Wednesday, March 31, 2021

D6x6 Mingy Mind Flayers

Alternate names to evade product identity when using mind flayers with the serial numbers filed off*: Brainbusters, Cerebro-Slurpers, Skullfuckers, Chris Angel’s Mindfreaks, Dudes Trying To Get Some Head

*However I would say that keeping the serial numbers as is is pretty neat. They’re like post-humans from the sunless future what’s not to like.


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

D6These mind flayers eat brains
1 to preserve others’ memories beyond the span of a single life.
2 because they’ve got anodyne souls and only experience intensity of emotion from stolen vicarity.
3 because they contain vital hormones that mind flayers can’t produce themselves.
4 as a panpsychist mission to unite all disparate consciousnesses.
5 because they’re addictively delicious.
6as a symbolic performance to reaffirm themselves as the only beings deserving of rational thought.

D6These mind flayers eat brains by
1 scooping them out in pieces through peoples’ nose/ear/eye holes with their long, hooked fingers.
2 smashing people’s heads in with hooked maces then plucking off the bits that get caught on the hooks.
3 applying a resonant device to people’s heads that liquefy their brains into a jelly that drips out of their orifices for easy slurping.
4 biting people’s heads off and swallowing them whole.
5 overloading their minds with psychic energy so their skulls explode.
6massaging softening slime into peoples’ skulls then absorbing them through the weakened membrane (kind of like in Rabbit of Seville when Bugs Bunny’s massaging Elmer Fudd’s scalp).

D6These mind flayers’ psychic powers
1 are in fact stolen from the brains they eat. The mind flayers cover the brains of human psychics both active and latent.
2 are the only way they can perceive the world, through the eyes, ears, and thoughts of other thinking creatures.
3 are released in a burst of poltergeist activity when they are killed.
4 are limited to replicating what they’ve personally experienced. For example their telekinesis might mimic the sharp swing of a sword or a charging bull, but not a mountain falling on you. Ditto for implanted hallucinations and memories.
5 can literally flay your mind, creating a more-or-less accurate copy of it for them to interrogate and torment.
6cause stark cognitive decline in those exposed too often to them.

D6These mind flayers come from
1 exposure to a memetic virus that corrupts the mind-body relationship.
2 a philosophical cult’s failed transition to forms of pure intellect.
3 the genetically-engineered intellectual caste of a fallen civilization.
4 extraterrestrial brooding chambers embedded within the planet’s crust. The chambers activated when they detected the evolution of centralized nervous systems on the surface.
5 the laboratories of a secret inquisition, which made them as the ultimate censors.
6a new generation of divine beings who seek to usurp the gods as the gods usurped the titans.

D6These mind flayers’ greatest weakness is
1 prions. Their feedstock must be pristine or they’ll suffer rapid neural degeneration.
2 sincerely-held superstitions. The interaction between the belief imbued in these superstitions and the mind flayers’ psychic abilities renders them effective against the creatures.
3 the undead, and necromantic magic. The mind flayers dread them and cannot wield them.
4 that they can get a potent “contact high” from touching the minds of intoxicated people.
5 is their own pride. They’ll underestimate their enemies at every turn.
6is direct physical violence. Despite their mental power their bodies are fragile.

D6These mind flayers scheme
1 to do some Truman Show-style gaslighting on the party to make their minds suitable for implantation in a paranoia-core.
2 to stalk the children of an orphanage, inducing various phobias in them to create a critical mass of nightmares that will sink into the waking world.
3 to test various, potentially very unsafe and/or mutagenic nootropic mixtures supplied to the hyper-competitive students of a renowned university.
4 to infiltrate an archaeological dig and retrieve a fossilized brain unearthed there which contains antediluvian knowledge in its silicate folds.
5 to feed information to a secret police force through patsies, making them believe that the mind flayers’ enemies are actually rebels and dissidents to be crushed.
6to engineer an idyllic micro-society wherein the people will become contented cattle ripe for unbothered harvest.

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Beyond the Bizarre Armoire: Session 2

Session 1

 Another week, another session:

For session 2 the players were:
-Maxcan7 (https://weirdwonderfulworlds.blogspot.com/), as Mr. Fox and his War Dogs
-TheisticGilthoniel (http://pilgrimtemple.blogspot.com/), as Ibrahim the Adept
-Renefor (https://falseidolstla.blogspot.com/) as Velasco the Heterodox Monk

We began this session at the pinecone knight outpost where the last session left off, with a winded hedgehog monk stumbling up. This was Velasco, sent by the Count to make sure the party was still alive. Velasco quickly acclimated to the strangeness of the world beyond the armoire, grounded by his familiarity with Mr. Fox, his war dogs, and Sir Alistair. They passed time talking to the pinecones about the land, and heard of the mice who religiously forswore clothing, and of the ermines who savoured their flesh.

The party held to their promise to return medication to the injured comrade of the pinecone knight by the armoire's entrance, and went south. This time they avoided the Couturier Spider's well by a wide margin. Despite their caution, tragedy struck, and one of the war dogs was abducted by a giant bat with fanciful fabric wings swooping out from the darkness.

An enlightening out-of-character discussion of bats, wasps, and the times they've tormented us followed.

True to their word, the party gave the life-saving medicine Sir Alistair had won in his duel with Captain Amberdrip to the watchful pinecone knights. The as-yet-unnamed pinecone knight who was the first creatue they met in the armoire's world joined them as a guide to the palace of its liege, the King in the Pines. It also warned them of the Daunt, the King's brutal right hand man/monster, a creature who could not be killed as simply as other mortals.

On the relatively uneventful return journey back to the swamp the party picked up a golden locket, holding a portrait of a younger Countess, as well as her brother who the Count had slain during the war.

While passing through the glade where the mannequette pirates were hanged, Ibrahim decided to question some of the corpses, learning the following from their wightly whispers:
-They were all hanged by the Daunt
-Snow foxes are all tricksters who speak in opposites
-Though made of wood, mannequettes mimic the functions of life like breathing, and are dependent on them for continued animation
-Mannequettes take on the roles and personalities of what they're dressed as

After this grave conversation the party relaxes with the pinecone knights at the outpost. Velasco wins over a convert with his unorthodox stories of the archons and their love. They learn that turpentine is distilled from pine resin, and the War Dogs receive a wash of the stuff to knock off their fleas.

The next morning they head north to the outpost's dock, currently swarming with swimming beetles tearing away at dumped chum. Mr. Fox dumps the War Dogs' shed fleas in, which turn out to be a particularly delightful treat for the beetles. Ibrahim trades one of his rings to a sketchy pinecone guard who goes by 'Mesquite' for the pinecone's raft, hidden under a pile of silken leaves, and they set off on the directions of the nameless knight to the King's palace.

While paddling north through the giant waterlogged turnips the party encounters another strange crew boating through the mist: one, wistful and lackadaisical, who seems to speak from the party's own perspectives, and the other with a grotesquely concave chest that could only wheeze. As the odd pair drew closer they seemed to suck the air out of the party's lungs, and with a burst of strength Velasco powered them away.

Then in the middle of the swamp the party encounters an even more bizarre sight: a wide whirlpool whipped into motion by froggy people racing giant, greasy swamp-swans. They're able to push against the current and drift to an observation platform. There the race's bookie, another froggy man going by "B.K.", makes them an intriguing offer: make it so none of the racers survive, and he'll split the winnings of his long-odds gamble with them. Ibrahim takes him up on the offer, and permanently sacrifices a point of his HP for the power to cast a 'Become Delicious' spell on a lagging racer. It came up a perfect 6. As the other racers lapped him, their swans lashed out at the newfound treat, tearing him apart and churning the water into a feeding ground for the birds and the marine predators similarly enticed.

TheisticGilthoniel claimed this to be the second most awful thing he's done in a game so far.

Apalled and impressed in equal measure, B.K. pointed them towards the gambling barge 'I Wanna Die' to collect the winnings. Night falls as the party heads over, and through the darkness screams and the sounds of struggle greet them. The barge is under siege by a moving tree! 

After a brief scuffle of maneuvering and hurled turnip-chunks, Mr. Fox has the idea to tie turpentine-soaked rags to the unnamed pinecone's crossbow bolts, and fire them at the drier sackcloth-hung boughs at the tree's crown. This works marvelously, and the tree hurls itself into the water to douse itself.

The waves stirred up by the tree's impact knock the War Dogs and Ibrahim overboard. Fortunately this doesn't attract any beetles, or worse. The party receives a hero's welcome by the relieved gamblers, and the session closes out there.

What awaits our heroes next time? Is this truly the last of the killer tree? Will they find the source of the growing rotten-pork stench, and is it indeed decomposing turnips building up to a catastrophic explosion as surmised? Will they be able to collect the ill-gotten gains from their race-ending atrocity? Only time and the dice can tell.

Monday, March 22, 2021

Beyond the Bizarre Armoire: Session 1

Today I got back in the DM saddle for the first time in about a year to run a GLOG game in a setting of my own design. While a bit bumpy, it felt good. It came with some important reminders. Most importantly, it's got me looking forward to running the next session.

For session 1 the players were:
-Maxcan7 (https://weirdwonderfulworlds.blogspot.com/), as Mr. Fox and his War Dogs
-Oblidisideryptch (https://oblidisideryptch.blogspot.com/), as Sieur Alastair the Knight
-TheisticGilthoniel (http://pilgrimtemple.blogspot.com/), as Ibrahim the Adept

We began with a grave situation: the Countess Aluya had disappeared from her chamber with her wedding to the Count Omedo right around the corner. If news of her disappearance were to break out, it could lead to brutal war breaking out again in the recently united countries of Nalas and Dula.

The Count assembled a crack team of heroic(?) souls he could trust to find the Countess without letting word slip: Mr. Fox and his War Dogs, old friends from the war, Sieur Alastair, promised a promotion from bastard-dom if he succeeded, and Ibrahim, a dabbler in forbidden schools of magic whose stay of execution would be lifted if he failed.

Their first lead was the Countess's handmaiden Nadiya, who was with the Countess when she disappeared. Poor Nadiya was roughed up and imprisoned in the pantry, left to wallow on a bag of flour. While at first Nadiya was reticent to talk, believing what she had witnessed to be insanity, the team got her to open up and admit that she saw a bunch of dudes dressed as sailors pop out of the Countess's armoire and grab her. They also managed to talk her down from going to the Countess's father, instead remaining under watch until the Countess was rescued.

A search of the Countess's room revealed a puddle of water leaking from the armoire, and that it had a crude back not fitting with the rest of its beautiful worksmanship. More investigation (smashing) revealed an entire snowy forest beyond this boarded-up back of the armoire, a forest with leaves of brocade instead of greenery.

Not keen to embark without his horse, Sieur Alastair suggested they bring the armoire down to the stables. Along the way they encountered the stablehand, who with fast-talking and quick thinking they convinced was drunk without him ever actually drinking a drop, showing him a flash of the world beyond that bizarre armoire.

Soon after leading the party into the armoire Sieur Alastair is nearly clipped by a warning shot from a watchtower thats' growing right out of a tree. The errant arrow is found to have been loosed by a humanoid pinecone, a pinecone knight in the service of the King in the Pines by its self-description. The pinecone knight's initial defensiveness is soothed by a claim of fellow-knighthood, and it is learned that its comrade is gravely injured. A bargain is struck, and the party promises to return with medicine from the outpost further north in return for the knight escorting them to the King. The party also learns the finer points of pinecone knight dueling etiquette, and that the knights stationed this far south are there because they've dishonoured themselves in the eyes of the King.

Throughout the forest there is a growing stench of rotting pork that interferes with the War Dog's attempt to pick up a scent trail. Until that was taken care of they'd be dependent on the directions of others.

Following a trail of footsteps in the snow north the party arrives at a razed village with a well at its center. A friendly, floppy face calls out to them from a window, and after some hemming and hawing identifies himself as "Clothiere". The War Dogs immediately suss out that something's up, as they hear Clothiere's voice ventriloquistically projected from within the well.

After some menacing exposition on hunger and the beauty of fashion Clothiere gets Sieur Alastair to sit in a chair. The chair turns out to be a trap woven from the same sticky silk as Clothiere himself. The thing in the well tries to drag the good knight in, but succeeds only in tearing his seat away, and a War Dog pisses in its eye for its trouble. It then attempts to do something similar to Ibrahim with the puppet Clothiere, but its arm is cloven apart by Alastair.

Cowed by their display of strength, the thing in the well reveals itself to be a very large and haute couture-obsessed spider. It bargains with them where before it threatened, promising that if they deliver someone else to it for its ministrations then it will provide them with stylish and warm silk cloaks.

Debating the ethics of human (or not-so-human) sacrifice in return for dope duds, the party continues north as night falls. Their camp-setting is interrupted by the sound of digging, which is revealed to be a mannequette (a mannequin-like wooden humanoid creature) dressed in worn armour. The mannequette is given a torch to better see by (scavenged from the wreckage of the razed village). That night everyone dreams of being back in the war, where they're slain and buried by that same mannequette. Distant cries and massive flapping wings intermittently disturb their sleep.

Continuing forward at dawn, they come across more mannequettes, these ones dressed as sailors, hanged from the boughs. They also encounter a contrary-talking snow fox who postures at divinity and extorts a vial of poison from Sieur Alastair and a show of submission from a War Dog. Satisfied, it confirmed their directions and went south to unknown, probably poisonous ends.

Finally they arrived at the forest's edge, a slushy morass where it gave way to stinking swampland spattered with the tops of giant turnips. There they found the pinecone knights' outpost, and one of the knights' number locked in a stockade while the rest jeered and pelted it with rotten root vegetables.

Sir Alistair soon butts heads with the outpost's captain, Sir Ambersap, staking his own honour in a duel to restore the stockaded knight's, and to attain some medicine for the knight way back south. Incredulous that he'd risk so much for those so low, Sir Amberdrip accepts.

After the duelists trade some glancing blows, Ibrahim espies Sir Ambersap's second attempting to spike the match with a handful of white-painted caltrops, and, thinking fast, distracts the second by transferring some recent wounds to him with a cantrip. This works, but handily attracts the attention of the second, who sidles towards him with a dagger.

Just then, Sieur Alistair strikes a mighty blow, and fells Ambersap! All subtle maneuverings are forgotten as Ambersap groans heavily, and the pinecone knights hoist Sieur Alistair to their shoulders. Medications are procured and applied. The bound knight, Sir Pineleaf, is freed from his restraints, and pledges himself to Sieur Alistair to the ends of the earth and beyond.

Where will next session take our heroes(?)? What machinations is that snow fox machinating? Will the stablehand maintain his sanity? All this and more, next week on... Beyond the Bizarre Armoire!

Monday, March 15, 2021

100 More Miscellaneous Magic Items (One For Every Entry on a D100 Table I Found on Reddit)

https://www.reddit.com/r/d100/comments/m3g065/d100_myriad_magic_item_shapes/

1. A steel anklet forged to resemble an open padlock and loosened chains. If you step on a trap or a trigger for a trap while wearing it, the anklet will fall off and clog up that trap's operating mechanism. You'd have to disentangle it or dig it out to reuse it.

2. A badge molded from mud, rust, and snot-crust that bears a leering goblin face on a thirteen-pointed star. Brandishing it lets you issue supernaturally compelling commands to goblins. Make a reaction roll with the following modifiers to see how they react (2d6):
-Modifiers: -4 if command is insufficiently goblinish (rule of thumb is some combination of disgusting, tricksy, and ruining someone's day), -2 if the goblin's group outnumbers yours, -2 if you're fighting them
-2 or less: Goblins rankle at your insufficient bossitude and attack
-3-5: They'll pretend to go along with your command until it's no longer funny to them to do so
-6-8: They'll follow your command with malicious compliance
-9-11: They'll follow your command until they get bored
-12 or more: They like your style, and will begin to follow you around and "help out" in goblinish ways

3. A bag woven from metallic threads. A hot and sulphurous steam rises from its opening. Anything held within the bag is affected as though by a heat metal spell, though it works on any material. The bag is also a perfect insulator.

4. A bead that resembles a tiny, cataract-filled eye. Once a day the bead can be rubbed to emit a pale mist over a 25 ft. radius sphere that prevents those within it from seeing or hearing further than 5 ft. The mist dissipates after ten minutes or after 1d6 rounds in high winds or direct sunlight.

5. A snakeskin belt with iridescent scales. Its buckle is a confusing tangle of flowing quicksilver. While you're wearing it your lower body is transformed into a cluster of scaly tentacles. You move full speed over rough terrain and through water, can distribute your weight so you don't fall through thin ice, and the like, but cannot wear armour fit for humans.

6. An amulet made from a sheep's jawbone strung on twine. While wearing it, you can spend an hour chewing grass to gain nutrition equal to eating a ration.

7. A treatise on the abnormal anatomies of hybrid creatures, rife with dissective illustrations. If you spend ten minutes reading through it, then for the rest of the day your critical range is doubled on attacks against hybrid creatures (mermaids, gryphons, chimeras, etc.).

8. A clay bottle containing the mead of pottery (from a tragically misbrewed batch of the mead of poetry). Tastes dusty. Contains an amount & alcohol content equivalent to a bottle of wine. While drunk on it you can cast a spell akin to stone shape at will, but it only works on clay, ceramics, and the like.

9. A small hazel-wood box composed of stacked slats and carved with mandalas on each face. Its proportions subtly change every time you look at it. The box can be commanded to fly apart and reassemble itself around a target up to the size of an elephant within your line of sight. If there was anything inside the box before it's reassembled (water, powdered glass, bees, etc.) it will still be full of that when it encases the target. Single-use.

10. An amethyst bracelet shaped like a centipede. The centipede can be fed samples of poison, then ordered to bite and deliver that poison to anyone its wearer touches. Those bit by the centipede suffer disadvantage on their save vs. the poison, and if the wearer incorporates the bite into a handshake, pat on the back, or other innocuous gesture the bite is unnoticeable to the person it's delivered to.

11. A branch that's been rubbed smooth. Bits of antler-velvet cling to it. Breaking the branch transforms you into a herd of 3d6 deer for as many rounds. After the duration's up you can choose which deer you reform inside the skin of. The rest will collapse, filled with compost. Single-use.

12. A teardrop-shaped beryl button. When affixed to an outfit the button can be spun around to transform the outfit into another one of equal value.

13. A broad tallow candle covered in intricate whorls of every colour. When the candle is placed on an object and lit, its light and smoke swirl together to grant humanoid form, awareness, and speech to that thing's spirit. The spirit is aware of everything the object has experienced and what has gone on around it, with a particular focus on events that fit the object's focus (e.g. what has passed through a door, what a sword has been used to fight, etc.). Its attitude to people is based on how they treated its object. The spirit cannot go further than the candle's light reaches. The candle can last for a hour total before burning down.

14. A cape of peregrine falcon feathers, with a sharp talon pin. By wrapping it around yourself before a descent you can make a special plunging attack. If you hit a creature at the bottom of your fall, you take no falling damage and deal half the falling damage you would have taken as bonus damage to your attack. If your attack misses you take falling damage as normal.

15. A walrus baculum carved into a spiraling club. Any water it strikes swirls into a whirlpool. When hitting creatures this might just cause a pattern in their sweat, but if hitting the ocean's surface it's forceful enough to suck down a canoe.

16. A 20 ft. section of copper chain decorated with an extended Lichtenberg figure. Anything in contact with one end of the chain can be instantly conducted through it to the other end.

17. A length of chalk with a long birch-wood handle. Any object outlined by the chalk is shunted into an extra-dimensional space while replaced in reality by a perfect surface-level replica made of chalk. The next outline drawn will, if large enough, regurgitate all objects currently in the space. If the outline is not large enough to fit all those objects they'll splash out in broken shards.

18. A mutant rabbit's paw with long, sharp claws, dangling on the end of an iron chain. If someone who's been scratched by it rolls a natural 1, they must save or kill themself in an embarrassingly clumsy fashion.

19. A platinum coin that shimmers with an impossible luster. On one side it is stamped with an infinity symbol, and on the other with the face of your father. It can be used to purchase any one single object or favour from someone it is given to. Only the most virtuous or vicious have the strength of will or spite to refuse the coin.

20. A lacquered wooden comb with spindly, metal-tipped teeth. If used to comb your hair it will give you a killer hairstyle, but if flicked in the direction of an enemy then 1d6 teeth break off and become flying javelins. The comb has 13 teeth.

21. A spherical glass compass as wide as your hand with your fingers spread out. Inside is strung a skeletal finger. When held it points towards the thing that is most likely to kill you within the next hour.

22. A corrugated, branching, ruddy length of coral that vaguely resembles an antler. It acts as a +1 spear, and if plunged into a corpse can rapidly consume it and grow into sharp protrusions that make attacks against a number of adjacent targets equal to the HD of the creature consumed, but must be snapped off from the growth afterwards.

23. A fragrant, wine-stained cork. It will shift in size to perfectly fit any hole it's used to plug, from a bottle's to a portal to hell. Single-use.

24. A crown forged from heavy black iron. A pair of dragons coil around its temple, their teeth clamped on the other's throat. It's rimmed with spikes that dangle rubies on thin chains like drops of blood.

While wearing the crown you can override the will of anyone who is sworn to serve you (hirelings, retainers, etc.). They will follow your orders without regard for their own well-being, but the suppression renders them dull and lacking in initiative until they spend a few months out of your company.

If you are ordered about, made to bow, or otherwise show deference to someone else while wearing the crown, you must visit a greater humiliation upon that someone within the week or the crown stops working for you forever and everyone you used its power on will be bound to serve them instead of you. You will relive the moment in your dreams with increasing intensity every night of that week.

25. A glass cup that resembles a half-melted, upside-down jellyfish's bell with glowing veins within. Liquids poured into the cup are vapourized into a 5 ft. radius cloud that affects everyone who inhales it as though they drank the liquid.

26. A six-sided stipe-wood die that if left alone will rise up onto a corner and slowly rotate. When rolled the die produces an effect based on which side it lands on as follows (1d6):
-1: A cloud of toxic spores 10 ft. across that deal 1d4 damage (save for half) per round to those that breath them in is exuded from the die.
-2: The die attempts to spread mycelia into whatever it lands on. If the surface is organic a 10x10x10 area of it decays into rotten mulch. If the surface is inorganic the mycelia just bundle up and die.
-3: A giant mushroom 1d6x5 feet tall erupts up from beneath it.
-4: The die produces a 10 ft. cloud of hallucinogenic spores. Those who inhale them must save or hallucinate for 1d6x10 minutes.
-5: A ring of delicious and nutritious mushrooms sufficient for 1d4 rations sprouts around it.
-6: The die transforms into an intelligent mushroom-man with an attitude towards you based on how you treated the die.

27. A glittering crystal earring with a dangly bit shaped like a downward arrow. While wearing the earring you gain a constant benefit akin to the spell see invisibility, but working through your hearing rather than your sight. For example, the footsteps of invisible creatures will be obvious and easy to pinpoint, nearby ethereal entities will be accompanied by a telltale chime, and so on.

28. A translucent emerald egg with a golden ouroboros drawn around its midsection. If the egg comes into contact with a creature that was itself hatched from an egg, that creature must save or be reverted to a fetal form within the egg, within which it will mature as normal from then on.

29. An eyeball molded from lead. Its iris is a ring of interlocking bones and its pupil is a black gemstone. If you replace one of your eyes with it, then by touching a corpse you can see that corpse's final moments from its perspective through the eye.

30. An iron fan painted with flames. The fan contains 10 charges. Charges can be spent cumulatively while fanning a flame to spread the flame out in a 5xcharges ft. cone. The fan can be recharged by leaving it in a fire at least as hot as a forge's for a day.

31. A metallic feather which sings as the air passes through it. When released into the wind the feather can be made to burst into a storm of razors of a size and strength depending on the wind as follows:
-Light wind: 1 damage to everything within 5 ft., save to negate
-Moderate wind: 1d6 damage to everything within 10 ft., save to halve
-Strong wind: 2d6 damage to everything within 15 ft., save to halve
-Severe wind: 3d6 damage to everything within 20 ft., save to halve
-Windstorm or stronger: 4d6 damage to everything within 30 ft., save to halve

32. A little wooden figurine of a solider with a switch set in its back. If the switch is flipped the figurine will grow to human size and become animate, marching in a straight line in whatever direction it was pointed and attacking anything that gets in its way until it's smashed or smashes itself to splinters, or its switch is flipped to shrink it again.

33. A mummified ape's finger capped at its base by an iron ring that bears the inscription: "Be careful what you wish for". When a wish is posed to the finger, it curls up and attempts to grant the wish to the best interpretation and ability possible by a band of invisible, meth-addled monkeys. For every day the finger is carried but not used there is a 1-in-6 chance that any request made within earshot of it will activate it. Single-use.

34. A seven-petaled royal purple anemone. Tearing off a petal while focusing on someone casts charm person on them and causes green roots to grow under their skin that are visible wherever their veins are. Using the flower on another person causes the previous person affected to being hating you to the same depth they liked you before, and causes the roots beneath their skin to grow extremely painful thorns.

35. A pair of human-leather boots, made from the legs of a wanted man who died without ever being caught. While wearing them you are able to outrun any agent of the law who is chasing you.

36. A silver tuning fork with a crescent moon motif worked into its handle. When struck against an intelligent creature's head it induces a random debilitating mental state. If its target is already in such a state, the fork instead suppresses it for an hour. Possible mental states are as follows (1d6):
-1: Melancholy
-2: Paranoia
-3: Rage
-4: Euphoria
-5: Apathy
-6: Hallucination
(This one's called a looning fork)

37. A fruit that resembles an incongruent mishmash of a dozen kinds of fruit. Tastes like that too. Eating it sparks a process of rapid mutation. For 1d6+2 rounds you gain a mutation each round. At the end all but one mutation of your choice slough away.

38. A brass gear as wide as a wagon wheel. One half of the gear is embossed with a sun, and the other bears a moon and stars. By turning the gear it is possible to advance the passage of time, from dawn to noon to dusk to midnight and back to dawn. For each step that time is advanced there is a cumulative 1-in-4 chance that metaphysical friction will melt the gear down to useless slag.

39. A prismatic, radiant-cut citrine. While in shadow the gem glows bright enough to spot easily, and in complete darkness it glows as brightly as a candle. The gem's light can be flared and burned out to repel night creatures (e.g. any nocturnal animals, monsters vulnerable to sunlight, and the like). These creatures must save or become panicked and flee. Even if they make the save they are held at bay for 1d6 rounds or until attacked. The gem's glow will return at the next sunrise.

40. A pair of spectacles with a thin frame of living wood and translucent amber lenses. By touching a tree while wearing the glasses you can cause a lens of amber to leak out onto the bark. Thereafter you can scry through that lens, or any other you've made, with the glasses.

41. A crystal globe that depicts static features within a 30 ft. radius as smoky forms within. When the globe is cracked it's "locked in" to the current area, the features clarify into a detailed model, and gravity within that area can be altered by tilting the globe. Once it's cracked the area can't be changed even if the globe is repaired.

42. A glove of thick and warty leather with bands of carapace along its back. The glove grants perfect leverage when holding things with it, allowing its wearer to use one hand to hold anything they could carry normally. The stuff remains just as heavy, it's just easier to move around. The glove's power can be pushed to enable its user to lift as much as a giant could for a round, however this burns off one of the glove's fingers. It loses its power entirely once all the fingers are gone.

43. A workman's hammer with a head of heavy black stone. Nails hammered by it will be able to pierce any material, and can also be launched by it with the range and damage of arrows.

44. A square silver hand-mirror framed by tiny swords. If anyone sees their reflection in the mirror they will see themself with a bleeding neck stump instead of a head and become cursed. For the rest of the day if they take full damage (e.g. 6 on a 1d6) rom an edged weapon they must save vs. death or be decapitated.

If the mirror is damaged (which isn't difficult considering it's a mirror) then 1d6 ghastly severed heads are released (stat as vargouille). If the mirror is shattered it releases 4d6.

45. A white silk kerchief spattered with brownish-red stains. In one corner the initials "R. F." are embroidered. If you wave the kerchief while surrendering, your surrender will be accepted no matter your enemy. You will not be harmed by them so long as you don't resist or try to escape. However from that point on you are psychologically unable to directly attack that enemy even if you get away.

46. A fur-lined felt top hat that drips beads of mercury (purely aesthetic and non-toxic). Once a day you can tip the hat to tilt your surroundings closer to another plane for 3d6 rounds. The surroundings take on the special features (gravity, temperature, etc.) of that plane. If you're familiar with another plane from visiting or studies you can choose that one, otherwise it's random. On a roll of a 17 or higher you and everyone around you are instead flung into that plane.

47. A hood of squamous, slimy leather. While wearing it your face appears to have worms wriggling beneath it. Once a day you can throw the hood back and explode your head into a mass of writhing tentacles and eldritch revelations, casting confusion on all onlookers.

48. A hoop carved from holly and banded with copper. The copper bands are inlaid with flakes of agate that depict birds carrying arrows. Any ranged attack that passes through the hoop is matched by a phantasmal duplicate that goes out the hoop in the opposite direction.

49. A rugose, tumourous goat's horn with a lumpy iron mouth-piece. Blowing the horn creates a horrible, thunderous, flatulent noise that turns any ongoing magic effect within hearing range into a miscast (preferably from the most bizarre and grotesque miscast table you can find. For every effect so altered there is a 1-in-6 chance of the horn warping to unusability afterwards.

50. A mother-of-pearl horseshoe. Any horse shod with it is able to walk on water, and once a day horse and rider can charge and transform into a wave, becoming impervious to and knocking over anything non-magical in their way.

51. An inkstick the colours of the night sky when viewed far from any light. Anything written with ink from the stick will be understood by its reader exactly as its writer intended. Secret messages will be indecipherable by any but their intended recipient, words can be understood regardless of the languages its readers know, or whether they're even literate, a mediocre poem can have people believe it's a profound work of art, or any other such effect can be imbued.

52. A big bronze key with rounded teeth. The key can fit in any door, and any door opened with it reveals a brick wall behind. The key cannot be pulled out of a door while that door is open.

53. A lamp shaped like a stylized heart made out of rose gold. It burns blood instead of oil. While burning someone's blood it illuminates the connections between them and others, colour-coded based on the nature of their relationship: green for envy, a deep crimson for hatred, blue for respect, and so on.

54. A brilliant red maple leaf, the veins of which form the image of a stalking wolf. When crumbled in your hand you become effectively invisible while within a forest for the next hour as the trees themselves seem to conspire to hide your presence. Single-use.

55. A magnifying glass with a crack along the center of its lens and a handle of ebony carved to look like a panicked horse. The magnifying glass is supernaturally adept at detecting flaws. Forgeries are immediately apparent when viewed through it, and the magnifying glass can be used to study an inanimate object for up to 5 rounds to gain a +1 for every round spent studying it to hit and damage on your next attack against it.

56. A page of pale papyrus. When held blotches of red start to appear on it, which represent everywhere you've ever spilled blood. The more blood you spilled in a place, the more detailed the blotch representing that place will become.

57. An ashen plaster death-mask inscribed with prayers for forgiveness from the departed. When laid over a corpse's face the mask takes on their likeness, and thereafter anyone who wears the mask takes on the corpse's appearance while they were alive.

58. A gentleman's monocle with a golden hue to its lens. When you look at someone through it you gain knowledge of exactly how much what they're carrying and wearing is worth. If you see someone whose stuff is worth more than yours, you must save or be compelled to scheme to rob them.

59. A harp made of horn and ivory, and strung with catgut from actual cats. When played within hearing range of sleeping creatures, those creatures' dreams will be vividly and deeply affected by the mood of the harp's music. A sad tune will cause them to experience debilitating grief, a soothing song will keep them asleep no matter what noises they hear, and so on.

60. A necklace made from a hangman's noose strung with tarred and shrunken heads. If someone has been accused of and imprisoned for a crime you've committed, and you would die while wearing the necklace, causality will rearrange itself so that your patsy is executed at that moment and you miraculously, barely survive. Whoever puts the necklace on will instinctively know how to use it, and anyone who sees the necklace instinctively knows that it is a diabolical artifact.

61. A bone needle, chipped and cracked. Its tip leaks drops of stinking pus. When an insult is dealt against someone in its presence, the needle will shudder and point towards that someone. If that someone is able to retaliate with a more grievous insult then the needle will turn to point towards the original insulter. After 1d4+1 rounds the needle will launch itself through the tongue of whoever it's pointing towards, lodging itself there and making them fail any speech-based test as it makes them sound supernaturally unappealing.

62. A pot of vantablack paint. It can be used to paint semi-solid illusions in the air, but only so long as what it depicts would feasibly be black. Charcoal, crows, a black cat, or darkness would be possible, but a black sword would not unless it was made of coal or something. Illusions last an hour, or until they take a point of damage or are exposed to water. The pot contains enough paint to fill a 10x10x10 ft. volume with illusions.

63. A pen with a nub of sinner's tooth and a handle of bruise-blue demon bone. It requires no ink, and instead any words written with it sink into the surface they're written on to a depth of a foot and begin weeping toxic ichor. Impractical to use as a weapon.

64. A locket which resembles a gilded, petrified little heart. Within it is a portrait of a faceless person. If a name is spoken to the locket, the portrait will take on the appearance of the person whose name was spoken in a manner which indicates their current physical and mental condition.

65. A pendulum with a weight shaped like a clenched fist. When left to dangle the weight will be pulled in the direction of the strongest being within 100 kilometers. When in doubt of what makes a being the strongest, go by number of HD.

66. A white pill with a sharp, chemical smell. It is pressed to resemble a wide-open eye. Consuming it gives absolute, obsessive focus. The next task you attempt is a critical success, but you must save or continue repeating that exact task for 1d6x1d6 rounds. Single-use.

67. A lavender silk pillow trailing silvery tassels from its corners. The pillow is stuffed with grey and downy owl feathers. If anything tries to harm you or maliciously affect your dreams while you are sleeping on it, you immediately awaken and can act before the offending party can make their move.

68. A worn clay tobacco pipe which feels familiar and personal in your hand. Anyone who sees you smoking it will feel a sense of kinship to you, feel reluctant to attack you outright, and be more willing to hear you out. If you betray these feelings the pipe will shatter.

69. A porcelain plate bearing the image of a sleeping dog. If you share a meal on the plate with someone and they plan to or already have betrayed you, the plate will befoul any food left on it and turn a necrotic green.

70. A bronze pot which gleams as cleanly as the day it was cast. On the pot are images of a boar hunt, two men wrestling, a group with spears carrying a corpse on a stretcher, and an empty throne. When the pot is used to cook a meal for warriors going into battle within the next day, then no matter how substandard or spoiled the ingredients used the meal will be tasty and satisfying. If someone who's eaten such a meal acts as a coward afterwards however they will immediately vomit it up.

71. A cotton pouch containing a silvery, hyper-magnetic powder. Any metal coated by the powder will be irresistibly attracted to any other metal coated by the powder, with an effective strength of 18 within 30 ft., and halved strength every doubling of distance thereafter. Contains enough powder to coat a 10x10x10 ft. area.

72. A smaragdine silk ribbon embroidered with crowns. When held in a breeze it will always blow in the direction of the ruler of the land you're in.

73. A ring of greenish glass which bears intricate and intertwined images of arms, claws, wings, and tentacles. While wearing the ring you can focus on another creature to make them save or have one of their limbs swapped with your arm bearing the ring (though you keep the ring) as well as swapping everything those limbs might be holding at the time. If that creature dies while your limbs are swapped you can't get your arm back.

74. A bloodstained rock which thrums with inherent violence. Can be wielded as a club. Any non-magical armour or weapons more technologically advanced than the rock will be smashed to pieces when struck by it.

75. A wavy metal rod coated in blue and turquoise enamel. When one end of the rod is planted in a liquid or sediment, that substance is sprayed out the other end with the force and volume of a firehose.

76. A squishy section of rope with an oily sheen. It is utterly useless for anything a rope may be used for, but by touching another rope it can imperceptibly splice itself in and spread that uselessness to the other rope. Ropes holding up loads will suddenly snap, even the most devilish knots will undo themselves, and so on.

77. A leather pouch containing four rough sling-stones, each one painted with the rune for fire, earth, air, or water. Anything struck by one of the stones becomes afflicted with a particular elemental curse for a day and a night. All stones are single-use. Dooms are as follows:
-Fire: Whether the cursed one is within arm's length of an open flame, an errant spark will leap out and set them aflame.
-Earth: Any falling damage the cursed one takes is doubled. In situations where they might fall but not necessarily take damage (if they're tripped, for instance), they instead take 1d6 damage.
-Air: Any significant physical exertion (fighting, running, etc.) immediately winds the cursed one. They begin suffocating until they relax.
-Water: The cursed one loses any buoyancy they might have in water.

78. An apothecary vessel containing a black salve made from mummia. When spread on your body it suspends all biological functions while leaving you animate for 10 minutes per dose. You won't need to breathe, you won't bleed, poison in your system won't affect you, and so on. Contains 1d4 doses.

79. A scarf bearing a tapestry that depicts a knight, a croft, and a cottage. The tapestry is animated, and the knight can be seen cleaning her arms and armour, praying, and tilling the field. If someone attacks you dishonourably while you're wearing it (e.g. sneak attack, backstab, pocket sand, etc.) and they're within 5 ft. the scarf will snap out and make a disarm attempt against them.

80. A scepter wrapped in ivy and tipped with stained-glass grapes. If you use it to stir an alcoholic beverage, then you gain a point of bonus to command those who've drunk it for every point of penalty they're suffering for intoxication. If they're following you they similarly gain points of morale.

81. A pair of scissors with slate-grey blades that fade into invisible sharpness at their edges. The scissors can snip clean through practically anything. The scissors' wielder can selectively treat anything severed by them as though it were still attached (e.g. pull the detached end of a rope to move the rest, move their own cut off hand, etc.), and reattach things by pressing the snipped ends together again. Impractical for use as a weapon.

82. A vellum scroll closed by a scarlet seal. Words in hundreds of languages slide across its surface. By reading aloud from the scroll you can declare a 'law' of ten words or less which everything in earshot must save every time they try to break. Inanimate objects get no save. Laws last an hour. Reading the words on the scroll is enough to let you understand how it works. Single-use.

83. A prickly seed as big as the last digit of your pinky finger. When held it seems to throb with life. You can crack it between two fingers. When you do, it erupts around you in a suit of brambles. The armour offers protection and weighs as leather armour, and deals 1 damage to anything that attacks you in close combat. If you stand still for an entire round protection, weight, and damage increase one step (e.g. protection and weight as leather => chain, 1 damage => 1d4 damage). Damage and protection max out after three rounds, but weight keeps increasing. After three rounds, someone else has to cut you out of the armour to get you free of it. Single-use.

84. A tin salt shaker shaped like a shriveled slug. The salt it contains is supernaturally potent. It deals 1d6 damage due to drying out against living things it's shaken on (doubled against oozes and other mostly-liquid lifeforms), preserves food indefinitely, and instantly dries up a 5x5x5 ft. volume of water. The shaker contains 10 uses of the supernatural salt.

85. A snail shell sealed by a twisting bismuth operculum. Shattering the snail shell has one of two effects. In an open or fully enclosed area, this warps the ground into a spiral shape, and anyone standing on it must save or be knocked over. In a hallway, tunnel, or other such corridor, space is warped so that the spot where the shell was shattered endlessly twists around upon itself. Single-use.

86. A gold-rimmed sieve with a mesh of shining silver hairs. If an object or substance is placed in the sieve and shaken, anything less precious than gold in it will dissolve into a fine dust, leaving only the most valuable stuff behind. This works even if the gold or whatever else is alloyed into the less precious material.

87. A rat skull inscribed with curses and lamentations. It chatters its teeth in the presence of nobles. To use it you must name a number of wrongs committed by someone against those weaker and/or or lower status than them, and then fling the skull at their feet. For every truthful accusation they will be afflicted with a random disease, but if any accusations were not true you will instead be the one afflicted.

88. A carmine bar of soap with little black grains embedded in it. On closer inspection the grains are minuscule insects. While washing yourself with the soap you can feed your health to the insects in exchange for beauty, at a rate of 2 HP per point of charisma bonus gained. HP traded with the soap can't be healed magically.

89. A puffy yellow sponge. Great for exfoliating. Can be thrown like a grenade and expanded into a porous mass (as the web spell), also dealing 1d6 damage to everything caught in its expansion as it exfoliates them to the point of flaying.

90. A staff of charred oak, capped on both ends by copper thunderbolts. If firmly planted in the ground, the staff will summon a raging storm in the sky above it over the course of 1d6x10 minutes. Any lightning the storm discharges is pulled in the direction of the staff. The one holding the staff is protected from any damage the storm might cause them.

91. A cinnabar stamp bearing a seal shaped like a coiling dragon. Any object stamped by it becomes the property of the Most August Celestial Dragon's hoard, and in 1d6x1d6x10 minutes a draconic agent will come by to collect it and bring it back to the Nearest Heaven. The agent will be enraged if the object was damaged during that time.

92. A yellowish and grainy wax tablet that smells of mildew. Phrases scrawled in varied handwriting fill its top two-thirds. By holding the tablet to some writing, whether it's on a book or wall or whatever else, its bearer can ask the writing's authour questions which they will answer based on their knowledge and mental state when they wrote the writing, akin to a speak with dead spell. The remaining space on the tablet is enough for two hundred words worth of questions and answers, after which the tablet will be rendered unusable.

93. A throbbing crimson tattoo. The bearer of the tattoo can cause it to change into the shape of any animal as big as their arm or smaller by flexing it, and then create a copy of that animal made of their blood that follows their mental commands. This costs 1 HP for every HP of the animal, and it cannot have any special properties (e.g. a serpent's venom) which their blood does not also possess (lucky for you if you've got acid blood). HP thus spent cannot be regained until the animal is reabsorbed, and if an animal is destroyed that lost HP can't be healed magically. Only one animal can be created at a time. The tattoo can only be transferred from a corpse to a living person, by touching the corpse of the person who's currently got it.

94. An adamantine thimble. While worn the thimble acts as a +1 shield against piercing attacks, moving itself to intercept, but is just a regular if nigh-unbreakable thimble against every other sort of attack. Clothes sewn while wearing it are of exceptional quality, and provide protection as leather armour.

95. A long, barbed thorn that's quite a bit heavier than its desiccated appearance would suggest. It can be pushed into the footprint or footwear of a creature to cause that creature increasing pain the further they get from the thorn at the moment it's planted. Every 10 ft. they move away from the thorn after that gives them a cumulative -1 to all rolls from the agony.

96. A linen thread dyed in yellow, red, and black. When strung across a threshold the thread will allow those who don't wish you harm through unbothered, but if something that wishes to harm you (or at least would wish to harm you if it encountered you) tries to cross it you will be immediately alerted, and they will be bound by the thread as a hold monster spell.

97. A clean white tusk. It can be slid right into your gums, taking a place there as if it were one of your natural-grown teeth. While it's in your mouth you can use it to gore people as if it were a dagger, and gain the ability to speak with pigs so long as you haven't eaten pork that day.

98. A veil of smoky fabric. People who witness you wearing it will not be able to remember your face, build, or voice if they later see you without it.

99. A baton of rowan-wood, engraved with right-angled glyphs. It can be used to draw out lines on a surface which cannot be crossed by anything that does not possess a solid form (anything from fire to liquids to incorporeal undead).

The baton has two primary limits. The first is that a line can only be as long as it can be drawn without lifting it from the surface. The second is that a line only retains its power for as many rounds as there are charges imbued in it. The baton has a maximum capacity of 10 charges, which can be recharged by walking the full extent of a city's wall.

100. A pocketwatch which when opened reveals a mixture of organic and mechanical components with veins threaded throughout. When laid over the heart of a dying person the watch can steal or extend their last bits of life. In game terms this is the number of rounds before they die. The watch can store up to ten rounds at once.

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

D6x6 Mousy Monasteries

Replace “monastery” with “nunnery” and it’ll work the same


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D6This monastery can be found 
1 on a muddy islet in the middle of a broad river.
2 in the verdant caldera of an extinct volcano.
3 somewhere within a trackless, untamed forest which only its monks know how to navigate.
4 atop the split lip of a cliff, across a quivering rope bridge.
5 on the palm of a titanic statue, which based on its anatomy predates the faith and perhaps humanity itself.
6 in a cavern, carved whole from the damp stone.

D6This monastery was founded 
1 on top of a razed pagan sacred grove.
2 as a place to put unpopular clergy where they couldn’t become an issue.
3 as a distant refuge from civilization and its temptations.
4 originally as a fortress, and still bears the marks of and means for war.
5 thanks to the generous donation of a duke who was teetering on the verge of excommunication.
6 as an advance mission to preach in infidel territory.

D6This monastery is known for 
1 the quality of the footwear its monks cobble, the most comfortable boots and shoes to march or hike or saunter in.
2 the efficacy and relative painlessness of its medicines and surgery.
3 the strength and fine taste of its beer.
4 its political influence and sophistry.
5 its breathtakingly melodious choir.
6 its monks’ bawdiness, impropriety, and clandestine nightly visits to nearby villages.

D6This monastery’s monks are sworn 
1 to defend the laity from evil, and practice their martial arts every day at the crack of dawn.
2 to provide sanctuary and succour to all who humble themselves at its gate, even the vilest outlaws.
3 to surrender their names and be known only by functionary titles.
4 to scourge themselves to expunge the world’s sins.
5 to record all that occurs within it.
6 to avoid meat and the spilling of blood. They’ve found technicalities for both.

D6This monastery is troubled 
1 by a mara that’s feeding off their fantasies and fears of damnation.
2 by a relic which was entrusted to it, but is in fact a piece of a dismembered lich.
3 by a sect popular among the peasantry, that violently rejects the first estate.
4 by a Dionysian mystery cult that’s infiltrated its ranks.
5 by an ambitious and ruthless noble who wants to claim its land.
6 by raiders after its treasures.

D6This monastery‘s abbot 
1 is tyrannical and intolerant, coming up with cruel and unusual punishments for the slightest disobedience.
2 is a wannabe hermit with poor personal hygiene and a habit for making enigmatic proclamations.
3 is a renowned theologian and a secret heretic who’s convinced themself they’ve found a critical inconsistency in scripture.
4 feels deeply repressed regret for their path in life. They’re fond of travellers, and live vicariously through their stories.
5 is an extreme introvert, and almost never lifts their nose from the pages of a book.
6is a fat and jolly drunkard.

Friday, March 5, 2021

D6x6 Nauseating Nagpas

Generic brand skeksis.


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D6These nagpas were once 
1 angelic beings of light and life.
2 the apprentices of a transcendent archmage.
3 the elector-princes of a slouching empire.
4 blessed innocents who cavorted in secret groves with nymphs and unicorns.
5 envoys sent to uplift early humanity, and teach them the artful sciences.
6a coven of sequestered philosophers whose edicts guided an enlightened state.
D6But these nagpas were cursed 
1 for an act of towering, toppled hubris.
2 for their decline into cruel decadence.
3 for infringing on secrets the gods saw fit to keep to themselves.
4 for trying to bind a higher being for what they believed to be the greater good.
5 because a jealous rival tricked them into violating a cosmic taboo.
6 for lashing out against the world as the passage of time shuffled them into its footnotes.

D6Besides their current appearance and immortality, these nagpas’ curse 
1 makes them unable to gain sustenance from anything but rotting food and stagnant water, though the taste will always remain foul to them.
2 renders them unable to truly die. They return some time after being killed, weakened and amnesiac, with only confusing fragments of who they were before rattling around in their skulls.
3 lets them experience brief moments as truly lovely beings, to make the rest of their existence more miserable by contrast.
4 sours their positive emotions and memories, curdling nostalgia into bitterness.
5 makes them rejected by nature. Animals and plants despise them, unworked materials will seek to harm them when touched.
6makes them creatively sterile, unable to truly make anything of their own.
D6These nagpas dress 
1 in tincture-soaked wrappings, to soothe and preserve their withered flesh.
2 in pitted black iron armour.
3 in opulent silk robes and weighty jewels that further hunch their already stooped posture.
4 in horned, fanged masks and dyed fur cloaks.
5 in suits of living skin that disguise them as humans.
6in ragged mockeries of priestly garb.
D6These nagpas’ magic 
1 conjures rot and all that comes with it: fungus, worms, miasmas, and the like.
2 lets them absorb the strength and memories of corpses they eat.
3 can draw out the evil in people’s hearts to warp them into monstrous servants.
4 deals primarily with darkness, nightmares, occultation, and divining and manifesting the past.
5 must be stolen from others as they no longer have any of their own.
6is a blasphemy, and must be used sparingly or else it attracts the wrath of the heavens in the form of natural disasters.

D6These nagpas scheme 
1 to assemble artifacts of great power and historical significance to fuel a time travel spell that would allow them to avert their original cursing.
2 to transmute their curse into a transmissible form and reduce everyone to their level.
3 to blackmail key figures in government to become the powers behind the throne and reshape the nation in their image.
4 to run experiments on a legion of psychic children until they find one powerful enough to fully translate their minds into unblemished bodies.
5 to kidnap the djinn-queen’s daughter and extort infinite wishes.
6to perform good deeds of sufficient number and scale to win their redemption. They are not very good at being good.

D6x6 Harsh Harpies

UM THE HUM THE HUM THE HUM THE HUM THE H


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D6The bird-parts of these harpies resemble
1 parrots.
2 owls.
3 falcons.
4 ravens.
5 vultures.
6hoatzins.

D6These harpies might wield
1 javelins dropped from great heights rather than thrown.
2 huge bows drawn with their legs.
3 bombs in strafing runs.
4 their steel-capped talons.
5 whips they can deftly tie in a fight, such as into a noose around your neck.
6lightweight blowguns and venom-tipped needles.

D6These harpies nest
1 on the sides of sheer cliffs, their dwellings stuck on by pitons, lightweight frames, and their own adhesive waste.
2 on floating islands held aloft by their most sacred and secret magic.
3 on top of cyclopean pillars and bridges that stretch through the sky between them like aqueducts. These structures long predate the harpies themselves.
4 in the highest boughs of trees and in the rafters of abandoned towers.
5 in the gondolas slung under their dirigible-fleets.
6on top of mountains, with lower placement being associated with lower status. Hypoxia is a perennial affliction of their elites.

D6These harpies see humans
1 as delicious prey.
2 as sources of shiny things to steal.
3 as horrid pests, to be chased off whenever they can.
4 as unpredictable neighbours with a history of intermittent hostility.
5 as dirtbound apes to be mocked and patronized.
6as rivals to be eliminated before they infringe on the air.

D6An exceptional item these harpies might carry is
1 an unfoldable cage which renders any living thing caught within it weightless.
2 a belt that softens surfaces you fall on, reducing the damage you take by falling and letting you leave a sizeable impact crater even in solid stone.
3 a quill, which when tossed into the wind will fly off to deliver a written message to whoever you name.
4 a hyper-dense, seed-filled nutrient bar that provides the equivalent of five rations in a negligible package.
5 a leather cloak fringed with lapis lazuli beads that is extremely hydrophobic. Any liquid, whether water, magma, or acid, will immediately wick off it.
6a firefly as big as your forearm that gives off light as a torch. It’s trained to follow behind you and obey simple orders (“go there”, “come back”, and the like). It will die of old age in 1d4 weeks if nothing gets it before then.

D6These harpies’ origin
1 is a clan of starving scavengers who consumed the yolk of a monstrous bird’s egg.
2 is a raptorial cult who transformed their initiates into a more holy form.
3 is a clan of aerial berserkers that became stuck in this in-between form after their magic shapeshifting feather-talismans were burned.
4 is intergenerational exposure of humans to the energies of elemental air.
5 is simply a foreign human ethnicity, like the acephali or the monopods.
6is the antipodal Atlantis (the Atlantipode, if you will) which was flung into the sky instead of sinking beneath the waves.

Thursday, March 4, 2021

D6x6 Animated Armours

Heard the Hum say my name last night - my real name

Namu amida butsu


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D6This animated armour’s aesthetic
1is ornate and gothic, dark and fluted.
2is a rust-piled, creaking mess, any identifying features buried under the stains of time.
3is animalistic, a beast’s face roaring from its visor as it prowls on all fours.
4is classically heroic, bronze plates sculpted into idealized musculature.
5is geometric, dense, and bulky, more than a humanoid frame should be able to bear.
6is elegant, gilded and polished, a hem of fine and shimmering chainmail.
D6This animated armour wields
1a broad-bladed axe fit to decapitate an ox.
2a swordstaff and a bundle of javelins tied to its back.
3a flanged mace and shield.
4an urumi.
5a pair of blades, closer to cleavers than ordinary swords.
6a notched zweihänder taller than it is.
D6This armour is animated by
1a seal drawn in blood somewhere on its interior. Destroy the seal, de-animate the armour.
2the psychic effluvia of its former wearer’s bloodlust. If pushed too far it will enter a rage, becoming stronger and faster but clumsy and indiscriminate in its attacks.
3the ghost of its wearer, kept tethered to the mortal world by monomaniacal focus on their vow. Convince them their vow’s been fulfilled and they’ll fade away.
4a magnetism-elemental. Powerful electromagnetic fields (such as from lightning) will disrupt it.
5a chivalrous spirit called down from abstract realms. The armour will not refuse a challenge to a duel or fight dishonourably.
6a gestalt impression of everyone who ever wore the armour into battle, drawn out by historical necromancy.
D6This armour is animated to
1find and fight a worthy opponent.
2guard a prince’s grave (replete with golden grave-goods).
3make sure no one looses the mystic bindings of a trapped demon.
4test the virtues of those who come across it.
5kill trespassers who are unable to respond to it with the right code phrase.
6find and reassemble the pieces of a legendary weapon.
D6This armour is likely to be encountered
1in a cavernous hall where crystal chandeliers dangle like a stalactite.
2in an overgrown courtyard with a shattered fountain in the middle spilling a pool of water over the ground.
3in a circle of trampled ground surrounded by a short stone wall: once used for tournament melees, and before that for ritual death matches.
4in a shrine where tree roots have intertwined nigh-indistinguishably through the masonry.
5in a crumbling gatehouse.
6on the steps of a spiral staircase the winds around a deep pit.
D6This animated armour can
1heat itself up to cherry-red incandescence, at the cost of losing some defense as it softens.
2split apart and float around in its constituent pieces.
3encase someone to act as a power-enhancing exoskeleton.
4bend and flex in ways that would be impossible (or at least excruciatingly painful) if there was a person inside it.
5absorb spells cast at it into itself,, then shoot the spell at another target.
6strike with enough force that even if you block its block you’ll be thrown backwards.