The Color of California

The end of the world is a sleight of hand, it refers to a process and position not only in time but also in space. 

It's difficult to describe, but the best way I can put it is a quality of the air. I've driven along the edge of gorges furrowed into the frozen rock of Oregon, and stared up at the shaven face of Mt. St. Helens from within the temperate rainforest of Washington. I've seen ivy crawling up blunted hills and hollow industrial wreckage in New Jersey, and in Pennsylvania walked narrow cobble streets as old as anything in settled American can be called. In New Mexico, I've seen sunlight pierce the high grey cloudvault and fall in shafts to the scrubland below. Among all those places, fresh or polluted, dry or humid, the air possesses the simple quality of air. California air is different.

I never get used to entering the state. The air creeping in is gradual; the snow on the peaks of the Shasta range largely shrug away the air, as does the water of the long spattered lake below. It dribbles down lower elevations and flies across the flat land. In Redding it is suddenly there all at once; by Chico it is overwhelming. It's a color invisible to the naked eye which drifts across the land like clouds, nearly absent in some places, choking in others. It stains stone, stucco, and the hardier sorts of grass and shrub. In the rain and fog the visible clouds displace the invisible ones and the color fades to an innocent sere. In the sun and heat it chisels down and leaves cracks long into the night.

It's tempting to call the color sickly, even jaundiced, but to do so would be to gravely misinterpret the air. At the same time I struggle with what else to compare it to.

Cameras can't capture the air if they're too high-quality, they scalpel out everything into ROY G BIV. But the brume of Lynch's final trilogy of films wraps it around itself like a shawl; I've started reading The Crying of Lot 49 and there too it practically billows out of the pages.

When you pass the rolling hills, the brick walls with neat arpeggiating patterns, the onion domes of gas refineries, and you think of your uncle working there and then of your childhood, the maimed cactus behind your final house, the small, dark, solemn face of Mt. Diablo, and then you fly all at once onto the outstretched arm of San Francisco, with its nonsense billboards, a blandly attractive couple sitting crosslegged on the floor of a tastefully cluttered apartment, the ChatGPT logo hanging above and behind them like an apparition, and behind it saurian machinery with rust-wounded hides, their necks straining above the churning blue-grey bay dappled with tarnished sunlight, a bay always wider than you remember it, a bay that rolls on forever and ever into the air above the sea and below the sky.

 

Cephalith - A Strange Creature for Fantasy Gaming

The earth hears many secrets, and even the worked stone of castles and towers whisper to their great mother. Jealous, foolish apprentices and ex-apprentices seek the wild regions where emerald lights gleam in the night, for old codices and older rangers' tales say that these regions are where those secrets bubble are spoken back to the sky. Traveling into borderlands where nonsense runes and ritual circles are carved on trees and stones, too late they find that these stories are incomplete, and are bludgeoned to death by a gang of cold, lugubrious cephaliths!

Stooping, sluggish mudmen with lumpy deformed skulls made of green crystal. Cephaliths are born headless from the earth in huge numbers around a cluster of disembodied crystal skulls, but most are killed almost instantly in the scramble to take one, or else slowly crumble back into dirt when all are claimed. The few that survive split into small bands that slouch off into the wilderness, corralled by a despotic leader with multiple heads haphazardly embedded within them.

Cephalith
HD: 2
AC: 13
Move: Walk, earthswim slightly slower than human
No. Appearing: 2d6; die that land on a 1 or 6 indicate the presence of a multicephalith with 4 HD.
Morale: 6, or 9 if led by a multicephalith
Intelligence: Dull and aphasic
Morality: Depressive, spiteful, and bullying

Pummel: +2 to-hit, 1d6+2 damage

Crystal Skull: that which sustains the cephalith's lifeforce, each one containing a single spell and 1 MD to cast it with; this is a good list to take from. Multicephaliths instead have 1d6+1 crystal skulls embedded within them. A skull can regain its expended MD with a night's worth of exposure to starlight, or by having a creature's brains smeared onto it. If a cephalith has no crystal skulls, it loses 1 max HP a day. It's possible to learn the spell a skull contains with the aid of 500gp worth of fragile optical equipment.

Siphene - A Strange Animal for Fantasy Gaming

Gemstones that gleam in sunlit shallows and disappear as quickly as they appear. Animal corpses that walk themselves to the edge of the water and toss themselves in. Ropes of translucent slime washed up on the banks. Those who know the ways of the rivers know to keep axes and cleavers close on hand when these things appear, for these are the signs of the siphene.

 

Also known as a water jelly or falser hydra, the siphene is a siphonophore which lives in fresh, running water. The creature's reproductive core, the closest thing to a central body, is an orgy of protoplasm the sized of a balled-up human, nestled deep within an underwater cave. Emerging from the mating ball are dozens upon dozens of tendrils which extend outwards and downstream, carried and distributed by the flow of the river's water. The further out from the central body, the older the individual organisms that make up the siphene get; the three fingered hands which wave on the ends are geriatric, and slough off daily to reveal a new set. Primitive eyespots and sensitive touch and taste receptors line each tendril, and down each runs a nerve cord so that whatever is sensed by one is quickly known by the whole being.

Siphene Limb
HD: 1; takes 1 damage per die from piercing and bludgeoning weapons 
AC: 14 within water, 10 without
Move: As swift fish
No. appearing: 4d6
Morale: 8
Intelligence/morality: the most basic and primitive of predators

Slap: +2 to-hit, 1d4 nonlethal damage
Grapple: multiple limbs of the siphene can act in concert to drag and drown a single creature. The siphene makes a single roll to grapple, getting +1 for each limb beyond the first.

Treasure Mimic: siphene limbs are invisible while under the water. They can flex their cell walls to refract light and appear as gold or gemstones scattered underwater. Close study quickly reveals these to be false, but also puts one within grabbing range.
Infectious: thick with castoff zooids, creatures who ingest the waters that a siphene dwells in without boiling, or who enter the water while injured or bloodied, must save vs. infection. On a failure, they take 1d6 Con damage from a persistent low fever and digestive issues until treated for disease, but also gain the ability to dowse for bodies of waters. If they die, their corpses rises as a zombie and walks to the nearest body of water to submerge itself and germinate a new clonal siphene core.

Siphene Core
HD: 8; takes 1 damage per die from piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing weapons
AC: 14 within water, 10 without
Move: Sluggish, must be pulled by limbs
No. appearing: 1
Morale: 7
Intelligence/morality: as limb

The siphene core has a minimum of 24d6 limbs (larger ones with more HD may well have more), and will retract 6d6 per round to defend itself when threatened.

Treasure Mimic: the core can turn itself into a dazzling disco ball, refracting light that hits it in all directions. Those who look at it must save vs blindness.
Infectious: as limb, except on failure it deals 3d4 Con damage due to the density of zooids in the water.

Skoloseme - a Poison for VtM

 

Skoloseme - a most wretched poison feared and coveted by the Kindred in equal measure for its ability to kill the even already-dead. Any container which holds it, even glass, weeps filth and eventually finds itself covered in a layer of stinking grease. The poison itself, a milky white substance, causes a [huge chunk of aggravated damage/save vs death] upon entry into the body of a Kindred, as their spine rebels against them; of course, it's a certain, agonizing death for any human unfortunate enough to even touch it. 

The etymological origin of the name Skoloseme is much debated among vampirekind. The vampiric scribe Uglubathr wrote that the name was a vile pun based on its creation and appearance, as it was brewed with the seminal emissions of centipedes in an unclean skull for a month and a night; a recipe revealed to them during their visits to certain abandoned Mithraic sites in the south of the continent. The Jesuit missionary Rinieri Mazelo (widely regarded by modern Kindred scholars as a pawn of his grandsire the Shivan Mater) violently contests this suggested origin as a "deluded distortion of certain Oriental rituals, typical for the seizures of those of Mala Cavilla humour" but provides no real alternative as to its origins. 

The historian and chronicler Glaude takes a completely different tack. He suggests that the name is a scribal error for the earlier and more accurate name of skotoseme, or simply "suicide poison"; a name the substance earned when the vampiric princess Aylin killed herself and much of her court by pouring the poison into her eyes, during the Kindred civil war in Constantinople. 

 

GLOGmas 25: A Monster for the Gudgeon Moon

Merry Christmas Ro! I've been peeking at your blog for Christmas ideas and your Gudgeon Moon setting is delightfully strange. I haven't seen anything quite like it. One thing the weird alien beasties do vaguely recall to me, though, is Pikmin, and so eventually an idea for some kind of weird little creature popped into my head. 

Creucen

When Ite, the Fourfold World first fell onto the Mound, one of the few creatures to not just survive but thrive in the wake of the disaster was the humble creucen. The creucen, which comes up to around a foot tall, resembles a fat crystalline teardrop turned on its side with two stubby legs. Their eyes under the crystal covering are warped and magnified. The only part of their bodies where soft tissue is exposed is their mouth, a narrow bright-red slit which only occasionally opens up when it feeds or reproduces.

Extremophilic even for the inhabitants of Ite, the diamond-hard body of a creucen is nearly impervious to mundane weaponry; their mouth alone is vulnerable, and even its seam in the diamond needs to be hit at the exact right angle to split it open. Likewise, magic often simply bounces off it, and reflects back onto the unfortunate caster or their friends. Their one great weakness is heat: fire and lightning denatures their organic crystal armor and cooks the soft flesh inside. When a cruecen dies, within minutes its innards leak out into the outer shell, which quickly softens and turns a fetid black.

Creucen are social creatures, and roam in great peeping bands. Creucen are hermaphroditic, and have two tongues, one which they use to feed and one which is a specialized reproductive organ. When they reproduce, two creucen will "kiss", and one will sting the inside of the other's mouth with its reproductive tongue, The black nodules which develop within after are baby creucen, who eventually enter the world before their shells have properly developed due to the narrow size needed to leave; these infants are kept collectively in a central nest and fiercely defended.

Before the Drop, creucen lived in the territories of the Gofka and Myrivada. The former adore the creatures and keep them as pets; it's not uncommon to see a Gofka with several creucen peeking out of its mouth. The myrivada, on the other hand, see them more as pests, though the beauty of their shells is coveted. There is a jealously-kept recipe for a caustic liquid which, if a freshly dead creucen is dropped into, preserves their diamond shell; and one of the legendary regalia of the great Myrivada spear-kings is a set of invincible creucen panoply.

 

Creucen
No. Appearing: 4d4
HD: 1-1
AC: 19, or 10 against fire and lightning
Morale: 8
Intelligence: one of the stupider kinds of bird
Morality: animal
Whip Tongue: +1 to-hit, 1d4 damage
Spells which target the creucen have a 50% chance of bouncing off and hitting a random target instead

Appendix P

 What a horrible, shameful idea for a post. Fuck you Louis.

 

Jorge Luis Borges, above all else and all others

Reading and rereading the Book of Revelation for fun as a kid

Ditto with a giant 1000-page art history textbook

Yukio Mishima, my evil gay husband

Frankenstein

Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson

Deleuze and Guattari

Oedipus Rex

Gods of Pegana by Lord Dunsany

MR James

Books of Blood by Clive Barker

Thomas Ligotti's good stories

The CCRU/early Nick Land bullshit

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

Neuromancer  

House of Leaves

Annihilation 

White Noise by Don DeLillo

Blood Meridian

2666

Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera

The poetry of Sylvia Plath

Paradise Lost

Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill

Underland by Robert MacFarlane

Bogleech 

Roald Dahl

Fablehaven by Brandon Mull

The Phantom Tollbooth

Various Batman comics, and also the weirder corners of DC 

 

Seinfeld, and also It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

BBC nature documentaries

Over the Garden Wall

 

Berserk

Evangelion, + End of Evangelion

Revolutionary Girl Utena, +Adolescence of Utena

Serial Experiments Lain

Princess Mononoke and a smattering of other Ghibli stuff, goes without saying

Mononoke

Mushishi

Ghost in the Shell

Angel's Egg

 

Disco Elysium, of course, but also

Judero, whose writing is just as well-honed if not better in some places (and I'm serious!)

The Nier games

Destiny 1+2

The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim babyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Hollow Knight 1+2

The Souls games, also goes without saying

Sunless Sea, and the few nourishing morsels in the Cult Sim games

Metal Gear

Lunacid

Critters for Sale

Pentiment

The Thief games

TOUHOU

Admiring Minecraft mod showcases as a kid without a PC

 

Suspiria (the one from the 70s), and Inferno

The Wicker Man (the one from the 70s)

House (the one from the 70s)

Dr. Caligari (the one from the 80s) 

Messiah of Evil

Ghostwatch

Son of the White Mare

The Bloody Lady

Belladonna of Sadness

Mad God

Aguirre, or the Wrath of God

Throne of Blood

The Color of Pomegranates

Valerie and her Week of Wonders

The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth

David Lynch

Paris is Burning

Mandy

M

The Vourdalak

Scorpio Rising

Jurassic Park

 

Walks in the woods, walks at night, and responsible use of substances.

 

One Great Burning Hand (A dungeon entrance for Barony)

I'm not afraid to admit I may have bitten off a bit more than I can chew.

The indefatigable Louis bade I post more, and we decided to duel: I would create a dungeon around the prompt Frozen Dead Center of the Earth before he leaves the world-wide-web for a month on vacation. What I failed to anticipate was that just a couple hours later the also-indefatigable Phlox would rediscover the old Cloak-and-Sword ruleset and send the whole GLOG server whirling around, me included. I got caught up in writing two whole classes for it, and right before a vacation of my own! What's a girl to do? Well, since Louis has split a dungeon across multiple posts before......

In the northern rocky foothills of the Barony,

where the roads thin and the towns become more sparse, there's a crack in the ground from which frigid air constantly seeps. The ground around it is dead and cracked, and the rain freezes when it hits the soil, forming thousands of tiny ice stalagmites which crunch underfoot and melt away as soon as the sun shows its face again. When the ground shook, when the Old Capital groaned and caved in on itself, it's said that it shook a piece of the sky loose and sent it plummeting down to earth, cold and misty. This is little more than a regional folk legend at this point. What isn't a folk legend is what crawled back out of the pit - a burning amaranthine spectre, maimed and shrouded in fog, which roams by night. Let it take your sheep, break into your cellars and snatch your food, or else it'll grab you with its one terrible arm and fold your ribs around a tree. Many people have taken to leaving it offerings so that it doesn't decide to take all they own.

The Amaranthine Ghost

In truth, the "Amaranthine Ghost" is a fairly recent arrival. Her true name is Nilakshi (though she almost never deigns to tell it to tiny humans), and she is a giant from the far north. Her whole body is criss-crossed with scars, her right arm is severed up to the elbow, she is missing several teeth and a significant chunk of her right foot. Branded onto her back is a White City image which tells how true friendship doesn't really exist. 

Many, many years ago she saw the star fall in her third eye, behind the curtain of the mountains. She decided to leave the last fortress, jettison herself from its constant dying, to investigate her vision and why it was given to her. She has been walking for a very long time.

She arrived at the pit a couple years ago, and was filled with ennui and disappointment by what she found was below. But there were far worse things churning beneath the earth, and she slaughtered them by the dozens mere weeks before they boiled up. Now, content to play the local boogeyman for now, she contemplates what to do next. Does she start the long journey back home? Does she cast herself into the earth? Or, with luck, are there a group of competent humans willing to do her bidding by simple dint of being able to fit into where she can't?

The Ghost's Cave

The pit, at its opening, is about 10 meters wide, and filled with cool foggy air near the top where it meets the warmer air of the surface. Nilakshi's home is about 15 meters down in a large hollow along the northwest wall; she keeps a fire, stolen food and alcohol, and a large heap of animal skins to sleep in here. While bereft of worldly riches, she's willing to serve as a patron for adventurers wanting to delve into the pit, trading oracular visions for certain treasures that she herself can't reach. If the party has a friendly relationship with her, she'll oblige to play the occasional reluctant deus ex machina; if not, she'll cast them into the pit to shatter at the bottom.  

Down Below

The pit is thousands of meters deep, and freezing cold. The deeper you get the narrower it becomes, and the more inhospitable to life.

Past Nilakshi's cave, the air of the pit hovers around freezing. The walls of the pit are covered with a riot of lichen, host to a whole ecosystem of creatures. 900 meters down the pit tears through ancient palatial ruins, the haunt of strange siliconoid men.

The pit continues, occassionally ripping through more ruinous crystal apartments. By 1500 meters the lichen begins to die off, and by 1800 the walls are bare and slick with ice. The pit narrows, constricted by tectonic instability, and the pockmarked caves are too frigid to sustain any life - except for, of course, the loathsome worm-faces.

The pit is approximately 2600 meters deep. At the bottom, the killing cold emanates from the iron star which fell so long ago, sitting amidst the remains of an extraordinarily unlucky crushed extremophile. Within the dead star, corridors far too narrow for Nilakshi's frame, is what drew her vision so long ago.