Category: RPGS

Item Seed: The Hisarköy Anomalies. [Edited]

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.
Continue reading Item Seed: The Hisarköy Anomalies. [Edited]

In the (E-)Mail: The Things We Leave Behind.

Well, I’m getting the print copy, too; the PDF for The Things We Leave Behind comes free with the softcover.  This particular Call of Cthulhu supplement won gold at the ENnies for Best Electronic Supplement, so they knocked five bucks off of the purchase price as a thank-you.  Pretty good deal, so I grabbed a copy.

Leafing through it… well, it’s not exactly cheerful.  But you knew that from ‘Call of Cthulhu.’  The state of the tone for adventures in that RPG genre these days aspires to ‘grim.’  Which is fine by me, but you may want to keep that in mind when deciding whether to pick it up.

Creature seed: Bellerophon Para-monkeys.

Bellerophon Para-monkeys – Google Docs

Bellerophon Para-monkeys

 

These primate-like, mammal-equivalents inhabit Bellerophon, the second planet orbiting 51 Pegasi.  They mildly resemble humans, in much the same way that a dolphin resembles a fish; major differences include pupiless green eyes, short brown to red hair covering most of their bodies, and a vestigial tail.  Also, Bellerophon Para-monkeys are about as intelligent as a cow.  On their home planet they are scavengers and molluscivores (snails on 51 Pegasi can grow to impressive sizes, at least for snails).  Most Terran colonists of 51 Pegasi consider them to be mildly annoying critters, but the monkeys tend to be innocuous enough not to be pests.

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Creature Seed: Oso, the God of Cocaine.

Oso, the God of Cocaine – Google Docs

Oso, the God of Cocaine

 

Unholy Symbol: a Grateful Dead-style dancing bear, with white paws, and white lines descending from its nose and mouth.

 

Why does he take the form of a black bear?  Because when you’re a dark theurgic engineer, you work with what you have.  If you have a bear that died from eating 40 kilos of cocaine, got stuffed, put in a museum, stolen, pawned off, bought by Waylon Jennings — hold on, it gets weirder — gifted to a friend of the guy who originally accidentally gave the bear the cocaine (not to mention posthumously, as the cocaine’s owner had ejected the cocaine just before he died in a tragic, yet somewhat satisfying, combination skydiving/drug-running incident), displayed in a Reno mansion for a decade, then sold to a Chinese-American apothecary who needed a display for his traditional medicine shop — look, you apotheosize the damned bear into the God of Cocaine, all right?  The mystical charge on this one was so strong that the woman who nominally owned the bear couldn’t stand it, and wasn’t able to throw it out.  It was almost irresponsible not to turn it into a god.

Continue reading Creature Seed: Oso, the God of Cocaine.

Dug Two Graves [Unknown Armies]

Dug Two Graves [Unknown Armies] – Google Docs

Dug Two Graves [Unknown Armies]

Power: Significant

Description: A gravedigger’s shovel, old, hard-used, but still sound.  It smells faintly of sun, mud, and blood.

Effect: You activate Dug Two Graves in just the way you’d imagine: you dig two graves, complete with markers. One for you, and one for the person that you’re going to kill. Dug Two Graves won’t work if you’re not truly ready to kill somebody in particular, by the way.  You’ll know if it won’t work: more than one person who has held the artifact has dug the graves, and then discovered (usually to their secret relief) that they’re not really ready to go through with it.

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So, you know that RPG world for Patreon I’ve been thinking of for the last six months?

Yeah.  I’m delaying it at the last minute, because I had an entire new campaign world just drop into my head this morning. It’s a combination of D&D and Space Colonization: various fantasy races settling an alien world.  There will be magic, there will be active deities, and there will be technology (there just won’t be much in the way of electronics, because the industries needed haven’t been built yet). Throw in a helpful colony-wide disaster or two, and the world will be at just the right enlightened early-Renaissance level that I’ll need to sustain this.

Plus, I know just the OGL I can use to, you know, sell this puppy under. It’s time I started thinking about how to sell stuff.

Creature seed: Canursines.

[UPDATE: Today is a good day.]

Canursines – Google Docs

Canursines

(Blame Penny Arcade.)

 

Wolves. That turn into bears.  As has been said in the aftermath of many a catastrophe: “It seemed a good idea at the time.” Or “Well, the principle was sound.” That’s a popular one, too.

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Item Seed: Boozerang

Boozerang – Google Docs

Boozerang

 

A Boozerang is a magically enhanced, hollowed out boomerang (typically filled with blessed wine or beer, although any watery liquid can do in a pinch) designed to be thrown in a very tight (18 foot radius) circle, then returned to the user’s hand. Part of the enchantment enables the tight radius and return; the rest of the magic handles the controlled spray-release (as a fine mist) of the liquid inside the artifact. You do not have to be a mage to operate a Boozerang.

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