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
No. appearing: 4d6
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
No. appearing: 1
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.

Their Conversation is in Heaven (GLOG Class: Beguine)

A lot of high-power magical classes for Cloak-and-Sword have been released lately. I mean, I'm certainly not blameless with my Fay. So, I wanted to write up a contrast, something more down to earth, more human.

Beguine

Start with: the grey habit of your order, herbs and medicines, weaving supplies, a book of prayers, a stout staff.

Sisters

You are part of an informal religious order of women of all ages and classes, sworn to frugality, chastity, and mutual aid. You are free of the obligations of domestic life expected of most women. However, unlike a nun, your vows are not binding; you are not expected to give up your former worldly possessions, and you may return to the paces of secular life at any time. Whenever you need shelter, minor favors, or someone to talk to, you have the aid of your fellow sisters, as well as the Beghards, the less-significant but similarly-sworn order of men; there are usually at least one or two others in every populous town and city.

Cloth

Due to the grey zone between secularity and sacredness that you dwell in, you get -2 reaction and are viewed with suspicion by church and government officials, and misogynists. However, due to your work, you get +2 reaction with the poor, the sick, the pregnant, and the dying. 

Hand

You are proficient in a trade from your former life. If you ever abandon your vows, you may return to it.

Staff

You are proficient in the healing of sickness and injuries. Childbirth which you midwife for is always safe for both mother and child. Deaths which you minister for are always peaceful, and the body may not be raised as undead by mortal power. You are completely immune to leprosy, and have +2 to save against all other infectious diseases besides plague.

Bowl

Food you serve is always filling, and staves off hypothermia for the next twelve hours.

Book

Though you have not taken binding vows, while praying aloud you count as of the cloth for the purpose of warding off devils and fairies and so on.

Sash

People mock the chaste, but you have known intimacy in the divine that mortal hands can never provide. You are immune to being charmed, feared, or esprited by mortal sources.

Nothing

Most Beguines are content to remain charity workers, living relatively independent lives for women. But light shines through the cracks. If you fast for a month, remain in a single room for a year, or return from the edge of certain death, then you may choose to simplify your soul. From henceforth, you are of the cloth. You are always simultaneously charmed, afeared, and esprited by the Divine, and immune to all other mental effects. You may subsist off nothing but water. You are immune to extreme heat, extreme cold, disease, drowning, bleeding, and pain. You have -2 to reaction rolls from everyone who isn't poor, sick, pregnant, or dying. Reaction rolls of 2-10 with church officials count as a 2 (open hostility, accusations of heresy), and rolls of 11-12 count as a 5 (open suspicion, the most fragile begrudging tolerance of presence). When you die, your body will turn to light, and then nothing. 

The Snow Falls and the Village is Overflowing with Children (GLOG Race-as-Class: Fay)

I've recently become enamored with the implied setting of the Cloak-and-Sword system; I love the emphasis on gentility and social interaction over grotty dungeoncrawling that it brings. It's really fascinating! I've been turning over the role of poetics in games recently. With that in mind, and since there's only one other race-as-class (update! there's a second!) for the system, I wanted to throw my own hat into the ring. Credit where credit is due that this is liberally, liberally inspired by this lovely fairy.

 

Hugo Hoppener

 

Fay

As the galloping sylphs, undines, gnomes, and salamanders are to the stuff of matter, you are made of the stuff of the emotions of men. A storm of raw moods, whims, and desires, wrapped in a form of face and feet and hands.

 

Fleur's Dolls

Choose an emotion, the more specific the better.

This is a good start, if you can't think of anything else

 

 

This emotion makes up the very essence of your being, and your appearance always wears your heart on your sleeve. If your body is destroyed, you explode from it in a rush of perfumed winds. While your soul is loose, you must always act in accord with your ruling emotion, you are incorporeal, you cannot lift things greater than 5 lbs, and ALL who see your uncovered face hold Esprit for you whether you like it or not. If you are lovely, they will wish to possess you, and if you are fearful, they will wish to bind you.

Children of Clay

Your body is made of the stuff of nature, drawn together into human form. Pick a region. You may look at the overland map for the region, and are aware of all major landmarks and the comings, locations, and goings of all notable personages within it. You may travel at the speed of the wind through your region, and can camouflage so perfectly as to be invisible as long as you are still. Your body is obviously unfleshly, reflecting the environment as well as your ruling emotion, and is either beautiful or terrible. If your body is destroyed, then your soul may sleep beneath the soil for a month and a day to reconstruct it. 

L'intrigue

In order to keep a humanlike temperament and form, to be more than a single raw feeling, you MUST keep etiquette. According to ancient compacts with humankind you have authority equal to a viscount, and must show deference to those above you. You must always announce your arrival to a household. You cannot step on holy ground or touch anyone of the cloth. You must always announce before you do violence to someone. You must always say your pleases and thank yous, and give upright apologies. Each time you defy one of these, you lose 1 max hp.

Who Art in Heaven

The touch of worked iron, and the sound of bells, always deal 1 damage to you per round.

Oakwood Green

You can craft the natural stuff of your region into an object of any material and make, spending one hour per slot of bulk. You can even make an animal the size of a horse or smaller with a week of work, though they are always docile. These objects always crumble back into their stuff a day after they leave the hands of you or someone under your Esprit.

Los Estrallas

A twenty-fifth hour exists for you, the witching hour between midnight and one. Living beings become grey and motionless during it, but you're free to roam around during, speaking with the secret councils of ghosts and elementals which creep out. You are unable to interact with living things, or what they possess, except for anything or anyone who is lost.

Tongues

Once a day, you may control your soul slipping out to make all who gaze at you save vs becoming overcome by your ruling emotion. You regain your use upon the coming of the twenty-fifth hour. You cannot use this during the Lord's Day or holy days, and it counts as laying your hands upon those of the cloth for L'intrigue.

Her Masters Voice

Any who consume food or drink made by Oakwood Green fall under your Esprit, and your glamour. They are ruled by your ruling emotion as you are. They must be exorcised, or kept on holy ground until the twenty-fifth hour passes, to be freed.

Mortuary

Anyone who has been dead for a week or less, who is buried in the ground of your region, can be returned by you as a doppelganger. They have the same appearance and memories, but are NOT the same person; the original body still molders in the ground. They are under your Esprit, and ruled by your ruling emotion; they are also deathly afraid of holy places, and harmed by Who Art in Heaven same as you. If you lose your body, then they die; when they die, they crumble back into the stuff of your region.

The Draw Room

If you may, you may choose to bind yourself to a house or other human structure. You are under the Esprit of whomever owns it, but are no longer required to show deference to anyone else. You may do violence surreptitiously and skulk about unannounced. All benefits and effects of Children of Clay now apply to the indoor map, rather than the outdoor map and its domain which was your former remit. You can never go back. If the building burns, so do you.