D20x5 Cyberpunk Megacorporations

Click the button below for a megacorporation of your very own:

& perhaps your megacorporation needs a name?: http://archonsmarchon.blogspot.com/2020/07/d100-company-names.html

Special thanks to Spwack for making the generator generator used to make this: http://meanderingbanter.blogspot.com/2018/10/automatic-list-to-html-translator-v2.html

D20	This megacorporation is known for
1	biotech and augmented agriculture.
2	vertically-integrated heavy industry.
3	nanotech and precision microfacturing.
4	media and social influence.
5	artificial intelligence.
6	surveillance networks and spy drones.
7	total immersion virtual reality games.
8	building and managing everything from luxury condos to slums.
9	outfitting and deploying private military contractors.
10	producing sex toys and robotic companions.
11	providing private security services and leasing the forced labour of their private prisons.
12	rocketry and asteroid mining.
13	narco-subscriptions and health insurance.
14	automated transportation and delivery.
15	resource extraction and processing.
16	cosmetic surgery and elective augmentation.
17	financial innovations and failed state looting.
18	patent trolling.
19	telecommunications.
20	sustainable energy monopolization.

D20	This megacorporation has been implicated in
1	lethal human experimentation.
2	chattel slavery.
3	immense bribery and government corruption.
4	sponsoring terrorists.
5	collusion with foreign powers.
6	trafficking children.
7	uplifting animals to sapience to create workers without even the pretence of human rights.
8	simulating full human consciousnesses to subject them to inhuman product and marketing tests.
9	gene-tweaking populations with engineered retroviruses to make people better consumers.
10	arming both sides of a culture war.
11	ethnic cleansing.
12	a far-reaching criminal conspiracy.
13	sticking dissidents in a technologically-enabled hell on earth where they’re made to suffer well beyond the capacity of natural biology.
14	dealing illegal recreational neuromods.
15	research & development of potential existential threats.
16	a scheme to regress civilization to a feudal serfdom model.
17	mass-hacking archives to rewrite history to their liking.
18	assassinations of individuals opposing their interests.
19	backing gang leaders and warlords to create a power vacuum it could then fill.
20	a catastrophic geoengineering project.

D20	However, nobody really cares about that because
1	this megacorporation has a diverse board of directors and will never let you forget it.
2	this megacorporation has whistleblowers murdered.
3	caring would negatively impact your career prospects.
4	the gigs this megacorporation offers are marginally better than their competitors’.
5	they’ll never have the power to do anything about it anyways.
6	caring about megacorporate crimes would seem like communism, and communism is an ideo-brand with strong gatekeeping and a high price barrier to entry these days.
7	this megacorporation resettles climate refugees (into work camps).
8	caring would be whataboutism - don’t you know nation-states perpetrated and continue to perpetrate far worse crimes?!
9	caring would be evidence of being influenced by foreign powers - perhaps even a paid troll.
10	the megacorporation’s HR lingo is so advanced they’ve convinced people that the awful things they do are good, actually.
11	doing so will get you banned from all social media and other online platforms.
12	the megacorporation’s giving out lootboxes to people who “combat the misinformation” of their crimes.
13	there’s so much information and context for that information out there it’s impossible to sift through what’s a manufactured psy-op or not.
14	they’re convinced that extinction is right around the corner so nothing matters anyways.
15	the private sphere can do no wrong - it’s all reactions to market incentives - only the state can be evil.
16	they’ve probably got serious dirt on you too - no stones in the glass house of the panopticon.
17	moral nihilism is really big these days.
18	the big new videogame just came out.
19	the news cycle moved on to the next big thing almost instantaneously.
20	there’s bigger problems these days.

D20	The executives of this megacorporation
1	take Protestant work ethic and self-denial to a cultish extreme.
2	pepper their speech with bubbly self-help jargon.
3	are an extended clan put in their positions by a web of nepotism.
4	take their orders from a secret proprietary AI. They’re chosen for their skill as digital wardens rather than business acumen.
5	have had their consciences surgically removed.
6	wear mask-screens that project the face of their focus group tested mascot character.
7	practice quaint old-school nationalism.
8	are all clones of its autophilic founder.
9	spend as much time as possible regressed to infancy in artificial womb-tanks - they believe this promotes longevity and flexibility of thought.
10	worship it as a deity, believing the megacorporation to be the modern incarnation of some neopagan god.
11	go on a yearly company retreat wherein the lowest performers are hunted for sport by the rest.
12	are recruited and promoted based on genetic testing.
13	are expected to maintain perfectly manicured, virtue-signalling public personas. Many need to have their identities prior to joining the megacorporation erased. Most have become experts at subtly destroying their enemies.
14	get all their calories, nutrients, and hydration from constant IV drips.
15	are required by their contracts to never step foot off corporate property, spending their lives in self-contained and -sustaining crèches.
16	have bombs implanted in their skulls that can be remotely detonated by the board of directors.
17	undergo nightmarish hazing for each rung of the corporate ladder they climb.
18	have their memories wiped and sealed beneath layers of confidentiality agreements, only released when it might be beneficial to the corporate bottom line.
19	believe themselves to be merely extremities of their corporate super-organism.
20	are required to lead its employees and contractors in their corporate anthem at the beginning and end of every work day.

D20	This megacorporation’s headquarters
1	is embedded in an arctic ice-shelf, maintained with an atrocious air-conditioning budget.
2	is in a walled garden in the midst of a city that’s been abandoned to institutional and infrastructural decay.
3	is in a massive survivalist bunker compound in New Zealand.
4	is a seasteading sanctuary in international waters.
5	is in a decommissioned, still-hardened, mutually-assured destruction scenario command center.
6	is an enormous aerostat that verges on the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere. International arguments have been settled that set it outside the jurisdiction of any terrestrial power.
7	is a company town where inhabitants are reduced to indentured servitude by the sole issuance of company scrip.
8	is a space station laying languid in one of the Earth’s Lagrange points.
9	is a local military powerhouse, defended by waves of drones and orbital artillery.
10	is in a span of deliberately-uncharted ocean depths, accessible only by stealth-submarines.
11	is built atop an early modern star fort.
12	is the tallest building in its hemisphere, a marvel of engineering and a nightmare to keep in working order.
13	exists entirely on the digital plane, to save on property taxes.
14	is a banal hell on wheels, a titanic train able to traverse decaying rail infrastructure. It’s so big it’s even got its own internal monorail line.
15	is a fully-enclosed arcology with its own ecosystem and weather.
16	is an ultra-decadent spa that taps into the Earth’s mantle to heat its own artificial hot spring.
17	is smack-dab on the surface of the Moon. All but the highest of the corporate hierarchy get there only by telepresence.
18	was built according to its founder’s interpretation of the Platonic republic.
19	is suspended on carbon nanotube cables above the caldera of a volcano, for dramatic impact.
20	is in a bucolic cottagecore village wherein good vibes are maintained at gunpoint.

D20x5 Harrowing Hells

Could also be used for layers of the Abyss.

Click the button below for your very own hell, which presumably you want for some reason or another:

Special thanks to Betty Bacontime for making the generator generator used to make this: http://paperelemental.blogspot.com/p/list-to-html-generator.html

Raws:

This is the [hellname].<br>This hell punishes [sinner] by [punishment].<br>The demons of this hell [demon].<br>In addition to demons and sinners, this hell is home to [hellalso].<br>Despite all that, you might come to this hell anyways because [hellreason].

{hellname}
[adj] [thing] Hell
Hell of the [adj] [thing]
Hell of [adj] [pluralthing]
Hell of the [verb] [thing]
Hell of the [verb] [pluralthing]
[verb] [thing] Hell
[verb] [pluralthing] Hell

{adj}
Loathsome
Deceitful
Pitiful
Long-Fanged
Poisonous
Abject
Hollow
Degenerate
Wrathful
Grievous
Exquisite
Umbral
Rancorous
Wicked
Fallen
Reprobate
Toxic
Deafening
Dreadful
Scabrous

{thing}
Lotus
Pit
Gate
Glass
Frost
Bile
Meat
Sewage
Skull
Orb
Web
Temple
Dogma
Arena
Throne
Razor
Tiger
Pomegranate
Condemnation
Retribution

{verb}
Oozing
Burning
Squirming
Gaping
Splitting
Grasping
Retching
Seething
Weeping
Brooding
Moldering
Trembling
Strangling
Revolting
Grinding
Wailing
Rotting
Pleading
Writhing
Gnashing

{pluralthing}
Lamentations
Chains
Gibbets
Names
Judges
Pustules
Racks
Forges
Rubies
Rifts
Tears
Storms
Thorns
Hornets
Raptors
Dreams
Scourges
Fumes
Gallows
Brands

{sinner}
adulterers
usurers
traitors
murderers
oathbreakers
the decadent
kinslayers
rumourmongers
hypocrites
hoarders of wealth
rentiers
child abusers
cowards
tyrants
the vainglorious
idolaters
slavers
torturers
rapists
cannibals

{punishment}
scooping out their eyes and replacing them with red-hot coals
starving them then nailing their tongues together so all they have to eat is each other’s tongues
sucking the marrow from their bones with thick iron needles
stretching their nerves into harp-strings to play awful music
drowning them in feces
flaying them then rolling them in salt
repeated scaphism
making them experience all the suffering they inflicted on their own victims in life, over and over and over again
locking them inside bestial automata so that every movement breaks their bones and tears their sinews
forcing them through too-narrow tubes
making them count endless piles of ticks that feed on them as they do
having them pull great iron chariots across a desert of powdered glass infested with stinging ants, or else get dragged behind
keeping them in tiny cages and force-feeding them until they burst
moving them intermittently between a freezing wasteland and a lake of magma
throwing them into an endless pit among javelins and caltrops and gobbets of acid
whipping them while they're forced to perform backbreaking, pointless labour in chain gangs. The chains are made from their spines
using them as test subjects for new weapons, torture techniques, plagues, and parasites
making them forget they died then placing them in a simulation of the world with important concepts like love and beauty removed
leaving them as solitary bodiless consciousnesses with no sensory stimulation whatsoever
pulling out their nails and teeth then inserting chewing worms under their skin that they can no longer itch

{demon}
swap roles with the sinners every so often in a never-ending cycle of hatred and torment
have been demoted from more prestigious hells, and so compete viciously to regain their old ranks
are obsessed with the concepts of sleep and dreams
hold a wealth of blackmail material on famous historical figures and their descendants
are planning a revolution which will break off the place as a new kind of afterlife
can heal themselves by harming others
explode when exposed to holiness like matter and antimatter
are short-lived, and constantly replaced by new ones born from a singular, gargantuan queen who they've got some very Freudian feelings about
fear cats
are all wrapped around the finger of a succubus
are secretly masochists
see by the light of the soul rather than physical light. Strong emotions shine like torches to them, while a calm spirit is near-invisible
are short-staffed and worked to the bone since a diabolist summoned a bunch of them to the mortal plane
are actually pretty decent when off the job - they're just consummate professionals
can merge into and warp features of the landscape
wear beautiful costumes to conceal their wretchedness
drink heavily to deal with the psychological strain of their existence
can mutate into stronger yet much stupider "war-forms"
can only speak lies
can combine together into a gestalt super-demon

{hellalso}
the Vitriol Falls, one of the highest-rated unnatural wonders of many worlds. They are as beautiful as they are corrosively deadly
an angel that fell from heaven, embedded in the dirt face-down up to its waist. It trumpets the forbidden secrets of creation from its rear
a stable where the horses of the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse are kept and pampered
swarms of pestilent, coprophagic swine
a font of primordial chaos which disgorges impossibilities
a thriving, if mean-spirited, stand-up comedy scene
a grand colosseum where the souls of skilled and sinful warriors are pit against each other
a still lake like a great black mirror. Those immersed in the lake will have a shadowy doppelganger spring from it who shares all their abilities yet desires the inverse of their goals
a drainage basin of the river Lethe, where the dregs of its stolen memories are dried into consumable salts
a great hawthorn tree with antediluvian immortals impaled upon it
a zoo which keeps prelapsarian humans
a portal to a parallel cosmos which functions on heretical principles
an infamous restaurant which serves lemures prepared in a thousand ways
the prison of a demon-lord deemed to dangerous to let free and too useful to kill by a rival
a massive brass cannon aimed at heaven
an amphitheatre built with counter-acoustics which make noise uglier, used for infernal performance and rhetoric
the offices of a propaganda ministry which experiments with new ways to induce misery and helplessness
the fortress of an order of anti-chivalrous knights
a mountain with a peak that pierces into Purgatory
the Soul Futures Exchange, where demons speculate on and trade mortal souls that are promised to them

{hellreason}
one of the dead souls imprisoned here possesses a great gift of prophecy
it is unmoored from mortal space and can thus be used as a shortcut to many places
it is littered with fragments of celestial metal left over from the Adversary's rebellion, which the demons can't touch
they'll accept your nemeses for eternal torture
it contains a monolith carved with a near-complete map of the underworld
they're known for teaching dark and potent magic
it's a popular source for witches to draw their power from, and so could used to cut off their power at the source
several covens of night hags hold their conventions there, and could be petitioned for their immense and terrible collective knowledge
they've got a way to refine suffering into a potent ingredient for rituals
harrowing it and releasing souls who maybe don't really deserve to be there is how you get allowed into a fortified war-heaven
you can learn the dirtiest of dirty fighting techniques there
time flows differently there, and past, present, and future mingle unwholesomely
it's so tainted that it can suck curses right out of you or your stuff through a sort of osmosis
there's a demon within it who before their fall was integral in creating the architecture of the universe, and so could be invaluable in countering aberrations from beyond that architecture
some flaw in its design or conspiracy within it is allowing evil souls to be reincarnated with memories and personalities fully intact into newborn babies
a force of paladins has seized a beachhead there
submitting to the place's tortures can supernaturally harden you to pain and injury
it sells blasphemously miraculous automatons animated by the souls of the damned
it's a key nexus for the trade of hellish narcotics to the mortal world
an artifact from before the dawn of time is hidden here

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.

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