Call me now alien overlords

37. D6 suicidal master assassins listen in despair to the muttering of an eagle-sized fungal moth. If interrupted or spoke to, an assassin will

1-3 attack.

4 attack another assassin.

5 attack the moth.

6 attempt suicide.

On witnessing this, on the next turn the closest assassin will (roll again and once each turn). Moth is a semidivine companion to a suicide god of despair. Highly magical, powerful familiar, tends to crush hopes of those around.

38. Court of the Worm King. The final (d6+1) pretenders to the crown of Worms battle here for the throne. One (randomly chosen) holds a sword that kills kings in one blow and harm none else. Only the eldest living is vulnerable to the sword.

39. d100 berserk and biting ratman scuffle for possession of an iron ring which binds a dementia-ridden Djinn. (Forgets how many wishes he gave, who you are, who he is, what’s going on.)

40. This Mad Ooze Cult has stolen a counter-signed sentence of death from the Drow with the guilty name as yet un-writ. Half are sane, yet have true faith in the Mad Ooze. The other half are mad, yet secretly disbelieve in the Awful God. None know which is which.

41. A ring of Fungal Paladins has taken possession of an unfolding iron gae that instantly transports anyone to its companion; altarpiece of a cathedral for an unforgiving surface faith. Expect mutual Jihad.

42. A radical faction of forgotten golems, ceramic, electrum and glass, have stolen a spell that charms any Lich. They fake Autonomy and speak in euro-philosophical vagaries. In truth they must obey any spoke command. They will kill madly and at speed to preserve their revolution.

43 – 48

	This person	Wants	This Place
1	A hyper-intelligent true-neutral Troll	To Escape from	The SpiderClimb 3D warzone
2	The prophet of the petty god of Orbs	To Terrorise	The Watchtower of the Beholders
3	The familiar of a Dreaming Lich	The location of	Vents of the Steam Ghosts
4	The greatest human climber ever born	The path to	The Hive of Dead Ants
5	A highly-rational non-violent human girl	To Heist something from	The Great Trilobite Joust!
6	The tongue-parasite in a pickled dragons head	To Infiltrate	The Auction of Souls

49 – 54

	This person	Wants	This Place
1	The glass-bound herald of a Feudal Ooze	Information on	The Olm who sleep beyond the black falls
2	A braindead dwarf berserker of the mindflayer clade	To send very bad news indeed to	The Sleepless Servants of the God of Time
3	A Composer-Knight of Organs City	To beg a ceasefire from	The Gold-Mines of the Dwarf Lords, delving from above
4	A necrocrat bureaumancer	To discover the treasure locations of	A spirit haunting the empty shore f a forgotten subterranean lake
5	A Cloaker ambassador with strings of maddened scribes to translate	To outbid or undermine	The Anti-King of the Under-Fey in their mirror-ceiling halls.
6	Levitating Fungal Bodhavista	To distract and bemuse	The Bolero brain parasites who conspire against order and peace

55 – 60

	These	Have one chance to	And just need you to
1	Abandoned children	Escape their pursuers	Train them to fight
2	Fleeing slaves	Make a last stand	take out the bad guys
3	Refugees	Break free	steal a key
4	Dissident Artists	Grab the treasure	Guide them there
5	Doomed delvers like yourself	Depose the evil ruler	Help them run
6	Recently de-petrified Medusa statues	Free the city	Give them food (yourselves, shock cannibals.)

More things from Down There 16 - 36

16. A warren of aerial clay, inter-penetrating traceries of soft glistening crystal shining mud, flung in arches and embrasures. Work of a Deep Dragon who sings stone to mud with every breath. It’s hoard hangs openly in hands of clay collapse into a landslide with the slightest graze.

17. A bowl of flensed men who mutter to each other and tap at the glass that makes their prison homes. Rags of torn flesh like broken clothes inside the briny bowls. Will trade great wealth for beautiful amphibian courtesans (strong stomach required). Vengeful if mocked or betrayed. 

18. A race of slaves. Competes across a savagely designed course set with beasts and magical traps, under the eyes of observing contemptuous Lords.

19. The herald of a Cosmic God hiding from his lord. His chambers of silver and glass are an uncertain refuge for any who have betrayed or abandoned their rightful authority. The godlet protects these treasonous fragments but allows only one individual of each kind. Only a greater traitor may supplant another of the same race.

20. Blessed by one of the boring gods. This huge spiralling cave is pitted with small caverns of every kind. If any item is left within a single cave, only the owner of that thing may ever enter again. Any other will die. When the depositor dies, the magic invisibly dispels. (Twenty gangs of bandits roam the halls.)

21. The Library of Hives. A colony of several different kinds of swarming beast. Books are incarnated in the shifting patterns of moving text, forming and re-forming words as the eye shifts down the line. Nothing can  be re-read.

22. The Limb Factory. In a hidden pool, a ‘lens’ of  saline water supports an upper layer of hydrochloric acid. Trapped beneath the acid is a gigantic and intelligent Asteroidea. This creature can, and will, grow and attach new limbs for those it meets. Access is controlled by different tribes at different times as they war constantly for the cave.

23. A nest of traders tangled up, refusing to un-knot their slaves and centipedal mounts over a matter of privilege. Nearby, multiple gangs of bandits, equally confused and mixed.

24. Duegar cellular city, abandoned black cubes with twisted realities, opening and closing like shadows behind the eyes.

25. A blundering lizardman mummy stuffed full of books and old scrolls. Seeking a forgotten labyrinth he accidentally wandered out of and cannot re-find.

26. An apparently normal child. Alone. Un-harmed. Waiting for someone they cannot name.

27. A speleo-druid meditating in a garden of helictites. Only partially transformed into negative-image void being. Infra-black flitterings oozing from his cuffs like flags.

28. A team of criminal smuggling dwarves manoeuvring a gigantic trunk of a hardwood tree deep to a forbidden city. There, it will sell for one million lumes and be carved into a temples central support. 

29. A town where the only currencies are hard drugs and seconds of survival. Minute-town, where everyone is free and no-one is ever safe.

30. Palnaquin-waggon of terribly decedent elves. Carried smiling golems uilt like bells around echoing chimes. Six feet wide and ¼ mile long. Elves have been high of Sipopa* for three weeks, now running out, coming down getting dangerous to be around. No idea where the fuck they are.

31. Remnants of a Halfling expedition climbing upwards. Bloodies, starving, seconds away from self-destruction. Carrying an enormous (6ft wide), golden, stasis-locked and incorruptible pork pie. On a double they are about to meet the dwarves from 28.

32. Corkscrewed moleship nose burst through the roof. Fucking steampunk gnome inside will try to hide the fact that they cannibalised their crew on the descent.

33. Lone captain hurriedly trying to repair her shattered craft. Cargo of strawberries. Crew drowned. Strawberries go off in 3 days. City of the spider queen is 2.5 days away if the fastest and most dangerous rapids are taken and the deepest falls risked. Fresh strawberries worth double their weight in Lumes. Stale or rotten ones worth nothing. Drow palates V delicate.

34. Master-criminal wizard transported back to the Knotsmen city of ‘Forclose’. Each finger individually knitted to its partner behind his back. Spike driven through his tongue. All guards but one killed by freak fall.. Wizard will reveal a single section of his plan for every finger freed. (Really secret anarchist, wants to burn the Knotsmen debt records.)

35. A city has burned in the surface. Desperate prospectors swarm the storm tunnels to pan the flows for flesh, metal, gems, slaves and wood.

36. The Hoarding Dark. A liquid absence that steals, and conceals treasures of those who pass through. Those who enter blindly, owning and holding nothing, may emerge wealthy or not at all.

*Why not enjoy the Swordfish Isles, a location book for D&D by Jacob Hurst, coming to a store near you soon!

My Dumb Fucking Plans

“Castle Aelfheim of Lord Aelevengeth

At first, you will see nine towers. Each has about 4 defender(s) visible (there are actually seven times that number total) and about 1 will arrive per round in the case of an alarm. The outer walls are 51 feet tall and the towers extend 9 feet above them.

 

from the sea, there will be 33 feet of ordinary ground before the walls start.

*Due to the condition of the walls, climb checks are at plus four.

*The lowest windows are 38 feet up.

*The initial volley from the towers in case of an unexpected attack will be crossbow fire. The second volley in case of a siege, an anticipated attack, or a small but persistent raiding party (like a bunch of PCs) will consist of more standard bowfire-

*Additional security measures include:

A gatehouse with inner portcullises that cut off the gatehouse at both ends. A series of secondary walls--12 feet higher than the outer walls. There are 1 fewer inner towers than outer ones.

*Also:

The captain of the garrison is insane. The interior architecture is irrational--dead ends, pointlessly sloping passages, etc. “

So when we come to ask ourselves how to kill Lord Aelevengarth the question is complex.

Outer walls 51 feet

Nine outer towers each 60 feet

Assume each tower has 28 guys defending

Inner walls 63 feet

Eight inner towers (assume 72 feet?)

Does each inner tower also have 28 guys?

If so then the total number of defenders would be about 476!

Frontal assault is out.

Assault by stealth - The walls are easy to climb and the windows are low but the inside of the castle is irrational, G+ means poor mapping so we are almost certain to get lost inside

The weak point is the paranoid garrison captain (play last session revealed his insanity manifests itself as paranoia.)

I know my plan for everything is assault by deception, but, it does seem like the best bet this time. (Of course that requires a complex plan, which will certainly go wrong.)

Best idea so far is plant the idea in the captains mind that Aelfheim is a doppleganger. Somehow place some kind of mind enchantment or alter Aelfheim somehow so he doesn't 'seem' like himself.

Maybe effect his memory somehow? The effect should be non-harmful and so mild that no-one would think to defend against it. So mild that it would seem pointless to curse or poison someone with it.

Something like 'you forget the name of your dogs' or 'you forget the names of your servants until you are reminded'.

If the curse itself remains a secret and we implant the suspicion in the paranoid guard captain correctly then he will kill Aelfheim for us, hopefully in front of witnesses. Then we kill the captain in revenge and leave with clean hands.

1       Plant Doppleganger suspicions in in the mind of Guard Captain.

(My favourate way of doing this is to forge a letter to the Guard Captain from Nornrik, have some goon deliver it. It says;

'Please disregard the earlier message, it was written by a low level official with paranoid fantasies who has since been dismissed. There is nothing to worry about. Do not allow any of these wild and unfounded accusations to besmirch the honour of Lord Aelevengarth. He has our full support.'

But no earlier message ever came. And if he writes back, they say they know nothing about the letter he got. Then if he tests it, he finds out it's forged.

If he questions the goon, the guy lies, badly, then on further questioning says a bunch of weird guys in the wastes paid him to bring it. They wore masks.

And all of this makes him more suspicious, because every piece of evidence that there is no conspiracy, is also evidence that the conspiracy is bigger than you thought.)

Alter Aelevengeth in some mild way, keep it secret.

Start asking the guard captain 'hey, you see anything weird about that guy?' Join him in finding out what’s going on.

Kill some of Aelevengeth's personal staff. Make it look as if he did it.

Join with captain as 'only ones he can trust'

Civil war breaks out inside castle? Good.

Persuade guard captain 'now is the time' he kills his boss, or dies trying. Either way we step in to clean up.

This is a terrible plan. But they all are aren’t they?

Less-shit plan. Cause a distraction, have assassin, thief and combat monk infiltrate the castle by climbing. Get to the lord. Kill him. Escape.

Other plan- Lord Aelevengeth is a keen hunter. Create impression of some terrifying beast out in the wastes. Kill some livestock, leave strange tracks to ambush spot. If anyone but Aelevengeth tries to catch it, kill them and leave freaky wounds on the bodies. Then, when Aelevengeth comes out to fight it, lure him into the spot and nail him from all sides. (Downside, he is a good hunter, will probably work it out. Never fight someone in their preferred arena.)

“a something wider belt than the line where the world rolls into night”

John Ruskin you mad, creaky Victorian bastard. You may think the use of iron in buildings stops them being architecture, but you can write like a motherfucker when you want to.

“There is a marked likeness between the virtue of man and the enlightenment of the globe he inhabits – the same diminishing gradation in vigour up to the limits of their domains, the same essential separation from their contraries – the same twilight at the meeting of the two: a something wider belt than the line where the world rolls into night, that strange twilight of the virtues; that dusky debatable land, wherein zeal becomes cruelty, and faith superstition, and each and all vanish into gloom.”

I think that’s one fucking sentence? Usually I loath long sentences but I cannot deny he makes every part of that one sing.

D100 somethings (1-15)

This was meant to be a list of locations with a tiny description, benifits and threats. But I just started writing stuff down and went on from there. It's turned into a kind of rumours table and a bit average maybe?

Anyway, let me know what you think. If you like it I will go on in this vein*.

1. Rebel transsexual Drow lead a caravan of refugees.

2. A Goddess the outer-folk call ‘Night’ holds her vaulted fault not far from here. She comes and goes at predictable times, her treasury holds stars, but she takes them with her.

3. The ghost-haunted war tunnels of an abyssal jihad can take you where you need to go, but have been long sealed.

4. The final appeal is a court of the undead, hoarding the last gleam of the sun.

5. The iron eyed tribes of the Bone Beach sea can see magnetic waves, swords blind them like a bright light.

6. In a garden of the Archeans the Pistils of the metallic flowers discharge electrified bursts of pollen. Tiny flares of vermillion and azure flame.

7. In a forgotten city the stalagmites form over crouching ghouls that only wait, the stalactites above them have grown around the hanged bodies of men suspended from the vault.

8. The swirls and helices of many-coloured stone in a smooth bore climb not far from here reveal slow truths to those who survive their folds unshod by hand or foot.

9. Where two great plates of the earth meet, strange passage may be found amongst those dwelling deep. Where three meet, the Vertical City is set.

10. The waters of the Bone-Beach sea are fresh and dark, it drains into the Nightmare Sea, salt, bright with life, and sleepless.

11. The mines of Hess are haunted and hunted by a pale silvery light that leaves no survivors.

12. A thinker of the Grey Dwarves has found an iridescence in the eyes of Man, but only the most delicate subjects possess it and he seeks them everywhere.

13. The Antiphoenix loves delicate items of pure zinc. The brush of his feathers elicits  pale luminance from them.

14. The maps of the Drow show only paths you cannot take.

15. When the waters of this river flow over a certain rock the patterns in the stone seem to form words. Reading even a few of these words eats all other memory. A mage seeks their meaning but his slaves die on the rapids or swim away.

*Inadvertant humour there. 


[Just out of interest, is anyone reading this female? Sorry to be weird but I can only think of about two or three women that might be reading my stuff. (Feel free not to mention it if it wierds you out]