Item seed: Mother Gilman’s Practical Family Grimoire. [GURPS]

mother-gilmans-practical-family-grimoire-google-docs

Mother Gilman’s Practical Family Grimoire

This cheerful-looking hardcover book [the title is usually abbreviated to “Mother Gilman’s”] is printed on remarkably stain-and-damage resistant paper; the dust jacket is still crisp and there is no indication of yellowing.  While the publishing information lists a well-known publisher and a publication date of 1964, there is no record of this book or the author in the publisher’s own archives.  Interestingly, the alleged illustrator can be tracked down; she will readily admit that the interior art is done in her early style, but she never drew anything like this and she certainly never got paid for it, either. Needless to say, there is no record of this book existing on the Internet.   Continue reading Item seed: Mother Gilman’s Practical Family Grimoire. [GURPS]

Item seed: The Broad-Origin, Radiating Information-Nullification Generator.

b-o-r-i-n-g

The Broad-Origin, Radiating Information-Nullification Generator

This item is fairly clearly of Department of Defense manufacture, and intended for the field, at that.  It’s your standard nine-inch, ten pound cuboid with a handle, a pull-tab, one-time activation switch, and enough rubberized, blunt-spiked corners and hardened steel to make it clear that you could swing B.O.R.I.N.G. at somebody’s head and still have it work afterwards.  Which happens quite a lot, really. Continue reading Item seed: The Broad-Origin, Radiating Information-Nullification Generator.

Item Seed: Koreite.

I also got one for ‘plotonium,’ but that may be taking the joke too far.

koreite-google-docs

Koreite

Koreite (three syllables, by the way) is an ‘element’ that exists in universes that are at the outer edge of being habitable for ‘regular’ humans (i.e., us).  If sampled, it appears to be atomically equivalent to indium… which is absurd, because indium doesn’t glow blue and is toxic. Koreite is also incredibly more common in its ‘host’ universes than indium is in ours. Continue reading Item Seed: Koreite.

Item Seed: Platonium

platonium-google-docs

Platonium

This stuff can only be made in a particle accelerator that has been consecrated to the worship of Hephaestus by a priestess of the Cabeiri mystery cult.  Fortunately, there are any number of engineering fraternities that can provide the necessary personnel, which is one reason why the American Greek system continues to exist on the collegiate level.  The esoteric benefits are simply still too vital for national security. Continue reading Item Seed: Platonium

Item Seed: Apocalypse Dischargers

apocalypse-dischargers-google-docs

Apocalypse Dischargers

These rather bizarre artifacts are incredibly far ahead of any Galactic race’s technology to make: so much so, in fact, that at first glance they barely register as technological artifacts at all.  Each one resembles a ceramic egg about two feet long, weighing about ten pounds;  the Discharger is slightly cool to the touch, feels solid, and is impervious to pretty much everything.  And ‘everything’ means everything. Somebody shot one into a star, once.  It came out the other side. Continue reading Item Seed: Apocalypse Dischargers

Item Seed: Elritch Fine Fashions.

elritch-fine-fashions-google-docs

Elritch Fine Fashions

The corporate management of Elritch Fine Fashions would like to assure its regular customers that the persistent rumors about the company are absolutely false, not to mention scurrilous and mendacious.  It is, of course, true that the Elritch family has been involved in the English clothing trade since the Elizabethan era, when Martin the Elritch first used his connections to Walsingham and Dee in order to acquire the prerogative of providing official garments for various Crown and Court rituals.  And it is also true that the American branch of the family relocated from Salem to Providence in some haste, back at the end of the 17th century.  It is even true that both branches of the family worked with both the SOE and the OSS to play a patriotic, yet still obscure, role in World War II.   Continue reading Item Seed: Elritch Fine Fashions.

Item seed: Obelophage Therapy

obelophage-therapy-google-docs

Obelophage Therapy

This particular Forbidden Book purports to be a self-help tome (author is “Tony Pat Haler,” and the book is published in 1994 by a North American publisher that doesn’t actually exist) for people looking for financial success.  A casual perusal of the book suggests that it simply rehashes the hoary old concept of ‘you have to spend money to make money; unfortunately, only a casual perusal of the book is at all safe.  Even one reading of Obelophage Therapy can be enough to infect the victim’s mind. Continue reading Item seed: Obelophage Therapy

Item Seed: The Faerie Van.

the-faerie-van-google-docs

The Faerie Van

The Faerie Van resembles an old-style red Volkswagen microbus with opaque windows and a skylight.  It glows under magical scans, for very obvious reasons: it’s intensely magical.  It’s also perfectly safe if you enter the Van through the doors; it drives like a bus and works like one.  However, if you go in or out through the skylight… you probably aren’t coming back.  The skylight acts each way as a portal to a fairyland – one of the unpleasant ones – and going through doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be able to come back. Continue reading Item Seed: The Faerie Van.

Item Seed: Cthu-Cola.

cthu-cola-google-docs

Cthu-Cola

Well, the bottle is kind of eldritch-looking.  It’s the sort of eldritch-looking that one gets when somebody takes an actual eldritch concept and focus-groups it a few times. The bottle is blue-grey-black.  There’s a vaguely squid-godlike being on the label.  It tastes like carbonated sugar water with some odd, but tasty, flavorings and spices. And it absolutely glows when magically scanned.  Blindingly so, in fact. Continue reading Item Seed: Cthu-Cola.