Erik Amundsen's Blog, page 24
January 7, 2013
The Beast Fears Fire - Custodial Spirits
The two of you who voted for the Night Things, I'm afraid, are going to have to wait. I only have 4 of the needed 6 so far, and I don't expect I will have them done by the time I am done with this. The Night Things are really tough to make. In the meantime, the other group that got two were the custodial spirits, so they're up.
You're less likely to encounter a manifested custodial spirit than you are creatures that are far less numerous and common. And they are very, very common. Some people think that most of the material of the world is composed of them, in a sense. At any given time, there are four or five of them in your house, and four or five of the things you do each day, without thinking, without marking the action at all, are little rituals to propitiate them. They are a part of your life and your world, whether you see one with your eyes or live and die without anything ever drawing your attention to their presence.
They generally don't want to be noticed, that's not why they are here. Actually, there's not a lot in the way of hard evidence for a reason of their being. They just are, and explanations for them tend to devolve into circular reasoning and pure speculation. There are five kinds of spirits for the five elements. There are five elements because there are five spirits that correspond to them - Shadow, Earth, Water, Wind and Wood. There are also custodial spirits for animals and spirits for people.
The center of Crickton is dominated by the Gulf of Catastrophe, and if the name didn't spoil it for you, let me. There used to be a forest where that gulf is, the Ketteleye. This forest had a problem from way back with the spirits not being properly linked, and requiring all kinds of rituals, special phrases, placement of items, layouts of buildings and that kind of thing in order to keep the ground stable, the plants growing, and the sea not rushing in. There are still islands in the middle of the Gulf, the Shivering Islands, where things are still not quite right. No one is quite certain what job the custodial spirits exactly do, but no one disputes that it's important.
Custodial spirits usually only manifest when a witch calls them forth, or screws up their magic so badly that it riles them. If you see a custodial spirit (and it's not an elf), it's usually a witch's fault.
You're less likely to encounter a manifested custodial spirit than you are creatures that are far less numerous and common. And they are very, very common. Some people think that most of the material of the world is composed of them, in a sense. At any given time, there are four or five of them in your house, and four or five of the things you do each day, without thinking, without marking the action at all, are little rituals to propitiate them. They are a part of your life and your world, whether you see one with your eyes or live and die without anything ever drawing your attention to their presence.
They generally don't want to be noticed, that's not why they are here. Actually, there's not a lot in the way of hard evidence for a reason of their being. They just are, and explanations for them tend to devolve into circular reasoning and pure speculation. There are five kinds of spirits for the five elements. There are five elements because there are five spirits that correspond to them - Shadow, Earth, Water, Wind and Wood. There are also custodial spirits for animals and spirits for people.
The center of Crickton is dominated by the Gulf of Catastrophe, and if the name didn't spoil it for you, let me. There used to be a forest where that gulf is, the Ketteleye. This forest had a problem from way back with the spirits not being properly linked, and requiring all kinds of rituals, special phrases, placement of items, layouts of buildings and that kind of thing in order to keep the ground stable, the plants growing, and the sea not rushing in. There are still islands in the middle of the Gulf, the Shivering Islands, where things are still not quite right. No one is quite certain what job the custodial spirits exactly do, but no one disputes that it's important.
Custodial spirits usually only manifest when a witch calls them forth, or screws up their magic so badly that it riles them. If you see a custodial spirit (and it's not an elf), it's usually a witch's fault.
January 6, 2013
The Break Fears Fire
Taking today off. Back tomorrow with... I'm not sure yet. I'll think of something.
January 5, 2013
The Beast Fears Fire - Mimics
Mimic [Want 2]
Impulse - Let's be Honest, to give the Middle Finger to Players Mimics are the other extremely successful ambush predator you can find in the Underworld, and find them you will. You won't find them often or in groups - mimics are extremely territorial, but you can be certain that there is no patch of the Black Mansions that is not claimed by one. Mimics are especially well suited for catching goblins, and some people think that this might be their purpose or the course of their evolution. It's kind of hard to tell. They do seem well suited to profiting on goblin curiosity.
When a mimic is laying in wait, it resembles a perfectly normal, reasonably large piece of furniture, or other similar sized object. The classical mimic has the dormant form of a chest or trunk, but barrels, tables, beds, carts, bookshelves, armoires... just about anything that appears manufactured and is large enough to hold a goblin (or similar sized meal) works. Mimics will set themselves up somewhere that they do not look out of place and wait until something chooses to interact with them. At that point, the mimic unfolds it's long legs and spindly body opens up it's great, toothy mouth and unfurls its arms, which are more like pedipalps, since the join the body alongside or even inside the mouth. When revealed, a mimic stands 3 meters tall, with arms that reach from the head to the ground.
Harm 3 Mimics stuff anything that interacts with them into their mouth and start chewing. They are extremely strong and, when feeding, aggressive. Anything active that is not in a mimic's mouth will get slashed up or pummeled by the the creature's taloned hands, and anything that a mimic subdues gets scooped into its mouth along with the initial meal.
Perfectly Ordinary, Perfectly Safe
When you are searching through the hunting grounds of a mimic, face Want
On a Hit, you get the benefits of a Hit for a normal Move against Want. You don't find any mimics.
On a Hard Hit, you find what you want and also, you know where the mimic is and what it looks like.
On a Miss, you opened up the wrong thing, take Harm as stated as the mimic chews on you.
For your sake, touch me not
Unlike most of its category mates, a mimic is sunlight tolerant, though they do not tend to travel very far from their Underworld entrance, when the come to the surface, as a chest in the middle of a forest is awfully suspicious. Mimics show signs of sapience, though they are not usually interested in communication, and they are emphatically not social with one another. Some mimics have learned to mimic sound and voices and become very good ventriloquists. They seem to understand speech and language well enough to prank creatures nearby, and also like to, occasionally, pretend that there is someone locked inside of them, struggling and calling out for help.
Mimics can change their dormant form, but this takes months, and is exhausting and painful, so they tend not to do it often. Mimics that live on the surface like to take the form of outhouses. Because mimics are assholes.
Impulse - Let's be Honest, to give the Middle Finger to Players Mimics are the other extremely successful ambush predator you can find in the Underworld, and find them you will. You won't find them often or in groups - mimics are extremely territorial, but you can be certain that there is no patch of the Black Mansions that is not claimed by one. Mimics are especially well suited for catching goblins, and some people think that this might be their purpose or the course of their evolution. It's kind of hard to tell. They do seem well suited to profiting on goblin curiosity.
When a mimic is laying in wait, it resembles a perfectly normal, reasonably large piece of furniture, or other similar sized object. The classical mimic has the dormant form of a chest or trunk, but barrels, tables, beds, carts, bookshelves, armoires... just about anything that appears manufactured and is large enough to hold a goblin (or similar sized meal) works. Mimics will set themselves up somewhere that they do not look out of place and wait until something chooses to interact with them. At that point, the mimic unfolds it's long legs and spindly body opens up it's great, toothy mouth and unfurls its arms, which are more like pedipalps, since the join the body alongside or even inside the mouth. When revealed, a mimic stands 3 meters tall, with arms that reach from the head to the ground.
Harm 3 Mimics stuff anything that interacts with them into their mouth and start chewing. They are extremely strong and, when feeding, aggressive. Anything active that is not in a mimic's mouth will get slashed up or pummeled by the the creature's taloned hands, and anything that a mimic subdues gets scooped into its mouth along with the initial meal.
Perfectly Ordinary, Perfectly Safe
When you are searching through the hunting grounds of a mimic, face Want
On a Hit, you get the benefits of a Hit for a normal Move against Want. You don't find any mimics.
On a Hard Hit, you find what you want and also, you know where the mimic is and what it looks like.
On a Miss, you opened up the wrong thing, take Harm as stated as the mimic chews on you.
For your sake, touch me not
Unlike most of its category mates, a mimic is sunlight tolerant, though they do not tend to travel very far from their Underworld entrance, when the come to the surface, as a chest in the middle of a forest is awfully suspicious. Mimics show signs of sapience, though they are not usually interested in communication, and they are emphatically not social with one another. Some mimics have learned to mimic sound and voices and become very good ventriloquists. They seem to understand speech and language well enough to prank creatures nearby, and also like to, occasionally, pretend that there is someone locked inside of them, struggling and calling out for help.
Mimics can change their dormant form, but this takes months, and is exhausting and painful, so they tend not to do it often. Mimics that live on the surface like to take the form of outhouses. Because mimics are assholes.
January 4, 2013
The Beast Fears Fire - Polymorphic Kill Beast
Polymorphic Kill Beast [Violence 2]
Impulse - To entrap. It used to be that scholars of all things Underworldly thought that there were a vast number of related but highly specialized ambush predators in the Underworld posing as natural features of the environment, objects, patches of ceiling, wall, floor, cave formations, critters in the water... As it turns out, there are only two: mimics who take the form of furnishings in the furnished parts of the underworld and the polymorphic kill beasts (PKB), which take everything else.
I hope you've caught on to the fact that trying to figure out exactly how these creatures came to be is impossible and pointless. What they're all about, however, is pretty easy to understand; they're hungry. Possibly the most simpleminded creature in the Underworld (and that includes the blind cave fish and hellbenders), they are also some of the most successful. I'm sure that goes to show something.
PKBs are grayish or brownish (they can change color if they want), stony-textured masses of flesh, capable of flattening, reshaping, extruding, twisting or unknitting their bodies into any whatever form is likely to be the best configuration for hunting. They can create infinite number of joints, extrude horns and fangs and claws, puff up with gas and harden until the only way you can tell them from the genuine article is when it wraps around you and tries to kill you. On the rare occasions they need to move, they do so on many ungainly looking legs, like a wireframe of a walking stalagmite, or by flattening and filling up with gas to fly through the galleries and caves. They usually have sort of rudimentary eyes positioned over their body.
Harm - 2/Peril [Strangled] Straightforward ambush predators, PKBs find a place to set up where traffic is high, but not too high, ideally in a place where they can grab prey and be undisturbed or protected from reprisals. When something tasty comes along and gets near enough, the PKB will strike, hauling their prey up with arms, rolling over on them, dropping on them, folding them up from beneath, whatever is easiest. Once it's got a hold on its prey, the PKB will use its great strength and shifting form to constrict it, then form around it, release digestive juices, and everything is good. Well, for the PKB.
PKBs will attack if noticed, as well, just in case. Meals aren't easy to come by in the Underworld, and it is almost impossible to see tell a PKB from the landscape unless you are close enough for it to attack.
BIG HUG
When you are being attacked by a PKB, face Violence.
On a Hit, you are in its clutches, but not fully. You can engage or escape from the PKB as you see fit.
On a Hard Hit, the PKB misjudges, giving you the chance to inflict whatever Harm you can on it.
On a Miss, the PKB grabs you and starts squeezing. Suffer Harm as stated.
Only Wanting Contact
It's possible, for a PKB to unravel its body to about the thickness of yarn, though it's very rare to see one do so. The averarge adult PKB masses about 500 kilograms, and trying to describe it's dimensions any other way is kind of stupid. PKBs seem to enjoy hunting from water. Though they are not aquatic, they can breathe through any part of their body, and don't seem to have a minimum required surface area for respiration.
PKBs are not sunlight tolerant. Rather dramatically not sunlight tolerant. They burst. It's not pretty.
Ruhk blacksmiths know how to use the minerals you can glean off the skin of a PKB to alloy into a steel that shifts weight and form depending on how it's moving, making for very interesting weapons, which are amazing in the hands of trained users and almost impossible for the untrained to even hold for long.
Impulse - To entrap. It used to be that scholars of all things Underworldly thought that there were a vast number of related but highly specialized ambush predators in the Underworld posing as natural features of the environment, objects, patches of ceiling, wall, floor, cave formations, critters in the water... As it turns out, there are only two: mimics who take the form of furnishings in the furnished parts of the underworld and the polymorphic kill beasts (PKB), which take everything else.
I hope you've caught on to the fact that trying to figure out exactly how these creatures came to be is impossible and pointless. What they're all about, however, is pretty easy to understand; they're hungry. Possibly the most simpleminded creature in the Underworld (and that includes the blind cave fish and hellbenders), they are also some of the most successful. I'm sure that goes to show something.
PKBs are grayish or brownish (they can change color if they want), stony-textured masses of flesh, capable of flattening, reshaping, extruding, twisting or unknitting their bodies into any whatever form is likely to be the best configuration for hunting. They can create infinite number of joints, extrude horns and fangs and claws, puff up with gas and harden until the only way you can tell them from the genuine article is when it wraps around you and tries to kill you. On the rare occasions they need to move, they do so on many ungainly looking legs, like a wireframe of a walking stalagmite, or by flattening and filling up with gas to fly through the galleries and caves. They usually have sort of rudimentary eyes positioned over their body.
Harm - 2/Peril [Strangled] Straightforward ambush predators, PKBs find a place to set up where traffic is high, but not too high, ideally in a place where they can grab prey and be undisturbed or protected from reprisals. When something tasty comes along and gets near enough, the PKB will strike, hauling their prey up with arms, rolling over on them, dropping on them, folding them up from beneath, whatever is easiest. Once it's got a hold on its prey, the PKB will use its great strength and shifting form to constrict it, then form around it, release digestive juices, and everything is good. Well, for the PKB.
PKBs will attack if noticed, as well, just in case. Meals aren't easy to come by in the Underworld, and it is almost impossible to see tell a PKB from the landscape unless you are close enough for it to attack.
BIG HUG
When you are being attacked by a PKB, face Violence.
On a Hit, you are in its clutches, but not fully. You can engage or escape from the PKB as you see fit.
On a Hard Hit, the PKB misjudges, giving you the chance to inflict whatever Harm you can on it.
On a Miss, the PKB grabs you and starts squeezing. Suffer Harm as stated.
Only Wanting Contact
It's possible, for a PKB to unravel its body to about the thickness of yarn, though it's very rare to see one do so. The averarge adult PKB masses about 500 kilograms, and trying to describe it's dimensions any other way is kind of stupid. PKBs seem to enjoy hunting from water. Though they are not aquatic, they can breathe through any part of their body, and don't seem to have a minimum required surface area for respiration.
PKBs are not sunlight tolerant. Rather dramatically not sunlight tolerant. They burst. It's not pretty.
Ruhk blacksmiths know how to use the minerals you can glean off the skin of a PKB to alloy into a steel that shifts weight and form depending on how it's moving, making for very interesting weapons, which are amazing in the hands of trained users and almost impossible for the untrained to even hold for long.
The Beast Fears Fire - The Twee
Twee [Malevolence 2]
Impulse - To infect and observe
Even by Underworldly standards, twees are weird. Their name is weird, their composition; neither spirit nor infection nor physical parasite, but having characteristics of all three is weird. Their purpose is weird, considering how willing they are to allow their clairvoyance to be hijacked by others while viewing everything and everyone with a loathing and disdain so strong it's a psychic attack.
Also, they are fucking creepy, because they are eyes.
Twee will appear one of two ways, depending on circumstances that only maybe they understand. The first is as a profusion of eyes that open on the surface of an object or living thing, usually all the same color, occasionally lit from within. The other is in the form of a glowing pattern that resembles eyes, seemingly drawn on a surface. In either form, twee can move rather quickly across a surface by opening eyes in the direction they want to go as they close the ones on their trailing edge. It looks a little like swimming. They can move from the surface of anything they are currently inhabiting to any other surface that is touching it. Living creatures don't find hosting a twee physically painful, but that's the best you can say for the experience. Twee prefer to keep on the move, most times, though they are willing to remain stationary on an object or creature that is in motion.
Harm - 1/Peril [Judged] Hosting or being in psychic contact with the twee is pretty awful. The twee hate everything and everyone, dwell, non-verbally on all the faults of everything they see and do not respond to any entreaty or attempt to communicate. They sit and hate and judge and are sullen and bitter. Contact with the psychic miasma they generate is damaging and perilous.
You might wonder why anyone would allow themselves to contact such a creature, well, there's actually a pretty good reason. Every twee can see what every other twee sees (though there is some evidence that they are separate, individual entities) and anyone in contact with a twee can see what any other twee sees. Which means that someone might be using the creatures to keep an eye on you (so to speak) and can you really risk that?
What You See
When you are attempting to look through the twee network, face Malevolence
On a Hit, you can sense if someone is looking for or at you, but not who or what. You can also convince all the twee in the area to leave.
On a Hard Hit, you see anyone who is seeing you, or any place or thing you want that might be in the Underworld or within line-of-sight for a twee. You can also convince all the twee in the area to leave.
On a Miss, you are overwhelmed by the judgment and disdain. Suffer Harm as stated and answer a question for the Moderator, which can then be put into play.
I see you, you see me.
Like most other Underworldly denizens, twee do not do well in the sun (they get blinded by it an dry out quickly). There are methods to summon them so you can look in on things, the magic required is moderately tricky (Threshold 3 version of What You See, above), which does work on the surface (twee can manage indefinitely on a living thing on the surface, but they don't *like* it, and let you know.
Twee that are destroyed seem to vanish, all their eyes closing and no trace left of their presence on the surface where they died.
There are stories of some twee who have been able to use witchcraft, but no real substantiation exists for those tales.
Impulse - To infect and observe
Even by Underworldly standards, twees are weird. Their name is weird, their composition; neither spirit nor infection nor physical parasite, but having characteristics of all three is weird. Their purpose is weird, considering how willing they are to allow their clairvoyance to be hijacked by others while viewing everything and everyone with a loathing and disdain so strong it's a psychic attack.
Also, they are fucking creepy, because they are eyes.
Twee will appear one of two ways, depending on circumstances that only maybe they understand. The first is as a profusion of eyes that open on the surface of an object or living thing, usually all the same color, occasionally lit from within. The other is in the form of a glowing pattern that resembles eyes, seemingly drawn on a surface. In either form, twee can move rather quickly across a surface by opening eyes in the direction they want to go as they close the ones on their trailing edge. It looks a little like swimming. They can move from the surface of anything they are currently inhabiting to any other surface that is touching it. Living creatures don't find hosting a twee physically painful, but that's the best you can say for the experience. Twee prefer to keep on the move, most times, though they are willing to remain stationary on an object or creature that is in motion.
Harm - 1/Peril [Judged] Hosting or being in psychic contact with the twee is pretty awful. The twee hate everything and everyone, dwell, non-verbally on all the faults of everything they see and do not respond to any entreaty or attempt to communicate. They sit and hate and judge and are sullen and bitter. Contact with the psychic miasma they generate is damaging and perilous.
You might wonder why anyone would allow themselves to contact such a creature, well, there's actually a pretty good reason. Every twee can see what every other twee sees (though there is some evidence that they are separate, individual entities) and anyone in contact with a twee can see what any other twee sees. Which means that someone might be using the creatures to keep an eye on you (so to speak) and can you really risk that?
What You See
When you are attempting to look through the twee network, face Malevolence
On a Hit, you can sense if someone is looking for or at you, but not who or what. You can also convince all the twee in the area to leave.
On a Hard Hit, you see anyone who is seeing you, or any place or thing you want that might be in the Underworld or within line-of-sight for a twee. You can also convince all the twee in the area to leave.
On a Miss, you are overwhelmed by the judgment and disdain. Suffer Harm as stated and answer a question for the Moderator, which can then be put into play.
I see you, you see me.
Like most other Underworldly denizens, twee do not do well in the sun (they get blinded by it an dry out quickly). There are methods to summon them so you can look in on things, the magic required is moderately tricky (Threshold 3 version of What You See, above), which does work on the surface (twee can manage indefinitely on a living thing on the surface, but they don't *like* it, and let you know.
Twee that are destroyed seem to vanish, all their eyes closing and no trace left of their presence on the surface where they died.
There are stories of some twee who have been able to use witchcraft, but no real substantiation exists for those tales.
January 3, 2013
The Beast Fears Fire - Onyx Youths
Looked through my list and realized I didn't have an Ignorance Monster for this category, so I had to finally pull out the SCP-173/Weeping Angel ripoff. And then make them Herms, because if you're going to rip something off, you may as well also hang a knob on it.
Onyx Youths [Ignorance 2]
Impulse - To Deny Passage, Conceal
If you must visit the Underworld, the best policy is to assume that everything can and will hurt you. The food is probably goblin fruit, your guides are probably goblins, or, if you're less lucky ghouls, anything you find growing on the walls or under the furniture is probably a killer fungus colony, and that's assuming the walls or furniture isn't a PKB or a mimic. The youths are part of the killer decor theme, but they are a little more conspicuous than most of the usual Underworldly dangers and that's part of the problem.
Onyx Youths don't fit in with the guiding principles that furnished the Underworld; it's hard, exactly to say how or why, because, at times, they will blend in just fine with all the things you might find in the furnished portions of that realm. Once a person notices them, it's clear that the onyx youths do not belong, that they clash with the rest of the place, and, furthermore, there's something... unheimliche about them. The youths seem to prefer that you are keenly aware of them, once they activate.
Otherwise it wouldn't be fair.
The Onyx Youths don't have a artistic analog in Crickton or any culture that that has interacted with them. They are onyx (black onyx is most common, but green onyx is also not rare, other colors are moreso) statues, usually a meter to a meter and a half tall - a bust of a young man (occasionally crowned with some garland of branches or flowers) on a tall, rectangular base, with carved male genitals on the front of the base, about a third of the way up, all of one piece. Once noticed, they project a moderate psychic aura of anxiety and unease, that has caused panic attacks to more delicate psyches. They are animate, despite having no apparent moving pieces; able to teleport short distances when not under direct observation. In fact, they cannot move at all while in the direct line of sight of a person who is aware of their presence.
Harm - 2/Peril [Dread]. No one's actually witnessed an onyx youth making a physical attack, but victims who have survived report a sharp, heavy, downward blow the the head, neck or back, preceded by a stab of paralyzing fear. Often, youths don't put their full strength behind a blow, using just enough force to hurt and provoke a panicked flight. Onyx youths tend to congregate in the more hazardous areas of the Underworld, hoping to get their victims to come to grief under their own power.
Watch Me
When you are aware of the Onyx Youth, they are aware of you. Face Ignorance
On a Hit, you can edge by them, keeping them in sight until you are away. Coming back through the area will provoke having to make this move again.
On a Hard Hit, you are able to master their anxiety causing properties and smash them up, if you like. Also, free onyx!
On a Miss, you blinked. Take Harm as stated and start running.
Everytime I turn around, she's looking up at you and down below.
Onyx youths are made out of onyx. Kind of a lot of it. Breaking any part of the statue off seems to kill or force the youth into dormancy. Broken youths in good shape fetch high prices from people who, let's face it, you will probably want to kill very shortly after meeting (not for nothing that if you have a collection of these things in your house, you are a Barghest and the only way we can prove otherwise is through exitspicy).
Onyx youth get a lot more common down in the less-accessible regions of the GIS-patrolled Underworld, growing in clusters out of the walls and seams of the natural caverns down there. Occasionally, you will see the odd onyx maiden, with a young woman's head and female genitals; how they differ from the male-appearing ones is something that nobody's figured out, yet.
Onyx Youths [Ignorance 2]
Impulse - To Deny Passage, Conceal
If you must visit the Underworld, the best policy is to assume that everything can and will hurt you. The food is probably goblin fruit, your guides are probably goblins, or, if you're less lucky ghouls, anything you find growing on the walls or under the furniture is probably a killer fungus colony, and that's assuming the walls or furniture isn't a PKB or a mimic. The youths are part of the killer decor theme, but they are a little more conspicuous than most of the usual Underworldly dangers and that's part of the problem.
Onyx Youths don't fit in with the guiding principles that furnished the Underworld; it's hard, exactly to say how or why, because, at times, they will blend in just fine with all the things you might find in the furnished portions of that realm. Once a person notices them, it's clear that the onyx youths do not belong, that they clash with the rest of the place, and, furthermore, there's something... unheimliche about them. The youths seem to prefer that you are keenly aware of them, once they activate.
Otherwise it wouldn't be fair.
The Onyx Youths don't have a artistic analog in Crickton or any culture that that has interacted with them. They are onyx (black onyx is most common, but green onyx is also not rare, other colors are moreso) statues, usually a meter to a meter and a half tall - a bust of a young man (occasionally crowned with some garland of branches or flowers) on a tall, rectangular base, with carved male genitals on the front of the base, about a third of the way up, all of one piece. Once noticed, they project a moderate psychic aura of anxiety and unease, that has caused panic attacks to more delicate psyches. They are animate, despite having no apparent moving pieces; able to teleport short distances when not under direct observation. In fact, they cannot move at all while in the direct line of sight of a person who is aware of their presence.
Harm - 2/Peril [Dread]. No one's actually witnessed an onyx youth making a physical attack, but victims who have survived report a sharp, heavy, downward blow the the head, neck or back, preceded by a stab of paralyzing fear. Often, youths don't put their full strength behind a blow, using just enough force to hurt and provoke a panicked flight. Onyx youths tend to congregate in the more hazardous areas of the Underworld, hoping to get their victims to come to grief under their own power.
Watch Me
When you are aware of the Onyx Youth, they are aware of you. Face Ignorance
On a Hit, you can edge by them, keeping them in sight until you are away. Coming back through the area will provoke having to make this move again.
On a Hard Hit, you are able to master their anxiety causing properties and smash them up, if you like. Also, free onyx!
On a Miss, you blinked. Take Harm as stated and start running.
Everytime I turn around, she's looking up at you and down below.
Onyx youths are made out of onyx. Kind of a lot of it. Breaking any part of the statue off seems to kill or force the youth into dormancy. Broken youths in good shape fetch high prices from people who, let's face it, you will probably want to kill very shortly after meeting (not for nothing that if you have a collection of these things in your house, you are a Barghest and the only way we can prove otherwise is through exitspicy).
Onyx youth get a lot more common down in the less-accessible regions of the GIS-patrolled Underworld, growing in clusters out of the walls and seams of the natural caverns down there. Occasionally, you will see the odd onyx maiden, with a young woman's head and female genitals; how they differ from the male-appearing ones is something that nobody's figured out, yet.
The Beast Fears Fire - Underworldly Fungal Colonies
Dream this morning, going to Indian Notch in Bolton, a version where Bolton Lake has waves like the ocean, a massive sea wall that intersects an even more massive wall, lit up and decorated like an early 20th century swimming pool - miles and miles of cherub faces. Also, a secret tunnel with a door to a subterranean apartment where a misanthropic acrobat lived. Yeah, I got nothing.
Underworldly Fungal Colonies [Hardship 2]
Impulse - To Deny Passage.
Crick knowledge of fungi does not extend much further than being able to divide the local varieties up into the ones you can eat, the ones you can't and the ones you probably shouldn't, but will make you see things if you do. There's also the fourth category, and about that, wise Cricks try to know as little as humanly possible; understandable, given that the fourth category is the stuff that comes from the Underworld and will try to kill you just for being kind of nearby.
Fungi is all over the Underworld, particularly the places that are not finished and furnished, and there are millions of classes, orders, families that are perfectly harmless, or, at least, fit neatly into one of the first three categories. That's all we have to say about them. There are also a couple thousand or so species that will cross the street to murder your ass, and a couple of them can even walk to do it.
There aren't a lot of Underworldly mycologists out there, so a lot of the accounts of UFCs remain kind of vague. The vast majority of dangerous UFCs are some variation on the theme of mold, and how poetic do you think someone is going to wax on the shapes and textures of mold? Hobgoblins are the most likely to write anything down about whatever it is the rues brought in and is now growing through their bones, and goblins aren't the most intellectually rigorous creatures in the world. Their accounts tend to be very direct, focusing on the color of the UFC and the awful thing it does.
Think of it as a sort of pick-and-mix of fungoid terror.
Harm - 31 fucking flavors of badness. I mean how do you choose?
There's the kind that gives off delicious smelling spores that make you hungry and then grows exponentially in your gut when you eat it.
There's the kind that, when the spores germinate in your sinuses, grows up into your brain and zombifies you.
There's the kind that steals your body heat to grow and holy shit, don't set it on fire.
There's the kind that eats your skin off. Like you do.
There's the kind that turns goblins into kill-crazy cannibals.
There's the kind that unconsciously uses witchcraft.
There's the kind that gets you so high it burns out your nervous system.
There's the kind that shoots little shiny black splinters that cause a nasty fungal meningitis.
There's the kind that generates the brown note.
There's the kind that generates the O note. Okay, that one's kind of awesome.
There's the kind that generates the note that breaks bones. Decidedly less awesome.
There's the kind that floods your mind with its maudlin poetry and tries to depress you to death.
There's the kind that causes spontaneous gender reassignment, and turns everyone at the table into assholes. Actually, I take it back. This kind doesn't exist.
There's the kind that generates local tesseracts and promises you baked goods if you cooperate with it on its experiments.
Basically, there's something for everyone, usually in the form of a Hard Move.
Driven by a strange desire, unseen by the human eye.
I don't think I need to belabor the fact that collecting spores from this stuff and unleashing it on people you don't like is like a whole candy store of dangerous mischief, for starters. UFCs, like most other underworldly denizens, do poorly in direct sunlight, which limits their spread on the surface. Some UFCs concentrate magic crystals (particularly the ones that launch magical attacks at passersby), others clean contaminants, and still others incorporate other useful or precious materials into their fruiting bodies. Some are nutritious and good to eat. Some are nutritious and good to eat if you're a goblin. Some make goblins who eat them nutritious and good to eat. Okay, strike that last bit. Goblins are never good to eat.
Underworldly Fungal Colonies [Hardship 2]
Impulse - To Deny Passage.
Crick knowledge of fungi does not extend much further than being able to divide the local varieties up into the ones you can eat, the ones you can't and the ones you probably shouldn't, but will make you see things if you do. There's also the fourth category, and about that, wise Cricks try to know as little as humanly possible; understandable, given that the fourth category is the stuff that comes from the Underworld and will try to kill you just for being kind of nearby.
Fungi is all over the Underworld, particularly the places that are not finished and furnished, and there are millions of classes, orders, families that are perfectly harmless, or, at least, fit neatly into one of the first three categories. That's all we have to say about them. There are also a couple thousand or so species that will cross the street to murder your ass, and a couple of them can even walk to do it.
There aren't a lot of Underworldly mycologists out there, so a lot of the accounts of UFCs remain kind of vague. The vast majority of dangerous UFCs are some variation on the theme of mold, and how poetic do you think someone is going to wax on the shapes and textures of mold? Hobgoblins are the most likely to write anything down about whatever it is the rues brought in and is now growing through their bones, and goblins aren't the most intellectually rigorous creatures in the world. Their accounts tend to be very direct, focusing on the color of the UFC and the awful thing it does.
Think of it as a sort of pick-and-mix of fungoid terror.
Harm - 31 fucking flavors of badness. I mean how do you choose?
There's the kind that gives off delicious smelling spores that make you hungry and then grows exponentially in your gut when you eat it.
There's the kind that, when the spores germinate in your sinuses, grows up into your brain and zombifies you.
There's the kind that steals your body heat to grow and holy shit, don't set it on fire.
There's the kind that eats your skin off. Like you do.
There's the kind that turns goblins into kill-crazy cannibals.
There's the kind that unconsciously uses witchcraft.
There's the kind that gets you so high it burns out your nervous system.
There's the kind that shoots little shiny black splinters that cause a nasty fungal meningitis.
There's the kind that generates the brown note.
There's the kind that generates the O note. Okay, that one's kind of awesome.
There's the kind that generates the note that breaks bones. Decidedly less awesome.
There's the kind that floods your mind with its maudlin poetry and tries to depress you to death.
There's the kind that causes spontaneous gender reassignment, and turns everyone at the table into assholes. Actually, I take it back. This kind doesn't exist.
There's the kind that generates local tesseracts and promises you baked goods if you cooperate with it on its experiments.
Basically, there's something for everyone, usually in the form of a Hard Move.
Driven by a strange desire, unseen by the human eye.
I don't think I need to belabor the fact that collecting spores from this stuff and unleashing it on people you don't like is like a whole candy store of dangerous mischief, for starters. UFCs, like most other underworldly denizens, do poorly in direct sunlight, which limits their spread on the surface. Some UFCs concentrate magic crystals (particularly the ones that launch magical attacks at passersby), others clean contaminants, and still others incorporate other useful or precious materials into their fruiting bodies. Some are nutritious and good to eat. Some are nutritious and good to eat if you're a goblin. Some make goblins who eat them nutritious and good to eat. Okay, strike that last bit. Goblins are never good to eat.
January 2, 2013
The Beast Fears Fire - Goopy Ideal Solids
Goopy Ideal Solids [Disaster 2]
Impulse - To Entrap, Deny Passage
There are some people who believe that the Underworld is has something beyond it; another world, possibly the Other, maybe something entirely else. Every once in a great while, someone gets a weird notion to try and navigate through the Underworld and see if there is another side. These end in failure at the absolute best, which owes itself partially to the fact that the less accessible areas of the underworld are filthy with invisible custodians that sweep up everything they can find. Filthy with those things and nothing else; the domain of the Goopy Ideal Solids (GIS) is one of bare rooms and empty caves, and a striking deviation from the Underworld's usual creepy opulence.
Most of the time, this is going to be your only warning that the GISs are about. These creatures are completely invisible, they make no sound and smell like nothing. People who have survived contact with them report that the things are solid and have a soft, rubbery texture, at least before the neurotoxin they secrete numbs the victim. When revealed (shadow witchcraft does this reasonably well), they appear in the shape of one of the five ideal solids - tetrahedron, cube, octohedron, icosohedron and dodecahedron.
Harm 2/Numbed, Suffocating. GISs deliver a powerful paralytic that absorbs through skin, fur, hair, cloth, whatever; which causes instant local and fast-acting total paralysis of all voluntary muscle groups. The GIS will move to envelop anyone it touches, like you do. Given that the only air inside a GIS is that which you take with you, extended stays are probably not recommended.
The Shape of Things to Come
When you find yourself in a place patrolled by Goopy Ideal Solids, Face Disaster.
On a Hit, nothing to see here, move along :D
On a Hard Hit, you get a chance to see what path the GIS(s) is (are) taking and either completely avoid them or find the place where they stash all the stuff they pick up.
On a Miss, you wander into one. Take Harm as stated, sucker.
I walk along darkened corridors
Given long enough, GISs can digest everything, but they do tend to leave some things behind, always in the same place. In the Underworld, there's always a nook or cranny or alcove in which to stash things. If a group of GISs patrol an area, they tend to all use the same dumping ground. You can find a lot of cool stuff there, but the dangers in looking should be apparent.
Every once in a while, GISs do make it into more populous and accessible parts of the Underworld, and from there, out into the world. Sunlight seems to degrade the creatures pretty quickly, so a successful individual or colony will sometimes stake out an abandoned building and get to work cleaning.
One last odd thing about GISs - they are occasionally unable to interact with certain people for reasons not fully explained. Not a lot of serious scholarship has gone into this, but there is a hypothesis that certain shapes of GISs cannot touch or be touched by certain people based, somehow, on their ability to anticipate and react to danger. Tetrahedrons seem unable to capture the hopeless, cubes the average, octohedrons the savvy; icosohedrons and dodecahedrons seem unable to get the higher levels of ability, but the simpler solids also seem less likely to net these people for reasons you can anticipate.
Impulse - To Entrap, Deny Passage
There are some people who believe that the Underworld is has something beyond it; another world, possibly the Other, maybe something entirely else. Every once in a great while, someone gets a weird notion to try and navigate through the Underworld and see if there is another side. These end in failure at the absolute best, which owes itself partially to the fact that the less accessible areas of the underworld are filthy with invisible custodians that sweep up everything they can find. Filthy with those things and nothing else; the domain of the Goopy Ideal Solids (GIS) is one of bare rooms and empty caves, and a striking deviation from the Underworld's usual creepy opulence.
Most of the time, this is going to be your only warning that the GISs are about. These creatures are completely invisible, they make no sound and smell like nothing. People who have survived contact with them report that the things are solid and have a soft, rubbery texture, at least before the neurotoxin they secrete numbs the victim. When revealed (shadow witchcraft does this reasonably well), they appear in the shape of one of the five ideal solids - tetrahedron, cube, octohedron, icosohedron and dodecahedron.
Harm 2/Numbed, Suffocating. GISs deliver a powerful paralytic that absorbs through skin, fur, hair, cloth, whatever; which causes instant local and fast-acting total paralysis of all voluntary muscle groups. The GIS will move to envelop anyone it touches, like you do. Given that the only air inside a GIS is that which you take with you, extended stays are probably not recommended.
The Shape of Things to Come
When you find yourself in a place patrolled by Goopy Ideal Solids, Face Disaster.
On a Hit, nothing to see here, move along :D
On a Hard Hit, you get a chance to see what path the GIS(s) is (are) taking and either completely avoid them or find the place where they stash all the stuff they pick up.
On a Miss, you wander into one. Take Harm as stated, sucker.
I walk along darkened corridors
Given long enough, GISs can digest everything, but they do tend to leave some things behind, always in the same place. In the Underworld, there's always a nook or cranny or alcove in which to stash things. If a group of GISs patrol an area, they tend to all use the same dumping ground. You can find a lot of cool stuff there, but the dangers in looking should be apparent.
Every once in a while, GISs do make it into more populous and accessible parts of the Underworld, and from there, out into the world. Sunlight seems to degrade the creatures pretty quickly, so a successful individual or colony will sometimes stake out an abandoned building and get to work cleaning.
One last odd thing about GISs - they are occasionally unable to interact with certain people for reasons not fully explained. Not a lot of serious scholarship has gone into this, but there is a hypothesis that certain shapes of GISs cannot touch or be touched by certain people based, somehow, on their ability to anticipate and react to danger. Tetrahedrons seem unable to capture the hopeless, cubes the average, octohedrons the savvy; icosohedrons and dodecahedrons seem unable to get the higher levels of ability, but the simpler solids also seem less likely to net these people for reasons you can anticipate.
The Beast Fears Fire - Underworldly Denizens
Well, the first two days of 2013 went by without my being able to post to LiveJournal, which is a big argument against the service, but what the hell. 2 days late, my take on 2012 - it was a better year than a lot of them have been, and, if nothing else, it is the year that I found thus-far-effective treatment for panic, which is going to probably catapult it into a top 10 somewhere.
Ghouls and goblins are the most numerous living thing you'll find in the Underworld, but they aren't, by any stretch, the only things. There's some others, junk drawer leftover creatures, and many of them are fairly inoffensive. We're not mentioning those. Instead, we're looking at a handful of the worst creatures you're likely to find in the Black Mansions Below, well, the worst that aren't unique, anyway. Some of them have a claim to being something that came about naturally, and some don't even pretend. Their origins are diverse, and, to a large extent, we can't really even guess what combination of spirit, upper-world life, Underworld life, stupid magical experimentation left out to go bad, and plain rotten luck go into making these things. Some secrets really aren't worth the bother to learn.
Ghouls and goblins are the most numerous living thing you'll find in the Underworld, but they aren't, by any stretch, the only things. There's some others, junk drawer leftover creatures, and many of them are fairly inoffensive. We're not mentioning those. Instead, we're looking at a handful of the worst creatures you're likely to find in the Black Mansions Below, well, the worst that aren't unique, anyway. Some of them have a claim to being something that came about naturally, and some don't even pretend. Their origins are diverse, and, to a large extent, we can't really even guess what combination of spirit, upper-world life, Underworld life, stupid magical experimentation left out to go bad, and plain rotten luck go into making these things. Some secrets really aren't worth the bother to learn.
December 31, 2012
The Beast Fears Fire - Trokkar
Trying to knock these ones out before the New Year so we can ring in 2013 with the Fuck-You Dungeon Critters
Trokkar [Want 2]
Impulse - Feed the Fire.
The trokkar are probably the oldest of the surviving ash weapons, made back in the days when the Ash people were certain that they were going to lose, but only beginning to fear that they might die. They made the creatures as a cheap, quick soldiers to bolster their numbers, but given the costs of making them over time, it's possible that the trokkar were as responsible for the destruction of the Ash as anything else.
Trokkar are slightly shorter than human adults, blocky figures carved to look like soldiers in the long coats and uniforms of the old Ash army, with animal heads. Horses, Elk, and cattle seem to be the most common, but goats, mountain sheep and even elephants are possible. Their movements are stiff and jerky, accompanied with crackling and popping sounds as they go. Trokkar are extremely hot to the touch, and shower sparks when handled roughly.
Anyone with the formula can make trokkar, they just need a bonfire and sufficient fuel to burn. The sufficient fuel part becomes an issue pretty quickly, since the fire needs the fuel to generate the trokkar, and the trokkar are only active for as long as the fire is going. Ash trokkar respond to the commands of the person who lit the fire, but left to their own devices, trokkar will go and gather anything they can grab that they think will burn and bring it back to the fire, plant or animal matter. Left unattended, a bonfire of trokkar will continue to maintain and feed the fire, expanding their numbers and consuming just about everything they can find.
Harm - 2 While getting beaten with a 50 kilogram lit charcoal briquette is every bit as alarming and unpleasant as it sounds, trokkar aren't very good fighters, pursue marked targets mindlessly and are quite vulnerable to water in any form (immersion destroys them). Fighting in a group of them can be quite dangerous, thanks to the heat, especially in close quarters. Trokkar will fight to defend their bonfire from anyone not marked as an ally by the one who lit it.
The biggest difficulties in facing trokkar are in the logistics of the undertaking and the biggest dangers of the trokkar are to the environment. Left unchecked, trokkar have been able to bring ruin to the land in a 100 kilometer radius.
Feeding the Fire
When you are attempting to extinguish a trokkar bonfire, face Want.
On a Hit, you find the fire, defeat some of its guards, work toward extinguishing it and gain 1 forward on your next attempt to extinguish it.
On a Hard Hit, you extinguish the fire. The trokkar cool and crumble to ash.
On a Miss, the trokkar stymie and drive you off, causing you to suffer Harm as stated.
It smoked all night and it smoked all day
Trokkar did get deployed at some point during the war with the West, and a large portion of western Savel burned because of it; it was during the destruction that the limits of trokkar range was discovered. At it's height, the Savel bonfire may have supported up to 25000 trokkar. No one knows what cost the bonfires that the Ash lit took from them, but historical accounts hold that the fires themselves were housed in huge temples built for the purpose, and that priests oversaw the maintenance of the fire.
Trokkar will happily throw anything that is capable of burning in the fire and will not pay much attention to what it is. Hilarity ensues when something you wanted to keep ends up in the hands of a trokkar trudging off to the fire. It's worth noting that a bonfire can become a pyre for a lot of folks who died untimely deaths, which brings with it the possibility of haunting, particularly if a trokkar grabs someone who isn't quite dead before they end up in the fire. Enough trokkar victims and you can end up with a phantom or specter on your hands, once the fire is out.
Trokkar [Want 2]
Impulse - Feed the Fire.
The trokkar are probably the oldest of the surviving ash weapons, made back in the days when the Ash people were certain that they were going to lose, but only beginning to fear that they might die. They made the creatures as a cheap, quick soldiers to bolster their numbers, but given the costs of making them over time, it's possible that the trokkar were as responsible for the destruction of the Ash as anything else.
Trokkar are slightly shorter than human adults, blocky figures carved to look like soldiers in the long coats and uniforms of the old Ash army, with animal heads. Horses, Elk, and cattle seem to be the most common, but goats, mountain sheep and even elephants are possible. Their movements are stiff and jerky, accompanied with crackling and popping sounds as they go. Trokkar are extremely hot to the touch, and shower sparks when handled roughly.
Anyone with the formula can make trokkar, they just need a bonfire and sufficient fuel to burn. The sufficient fuel part becomes an issue pretty quickly, since the fire needs the fuel to generate the trokkar, and the trokkar are only active for as long as the fire is going. Ash trokkar respond to the commands of the person who lit the fire, but left to their own devices, trokkar will go and gather anything they can grab that they think will burn and bring it back to the fire, plant or animal matter. Left unattended, a bonfire of trokkar will continue to maintain and feed the fire, expanding their numbers and consuming just about everything they can find.
Harm - 2 While getting beaten with a 50 kilogram lit charcoal briquette is every bit as alarming and unpleasant as it sounds, trokkar aren't very good fighters, pursue marked targets mindlessly and are quite vulnerable to water in any form (immersion destroys them). Fighting in a group of them can be quite dangerous, thanks to the heat, especially in close quarters. Trokkar will fight to defend their bonfire from anyone not marked as an ally by the one who lit it.
The biggest difficulties in facing trokkar are in the logistics of the undertaking and the biggest dangers of the trokkar are to the environment. Left unchecked, trokkar have been able to bring ruin to the land in a 100 kilometer radius.
Feeding the Fire
When you are attempting to extinguish a trokkar bonfire, face Want.
On a Hit, you find the fire, defeat some of its guards, work toward extinguishing it and gain 1 forward on your next attempt to extinguish it.
On a Hard Hit, you extinguish the fire. The trokkar cool and crumble to ash.
On a Miss, the trokkar stymie and drive you off, causing you to suffer Harm as stated.
It smoked all night and it smoked all day
Trokkar did get deployed at some point during the war with the West, and a large portion of western Savel burned because of it; it was during the destruction that the limits of trokkar range was discovered. At it's height, the Savel bonfire may have supported up to 25000 trokkar. No one knows what cost the bonfires that the Ash lit took from them, but historical accounts hold that the fires themselves were housed in huge temples built for the purpose, and that priests oversaw the maintenance of the fire.
Trokkar will happily throw anything that is capable of burning in the fire and will not pay much attention to what it is. Hilarity ensues when something you wanted to keep ends up in the hands of a trokkar trudging off to the fire. It's worth noting that a bonfire can become a pyre for a lot of folks who died untimely deaths, which brings with it the possibility of haunting, particularly if a trokkar grabs someone who isn't quite dead before they end up in the fire. Enough trokkar victims and you can end up with a phantom or specter on your hands, once the fire is out.
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