Hereticwerks

Monday, June 9, 2014

Zinn Soldiers in Wermspittle

Interrogator One: How came you to be re-made into a zinn soldat, ahem, Tin Soldier?
Subject Seven: That is a sad, sad story. I was in love with a beautiful Munchkin girl...
Interrogator Two: Munchkin? We have no such classification. What is 'Munchkin' please?
Subject Seven: Little people who live behind the Brickyard--
Interrogator One: Ah. Todtenhilzig, or Thumblings!
Subject Seven: No. They are bigger than Thumblings. And much nicer. Or at least they were until they were gassed.
Interrogator Two: So they were part of the local resistance?
Subject Seven: They aren't local--
Interrogator Two: Aha! More foreign agitators!
Political Officer: What can you tell us about these foreign agitators?
Subject Seven: I think they're all dead--
Political Officer: We shall send one of the canine units to this Brickyard to verify your claim. It will go badly for you if you are trying to mislead us!
Interrogator One: Please continue.
Subject Seven: This girl lived with a Wicked Witch. The Witch did not wish me to marry the girl, so she enchanted my sword...I'm sorry...this is painful to have to go through all over again--
Interrogator Two: Your weakness sickens me--
Interrogator One: You no longer feel anything. Our scientists have confirmed that you have no sense of touch. You are only experiencing a form of emotional feedback. Reject it.
Political Officer: Get on with it.
Subject Seven: The Witch enchanted my sword. Made it attack me. It began hacking me to pieces.
Interrogator Two: We must locate this hag!
Political Officer: That is a decision for the High Kommandery. There are negotiations underway with some of the local factions, mostly Midwives and Seamstresses. I will flag this transcript so that it comes to the attention of the negotiation team's senior internal administrative liaison.
Observer-Overseer: Get on with it!
Interrogator One: Continue. Please.
Subject Seven: When I lost my legs I went to the tinsmith, Ku-Klip, and he made me some tin legs. When I lost my arms, Ku-Klip made me tin arms, and when I lost my head he made me this fine one out of tin. It was the same way with my body, and finally I was all tin.
Interrogator Two: How was the transference of your consciousness achieved?
Subject Seven: I don't know. Ku-Klip mentioned something about an extraction, but I didn't understand. Maybe the opal in my--
Interrogator Two: No! Do not attempt to open that panel!
Political Officer: Do you now claim that you were forcibly converted at the end? That this 'Ku-Klip' having gained your trust by replacing your limbs with these zinn-plated prosthetics then betrayed your trust and transferred your mind and your soul--
Interrogator One: We already have his confession--
Subject Seven: But I was not unhappy, for Ku-Klip made a good job of me, having had experience in making another tin man before me.
Interrogator Two: We have confirmation. There was a functional manufacturing site in operation in this place--
Observer-Overseer: Obviously! We will track it down. Subject Seven has been brainwashed. But he has proven useful. So far. Continue the interrogation.
Political Officer: Make note in the official record--there must be an investigation into these so-called 'Ku-Klips.' They are obviously untrustworthy foreign agitators. Or worse. There is something about this foul, filthy place.

Portion of Transcript (Interrogation 1176-D: Subject 7)

Released under the Suppression of Pernicious Gossip Act

Bad translations of the surviving interrogation transcripts leaked by Yellow Journalists during the collapse of the First Pruztian Occupation have led to much speculation regarding the origination and derivation of the so-called 'Zinn Soldiers,' as well as the mass-produced battalions of Fyters and other forms of military automata.

Zinn Soldiers originally gained their vulgar designation because of their special Zinn alloy-plating that made them highly resistant to many jellies, slimes and miasmas. Unlike Fyters, the original Zinn Soldiers were built-up from the shattered remains of badly wounded and dismembered soldiers recovered from the battlefield. Originally the process was something of a progressive and aggressive systematic replacement of lost body-parts with cheap zinn-plated prosthetic limbs.

Despite their best efforts, the Imperial Pruztian Labs found themselves unable to efficiently and cleanly transfer a subject's mind and soul into a functional automata-body, hence the intense effort by the Occupation Forces to track down the secret of soul transference through interrogation, torture, surgical dis-assembly, and any other means at their disposal. Many old-model zinn soldiers were destroyed in the fruitless pursuit of a secret known only to a very few others. It is interesting that there is no mention of the Soulless in any of these transcripts, despite the very active involvement of the Soulless in the Resistance.

New Model Zinn Soldier | Old Model Zinn Soldier | Fyters | Brass Heads | Military Automata

Zinndustrial Workers | Zinn Prosthetics

Ku-Klips

Inspiration: The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum which is available at Project Gutenberg, Wikisource or at Open Library.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Six Golemic Chassis from Wermspittle

Golemic Chassis (n.)
A physical framework designed to be a conveyance for an incorporeal being (or group of such beings) as well as a means for them to interact directly with the material world. Often powered by a magnetic engine. Some chassis are created as a means of defense, posted at the gates of certain ghost-cities or deposited in some treasure-filled vault not found on any extant map of the Underworld.

Gorgonmilk

Miss Penzer's Pre-eminent Pummeler (Mk IV). Posters proclaiming the pugilistic prowess of Miss Penzer's singular golemic fighter can still be found plastered across the fences, boarded-up storefronts and walls along the Low Streets. The little lady threw a mean punch and was undisputed champion right up until the night the Pruztians rolled in and shot anyone who 'resisted.'

Pummeler Four (unique) [Huge, Golemic Chassis; 500hp, AC 1, Damage: 3d4 with a 30% chance of an immediate follow-up for 2d4.] The old magnetic engines in each limb require some maintenance, but a competent mechanic could have this old hulk moving again in a few hours. The control pod is unusually small, having originally been designed for a young girl. Inspecting the pod will reveal a small cache of old documents, including the schematics for all five Pummeler models, Miss Penzer's diary, several hundred marks in no longer valid banknotes, and a small zinn-plated box containing an opal...
Ruggio's Colossus. Twice the height of a typical Franzikaner-style iron golem, Ruggio's Colossus was once the pride and joy of the ringleader of a world-renowned travelling circus. Half of the circus made it through the tunnel before the airships bombed the rails into a twisted mess. Ruggio and the other half of his performers were trapped in Wermspittle. Ruggio did not survive the subsequent Occupation. His troupe staked-out a makeshift camp-site within the Burned Over District. You can always find their camp's location by spotting the rusting colossus draped in Red Weeds. On rainy evenings you can sometimes hear the ghost of old Ruggio singing morose Ylashian folksongs from within the colossus. The echoes from within the chassis-shell aren't so bad, but the guy still can't carry a tune, even in undeath. It can really make the dogs howl.

Ruggio's Colossus (unique) [Very Tall Golemic-Chassis; 260hp, AC 4, Damage: 1d8.] The old Colossus will require a great deal of work to get it running again. The collector-array is corroded into blue grit and the internal muscle-cables need to be re-strung. The ghost is unlikely to permit any such tampering, however.
Executioner Three. A hated and feared part of the Pruztian Retaliation Korps active during the First Occupation, Executioner Three was hijacked by the Resistance who wrapped it with heavy chains and then sunk it beneath one of the waste-water ponds full of Spectral Brine and worse. It has remained submerged and forgotten for decades. Until now...

Executioner Three (unique) [Massive Imperial Pruztian Golemic Chassis; 650hp, AC 2, Damage: 3d6/3d6.] Blackened by its long submersion in the strange chemistry of a waste-water pond, this golemic chassis has changed. It knows regret for what it was forced to do during the Occupation, leading some to speculate that it may be haunted. A lingering, palpable sadness radiates from it in a 90' radius. Those mediums that have attempted to make contact have been assaulted brutally, so it is assumed that the coterie of geists lodged within it are not interested in discussing things, such as why they prowl the Western Section of the Outer Wall every night.
Borridan's Tiger Fighter. Everyone knows that Borridan was killed by Pidro Peeto. The golemic chassis was recovered, hosed down and stored in a warehouse for the last twenty-seven years. Now Borridan's son has managed to arrange for the funding and support necessary to refurbish his father's chassis, and he intends to make some much-needed improvements to the thing. He hopes to use it to hunt down and kill the tiger that slaughtered his father all those years ago.

Tiger Fighter Prototype (unique) [Huge, Golemic Chassis; 300hp, AC 3, Damage: 2d6/2d6.] The prototype is missing one arm and the control pod in the chest cavity has been thoroughly slashed and torn to shreds. It has also been sitting in a warehouse for nearly thirty years where it has sustained water damage from a leaky roof and a pair of dodos has raised a dozen clutches of eggs in the nest they've built inside the thing. Borridan's spirit is so deeply imprinted upon it that no one else can use it and his son may have to abandon the thing and start over from scratch. The spirit is also quite insane...
Brazen Hellion. It was meant to strike fear into the Pruztians. A volunteer operator, Mazrik Caldron, took the thing into the Baffles to test it out and the chassis returned without him. It has stood beside the Eastern Keep along the Inner Ramparts ever since. Everyone knows it isn't haunted. That was tested and confirmed a dozen times over. But no one has ever been able to explain how the thing made it back without an operator...

Brazen Hellion (unique) [Huge, Golemic-Chassis; 260hp, AC 2, Damage: 3d4/3d4.] Weathered, pitted and heavily rusted, this golemic chassis remains right where it stopped upon its return from the Baffles. It has been maintained and kept clear of weeds and such by the Yellow Hawks who have watched over the thing in anticipation of its master's return. A small group of invalids, cashiered out from the unit, have remained behind to tend to the chassis despite everything else that is going on.
Diver Two. The Sewer Militia has been busy adapting a specialized golemic chassis suited to operating in the dark, frigid waters of the Underground Reservoirs beneath Wermspittle. If this model survives its test-run, they are planning to build a few more...

Diver Two (unique) [Huge, Golemic-Chassis; 220hp, AC 1, Damage: 2d6/2d6/2d6/2d6.] The bottom assembly was derived from a salvaged Tripod, the lower sections of the three limbs having been fitted with retracting fin-panels. There is a water-tight sphere at the center of the thing that can hold an operator and two riders. The whole thing has been heavily reinforced and armored in anticipation of whatever it might run into down there...whatever it was that claimed Diver One...

Another form of Golemic Chassis was featured in our recent post Six Lions in Wermspittle.
Entry #2, Ridolphe, is a Golem Chassis animated by a soul-bound opal...

One of the Open Community Projects being hosted by Gorgonmilk for Underworld Lore is a series featuring Golemic Chassis. We thought that we'd offer a few examples from Wermspittle. What kind of Golemic Chassis do you have running around in your game? This community project is still open to contributions from interested parties...

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Six Bears (Wermspittle)

This time it was a bear. The bear stood at the edge of the darkness and looked into the moonlit valley with the brook running through it. He could hear no sound of Morons, no whistle of manshonyagger, as he and his kind called the hunting machines.

Said the bear in perfect German, 'You are at the edge of the Unselfing Zone. You have been rescued by a Moron. You have stopped a Menschenjäger very mysteriously. For the first time in my own life I can see into a German mind and see that the word manshonyagger should really be Menschenjäger, a hunter of men. Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Middle-Sized Bear who lives in these woods.'

Mark Elf
Cordwainer Smith

Black Bears are fairly common in the woods surrounding Wermspittle. There are Grizzlies in the mountains that sometimes wander down towards the Meadows claimed by various Farm Enclaves for their flocks, but these brutes are usually not much of a problem. Since the disastrous experiment in 936 involving artificial Weak Points in the Lidenbrock Reservoir by the Arctika Korps that resulted in the cataclysmic transposition of a six-mile-sphere of glacial ice into the the very center of the Reservoir, there have been numerous sightings of Boreal Sea-Bears in the surrounding subterranean waterways. The last Horned Bear was killed and mounted as a trophy by Claudino Chapwick at Yrmingost Manor...until it was possessed by a vilegeist and the thing was necessarily destroyed in the ensuing violent debacle. No one has seen a real War Bear in over three hundred years, leading most Parazoologists to consider the things well and truly extinct. And as for Owlbears, they are almost always a nuisance whenever they show up...which tends to be far too often...

Tisha. She's a young, precocious, and badly wounded black bear that has gotten herself stuck within a collapsed section of a fallen fire escape...

Tisha (unique) [Smallish, Female Black Bear; AL N, MV 120' (40'), AC 7, HD 3, #AT 3, DG 1d3/1d3/1d4, SV F1, ML 6, Special: Tisha was taken from her mother as a young cub by some adventurer who intended to train her as a companion animal before they fell down a hole in the street and were never seen again.]
Zoris. Sluggish and bloated, this bear is immense. Her legs can hardly support her grotesque, squirming girth. Her skin is flaking away from extreme eczema and her claws have all turned a vibrant orange, as have her teeth. She hacks up a clotted pinkish phlegm and reeks of spoilt milk. If antagonized, she will defend herself for 1d4 Rounds, then seek to flee before collapsing back down into a miserable heap.

Zoris (unique) [Massive, Adult, Female Grizzly; AL N, MV 60' (20'), AC 7, HD 5, #AT 3 (Claw/Claw/Bite), DG 1d3/1d3/1d6, SV F3, ML 8, Special: Zoris has werms.]

Bloat Werms [AL N, MV 90' (30'), AC 7, HD 5, #AT 1 /Bite or Sting), DG 1d3/1d6, SV F1, ML 6, Special: These slippery things will latch-on with their sucker-like mouths on a result of 19-20 on their To Hit rolls and then lash about wildly in an attempt to skewer their victim with their tail-stingers for double-damage. Each sting attack imposes a -1 penalty to the victim's Saving Throws for 1d6 Turns. If a werm gets a natural 20 on one of these tail-sting attacks, they do double damage and inject 1d6 eggs into the victim. The eggs will cause painful, extreme bloating, persistent nausea and impose a -4 penalty on all attempts to attack or defend while the eggs gestate over the next 1d4 days. Cure Disease will cause the werms to be discharged from all available bodily orifices causing 2d4 damage to the host. The werms will then attempt to escape. Some Quacks will recommend a concoction that includes a heavily-diluted solution of Lear's Soap, often mixed with strong Red Weed Root Vodka. The mixture has a 46% success rate, killing the eggs and any hatched werms, but it also incapacitates the victim for a week's worth of debilitating diarrhea as their body rejects the inflammatory-enzymes secreted by the werms and shrinks back to normal.]
Nauzir. Huge, old and wise; Nauzir wears a special monocle that allows her to Read Magic. She speaks only a few words that are more growls than anything, but she can understand and follow simple Franzik, a few useful words in Illushian, and will suffer a -4 to her Reaction Roll towards anyone using Pruztian within her hearing. She had befriended a trio of Street Urchins, but they were eaten by Curb Slugs, so she has been wandering about in mourning ever since.

Nauzir (unique) [Ancient, Female, Middle-Sized Bear; AL N, MV 120' (40'), AC 4, HD 6, #AT 3 (Claw/Claw/Spell--rarely, if ever bites), DG 1d3/1d3/By Spell, SV F3, ML 10, Special: Knows 1d6 random spells. She has buried 1d4 disreputable grimoires which she intends to go collect later for further study.]

We suggest the following spells: Auric Sheath, Dalrin's Lesser Call (Uncorrected Version), Dirt to Meat, Dorind's Demulcent Yellow Claw, Charnel Breath, Egregious Effusion.
Clever Franz. Nimble and quick, Franz rides a unicycle through the alleys as he hunts down his next meal. He's very partial to fresh berries and rotting fruit; the more fermented, the better he likes it. He's never tasted liquor before, but will happily (greedily) guzzle all he can get. But it is honey that really gets him going, and has made him the bane and scourge of every hive and Beebalmer's den in the area. Fortunately for Franz, he is not allergic to bee stings--most poisons don't bother him overly much, a trait he inherited from his sire, Brutazio--The World Famous Dancing Bear who was killed in the aerial bombings that stranded the Udolpho Carnivale in Wermspittle. Franz has a beautiful spiked collar that is engraved with the distinctive Udolpho Carnivale crest and an offer of a reward for the safe return of their good friend Franz.

Clever Franz (unique) [Huge, Adolescent, Male Black Bear; AL N, MV 120' (60')/180' on Unicycle, AC 6, HD 4, #AT 3 (Claw/Claw/Bite), DG 1d3/1d3/1d6 , SV F4, ML 12 (fearless), Special: Any time Franz gets a natural 18-20 on his To Hit roll, he uses his unicycle to ram his target for 2d4 and gets a follow-up attack at +4 to hit in order to hug his opponent for 1d6. He's very enthusiastic about this special attack, but not large enough, nor quite strong enough to be all that good at it. Franz also knows a lot of clever tricks, is a very good dancer, and loves to play games like trading shiny-bits for morsels of food--as long as the food offered is especially tasty (i.e. half rotten).] The Udolpho Carnivale Troupe will indeed be quite pleased at the return of their errant bear, but their idea of a reward may not be quite what was expected...
Chadda. This owlbear wears a vest that appears to be a re-worked straight-jacket from one of the old asylums or clinics. Its left eye has been replaced with a Purple Amber orb that allows Chadda to Detect Miasmas at 120', and it constantly emits a flickering violet radiance that Repels Purple Minions (such as Smog Thrall or Breathless). Chadda lost his custom-made gauntlets, the one fitted with a variety of wicked-curved blades, back at...that place...where the headaches started...

Chadda (unique) [Huge, Adult, Male Owlbear; AL N, MV 120' (40'), AC 4, HD 4, #AT 3 (Claw/Claw/Bite), DG 1d8/1d8/1d6+2, SV F3, ML 8, Special: Chadda is registered as Test Subject 11k-2, and is part of a special project managed by Doktor Klinefeldt who has transferred the brain of a recent Purple Smog victim into the modified body of a captured Owlbear. If you look closely there are stitches and a bald spot on the back of its head. The personality of the brain is slowly degrading as the instincts of the Owlbear assert themselves. apparently the 3% Solution of White Powder used in the process is somehow allowing the Owlbear to reclaim the foreign brain matter, to literally regrow itself through the transplanted tissue. Klinefeldt would be very happy to have his creature returned to him unharmed, he can be a most generous and helpful patron, or a terrifying personal enemy.]
Lumo. Tall, fierce and intimidating, Lumo has been trained to act ferocious despite having no pointy teeth left. He got lost when his handlers were ambushed by some overly-ambitious Feral Children. The handlers are dead, except for one. Lushima desperately wants to recover her trained bear before the ringleader at Bairini's Big Top discovers what has happened. Unfortunately she was wounded by an Achromic Powder/Salted Shot and needs serious medical attention herself. In the meantime Lumo has wandered through the alleys terrorizing the locals and having a great time reliving his long-lost youth. So far no one has noticed that the old bear has no fangs...

Lumo (unique) [Huge, Old, Male Brown Bear (Striped Shoulders); AL N, MV 90' (30'), AC 6, HD 6, #AT 3 (Claw/Claw/Bite), DG 1d4/1d4/1hp*, SV F4, ML 9 (drops to 3 when confronted by galvanic prods), Special: Lumo has an imposing appearance, which is what convinced the handlers to make him part of their show, after they removed and replaced his fangs with blunt knobs of hardened cellulosic plastic. When Lumo rears up on his hind legs and roars, he radiates Fear in a 20' radius...however all Saves are made at +2, since he's getting old and isn't quite the bear he used to be.
* On any roll of 19-20 To Hit for a Bite attack, Lumo clamps down and vigorously shakes his victim for 1d6 damage.]

Lions | Tigers | Bears

Lesser Beasts
Red Bestiary Index

The badly decayed carcasses of three bears were pulled from another unlicensed basement cess-pit being run by an absentee Landlord alleged to have connections to certain unnamed exotic ammunition crafters on Burr Street. One of the bears, the smallest one, was clutching a stuffed human doll that had to be doused with Cling-Tar and burned before its killing rampage was ended with sixteen seriously injured and two fatalities...

Friday, June 6, 2014

What's In The Hole? (RPG Blog Carnival for June, 2014)

The Theme for this Month's RPG Blog Carnival is What's In The Hole? and it is being hosted by Moebius Adventures. The Kick-Off Post for getting things started is right there at the Moebius Adventures blog. This is a great question. One rife with possibilities for all sorts of gaming goodness. So let's take a look at what might be down there...if you were to discover some sort of previously unexplored/undocumented hole in Wermspittle...

What's In The Hole?

A Section of the Street of the First Shell has collapsed. It may have been a gas-leak. It could have been a long buried and long dormant unexploded mine or aerial bomb (see: UXB Table) that finally went off. Maybe it was unlicensed tunneling by rat-things or something else. The Strand is always blaming minor disasters like this on werms. The Street Patrol is deputizing a dozen stout 'volunteers' to perform a preliminary inspection of the hole left in the middle of the street. They don't want to risk any of their engineers or specialists unless they have to...

Initial Situation: The hole extends down past 300' deep. The sides of the hole are sloping, tumbling masses of fractured and displaced cobblestones that have a tendency to slide when disturbed. Getting down without causing the stones to fall down upon your heads, possibly burying your team, is a real concern. The Street Patrol has complete confidence in your ability to get past this simple obstacle.

Going Deeper: This hole leads down into a closed-off section of an old Unterrail line that hasn't been disturbed in close to three hundred years. The tunnel is not noted on any of the current maps, leading some to suspect that it might have been deliberately stricken from the record. The tunnel contains a pocket of Soporific Aether covering the floor to a depth of about four feet deep. Anyone mucking about in the tunnel will be exposed to the heavier-than-air vapors and fall into a profound, deep slumber. They'll be completely unharmed, unless someone collapses the hole. After the first few explorers fail to respond, the Street Patrol will be forced to decide whether to close-off the hole as a hazard to navigation, or to keep sending down more 'volunteers.'
An unlicensed cess-pit in the basement of a mostly abandoned building has suddenly drained away over night. The Landlord is livid with rage and suspects one of his rivals of having sabotaged his cess-pit, or maybe they've stolen his shit. His low-level flunkies are looking into that aspect of the matter. He wants to hire-on a few stout souls to go take a look at how his cess-pit was drained. He has a few reasonably-repaired sets of armored waders that no longer bear any Sewer Militia markings or tags that he can loan to your crew if you can agree on how much this is going to cost him...

First: For obvious reasons, this all has to remain hush-hush. Your crew's discretion must be vouched for before the Landlord will approach you with the offer. Snitching to the Sewer Militia is an option, of course, but it will draw the ire of the Landlord who has some connections among the Unterkorps and elsewhere they can call upon to make life difficult for anyone who tries to rat him out.

Second: The hole at the bottom of the cess-pit appears to have been made by something digging into the pit from below. A twisty, foul-smelling burrow-sort of tunnel slopes down into the fetid darkness. All the surfaces of this tunnel are rounded, organic looking, and the floor rises and falls in random undulations as far as can be seen by torches, lanterns or whatever light-source is being used.

Third: Less than a hundred feet down, the tunnel is filled with the contraband sewage. Under the surface of the reeking stuff is a dead Reservoir Werm that is blocking the tunnel. It dug into the cess-pit by mistake, was forced back down its tunnel by the cascade of nastiness and drowned here where it got lodged in a sharp bend in the passage. Attempting to move the carcass could result in the thing sliding loose and continuing to slide down even farther along the tunnel, carried along on a torrent of filth...
There's a hole in the middle of the basement floor of the old Filby House. A group of street-urchins who took refuge in the basement last night discovered the hole and desperately want to know what's down there, but they cannot manage to lift some sort of grating that blocks their access. They want your help. They are willing to negotiate a split of the proceeds, as they are certain that there is some sort of treasure down there...

On First Glance: Someone dug out a well-like shaft in the old basement and placed a heavy grate over it. The yellow metal grating is pink with corrosion and has fallen away in two spots, so it can easily be removed. In fact the urchins who discovered the thing already have removed some of the bolts and made your task very simple indeed: lift the grating (it weighs six hundred pounds), and go take a look.

What's Down There: There is some sort of yellowish lump down there. About twenty feet down. There are rungs of yellow metal sunk into the side of the hole leading down, so climbing is fairly easy. The lump is a fossilized Philosophic Mold. It might be of some interest or value to a collector of oddities, or to one of the scholars at the Academy who specialize in molds of various sorts. Getting the thing removed and transported without breaking it or releasing residual toxic-spores is going to be a challenge, as it nearly fills the bottom of the hole and weighs several hundred pounds and is extremely brittle. It will be practically worthless if broken-up into poisonous debris by mis-handling. Getting it out of the hole and delivered to a buyer might draw the attention of the Sewer Militia who will swoop in and try to seize the thing by force if they catch wind of it, as it constitutes a clear and present danger, as they see things.
A hole in the wall. It's dark in there, but with a little light you can see that there's something shiny just a little ways back. Maybe it's someone's secret stash...

There are (1d4) items from the Sewer Salvage Table in there, mingled with a bunch of rotten rags, old burlap sacks, a tar-soaked length of rope and three finger bones.

There's also a small clutch of Gunpowder Grubs covered-up by the rags. They are mostly dried-out and will explode for 3d4 damage per grub if exposed to fire, sparks or excess pressure.
There's a hole in that bucket you just found. It's tagged with a red clover-leaf and looks to be something left behind by some Jelly-Hunter or someone like that. It could be a sample of some kind. There are people who pay for that sort of thing...

Disturbing the Bucket: A captured Gobbling Grout (small specimen of a Type I), has just about eroded its way through the cheap non-zinc-coated pail.

Gobbling Grout (Type I) [Small Attack Spackle, AL C, MV 6' (2'), AC 6, HD 2, #AT 1, DG 1d4, SV MU 4, ML 8, Special: Usual mode of attack is to suffocate sleeping victims they catch unawares. This one has been locked-away in a pail for weeks, so it is starved and more ferocious than usual, but even so, it's still about as scary as a lump of regurgitated oatmeal, unless someone is really stupid or careless...]
Not just any hole. That's a Pest Hole! Run!

What's the Big Deal: A Pest Hole is a Weak Point that opens into a location completely over-run by vermin. These things are mentioned by Foragers in tones of dread reserved for the worst horrors imaginable. Meddling with one of these things can lead to a near endless stream of vermin pouring across the Weak Point's threshold, a disaster that only the most insane cultist would even contemplate setting into motion.

If the Unthinkable Proves to be Inevitable: Should some character manage to stir things up, you could start with the Swarms Table, or try your luck with the Those Aren't Rats in the Walls Table, or maybe you'd prefer to try-out the Those Aren't Werms Table over at Dungeon of Signs. We have a few more tables of vermin-things coming along shortly, but those are all good resources to get you started. On the bright side, this might be a good time to try out Idravon's Fumigatory Vengance...

What's In the Hole?

Next Month's Blog Carnival will be hosted here at Hereticwerks.
The Theme is going to be: Invasive Species...

Everything you might want to know about the RPG Blog Carnival is available all in one place, including How to Participate, How to Sign-Up to Host a Carnival, as well as some handy advice for How to Host a Carnival if your topic gets accepted. You can also browse through the Archives of Past Carnivals and check to see what's coming next.

The RPG Blog Carnival is sponsored and supported by the RPG Blog Alliance. You can find out more about the RPGBA by clicking these links:

The RPGBA site
The RPGBA FAQ

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Bujilli: Episode 92

Previously...
Bujilli has entered the Farm Market in search of something...

Leeja and Mishka have followed Bujilli's trail and have discovered something that they might not want to find them...

Bujilli was soaked to the skin from the cool spring rain. He didn't care. It was time to look for some answers.

Ever since coming to this place he had been confronted with one horrific thing after another. But it wasn't the monsters that troubled him. He'd grown up around demons and Yeren. No. It wasn't the monsters that bothered him. It was the people.

He looked at the people moving about the blue-tiled walls and market stalls. Tall, thin women in narrow leather smocks riveted with plates of salvaged metal were fighting with a recalcitrant Tripod they had rigged to hold up their awning. They were selling massively hypertrophied fruits, mostly berries. Across from them a fat old man in a heavily stained green raincoat sat on his stool puffing on a pipe and ignoring them He has crates of various edible roots, all packed in clean creamy sand and well out of the rain under an almost origami-like arrangement of rusty sheet-metal. Farther along were a pair of fungal-haired children peddling mushrooms, oblivious to the cool rain. A family of refugees, driven from Karlogne during the bombing and burning, were setting-up their wagon to show off baskets of tree-nuts, recently dug-up truffles, fragrant herbs, bundles of rushes from the Low Marshes, and a few just-shot ducks.

Bujilli wondered at the diversity and abundance of food-stuffs on display in the market. He saw a hunchback searing strips of pork hacked off of the boar carcass dangling beside him. A woman in antique yellow metal armor used her ancient blunderbuss to point to the chalk-scrawled menu set next to her neatly patched carnival tent. A child on stilts ran past in pursuit of a flock of pigeons. Haggard veterans with any number of limbs replaced with zinn prosthetics were hawking baked goods, candies, exotic fruits, meat pies; whatever they could get cheaply enough to make it worth trying to re-sell from one or the other box, crate, bucket or bag strapped across their chests and hanging off their bandoliers and belts. A matchgirl screamed as she set her hair on fire only to have it snuffed out by the rain. An oneirist, the 'great Mandroni of Ikrapor' according to the garish placard set before his badly-arranged yurt (Bujilli knew quite a bit about yurts). The Great Mandroni offered a wide selection of services ranging from the Repair of Reputations to the Distillation of Madness, Taming of Nightmares, and Dentistry. His price list included entries for curing bed-wetting, baldness and something called scroufula and thrush. Bujilli scratched his head; he thought that a thrush was a bird, not a disease. He found himself surrounded by various goblins who screeched at him to buy something as their brethren cajoled the crowd to come taste their fruits and buy their produce, all while the 'Great Mandroni' snored loudly from within his leaky yurt. A brief visualization of the first steps in the Oneiric Bubble spell kept the goblins from hassling him, though they did make rude gestures and one of them cast aspersion on his parentage in poorly inflected Etrurian. The goggle-eyed goblin went pale and ran away once he realized that Bujilli could understand Etrurian. With a laugh Bujilli left the goblins to their commecial racket. He was enjoying himself and wasn't inclined to get into a tussle with some minor nightmare-spawn.

Refugees squatted around makeshift camp-fires, some glaring at passersby and others making people welcome in the hopes of selling them something, anything; Feral Children and Street Urchins ran through the crowd, some playing others working; Wretched derelicts and Patchworkers shambled about, some looking for an alternative to Black Liquor, others trying to sell their dubious wares to unsuspecting farmers; Accursed Poets and desperate street performers duelled for the best corners from which to ply their trde; a singularly despairing hunger artist glared disapprovingly at three beautiful Eloi sharecroppers; Murkim collectors hastily tried to readjust their tarpaulin to protect their pails of scrapped lichens,clipped- ferns and gutter mussels; Tsugri gleaners sullenly sat behind a jumbled pile of bundled stalks and twigs and half-dried shoots; burly and well-armed farm kids entrusted by their parents with wagons heaped with the first fruits of the early harvest were hollering and arguing with their neighbors. The Candymen tended to avoid the farm-kids--they'd been warned about Hard Candy and weren't afraid to shoot or stab the dealers on sight.

No horses. Fodder golems dragged heavily-laden travois along the cobblestones. Pack-geese waddled under loaded panniers and penguins in harnesses pulled small wagons. Tripods of various sizes and types carried bundles, boxes and crates to and fro. But nowhere was there a horse to be seen. He over-heard some chess-playing owl-faced strixin who said that the nomads would be sending along the first mule-trains in another week or so. They always brought loads of loot into the city in pursuit of mates, wives and concubines. Their arrival was late this year. Flooding had kept them from making it to the Spring Revels. There'd be a second 'Un-Revel' when they got into town. Bujilli moved on from their position under a large pink umbrella only to jump out of the way of an electric tractor driven along at breakneck speed by a drunken morlock who was cussing up a storm and shaking his mailed fist at the balky, bulky slow-shambling mass of some kind of pack mollusc, or maybe it was some kind of tunicate, one of the ponderous creatures captured in the Kalaramar Drifts and used as beasts of burden. He had heard the phrase that only a fool sent a horse into Wermspittle; the people would eat the thing before it could make it wherever it was going. Now he believed it.

Bujilli kept moving. Always watching. It shocked him deeply to see so much food being made available after such a hard winter. Where he grew up the major harvests were all in the autumn, right up to the onset of winter, not in the spring. Sure, one would find morels, other fungi, even some of the early shoots and ferns were best gathered right as the snow was leaving, but he had never seen anything quite like this before.

Fresh-caught cellar fish, moose jerky, boiled antelope meat, salted frogs, roast insects bigger than his arm, a hundred varieties of jellied werms, peculiar eggs in brine or some other solution, pigeon, ducks, pheasant, geese...he walked past stalls, wagons, impromptu displays, rickety-looking wooded racks weighed-down with things for sale, hastily thrown-down blankets covered with a curious potlatch of mis-labelled spices and curious delicacies. He made his way to the end of the market. It was incredible how much was jammed into that space. All of it rolled, dragged or carried in by those eager to sell to the winter-weary and desperately hungry people of Wermspittle.

He had been told that most of the sellers were from the farm enclaves. Heavily fortified ancestral settlements where old clans raised crops and herds and flocks...those that survived the annual onslaught of winter and the biters, wailers, and worse things that came with it. It was a grim thing to spend a winter fighting for your life against the wandering hordes and strange mobs that drifted in from the wastelands, or from the burning cities and ghost towns. Yet here they were; healthy, robust young people moving about with confidence and well-maintained weapons, going about their business as though they'd been doing it all their lives.

The Low Lands were contaminated, tainted with ancient weapons and old diseases. Anyone who lingered over-long in those places became sterile and eventually they went mad and in some cases became one of the horrid tings that plagued the enclaves every winter. The farmers sent their children into Wermspittle every spring like everyone else in the surrounding area. Like Lemuel had been sent. He wondered how Lemuel was doing, if he was healing, regaining some essential part of his humanity, however little Bujilli had been able to help salvage.

The he felt it. Lemuel. The connection they shared was too deep to deny. Lemuel was in trouble. Needed help.

Bujilli stood off to the side of a gaudily-painted wagon of radishes and considered what he should do...

* Lemuel first appeared in Episode 21, fought with Bujilli in Episode 22, collapsed in the throes of a hideous transformation brought on by abuse of Hard Candy in Episode 23, was lent a helping hand by Bujilli in Episode 24, became something of a 'blood-brother' to Bujilli in Episode 25. We've seen Lemuel off and on since then. He seems to have made some significant progress in becoming more human and less a shapeless, loathsome mass of corruption...

Meanwhile...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Whumpf!

A terrible screaming erupted from the street below.

Three voices. Six. A dozen. All of them in direst torment.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Whumpf!

The building shook. Windows rattled and cracked. Somewhere a mirror shattered onto the floor.

Mishka scuttled back from the window, shaking with a soul-deep revulsion. She looked right into Leeja's eyes; "We either run. Or we fight."

The building lurched. They were on the fifth floor and the whole place was rattling like a doll-house being redecorated with a sledgehammer.

"We run."

The door fell off its hinges as they passed under the lintel. The railing around the central stairs collapsed in a cloud of dust and debris. Sections of the rotted railing from the floors overhead were crashing down one after another. More doors fell off their hinges. There wasn't any more glass left to fall out of the windows; it was all broken and underfoot. Dust rolled through the place like smoke.

aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Whumpf!

They turned away from the stairs and headed to the back of the building. The fire escape. Three flights up, five down. They hurried up the wrought iron steps to the roof. The alley below was mounded with debris and garbage.

"Now what?" Mishka looked at Leeja accusingly.

"We look for another roof and we jump. Then we do it again. And again. Until we finally get away from whatever that thing--"

AAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Whumpf!

"Scheiss! Just do what I do. follow, but don't hesitate." She turned and ran off to the edge of the mostly flat tenement roof. Nothing within easy reach in that direction. She went to the left. Another alley. The next building over was lower, but the roof was covered with Red Weeds. She ran over to the right. That building was two stories taller, but she felt that they could make it into one of the open windows. If they got a running start.

"We'll need to run right up to the edge, then jump for all your worth."

"The window?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure I can make it. But I'll try--I'm not staying here."

Leeja nodded once. Gathered up her courage, took a few deep breaths and ran. Leaped. Her hair whipped and flickered through the air like ivory flames trailing an arctic comet. Her foot snagged on the ledge. But she pulled herself past the window and took up position so as to help Mishka across.

The girl didn't make it.

Leeja lunged. Her hair whipped out. Snarled around Mishka's arms and yanked her through the window.

Mishka crumpled to the filthy floor. Leeja released her. Shook out her hair. Looked about the place.

The sweet stink of corruption was overpowering. The carpets were sticky with mostly dried black fluids. There was blobs of soggy plaster all over the floor, more and more of the stuff the farther in they went. The ceiling was sagging, bulging downwards with the wet mess of a Loathsome Mass leaking through the floor-boards above.

They avoided the worst of the detestable rot and corruption and headed for the nearest door. It opened onto a corridor. They ran down the corridor to the end and looked about for another window. No convenient roof was in reach. They ran to the left in search of a stairwell. Instead they found a yellow metal cage suspended off of a small balcony-like platform that had been retro-fitted into the place as an elevator overlooking an atrium or enclosed greenspace. The skylight overhead was grimed over and only let a few rays of sunlight in. They entered the cage and pushed the button for the ground level.

The cage jolted. Cables clattered and gears rattled. It descended at a stately pace.

They spotted some shaggy, dog-snouted figures with spears or pruning hooks moving around three floors below.

Leeja tried to stop the elevator. The emergency stop didn't work. It kept going down.

With luck it would pass by the floor with the shaggy people.

Muishka pulled out her mother's pepperbox pistol and a wickedly serrated and wavy-bladed gutting knife. She was a Wanderer--they bought and sold luck, but rarely indulged in it themselves.

Leeja watched as the elevator continued downwards...maybe they could slip past unnoticed...the elevator didn't make that much noise...

One of the shaggy folk barked and pointed to the descending cage.

"Damn dog-mounting Voormis." Mishka cursed.

Bujilli can continue to explore the Farm Market, or he can try to connect with Lemuel...or he could drop everything and go to help Lemuel...or maybe stick around and wait for Leeja. Or maybe one of you clever readers has an even better suggestion, in either case I'd love to hear your opinion, vote or recommendation.

Leeja and Mishka seem to have escaped whatever was demolishing the building they were in, but now they've run into a pack of Voormis. So now we'll need Initiative Rolls, Reaction Rolls, and it's up to you readers whether Leeja and Mishka attack, parley, or flee--or do something else.

Initiative: Roll 1d6 each for (1) Leeja, (2) Mishka, (3) The Voormis, and (4)That other thing lurking in the shadows.

Reaction: Roll 2d6, and check the result against the Monster Reaction Table on p. 52 of Labyrinth Lord.

As always, if you have questions or suggestions let me know in the comments, or via email.

What happens next is up to you, the readers.

You Decide!

Previous Next

Series Indexes

One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six

Starting Page | Central Index

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

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

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

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)

Labyrinth Lord | Advanced Edition Companion

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Skyggen

"Poor shadow!" said the princess; "it is very unfortunate for him; it would really be a good deed to free him from his frail existence; and, indeed, when I think how often people take the part of the lower class against the higher, in these days, it would be policy to put him out of the way quietly."

The Shadow

Hans Christian Andersen

Skyggen
No. Enc.: 1 (1d6)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 60' (20') [Cannot enter brightly lit areas]
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: 1
Damage: 2d4, Special
Save: F2
Morale: 6

Frail, fragile things of amorphous, ambiguous dimness, lacking all hope and despondent over their lackluster fate, the Skyggen are tricksome, troublesome beings who cause much mischief through their crafty lies and playing off of the misplaced sympathy of the vulnerable and gullible. They use a form of ESP similar to what a Doppleganger uses in its unholy substitutions to eavesdrop upon passersby in order to hunt out a likely seeming candidate for their next swindle.

Skyggen constantly and involuntarily mimic and mock the physical forms and outlines of any and all conscious beings who pass within 10'--they cannot help it. If they make a special effort, they can hold a single shape or outline for as long as they maintain their concentration. The more closely they match a particular being, the more effectively they can communicate with that person. The Skyggen gains a +1 bonus to their Reaction Rolls for every 4 Turns they can hold this form and engage their potential victim in discourse. What they talk about is unimportant. What matters is that they keep their victim talking. If the Skyggen can convince the victim to come close enough, the two can converse freely without anyone else overhearing them, using a limited variant of a Silence 5' Radius spell.

Skyggen seek to lull their victims into a false sense of security. Once they have gained their victim's trust, they will attempt to convince them to allow the Skyggen to temporarily "Swap places" with them. If the Skyggen can achieve this end completely by guile and persuasion, then it transfers its consciousness into the body of the victim while trapping their mind within the Skyggen's shadowy form. This exchange lasts for a period of 1d6 hours, after which time the displaced minds revert back to their original bodies. The Skyggen will then seek to convince the victim to return again another time to repeat the transfer. Each time it will attempt to reward the willing body-swapper in some minor fashion. Each time the transfer is made, the Skyggen temporarily gains 1d4 hit points that will last fort he next 3 days. If the Skyggen manages to gain in excess of 12 hit points through repeat transfers, it permanently gains 1 hit point. Every 6 permanent hit points gained in this manner gives the Skyggen an additional HD. There is also a cumulative 10% chance that the Skyggen will attempt to betray their victim by arranging to kill their own body (containing the mind of the person willingly swapping with them), leaving them in full possession of their victim's body. The Skyggen will seek to arrange for some sort of 'accident' to befall their former body, or if the opportunity presents itself, they will attempt to convince some well-meaning dupe to destroy their old form 'before it can swap itself for some unsuspecting victim...'

Inspiration: The Shadow by Hans Christian Andersen, which is available at Online Literature, Wikisource, and elsewhere online, with a darker-tinged and malevolent sort of Walk-In, not at all like what Ruth Montgomery wrote about...

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Irradiant [Two Forms]

"I have gone through the most terrible affair that could possibly happen; only imagine, my shadow has gone mad; I suppose such a poor, shallow brain, could not bear much; he fancies that he has become a real man, and that I am his shadow."

The Shadow

Hans Christian Andersen

Irradiant (Larval Form/Undifferentiated)
No. Enc.: 1 (1d4)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 90' (30') [Cannot pass powdered amber]
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 1+
Attacks: 1
Damage: 1d4, Special
Save: F1+
Morale: 8

The Irradiant are shapeless, nameless, mindless child-sized smears of gently gleaming whiteness fainter than the glare off of the winter ice at dawn. They prowl about the periphery of mining camps, hunting lodges, small villages and anywhere else where they can lurk and gibber softly to themselves in dim and isolated spaces. They emanate a faint sense of longing and loneliness and use Ventriloquism to make their plaintive whining and muffled sobs barely audible when they detect a possible victim.

They seek to devour the shadow of their prey, and in doing so, they take on a vague resemblance to their victim, and their thin, malleable minds become imperfectly imprinted with the thoughts and memories of their victim, whom they then begin to imitate in a cold, mechanical, emotionless manner. The Irradiant only inflicts normal damage unless it rolls a 17 or better 'To hit,' at which point the damage it causes is to their victim's shadow. They must inflict 12 points of damage (+the victim's CON mod, if any) in order to successfully devour the shadow.

If an Irradiant succeeds in devouring their victim's shadow, it flees in order to find a safe place in which to lie dormant for 2d6 days as it transforms into the next stage of development. The victim suffers a terrible withering illness that incapacitates them for 1d6 days, during which time they are rendered too weak to travel and become weirdly transparent, suffering an additional 1d4 per round if exposed to light brighter than a candle. During the course of the illness they do not recover any hit points, except through magical means, and then only at half the usual rate. At the end of the illness the victim will often exhibit a few whitish speckles on their skin. They also possess a limited form of ESP linking them to the Irradiant that imprinted upon them, but the effect is limited to a 30' radius. Victims of the shadow-devouring attack of an immature Irradiant suffer a permanent loss of 10% of all subsequent XP, with those points going to the benefit of the Irradiant. This penalty is lifted only once the Irradiant is destroyed.

Irradiant (Adult Form/Imprinted)

No. Enc.: 1 (1d6)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 90' (30') [Cannot pass powdered amber]
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 3+
Attacks: 1
Damage: 1d6, Special
Save: F3+
Morale: 10

Softly luminous they slink and slide through the darkness or the light indifferent to either for they are confident if emotionless things. Shallow, facile beings, limited in their cognition and devoid of any conscience, they caper and prance at the very threshold of unreality, on the veriest verge of entertaining their own dreams. Yet they remain taunted by the knowledge that they are not original, that they are in fact fakes, mere copies of some other being. And this is what drives them mad. The horror of their existence as flawed mockeries of other, more fully realized creatures is too much to bear. So they do what must be done. They set out to eliminate, to exterminate those whose mere existence is a grievous affront to their nascent, fragile sense of selfhood.

An adult Irradiant will sometimes attempt to pass itself off as their original victim and gain an additional 5% to their chances of doing so per HD as they grow and gain experience. They advance as Fighters or Thieves and gain 10% of any experience gained by the original in addition to their own XP. It is rarely in anyone's best interests to allow an Irradiant to persist, once they've succeeded in imprinting themselves upon a victim.

The adult form of Irradiant no longer devours shadows. Instead the wounds it causes take on a lingering form of mottled translucency where the victim's flesh loses the majority of its native opacity, allowing light to pass through it in a distorted manner like cloudy glass or pool of water. Unfortunately the effect is neither true transparency, nor any sort of invisibility, but instead only leaves the victim distinctively marked in a manner typically only of real interest to scholars of obscure afflictions. Those suffering from these sorts of translucent scars gain a +2 bonus to Reaction rolls with Abseen and Perdu, but suffer a -4 to the Reaction rolls of any Horla they encounter.

If the Irradiant succeeds in killing the being they imprinted upon, they go stark raving mad and revert to a wavering, indistinct mass of shimmering whiteness that lashes out insensibly and randomly at any and all who come within reach of its vaguely humanoid limbs. Anyone slain by an Irradiant in this state permanently fades from visibility, as well as the memories of everyone within a 30' radius.

Perhaps these things were brought back from one of the Polar Expeditions, or they crossed over from the Glowfield. The older Midwives prefer to blame it all on the people of the cold fjords and snow-draped mountains exposed to the aurorae and the midnight sun. It is in such places that many unnatural things take form and the seeds of unreality take root. Too long a time of darkness, too long a period of cold; these things breed monsters and madness. There is much folklore to support this position. Many cautionary tales. The Midwives will tell you some of them. Just cross their palms with silver or gold. They can talk your ear off. Sometimes literally.

It is whispered that the wanderers of the Kudri, Kidri, Ulpri or one of the dozens of other autonomous lineages know of secret ways to capture the Irradiant, Skyggen and related things within a lantern or some sort of torch, and to make use of the things as weapons against dark things.

Those who peddle captured and caged Koponu often make claims that the little creatures scare-off or repel Irradiants. This may be so much salesmanship or verbal-bilge, but there are a few anecdotes and tavern-tales in circulation that seem to agree with the peddler's claims. Now if only some enterprising young scholar might take it upon themselves to verify these stories, perhaps by conducting a series of experiments...

Source of Inspiration: The Shadow by Hans Christian Andersen, which is available at Online Literature, Wikisource, and elsewhere online...but with a twist, or rather inversion...and a slight nod to Clark Ashton Smith's The Double Shadow. And yes, there is a bit of resonance here with certain stories of Arthur Machen, M. P. Shiel, and Edgar Allen Poe, as well as a couple of Mr. Well's tales, but that is only to be expected.

Monday, June 2, 2014

Reservoir Werm (Wermspittle)

There's Something Down There...

Reservoir Werm
No. Enc.: 1
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 60' (20')
Armor Class: 5
Hit Dice: 10
Attacks: 1
Damage: 3d6+Acid
Save: F6
Morale: 9

No one knows how this thing got down in the Old Reservoir. No one knows how long it's been down there. So far there has been one person who has returned from attempting to investigate the Old Reservoir. The one Tenebrotype image they were able to bring back with them is reproduced above. All anyone knows right now is that it appears to be some sort of very large wermic-thing. The Sewer Militia is assembling a team of volunteers to attempt to capture or kill the thing...

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Soporific Aether

The notorious 'Last Photo' recovered from the body of W.J. Abercrombin, investigative trespasser and Yellow Journalist in service to the Wermspittle Free Press. Abercrombin's experimentally aether-sensitized camera was retrieved and the film developed by Independent Sources that have verified that it is in fact an authentic image of the so-called 'Soporific Aether.'

The Observatory established by the venerable Doktor Gretzmalk has been closed for over two hundred years. It was sealed by the Security Council once it was discovered that the place was filled with Soporific Aether supposedly left-over from the infamous 'Lost Weekend' event in 1132P.R. when the majority of the world's population in the Western Hemisphere were rendered unconscious for a period of hours or days, depending upon the geographical distribution of the so-called 'Poison Belt,' which in itself has yet to be conclusively proven to actually exist.

Soporific Aether is a colorless, odorless, heavier-than-air gas that acts as a massively effective sleep agent even in small doses. Exposure to even a small whiff of the stuff results in a profound slumber that can persist for hours.

It is sometimes encountered in old coal mines, underground tunnels, caverns and is rumored to be a recurring nuisance within the Lidenbrock Reservoir, however neither the Unterkorps nor the Sewer Militia have confirmed anything at this time.

Since the negotiation of a treaty between the Academy, the Sewer Militia and other interested parties, a number of small-scale, highly regulated and frequently inspected taps have been made to allow access to the massive cache of Soporific Aether contained within the Observatory.

Intensive analysis of the stuff has led several noteworthy experts and authorities on such matters to publicly hypothesize that Soporific Aether may be the base form of the Deep Purple Smog, Purple Clouds and a host of related miasmas. There is a great deal of interest and research in this area on the part of quite a few 'interested parties'...

Inspiration: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's second Professor Challenger story The Poison Belt, which is available at Project Gutenberg, with a direct connection to M. P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud, with a wink and a nod to Buck Rogers.

Pages