Friend of the blog dan throneofsalt said this:
And it made sense to me. So here we are:
D6 Paper Tigers
Devils from the Stars
Loosely inspired by the above.
John W. Campbell Jr. once established the following criteria for an ultimate weapon:
1. It must absolutely wipe out all opposition.
2. It should be of such nature that no resistance to it is possible.
3. It must be such that the opposition cannot turn it against the original wielder.
4. It must annihilate all opposition, yet must not harm friends.
5. It should not damage any useful or constructive forces.
6. It should be of a catalytic nature, self-propagating, such that, once
loosed, even the destruction of the original source cannot defeat it.
7. It will render all present weapons inoperative.
8. Its power should be such that no power in the Universe can stand against it.
9. Its effect should not depend on surprise, so that even pre-erected defenses cannot defeat it.
10. It should cost very little to use.
11. The field where it has once been used should be permanently
uninhabitable by the opposition, but freely accessible to friends.
He concludes that the only possible weapon which fits the criteria is friendship.
Dogs are now man's best friend, but would we call the transformation of
wolves into dogs ‘friendship’? Would the wolf, seeing a pug dying of Pug
Dog Encephalitis? There’s another possibility for Campbell’s ultimate
weapon: domestication.
If their name for themselves (or at least the part of themselves tasked
with domestication projects) were expressed as air vibrations
pronounceable with human organs, it might sound like “baatezu”. They are
devils from the stars, and they want to possess our souls.
We’re the lightest blip on their radar, given 99.999%+ odds of wiping
ourselves out millions of years before we begin to pose a credible
threat to them by cogitation-engines wider than the sky, that in opaque
digestion gulp starlight and excrete predictive simulations stretching
to the end of the Stelliferous Era. Nevertheless, they maintain some
presence here. What might be encountered on this little blue marble is
not even a finger of their force. If you peeled off the slightest
microscopic sliver of skin from the tip of that finger, zoomed in on
that sliver with the most powerful instruments available, extracted one
mitochondrion from one cell of it, and carved off a fraction of a
nucleobase from that mitochondrion’s genetic code, you would have a more
accurate picture of the scale of their operation here.
They are underfunded. They are undermanned. What technology and
forms they’re allowed are primitive enough that they can be manufactured
locally, and won’t cause worry if they fall into enemy hands. With one
authorized request they could scour life from this planet down to the
last hydrothermal vent in an instant. They are the overseers and
enforcers of the human domestication experiment, or else visions of what they
hope to make humanity into:
show-dogs, hunters, guardians, sniffers.
D6 +1 Swords
This (sub-)post is a goof. Just thought I'd warn you in advance.
1. The +1 Sword of +1 Sword: When held in one hand, another sword miraculously appears in the other. This additional sword lasts only as long as the first is held.
2. The +1 Sword of +1: It gives its wielder +1. Not to anything in particular. Just +1.
3. The Plus One Sword: Its wielder is allowed by cosmic law to bring a guest with them to any event they're invited to.
4. The +1 Sword of +1 Sword of +1 Sword of...: Gains +1 to hit and damage each round it is wielded. Eventually, it cannot be swung without hitting something, and likely bisecting it. Eventually, it cannot be moved at all without cutting everything. The +1s never go away.
5. The +1 Sword: Gives you another one of everything on your body - fingers, nose, etc.
6. The Sword of Pelus Wan: This sword belongs to the knave Pelus Wan. He really wants it back.
A Verdant Wasteland, An Invisible Flame
"Know, O modern Man, that between the years when the sands buried Irem and the years of the rise of the sons of Narmer, there was an Age undreamed of, when a glowing kingdom lay spread across the Sahara like a green blanket beneath the stars ... Hither came the Acheuleans, the Richat-raisers, seaweed-eaters, fungus-communers, stone blades in hand, warriors, scientists, slayers of the cet-men, with gigantic triumphs and gigantic hubris, to leave ruins that would be an enigma for all the generations to come..."
Four Cursed Treasures
1. The Elongated Doll
A doll with a painted porcelain face and a ruffled dress. Its neck and limbs are twice as long as normal human proportions. A child's teeth have been planted in its gaping mouth.
You can take ownership of the doll by feeding it a drop of your blood. Thereafter if you are wounded you can transfer the wound to the doll, which appears on its body as a crack, stain, or similar flaw. Each time you transfer a wound to the doll there is an x-in-20 chance that the doll comes to life, expands to roughly human size, and begins stalking you with murderous intent, with x being the total amount of HP in damage you've transferred to the doll.
Stat the living doll as a bugbear.
2. The Imperious 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.
3. The Parting Edge
A once-straight razor, now bent crooked. Its handle is bruise-blue demonbone.
While useless as a conventional weapon, the true use of the Parting Edge is as an abstract weapon. When swung between a creature and something it owns, that ownership is severed. This severance is total. If someone's ownership of their house is severed, they will lose not only legal ownership but also knowledge of its layout, any keys, etc. Severing the ownership of a swordsman over his sword will also cut away his skill with it. Magical ownership can also be severed: of a summoner and their summoned servitors, of a dryad and her tree, of a lich and its phylactery, and so on.
Each swing of the Parting Edge comes with a cost: the user must sacrifice a personal connection of their own, something on the scale of a sibling, a dear friend, membership in a sacred order, and the like. A person, organization, or so on who the user has sacrificed a connection to will become at best ambivalent towards them, with no possibility of improving the relationship thereafter. If they don't offer a connection up the Edge will take their most treasured one.
4. Zlavazenye
A greatsword wrapped in five shades of blue velvet ribbons. Each ribbon is sewn with a different phrase in gold thread. Unwrapping a ribbon grants the sword +1 to hit and to damage, though each ribbon comes with its own condition of use and penalty if not met.
The
cornflower ribbon bears the phrase "In defense of the innocent". If unwrapped without its condition being met,
this ribbon will wrap itself tightly around your head. It can be shifted slightly with some effort, so that it either blinds you or deafens you, but if torn off entirely will take with it one of your eyes and one of your ears.
The azure ribbon bears the phrase "Against outnumbering foes" . If unwrapped without its condition being met, your off-hand will shrivel into a bleached, chalky thing of gnarled, mingled flesh-bone.
The cerulean ribbon bears the phrase "To overthrow a tyrant" . If unwrapped without its condition being met, the ribbon will immolate itself with a blue fire which destroys all your possessions and worldly wealth save for Zlavazenye.
The lapis lazuli ribbon bears the phrase "On holy ground". If unwrapped without its condition being met, a second mouth grows upon your stomach which will regurgitate any food you consume which was not gifted to you by a stranger. Also, if you lie it will blurt out the truth.
The navy ribbon bears the phrase "To smite the inhuman". If unwrapped without its condition being met, great horns will sprout from your head, weighing you down into a perpetual hunch and preventing you from running.
If
all five ribbons are unwrapped then the wielder will be utterly annihilated - body and soul - and the angel whose
body is Zlavazenye will be freed to end the world as it was once
commanded to.
The Isle of Exiled Kings
Nothing here stands against the blasting winds that was not built up by the hands of mankind. The grasses lie flat against the heath, the sheep kneel as they nibble on them, the shepherds squat in trenches below them, or in the wind-shadows of the graves and cleits. Even these dwarfs of architecture seem to brush against the limit of what the wind is willing to tolerate. Towers have been attempted, but they are swiftly toppled. No lighthouse lasts long enough to lead ships in to safe harbour.
The ships must come regardless. There is a convention,
old enough to have attained a near-natural force of continuity, that
kings in exile must be sent here. Many die by accident or "accident"
along the way, but enough make it that there is a sustained population
of former monarchs on the Isle.
Even the sea sends its troublesome sovereigns here: sharks, whales, kraken, things with crowned heads and uncalloused skin. They don't last long on the beaches. Like the terrestrial kings they are buried with all the meager honours the isle can offer. Like the terrestrial kings they are unearthed when their flesh goes soft, to be spread on bread like cheeses.
Every encounter here is almost like a story with a moral about treating people right no matter how they might appear - the old man in rags was a king in disguise! The old men are kings, but the rags are no disguise. They wear what they're able to eke from the unforgiving land by their own efforts - wool, poorly woven, coarse burlap made from the roots of the Isle's grasses, which grow dense to clutch every grain of soil from the snatching wind, or else air-desiccated fish-leather for the poorest and smelliest of all.
They have nothing to give you, nothing they can promise, nothing except for what they remember from their time on the throne. Most are unused to negotiating, to asking and offering instead of taking. This can work in your favour: they may not be aware of the full value of their knowledge. This can work against you: they may not be reasonable in request and response.
D12 Therianthropomorphs
1. Koaloids: Simple creatures that aspire to nothing more than
tending their eucalyptus groves and drinking a foul sort of beer brewed
from fecal pap.
2. Aye-aye-kin: Fearfully misunderstood
scraggly pariahs. Their long finger is a living wand (and it’s said that
wands were originally derived from an aye-aye-kin’s finger) that casts a
random spell bound to them at birth. Hidden in the hills and the
forests are doors, the aye-aye-kins’ forgotten meeting places and
treasure hoards, that can only be opened by the tap-tap-tapping of their
magic finger.
3. Snailmen: Born the size of a normal
snail, never stop growing throughout their lives, and their shells grow
faster than their bodies do. The young life of a snailman is one of
preparation, ensuring they have all they’ll ever need on hand once their
shell grows beyond their ability to move. Some gather soil and seeds
for cabbage farms sewn in their inner chambers, some become wealthy
masters of a household made from themself, sending servants to be their
hands in the world, and yet others become a one-snail brigand fortress
taking tolls along a road.
4. Jellyfolk: Diaphanous
dancers with venomous skirts. They spin and leap in time with the music
that coils in the deep, inspired dervish-like by wisdom of the bitter
waters. In the embrace of their trailing tentacles one can find ecstasy,
in its oldest sense.
5. Cariboumen: Fierce and
unsentimental warriors and mushroom-sages of the merciless north. Live
in migratory school-herds that each practice and perfect their own style
of martial arts, with techniques like Tine-Pierces-Heart and the
Moon-Tossing Shoulder Throw. They hone these against each other, win
prestige, and cull the weak and foolish in annual, deadly tournaments
that attract fighters from the furthest reaches of the earth.
6. Man-o’-Warriors:
Sail-backed, jelly-fleshed corsairs. They are their own ships, capable
of merging and splitting from dinghies to dreadnoughts. Believe the
surface of the ocean is their rightful domain alone, that those of the
land, sea, and sky upon it are trespassers to be dealt with as they
please.
7. Pongopeople: Shaggy orange cousins of humanity,
exiles from a forest home destroyed by human greed. Reduced to a single
tribe clinging to the edge of extinction, wandering the world to find a
peaceful place they can plant the last seeds of long-gone trees.
8. Mothmen:
Sometimes, when the moon loves a caterpillar back, it will metamorphose
into a mothman rather than a mere moth. Mothmen see by the light of the
soul, and so are attracted to great passions and suffering more than
lanterns. Because of this ability they often find themselves in the
employ of Heaven, logging virtues and vices so that angels have more
time to listen for the shadow of an echo of the voice of God in the
cosmic background radiation. A mothman born from the love of a blood
moon is a predator much unlike the rest of its kind, driven to cause
disasters and stoke the light of souls to sup through its hungry red
eyes.
9. Coyotefolk: Possessed of an idiot savant
inventiveness, given to wild tinkering and wilder lies. Half-decent
shapeshifters that can wriggle out of their furry hides looking like
anything they want, but their poorly-hidden laughter or too-wide toothy
grins always give them away.
10. Potookin: Subtle and
occulted folk, living reapers and watchers at the crossroads. They guard
the borderlands of the living and the dead, tasked with making sure the
inhabitants of both are in their proper place at the proper time. They
scoop up ghosts in their wide, wide mouths, lead heists into Hades to
rescue trapped mortals.
11. Pandapeople: A race of
philosopher-kings, whose exceptional purity extends their lives across
millennia. This purity comes paired with exacting prudishness, and an
infuriating stoicism. Even the trees can’t remember the last time a
pandaperson was born. Though they know many things, and can intuit the
truth of many things they don’t, persuading a pandaperson to impart even
the least bit of wisdom can be like pulling all your own hairs out one
at a time. They refuse to take any action that might even indirectly
lead to the loss of life, and eat only pieces of bamboo that can be
taken without killing the whole plant.
12. Gullthings:
Awful cacophonous pirates, shipwreckers, and thieves. Live along beaches
and rocky shorelines in pebble-forts mortared with their own droppings.
Covetous, gross, and cowardly more than truly cruel.
Hurshamit-Ur, Where Life Is Wagered
Between life and death there are many in-betweens: a death in pieces,
necrotic toppling like an arch without a keystone; a death of the mind
while the body lies catatonic; a death of the spirit which leaves only
lurching flesh.
As with life and death, so too with the lands of the living and the lands of the dead.
On the nights of the new moon, when no light shines on the Bay of Shades
save that of mourners' lanterns, a city appears in those waters darker
than any wine. On those nights the desperate and the destitute row out,
dead throats rip with raucous laughter, and hearts beating and still
alike share the heights of elation and the horror of losing it all. For
you see, the dead have no needs, yet they want, more than those
who yet live know. They hunger, but do not starve. They tire, yet know
no rest. Above all else, they want to be alive once more, to taste and
fuck and feel the sun on their skin. In Hurshamit-Ur, they can win this.
The city's old, maybe the oldest that's been tread by human feet. When
kings are buried in sumptuous tombs with all their treasures, it's
because they know of what awaits in Hurshamit-Ur. They might lose all
their wealth in a night, and scrounge for more until they fade away
entirely, because in Hurshamit-Ur life itself can be wagered, more
precious than any grave good.
The docks of the city reek of fresh, butchered meat. It's far too
coveted to be allowed to rot. In the docks the little prizes can be lost
and won. Beggars and ghouls squat on the stones and throw dice for
nibbled-off fingers and fistfuls of silver. Cold-fleshed whores lean
from bordello windows and offer a night you'll never forget for just a
cup of blood. No one lingers at the docks except those who've already
lost everything they're willing to give, and those who've learned to
take advantage of newcomers.
Move inland, and you'll come to the gates. Garish jaws of red and black
where throngs are vetted by demons in smiling gold masks. Are you in
good health? Is your blood clean of disease? Do you have much of a life
to return to? All these things will impact what you're worth. The demons
watch, keep order, offer loans only the truly foolish would take, but
never play.
At the center of the city is a tower. At the top of that tower lies
Hurshamit, the once-god, master of this city which bears his name. Its
existince and its power stem from his maiming so many eons ago. In his
veiled, silken bed he awaits the gambler who brings such stakes that
could cure his injury. The prize Hurshamit offers in return is his own
divinity.
They Probably Want to Kill Each Other as Much as We Do; or: Some More Fantasy Peoples & Their Weapons
Once upon a time, Scrap Princess did this: http://monstermanualsewnfrompants.blogspot.com/2018/12/weapooning.html
& also this: https://monstermanualsewnfrompants.blogspot.com/2018/12/veins-of-earth-cultural-specific-murder.html
This is like that, but not.
Oozes
Most oozes are too stupid for weapons. Some are not. Beware the clever ooze.
Dumby Yummy:
A simple weapon - something that seems tasty but on the inside isn't.
Typically filled with a high concentration of sugar or salt to desiccate
& rupture membranes, but there are more exotic payloads like a
strong base to react with an ooze's acid or a catalyst for rapid
vapourization.
Moldsurgent Spores: Derived from russet mold. Lodge in an ooze, and reprogram it to sprout off its mass as useless imbecile humanoids, like vegepygmies but worse, and more racist.
Burburbelly Quilt:
Burburs - natural predators of oozes. Butcher 'em, use
biomantic/alchemical means to keep their digestive tracts alive, weave
the digestive tracts of several burburs together. Then throw this living
quilt over your oozy enemies.
Membranoresonant Ripplethumper: It's like the T-rex footsteps in Jurassic Park but it's a giant metal rod slammed into the ground repeatedly by hydraulic engines you (an ooze) power by sliding through them. Tuned to the specific properties of your ooze-enemies' membranes to cause them to rupture and spill their precious fluids onto the vibrating ground. Probably only useful in ooze race wars. Goodamn Demoslimes, letting the white puddings into our big wet country...
Mirror Tube Gun: It's a corrugated metal
tube lined with mirrors - you stick one end on the surface and the other
end is like a shuttered lantern. You point it at green slimes or
whatever other slimes are vulnerable to sunlight - even if you yourself
are such a slime - and if it is daytime up above they will die.
Dragons
Hook Bolas:
Big, heavy, made of metal - tears right through wing-membranes, wraps
around bone so it's not easily removed. Get enough of these thrown at an
enemy and they'll be grounded for you to pick off at your leisure.
Thermite Supplement:
You sneak it into your enemy's food and hopefully it gets caught within
their teeth. When they go to breath fire it'll ignite the thermite -
they can withstand the heat of their own flames, but crank that up a
couple thousand degrees and their face will melt off.
Coin Parasites: Not parasites of coins - parasites shaped like coins. Get 'em into your enemy's hoard and they'll suckle the blood out of your enemy's belly as they sleep. Not to kill, but to weaken, perhaps even infect with the rare disease that can survive within the fiery flesh of a dragon.
Skeletons
Against the living
Skin-suit: They make these out of your friends and family that they already got. Get their buddy to lace them up at the back. It's almost like you're killing them yourself this time! It's a psychological weapon.
Radial Rondel: Don't need marrow. Hollow out those dusty old bones, stick some blades in them. Flick of the wrist, snap of the leg, and they'll come sliding out to stab you in your face when you least expect it.
Ribhinged Crossbows:
Splay out every rib in a skeleton's 'cage and string them up row upon
row with tendons, bolt some tillers to your spine, and so on - you've
got twelve not-so-great crossbows. Twelve not-so-great crossbows still
makes you a one-skeleton volley.
Against each other
Skullbomb: It's their own skull. They don't need it to think, and don't need their eye-sockets to see, which is good because the fuse comes out one of them. Lots of shrapnel packed towards the front, hopefully it hits the other side more than their own. Is it a suicide attack if they're already dead?
Osedax Worms: Domesticated. Big. Terrestrial. Eat bones voraciously.
Extremely Bad Milk:
Calcium - good for bones. Regular milk - contains calcium. Extremely
bad milk - has something other than calcium, which is bad for bones.
What it has is so other than calcium that it leaches out calcium from
the bones it's poured on, weakening them to uselessness. May come from
goblins.
Umber Hulks
More
like umber hunks, am I right? We like to joke around here at Archons
March On. These guys burrow, they're bugs, and their eyes are confusing.
We probably don't want to fuck them.
Squirming Bell:
Corkscrewed brass device as big as a keg. Not as heavy as you might
expect. Within it are worms, chambers, tunnels, pins lining those
tunnels, and membranes those pins will strike when pressed against. The
worms within are sensitive to sound and changes in pressure (such as
those produced by nearby digging), which will send them wriggling down
particular tunnels, setting off particular pins. This in turn produces a
shockwave which is tuned to liquefy and collapse the exact mix of stone
and sediment the Bell is buried in. The worms will have to be replaced
afterwards as they are also liquefied by the resonance.
Panoratos Helm: Full of mirrors. Lets them see all around themselves, and make anyone looking at them meet their Maddening Gaze.
Grit Aspergillum: Filled with grit - special grit, very bad grit. Flung in drifting clouds - clouds that drift away from the flinger. Gets caught in your spiracles, gets caught in the soft joints between the hard bits of your shell - suffocates you, wears them down.
Things That Made Me Not Want To [REDACTED] Myself & Others This Winter Season
I am a nice man, with happy feelings - all of the time.
But when the weather gets colder and the days get shorter, sometimes I need to practice Mindfulness, and Manifest Gratitude, to keep that pep in my step.
(Ah! But now the seasons are turning and the birds have returned their music to the air!
"But this humanity in God [...] is natural death. 'God Himself is dead,' it says in a Lutheran hymn, expressing an awareness that the human, the finite, the fragile, the weak, the negative are themselves a moment of the divine, that they are within God Himself, that finitude, negativity, otherness are not outside of God and do not, as otherness, hinder unity with God. Otherness, the negative, is known to be a moment of the divine nature itself. [D]eath itself is this negative, the furthest extreme to which humanity as natural existence is exposed; God Himself is [involved in] this."
Music
Have been merely absorbing music by osmosis - a slow process - for a while. Decided to go out and get my own for a change. Some of what I would put as the better findings:
& some AI music courtesy of suno.com that I am too embarrassed to share - which makes this next one even funnier:
Laparotomy Soup
"Laparotomy" of course being another -otomy that begins with L, but out of respect to a dear friend I, semiurge, have changed it to a different word. I have been soaking deep in the Soup.
I'd call myself a man-child, but I'm no man, or child for that matter - I am a walking corpse too cowardly to finally lie down and die.
I had more written up for this, but I find it now unnecessary. If you know, you know - if you don't, perhaps the knowing is not for you.
The cozy glow of nostalgia draws us back down the rut of a beaten trail, but sometimes we reach it, brush that mirage away, and find what drew us back still glimmers like starlight in a vast and moonless night.
Posting My Old Drafts Into This Post
It feels GOOD to get them out. I'm not even working on most of them I'm just putting what I've already written here.
A Certain Youtuber
Again - if you know, you know.
Deep-watched his whole body of work recently. Wildly funny... even sometimes insightful. Kinda lost me by switching to making just awful vtuber stuff, but hasn't done that in a year - perhaps, if he kept up certain habits, he is dead.
I suspect that his then is similar to my now.
Saying "It Doesn't Matter" To Myself
I like to pretend I'm Owlman when I say it.
Youtube Poop
Of course you are no doubt aware of my famous series of investigative video essays, dear reader, and I intend to continue that series in the days to come, however finishing them has been like trying to complete a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle with pieces the size and colour of cinderblocks, or trying to do your A's to B's to C's and all the way down to Z's but finding your A leads to G and back around to D and someone's misplaced the middle-third letters and split W into VV.
In the meanwhile I have found enjoyment in making shorter, less well-researched, and much less effortful videos - a sampling:
My Friends :^)
Friendship, laughter, and love are three of the few things that make the endless parade of indignities that is this life tolerable.
Some Tea My Beautiful Fiancée Got Me For My Birthday
This is some bomb-ass Chinese shit. Got a tea-kettle too. I enjoy the ritual.
Editor's Note: The tea is too bomb-ass. The tea is bombing my ass. It has kept me awake for about 38(?) hours, and while I have been writing at a much faster pace than usual I was struggling to count how many hours were in a day 25 words ago.
Uhhhh, yeah, better make a U-turn bud!
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