Squeeze
This stuff is half a party drug, and half an existential threat to humanity’s fundamental understanding of the nature of reality itself. That’s not a joke: analyzing Squeeze has already put at least three biochemists into a mental health facility, although fortunately the poor unfortunates aren’t violent. Just mostly catatonic.
Frankenstein Thread – Google Docs
Frankenstein Thread
Frankenstein Thread is a magically-treated silk thread originally used to patch up Undead, constructs, patchwork golems, and other Abominations of Mad Science or Magic. It’s very thin, but surprisingly easy to manipulate — and almost impossible to accidentally break. And it can be used on anything: blood vessels, brains, sinews, limbs, entire torsos. If it can be sewn together, it will be, with no loss of function or bodily fluids. It can even sew Undead flesh onto a living body without it immediately turning into what necromancers euphemistically call an Unfortunate Incident, although no reputable or ethical necromancer would actually do something like that anyway. At least, not anymore, in this new era where the prejudices and misunderstandings of previous generations no longer holds sway.
Alexandria Prototype – Google Docs
The Alexandria Prototype
Simply put, the Alexandria Prototype is a flintlock rifled musket that can be reliably dated to the First Century AD. It’s made out of bronze and wood, used something around .80 caliber lead balls, and the gunpowder residue has an unique composition to it, but the basic gun design is sound enough. The Prototype was found last year in a hitherto unknown tomb or subterranean complex; it had been preserved as well as first-century technology could manage, and the gun itself could probably even still fire, if anybody was daft enough to try.
But there isn’t anything otherwise intrinsically special about the Prototype. It is merely a weapon about a thousand years before its time, presumably designed and created by a single unsung genius, and for whatever reason the Roman Empire never got ahold of a copy to duplicate it. Those researchers cleared for the Prototype have tentatively concluded that it must have been seen by the locals as a potent magic weapon to be feared, and not a mechanism to be duplicated. Or possibly it was an assassination tool. Or maybe it was never actually fired, beyond testing purposes? Certainly there’s been a lot of research of surviving artifacts from that time period to see if there are any hints as to the Prototype’s ‘story.’ However, no clues are yet forthcoming. Continue reading Item Seed: The Alexandria Prototype.
The Ouroboros Knot
This particular occult method of tying a tie mostly resembles a Trinity Knot, with two differences. The first is that the tie is given one twist in the back, to make it something not entirely unlike a Mobius Loop (ties used for Ouroboros Knots are typically the same color on both sides, in order to disguise this). The second difference is the large amounts of magical energy that are pumped into the tie as the Knot is being tied. When correctly done, the Ouroboros Knot is activated and will hold its ‘charge’ for at least a week.
The Caramelizator
This handy-dandy device caramelizes onions. To operate, simply fill the hopper at the front of the Caramelizator with chopped onions, pull the trigger — well, yes, it has a trigger. Well, sure, that does make it look like a gun. OK, fine, the entire thing looks like a 1950s movie ray gun with a big ball on one end. But the ball is there just to hold the onions. And before you ask: good luck trying to yank that sucker off.
And even if you could get the ball off, what’s the point? The Caramelizator is such a low-power item it runs on batteries. It can’t be plugged into a wall — YOU MUST ABSOLUTELY NOT ADAPT IT TO LET IT BE PLUGGED IT INTO A WALL, LEST IT VIOLATE YOUR WARRANTY — so if you pull off the ball all you’ll have then is a defective, broken Caramelizator. Although the odd blue light that you can now see coming from inside the device might at least prove interesting. And… oddly tanning. Continue reading Item Seed: The Caramelizator.
Tim Burton’s Scary Christmas (1993) – Google Docs
Tim Burton’s Scary Christmas (1993)
Description: A standard movie DVD and case, apparently printed in 2003. The full title is Tim Burton’s Scary Christmas: Tenth Year Anniversary Edition. The cover shows an animated Santa Claus wearing a skeleton mask; beneath is the legend “Boo Boo Boo.”
Continue reading Item Seed: Tim Burton’s Scary Christmas (1993).
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.
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.
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.
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.
