Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '23, challenge #1 is from a list by SunderedWorldDM - "Essential, non-RPG reading for any GM."
In case you have not yet seen it Kill 6 Billion Demons is magnificent. The planar wierdness, the cosmic powers, fabulous grist to the mill if you are a DM looking for ideas. Gaze upon some of the giant illustrations of Throne and let the muse whisper in your ear...
As a grand theme anything that asks how did the sinews of medieval times work is great source material. Histories of pretty much anything are always good. Online, the magnificent 'Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry' is a gold mine for world-building and just getting a reasonable understanding of how most of typical fantasy-land might be thought to work. Works over Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Dune and other good sources for great examples.
For strange digital lands to wander through to inspire your own settings:
18 October 2023
16 October 2023
Shiny TTRPG links #142
More links can be found on the previous list found here. The original inspiration for all of this is weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links. You can find more links on weekly blogroll on r/OSR or the RPG Blog Carnival or a roundup of non-blog news on Third Kingdom Games roundup.
Stuffed Crocodile does us great service with Download: PD Token Collection (170+ tokens for fantasy games)
Brian Escobar’s Substack asks When do characters define themselves in RPGs?
Traveler's Rest shares Generating Elevation in a Hexcrawl
Aboleth Overlords makes a Play (Fantasy) Worlds idea proposal
Beyond Fomalhaut writes [BLOG] Year Seven: Old School Rebuilding
Liche's Libram gives us GOo5e 🦢 (goblin ordinances of fifth edition)
Grumpy Wizard asks How Do I Get the Best Out of a Game Convention?
Stuffed Crocodile does us great service with Download: PD Token Collection (170+ tokens for fantasy games)
Brian Escobar’s Substack asks When do characters define themselves in RPGs?
Traveler's Rest shares Generating Elevation in a Hexcrawl
Aboleth Overlords makes a Play (Fantasy) Worlds idea proposal
Beyond Fomalhaut writes [BLOG] Year Seven: Old School Rebuilding
Liche's Libram gives us GOo5e 🦢 (goblin ordinances of fifth edition)
Grumpy Wizard asks How Do I Get the Best Out of a Game Convention?
14 October 2023
The Seed Of Worlds (GLoGtober 3 '23)
Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '23, challenge #1 is from a list by semiurge - "Adventure, location, character, item, class, or whatever else based on the name of your blog."
The Seed of Worlds is a demi-plane extruder. It looks like a polished rock with a metal mesh around it that makes a very ergonomic, obvious way to hold it. It is typically found in a sealed box with multiple broken seals, new seals applied over them and large 'do not open' messages chalked on it.
To bust this fourth wall wide open - if a player at your table triggers the Seed of Worlds, roll a d100, count that number of books into your gamebook collection starting at the leftmost lowest book near the door you entered through and going right, then up. Take that book and have the players generate new characters appropriate to that gamebook. Subtract the smallest digit of the two d10s in your d100 from the largest, this is the number of hours you must play the new gamebook before this world implodes and you resume your previous game. The characters retain all memories.
Lets see how this would work at home...
First roll was 06 - which leads me to WH40K Dark Heresy Codex Anathema. This triggering of the Seed of Worlds leads us to six hours of bug-hunting in the grimdark future.
Second test was 28 - 3.5e Magic of Faerun; we are going on a jaunt to pre-sundering Faerun, also for six (8-2) hours.
If you find you have a lot of shelves to get through, roll a d6 first and count in that number of shelves before you start going book by book.
Inspired by the Inner Light Star Trek TNG episode and shelfies.
The Seed of Worlds is a demi-plane extruder. It looks like a polished rock with a metal mesh around it that makes a very ergonomic, obvious way to hold it. It is typically found in a sealed box with multiple broken seals, new seals applied over them and large 'do not open' messages chalked on it.
To bust this fourth wall wide open - if a player at your table triggers the Seed of Worlds, roll a d100, count that number of books into your gamebook collection starting at the leftmost lowest book near the door you entered through and going right, then up. Take that book and have the players generate new characters appropriate to that gamebook. Subtract the smallest digit of the two d10s in your d100 from the largest, this is the number of hours you must play the new gamebook before this world implodes and you resume your previous game. The characters retain all memories.
Lets see how this would work at home...
First roll was 06 - which leads me to WH40K Dark Heresy Codex Anathema. This triggering of the Seed of Worlds leads us to six hours of bug-hunting in the grimdark future.
Second test was 28 - 3.5e Magic of Faerun; we are going on a jaunt to pre-sundering Faerun, also for six (8-2) hours.
If you find you have a lot of shelves to get through, roll a d6 first and count in that number of shelves before you start going book by book.
Inspired by the Inner Light Star Trek TNG episode and shelfies.
11 October 2023
Small god: Lady Deephome (GLoGtober 2 '23)
Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '23, challenge #2 is from a list by Locheil - "Information about a small, local god" - and for this I steal formatting from Orbital Crypt and their Small Gods and Stone Soup: Deities made for Dungeon Crawling and Small Gods 2.
Name - Lady Deephome
Description - The Lady of the Under roads, once a stalwart minor dwarven deity now worshipped by many minor cults centered around her altars throughout the Underdark. Recognised as a protector and a herald of shelter. The nature of worship has diverged so much there is no longer a singular Lady Deephome but many individual small gods who all answer to the name in their location.
Altar - A statue in an weed-filled pool, arms spread in welcome, dressed in dwarven travelling clothes.
Followers - Once, dwarves, now all sorts that live in the deeps. The infrequency of travel along the under roads these days means a high diversity between local cults with very little commonality in practice. This has lead to the adoption of outfits that resemble dwarven travelling clothes by all who move around along the under roads as at least then you get the chance to claim hospitality. The observances of the dwarves are not known, lost when the dwarves left. The current followers have created a faith from stories, best effort reading of dwarven runes and interpretation of what they have taken as omens and divine signs.
d6 These followers of Lady Deephome are:
1. - Pool dwelling crocodilians - watch through the weeds and quick to take offense as missed offerings
2. - Keepers of a reliquary - a split geode shrine the insist wept from a rock face and revealed a gem vein
3. - Hospitable weretoads - dressed as dwarves, attempting to replicate dwarven mores, offer generous portions of strange tasting food
4. - Jittery, pale surface dwellers - willing to share their gleanings from the old dwarven works including honey they have tapped from the preservation vats
5. - Fierce underdarkers - speak quickly to invoke hospitality before you become supplies for them
6. - Heterogenous ritualists - a welcoming mix of many local peoples who insist on teaching you all about their very idiosyncratic interpretation of Her Ways
Name - Lady Deephome
Description - The Lady of the Under roads, once a stalwart minor dwarven deity now worshipped by many minor cults centered around her altars throughout the Underdark. Recognised as a protector and a herald of shelter. The nature of worship has diverged so much there is no longer a singular Lady Deephome but many individual small gods who all answer to the name in their location.
Altar - A statue in an weed-filled pool, arms spread in welcome, dressed in dwarven travelling clothes.
Followers - Once, dwarves, now all sorts that live in the deeps. The infrequency of travel along the under roads these days means a high diversity between local cults with very little commonality in practice. This has lead to the adoption of outfits that resemble dwarven travelling clothes by all who move around along the under roads as at least then you get the chance to claim hospitality. The observances of the dwarves are not known, lost when the dwarves left. The current followers have created a faith from stories, best effort reading of dwarven runes and interpretation of what they have taken as omens and divine signs.
d6 These followers of Lady Deephome are:
1. - Pool dwelling crocodilians - watch through the weeds and quick to take offense as missed offerings
2. - Keepers of a reliquary - a split geode shrine the insist wept from a rock face and revealed a gem vein
3. - Hospitable weretoads - dressed as dwarves, attempting to replicate dwarven mores, offer generous portions of strange tasting food
4. - Jittery, pale surface dwellers - willing to share their gleanings from the old dwarven works including honey they have tapped from the preservation vats
5. - Fierce underdarkers - speak quickly to invoke hospitality before you become supplies for them
6. - Heterogenous ritualists - a welcoming mix of many local peoples who insist on teaching you all about their very idiosyncratic interpretation of Her Ways
09 October 2023
Shiny TTRPG links #141
Another week, another set of links that caught my eye. More links can be found on the previous list found here. The original inspiration for all of this is weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links. You can find more links on weekly blogroll on r/OSR or the RPG Blog Carnival or a roundup of non-blog news on Third Kingdom Games roundup.
Beneath Foreign Planets does a great Archaeology and Anthropology - Blog Carnival Roundup of last months RPG Blog Carnival.
The Other Side blog kicks off this month: ITS OCTOBER!! RPG Blog Carnival and Horror Movie Marathon
Tom Van Winkle's Return to Gaming suggests Name Your Sessions Afterwards
GLoGtober launches and we get some interesting posts in just this first week:
The Nothic's Eye gives us GLOGTOBER '23: Three Disastrous Blood War Battles
Spiceomancy shares d20 Ways to Keep a Corpse
Journeying Jormungandr writes GLOGtober 2023 #2: d66 Eccentric Encounters On An Ancient Road
Impulsive Necromancy gives us GLOGtober '23 - 2: She Who Sings in Reed and Rush
Owlbears and Chickenhawks shares GLoGTober '23 2.4: Rose Simon
All Dead Generations discusses 7 Maxims of the OSR
Beneath Foreign Planets does a great Archaeology and Anthropology - Blog Carnival Roundup of last months RPG Blog Carnival.
The Other Side blog kicks off this month: ITS OCTOBER!! RPG Blog Carnival and Horror Movie Marathon
Tom Van Winkle's Return to Gaming suggests Name Your Sessions Afterwards
GLoGtober launches and we get some interesting posts in just this first week:
The Nothic's Eye gives us GLOGTOBER '23: Three Disastrous Blood War Battles
Spiceomancy shares d20 Ways to Keep a Corpse
Journeying Jormungandr writes GLOGtober 2023 #2: d66 Eccentric Encounters On An Ancient Road
Impulsive Necromancy gives us GLOGtober '23 - 2: She Who Sings in Reed and Rush
Owlbears and Chickenhawks shares GLoGTober '23 2.4: Rose Simon
All Dead Generations discusses 7 Maxims of the OSR
07 October 2023
d8 natures of this quasi-godlike entity (RPG Blog Carnival)
Answering the RPG Blog Carnival prompt on Horrors, Gods, and Monsters, oh my! from The Other Side...
Expanding a little on the theme of petty gods, god animals, ancient dragons and demigods that occupy the fuzzy boundary above 'mere mortals' but not quite gods yet. We have a continuum that for humans looks something like 'commoner - adventurer - hero - demigod - deity' but if we consider that this exists for everyone else too, things get interesting.
For the carnival we have d8 prompts for the nature of the quasi-godlike entity you have just run into.
1. Great beasts, loci of the animists
2. Dragons and their cults
3. Petty Gods
4. Great works - of nations, clans, guilds, wizards
5. The devolved remnants of once greater beings
6. Horrors are just other peoples gods
7. Monsters are the people you cannot negotiate with
8. Horrors are the things that fall out when you wear through reality
Expanding a little on the theme of petty gods, god animals, ancient dragons and demigods that occupy the fuzzy boundary above 'mere mortals' but not quite gods yet. We have a continuum that for humans looks something like 'commoner - adventurer - hero - demigod - deity' but if we consider that this exists for everyone else too, things get interesting.
For the carnival we have d8 prompts for the nature of the quasi-godlike entity you have just run into.
1. Great beasts, loci of the animists
2. Dragons and their cults
3. Petty Gods
4. Great works - of nations, clans, guilds, wizards
5. The devolved remnants of once greater beings
6. Horrors are just other peoples gods
7. Monsters are the people you cannot negotiate with
8. Horrors are the things that fall out when you wear through reality
04 October 2023
3 reverse-atlantis (GLoGtober 1 '23)
Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '23, challenge #1 is from a list by PRIMEUMATON - "Atlantis-type situation but in reverse. It goes up instead of down."
1. Dwarf Citadels - it is known that dwarfs understand how to create citadels - the carving of mountain tops such that they can fly.
What differs hugely place to place is how dwarfs feel about this. In some places to walk beneath the open sky is shunned and to sail the void of wildspace a dreadful fate. For those dwarfs, citadels are flown only by those who have dishonored themselves and seek redemption. A clan exiled in such a way gathers at the highest peak of their holdings, severs the mountain top and flys away to seek glories to over-stain their shame.
As the carving of this citadel of exile is being completed, often others will come to join them - some adventurers but mostly individuals who seek glory and restoration of their own honor among the stars. For the dwarf society that remains, such times can be seen as a cleansing of rogue elements or a grievous loss of debate and innovation and calcification of power and opinion.
Once launched these citadels of exile typically seek great works - finding rich ores to mine, dread enemies to fight, or great works to create. Often starting from a deeply dwarven traditionalist perspective, freshly launched citadels often overshoot into interfering with whatever they come across as they seek their new focus.
d6 Exiles of this dwarf citadel
1. - Monster Slayers seeking bloody redemption
2. - Artificers with a war-machine to test
3. - Surveyors examining the richness of these lands
4. - Old guard warriors here to resolve a local situation to the glory of the dwarves
5. - Foraging crew, logging and quarrying materials for their new great work
6. - Raiding team, testing the strength of local forces before the invasion
2. Merfolk cities - rarely an aquatic city can be thrust from its place on the seabed to the surface. Typically this happens through a ritual curse of unknown name and origin. First used long ago, with unknown purpose, it now exists only as a city-destroyer, suppressed by authorities and with even research into the nature of the curse viewed as a dire threat to be dealt with harshly.
The casting of the curse is the death of the city. Without water it is useless to its onetime inhabitants - even where they are happy to breath air and lurch around without the support of water, all the buildings are constructed to allow swimming with no stairs or other accomodation for ground-walking.
After a first wave of treasure hunters picks through the abandoned streets, these become hotly contested by avians who can make use of them in their existing form.
d6 People encountered amongst the ruins
1. - Kenku brigands setting up a base
2. - Aaracockra settlers, colonising the top of the city
3. - Winged Elves
4. - Djinni
5. - Winged kobolds serving a manticore
6. - Flying serpents
3. Exposed Underdark cities - broadly equivalent circumstances can be underdark cities expose to higher realms through earthquake, volcanic activity or other cataclysm. This will only happen for the upper-dark - the kind of catastrophe that would bring a middle-dark city to the surface is not going to leave anyone around on the local continent to be curious about it afterwards. Four things can happen - an aquatic underdark city suddenly drained - similar to the merfolk city, treat as above. An aquatic underdark city can be suddenly connected to the seas, in which case you potentially have a serious disruption to local trade routes and either rich picking for the local aquatic raiding cultures or a dread power landing among them like a wolf thrust among sheep. Next there is a 'dry' underdark city suddenly flooded, in which case it is almost certainly a treasure trove for the local aquatics to fight over and loot at their leisure. Lastly is the dry underdark city connected to the surface and likely to be at more of a disadvantage than an aquatic underdark city due to having to deal with flyers like dragons that were never a problem before.
1. Dwarf Citadels - it is known that dwarfs understand how to create citadels - the carving of mountain tops such that they can fly.
What differs hugely place to place is how dwarfs feel about this. In some places to walk beneath the open sky is shunned and to sail the void of wildspace a dreadful fate. For those dwarfs, citadels are flown only by those who have dishonored themselves and seek redemption. A clan exiled in such a way gathers at the highest peak of their holdings, severs the mountain top and flys away to seek glories to over-stain their shame.
As the carving of this citadel of exile is being completed, often others will come to join them - some adventurers but mostly individuals who seek glory and restoration of their own honor among the stars. For the dwarf society that remains, such times can be seen as a cleansing of rogue elements or a grievous loss of debate and innovation and calcification of power and opinion.
Once launched these citadels of exile typically seek great works - finding rich ores to mine, dread enemies to fight, or great works to create. Often starting from a deeply dwarven traditionalist perspective, freshly launched citadels often overshoot into interfering with whatever they come across as they seek their new focus.
d6 Exiles of this dwarf citadel
1. - Monster Slayers seeking bloody redemption
2. - Artificers with a war-machine to test
3. - Surveyors examining the richness of these lands
4. - Old guard warriors here to resolve a local situation to the glory of the dwarves
5. - Foraging crew, logging and quarrying materials for their new great work
6. - Raiding team, testing the strength of local forces before the invasion
2. Merfolk cities - rarely an aquatic city can be thrust from its place on the seabed to the surface. Typically this happens through a ritual curse of unknown name and origin. First used long ago, with unknown purpose, it now exists only as a city-destroyer, suppressed by authorities and with even research into the nature of the curse viewed as a dire threat to be dealt with harshly.
The casting of the curse is the death of the city. Without water it is useless to its onetime inhabitants - even where they are happy to breath air and lurch around without the support of water, all the buildings are constructed to allow swimming with no stairs or other accomodation for ground-walking.
After a first wave of treasure hunters picks through the abandoned streets, these become hotly contested by avians who can make use of them in their existing form.
d6 People encountered amongst the ruins
1. - Kenku brigands setting up a base
2. - Aaracockra settlers, colonising the top of the city
3. - Winged Elves
4. - Djinni
5. - Winged kobolds serving a manticore
6. - Flying serpents
3. Exposed Underdark cities - broadly equivalent circumstances can be underdark cities expose to higher realms through earthquake, volcanic activity or other cataclysm. This will only happen for the upper-dark - the kind of catastrophe that would bring a middle-dark city to the surface is not going to leave anyone around on the local continent to be curious about it afterwards. Four things can happen - an aquatic underdark city suddenly drained - similar to the merfolk city, treat as above. An aquatic underdark city can be suddenly connected to the seas, in which case you potentially have a serious disruption to local trade routes and either rich picking for the local aquatic raiding cultures or a dread power landing among them like a wolf thrust among sheep. Next there is a 'dry' underdark city suddenly flooded, in which case it is almost certainly a treasure trove for the local aquatics to fight over and loot at their leisure. Lastly is the dry underdark city connected to the surface and likely to be at more of a disadvantage than an aquatic underdark city due to having to deal with flyers like dragons that were never a problem before.
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