Adventure/Item Seed: “LEARN THE FACTS ABOUT PNEUMAPHAGY!”

Briefing: A case’s worth of the pamphlet below was just delivered to the Columbus, Ohio office of Housing and Urban Development.  It is currently causing quite a lot of consternation, given that a) nobody ordered it, b) nobody paid for it, c) the DC printing company on the invoice likewise have no records showing that the case was ordered, paid for, produced, and/or delivered, and d) valid signatures from both HUD and the printing company’s personnel are all over the paperwork that accompanied the pamphlets.  So it’s either a remarkably comprehensive practical joke, or there’s something weird going on.

Figure out which.

Learn The Facts About Pneumaphagy   Continue reading Adventure/Item Seed: “LEARN THE FACTS ABOUT PNEUMAPHAGY!”

Item Seed: The Eomvjrdyrt

the-eomvjrdyrt-_s-pronounced-winchester-map-google-docs

The Eomvjrdyrt <s[ {pronounced ‘Winchester Map’}

One of the peculiarities of this item is that people who look at it somehow instinctively know that its name is spelled “Eomvjrdyrt <s[,“ but is pronounced “Winchester Map.”  This is a real phenomenon: some researchers back in 1996 did a double-blind study that confirmed that the human brain instinctively knows how to instantly translate the symbols found on the Map into their own language.  This would have been worth any number of academic papers, except that… well. It would have been inappropriate.

The Map kind of has this effect on people.  As near as anybody can work out, there’s nothing malicious or dangerous about it at all, but the Map is absolutely unnatural all of the same.  The Map seems to seamlessly and effortlessly warp reality itself in its presence, apparently for the express purpose of making anybody who is in contact with, or aware of, it remarkably nonchalant about the way the Map rewrites physical reality.  People don’t even go insane from their inability to reconcile the paradox!  The worst result that anybody’s ever gotten from contemplating the mystery of the Map was a mild stress headache. Continue reading Item Seed: The Eomvjrdyrt

Adventure seed: “Kozlov’s Endemic Pattern-Layering Syndrome.”

Kozlov’s Endemic Pattern-Layering Syndrome – Google Docs

Kozlov’s Endemic Pattern-Layering Syndrome

(Blame this.)

This unique disease was named after Sergei Kozlov, a minor bureaucratic official working at Naryan-Mar during the Khrushchev regime.  On December 16, 1960 Comrade Kozlov was admitted to a state facility for observation after it was discovered that the pattern on his pajamas had spread to his wrists and ankles – and that removing his pajamas revealed that the same pattern had colonized the rest of his body, albeit at a much slower rate. Over the next four months the condition was studied, meticulously: Koslov’s Pattern spread until it covered the entire body, then began imposing itself on the hospital bed and floor.   Throughout Kozlov continually complained of mild headaches, nervous irritation, and shadow sensations every time somebody touched or otherwise interacted with the Pattern-infected areas.

In April of 1961 two members of the medical team studying Kozlov also came down with his Syndrome, despite the best quarantine protocols known at the time (the hospital had long since been evacuated, with the patients and the staff either sequestered onsite, or relocated to Ilimsk).  All three patients subsequently reported being hyper-aware (and accurately so) of each other’s positions and opinions at all times, as well as the ability to perceive ‘Pattern-Seeds’ supposedly growing in all human brains.  When one patient (surviving records are unclear which) proved the existence of Pattern-Seeds by forcibly infecting a researcher with Kozlov’s Syndrome — at a short distance, and through two layers of glass — offsite Soviet officials responded by remotely flooding the hospital area with yperite, demolishing the entire block with earthmoving equipment and captured POWs, loading the rubble, equipment, and POWs onto a series of cargo containers usually used for transporting plutonium, transporting the containers via ship to Sukhoy-Nos, portaging the ship to the inland test center there, and then detonating the RDS-220 hydrogen bomb directly overhead.

No further outbreaks of Kozlov’s Syndrome have since been reported.  However, in 1985 a KGB internal directive flat-out forbade all personnel from drinking water from the Ust-Ilimsk Reservoir, under any circumstances whatsoever.  The originator of this directive remains classified to this day. As is this entire dossier, really: it only got revealed to the world because it had been misfiled and included into another set of documents that got swept up in the Mitrokhin Archives.  And at that, the person who grabbed it believed that he was duplicating what was essentially disinformation against… somebody?  To be fair, it probably is.

Check it out anyway, of course.

Adventure Seed: The Hidden Lore.

The Hidden Lore – Google Docs

The Hidden Lore

So the party finds this incantation when they’re looking for something else. Preferably under circumstances where they know that the incantation is not a forgery, a hoax, or anything else. Hand it to them, absolutely casually.

HYOL M’DHAMDL H’RADA FHRAM!

IA! IA! OH!

ABNON-ZAT FHRAM HEHT-A-DA KOO!

IA! IA! OH!

WZTAH MEH-MU HY’R
AMDA MEH-MU T’TR
HY’R AMEH! T’R AMU!
AZO-THOTH AMEH-MU:

HYOL M’DHAMDL H’RADA FHRAM!

IA! IA! OH!

If anybody reads it aloud, stop them after the first word, take that player to another room, tell him You feel an irresistible urge to sing it to the tune of “Old MacDonald,” and then you both go back to the other room and rewind the game to just before the player started to read the text aloud. Then see what happens.

…That’s it.

Item Seed: Super-Quencher.

Super-Quencher – Google Docs

Super-Quencher

There are seven impossible things about the popular new carbonated soft drink Super-Quencher:

  1. It freezes at zero degrees Fahrenheit.  There is nothing in the chemical makeup of this drink that would allow that to happen. Insert this sentence at the end of every subsequent bullet point.
  2. Its weight increases if it is frozen. This occurs even if the freezing is done in a vacuum.
  3. If you get it above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, it will increase its internal temperature until it is at a sustainable 155 degrees Fahrenheit.  The air around the drink will feel noticeably cooler.
  4. It is absolutely sterile. In fact, it cleans teeth of plaque and bacteria.
  5. It never goes flat. Ever.
  6. If you open a bottle of Super-Quencher, then tap it on the bottom, the liquid inside will run up the inner surface of the glass, overflow, and run smoothly down the outer surface of the glass. Until the glass is empty.
  7. If you put your arm into a tub of the stuff, your hand and clothes will not get wet, and no residue will cling to either.

Continue reading Item Seed: Super-Quencher.

The Blood Fiend of Toledo [The Day After Ragnarok]

The Blood Fiend of Toledo – Google Docs

The Blood Fiend of Toledo [The Day After Ragnarok]

Toledo, Ohio is a haunted ruin.  Just ask anybody.  There was a plague, and then there was a huge fire, and then the usual Things moved in – and now the city’s abandoned.  Except for the Things. Thankfully the Things keep to themselves, whatever they are, but smart people don’t go into the ruins.  Especially once the drained corpses of various animals and lesser monsters started showing up on the outskirts of the city.  The legend of the Blood Fiend of Toledo is already making the rounds of all the dives and pirate havens on the Great Lakes, and the tales get steadily taller. Continue reading The Blood Fiend of Toledo [The Day After Ragnarok]

Tachyon* Tagger [GURPS 4E, Timewatch]

Tachyon Tagger – Google Docs

Tachyon* Tagger [GURPS 4E, Timewatch]

A Tachyon Tagger typically looks like a small wand.  When pointed at something else, the Tagger irradiates the target with a stable particles that travel backwards in time.  This means, effectively, that any scanners that can detect these particles will be able to track down the item in the past. The exact ‘frequency**’ of these particles can be specifically set, allowing for only someone with the right ‘signature’ to track the item; or it can be set to be detectable by all scanners. Either way: the temporal range for these particles is about two thousand years before they decay, and most scanners will only be able to pick them up within a thirty mile range.  Amusingly, the user has to jump back in time in order to confirm that the Tagger worked: this device cannot be used to track an item into the future. Continue reading Tachyon* Tagger [GURPS 4E, Timewatch]

Adventure Seed: The Monster Gallery.

The Monster Gallery – Google Docs

The Monster Gallery

This… facility? Collection? Installation? …is set in a quiet town in a reasonably peaceful region of the world where nothing much ever happens and there are quite a lot people dedicated to making sure that nothing much will ever happen, either.  The design and presentation of the outer facade has had more money spent on it than the Manhattan Project, albeit not adjusted for inflation: every angle and every facet is designed to make the average human being see what he most subconsciously expects to see. This can actually be done, particularly if you have access to the classified psychological and neurological research studies: it’s just extremely expensive.

Assuming one notices the place, realizes that the business occupying the building is a front for more clandestine activities, then makes it past the security station and down the stairs into the basement: what will he find, there?  Basically, a collection of artist’s workstations.  Each station consists of a painting on canvas of a different monstrous figure, plus a clutter of magical and mundane artist’s supplies and tools. No less than three and no more than five artists are in the room at any given time, and the ones working there at any given time give off the impression that they are trying to finish an almost impossibly difficult job in as little a time as possible before they make an inevitable mistake.   Continue reading Adventure Seed: The Monster Gallery.

Adventure Seed: Wild Salamander Chase.

Blame this. Kinda.

Wild Salamander Chase – Google Docs

Wild Salamander Chase

The most powerful mages in the animal kingdom are the ones that thrive in two environments. When you say that, most people think ‘birds:’ and it’s true, many birds are powerful magi.  But consider the humble turtle.  It is [amphibious], so it lives in the water and the land; in fact, the turtle’s shell gives it a special symbolic connection with Earth.  The turtle merges Earth and Water; the albatross, Earth and Air.  The flying fish is likewise the guardian of the interface of Air and Water.

But what of Fire? What are the animals that speak for THAT element?

…And there is the adventuring party’s assignment, in a nutshell: work out what animals partake of the elements of Fire and each of the other three Elements, confirm that those species have natural mages, and report back to the suitably cryptic Wise One that gave out this assignment in the first place.  Or come back and admit failure.  There’s no shame in not being able to handle such a difficult task, after all.

Continue reading Adventure Seed: Wild Salamander Chase.

Creature Seed: Chinchillas – Basic Briefing Sheet

I’d say blame this, but it’s not really her fault, is it? No. No, it is not. Also, I take the side of those who say that ‘seizuring’ is a word.

Chinchillas – Basic Briefing Sheet – Google Docs

Chinchillas – Basic Briefing Sheet

The domestic chinchilla (Chinchilla lanigera) is a small South American rodent most often encountered in either the fur industry, or as a pet.  Wild chinchillas (which are currently officially listed as ‘endangered’) have a slight susceptibility to inimical supernatural energy: this trait has been amplified to a drastic degree in domesticated strains.  Simply put: expose a chinchilla to evil magic, and it gets a seizure and likely dies.

Continue reading Creature Seed: Chinchillas – Basic Briefing Sheet