Comprachicos (Wermspittle)

The Comprachicos worked on man as the Chinese work on trees. A sort of fantastic stunted thing left their hands; it was ridiculous and wonderful. They could touch up a little being with such skill that its father could not have recognized it. Sometimes they left the spine straight and remade the face. Children destined for tumblers had their joints dislocated in a masterly manner; thus gymnasts were made.

Not only did the Comprachicos take away his face from the child; they also took away his memory. At least, they took away all they could of it; the child had no consciousness of the mutilation to which he had been subjected. Of burnings by sulphur and incisions by the iron he remembered nothing. The Comprachicos deadened the little patient by means of a stupefying powder which was thought to be magical and which suppressed all pain...

The Man Who Laughs, by Victor Hugo

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Beware Strangers with Hard Candy...
Once upon a time they were vagabonds and wanderers. These days, ever since the wars, it's more of  a family business. Most of the practitioners, those with any real skill worth noting, tend to have been brought-up within the trade, a member of one of the so-called 'families,' that resemble crude gangs far more than what is commonly accepted to be a legitimate family.

Nearly all of the Comprachicos were born to it. Trained from childhood to a double-life of secret identities, passwords and subterfuge. Masks. Gloves. Hoods and capes. Spells of distraction and disrecognition. The Comprachicos are subtle in their dealings with would-be clients or suppliers. They used to deal with royalty and nobles, serving as a surrogate for exile or execution, delivering marvels, prodigies and wonders on order and at imperial decree or royal whim. Nothing, not the sea nor the weather, is quite so fickle, duplicitous and unforgiving as a Queen, King or similar potentate. Those who left themselves open to retaliation found themselves imprisoned, killed or walled-up in dismal places once their usefulness was deemed at an end, or they were thought to be more of a threat or hindrance than a source of amusement or pleasure.

The Comprachicos learned their lessons well. No one ever sees their face. They use false names. Assumed identities that collect their reputations and notoriety on their behalf. They hide behind shadows and loop-holes, a veil of bribery, blackmail and broken promises. Quiet and discrete, they know many lurid secrets. They are used to catering to the tastes and desires of the decadent and the depraved. Who are they to judge? Who indeed.

There are only a handful of such families that have been at it for generations, each one with their own unique approach and specialized techniques. Discrete dissemblers, clever and conniving opportunists who prey upon the weak, the vulnerable, who especially single-out children as their stock-in-trade. They are easily mistaken for common pimps or flesh-peddlers, even recruiters or press-gangers during the Spring Revels. But make no mistake; they are cruel slavers who abduct their victims, use mutilation and disfigurement, sorcery and surgery to transform those they capture, changing them with injections of White Powder distillates, Dim Ichor transfusions, and worse. Joints are warped, limbs are twisted, the extent of the involuntary modifications wrought upon the victims of the Comprachico families are as astonishingly diverse as they are disturbing, oftentimes horrific. And final. They bind their victims into a dark world they'll never escape. Even death may not be enough to escape the more nightmarish transformations wrought.

The Comprachico families hide their slaves in plain sight. It is as if they would dare anyone to identify one of their victims. No one ever has. Perhaps no one ever will. Some they lease to the Circus, others they trade to the brothels and bordellos. Those less suited to such work get tossed into the Arenas or sold off to mercenary companies. The truly ruined and worthless specimens they try to pass off on the Zoological Institute, the Museum of Unnatural Histories, or some other such member of the Academy. Failing that, they will off-load the remainder to the Butchers, even if they have to keep them penned-up until Winter, so as to get a decent price.

Unlike the users and addicts manufactured by the Corruption Trade, the Comprachicos get by on the silent complicity of grudging acceptance. People give up in the face of difficulty or obstacles, especially when you might get targeted personally, or your family might suffer for your sticking your nose in where it isn't appreciated. The Comprachicos have a well-earned reputation for wickedness and vindictiveness. When someone is suspected of having been taken by the Comprachicos, the local authorities stop looking. It often just isn't worth the hassle and heartache that is guaranteed to follow should they continue pursuing some line of inquiry the families don't want examined. Besides, everyone knows it would be useless, even futile to keep looking. not to mention dangerous. Maybe not in terms of a knife or a bomb. The families tend to be more cagey, more cunning than that. Bad luck. Accidents. Rumors and innuendo. Planted evidence and trumped-up charges. Litigation and other nuisances of a more civilized sort can be just as effective as any midnight assassin. Those who persist beyond the increasingly severe signals of the families' displeasure have a tendency to disappear. The Comprachicos place a premium on maintaining the status quo. They like to keep things quiet. Out of sight, out of mind.

The families have invested a lot of time and money infiltrating and insinuating themselves into all levels and strata of society. Everyone knows it would be impossible to root them out. Everyone knows that they have eyes, hands and friends everywhere. It is amazing how much 'everyone' knows about such a secretive group.

Borrowed Trouble

Sometimes, even while peacefully minding your own business you happen to run afoul of situations that are not of your making or doing. Stuff that isn't really any of your business. Unless you choose to make it yours...

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Borrowed Trouble

1. Six Feral Children glare at you from in front of what used to be a boarded-up window to an Abandoned Property. It's clear that they've only just removed the last of the boards. They've been careful, very quiet about the whole thing. Now you've come blundering by, making noise. They obviously don't appreciate your unwelcome contribution to their endeavor. You can tell by the loaded slings dangling from their hands. It would have made for a tense moment, except a very pale, flabby and quite large Fruiting Body begins to wriggle its way out of the window.
2. SNAP! A young girl clad mostly in dirty rags has been caught in a wire-snare and is being dragged up to the rooftop of a near-by building. She calls out your name.
3. Three hags wearing Rashavallan shawls sit on old crates and munitions boxes around a small sputtering fire they've made at the mouth of an alley-way. Then you notice that one of the 'logs' in their fire is in fact an anti-personnel cylinder. A cylinder filled with Black Smoke.
4. Two well-dressed Urlish Troubadours face off with dueling banjos in the middle of the street. Everyone clears out of their way. Then a small contingent of (2d4) light cavalry out of Wurtem-Zollern crashes through the street. One of the angry musicians is killed outright. The other one barely escapes, but is injured. The crowd that had been gathered on either side to observe the duel surges past after the horsemen. There's a lot of meat on a horse and those soldiers are a long way from home.
5. Four Gronk mercenaries are trying to sell their Gronk Swords to passersby. 
6. A large and argumentative crowd has formed around a cart carrying a corpse. Someone has been hung. Some old crone is demanding her due even as a pair of apprentice Midwives are discretely collecting the corpse-seed before anyone might stop them. They work fast and are making their way past you just as the crone and her supporters realize what has happened.
7. Two badly mauled survivors drag the still bloody hide of a Bruthem down the street. They had a tough go of it, down in that cellar, but they finally killed the thing. Of course there had been six of them when they set out. 
8. Voices. Two parties engaged in a heated argument. "I tire of this charade," you hear clearly from one party. Then things get noisy. A peddler tromps around the corner pushing a small cart built-up from various crates and bins all nailed together in a ramshackle mess that you're impressed can even roll along on its two mis-matched wheels. They're selling various syrups, ichors and minor jellies. Including one large jar holding what must be a Mind Slime that is staring directly at you.
9. A crippled Tsalalian refugee is showing off three small splinters from a Quindra to a mid-class scholar-in-training, some professor's apprentice or the like from the Academy. She is looking for samples of uncontaminated ectoplasm, however the Quindra fragments are quite interesting. But it's not really her field of study. Her two bodyguards are nervous about stopping here. One of them is Eloi. You think you might recognize her. There certainly are an awful lot of Tsalalians crowding this section of the street...
10. A Lurm squatter offers to teach you one of the hundreds of variations on Gloomlight, for a small consideration, of course. If you take them up on their offer and can settle on agreeable terms, about half-way through the process you realize that the old Lurm might be showing signs of Yellow Pox.
11. Someone, probably a slumming spell-caster, has been hit with a Zymurgic Disgestion spell cast by what appears to be their very angry spouse.
12. A disheveled former noble from Karlogne is concluding a shady business deal by stabbing his erstwhile partner in the back. Directly in front of you. He's cast Envenomate on the dagger. He only notices you once he strikes the fateful blow.
13. Five Orphans are chasing after a wounded Grikflit they've been tormenting for hours, forcing it to give them rides and perform tricks. The pitiful thing bumps into you as it attempts to make its escape.
14. Everyone is running towards you. They're fleeing a patch of Withering Mist.
15. A microcephalic child is attempting to make a three-legged Vilg on a leash  perform tricks to make money to pay a surgeon to make their head right. That's what the Vilg has taught them to say.
16. A drunken mercenary and a half-eloi working girl have just caught a Flutterworm that has to be over 20 inches long, possibly a new record. They cooperated well enough to catch the thing, but now neither one intends to share the notoriety or credit. He's carrying three pistols and an artillery officer's short sword. She has six friends that have followed them from the rathskeller.
17. The last of three gargoyle-hunters drops to the cobbles. Terribly bloody. They may yet be alive. But so is the gargoyle.
18. Some Morlock with an eye-patch pries the pieces of a broken Synchronocitor from out of the hands of the screaming corpse wreathed in blue flames. The corpse finally goes silent as it collapses to the cobbles in six charcoal-like pieces and the Morlock runs off. The blue flames continue to burn the pieces of the dead stranger's sorcerously carbonized flesh, but do not harm anything else. There's no heat, but it is a light source. It won't take long before someone starts selling chunks of the corpse coal...
19. A cloth-maker and his four apprentices are trying to replace a wheel on their wagon now that their electric tractor is running again. None of them has noticed that the barrel holding a Drab Jelly has fallen off the back and is leaking.
20. Two harpies flutter, kick and tear at each other over a left-over lump of Krampus Koal. In the course of their struggle the lump of cursed stuff lands at your feet. The harpies eventually notice that their prize has slipped from their grasp. Both turn their unpleasant attentions towards you...

Bujilli: Episode 67

Previously...
Bujilli's father, Lyhydris, has answered the summons. Prepared for a battle, Bujilli instead confronted one revelation after another as he learned a lot of unpleasant things about his Uncle, his mother and father, his childhood, and himself, much of it unsettling and disturbing. Born as part of some unfathomable scheme. Raised to serve his Uncle's cunning ambitions. Manipulated all his life. He stands in a dark place. Surrounded by undead Yeren controlled by his Uncle. His father trapped within the arcane geometry of the Summoning platform. Bujilli stands alone before his Uncle for what might well prove to be the very last time...

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Poll Results:
(50%) Open the Way to Leeja, while distractng his Uncle.
(33%) Release his Father, then attack his Uncle.
(17%) Something Else.
Porky and Entirely Too Perky both made some suggestions that have been taken under advisement.
John Till pulled two new cards from the Deck of FATE: Low Morale and Slippery. How very appropriate...

Bujilli glared at his Uncle. Quickly counted the Yeren corpses staggering and shambling into the chamber. Nearly twenty. At least they all looked wounded. Several were missing pieces. Some of them were oozing a nasty black fluid from around their eyes. Something about the scent was familiar.

Quietly, he cast Auric Sheath. He couldn't say why. It was instinct. Bujilli had learned to listen to his instincts. It had taken several hard lessons. But he'd survived. He learned.

Violet light shimmered around him. The backs of the Yeren corpses' heads looked fuzzy. Indistinct. Smudged with some lingering grayness that partially blotted things out. It reminded him of the strings of marionettes. Aethyric strings. Running off into the distance. Connecting them to their master. He'd seen this sort of thing before. Bortho. Back under Idvard's Keep. The stench was more noticeable now. There was a Fungal Tyrant involved in all this. He was sure of it. As sure as he could be, under the circumstances.

None of the Yeren corpses showed signs of the distinctive purplish growths pushing out through their flesh. Not yet.

He couldn't tell where the aethyric connections ran off to--they grew too indistinct, too faint as they flowed back to their source. He also wasn't sure if they doubled-back or not. All he was certain about was that the hazy grayish streams ran back through the one doorway. One point of entry. A choke-point, potentially. If he could find some way to close that off...

"Funny thing about demons. They cannot act directly, not when they are trying to corrupt their victim. No. If it is their will that moves the hand, then all the consequences are theirs. It is in getting you to move your hand in accordance to their will, but freely of your own volition wherein the damnation truly lies. You have to give in to them. Submit. Be weak. But you know all that, don't you Bujilli?"

Bujilli made to spit in disgust. Caught himself. He smiled instead. That always pissed off his Uncle. Two could play at this sort of penny ante yak-shit. Pre-fight posturing. He despised it. But this time...it might be wise to use it, to attempt to distract his Uncle. Buy some time...

"Like a stupid puppy you ran off to fetch your father. Idiot. Like he would ever help you. I'm the only family you have. The only one who watches over you. Takes care of you. Provides for--"

"Oh Shut Up." Bujilli smiled wider. He adjusted his grip on the tulwar. The blade seethed with hatred for his Uncle. It shimmered with emotional heat. He wondered why. But this was not the time, not the place to delve into such mysteries.

"You will show some respect to your elders--"

"Shut up you old bastard. You didn't bring along a pack of Yeren corpses just so you could pretend to scold me one last time."

"No. I didn't. I brought them to cut you into little pieces." It was his Uncle's turn to smile.

"Good. We can drop the pretense. Here I am all alone. Surrounded. Out-numbered."

"Yes. you'd be a fool to fight, wouldn't you? And I did not raise you to be a fool, now did I boy?"

"You've brought along some allies...I could use some allies myself...perhaps I should free my father--"

"YES!" shouted the malevolent voice of Lyhydris.

"NO!" Bellowed his Uncle.

The band of white hair wrapped around his finger tightened. Relaxed. Tightened again. A signal. He was not alone here. Not now. Not ever.

Bujilli smiled, shifted his shoulders, rolled his neck muscles to loosen up, drew his hand-axe, stretched his arms wide and sighed loudly.

"I'm through with this. Let's end it." Bujilli charged his Uncle.

The old Almas squealed. Stumbled into a Yeren corpse that glared at him with angry green-lit eyes.

Bujilli laughed. The Yeren's head flew off into the darkness. The green-lit eyes went dim before it hit the floor. His Uncle scrambled to get away.

The tulwar shrieked through the throat of another Yeren. Taking the one next to it as well.

He stopped. Looked directly into a pair of shining gold-green eyes. White hair flashing and flickering like ivory flames. Leeja smiled. Sweetly. Sinisterly.

The Yeren didn't stand a chance.

Blood, gore and body fluids spattered and splattered across the floor making it slippery. Lopped-off body parts were scattered hither and yon.

The tulwar shrieked in rage. Leeja keened and screamed as was her nature. His Uncle squealed and swore bitterly.

The Yeren were dismembered. Hacked to bits. Useless without further sorcerous intervention.

Bujilli's previously cast Zone of Normality collapsed with a sharp pop.

His Auric Sheath exploded into violet sparks. Disrupted. Gone.

Blood and pain erupted from his abdomen. A ringing sound. The tulwar was gone. Knocked from his had by one of the missiles flung at him by his Uncle. Julidi's Darts. Two of them had struck him. The blade had deflected or blocked several more. Bujilli collapsed to his knees in the foul and murksome gore.

A staggering Green Flash exploded from the left-hand of his Uncle. Indelicate Thunder assaulted Bujilli's sensitive ears.

Voorish Sign was cast.

Leeja's scream ended abruptly.

Quiet.

Preternatural Stillness soaked the place.

"Idiot child." His Uncle spat on the floor.

Bujilli laughed. Sudden pain lanced through his guts. He put his hand out before him. To catch himself from falling into the oily gore. He touched the hilt of his tulwar.

Pain fell away as Bujilli rose from the blood and muck. Both tulwar and axe ready to wreak vengeance.

A gentle touch held his wound closed. Gave him strength. Urged him onward.

He knew the secret of his tulwar now.

Why it hated his Uncle so intensely.

The one thing that had saved him so many times before.

His secret weapon, he had once called it.

Secrets had a way of revealing themselves.

Now he knew.

It was time to end this. Once and for all.

Pink light skittered across the chamber in a disturbing, arachnid manner. The tulwar slashed through it like so much weak smoke. Bujilli moved towards his Uncle. One step at a time. Blood oozing form his wounds despite the ministrations of the tulwar's spirit.

"I came of age years ago." He took two painful steps towards his tormentor, his mentor, his Uncle.

A cloud of black nails swirled around Bujilli. The tulwar couldn't cut through such a thing. He endured. Took another step. Blood welled-up from dozens of little gashes and cuts. Three more steps.

"Yet you denied me my birth-right." Bujilli sliced through a billowing green mist that sucked and clutched and  tittered and chuckled obscenely in a dozen echoing voices. It fell silent as he passed through it. So much green scum overlaying the tainted blood. A few more steps. It hurt. Badly.

But he hadn't crawled out of all those deep, dark places to just give in now. He hadn't fought his way up and out of his innumerable childhood hells to let his Uncle break him now. Not now. Not ever.

His Uncle cast Umbral Maiming. Purely from spite. Bujilli dropped to one knee, as his shadow was viciously assaulted. The tulwar disrupted the spell before it ran its full course. The blade was growing hot. Smoke was starting to leak out from between Bujilli's fingers. It hurt. Just not as much as his guts.

Pain he could live with. He had years of experience in coping with pain.

"I should have been accepted as an adult among our people when I returned with this blade. I ought to have been recognized as a full-member of the clan by your public declaration, as is tradition." He coughed. Blood. A bad sign. Another step.

"You'll never be recognized. Never admitted to the clan. You are not of us. Mongrel whelp. Half-bred and ill-begotten--"

"You think I care about any of that now?" Bujilli grinned. One more step.

"Why do you mention it then?" His Uncle looked perplexed.

"I speak of the dead past. Of things that might have mattered once, long ago." Another step.

"But we all grow up sometime." The tulwar flashed. Bujilli didn't even feel it. He let go. Slid to his knees in a torrent of his own blood.

He didn't see his mother's revenge.

The tulwar clattered to the floor. Inert. Spent. Fulfilled.

Bujilli looked down into the dying eyes of his Uncle's severed head as it stared up at him from the bloody floor.

Bujilli laughed.

That hurt.

A lot.

He passed out. He wasn't sure if it was a hallucination or something else. He thought he saw his Uncle's head slither through the muck and blood as if being dragged away. Back towards the doorway.

All went black...

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Previous                                                        Next

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Series Indexes

One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six

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Starting Page  |  Central Index

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About Bujilli (What is This?) | Who is Bujilli? | How to Play

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Bujilli's Character Sheet | Leeja's Character Sheet | Cast of Characters

Bujilli's Spells | Little Brown Journals | Loot Tally | House Rules

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Episode Guides
Series One (Episodes 1-19)

Series Two (Episode 20-36)

Series Three (Episodes 37-49)

Series Four (Episodes 50-68)

Series Five (Episodes 69-99)
Series Six(Episodes 100-ongoing)

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Labyrinth Lord   |   Advanced Edition Companion

In the Burned-Over Districts (Wermspittle)

Here I came once more upon the black powder in the streets and upon dead bodies. I saw altogether about a dozen in the length of the Fulham Road. They had been dead many days, so that I hurried quickly past them. The black powder covered them over, and softened their outlines. One or two had been disturbed by dogs...

The War of the Worlds, Book Two, Chapter Eight

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One Hundred Things Littering the Streets of the Burned Over Districts in Wermspittle

1. Crushed and scattered bones of several cats and rabbits.
2. Farther on was a tattered woman in a heap on a doorstep; the hand that hung over her knee was gashed and bled down her rusty brown dress, and a smashed magnum of champagne formed a pool across the pavement. She seemed asleep, but she was dead.
3. Battered tin trunk packed with clothes, all slightly moldy and saturated by mud.
4. Nearly half a cord of dry fire-wood piled under a tarpaulin beside the collapsed wrought-iron steps to a burned-out building.
5. A mound of (3d10) charred corpses. No sign of whomever stacked them.
6. Red Weeds have taken-over a section of the street that is now densely overgrown to a depth of (3d4) feet. There are puddles of water underneath the red fronds, in some places the water is over six feet deep and there is a small chance to slip and possibly drown.
7. Green-grocer's cart with a smashed wheel. Stripped of anything useful. A swarm of Knife-Flies or Puffer-Maggots may have taken-up residence in the thing. You can find out if you disturb them.
8. Straw hat trampled into the now hardened mud.
9. A battered ceremonial cutlass, heavily notched from much use.
10. Dirty hatchet next to a caved-in hole.
11. Garden wheel-barrow filled with wet dirt.
12. Red Fronds form a sort of canopy over the street. They are also infested with hundreds of tiny bats that feed upon the blood-red berries produced by this variety of Red Weed. The bats also like the taste of human blood, which is amazingly similar to the sap they normally feed upon.
13. Pack of well-worn cards.
14. A pair of reading glasses, missing the lenses.
15. (2d4) gold chains and a watch scattered on the ground, having fallen from a looter's sack.
16. Another skeleton, with the arms dislocated and removed several yards from the body.
17. Black Smoke cylinder, half-buried in a mound of rubble and debris. [Appears to be a dud.]
18. Skull of a sheep, picked clean.
19. Handsome selenite paperweight. The inscription has been scratched into illegibility.
20. Man covered in black dust, thoroughly insensible and stupid due to a binge of Dim Ichor.
21. Overturned coach. All the wheels are missing.
22. A spoon.
23. Enormous quantities of a ruddy-brown fluid have been spattered all about the place. It has mostly dried. It smells faintly metallic and causes dysentery if handled or comes into contact with bare flesh.
24. You notice an ominously noxious smell emanating from a near-by grate.
25. Broken and battered ice-box torn loose from a bar. Only a few maggots inside.
26. A dog with a piece of putrescent red meat in its jaws coming headlong towards you, followed by a pack of starving mongrels in howling pursuit.
27. A shapeless mass of gnawed gristle of indeterminate nature.
28. Red Creepers have pulled-down two buildings, completely burying an alley-way.
29. Two smashed bicycles. A good deal of blood smeared on the seat of one of them.
30. A multitude of dogs are fighting over the grisly contents of a partially exposed plague pit.
31. A great circular pit extending downwards more than 600 feet. The walls are crumbling gravel and give off wisps of a faint greenish vapor when disturbed. The bottom of the pit is submerged under 30 feet of stagnant water coated with a heavy layer of black scum.
32. Six feet of a rudely severed metal tentacle.
33. A lingering cloud of Black Smoke (Type I). [Save or suffer 3d6 per round of exposure. Water nullifies the smoke, reducing it to a gritty residue. Dense, inky; tends to swirl oddly, almost fluidly, and is substantially heavier than air.]
34. Two filthy squatters caught-up in a dim contest of whispers tumble out from behind a pile of rubble as they wrestle over the last of their food. In the midst of their sad struggle, a dog runs away with their tin of biscuits.
35. A dense mound of inert blue powder slowly sifting into the cracks and crevices all around it.
36. The desiccated, exsanguinated corpse of a stout, ruddy, well-dressed middle-aged man of some consequence; he's been dead for about three days. Triangular wound in abdomen crusted over with dried blood and mucous.
37. Dirty and bedraggled, a Frothy Repenter shambles along babbling snatches of garbled scripture and old advertising slogans. A yellowish foam dribbles from their lips. Anyone they bite must Save at -2 or go mad themselves. They are inconsolable, driven by instinct and fear, looking for anything to eat or drink, and will attack upon sighting anything they think might be edible.
38. A bloodied meat chopper left lying on the steps to a cellar scullery.
39. Three rickety doors have been stacked one atop the other.
40. (4d10) pounds of loose coal scattered from a large dented bucket left lying in the street.
41. Broken glass covers the ground in a roughly thirty-foot radius. The whole area reeks of wine, urine and burnt meat. It might be possible to locate (1d4) intact bottles of wine or beer, all of it of low quality.
42. The cold remains of a week-old bonfire built-up from heaps of furniture dragged from the nearest houses.
43. A gas mask missing the lenses.
44. (1d4) hungry dogs watch you warily. They seem afraid of you.
45. A yellow metal bench ripped loose from its concrete pad and propped-up against the door of a half-collapsed building.
46. (1d6) empty biscuit tins rolling around on the ground.
47. A glass of rain-water coated with black scum.
48. Cast-iron pump-handle. It was recently used as a make-shift club. Bits of skin, hair and blood still attached at the end.
49. A wretchedly scrawny dog that will not stop barking no matter what you might try.
50. (4d6) Blackened Birds flutter out from a near-by pit. Each of them explodes into a cloud of Black Smoke (Type II) upon taking more than 3 points of damage. [Save at -2 penalty or suffer 4d4 damage for next 2d6 rounds as blood transforms into a toxic black ooze. Nullified by water, but becomes extremely flammable if exposed to alcohol and will burst into flames inflicting 3d6 damage in a twenty foot radius.]
51. Small mound of grayish-blue powder. Incredibly slippery. Only slightly toxic. [Save +2 or suffer 1d4 damage, affected area permanently stained light bluish.]
52. (3d4) inert skeletons coated in black grit.
53. A slipper.
54. A gaunt gray cat slinks along a wall. It ignores you.
55. Loose rubble. [60% chance of it collapsing. Save or DEX Check, fail and it inflicts 2d6 damage. Player can opt to take no damage but be buried to a depth of (3d4) feet underneath the debris.]
56. (1d4) Red Trees growing out of a section of ruined wall. The gnarled roots have infiltrated every nook and cranny of the old stonework. Viscous red sap drips like blood from the trees, making the surrounding area slippery (Dex check). The sap dries into a scab-like mess that causes 1d4 damage if left on exposed skin.
57. (2d4) candles in a water-logged cardboard box.
58. Black thorn-bushes have sprouted-up through the cobbles.
59. A rather lordly carriage, burned into a shambles.
60. Two human skeletons--not bodies, but skeletons--picked clean.
61. Burnt trees. Burnt grass. The cobbles and a section of near-by wall is intensely scorched. If examined closely, one can make out several shadow-like shapes indelibly burned into the stones.
62. A layer of gray clinkers mixed-in with a fine, sooty gray ash covers the street. There is a thin crust formed from exposure to the rain. Disturbing the crust will stir up a cloying, choking cloud of dust that has the stench of burned meat. [Reduce visibility to 10%, Save or be incapacitated by choking and coughing for 1d4 rounds.]
63. (1d4) Feral Children amuse themselves throwing stones at you from a roof-top. They quickly disperse and go into hiding if confronted or convincingly threatened with violence. They are not scared. Only waiting for the right opportunity.
64. A fragment of yellowish-white metal that looks like part of some cylindrical-shaped structure.
65. The cart of a ginger-beer peddler, smashed and splintered as though stepped on by a huge, rounded foot.
66. An old-fashioned tricycle, with a small front wheel, bent into scrap-metal.
67. Three charred bodies clumped together.
68. A blood-stained and slightly singed white flag juts up from the dried muck surrounding a broken section of pavement.
69. A clock. The hands are missing. So are the weights.
70. A set of binoculars missing the lenses.
71. A bent and pitted parabolic mirror of unknown composition.
72. Lingering green smoke. It coils sluggishly in the air, but otherwise seems harmless.
73. Dozens of splintered, fractured and partially-melted bricks scattered across the ground from a wall that still bulges as though exposed to an incredible amount of heat.
74. A broken wine-glass. 
75. (2d4) dark, dimly seen objects lying in contorted attitudes here and there.
76. Two spades stuck into the side of a rough hole dug into the side of a rampart-like mound of tightly-packed earth that mostly buries what remains of the next three houses.
77. An expensive hand-carved pipe.
78. A badly cracked chimney collapses into a pile of debris and a quickly-dispersed cloud of soot and dust.
79. Eight full place-settings in fine silver, wrapped-up in an elegant table-cloth and lying half-submerged in a puddle of foul-smelling water.
80. A lurid green glare lights up the night. A falling star.
81. A heap of black broadcloth and two boots. Look more closely and you'll see it's a dead soldier.
82. There is a sharp resinous tang of burning in the air. But no sign of what is burning. Nor where.
83. The broken remains of a caisson, all the ammunition is gone.
84. A broken cash-box. Sifting through the dried mud will reveal (3d6) random coins.
85. Dismal gray stems jut up from a dense thicket of Red Weeds.
86. A smashed heliograph.
87. A little hand-truck, piled with unclean-looking bundles and shabby furniture.
88. What looks to be a cannon, possibly a 12-pounder, only it has been somehow melted and slightly flattened, like a stick of butter left out too long in the sun.
89. (1d4) golf clubs. No bag. Just the clubs.
90. A small outhouse door piled with a variety of cheap household goods.
91. (1d12) fragments of some sort of glittery bronze-type alloy.
92. A woman's shawl trampled into a puddle of ruddy-brown fluid. The fluid has a pudding-like consistency, but seems inert.
93. This hospital tent has been burned down to a smoldering frame. It's unclear if there are any bodies mixed-in with the charred debris.
94. A small portmanteau, its owner still clutches it, the last third of their body is so much black soot and cracked bones.
95. Overturned, the front-end of this motor-cart is badly smashed-in. The batteries in the back-end are mostly broken, leaking and quite useless.
96. A slender, black whip. The handle has been snapped.
97. Some bloody rags. Torn and ragged. They were removed by violence.
98. Burnt, blackened and crumpled horribly, the ruined observation balloon dangles from the dead branches of a dead tree wreathed in Red Creepers.
99. (3d6) Bread Ration Tickets blow across the cobbles. Worthless.
100. A pile of globes, forms and copy-books removed from a children's school. All of it reeks of heating oil. The small band of Orphans who were setting-up this trap were jumped by someone, or something else. There's a good bit of blood spattered on the cobbles not far from the pile of school house debris.

Swords & Wizardry: The PDF is going to be available for FREE!

The recent Frog God Games Kickstarter for The Sword of Air has gained over 400+ contributors, so now the fine folks at Frog God Games will make the PDF version of Swords & Wizardry Complete available for FREE--this is the whole she-bang, not some stripped-down art-less text-only thingy, nope--this is the full deal, Erol Otus cover and all. They retain Copyright, etc., but the PDF itself will be free from now on. Once it goes live on the Frog God Games website, we'll update things and provide a link. Very exciting news!

More Suspicious Manuscripts and Decaying Texts (Wermspittle)

There was a formula—a sort of list of things to say and do—which I recognised as something black and forbidden; something which I had read of before in furtive paragraphs of mixed abhorrence and fascination penned by those strange ancient delvers into the universe’s guarded secrets whose decaying texts I loved to absorb. It was a key—a guide—to certain gateways and transitions of which mystics have dreamed and whispered since the race was young, and which lead to freedoms and discoveries beyond the three dimensions and realms of life and matter that we know. Not for centuries had any man recalled its vital substance or known where to find it, but this book was very old indeed. No printing-press, but the hand of some half-crazed monk, had traced these ominous Latin phrases in uncials of awesome antiquity.

The Book,

by H. P. Lovecraft

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Suspicious Manuscripts & Decaying Texts from Wermspittle (Another Twenty)

1. A folio containing six etchings and a jumbled set of pages that can be reassembled into a complete copy of the raw manuscript for Ebenazzeren's reviled and repudiated 'Ghoulatria.'
2. The entire unexpurgated classical long-form rendition of the Transition Into Blood transcribed from the traditional Aklo into Burzim and Aulranni on a line-by-line basis. If properly carried out, the supplicant transforms themselves into a Corpuscular Sludge for the next one hundred seventy eight years.
3. Sixteen pages of crudely cobbled-together collages interspersed with the cut-up and jumbled lines of what appears to be a sort of nonsense spell of some sort, possibly intended for some sort of protest or happening. The spell spontaneously casts on any roll of '6' on a d6 which is rolled for each page examined. The spell transforms the reader's feet into the claws of a human-scale raven for 3d6 hours.
4. The last two-thirds of what remains from a doctoral dissertation regarding the 'Twelve Lesser Gateways of Orlovon.' The pagination is skewed due to constant revision and each page bears the name, initials and personal academic sigil of the author at least three times, sometimes more often. Unfortunately every single one of these identifying marks has been scrambled and defaced by some rival's or displeased mentor's unkind spell of selective revision. The text itself remains as excruciatingly dense and convoluted as it ever was and attempting to read it requires a CON check every 1d20 pages, failure results in the reader becoming totally incapable of understanding anything in the manuscript, success costs the reader 1 point of WIS, which they can regain after 3d4 weeks of refraining from all reading. This manuscript does not make a great gift.
5. A shabby brown envelope packed with all the working notes for a rough-draft guide to the numerous varieties of freshwater fish commonly found in many of the cellars of Wermspittle.
6. A small privately-printed pamphlet explaining the dangers of Black Smoke. Luridly illustrated with antiquated cartoons for the functionally illiterate. The last two pages contain a non-verbal schematic for the spell Repel Black Smoke.
7. Here, in this set of loose pages, is a ferocious critique on 'The Ovulant Oratories of Ulludram,' scathingly penned by a person identifying themselves only as 'a member of the Sixth Spiral of Sumbralle.' Anyone reading more than three pages is rendered sterile for the next three years. It's that scathing.
8. A Morlock grimoire. [Alatris, CE, 36hp, INT 14, Psyche 10, Willpower 26, Casts: Cause Fear and Black Touch once per day. Communicates telepathically, but only with carnivores. Contains 11 spells, but despairs of ever gaining any more, as its master is dead, having been devoured by a rival. A successful Reaction Roll could persuade Alatris to consider taking on a new master.]
9. Fifteen sheets of musical notation for a sonata from some banned play titled 'Black Stars Over Bezgradt'; in-between each bar of music someone has daintily and diligently written-out all twelve sections of the Transition Into Night. The Second Section is flawed and summons 1d4 Grunters. The Fifth Section can be extracted and used in conjunction with a shewstone or crystal egg to allow the caster to look upon the so-called Nightland. 
10. A detailed and comprehensive comparative analysis of the latrine-digging techniques employed by seven of the world's largest armies.
11. A three-inch-thick slab of ultra-methodical lab notes. Once the blood is cleaned off, they show that there is a marked relationship between the pollen of the Red Weeds and the so-called Red Death, at least in 38% of the involuntary test-subjects subjected to this particular round of unlicensed experiments. There are only numbers used for the 198 unsuspecting people affected by this particular instance of back-alley malpractice.
12. An extensive set of notes and anatomical diagrams drawn from experiments with live Voormiks that were summoned for the purpose by agents of a clandestine medical-espionage unit operating behind enemy lines during the Altwater Occupation. All the names have been sorcerously redacted by a professionally-cast 5th level spell. There is a detailed discussion of how to modify certain sections of the standard Summon Voormik spell so that it selectively summons or banishes only specified portions of their anatomies. The actual summoning spell is not given; it is assumed that anyone reading these notes would already have it equipped.
13. Eighty-three lavender-tinted pages expound upon the wonders of attaining the state of consciousness referred to as 'Nrogesh.' The pages make excellent cigarettes or toilet paper. The breathless, florid prose remains steadfast in defeating the reader's comprehension, requiring a full seven readings before any small vestige of what the author is going on about is even partially divulged. It is perhaps of some interest to the would-be reader that in at least three classic Eloi children's chant-stories 'Nrogesh' is used in a very negative context. Uttering the word to any given Eloi causes them to roll a Reaction Check with a -4 penalty.
14. A soldier's hand-written instructions for crafting various types of Salt Shot using Achromic Powder.
15. A heavily pitted and discolored copper scroll-tube with a Fifty-Three page manuscript wrapped around it and held in-place by a length of slightly gummy penguin tendon tied in the traditional Tsalalian manner. The 'scroll tube' unrolls and is actually a scroll. The manuscript is someone's working notes towards a lexicon of the Ablunji family of pre-diasporic Tsalalian. There are three spells inscribed into the copper scroll, but each one is broken-up into sections and discussed with densely-packed technical annotations that remain untranslated as they appear to be in some other language entirely, possibly an obscure form of Aklo. The spells can be learned within 1d4 weeks, if one studies the lexicon first. Use of Read Magic will obliterate the copper scroll. There is a note to this effect jotted in the margins of the lexicon. Originally, there was another scroll. The three spells are: Call Penguins, Idiot Pipes, and Black Seal.
16. This set of coarse gray pages contains elaborately annotated and extensively revised hand-written instructions for a series of increasingly bizarre rituals leading up to the 'Opening of the Gateway to Valadoz,' including a version of the infamous 'Birth-Call of Ulveer-Quoz,' that never appeared in any of the standard texts. The gray material this manuscript is written upon becomes gelatinous and restless when exposed to moonlight.
17. Transcription of a primitive lay originally set down in Gurgurlim by a sect of abhuman songwriter-monks. Performing the verses in an appropriately sonorous drone, preferably in an attic at night, grants the singer a cumulative 10% chance to gain a shadow-companion that will never willingly leave them ever again. Botching the performance, such as droning off-key causes the companion-shadow to either flee or attack, depending on how badly one flubs the rite.
    

    [Companion-Shadow (AL N, MV 90' (30'), AC 7, HD 2+2, #AT 1, DG 1d4 (or by spell), SV M3, ML 10. Special: Can only communicate with the one they are bonded with. These are extra-planar entities, NOT undead. They can earn 1 extra HD per three levels their companion gains while accompanied. Roll for INT and WIS; if attributes are sufficient, the Companion-Shadow can learn spells as a spell-caster of level equal to their current HD.]

18. A sheaf of much-highlighted notes from a student's efforts to compile a class presentation on what they refer to as 'The Wilde Method of Repairing Reputations,' whatever that might be. The paper smells subtly of cat urine. The last page is blood-stained. Two-thirds of the notes refer to obscure entities and characters from what appears to be a play or an opera, obviously not a serious work of scholarship. There is a steel key and two tickets to the Circus taped to the back of the sixteenth page. There is also a hastily drawn map showing the directions to an armorer's shop on Cassilda Street.
19. Soft red pages with a strong metallic scent. Each one is folded six times. However many you started out with, as you unfold each one, you get to re-roll 3d6 to determine how many there are. It's a work of propaganda, some sort of subversive mini-comic aimed at the rank and file of the Grand Army of Nagrothea and contains a great deal of necromantic humor only someone from that region could really appreciate. Everyone else must make a Reaction Check (-2 penalty), a positive result means they suffer mild nausea for 1d4 minutes, a negative reaction means that the reader is incapacitated for the next 1d4 hours as they vomit forth their guts. They'll never understand. They also gain a permanent -1 on all Reaction Rolls involving Nagrotheans from now on.
20. Instructions for achieving the Transition Into Bonelessness, whereby the reader renders themselves completely boneless for the next 1d4 hours just by reading the first 6 pages.

Sunday Summary: Our Posts for the Week of 10/28 to 11/2, 2013

Here's a quick summary of what we've posted to the blog for the week of  Monday 10/28 to Saturday 11/1, 2013.

Monday

What the Glandculler is Selling Today...
A table of twenty options covering a wide range of glandular modifications available to anyone who can meet the Glandculler's price. We'll have the Peculiar Organs and Glands Table to go with this one for those of you still looking for it since it was first mentioned in the first Almas write-up. We're going back over the old entries and compiling a master list of everything that needs to get posted or published so it's available...then we get to go back into everything and update and adjust the links...

Later on Monday we posted about the wonderfully weird Those Aren't Worms table for Wermspittle over at Dungeon of Signs. The table is great stuff, but take a look at that blog--it is simply amazing and packed with great things. We're big fans of the Flying Monkey monster/character class for Labyrinth Lord, and the whole H. M. S. Appollyon series/setting is incredible. Highly recommended!

We also posted a set of Six Secret Spells to accompany the grotesquely beautiful Wizard-Frog posted over at the Last Gasp blog. Another blog we highly recommend...even though it might not always be entirely safe for work...it's always thought provoking and beautifully executed.

Tuesday

Distracting and Disturbing Sounds, a table of twenty odd noises that lead into a variety of encounters or adventure hooks or situations in need of resolution, perfect for those times when the player characters think that they're going to get a night's sleep or some much needed rest. Ha! Not in Wermspittle...dreaming can be deadly and sleep can kill in this wretched place...

Wednesday

Ten Werm-Riddled Manuscripts available from the more disreputable and questionable book-sellers and manuscript-peddlers in Wermspittle. Don't see what you're looking for? No problem. There are more on the way...

Thursday

Bujilli: Episode 66. Answers aren't always solutions, nor is knowledge necessarily comforting. Bujilli gets a long desired glimpse of the truth of things. So many lies that he's been raised to believe fall away. His father stands before him. The confrontation he was ready for wasn't the one he got, but it was the one he perhaps needed. Then the real confrontation begins! There's a poll at the end of the Episode so be sure to vote for what you think Bujilli ought to do next. After all: You Decide!

Friday

We took a break from regularly-scheduled stuff to play around a bit with a Spell Design Challenge that was posted to the Swords & Wizardry Discussion Group on G+. We still don't do very much with G+, yet, but this just sounded like it would be fun, so we did it. We drafted three new first-level spells that summon up a minor demon-thingy, equal in over-all firepower to a Magic Missile, with a chance of the things breaking loose...as per the terms of the Challenge. How did we do?

Saturday

We plugged Gorgonmilk's excellent new OSR zine: Underworld Lore. It's cool, it has wicked fungi in it, and it's FREE. So go check it out. With luck, we'll have something in the second issue, and if you're so inclined, you can contribute to the effort as well.

You might also have spotted some of our artwork over at FATE SF for the Silver Cobwebs and Things Found in the Zone - List A. If you haven't checked out FATE SF yet, click over and take a look at all the great stuff there. The beauty of the FATE rpg  is that you can easily tack-on whatever other rules you want to the descriptions, so practically everything there is very easy to adapt to OSR usage. We highly recommend the FATE Bestiary over there--some really excellent critters!

Next Week?
More Manuscripts, a new monster, the continuing adventures of Bujilli, more spells and something else that can remain nameless for now.

Underworld Lore, Issue #1

Click over to Gorgonmilk's blog and download a Free copy of Underworld Lore.
You'll be glad you did. The mushrooms in particular are quite tasty...

Spell Design Challenge

ASpell Design Challenge from G+: Please invent for my game a 1st level magic-user spell that summons a very, very weak demon. It's OK to invent a new monster. The spell must keep game balance; it should be on par with magic missile. Bonus points: Spell enables fun role-playing and is "showy". Stretch goal: Demon has very slight chance to "break free" and/or dominate/make unconscious the caster.

---

Calling Up Minor Demon-Thingies for Fun & Profit

First off, let's take a look at Magic Missile...

Magic Missile
Spell Level: Magic-User, 1st Level
Range: 150 feet
Duration: Immediate
A magical missile flies where the caster directs, with a range of 150 feet. At the Referee's discretion, this spell may have one of two effects:

1. The Magic-User must roll to hit the target with a +1 bonus to the roll. The missile inflicts 1d6+1 points of damage.
2. The missile hits automatically, doing 1d4+1 points of damage.

In either case, the Magic-User casts an additional two missiles for every 5 levels of experience. Thus, at 5th level, the caster is able to hurl 3 magic missiles, and 5 missiles at 10th level.

Excerpted From: Swords & Wizardry Complete (Free version available in the D20SWSRD entry.)

So any spell we make for this Challenge needs to be First Level, on par with Magic Missile, and summon up a very minor demon-thingy. There's a bonus if the spell is somehow 'showy,' and enables fun role-playing, and it would be cool if the summoned critter has a chance to break free also. The spell needs to retain whatever this 'Game Balance' thing is that they're talking about. Okay. Hold my drink while I try this out...


Xongir's Fingerling
Spell Level: Magic-User, 1st Level
Range: 150 feet
Duration: Immediate
A smoldering scarlet tendril of wicked energy streaks out from the caster's outstretched hand to a range of 150 feet. The Magic-User rolls to hit (there's a +1 bonus) and if successful, the smoldering tendril lashes out at a victim of the caster's choosing, within the 150' range. The victim rolls to Save. If they fail, they lose a finger to the tendril (taking 1d6+1 damage, the stump is cauterized), if they succeed the tendril snaps back and severs one of the caster's fingers and the caster takes the damage. In the end, we are left with a shriveled and charred finger-bone which will slowly transform into a tiny demonlet over the next 1d6 hours. The caster gains a +1 bonus to all Loyalty Checks in regards to any Fingerling Demonlet they create via this spell. This bonus increases by an additional +1 every 3 levels of experience. If for any reason a Fingerling Demonlet has a negative reaction to their master, the horrid little thing will begin to connive and scheme to destroy them.
Loyalty check: Roll 1D%, any score over 70% means the Servitor becomes disloyal.

[Fingerling Demonlet: HD 1; AC 5[14]; Atk 1 claw or bite (1d2 x2  or 1d4); Move 6; Save 17; AL C; CL/XP 1/15. Special: Cast one first-level spell per day.]


Sidgwick's Scabrous Servitor
Spell Level: Magic-User, 1st Level
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 hour
A most unsanitary spell, once cast upon the designated recipient it can only be removed by a Cure Disease or Dispel Magic. Over the duration of the spell, every time the recipient takes any damage that produces bleeding, they suffer an additional 1 point of damage that goes into a clotted mass of scabs that forms near the wound(s). When the scab-clots have been able to acquire a total of 6 hit points, they tear themselves loose (inflicting 1d4 on the victim), and quickly form-up into a single, scabrous mass 1d4 inches in diameter. The Scabrous Servitor is mindless and follows the Magic-User who created it, always remaining within  3 feet of them. Unless fed each night directly from the Magic-User's own veins, the Servitor gains a cumulative bonus of +1 on their nightly Loyalty Check (roll 1D%, any score over 80% results in the Scabrous Servitor going rogue). They are most likely to attempt to escape, rather than attack their former master for fear that they will be exposed to their master's blood and brought back under control again.

[Scabrous Servitor: HD 1; AC 7[12]; Atk 1 (1d4); Move 6; Save 17; AL C; CL/XP 1/15. Special: Servitor can stop bleeding once per day by sacrificing 1 hit point to heal 1d4. Servitor regains hit points by immersing itself in fresh blood. Servitor takes double damage from alcohol.]


Squiggling Suppurating Sores of Salamak
Spell Level: Magic-User, 1st Level
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 hour (6 rounds)
Temporarily disfiguring and very uncomfortable, this spell causes a terribly itchy rash of weeping sores to spread across the victim's skin. The rash makes movement unpleasant, so the victim suffers a -1 penalty to all attacks while suffering from this spell. A set of 1d4+1 sores erupt from the reddest, most painful portions of the rash, each one inflicting 1 point of damage. Each of the sores appear like wet, greedy mouths chewing their grisly way out of the victim's flesh. At the end of the spell, each of the sores will finally chew themselves free and drop to the ground in order to squiggle away like so many flabby, blind worms. The Magic-User casting this spell can collect the Squiggling Sores, if they avoid direct contact with the things. They must feed upon diseased flesh every night, or else they will attack their creator. These things have no loyalty, only hunger.

[Squiggling Sores: (1d4+1) HD 1; AC 7[12]; Atk 1 bite (1d2); Move 4; Save 9; AL C; CL/XP 1/10. Special: Automatically Detect Disease at will. Immune to all mind-influencing attacks--they are completely mindless.]