Huisheng

There’s a great manga called Kengan Ashura, which is about a secret underground fighting organization that governs the Japanese economy and the tournament to determine its next leader. That manga has a less great sequel called Kengan Omega, which is about a lot of things yet simultaneously almost nothing.

There is however a concept in Omega which I think is worth stealing: the technique of “huisheng”, translated: "resurrection". How's it work? See below (read right to left):

So: nothing too fancy. One part autobiography to one part hypnotism, and you've got your mock-reincarnation.

 

When you think about the typical path to immortality in D&D, chances are you think about liches. I don't mind liches, the formula is simple & resilient, the imagery striking - ancient walking corpse, immense magical power, solve the puzzle of their phylactery or their return is inevitable.

HOWEVER

I think the lich-concept is deep, yet narrow - well-adapted to its niche as the dungeon boss monster, yet inflexible outside that niche, like a shark dumped into the desert.

Huisheng is broader, and for the moment shallower, but we'll work on that. It doesn't require magic, or metaphysics of souls, only some suspension of disbelief of how manipulable the human mind is - because of this it can be slotted into any genre, and fit into any character archetype. With huisheng not only wizards can be immortal, but warriors and rogues and regular-ass dudes. In Kengan Omega, the guys who use it are a clan of superhuman assassins. Its functional simplicity also lends itself to both players and DMs thinking of applications and twists to it, e.g.:

• Can a fictional person be huisheng'd into a real person?
• Can multiple huisheng's personas exist in the same person?
• How might the huisheng process interact with technology? Could you hide its indoctrination in a podcast or other media?
• Must there necessarily be a takeover of the connector by the speaker's persona? Could there be a more equitable or backseat guide relationship?
  

 Consider as well the plots and the moral or dramatic complications that could be hung on such a hook:

• The heir of a martial arts school that practices huisheng has run away. Will you return them for the favour of a centuries-old martial arts master? Is there a way to psychically prepare the heir so that they capture the master's persona instead of being overcome by it, to preserve their techniques without the oppressive legacy?
• A royal advisor, carrying the persona of a great philosopher from generations back, has held off on passing down that persona to their own student for too long, and now suffers from senility. Will you retrieve the lost writings of that philosopher to patch up the holes in their persona, and perhaps selectively edit them to ensure the huisheng creates someone allied with your goals?
• A noble family has practiced huisheng since its inception, the father passing the persona of their forefathers to their firstborn son. This generation's firstborn died in a hunting accident, the second is a drunken embarrassment, and with no clear successor the children squabble for the persona and the title and property that come with it, or to set up a rival to be destroyed by inheriting it. They're all looking to hire deniable agents.

I hope this concept is as inspiring to others as it is to me. The next time you need an immortal NPC, consider making them a pseudo-living oral tradition instead of an undead bloodsucker or whatever else.

Slush Pile 5

Secret police for secret laws - kept secret because if people knew they could be broken, they'd be incurably tempted to

You know you've entered the underworld when your compasses stop pointing North, and start pointing Down

The easiest gates to the Plane of Fire are scars - and not necessarily scars from burns - passions and flames, ashes and traumas are closely aligned - the sort of scar and the circumstances of its scarring influence what part of the Plane you enter into

Modern horror seed- urban renewal scheme (hyper-gentrification) offers devil's bargain to homeless people, free food/housing/drugs but they get vivisected & incorporated into hostile architecture to scare off & attack other "undesirables" - like Urban Alchemy but more blatant - bloodshot eyes staring from grates, raw, twitching muscles encased in concrete shell close a nook to crush the sleepers taking shelter there

Desert wine brewed from honeypot ants - a delicacy too sweet for most beyond the sands

Gross decadent delicacy: botfly larvae grown in the bodies of slaves

Drug that people think is from smoking leaf - actually from smoking the tiny caterpillar cocoons laid on the leaves - high is from connection to "imago-consciousness" that guides the caterpillar through metamorphosis

The rogue with a heart of gold literally has a heart of gold. Someone is going around stealing rogues' hearts and replacing them with gold hearts that make them decent people. They are trying to monopolize vice.

Enemies in dungeon are broken, animated statues - stompy torsos with nothing but legs, arms dragging a shoulder and silently screaming head behind them, etc. Getting a complete statue together de-enemizes them, turning the statue into a neutral, potentially friendly NPC - being broken drove them to violent madness.

One thousand origami cranes folded for a wish - the wish manifests as a dungeon made of razor-edged paper full of origami treasures & monsters - like Dave Made A Maze

Dungeons entered not by finding their physical entrance in the world, but by discovering & enacting an occult ritual - make a ring of copper mirrors that capture the light of sunset to create a gate to the Rosy Pillars

Mendicant Grasshopper - knees bent backwards, forehead pressed into the ground until the skin's flayed, bowl held up by broken arms - begging for everything you have, pursuing with great leaps

Dungeon - something like a leper colony, the inhabitants infected by a disease that warps their flesh & prolongs their life - the disease is in fact a demon, or envoy of the great old ones, or some other such malignant being, sealed within the bodies of the infected, torturing and tempting them to let it out. The colony was once exclusively a monastery of willing ascetics, but their population has been winnowed over the years and in desperation the infection was spread to others. The colony's fallen to chaos as some betrayed by this arrangement conspire to release the demon and be cured.

The Cyclopean Order's fanaticism only ever deepened in their wars against the western pagans. First they cut out their eyes to avoid the temptations of the world, then they set pieces of living stone into their brows. Did this reveal some new facet of the faith to them, or was there another reason they retreated to their fortresses, repelling all that sought an audience with them?

At "room temperature" (as universes & dimensions go), time is a liquid, ever-flowing, and terribly toxic (this toxicity is what we know as entropy). When crystallized, time becomes a hyper-cuboid arrangement of moments, the armature of which true adepts may flit along like lightning - an index of all that is or could be (more properly: a fraction of The [INDEX]). This is one of the narrow roads to infinity, though how precisely to freeze time is a matter of great contention & speculation in occulture. The Azure Pelican School of alchemists claim to possess a teardrop-chunk of crystal time at the heart of their academy.

Monster - Lost Divers - antique diving suits, tubes no longer connected to an air supply, but to something else, deep beyond in the abyssal darkness - sever the tubes and the things inside the suits will seize and mutate into non-viable forms, but take care to avoid what leaks out lest you meet the same fate.

Monster - Chitinous Cataphracts - lost in the desert, the crusaders became maddened by thirst and the relentless sun. They sought shelter within the bodies of iridescent scarabs, eating their way into the shells like worms. The scarabs were no strangers to parasites. Corrosive ichor fused human flesh to insect armour, slaved reason to unreasoning hunger.

Dung castle of the chitinous cataphracts - spherical dungeon in a big ol' ball of poo - gimmick of dungeon puzzles/navigation is constant rotation - if at first a path doesn't reveal itself, get the tilt right

Marvelous & maddening paintings made with meteorite pigment, containing the mineral-memory of what those meteorites witnessed in the darkness between the stars - murderous mystique surrounds them, an exile from the void who walks about in human skin seeks the paintings out, believing them to reveal the doorway back home

Hydra cults seeking a narrow road to infinity through the endless generation of flesh - consumption of troll-blood tinctures and many-headed mooncalves. The cults are a pyramid scheme, the lowest rungs subjected to growth and experimentation that inevitably leads to fatal errors - if they're lucky. The leaders treat these members like a garden, plucking the most promising fruits for transplantation into their own bodies.

An entire planet that's been terraformed into a gigantic record - magnetic ores seeded and tectonic plates rearranged into grooves & ridges. The sun's and planet's magnetospheres are the record player, set in motion by the circulation of days and years, broadcasting the celestial music of its eons-old message into the universe.

Mini-dungeon - a very small dungeon, perhaps inside a gooseberry blossom, but not one you shrink & enter, rather one with tiny pixie & bug-adventurers already exploring it which you may observe and help or hinder based on your observations for little treasures - the tiny adventurers may try to appeal back, with you taking the role of capricious gods

Sekolah cultists bury their dead with onyx pebbles placed in their eye sockets. You've broken into an aristocrat's mausoleum and found the pebbles on his corpse - this is very inconvenient for the cult, as it may reveal their membership and conspiracies through the decades. They've convened a hunt, put in their shark-tooth dentures, and come for you. Watch your back, and stay away from the water.

Culture quirks:
-Read omens in the colours and consistencies of their vomit. Drunkards and the seasick are oracles to them.
-All their names are unique to each person, believe you share the burden of sins of everyone else with your name. Very poor will offer to name their child after you for some bread.
-Certain taboo words, curses, names of spirits are spoken only through ventriloquism.
-Corpses are treated completely without reverence, dumped in mass graves a little ways out of town.
-Each profession and position in society has its own hairstyle, minor criminals are shaved, major criminals have their scalps scarred with acid.
-Torturing birds is a respected art form.
-Fear the moon, refer to it only by oblique euphemisms (e.g. “the silver dish we forgot after feasting”).
-Treat horses as legal free citizens, above serfs but below land-owners.
-Members choose half their name, and are assigned the other based on reputation and achievements or failures (e.g. White Lion Tumbling for a prideful yet clumsy person).
-The laws one is expected to follow depends on one’s religion. Each temple is a courthouse. Atheists are homo sacer.
-Meat is reserved for warriors. All others are expected to follow a vegetarian diet.
-Children are considered the property of their parents (or whoever their parents sell them to) until they reach adulthood.
-Alopecia is the height of attractiveness. Plucking all the hair on one’s body is a common fashion.
-Gifts of one’s own blood are exchanged between friends, often drawn by thorny vines pulled through the ears.
-Nails are lacquered with spices, and shaved into one’s meals.
-A mask is worn on one’s belt for every occasion.
-Weave all the hair they cut off into a communal braid.
-Howl to communicate over long distances.
-Believe showing one’s anger to others opens you to their curses.
-Marker of status is the wideness of one’s hat brim. Very rich have servants and tamed insects to hold up the brim of their mighty hats.
-Believe the minute characteristics of the colour and shape of the bags under one’s eyes reveal one’s personality.
-Exchange children at birth between families.
-Superstitious admiration for spiders and centipedes. Jewelry often shaped to look like species of those.
-Warriors kiss the corpses of those they kill to mollify angry ghosts.
-Believe that property can’t truly change ownership from the person who made it. Nominally make no sales, only rent what they make.
-Believe the wheel to be the most sacred of shapes.
-Refuse to gossip near bees.
-Trust nothing that comes from the southwest.
-Consume large quantities of fermented frog.
-Consider slapstick dances the height of comedy.

City quirks:
-The city’s aristocratic families live in towers carved into the dormant fruiting bodies of an enormous fungus beneath it that feeds on its waste. The timing and effect of their sporulation is the subject of perennial wild speculation, doomsaying, and conspiracy-theorizing.
-At the city’s center is an enormous, broken clocktower. Citizens instinctively match their pace to its irregular ticking, and visitors are subconsciously tripped up by it.
-The city’s built on swampland, and plagued by biting insects. Buildings are mandated to have sufficient space within their walls to house bats, which are venerated as little medicinal deities.
-The killing of animals is forbidden within its walls. Abattoirs cluster around ramshackle colosseums where animals are goaded into slaying each other for corpses to harvest and the amusement of the crowds.
-The punishment for every crime committed within is a term of slavery under the municipal government, from a perfunctory moment in shackles to a lifetime
-The roads seem to be paved with cobblestones, but these are in fact a sort of snail that has evolved to live like coral. They feed mainly off the city’s dumped waste.
-The main wall is in fact a petrified giant curled up in the fetal position.

Astronomical puzzle based on orrery or teleportation changing the position of stars relative to you the observer, and you noticing that the hemisphere shown has changed and how

Modern horror monster - mummy wrapped up in VCR tape, a public access TV cult icon killed literally or figuratively by more advanced media - monster exists in its limited, recorded routine, can "regenerate" damage by "rewinding" or "fast-forwarding" to a part of its routine wherein it's whole, but this limits its future actions.

A fateful venom - coveted by death-fearing fools - is the only thing that can kill those injected with it. All other wounds and ills are suffered, but their lethal effects are held at bay. The venom is beyond agonizing, and takes its sweet time to wrap up.

Dungeon - Devil's got a riverboat with a boiler that burns up damned souls - monsters & merchants & other NPCs are those tempted aboard the boat into a diabolical bargain - find the loophole in the deal to set them free and solve encounters without violence, saving that for the big red man himself

In the secret language of sorcerers, a gift of an air mephit docked of its wings is a warning that the recipient is rising too far in their ambitions - like Icarus, they are advised to fly within their proper bounds

Calendar ghouls are what remains of a cabal of blasphemous mages who attempted to expand on God's design on their own eighth day of creation: Savarach. The attempt failed catastrophically, the day exploded into slivers of seconds and minutes and hours, and the mages became unstuck from time, lost in mazes of potential and eddies of unreality. Only on certain eves and equinoxes do the stars align and allow them to walk the world, preying on history itself to sustain their presence.

There slumbers the serpent

It dreams of an egg

The egg is the dream

Cradled in cold coils

From the egg it emerges

Tongue tasting itself

For the serpent is being and void

The serpent is all that could be tasted

And all that could not

In hunger the serpent devours

And is devoured

And slumbers

And dreams

Who is reciting this?

-DNA is a record of the history of organisms, and of the organism-of-organisms from which all spring. Merrshaulk is an idea, or an entity, or an energy, or something beside or including all the above. Organisms which come into contact with Merrshaulk have their DNA twisted from a double helix to an ouroboros, and are reborn as yuan-ti.

Slave revolt passes around occult knowledge of how to weave silicate-edged long grasses into swords - razor-sharp, yet breaking after a handful of uses - who among the fattened masters could believe that grass could be a threat, let alone slaves?

Deer were cursed to shed their antlers after their season by a god of the hunt who feared what they'd become. Insulated from divine influence, a stag will grow a tree of antlers, a mountain of horns - with time, tines to pierce the moon, and bathe the world in its silvery blood.

The exorcists of Tumeld-Maer are, in their final initiation, placed in a coffin and buried in the dirt. Once the worms gain a taste for them, they are disinterred and granted their license. Thereafter they may spill some blood upon bare earth and call upon the worms to devour those less favoured.

Noble prisoners were kept in the highest towers of the prison, in cells too narrow to lie down in - if the prisoners leaned to rest, the circling ravens would peck at their flesh through the window-bars. The prisoners made promises to the winds, and bargained with the King of Birds, trading eyes and hands and cleverness away for comfort. From this exchange, harpies were born.

Thomas Edison, after the failure of his spirit-phone, produced a batch of lightbulbs with filaments of corpse-hair. The illumination of these bulbs was said to be able to pass through the veil of lower dimensions and into the afterlife, a wavelength that shuddered along axes we can't conceive of. Though the bulbs largely disappear from the historical record after Edison's death, credible testimony suggests G. H. W. Bush consulted with a box of them before participating in the assassination of J. F. Kennedy.

Of the frost-giants and their wintry palaces nothing more remains - save for the braids of their white beards, woven into belts by their conquerors.

The cathedral of the hunters has for its hall and arches the ribcage of the great dragon which was their worthiest prey - its descendants, much-shrunken kobolds, fetch wine up and down the pews, and whisper of fiery vengeance.

"This is not a place of honour
The honour of this place is yet to be won
Something man-made is here, and it is dangerous
The danger was not sufficient for our time
If you are not us, it will be sufficient for yours
The danger will be unleashed only if you are worthy
Worthy by the standards of our culture
We considered ourselves the greatest culture of our time
Our culture will live again in the one that unleashes the danger"
-Inscription around the base of the Headless Mountain (repeating, many antecedent-languages)

Only werewolves transform with the cycles of the moon - other were-beasts follow other cycles, and not necessarily celestial ones. Werelions change with the rising and setting of the sun, werebears with the seasons of glutting and fasting, wereleeches with the spilling of blood into the earth, and wereravens with the echoes of the calling of their dead god, to name a few.

Magic item - a sledgehammer which when slammed against a surface creates cracks that are rifts to a rather unpleasant plane - the grey wastes or the nine hells or whatever - not necessarily a direct weapon, but one that creates potentially ruinous environmental hazards.

Magic item - a mace with flanges that are butterfly wings in stained glass - whatever it kills, whatever it smashes, becomes a cocoon that will someday hatch into a random organism or item - not all beneficial.

Kuo-toa, sahuagin, locathah - a lot of fish-men... maybe each is more like a different sect that a different species? Locathahs are hippie-ish, live and let live, come and go with the tides, kuo-toa are fanatically, individualistically totemic, each finding the object representing their highest self, sahuagin have a militaristic-monastic order of consumption, or whatever.

Hags make a ritualistic drink not totally dissimilar to kuchikamizake, made from the flesh of children they've fattened on candy, chewed up, and spat into cauldrons.

In the foothills of the Appalachians there's a tower of tin and spiraling copper, a spindle that weaves striking lightning into shining fabric. The electrochemical operations of brains within range of this spindle get caught up in its work, becoming tessellated in its tapestry. A mind thus caught might experience a million years in a moment, compressed into nigh-instantaneous arc and branch. In this way one of the narrow roads to infinity might be laid.

A wizard killed in the middle of casting a spell with somatic components might have their hands twist off their wrists and become a particularly perverse kind of crawling claw - ones which constantly perform profane mudras and forms for themselves a lair of chaotic magic.

Degenerate gnomes who live in the pouches of imported marsupials - these guys are sickos.

Dungeon - an Amazon distribution center, of the multiverse - ally with the nascent union to defy the interdimensional overlords, navigate shelves stuffed with horrors from beyond

D100+ Phantasmagoric Fey, or: A Generator in the Style of Unlawful Games

Like so: https://www.unlawful.games/

D2: What Is This Fey's Court?

1. Seelie - diurnal, generous, honourable, tempting

2. Unseelie - nocturnal, spiteful, deceitful, grotesque

D4: What Is This Fey's Sort?

1. Trooping - travel in long processions, usually driven by internal intrigues

2. Solitary - live alone, unpredictable, tied to natural features

3. Domesticated - cleave close to humanity, live in the household, the city, the festival and the market

4. Changeling - was raised by humans, might still think of themself as one

D6: What Is This Fey's Season?

1. Spring - flighty, verdant, amourous

2. Summer - fiery, harsh, immediate

3. Autumn - dry, witty, macabre

4. Winter - cold, deathly, patient

5. Wet - soaked, overwhelming, unstable

6. Dry - cracked, hungry, wheezy

D8: What Is This Fey's True Form (Or Is It)?

1. Willowy & strangely beautiful

2. Ogreish

3. Animalistic

4. Hunched & wizened

5. Pintsize

6. A dryadic conglomeration of physical elements

7. An airy spirit, a living wind

8. Purely sensory - a song, a perfume, a prickle up the back of the neck, or an orb of uncanny light

D10: What Is This Fey's Outward Demeanour?

1. Chivalrous

2. Tricksy

3. Bumbling

4. Predatory

5. Imperious

6. Sugary

7. Mad

8. Archetypal

9. Poetic

10. Weepy

D12: What Does This Fey Desire?

1. Sweets and treats

2. To stir up drama using mortals as playthings

3. To shake up the musty old order of courts and seasons

4. To be the authour of a story that will last until the end of time

5. To make mortals more like the fey, and the fey more like mortals

6. To complete a journey to the end of the earth

7. The humiliation of a rival

8. To make mortals properly respect and fear the dark and the wild

9. To become (in)famous

10. Even they're not really sure, but they're trying a bit of everything to figure it out

11. Children, lots of children, their own or anyone else's will do

12. To keep their kind from diminishing into mere folklore

D20: What Is This Fey's Magical Specialty?

1. Curses

2. Blessings

3. Shapeshifting

4. Illusions

5. Commanding animals

6. Scrying

7. Charms and other such enchantments of the mind

8. Laying geases on people and things

9. Crafting magic items

10. Going about invisibly, and slipping in to where they shouldn't be

11. Raising up the unforgiven dead

12. Finding secret paths, and getting others lost

13. Controlling plants

14. Manipulating the weather

15. Calling up vermin, spoiling foods, and mustering molds and mildews

16. Music that can make stones dance and lions weep

17. Altering the flow of time

18. Supernatural swordsmanship

19. Warping space

20. Inflicting sleep and weaving dreams

D100 Quirks

1. Their true name was guessed by a simple-minded farmhand, who they must now serve as a familiar.

2. Is an angel that couldn't pick a side between God and the devil, and so is stuck on Earth between them.

3. Is bound to ask a riddle of everyone they meet, and reward them if they get it right or trounce them if they get it wrong.

4. Most of their memories have been sealed away, and they've misplaced the key to unlock them.

5. Their friends have been trapped as characters in a storybook, and they're on a quest to get them out.

6. They're the heir of a mighty fey aristocrat, and they're fleeing the yoke of leadership that awaits them.

7. They're addicted to snorting dustbunnies.

8. Owes a teind of souls to Hell because of a very poorly thought-out bet.

9. Their reflection is out to get them.

10. They traded shadows with a dragon, and now their shadow looks like a dragon's and can breath out clouds of utter darkness.

11. They wear all clothing inside-out and backwards.

12. Really sucks at metaphors but insists on using them constantly.

13. They're the fairy godparent of a reckless young adventurer.

14. Their best friend is a dormouse they carry around in their pocket.

15. Can play their own hair like harp-strings

16. Mute, speaks only in the language of flowers

17. Madly in love with the moon

18. Terrified by the sound of church bells

19. Has a golden comb that can tie knots into anything. Anything.

20. Forced to speak in rhymes

21. Has a teapot with a literal tempest trapped inside it

22. Kidnapped a baby to trade away to goblins, but became too enamoured with the child and is now trying to raise them right.

23. Can't lie, except by omission and implication

24. Has an iron shackle locked around their ankle. They can't remove it themself, and are too prideful to ask for help with it.

25. Wears a hat made from the cup of an over-sized acorn.

26. Farms mushrooms as a hobby - views fairy rings as an inefficient use of space

27. Turns to stone in direct sunlight, trapped thusly until nightfall

28. Wears a broach shaped like a four-leaf clover that grants them great luck

29. Can detach and reattach their own head freely

30. Very smug about having been present for various historical events, and knowing the truth about them that wasn't recorded

31. The nastier they feel the uglier they become

32. Poses as a playwright who airs out fey scandals in popular theater

33. They're particularly magnetic, and so can find North anywhere, yet are confused by the presence of ferromagnetic materials

34. Married a witch and promised to share their immortality with their spouse, and was trapped in a birdcage for it

35. Ages backwards

36. Must accept any challenge to and wager on a fair game

37. Accidentally started a cult

38. Acts as a muse to artists

39. Regardless of their form or disguise, will always have a wild lock of white hair

40. Is compelled to flee from a crowing rooster

41. Rides a unicorn around, is very pleased with that fact, decorates it with many colourful ribbons

42. Complete sociopath, but very good actor

43. Can only be truly harmed by slapstick comedy

44. Has been sentenced to death by being crushed by eggshells for the crime of tickling foxes

45. Has made a pact with an ambitious aspiring warlock to teach them magic

46. A merchant of esoteric goods like "a mouse's footfall" and "a alder's whispers".

47. Used to know how to spin straw into gold, can still sometimes spin it into copper or silver, but other times only manages to spin it into worms and centipedes

48. Has spiders' legs for fingers, and can scramble up any surface

49. Has a taste for human flesh, but a moral objection to killing them for it

50. Has no comprehension of good or evil, instead sees beauty as good and ugliness as evil

51. Experiences boredom as physical agony, constantly seeking new entertainment as a result

52. They're cobbled together from stolen bits and pieces of other people and things, and suffer bouts of chaotic whims from their many components

53. Is obsessed with acting like a knight and finding a worthy squire

54. Breed toads that can croak every note and tone as a hobby

55. Their heart was broken many years ago and they're still trying to find all the pieces

56. Their mother is a banshee and taught them her lethal wail

57. Leaves hoofprints instead of footprints regardless of their form

58. Can place a glamour over your eyes that lets you see things as they truly are, but they'll come some time in the future to collect your eyes as payment

59. Was born from an idle wish, and is bound to fulfill it

60. Has an identical twin who is sometimes so similar to them it seems as though they share a mind, and other times seems to be their exact opposite in every way

61. Is affected by gravity in reverse, and so walks on ceilings and wears a scarf that bears them down with lead fishing weights hooked through it

62. Causes peoples' teeth to itch whenever they're near

63. Was cursed to only sleep in chimneys on beds made of soot

64. Knows when and where anyone speaks their name

65. Is pursuing an exquisite revenge against a mortal king who broke a promise to them

66. Unable to comprehend the use of any tool or device worked by human hands

67. Tramples enigmatic patterns into crop fields

68. Insists on being referred to by their elaborate and impressive-sounding but ultimately minor title every time they're personally addressed

69. Is revealed to be hollow when seen from the back

70. Can't use their magic to affect anyone who's ever seen their face, so they go about masked or veiled

71. Was exiled from the otherworld for a faux pas and is desperately trying to earn their way back

72. Carries a bag with them that is at all times cinched shut. Should anyone look inside the bag, they will be too spooked to ever speak of what they saw.

73. Wears a pair of earwigs as earrings

74. Very credulous, can be convinced that a great many ridiculous things are true with a little effort

75. Is a pro at flyting, and will engage in it at the flimsiest excuse

76. Is in fact an extraterrestrial. Their apparent magic is in fact wonderfully advanced technology.

77. Can't pass through a doorway that's warded with a horseshoe

78. Thinks paintings and statues of people really are people, and is always confused when they don't respond

79. Have underdeveloped reasoning skills, and struggle with conventional math and logic

80. They're secretly an informant for the wild hunt

81. Doesn't understand death, and has become unwitting partners with a serial killer who they believe to be a mere prankster

82. Has lived long enough that everything is as predictable and boring to them as soap operas

83. Lives halfway in a hallucinatory reality of their own imagination

84. Has wings like a butterfly's which give off magic dust. Anyone who's got that dust can fly so long as they're thinking flighty thoughts.

85. Can listen and talk through pinecones as though they were telephones

86. Wears a dress made of swarming bees

87. Must pay back insults and compliments three times over

88. Is a psychic vampire who feeds on emotions

89. Would disintegrate into mist if they ever stepped foot on holy ground

90. Has a castle in a cloud, but hasn't been able to keep up with its maintenance

91. Has plentiful piercings made from rose-thorns

92. Can be summoned by running widdershins thrice in a row around a church

93. Entertains themself by acting as children's imaginary friend

94. Flies into a rage if thanked for anything

95. Tries to keep up on modern slang, fails miserably

96. Is tasked with monitoring various crises so that a legendary hero sleeping in the otherworld can be awakened to address the biggest one

97. Enjoys tricking people into thinking they're prophesied heroes and sending them on wild goose chase quests

98. Is drunk normally, but becomes more sober the more alcohol they drink

99. Always says the opposite of what they mean

100. Will die if they're disbelieved in by mortals

D6x6 Abuzz Abeils

Getting one of these done is like pushing a sliver out of my brain.

Click the button below for your very own abeils:

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

D6	These abeils have
1	luxuriously fluffy black-and-yellow fur.
2	elongated false-stingers worn like codpieces would be for humans.
3	psychedelic patterns made by sticking fistfuls of dry pigments to their setae like pollen would.
4	bare black exoskeletons, inlaid with gold. The more gold lines their exoskeleton has, the higher their status is.
5	iridescent blue-green exoskeletons.
6	antennae bound so they grow into intricate symmetrical symbols.

D6	These abeils communicate with humans
1	by hiring of a perfumers' guild who have noses sensitive enough to interpret their pheromones as translators.
2	using a special "mediator" caste, bred and raised to be the ideal intermediates between the two species.
3	through a highly formalized regional dance tradition that mimics their own waggle dance language.
4	only with great difficulty, through rough barter, violence, or avoidance.
5	with a simple gestural language that can be spoken regardless of its speaker's limbs or digits.
6	through addicts of the mind-altering mead fermented from their honey, who become sensitive to the abeils' collective consciousness.

D6	These abeils' hive
1	has been enticing (and sometimes coercing) human engineers and architects to come and grant it cutting-edge style and amenities.
2	has been infiltrated by parasites that mimic them near-flawlessly, giving rise to an air of paranoia.
3	is partitioned throughout by quarantine measures to prevent the spread of a fatal fungal infection.
4	was built in the ruins that a modern kingdom claims as its own heritage. That kingdom is now verging to war to push the abeils out.
5	is old, and in dire need of repairs due to the previous queen's negligence.
6	was accidentally constructed according to principles of ultraterrestrial sacred geometry, and is now lodged halfway into another plane.

D6	These abeils' queen
1	is young, inexperienced, and beset on all sides by scheming advisors.
2	sees herself as a benevolent conqueror, bringing harmony to benighted mammals.
3	is a jaded and unpleasant crone who stirs drama among her subjects for her own amusement.
4	was just assassinated, and now the hive is riven by her princesses' power struggle.
5	is a recent and zealous convert to an evangelical faith, and has alienated much of her hive's population pushing moral reforms on them.
6	is a strict micro-manager obsessed with optimizing all the hives' processes, losing sight of the greater spirit of rulership.

D6	These abeils' honey
1	is produced from meat instead of pollen, and accelerates natural healing as well as building muscle mass.
2	has a delicate yet complex taste that makes it a highly sought-after commodity.
3	can reanimate corpses interred in it as sticky mummies.
4	concentrates the stimulant compounds found in the blue flowers which grow near their hive, and can grant energy, wakefulness, and even a heart attack when consumed.
5	can be exactingly refined to make amber gemstones, which they use as diplomatic gifts.
6	is mixed with their wax to make candles that have a soporifically calming aroma.

D6	These abeils are rumoured to
1	fly out at night and kidnap men to sate their inhumanly feminine lusts upon.
2	have a great stock of gold which they mix into the royal jelly they feed their prospective queens.
3	have taught humanity the secret of city-building in an attempt to make them eusocial and hive-dwelling too.
4	be the descendants of an empress cursed for her ruinous hunger for honey-cakes.
5	be the true cause of tinnitus - the noise one hears is their distant buzzing.
6	inject their consciousnesses into those they sting, and thereby psychically replace human elites.

You Are Approached By An Upset Redditor...

Special thanks to the mass hysteria of the GLOG server for this post. Special apologies to people who come to this blog expecting posts of substance and good taste. Those are definitely still coming, eventually, just had to get this one out of my system.

How do you respond?:

Move Over Lovecraft, This Is The Modern Horror/Sci-Fi/Fantasy Setting Now

https://www.reddit.com/r/ElectricUniverse/

https://www.reddit.com/r/SaturnStormCube/

https://www.reddit.com/r/EscapingPrisonPlanet/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Tartaria/

https://www.reddit.com/r/CulturalLayer

https://www.reddit.com/r/Humanoidencounters/

https://www.reddit.com/r/HighStrangeness/

Dicember Days 11-15: Forest, Help, Food, Ooze, Snow

It's this.

11. Forest

What's the deal with this fantastical forest? (1d8):

1. Bucolic and manicured. Stalked by the velveteen playmates of a child who lived here long ago. They want you to stay and play forever,
2. Abundant in nuts, berries, and game-birds. The domain of a lordly leshy. The squirrels are his peasants, the owls and wolves his knights. Demands the respect due to one of his station, and punishes poachers terribly.
3. Metallic bark, brilliantly colourful leaves that wave without wind. Actually a species of land-coral that feeds with magnetism, catching particles from the air. Silver-scaled fish dart through the invisible currents.
4. The trees grow so high their boughs drink in the clouds. Many layers have formed, each with their own particular ecosystem. The forest floor is a lightless, root-choked abyss where predatory slimes and glow-lure anglers lurk.
5. Barren, charcoal trunks part to smoking branches. There was a fire that blazed through here, a fire that never left. It lives within the trees now, sustains them. They have no need for the sun. They eat roasted meat.
6. The forest was once an entire city created by tree shaping. Its wildlife evolved from the former pets of its inhabitants, and their feral descendants.
7. The trees grow ramrod straight, their branches growing out in crosses at perfect 90° angles. Vines entwine themselves into ropes, and creepily intelligent monkeys make their nests among them. The place was created as the ideal raw materials to build a fleet, but was taken over by pirate-ents.
8. Growing atop an ancient battlefield. Its leaves hold the bold patterns of banners, its trees sprout around frameworks of yellowed bone. After nightfall, ghosts of the desperate, deranged, and damned shriek with the wind.

12. Help

S.O.S. Aboard the S.S. Lady Susan, an oceanic encounter for modern games

The Hook

An S.O.S., coordinates in Morse code, and distorted snippets of Mariah Carey's hit 1993 song Dreamlover insert themselves into radio and TV broadcasts in your local area. The coordinates are near enough that if you had a boat you could beat anyone else there if you left now. Could be good salvage.

Or you simply come across the S.S. Lady Susan while already out on the water.

Or you're hired by Mayor Brummelstroete to make sure his mistress is really dead.

The Situation

The S.S. Lady Susan is shrouded in an unseasonable thunderstorm.

St. Elmo's fire glows on the Lady Susan's highest points.

If any metal surface on your boat makes contact with a metal surface on the Lady Susan, everything electronic on it stops working.

If you come onto the boat with any device with audio capabilities, it repeats the sounds from the first hook. Outgoing calls are replaced with the same. Video devices display a woman sprawled in a hot tub, with a green tint and heavy static.

Weird Shit

Every ten minutes spent on the Lady Susan, roll on the table below (1dX):

1. Frizzling static build-up. Electricity visibly snakes across metal surfaces. The next person to touch one take 1 damage.
2. Metal on the yacht resonates, emanating Mariah Carey music as if sung by a swarm of cicadas. Everyone on board is deafened for the next 10 minutes.
3. A random verse from the Bible is recited rapidly over the speakers in Morse code.
4. Pale green phantoms flash into existence around you for scant moments, men in suits and women in cocktail dresses, all partying hard as only people on a yacht can.
5. An abnormal wave strikes the yacht. Anyone standing must save or trip into whatever's beside them.
6. Roll 4d4, or  1-16 in a random number generator. Whichever letter that number corresponds to in the alphabet gets hit by lightning, and everyone within takes 2d6 damage. If three rooms get hit, the whole yacht starts sinking.

The S.S. Lady Susan

A: If you're in a dinghy or comparable boat you're probably only going to be able to get on from here, unless you've got a grappling hook. I'm not sure though, not a yacht expert.

B: Beneath the bar's lip are a baggy containing $500 worth of cocaine, a deck of cards, and stack of post-it notes with the numbers of Mayor Brummelstroete's various mistresses, drug dealers, and other illicit contacts written on it.

C: A stripper pole's been screwed into the table here, and faint green holograms of dollar bills float around it. Up and down the length of the pole there's stuck cutlery, a skillet, and coins. On the TV facing the table an episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is on, though visual distortions like cigarette burns cover the faces of the people on it. The TV will directly address anyone who watches it, tailoring its questions to their personal life. If they answer it with a lie, a smattering of objects stuck to the pole will shoot off in their direction like a blunderbuss.

D: A pair of flickering, pale green phantoms, one sitting on the toilet, head in its hands, the other standing and berating it in wordless angry tones. If you intrude on the bathroom, after a few moments you must save or take the place of whichever phantom you most resemble at that time. Striking either phantom makes you take 1d4 damage from electrical shock and disperses both. Breaking the scene's "script" does the same without any damage.

E: Windows broken, fish flopping around on floor, crackling with electricity. The fish are attracted to active electrical outputs and life (in that order) and attack like a swarm of piranhas. Not particularly quick or graceful, but have zombie-like tenacity. Little hole burned through roof. The bath in the room is steaming, and at its bottom is a misshapen, iridescent chunk of metal. It tingles when held, and while you've got it with you you skip any rolls on the Weird Shit table.

F: Duffel bag containing an unregistered handgun, a change of clothes, an empty syringe, an opened pack of alcohol wipes, and a few drivers licenses with different names and details but pictures of the same guy (the guy in L). The handle to operate the crane to move the boat into the water has a scorched layer of skin stuck to it.

G: Mattress turned over, slashed up. Smattering of condoms on the bedframe, stuffing and a bear trap poking out of the mattress. Examining the far wall reveals a minuscule hole drilled in it with a camera peeking behind. The camera's got footage of quite a few important political and economic figures in compromising, even criminal positions.

H: A pair of service/support staff neatly shot in the head and stashed away.

I: Corpse of a once-handsome young man set on the bed, beat to shit, forearms slit wrist to elbow, sheets crusted with blood. Photograph of him and Brummelstroete's mistress in flagrante delicto on the bedside table, their faces burned out with a cigarette. The first person to approach too close will have the corpse lunge at them and lock up in rigour mortis strangling them. In the corpse's pocket is a harmonica. Playing the harmonica will soothe the harsher effects of any phenomena or creatures so exposed.

J: Captain's room (I think, again, not a yacht expert). Stinks of burnt plastic. Totally inoperable, Levers, buttons, wheel, and any other moveable parts are fused in place. On the tables are books by Anton Lavey, Aleister Crowley, Helena Blavatsky, and the like. Spending some time searching through the books finds a listening bug (now burnt out) hidden in one, and a cut-out compartment containing rosary beads in another.

K: A one-armed skeleton with blackened strips of flesh clinging to it lounges on the couch, smoking a cigar. If someone approaches it, the skeleton will stand up, walk towards them, and point its remaining hand at them. One round later, that hand will explode, dealing 1d6 damage to everyone nearby. The skeleton will continue to approach, and the next time it detonates it's whole arm will go, dealing 2d6 damage. Its final detonation deals 3d6 damage, and totally destroys the skeleton. Towards the stairs there's a hole burned in floor, leaking steam.

L: Stocky guy with a Ukrainian accent squatting on couch, sobbing, one arm hanging limp, polyester sweater molten in places, eyes burnt shut. He believes that touching the floor will kill him, and that anyone talking is the voice of the devil tempting him into death. He's got a knife. He was one of the first people Brummelstroete hired to kill his mistress. Doesn't know much about what's going on besides the danger, saw a falling star hit the yacht, will do just about anything to escape.

Keys to the right jetski in room N are stuck in the couch cushions.

There's a line that looks a lot like a lower-case l just beneath the J. Ignore that, I didn't put that there.

M: The whole outside bridge deck area smells like overcooked pork. There's some half-finished drinks, one spiked with rohypnol. A cleaver lies on the table. Getting too close requires a save. Failure causes your arm to be taken over, which then tries to grab the cleaver and kill those around you, and then yourself. While active in this fashion the cleaver spits off green sparks. Grounding it like you would any electrical device ends the effect. The closed barbecue holds most of a human arm, charred to a crisp.

N: The jet ski on the left is messed up by electrical discharge. Keys in the ignition, but turn them and the thing goes kaboom. The one on the right's still good to go.

Examining the treadmill will reveal a gold and sapphire necklace caught in its mechanism worth $5,000.

O: Behind the counter are liquor bottles containing moaning, malformed, gelatinous homunculi. Opening or smashing them causes the homunculi to revert to the fluid they're made of. Left alone, they'll mature into mentally capable adult forms. They're worth quite a lot to the discriminating buyer. In the bathroom there's a hostile puke slime attracted to noise. Stat as a small black pudding.

P: Woman's corpse floating in the hot tub, veins faintly glowing green. Wires have grown like tree roots out of the sides and into its spine. Trying to cut or remove the wires will cause the entire yacht to lurch into a slow death-roll. Playing the harmonica from the man in room I, promising to avenge the woman on Brummelstroete, or the like will unravel the plasmatic symbiosis and allow her peace, ending all unnatural effects on the Lady Susan.

13. Food

As has been said sufficiently elsewhere, the little moments in a game can be as meaningful as the big ones - maybe it's only the little moments giving room and contrast to the big ones that the latter even can become meaningful. When going out to slay the dragon, take care not to forget what your party's eating together at camp. Here's some ideas:

The iron rations available here are (1d8):
1. Pemmican
2. Parched corn
3. Salt fish
4. Wax-sealed blocks of hard cheese
5. Dried lentils
6. Pots of brine and pickled vegetables
7. Desiccated apples, brown and wrinkled
8. Nuts and seeds

The regular rations available here are (1d8):
1. Links of hard sausages
2. Honeyed beef jerky
3. Loaves of dense bread
4. Butter and biscuits
5. Oatcakes
6. Muktuk
7. Hardboiled eggs, kept in-shell
8. Dry rice

The luxury rations available here are (1d8):
1. Gourd containing its own deliciously stewed innards, mixed with black pudding.
2. Spiced and sweetened hams
3. Mushrooms stuffed with minced meat
4. Roasted songbirds stuffed with syrup
5. Candied flowers and cream
6. Cured fish roe wrapped in breaded seaweed
7. Conches boiled in soup stock within their own shells
8. Whole suckling pig, fried in its mother's fat

14. Ooze

The cult of the God in the Keg are renowned and reviled for their generousity, spontaneity, irascibility, and over-sincerity. They are all terribly fond of drinking, and attract those terribly fond of drinking to them. The cult knows the secrets of brewing not just grains and tubers, but flesh, jewels, dreams, and stranger things still. Of these secret brews they share only a few outside the cult. The most infamous of these is ooze-booze, brewed from the endless variety of the underworld's slimes (1d10):

1. Mustard Mead: Tastes like a moment of sickening sweetness followed by a hit of unbearable spiciness. Your burps and flatulence become toxic while you're drunk on it, those who get a whiff of the same must save or take 1d6 damage and be stunned a round retching.
2. Ochre Old Ale: Tastes of citrus and a chemical you can't quite place. While drunk on it, if you would take a killing blow you can save, and if you succeed you split into two, one part dying and the other getting away at half size and half max HP.
3. Olive Ouzo: Tastes like liquorice and unwashed vegetables. While buzzed on it you gain an enhanced sense for vibrations, letting you pinpoint moving creatures within 30 feet. When trashed on it this range extends to 60 feet.
4. Green Gulp: Lumpy texture, tastes like avocado. While drunk on it your sweat becomes corrosive. While in a hot environment or after strenuous physical activity you can deal 1 damage on contact or melt through an inch of metal or wood after ten minutes of close contact.
5. Slithering Sip: Tastes like bacon and pomegranates. Odd texture, like slurping amoebic noodles. Vomit it out at a target and it'll briefly animate and seek them out. You'll immediately sober up, and if it gets in their mouth they'll get as drunk as you were off it.
6. Flareater Flagon: Tastes like caramel, sticky, leaves a tingling sensation on the tongue. While you're drunk on it, you can spit on any non-magical fire or other source of light to extinguish it instantly.
7. Snowflake Cider: Tastes like sour raspberries and stains the lips blue. You remain a comfortably cool temperature as long as you're drunk off it, and the condensation that forms on you lets you escape grapple and bonds as if you'd had a Grease spell cast on you.
8. Crystal Chicha: Refreshing as the first glass of water during a hangover, crisp and tangy. While buzzed on it you can breath underwater, but every thirty minutes doing so gets you as drunk as if you'd just had a glass of wine.
9. Stone Sato: Gritty texture. Tastes of smoked leather. While drunk on it and not moving you become camouflaged to match your environment. If passed out on it, the camouflage becomes near-perfect.
10. Black Bitter Ale: Tastes like old, over-steeped coffee. While drunk on it you become able to go totally limp and flexible. You can fit through any opening that could fit your skull, and take half damage from bludgeoning.

15. Snow

What's the snow around here like? (1d10):
1. Crust of ice on top, fluffy below
2. Brown and slushy
3. Streaked with yellow
4. Piled high but not densely, you can fall right in
5. Half-melted and crystallizing, a rainbow on the ground dazzling with all the spectrum's colours.
6. Gathered up into rough pellets like cold and grating gravel.
7. Blown up by the wind into precarious peaks and dunes.
8. Scattered with splinters of hoarfrost, almost painful to walk through.
9. Pocked with rounded dimples, a little hibernating creature placed in the center of each.
10. Molded into abstract, off-putting sculptures as if by the hands of some fey child.