A few random quirky items for your game

1. Portal Gun: Like the game. It can be a wand instead for fantasy.

2. Phasing Spear: It can stab through doors and other barriers as if they weren't there.

3. Healing Arrows: Dipped in healing potions, they deal damage first, but if the target survives, they heal one die-size larger. Deals bonus damage instead to undead.

4. Silence Earplugs: Make you immune to non-physical magics, but also deaf.

5. Mood Ring: You can psychically sense the mood and motivations of those around you, but your own are projected from the ring itself.

6. Magic 8 Ball: Divination and/or quantum collapsing item that actually uses a d20 despite the name. Can only be overruled by the Magic ∞ Ball.

The Tragedy of Dragons

The dragons of this world are massive creatures dwarfing blue whales, amphibians that have evolved into a shape and ecological niche somewhat like sharks.

Dragon tadpoles hatch inside the mother by the millions. They incubate inside the mother for many years, generations of human lifetimes, winnowing away to merely thousands of human-sized young by the time of birth, and fewer still will survive through final metamorphosis, merely tens.

But before all of that, they live inside their mothers, initially as tadpoles, then first metamorphosis into humanoid forms with big brains and opposable thumbs. They develop rich lives full of community and culture, each generation of each womb isolated and therefore unique.

At some point, if they don't destroy themselves first for miscellaneous reasons, they come to understand where they are and what is to come, and usually this leads to apocalypse; and in fact this is almost a necessity of birth.

So violence ensues, and millions become thousands, and then they fight each other and the rest of the world, and thousands become tens, and they reach final metamorphosis and lose their humanoid forms but not their intelligence.

The remaining siblings would generally rather not ever see each other again, and even when they meet other dragons, they may as well be aliens from another planet, and so begrudgingly, dragons become selfish and individualistic creatures.

After final metamorphosis they become in appearance more like dragons as we generally conceive of them.

They have a "second stomach", really a lab, lined with countless "hands", and they pull apart anything not used for sustenance at the molecular level, doing all sorts of sophisticated chemistry and alchemy; the combustion that lets them soar the skies like jet engines or breath nuclear fire or the toxins and hallucinogens they cultivate for mating that give dragons such supernatural presence.

This is somewhat in contrast to Patrick Stuart's dragons (I believe it's this post...) which explores dragon intelligence and being, and the inhumanity of them. The dragons in this post are actually the result of a quite human experience.

The idea that the fetal (if that's the right word?) dragons being humanoid, and the metamorphoses, is partially inspired by the Carp and the Dragon Gate of Chinese mythology. Also, it's not uncommon for settings with magical and intelligent dragons to be able to take humanoid form, so from a game perspective, you can have young dragons or dragons that escaped the womb, who are still older and more powerful than most humans, secretly existing among humanity.

The idea of the "lab" in their stomach was meant to evoke a bio-tech or science fantasy sensibility, but it's all internal so it can be ignored in a more traditional fantasy setting. It was partially to allow them to do "hands-y" things even after they evolve into full dragons, but also inspired by the science fantasy vampires of Vampire Hunter D or the Castlevania anime. The hallucinogenic part was meant to explain what gives them a godly or supernatural presence, but again, they could just literally be gods or demigods or whatever.

Rings of Power: The Inner Circle

Rings of Power: The Inner Circle

The PCs are inducted into The Inner Circle, a secret society whose members are supplied with a ring of power.

They scheme against The Body of Orkus, the order of those corrupted by the Dread Demiurge Orkus, and its quasi-material manifestation, The Eye of Orkus, in a secret global cold war.

The rings of power make users invisible and powerful.

Those who wear the ring can sense the nearby presence of others who wear the ring.

Those who wear the ring risk Corruption (roll Corruption Die each time a ringbearer puts on the ring), becoming more powerful, but also closer to Ork metamorphosis.

Those who wear the ring draw the attention of the Dread Demiurge Orkus (roll Orkus Die once when one or a group of ringbearers put on the ring). Those spotted by the Eye of Orkus must flee imminently, or face unimaginable suffering.

Speculative Fantasy

Another old unfinished draft from 2019. Tbh these are a little half-baked and I wanted to have more of them, but it's a kernel of something. I'm sure people could run with this; any suggestions, recommendations, etc. appreciated

Inspired by Speculative Fiction such as Neal Stephenson, Charles Stross, and Adrian Tchaikovsky, and TTRPG works such as Lichjammer, Cryptomancer, and Magical Industrial Revolution. Exploring the implications of magic or other fantastical concepts not so much in a hard scifi sense, but extrapolating as if they were real.

1. The nobility are ancient and powerful Warrior-Wizards, immortal Liches, who are worshiped by their subjects as God-Kings. They are not necessarily evil, in fact many are quite wise, but they are ruthless and cunning.
   
   
2. The peasant and warrior classes have been largely replaced by undead labor. These workers that have no needs or wants, that can persist in any environment, and that follow orders instantly and without question, have made human labor obsolete. This is how the Dwarven Mines, the Underdark, and the Deep Oceans were conquered. Most humans live simple and easy lives of sheltered ignorance and luxury, at the expense of other peoples and the natural order.
   
   
3. Magic doors and teleportation spells have made traditional geopolitics obsolete. "Kingdoms" no longer exist in a literal sense, but are distributed across the world, by ideals or interests. This affects everything from architecture, transit, art and culture, and commerce. Small or self-sustaining villages far along the abandoned roads may as well be another world from the "kingdoms".
   
   
4. Communication and information storage has been made near-perfect and near-instant across a complex network of message spells and other similar magics. The security of this information is the lynchpin of all social, governmental, and military influence, and so while warrior-mages still exist, most magic-users are effectively cryptoanalysts and cryptosecurity administrators. Basically Cryptomancer bc I never fleshed this idea out further than that...
   
   
5. Uber-powerful magics such as wish spells have been so thoroughly exploited, that reality has exceeded a threshold of acceptable paradox, and has fractured into a non-linear, mega-dimensional multiverse. World-breaking magics have as a result become almost completely devalued, like magical inflation. Instead, various factions use more subtle magics and espionage in synchrony across the multiverse to manipulate reality in their favor. It's a magical multiversal super-spy cold war.
   
   
6. The discovery of divine magic, irrefutable proof of (at least one) Divinity, a True Metaphysic and True Ethic, changed everything.

GLOG Two-Player Class: Ogre

An old and unfinished draft from 2019. Bad Whiskey Games beat me to the punch and my heart wasn't really in it anyway, but this is technically playable albeit incomplete, not a terrible writeup, so here it is for all.

The fearsome two-headed ogres cometh! For creatures so large and formidable, one may wonder why they aren't more ubiquitous. As it turns out, the two-headed ogre has a proclivity for getting in its own way; the perfect counterfactual to two heads being better than one. It's not that they aren't bright, contrary to popular belief, ogres are naturally quite gifted, and many an ogre head has trained in the finer arts of wizardry. However, the ogre bickers with itself so frequently, so tactlessly, so shamelessly, as to give the impression of being an adolescent dimwit. That said, an ogre whose two heads have learned to work in unison is a threat of both brain and brawn, not to be trifled with.

Luneder: https://www.deviantart.com/luneder/art/Two-Headed-Ogre-433111634

Unique Mechanics:

• The Ogre is played by two players! It has two heads but one body, so while they share physical stats, they have separate mental stats.


• The Ogre is a large creature, so adjust dice accordingly.


• The two heads may add abilities from the templates below, or take separate classes. If they take separate classes, only the head that took that class gains the benefit (if this would not make sense for some reason, consult your GM and come up with a reasonable solution).


• The two players choose their actions simultaneously in combat. They should write down roughly what they intend to do and hand it to the GM (or blurt it out simultaneously). The Ogre can attack twice, or attack and cast a spell, or attack and move, but only if moving towards the target. if one head moves away from the target that the other head attempted to attack, treat as a critical fail. Basically, magic resolves first, then movement, then physical attack.


• Outside of combat, the Ogre is assumed to function normally, unless the players disagree on a course of action. They can argue it out (in character, of course) until the GM gets bored, then the GM can make them roll to Punch it Out.


• Punch it Out: A coin flip or high-low on a die. The two heads punch, kick, and wrestle each-other / themselves in a cartoon dust-pile fight for a moment, and then take whatever action the winner of the roll decided. 

Starting Gear:

Template:
A
B
C
D

Tunnels & Trolls: Maximum Hack Pt. 2, Character Types and Talents

As I explained in the first post, this is an old draft I finally decided to publish. Apparently I never completed it, but it is what it is.

This is a continuation of TNT: Max, my heavily-modified hack of TNT (that may or may not get re-branded if I think it's sufficiently different from TNT proper). In the first post I talk about character creation and abilities, which I think maintain the spirit of TNT, while being more streamlined. Here I'll talk about Character Types and Talents.

Character Types

Warrior

The Warrior is virtually identical to TNT Deluxe.

• +1d6 combat dice per level (unarmed or melee weapon).
• Can double the damage reduction of armor but increase chance of it breaking (Roll SR LK for Wear & Tear).
• SR starts at 1, on each fail, increase subsequent Wear & Tear SR level by 1 and decrease damage reduction of armor by 1, until it no longer provides any more protection.
• No Magic

Rogue

I am not a fan of the TNT Deluxe Rogue. It seems to suffer from the "generalist" problem; it can do everything mildly well, but nothing exceptionally well, which is just not satisfying. I attempt to ameliorate that with this version of the Rogue. This version doubles-down on being a "skill monkey". Since I intend to heavily emphasize talents in this system as compared to TNT Deluxe, this will hopefully make Rogues much more useful.

• Start with one Level 1 spell and one extra Talent.
• Gain a number of spells each level with a total spell level up to their Rogue Level.
• E.g. A level three Rogue can learn three level 1 spells, or one level 2 spell and one level 1 spell.
• Once per day, can roll a LK SR in place of another SR at one level higher than the SR it's replacing.

Wizard

Other than gaining spells per level in addition to being able to learn spells by other means, wizards in TNT Max are basically the same as TNT Deluxe.

• Start with all first-level spells.
• Spells cost Wizard Level – Spell Level less PRE to cast (e.g. for a level 2 wizard casting a level 1 spell, the spell costs 2-1=1 less PRE).
• When casting with a focus (staff, wand, amulet, etc.) subtract Wizard Level from PRE cost (e.g. a level 2 wizard with a focus spends 2 fewer PRE to cast a spell).
• Only apply Combat Adds to Light Weapons.

Special Types

This includes Multi-Typing, Subtypes, Specialists, and other unique cases.

Multi-Typing

A character may choose to take the benefits of a different type. In other words, at Level 2, a Warrior may choose to take a level as a Rogue, meaning they would be considered a Level 1 Warrior and a Level 1 Rogue. It would not be practical to multi-type with Warrior and Wizard since they have certain mutually exclusive abilities (as a Warrior, you can't cast magic; as a Wizard, you can only apply Combat Adds to Light Weapons). In such a case, it may be better to make a subtype.

Subtypes

While it's fun to come up with new Character Types, sometimes it's more practical just to tweak a pre-existing Character Type. It's a good template to easily hack in your own Character Types without too much worry about balance or playtesting. I posted a few TNT Character Sybtypes that could be tweaked for this system pretty easily. In particular, if you want a completely non-magical Rogue, you can use the Ace; give them an additional talent instead of a spell at level 1, and they can add their Ace level to SRs when applying a talent in addition to the normal talent bonus.

Specialists

I have somewhat mixed feelings about including this feature from TNT Deluxe, but you certainly don't have to use it. If you rolled triplets on an attribute during character creation (put one or more asterisks by the attribute), they are considered "Specialists". You may want to tweak it depending on your setting, but I would say this should grant them something like a talent, or level 1 spell-like ability, as the result of a mutation or some other non-mundane means. It should be something that feels cool, but doesn't make them uber-powerful compared to the rest of the party.

Talents

Unfinished 🙃

Tunnels & Trolls: Maximum Hack Pt. 1, Character Creation and Attributes

This is a super old draft from like 2019. I kinda stopped with TNT after I had an off-putting interaction with one of the TNT devs (won't say which one, and will say explicitly it was nothing terrible, more just a difference of opinion?) and also because my Aquarian Dawn TNT Campaign got killed by covid (or maybe it had gotten disrupted by work, I don't remember anymore).

Anyway, I haven't been up for writing lately but wanted to post something, so I'm digging this out, make what you will of it. There's a part 2, I forget if that's sufficient or if I had left it in an incomplete state, but I'll post part 2 eventually as well.

design notes in this color

Tunnels & Trolls: Maximum

Or, 

The GLOG of TNT

I've been playing TNT for a little while now and really love the system. Here were my initial thoughts when I first started getting into it. This is my attempt to create a new version of the game, one that streamlines things and makes some heavy modifications, but is still true to what TNT is; in the spirit of DIY efforts towards old-school D&D from the OSR movement, and in particular GLOG. Even though I actually have very little experience playing GLOG, one thing that I like about it, is its emphasis on streamlining DIY and customization, and I hope this hack for TNT ends up working in a similar regard. While this hack does change the core game, it should be mostly backwards compatible with other versions of TNT, with a little bit of adjustment. It is probably presumptuous of me to assume this hack could have the same impact for TNT as GLOG has had for OSR, but that's the goal. I should also say that at this stage this hack is mostly untested, except for the pieces of retroactively integrated into my current campaign, but TNT is a simple enough system that I feel reasonably comfortable with the changes I've made to the system.

One additional note: I may decide to "rebrand" this entirely, removing TNT-specific terminology and making it effectively its own game, since TNT doesn't have a proper OGL or equivalent. My understanding is that the TNT people are pretty reasonable, but if I take this far enough, I'd like to actually have ownership of it, and I think the end product will likely be distinct enough to justify it. But at least for now I will continue to refer to it as a TNT hack.

I've been appreciating following Jones Smith's Fiction First system unfold at wasitlikely, so I've decided to break this hack up into several posts as well, and then I'll collate it all at the end. This makes it more manageable, and it also allows for me to adjust things based on any feedback.

Another note, I will likely continue to make new Character Types and Hacks for TNT Deluxe as I've been doing, but when possible, I will try to include versions for TNT Max as well, and also to make TNT Max versions of other Character Types I've already posted.

Character Creation

Roll 3d6 six times, drop the lowest two, and assign the values to the attributes Physique (PHY), Finesse (FIN), Presence (PRE), and Luck (LCK). You can be less generous at your table if you'd prefer, but I like to be nice.

If you roll triple values on any one of those 3d6 rolls, roll 3d6 again and take the total as a single value, and put a * next to that attribute for every triplet.

Either before or after attribute rolls, choose or roll randomly for a Character Type and apply any starting abilities.

Take an equipment package or some starting amount of gold (250 for instance).

Take three talents.

I've reduced the attributes for simplicity and out of personal preference. I'll explain my reasoning for these attributes next. Otherwise, this is mostly similar to standard TNT. I increased the number of talents because I think talents are a nice, light, flexible way to give characters special abilities, and talents will also effectively replace kindreds. I realize kindreds (race in D&D) is something many people like about the game, but I don't think it works as well with the decreased number of attributes since it's based on mulitplicative modifiers and how they affect combat adds. Even with D&D I prefer a race-as-flavor or race-as-class approach. However, if you want special kindred abilities, talents can be used in that regard (as discussed in a later post).

Attributes

Physique (PHY): This attribute reflects physical abilities, such as the ability to inflict physical harm, fighting skill, weight-lifting / encumbrance (if you're so inclined), physical durability, fortitude, etc.

• Use for PHY SRs.
• Add each point above 12 to damage total as Combat Adds.
• PHY also reflects the maximum amount of damage you can take before being incapacitated.

Finesse (FIN): This attribute reflects dexterity, flexibility, acrobatics, speed, agility, defensive maneuvers, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, etc. 

• Use for FIN SRs.
• Add each point above 12 to damage total as Combat Adds.
• Use for missile attacks and finesse attack SRs.

Presence (PRE): This attribute reflects certain ephemeral aspects of a person; their force of will, magical abilities, ability to draw an audience, etc.

• Use for PRE SRs.
• Certain spells have a PRE minimum in order to be cast.
• PRE also reflects maximum mana for spellcasting.

Luck (LK): This attribute reflects luck as an actual force of nature in the universe, but also gets used as a catch-all for things that might not fit neatly into the other attributes, such as item durability (Wear & Tear). In certain cases it is also used to defend against the effects of magic; primarily curses or magic which affects fates and destinies.

• Use for LK SRs.
• Add each point above 12 to damage total as Combat Adds.
• Use for Wear & Tear SRs.

Attributes are where this hack most differ from core TNT. I prefer to have a few, very broad, very archetypal attributes. TNT Deluxe attributes aren't bad, and I can understand why somebody might want to keep Strength and Consitution or Intelligence and Wizardry separate, but that's not what I'm doing here. I've said before on this blog that I'm a big fan of Cypher System, so this is somewhat modeled after that. I've always liked the idea of "Presence"; in part because I don't like Intelligence as a quantitative attribute, but also because Presence allows you to condense magical ability, charisma, and some of these other ephemeral qualities in a useful and interesting way, so you can avoid dump stats while still codifying these qualities. I don't plan on making the curse / fates aspect of LCK a major sub-system, if I make it at all it would be bolt-on, but I do think that with four attributes, it doesn't make sense to have magic condensed solely into a single attribute. 

In subsequent posts I will talk about the different character types, talents, character advancement, and other basic mechanics of the game. It is mostly pretty similar to TNT Deluxe except where it is accounting for these attributes, but I do try to somewhat standardize characters and NPCs with a uniform Character Rating metric, but I'm getting ahead of myself!

New Kinds of Magic

No, this isn't about Vancian vs. such-and-such. I guess it's more like different schools of magic like Illusion, Evocation, etc., but it's not bound to those classifications either. It's just meant to get you to think about weird abstract things, and what magic can mean, and how different principles of science and philosophy and cognition and perception operate.

My character in Mike of Sheep & Sorcery's Weirdways Campaign (previously discussed in this post) also more recently gained powers relating to the first entry, so that's cool.

There aren't that many of these because I've been busy and tired lately and trying to prioritize shorter high quality posts over forcing out longer ones, but I'm happy with these.

Cool art to draw the eye, to break up the page, to give you a reason to click. Empty and unsatisfying, disconnected from my words because I don't know how to draw. A memetic parasite burrowing into your brain imposing itself onto your perception, in place of my words. Hollow eyes desperate for a connection they cannot see and will not understand. An anaglyphic simulation of three dimensions where only two exist. Boastful promises behind tinted lenses yielding nothing.

1. Necroneiromancy: These are no mere prophecies. Dead dreams aggressively forced onto the future, feeding off of time like an ouroboros.
2. Ennui: A magic imprisoned invisibly by the ignorant, closing in tightly, oppressing only those who perceive it. A deprivation, lack of stimulation, a self-generated counterforce compressed until it bursts. A violently unleashed imagination.
3. Graphomatica: Philosophers seek unknowable Truths fruitlessly, where real magic is in modeling reality via approximation. Graphomatic representations realize radical realities in higher dimensional spaces.
4. Alone: Reality is a shared delusion, where for each contributor, any given contribution is lessened. Alone, one's own magic magnifies, reality warping around preconceived notions and preferred prophecies. More efficient than the compromised magic we share, more effective too, until challenged.
5. Soberotica: The girl next door of magic, the paradoxical sexy in the unsexy, the attainable if unglamorous, utilitarian utility of serviceable services in the unflattering light of sober sensations.
6. Dissonant Dissociative Multitudes: The magic of an unabashed, unashamed detachment from reality. Embracing cognitive dissonance, dissociated self from space, inversion of subject and object, magnified madness made manifest, multitudinous; magical power pawned from pathology.

Mike also created several cool New Kinds of Magic which with his permission I have also included.

1. Egregoristry: Mages gather to create a higher being out of their collective consciousness: a being submissive to their will, but have they created this being truly or merely given body to something old and dangerous?
2. The Craft: Just as a genius sculptor has the power to do what most see as impossible so there is a level above the genius sculptor where they can truly give life to marble or even a higher level where they sculpt time and dimension. This is the magic of pure excellence in a particular craft until it exceeds the boundaries of possibility.
3. Mom Magic: Some moms genuinely have eyes in the back of their heads and they can definitely take you out of this world just like they brought you into it: with blood and screaming.
4. Quantum Catalog: Undo choices and force the universe down a different path through mastery of the Dewey Decimal system of the Akashic Library.
5. Dimensional Theurgy: like Rick and Morty with the microverse car battery. The wizard creates a pocket dimension in which they are God, feeding on the worship of the creatures there to fuel their magic.

Undead Dreams

The idea is loosely inspired by Vampire Hunter D, specifically Volume 5. What is an undead dream? This post was originally drafted in like 2019 and I was never sure what to do with it. I've had some similar ideas lately, I intend to explore some version of this further in the near future.

They say that when you die, your brain floods with DMT, the chemical of dreams. Your perception of time slows and you relive your life as synapses die and memories pop into being one last time. Memories are fuzzy and imperfect things, and in your psychedelic dreamscape your life plays out a little bit differently. Then, your dreamscape self dies, and it floods with DMT, and so recursively, at the moment of your death, you dream and live your entire multiverse of selves.

These recursive multiversal selves exist in a metaphysical space, a space of souls, where the soul-self opens the gate of the pineal gland and enters the collective unconscious.

And what are undead, if not liminal beings, a physical, synaptic consciousness at the gate, lacking a soul, the apparatus to join the collective unconscious? Zombies don't hunger for brains, they hunger for souls. But no matter how hard they try, no matter how many brains they consume, they'll never be able to digest, to integrate, the soul. Weep for the pitiful hungry zombie. Vampires, lich lords, and other intelligent undead sleep, but without a soul, what do they dream?

They do not relive their lives, but the lives of those whose brains they've eaten, blood they've drank, bodies they've necromantically revived; damaged and mutated, the undigested souls linger within, propagating through a dark multiverse of astral un-life, the reciprocation of undeath, a limbo dimension of null that exists, cruelly, to balance the physical inequality of energy that undeath introduces into the universe. The undead dream the purgatory of the living.

Also, I made my first post on the collaborative blog Iconoclastic Flow!

Iconoclastic Rant: I am sick of being asked "but how would that work?"

Retrospective: Elves

I've done a retrospective on my first blog post, Mythic Beings, and on my first game, Pixels & Platforms, where I discuss how bad I was and how much better I've gotten at writing and game designing, respectively. Now I'll do a retrospective on my first "Traditional" Fantasy Weird & Wonderful Table, Elves. I begrudgingly included a hyperlink, but it's pretty bad, don't waste your time. I mean, some of them are solid ideas, but some of them are... really not. This was before I really nailed down the concept, that the "Traditional" Fantasy Tables should subvert expectations in interesting ways, rather than just being random variants (like WoTC so often does...).

Rather than going entry by entry and critiquing it, in this post, I create an entirely new batch. These are I think a little less Weird and more focused on being subversions of typical expectations of Elves. Personally, I prefer the weird, but I imagine this principle will be more appealing to most people. This is closer to what I tried to do with the Elves of Aquarian Dawn, but I think the elves below are generally better.

Since that original table, I've improved in several ways, which will hopefully be reflected in these entries, such as deemphasizing superficial elements and placing greater emphasis on elements that lend themselves to being used in-game.

While sharing a few of these on the NSR Discord Server and The OSR Pit, an observation was made that some of these are seemingly at odds with each other. I hadn't necessarily intended all of these to be part of the same setting. The non-specified elves referred to in the Dark Elves entry, for instance, probably shouldn't be the High Elves of the entry above, but could maybe refer to the Dryads. Where non-specified elves are referenced in an entry, I generally mean traditional fantasy elves.

Also, thanks to Semiurge for a few good suggestions!

I had wanted to write ten but got stuck on nine and now I'm out of the moment so I'm just gonna let it be what it is so it doesn't wind up in draft limbo forever.

High Elves (Uruk)

A brutal empire dominated by a Lich God-King. The centuries-old warrior caste, Uruk, wear into battle enchanted skins such as those of giant bats, lizard-men, wild boars, and dire wolves, making of themselves as monsters. When not warring to expand their territory, they raid villages at the outskirts, but strangely, seem mostly interested in collecting an iridescent but otherwise useless and valueless rock. However, recent reports from spies who have witnessed them at rest, depict the Uruk as gorgeous underneath their skins, as prioritizing beauty and aestheticism, valuing romanticism, consuming psychedelic mushrooms, and engaging in social grooming and other acts of camaraderie and companionship. The human kingdoms must now grapple with the knowledge that the "monsters" they used to gruesomely murder at every opportunity, are in fact more so like themselves than not.

Dark Elves

They are to elves as deep ones are to humans; an intelligent species from the deep oceans with the mysterious ability to hybridize with their land-dwelling others. Whereas deep ones often have fish-like appearances, the dark elves are more like cephalopods. Unlike humans and deep ones, the relationship between elves and dark elves is one of communication and collaboration. This often creates tension between the elven and human kingdoms, as the human kingdoms and deep ones are in a perpetual cold war, and they see the dark elves as a potential information leak to their enemies.

Changelings

These predators appear nearly indistinguishable from elves, although they are more closely related to birds. They prey on elves, especially babies, replacing them with their own young to be unwittingly raised by the elves. They are boogeymen and the stuff of urban legends; so well adapted to their craft that most elves don't even believe them to be real.

Dryads

Nomads with an advanced sensory-immune system. They have a symbiotic relationship with a mycelium network that thrives in their guts and spores off of them invisibly to the naked eye, giving them a means of communication amongst each other and nature that is indescribable to other creatures. For this reason, they are also hyper-aware of the effects of pollution and environmental destruction.

Wild Hunt

These elves long ago ascended to the realm of the gods, exploring the celestial heavens in massive golden chariots. They value logic and are often perceived as cold and detached, yet are generally compassionate and generous when one considers their reasoning. Their name is a misnomer passed down in legends, as they only return to the mortal realm when a great threat looms, and so their arrival has become associated with that of demonic incursions and other calamities.

Lamia

Magical, shapeshifting, playful creatures that developed alongside elves, not unlike dogs to humans. They come in many genders, such as many-tailed fox, big-testicled tanuki, serpent, coyote, dolphin, spider, and peacock, although most are gender-fluid. They enjoy tricks and pranks, usually harmless and good-natured. A common prank is to take the form of an elf and develop a romantic relationship with a human (the elves see past their tricks), and so in some human lore, they are considered monsters or demons.

Lemurians

Their society is the nearest to that of the ancient and advanced Lemuria, the greatest kingdom at the height of the Age of Elves. Although a pale reflection of their past, they still hold ancient knowledge and powerful magical artifacts. While the longevity of elves usually preserves their society, the Lemurian Diaspora, little more than a century ago, has distorted history and knowledge that was already slowly slipping like sand in an hourglass. Lemurian immigrants are being exploited for their knowledge and artifacts, exoticized and tokenized by nobles, and scapegoated to direct the frustrations of the serfs.

Tengu

Veterans of an ancient war, and master warriors. Most of their kind have since passed on, and those who remain prefer to live in peace and contemplation as mountain hermits. They have little patience for those who invade their privacy and are prone to violence. However, to those who are virtuous and talented, they will teach their rare martial techniques, with feigned reluctance.

Cherubim

Uncanny neotenous elves, child-like in both appearance and behavior, although with a level of social and emotional intelligence far beyond that of humans. Their society is immeasurably wealthy, advanced, and idyllic. Although pacifist, when threatened, and where no peaceful effort succeeds, eldritch creatures come from the aether to protect them. The nature of this relationship is not well understood by others. They will trade with others, usually to the benefit of the partner and more for their own entertainment than out of any need of their own, but will not support those who engage in war or colonial expansion.

Inverted Monsters

I moved a couple weeks ago, from Bushwick to LES, but still, it's taken up a bit of my mental focus and actual time. Love the new neighborhood and new apartment, but anyway, haven't been able to blog or think creatively, although I'm starting to get back into that headspace. I've been sitting on this draft for forever, wanted to do 8+ but got stuck trying to come up with an inverted dragon that felt sufficiently equal in substance to a dragon itself, so I'm just going to post with a clean 6 and maybe pick it back up later if people are into it.

Also, in the time since I first drafted this... I think the writing could be stronger, but I'm not going to worry about that for now. However, I've also become a better game designer, so I'm now adding in a "How to Use" section. If I were to revisit it, I might rewrite them entirely with more flavorful but brief descriptions and adventure hooks rather than a "how to use" section, but for now, this is what it is.

As always, I'd be interested to see other people's ideas as well.

This post is inspired by Bastionland / Chris Mcdowall's Inverted Monsters. It's a cool, simple concept, and I thought I might take a stab at a few of them. The idea is to take a traditional fantasy creature, identify its core features, and invert them to create a new creature.

As is often the case with me, I struggle to stay within the lines, but if nothing else this should be a jumping-off point for some hopefully decent ideas.

Skeleton / Lich

• Bones
• Undead
• Evil

Becomes Fleshboi

• Tubby
• Large adult-sized toddler (full of life)
• Good

Fleshbois are evil creatures that have been purified and reincarnated. They are full of love and good intentions, but still, they have the mind of a child in a magical, powerful, nigh-impenetrable tubby body, and they are prone to violent tantrums.

How to Use:

• Fleshbois can make for good obstacles as they generally cannot be overcome through sheer force, nor through reason, and as such innocent creatures, there is a moral quandary to consider. 
• There is also a risk/reward component. Upsetting them could turn them back into skeleton mages or liches, so there's a big risk. However, as a child, if they grow to love the players, they can be a powerful long-term ally.

I have no idea what tap zoo animals are but this dragon mongoose is pretty good for Shrouding Mongoose

Basilisk

• Petrifying stare
• Serpent-like reptile
• Multi-legged

Becomes Shrouding Mongoose

• Spotlight enshrouding
• Mongoose-like
• No appendages

Shrouding mongoose slither on the ground like serpents. They create a distortion field in their entire visual range which disables and enshrouds everything except whatever they are visually focusing on. 

How to Use: 

• They are often used to counter basilisks; a basilisk in the range of a shrouding mongoose will have nothing to petrify so long as the shrouding mongoose focuses only on the basilisk.
• The visual distortion fields they create can also have tactical applications for other kinds of conflicts; one could imagine Shrouding Mongooses accompanying army units or scouts.
• They could also be an interesting threat in their own right, where the fight is less about rolling well, and more about figuring out how to hit the Mongoose you can't see...

Goblin

• Small
• Mischievous
• Child-like intelligence but mechanically inclined

Becomes Hobbe

• Large
• Advocates of the social contract
• Philosophical but narrow-minded and uncreative

The hobbes are a bugbear-like species that has developed a technologically simple but philosophically advanced civilization. Despite their chaotic or perhaps even evil nature (if you believe in such things), they are surprisingly orderly and peaceful, but this peace comes from a well-understood, borderline fascistic social contract. They have absolutely no tolerance for crime and are therefore skeptical of outsiders. While highly intellectual, it is nearly impossible for a hobbe to change their perspective, and most of their dialect is geared towards justifying their own preconceived notions.

How to Use: 

• The hobbes may have some key information the party needs, or maybe the party is just passing through, but are enticed by some McGuffin. There should be some temptation or even necessity to break a rule, and so the players need to either not get caught, or figure out how to skirt the rule.
• Or maybe it's an individual hobbe or small group of hobbes that the party has to deal with within some other context.

Mimic

• Mimicry
• Grotesque toothy maw
• Amorphous

Becomes Potter

• Carves, molds, and shapes people into things
• No mouth
• Rigid form

Potters are humanoid figures that appear to be shaped from clay or metals and carved and shaved to form. They are rigid, with limited points of articulation. They have no mouths, or their mouths are non-articulate and only aesthetic. They have a psionic knife that they can use to carve living things, and they can reshape the parts in a magic kiln or smith. They like to turn people into treasure chests, weapons, armors, trinkets, and treasures. That chest you just looted may be the last adventurer who tried to crawl this dungeon...

• Potters would work well for a horror scenario. An unassuming doll in a creepy dungeon that's psychically picking off isolated hirelings.
• The creations of the potters which stalk the dungeon may be mannequettes or like creatures.

Flumph

• Jellyfish-like (amorphous, tentacles)
• Psionic-feeding / empathetic
• Anti-gravity

Becomes Hpmulf

• Urchin-like (rigid, spiny)
• Psionic-nullifying / unemotional
• Super-gravity

Roughly human-sized urchin-like neutral evil creatures. They are fixed points in the universe, and instead of a means of physical mobilization, they relocate by bending spacetime around themselves using their innate super-gravity engines. The "hpmulf" sound this super-gravity engine makes is where they get their name. Super-gravity also bends the astral plane, effectively nullifying psionics. They are incapable of linguistic communication or empathy of any kind and have few desires beyond meeting their own selfish, biological needs, so they are often mistakenly believed to be a mindless blight, but they are actually excellent problem solvers. In conflict, they will always prefer to fight rather than flee, unless the odds are unambiguously against them.

How to Use:

• They are like a superswarm. They have weird space-timey abilities, neutralize psionics and maybe some magics, are hard and spiky. There's nothing here that doesn't exist elsewhere, but they're an all-in-one obstacle / debuff / violent threat / weirdness generator.
• They are deceptively intelligent. Perhaps in the first stage, they are just a mindless superswarm, but whatever initial solution the party conceives in facing them, they then adapt.
• While an adventuring party could encounter a small group of them, I think they would work better for a domain-level game or as a threat to an entire region.

Minotaur

• Upper-body bull, lower-body humanoid
• Mazes
• Eat people

Becomes Mycenaetaur

• Upper-body humanoid, lower-body bull
• Navigators
• Vegetarian

Although they look like large centaur, mycenaetaur are more closely related to minotaur. They are nomadic plane grazers, known for their unbreakable phalanx armies. They have advanced visuospatial skills and the innate ability to navigate complex spaces efficiently using graph theory. They unconsciously employ algorithms such as breadth-first search and A* to navigate spaces.

How to Use:

• Help a party navigate through confusing terrain or a maze.
• Potentially good allies if their planes buffer the kingdom, given their navigation skills and armies.
• Consume large quantities of vegetation; possibly zero-sum with the resource needs of the kingdom.
• Mercenaries.

More Half-Formed Ideas from The Onenote

Over a year ago I made a post Half-formed ideas from the onenote. Crazy to think how much my life specifically and the world in general has changed in that time. Anyway, some of those ideas I eventually incorporated into other things, many of them I never did, but now I have more!

Setting Ideas

• Post-humanity travels back in time as invaders, forcing their past selves to grow more savvy and powerful, until they are defeated, to then repeat the process until post-humanity is powerful enough to defeat some greater threat in the far future.


• A fully interconnected multiverse. It's about as easy as taking a plane, and it's been around long enough that culture and politics have adapted around it. Certain nations across the multiverse have merged or allied, new interuniversal communities have formed.


• Heavy Metal Haiku of the Machine God.


• Nurglopia: Nurgle wins (came up with this idea pre-covid; could either be really good, or in really poor taste)


• Ithaqua = frost giants, wendigo, Loki (?)


• What is the original species of Yuggoth before the Mi-Go invasion?


• Carbuncles as infant outer gods. Most are stillborn, or get eaten by other outer gods or beings of equal power, or take so long to develop that they are irrelevant. Some become true eldritch beings. Others land on celestial bodies and instigate life, or become absorbed into a pre-existing biosphere. In such a case, they may first develop a symbiotic relationship with a lifeform on that world, morphing into something more like that species. On Earth, this would be the basis of anthropomorphic gods, magic, or superheroes. Maybe tied into Lovecraftian Dreamlands?


• Golemjammer: Like lichjammer... but golems.


• Something with the Black Dragon Society (kokuryukai) and the Black Panthers.


• A superhero setting where superpowers are heavily regulated, so rich guys like Batman and Iron Man types use their lack of superpowers as a loophole around the rules. They lobby to keep advanced-tech and non-super vigilantism relatively unregulated.


• Cyberpunk where there is technically a government but nobody even knows who it is anymore. There are two police forces, both claim to be the government (as opposed to corporate). It's not even that corporations run things, it's just chaos. Clearly there are people profiting, it seems like there are people on the Foucault Flow, but the moon is completely obliterated and the tides are coming whether someone rides them or not.


• Sarugami Japanese monkey cult.


• Polterzeitgeist.


• A fantasy setting of super-OP species. 
• A species of humanoid / cold iron cyborgs mad rage geniuses like Carnage Kabuto with beetle, horseshoe crab, mantis shrimp, etc. cold iron carapaces.


• A holographic aerial species of nephilim pixies/nixies with Divine magics (closer to the gods) and aerial dominance.


• Demons from a dimension of sulfur and mercury, beings of pure explosion animating corpses of extinct species pickled in mercury and gasoline.


• Landfill animals / plastic beach.


• Heaven and Hell vs Martians; Heaven and Hell vs Humans; Vampires vs. Zombies.


• Kingdom of Oudh.


• Mother Earth expresses her will through technology. Rare Earth Metals are her medium. Teleological technological goddess.


• Gasoline Swamp: The Primordial Soup from whence hyperlife evolved. A fungus-like species covers the Earth, a constant hazy explosion of spores and heavy diesel energy. Most animal-like life in their adult form are tiny "pixies" with manic energy. They have no mouths and other than absorption of some transient energy, they have only the energy they absorbed in their adolescent / larval / tadpole state. The dominant lifeforms are hyperplants, tesselating undulating monsters which branch, root, fruit, and leaf in real-time. They are not photosynthetic and instead are mainly carnivores (fungi and animal eaters) or predators (herbivores), or some are omnivorous. Their biology is inextricably linked with plastics and microplastics, like if humans wore their microbiome on the outside. Their blood is diesel and most consumption is vampiric; diesel being the most nutritious substance for all hyperlife.


• Fantasy "salt lick" / oasis setting.


• A pocket universe that exists as a liminal space between life and death.


• How would a nocturnal intelligent species mythologize light and dark?
• Blinding to their dilated pupils.


• Vividly, grotesquely colorful (cone cells less effective in the dark).


• Those who go out during the day must wear sunglasses, a hat, or other eye protection.


• Monsters and demons more so like diurnal species, angelic / majestic creatures more so like nocturnal species.

Random Scifi / Fantasy Ideas

• Flower / pollen / spring apoptomancer.


• A reverse werewolf / Hyde / Hulk. Temporarily shift into energetic, manic, ambitious, strong, intelligent, etc, but somewhat unempathetic and detached- like detox Morty.


• "Butterfy" / pixie chaos(-theory) magic.


• Parasite of the Gods.


• A perpetual chain reaction of causality from another universe.


• Twister Troops: Create whirlwinds and ride them. High mortality rate.


• Gorgon / Medusa / Basilisk petrification as metaphor for anxiety, depression, or stagnation.


• A species that births different offspring depending on whether or not the eggs were fertilized.


• Kawauso as Kappa / Deep One transformation of otters.


• Mani Jul as Kappa butt ball as Dragon Quest-style Slime.


• Rocket / impulse deceleration boots.


• Soft Mother / Wire Mother.


• Biological implications of a creature with a pocket dimension inside of it.


• Fossil Golem.


• Starbarian.


• Bodhisattva vampire. By rejecting immortality and burning in light, they become "something else".


• Dog Mutants: Dogs are adaptable and have been relatively rapidly mutated in ways physically and behaviorally unique.


• Temporal "memory sense"; some alternate memory system as a sensory mechanism.


• Spellbeasts: Based on the GLOG idea of living spells. These have taken physical form and take various shapes and sizes.


• A Borg-like cyborg / transhuman hybrid species that loses its technological abilities and has adapted / evolved into a solely organic species.


• Protobeings: A fantasy pre-history setting. The world is new, low entropy, there is an inherent order to things. The protobeings lack knowledge and history and advancements, but are magical and fey- or god-like, more in tune with nature, but a kind of nature that is uncanny to our perceptions because of its orderedness. Whereas we think of Order=Civilization vs. Chaos=Nature, the relationship between the protobeings and nature is the inverse.


• Carnopolis Cyborgs: Organic internals have evolved into a robot shell. Mostly nerves and cardiovascular system and brain, and fat as padding. Higher thought mostly digital, brain used more for autonomic processes and memory. Those damaged are sometimes reshaped and given more primitive, animal intelligences.


• Massive, slimy, dirigible-like floating predator-plant propelled by noxious gases.


• Coffin monster and/or pocket dimension.


• Saint as "Holy Vampire".


• Colorful, iridescent shadows.


• A city of "exploded" architecture like a multidimensional diorama space.


• Dragon Mole.


• Mustard Men: Humanoid plants with balloon-like heads full of toxic mustard gas.


• Weapon made of a compressed universe or spatial dimension.


• Rainbow ape fae.


• Geistlos: Superhumans with no souls.


• Pugmen: Not actually pugs, just heavily inbred species.


• Whistle of the Giant Rat.


• Metallic / Chromatic Bats.


• Hippo-Ogre.


• Laughing Gecko.


• Aye Aye knocking on the wall (weird finger).


• Neon Dolphin.


• Living Missile.


• A creature with spiders / octopi for hands.


• A lich except with other things instead of a soul like brain, heart, brawn, etc.


• Souldier ("soul soldier").


• Bomb bees. Their stingers inject explosive chemicals.


• Missile shark / robo-bulette.


• Gun Worm.


• Caveman weapon of mass destruction. Weapon of Darkness. Debilitator and danger as a relative concept, independent of technology or other forms of progress. Liminal state between human / conscious and "the wild" / beasts.


• Emoji-Men.

Game Mechanics Ideas

• Track every killed monster on a character sheet. Can temporarily revive defeated monsters to fight for you, but lose that experience.


• Garudas and Gaussians: Binary-outcome system.


• RPG Madlibs.


• Eightball resolution.


• Final Form: A game hack or set of tables to generate a DBZ-style "Final Form".


• Ending Quest: A play on my dissatisfaction with never-ending RPGs.


• Dice mechanic where you have to roll between two values (probably percentile). This allows you to instantiate both the properties of the PC and their opposition (e.g. roll under attribute, but roll over AC, creating the range to roll within).


• Vector / Decision Tree mechanic for multi-step action resolution such as heists.


• Rules-light OSR-style game built around random dungeons with an Enter the Gungeon / Rogue Legacy-style time or generational-based ludo-narrative, and some mechanics to tie each player's characters together in that sense.


• Some sort of storygame meets tactical combat / strategy wargame wherein events in the past are retconned through time-travel as a function of narration / game mechanics.


• A framework for creating X-crawl systems.


• Stagger Stress System (i.e. FFXIII). Morale-derived? Another kind of HP abstraction?


• Tactical positioning game (i.e. Into the Breach).


• Jax-based resolution mechanic. Can it be diegetic?


• Birdwatching / Pokemon Snap-style game.


• Spaceship bridge crew game inspired by the LAN game Artemis. Rather than sitting at a single table, ideally, the players should be spread out. Each player operates some stations (engines, weapons, piloting, etc.). The captain receives specific information from the GM, and because the players are spread out, generally the captain is the one who will coordinate between the different stations. There is perhaps an "event deck" that the GM draws from periodically and/or at a fixed rate so that there is a semi real-time element to it, creating tension.


• A combat resolution die (e.g. d4 for short, d8 for medium, d12 for long) rolled at the beginning of combat. Combat always resolves at the end of the die, with the outcome determined by the amount of progress made e.g. if enemies were mostly defeated, they are entirely destroyed or run away; a critical mission is failed (failed to deactivate the bomb, an enemy sniped the prince, the boss arrives, you were spotted, etc.).


• Spells tied to an attribute and/or HP e.g. a level 1 spell costs 1d4 HP/int/wis/cha, level 2 costs 1d6, level 3 costs 1d8, etc.


• A super-fast creature that behaves physically fluid-like and exists in a gameplay sense "between actions". It moves so fast that it resolves its actions between the resolution of other actions.


• Animal setting generator: Roll ten animals from a random animal table. Two are humanoid and intelligent, two are intelligent but not humanoid, three are mundane, three have fantastical properties (roll twice on a magical quality / mutation / etc. table).


• Rainbow beasts puzzle: Monsters are color-coded ROYGBIV, and can only be injured if a wand / lasergun is set to the corresponding frequency. The enemies may be a mix of colors, so the party would have to decide which colors to target on each turn.

Modern / Progressive takes on Genre Fiction

Originally posted on the OSR Pit.

I recently watched both Doom Patrol and Harley Quinn on HBO Max, and both shows are excellent and brilliant and really spoke to me both in unique ways.

One thing that really struck me, and this is something I’ve been feeling for some time, but hadn’t seen it done as explicitly as in these two shows, is how these shows recontextualize the tropes of science fiction, fantasy, superheroes, Weird, etc., which were historically portrayed as horrific and rooted in xenophobia, in a way that is consistent with the original concepts, but is now empowering and inclusive. It all feels much more relatable, even as a straight white cis-gender male, and just as if not more so creatively and intellectually engaging.

I had read Grant Morrison’s run of Doom Patrol years ago and I was generally aware of how much Grant Morrison has inspired me over the years, but the show felt like it was reading my mind in terms of exactly what I’m trying to do with Maximum Recursion Depth. Likewise, I haven’t fully processed it all yet, but the Harley Quinn show has me excited about and interested in superheroes in a way I have not felt for several years now. I think Marvel and DC would do well to incorporate these ideas into the comics if they hope to remain relevant.

I realize that there have been many other works along these lines, like The Ballad of Black Tom or Lovecraft Country for HP Lovecraft (the latter I still have not read nor seen the show), Imaro or possibly also Elric for Conan (neither of which I have read, unfortunately), and of course many more. But I do think there’s something about these two shows, in particular, their specific sensibilities, that to me seems really telling about what the future of genre fiction and probably also RPGs entails.

This feels very in-line with a lot of the indie TTRPG / SWORDDREAM-space, the sort of post-OSR-exclusivity BS that always drove me crazy, where we can talk about and acknowledge these more complex social issues, and also Weird high concept fantasy, and we can do both in a way that is organic and functions on multiple levels of subtext.

So when I say modern / progressive genre fiction, I don’t just mean in the social equality sense per se, but in a very literal sense, I think these kinds of works are telling about the future of genre fiction.

I’m not entirely sure what the point of this post is. I’d assumed, at the beginning of the Trump era, let alone whatever happens from covid, that this was all going to have a profound effect on culture and zeitgeist, but I wasn’t sure exactly what shape that would take, but now I think I’m beginning to see it, and it has me very excited. So I guess this is just me putting those thoughts out there, and asking if other people feel the same way, or have other thoughts about the future of genre fiction.

The key components I see, and this is absolutely a non-exhaustive, stream of consciousness list, but roughly:

• Characters who are deeply flawed, but conscious of this fact and, importantly, are striving to improve.
• While interpersonal conflict exists, real communication is important.
• Weirdness happens and to a certain extent, you just have to be willing to go along for the ride.
• Weird can be dangerous, but it is not to be feared.
• Normal can be just as weird as Weird.
• Weird can be just as normal as Normal.
• Not just intellectual white men can be quirky, brilliant, angsty assholes.
• It is not unreasonable to look at the universe, at the macrocosmic / cosmic scale or the microcosmic / societal scale, and feel existential dread or nihilism, but it is generally better to try to relish in the absurdity of it all.

Semiurge-style Generator: Fantastic Flumphs

Inspired by my interview with Semiurge, and as a means of procrastinating on other things I really want to / need to do but am feeling suddenly burnt out on, I have created my first Semiurge-style generator. This is a D6xD6 generator for everyone's favorite monster, the fantastic flumph!

Feast your eyes on the fantastic flumphs!

Generator Tools by Meandering Banter

Worlds with Missing Elements

I keep talking about elements and their significance to me (this post about the positive and negative plane, which further links to other posts where I discuss this as well). When it comes to elements, I generally prefer to create worlds of new elements, either entirely made-up like Impossible Light, Absolute Solid, Anti-Information, and Liquid Starfire, or of real things (or at least real fictional things) like Phlogisten, Yeast, Lymph, and Ectoplasm. However, I had the thought the night before drafting this post; what about a world with the typical alchemical elements (in this case I'm assuming Fire, Water, Earth, and Air), but where one of the elements is missing? How do the other elements adapt or develop? How do the organisms, the cultures, the gods, and monsters and magic?

There are a few key points to my thought process:

• I try to take an almost evolutionary approach to it, thinking about how the remaining elements or the world adapts to the lack of the element.
• I generally try to not conflate the science with elementalism. For instance, ice is just solid water, but in a world without earth, ice may be, in an elementalist sense, meaningfully distinct from water and take that role.
• That being said, I'm willing to break this soft rule if it would be more interesting to do so.

These are very brief. I've been struggling with putting my thoughts to words lately; I'm sitting on several new settings which I think are really cool but just haven't been able to write them up. There's something to be said for brevity though, so maybe it's ok if they are just brief little blurbs.

Ice Pillar Reborn

A World with no Earth

Large ocean. Pillars of ice the size of cities pulled up towards the sky, connected by bifrost bridges. Rays of focused light rain from the sky like beams of holy light, burning into the ever-rising pillars, sculpting the landscape, and inducing violent wave patterns into the ocean. This is a world of constant change and high concepts, of flight and mobility, a world that feels light and airy.

Red Moon. Couldn't find a good image with a red moon, steam or smoke vents, and red hot stones and glass, but I think this gets the vibe across of being fire-less and dark.

A World with no Fire

Harsh winds vibrate glass and stones to glowing red. The world is pocked with vents of steam and smoke from naturally-occurring coal and hydrothermal power. A softly glowing red moon provides barely any heat or illumination. On land, this is a harsh and tired world of survivors, of competitive energy-oases. It is a world of little change and little accrued knowledge, except what is necessary for survival. In the bubbling oceans, hot-water life thrives. Who knows what rests in the energy-rich deeps...

Lava Fields. No gelatinous air and cities on glass planes. 

A World with no Water

Magma oceans. Gelatinous humid air. Glass planes cut through swimmable air; a vertical landscape. This is a world of strict hierarchy, of unmoving objects, of tradition and propriety. Except for the sky pirates...

Slime Cavern

A world with no Air

Silent and still. Flat oceans. Pockets of city-sized sugary ooze containing zymological life. A low and persistent dusty fog. Geothermal vents glow from ocean pits, as do motionless volcanoes topped like molten glass.