Moe Lane

Jack O’Lantern Pie – Google Docs

Jack O’Lantern Pie
…Never make this.

If you must make this, don’t ever eat it yourself. Or give it to someone whom you hate less than the post-corporeal spirit who is going to ruthlessly possess the body of one of the people who ate of the pie.  Which might be a problem, because the possession is going to be “first come, first served,” as it were: you might get anybody taking over the body. Or anything.

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Geniture Surveyance – Google Docs

The Geniture Surveyance

Links to this website pops up on social media of all sorts with remarkable frequency. It resembles a fairly standard online quiz, “What kind of [Oddball Thing] are you?” edition.  People who take the test are asked a set of ten apparently-unrelated questions, then they’re told that they’re most like a Labrador Retriever or whatnot. The questions change, and the results, but there are about six or seven similar tests that all come from the same website.

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Devil’s Needle – Google Docs

Devil’s Needle

History, in fact, does give us the name of the person who first figured out how to zombify the San Pedro cactus.  His name was Leopold Frederick Danvers-Greenly; and his dark fate for creating such a horrible thing was to peacefully die, in his bed, at the age of eighty-seven.  They say that the wages of sin are death, but in Leopold’s case the benefits package included a baronetcy, a rather nice townhouse in a respectable London neighborhood, and any number of grieving grandchildren.

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The Book of Cooper Duly – Google Docs

The Book of Cooper Duly

Physical Appearance: Originally, this book was a 18th Century treatise on the proper and safe use of copper dust (copper sulfate).  It was a slim volume of about 30 pages, indifferently bound from loose sheets, and cheaply covered.  However, at some point in the last sixty years it seems to have had, well, evil dripped on it — and now the book is horribly distorted.  The cover now says “The Book of Cooper Duly,” and where the leak has spread the pages have become thicker, better quality, and show alterations in the text. The effect is like seeing a paperback swell up after it’s gotten wet, only a bit more organized.

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Doctor Marrane’s Wondrous Traveling Carnival – Google Docs

Doctor Marrane’s Wondrous Traveling Carnival

This magical artifact appears as an eighteen wheeler, truck-tractor rig.  The trailer is weathered, but in good shape; on one side there are the words “Doctor Marrane’s Wondrous Traveling Carnival” written in bright gold-red letters, with the logo of a cornucopia flanked by two ravens beneath it. Don’t bother trying to paint over the logo. Or checking the tire pressure. Or filling the tank up with gas, for that matter. Why? Because it’s a magic item.

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Blame this.

Roseate Boots of the Sauromatian Queen – Google Docs

Roseate Boots of the Sauromatian Queen

This particular artifact was first described by an obscure 19th Century German folklorist researching various equally obscure tribes in the Crimea.  He came across one such tribe who claimed to be descendants of the servants of an ancient royal family, who ruled far to the East. The folklorist wrote of them:

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Practical Demon Breeding – Google Docs

Practical Demon Breeding

This book (written by one “Mary O’Brien, Jermyn Chair of Exotic Zoology, OBE”) is not for the faint of heart.  Not that Practical Demon Breeding is actively pernicious; indeed, it is scrupulous about presenting a strong, credible, and practical case against encouraging evil behaviors and traits in one’s demons.  It’s just that it’s profusely illustrated; and… it’s a book about breeding demons.  Some of the pictures are nigh-impossible to credit.

And what are demons?  Well, they’re pretty much what people think of when they hear the word ‘imps:’ small, rather humanoid, supernatural creatures with an aptitude for destruction, and the native intelligence of a fairly bright dog.  From context clues, ‘demons’ have been a side effect of ‘spontaneous Hellmouth incursions’ since ‘the Monte Bello Disaster of 1952.’  Fortunately, demons are also apparently fairly tractable, and easily enough bred.  The book was published in 1990, which was enough time for the breeding program to reach its fourth generation.

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Reverse-Gravity Bullets – Google Docs

Reverse-Gravity Bullets

The name says it all: getting shot with one of these bullets (which can, quite inexplicably, fit into virtually any chemical-reaction firearm, somehow)  will cause gravity to reverse for the target for about five seconds. In practical terms, on Earth the target will accelerate upwards at about 30 feet per second, go up about 150 feet or so, then probably fall right back down again as gravity reasserts itself.  All of which assumes that there isn’t a ceiling or something in the way.  

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Eel Juice – Google Docs

Eel Juice

Be very careful when handling this stuff; Eel Juice is a sticky, rather toxic liquid that also happens to be a room temperature superconductor. The species of eel that produces the juice is also an apex predator on its home dimension / planet / elemental plane, so getting the stuff isn’t exactly easy or cheap, either. But, hey: room temperature superconductor.  That’s worth a lot of money, and if it can be synthesized (Eel Juice may be esoteric, but it’s not inscrutable) then the stuff will rapidly start being worth even more.

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Tennis Shoes – Google Docs

Tennis Shoes

These magic items subtly alter the path of projectiles, thus aiming them at the person wearing the Tennis Shoes.  It won’t unnaturally curve the trajectory of a projectile, but ‘in the general direction of’ is usually good enough to ensure a hit.  If somebody is actually aiming the projectile at someone, a hit is almost assured.  The top velocity of the projectile must be no more than about one hundred miles an hour, which means that it works on baseballs — but not, say, arrows. Also, the projectiles generally aim for the center of mass; this is not a spell for headshots.

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Magna Gladius ex Dumnonia – Google Docs

Magna Gladius ex Dumnonia

This iron double-edged greatsword is fairly obviously magical, given that it was just pulled from the bottom of the River Tamar (Plymouth, United Kingdom) by a nine year old girl, yet is still as sharp and sound as the day that it was forged.  It’s a pretty thing, and clearly derived from the Roman aesthetic tradition: but the Celtic motifs are both obvious and well-crafted, and the sword is remarkably light in the hand (presumably).  Magna Gladius ex Dumnonia also has an inscription on it in Latin, which basically states that whoever holds this sword is the rightful ruler of the Kingdom of the Dumnonii.

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Hisarköy Anomalies – Google Docs

The Hisarköy Anomalies are named for their original location (Hisarköy, a Turkish village found on the ancient Byzantine site of Amorion). A clandestine NATO archeological operation (assisted by half-rogue Turkish military semanticists) uncovered the artifacts in early 2016, and managed to get them quietly airlifted out of the country by year’s end. Currently, the Anomalies reside in a black facility at Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo, and are being analyzed to a fare-thee-well.
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