seed – Page 63 – Moe Lane

Item Seed: The New Zombie Cookbook: Simple Recipes For Busy Lives.

The New Zombie Cookbook: Simple Recipes For Busy Lives

Physical description: The New Zombie Cookbook is a 300 page book, profusely illustrated – very profusely illustrated – that offers a few chapters on ingredients (zombies), utensils (cleavers feature prominently), and, most importantly ,recipes. Needless to say, the author (Elizabeth Riley), publisher/editor (Vyhle Publishers, Pittsburgh), and illustrator/photographer (R.U. Pickman) are unknown to the American publishing industry – despite the fact that the book was supposedly written in 1982.

Continue reading Item Seed: The New Zombie Cookbook: Simple Recipes For Busy Lives.

Item seed: Liber Maledictionem Ingredientia.

Liber Maledictionem Ingredientia

Description: the core book itself dates anywhere from 1400 to 1925. It lists (in Latin) a variety of ‘recipes’ for curses that can be placed on objects, animals, and people. What makes every version of this book different from the others are the marginal notes: typically, a copy of the Liber Maledictionem Ingredientia will have most of its white spaces covered with notes, lists, scribbles, and in a few cases, arguments between competing sets of annotations. The book also typically reeks of evil, or at least poor life choices. Continue reading Item seed: Liber Maledictionem Ingredientia.

Gaming spell seed: noclip.

noclip

This particular spell is infamous for the sheer number of aspiring mages that it’s put into involuntary psychiatric care. The basic effect is simple: invoke this spell, and for the next minute or so (technically, for as long as you can hold your breath) you can move through walls, float in the air, sink under the ground, that sort of thing. It doesn’t give direct protection from injuries, but obviously being able to duck through a concrete wall is going to make it easier to not get shot. If the spell ends while the subject is inside a solid object, the spell shoves the subject to the closest open area; if in a liquid, the subject is now immersed in it. If the subject is merely suspended in mid-air, the subject falls.

So, why the psychiatric care? Because noclip hurts people’s brains, that’s why. The more you know about either magic or physics, the more disturbing this spell gets. Repeated use of the spell – as in, more than once in a very long while – puts the subject at risk of entering a dementia spiral of increasing detachment followed by self-destructive behavior as his psyche unsuccessfully tries to process the spell’s effect on reality itself. It would appear that only the gods themselves can safely handle God Mode…

Adventure seed: the Heuristic-Empathic Roving Database (H.E.R.D.)

Blame this.

Heuristic-Empathic Roving Database (H.E.R.D.)

Well… strictly speaking, the people behind H.E.R.D. didn’t deliberately genetically-engineer a bunch of sheep into something that could serve as a distributed computer network. What they simply tried to do was genetically-engineer the sheep so that they would produce natural fiber optic cables. The logic seemed sound enough: while inorganic cables certainly work, you require an industrial infrastructure to make them. There are obvious advantages of being able to grow your own, particularly if it could be done without requiring expensively trained technicians. And it wouldn’t even hurt the sheep; after all, they get sheared every year anyway.

Fortunately, somebody didn’t carry the one when making the critical calculations, or something: the sheep didn’t come out quite as designed. They got the fiber-optic wool, sure – but what they also got was sheep that are also the equivalent of an organic motherboard. And do not think too hard on that. Seriously, don’t: doing so has caused at least one biologist to be led out of the room in restraints while she screamed “STOP IT!!!!! Genetics doesn’t WORK like that!!!!!”

Continue reading Adventure seed: the Heuristic-Empathic Roving Database (H.E.R.D.)

Location seed: the Inn of the Woeful Dog.

Annnnd blame this.

The Inn of the Woeful Dog

Whether or not this place (typically found in the better sort of ‘where the walls of reality are thin’ neighborhoods) qualifies as a ‘refuge’ or ‘trap’ depends on your point of view. Some more-or-less involuntary residents think it’s both. But if it is a trap, at least it’s not one with active malice behind it. Continue reading Location seed: the Inn of the Woeful Dog.

Creature seed: Scorpibones.

And blame this.

Scorpibones

Because necromancers have to go to school like everybody else; and sometimes they get bored in the lab. Admittedly, you have to be very bored indeed to make what looks like a very badly-designed skeletal scorpion out of fish bones and a mouse skull, but that’s modern education for you. At least they’re doing something involving their field of study, right?

Continue reading Creature seed: Scorpibones.

Adventure seed: Operation Schatten Rache.

Blame this:

Operation Schatten Rache

By 1943, of course, the writing was on the wall for the Third Reich. As in, literally: on September 19th, 1943, a glowing message in an unknown alphabet appeared on the interior walls of every occult research center in Nazi Germany. A formal translation of that message was never successfully done; but, given that staring at said message for any length of time by a member of the Nazi party caused the cerebral cortex of said Nazi to explode (again, literally)… the ultimate meaning seemed fairly clear in context.
Continue reading Adventure seed: Operation Schatten Rache.

Group Seed: The ‘True Living’ cult.

Went a little ‘yikes’ pretty fast, here. Sorry about that…

The ‘True Living’ Cult

As vaguely apocalyptic cults go, True Living cultists (or ‘True Lifers’) are… well, they’re still pretty weird and mildly dangerous, but you could probably safely get one to change your flat tire (not that he would). You’ll still get the weirdness, but the dangerous part would be dialed back because the average True Lifer is intensely wary of the outside world. Best to keep out of its way.

The basic principle of the True Living Cult is Eat All The Meat. It’s partially metaphorical (‘you deserve total selfishness, so be totally selfish’) but very decidedly literal, too. Note, though, that these people aren’t carnivores, in the same way that vegans aren’t vegetarians. To be fair, True Lifers aren’t really comparable to vegans, either: after all, most vegans don’t literally worship animals via elaborate ceremonies involving ritual sacrifices cast into the flames. True Lifers do that, only with plants. Each group picks a species of plant life to venerate, then proceed to do so with the aforementioned immolation of various animals. Preferably while the animal is still alive. And after all the useful flame-vulnerable bits have been, ah, recycled. Yeah, basically imagine something out of a dream flash-image sequence in a horror movie and you’ll get an idea of the average Saturday night at the True Living’s local chapel/butcher’s station.

It’s probably a special miracle that True Lifers haven’t graduated to human sacrifices yet: partially that’s due to lingering morality, and partially because of an institutional awareness of just how dangerous it is to eat human meat. Or it’s due to the fact that the True Living Cult is not under the control of any occult or supernatural group. They came up with this way of life all on their own. Continue reading Group Seed: The ‘True Living’ cult.

Creature seed: Caws.

Blame this.

Caws

History – mercifully; perhaps, too mercifully – does not record the name of the Mad Scientist on Old Earth who first decided to mix cows and cats. The plan, reportedly, was simple: imagine a cow with the fangs and claws of a lion or tiger! Fear their wrath as they go stampeding through the defenseless countryside, goring and tearing at all humans in their way! And how would their creator would laugh at the sight! Laughed, the way that they laughed at him in Veterinary School. But he’d show them. He’d show them all.

[pause]

Well, that was the plan, at least. Problem with that? Well, apparently the Mad Scientist in question forgot to carry the one. Continue reading Creature seed: Caws.