Star-Crossed Lovers (How to Win the Dawn War)

As the party are travelling through any temperate part of the world, they hear a cry from a nearby hamlet. A woman runs screaming into the night. Her husband has turned into a monster.

The woman is Lissia, and what was once her husband is Huon. They are poor farmers, and their marriage was never happy. Huon was strict and demanding, and Lissia tries to remember how he used to be when they were young. She saw a shooting star last night, more immense and bright than she had ever seen, and even heard the crash.

The thing that was once her husband is stretched and lean. Chaotic black horns grow from its head, branching and knotting and kinking, covered in a bloody velvet. Its face is a mask of fractured and chitin-like bone, and its eyes glow with a weird light, like fungal gold. Two fingers on each hand have shriveled so that a triple claw is all that is left. If it is given a few minutes, it shall learn how to speak.

(Looking on it prompts a save (or Attack vs. Will) or take 2d6 psychic damage as alien thoughts worm their way into your mind from the newly grown symbols that are its mulitations)

It is, it will tell you, the star that fell. It wants... something. A pleasure unheard of in his far home. It can't go back, now. Earth is for fools and exiles. It meant to come in secret, but it has already been discovered. This man felt close, close to what it knew, what it wanted. So it took him. He took him. He did not mean to change him.

(If you ask him his name, he will not want to tell you. If you insist, he will let out a dread keening which calls to mind images of a burning theater, mushrooms growing in your stomach, and a deep red. Another save vs. 2d6 psychic damage.)

The star is the spawn of Gibbeth and Hadar, a prince of the dreadful parody of the world that is Dim Carcosa. Its main body is out in the woods, and very dangerous to look upon. It glows with the same feverish light as the creature's eyes, and causes the plants to grow quickly and strange, some leaves and flowers flapping away with a fairy-dusting of spores. Its consciousness has all but left it, overshadowing the spirit of Huon, enveloping and slowly digesting it like an amoeba. The spirit will be gone before sunrise.

Angels saw the falling of the star and are on their way to destroy it. They do not know about Huon yet. If the party makes use of the Cerulean Sign, the consciousness of the star will leave Huon and return to its main body. If its main body is destroyed, and its consciousness is exorcised, it will leave the world altogether (and then Gibbeth will eat it for being a disgusting pervert). If he is exorcised, the mutations Huon received will be reduced, but will still greatly disfigure him, and his spirit will be left in a pathetic state (though, he may be healed by divine intervention). Lissia will not leave him. They will probably live happily ever after, with the power dynamic significantly shifted.

If the star is not exorcised, something else will happen.

He will fall in love.

The memory of love left under all of Huon's superiority and meanness will grab hold of him. Humanity, as it turns out, is as alien, and as infectious, to the stars as any of their thoughts are to us. Huon (as he will, eventually, ask to be called) will fall in love with Lissia. What happens from there is so up to the players that I can hardly write about it. I will say, however, that it is not impossible for Lissia to love the Star-Huon (which, perhaps, says something a little worse about her than her modest peasant appearance suggests), and there are two or three gods who might take pity on their plight. But that is another story.

Metasetting races; or, A Complete List of the Cool Races

 

This follows the same spirit set forth in my Metagods post. Like those, these are variables which define a setting of mine. You pick a set, change some things around, and see what comes out. Theoretically, that would be a setting I would make and enjoy. Think of it like Magic the Gathering planes. You have some things which are constant (5 colors of mana, for instance). Then you pick, choose, and remix creature types, local forces, geography, etc. and you have a Magic plane!

The important thing is to think out the consequences of the variables you are choosing. I'll give an example setting at the end of this post. Maybe more metasetting stuff to come!

The List

Humans

The rice of races. If you include them, its normally cool to choose certain things they are comparatively weirdly good at. Perennial favorites include: Religion, Breeding, Cooking, Orating, Farming etc. Develop humans as much as other races and make them just as big of mythic weirdos. I often like humans to be foreigners. Also its fun to have them just have pointy ears or colorful skin just because.

Fauns

Cooler than elves. Can't wear boots. Normally chill pastoralists, range from minor god weirdos to shire-dwelling farmers. If you must give them physiological abilities, they might be good at climbing (don't give them headbutt attacks that's really dumb). Other abilities vary by characterization.

Nymphs & Fairies

This one overlaps a lot with some of the others on this list. You're going to have to determine on a case-by-case basis what it actually means. Also cooler than elves

Elementals

Some very lame people would call these genasi. Normally consisting of Sylphs, Undines, (choose a fire one), (choose an earth one). I say this because it seems like people (including me) don't really like the names "salamander" and "gnome". Fire boys include: ifrit, flamekin, etc. Earth boys include: dwarf, kobold, etc. Sylph is also a cooler elf. Sometimes fun to have them have element hair (cloud hair, water hair, fire hair. Earth hair doesn't really work I dunno)

Skeletons

Either very quiet dreaming dead, or skeletor. There is no in between. Having any flesh on them makes them less cool, make sure you remember that. For some reason really fun to play around with government systems with these guys. Skeleton kings, skeleton parliaments, skeleton theocracies, etc. Just having skeletons makes politics fun.

Little Guys

Or Folk, in hypogeum. Just some weird little guys. Goblins, Gnomes, Kobolds, Halflings etc. are lame but if you throw them in a pot and mix 'em up you can get something cool. Waddle-Dees, Toads, Shy guys, to a lesser extent Minecraft Villagers. Just some pretty odd little guys. They run shops or wander around the woods or form cave tribes or whatever. This is a vibe based race.

Magic Guys

Made of magic, sort of amorphous. Wizrobes, Black Mages, also Shy-Guys, Novakids, Spell-Born homunculi, could probably also encompass weird godlings. "Why aren't they better at magic than humans" shut up they need to keep their magic to maintain their bodies. Might also be Weird Little Guys.

I made this one

Cat Boys

Also in Hypogeum. Not furries, but can get close. Furries or normal beastfolk are lame. These ones are just humans but fuzzy. Have weird ears (where humans have ears! not on top of their heads, that's gross). Not actually cat-related, I just think its funny.

Sheepfolk, Frogfolk, Bugfolk, Mousefolk

The exceptions to the beastfolk are lame rule. Obviously distinct, but grouped for simplicity. Don't call them "x-folk", give them each distinct and folk-lore-y names. You can also make beastfolk not lame by making them Weird Little Guys. I like little guy beastfolk that are incongruously from victorian to edwardian times. The sorts that wear little suits or coveralls or quilt dresses and for some reason the rabbit is neighbors with the fox. 

Cyclopes

Human sized. Sometimes cool.

You Can't Play Them But They're Here

Proper Fairies and Elves

Angels

Demons

Angel and Demon descended people

Aliens and Gods

I lied you can play some of those sometimes

Remember, the principle is pick a few and remix. The other principle is "would this game feel incomplete if the only available race was x?" if the answer is yes, Bad! Examples of bad-uns: Shadar-Kai, Elves but only the stereotype, Dwarves in general, actually I don't know if those are bad but I don't like to include them. Words for Yellow also has some good races. If you have good races, comment below, and I'll tell you they're bad maybe.

Setting: The Green Kingdom

The Green Kingdom is a small region, a watershed on the southern sea rimmed by mountains. The circular cities are the homes of the humans, who take pride in making clothes. The country is inhabited by both humans and fauns, who work the land together. The wild and deep places are the homes of the cyclopes (known for their magic) and living skeletons. Living skeletons also inhabit necropoli inside the cities, but humans don't enter those districts (they are quite unnerving!).

The Green Kingdom is ruled by the Green King, a man called Basil. The duties of the Green King are mostly in directing building projects and adjudicating disputes. Local priests honor idols, great and small, collect taxes, and distribute food. The Princes, regional rulers, organize armies when the need arises (and otherwise do fuck-all). Most wars are internal rebellions, but these are not large (oftentimes they arise over badly judged disputes, with ransom and cattle stealing being the biggest tactics). 

Dangers arise from bandits in the woods (often a mix of races), cyclopes sorcerers, territorial skeletons, dragons, sphinxes, and forgotten or malign spirits. It is said cyclopes worship shadowy gods of magic, and can summon strange celestial spirits or evil bogeys (they are respected, and sometimes feared, but only rarely hated). Fauns are only occasionally dangerous, when driven by passion, but otherwise they might cause problems by being lazy or pushy. Idols which are neglected, or spirits for whom an idol was never made, may become wrathful and bring curses or attack people (fauns take pride in honoring  idols deep in the wilderness).

Dungeons and other ruins are often inhabited by Skeletons and Cyclopes but one can enter if one is courteous. Often there are unexplored portions or dangerous monsters that even skeletons fear, so it can still be lucrative to explore them. Cyclopes don't kill monsters with their magic for fear of the wrath of their gods, but they will often reward adventurers who do (whether with treasure or magic. Many successful people have a spectral attendant, a gift from a cyclopes).

(Races: Humans, Fauns, Skeletons, Cyclopes)
(Metagods: Idols, Darkness)

Conclusion

Normally, these settings just detail one, maybe 2 small kingdoms and vaguely talk about their neighbors. This is great, because it leaves open the possibility of having other races if, for instance, you have a rotating cast of characters, flailsnails style. Also, the world is mysterious. Lord of the Rings focused on 3 kingdoms (the North, Gondor, and Rohan) and 4 races (hobbits, men, elves, and dwarves). Other kingdoms were mentioned, but not described. Other races were included, but were unknowns. What does the East look like? How do the southrons live? We don't know, because we were focused on the tight group of cultures which were almost folkloric blank slates to start with. Resist always the urge to include everything and the kitchen sink, but you can lean into the known and the cool.

Possible future metasetting posts: geography and features, Monsters, Magic, Factions and Politics, other dimensions.

GLoGtober 2: Slimes (Hypogeum)

 

In the Hypogeum, the wise Folk say, everything is made of three things: Stuff, Life, and Magic. Stuff is solid, life is liquid, and magic is normally a gas. Stuff makes up things like rocks, people, etc. Life and magic can be absorbed in certain kinds of stuff, like a sponge. They disagree on whether these elements can be created, or whether they simply change into one another. 

Most creatures have both life and magic in a framework of stuff. Cooking something normally drains the life out of it, making it drier. This is good, because too much life in a steak might mean it starts kicking around your stomach, making you sick. Stuff without any life in is much harder to digest though, sometimes even impossible. Life tends to stick to one shape, regenerating the kind of stuff its in. That's why your blood stops your wounds, while other people's blood makes you sick (unless you are a vampire). 

But if cooking evaporates the life, then you can put a condenser over the top and distill it. Distilled life doesn't have this "memory", and is normally called a health potion. But there is an easier way.

A slime is the simplest form of creature. Its basically just a blob of life keeping its shape. There's almost no stuff in it. It rolls over other organics and digests it, its own life-memory overcoming theirs. Most of the time, it leaves behind all the other stuff that can't be digested. In this way, it is pretty dangerous.

However, life memorizes stuff. It has a much harder time memorizing life. That is to say, slimes are easy to pop, and only a light simmer makes high quality health potions.

Some slimes are more advanced, and have incorporated other materials into their bodies. These slimes are valuable, because the materials they contain are very easy to extract. However, they are also more dangerous, as their life-memory is much stronger, and thus, they are both harder to kill and quicker at digesting. Magic slimes are the easiest and most common variant.

It should be noted that life memorizes the first life-filled thing it comes across. Drinking life that already has a memory, even a weak one, has side effects. Stay safe out there.

Life comes in Green, Red, Black, and White flavors. Magic, Blue, Purple, and Yellow.