Item Seed: The Anti-Saxophone.

the-anti-saxophone-google-docs

 

The Anti-Saxophone

If there is a single magical device that is more universally hated by magicians, the name of said device has been lost to the forces of entropy.  And many magic users would love to do the same to the Anti-Saxophone (usually shortened to Anti-Sax, and invariably with a curse word serving for an adjective).  Unfortunately, the Anti-Sax is far too useful to toss away.

Superficially, an Anti-Sax resembles a regular tenor saxophone, and in fact can be used (mediocrely) as one.  However, once activated the Anti-Sax acts as a powerful magical booster to anyone within earshot.  The wielder can choose to: quadruple all bonuses to cast spells in the area of effect; cut all costs to cast magic to one-quarter of the usual; or double bonuses and cut cost to cast in half. Continue reading Item Seed: The Anti-Saxophone.

Time Travel Seed: ‘The Ouroboros Sanction.’

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The Ouroboros Sanction

 

Organizations that routinely use time travel will inevitably encounter people or groups who just refuse to respect everybody else’s temporal space. There’s just something about being able to go backwards and forwards in time that encourages a certain kind of individual… to wit, the kind of individual who can be described as ‘sociopathic,’ ‘megalomaniacal,’ or even ‘apocalyptic.’ The problem with punishing people for acting according to those impulses is that time travellers can theoretically go back later and retroactively undo whatever it was that got them caught in the first place. Or, if the time traveller is personally isolated from time travel, then the traveller’s friends, allies, or minions might do it for them. It’s hard to jail a time traveller, is what the situation is here.

 

One answer to this conundrum is the Ouroboros Sanction: it is a fairly vicious sort of time trap. Using somewhat hyper-advanced temporal technology, a piece of a timeline (typically, no more than a hour or two) can be ‘looped,’ then pinched off from the rest. The target is then injected into the looped time and… forgotten, typically. Inside the looped time, everyone and everything only experiences the time caught in the loop; as the timeline resets, so does their memories and surroundings. And that includes any rescue parties: if you don’t get your target out on the first try, you probably won’t be able to do it at all on your own.

 

Ouroboros Sanctions are never going to be popular, except in distinctly unpleasant and dystopian game worlds.  Indeed, in some game worlds it’s not so much a ‘punishment’ as it is a ‘war crime.’  But even in worlds where the Sanctions are illegal there’s still going to be people exercising them. Because sometimes horrible things need to happen to horrible people… for given values of ‘horrible,’ of course.

 

Adventure Seed: Godzilla’s Guitar.

godzillas-guitar-google-docs

Godzilla’s Guitar

Well, it may not be the actual Godzilla’s actual guitar.  However, it is in fact something that looks remarkably like a stringed musical instrument – admittedly, one that’s over two hundred feet long – so maybe it is the Gorilla-Whale’s guitar. It’s possible, at least.

Or maybe not.  Two months ago Godzilla’s Guitar came screaming down to Earth, end over end, and left a remarkably restrained impact crater in the Chilean Andes. This is one of the alarming things about the artifact, given that it’s estimated to weigh a bit more than thirteen hundred tons.  Something that big and heavy hitting the planet and not breaking up should have wrecked South America’s day at an absolute minimum, and yet it did not. That implies that the Guitar made something like a controlled landing, which is when people start wondering whether the Guitar is even a musical instrument in the first place.  Maybe we’re all just the equivalent of Stone Age savages trying to make sense of a computer, huh?

And yet, again, it looks like a stringed musical instrument.  It has strings (seven).  It has frets. Given the right construction equipment, you can even tune the Guitar, although not for very long: it seems to revert to a default Brazilian classical tuning.  The Guitar is also powered, although nobody knows by what. There is even what appears to be some sort of electronic I/O device at one end. Possibly interactive? Maybe it can be deciphered… provided that you understand the musical theory and ‘language’ that drives the Guitar’s operating paradigm.  But doing that requires real expertise. Continue reading Adventure Seed: Godzilla’s Guitar.

Creature Seed: Patchwork Haifische (Patchwork Sharks)

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Patchwork Haifische (Patchwork Sharks)

(Blame this.)

The Patchwork haifisch (Patchwork Shark) is a legacy creature of World War I Germany’s Mad Science program.  The project (under the barely erratic leadership of Doktor Jacob von Kaulla) aimed to create undead sentinels for Kriegsmarine submarine pens; the goal was to prevent minelaying and other forms of underwater sabotage.  And it would have worked, too… if only the German General Staff had authorized the project two years earlier.  Dr. von Kaulla’s team produced a working prototype six months after the Armistice, and all data on said project was immediately suppressed and compartmentalized, lest the Allies hear of it and force the Germans to surrender it.

Continue reading Creature Seed: Patchwork Haifische (Patchwork Sharks)

Draught of the Wolverine [TL5+1] [GURPS]

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Draught of the Wolverine [TL5+1] [0]

 

This ‘potion’ is actually not supernatural at all: it is instead derived from a carefully cultivated species of arctic fungus that grows in the vicinity of whatever super-material or substance that allows steampunk realities to function.  Once drunk, the Draught of the Wolverine essentially permanently infects the drinker’s body with a stable colony of the fungus.  Regular TL5 science cannot cure the condition, but TL5+1 super-science or a TL8 broad-spectrum antibiotic would be able to successfully clear up the infection.

Continue reading Draught of the Wolverine [TL5+1] [GURPS]

Item Seed: Summary Folder for Department of Defense Briefing 09042016 [SECRET (GINGER RELATIVITY) Clearance Only]

summary-folder-for-department-of-defense-briefing-09042016-secret-ginger-relativity-clearance-only-google-docs

 

Summary Folder for Department of Defense Briefing 09042016 [SECRET (GINGER RELATIVITY) Clearance Only]

Oh, how this folder is classified. Not only do you need SECRET (GINGER RELATIVITY) clearance to read it, there’s a rather unpleasant-looking sigil on the front cover that will give anybody with even rudimentary magical ability the heebie-jeebies.  It’s not that it’d normally explode your head if you look at it too hard (it’d just knock you out and set off the magical equivalent of an alarm siren); it’s that the sigil is damaged, in precisely the same way that a grenade launcher with a misfire in the chamber is ‘damaged.’  The urge to dive to cover only gets worse, the more magic you know. Continue reading Item Seed: Summary Folder for Department of Defense Briefing 09042016 [SECRET (GINGER RELATIVITY) Clearance Only]

Item/Adventure Seed, Bob and the Button of Death

I was out of ideas.  So, BY CROM, I went out and got some.

bob-and-the-button-of-death-google-docs

Bob and the Button of Death

You know that Death Box with a Button thing that was half-popular as an ethical question, a while back?  Basically, it’s the entire “Here’s a box, it has a button, press the button, you get a million dollars, but a random stranger dies” thing that you get when you don’t make philosophy majors go out and join adventuring parties.  Because any competent murderhobo knows dang well that the real answer is “Break the box now, before whatever screwed up magic that’s building up inside of it goes critical all over the landscape.” Continue reading Item/Adventure Seed, Bob and the Button of Death

Item/Creature seed: Weaponized Balloon Animals.

Blame this.

weaponized-balloon-animals-google-docs

Weaponized Balloon Animals

And that’s what they’re called, in fact. Even the official Galactic Patrol documents use an obscure phrase from one of the more accessible Ascended Race languages, which pretty much translates to… Weaponized Balloon Animals (WBAs). Basically, humans think that it’s funny, and the other races don’t really care if humans think that it’s funny.  Which is why any part of Galactic civilization that has humans running it will be overrun with puns… but I digress. Continue reading Item/Creature seed: Weaponized Balloon Animals.

Item seed: Mother Gilman’s Practical Family Grimoire. [GURPS]

mother-gilmans-practical-family-grimoire-google-docs

Mother Gilman’s Practical Family Grimoire

This cheerful-looking hardcover book [the title is usually abbreviated to “Mother Gilman’s”] is printed on remarkably stain-and-damage resistant paper; the dust jacket is still crisp and there is no indication of yellowing.  While the publishing information lists a well-known publisher and a publication date of 1964, there is no record of this book or the author in the publisher’s own archives.  Interestingly, the alleged illustrator can be tracked down; she will readily admit that the interior art is done in her early style, but she never drew anything like this and she certainly never got paid for it, either. Needless to say, there is no record of this book existing on the Internet.   Continue reading Item seed: Mother Gilman’s Practical Family Grimoire. [GURPS]

Creature seed: Japanese Office Chairs (sella ambulant japonica)

:brightly: Good morning!  I’ve had coffee! Whee!

japanese-office-chairs-google-docs

 

Japanese Office Chairs

(sella ambulant japonica)

They are… living office chairs.  That move around on their own. They eat dust bunnies and excrete… dust bunnies. They mate – don’t ask, and don’t look, either – and reproduce by laying eggs in storage rooms, which then hatch into baby office chairs which then eat discarded office equipment until they reach full size.  When one dies, it… stops moving on its own, but still remains a perfectly usable office chair.  But most people bring their dead ones to the storage spawn pits, where it is swiftly ingested by the next generation of Japanese Office Chairs. Continue reading Creature seed: Japanese Office Chairs (sella ambulant japonica)