Tag: seed

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.

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Creature Seed: Aqualions.

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Aqualions

If you are asking yourself “Why would anybody mutate a lion by giving it gills and making it amphibious?,” congratulations! You’re not a Mad Scientist.  Mad Scientists never ask themselves questions like that. They’re often not self-aware enough to ask themselves “Why wouldn’t people mutate lions?”  Mutagens are there to be used. Of course.

Of course.

In this particular case, Aqualions were the brainchild of Captain Sir Humphrey Walsingham-Reynolds, RNR, RCS, KCB, etc. etc. etc.  According to his scattered, decaying, and somewhat gnawed notes the idea was to create a mascot for British ships of the line: Sir Humphrey was apparently quite upset that ‘sea lions’ did not even remotely live up to his mental images of them as a boy, and felt that the Empire needed something with a bit more puissance behind it. So he went and created lions that could breathe water as well as air (they needed the air in order to roar, of course). And could swim effectively underwater.  And then he increased them in size to about one ton each and made them more aggressive, because why not?

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Adventure Seed: Flight of the Dino-Master!

Flight of the Dino-Master!

I’m sure that the plan we’re about to talk about kind of worked on paper: after all super-villains are always creating all sorts of things or creatures that they’d then use to get revenge, take over the world, or become rich.  So when Dino-Master (real name: Herbert Grant, verified Mad Scientist who managed to slip through the high school guidance counseling process) figured out how to create a Devolvo-Ray that would turn reptiles and birds into dinosaurs, he thought that he had something hot, here. Convert a zoo, have a rampage, everything would be great.

And it worked!  He even managed to solve the mass problem (turning a chicken into a full-sized T-Rex is gonna require some special Mad Science, right there) with a handy protein slurry gun.  So, all of a sudden, the countryside’s full of dinosaurs, ready to rampage! …Only, they’re not.

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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.

Adventure/Event Seed: the Chemitron Working.

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The Chemitron Working

About the best thing that you can say about the attempt in the 1950s to create a synthetic angel was that… apparently it did not manage to infuriate the Almighty. Whatever the ‘Almighty’ even is, in this context. This is one of the problems with attempting to manipulate forces that operate at a higher level of reality than the level that you’re currently inhabiting: you’re never quite sure whether anything happened.  Well, unless you crack the Earth like an egg, or open a portal to the Universe of the Entropy Shriekers, or something like that. Something obviously happened then.

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Adventure Seed: The Corpse-Flower God.

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Adventure seed: The Corpse-Flower God

Rejoice, o mortals!  The Seelie Court has graciously decided to make proper use of your brutish, ephemeral existence!  Be flattered that you now have a purpose!

As you probably are too ignorant to properly understand, every flower in the land has a spirit set as representative and guardian for its kind. When those flowers bloom… why, then, so does that spirit. The spirit is the flowers, and the flowers are the spirit. As one prospers, so does the other.

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Creature seed: the Malaysian Assassin Butterfly.

The Malaysian Assassin Butterfly

Geez, have one butterfly species mutate into a magic-sensitive version with distinctive skull-and-crossbone markings, a stinger, and hallucinogenic venom and then suddenly everybody wants to go Full Metal Pulp Adventure on it.  To begin with, the stinger is demonstrably incapable of piercing human skin.  Seriously, some very, very unsavory people with a strange sense of drama conducted some rather immoral human testing along those lines.  Second, sure, if you grind up a bunch of the butterflies you’ll end up with a paste that will make you see things. But you’d have to grind up a lot of butterflies to get the effect. It’s cheaper to go out and score some LSD, by far.

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Adventure Seed: Vengeance of the Weevil Empire.

Vengeance of the Weevil Empire

“Good morning, Agents. [Picture appears, of an elderly Caucasian male with glasses and a short beard]  This is a picture of Harvey Grisham of Tuttle, Kentucky.  On May 17, 1995 he opened his back door to discover that an alien colony ship had crash-landed in his very extensive and back yard.  The ship was from the Radiant Glorious Space Weevil Empire (their own name for themselves cannot be translated into a human language), and had been damaged while heading for an uninhabited colony world. Please note that the average Space Weevil [picture appears, of a beetle-like creature wearing a shiny jumpsuit, with a penny for scale] is about three quarters of an inch long, which meant that the entire colony ship – one rated for about 100,000 colonists – was about the length and volume of a mid-sized car.

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Spell Seed: God Mode.

Spell: God Mode

Well, it’s not always a spell. Depending on the universe, it’s a spell, a miracle, an alchemical centering ritual, a psionic mnemonic exercise, a reasonably benign bit of hyper-geometry… whatever fits the local supernatural paradigm, really. To activate it, the spellcaster has to jump up twice, crouch twice, shuffle to the left, shuffle to the right, shuffle to the left again, shuffle to the right again, and – this is the important part – be able to metaphysically perceive the two glowing spheres of light that have just manifested in front of the spellcaster.  If the caster touches the sphere on the left, and then the sphere on the right, congratulations: he is now immune to all forms of damage! For about one minute, at the end of which the caster is knocked absolutely unconscious for the next day. Continue reading Spell Seed: God Mode.

Item Seed: the Bee Suit.

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The Bee Suit

This item is at least one hundred years old: it’s made out of dried-out wax and twigs, essentially, and even moving it slightly causes an alarming amount of crackling and bits coming loose.  Any kind of rough treatment and the whole thing will come apart at several seams. Cautious investigators will inspect the Bee Suit strictly in situ.

In its current state the Bee Suit appears to be a rough approximation of a human being, made again out of wax and twigs.  There is no body hair, no genitalia, no eyes, no tongue: there are only front teeth and fingernails (both made from polished wax), and the torso is subtly misshapen.  A previous investigation team has cut back the ‘skin’ on the left side of the Suit to reveal the internal framework, which is alarmingly sophisticated – and, again, made of twigs and wax.  The Bee Suit could walk and pick up things; it would have been absolutely useless in combat, but put a suit, gloves, boots, a wig, a hat, and smoked glasses on it and it could credibly pass for human on a sight check.

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