Friday 15 May 2015

Commune Pit

The dungeon architecture shifts as you come around the corner. The old material is replaced with organically twisted stone like sinews, taut, wet, straining. The air becomes clammy as you walk down the corridor, although no moisture gathers on the walls nor floor. There is a slight suction to the movement of air, pulling you towards it. A circular room, perhaps 30 foot across, dominated by the huge pit below. The blackness within is impenetrable, like a sea of ink or oil.

It grows in places abandoned. Places forgotten. It is here those Outside will attempt commune, will attempt to worm some tendril through the gaps. Gaze too long into the abyss, and the abyss will whisper horrible secrets to you.

d8
Whispers, Impressions and False Memories
1
The Unhive of the Spirit Insects. The crowd, buzz, fly, skitter across your brain. Always. Sleep is impossible. Sometimes you feel your wings, lurking just below the surface. Other days, your chitin yearns to be free. You learn to analyse, but cool as a person. +1 Int, -2 Cha. One day you will emerge.
2
Magnitude of Grind. The millstone of ages, empires, worlds, suns. You can hear the grinding, and it grows louder. Sift through the dust which leaks into your head, and find inspiration, knowledge, history rendered to particles. 1 in 10 chance to know about something you couldn't otherwise. 1 in 6 if it’s extra-planar and old.
3
Resting Many. A single synapse-equivalent of one of those great slumbering leviathans of the sea of chaos is fired by your gaze, and you are blasted. Save-vs-Death. Survivors gain 2d6 random level spells, burnt into the brain. These spells must be prepared, and eat other spells when they are cast, expending the charge of another. The spells eat other parts of the brain too.
4
Hungry Sensate. Starved, wild, screaming, hedonist, it eats a sense of yours, randomly determined. Another is massively increased, although it now utilizes alien organs and biology. 10% chance these new organs are not visible. At night your body rebels, and at dawn the alien organs win victory once more. Each time you feel the taint spread.
5
( ). Time not space. Know this, but sideways, backwards, wrong. Always seeing ‘now’ (how laughable) and ‘then’ (equally) of six seconds before. Simultaneous, mixed images. Focusing on one (lying to yourself) helped with drugs, drink or meditation. -3 to activities relying on a solid grasp of ‘now’.
6
Cosmic Computation. The neural network of stars. Ponderous, ancient, slow, unimaginable in the complexity and knowledge. All is insignificant to these cosmic engines burning in calculation of The Great Question. Filled with the desire to find scraps of the answer in the little things, the things they cannot comprehend. Always hungry for it now.

4 comments:

  1. The basic idea is fun, the writing lets it down somehow. I think I see what you are going for, but it becomes too vague what is meant by the last few results. I love the Lovecraftian horror of the abstract concept style though.

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    Replies
    1. The last couple were pretty hard to pin down - but then I'm not sure pinning them down would suit the fiction of them much You'd need players willing to play out the mind-altering elements to get the full effect really, which is a weakness. Touch more CoC than D&D perhaps?

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    2. Hmmm....You'd need to make sure your players understand what they are getting into at least. I think the CoC/D&D cross-overs are great if the group agrees that's whats wanted.
      You play 'Lamentations of the Flame Princess'? Seems like just the thing for that game.

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    3. Yep, that's what it's written for, basically my default game. Probably worth mentioning that in future posts.

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