Homo Occultus

For a short time after emerging from its cradle, homo sapiens was not alone in humanity. We lived alongside homo neanderthalensis, homo floresiensis, and many others. We might've fought them, might've fucked them, but in the end they all went extinct long ago. Only we survived.

It's a neat narrative. Easy. That's because it's been deliberately cleaned up. Our family tree's been pruned.

The branches of humanity that have been clipped from history are collectively called homo occultus. What follows is only, can only ever be, a small accounting of them. A complete record will never be possible:

1. HOMO OCCULTUS VELOX - 30,000-100 BCE

A culture group originating in North Africa which learned how to extract a potent stimulant drug (as well as contraceptives and others) from the now-extinct silphium plant. Generations of lifetime users of the silphium-derived stimulant developed biological and cultural systems which enhanced its positive effects (increased reflexes, mental processing speed, alertness, endurance) and minimized its negatives (heart exploding, battle-madness).

With this power H.O. Velox was able to maintain significant territory as nomadic hunter-gatherers in the face of encroaching agricultural civilizations, relative to better known groups. Even as late as the 3rd century BCE, Carthaginian writings suggest a retributive raid by an H.O. Velox clan which successfully penetrated Carthage's city walls, and lead to significant diplomatic concessions and a military withdrawal.

After the annihilation of Carthage, wild populations of silphium were exterminated on the order of Roman authorities, and H.O. Velox is believed to have followed soon after, though an apocryphal record attributed to the scibe Ahmad ibn Umar ibn Ahmad al-Misri attributes several techniques that would be incorporated into El Matreg as coming from "a pariah from the desert" who could "move like lightning".

Recent findings indicate that the "shadow people" sometimes reported by those in the throes of stimulant psychosis are vestiges of H.O. Velox retained within the noosphere.

2. HOMO OCCULTUS OBSERVATOR - 1762 BCE-527 CE

A number of Babylonian priests and astrologers in the service of Hammurabi discovered the celestial object [REDACTED] millennia before the Royal Astronomical Society, and due to being exposed to it through nothing but their own mathematics and naked eyes rather than telescopes and other tools were exposed to the full brunt of its emissions both physical and metaphysical.

All H.O. Observators were Type 3- organisms. Each individual was sterile, and so long as they were able to watch the [REDACTED] object on a nightly basis were both biologically immortal and anti-entropic, able to survive with a negative caloric intake.

While at first the H.O. Observator organisms were retained in their original service to Hammurabi, their cumulative mutations over the centuries and their increasingly incoherent advice made them less and less popular at court. His successors kept them and heeded them at greater and greater distance. Without royal support or their own accurate predictions of the future, the remaining individuals found themselves easy scapegoats, and found their numbers reduced. The last H.O. Observator individual was kept as an oracle by a Nestorian monastery in Uzbekistan, and died of old age in their care.

3. HOMO OCCULTUS AETERNUS - 930-974 CE

A clonal human variant solely descended from a Byzantine man named Methodius, a eunuch who served as a minor functionary in the imperial court in Constantinople of his time. The entire existing documentation of H.O. Aeternus comes from his personal journals.

During an exploratory expedition into the Derinkuyu underground city, Methodius reports that their route became cut off in a cave-in that killed the rest of his party. After several days of searching for another way out and nearly dying of dehydration, he found what he described as an "upwelling of the blood of Christ" and drank from it. This is the apparent cause of his mutation from homo sapiens into H.O. Aeternus.

While externally there is no difference between the two, H.O. Aeternus was capable of cellular regeneration and asexual reproduction through budding, with one's buds sharing many of one's memories from before the point of detachment. Methodius saw in his new body both the resurrection and the kingdom of heaven promised by the Church. Over a span of decades he set about mass-producing clones in cloistered isolation, refining his personal theology, attempting to find his "upwelling" again, and vetting others to find someone worthy of the same gift.

The entire population of H.O. Aeternus was wiped out in 974 CE by a local outbreak of plague, to which they had all inherited a significant susceptibility to.

4. HOMO OCCULTUS SUMMUS - 250,000 BCE-?

An offshoot of homo naledi, an archaic human species that remained in an arboreal lifestyle, which entered into a shadowy parasitism with homo sapiens as we rose to dominance.

H.O. Summus became slighter and sharper as we became upright and more social. Their mirror neurons underwent a strange inversion: rather than a "monkey see, monkey do" sort of reaction to others' actions, they became hyperfocused on analyzing the attentions and actions of homo sapiens and how to avoid them at a speed faster than the conscious mind - one could be in the room with you right now and you'd never realize it, but at the same time this doomed them to forever play second fiddle to homo sapiens, living off our scraps. For this peerless stealth they traded their capacity to live in large groups. To this day, the vast majority of H.O. Summus live their entire lives in only small extended family units.

Time's only honed their sneaking ability, and the increasing size and complexity of our buildings have provided an unmatched shelter for them. In fact, loss of wild habitats was decreasing their global population until the introduction of the skyscraper, which has since exploded.

5. HOMO OCCULTUS INFANIPHAGUS CANIS FAMILIARIS HOSTIS - 12,000 BCE-?

Originally believed to be a variant of homo occultus, now known thanks to dissected specimens to be much more closely related to canines than great apes.

C.F. Hostis is a breed of domestic dog, unique among all of them for not having been selectively bred by human intervention. Like the orchid mantis, which can switch between imitative stillness and rapid striking, C.A. Hostis has two modes: the first, a contorted, seemingly painful posture which allows it to take on a bipedal stance, and the second, its more natural, quadrupedal stance wherein its hunting jaws are allowed to extend past its mouth.

Its imitative mode, while obscured by rags or other such coverings to hide the straining muscles and misplaced bones, bears a remarkable resemblance to a human being, often the sort of human being that would be ignored or overlooked, like the sickly, the very old or young, or the disfigured. That, in addition to vocal mimicry, allows it to get close to vulnerable targets for opportunistic attacks in its hunting mode. Contrary to what was previously thought, observation of tagged C.A. Hostis individuals in the wild has revealed that humans make up only a small part of its diet, with the rest mostly composed of scavenged discarded food and other urban animals. The rare attacks on humans are now believed to be the origin of the werewolf myth.

While capable of sexual reproduction, most new individuals of C.F. Hostis come from an extremely malignant transmissible cancer that most of the subspecies carries. Exposure to this cancer will cause any other breed of canis familiaris to metamorphose into C.F. Hostis in a matter of days.

The C.F. Hostis subspecies was meant to be destroyed during the invasion of Ryukyu, however it spread infectiously beyond the ability of Roman authorities to control due to use of contaminated individuals in dog-fighting.

6. HOMO OCCULTUS SUILLINE - ?-1972 CE

Discovered after routine testing for swine fever at a Greek meat processing plant.

H.O. Suilline is a homo occultus variant of uncertain (though likely Grecian) origin which differs from homo sapiens on an entirely epigenetic basis. There have never been, and could never be, wild populations of H.O. Suilline.

The variant is indistinguishable from the domestic pig both physically and behaviourally. Only a genetic test can detect the difference. The discovered samples were traced back to a minor Greek mafia family, which apparently had been using inherited torture techniques to transform their enemies into H.O. Suilline through selective traumatic gene activation for centuries, at the very least. Unfortunately by the time the sample had been traced back to them, the entire family had been executed for crossing the Regime of the Colonels, taking their techniques with them.

7. HOMO OCCULTUS NOVUS - 1960-1993 CE

The sole viable H.O. variant produced by the collision of Lysenkoism and Russian Cosmism in the race to make the "New Soviet Man". Angelic in silhouette, with enormous solar-sail wings and metallic, radiation-reflective skin, capable of extended survival in the vacuum of outer space. A breeding pair was covertly included in a Soviet rocket launch, and this is believed to have precipitated the assassination of John F. Kennedy due to the terms of America's pact with the Saturnian archons.

The remaining celestial population of H.O. Novus was eliminated by targeted comet strike shortly before the first launch of the International Space Station, as it was worried that this would otherwise spark conflict that could cause a Kessler Syndrome scenario.

8. HOMO OCCULTUS APIS - 2018 CE

Resemble homo sapiens with branching digits, much-reduced jaws and abdomens, and enlarged eyes and noses. They possess an exceptional visual sensitivity to ultra-violet light, including a susceptibility to memetic programming using the same. Only food containing the proprietary additives of the [Redacted] Corporation are known to sustain them. All known, extant individuals were found half-dead in a shipping crate a short distance outside Tecate by Homeland Security.

H.O. Apis is believed to be an artificial, CRIPSR-created offshoot of homo sapiens engineered to solve two problems facing America in the 21st century: the collapse of natural species of pollinators, and growing numbers of climate refugees coming from its Southern border.

The H.O. Apis individuals who were discovered by Homeland Security agents were vivisected to the last on the order of Roman authorities.

9. HOMO OCCULTUS AQUATICUS - 200,000 BCE-1604 CE

A very distant cousin indeed, which evolved out of the trees and on onto beaches, living off the bounty of the tides and shallows. They were hairless, had more subcutaneous fat, could hold their breath for hours, if not days, and had wide, webbed hands and feet. Beyond that, little else can be said for certain.

H.O. Aquaticus apparently once spread across reefs and seamounts across the globe. The Yonaguni Monument and the Antikythera mechanism were built by them, and later misattributed. For millennia on long millenia they were the dominant species upon the Earth, with terrestrial homo sapiens merely a remote and backwards tributary.

All that was changed by two factors: the imperial ambition of James I, and the accidental discovery by Francis Bacon of ontological weaponry in his studies of taxonomies and the unremembering practices of Classical philosophers. To create an unrivaled, English, thalassocratic empire that weaponry was deployed, sloppily, and H.O. Aquaticus was rendered extinct. It's unknown how much else in the world was lost as collateral damage, though backdated gravimetry suggests approximately 1.2% of the planet's mass was lost around the same time.

10. HOMO OCCULTUS FERREUS 20,000-750 BCE (Contested)

In a bizarre, near-parallel spontaneous evolution to the scaly-foot gastropod, H.O Ferreus developed the ability to leverage the abnormaly rich levels of hemoglobin in its blood into complex extrusions of weapons-grade steel.

The variant ruled as god-kings in the Mediterranean of their time, undertaking an extensive eugenics project to preserve and even enhance their incredible biology. Eventually their dynastic webs of aristocratic inter-breeding grew so much as to become catastrophic for all cultures in the region, what we now know as the Bronze Age Collapse.

As they were never of significant population relative to homo sapiens due to much higher nutriotional intake demands, this devastating internecine conflict reduced the H.O. Ferreus population to the extent that Roman authorities were able to capture the few remaining individuals and tease the secrets of industry from their bodies.

D12x8 Onionless Italians

Blame this guy.

Generator generator here: https://slightadjustments.blogspot.com/p/generator.html

D20x5 Brutal Berserkers

Click the button below for your very own berserker:

Generator generator here: http://meanderingbanter.blogspot.com/2018/10/automatic-list-to-html-translator-v2.html

D20	This berserker’s rage
1	is constantly rising regardless of circumstance. They need to release it now and then or they will literally explode. You can tell how close they are to blowing by the amount of steam rising from their skin.
2	requires them to inject stimulant drugs with hollow thorns to access.
3	is a battle-madness they became afflicted with after too many years spent at war.
4	is rooted in their descent from a god of war.
5	has been partitioned off within their own mind, attributed to a split personality.
6	can be burned up all at once for a single incredible feat of strength.
7	immediately lengthens their teeth into fangs and their nails into talons.
8	is only constrained in their daily life by a strict code of honour. Violators of that code receive its full brunt.
9	is derived from extraneous alchemical glands that were implanted between their ribs.
10	puts so much stress on their body that it shortens their life with each use.
11	will cause them to rise as a draugr to avenge their own death.
12	makes their muscles swell so much they tear their own skin.
13	lets them shrug off attacks from people who are not as or more angry than they are.
14	lets them vomit streams of boiling bile.
15	lets them track down the target(s) of their anger no matter the distance.
16	is transmissible through their bodily fluids.
17	requires them to ritually consume an unbelievably spicy root to access.
18	emulates their culture’s belief about the sun: that it illuminates the sky through sheer incandescent rage. Sunburst-scars blaze across their body, and glow when their anger peaks.
19	comes from the shrieking demons soldered in their skull.
20	drives them constantly, beyond human limits. If they ever come down they’ll drop dead immediately from accumulated sleep deprivation.

D20	This berserker’s weapon of choice is
1	javelins carved from lengthy femurs.
2	a tree trunk wielded like a quarterstaff.
3	their own bare and bloody hands.
4	a sword that’s taller than they are.
5	a pair of venomous serpents, wielded like biting whips.
6	a bronze flail with a head shaped like a roaring bull.
7	a pair of serrated blades.
8	a length of chain with hooked links.
9	a brace of many-barrelled pistols.
10	a thick sling with head-sized stones.
11	a fossilized club run through with crystalline needles.
12	a bulky tome written in a language they can’t read.
13	a pair of cestuses with their personal insignia embossed on every knuckle, which imprints on every face they cave in.
14	a towering bow made of bones and sinews.
15	a simple woodcutter’s axe.
16	razor-sharp obsidian chakrams.
17	a pair of bath nakhs.
18	an personalized, grappling-specialized martial art.
19	a labrys with blades as wide as their shoulders.
20	an iron tetsubo with every knob molded to resemble a wasp’s stinger.

D20	This berserker hails from
1	a land where the sun never sets, yet gets so cold that night can still fall when the light itself freezes.
2	a land where the trees kiss the clouds and strangle each other with their boughs.
3	an icy desert where the oases are ashen, melted patches around active volcanoes.
4	a ruined city so old and expansive that its depths are as wild as any jungle.
5	a valley with sides so sheer that only the strongest can make the climb out.
6	an archipelago wracked by a perpetual storm, where kelp grows above the waves and feeds on lightning.
7	a cyclopean prison where criminals and their descendants were exiled to live in true lawlessness.
8	the anarchist tribes which inhabit an ancient battlefront, where conquerers have given up on conquest in fear of the dormant ordinances.
9	a gargantuan iceberg that’s accreted its own landmass atop, caught in an oceanic circuit that keeps it from melting or crashing.
10	a village carved into the back of a giant crocodile, each osteoderm host to a watertight home. Most people there subsist on scraps picked from the crocodile’s teeth.
11	a forgotten monarch’s huge, sealed nature preserve, dedicated to an experiment in how civilization might’ve developed from barbarity.
12	a clan descended from children sacrificed to chthonic deities, who linger still in caves and cenotes and all those places which are near to the underworld.
13	a mountain range pocked with boiling, sulphurous baths, where hell itself bubbles up.
14	a cancerous land of green glass and misshapen beasts.
15	a swamp where abyssal leviathans beach themselves to die.
16	a shadowed land halfway beyond the darkness at the back of the basement and the closet and the bed, where bogeymen and nightmares roam.
17	from a paradise not far from Heaven, kicked out for their sinful wrath.
18	a cavern of dripping grease and rusted gears, a machine beneath the earth too vast to ever fully rot.
19	an under-colosseum where the gore of countless arenas runs, a sacrificial pit-ecology fed by violence completely unknown to it.
20	a sprawling mansion estate that’s practically a city unto itself. The lace of courtesy and obligation that bound them there was suffocatingly tight.

D20	This berserker practices the strange custom of
1	marrying the ghosts of those they slay.
2	speaking no truths while the moon is visible.
3	eating only live meat.
4	refusing to tell someone their name until they see that someone touch iron.
5	climbing the tallest landmark they can find to survey their surroundings.
6	never touching the mortar between baked bricks with their feet.
7	seeing those with bushy eyebrows as fearsome monsters in disguise.
8	plugging their nose with wax and seeing scents as sensuously sinful.
9	expressing affection and antipathy inversely to abjure evil spirits.
10	rhyming obnoxiously.
11	asserting dominance over quadrupeds like cows and goats by flipping them onto their sides wherever they’re encountered.
12	roasting bones to interpret the secrets revealed in the cracks that thereby form.
13	ignoring entirely the concept of age, treating the elderly and adult and children the same.
14	duelling to first blood before they give someone respect.
15	never showing their mouth to strangers or eating in a public space.
16	crowing with roosters at dawn.
17	extracting one of their own teeth if they break a promise.
18	keeping a pebble from every land they’ve been to.
19	speaking to animals as though they can understand human languages.
20	drinking their own piss, medicinally.

D20	This berserker has found a place
1	as a bouncer for a rough-and-tumble travellers’ tavern.
2	as a petulant noble’s pet skullbreaker.
3	as a fur trader whose specialty is the hides of the deadliest beasts.
4	as the favourite model and muse of a sculptor whose aesthetic glorifies the rugged and untamed.
5	as the owner of a gymnasium, using it as a recruiting ground for their mystery cult of esoteric exercise.
6	as a wildly popular charismatic gladiator.
7	as a diplomat to the most barbarous potential allies.
8	an the enforcer of a criminal empire.
9	as a butcher of bushmeat from great & exotic animals.
10	as the vanguard for risky expeditions.
11	as the personal chef of a client with unusual taste.
12	as a gambler with no fear.
13	as the host of a dogfighting bring.
14	as the ferocious overseer of a slave-run mine.
15	as a chariot racer who can bring the best out of their horses.
16	as a lord among beggars.
17	of an architect with the strength to act as their own construction worker.
18	as the captain of a fleet of far-ranging fishing ship.
19	as pest control beyond the ability of any cat.
20	as a preacher of an ideology of total self-dependence.

D6x6 Savage Sahuagin

El trick du hat

Click below for your sahuagin:

Generator generator here: http://meanderingbanter.blogspot.com/2018/10/automatic-list-to-html-translator-v2.html

D6	These sahuagin appear
1	like long-nosed, stretch-jawed goblin sharks.
2	with extended plesiosaur necks and stubby flipper-limbs.
3	with scaly sails and flabby limbs like marine iguanas.
4	with the extravagant colours of reef fish and the eccentric anatomy of special breeds of koi or goldfish.
5	like dangly-appendaged wobbegongs.
6	with the armour plating and heavy jaws of a dunkleosteus.

D6	These sahuagin tend to attack
1	by clambering onto the decks of ships with sharp shell-knives and picks.
2	in ports and harbours on lightless new moon nights.
3	whole fleets at once in artificial doldrums.
4	by striking deep inland, up rivers and wetlands, to allay suspicions of their base of operations.
5	trespassers in their ever-expanding territories.
6	after first creating false reefs, shoals, and lighthouses to lure passers-by into ambushes and wrecks.

D6	These sahuagin worship
1	the principle of predation. All must eat to live. One eats. Another is eaten.
2	the ocean currents and what they represent. Today’s ally is tomorrow’s enemy. What comes will pass.
3	coral, and the processes it embodies. To these sahuagin all life is built upon the bones of the dead, each generation and epoch becoming the bed of the one to follow.
4	the lightless abyss below, which swallows whales, the waste of the world, and the sun itself.
5	the secret flame, the black smokers, impossible smelters beneath the waves.
6	the glowing lure, the dangling nematocyst, all traps and venoms.

D6	These sahuagin have the unpleasant cultural practice
1	of having as many children as possible then winnowing those they judge as weak, leaving only a fraction as the worthy.
2	of using public torture both to punish criminals and as a show of merit.
3	of eating their elderly alive.
4	of organizing their population into a graduated pyramid of slaves.
5	of attempting to totally eradicate even the memory of their enemies.
6	of essentially having no greater moral principle than “might makes right”.

D6	These sahuagin are led by
1	a necromancer who makes their demense within the jaws of an animated megalodon fossil.
2	a mangled oracle whose limbs and sensory organs were ritualistically cannibalized to sensitize them to higher realms.
3	a nephilitic giant descended from one of their own and a being they consider divine.
4	a human admiral who’s basically become Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now.
5	an undead lieutenant of Davy Jones who requires them to deliver a quota of drowned souls.
6	a four-armed mutant who fulfils a messianic prophecy of theirs, who’s reluctantly accepted their position in the hope that they can lead the sahuagin to a better future.

D6	These sahuagin respect
1	strength enough to dominate those who disrespect you.
2	wealth as the expression of your superiority.
3	cunning to outwit those who’d prey on you.
4	decadence, as what use is power if it doesn’t bring pleasure.
5	pacifism, as one must be mighty indeed to ignore provocation.
6	ruthlessness, a total lack of qualms between you and your goals.

D6x6 Bubbly Bullywugs

Could also be grippli, or grung. Whole lotta frog people in D&D.

Click below for your bullywugs:

Generator generator here: http://meanderingbanter.blogspot.com/2018/10/automatic-list-to-html-translator-v2.html

Poison dart frog

Surinam toad

Horned frog

Desert rain frog

Tree frog

Cane toad

D6	These bullywugs resemble
1	poison dart frogs.
2	surinam toads.
3	horned frogs.
4	desert rain frogs.
5	tree frogs.
6	cane toads.

D6	These bullywugs inhabit
1	muddy holes in the ground.
2	frond-huts folded from giant ferns.
3	canopy-settlements on top of a cloud forest.
4	wicker shelters that use the roots of mangroves as frames.
5	domes of blown foam that are surprisingly effective at insulation and keeping out pests while being easy to repair or recreate.
6	sinking stone ruins in a marsh infested with man-eating plants.

D6	These bullywugs’ cuisine
1	is based on a medical theory that meals must combine proportionate ingredients from water, land, and air to be healthy.
2	is mainly composed of the grubs, eggs, and the protein-rich “milk” and “cheese” of the enormous beetles they keep as livestock.
3	is incredibly spicy, as they habitually chew a stimulant herb that numbs their tastebuds to other flavours.
4	is usually off-putting texturally to humans as bullywugs can’t chew their food.
5	has as its most prestigious condiment the slime of great hunters and warriors.
6	is garnished with live flies and other buzzing insects.

D6	If provoked, these bullywugs
1	will unleash their mutated, oversized tadpoles like attack dogs.
2	will harry the ones that provoked them with envenomated darts, then close in for the kill when the venom takes effect.
3	will appeal to their mystics to respond with psychedelic nightmares and manifestations.
4	will pile on from above with bared sabres.
5	will pelt with arrows and javelins from a safer, heightful distance.
6	will lure their enemies into traps and ambush sites they’d normally use for hunting game.

D6	If befriended, these bullywugs
1	can provide their services as skilled pharmacists, cooking up cures and poisons alike.
2	can act as guides to interesting regional sites that know how to avoid any exceptional dangers.
3	can be hired as skirmishing auxiliaries.
4	will provide you any intel their scouts and spies acquire.
5	can sing you their magic croak-songs that weaken curses and demons and all other evil things.
6	can grant you an audience with their patron spirits.

D6	These bullywugs are beset by
1	farmers filling their territory in to expand their fields.
2	treasure-seekers who believe they know the way to a hidden city of gold.
3	a gargantuan crocodile, a lord among its kind, who demands living sacrifices.
4	a wannabe warlord whipping up bullywug clans into a conquering army and enslaving those who don’t go along.
5	the experiments of a radical metamorphosist who believes the four traditional life stages of the bullywug are needlessly limiting their potential for change and growth.
6	their own ultra-traditionalist ancestors rising from their graves to harass and even assault those bullywugs who’ve changed with the times.

GLOGvember Day 2: Monsters; or: D6x6 Despicable Drow

Per this: https://sunderedshillings.blogspot.com/2021/09/glogtober-21-back-with-vengeance.html

Tis the season for mortal folly

Click button below for your very own "drow":

Generator generator here: http://meanderingbanter.blogspot.com/2018/10/automatic-list-to-html-translator-v2.html

D6	This drow has
1	an enchanted corset that allows them to contort their torso into physically impossible positions.
2	a cloud of stinging, yet undeniably sensuous, sulphurous perfume about them.
3	an outfit like a mummy's wrappings, woven from spider-silk.
4	clipped, square ear-tips, the mark of a former slave.
5	gold wires threaded just under the surface of their skin, emerging in spiralling piercings at bony or cartilaginous points.
6	a pair of befanged chelicerae framing their cryptic smile.

D6	This drow's attitude towards non-drow
1	is paternalistic, believing they should be benevolently enslaved until raised to an acceptable level of civilization.
2	is antipathic fetishization.
3	is esoteric interest, reading drowish involvement into their history.
4	is willful ignorance and avoidance.
5	is chauvinistic aggression, expecting the other to fall with a mere breath.
6	is bemusement at their alien ways.

D6	This drow is tied up with
1	importing and adultering exquisite surface wines.
2	a local deliberative council over whether brutal repression or slight appeasing reform is preferable.
3	a slave uprising that has exiled them from their familial estate without wider society's knowledge.
4	evading a bohemian suicide pact by poison they agreed to in their younger days.
5	dynastic politics wherein they're being evaluated by a closer, more powerful heir as a potential threat.
6	attempting to profit off a border conflict by playing both sides without being discovered and punished by their superiors.

D6	This drow inhabits
1	a town that fills a porous aquifer emptied by a long-past empire. Sharing drinks from the same cup is the highest show of trust they know.
2	a hamlet in an abandoned mine, nigh-forgotten by surface-folk and underworld alike.
3	a nocturnal, nomadic community that's conditioned their giant possum mounts to see them as their children and carry them about their routes in their pouches and on their backs.
4	a parasitic under-city in the maze-like catacombs beneath a human metropolis.
5	a village at the bottom of a jungle that grows so densely no sunlight reaches its forest floor, alongside a voracious, bioluminescent, near-abyssal ecosystem that's evolved there.
6	a settlement with its slums in the caldera of an extinct volcano, its wealthier districts stretching through the empty lava tubes well below.

D6	This drow believes drow are
1	the survivors of some disaster that rendered the surface unlivable for ages, preserving the true pre-disaster culture while degenerate mutants proliferated above.
2	the favoured people of the one true god.
3	the root race from which all others are descended by lacking some essential aspect of drowness.
4	as a population endowed with a limited number of souls, and that their harsh society is necessary to prevent the birth of a soulless drow, their sort of anti-Christ.
5	unfairly forsaken due to an ancient crime of their ancestors for which they are guiltless.
6	spiritual flies trapped in the web of the material world.

D6	This drow's preferred poison
1	is a root extract that causes numbness, uncoordination, bowel evacuation, and general humiliation.
2	is milked from trogloxene scorpions, and causes rapid localized swelling until the affected tissue bursts.
3	is an oil created from the most toxic life forms of past eons, which annihilates healthy flesh on contact like antimatter.
4	is drained from the livers of a species of subterranean tunnel-eel, which inflicts an inability to metabolize oxygen.
5	is a subtle, tastless one derived from powdered mushrooms, which causes small, cumulative loss of impulse control and hypersensitivity to sensory stimuli.
6	is made from fermented spider husks, and causes phlegm, spittle, and vitreous jelly to weave themselves into solid, sticky filaments.

D6x6 Facinorous Firenewts

What wombo.art gave me for "firenewt"

Click the button below to get your firenewts:

Made with the generator generator here: http://meanderingbanter.blogspot.com/2018/10/automatic-list-to-html-translator-v2.html

D6	These firenewts have
1	iron piercings that glow cherry red from their body heat.
2	a coating of fluffy, asbestos-like fur.
3	painted their bodies with ash and soot in complex sigils that denote their lineage, occupation, and cult.
4	spiny black osteoderms that produce sparks when they clack together.
5	slick oil dribbling from glands across their body.
6	brown, blistered hides that sizzle and pop.

D6	These firenewts' flames
1	produce thick, sulphurous smoke.
2	are blue, and bright enough to sting the eyes.
3	are near-fluid, and splash like napalm.
4	crackle with orange lightning.
5	spiral up into scarlet twisters.
6	flicker in shapes suggestive of slavering beasts.

D6	These firenewts subsist
1	on a mixture of curdled blood and eggs from their herd of giant striders.
2	almost entirely on cannibalism. They're the last active remnant of an older, much greater civilization, the population of which went into extended hibernation. Their dormant bodies are rationed out to sustain the firenewts' effort to prepare the world for their reawakening.
3	on slimy mats of extremophile bacteria that grow on the surface of acidic hot springs.
4	on charred carrion left in the wake of the wildfires they spread.
5	on fish they catch en masse by boiling the water they're swimming in.
6	on veins of coal, dense with calories for their combustive digestion.

D6	These firenewts are ruled by
1	an eternal flame made of their ancestors who've shucked their flesh and become pure energy.
2	an exiled fire giant who treats them as amusing, beloved pets.
3	an azer viceroy who extracts tribute from them for his distant master.
4	a truly secret society whose members are hypnotically programmed to enforce laws and deliver missives.
5	a brazen bull possessed by a demon, which dispenses wise advice if someone is roasted alive inside it.
6	a lineage of solar priest-kings who are ritually sacrificed at calendrical intervals.

D6	These firenewts are
1	seeking allies of convenience against a wizard who's harvesting them as fuel for his arcane machines.
2	offering an enormous reward for the capture of a phoenix that's been spotted in their territory, as they believe they can steal its immolative immortality.
3	kidnapping smiths who can teach them to develop their industry.
4	sapping under a nearby city, so that they can burn it down in a single night and loot the remains.
5	feuding with an aristocratic health spa that claims the natural wonders of their territory are restorative to the mind and constitution.
6	dwindling and growing desperate due to an unnatural winter that's fallen over the region.

D6	A distinctive feature of these firenewts' territory
1	are perfectly round packed piles of dirt, extinguishing live burial mounds for the worst criminals.
2	are scorched geoglyphs that represent their heroes and mythic cycles.
3	is an abundance of an otherwise rare sort of fragrant, scaly-barked bush that requires extreme heat to open its seed pods.
4	are rings of obsidian megaliths they use for sacred gatherings.
5	are the criss-crossing trenches of an ancient, defunct irrigation system, long since dried up and covered in cracked, sun-baked salt.
6	are geysers that erupt regularly enough to set your watch to.

Twenty-One 21 Word Dungeon Rooms

Inspired by:
http://eldritchfields.blogspot.com/2021/11/ten-dungeon-rooms-21-words-each.html
http://eldritchfields.blogspot.com/2021/11/fifty-more-21-word-dungeon-rooms.html

1. Hunters' Cloakroom

Muddy footprints across the floor. Pelt coats hung on meat hooks, still wet. Damascene dagger worth 50 gp in a pocket.

2. Cryptic Grove

Gnarled leafless trees thrust up through the floor, prying bricks from the walls. Brittle, break at a touch, releasing hungry beetles.

3. Misplaced Mailroom

Torn-open letters scattered across desks and cabinets. One in ten contain useful info: troop movements, blackmail. Trivia in the rest.

4. Blackout Fountain

Malachite statue of jolly man sloshing liquid from his cup. Tastes like clean water, gets you drunk like strong liquor. Flammable.

5. Flagellants' Web

Withered corpses bound up in cats-o'-nine-tails obstruct the way. Remove a corpse's connections and it will animate furiously.

6. Cyclopean Staircase

Gargantuan pillar in center of room, carved with faint, spiraling steps. Those without depth perception can walk about these steps normally.

7. Flipping Pentagram

Silver pentagram painted on floor. Illusory demon chases those who enter toward the pentagram. Stepping on pentagram flips that floor section.

8. Tricksy Sauna

Full of thick, sweltering steam. Obscured team of goblins rearranges doors and loose planks to keep you trapped until heatstroke strikes.

9. Belly of the Beast (Constipated)

Grossly organic room. Digestive system organs hanging from ceiling, tubing on floor. Open sphincterish door by connecting them in correct order.

10. Bone Mill

Dusty air. Mill grinding bones to flour, pulled by snarling, carnivorous bulls. Bulls can charge, but only in a clockwise direction.

11. Warping Lens

Big glass orb built into dais. Dials around adjust its focus. Adjusted perspectives alter reality while viewed: magnify to enlarge, etc.

12. Hatter's Lounge

Furniture made of hats of various sizes. Full of maddening fumes. Needles, thread, felt, and a tub of mercury strewn about.

13. Execution Amphitheater

Wide open, wedge-shaped, marble steps. Acoustics concentrate sound. Any noise becomes deafening. Those on the corner stage take sonic damage.

14. Platform Pond

Algae-clouded pool holding koi buoyant enough to walk on, attracted to food yet startled by sudden splashes. Beneath, megasnakeheads lurk.

15. Fearsome Effigy

Claw-rent alcove holding petrified beast, its eyes carved with X's. Monsters cringe from its sight. Sleeping nearby brings restless nightmares.

16. Chthonic Oracle

Rift with nerve-tendril protruding from deeper than light's reach. Attachment casts Commune, answers are disturbing, drops connectee to zero hp.

17. Work In Progress

Room is incomplete, full of animated scaffolding. Scaffolding will snatch loose stuff with spindly limbs to construct the rest of it.

18. Lilliput Terrarium

Within are skeletons, tiny jungle, and a tribe of micro-humans. Lingering causes your soul to leave your body in minuscule form.

19. Being Gog Magogovich

Shaped like inside of skull. Portholes display vision of giant warlord, similar features for other senses. Tonguish protrusion controls his speech.

20. Time Capsule

Metallic, ovoid, hums unpleasantly. Time within runs 100 times slower. A legendary hero lives within, wants news but won't ever leave

21.The Goose Room

Plastered with parchment, puddles of ink about. A goose with inverted quills waddles around, writing autonomic poetry. Valuable, but hates humans.

D10x10 Calamitous Kaiju

Click the button below to generate your kaiju:

Generator automator here: https://slightadjustments.blogspot.com/p/generator.html