Aquarian Dawn: Howlston the boom town

Howlston is still very much a growing city (both in-universe and because I'm making things up as I go in my current TNT Aquarian Dawn Campaign), but after the seventh session of my current campaign, I think there's enough here to share more about Howlston, the primary location of the setting.

Since I intend for this campaign to focus heavily on settlement building, Howlston needs to be an interesting place. While my SHIELDBREAKER campaign, set in Nova Arkham of my Phantasmos campaign setting, was also a fairly centralized campaign, unlike Phantasmos, in Aquarian Dawn I can't over-rely on gonzo, so this is an interesting challenge for me. I still allowed myself a little bit of gonzo baked into the premise of Aquarian Dawn, but i want these places and NPCs to stand on their own merits, and not just for being "weird", so we'll see how that goes.

If you need additional context for Aquarian Dawn, I have the following posts for some of the major species in the setting:

Aquarians

Elves

Dwarves
Fey
The Whitemare

And a couple pieces of prose:

Intro Prose

Death Metal Crow

And with that, here's Howlston!

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These lists are broken into three overlapping sections, each referring to the other two.

I chose to put NPCs first because I think the personalities and preconceived interpersonal relationships are the main driver of Howlston. Ideally, even without any pre-written modules or adventure seeds, the interpersonal relationships alone should lend themselves to natural emergent narrative within a sandbox adventure.

NPCs: These are NPCs commonly found in or associated with a given region/location.

Locations: Specific points of interest within a region.

Regions: Broad areas that include several locations.

Finally, there are some "spoilers" in this table, so if you're in my current campaign please don't read this. If you're a GM, you may want to mix some things up anyway. 

Palthos the Triton Warlock by u/captdiablo. Not quite an Aquarian, but close enough for a visual reference.

NPCs

1. Tetra-El-Voss
• Aquarian ambassador who has chosen to identify as female for the convenience of humanoids. She has aqua skin with greenish-gold spots and greenish-gold eyes. Her head filament is in the shape of a tight bun haircut, and unlike most Aquarians she dresses in human clothing. She is surprisingly knowledgeable of human language and culture but is still not totally fluent. She tries to be friendly and accommodating but presents in a way that comes off inauthentic.
• Usual Locations: Aquarian Caravan
2. Urin'Kal
• A dwarven engineer working on the surveillance suite project. His appearance is somewhat more humanoid than other mountain dwarves, although he still has a round and inflated appearance. He is also more adapted to thinking like and communicating with other intelligent species; not just humans, but also Aquarians and fey. He is friendly and excitable. He builds tiny warforged servants which he refers to as his babies.
• Usual Locations: Aquarian Caravan; Lighthouse; Mount Laputa
3. Quint
• A goblin engineer working on the surveillance suite project. She has greenish-gold skin and light, wispy, shock-orange hair in the shape of an onion. She rides an "impossible" rocket-powered tricycle. She loves pranks and is a thrill-seeker, but is a bit of a softy and does not take well to criticism. Unerringly loyal to those she cares about, sometimes to their detriment.
• Usual Locations: Aquarian Caravan; Lighthouse; Fey-Town
4. Hericlesa Siriwell
• A renowned artificer from the capital, who is temporarily staying in Howlston to work on the surveillance suite project. She is commonly seen with Lumo, who is partially funding her work, although at night she's more likely to be found at Black Tom's Tavern with Lumo's wife Natrova. She is also "old friends" with Peter Gibson, although it's unclear how exactly they know each other.
• Usual Locations: Aquarian Caravan; Lighthouse; Black Tom's Tavern
5. Bet-Don-Tuin
• Aquarian engineer of the lighthouse. They have a haughty contempt for humanoids and has made no effort to learn the language or customs of humanoids. They are older, with dull green skin and loose, wispy filaments.
• Usual Locations: Lighthouse; Aquarian Caravan
6. Ruth Gibson
• Human mechanic and general groundskeeper of the lighthouse. She is a middle-aged, heavyset woman with short brown hair and a muscular frame belying a history of some sort. She is stern but kind, as demonstrated by how she berates her “no-good” fisherman husband and dotes on her three young children. It is tacitly understood that she is working for one of the Kind Companies with the purpose of reporting on Bet-Don-Tuin and attempting to at least copy, if not reverse engineer his work. Ruth and Peter were elite Huntsman for the empire and are significantly older than they appear. They were involved in the extermination of what they believed was the last domain of the bluecap fey. Horrified by the things they were forced to do, they later ran off to live a simple life in Howl's Village, Ruth's original home long, long ago. 
• Usual Locations: Lighthouse; Oldtown
7. Peter Gibson
• The “no good” fisherman husband of Ruth, an aging and somewhat portly man with a jolly blush to his smile. Has an unusual accent for one of the “original villagers”. He came from another place, long before the Howlston Boom. He really is a sub-par fisherman, but is kind, and generous to a fault, and treated as a pillar of the community among the original villagers. His eyes carry a heavy weight. Ruth and Peter were elite Huntsman for the empire and are significantly older than they appear. They were involved in the extermination of what they believed was the last domain of the bluecap fey. Horrified by the things they were forced to do, they later ran off to live a simple life in Howl's Village. 
• Usual Locations: Docks; Lighthouse; Oldtown
8. Gilgamesh
• A large, muscular middle-aged man, the top of his otherwise shaved hair tied into a knot. He has a raspy voice with an unusual accent. A smooth talker and salesman hocking the finest wares from throughout the empire. He wears a purple and gold vest and carries a silver and gold saber that occasionally glows and sparks.
• Usual Locations: Fish Market
9. Gemini Forthright
• The proprietor of Black Tom’s Tavern, a surprisingly young halfling, known for her competence, cunning, and comeliness. She dresses in a professional looking black leather suit appropriate for business and for getting one’s hands dirty, wears black gloves, and a black top-hat. She wears yellow lenses, the top half of her face is painted in a black that fades down to her cheekbones, marked by many yellow spheres like the eyes of spiders. A large toothy grin is painted across her face. She is an information broker, and as a result is one of the most important people to the Kind Companies. She is also nominally associated with Le Fauves. She does not believe strongly in the philosophy and actions of Le Fauves, so much as that she does not identify with humanoid society. She has learned to work the system in her favor so that she can buy the power necessary to buy freedom. She sees herself as an animal, and wishes for civilization to accept its place as part of the animal kingdom.
• Usual Locations: Black Tom's Tavern
10. Cyrus Giancarlo
• An esper and enforcer for Black Tom’s. He’s large and strong, with a stern face and stubbly shaved head. His skin is slimy and gummy, making it easy for him to grapple and disarm opponents. Additionally, his skin is impervious to piercing. He can still be hurt but has abnormally high durability. Despite his exceptional wrestling skills, he prefers the simple life of an enforcer, with ample free time for hunting and fishing.
• Usual Locations: Black Tom's Tavern; Docks; Mononoke Forest
11. Damon Ricci
• An esper and enforcer for Black Tom’s. A rogueish mystic who appears as a photo-negative of a human. For this reason, he hides his skin behind clothing, black gloves, and a black mask over his entire head. He has the ability to create a field of light distortion around himself, in addition to general magical abilities (61: Photobomb). He has a developed a major gambling problem, and can often be found at the Clover Casino. He thinks Gemini doesn't know about this, and would prefer to keep it that way.
• Usual Locations: Black Tom's Tavern; Clover Casino
12. Gylex Hane
• The owner of Clover Casino, a leprechaun and real-estate tycoon, and the biggest threat to the Kind Companies in regards to dominance and effective ownership of Howlston. Although he puts on a used-car saleseman charm with his customers, he's a cutthroat and a scrooge. He wears a perfectly-fitted red suit and red bicorn hat, and his clothing is laced with the finest luster gold. It is said that he built his empire on the blood of those murdered by the legendary Death Metal Crow and her Mosh. If the rumors are to be believed, he set her up to fail on their last job together, leaving her for dead, and now she is out looking for revenge.
• Usual Locations: Clover Casino
13. Jeremiah Blackstone
• Effectively the mayor and sheriff of Howlston. The Kind Companies have privatized most of Howlston’s new developments, leaving him with frustratingly little power. He’s a small, thin, elder man, but carries himself with a gravitas of leadership. He was among the last generation of monster hunters (at least until they recently started coming back), and there are few deadlier with a bow than he. His bow is a magical artifact from the high age of humanity, an ivory bow that charges its arrows with energy that launch like beams of light, capable of arcing and bouncing, if the wielder knows how to use it. He is strongly opposed to the Aquarians and what has happened to Howl's Village, and seeks to expand Old Town and collaborate with the Temple of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra against outsiders, although he does not approve of the current Hydra Head, Alice Olmstead.
• Usual Locations: Law Building
14. Alice Olmstead
• The Hydra Head of the Temple of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra. She has short red hair (dyed aqua) and large and awkwardly-shaped, egg-like eyes. The temple is nominally associated with the greater pantheon of the empire, but the church is mainly focused on the patron deities of the sea, and few churchgoers besides Alice are even familiar with the broader pantheon. Alice believes that the Aquarians are the gods' chosen people, and sees their arrival as a blessing. Although a new cult is forming around these beliefs, there is also an orthodox resistance to this movement, and the church is at risk of sprouting a new Head.
• Usual Locations: Temple of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra
15. Robert Marsh
• An elder member of the Temple of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra, his wrinkled head, fatty neck, O-shaped mouth, and large pearl-shaped eyes give him the appearance of a canned sardine. He is a former fisherman and firm believer in the orthodoxy, and some believe that he intends to split into a new Hydra Head in the face of Alice Olmstead's Cult of the Aquarians.
• Usual Locations: Temple of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra
16. Patrick Russo
• Captain of a Kind Company, operating out of one of the low to mid-tier offices of the Slum Ruin. His company only has a single apartment for an office, but is respectable and well kept, and the shared enforcers of the Kind Companies on his floor keep the area safe. He wears a brown leather bomber jacket, rounded goggles that cover half his face, and a clean but worn cloth scarf. He prides himself on the number of fey gadgets and trinkets he’s amassed, many of which he keeps in a utility belt around his waist and across his chest, and others that are worn over his clothing. He acts manically and eccentrically, like he’s never satisfied with what’s happening in the moment. He puts on a bold front, but is actually deep in the red with Lumo and desperately trying to claw his way to prominence.
• Usual Locations: Slum Ruin
17. Lumo
• Captain of the Luminose Kind Company on the penthouse top floor of the Slum Ruin. Middle-aged mafia don type who wears expensive but flexible outfits (always ready to scrap) and has a rogueish build. (Power 83 synchrous flow). So long as there is a beat or rhythm, he is a perfect, Ace shot. His crew always includes bards and a musical mage esper. He regularly cheats on his wife Natrova but would be furious if he learned that she is cheating on him.
• Usual Locations: Slum Ruin
18. Natrova
• An attractive, vaguely elven or fey-looking woman in her early 20's with an unusual accent, the wife of Lumo. It's an open secret that Natrova regularly cheats on him, and has struck up a relationship with the renowned artificer Hericlesa, who is temporarily in Howlston working on a secret project for the Aquarian Caravan. She is actually a drow mystic working on behalf of the Machine Goddess, but has tricked a Pride of the Righteous Angry Lemurs into believing she is a lamia elf. She is using Hericlesa and the Lemurs to activate the Whitemare Ziggurat, to summon the Machine Goddess from the Whitemare Dimension.
• Usual Locations: Slum Ruin; Black Tom's Tavern
19. San Alemania
• A field medic and general provider in Slum Park. He has tan skin, dark hair, and a high-born foreign (real-world Spanish) accent. He's attractive and charismatic, but doesn't look like much of a fighter. He is an esper; he has a ghoulish alter-ego which exists only in mirrors, is incredibly powerful, and invulnerable. So long as he is being reflected in a mirror, his real body is also invulnerable, although not supernaturally powerful. He is also a member of the true Le Fauves, and when operating he wears a razzle dazzle outfit of brown, green, and orange, that blends into the crowd and trashfires, giving him near-supernatural stealth. His Le Fauves makeup is like a hyper-exaggerated dandy gone wrong, with yellowing jaundiced skin and running makeup; like an uncanny parody or satire of opulence, like a creepy clown.
• Usual Locations: Slum Park; Razzle Dazzle Den
20. Death Metal Crow
• The largest hob you've ever seen, covered from head to toe in black metal armor; a long, crimson, beak-like visor obscuring her face. She rides a beast thrice the size of a horse, with a scaly gray hide like a metal lizard covered in jewels, and a girthy horn longer than any man. She carries a metal compound bow as long as she is tall, and the metal string screeches and rends on each draw. Her metal bolts pierce the air, shrieking in absolute dissonance with the pounding music of her Death Metal Bards. Two massive blades protrude from both sides of her beast, the metal stained crimson from the fields of meat and blood left in their wake. It is said that at the end of battle, she draws these blades and effortlessly eviscerates every bit of dead meat into a single lump of pinkish pudding. She is a warlord, leading a legion of red, green, and blackcaps, along with her elite Crows and shocktrooper Mosh. She has a long-standing grudge against Gylex Hane.
• Usual Locations: Eastern Wildlands
21. Hobb Headhunter
• A mysterious knight and presumably esper, covered in full body armor. He has become something of an urban legend, known for hunting firbolg war gangs, and other remnants of the Machine Goddess. Few take these threats seriously; up until recently they were thought to have been virtually exterminated. However, the recent rise in firbolg gangs has made the Hobb Headhunter a more prominent figure. He will begrudgingly leave "civilized" hobbs alone. Has an antagonistic relationship with the Death Metal Crow, whom he's not totally convinced isn't part of the Firbolg.
• Usual Locations: Eastern Wildlands; Elsewhere in Howlston
22. Golure
• Grendel elf with bright red skin, fiery orange stripes, covered in burns he received from a starborn cyclops. Part of the Righteous Angry Lemur Pride, often hunts with Celinael and Tanarfin.
• Usual Locations: Mononoke Forest
23. Celinael
• Lamia elf who seems to always be in a breeze. Part of the Righteous Angry Lemur Pride, often hunts with Golure and Tanarfin.
• Usual Locations: Mononoke Forest
24. Tanarfin
• Black-skinned Grendel elf, supernaturally stealthy. Part of the Righteous Angry Lemur Pride, often hunts with Golure and Celinael.
• Usual Locations: Mononoke Forest
25. Lessarie
• A Grendel elf with an uncanny, deer-like face and short antlers. Her quiver is the trumpet of a giant calla lily, and its pollen enchants her arrows with various effects. Part of the Raging August Leopard Pride. She has taken criticism from her pride for being overly cooperative with the humans / Aquarian colonization project. She sees any conflict as an inevitable loss for the Leopards, and so wishes to position the pride as best as possible through diplomatic means.
• Usual Locations: Mononoke Forest; Kind Company Camp
26. Debbie
• A daemon, a cyborg creature containing djinn energy, subservient to the Machine Goddess. Her body is covered in open wounds seeping a dark grease. Her mouth is covered by some sort of breathing apparatus, giving her the appearance of a wide grin. She has a long spiked tail. A series of rotating fan blades dance around her in a repeating pattern. The fans each contain organic tissue with a mouth. She is oblivious to mortal concerns, but has a friendly / HR-like demeanor. She tends to make 20th and 21st century, real-world pop-culture references, specifically pertaining to robots and AI. If the Whitemare Ziggurat is freed from the Machine Goddess, she would likely serve the new owners. However, she may also try to trick them into freeing her.
• Usual Locations: Whitemare Ziggurat
27. Woody
• An esper and former Huntsman for one of the Kind Companies working on the Aquarian Colonization Project who deserted. He was running an illegal drug trade as a side business, but fell in love with the dwarven mountainside and dwarven way of life. He is in his early 30's, has medium-length black greasy hair in a ponytial, and wears round blue-tinted sunglasses. His esper power is to see six seconds into the future. He also has three magical dog companions known as the War Dogs.
• Usual Locations: Blue Candlelight Village
28. Keelut
• A hairless Siberian Husky with an odd foulness about him. He's actually an undead ghoul-dog.
• Usual Locations: Blue Candlelight Village
29. Bul-Gae
• A maroon Jindo with an aura like sunset. He has a determined personality. He also has natural fire and lightning magics.
• Usual Locations: Blue Candlelight Village
30. Cu-Sith
• Bull-sized, shaggy dark green fur, coiled tail, and a soul-chilling howl. She is the alpha of the pack, is motherly, and protective. She rescued Keelut from the realm of the dead.
• Usual Locations: Blue Candlelight Village
31. Coca'Cola
• A dwarf who is clumsy and perennially sick, leading to her damaging her saiga suit and regenerating it so slowly, that she is often found in humanoid form. She is an oneironaught; a dream explorer, meaning she's a genius philosopher and mathemtician. She speaks in a poetic code, a hash function for a geo-spatial map; to communicate with her one must simulate, must imagine the space from the graph theory model her language is encoded in. She prefers to go by the shortened name Cola. In dwarven society, where individuality is valued, referring to someone by their surname is seen as a term of diminution but also endearment. She is seen as the spacey "problem child" in her family, and so the name stuck.
• Usual Locations: Blue Candlelight Village
32. Pepsi'Cola
• A well-meaning, practical-minded dwarf blacksmith, and the brother of Coca'Cola. He is somewhat embarrassed by his sister, who he does not really understand. He has a simple worldview.
• Usual Locations: Blue Candlelight Village
33. Arsee'Cola
• The village elder of Blue Candlelight Village and father of Coca'Cola and Pepsi'Cola. He is proud of his daughter in his own way, understanding her on some level, but he has a much stronger relationship with his son, who is a more practical-minded person.
• Usual Locations: Blue Candlelight Village

Land of Giants by Desmond Wong. A bit too big and not aquatic looking enough, but roughly a visual reference for the Aquarian Caravan.

Locations

1. Aquarian Caravan
• Opulent district, consisting primarily of mobile coral-like structures on the backs of large crustaceans, turtles, and amphibians. 
• Region: Coast
• NPCs: Tetra-El-Voss; Urin'Kal; Quint; Hericlesa Siriwell
2. Lighthouse
• A large building made of smooth marble, a wonder from the High Age. It’s believed to have been used to signal ships from across the ocean, before that knowledge was lost. The Aquarians recently restored its functionality by placing a large magic pearl at the top. It has become a local attraction, and a useful tool for the caravan.
• Region: Coast
• NPCs: Bet-Don-Tuin; Hericlesa Siriwell; Ruth Gibson; Peter Gibson
3. Dock and Fish Market
• A once quiet area where local fisherman would head out on their small ships to fish nearby waters. As Howlston has grown, the “fish market” has become a hustling bazaar of oddities from throughout the world.
• Region: Coast
• NPCs: Gilgamesh; Peter Gibson
4. Black Tom's Tavern
• The first and so far, exclusive luxury inn on the coast. In addition to the finest food, drink, lodging, and entertainment, it is also the den of business and politics. It is a large building, painted entirely black, with black gargoyle-like sculptures at the corners.
• Region: Entertainment District
• NPCs: Gemini Forthright; Cyrus Giancarlo; Damon Ricci; Hericlesa Siriwell
5. Clover Casino
• Part of the burgeoning Fey-Town neighborhood of the entertainment district. The casino is a small but flashy house of cards, dice, game machines, and other mechanical contraptions. The building has mechanical arms and other constructor machines operating on top of it, giving the casino the appearance of being alive. They recently opened an amphitheater, and are constructing an inn, which would make the casino larger than Black Tom's and put the two in direct competition.
• Region: Entertainment District / Fey-Town
• NPCs: Gylex Hane; Quint; Hobb Headhunter
6. Temple of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra
• Perhaps the nicest and largest building in Oldtown, a steepled church with aquatic colored stained glass depicting the patron gods of the local religion.
• Region: Oldtown
• NPCs: Alice Olmstead; Robert Marsh
7. Law building and jail
• A small, unassuming building, that contains the courthouse (as it were), jail, Jeremiah's office, and a general reception area.
• Region: Oldtown
• NPCs: Jeremiah Blackstone
8. Slum Park
• Hooverville-style overcrowded slum of makeshift housing.
• Region: Slums
• NPCs: San Alemania
9. Slum Ruin
• A large brutalist ruin in the middle of slum park. The lower levels are slum housing, the higher levels are Kind Company offices.
• Region: Slums
• NPCs: Patrick Russo, Lumo
10. Razzle Dazzle Den (aka Den of the Wild Beasts)
• It is rumored that a secret underworld exists within the slums, a pattern enmeshed within the tents and makeshift buildings of Slum Park. Graffiti, like bunches of dots or cubes or other simple geometric shapes, interrupting and intersecting stripes of contrasting colors, all designed to give the illusion of densely packed spaces, where from within the true Le Fauves gang operate.
• Region: Slums
• NPCs: San Alemania
11. Kind Company Camp
• The main camp managed by the Kind Companies for the Aquarian colonization project. Located in the northeasternmost region of Mononoke Forest that has been colonized, one of the furthest points along the current length of the road. Has the bare essentials but little else. Must be associated with a Kind Company, and willing to pay, in order to enter. The golden rule is no in-fighting among Kind Companies within the camp.
• Region: Mononoke Forest
• NPCs: 
12. Whitemare Ziggurat
• A fractal pocket-dimension embedded within an unassuming cabin. A secret base of the Dark Lord Athena, the Machine Goddess, who appears to have returned. If the ziggurat is removed of her forces, Debbie may assist the new owners as a subservient daemon or free djinn, depending on the circumstances.
• Region: Mononoke Forest
• NPCs: Debbie
13. Blue Candlelight Village
• A dwarven village nestled within unevan terrain, partway up Mount Laputa. It is known for its vision-inducing Withered Mallow Flowers, hot spring, stilt-legged huts, and the Singing Bard Tavern. Within the village are a handful of metal sculptures of ancient humanoid dwarves which contain bluecap fey magic. The town smells of potpourri, devil-water, and burning pig feces, and at night has a pastel glow.
• Region: Mount Laputa
• NPCs: Woody and the War Dogs, The Cola Family

Fairy Market (Stardust) by Charles Vess. A visual reference for the Fish Market or Entertainment District of Howlston.

Regions

1. Coast
• Beautiful, increasingly over-developed. High concentration of ruins and ancient wonders.
• Locations: Aquarian Caravan; Lighthouse; Dock and Fish Market
• NPCs: Tetra-El-Voss; Bet-Don-Tuin; Hericlesa Siriwell; Ruth Gibson; Peter Gibson; Gilgamesh; Urin'Kal; Quint
2. Entertainment District
• Between the coast and the town. Has developed to accommodate the new traffic in Howlston.
• Locations: Black Tom's Tavern; Clover Casino
• NPCs: Gemini Forthright; Cyrus Giancarlo; Damon Ricci; Gylex Hane; Quint; Hericlesa Siriwell
3. Fey-Town
• A burgeoning neighborhood, technically within the entertainment district, centered around Clover Casino.
• Locations: Clover Casino
• NPCs: Gylex Hane; Quint; Hobb Headhunter
4. Oldtown
• The original village center.
• Locations: Law building and jail; Temple of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra
• NPCs: Jeremiah Blackstone; Alice Olmstead; Robert Marsh
5. Slums
• Hooverville-style campgrounds, full of crime. Massive brutalist ruin in the center has been re-purposed into slum housing (lower floors) and Kind Company offices (higher floors).
• Locations: Slum Park; Slum Ruin; Razzle Dazzle Den
• NPCs: Patrick Russo; Lumo; San Alemania
6. Eastern Wildlands
• Mostly flat or hilly planes east of Howlston. Treacherous for the Firbolg gangs, human gangs that did not become Kind Companies, and increasing numbers of monsters.
• Locations: 
• NPCs: Death Metal Crow; Hobb Headhunter
7. Mononoke Forest
• The forest of the elves, where the Kind Companies are developing roads for the Aquarian colonization project towards Mount Laputa.
• Locations: Kind Company Camp; Whitemare Ziggurat (appears as a cabin)
• NPCs: Golure; Celinael; Tanarfin; Lessarie; Debbie
8. Mount Laputa
• Home of the mountain dwarves and duergar, the destination of the Aquarian colonization project. A large and dangerous hollowed out mountain, known for Withered Mallow Flowers and other flowers and herbs that grow on its surface.
• Locations: Blue Candlelight Village
• NPCs: Urin'Kal, Woody and the War Dogs, The Cola Family

Aquarian Dawn: The Whitemare

The Whitemare is kinda-sorta the equivalent of Mordor for Aquarian Dawn, the realm of the Dark Lord, by way of Beetlejuice, Vampire Hunter D, and the Cancerverse. It also incorporates several of my ideas from the micro-setting Record of Machine Goddess, one of my four 10 monster settings, into Aquarian Dawn. I think that's a cool micro-setting in its own right, but thematically it seemed similar to what I'm already doing with Aquarian Dawn. Last but certainly not least, the concept of the Whitemare was heavily inspired by this artist, and specifically this piece:

Vanillamare by Mark Akopov

It's rare that a single piece of art influences me so directly, but this piece is so unique and evocative that I just couldn't help but incorporate it into Aquarian Dawn! It reminds me of one of my favorite artists, Zdzislaw Beksinski.

Michael K could tell you I've probably spent way too much time thinking about all of the particulars of this idea, and I've also discussed it a bit already on reddit such as on the SWORDDREAM_unofficial subreddit, so I hope it's actually coherent and interesting, and not just an overwrought mess 0.o.

It also draws some parallels to some of the ideas I had for the anti-mutants in Phantasmos, but I don't quite think they're compatible. I had always wanted to come back to the anti-mutants, I thought and still think there was a kernel of a cool idea there but I never got to explore it as far as I'd like. Depending on how I feel about the Whitemare / Cancerverse down the line, I may come back to the anti-mutants eventually as well.

If you are a player in my current Aquarian Dawn Campaign, this contains SPOILERS! PLEASE DO NOT READ!!!

So with that:

The Whitemare

Beware the Whitemare.

Our legends are endless dead dreams. I awaken, and rest.

To die is to dream. May your dreams be ever pleasant. Sleep well.

What do undead dream?

The Machine Goddess Athena, The Dark Lord

Her skin is twilight like the cosmos, dotted like a ginger with the violet-hot light of stars and nebulae. Lines like shooting stars course over her skin, thinning and branching into symmetric fractal patterns, vein-like, violet-whiteness fading into her forearms and hands, and ankles and feet. She has three pairs of arms that move in tessellation. She is covered in metallic armor, smooth and seamless, with lines that reflect and refract in a geometric manner; chitinous. A series of violet-white tubes arch along her back, always bending in uncanny ways, appearing the same when viewed from any angle, appearing detached from space-time when she moves or when one moves around her, or like a dimension unto herself. Her hair is violet-white and composed of straight strands that split into branches, each splitting into self-same branches; frizzy, but in an unnaturally symmetric, perfect way. The upper half of her face is kaleidoscopic, like many shifting spidery eyes, each a reflection of her whole face in miniature, with kaleidoscopic eyes reflecting the whole again, ad infinitum.

Machines, undead dreams, fractals, cancer metastasization; infinite, recursive, unchanging life. Athena had intended to create paradise, designing crafts to better society, and brought knowledge to the peoples. Somewhere along the way she grew angry, resentful; disgusted with mortals, with what she was creating, and with herself, creating only in defiance. Or perhaps she had been sabotaged, her works twisted in unexpected ways by petty and short-sighted mortals, or other dark gods.

Whatever the case, the fomoire, the remains of her Unseelie Court, grow increasingly mad and wish to die, as do all in the whitemare. The beings of the cancerverse themselves, the mutates, pteraghuls, and so on, are like idiot godlings, even in their brilliance, overwhelmed by the genuine euphoria, beauty, and symmetry of infinite recursive existence. One could argue that with the cancerverse Athena succeeded in her goal, and really did make a better existence, and it's only the whitemare itself, her twisted nightmare dream of endless self-loathing, that needs to end. The cancerverse has a will to life above and beyond anything else, even the mortal world. Perhaps the cancerverse and the mortal world are compatible, different but containing a piece of each other.

Servants of the Dark Lord

Fomoire

Whereas the Fey represent the beauty, majesty, and wonder in things, an abstract "magical" force in the universe, the fomoire are like bestial proto-fey or anti-fey; representing that which is ugly, disturbing, painful; or mundane, defeating, or hopeless. They are fewer in number than the fey, but generally more powerful. Each is unique, as if to embody the torment of one person, except there are so few of them; a reminder that You are not special and neither are Your problems. There was once an Unseelie Court that served the Machine Goddess at the highest levels, but they were defeated or displaced in the last war against the Empire of the High Age of humanity. 

Firbolg

The marauding armies of the Machine Goddess, once organized under the Unseelie Court. While Athena rebuilds her forces in the Whitemare, remainders of her forces, who went into hiding during the peak of the High Age of humanity, have since resurfaced. The firbolg consist of fomoire warlords, drow, trolls, hobbs, machines, and denizens of the cancerverse. Firbolg are often mutated with cancerous growths and teratoma eyes, literally embodying the all-seeing panopticon of the Machine Goddess. They wear armor and weapons of blacklight stone, with linear and fractal patterns carved into their armor or on their skin; a Mandlebrot "eye" equivalent to a teratoma. Those firbolg hordes under the direct influence of the Machine Goddess carry her emblem; an aegis shield, within which is an interwoven multitude of ouroboros with repeating patterns on their scales replicating the pattern of the interwoven ouroboros.

Drow

The exact origins of the drow are uncertain, but it is believed that they are either an offshoot of elves who chose not to leave for the higher realm and instead joined Athena, or they are the natives of what became the Cancerverse, or a hybrid species. They have grayish-purple skin, black, white, gray, or purple hair, large eyes, long pointed ears, thick humanoid body hair, and prehensile tails. They mostly worship the Machine Goddess, representing her machines, lines, and fractals with spider symbology. The tsuchigumo are their divine-military mystic corps, who wear blacklight stone or psionic masks like a spider-face. Their scout corps are driders, who ride mutated or biomechanical spiders. Some have even been fused into their spiders. Oni are drow with a teratoma horn, like a psionic third eye. They contain massive raw psionic power, but over time their psyches unravel, and they split into two monsters known as Yoma and Ashura, usually ogre-like creatures, one red-skinned and the other blue-skinned.

Cyclops (Starborn Golem)

Massive giants of blacklight stone, with linear patterns and fractals carved into their stone skin. They are powered by a large blacklight stone eye in the center of their face, capable of projecting beams of blacklight energy that split in fractal patterns. It is unclear if they were created by or discovered by the drow, or the Machine Goddess, or were creations of the elves that later became the drow. They are revered as demigod constructs by the elves, who believe they were created during the High Age of the elves. The name "starborn" is a misnomer; although the elves believe they were created in the celestial bodies, they were actually created or summoned by the science-witches who found the astrological equations hidden in the stars, inadvertently divining the Whitemare.

Whitemare

Massive, spindly humanoid creatures that can move bipedally but often choose to move like a spastic quadruped. They move freely between the Whitemare fractal dimension and the cancerverse. It is not clear if the dimension was named for them, or they for the dimension; if they were created by the Machine Goddess, and if so, if she created them intentionally, or how much control she has over them. They have extra-dimensional properties; crawling, compressing, and gyrating through spaces they should not possibly fit. They generally serve the Machine Goddess, but don't seem to be innately malicious or have any discernible intelligence or motivation.

Vanillamare by Mark Akopov

The Twilight Treasurer Black Tom, and the Twisting Terminus

Twisting Terminus 

The mind-castle of the Machine Goddess within the Whitemare. A gothic, psychedelic, symmetric, kaleidoscopic spacetime of lines and fractals. It is full of Athena's machines and firbolg, but also independently operating fomoire, denizens of the cancerverse, and numerous other beings of independent allegiance and unknown origins, lost as in limbo. One is always being watched in the twilight terminus; most at first modifying their behavior as in the panopticon, until they reach a point of madness in which they care not at all for their privacy, or for any allusions of decency or proper behavior. Even if one could escape the Twisting Terminus, they would find themselves lost in the dreary Whitemare, or the vast flesh-desert of the Cancerverse.

Djinn (Daemon)

The djinn are something "else", metaphysical forces like the Fey or Fomoire, but lacking an intrinsic "moral nature", or a material form. They are more like robots, things that can be programmed or manipulated. Servant djinn are sometimes referred to as daemon in ancient texts. The Machine Goddess has built biomechanical cancer machines powered by djinn energy. These daemons maintain her castle, the Twisting Terminus, and serve as its panopticon-wardens.

Black Tom

An extraordinarily powerful, mischievous, and arguably malicious or at least narcissistic leprechaun trapped in Twisting Terminus. He has been trapped for so long that none know his origins, not even the Machine Goddess, or Black Tom himself. Although powerful, he is quite mad, aimless, and has a tendency to get in his own way, and is seen by Athena as more of an annoyance than a true threat.

Those who meddle with Dark Lords in extra-dimensions may find a twilight token, a black coin with a four leaf clover on one side, and the face of a leprechaun on another. By rubbing together three twilight tokens in one's hand, a mortal may summon Black Tom to serve them. However, one often gets more than what they bargained for when dealing with Black Tom.

Aquarian Dawn: Fey of a different yet familiar sort

Fey and fairies in myths and fantasy are generally loaded with symbolism, usually about nature, both in its majesty and in its danger. Older stories, in a world where nature was still a threat, tend to focus more on practical morals, whereas in modern fiction, fey tend to represent the majesty of nature and the struggles of nature as humanity takes its resources and destroys the environment. In Aquarian Dawn, I wanted the fey to still represent that "magicalness" of the world, but in this case, they're more so a representation of the "magicalness" of human ingenuity, creativity, math, and engineering. Especially in a world where humanity has seemingly "peaked", they carry forward humanity's legacy in the coming age. That is, of course, assuming a fatalistic end for humanity...

Fey is a broad term for a range of creatures in Aquarian Dawn. The setting is all about the fantastical High Age of humanity transitioning into the Age of the Aquarians, so in such a world, what does it mean to be fey?

Fey are present in Howlston, the setting for my current campaign.

There are several other "traditional" fantasy species in Aquarian Dawn that also have a bit of twist to them, such as elves and dwarves, and then there are of course the titular aquarians.

Fey are quasi-mortal. They are inherently magical beings, both physical and metaphysical. They are not magic in the sense of some quantifiable arcane energy, but in the sense of wonder and awe, and the implausible. Towards the end of the High Age, humanity lost most of its magic, hunted most of the magical beasts to extinction, tore down the majestic forests to build their roads, and forgot how to work their wonders, and so the fey did diminish for a time. However, with the expansion of the aquarians, they are beginning to thrive once more. 

But their manifestation is not quite like before. They're in a transitional phase. They resemble the fey of old still, for the most part, but their magic is not one of nature and the exploration of places, but increasingly of engineering, economics, and mathematics; of the nature and exploration of the mind and of systems. It is not quantitative magic per se, it is the magic that comes from the eureka, the je na sais quoi, that comes from understanding the application of math, or systems theory, or physics and chemistry, or mechanics.

Goblins

A general term for a set of fey, usually halfling-sized or at most human-sized (although some are significantly smaller or larger), such as the goat-faced puca, goat-legged satyr, pig-faced orcs, the fungal, mutagenic trolls, and many others. Most goblins are hedonistic, playful, pranksters. They are intelligent, with a natural affinity towards mechanics and engineering, but not especially creative. They are able to build mechanical things that should not be possible, and only work to the extent that one believes in them. For as amazing as their mechanical contraptions can be, most fall apart quickly under the ownership of mortals, who usually cannot maintain their faith in the mechanism, or who try and fail to reverse engineer it.

Hobbs 

Human-sized goblins (sometimes called hobgoblins), usually with gray, black, green, or yellow, leathery skin. It is said that they were created in heinous experiments by a Dark Lord of a prior age, descending from the orcs and some say even elves and humans. They are hierarchical, authoritarian, disciplined, and aggressive, generally considered both too orderly and too unsociable for human society. They are quick to fall under the sway of authoritarian rulers, sometimes even serving under human warlords, and it is believed that several kingdoms towards the end of the High Age relied primarily on hobb mercenaries for their armies. In the current era, not even the "empire" is powerful enough or cohesive enough to organize the hobbs, and so most wander the countryside as warlords and mercenaries, however hobbs living in fey or human society is not unheard of.

Leprechauns

Halfling-sized fey coming to prominence in the dawning age of the aquarians. Their skin shimmers opalescent like a rainbow. They grow thick beards of iridescent hard-light, of any or all colors of the rainbow. They have a deep understanding of business, finance, economics, and politics, as well as being crafty engineers. Unlike goblins, their creations seem to follow real scientific and mathematical principles, and they appear to have creative inspiration, albeit derived from something like an interdependent muse-like relationship with humans and other mortals. 

They also have the closest thing to traditional arcane magic from the High Age besides magically-inclined espers, although their magical aptitude is dependent on their wealth. Each leprechaun is tethered to a pocket dimension, contained within a pot, where they store their personal wealth. They can produce a rainbow from within themselves as a signal to the location of their pot. The pots are magical and cannot easily be destroyed, but if their pot is stolen, they are at the mercy of the thief.

Aquarian Dawn: Dwarves

If elves in Aquarian Dawn are a little different, dwarves are a lot different. Maybe even more different than the titular Aquarians themselves. If you'd like to learn more about my Aquarian Dawn campaign, check out my Tunnels & Trolls Hack / Cheatsheet / Impressions  (featured on Ynas Midgard's Excellence from the Blogosphere (March-April)), or my campaign scenario.

I ended up writing a lot more for this than the elves, now I feel like I need to do a redux on the elves now 0.o!

I realize that these seem so different from "traditional" fantasy dwarves that you might wonder why I call them dwarves at all. I'm not saying they're perfect by any means, but I promise you the decisions I made aren't totally random, and there are various bits of authorial intent and subtext for why they are the way they are, although I would encourage you to theorize about it for yourself (and share) rather than ask me. I am a firm believer that reader response is just as important if not more so than authorial intent, so tell me what you think!


The dwarves were once not so different from humans. Some believe the dwarves once were humans (although this is highly contested). They were an ancient people, a practical people, who understood systems, but only insomuch as understanding the system led to prosperity. They became smiths, engineers, and eventually merchants and financiers. But they never quite saw the big picture of the world. They were terrible at politics and interpersonal relations; always so focused on the practical, and no matter how much they prospered, when the butterflies King Oberon and Queen Titania fought and flapped their wings and chaos ensued, they found themselves at the mercy of elves, or humans, or fey, or whichever other creature came to prominence in a given era.

Eventually, miraculously, they changed. They were a practical people, a harsh people. As the High Age receded, the elves were all but gone, and the humans were destroying themselves, but the dwarves would survive, even if it meant finally changing. They dragged themselves out of their caves, many of them anyway, and climbed the tallest mountains, and wandered the tundras and deserts, and all the other harsh places humans couldn't survive. They reached a meditative symbiosis, in these tough places, their bodies adapting to their environments, their minds changing as a reaction to their new forms, and they learned, finally, to think about their place in the cosmos.

The dwarves of today are not, can not, be well understood by humans, although communication is still possible. The dwarves belief system is based on the Cosmic Reticulum, a world tree, a deterministic theory of the universe that can be explained as a system, like a series of interacting fractal models, and they seek to understand it. Their pantheon is the trinity of the Fairy King Oberon, Fairy Queen Titania, and the Formless Sleeper Tsathoggua. The myths surrounding this trinity reflect interpersonal relationships, often gender identity, sexuality, and familial structure, with the Fairy King usually representing Masculinity and Binary Sexuality (heterosexual vs. homosexual), Titania representing Femininity and Pan-sexuality, and the black ichor of Tsathoggua representing natural/biological functions, reproduction, adaptation, identity, and lucidity. They are a tool for understanding system dynamics in general, and how to recognize dysfunction. They are gods to be pitied as much as praised. They are like the nodes in a graph network, and it is the edges, the relations between those nodes, that truly matter. From a human perspective, one might argue that this reticular cosmos is just another manifestation of the practical, grounded thinking of the dwarves, on a metaphysical scale. Perhaps they have changed less than one might think.

There are primarily two kinds of dwarves that players may encounter in a campaign set in Howlston. These descriptions are for "baseline" dwarves of their kind, but their biology varies significantly on an individualistic level, as each dwarf's biology varies significantly as they adapt to their environment, like a lesser version of espers.

The Mountain Dwarves have uncannily round bodies, like an inflated lung, with pale skin and umber fur or hair. They have three fingers and toes on each hand and foot, a visor-like protrusion and membrane covering their large round eyes, and a mouth and nose like a saiga antelope, which they use to filter the air (or extract oxygen from water or from thin environments), moderate temperature, and communicate through nasally howls. Despite their uncanny appearance, their skeletons look very humanoid, just warped and compressed within an inhuman body.

The Duergar (sometimes referred to as Cave Dwarves or Gray Dwarves) never quite gave up the subterranean. They are an off-shoot of the mountain dwarves, but have chosen to live inside the mountains. They are pale, virtually translucent, with no eyes or mostly vestigial red eyes. The black ichor, the devil water that courses through the veins of all dwarves visible as it courses through their veins, giving them the appearance of the Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua who they praise and pity. Except for their humanoid skeletons, they are loose in form, moving more like frogs or octopi, and have no qualms with breaking bones to fit through tight spaces. Their noses are upturned, appearing mutilated like the face of a bat. Their arms have a membrane like a wyvern, for swimming, but can also be adapted for flight or gliding. The rare duergar to adapt to the world of light often become colorful; their translucent skin becoming opalescent and their wings developing colors and patterns like a butterfly.

It is difficult for dwarves to communicate with other humanoids. They do not think of or describe time linearly, but more like one would describe the spatial dimensions. They tend not to have strong self-identities or other-identities, instead focusing on the relations between individuals, or clusters of individuals as a symbolic unit within the larger system of the universe. Their consciousness is dream-like compared to humans, internally coherent but otherwordly. The duergar, especially, act in a way that appears more like animal than human, or like a highly inebriated human. They are intelligent, but not in any way a human could really understand.

Aquarian Dawn: Elves

Elves in Aquarian Dawn are a little... different. Not quite as different as Aquarians, nor dwarves (forthcoming), but still not quite the traditional fantasy thing. If you like these elves, check out my very old post of 20 Weird & Wonderful Elves. If you'd like to learn more about my Aquarian Dawn campaign, check out my Tunnels & Trolls Hack / Cheatsheet / Impressions  (recently featured on Ynas Midgard's Excellence from the Blogosphere (March-April)), or my campaign scenario.

Most of the elves left for another realm. Some accounts say this occurred during the High Age, others say well before it, and others still say that it was a more gradual process that continued even as the High Age declined. The remaining elves either abandoned or were never part of elven society, and live in the forests, jungles, and seas, places rich with life. There are primarily two cultures of the remaining elves.

The grendels are the most common. They're legs are bent like satyrs. They have lean, ropey muscles and lanky arms like orangutans. There skin varies in tone from yellow, brown, black, orange, and green, and is often spotted or striped. They have large eyes and narrow faces like a cat. Their appearance is striking and animalistic, but graceful. They mainly group into small prides, although it's not uncommon for grendels to live and hunt in solidarity. 

The lamia have only recently surfaced from the ocean, along with the aquarians. In their natural form they have patches of rough, scaly skin along their shoulders, backs, and sides, and upper arms, serpentine faces and fangs, and a mer-folk or serpentine torso. However, by molting their skin and muscle during rest, they can take on a more humanoid form, closer to grendels or human-like "half-elves". While their culture is naturalistic like the grendels, they seem to yearn for knowledge and civilization, and have coerced some grendel prides into joining them. While in the deep ocean, the lamia became more animal than human, only regaining their sapience after being dredged from the ocean, and so much of their history has been lost.  From what they've pieced together, they believe that they lost their oceanic home due to aquarian expansion and hold contempt for aquarians, and to a lesser extent humanity, who they resent as aggressors against elves prior to the High Age, although why they believe this is not known. 

High Level Games: 5 Tips to Handle Settlement Building in Tabletop RPGs

I finally wrote another article for High Level Games! They're great and I hope people give the article a read. I've been thinking a lot about settlement building, and how to make a campaign out of a single location, something I emphasized heavily in my SHIELDBREAKER campaign and intend to emphasize in my current Aquarian Dawn campaign. As the image suggests, this HLG post was largely inspired by Numenera Destiny (linked in the article itself). Check out the article here!

Aquarian Dawn: Campaign Scenario

There was a glorious coastal city during the High Age of humanity, where the people lived lives of luxury and magic, trading in peace with their elven neighbors in the forest and dwarven neighbors upon and within the mountain, and with long forgotten peoples across the ocean. A few magnificent albeit dysfunctional wonders from that era remain, but for the most part, the formerly great city dwindled to little more than a small, isolated village, far removed from what remains of the kingdom. Anyway, this was the case for Howl’s Village up until six months ago. Now it is known as Howlston (Howl’s Town).

A little over six months ago, a new wave of Aquarian colonists arrived from the ocean, the first to arrive to this region, and they settled along the sparsely populated coast. The Aquarians, for reasons left unspecified, wish to colonize the interior of Mt. Laputa. They brought massive pearls of various colors and qualities, cultivated deep in the ocean, a casual display of wealth beyond the coffers of the kingdom itself, and more arrive from their amphibious caravan regularly. They have offered to pay, in pearls and other resources, any who would help them colonize the mountain.

As a result, a cottage industry for warriors, diplomats, cartographers, miners, loggers, and other adventurers has formed within the village. The warlords and their gangs were the first to arrive, quickly establishing themselves as the “Kind Companies”, ostensibly legitimate businesses bringing food and materials, and then developing the land and effectively co-opting the town, to accommodate the influx of workers. Then came the fey, led by the greedy and opportunistic leprechauns, but along with them goblin engineers, hob enforcers, pixie scouts, and all sorts of others. Over time, as demand for competent workers grew, there came the first large-scale call for espers in well over a century.

In regard to the development of the Aquarian colonization project, the complications are as such. To reach Mt. Laputa, one must cross Mononoke Forest. The forest is dense, full of disease-carrying bugs, toxic plants, dangerous beasts and monsters, and the elves. The only way the Aquarians will be able to colonize Mt. Laputa is if a road can be carved through the forest. Road-building logistics aside, there are also the elven prides. The two major elven prides of Mononoke Forest are the Raging August Leopards and the Righteous Angry Lemurs. They have been in conflict, on and off, for as long as can be remembered. The Leopards are a warrior pride of fierce grendel elves, who may be convinced to allow the development of the road, particularly if they are given assistance against the Lemurs. The lemurs have fallen under the leadership of lamia elves, who came from the ocean with the Aquarians, claiming to be refugees forced from their homes by the Aquarian caravan. They can be appeased, but they will under no circumstances allow the development of the road or in any other way directly assist the Aquarians. Additionally, although less fierce in direct combat, their traps and guerrilla tactics make them a greater nuisance to the development of the road.

Even without a road, negotiations have been initiated with both the dwarves atop Mt. Laputa, as well as the duergar (dark dwarves) within the mountain. The Aquarians claim that their development plans for the interior of Mt. Laputa can accommodate both communities, but the mountain dwarves are skeptical, and the duergar can barely be reasoned with at all and are generally hostile to all except the mountain dwarves (who they don’t particularly like but will at least communicate with). While even the mountain dwarves are alien in demeanor to humans, they do seem to at least have an instinctive fascination with the pearls and have already learned to use them as magical conductors and carve them into hard and light-weight arms, armors, and other objects that they have seemingly no practical use for. They enjoy the process, and their wares rival those of the fey, and come comparatively cheap (albeit more difficult to obtain, for obvious reasons).

 As the Aquarian colonization project, led primarily by humans, continues to progress, Howlston finds itself in dire straits. At first the villagers celebrated their new guests, basking in a seeming return to glory for this ancient and once great place. However, the town’s food and other resources are overstretched, and the Captains of the Kind Companies have subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) taken control of the town and squeeze the townspeople for all they’re worth. Additionally, the town has become overcrowded, and overrun with theft and violent crime. On the bright side, some of the ancient wonders, buildings and artifacts, have been restored by means of the magically-conductive pearls, or good old-fashioned engineering, and new “wonders” are constantly being built.

The PCs, presumably espers or people with great skills of other kinds, were brought to Howlston, having been hired by Captain Patrick Russo and his small-time Kind Company. His company specializes in intelligence; surveying the region, investigating rumors, and using proprietary methods to make predictions about the state of the Aquarian colonization project or local developments on behalf of clients or for sale to the highest bidder, and so he needs parties of capable individuals who are up for any task.

Tunnels & Trolls: The SoftMax Hack + cheatsheet + general impressions

I've recently started a campaign in my Aquarian Dawn setting using Tunnels & Trolls. I may post a session report (or more likely a partial-module of my GM notes) at some point, but probably not until one or two more game sessions from now.

I'm running the most recent edition of T&T and the translation of the Japanese quickstarter rules, mostly as-is, with a few mechanics streamlined and a few homebrew mechanics. On the whole I'm enjoying the system, and I'll discuss why at the bottom of this post, but I also think there are certain ways in which it feels antiquated or anachronistic. I think it could use some OSR-ifying, and I've got some ideas for a revised version of T&T that I think will make it feel more modern and accessible, and I hope people will be influenced to check T&T out as a result.

This version, the SoftMax Hack (a joke that hopefully a few of you will get), is mostly just a cheatsheet for the rules that won't make a lot of sense unless you're at least a little familiar with the game (which is why I feel comfortable posting it), with a few houserules. I may change this as I go, but after one session of my campaign so far, this is what I'm thinking.

At some point I'll do the true Max Hack, which I imagine as being similar in philosophy to how many OSR systems attempt to streamline old-school D&D.

At the bottom of this cheatsheet + house rules are some of my thoughts on the system. I would be interested to know what other people think if they've played T&T, or if this makes anyone interested in checking it out.


Character Creation 

• HOUSERULE: 3d6 for each stat, roll two extra 3d6 and drop lowest two dice. A 3d6 of all the same value (e.g. 3,3,3) allows you to roll again and take the sum, until not triples. Rearrange stats as desired. 
• HOUSERULE: Start with two talents rather than one 
• HOUSERULE: 250 gold rather than random roll for gold (for simplicity) 
• HOUSERULE: Start with 3 AP 
• HOUSERULE (for Aquarian Dawn): Take an esper power (such as one of my 100 superpowers)

Advancement

• HOUSERULE: Separating XP and AP
• HOUSERULE: Milestone XP Given at end of session (generally ~100) 
• Increasing a stat costs stat * 10 (e.g. increasing a stat from 7 to 8 is 7*10 = 70 XP)
• Once per level you can spend 300 AP to gain a new talent
• HOUSERULE: Learning spells:
• Wizards gain 3 new spells per level of spell level equal to character level or lower. For example, a level 3 wizard can learn three level 3 or level 2 spells 
• They should already know all level 1 spells, but if you introduce new level 1 spells as the campaign progresses, they could learn those as well 
• Rogues gain up to 3 new spells per level, where the sum of the spell levels cannot exceed the character level. For example, a level 4 rogue could take one level 4 spell, one level 3 spell and one level 1 spell, two level 2 spells, one level 2 spell and two level 1 spells, or three level 1 spells
• Wizards and rogues can also buy spells with gold (1000 * spell level gold)
• HOUSERULE: Spending XP to learn spells
• It's surprising to me that the TNT core book only has rules for learning spells by spending gold, but not by spending experience. This could be like the equivalent of doing research to advance their knowledge.
• This would need to be tested, but tentatively I think it makes sense that the XP cost to learn a spell should be spell level * 100, so a level 1 spell costs 100 XP, level 2 spell costs 200 XP, etc.
• In addition to normal spell requirements, it might be fair to put some limit on the highest spell level a rogue can learn independently by spending XP.

Types

• Warrior
• +1d6 dice per level for combat rolls (unarmed or melee weapon) 
• Can double the damage reduction of armor but increase chance of it breaking 
• No magic 
• Rogue 
• Start with one level 1 spell and can learn more spells
• Gain one extra talent at start of game 
• Wizard 
• Start with all first-level spells 
• Spells cost Character Level – Spell Level less WIZ to cast (e.g. for a level 2 wizard casting a level 1 spell, the spell costs 2-1=1 less WIZ) 
• Casting with a focus (staff, wand, amulet, etc.) subtract level from WIZ cost (e.g. a level 2 wizard with a focus spends 2 fewer WIZ to cast a spell) 
• No personal adds for weapons with > 2d6 damage dice 
• HOUSE RULE: Dropping DEX requirement for spellcasting

Equipment 

• HOUSE RULE: No encumbrance, just common sense. If you’re over-loading, there may be a GM intrusion… 
• HOUSE RULE: No STR or DEX requirement for equipment, just common sense. As above, if you're wielding or wearing something a bit too big for you, there may be a GM intrusion...
• HOUSE RULE: Since I’m dropping DEX requirement for spellcasting, instead the DEX reduction on armor counts towards an increased WIZ cost for spellcasting

Combat 

• Weapon dice + weapon adds + personal adds (+1 for each point over 12 for STR, LK, DEX, SPD), take difference between player (or party if doing simultaneous combat) and opposition 
• Spite Damage: Any roll of 6 gives 1 spite damage, guaranteed damage even if you lose the opposed combat dice roll 
• Missile weapons roll DEX SR (generally lvl 2, 4, 6, etc. against a medium sized creature at point-blank, close, medium range. Smaller targets increase by 2, larger decrease by 2). Success means guaranteed damage even if failed opposed combat dice roll. Failure means roll opposed combat dice as normal 
• Armor Durability: If using the warrior ability to increase damage reduction, or as a GM intrusion, roll SR for luck. On failure, the armor can take 1 less hit (one wear point). For each wear point, the SR difficulty increases by 1.

Saving Rolls 

• Roll 2d6 against SR level – stat (e.g. a SR1LK roll would require you to roll 20 – your luck stat) 
• If you have a relevant talent subtract 3 from the difficulty 
• Rolling a 1 and a 2 is a critical failure 
• If you roll two of the same value, roll again and take the sum, repeat until not the same

Adventure Points (HOUSE RULE) 

• Can only have 3 + level total AP at one time 
• Can spend 1 AP to reroll a single die 
• Can spend 1 AP to add +3 to SR or combat roll (prior to rolling dice)
• Can spend 1 AP to add a d6 to a combat roll (prior to rolling dice)
• Can spend AP to do extra-special stuff such as esper powers, cost determined by GM
• Can spend 1 AP to reject a GM intrusion
• AP NOT the same as XP!
• Gain AP for doing cool roleplaying
• Gain AP for accepting a GM or player-suggested intrusion
• Intrusions: Complications to a given scenario

Dice Trade (HOUSE RULE)

• Players can swap dice to an equivalent distribution, reflecting cautiousness vs. risk-taking
• For instance, rather than rolling 2d6 for a saving roll, the player can roll a 1d12
• In this case, there is no doubles-roll-over, but also no critical fail. The range is technically different (2:12 vs. 1:12), but the big difference is that the probability distribution is uniform rather than normal. For a very difficult task where an average 2d6 would likely fail anyway, you may be better off rolling 1d12 than 2d6.
• For combat, you could substitute any number of d6's, such as 1d12 for 2d6, 1d20 for 3d6, etc. Just be mindful of what effects this has on the distribution.
• I may flesh this out more in the future...

Impressions / Mini-Review

I've only played one session of my new campaign with this system so far and there was no combat and only a few saving rolls (basically skill checks), so this is really more my impressions than a thorough review.

Likes:

• Opposed rolls for combat: While this significantly complicates the outcome probabilities, making it less intuitive how encounters will play out, I've always been intrigued by this mechanic. Maybe I'll end up disliking it, but for now it's a like just given that it's something I've wanted to try.


• Simultaneous combat: The core book suggests that by default all players should roll against all opponents simultaneously and everything should be resolved altogether. I don't know if I'd like to do that as the default, but it would make combat faster. More than that, I think it could be a cool tactical option for dealing with larger or more powerful enemies, or swarms of smaller enemies. A monster that would be insurmountable may be defeated if the players work together, or in the reverse, enough small goblins targeting a single player may be a significant threat. The players could all team up to defend against the goblins targeting the one player, but then they can't team up against the big ogre until the goblins are no longer a threat...


• Personal adds: I really like how you receive combat dice modifiers based on a contribution of stats. I think this is a flexible way to allow for different kinds of builds to be combat viable in a way that often feels counter-intuitive or over-complicated in D&D.


• Types: I haven't played long enough to get a sense of balance, but I like how the types (basically classes) work. Warriors get major bonuses to combat but no magic. Wizards have limits on how much combat damage they can do, but with ranged weapons they always have a chance of at least doing some damage. Rogues are inbetweeners. You could GLOG-ify this I'm sure, but as a core game these seem nice.


• Magic: I've never been a fan of Vancian magic. I much prefer a mana-based system. The way that spells can be powered up, and the ways that wizard spell costs decrease as they level, to me seems more flexible, fun, and intuitive than D&D-style magic.


• Saving Rolls: This stat-based skill-check system reminds me of the kinds of rolls I would make players do in Cypher System, which is always a plus. It's a simple number, lvl. 1 difficulty is 20, then +5 for each additional level of difficulty, with modifiers from the relevant stat. For a more OSR-style game, you could keep these to a minimum and not be any worse off for it.


• Monster Levels: I don't talk about it on this cheat sheet, but monsters can be reduced to a single number, which determines HP, number of combat dice, and any adds. Again, the simplicity and flexibility of it reminds me of Cypher, which is always a positive.


• Advancement: I generally prefer incremental advancement to monumental levels, so this point-buy system for increasing stats, learning new talents and spells, etc., with a few larger benefits for level, is a nice balance (once again, similar to Cypher). I also like how the cost for increasing stats increases as the stat gets bigger, so a player that rolls poorly during character creation may be able to "catch up".

Dislikes:

• Too many stats: Many of these stats feel redundant, or at least the book doesn't do a good job of explaining where specific stats would be important. I think this game could be streamlined to maybe 3 or 4 stats and be better off for it. Any stat may be used for an appropriate saving roll, but otherwise SPD isn't really doing anything that can't be covered by DEX besides contributing to adds. Do we really need a LK stat? CON is mostly just HP and WIZ mostly just MP, I'd rather just make those their own thing and not consider them a core stat. CHA could seemingly be taken out entirely, or maybe given some added value by allowing a character to use CHA in place of INT for spell requirements as sort of a "Sorcerer vs. Wizard" distinction. Anyway I think I'm over-sharing my ideas for the full Max Hack...


• Spell names: Many of the spells have long and cutesy names that give the trollworld setting personality, but are kind of cumbersome and annoying to keep track of.


• Stat Requirements: DEX as a prereq for spellcasting seems weird. I get the logic of waving hands around for spellcasting, but it seems like just a way to keep wizards from wearing heavy armor (given that heavy armor imposes DEX reduction). I think my houserule (or some version of it) is better. I also don't like that every weapon has a STR and DEX requirement. For now I've just reduced the requirements a bit with my houserules, but I might get rid of it altogether. Warriors already get bonuses with melee weapons and wizards already get disadvantages with weapons (partially mitigated by the missile rules), so having additional requirements seems unnecessary.


• Some fiddly mechanics: The way that kindreds work (basically races) seems to involve a multiplier of stats, in some cases by numbers like 0.66 or 0.33. It's just kinda messy and I'm ignoring it. Encumbrance sucks too, but I hate encumbrance in any system so that's a personal preference. There are some weird bonus types like specialist and commoner that I don't see the point of. Old-school D&D is full of these kinds of mechanics as well, and I've gotten decent at figuring out quickly which ones are interesting to me and which aren't, and how to get around them.

Aquarian Dawn: Aquarians

This is an expanded version of my brief description of the Aquarians from the Aquarian Dawn setting primer.

Aquarians are androgynous humanoids, slightly smaller on average than humans, mesomorphic but with strong core and oblique muscles, and a thin layer of dense, fat-like cells just under (or less commonly, over) their skin. They have varying skin colors and patterns, generally tropical blues and greens with gold or red spots or stripes. Their heads are topped with a semi-translucent whitish filament, which they can also sprout from other regions of their body to form silk clothing-like protection. The filament can be injected with digestive enzymes or reproductive materials. 

Aquarians utilize photosynthesis, but in most climates require nearly as much food relative to their size as humans. They are omnivores but lean towards vegetarianism. They can reproduce both sexually and parthenogenically. Their brains consist of three highly redundant lobes, each taking on a slightly different personality, and the lobes sample information and generate neural activation patterns competitively, to bootstrap learning. While biological sex exists in a manner similar to humans, they have little sexual dimorphism. On the other hand, gender is continuous and triangular, based on the average contribution of each lobe to that individual's behavior, but these distinctions are often too subtle for non-aquarians, and generally not important to aquarian society.

Procedural and semantic memories are passed during reproduction. Episodic memories are also passed, but are generally scrambled and dream-like, except in cases of parthenogenesis where the offspring is a full clone. Offspring reach full physical/sexual maturity within 2 years and given the way memory is passed, can survive independently from that point on. However, they require large quantities of food and remain child-like in personality up to around 7 years old. They have short lifespans, averaging around 50 years under ideal circumstances. Except when necessary, most only reproduce once or twice in their lives, often once in mid-life and once towards the end of their life, with a preference towards parthenogenesis, generally only engaging in sexual reproduction once every few generations.

Aquarians are egalitarian and socialist, lacking an innate sense of or desire for hierarchy and power. They fall naturally into suitable roles, take a functional detachment towards interpersonal conflict, and even in cases where executive leadership is necessary or efficient, these roles are seen as necessary burdens rather than privileges.

Aquarian biology is inefficient, and aquarian society interdependent. They struggle in isolation or under conditions of extreme physiological adversity. However, as a society they are far greater than the sum of their parts, and the individual aquarian benefits from their society in a way that makes them often seem superior to their human counterparts. Humans and the other intelligent species find them threatening, not just because they are the only species that seems to be thriving, but also because their society and psychology is seen as a threat to the powers that be, and because they have no qualms with stating these facts plainly. They are not arrogant or malicious, and can engage in social politics, politeness, or other niceties when necessary, but generally don't see the value in doing so, arguing, perhaps rightly, that the other species would be better off doing likewise.

Aquarian Dawn: Setting Primer

Before I get into it, I just want to note that this is officially post 100! Granted, there were a few small "update" posts, and at this point nearly a third of my posts are just 5 Minute Challenge posts (which I'll follow up with shortly). Still, I wanted my 100th post to be a bigger one, so here's a setting primer for Aquarian Dawn, which will be the setting for my local game which will hopefully be starting in the very near future!

A little Nausicaa for flavor because I can't escape science fantasy even in my "gritty" fantasy setting

What is Aquarian Dawn?

Aquarian Dawn is a gritty fantasy setting, taking place several hundred years after a high-fantasy (or maybe even science-fantasy, who can say?) utopic era, the High Age, that gradually declined. The age of man appears to be coming to an end with the rise of the Aquarians, and humanity as a whole must contemplate its mortality, and everything that comes with it.

Arcane and divine magics have mostly been lost, and knowledge of alchemy is mostly in the minds of the fey. Likewise, most of the magical creatures have been killed or died off. Only recently, as the High Age has degraded so thoroughly, have the magical creatures begun to resurface, and these ones have become hard and mean as a result of their treatment by humanity towards the end of the High Age. 

Then there are the espers (less affectionately referred to as mutants). They are humans, or less commonly members of one of the other intelligent species, able to intuitively channel magics or perform feats like the heroic warriors of old. Sometimes they even have unique abilities of their own, and inhuman appearances. It is believed that during the peak of the High Age, espers were ubiquitous, and that they were to usher the High Age civilization into godhood. As the High Age declined, so too did the espers. 

The espers are not "hated and feared", per se. Most villages tacitly accept and even embrace espers for their abilities, and the services they provide as monster hunters and problem solvers. Even so, they are a constant reminder of what civilization once was and what it has lost. Communities and individuals quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) resent them, and as a result they often feel isolated, and driven to adventure. Nonetheless, some still believe that the age of humanity has not come to an end, and that any hope in humanity lies in the espers. 

In regards to the other species, the remaining elves live in the forest and sea and have become more like animals than humans. Dwarves have gone to the caves, mountains, tundra, and other inhospitable places and have adapted in strange and alienating ways. Halflings lost their civilization and exist as nomads and refugees, and are stereotyped as thieves, assassins, saboteurs, and con-men.

The fey creatures; goblins, leprechauns, hobs, and the like, are all doing fairly well, all things considered. They have the largest number of artifacts from the High Age, and have retained the most knowledge from that time. If the fey of old were like the spirits of nature, these fey are like the spirits of science and engineering. Their knowledge and practices are not always correct, but seem to be effective just by virtue of the world believing in them. That being said, the fey are only as successful as the Age allows, and this Age is still young.

Who are the Aquarians?

The aquarians are a semi-photosynthetic, tropical-colored, humanoid coral species. They wear clothing made from their own filaments, which grow from their head or can be produced from the rest of their body, like a strong, silky web, or an externalized digestion system. Their society is true communism, and it works. They reproduce mostly through parthenogenesis. They have a three-lobed brain with semi-competitive / semi-collaborative personalities, and a continuous gender identity based on the contribution of the three lobes to their overall cognition. They pass their memories to their offspring as a dream-like form of cognitive immortality.

A more detailed description of the aquarians will be in a separate post.

Themes

Sometimes the themes of a setting or a campaign come out organically, but here are some of the intended themes for this setting. I'm sure many more themes will emerge as I bring this setting to the table, and probably not all of these themes will be realized at my table, but these are the things that inspired me to create this setting.

•  Many fantasy settings, such as Lord of the Rings, focus on the burgeoning Age of Man, with the Elves being of a prior age. I wanted to do a spiritual succession of that narrative. What does a fantasy world look like in the next age?


• Along those lines, I wanted to examine why civilizations at their peak degrade. I want to avoid being too directly allegorical to real world politics, but in an era where we are so reliant on science and technology, and yet so few people understand it and so many people spurn it; where we make so much cultural and intellectual progress and yet so many reject it and regress, I wanted to explore that in a fantasy setting.


• I've always loved X-men and Marvel's mutants in general, but with the espers, I wanted to tweak that narrative a little bit. Hate and xenophobia are real enough in our world, here I wanted to take the idea of "the other" but explore it in a way that demands more nuance. Espers aren't necessarily hated, and the feelings others have towards them aren't just because they're different. It's a deeper, internal, existential resentment, that subtly affects how they interact with espers even if they hold no conscious ill-will towards them. The espers make people feel lesser about themselves, not even for what they are, but for what they represent.


• I also attempt to address ideological differences, and specifically ideological differences between generations. The High Age of humanity was built upon espers, individuals with unique and powerful abilities. The aquarians, on the other hand, are true communists, and also have a more fluid and dynamic concept of self and gender. They think and operate totally differently from humanity, and it seems to be working better for them. I want to avoid a strictly capitalist vs. communist or America vs. China type narrative, it's more about generational differences and happens to lean into American issues of socioeconomic values and identity politics.


• There is also the more personal and existential issue of mortality and legacy. With human civilization seemingly coming to an end, how do people live their lives? How do you have children when you know you're leaving behind less for them than what you had? Do you lean hard into denial? Do you double-down, trying to carve out a legacy in the face adversity? Do you become nihilist or absurdist, or turn to religion or passion? 

Anyway, I've got a few more posts for this setting lined up, and intend to write more as my game progresses. Hopefully people get where I'm going with this and find it maybe a bit more graspable than some of my other settings, which I acknowledge can get a little wild. I love high-concept gonzo science fantasy, but Phantasmos this is not!

Also, if you want to read more about Aquarian Dawn now, you can read my Intro Prose, which is most in line with this primer, or read about the Death Metal Crow for another facet of this setting that's a little less heavy but I think still consistent with the intended themes and tone of this setting.