeing how they work (Techie)

Fourth Question: Which have you done recently?

• Got a new pet (Animal Handler)
• Made something beautiful (Artist / Icon)
• Experienced an altered mental state (Async)
• Led people on a project (Commander)
• Practiced a martial art (Fighter)
• Solved a puzzle (Forensics)
• Drifted along your own way (Jack of All Trades)
• Raced drones (Jammer)
• Met and talked to new people (Networker)
• Saved someone’s life (Paramedic)
• Flew a plane (Pilot)
• Lied to someone (Rogue)
• Sat around and played video games (Slacker)
• Went starwatching (Spacer)
• Went back to school (Student)
• Took a long, difficult camping trip (Survivalist)

Fifth Question: What of these do you value the most?

• Community (Anarchist)
• Scientific inquiry (Argonaut)
• Freedom from oppression (Barsoomian)
• Introspection and distance (Brinker)
• Me, myself, and my money (Criminal)
• Self-reliance (Extropian)
• Exerting power (Hypercorp)
• Security (Jovian)
• Cultural heritage (Lunar/Orbital)
• The right to self-define (Mercurial)
• The study and safekeeping of history (Reclaimer)
• Hedonism (Scum)
• Living the high life (Socialite)
• Civic duty (Titanian)
• The status quo (Venusian)
• Local politics (Regional)

Final Question

The chest is open.

Option 1) “Are you afraid to die?” - The chest is empty. Scene pans to outside the simulation, where the players’ main bodies are just about the destroy the server containing their illegal, compromised forks.

Option 2) “Do you remember who you are now?” - The players are sucked into the chest, taken out of the simulation, and sleeved into the bodies rolled for question 2.

The Dryad Queen Mother - October Patreon Post

Dmitry Khrapovitsky

I was playing around with the fantasy pantheon generator on Abulafia by Dave Younce, and ended up with this in the results:

Kendryalara, mother of gods, a rotting young woman with leaves for hair.

There’s no way I’m letting a description like that just sit there and not be used. Let’s go.

The Tree of Life

Long ago the world was a waste of bare red stone. There was no water upon it, and the sky was empty. So it remained for ages uncounted until a star fell from the heavens. It came to rest in the highlands, and there it cooled and became a great metal flower. From the flower there rose a tree, and this tree was Kendryalara. It was her appointed task to bring life to the world, and so she did.

Birth of the Gods

Kendryalara did not arrive alone: with her came her consort Iathemis, who lived above the sky and filled it with clouds, so that rain might fall on the world and the oceans be filled. Ice was thrown down from the heavens to melt and flow in rivers. Here Kendryalara planted her garden of paradise, and tended to it as the bare red waste turned green.

Through this intercourse with Iathemis, Kendryalara conceived the gods. When the time was right, she released them into the garden of paradise and gave them her instruction: the gods created man and the other creatures of the world according to her direction, and ruled over them so that there was no conflict between the peoples. This was the great age of the world.

The Collapse of Paradise

The end of the great age did not come from a single event, but instead a slow collapse of interwoven causes. At the first, the heralds of the tribes beyond the sky ceased to sing, and the heavens were silent. At the second, there was grumbling among the gods, and the new fear caused many of them to act rashly or foolishly, bringing forth vendettas and hatreds that had long been kept under control. This led the peoples they had created into conflict with themselves, each other, and their gods. Great injuries were made to Kendryalara during the conflict and several of the gods perished, and it became clear to all that there was no means of preventing the world from returning to the red waste it once had been. So mankind sought out secret gods of iron and silicon and raised cities and split atoms in service of their survival: they still revered Kendryalara and the surviving gods, this is true, but they knew a day would come when all of them had died.

The Worship of Kendryalara Today

Man’s relationship with the gods is tenuous in the modern age. They were designed for the garden of paradise and so have adjusted poorly to the reddening world and the cities of man. For all of them the primary form of worship is the sending of praise-songs by way of a messenger- scribe-shrines dedicated to the gods may be found commonly but not blatantly: it is considered unfashionable to be too overt in ones religious practices, even though nearly everyone still makes offerings.

Kendryalara in particular is worshipped through what are essentially long-term funeral rites in preparation for her final death. There is a lightly-organized priesthood but little barrier to entry beyond appropriate practices. They may be identified easily, wearing brown robes and a green or orange stole.

Kendryalara has a few servants remaining in the world; radiant angels like spiders or cuttlefish made of smoothed, petrified wood.

Magical Languages (Sept Patreon Post)

Heaven's Vault

Magical Languages

One of the most ancient and more common folk magics, it is near impossible to find a community without at least one interpreter of magical tongues.

A character may know one magical language for each point of WIS bonus that they possess. (For games with higher modifiers, one language for every two points). A character who knows a language may always hear and respond to it, but may only successfully begin conversation with a successful WIS check LVL times / day. Human magical languages are the exception to this, requiring no roll.

Natural Languages

• Of Birds and Beasts - A means of communication with all creatures typically lacking the ability of speech. some traditions split this further, so it is common to hear of the Language of Birds alone, or of The Language of Crawling Things or Of Fish and Sea Creatures.
• Of the Deeps and Waters - Oldest, but fickle and forever changing.
• Of the Earth and Stones - Slowest of all. The stones recall everything that has occurred upon them, but the recollection of even a single moment might take multiple days.
• Of Fire and Coals - Flickering and short lived. Fire is swift and remembers little of what it devours
• Of Tree and Flower - In many ways similar to the beasts, though much slower.

Human Languages

• Of Wizarding Ways - A secret shorthand, either written so as to be invisible or incomprehensible to the untrained eye, that wizards use to guard their arcane secrets. Was once a mundane language, long dead, that the early unions of mages decided upon as the language of writing about magic.
• Of Swords and Boots - The language of soldiers, trenches, and battles. A clipped, simple language, easy to speak and understand in times of chaos, but lacking a lot of depth beyond the scope of war.
• Of Streets and Roofs - The language of the city, the means of speaking to its buildings and roadways.
• Of Infants - Through this art, the smallest of infants can be spoken to as if a well-learned adult.
• Of Taboos - Containing all the words we dare not say and ideas we dare not bring to light. A language of secrets and confessions.
• Of Soft Touches - The language of intimacy. Practiced by lovers and lovers-for-hire.
• Of Lies - Where everything said has a double meaning, and truth has no foothold.
• Of Babel - The rare taproot of all human languages, which may be understood by anyone. 

Spiritual Languages

• Of the Gods Above and Below - To speak with gods directly, without the need for a ritual intermediary.
• Of the Spirits of the Dead - Speaking with ghosts, and to a lesser extent the material animated dead.
• Of Good and Evil Spirits - To speak with spirits without the need of leaving a ritual offering.

Ten Magical Items

Crown of the Damned Mooncalf

A braided milk-silver circlet. Owned by a changeling prince who rejected his fae parentage and dove instead into the study of heresies and heterodoxies, culminating in his embrace of the Malthusian Emanations and Twined Demonic Dance, an experiment of disastrous consequences for him and his kingdom.

• Wearer may view all invisible (purposefully or naturally) signs and beings.
• May transform into a beam of moonlight (moon must be visible) at will.

Scepter of the Last Dwarven King

A diorite scepter engraved with scenes of dwarves at war against beasts of the deep and crowned with a ruby the size of a child’s skull and carved into the semblance of such. Held last by King Uristagar VII (“The Mad”) and thought lost with the majority of his corpse.

• Possessor may command up to 10 maggot-men servitors.
• Possessor is recognized, legally, as a member of the High Oricalcum Warren regardless of origin.

Cat’s Tenth Life

A tiny figurine of a kitten curled up asleep, carved out of carnelian.

• After the possessor dies, the figurine will crumble into powder. A living kitten carrying the soul and memories of the dead player will then claw itself out of the corpse’s stomach.
• The becatted player can talk and cast magic, but is a cat in all other ways. Their class is now Magic-User.

Tyrant’s Bell

A silver bell, engraved with excerpts from the ancient laws of Hagranna and depictions of the grotesque punishments.

When rung, it will have one of the following effects:

• If underground, it will summon a redcap executioner - they have no obligation to be friendly, but they cannot directly harm the wielder.
• In the presence of a violator of the Code - Target will be painfully and visibly branded with whatever violation they committed (note: the Code is thousands of years divorced from modern laws so the target might not have committed any criminal or immoral act.)
• Over an execution - Target’s ghost is bound to the bell, summoned when it is rung in a certain pattern.
• Over a construct - will awaken and animate it.
• Over an altar - the god worshipped there must make a sign that it has heard the request made.

Seraph’s Feather

A long flight feather, shimmering with the glow of golden sunset, moving like a tongue of flame. It warms your hands as you hold it.

• Source of light and heat.
• If used as a quill, no lies may be written with it.
• May cast a searing beam of light (d8 damage, double damage to evil spirits and demons)

Book of the Gorgon

An anonymous, first-person account of a gorgon’s life, covering a period of about fifty years. The pages are snakeskin and the cover consists of thin sheets of marble. It is written in Classical Aegean.

Within it, besides the meditations of a solitary creature cursed to predation, are the following spells and topics of note:

• Flesh to Stone
• Stone to Flesh
• Kranat’s Killer Kidney Stone
• Mold Stone
• Sculpt Flesh

Brass Bull’s Anchor

A ship’s anchor fashioned in the shape of a bull with curving horns. Tarnished with age and spotted with barnacles. It was upon this anchor that the Maritime Savior was tied and tossed into the deeps to die.

• Those in physical contact with the anchor can breathe underwater.
• Sprinkling your blood over the anchor will allow you to carry it deftly. It does 2d12 damage.
• Bovines of all sorts will be rendered agreeable in its presence and defensive of the anchor.

Balm of Blindness

A thick, pale green paste in a lacquered bamboo vessel.

• When applied to the eyes, it will either cause or cure blindness, as appropriate.
• Those who have been blinded gain prophetic visions - once per session they may enter a trance to see something that will occur:
• 1-5: Within a few hours
• 6-10: Within a few days
• 11-15: Within months
• 16-20: Within years

Events will not be directly related to anyone present at first, but will always be something players might interact with.

Helm of the Ironbroker

Little more than a bucket with eye slits and engraved runes. Crudely made and bordering on useless, it seems the practice work of a distracted, untalented smith.

• This item will open the cannon-scarred doors of the Vault of the Star-Eyed God, high in the mountains. These chambers have never been opened before, and contain all the riches the Ironbroker accumulated in his extended life.

Emanations of the Demiurge

A long parchment scroll, beautifully illuminated, containing a treatise on the movement of the celestial bodies, the spiritual powers thereof, and the secret nature of all the hump-backed sky.

• Contains directions on the (lengthy, expensive, difficult) process of building a golden barge.
• Contains a map of nearby spheres as well as a path to Troika.
• Contains directions on how to brew space-mead.

7d8 Road-Weary Wanderers

This post originally went up on Patreon in July.

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d8 Mendicants

1. Fox-masked relic-seller, muddy shovel over one shoulder.
2. Desiccated monk, fasting to death, accompanied by the woman pregnant with their reincarnation.
3. Flagellant pilgrim of the centipede god.
4. Holy fool in motley, hunting another whose gone bad.
5. Wandering carnifex-priest. Executioner-for-hire low on work.
6. Woodsy mystic, catching crayfish in the creek.
7. Radium Priest of the Exclusion Zone. Scarred from viewing the Elephant’s Foot.
8. An ordinary farmer, host to billions of mitochondrial Star-Gods.

d8 Rogues

1. Travelling ukiyo-e painter and pornography salesperson.
2. Second-story man and their beloved, greying pug.
3. Repairer of reputations, book of receipts under their arm.
4. Organlegger, off to make a repossession. Enjoys giving forewarning.
5. The fall-guy. An expert in taking the blame, might have a complex about it.
6. Drop-bear trainer, recently mauled and looking for a career change.
7. Fake wizard. Does birthday parties, weddings, and the occasional funeral.
8. Assassin of the Mosquito School. Immaculate black suit beaded with fresh red drops.

d8 Fighters

1. Escaped professional gladiator and chamber-choir singer.
2. Bearhide-wearing hillfolk warrior. University educated, came back home.
3. Subterrene guerilla from down below. Clearly a deserter.
4. Minuteman of the Biting Wind Company
5. Lancer of the Serpent Riders, bearing the shed-skin banner of Nidhogg
6. Iron-Masked shock trooper, fresh from the penal colonies.
7. A dragonfly knight, servant of those lady loves Justice and Violence.
8. To prove their bravery, their armor has a glaring, brightly-painting weak point.

d8 Magic-Users

1. Keeper of carnivorous books, absolutely loves their work.
2. Does birthday parties, competes with the fake wizard on table 2.
3. Wannabe demonologist, in it mostly to get groupies.
4. Personal arcane investment accountant. Dreams have been dead for 25 years.
5. Nudist. Not nearly as unfit for it as one would expect.
6. Mosaic rune-reader. Divination doesn’t pay well, so does romance novels as a side hustle.
7. Hierophant of the Sturgeons. Undergoing crisis of faith.
8. Trepanned Astrologer, currently on their third brain.

d8 Elves

1. Garbed as an orchid mantis.
2. Cinderlike skin, burning coal eyes.
3. Lives inside a toad, looking for a housemate.
4. Sheds skin like leaves. Unbreakable melancholy of the pleasant kind.
5. Looks like an ordinary human, held upright on strings.
6. Hammerhead. Vestments of defrocked priest.
7. A little tree in a clay pot, carried around by a mindless servant.
8. A shadow in a bank of cloud.

d8 Dwarves

1. Humpbacked maggotman.
2. Lives in a giant oyster shell surrounded by pearl-children.
3. Carved out of jade.
4. A very small orangutan. Constantly tinkering.
5. A boulder with a bearded face engraved upon it. Gives sage advice.
6. A hairy blob, oozing along the ground. Always hungry.
7. Has smaller dwarves nested inside it, is looking for its bigger shell.
8. Molten slag, vaguely man-shaped.

d8 Halflings

1. Feral children that never grew up.
2. Badger-folk bringing turnips to market.
3. Carried around via stork.
4. An ancient domestic droid.
5. Horde of squirrels pretending to be a person.
6. Roly-poly armored patroller. Comes with banner and fun songs about nature.
7. Long, beautiful quilted scarf. Weapons sewn in hidden pockets.
8. Riding a pet pygmy elephant.

June Patreon Reward: All Quiet in Canniel!

Canniel District and Environs

Well, it's been three months since I put up my first backer reward on Patreon, so here it is released into the wild. The map was generated using The Welsh Piper's hex-based campaign posts.

All Quiet in Canniel

What You Need to Know

• Temperate, rainy climate.
• The city-states in Canniel district collapsed well over fifty years ago under war and plague.
• The inhabitants of those old city-states dispersed into scattered villages and homesteads throughout the region. These are the “hillfolk” named so by both fort dwellers and themselves.
• The parent state (whatever it might be) has been reclaiming the region for some years now. They are not putting many resources into the effort.

000.003 - Ruins of Ekt

• Terraced layers of stone homes with colorful roofs, slowly reclaimed by nature. The streets are filled with the desiccated corpses of those stricken by plague.
• Haunted by the spawn of Leprosa, the plague spirit. Where the Rotmother went after she arrived in the city during the war is unknown, but her flea-men have remained.
• Contaminant-of-Blood, a flea-man, has been accepting human sacrifice from the hillfolk on behalf of the Rotmother.

000.008 - Fort Nail

• Commander: Sullivan Gant - Battered, bad-legged veteran. Memory is fading. Believer in an old, left-behind religion. His men treat him with a mix of respect and great pity. Thinks Tonsure is a useful fool for his magery and Lox a dull, blunt instrument. Fort is properly run by the Castellan Drury.
• Anarchists are among the camp followers here, using the quiet as a cover while plotting to remove the other two commanders and blackmail Castellan Drury into merging the fort with Din (002.007), then deposing the other two commanders.

001.003 - The Oracle

• Accessible only through the banshee-haunted Valley of Signs (002.003)
• The Oracle - species uncertain beneath moth-eaten green veils. Cave is filled with insects.
• Those wishing to see the Terrible Secret must be stung by her holy wasps, an excruciatingly painful three-day process that will leave the disciple near death for days but capable of walking into and out of dreams.

002.007 - Town of Din

• Home of the Stewpot Anarchists - most of the town is a member in some way. Very good at turning military oversight to their side.
• Flea-men in the swamp have been attempting to subvert the movement, sending disguised manipulators in to meetings. Their disguises are getting better.

003.004 - Town of Nod

• Grim and claustrophobic. Immensely wealthy.
• Treasures from Ekt (000.003) can be found in nearly every home.
• Dark secret: people the town doesn’t want around (vagrants, sinners, anarchists) are traded to Contaminant-of-Blood for treasure. Fort Dredge (005.005) has sent prisoners through the town.

004.007 - Old Battlefield

• Remnant of the old war. Nothing left but rusted scraps and overgrowth.
• Jona Setter, a traveler, has come here to find some trace of their grandfather, who died in the battle. They are an anarchist, but not a very good one, and will presume anyone meeting them at such a lonely spot is one as well and start talking about their allies and plans in Fort Nail (000.008).

004.009 - Treasure!

• Deep in the toad-filled festering swamp there is rumored to be an idol of the god interred at the burial grounds (006.010) - a thing of meteoric gold, light as a feather despite size worthy of a king’s ransom.
• The shrine is empty, save strands of sticky, numbing webbing. The idol was taken by the Cutter-Weaver (009.001)

005.000 - The Old Moot

• A pre-war meeting place. The Fort commanders believe it abandoned and ignore it.
• Representatives of several major parties live here, waiting for news by crow:
• Eriphen Ao Bule - Follower of the Jubilant Sword. Willing to work with the forts, to handle the ghouls.
• Snaggle Crackmolar - The ghoul. Wants claims on all the ruined cities, battlefields, and forts. Allied with flea-men.
• Thursday - The anarchist. Wants to subvert the forts through ideology.
• Tobah Longar - Hillfolk. Wants the forts driven out by force.
• ???? - A figure in a hooded red robe. Says nothing at meetings.

005.002 - Fort Rust

• Commander: Elba Tonsure - Arcanist and theosophist. Prone to fits of conspiratorial fancy. Hates Lox for his dull fanaticism, tolerates Gant for his experience.
• Built directly into the mountainside. Single entrance.
• Every few nights, a column of hooded, red-robed figures walks up the path and is accepted into Tonsure’s chambers without question. No one is ever seen to leave come morning.

005.005 - Fort Dredge

• Commander: Burtran Lox - Paranoid nationalist. Hates everyone. Sees knife-wielding anarchists behind every corner (and has been right twice).
• Walls on the verge of collapse due to shoddy construction. Lox’s paranoia has spread: the soldiers are tense, bottled emotions boil over violently. Clamping down on vices with puritanical ferocity.

006.004 - Dead Man’s Mine

• Uranium mine, once thought to be iron and now thought to be cursed.
• Commander Elba Tonsure of Fort Rust (005.002) has sent a few trusted men in lead-lined suits to mine for small amounts. He intends to enrich it through magical means.
• The mine has expanded far beyond its original confines without human touch, winding down into the earth like intestines. Faint grinding noises can be heard from deep below.
• The miners are growing restless. Several are murmuring about arresting Tonsure for abuses against his men and electing a new commander.

006.010 - Burial Grounds

• Not of the human inhabitants, but a being claimed to be an ancient god descended from the stars. It is in truth the mate of the Cutter-Weaver (009.001).
• The body has not decomposed, and thus has proven a lure to hordes of ghosts looking for a potential possession.
• Drumg, a ghoul, is burrowing away at the mound in secret, attempting to retrieve some god-flesh for his faction back in Jale Attera (009.007).

007.009 - Monastery of the Jubilant Sword

• Goddess of plenty and warfare. Two dozen adherents plus nearby villagers.
• Originally built to service the Burial Grounds (006.010), repurposed to current denomination.
• On-and-off conflict with the ghouls, have been paying protection money to the Grockodile (009.009).

008.007 - Hunting Camp

• A band of men from Fort Dredge (005.005) sent to the ruins of Jale Attera (009.007) to hunt for Mellifluous Kobbo Birds. Secret mission: assassinate Zin Snap-Crack, the ghoul carrionchief.
• Yan Kallo, head of the party, has been beset by a succubus in his dreams. He has resisted so far but the intensity of the attacks is increasing, spilling over into the waking world. He has been trying to cover this up.

009.000 - Ruins of Gon Shor

• At the bottom of the valley between two hills. Abandoned during the war after a landslide buried most of the southern district.
• The Donnager Party out of Fort Rust (005.002) has been tracking the Cutter-Weaver (009.001), hoping to carve it up for magical reagents. The real plan is to be “attacked” on the way home and hand them over to the hillfolk chiefs at the moot (005.000).

009.001 - Lair of the Cutter-Weaver

• Described as something like a gigantic arachnid or crustacean with a mossy, pink-blue shell.
• Heralded by and surrounded by a cloud of toxic, freezing mist.
• Webbing numbs flesh instantly upon contact.
• Was drawn here via the Stones of Stars (011.003) and would like to go home. It does not care for you.
• The idol from (004.009) is here. The Cutter-Weaver has laid eggs within it.
• Moths and wasps of the Oracle (001.003) are found here, and fly back and forth between the cave and her mountain.

009.007 - Ruins of Jale Attera

• Shattered spires of brilliant, voluptuous jale.
• Home to a great number of ghouls, who came to the city after the war destroyed it.
• The ghoul carrionchief, Zin Snap-Crack, is barely maintaining control over the families of the warren - he is considered a pretender by all and keeps his rule only through the spirits of fire he has bound as his servants.

009.009 - Ruins of Tillan Holding

• Crumbling fortress on the southern lake edge. The north wall has collapsed into the water.
• Inhabited by The Grockodile, a crocodile-headed, chaos-tainted ogre. He has trapped a warren of ghouls in the keep’s great hall for a feast that will never emerge and insufferable comedy-of-manners small-talk. The Grockodile will demand that he be brought the Cutter-Weaver as a meal. The ghouls want freedom from their chains, but mostly to attack the hunters at 008.007 for their trespass.

011.003 - Stones of Stars

• Concentric rings of standing stones, arranged just so to provide accurate mapping and measurement of the heavens. At the center is a crater of smoky glass and a hooded red robe.
• Individuals who put on the robe fall asleep instantly and, with through terrifying dreams, will learn a spell of their level +2. It will be cast from HP. Upon waking, they will feel alienated from their own body for several days.

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