Inktober 27

"Climb"

A citizen of Echsen goes on a vertical jaunt...

"Fighting Followers with Disembodied Brains"

Once Again:

"Fighting Followers with Disembodied Brains"

"We don't have enough men," thought Quan. "Or at least, enough good men." 

The fanatics of Dra'ver arrayed themselves before the ragtag army of King's Chevaliers, Duke Alden's housecarls, and the hastily assembled peasant militia.  Spread along the crest of the rise, their line was long, but thin.

Quan looked over the shaky arbalesters and nervous spearmen under her charge. They were to hold the left end of the line, their flank buttressed by trees and brambles.

She did not expect much from these part-time soldiers.  They would likely collapse on first contact. She'd seen plenty of lines lose heart, their flanks rolled up, as the mass became individuals, no longer cohesive.

But, as a Chevalier, it was her duty to lead, to inspire.  Straightening her back, she rode in front of her line, letting her freshly scrubbed field plate and battle-standard (a raven fighting a viper on a field of green) draw the fidgeting militia's attention.

"Steady boys.  The man to your right protects you.  Cover the man to your left, and we hold.  These heathens will break. Trust me."

The nervous eyes looking back at her said different.

"Hiding Nuisances After Gods"

Freewriting topic of the week

"Hiding Nuisances After Gods"

The God-boon wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.

After all, the Great One had walked among the mortals and devout of the town. We had been promised boons.  Crops had been tithed, fatted calves sacrificed (and dark rumors of more... familial... sacrifices, as well).

What we were left with was awkward pregnancies, malformed livestock,and strange crops gibbering in the fields under the moonlight.

We paled when we learned that pilgrims were on their way to walk the countryside trod by the Great One, to see the blessings wrought upon us. A dull panic swept the town at the thought of the humiliation once we were exposed as the fools we were, thinking that we could receive a blessing from an ineffable power for the mere trinkets that we had to offer.

"Magical Traps Around Madness"

Way off schedule on following my OSRBA writing exercises.  I have maintained better than I expected, but have fallen out of the habit.  Onward.

"Magical traps around madness"

The Maelstom appeared three generations ago, a by-product of a mad priest's attempt to speak directly to his deity.  He contacted something immortal, to be sure. But not the intended, and not something amused to be disturbed by the incursions of some random mortal.

source

The immortal did communicate with the priest, in its fashion.  Its alien intelligence pulled apart the priest's mind, stripping it as a flayed criminal at the stocks. Or more likely, as a bored youth pulling legs from a fly.

"Wandering hoards above woods"

A horde with a hoard. In the woods.

Via:

The scatter-apes saltate and glide through the dense forests of Vevimosa, their complex hoots and whistles echoing through the branches. A casual observer will rarely spot the monkeys as they make their way through the treetops.

Uplifted by the druid Ceurtia in hopes to use them as forest sentries and caretakers, the gliding monkeys had their own ideas. Taking their new-found intelligence, they retreated back to the forest canopy to recreate their troops and tribes. Leaders ceased to be the strongest or fiercest, but the most persuasive. Contemplative individuals among the tribes co-opted some of the powers of the druid who had formed them, manipulating the forests for their own good, growing vines and branches for thoroughfares and hive-holds, as well as to entangle or impede foes or the curious.

And, for better or worse, they have acquired a taste for valuables. Scatter-apes have been glimpsed raiding forest redoubts for treasure, pilfering valuables from caravans, and poking about overgrown ruins.

As the apes are nomadic throughout Vevimosa, they prefer to be only lightly encumbered, favoring gemstones, and will rid themselves of gold and precious metals at the earliest convenience, if they aquire the metals at all. The monkeys somehow learned of trading and commerce, as well, and merchants wending through the forest roads have been surprised by apes gliding from the trees to state loudly in broken Common, "Trade shiny for sparkly!" as the apes offer to divest their metal valuables for more portable gems. Tribes have also been reportedly found with occasional fine art pieces, typically pilfered paintings rolled into wooden or bone sleeves.

Word is, the scatter-apes give good trade value, if you happen to encounter them. But don't try to short them, for the tribes talk, know what their 'sparklies' are worth, and they sense a cheat. Trade negotiations have the potential to go from civil to being pummeled by several incensed monkeys rather quickly...

Negotiating resources inside robots

"Negotiating resources inside robots"
Via:

source

Maester Gröenwald sighed.

"Maester," Sully repeated again, "The duergar have embargoed us again."

"Yes, yes, I heard you the first time..."

The duergar, workers stunted over generations of living and working within the walking, harvesting legs of the mobile city, scuttled along its undercarriages and refined the resources gathered by each ponderous step of Ambulurbis: sand turned to glass, ores refined to metals, soils and plants ripped up to feed the harvest-tanks, lakes and rivers sucked dry. Constrained to the maintaining the workings of the legs, they were both a shunned caste, but one that held a critical chokehold on the resources required by the Above-city as it made its way across the plains and mountains of Gamana.

Tricking Nuisances Through Illusion

"Tricking Nuisances Through Illusion"

source

"Really, I can only take the scorpion-on-a-stick thing so many times."

"I'm still smoldering from that burning oil down the back..."

"How did they manage to double back on us a SECOND time? Keep your head down."

zing!

"Are you sure it was the same ones?"

"Yah.  These have red rags on their heads.  The other ones had blue rags."

"The old crone DID warn us of all the kobolds down here, after all."

"I thought she was speaking metaphorically..."

"Whatever. You don't believe anyone's information."

"Remember the whole 'bree-yark' fiasco?  I rest my case."

zing!

Controlling Resources with Fire

"Controlling Resources with Fire"

The Ice Knight called upon old foes to solve a predicament.

The ice elementals, idiotic and implacable, were multiplying as they maintained the frigid grip on his holdings and kept the Spring Faeries at bay.  Somehow his magic had become too powerful, and fed upon itself.  The Ice Dikes and Plains of Frozen Knives, barriers to the vernal forces, were becoming too tortuous and impassable for even his most stalwart trekkers.  Elementals joined and split in slow chaos.  Soon he would be imprisoned within his own realm.

No, I didn't use a GoT Ice Wall picture...  (source)

He sighed and shook his head, ashamed that it had come to this.  There were too many elementals to control or dispel alone.  He needed herd-dogs.  He needed Fire.

"Studying Spells from Madness"

Missed a week.  Was focusing on work and posting my dungeon/mine geology treatise.  Plus I have a little game/writing project I'm working on, so hopefully I'll get it to a point that I want to post it soon.

So back at it....

"Studying Spells from Madness"

Long-term study of the arcane arts leaves an indelible mark on the mind of its practitioners, as spells are memorized, then ripped from the mind as the spell is spent...  It goes without saying that a wizard's mental health will be affected by this, as would any long-term user of a dangerous and unstable substance.

Some become twisted and fevered, and some use their mental scarring to twist the spells through their own machinations...

source

"Hiding Hoards in Space"

At it again...

This week, "Hiding Hoards in Space"

Cron's Ethereal Pendant...

source

The Astromancer Cron created a series of pendants that act as gates to  locations within the Ether.  These pendants were crafted for clients with need for very secure storage.  Each pendant, upon utterance of a command word, creates a pathway into the Ether, allowing an object to pass through, and putting it into orbit around a small body in space, such as an asteroid.  The pendant's rings will expand to allow the passage of an object (up to the size of a large chest), then contracting and closing the gate behind.

"Creating Villages with Disembodied Brains"

Topic via Talysman's random generator, draft scribbled in a notebook while waiting for a contractor to load trucks:

Persons entering the village of Echsen are greeted by a horrific sight.  Brains and eyes float in viscous fluid within transparent jars, mounted on crab-like legs, scuttle about the village streets.  A traveler nervously fingers his sword.

Sketched by my lovely wife on the back of some scratch paper...

"Welcome to Echsen, guv'ner," squeaks a tinny voice, "This village and all who pass through are under the aegis of the mage Kedibo.  No harm will come to you here."

The visitor cautiously walks the streets, shying away from the skittering constructs passing by on their business.  The mercantile is open for trade, the town mill grinds away, the smell of roasting meat drifts from the tavern.

Curious, the visitor exchanges a few coppers for a new cloak and a few road provisions at the shop. Maybe he shares an ale and trencher of roast with the clattering and clacking patrons of the tavern. He notes that it is curious that they go through the motions of eating and drinking as they talk village gossip, but the food remains uneaten, the beverages not drunk.  Perhaps our traveler, noting the late hour, even dares to spend a night of fitful sleep at the simple inn.

In the morning he departs, with farewells from the same eerie music-box voices.  He rides away, waiting for the nervous itch in his spine to subside.

"Looting Hoards beside(s) Vices"

Well, I just returned from Bishop, California, and I should have been sending projects...

(not me)

... but had evening downtime, so I fought with the Blogger app to cobble together an entry for this week's Topic Tuesday. (I'm probably the only person who does this, but it's an excellent freewriting exercise for me...)

"Looting Villages from/of Jokes"

Topic Tuesday via...

"Looting Villages from/of Jokes"

I just picked one quickly so I didn't have to look at any more clown pictures. Source

It was high time.  They had scared the children.  They had buggered the sheep.  They had stolen the Sacred Pear.  It was time for the Painted Faces to go.

And we wanted our Pear back.

"Tricking Followers Around Fire"

Talysman didn't roll a topic this week, so per the random topic generator:

Tricking Followers Around Fire

source

Faber the Fervid had the crowd in the palm of his hand as he preached against the avaricious.

"Only through fire or austerity may your sins be purged!!" he railed, "If not now - then in the Everlasting After!!"

"Recovering Traps with Illusion"

Topic Tuesday: Recovering Traps with Illusion


Snkt the Kobold was furious!  Brrzt had claimed Snkt’s masterpiece trap, the Scorpion Slinger, as his own!

Fortunately, Snkt had his original design drawings on tanned dog-skin, and retained the services of Gnomish barrister Lobik Bizzgear of Bizzgear, Finenozzle, Castfuzz, and Schwartz, LLP. 

With nary a blink, the gnome lawyer, a master of charm and misdirection, played on the jury’s fear and suggested the defendant’s mirage was madness, then in a scintillating burst of confusion, cutting down Brrzt’s false script, leaving the jury dazed and swayed to the evidence of Snkt’s garbled text and sending Brrzt down the lonely road.

"Hiding Artifacts inside Villains" Part II

I had started this entry when my wife suggested another option for "hiding" artifacts, which became my prior post.  I completed this second theme-post, then noticed Talysman's theme-post entry.  So I had to incorporate that, as well...

...

The Naga Snonhin has consolidated and retained her power and influence in the Fens for a generation.  Tales spread of her being seemingly killed or dismembered yet rising the next day to led her serpentmen to take revenge on whatever group foolish enough to attempt to force their way into her domain.  Tales of horribly burned survivors and smoldering encampments spread.

Her resiliency has not gone unnoticed by the mage-scholars of Quoomes.  Two winters ago, they sent the battle-mage Essbanon and Teller the Unking to the Uskh Alters.  As they suspected, the Alters were not abandoned, but had been re-established by the fire-cult of Fyss.

"Hiding Artifacts inside Villains"

"Hiding Artifacts inside Villains"

The fleeing wolf-riders were swift, but the Plains Elves on their axe-beaks rode them down.  It had been a long hunt, with relays of riders and birds, many dropping from exhaustion, as so many gold coins spent in a risky investment.

source

But they were desperate.

"Studying Followers for Heaven or Hell"

Talysman, as "President" of the "OSR Blogowners Association", has made a campaign promise to tackle the problem of stale blogging topics.  Through the use, of course, of a Random Topic Generator.  I'm assuming that the topic is open to significant interpretation - discussion seeds w/r.t. roleplaying or GM-ing, as monster or NPC creation, adventure hooks, scenes, items or relics.

Today's Tuesday Topic: "Studying Followers for Heaven or Hell"

Here we have Followers of Heaven studying a Follower of Hell who studies, well, other Followers of Hell.

...

His Holy Father, the Padah of Ossrit, keeps the theocracy safe from the forces of Chaos through the studious and aggressive efforts of his Inquisitors.  These scholar-warriors carry with them voluminous knowledge of the myriads of demons, their powers, their influence and the cults held in thrall by these dark forces.  Through disciplined study and deduction, the Inquisitors root out the cults that threaten to undermine the Padah's heaven-sent order.