In Flambergast

Far beyond Pricking Moray another citadel smoulders. In the cinders of Flambergast, ever-burning outpost of Empire long-retreated, a silence reigns. In the silence is a great white horse with a broken back, it has no ears or tail. In the horse is a man older than the world and kingly. In his mouth a key. 

The horse comes terribly maimed and fierce. Its touch is bane and induces intrusive memories of being sewn by elders into a hide and left by a thunderous cataract among dismal wastes, there to be assailed by visions of descendants falling into internecine savagery and the ritual cannibalism of infants, betrayals of the most beloved under torture and couplings with sooty extraneans in barbarous gardens beyond the south.

Draugr-Steed: AC: 16 MV:80’ HD: 6 (32hp) #att 1 bite dmg: 1d8 + level drain ML: 10 AL: C

The steed is undead and thus is immune to sleep, charm and hold and other spells that affect minds and the living functions of living beings.

-From the ruins of the draugr-steed rises the man wide-eyed and bloody. He seems old but hale, white haired, dark skinned and tall.

-There is a profound sense of the numinous about him, characters with a WIS over 12 have burning visions of the man bearing witness to the drowning of the world from a mountaintop and placing a key of bronze in his mouth.

-Those touched by the man are assailed by the inescapable knowledge that everyone and everything they have ever loved will be swallowed by a deluge, that nothing can save them and that the sun will shine upon the surface of the water indifferent to their fate. Everything they experience from that moment forth will be tainted by that vision.

The Man: AC: 15 MV: 40’ HD: 7 (40hp) #att 1 touch dmg: level drain ML 12 AL: N

-The man is immune to magic but not to conventional weaponry.

-The key in his mouth may be used to unlock the heart of the Keeper in the Apple-Garth

-His bones are marked with runes describing the six of the seven rituals needed to unleash the drowning of the world. These can be read and unleashed as scrolls by any witch who takes it upon themselves to boil the flesh off of them and read the runes inscribed thereon: 

Skull: Matriculation of the Hollyhock Demiurge (MU 8) 

Range: Skin

Area of Effect: Caster

Duration: Until the sun dies

You must eat a wildcat alive at dawn. You are transformed into a smiling marble godling, flower-wreathed and priapic, all about you (30') sleep, charm and hold at the nightingale twittering that emanates invisibly from somewhere in your vicinity. This effect is continuous so that a save must be made every round while within range.  In addition to this the unyielding marble that is your flesh will blunt and break any weapon save maces and hammers and the like. There is a need to consume a larger living thing each morning or the transformation is reversed at noon.

 Left Thighbone: Unravelling the War-Skein (MU 7)

Range: Whisper

Area of Effect: Instruments of violence borne in the hands of those who hear the whisper 

Duration: Until the weapons are melted in a foundry or the keepers are dead.

 Every weapon sings a bright and shimmery song of violence (+3 to hit, triple damage), it must make blood flow each turn or it will turn against its keeper with all the wrath its keeper can muster.

Pelvis: Offering to the Incinerated One (MU 8) 

Range: horizon

Area of Effect: Living souls within the horizon

Duration: Until the lives run out

With an athame must be inscribed a glyph into the face of each sentient offering - d4 dmg. At the incantation and every 1d6 rds thereafter a horrible blackened thing will approach in the minds' eye and guide the caster through a parallel reality of burning canals on the backs of shrieking silver-green dolphins. The caster is then able to enter the souls of the living and to steal the quintessence of their being (which manifest as fragments of radiant jade embedded in effigies of dung) , taking 1000 XP each round to be their own. After each d6 round jaunt an offering will go shrieking into fiery doom until there are no more and enchantment is done.

Right Shinbone: Dance of the Timeworn Vestiges (MU 9)

Range: Chanting

Area of Effect: One person

Duration: While chanting continues

A door opens inexplicably in the chest of the subject and out come all those who the subject has loved and betrayed to cavort in a damnable pageant of unspeakable degradations. Should the subject strike out against them they will crumble to ash at 1hp but any damage inflicted will be visited sevenfold upon the subject at the end of the spell's duration by the subject's own guilt manifest as flailing viscera from the door in their chest. Should the subject survive the ordeal they must still save vs. spells or experience level drain.

Across five vertebrae of his lower back: Xanthic Apotheosis (MU 8)

Range: Horizon

Area of Effect: Caster

Duration: One day per caster level

The caster steps willingly into an alembic of cosmic energies and is transformed instantaneously (but subjectively over a period of many years) into a serpentine emblem of incipient monarchy. The caster must remain enthroned in basilisk-form inside the alembic until the spell expires, during which time the caster is vulnerable to all attacks as normal. The landscape around the caster caustic substances begin to precipitate on every surface, killing life slowly but inexorably. Each day the caster is present within an area  causes a cumulative 1 hp of dmg to everything.

On the bones of his left forearm: Profanation of the Sanctuary (MU 9)

Range:Self

Area of Effect: Caster

Duration: One round per caster level

The caster vomits a darkness like ink that spreads in a pool and keeps pouring forth whether the caster wishes it to or not. Whatever enchanted being or thing is touched by the stuff may have the enchantment in it snuffed like a candle flame. Magic-using creatures get a saving throw vs. spells and items get a saving throw based upon the level and class of their creator (who becomes aware of the profanation as a sickly shudder). The caster receives no saving throw. Assume the pool spreads five feet per round on flat ground.

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Nothing beside remains

Children of the God of Teeth

An excerpt from The Carcass of Noon;

Down in the dusty vale the impalers ply their trade - making upright citizens of those who have broken the law of the sainted dead. Few trees remain but slender saplings, carefully tended that they may grow tall and straight the better to correct the wayward.

 In that vale the children of the impalers are taught early that their teeth belong to the oldest of rats. By his permission are they allowed to erupt from baby gums. By his permission also the little borrowers are allowed to gnaw such portions as they find suitably delectable but only for their allotted time. When their time is up the teeth grow weak and fall out, as it were a sign of the senescence of their infancy and burgeoning into what passes for adulthood among the impalers. These adult years, the years between the ages of eight and their inevitable death by thirty-six from teeth gone rotten and poison in the blood, are held to have been purchased by the offerings they make of baby teeth and of teeth stolen from those they execute.

There is among them a trade in teeth chiselled from the mouths of the impaled and the-yet-to-be-impaled. Favour may be gained from the children of the eldest that scamper in the walls of the world by the right offering of the right teeth, though it is argued among them a great deal about who knows the correct procedures to contact and placate Those Who Gnaw Beyond. It is said by some that those beyond care not about the status of the one to whom a particular set of teeth belonged, more than that, it is not known precisely whether they can know, it is the case that they may be bargained with as to what manner of circumstance and heritage may be accepted to be embedded in each handful of teeth. The elders who engage in these bargains rely on a sophisticated and poetic form of lying that tests skilful rhetoric and plausibility against an otherworldly cunning;

Those that come in the night from the riddled dark beneath are appalling, but are dutiful servitors of Him That Gnaws. The ones who have pleased him smile broad and yellow at the twitching recipients of their expertise long into their fourth decade, until the inevitable cankerworm that grows in the ancient jaw claims them in the writhing sweaty death-beds it bestows.

They are knowns as fellers of wood and all the trees about are well-hewn to coppicing stumps and dank mud among which bristle spinily their nameless hamlets. Seven families dwell across a league of valley floor, the lookalike Skenchbacks, the impertinent Skelpies, the Skenetons as thin as sneering switches and Skenydougars with thunder in their voices, the grotesque loping Skerrimudges, the Skoomits of sickly hue and the rampant Skelters running before all.

There are 4d6 in each of the seven hamlets, of which 1d4 will be amenable to becoming hirelings in exchange for the right to chisel teeth from fallen and captured foes in addition to normal fees.

All are as Normal Folk without armour but with a clotting beetle, a tendle knife or a meathook. 

Their Laighlander heritage blinds them to the Darkness in the North. From the vale it can be clearly seen that a portion of the sky has fallen. Dread constellations glitter from beyond.

For Skenchbacks only roll hit points for one, all others are alike

For Skelpies assume the most antagonistic demeanour as standard

For Skenetons assume they secretly plot to impale whoever they meet on whatever trumped-up charges they can imagine.

For Skenydougars negate all attempts at stealth, they bellow and shriek like boreal tempests

For Skerrimudges allow a +1 bonus to surprise for they delight in ambuscades

For Skoomits assume a maximum of one hit point but an active alliance with the Eldest of Rats

For Skelters double movement at all times

Forenames and associated traits are determined by a d20 roll

1. Trasimondo – pestiferous
2. Ursine – hirsute
3. Cateline – rancorous
4. Harrowjack - staring
5. Jehanne – mouldy
6. Gormlaith - haughty
7. Agrippina – skittish
8. Eleazar – avaricious
9. Grigori – merciless
10. Ephrath – lascivious
11. Ailill  - capricious
12. Ashling – dazed
13. Corvus – hungry
14. Benedikt – secretive
15. Egon – vicious
16. Antje – unyielding
17. Ulfberht – watchful
18. Gerlinde – sly
19. Hedwig – warlike
20. Pherick – mumbly

When a favoured impaler dies (1-in-6 is favoured, as are all Skoomits) a Rattenkönig bursts forth from the earth in a hideous swarming mass to enact vengeance upon the slayer according to the bargain of the teeth .

Rattenkönig: AC 13 HD 2+2 #att: 4  dmg: 1 + bloody flux mv: 40’ ML: 11 AL: C

Daunting: hirelings check morale on sight.

Bloody Flux: Save vs. poison or contract diarrhoea, vomiting, cramps. Save vs. poison each day or lose a point of constitution. Three consecutive saves indicates recovery.

Benighted as they are and inured to atrocity by their calling, the impalers have dark prejudices and a predilection for the brutal imposition of penalties upon those they deem, by the fickle whim of their violent instincts, outlawed;

D6 determines prejudice of visited family;

1. Any diminutive and rotund individual with clever feet is obviously a Grummuck o’ Grundlestoan and should be dragged naked through brambles before being skewered transversely upon an iron spike

2. Any lankily fey and wanearthly personage is probably a Neugle from the Wild Black Yonder who covets the tears of the innocent and should be impaled upright upon a thorny branch and burnt after death in a furnace.

3. Any stooped and gravelly person is thought an Ambulant Worm crawled hence from its millennial encystment in the dark earth’s bowels. For such a thing only the inverse impalement through the wretched maw will ensure its demise. It is customary to shatter the limbs prior to the enactment of the sentence.

4. A clever-looking bloke with cumbrous tomes is in all probability a Dwimmerthane in the service of Uncle Withershins, who keeps a ledger of the minor iniquities of right-thinking folk that he may the more effectively tempt them from the road to Neorxnawang. For this crime he should be impaled backward through the lower ribs and pelted with all manner of refuse.

5. A weird woman with pets has in all probability tempted the Ounkin Wights from the Middle Airs into bestial form that she may indulge with them in manifold debaucheries. Such a one need be buried alive with her familiars and pierced with a dozen stakes of rowan wood.

6. One who moves with practiced poise, cowled and cloaked and lightly-shod, is of a certainty a Malign Funambulist who seeks to steal the salvation of sleepers through their nostrils. The punishment for such is to be gaunched at a rampart upon an iron hook.

Each year comes a hundred captives from the town of Strokannet in obedience to a law that seeks to suppress the Cormorantine Heresy that died seven generations since. The quota still exists by the unchangeable law that thrives among them and subjugates their native will to the performance of meaningless slaughter in the name of those that are dead. For those of Strokannet and Routhercocke are subjects of a thanatocracy whose hierarchical positions have long been held by the dead of seven hundred years gone. The will of the dead manifests in reality as edicts handed down to be heeded above all, such that the living aristocracy in those towns have been demoted over the centuries that they are reigned over now by, respectively; a Seventh-degree Underslave’s Verminhandler and a Thrice-banished Scullion-hags’s Groom of the Unmentionable Exudate (in common parlance, they are still referred to as the Handler and the Groom but the awareness of the ignominy inherent in all in these latter-days is ever-present, even unto grovellings and prostrations that punctuate everything). These potentates and all their even more ignominious underlings are obedient to the tracts their ancestors bestowed upon them but above-all to that bestowed by the seven chief tracts in all their gnarled poesy and in their crippling opacity of ancient syntax. These tracts are; The Margrave’s Tract, The Tutelary Subdeacon’s Paradoxes Reconciled, The Burgrave’s Brief commentary on the Margrave’s Tract, The Haberdasher’s Appendices Re-examined, The Apertures ‘twixt Gelding Days by her Grace the Slattern-Keeper’s Mistress et cetera . Their names are beside the point, their contents are such that the enunciation of psalms and platitudes from each will summon forth an obedient citizen of either the Branks of Strokannet or of the Bulwark at Routhercocke whose willingness to heed the Tract-holder’s interpretation of the Tract necessitates their servitude in the most circumstances (Morale is governed by charisma as usual)

Lost tracts are to be found in troves in place of various grimoires at the GM’s whim. Read aloud from a tract in the Language of the Dead and after 1d12 days arrives one whose rank is beneath that of ninth-degree underthrall (Summoned individual is a level 3 henchperson);

D10 determines

1. Lutwidge: An Amanuensis of Strokannet In customary ink and sackcloth arming-jack and wooden teeth, lang-pike of seven-yards length. Believes that carrots inflame the passions (AC +1, lang-pike d8 dmg)

 2. Morwenna : A Carpentaria of Routhercocke in jangle-sark, a caged songbird upon her helm and a billhook (the songbird dies when evil is nigh, the jangle-sark provides +1 AC but -1 chance to surprise, Billhook d10)

3. Tripping Nestor: A Dredgerman of Strokannet with Hewing-hods of tarnished bronze, whose fighting-style resembles a demented hornpipe jig (strikes twice for d3+1 dmg each time)

4. Braam: A Lime-kilner from the Routhercocke Ovens with blood in his spittle and ancient barking-irons (barking-irons [pistoles] d6 dmg, ROF ½ backfire on a 1 for full dmg, ignore armour)

5. Tristram Goad: A Destrier’s Concubine from the stables at Strokannet with high helm and horsehair plumes and flail and no mercy in his heart (Flail d8, ML check to prevent pursuit of fleeing enemies to the very end)

6. Atropa Glandrankle: Imperfect Stranger of the Lost House of Strokannet* in green battle-smock and bearing a green Morgenstern and a flask of lindwurm bile that blazes with venomous fire when exposed to air. (AC +1, Morgenstern d10 dmg, Lindwurm Bile: 2d6 per rd. for 1d4 rds + save vs. poison to all within 20’ or swoon from the fumes for 1d4 rds)

7. Corporal Griskin: A Leatherhead from the barbican at Routhercock in rancid gambeson and rusty iron jackboots, wielding bastinado and bullwhip with exuberant abandon (Bastinado d4, Bullwhip d3, AC +2)

8. Erszébet Snood: Carrion-Hunter from the Routhercock catacombs with sevenfold wig and capacious black robes within which are hid a flesh-axe, a garrotte and a latchet crossbow. (Flesh-axe d6, garrotte d2/rd, latchet crossbow d6 ROF 1/1, AC +1)

9. Salomon Grist: Zelator of Strokannet, wheedling stammerer, blinky and vile, swathed in dusty shrouds and bearing a pile of bundled vellum on which are writ condemnations for trifling infractions (Condemnation 1/wk , 1d4 bane-thralls [as skeletons] emerge from the ground to drag the condemned into foetid abysms)

10. Piroska and Gullet: Dog-whipper of Routhercocke in russet cowl with hulking vicious pitcher-dog in ringmail coat (Pitcher AC: 15 MV: 60’ HD: 3 #att 1 bite Dmg: 1d6 )

*The Imperfect Strangers are aelves who of old dwelt nigh Flambergast and know of the Great White Horse of that ruin

Hooligan Troupes of the Hither-Fells

When I read this at Monsters and Manuals about the nature of the practice of writing I thought it made sense and so returned to my previous habit of tapping on a keyboard. Nothing came of it at first (there is definitely a rusty period) but eventually the same dense and crusty stuff that I enjoy started to re-emerge, which was gratifying. Additionally, Santicore reared his ugly and I availed myself of the opportunity to do the layout for my own entry which got me interested in the algorithmic approach to content-generation and allowed myself a little bit of sneaky re-writing.

I'm interested in nomenclature and the suggestibility of imaginations. I often approach things from a rather Tolkienesque angle, coming-up with names and then trying to find out what they mean. Rhythm and cadence and prosody as well as connotation and symbolism open up vistas for the imagination to explore.

So I long ago decided that NPC party was insufficiently evocative a springboard for my imagination, suggesting as it did some kind of bland political organisation, so I decided that they would be called Hooligan Troupes. This term was satisfactorily animated and raucous. In my mind they were, of a sudden, alive with agendas and troubles to offer players.

The following table is an attempt I have made to further animate the idea of Hooligan Troupes, as well as engage in a kind of mechanically terse proceduralism. Ideally, the generated troupe will be engaging, memorable and connected to the setting, and the fluff is entirely arbitrary, the tool generates a certain number of characters of a given level, carrying a certain macguffin for a certain patron, pursuing and pursued by other hooligan troupes, specific individuals and factions I have inserted are really just placeholders.

_________________

The Hither-Fells are the rolling wastes and moorlands beyond the village of Foote rolling northward all the way to the rumoured fastness of Gibberhelk, whose dread castellan names himself the Hail-King and gnaws upon his madness in the waylorn wilds. Beyond is unknown and unknowable, a black horizon and interminable twilight.

Gibberhelk, where the Hail-King reigns in procedurally-generated mouldering splendour.

Wandering this vast region are troupes of untamed and exiled wandering villains. To generate a troupe roll 2d6 of different colours: the first roll determines the number of hooligans encountered; a roll of one indicates the leader only is encountered,  roll of two indicates the leader and the lieutenant and so on, it should be noted that an equal number of underlings are encountered as members of the troupe. Additionally, this roll determines the patron for whom the particular troupe is working at that particular time.

The second roll determines the particular troupe encountered with their corresponding underlings as well as determining their grail, this is essentially the macguffin that they happen to be carrying at that time for the patron generated earlier, whether they are delivering it to that patron, taking it from that patron to a third party, destroying it, or doing something else entirely is up to the GM.

There is also an assumed relationship between the troupes: each troupe is assumed to be pursuing the numerically subsequent troupe and, in turn, being pursued by the preceding troupe, all pursuit being with hostile intent (troupe 6, the Strangelings are assumed to be pursuing troupe 1, the Feckless Knaves, creating a vicious circle). Notably, it is possible for multiple troupes to be in opposition and to be working for the same patron, this is merely indicative of the fey and contradictory nature of the powers at large in the Hither-Fells.

Additionally, the second roll determines the level of each individual hooligan within the troupe as per the formula on the table; Leaders are assumed to be 6th level and the lowest ranked member of the troupe is assumed to be 1st level, this can be easily scaled to oppose PC parties if necessary.

Finally, the first roll generates an inter-factional set of relationships that could potentially be exploited for dramatic purposes, while not providing any mechanical effect, the fluff is crunch rule applies.

All of the automatically-generated dials on this array can, of course, be individually generated or determined arbitrarily. It is only my own obsessive desire for elegance and simplicity that makes me do it this way.

The format as presented has a few idiosyncrasies that bear mentioning. It is my preference to, in accordance with the aforementioned desire for simplicity, assume an average number of hit points per level, rounded up and adjusted for constitution. The ability score bonuses and penakties are assumed to be plus or minus one but give the GM leeway,should individual hooligans transition to regulary encountered NPCs, to assign the highest and lowest scores to the appropriate abilities. Armour is given an AC bonus, assuming ascending AC. The curious level titles I have given can act as just another bit of disposable fluff if that is desired, but there is also a secondary, slightly crunchy effect which is that individuals gain a reaction bonus with alike and aligned factions once they've bought into a career, and certain equipment discounts, as well as access to special items can be assumed to be a part of the career's perks. None of this is detailed here so iy can all be safely ignored.

I. FECKLESS KNAVES

     1.       Joachim Crimeshanks: lazy and ­squat, talented dissembler, renegotiates relationships sentence by sentence. [Captain of Charlatans, as thief, INT+, CON-, cranequin arbalest (d8, 1/2), spadroon (d6), buckler (+1), jupon (+1), mail coif (+1)]

    2.       Slatterkin Fraile: seems a freckled ogress in gambeson and kettle hat, betimes dappled light pranks her eyes and she falls and drools and has visions of cool green realms where she is empress [Mosstrooper, as fighter, STR+, WIS-,  halberd (d10), gambeson (+1), Kettle hat (+1)]

3     3.  Hakenbüchse Imbrocato: cunning engineer and strategist, deviser of war-wagons and grenadoes and devices for spraying naphtha and quicklime, he is catastrophically combustible. [Apronman, as thief, DEX+, WIS-,  hand-gonne (d6, ignores armour, 1/3) gunner’s stiletto (d4) grenado (2d8 10’ radius), breastplate (+3) Special: explodes for 3d6 dmg if set alight]

  

     4.       Ginflute Sprig: her jackboots are full of stilettos, her heart is cunning and wary, none who have betrayed her yet live [Miscreant, as thief, WIS+, CHA-,  stiletto (d4) sword breaker (+1, d4), jackboots (+1) pourpoint (+1)]

  

     5.       Crimson Plethora: slatternly, lackadaisical, sinister and pantalooned, there is a reek of sorcery about her, a dusty, musty, fusty smell with redolences of fear and sex, she enthralls monks just to see them grovel and weep [Pythoness, as magic-user, INT+, STR- akinakes (d4), Spells: charm person x2]

   

    6.       Girt-by-Satchels: an utterly abandoned vagrant who compulsively gathers useless things in preparation for an imminent catastrophe, surprisingly dangerous with his clotting-beetle [Vagabond, as thief, clotting-beetle (d6), jack (+1)]

II. LOST CRUSADERS

    1.       Ultrogotha: her hair is enormous, her voice is rich and deep, her destrier is masterful and vast, she wears mirror-bright armour and smells of grease and brimstone [Vindicatrix, as fighter, zweihander (d10), mace (d6), plate (+5), burgonet (+1)]

2.       Amaranth Incarnadine: perilously beautiful and young and lit as if by the last sunset of the world, fleeing the persecutions of her boyhood, the streaming banner of her hair acts as call to crusade [Fugelmaid, as fighter, CHA+, WIS-, arming sword (d8), heater (+2), hauberk (+3)]

   

       3.  Glisterfrigg the Loath: burned black by an encounter with an a laidly wurm, she walks in a shadow of doom with long black spear and black shield unadorned, her mouth is red and her voice is harsh and fell [Shieldmaiden, as fighter, CON+, CHA-, spear (d6) kite shield (+2), lamellar harness (+4)]

    4.       Sledgefork: hooded eyes and splayed toad-hands, pungent flagellant with cassock and flail who flirts with gangrene and arnaldia and sees a ferocious truth behind the world [Flagellant, as cleric, CON+, CHA-, flail (d8), Spells: cure light wounds x2, bless]

    5.       Lammermoor the Infidel: scarified and haunted by the war with the darkness, his hair is white and his eyes are red with weeping, his rusty harness creaks and squeals [Scutiferous Aspirant, as fighter, WIS+, CON-, military fork (d10), half-plate (+4)]

     6.       Hans-who-Itches: has ballestrinos, stirrup-, latchet-, goatsfoot-, cranequin- and windlass arbalests and quarrels for every occasion carried in a barrow-cart painted green and advertising wondrous feats of skill, he is wracked with intense and ceaseless itching so that he is a scabrous insomniac shadow and can no longer shoot. (Arblaster, as fighter, WIS+, DEX-, katzbalger (d6), buckler (+1), Jack-and-chains (+2)]

III. OATHBREAKERS

   1.    Lamgammachy Hallow: ancient crone of viciously sharp features and viciously sharp temper, borne on a palanquin by lurching odiums of mannish shape, claims to be, by hereditary right, Queen of Skinflint Hedge and several gullies thereabouts, demands paltry tribute and vague obeisance. [Gyre-Carlin, as magic-user, w/-  six zombie thralls, WIS+, CON- Spells: magic missile, sleep, invisibility, levitate, lightning bolt]

2.    Hadean Tear: has shorn his head and body and infibulated himself, walks naked in the world bereft of desire, practices daily ritualistic vivisections to retain his purity [Demonologist, as magic-user, WIS+, CHA-, Spells: darkness x2, invisibility, ESP]

    3.    Goatloon, the Carnifex of Untimely Brisket: somewhat bestial giant idiot with a cleft palate and an enormous gleaming axe, prefers to wrastle and bind his victims, gets slobbery with excitement at the prospect of decapitation [Carnifex, as fighter, STR+, INT- , grappling (d2), executioner’s axe (d10, -4 to hit)]

4.    Canterangle Broguentwine: gaunt and studious figure-flinger preoccupied with theoretical deconstructions of reality, is consequently brittle and close to suicide (Figure-flinger, as magic-user, INT+ WIS-, Crutch (d4), Spells: read magic, detect magic, detect evil, phantasmal force]

5.      Chlodovech Harpe: far-wandering warrior of austere and peculiar heathen tribe, cuts his hair in uncouth manner, speaks with clipped and formal directness but incorporating convoluted perversions of syntax and tense, carefully prepares his sica and pelte and individually specialised javelins prior to each battle, kills with workmanlike efficiency [Paynim Reiver, as fighter, STR+, CHA-, sica (d6), javelins (d6), scale corselet (+3), spangenhelm (+1)]

6.    Ariadne Firkinmolde: Fierce huntress with yellow teeth, red coat and blue arrows, rides a jackass all shuddery with malice, has a wild voice for shouting over the wind [Heathen Huntress, as fighter, DEX+, CHA-, hunting bow (d6), sabre (d6),teghily (padded armour), +1]

 IV. DESERT-SEEKERS

1.   The Almondine: denounced heretic false messiah, small and rotund and beaming, she bears the stigmata of unsuccessful crucifixion and of scourgings and rackings but maintains her unshakable certainty. (False Messiah, as cleric, CHA+, STR-,  threshal (d6), gambeson (+1) basinet (+1) Spells: remove fear, resist cold, purify food and water, resist fire, speak with animal, cure disease]

2.      Malthus Pizzlewisp: eunuch-sorcerer, shrill and pasty, elegantly tapered hands and ridiculously superfluous parasol, carries a little cage with a black canary who is intransigent and vile [Castrato Incantare, as magic-user, poniard (d4), Spells: charm person, ventriloquism, mirror image, invisibility, haste ]

3.     Epicanthus Brunt: Braying oaf in knapskull and haberschon who peers from a face that has been ruined by violence. [Brute, as fighter, STR+ CHA-,  morgenstern (d10), haberschon (+3), knapskull (+1)]

 4.  Graylung the Frigantine: sallow youth of vaguely elfin cast and vicious misogyny, speaks in the barely-intelligible affected dialect of the Agnatic Squirarchy, full of circumlocutions and synechdoche and with which even he has difficulty enunciating anything meaningful, wears a crimson coat-of-plates [Gentleprig, as fighter, INT+, CON-, cinquedea (d6) coat-of-plates (+3) heater shield (+2)]

5. Flandleman Rut: apparently moribund toothless gaffer of fiendish vitality, bears a black oar with him in lieu of cudgel to remind all he meets that we paddle through life on a river of misery (Brigand, as fighter,CON+, INT- oar (d6), siege cap (+1) aketon (+1)]

6.   Erasmus Borborygmo: corpulent iatrochemist tattooed with anatomical diagrams relating to the circulation and balance of the humours, prone to radical realignments of personality due to abuse of medicinal elixirs, currently melancholic. (Iatrochemist, as magic-user INT+, CON-, cane (d2), Spell: charm person]

V. EXILES

1.       Tanaquil Slake: Disinherited baroness of a realm that has been burned and depopulated, attired as a cuirassier with three-quarter-plate, cabasset and caliver, insists upon the observation of legal procedure prior to execution and torture, snide [Ignoble Heir, as fighter, WIS+, DEX-, prong-maul (d10), 3/4 plate, (+5)]

2.       Gallivantus Kirklouse: craven Reiter of the Salient Coot who deserted his order on campaign and lives in banishment and disgrace, scraggly ginger beard and unconvincing pale eyes, lance and hammer and munitions harness [Runagate Lancer, as fighter, lance (d10), skullhammer (d6), harness (+5), armet (+1)]

3.       Hackamuggie Lammiger: spade-bearded ark ruffian with wooden leg and boarding pike, outrageously nimble and fearless, chuckles as if at a secret joke (Ark Ruffian, as fighter, DEX+, WIS-, boarding pike (d6), ­­­­­jack (+1)]

4.       Oengus the Cow Leech: Enormously muscular sunburnt cottar of broad-brimmed hat and ugly good-humour, bristling with knives (Bounder-Lout, as fighter, STR+, DEX-, tendle-knife and broacher (d4,d6), buff-coat (+1)]

5.       Forthwith Tobermory the Lesser: Chinless wonder of a hedgepriest-scholar, seethes with discontent, brittle of temper and a secret sadist, hates his greater namesake more than life itself. [Hedgepriest, as cleric, INT+, CON-, quarterstaff (d6), Spell: cure light wounds]

6.       Myriad Burncake: scullion-wench turned cutthroat murderess, exceedingly forgettably plain and mousy, equally deft with razor, garrotte, beaming knife and earshank [Murderess, as Thief, DEX+, CHA-, razor, garrotte, beaming knife or earshank (d4), ringlet-doublet, (+2)]

VI. STRANGELINGS

 1.    Grisly Huberht: Little gluttonous hobthrust with a malevolent profusion of sideburns and a penchant for practical jokes involving terrible mutilation. [Hob o’ the Hurst, as Halfling, CON+, CHA-, War-flail (d8), byrnie, (+3) Shapka – reinforced papier mache cap (+1)]

2.     Nox Nay Nabbity: of apparently indeterminate gender, shrouded in many mantles of fur and silk and velvet finery adorned with broidered sigils and glyphs of ill-omened stars, secretly a Capriped, her bestial features are well hid but her musk is apparent to the discerning nose (Capriped Sorceress, as elf, INT+, CHA-, baselard(d4) kazaghand(+3), Spells: sleep x2, web, phantasmal force]

3.      Frecken Klöster: stunted mummer in grotesque deofol-mask and tintinnabulous coat of bells, dances awkwardly to drive away evil with terrible clangour, is mostly deaf and crawling with vermin. [Hunky-Punk, as halfling, DEX+, INT-, battle-thurible (1d6), coat of bells (+3), special: noise gives +30% to Move silently within 30’]

4.       Gryndercrust: A lubber-fiend, long-armed, cow-tailed, uncouth and hairy. Obsessed with the ritualised transactions of agrarian society, eschews gold in favour of milk and barley, flies into a scything frenzy at the harvest moon. [Lubber-fiend, as halfling, STR+, CHA-, reaping scythe (d8)]

5.      Erstwhile Shale: sharger scout, jogs from hiding place to hiding-place, seeks to outwit, outflank, ambush and murder any possible threat, has barbed arrows tipped with curare and is good with knots. [Sharger, as dwarf, shortbow (d6 + poison), jack (+1)]

6.     Snell the Claker: demon-haunted petty-conjuror of tattered weaselish appearance, has a patchwork cloak of scarlet and green and a hell-fiend’s face upon his arse that whispers appalling things [Claker, as magic-user, INT+, WIS-, poniard (d4) Spell: sleep]

-

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UNDERLINGS

Underlings are completely interchangeable hapless fodder appropriately themed to accord with the corresponding troupe, one of which appears for each Hooligan present:

AC: 10 MV: 40’ HD: ½ hp: 3 #Att: 1 dmg: 1d4 ML: 8 (10)

1. Wayward Clavigers: servile underlings in faded green doublets and shakos, bearing cluncheons, kirn-crewks, half-pikes and rushlights

2. Lowlander Gaberlunzies: filthy peasantry in sheepskins, bearing sluff spades and dunnuks

3. Children of the Almondine: idiot younglings enthralled by the false revelations of the Almondine, white tunics and righteous wrath

4. Starveling Lampadarii: holy lamp-bearers, gaunt and undernourished, bearing lanterns, candles, torches to light the way and staves to correct transgressors

5. Kithans of Flambergast: scurrilous scoundrels fled from a dead city, sick with grippe, bearing plumbata and caetrata

6. Manikin-folk: poxy midgets half the height of a conventional dwarf, wheedling and sly and bearing nail-swords

In the Fæcce-Wold

Over the hills and afar and away beyond the Tame-Woods there are many and despicable a copse and grove and spinney accursed and bewitched. Dead willows rot by sluggard brooks, all that grows is omened and poisonous, hemlock and henbane, thornapple and nightshade tangled and drear. Morning glory out of the lost lands chokes the trees in thickly shrouds and blooms its evil purple blooms. Underneath in the beetle-haunted mould grows mandrake and destroying angel and the sanctified elf-cap, even such that of old grew in cromlechs on the putrefying flesh of kings and granted them a peculiar apotheosis in druidic rites, feasted upon by scions who claimed it was godflesh took them into the radiant night beyond the black earth's pale.

The fæcce-wold is not a real place but a forest grown in mockery of another forest now cut down chopped up and burnt in the hearths of those whose kingdom lies in ashen wrack since twenty-seven generations gone. It grew out of the reflection on the waters or out of a mirage or out of alien soil where bad seeds took terrible root. It then proceeded to fall into disregard, the wholesome songbirds flew away south and the boobries came and pale efts. Its name fell away as no more were there lungs and voices to give it throat and it became brooding sullen and fey, resentful of intruders that were thus subject to the exhalations issuant therefrom.

Those who are taken seem to mumble incoherently and stare at nothing and snatch at their clothes but are lost in fog and the wildering dark. Out of this amnesiac null-space come fragments of terrible light.
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Everything is phantasmagorical and can be said to be happening only to one (whoever fails the first save vs. poison) but others are along for the ride as phantasmagorical companions who are reincarnated in each chapter of the journey while in reality they watch the victim mumble and drool. The choice of form and second-person narrative is obviously gamebook-related as is the dreaded 14 (from Grail Quest). 

I never took scolopamine- or hyoscyamine-containing plants but by all accounts the experience of these deliriants is confusing and horrible. There is a long history of associations with witchcraft and divination going back at least to Ancient Greek times. Muscarine is similarly steeped in esoteric tradition and also somewhat weird and scary, or so I'm led to believe.

There is the chance of losing lots of XP here. This is cruel and unreasonable but I like it. Harrowing experiences lead directly to the dimishment of competence, shellshock is like level drain, amnesia entails the loss of the matriculation into the fabric of the world that is precisely what power is. Once upon a time you were somebody now you just sit and stare. Also, I love wights.

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1. Three Paths

 The forest is alive and sinister and beautiful. You vomit and weep and fall and are yet still standing. Three paths lie before you.

The broad road, go to 2.

The narrow path, go to 5.

The ferny brae, go to 8.

2. With Harrow and Switch

 A white donkey in a ditch with a cart deeply bogged and a man beside himself with fury flaying it and it is crying and it won't move and the man's eyes are yellow. Accosted, he declares that this time round the Pale Messiah has come asinine into this world yearning to be cleansed with harrow and switch, that no other thing could account for this occurrence upon the day of Gringenschlacht and that redemption can be found in his nearby swill-bucket for a half-groat. The bucket contains the world, the moon and the wheeling heavens of night.

Beat the donkey, go to 12.

Strike the man, go to 19.

Climb into the bucket, go to 7.

3. Prickly Witchery

 Waking under the eaves of an apple orchard long abandoned where struts a cockerel coalescent of moon-wisps and wyvers webs all a-glimmer in the slanting light of eventide. All about it thrums with a prickly witchery as crawls beneath the skin. It fixes a hard and jeweled eye upon the interloper. It crows and the four horizons resound with its awful majesty.

Beyond is an urn carven from jet that is burnished to a sheen and immaculate, within is a leathery patch of skin. It comes from the heretic pseudo-saint, Drimmerthrinde the Abhorred, who was torn to pieces many years since and his mortal remains scattered far and yet he lives.

The Gossamer Cockerel has stats as a Cockatrice save that instead of petrification a kind of sublimation to vapour results from which there is no convenient return.

Should you defeat it go to 16. Otherwise go to 14. 

4. More Black Apertures

 Crawling through choking darness with the knowledge of low and looming ceilings of stone and the sense of crushing deadfalls and doom. The air is warm and close and there is no promise of ever getting out but of a sudden the tunnel opens into a dimly phosphorescent chamber with a vague and sinister sense of anatomy about it and three more black apertures.

The first leads to 3.

The second to 5.

The third leads to a slimy chasm of great depth and thence to 14. 

5. Imminent

 Everything seems as normal but the inescapable revelation that those that surround you and have posed so cunningly as your companions are right now just moments away from falling upon you, bearing you down and enacting such tortures as their vicious minds can imagine. Everything they do is encoded with subtle signals that presage the imminent attack.

Save vs. Paralysation: Should you succeed you cannot but attack them with everything you have. If you kill them it's off to 4. If they kill you it's off to 14.

Should you fail the save you run blindly through the forest to 8.


 6. Tide of Moss

 Here with Catfish Pucks in soggy jerkins you are playing at knuckly-bones in a lichyard gone long ago beneath the tide of moss. An ill and penetrating damp hangs in the air as besmirches the soul with a sick foreboding. Nigglespraint and Malcrux play hard but fair but Cunny-Whelk is almost certainly cheating. 

The outcome may be altered by playing cunningly or intuitively or bombastically should any INT, WIS or CHA bonuses offer advantage but the player must declare their intent to implement such chicanery. Roll 2d6 to determine outcome modified by ability bonus/penalty; 

less than 3: You forfeit an internal organ you never knew you had (your subordinate quellmilch) to Nigglespraint - lose 250 XP. 

4-5: You lose the possibly inauthentic Trout-Mask you've inexplicably acquired - lose 100 XP to Cunny-Whelk

6-7: You lose a wager with Malcrux that requires you to wear the invisible Crown of Disgust for the rest of your days; -1 penalty to reaction rolls, +1 bonus when dealing with icthyoid entities.

8-9: From Malcrux you win an article of scrimshaw depicting the Otter of Vehemence -gain 100 XP.

10-11: From Nigglespraint you win a phial of turbid river-water upon which fishy witcheries have been bestowed - as a Potion of Water Breathing.

12+ Somehow you've bilked Cunny-Whelk out of everything she has and in a rage she hurls a hex which, unjust as it is in the circumstances and bound as her pishogue is by the archaic Law that governs such things, rebounds to her ruin and she becomes a walnut tree in autumnal splendour that you may climb to 20.

Otherwise, excess consumption of Poppy Wine drags you off to 9.

7. Swift River

 A dark-haired woman, fierce and fair, carries the bones of her three dead husbands in a great bundle across a windswept waste. A swift river runs before her and she weeps because she knows it will sweep her away but she cannot but try to cross it. A burning sign hangs in the northern sky.
You may;

Watch her drown, go to 4. 

Help her cross, wisdom check to succeed in crossing to 6.

Should you fail, go to 14.

8. Brambly Fields 

You are stumbling with your companions to the festival in the village across brambly fields in the autumn drizzle. Of a sudden it becomes apparent that they all carry upon their back a wretched shape like a wizened and owlish crone that gnaws merrily upon their head while they walks on oblivious. It comes to you also that there is a lip-smacking sound close by your ear.

There is one for each of you or at least four. Strigoaicăs have the stats of stirges but carry the ague (Ague: Fever, sweating, cramps, headache. Save vs. poison or lose 1d3 points of constitution per day and suffer -2 penalty to actions for 1d8 days, after which constitution returns at one point per day) This will persist in the real world.

Should you overcome them go to 10. otherwise go to 14.

9. Bronze Knife

 In a mossy trench of masonry and sod you bear a torch and follow the footsteps of men and women mantled in black wool and wearing red paint upon their faces. Ahead in the flickering light upon a bier is the naked form of an aged chieftain with silver torc and talismanic glyphs daubed upon his scrawny frame. The bronze knife is given you and the others step back to allow the body to flounder and writhe in death throes from which can be deduced omens of the coming age.  The tongue in which the words are spoken is harsh and sibilant but the accompanying gestures leave no ambiguity that the old chief is directing precisely how he is to be eviscerated.

Should you eviscerate the Chief a roll of d6  plus wisdom modifier will determine the manner of his thrashing. Otherwise they kill you instead, go to 14.

- Less than 1: Woe betide, the tallest tree will reach the sky and the Moon will clamber down to wreak unmitigated odiums upon the folk of Earth. You are slain immediately, go to 14.

- 1: Ill news, crops will fail and milch-cows bear abominable prodigies, blaming the messenger, they carve from you a portion of your essence -lose 2 CHA permanently, go to 11. 

- 2-5: The throes are ambiguous, requiring the people to blunder blindly into the future, go to 2.

- 6. Good tidings, the Chieftain writhes into sacred shapes presaging the return of bountiful harvests, go to 10.

- 7+ An expert slaughter, guts are spilled and blood pours forth into glyphic puddles in which the 
Chief flounders and gasps. The performance is doubtless a sign of the return of the Prodigal Turbot and subsequent conquest of the hated enemy. You are crowned with ivy and allowed to walk skyclad upon the frozen lake by starlight. Go to 20.

10. Querulous Poesies

 You are climbing through a precipitous forest of spindle-pines clinging against a great grey void. Here mossy green brocks crouch in hollows and brutal silence reigns. They leap up and accost interlopers with accusatory cries. The Mord-Lark will come flapping out of the upper airs to perch upon a branch and warble gruesome and querulous poesies in the Fowl Tongue. It is blind and bygone and stinks for it roosts among poisonous stars.

Should anyone be able to understand the words of the Mord-Lark's poems (and the Fowl Tongue is known to most wysards and spae-wives) horrendous revelations will whelm your mind. go to 14.

Otherwise, the brocks come (3d8 of them, stats as Giant Rats) to bear you down and eat your face. Should you survive you wake up at 17.

11. Uncanny Weird

A  weir of dark water and black stone  with a sunken village within and bells tolling down in the deep. After the bells there are lanthorns in the deep and Aelfrick the Weirman emerges with lungs full of water to burble his uncanny weird.

He speaks in the language of the dead and is also well-nigh incomprehensible. Should one who comperehends hear the doom he pronounces they'll gain 1000 XP but lose 1 point of wisdom and know the answers to all the riddles of the Drazack of Grimblecocke.

Afterwards there will be an urge to follow the Weirman back into the black waters of 14 (WIS check to avoid). Otherwise wander off to 18.

12. Reeking Hollow

Awakening in a reeking hollow, you realise that bloated and bristly maggots are chewing contentedly upon your skin. A furious buzzing heralds the arrival of an Awfish Croggan like unto a loathsome horsefly as big as a bulldog, glistening iridescent and foul. It immediately sets upon you, trying to hold you still with serrated limbs that it may deftly puncture your abdomen with its ovipositor.

Stats as a Giant Robber Fly. Should it kill you go to 14 and erupt with broodlings 3 days later in the real world for 2d6 dmg.

Should you kill it. Swoon with horror and wake at 13.

13. A Handful of Silt

You are staggering through a rainy  place of deep defiles with cataracts rushing down the flanks of slick grey stone, fell runes of great antiquity are graven in the walls. Intoning the words will call three tall grey man-things of awful formlessness as old as the bones of the earth who will rise from the clay to bear witness

Archaic Witness Reaction Table:

2 They frown grimly and ceremoniously deliver fragments of chalcedony and lead and the bones of a cat and a handful of silt - gain 100 XP
3-5 They face to the east and begin to chant in a elder tongue
6-8 They listen and wait
9-11 They rise to a great height and brood hideously, brandishing their great hard hands
12 They attack eyes ablaze with fell light and hooting like infernal owls 
Stats as wights. Should you survive,pass on to 17. Otherwise, 14 it is.

14. Grey Stones

 You are on the road and a fiendish drear seeps from the grey stones as ceaseless sleet and ceaseless trudging on becomes a heartless grueling travail of bitter endlessness. All things are galling, the unrelenting indifference of the bony hills and the piercing wind and the spoilage of food and the bleak brown emptiness. Day is but a pallid night, grim and interminable.

You lose 100 XP, now roll d20 and go there.

15.  A Gimlet Eye

Through a black skeleton-forest in a valley of stone six turbaned Janissaries of the Incarnadine Umbrage come with bows drawn. They are accoutered with crimson and lemon-yellow kazaghands of outlandish design and speak baleful heresies against the northern world. Their leader is a leathery hawkish murderer with a gimlet eye. He seeks gold and elf-blood and holy vengeance.

-Leader (Vranmathoome): F3 AC: 5 (kazaghand, shield) Dmg: 1d6 (shortbow) or 1d8 (yataghan) hp 15
Booty:  Paynim Canon,  exquisitely adorned - 200 groats, 26 silver basilika (1 basilikon = 10 groats) - 460 XP, all treasure evaporates but the XP sticks.
-Janissaries (5): AC 5 HD 1 Dmg 1d6 (shortbow) or 1d8 (yataghan) hp 5 each

Should you survive, go to 16.

16. Blue Honey

In the golden gloaming at day’s break comes a grey bear like a man with the beard of a man and a glorious voice like sunlight and smoke. He speaks of the wondrous realms that lie beneath the skin. He wants a companion to follow him into the east to seek blue honey in the farthest lands.

Save vs. spells or succumb to his charms and go with him to 14.
Otherwise fall asleep and wake again at 15.
Should you wish to fight him he is a Bear. He has a small jar of blue honey, it tastes like 19.

17. Preposterously Prodigious

A trumpeting shivers the twilight air and preposterously prodigious and wonderful beyond imagining comes a yellow olifant vaster than a Donjon-Keep, adorned with majesty and splendour. It tramples the forest about and gleefully tosses great trees cartwheeling high into the air. It trumpets again closer and the sound seems to set the air afire with its power. The trees burst into blossom as they are smashed into kindling. The earth quakes beneath him.

Save vs. Dragon breath or be destroyed and go to 14. Otherwise faint with awe and wake at  19.

18. Ferny Cleft

 In a dewy morning ferny cleft where the cuckoos cry incessant, where umbrageously enclosing bole and limb of vastly ancient trees arch up overhead there comes a harsh and braying sound and a creaking and a crashing. Down the cleft in idiotic frenzy comes clambering and bellowing the Grune Aiten like a man-tree uprooted from sorcerous soil and sent blundering after the hapless fleshly-frail.

It has the stats of a Treant times three and ought not be recklessly engaged. If it destroys you, go to 14. If you somehow destroy it go to 19. If you are sensible and flee into the forest go to 11.

19. The Navigator

A Langshippe, worm-prowed and sleek, stripy sail all a-tatter, perches high in an ancient oak. Upon its deck stands a man with one leg, raven-bearded, lugubrious of countenance and hard-eyed. The Navigator, for so he is known, curses the indifferent cosmos for its lassitude and sells maps to the constellate heavens and the rifts of Domdaniel and a hundred other places.

Wherever you need to go, pick a number, 1 to 20, you may go there for a shekel (12 groats)

20. Wake

You wake in a pile of leaves and vomit is spattered down your front, your throat is sore and you can't see straight. Forever after it seems something returned with you from that terrible place, a thing of shadow and forgetfulness that wears your face but remains always just out of sight. Nothing is certain anymore but that the thing that followed you will come one day into the real and walk with you under the light of day and that it means you harm.



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Any allegations that I am recycling fragments from abortive blog posts will be strenuously denied.

This is pretty.