Item Seed: Lead Balloons.

Lead Balloons

What most people don’t realize is that the phrase “It went over like a lead balloon” is actually a translation from Low Faerie.  It’s not quite a perfect translation, though. The original is something more like “NO NO NOT THE LEAD BALLOON ARGGH HE POPPED IT MY EYES MY EYES BURN WITH NOTHINGNESS I CANNOT FEEL MY FACE” and then goes into mumbled bloody spittle as the poison really kicks in.

Continue reading Item Seed: Lead Balloons.

Item Seed: The Nano-INjected Jump Apparatus (NINJA) Suit.

The Nano-INjected Jump Apparatus (NINJA) Suit.

Before you ask, NINJA suits are not given out as rewards: they’re given out as sentences. Once you have one put on you, the metaphorical stopwatch is typically ticking on your remaining lifespan. Or sometimes not so metaphorical: there’s usually an integral explosive somewhere on the suit.  Just to be on the safe side.

What the NINJA suit does is allow the user to operate at 15/10ths of human capacity, right up to the point where their bones break, their muscles shred off of the bone, and very possibly their heart explodes. It does this through the aforementioned nanomachines, which take an extremely brute-force approach to realizing human potential: to wit, shutting down the pain centers of the brain and pumping in aggression poisons and mood controllers by the quart.  The suit itself holds in the increasingly battered body until the body cannot function; once the sensors no longer detect a heartbeat or brain activity, the suit activates the equivalent of a full-body thermite burn.  This would make removing a NINJA suit difficult, except that it’s already largely considered to be virtually impossible. Nobody’s worn one for more than an hour and survived, and the one person who did had gotten a broken suit in the first place. Continue reading Item Seed: The Nano-INjected Jump Apparatus (NINJA) Suit.

Item: Belt of Social Awkwardness.

Belt of Social Awkwardness

Sometimes, when you create a magic item, you do something wrong and come up with something that you didn’t actually want.  And sometimes it turns out that you can duplicate the process.  That’s what happened with Belts of Social Awkwardness: the enchanter was going for something that would boost charisma.  What she got was a belt that gives the wearer a psychic signature of “This person is not interesting, he doesn’t really fit in, avoid eye contact lest you get sucked into a soul-destroying conversation about boring things.” Continue reading Item: Belt of Social Awkwardness.

Item Seed: Haunt.

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.

Continue reading Item Seed: Haunt.

Item seed: Pahoehoe Oak (quercus salamandrus)

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)

Item seed: Taedetium Mines.

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.

Item Seed: Halo-loam.

[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.

Adventure/Item seed: Jar of Peaceful Valley Western Mission Olives.

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.

Item/Adventure seed: Crate of Cran.

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.

Continue reading Item/Adventure seed: Crate of Cran.

Adventure/Item Seed: Death Comes Round to Carnival: A Lady Latimer Mystery.

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.