Monday, August 31, 2020

D100 Answers to the Question: What’s In This Dude’s Car/Couch/Carrying Case? Or: Some Minor Modern Fantasy Loot


Random table automator can be found here: http://meanderingbanter.blogspot.com/2018/10/automatic-list-to-html-translator-v2.html

The below table can be found in a more legible format on reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/d100/comments/ijws4j/d100_answers_to_the_question_whats_in_this_dudes/

D100Minor Modern Fantasy Loot
1 Three tea bags, tied by the tag-strings. When steeped in water they’ll converts that it into blood, which if tested will be an exact match to that of Henrietta Lacks.
2 A list of names and dates. Half the names and dates have been crossed out. The names that haven’t been crossed out are next to dates that have yet to come. All the crossed out names belong to people who’ve disappeared, or died in accidents.
3 A scorched gas mask. Wearing it makes everything around you look, sound, and smell like it’s on fire.
4 A dull trench knife. The blade and knuckle duster are plated with silver.
5 A plastic lighter stamped with the image of a cartoon character that nobody recognizes.
6 A ceramic mug, crusted on the inside with sewage.
7 Plastic ziplock bag full of red-tinted mushrooms. Very toxic.
8 Ramshackle pipegun. Unloaded.
9 Bundle of copper wiring, elegantly verdigrised.
10 A gold coin. The printing on it has been rubbed to the point of illegibility.
11 Chicken wingbones, bits of rotten flesh and barbecue sauce still clung on. Tied with long blonde hairs to make a little ornament.
12 Incandescent lightbulb, midges swarming within the glass. If it’s cracked open the swarm sublimates into the air. If the bulb’s screwed in then biting insects of all sorts will be called to where its light shines.
13 Dented bell. Makes a noise you hear with your teeth instead of your ears when rung.
14 Wad of small denomination cash from three continents.
15 Glass eye with an iris colour that doesn’t occur naturally. Rolls to turn towards the sun.
16 Two plastic dolls, melted lip-to-lip.
17 An unpinned dud grenade.
18 Someone’s pet snake that’s choked to death on a pincushion.
19 Hypodermic needle filled with hydrochloric acid.
20 Whole fingernails.
21 Deformed human fetus in a jar of formaldehyde.
22 Origami swan folded from a Hustler page.
23 Rat-king caught in an eight-ended mousetrap.
24 Tarot deck with the faces of contemporary politicians glued over those of the characters.
25 Vanity press-published book on the lingering sentience of oil and natural gas from the living things they came from.
26 An antique fountain pen. Holding it in your hand while you sleep will cause you to unconsciously scribble vague hints of the future couched in self-help jargon.
27 A plastic whistle that makes a sound indistinguishable from that of a child screaming when blown.
28 A valuable limited edition comic book wrapped in cellophane.
29 A bottle of eyedrops which causes those who use it to see others as deformed in such a way as to reflect their deepest guilt or shame.
30 An IV bag and tube filled with viscous greenish fluid. If you inject the stuff into your body, you’ll heal quickly while someone you know sickens at the same rate.
31 An encyclopedically organized collection of low-definition snuff films burned onto a CD.
32 A tourist’s phrasebook for an inhuman language.
33 The deed to an infamously haunted house.
34 A bottle of preternaturally slippery lube.
35 A fish-leather holster. The possessor of the holster can summon a gun that’s held in it to their hand, no matter where the holster is.
36 A hundred-pound dumbbell that’s light as a feather for the one holding it but just as massive for everything else.
37 A ring of 1d6+1 car keys. They’ll open and start any car they’re used with, but after an hour the car breaks down irreparably.
38 An MP3 player loaded with recordings of exorcisms.
39 A crack pipe containing crystals of a knock-off philosopher’s stone. Will transmute your lungs to lead if you inhale the smoke.
40 A spraypaint can containing an animate blob of poisonous paintslime.
41 A piece from a fossilized skull, apparently human.
42 A GPS unit. Anyone using the unit becomes lost, but also loses anyone following them.
43 A scrap of paper on which is written the URL of a cooking channel that covers all the ways to cook human meat. This channel is unlisted on all search engines.
44 A bubbly bottle of beer, opening it creates a 10x10x10 clump of carbonation.
45 A ‘zine of revolutionary agitations. Contains details of local government buildings’ layout, guard patrols, and suchlike.
46 A latex Halloween mask that depicts a deformed cannibal. The mask appears to be its wearer’s real face, and lets them make bite attacks.
47 A yellow-and-black painted nailgun. It disables the alarms of any buildings its nails are shot into. Contains 1d10 nails. Can’t be reloaded.
48 An archaic handheld videogame system with a cartridge stuck in it by melted plastic. Dying in the game causes all data on the last digital device the player interacted with to be deleted (not including the videogame).
49 Animal feed which is irresistible to any domesticated animal. Eating it infects the animal with rabies.
50 A flashlight. If the loss of an item in the flashlight’s light would cause a significant emotional impact on its owner, that item flashes like a safety reflector.
51 A toaster. Every piece of toast toasted with the toaster looks like Jesus.
52 A plastic baggie full of cocaine. The third dose taken from the baggie is a guaranteed overdose for the one taking it.
53 A dog collar bearing a tag with the name “Fido” on it. Anyone wearing the collar must obey classic dog commands such as “sit”, “roll over”, or “fetch” given to them.
54 A prototype bottle of a cleaning solution that never reached the market. Melts flesh and bone like acid.
55 A length of piano wire twisted into an infinity sign. If you strangle anyone with the noose their death will be officially ruled a suicide.
56 A TV remote that works with any TV it’s pointed at. It seems to set the channel to a viewpoint of one of the nine layers of hell from Dante’s Inferno.
57 A laser pointer that calls feral cats to attack whatever it’s pointed at.
58 Something like a silent airhorn with four horns. When placed on the premises of a property and its button depressed it will over the course of a week attract a riot to trash that property through subliminal sounds.
59 A small stone statue of a snake coiled around a bowl. When someone’s blood, sweat, or tears are put in the bowl, any negative social media posts/videos/etc. they’ve made are brought into the public consciousness.
60 A scalpel. Anyone cut by the scalpel becomes more conventionally attractive in a way that suggests they’ve had significant cosmetic surgery done.
61 A can of black spray paint. When sprayed on a wall, floor, or ceiling it creates a hole to the other side for ten minutes. The can contains 1d6 uses.
62 A lion plushie with a tag stating that it’s from the Cincinnati zoo. The lion will adopt any room it’s in as its territory and rip out the Achilles’ tendon of anyone in its territory, but it deanimates if someone can see it.
63 A bur-like bulb. When stuck on someone’s possession it prevents them from communicating electronically for 1d6 days. Phonecalls fail, social media accounts are suspended, and so on.
64 A bullet that shifts its shape to fit any gun. Someone shot by the bullet will find healthcare to be unavailable to them, either by pricing or inconvenient timing.
65 A taxi voucher. When waved it will summon a taxi, which will take you wherever you’d like to go. It’s only a one-way trip though.
66 A doorbell seemingly torn out of a wall, with wires dangling from its back. When held against a mundane door and pressed that door will open and the doorbell will loudly ring.
67 An orange pin bearing the slogan “God bless President Thurmond”.
68 A crumpled fedora. Anyone wearing the fedora feels increasing self-confidence, while perceiving everyone else to be increasingly ugly.
69 A child’s crayon drawing of police beating protestors. Tearing the drawing summons 1d6 riot police phantoms that assault the person in the area that most looks like a troublemaker for a 10-minute turn.
70 An HDD containing 333 episodes of a podcast that is not documented anywhere else. The podcast covers the Great Emu War in exhausting detail, and unintentionally documents the hosts’ mental degradation and eventual suicide pact.
71 A deodorant stick that totally removes the smell of whatever it’s rubbed on.
72 A USB stick containing hundreds of videos of softcore videos. None of the performers have faces.
73 A silver watch from an expensive brand. Each day it switches to the time that a historic disaster occurred.
74 A Ken doll with photorealistically modelled male genitals.
75 A snowglobe that depicts the area it’s in with little plastic models.
76 A pair of cracked sunglasses. Anyone looking through them sees the sun as a glaring, bloodshot eye, and people who wish them harm as bathed in a blood-red beam of light.
77 A multi-purpose charger with a barbed plug. The plug can be stabbed into living things to drain their blood and convert it into electricity.
78 A printout of a Wikipedia page for a compound that shouldn’t be chemically possible. The steps to synthesizing it are listed in unsettling detail. The page has been deleted since the thing was printed, with no reason given.
79 A debit card printed on black glass. Can be used for expenditures of up to $1,000.00 USD (or the local equivalent), shaving a year off your lifespan each time it’s used.
80 Bath salts.
81 Eye of newt and tongue of bat, powdered and put in pills.
82 A tub of biohazardous material from the nearest hospital.
83 A detective’s badge, polished to a mirror-like sheen.
84 A pair of dentures with golden teeth.
85 A roach motel. Corpses it’s near shrink until they can fit into the thing.
86 A blood spattered revolver with all but one chamber of the cylinder caulked closed.
87 A scratched and dented flip phone. All the contacts listed are named after demons of the Ars Goetia. If called, each of them responds with a voicemail recording in gibberish Latin.
88 Map of the region with various locations circled, and many of the circles crossed out. At the top is written: “Where did they bury it?”.
89 A VCR of an indie creature feature horror movie. The effects are startlingly realistic. An internet search for the movie only finds that its makers reportedly ran out of funds before they could publish it.
90 A leather wallet. You can make out the shape of a nostril and a mole on it.
91 A ticket to the show of a band who died in a plane crash years ago, scheduled for tonight.
92 A crocodile skin belt tied into a noose. Four notches are tallied along its side.
93 A razor blade that’s been melted into the handle of a toothbrush to make a shiv. Anyone looking for a weapon won’t be able to find it on you.
94 A package of fruit-flavoured gummy snacks shaped like the faces of everyone who’s ever hurt you. You hear their cries as you chew them.
95 A clipped-together stack of polaroid photos showing someone having one of their kidneys surgically removed. They seem ecstatic through the whole sequence.
96 A travel-size bottle of tequila. At the bottom drifts a little worm with the face of a mustachio’d man.
97 A poorly-made fake dollar bill which doubles itself each night. Each double will also double itself. Each doubled dollar will return to your person, or the closest available space, each night. If you die, the doubled dollars will disappear. They will also disappear if the original dollar is gifted or stolen. These three methods are also the only way to get rid of the original dollar.
98 An impressively well-made fake passport. Its picture will show your face.
99 A receipt for several pounds of veal liver, two stainless steel knives, and the regrets of a blind man.
100Dog-eared paperback copy of a popular fantasy novel. Heavily annotated with interpretations of messages the note-taker believes the authour is trying to send them.

Sunday, August 30, 2020

D12 Flaming Swords

Jehovah bade His sword awake,
O Christ, it woke ’gainst Thee!
Thy blood the flaming blade must slake;
Thy heart its sheath must be
-O Christ, What Burdens Bow’d Thy Head

Flaming swords have a long history in D&D and myths. They're dramatic. Getting slashed by a flaming sword must hurt like fuck! Above and beyond a regular sword or fire on its own. Ouch! Here's twelve of them:

D12 Flaming Swords

1. Belisto: Resembles a large machete more than a proper sword. It's made of glossy black shell or chitin rather than metal. The blade is covered in spiracles, through which some shuddering organ can be glimpsed.

When activated by its wielder Belisto begins burning with a dank, dirty flame. This flame produces dark smoke which coalesces into an opaque, choking cloud if its wielder stands in one place for longer than a round while it's active. While its wielder is protected from its flame, they are not able to breathe or see through this smoke. Once coalesced the smoke lingers for one ten-minute turn.

2. Lambence: The arming sword of a banished lord of the Fair Folk. Lambence is forged from fool's gold and the summer sun's light reflected off the surface of a lake. Its crossguard is shaped like a heron's wings.

Every movement of Lambence produces a dramatic display of flames: a gout for a thrust, a sweeping wall for a swing, and so on. However these flames are illusory. Their heat can't burn, and their light can't illuminate anything its wielder doesn't know is there.

3. Nagareboshi: An odachi forged from some iridescent metal. Its blade dances with warm flickers. 

When swung, nagareboshi produces a rocket-like explosion. This propels its wielder 1d6x5 feet. This is also loud, and when used out of combat provokes a random encounter roll at the DM's discretion.

4. Ojak: A simple sabre, finely made but lacking ornamentation. Its blade is coated with ash that can never be wiped clean. Ojak smells like homely spices and lamb stew.

Normally Ojak is merely warm to the touch, and gives off the light of a large firefly. When planted tip-first in the ground however it erupts into a bonfire. The flames of this bonfire will not harm Ojak's bearer, and are always the perfect temperature for cooking and staying comfy in the cold. Pulling Ojak from the ground will immediately extinguish this bonfire, as well as any flames that spread from it.

5. Tandning: A Carolingian-style sword with grooves running up its blade to its tip. Its pommel is shaped like a wolf baring its teeth. A warm glow is emitted from within its throat. When battle is near its wielder can hear Tandning growl.

Tandning can ignite blood it's spilled. Blood on the blade can burn as a torch for one ten-minute turn per HP of damage it's dealt in a day. Pools and drops off the blade will ignite flammable material they're in contact with. Its wielder can also expend stored points of damage to project a blazing slash from the blade with a 30' range, doing 1d6 damage per 6 points expended, up to 3d6 max.

6. Red Yelena: A shashka with chipped red enameling. The sword is partially corroded, but the corrosion resembles necrosis more than rust.

The sword is potent yet cursed. Only its wielder can see its flames, or see by their light. Its wielder is warmed by these flames but never harmed by them, while others are invisibly burned by them. However its wielder becomes unable to see by any other light source, or be warmed by any other source of heat. If separated from it they will slowly freeze to death.

Red Yelena's curse can be broken by reuniting it with the corpse of the woman who shared its name in life, at which point it will become an ordinary though historically significant sword

7. Zenith: A rapier with a gilded sunburst-shaped guard. Its tip is a diamond that seems to capture light within it.

Zenith's power is tied to the sun:

  • At night it burns with the heat and light of a match
  • At dawn and dusk it burns with the heat and light of a torch
  • During the morning and afternoon it burns with the heat and light of a campfire
  • At noon it burns with the heat and light of a bonfire, and at the exact moment the sun is at its highest point it becomes hot enough to melt steel

After an hour without exposure to sunlight Zenith's power drops to its night level.

8. Salamander’s Scourge: A scorched steel flamberge. Its hilt is shaped like a salamander, the blade a tongue protruding from its mouth.

Salamander's Scourge is a disloyal blade. It provides no protection from its flames to its wielder. For the first hour in a day it's used, some wet rags wrapped around the hand or a similar precaution is enough to prevent damage to its wielder. Every hour after that Salamander's Scourge gets more aggressive and creative. Its sparks jump into clothing folds, its flames lick out at nearby allies, it heats up tongs used to hold it to intolerable temperatures, and so on.

9. Asapashan: An immense red oak suburito-like sword carved into a beastly roaring figure. The deepest lines of the carving reach to a hollow within the sword from which tiny flames lick out.

Asapashan's flames come from a being of living fire trapped within it. This being is prideful and moody. The first hour in a day it's used it works normally, but every hour after that its wielder must roll on the following reaction table:

2-: Asapashan goes to sleep and won't activate again that day
3-6: Asapashan refuses to work that hour, and won't activate again after until it receives an offering and an apology
7-11: Asapashan works normally that hour
12+: Asapashan is invigorated and burns twice as hot and bright that hour

The table has the following modifiers applied to it:
-2: Asapashan was used for something trivial and/or boring that hour
-2: You haven't been taking good care of Asapashan (laying it on a soft bed at night, polishing its wood, etc.)
+2: Asapashan was used for a suitably heroic deed that hour
+2: You bribe Asapashan with aromatic wood shavings, fine oils, or suchlike

You can also roll on the reaction table to convince Asapashan to perform some exceptional feat with its flames.

10. Damreveda: A blade forged from blemishless white metal. Its fullers are decorated with molded eyes.

While active, Damreveda's flames shine with a bright actinic glare. Its wielder is blinded by them, and anyone looking in their direction is blinded for 1d6 rounds.

11. Tumult: A broad-bladed cutlass. It is engraved with holly garlands. Its grip is wrapped with torn pages bearing revolutionary slogans.

Tumult's fire is the fire of rebellion. It will only ignite when Tumult is wielded in the following ways:

  • To free people from bondage (imprisonment, slavery, serfdom, etc.)
  • To burn property
  • To assassinate leaders

12. Karhozat: A bunch of rusty nails and flensing knives welded together in the shape of a claymore. Despite its bizarre appearance it can be wielded as easily as any two-handed sword. Karhozat's flames are a sickly yellowish-green. They spring forth from its points and edges with a sound of screams and a reek of sulphur.

The sword's flames are beyond agonizing. The first time someone is burned by the flames they must save or attempt to commit suicide. Anyone killed by it is sent to one of the hotter hells regardless of their faith or good works.

Karhozat is a malefic device of widespread infamy. Simply being seen with it will make decent people hostile to you. Becoming known as its wielder will bring holy men and angels down on your head, as well as demons and blackguards desiring it for themselves.

Friday, August 28, 2020

GLOG Class: Monster Binder

Based on Scrap Princess's commentary on the Summon Monster spell here: http://monstermanualsewnfrompants.blogspot.com/2018/05/what-exactly-is-problem-here-re-1st.html, here's a class based on monster summoning that's hopefully more interesting.

First GLOG class I've made. Balance not guaranteed.

GLOG Class: Monster Binder
Starting Equipment: Blank deck of tarot cards, iron chain, bludgeon)
A: Monster Bind, Monster Summon
B: Monster Tap, Monster Recall
C: Monster Specialist
D: Unleash the Horde OR Release the Beast

A:

Monster Bind: The core skill of the Monster Binder is to bind monsters in cards for later summoning. A card with a monster bound in it will display that monster surrounded by appropriate symbolism. A binding attempt can be made by spending a round addressing a monster, declaring your intent and authority to bind it. To see if the attempt succeeds consult the table and modifiers below:

Binding Attempt (2d6):
3-: The binding fails, the monster breaks free of any holds on it, and you can never attempt to bind this monster again
4-6: The binding fails and the monster breaks free of any holds on it
7-9: The binding works, however when summoned the monster will follow only the letter of any orders given to it
9-12+: The binding works and the monster will obey you when summoned without any malicious interpretation of orders

Modifiers:
-2 for every HD the monster has past your Monster Binder templates
-2 if the monster has 50%+ HP left
-2 if the monster is able to flee from you
+2 if the monster is surrounded by a circle of stuff it is either weak against or desires (e.g. fire for a troll, blood for a vampire, etc.)
+2 if you can beat the monster in a personal contest appropriate for its nature (e.g. one-on-one duel/wrestling match, rhyming contest, prank war, game of chess, etc.)
+2 if you make an offering of 1 HP of your own blood for every HD of the monster

You can have one monster bound at a time per Monster Binder template.

Monster Summon: Once you've got a monster bound you can draw on its card to summon it. Summoned monsters must be given orders to follow, and may interpret these orders maliciously based on their nature and the degree of success of the binding attempt. Summoning a monster expends its card. Summoned monsters are not damaged even if they were when bound.

In combat a summoned monster lasts 1d6+[template] rounds.

Out of combat a summoned monster lasts 1d6+[template] ten-minute turns.

B:

Monster Tap: You can draw on an ability of a bound monster without fully releasing it. For a single round you can gain a single ability of a monster whose card you're holding. This ability could be an attack, movement mode, special power, immunity, etc.

Tapping a monster's ability has a 1-in-6 chance of expending its card, increasing to 2-in-6 the second time you've tapped a monster's ability that day, then 3-in-6 the third, and so on.

Monster Recall: If you've bound a monster before and know its name (or are able to name it for monsters that are too unintelligent or esoteric to have names), then once per week you can call on it and attempt to bind it again. While the monster counts as spiritually present for the purposes of, for example, a prepared binding circle, it physically remains wherever it currently is unless bound. Dead or destroyed monsters can't be recalled.

C:

Monster Specialist: Choose a broad class of monsters (undead, demons, giants, goblinoids, oozes, etc.). From now on you're a specialist in binding them. Gain a +2 on attempts to bind this class of monsters, and you can use Monster Recall on them once per day instead of once per week.

D:

On attaining template D choose one of the two abilities below:

Unleash the Horde: You can attempt to bind a number of identical monsters into a single card. For the binding attempt the HD penalty applies based on the sum of these monsters' HD.

OR

Release the Beast: For a single monster in your collection at a time the HD penalty to a binding attempt starts applying beyond twice your Monster Binder templates rather than beyond your templates.



Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Virtuesome Lilies & Lily Maidens


Flowers are obscene. They are botanical genitalia, left hanging out in the air for all to see. Birds fuck them. They fuck bees. Flowers are exhibitionists, flowers are zoophiles, flowers are depraved, debauched, perverted, and we allow the things around children!

As the knife can be turned from the hand of the killer to the heart of the sinner, the issue of flowers could be made a resolution of itself. This resolution was the virtuesome lily, a wonder from the labs of righteous fleshworkers. If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off. If thou wouldst keep it from offending thee in the first place, let a virtuesome lily take root along its sinews.

That was the idea, anyways. Alas the work of man alone is not capable of cleansing sin. The resolution went awry.

Virtuesome lilies are so white they seem to glow. They have no stamen, no pistil, the flower equivalent of a Ken doll. They smell like nothing - not merely the absence of smell. A virtuesome lily removes olfactory stimulation from the air around it. They will not take to root in soil, that bed of worms and ordure, but thrive intertwined with the image of God, in human flesh.

The sacred city of Araenush where the first lilies were born is now an ivory bouquet, but for a time it was the holiest place in a fallen world. Many things left buried amid the pale petals and soft, composting bones are blessed by that holiness. Many have failed to return after seeking those blessings, and those few who do often carry a seed of Araenush's destruction within them.

Fear tints the flowers now, but has not entirely eliminated their use among extreme votaries and puritanical families. In fact some whisper that what happened in Araenush was not an accident of overzealousness but a deliberate purification. What a divinely-inspired endeavour it must have been, to make those people the equals of angels.

Lily Maiden

Kiki Xue

If carefully pruned and kept quiescent with certain tonics a virtuesome lily will never be more than a gentle guest of the body. However as with any garden the lilies will overgrow when untended. One overgrown by virtuesome lilies becomes a lily maiden.

HD: 2
AC: As Leather
Atk: 1d6 + Implant, or Rapturous Choir
Move: As Human
Int: As lobotomized person
Mor: 10

Implant: On being hit by a lily maiden you must save or have a virtuesome lily seed implanted in your body. Roll on the following table for the implanted location and its effect (D6):

1. Eyes: Evil creatures and evil deeds are covered by more benevolent hallucinations in your vision, and looking at them can't harm you (a medusa's gaze can't turn you to stone, visual memetic weapons can't infect you, and so on).
2. Ears: Evil sounds are replaced by pleasant harmonies for you, and you become immune to sirens' songs, banshees' screams, and the like.
3. Throat: You can't speak cruel or evil words, and immediately vomit up any poisons or intoxicants you ingest.
4. Hand: The implanted hand can't be used for evil or violence, but can touch cursed, diabolic, and similar things without harm.
5. Heart: You can't draw on negative emotions for things like a barbarian's rage, but also become immune to attempts to magically inflict negative emotions on you.
6. Groin: You lose all capacity for arousal, and can't be tempted by incubi or the like.

One can also willingly implant a virtuesome lily seed in the above locations for the same effect.

Rapturous Choir: Left on their own, a lily maiden will sing. This singing is so beautiful that those within 30 ft. must save. On a success they may act normally. On a failure they must choose between being stunned for a round weeping with joy, or immediately dropping what they're holding and covering their ears. This save takes a -1 penalty for every lily maiden past the first that's singing.