Haunt
Haunt: very possibly the first designer drug to have its entire production line confiscated by the NSA and its manufacture given a Top Secret: Code Word (APPLESEED GIRAFFE). The people making it also found themselves suddenly, and reasonably profitably, working for the Alphabet Soup, too. All very deniable, all very fast – and all very effective, too.
Blame this.
Pahoehoe Oak (quercus salamandrus)
Yes, the trees are on fire. …Sort of. What’s actually happening here is an interesting, if not somewhat unique, example of an invasive species colonizing a new habitat. And yes, this can happen just as easily in the supernatural realm as it can in the natural one. Continue reading Item seed: Pahoehoe Oak (quercus salamandrus)
Taedetium Mines
These remarkably nasty devices – for a given value of nasty – are most often used by groups and individuals who expect a visit from various types of supernatural creatures, entities, people, what have you. Taedetium mines closely resemble the infamous ‘Bouncing Betty’ shrapnel mine; which is fair, because that’s what they were derived from. The mine is set at ground level and connected to a trigger wire or light beam; when triggered, the mine springs into the air and ‘detonates’ at about waist level. Unlike the Bouncing Betty, the shrapnel produced is low velocity: it might penetrate naked flesh, but it’s more likely to get embedded in clothes. Continue reading Item seed: Taedetium Mines.
[For some reason, this ended up in Trash after publication. Weird. Reposting…]
Blame this.
Halo-loam
Sometimes, a Saint’s body remains undecayed after death. …Sometimes. It’s actually preferable that it doesn’t, from the point of view of relics engineers. There are a lot of undeniably useful things that you can get out of a genuine Saint’s corpse.
What’s that? “This is a gruesome topic?” No, gruesome is what happens when an Infernal portal stabilizes on this plane of existence for too long and a Fear Squad of Hell comes barreling out. They like to play with their food, and they think that food that doesn’t talk isn’t really food. So recycling sanctified remains isn’t exactly what you’d call ‘horrible.’ In fact, if you could manage to contact the Saint in question, he or she would undoubtedly even guide you through the recycling process. Because, again: Fear Squads. Hell. Continue reading Item Seed: Halo-loam.
Because I had some olives for a snack.
Jar of Peaceful Valley Western Mission Olives
How these particular olives ended up in the local distribution chain is a matter of some interest: while the labels say that these olives were processed by the Peaceful Valley Western Olive company of Wimberly, Texas, no company by that name exists in the state and the address is a vacant field. And people have looked. The olives in question are amazing. Plump, subtle-flavored, keeps forever, nutrition off the charts… and, when used as a spell component in any of a dozen kinds of healing magic, capable of tripling the effect of the magic (the olives get eaten in the process). Continue reading Adventure/Item seed: Jar of Peaceful Valley Western Mission Olives.
Crate of Cran
Presumably that’s what it should be called: “Cran” is what’s on both the crate, and the labels of the twenty-four individual 12-ounce cans inside that crate. Everything about the Crate of Cran is consistent with a mass-produced commercial foodstuff that is made openly and sold legally; the labels are machine-printed and affixed, cooking instructions and suggested recipes are included, and there’s even a non working barcode. Which is significantly alarming, because the principal ingredient of Cran is spiced and sliced human brain tissue. It’s not particularly healthy brain tissue, either: some fairly intensive analysis of the stuff suggests that the donors were older, not in the best of condition, and died while experiencing some stress. Which is, alarmingly, not too surprising to anybody who works in the meatpacking industry.
Death Comes Round to Carnival: A Lady Latimer Mystery
The more you look at this book, the weirder it gets. Superficially, it’s a murder mystery set in 1950s Rio de Janeiro: it’s one of a series written by “Angelica Mountjoy,” apparently. The heroine is an Australian amateur sleuth married to an amiable British nobleman who will happily take her on yacht trips around the world, where apparently she promptly encounters bizarre, themed murders that the police cannot solve on their own… you know the drill. Fairly classic stuff.
But then you start noticing odd details. For example: the Latimer’s yacht is apparently half the size of an ocean liner and is armored like a battleship. In fact, the text ostentatiously points out that the yacht does not have guns, complete with a little bit of exposition as to why it doesn’t (something about because megalodons are extinct). People in the book are absolutely terrified of hurricanes; even the hint of one shuts down Rio for a crucial moment in the plot. Speaking of which: apparently Japan was fighting the Allies in World War I as well as World War II (a convoluted alibi hinged on this), but the Americans never controlled the Philippines. Oh, and there’s an endless fascination with the curve of the earth. Including one scene where the happy couple watch Rio “suddenly rear above the waves, its towers springing to full glory as the happy land-wind brought with it strange and tantalizing scents.” Continue reading Adventure/Item Seed: Death Comes Round to Carnival: A Lady Latimer Mystery.
Blame this.
The Bee Suit
This item is at least one hundred years old: it’s made out of dried-out wax and twigs, essentially, and even moving it slightly causes an alarming amount of crackling and bits coming loose. Any kind of rough treatment and the whole thing will come apart at several seams. Cautious investigators will inspect the Bee Suit strictly in situ.
In its current state the Bee Suit appears to be a rough approximation of a human being, made again out of wax and twigs. There is no body hair, no genitalia, no eyes, no tongue: there are only front teeth and fingernails (both made from polished wax), and the torso is subtly misshapen. A previous investigation team has cut back the ‘skin’ on the left side of the Suit to reveal the internal framework, which is alarmingly sophisticated – and, again, made of twigs and wax. The Bee Suit could walk and pick up things; it would have been absolutely useless in combat, but put a suit, gloves, boots, a wig, a hat, and smoked glasses on it and it could credibly pass for human on a sight check.
Item Seed: The Retrospective Radio
This item is, to outward appearance, identical to a portable transistor AM radio from about 1970 or so. It runs on 9 volt batteries, although the batteries may not be actually necessary: the Radio never seems to quite run out of battery power on its own. People who own the Radio seem to change the batteries mostly out of a sense of caution.
The Retrospective Radio operates exactly as a normal AM radio would, with one glaring exception: if you tune it to 1410 on the AM dial you’ll pick up a strong signal from a radio station (WTIM). There is actually a station with that frequency and call sign (out of Illinois), but it’s not this WTIM. This WTIM is a 24 hours news station that faithfully reports current events from precisely two weeks ago, in between commercials for products that nobody’s ever heard of. Continue reading Item Seed: The Retrospective Radio
Belief Sinks
Once upon a time, there was magic in the world, powered by the beliefs and dreams of people. But those who secretly ruled the world decided that that not everybody who could wield magic deserved to wield magic – and that there wasn’t enough magic to go around anyway. So they had their own magicians create special mystical devices that would suck up all the magic in the area, and concentrate it in one place. That would allow the secret rulers to properly control who got access to the magic, and keep it out of the hands of those that the secret rulers disapproved of. And it worked! It worked so well that eventually the secret rulers forgot to keep good records of how to make those special mystical devices. But that was fine, because there were plenty in storage. So they all lived happily ever after – well, everybody who mattered did, at least.
And then the Industrial Revolution happened. Steam power! Vaccinations! Germ theory of disease! Anesthesia! Nutrition science! Suddenly human-powered magic generation was no longer a scarcity problem. Quite the opposite, in fact: the stuff was building up. And when magic builds up too much… things can happen. Sometimes good things; sometimes bad things. Sometimes both at once, or, well, plaid things. Trust me; if you ever see a plaid event in the field you’ll know what I mean by that. And wish that you hadn’t. Continue reading Adventure/Item RPG Seed: Belief Sinks
