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September 25, 2015

From “Of Worlds” by Anonymous

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Polar Worlds

Polar worlds tend to have large uninhabitable bands about their equators with much more temperate zones close to either pole. The large zone often prevents animals and civilizations from crossing on the macro scale without the advent of significant technologies. These worlds tend to undergo interchanges when species or civilizations from one pole reach the other, nearly always resulting in mass extinctions. In rare cases, life can evolve independently at either pole to such an extent that they share no common ancestry; Exegesis II, for instance, evolved a dextro amino acid ecosystem on its north pole and a levo amino acid ecosystem in the south.

Ribbon Worlds

In contrast to polar worlds, ribbon worlds have a narrow habitable band around their equators and large inhospitable areas dominating either hemisphere. This has a tendency to produce civilizations and fauna that engage in fierce competition for limited space and resources, often preventing the emergence of complex technological societies since many of their planets’ resources are locked beneath ice caps or the like. Occasionally, large impassible features like oceans will divide up a ribbon world in a manner similar to standard terrestrial worlds, and the resulting crucibles of evolution are responsible for many of the most virulent interstellar pests.

Twilight Worlds

Exceptionally rare, twilight worlds are always tidally locked to a larger partner, the result being that one side is extremely hot and the other extremely cold. This can, at times, create an area of “twilight,” sometimes only a few kilometers wide, where the temperature and conditions are suitable for life. Since the “twilight” must follow a line of latitude and often pass through the poles, its habitable areas are often too small for the evolution of complex organisms. This makes them highly desirable as potential colonies, as there are only a few examples of complex native life to displace.

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September 24, 2015

From “The Judgment of Yurdesh” by Teddy Jung Hermus

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As related to George Scott Robinson in notes prepared for, but not included in, The Kafirs of the Hindu Kush. Courtesy of the British Library Annexe, Chelsea and Westminster.

At the time of his death, the slion, or spirit-breath, left his body. It took on the aspect of a dream, for indeed it is slions that give us our dreams, before moving from our world of Michdesh to the nether of Yurdesh. Maramalik, Custodian of the Great Pit, allowed his slion entry, there to become a partir, one of the dead and the judged.

Good partir wander the paradise of Bisht, while the partir of wicked sinners are cast into the fires of Zozuk, there to burn for eternity. But the dead man was a conundrum: he was too evil for Bisht and too virtuous for Zozuk. Instead, he was left to roam the nether of Yurdesh as do the demons and the fairies.

Yush, the chief of the demons, was delighted by this turn of events. The man’s partir was of a far different character than his underlings, and the chaos that it caused among the gods and their prophets was most delightful to him.

The creator’s solution to this was as innovative as it was unprecedented, and set the stage both for a thousand years of prosperity as well as the complete destruction and downfall of the gods and their prophets. He appealed for a mediator from outside the sphere of the pantheon.

And the mediator who stepped forward to offer their services? Iblis, the fiercest and most dangerous of the Jinn.

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September 23, 2015

From “Common Weapons of the Marauders” by Amanda-Sue Perrow

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Marauder Machine Rifle

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These machine rifles are produced in large quantities on primitive lathes and machine tools, often using pipes and other plumbing equipment left over from the World Before. Analysis has shown these to be based on the design of a “Sten gun” that dates to an epoch long predating that of more sophisticated arms. If the legends are to be believed, the original machine rifles were designed on a far-off island to be used in defending their home from invaders, and were so successful that those selfsame enemies eventually copied them.

The shoddy construction of these machine rifles means that they are usually used with black powder loads. They typically use a 9mm cartridge that has been reloaded or scavenged, 9mm being perhaps the most common cartridge available. This weapon is not to be underestimated; though it is easily deflected by reasonable armor, the volume of fire it commands is equal to that of the much more complex-to-manufacture Kalash.

Roll ‘Em Rifle

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A single-shot rifle, the Roll ‘Em is incredibly strong and simple and thus an ideal candidate for long-range sniping. Marauders typically carry one in each squad, equipped with a telescopic sight if one is available, given to the most keen-eyed of the group if not. It can handle both black powder and smokeless rounds without modification, making it prized among distance shooters. the ease of manufacture is such that they are available in many calibers, typically .45-70, .308, or 7.62mm. The only drawback is that the rifles must be loaded and fired one round at a time, making them useless in close combat; pistol versions do exist and are typically used as holdout guns by Marauder officers.

It is said to be the most ancient arm available, as old to the World Before as the World Before is to us. As it was native to this land, examples are occasionally found in their original calibers and have successfully been restored to working order.

Kicker Mortar

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The Kicker is a simple short-range mortar issued to Marauder squads. It takes the place of a heavy machine gun in many other groups, serving as suppressive fire while Marauders armed with machine rifles flank the position. Incredibly portable and very simple, it is little more than a tube with a series of adjustment screws, a curved buttplate to dig into the earth, and a bubble level taken from a construction tool for aiming. By far the most complex part of the Kicker is its ammunition, which is usually made from metal pipes with primitive plunger fuses and high explosives.

It is said that the Kicker was used by another island resisting invasion, and gained respect in the World Before even from its adversaries for its portability and simplicity. Despite its name, the Kicker should not be fired from the knee, leg, or shin.

Screamer Rockets

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Mounted on trucks or horse-drawn carriages, the Screamer uses an extremely simple rail system to launch multiple unguided rockets at a target. Its aim is not precise, nor are the rockets sophisticated; it is the saturation effect, and the terrifying whistles attached to many of the rounds, that result in its effectiveness. It is the most common Marauder artillery piece, and devastating against unarmored or lightly armored targets.

A very resourceful people in the World Before are said to have invented the Screamer Rockets. Valuing simplicity, ruggedness, and ruthlessness over all else, it is said they used Screamers to defeat an equally ruthless people whose technology was more florid and ornate at the expense of being delicate and complex.

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September 22, 2015

From “Sect of the Morphies” by S. Tom Speicher

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Sect #1338: The Metamorphosis Society (“Morphies”)
Classification: Class III (transcendent, death-worshipping)
Adherents: 2000-5000
Leader: Decker K. Leyen (“The Conduit,” “Neotone”)

Founded as part of the wave of sects that arose in the first decade after transhumanism became mainstream, the Morphies believe that humans are, in fact, the larval stage of another creature entirely. As such, they hold that death (“the Chrysalis”) is the ultimate achievement, and that all humans should strive for “metamorphosis” along the lines of a butterfly or a frog.

Naturally, if this were their only belief the sect would be little different than the suicide cults which periodically arise and snuff themselves out. However, the “Morphies” hold that only those that have gained enlightenment may “spin the Chrysalis” and that all others who died are simply reincarnated as “larvae” (their term for all non-sect members).

This makes them incredibly dangerous as they view death before enlightenment as undesirable but little more than a setback. As such, they will not hesitate to lay down their lives, or the lives of others, in pursuit of their goals. Perhaps most chillingly, their leader, known as “Neotone” or “The Conduit,” reserves for himself to determine when sect members are ready for “adulthood.”

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September 21, 2015

From “Codependent Job” by Jen “Pecos” Boddent

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It wasn’t that I hated my job. Quite the contrary; bartended kept me on my toes and allowed me an outlet for meeting people without any strings attached. Making drinks is like an instant liaison, almost as imtimate but just as fleeting. Hell, in both cases one person winds up on the floor half the time.

But as time went on, even as the money I was making was going up alongside the tips, I found myself less satisifed, less fulfilled. It’s hard to quantify. People would say to me, “Hey, Chris, you look like something’s eating you.” Or some variation thereof, in whatever lingo they thought would make them look hip.

I suppose the biggest indicator of what was going on was how well I was doing my job. Not that I was doing it badly; you can’t mix bad drinks and be employed at a place like O’Toole’s for very long. No, I just noticed that I seemed to be spending less time on each mix, not taking as much care with the ingredients. Slipping away while technically still on the clock when we were overstaffed or dead behind the counter, too. Who does that if they are truly, madly, deeply satisfied with their job?

It was sort of like a toxic codependency, I suppose. My job was my identity, and they were hard enough to come by in that economy. I hated it but I needed it. It hated me but it needed me.

Some days I wanted to quit, but then I thought about all the people flipping burgers for a living and thought better of it. So the closes I got was putting my tips into new tattoos, gradually filling out a sleeve on each arm a few hundred bucks at a time.

The dress code forbids sleeve tattoos, but not tattoos in general. So I guess getting ink meant, to me, edging toward a point where I could technically be fired. Even though I’d be more likely to get asked to wear long sleeves, it was something. My only futile act of rebellion against my life and the rut it was in, I suppose.

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September 20, 2015

From “BIOL 101 Remastered” by Elmore Braisted

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Luckily, for people like Melody who couldn’t come to class–or people like Shanna who didn’t pay attention therein–the lectures were available online.

“Hey,” Melody said, looking at her screen. “The lecture video is 10 minutes longer than class takes. Did they like film people coming in and sitting down?”

“Well, it says ‘remastered.’ Maybe they added in some later stuff,” said Shanna. “Let’s see.”

The lecture video began, and immediately Melody scrunched up her nose in distaste. “That’s not his voice. He’s all squeaky, whoever’s talking now sounds really deep.”

“Look, that’s not him at all,” Shanna cried, pointing at the screen. “It’s somebody else!”

Indeed, it looked like some considerable effort had been taken with digital tools to replace the lecturer completely, body and voice.

“And what’s up with these slides?” said Melody. “They aren’t the same as the ones we saw before!”

“This isn’t a remastering of the lecture,” added Shanna. “He’s just wrecking everything that was good about it int he first place!”

Melody nodded. “Yeah. This is the last time I take a class from Professor Lucas.”

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September 19, 2015

From “NBS Presents: A Dialogue on Pirates vs. Ninjas” by Poe Edminster-Carr

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EDMINSTER-CARR: Good evening, and welcome to Friendly Fire. I am your host and moderator, Dr. Poe Edminster-Caar, chair of the Undead Studies department at Ravensholme University. Tonight, our experts will put their delectable brains to the question of Talk Like a Pirate Day. Joining me with a perspective on piracy is William “Black Bill” Cubbins IV, pirate-in-residence at the University of Plunder Bay as well as executive director of UPB’s William Kidd Center for the Study of Pirate Culture.

CUBBINS: Arr, thank you, Dr. Edminster-Carr. It be a right pleasure to be here afore yer mast. I hope ye will permit me to reply in the piratey cant o’ me ancestors as a grog-hoist to today’s holiday.

EDMINSTER-CARR: Quite. And with a counterpoint, Ms. Matsumura-Tamaribuchi, an activist with the Occupy Treasure Island movement, the Sharper Blades, Sharper Minds katana outreach program, and the United Ninja College Fund. She is a current Distinguished Daimyo at Kaizoku University and is the Tokugawa Chair of Shinobi Studies there.

MATSUMURA-TAMARIBUCHI: The pleasure of being here cuts like a strong autumn wind through a tussock of rice paddies, Dr. Edminster-Car-san.

EDMINSTER-CARR: So, let me put the question to you right away, Mr. Cubbins: does Talk Like a Pirate Day support or denigrate pirate culture? And, that being said, does it support or denigrate ninja culture?

CUBBINS: Arr, while there be some in the pirate longboat who see Cant Like a Buccanneer Day as a reinforcin’ o’ negative stereotypes, I call that bilge. Piratey speech be a tradition o’ our people as old as Davy Jones, and the Day be a fine opportunity to reach out and educate lubbers about their pirate heritages, matey!

MATSUMURA-TAMARIBUCHI: Rubbish, Rubbish like the blades of a weed whacker cutting through a garbage scow. This so-called holiday is just pro-pirate propaganda, designed to endear them to people who are unaware of pirate crimes against ninjas.

CUBBINS: Arr, ye be tryin’ me patience with that bilge. There be nothin’ about talkin’ piraty that encorages any specific viewpoint!

MATSUMURA-TAMARIBUCHI: Like a voice through reeds, your discriminatory holiday appeals to a “golden age of piracy” that never existed and serves to buttress your claims to traditionally ninja islands.

CUBBINS: Arr, but what of ye? Yer own ninjas ain’t a-guilty of romanticizin’ their own past afore? The history books be a-teachin’ us that you’ve got bilge in yer hold as well.

MATSUMURA-TAMARIBUCHI: We are not talking about ninjas.

CUBBINS: Aye, perhaps because “Talk Like a Ninja Day” would be nothin’ but a cargo o’ SILENCE?

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September 18, 2015

From “The Long Recess” by Glen O’Cless

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In the ashes of the world that was, at the edge of a swamp slowly encroaching upon and devouring all that had been built before it, a solitary figure wandered the edge of the Mirk’s Crossing Montessori School. It was a state-of-the-art TruancyBot 2500 from Robotnix, and its fusion power core would last until the end of the world plus a thousand years.

This particular model, KL-54796, had been modified from its original purpose. Heavily armored and ponderous, the TruancyBot line had been designed to coax reticent and possibly well-armed students to attend classes as per the law. The Mirk’s Crossing Montessori School was not a public school and was, in fact, as expensive as some junior colleges, so there was no need for a truancy officer (though KL-54796 had, on occasion, been employed against parents whose checks bounced).

Rather, KL-54796 had been programmed to mediate disputes in a calm and impartial manner, especially among volatile teenagers in the Sprouted Daisies college prep cirriculum. A robot didn’t have any of the emotional baggage that the human teachers had brought to conflict resolution (when they were alive), after all. It also had the benefit of being a literal ton of Kevlar and aluminum with enough torque to crush a human skull like a grape in a flabby Frenchman’s hand.

“Now, now,” chided KL-54796. “We must learn to share our things.”

A bicycle, wrecked by the cataclysmic end of the world that was, lay near the edge of KL-54796’s patrol zone. A snake had coiled itself around it, and was in the process of swallowing a fish that had washed up from the swamp’s edge a few inches away where the land had been subsiding.

“The bicycle is just a thing,” KL-54796 continued, with its preprogrammed and committee-approved mantra. “We must remember that owning things should never result in the thing owning us. As the Dalai Lama said, <>.”

In response, the snake swallowed the fish, this rendering the conflict resolved to the mutual satisfaction of all parties. KL-54796 moved on.

“That teddy bear is not food,” it said to an alligator that had mistaken a cast-off polyester ursine for a small woodland snack. “While some cultures believe that eating a thing is to gain its power, and that belief must be respected, you must realize that the teddy bear was never alive and therefore has no power to gain.” There had been considerable debate, in committee, about whether the dinosaurs that had formed the hydrocarbons in plastics counted for the purposes of this dialogue. KL-54796 had not, however, been programmed to make the distinction.

Finishing its rounds, the robot stepped over a rope barrier that it had lovingly maintained over the years and opened a fridge. Cartons of long-spoilt and long-evaporated milk moldered within, and KL-54796 booted up its parental dietary preference program.

“Milk. Milk. Almond milk. Soy milk. No milk. Milk.” KL-54796 marched in a line past where the children would have assembled after recess, dropping empty cartons into long-vanished hands. Then, its litter protocols activated, it gathered up the cartons and returned them to the fridge.

Its job done, KL-54796 went into sleep mode until classes were released at 1530 hours. For the 10,377th recess in a row, it had done its job and done it well.

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September 17, 2015

From “Birth of a Battleoid” by Dottie Balboa Frith

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The question was not if the battloids were effective.

They were.

The machines that had once been men, brass and steel tubing welded to shaved-bare bone, were just what the War had needed to bring it to a speedy conclusion. There was a never-ending supply of corpses, and battleoids’ remaining biological pieces were well-protected: eyes behind bulletproof glass, brainpan reinforced from the inside with steel, cerebrospinal fluids drained in favor of ballistic gel. They were immune to all but a direct hit from an artillery piece, never refused orders, never tried to forment Red agitation in the ranks.

But when the guns fell silent after the last offensive, when the Alliance sued the Coalition for the harsh peace that was to follow…what then? Battleoids could think, plan, even create. That had been the idea behind their creation, after all, and why they had broken the War’s great stalemate where the landships had not.

The question was not if the battloids were effective.

The question was what to do with them when there was no more War to fight.

Inspired by this.

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September 16, 2015

From “Wreath Wraith” by Harold N. Engstrom

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Excerpted from the Ruins & Rogues Creature Compendium, incorporating materials from the Sorcerers & Sabers Interverse Guide

WREATH WRAITH
Size/Type: Small Fundamental (Earth, Extra-Continuum)
Hit Dice: 4d8+12 (30 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 5 ft.
Armor Class: 17
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+8
Attack: Tentacle strike +8 melee (1d8+7)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Eye Beam, Hypnotize, Entangle, Short Range Teleport
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft.
Saves: Fort +7, Ref +0, Will +1
Abilities: Str 21, Dex 8, Con 17, Int 4, Wis 11, Cha 11
Skills: Listen +6, Spot +5
Environment: Fundamental Continuum of Trees
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 3
Treasure: Class D
Alignment: Neutral evil
Advancement: 3 HD
Description:

A creature of the Fundamental Continuum of Trees, wreath wraiths are basically sedentary creatures that feed on prey of opportunity, primarily in human settlements around the holidays. Attaching themselves to doors or walls with sticky secretions, the wraith’s woody body resembles a festive wreath, allowing it to lie in wait, camaouflaged.

Once prey is in range, the wraith will open its large central eye and lash out with its tentacles. It will attempt to grapple and immobilize prey before using its eye beam to finish them off. All creatures beholding its slit-pupiled yellow-rimmed eye must pass a Will save or be hypnotized as per the spell.

If pressed, once per day the wraith may call upon its connection with the Fundamental Continuum of Trees to summon a mass of writhing roots from the ground to entangle as per the spell. It may also perform a short range teleport to any location within its field of vision once per day; it uses this to change positions quickly or to flee battle faster than its stumpy back tentacles can carry it. However, the wraith must break off all attacks and release all grappled or hypnotized victims to teleport.

The wreath wraith exists in a number of color variations that feed throughout the year, with orange-and-black specimens prominent around Hallowseve and white-green-red ones encountered closer to Candlemas. The method which they use to travel from the Fundamental Continuum of Trees to the Primary Worlds remains unknown, as does their method of reproduction.

Note that, despite its name, the wreath wraith is not undead and cannot be turned by a cleric.

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