Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

I don’t know what I expected, but in movies and films the skeleton is always very neat and orderly, often still hung together somehow as it hangs in dungeon shackles. The reality was much different; the bones were scattered over the area and most of them had been broken open by scavengers to extract the marrow. It was, to put things mildly, a very skeletonized skeleton, and the thought that it had once been not only a person but one I knew turned my stomach.

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“Ah man,” said Endell. “I lost my…my…the letter that comes after V.”

“Do you remember where you left it?”

“I have no idea here I left it,” Endell said. “But I need it!”

“Fine, fine. But you owe me.”

The vending machine clattered and clanked as it accepted 75¢, spitting out a perfectly acceptable, if plain and cheap, emergency letter W.

“How’s that?”

“Much better,” said Wendell.

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“Look at this discount crap. This werewolf outfit says ‘howling costume.’ Who wants to dress up as a howling costume for Halloween?”

“Halloween was a while ago, so nobody did. That’s why it’s on the discount rack.”

“It’s the principle of the thing. How’d you like to see a vampire costume on sale that was labeled as ‘suckmamn outfit?'”

“I’d probably buy it and frame it, maybe going viral in the process.”

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A skelestongeon is a large arcane construct which requires two months and 1000 GP to prepare. The skeleton of any large animal will do, but skelestongeons made from equines are the most popular. Each bone must be inscribed with a number of magical runes, requiring an artisan level of skill and a special silver or gold ink; the better the quality of the runes, and the more complete the skeleton, the more powerful the resulting skelestongeon will be. To animate the construct, a pair of gems must be affixed into its eye sockets while a being of roughly equal size is slain in cold blood nearby.

This will animate the skelestongeon and allow it to receive commands. If the ritual was completed properly, it will act as a large courser for riding purposes, inflicting 1d12 damage to anyone it tramples. Once per day, a well-made skelestongeon can cast a 1st or 2nd level spell from each of its eye-gems. If a second casting is called for, the spell will shatter the skelestongeon’s eye as it casts, resulting in all its attributes and rolls being cut in half until the gem can be replaced. Shattering both gems will kill the skelestongeon, and once slain, its bones cannot be raised again.

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Lizio sauntered up to the bar, a highball glass full of fly squeezins in one hand.

“Ladies,” he said. “Mind if I join you?”

“Ew,” said the first lady, some kind of skink. “We don’t like lounge lizards.”

“Yeah,” the second, some sort of monitor, added. “Get lost.”

“Well, if you hate lounge lizards, then you must hate yourself. And I find nothing helps self-loathing more than a little bug juice. What do you say? I’m buying.” Lizio licked his eyes in their sockets and grinned.

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“That is some classic Grotesquericia right there,” said Sean with a laugh.

“Are we not worried that they slew a deer in broad daylight, painted themselves with its blood, and proceeded to jump out at strangers while wearing a bloody deerskin?”

“Like I said, classic Grotesquericia,” Sean replied. “Where do you think the name comes from, anyway?”

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Even though genetic evidence has shown that every species of oo is descended from a common ancestor, they have nevertheless evolved extremely distinct behaviors. The sitting oo never stands or even moves once it reaches adulthood, relying on nutrients in the soil and a sort of photosynthesis for nutrition, and its motile young to spread the species out. Needless to say, the sitting oo was decimated by the introduction of toothed grumbles and exists mainly in preserves today. The standing oo moves as an adult if it must, but prefers to stay standing in one place. In addition to soil and sun, it can also eat grasses and some small animals, and it will usually consume everything within its reach before it moves on, though it will move early if threatened. The toothed grumbles have been less successful in reducing the number of standing ops, though they are still much rarer than they once were. The running oo and the flying oo, which both start moving shortly after birth and never stop until they die of exhaustion, are both extinct in the wild thanks to toothed grumbles. The most common species, the walking oo, is still quite common though.

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“The ‘N’ was the last of the series that the artist was able to complete. Twenty-six miles from the ‘M’ and built on-site, just like the others, the ‘N’ was the ultimate reason Juan Salazar never made it to ‘Z.'”

“And why was that?”

“Before its completion, one of the supports failed and he was crushed by it. His assistants finished the sculpture, but refused a commission to complete the alphabet.”

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The Omelette Knights of the Order of the Scrambled Egg believe that the world was created when a divine Cosmic Egg was broken by the Great Chef and fried up in the heat of creation. This is the reason behind both the stark white color of their armor and their famous–perhaps infamous–mobile henhouses to keep troops constantly supplied with fresh eggs.

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“Aaa!” screamed Dr. Narwhalius, both through the translator and using his natural high-pitched sonar.

“Aaa!” screamed the inter dimensional rainbow laser whale, its low warbling frequency augmented by an intense psychic yelp.

“Aaa!” cried Selucius, as the collapsing wormhole threatened to pull him apart in its death throes.

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