horrible jungle

***FUCK OFF THURSBRINGER PLAYERS***

I bought a Pomera which is a fancy japanese electronic notepad and it's cool

this is a thing from that which is barely even tidied up

would be statted for Stormbringer but I'm sick 

use your imagination

The jungle is thick and moist, home to endless poison blooms, striking flowers with barbs across the shaft, strangle-coils, winged lizards, apes of all sizes and predatory cats.

The bat riders of the Mountain hunt for rare herbs and chattel here, using the thermals of the desert to stay aloft, pig-faced goblinoids with lances and billhooks, their monkey-slaves descending on chains and scampering about, fleeing all danger unless commanded to attack by their masters, when they descend in a wild flurry of nail and tooth.

ENCOUNTERS

WHERE
1 - site of recent deadfall
2 - stranglevine infestation, roll again, 50% on playerside, 50% other creature
3 - ruins emerge from the foliage...
1 temple 2 "castle" 3 house 4 barracks 5 mysterious 6 unrecognisable
4 - a choked river winding through the maze of fallen wood
5 - the centre of a fallen tree bridging a chasm or such
6 - clifface in a valley
7 - crawlspace underneath fallen trees
8 - near fireant nest roll again
9 - near pool of waterfall pool
0 - entagled in the undergrowth, thick with fern and creeper.

WHAT
1 - Barkskin Halfmen 3d4,
  1) defending
   2) hunting
   3) curious
   4) fleeing
   5)ignoring
   6) sabotaging
2 - Half-intelligent monkeys 3d12, chattering and swinging, roll again and combine
   1)violent
   2)feeding
   3)socialising
   4)mating display
   5)friendly
   6)cautious
3 - Great Apes, degenerates of the civilisation of the jungle, some still bear stone weapons, artefacts of what has been lost. 25% entire tribe (3d12) else smaller group (1d8), of various purposes
   1 warparty
   2 foragers
   3 shelter-builders
   4 worshippers(ruins)
   5 "farmers"
   6 exiles
4 - Dream Tiger, and you are it`s prey. Can evoke fictions which are real to observer.Incredibly cruel, loves to toy with food, but loves itself more
defeat through vanity.
5 - batriders (1d6 (one bat each) + 3d4 monkey slaves) from the mountains, seeking SLAVES or HERBS or SCOUTING.
6 - carnivirious vegetation, prowling, using potential supplies as bait.
7 - stalked by vampiric bats, potential to carry some manner of disease, 1 large swarm
8 - huge swarms of flying lizards, all bright colours, confusing and dizzying
9 - Pirahana-equivalent infested waterway
10- Gigantic Spiders, weaving tunnel webs and watching eight times over...
11- Toad face, lower body a mess of slimy tentacles, with evil intention
12- Animate stone golem, weeping at the loss of their civilisation, brought
out of their black anger by a new purpose.

FUCK CTHULHU

WHAT'S THE POINT OF AN UNKNOWABLE HORROR THAT IS VERY KNOWN

The knife-edge of cosmic horror is that single moment of realization wherein an inky black vista yawns wide before you, utterly engulfing the entire world you knew and rendering it insignificant whilst being utterly unknowable by it's very nature - not only have your illusions been shattered, you're not getting a new one - this being the cut, severing you utterly, leaving you floating, alone. And that's pretty neat.

In the abstract our insignificance is relatively easy to grasp, but the illustration, or demonstration, the rendering literal of such a fact, is the cutting moment that severs us utterly. Survivors are wounded and left detached with nothing to cling to.

The unknowablity of the outside directly correlates to it's cutting ability - the less comprehensible, systemisable, the fewer links and logical consistencies it produces, the further enhanced it's wounding capacity.

That's why we need to stop focusing on the surface level aesthetics of cosmic horror, the recognisable characters and entities and forces - we're way past that point now. These surface trappings are graspable by anyone with an internet connection and some time to kill - both their fictive biographies and their genesis in the waking world. They are stripped and bereft of their edge, blunted for easy consumption.
comparable to how punks had sharp studs and now fashion loves blunt square studs. atrophied and nonthreatening, fucking pointless. PUN UNINTENTIONAL

Stop leaning on the old names and techniques - players/readers will guess Hastur! Cthulhu! Yog-Sothoth!, a flight from the actual simmering mindless pointlessness that cosmic horror attacks you with. What's more, they'll shit themselves twice as hard when you cut the guide ropes and push them away from the shores of knowledge and into the black ocean of the unknown.

Fuck 'em, let them drown.

I love day drinking.

Parasite Architecture Quivering Stone

The designs are innumerable, hidden in the tombs of infamous architects - sealed in lead, cast to the bottom of seas now deserts - the ugly centre of star-metal deposits - the dead basins of volcanoes.

They speak of a tower.

Mind-breakingly gigantic, both in scope and physically immensity. Koan made stone.To gaze upon it, even the ruined stubs of hundreds of failed attempts, is to be rendered as nothing before sheer mass and determination.

It demands to be built, the idea of it too large to die, but also too large to force its way into being - perhaps a cousin of the spell, lurking on the edge of reality, waiting for a opening. The portal is the structure is the idea is the behemoth, craving a physical permanence complete and resplendent, the gravestone of a world.

Entire empires would collapse under the construction project - a hundred thousand slaves could perish in the foundations, a mere speck, the very beginning. Hope a mad, royal architect does not first find the plans, and then discover a previous generations work - a solid foundation to build upon.

Incremental with the fall of empires, nestled in the rhythm of collapse, it will grow and break minds and enslave relentlessly until complete.

Somewhere in your world, the foundations were always ready, if only you had eyes to see before.

Megadungeon???

Scanned and not tidied up nor finished

Bloom

The sun shone. The greens, yellows and purples intensified, warped by the greenhouse glass. The plants inside coiled thick, although the cunning order of it was plain to him – a complex weaving of species from across the globe, flowers blooming from the wrong plant to the untrained eye. A riot of plant life, exotic species flourishing in the controlled environment. He moved amongst them, pruning and binding where needed, at peace. This finished, he set about watering, carefully controlling his distribution, ensuring all received what they required. This done, he slid open the door, closing it behind him, shutting away his precious flowers. The warmth outside was drier, more comfortable. He set about caring for to his outdoor plants, tending to them with a practiced hand. Finally finished, he turned to survey his work.

There was an intruder in paradise. He approached, no small amount of discomfort present. Crouched, he examined the outsider. A thorned, sickly-green plant in the middle of the empty bed. Dead centre. A small, tight bud resided at the top of the squat growth. He was sure he had weeded, and this was nothing he grew. Nothing he'd seen. Cruel thorns twisting together into fractals repeating into impossible spirals, too fine for his eye to follow. His frown intensified. There'd been nothing there the day before, he tended the patch daily for such weeds. He swallowed his misgivings and elected to leave it until he'd researched it - a new species could be interesting. He levered himself up, and breathed, filling his lungs with the morning air. His serenity returned as the sun washed over him, over the garden. After a few more minutes enjoying his craft, he wandered back inside to dig up his botanical guides.

The many tomes lay open around him, like fat alchemical treatises, cut-away diagrams and illustrations staring upwards. Nothing. His searches online had been fruitless. He sipped his drink, considering the ugly invader. The idea of something new, something novel was uncharacteristically appealing to him. Something unique - something for the show next year. He grinned, took up his camera, and snapped several pictures of the intriguing growth before measuring it with his ruler. The stem was leafless, only bearing those still-unnerving fractal thorns and a single, unopened bud. Perhaps an import? Most of his guides, whilst comprehensive, focused on the more popular exotics or the local flora. That could explain the lack of search results online, his normal avenues of information similarly inclined. He examined the pictures over his simple dinner, chewing without tasting.

There were more now. Four of them, creeping above ground almost reluctantly. The term 'Invasive Species' burned across his mind. He spied on them from inside the greenhouse, almost afraid to go outside. His garden was being tainted. Defiled. He shook his head, attempting to clear the mounting panic. He'd dig them up, burn them. Just like any weed. Why they worried him so much was beyond him. Mindful of the thorns, he retrieved the thick gardening gloves and trowel from their place of pride in the greenhouse. Equipped for battle, he strode out to face the invader. The trowel bit, shifting the well-tended earth away from the outermost stalk. Worry grew to confusion to dread as he kept digging, no end in sight. Two feet down, he stopped. The stem continued downwards, beyond the extent of his excavation. The bed scarred by the hole. He resolved to pull out the plant, and grabbed the stem, frustration seeing the course. Pain ripped up his arm, and he fought to swallow a scream. What remained of the inside of the glove was stained red, the rest of it still stuck to the stem, pierced a thousand times over. His hand was a mess of thorns and torn skin. He whimpered and beat a retreat from the plants, abandoning his trowel. Rivulets of blood slid down the stem, gripping the thorns as they went.

Removing the thorns was no less painful, and he fought the urge to vomit several times. Irrespective of his twistings and manoeuvres, they tore indiscriminately at the flesh upon attempted removal. Several excruciating hours were spent whimpering, thumping the desk and gritting his teeth, the time stretching far beyond its hours. Seconds crawled like crippled ants. By the time he had cleaned and bandaged the ruined hand he was exhausted, and slept. The painkillers guided sleep to him swiftly, and he dreamt of beaked rabbits with the voices of old women. They spoke Spanish fluently, and it meant nothing to him.

He awoke with the throbbing still present, although receding. His hand had bled in the night, seeping through the bandages and staining the sheets. He acknowledged this blearily, his usual morning-clarity missing. Something to deal with later. He stumbled across the house, made himself his morning coffee. Only luck saved him from grabbing the mug with his wounded hand. He sipped it clumsily with his off-hand as he moved to the greenhouse, operating on auto-pilot, planning his normal routine, forgetful of or unwilling to address yesterday. He glanced through the glass to check the sun, and was near-floored by the ruin. The garden was over-run with the plant. Those thorn instilled a new fear within him, and the sunflower sized stems were impossible. Nothing grew that quickly. They pressed eagerly against the glass, seeking an entrance. He shook. The fear blossomed into true terror. The rug was pulled from underneath him and he was left floating over a void. Dazed, he stumbled around the greenhouse, clumsily sloshing water over his beloved exotics. He over-watered the succulents. He did not see. Routine complete, he floated back across the house, and slept atop his bloodstained sheets.

The greenhouse was dark, and smelt of rot. The glass was entirely covered in endless waves of the loathsome plant. He stumbled unseeingly through the tangle of shelves and beds, throwing water over himself as much as the dead plants. The bandages were a blend of dark, crusted red and pus-yellow stains, unchanged since the injury. His face was unshaven, eyes wild. The animal stink of fear rose from him. The greenhouse was a grave, a mausoleum, a testament to organic rot. He hummed a broken tune.

A pane had broken, and the monstrous fractals hung in hideous tangles. This he did not see. He knelt before the only living thing in that dark glass cage, plant matter pressing in from every direction. A thorned, sickly-green plant in the middle of the only upright bed. The bud was large, heavy with sap, angled towards him. He stared, his face slack. The flower bloomed.

Inverse Energy Empire - Vampire Barony, Beggar Kingdom

I was re-reading A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History and this is what happened.

Societies, being constructed primarily of energy and controls for energy flow, have a shadow form - The Inverse Energy Empire, vampire societies. Everything is stolen and pirated, hence the archaic and dated forms, all aping the host kingdom ~200 years prior. In the younger societies, these vampires are the barbarians, and can usher in the night of civilisation easiest, as are hosts weakened by plague and war - finishing off the host in this state ensures a swift, sharp end to the vampire mirror. An exhausted man succumbing to lingering illness.

Corrupted, twisted dated smoky mirror forms, a draining, a great void of energy attracting the societal output through the slow medium of history. As they change the host they change themselves in the future, a nonlinear feedback loop, the vampires plotting their future selves through past historical crimes and subtle manipulations, each a master of psychohistory.

Ruined Cities Are Really Hard

Or, dealing with hyper-dense 'dungeons'.

A lot of my stuff revolves around dead cities, ruined cities, cities where something went wrong. This is me putting some thoughts about such environments being really hard to play whilst satisfying some of the stuff I like to do.

See the city. It is dead, filled with buildings bereft of their original purpose, re-imagined as lairs, traps and storehouses for treasure. Compare this to the traditional dungeon - each room has specified exits and entrances, whereas the city offers a practical infinity of entrances, exits, and approaches. This, in addition to the sheer sizes, is a problem to be solved. Two main approaches spring to mind.

Abstraction.
Movement through and the contents of the majority of structures are abstracted, often through the use of procedural generation (this house has *dice dice* nothing) - those structures which do contain items of interest are 'zoomed' into, breaking away from the strategic (travel-based) and moving into the tactical, individual level movement, most obviously combat. This is intuitive, and means the game isn't a slog of this house is empty, after the players describe surrounding yet another ruined manor. However, such zooming immediately informs players that something interesting is about to happen, whether this been combat, traps or a secret to be discovered, meaning they will deploy in a manner to take maximal advantage of the environment. (More on environment usage later.)

The characters, assumably, will be moving and acting in a far less cautious manner during standard travel. (This could, of course, be considered in the abstraction, moving far slower in the strategic view.)  This effect ruins the opportunity for players to be surprised - although, a solution for this would be utilizing more active opponents, who attempt to engage from surprise, forcing the players into positions less advantageous as they are the defenders, adapting to the situation as dictated by the ambushers. Such an addition rewards players defining themselves scouting and planning for such situations, dictating a marching order taking advantage of the nuances of the specific buildings and streets in the encounter area.

This, however, runs into another issue within abstracting the dense urban environment. Using generic floor-plans and streets leads to strings of encounters effectively occurring within the same environment, a street lacking in interesting nuance, with the same layout of buildings offering the same opportunities. Generating an interesting and unique street and/or floorplan(s) however, is going to take time - the opposite of what a surprise engagement offers. Building a large library of interesting nuances yet somewhat universal layouts would negate this somewhat - but then the difference between the abstraction and a complete mapping shrink, reaching the point where complete mapping might make more sense. The balance between a nuanced and interesting engagement locale with the speed of the generation is very hard to strike.

Complete Mapping
Completely mapping a dense, decaying urban environment is a gargantuan amount of work, which immediately makes this option less appealing. Even ignoring this significant limitation, we run into the fact such a huge amount of information is really hard to use at the table. Each structure would require some form of representation, informing (or inspiring) the GM as to the external and internal structure of the building. This could be achieved through some form of short-hand tags or keywords, the combination of these phrases rapidly building a mental image to be imparted to the players. Such a system would require a degree of training in the GM, even just to simply learn this skill. The advantage of such complete mapping is the ability to instantly determine the form and nuance of the locale an engagement is occurring within - the GM will know through a system of tags there is a barricade which offers either side an advantage, without the need for a potentially cumbersome or slow generation system. The key to achieving a working Complete Mapping is a really effective manner of splitting information into table-usable chunks, with both player-facing and GM-facing maps and information available.

Both are hard and leave me wanting somewhat. Whadda you guys do?

Legions of the Demon Sultan Greg

Humans are a resource. Soldiers alive or dead, and sacrifices to evoke forth yet more demons. Beyond these roles they are to farm and breed. The wheels of this empire are greased with blood.
-
Each group of human soldiers is accompanied by a Resurrector. Others are used in specific roles.

RESURRECTOR - HD 3 - AC 17 - 7 NEEDLE-TIPPED TENTACLES +2 1D4 + SPECIAL - MORALE 10 - MOV AS MALICIOUS BALLOON.
A milky white floating orb, marred by the seven tentacles bursting from the base and the dark patches seeming to swim beneath the tight, taught skin. Any killed by these tentacles is bound to the will of the Resurrector, who is likewise bound to the will of the Demon Sultan. They will always strike the weakest, especially their own brood of soldiers.

MANBREAKERS - HD 6 - AC 18 - 2 MAULING ATTACKS +4 1D10 +3 OR GORE +3 1D12+6 - MORALE 12 - MOVE AS HUGE GORILLA
A quadruped with a pair of arms fit for an elephant, matching the dull grey tusks jutting from the mess of bone armour plates. These plates bristle with spikes, with d6 impaled bodies upon them. Each body impaled on these spikes give the Manbreaker an extra d4 HP. Tearing one loose deals 1d6 damage. They don't care.

SHRIKEBEASTS - HD2 - AC 15 - GRAPPLE +3 - MORALE 9 - MOV AS SKELETAL BIRD
Skeletal things festooned with pilfered feathers - especially those of the Nilfenbergian Crows. They swoop down, snatching individuals in their pair of tentacles which worm from between the ribs, dropping them into the massed pikemen marching beneath the banner of the Sultanate.

The Dungeon-As-Wound

Negative space carved into the landscape, a hollowing, and a damaging of the wholeness of the material. A fissure in the ground itself. This essay considers the dungeon through the lens of an impossible necrosis of the physical material, a self-generating wound (negative space)^[1] alternatively worming and yawning wide beneath, the inhabitants either opportunistic or a consequence of this death-of-stone, spawned by the Wound itself.

Continuing this examination of the physical self-generating negative space (Wound), its very strangeness can be a wound on the expectations and experience of the observer, mirroring the wrongness of the physical artefact. It does not follow the rules of the world – by their nature, these wounds are aberrations, impossibilities in the natural order, a negative space in understanding – a wound in how we thought thinks worked, or how they should work.  This feeling is exacerbated by two common features observed within the wounds – their age, as ruins presuppose history and thereby age, and the impossible inhabitants which cannot, should not ecologically function nor survive.

Self-generating aged ruined structures are a paradox – their nature explicitly points to a history, which is rendered impossible by their very self-generating nature – how can something not here yesterday have the weight of history so deeply embedded into every rotten flagstone. One could view the ruins and devastation not as a mark of history, but resultant of the wound itself – but this rapid destruction would leave burning and sharp fresh-severed rock, not aged ruins stamped by the passage of years.

The inhabitants, those oft-hostile monsters, seemingly doing nothing but squatting in the ruins, waiting to kill those foolish enough to plumb the depths. When there is no natural ecological explanation for their existence or their actions, one must examine through the lens of the self-generating Wound, as well as the negative space/wound opened within knowledge. They could be considered a result of the physical Wound.

One view, that of the self-generating dungeon as a force possessed of a will for self-preservation, more akin to a living thing, would give these generated monsters the role of the antibody, destroying foreign bodies which enter the system of the wound. However, this reasoning, considering the dungeon-as-Wound, renders this strange. The wound is a disruption of an existing system, not a system of its own. We could instead take the view of the inhabitants as debris – the wreckage spawned by the act of wounding itself, the negative growth of the self-generating dungeon. Something akin to survivors, squatting in the ruins left behind, wounded themselves and driven to madness by it, full of violence and spite for those who come after, plumbing the depths of the damaged body the remains were once part of.

They could, alternatively, be viewed as an infection – the wound, left open, allows parasites and disease an easy entry into the ruptured body, infesting and spreading in the increasingly fetid wound, eventually, perhaps, a greater threat than the initial wound itself.

A final view is that of the inhabitants as secondary wounds, caused by the disruptive effects on the body by the original wound, like splintered bone tearing open further injuries within. Following this, the wounding of observers physically and in negative-space infliction within knowledge, are tertiary wounds, further damage by the original self-generating wound, now attacking along further vectors.

As an aside, the increased danger as the wound is probed further and deeper could be understood as a concentration of the wounding energy, as well as the wounding mechanisms being worse as the injury extended deeper into the body – something applicable to all views on the inhabitants. The remains are deeper gouged, the infection deeper and more sinister or the secondary wounding worse.

^[1]Whilst this essay is an examination of the self-generating dungeon-as-wound, the notion of the dungeon as a purposeful wound, a designated and conceived site of activity is still worth a mention. Conventional, mundane uses can be easily understood, blunting the edge of their wounding potential, simply assimilated into existing knowledge rather than being a negative space of understanding, mirroring the physical architecture of the constructed space itself. However, giving the constructed space utility does not have to cause this, if the use itself is wounding, something not understood and, potentially, not to be understood. The site of unknown/unknowable utility has the mirrored negative space wounding potential of the self-generating dungeon-as-wound, and, perhaps, intensifies the wounding of knowledge through the frustration of the unknowable use. An additional layer can be achieved when this utility is in-congruent with the physical negative space of the structure itself.

The Library

I'm seeing a Library, dour and grey. Not that you can see it from the outside - it floats in the sea of chaos, a bubble of quiet and storage.

The first room, a reception. A ten foot bird-headed figure, silently observing your coming. The head changes species with each visit. Killing it does nothing - it shall return.

Beyond this, things are in flux.

The Atlas of Dead Gods - a black void wherein float the embryonic corpses of gods forgotten. Each has a blank bronze plaque the size of cities attached. If they are named, they are gone, cataloged elsewhere.

Book Finders Office - A wizened old figure atop his floating desk, the Ink Dogs chained to it. Any stolen book will be recovered by this team. One Ink Dog can blank the pages of a book to stop the knowledge escaping. The other barks out one line, forcing the carrier of the book to find the next line and respond.

NarcoScholars Den - The NarcoScholars bend and warp psychedelically. Some are less psychotic than others. They gladly exchange your induced visions for ever more novel narcotics. Just stay a little longer.

Gorestained Pit - The Haruspexes collect life to gut and discern information from. Every living thing is another book, aching to be read. Everything has entrails if you are willing to stretch the definition.

Stitchers Workroom - The Figment Finders stitch stitch stitch tiny fragments, single words in pages, pages into chapters and chapters into books. To the other librarians, they are dull restorers. They know they endlessly weave new works to infiltrate the Library.

Grammar Fiends

(d4 actions is a sentence, judged from beginning of combat. They can be cut short.)
Comma Imp - Can pause two attacks per sentence, allowing the target to take action first.
Period Devil - Negate an action, undoing it's effect. Ends the sentence.
Exclamation Devil - Double a numerical effect.  Ends the sentence.
Noun Fiend - Whatever the noun is their form, inky and sketchy, made of tiny words floating free. Can change once per sentence.
Subject Succubus - Can change the target of a spell or action (where logically possible) a number of times equal to the number of combatants.

Intellectual Contagion.

It was locked away for a good reason.
HD - Highest INT in party.
Damage - Lowest INT in party.

A smokey black cloud of thought, untouchable by action, only hurt by argument. Characters argue against the concept, the GM decides the strength.

1d4 - weak argument.
1d6 - average argument.
1d8 - good argument.
1d10-great argument.
2d6 - crushing argument.

category of contagion
1. political
2. religious
3. social
4. cultural
5. artistic
6. economic.

(For fun/fist fights, make it a view held by a player or the GM)

The Dead of the Depths, Primal Necromancers

Buried deeper than memory, crushed beneath the weight of years and the endless blackness, empires of deaths forgotten. Amidst the ancient stone, corpses twitch. In blackened vaults, necromancies from ages consumed are practiced by minds incomprehensible to any who know death or the sun. They never lived, born dead in a cold stone womb. The legions of these things are unending, unspeakable. The time-forgotten dead swell their ranks, gathering in the pit of the world, material for the black acts of deathless minds. The have not torn the sun down and destroyed the living yet, because they are ignorant of them. They do not know of a surface realm, knowing only their blackness and stone. The Primal Necromancers are filled with hate for one another, and battle without breath in their caverns.

If they were to unite, and to learn of sunlight realms, all hope would be extinguished.

Generating A Primal Necromancer

d10	The Form
I	An ancient dead reptile, bedecked in robes of scales, stolen from its kin.
II	A worm of bones, undulating and clacking, covered in jawbones all speaking tongues.
III	Many metallic legs sprout from ancient paper, covered in forbidden knowledge.
IV	The remains of a queen atop her throne. She does not move.
V	An emaciated human figure, eternally disintegrating, the motes drifting upwards.
VI	A corroded metal disc, slightly curved. It could be worn as a mask.
VII	From the front, an angelic being of beauty and grace. From behind, the glamour fades – a child-corpse, rotten.
VIII	A pool of mercury, shifting and dancing.
IX	A word. Where-ever it is carved, written or marked, it has power.
X	The shadows cast from an iron lamp, crude and worn.

d10	The Realm
I	A chemical sea, unseen and unknown, seething and fuming beneath stone ceiling.
II	A fortress suspended on bone-chains above an endless chasm.
III	A Wound in the earth, its hot thick blood running free.
IV	A warren of impossible tombs and crypts, carved by the dead themselves.
V	A metal spike, hollow, plunging ever downwards into the stone.
VI	A cavern lit by a sickly false-sun, radioactive, mutants and cancers growing amidst the dead.
VII	A necropolis built betwixt the ribcage of a Forgotten Beast, unknown even to the Primal Necromancers.
VIII	A hollowed out comet, filled with the crushed remnants of a surface civilisation.
IX	A great Stone-Worm, killed and reanimated, burrowing still in its deathless state.
X	This Primal Necromancer has no realm, travelling alone or with a horde of terrible creations.

In timeless aeons, the Primal Necromancers have developed their own magics besides their peerless mastery of unknown necromancy.

d8	The School
I	School of Flame: The Primal Hunger, Destruction, Heat, Light
II	School of Stone: Entombment, Solidity, The Crushing
III	School of Darkness: Concealment, Omnipresence, Obfuscation
IV	School of Chaos: Entropy, Decay, Growth, Flow
V	School of Rendings: Summoning, Transport, Corruption, Sundering
VI	School of Sight: Divination, Knowledge, Blindness, Piercing
VII	School of Stasis: Endlessness, Delay, Preservation, Determination
VIII	School of Beguilement: The Taking of Slaves, The Will, The Mind, Removal of Thoughts

Flesh Hive Servitor Swarm

I mean, I can't remember how most games use swarms, this is just my default Swarm Rules plus some body horror stuff.

The gnawing sounds intensifies as you kick the door down, raising tomb-dust. Flickering torchlight reveals a glistening surface. You approach, the noise fills you. You feel a horrible recognition in the pulse of the sound. The Flesh-Hive is visible now, a tumour clinging to the wall, seemingly trying to tear itself apart. The noise stops. The Hive stops. One step closer. The noise crashes back and the Hive disgorges its brood. You are torn apart in seconds, recycled to grow the Hive. Some echo of your memory is forever enshrined in the mass.

FLESH HIVE
The larger the Hive, the higher the HD. The Hive itself is immobile and has no defences, bar it's brood. It has HD of Brood equal to twice it's HD, and can choose to seperate these into many smaller swarms if needed. They are controlled by the Hive through pheromone instructions - outside a radius (HD X 100 ft) the Swarm loses cohesion. The Hive has brood scattered throughout an area equal to HD x 50 ft, and is aware of everything that happens in this area.

SWARM
HD - Variable
AC - As Leather +1 - it is hard to hit a swarm.
Attack - If you are engulfed in the swarm (swarm can engulf HD/4 rounded up, min of 1) you take (HD)d4 damage as they tear and rip - this damage pool is distributed between all people engulfed as the Hive wishes. The Hive will grow by the number of HD lost this way.

BRUTAL NECROCRAWL

I quite often come up with stupid ideas for games that I will probably never run. I have a page in my notebook just of these ideas. Whatever.

A DEAD REALM FOR THE UNHALLOWED CORPSES.

A stack of shards of a reality where the dishonoured dead gather. Faces, memories and people fade.
(if a player can't make a session, their character will flicker and fade out of our stack of shards as they become distant.)

When anything dies here, roll 1d4-1. It will raise again in that many days, more horrible, more twisted, more confused. Memories die as you do. A 0 means they do not return.

Players start with d10 memories. Memories are currency and XP here. You can collect them from others, or else kill them and take memories. Players lose 1d6 memories when they die. At 0 memories they lose all tethering, and become hostile NPCs when they raise.

At character creation, all items below 50 sp are 1 memory, 51-150 2 memories and more than that are 3. You must be able to carry it. (Be reasonable with stacking items - 30 arrows are 1 memory for example.)

In play, the cost of items will fluctuate more.

Players can begin with multiple levels, but they must be purchased. These costs are static.

Level	Memories
2	5
3	10
4	20
5+	Previous x 2

The one thing you won't forget - how you died.

The Death…	…and the role
A soldier laid upon a foreign field.	Fighter.
A liar hung at midday.	Specialist.
A witched drowned in trial.	Magic User.
A heathen ripped apart by dogs.	Pyromancer.
A heretic, cast from atop the cathedral.	Cleric
A godless scientist, eaten by their creation.	Stitcher.
A cannibal, stoned by the people.	Ghoul

Players start by breaking out of their sarcophagus. There are multiple branches from here, with portals to individual shards interspersed. Everywhere will lead back to this place, eventually. It is the future ruin of all things.

CULTS.

Being a record of the Proscribed Cults and Societies of the Nilfenbergian Empire.

"The god you believe in is safe - because it does not exist. Your god is not real. Ours are."
 -Heretic Jean Halet prior to his burning.

Cult of the Unknown / Forgottten.

You shall know them by the wearing of any faded, destroyed or worn religious symbol.
The power is forgotten and stronger for it. Weakness through worship, and strength through obscurity. Only a select few may know of the cult, and fewer still be indoctrinated. The commands - Destroy libraries. Kill scholars and the faithful. Hide me and forget me - and so I shall grow. The most forgetful shall be rewarded.

Pestilent Church

Those afflicted are those blessed – fever dreams speak truer than the unclouded eye, as it is writ within the Book of Lepers. The Prophets are the afflicted, and they render truth throughout their suffering.

We, the Seekers, find the Prophets and bring them to our hallowed halls, wherein the Minders will prolong the flickering flame of a Prophets life and record their sacred words, to be added to the manifold predictions of the Prophets. These are stored within the Blighted Archives, wherein senior Seekers will divine the true meanings and guide the faithful.

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We give prayer in the Hall of Moans, wherein the most blessed of prophets, immobile in their holy state, moan and reveal the hidden secrets. The only hymns in our church will be those of the Prophets, leading us forwards. Oh, the irony the most agonised are the most blessed, begging for death when they are on the edge of divinity.

Some diseases spew forth substance, bile, blood and fluid. Some prophets spew prophecy. Within the Chamber, the Minders discern meaning like the Haruspices of old, but informed with truth and disease rather than primitive superstition and animal entrails.

Within the Blighted Archives we store the words of all Prophets, as well as our relics – whether they be hated cures for blessings or the viscera of the most notable saints. Each Prophet receives a tome, eventually bound in their own skin, no matter how leprous.

The Unwashed Servants of the Immaculate Prince, the Purest Divinity Untainted.

The commandment - Debase this World and Honour Me.

Loved is the sewer and the charcoal burner.

My idols are filth encrusted - better they do not pretend to reflect my glory.

You shall worship me as a Soiled God - the Immaculate Prince cannot be understood by your mere meat and filth and dust and dirt.

All members of this foulsome cult are well versed in the desecration and defilment of religious structures.

The Many Mouths of Starvation / The Eaters / Cult of Consumption

We fight famine. We hold starvation at bay through our ceaseless consumption. Eat. Eat, Eat, That's all there is to it, my delicate morsel. Hm? Why should I not enjoy saving the world.

The Schism - Quantity or Quality? The Gluttons and the Gourmands. Which will sate a divine hunger best? Mountains of material, edible or no, or else the most exotic, the most daring culinary exploits? Gourmands are of noble birth, with vast sums of money and many strings to pull. Gluttons are simply unstoppable mountains of flesh, their custom steel teeth gnashing endlessly.

Peace Killers / The Cult of Limited Strife

Our enemy, the Strife King, the Lord of Battle, let slip a powerful secret - war is a limited resource. Peace shall reign triumphant once our task is complete. We are gladiators, killers, soldiers, mercenaries and generals all serving under the banner of peace. We spar endlessly afore entering the world to drain the pool of battle as quickly as we can, so that we may all know peace.

THE SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

The Battle Exotic - The more unusual, the more novel the battle, the greater the drain upon that resource, War. These members are dressed flamboyantly and often wield custom made weapons, discarding them often to move onto something stranger - often mid-fight.

The Battle Extended - The cost of a fight upon that pool of War grows strongest with length - all fights should be drawn out as long as possible to maximise the cost. Adherents to this school will often bear heavy armour but very light weapons. Knights with knives.

The Battle Perfect - The higher the skill employed in the battle, the more taxing it is for the Strife King and his hoard of War. These inidividuals seek out the strongest, most skilled opponents. They will dedicate themselves entirely to a single style and weapon.

The Battle Tremendous - The volume is key - the largest battles, the greatest wars. Manipulators, generals and diplomats rather than the individual fighters of the other Schools.

Rough Weapon Modification for Cyberpunk 2020

Adapted from my previous thing for Stars Without Number.

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GUN MODIFICATIONS FOR CYBERFUNK

-	Quirk/Modification	Price (Cr)
1	Extended Barrel. Weapon has a significantly lengthened barrel.  Increase ranges by 25%, -2 to use in close quarters. Awkward to move around.	300
2	Shortened Barrel. Weapon has a significantly shortened barrel. Decrease ranges by 25%, +1 to use in close quarters.	300
3	Increased Calibre. The weapon was designed to use a larger-than-normal calibre. Decrease magazine capacity by 25%, increase damage to next calibre listed.	400
4	Decreased Calibre. The weapon was designed for a smaller calibre than most in its class. Increase magazine capacity by 25%, decrease damage to next calibre listed.	400
5	Grenade Launcher. Weapon has an underslung grenade launcher with a magazine capacity of 3. Damage as standard grenade, range 200/400.	150
6	Micro-flamer. Weapon has embedded micro-flamer. Fuel capacity enough for 3 uses. Range 10/30. Deals 3d6 damage, burns for 2 rounds.	600
7	Bayonet. Weapon has a standard bayonet attachment. Allows melee attack with damage as knife.	25
8	Mono-bayonet. Weapon has a Monoblade bayonet. Allows melee attack with damage as Monoblade.	250
9	IR Pointer. Weapon has an infra-red laser pointer. +1 to hit for yourself and allies equipped with night vision.	100
10	Shotgun. Weapon has an underslung shotgun designed for breaching doors. Damage/range as normal. 3 magazine capacity.	500
11	Alternate grip. Weapon has a differing grip, most commonly a pistol-grip attachment. +1 to hit.	300
12	Folding Stock. Weapon’s stock is replaced with a folding variant, allowing for use in smaller conditions.	150
13	Amphibious. This weapon was designed with amphibious operation in mind, and operates equally well under-water and on land.	800
14	Laser Sight. Weapon is equipped with a visible laser-pointer. +1 to hit your target for yourself and allies, enemies get +1 to hit you.	75
15	Advanced Optics. Weapon has superior optics for operating within its normal ranges. +1 to hit.	150
16	Night-Vision Optics. Weapon has optics with light-amplification technology. +1 to hit from optics.	600
17	Thermal-Imaging Optics. Weapon has optics thermal imaging technology. +1 to hit from optics.	800
18	Suppressor. Weapon has an internal suppressor, significantly muffling the noise and light produced by firing at the price of damage. -1 damage. (minimum of 1)	200 (100 for external)
19	Fire Selector. Gives weapons three-round burst and full-auto fire modes.	650

Explosive Tipped Rounds –Quadruple Price & Illegal. After penetrating, these rounds detonate to cause considerably increased damage. +1d4 damage from explosives. Loud. Messy.

Incendiary Rounds – Triple Price & Illegal. These rounds contain compounds which ignite either upon penetration or in the air. 25% chance of igniting target.

Experimental Ammunition

Armour Piercing Rounds (Depleted Uranium) –Twenty times price, highly illegal.. Utilizing a depleted uranium penetrator, these rounds are very effective at pushing through armour. The over-penetration is compensated for by the pyrophoric (air-combusting) properties of depleted uranium, meaning these rounds inflict horrific damage on a target. Halve armour values but do not halve damage - in fact, increase it by +2.