Sunday, 23 November 2014

Realm Spiders

***TUESD&D PLAYERS GO AWAY***

Their lairs are messes of web adorned with strange trinkets glinting in the light. More often than not, the Spider itself will remain hidden whilst business is conducted, only revealing itself when required. Their forms vary somewhat, but the impression of hideous numbers of legs are common to all of them. It is known that they deal in two things - portals and information. They can weave portals between realms, but the cost is dear - a single memory of great importance.

The cost for information varies -

**edit - probably want to use this table instead.

D6
What does the Spider want?
1
The spell slot of a magic user, plucked from the mind.
2
A diary.
3
The dust of a lost and forgotten city.
4
Three thumbs, freshly gathered.
5
Someone’s ability to speak.
6
A beloved pet.

Saturday, 22 November 2014

The Plane of Towers

***TUESD&D PLAYERS GO AWAY***

The Plane of Towers is bleak and desolate. The titular towers burst from the landscape at skewed angles, all of them decaying. Anything could live in these towers, but a known inhabitant is the Realm Spider. For the price of an important memory, they can weave portals to allow return to your home plane. Information can be bought from them.

Each tower has d12 levels. Some of these may be below ground. The entrance will be on a random floor. Floors are not constrained by the size of the structure – they are as large as they need to be.

D30
Room
1
Realm Spider Lair – 80% chance of being present. 15% chance of other customers being present.
2
Larder – Randomly determine what the stored food is for. It should always appear appetizing until eaten.
3
Trap Museum – Everything in this room is trapped. A celebration to ingenuity and security conscious buildings.
4
Oracle – 30% chance of being ransacked. If not, the Oracle will give prophesy. The prophesy is locked in once spoken, this is the price to be paid.
5
Prison Cells – 1d8 cells, each with a 30% chance of occupants. These occupants are likely alternate party members.
6
Execution Chamber – Filled with the tools of messy, painful and slow death. 30% of being recently used.
7
Botanical Garden – All manner of strange herb and vegetable. 20% chance of sentient or carnivorous plants.
8
Exotic Zoo – Gilded cages contained a myriad of creatures fair and foul. Cages are nearly indestructible from the inside, but as delicate as the web of a spider from outside.
9
Sustenance Garden – The most meagre crops grown in poor earth. The crop is unnaturally bountiful, though only a trained eye would notice it.
10
Pool of Ooze – A stone bowl contains all manner of oozes, slimes and the like. The breed and grow, with the occasional individual slipping out of the edge before fleeing. Pushing over the bowl releases 100x d10 slimes, who object to such treatment.
11
Neutral Meeting Space – Two dimensional entities at war are conversing in this neutral ground. The party are viewed as either intruders or negotiators.
12
Observatory – Alien stars and the beasts that swim the void can be spied from the machinery here. The void beasts can see you too.
13
Apothecary – Dubious cures and tinctures for the discerning adventurer.
14
Splitter – This room allows the various alternate ghosts of the party to interact. 1d4 copies of the party flicker into reality in this room. Each will be one step further removed from the original than the last.
15
Room of Heads – A huge hall containing the heads of various species in jars. These jars contain preservative. The heads are very much alive and aware of their plight. Many are screaming.
16
Mechanical Animal Room – Clockwork animals stalk around this room. They are ignorant of organic life, and will only harm you by accident – they literally cannot see you.
17
Fire Chamber – A huge pillar of flame erupts from the centre of the room to the ceiling. It speaks, although it is quite mad from its extended lifespan – fire is meant to die and be replaced by its children every 7 seconds or so.
18
Meditation Chamber – This simple chamber is very calming, and helps those who take a moment within to focus their minds.
19
Dojo/Practice Room – A huge variety of arms and armour line the walls of this chamber dedicated to martial glory.  Weapons removed from the room are revealed to be practice dummies.
20
Feasting Hall – The food looks great. It is all putrid. The host of the feast appears to be laughing endlessly – he is crying.
21
Throne Room – A simple, unadorned stone throne rests in this cavernous chamber. One who sits on the throne sees their court before them, and will be reluctant to leave it behind.
22
Tomb – A single great sarcophagus rests in this highly ornamented burial chamber.
23
Skin Flier Aviary – A huge collection of the native Skin Fliers rest here. They are passive if not disturbed.
24
Library – A collection in a language foreign to conventional planes on a subject even more alien.
25
Adventuring Assets Store – The travelling magic store finds itself here. The storekeeper is most distraught that more than one of the party has entered.
26
Architects Workshop – Plans of various towers are scattered about, but the notes on contents are indecipherable – written both in a strange language and then encoded.
27
Theatre Room – Masks, costumes and great reams of screenplay are scattered about this room. There is a stage.
28
Personal Study – This cosy room has a leather upholstered chair of human proportions, a roaring fire and many detailed, eloquent works on the choice subject of cannibalism.
29
Brewery – A huge number of beverages are on the brew in this room. The yeast is psychic yeast, and screams for help even as they continue to hasten their own demise.
30
Statuary – Many statues line the walls. Some of them are smashed into pieces. There are corpses in this room.

Describing the Plane of Towers
Twisted ugly landscape grins
with rotten cracked tower
teeth scraping sky painted
in bruise and disease. To
glimpse it once more would
damn me thrice over, yet -
that plane haunts every
moment thinking or idle
tainting a reality more
wholesome with it's
foulsome canker.

The Towers
Nothing lives
within those
towers and no
hand built them.
Nothing changes
or ever has
yet the towers
are twisted
old and bent.
Crooked fingers
claw at the
sky, rotten
tooth in bleak
jaw resting
uneasy - pained.

Skin Fliers
They ride on
stretched skin
taught twixt
talon tipped
fingers too
human for
such horrors.
In that land
they can be
seen yet not
heard - the
cry of the
chosen echoes
from those
ugly towers.

Thursday, 20 November 2014

A Dead City Twitches

***MORE SUNDAY GAME CONTENT, GO AWAY PLAYERS***


The city is dead, but things still stalk the abandoned streets and empty buildings. On top of this, something lurks from the cataclysm so long ago.

D6
Random Encounters within the City.
1
Animate dead, driven wild by confinement and tragedy. They hunger for intruder-flesh, for the red stuff of life so long absent.
2
1d4 Active defence golems on patrol. Will not attack unless the party is somewhere they shouldn’t be.
3
An insane golem bursts in through a wall, destroying everything in its path. If defeated, a new structure have been revealed.
4
A foraging party of Kausikans, looking for supplies for their hibernating brothers and sisters.
5
The long dead whisper and moan in the ears of the living in strange tongues. They ache to be remembered.
6
An ambush team of cave-adapted humans, inbred and wild from cannibalism and a lifetime within the tomb of their people. Some will be wearing rotting, rusting and corroded ancestral armour and wielding weapons made of metal twisted with bone.


With every drop of blood split, it grows. Every HD worth of damage dealt to living things empowers it, giving it one HD. Once it reaches 4 HD, it manifests and kills. A presence ushered in by the Kausikans, it haunts the streets and follows the living. It sees moisture, not light. Whilst not manifested, it calls out to those who dwell in this place, drawing them like moths to a flame. When destroyed in it's physical form, it simply hides for a week before the process begins anew. It is old.

Saturday, 15 November 2014

Artefacts of the Last City

***LOTFP PLAYERS GO AWAY***

There are two main classes of artefact in the Last City. Those which belong here, and those brought in by the Kausikan invaders. These are just some of the notable things an expedition could discover.


The Last City
Kausikan Serpent Peoples
A tablet detailing their golem-craft. Could be used as a manual. Incredibly valuable and rare, and extremely delicate.
Endless spell-slates can be found with Kausikans living, dead or hibernating. Most are broken, and the majority of the whole ones replicate the effects of modern spells.
A blessed weapon of Serpent Slaying. This will be a short sword, spear of axe, and has been blessed by the war-deity to serve well against all serpents. Considered magical vs Serpents and grant +1 to hit.
Beaten copper collars, usually found around the necks of dead human skeletons. These slave collars are bound to a rod, and cannot be removed once they are donned.
A tablet containing a spell, either clerical or arcane. These are mostly found in temples or libraries, and many will be cruder versions of modern spells. Some are unique.
The slave rod can be used to inflict inhuman levels of pain on all of those wearing collars at once. It cannot be used on a single slave. It is a small stone baton with a glyph on one face.
A carved bone rod which grants power over crops, giving the wielding the power to visit blight or bounty upon that year’s harvest in the region. Using it binds the user to the region until the harvest.
A small polished rock, which seems to have some inner quality. It is a seeing-stone of the Mountain Things. Significant military personnel of the Kausikans would carry these.
The three-tablet Prayer to a Rain Spirit, which visits powerful rains to the region. It can be used to flood creatures out of their nests, or to ensure a good crop. These tablets caused the war which resulted in the death of the city.
A variety of weapons with uncomfortable balance and grip, but perfectly serviceable. The wielder will not be able to forget the otherness of the weapon. They thirst for the blood of mammals, especially that of humans. These weapons deal +1 damage to all mammals, and score a critical on 19-20 against humans.
A fantastically light suit of mail made from the scales of some long-extinct fish. The scales shimmer and wink in the sun. It functions as leather with the protection of chain, but stealth is difficult.
A strange metal spike with a great deal of intricate carving around the point. These Stone Killers were used to punch holes in walls and to obliterate the famed golems of the last city.

Tuesday, 11 November 2014

University has done a terrible thing

and wrought changes most foul.

A thousand tear
stained stitches
of desperate
thanks gripped
in the hand of
a young man
terrified yet
grappling with
twin sticks.

Dying bird of
poor metal make
plunges in
shearing the hull,
parting the decks
obliterating
plane and ship.
Fire atop the waves.

Sunday, 9 November 2014

Dig yourself a bigger hole

***SUNDAY GAME PLAYERS GO HOME PLEASE***

Designed for use with this, which has just been updated.
Whenever a structure is revealed, roll below. Rolling several times can generate connected structures, districts being unearthed etc. Particularly large structures being rolled means only an entrance has been unearthed. Roll on the Contents table to determine randomised contents.


D100
Structure
0-2
Mausoleum
3-20
Market
21-31
Workshop
31-65
Poor Housing
66-70
Rich Housing
71-77
Temple
78-85
Barracks
86-90
Palace
91-95
Library
96-00
Golem Manufactory
D100
Contents
0-15
Human Skeletons
16-30
Salvageable Equipment
31-36
Usable Equipment
37-47
Mixed Skeletons
48-50
Baked/Stone Tablets
51-58
Destroyed Golems
59-63
Active Golems
64-70
Insane Golems
70-75
Hibernating Kausikans
76-86
Minor Wealth 3d4SP
87-95
Medium Wealth 10d10SP
95-97
Treasure Hoard 12d20 x10 SP
98-00
Cave Adapted Survivors















The following guidelines are in addition to the randomly determined content.
Libraries always contain 1d6 intact tablets, a 50% chance of mixed skeletons and a 20% chance of Hibernating Kausikans.
Golem Manufactories always have 2d10 deactivated or half-completed golems, 1d4 active worker golems and a 50% chance of 1d2 insane golems. The insane golems will be fighting the active golems, or each other.
Temples always contain a treasure hoard, human skeletons and a 70% chance of baked tablets.
Barracks always contain mixed skeletons, in addition to a collection of salvageable and usable equipment.
Mausoleums always contain human skeletons and many (1d100) offerings of minor wealth.


Saturday, 1 November 2014

Sea-sailing is a pleasurable past time and nothing bad ever happens

You finally managed to convince the fighter to get on the damn boat – it’s fastest way to get to Yanzia, and it’s known for being safe from pirates. You hear shouting from the sailors, and the fighter goes deathly white. You run over to the edge, and see …

D8

1
The ponderous form of whale. You start to notice something off about it when the sheer hate rolls over you, driving you to your knees. The whale hates you. The whale wants you to drown. The whale is dead. You hear its harrowing whale-song bouncing endlessly in your head.
2
A great obsidian spire to the port side, thrusting outwards from the waves into the air. It is spotless, and seems to drink the light around it. You see the water is impossibly still around it. There is a distinct mineral smell in the air.
3
A huge basalt platform just above sea level directly ahead. There is an opening in the middle of it, and you can just see the start of steps leading down.
4
A bird rivalling the size of great merchant ships appears to be flying below the boat. The plumage is in the colours of the ocean. The wind has stopped entirely. It is slowly circling to gain height.
5
The shouting sailor throws himself into the water, and is dragged down by cruel clawed hands made of the water itself. You see sharp salt crystals forming around the body as it is dragged down, down, down.
6
A huge swarm of birds, quite distant but incredibly dense – you can barely see sky between them. They’re moving your way, fast.
7
There appears to be some golden liquid suspended in the water, leading away to the horizon. You swear you keep catching flashes of light from that point. You feel slightly queasy.
8
A single tentacle as wide about as a good horse is slowly winding its up from the depths. You can’t see where it starts, but you do see the hooks and barbs like swords coating the entire thing. It’s going to reach the surface in about two minutes.