Shadow & Fae

Death & Divinity Artist Unknown Look upon the world, how rain falls, trills down the hillsides, pours into the rivers and seas, and rises again as mist in the air. If our world is so careful to conserve the stuff of rivers and seas, how careful shall we suppose it to be with the stuff of souls? And yet, as one can never step in the same river twice, it is known that no being is ever truly reborn. The stuff of their soul melds into the great Will of all things, blending with the immaterial essence, the Materia Animae, of all other souls, and from this great sea, new souls are drawn. And they are born into the world we leave them. Our lust for divinity will not lead to life, but to an eternal lingering death, in which nothing is renewed, and all things fade. The Fault of Eternity Immortality is not agelessness.  All things fade, crumble, and give way in time. Though some have achieved immortality through binding their souls to arcane constructions known as “Bastions”, even those ...

" From Goblin Market " Arthur Rackham, 1933 Mushroom cap, tail of rat, gall of cat, dripping fat, Boil and boil, never toil, wind is free, n'so is me! -The Goblin Rhyme Etesia When toads yet sang and cats had two tails, Etesia was a peaceful place. The Lofty Lady walked her lands with gentleness and strength, and all her subjects—even the lowly humans—enjoyed an age of quiet labor and joyful rest. But that was long ages ago. Now we struggle on like the rest of the world, prying life out of thorns and the maws of wolves, even from our own kin. In all the bloodshed, and pox, and lack, we die young and leave our young to fend for themselves. So they do. The Soup It is not known when the first Soup was boiled, or who boiled it, or what the intention was, but the soup has been boiling for long ages now, and those who eat it are turned strange. Their bones, their muscles, and their hearts grow hard as stone. Depending on the ingredients present in the soup—which may be anything...

An article for GLoGtober '23 ,  Challenge 1: Failed Gods and their Consequences Art generated via Bing Image Generator "The trouble with being a god is that you've got no one to pray to." - Terry Pratchett, Small Gods . Practicing Religion While a cleric or similar class gains abilities from their associated deity or pantheon, any character may practice a religion of their choice. Adherents of a religion may:  seek out the blessing of their religion's priest (a d6 added to any dice roll, which is lost once used. Most priests may only have 1 such blessing active at a time),  pray for wisdom at a shrine of their deity (once per day, base 1-in-10 odds of receiving a minor but useful divine revelation, +1 each for an appropriate offering, a recent act of service, or additional follower present, up to 5-in-10),  pray for a miracle related to the deity's domain (X% chance of success, where X is the character's level. Praying for a miracle takes an action, and ca...

Inktober 16, Mike Phillips The Mirror Academy To test out "Magus Ludus", a domain game centered on each character being a wizard, I threw 10 level 4 GLoG wizards into a school and told them they were responsible to raise up the next generation of students. Things did not  go according to plan. NOTES ON PLAY Co-Creating With Microscope To begin our game, we played a few rounds of Ben Milton's "Microscope". This resulted in this document (not required reading, but it contains much of the lore). Turn Structure Each turn, players described their goal and how they pursued it. For the most part this meant they were working towards a particular plan of their own design, gaining progress on it until poof  it happened at 100%. While this resulted in some interesting hijinks, I found that it often fell flat in terms of interesting play. Players had a lot of freedom to choose what they wanted to do, but the process often looked identical and presented few risks to the cha...