Quit-rents (Bookhounds of London)
The British Crown has what appears to be a quaint custom of accepting ‘quit rents,’ or nominal rents for various properties. And by ‘nominal’ we mean ‘symbolic:’ there’s one territory in Shropshire (exact location unknown) whose yearly rent is a dull billhook and a sharp axe. It’s all very traditional and whimsical and has no real bearing on the world, of course…
Continue reading Item Seed: Quit-rents (Bookhounds of London)
Fairy Swordfish
These are… not precisely free-willed spirits or supernatural entities. Instead, they are a shell into which a spirit can be poured into – preferably, voluntarily. Not primarily because of any ethical concerns, alas: it’s more like you probably shouldn’t stuff something into an independent weapons platform unless it doesn’t mind being stuffed in there anyway.
In their ‘natural’ form, Fairy Swordfish look like small, winged, bomber jacket-wearing female humanoids with a narwhal’s horn on their heads and a grenade in one hand. The species has what appears to be an almost religious aversion to hand-to-hand combat: they will happily stay out of range and rain down grenades at you from the air… unless you’re an ally of the British Crown, which is the entity that ‘owns’ the Fairy Swordfish shells. In that case, they’ll just blow up your enemies, instead. The spirits hired to imbue Fairy Swordfish are typically not evil creatures, so they don’t actively attack innocent people, but British Esoteric Intelligence is well aware that when you give flying spirits hand grenades, every so often the wrong thing might blow up*.
Nonetheless, they’re invaluable when it comes to cleaning out nests of apocalyptic cultists, assuming that the cultists were considerate enough to set up shop in truly desolate areas. Which happens surprisingly often. It’s like none of those people ever need to go to the supermarket…
*How does BEI cover up the existence of Fairy Swordfish? That’s an interesting question. Do you have the necessary security clearances to allow you to hear the answer?
Blame this.
Anser Reformabit
Despite its name, this spell works on any sort of poultry. When cast, it transforms the victim into a variety of carnivorous dinosaur, depending on the rough size of the poultry in question:
Been working on this most of the afternoon.
Supplanters
You think I’m going to help you? You think that I want you to cut it out of me? Go to Hell. People like you threw me into the gutter; it’s the only thing that’s ever tried to put me back up on my feet. I’ll hurt you before I let you take it away. And then you’ll go to jail, because monsters aren’t real. Or, maybe you’ll go to the hospital, because you’ll be the one who sounds crazy now. Let’s see how you’ll handle it.
Supplanters are the dangerous kind of monsters: that is, they are clever, patient, and strong-willed. Like all of their kind, they have an overpowering need to manifest in our plane of existence – but they think in longer terms than virtually any other sort of monster out there, and they know how to plot. And Supplanters know how to enlist the help of their prey.
Sludge Shoggoths
Well, they’re not exactly ‘shoggoths.’ Probably. One hopes. They’re… not exactly harmless, but they’re… manageable. And – horribly enough – valuable, too.
In its ‘natural’ aquatic form Sludge Shoggoth resembles about five hundred pounds’ worth of various gunk and garbage that will suddenly surround and consume you if you get too close. That’s problematic, although somebody with a sharp enough knife can usually cut himself loose before he suffocates. Sludge Shoggoths are also vulnerable to electricity, but not fire: killing one will cause the ‘body’ to dissolve back into the water. Curiously, they have virtually no smell at all. Continue reading Monster Seed: Sludge Shoggoths.
Deicide Duty
It’s October, which means that it’s that time of year in the Shadow Government calendar when teams of agents need to go out and indiscriminately slaughter nascent, unsanctioned, and superfluous seasonal holiday spirits. And nobody gets to get out of it this year, either. Yea, indeed: the Secret Masters themselves are all on the roster. So no excuses.
This kind of started off being based on an Onion article, but it all went occult pretty darn quickly.
The Grammar School Wars
Not ‘grammar school’ in the “child’s/teenager’s education” sense: these are the Grammar Schools. These are the schools that teach adepts the operating language of the universe. Or least one variant of one operating language of the universe. It turns out that if you use a ‘dialect’ that strays too far from a particular meta-language (and you want it to stray, because changing the dialect gives you arcane power), you sort of… disconnect from this reality and end up somewhere that’s more congenial to your worldview. And before you ask, adepts know this because the occasional entity pops into our dimension using this method. It happens barely often enough to give researchers some idea of the process involved. Continue reading Adventure seed: The Grammar School Wars.
…Ick. And I wrote it.
Wirestrictors
Generally speaking, necromancers prefer to bind dead human souls into items, instead of animals; mostly because it’s easier to suppress a human soul’s innate intelligence and ability to understand language than it is to boost an animal’s. In fact, it’s largely impossible to do that with animal souls at all. What you rip out of the body is what you get, and if what you got was something not capable of doing anything elaborate, you had better stick with simple.
Wirestrictors are pretty simple. Take one constrictor snake, rip out the soul, then shove it into a long, strong metal wire (showing no care in either the ripping or shoving: you want the snake soul upset). Then set a secondary spell that will render the snake soul ‘unconscious’ until a pre-chosen triggering mechanism is activated. Coat the wire in something that will hide the discoloration and reek of wrongness. Attach the ends to a brooch or gem or whatnot (not too strongly).
Blame this.
Spirit Infusion
Creating a Spirit Infusion is relatively easy, or at least not very involved: collect rainwater in a clean gallon container. Wait for a ghost to drown in it. They will, if you wait long enough, and maybe entice them with ghost-attracting smells or sounds (specific ghost attractions vary by culture and campaign). You’ll know when you have a ghost drowned in your water when you look at your container using an Icelandic sunstone and see the distinctive greenish-purple glow.
Continue reading Item Seed: Spirit Infusion.
Blame this.
Operation MIDNIGHT PUMPKIN
What they’re doing in the airports is a facade. A sham. A ruse, to keep our attention occupied. The TSA’s real focus is much, much more esoteric. After all, who would think to look there for a secret coven of herbalists and natural alchemists?
Don’t think that such things exist in the modern world? OK. But consider the following herbal ingredients:
Continue reading Adventure Seed: Operation MIDNIGHT PUMPKIN.
