Against the Grey Play Report 2: BOB!BAAAAAAHB!BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHB! (Translation: Please Kill Me!)

Previous Play Report:

Against the Grey Play Report 1: We Did an Akira and now the Eye Panopticon is Onto Us

The first session was fun, but this one is where we begin to hit our stride. Two of the players from the first group left and one new player joined. It's not until one or two more sessions where we land on what I hope is our permanent group.

This session included some improvised Concept Crafting* towards the end (during the defense of Chord's home), more Mycelium Matrix shenanigans, and The BOBs!

*My most recent Concept Crafting-related blog post, Anima Crafting, with links to previous posts.

Characters

Jabronski (Me)

A rock.

Vacillates between slightly agitated and at peace with the universe.

Gastrolithic neurotoxic "frog" companion.

Can sporecast from within the companion.

Maude the Badger (Onya)

(She/her) Gun lovin, bomb throwin, grumpy old lady. 

Onya: "Loosely based on my grandma, and an old weird anarchist I met as a kid. Both were kinda scary and problematic."

Hark (Gibran)

Human fighter/barbarian-type who is a gung-ho stoner. Gets up to shenanigans, but also often comes up with clever plans.

Play Report

The group started off at the Haunted Watermill a few days after the events at the end of last session.

While hanging out with the Rebels there, they heard about the various things that were going on in The Forest. They heard the following:

- The Greenwood-Grey Compound is currently occupied by an emergency dispatch of troops, and more equipment, weapons and people are en route from Greenwood (city)

- Some kind of apparition had been appearing in the Haunted Watermill and stealing strange items

- The maiden who was supposed to set alight the boat in the Burning Boat festival held in the Forest Village has gone missing

- Chord who supplies bombs to the Rebels has found his hut in the path of the New Road being built by the Greenwood-Grey Company

- The Watchers at the Sacred Cave have reported that Mercenaries in the Forest appear to be planning a raid on the hoard of treasure they had gathered from the Greenwood-Grey Company to sacrifice to the spirits of The Forest

- The Eye Panopticon has grown 50%

Kitsch disappeared without explanation shortly after the events at the Greenwood-Grey Compound

- Grench did not meet up with the rest of the crew after and may have been captured by the Greys 

- something glinting and golden was seen passing high above in the sky yesterday afternoon, the elders have debated what kind of omen this might on the eve of the Burning Boat festival

The group decided to travel up to Chord's Home to attempt to save him and his equipment from the Greenwood-Grey Company and their Bob - driven bulldozers. And then make their way on to the Sacred Cave to deal with the Mercenaries there.

En route they encountered some other Mercenaries attempting to make a delivery to the Greenwood-Grey Compound. Their caravan had become stuck in the mud.The caravan is pulled by two Bobs. (Bobs are turtles with human faces created by the Greys and used as a pack animals. They piteously croon 'Boooob' as they labor. No one outside the Greys knows how they are made.)

Hark decided to approach them and ‘play it cool’. Their leader Rum, a mean tit bird, sees them all and immediately tries to recruit them to help. Several schemes develop. Maud suggests using her firewater to blow up the caravan and doing it in such a way the it looks like an accident. While preparing to do this they encounter Trish a very young raccoon who has stowed away in the caravan. They also discover that the caravan is carrying extremely high quality muskets made exclusively by and for the Greys. 

At this point a revised scheme is hatched, with Jabronski suggesting that he speak to the mud via the Mycelium Matrix and ask that it take the caravan and keep it safe for them until they return to get it. Meanwhile, Trish starts crying and Rum comes over to investigate. His lackeys Mal and Mak, both join. A couple of things then happen:

- The mud does indeed take the caravan, seemingly keeping it safe

- Rum becomes so frustrated by the situation that he storms off

- Mal and Mak decide to take responsibility for Trish and take her back to Greenwood (city) . They leave under the impression that Trish is some kind of spy for the Rebels. Trish reveals that her family is fairly wealthy in Greenwood (city) . Mal and Mak leave on their ‘secret mission’.

- Huffa doesn't remember how the Bobs were dealt with here. Maybe they were just let go?

The group then travels on to Chord's Home. As they reach the clearing in front of the house, on the opposite side of the house from the Greys and their Bob bulldozers . They hear shouting between the Greys in the Forest on the other side of the house and Chord, asking him to come out. A loud explosion indicates his response was a bomb. Chord then pops up from a hatch in the top of the house and invites the crew inside. There they discuss what to do next.

Artist rendition of an experimental model of BOB, or possibly a BOB in its theorized larval stage.

They eventually arrive at a plan. This involves detaching the small second floor of Chord's Home, rigging a balloon from the bomb making (and bomb resistant) fabrics Chord has and using a series of explosions to power the flight of the balloon, with the second floor of Chord's Home serving as the basket of the balloon.

It will take about 24 hours to achieve this. They set to work, but in the midst of their work the Greys attempt to break into Chord's Home via the secret passageway underneath the first floor. The passageway is filled with mushrooms that make the Greys sneeze, making their approach obvious. Jabronski uses the Mycelium Matrix to talk to the mushrooms to make them increase their spore output, further debilitating the Greys and forcing them out of the tunnel. However, the spores also seep through the floorboards and begin afflicting the crew. Hark breaks open one of the wooden-shuttered windows of Chord's Home to let air in. The Greys now out of the tunnel and recovering in open air, start shooting, but their aim is not good while irritated by the spores. Hark decides to charge them and try to take their leader hostage. This does not go entirely well. And ends up with Hark captured by the Greys . Maud then finds/craft and throws a tear gas bomb at the whole group outside, debilitating everyone. And Hark is rescued and they are back inside.

With a few more hours time, while the Greys are recovering and moving the Bob bulldozers in place. The crew complete preparations for their plan. They launch the balloon with the Greys firing at them from below. And Maud drops a bomb on Chord's Home to blow it up along with the nearby Greys and Bobs. Chord's Home explodes. The Bobs bray joyfully for this sweet release as they are blown to pieces. The shockwave from the explosion pushes the balloon off course and they find themselves over the Radiant Pool quickly running out of explosives and sinking directly toward it.

Against the Grey Play Report 1: We Did an Akira and now the Eye Panopticon is Onto Us

I've been playing in an IRL game of Against the Grey GMed by Huffa, who is herself one of the designers of the game. I don't normally do PRs for games where I'm a player, but Huffa has written excellent recaps and does not have a blog of her own and she's given me permission to share them here :).

Against the Grey description from the itch.io page:

A system agnostic adventure about anthropomorphic animals taking up arms to defend their forest against the greed of the Grey.

We're using an extremely rules light WIP system by Huffa called Being and Time which you can learn more about by following Huffa.

Images all taken from our discord server...

Setting

We are a heterarchical cell of rebels fighting against a Dutch East India Company-like organization called the Greenwood-Grey Company colonizing an Early Modern-ish Forest society.

The entire world of Against the Grey is itself just one hex of a larger "hex crawl" including material generated with Between the Skies and various elements created by us as a group. For instance, in our campaign, The Mycelium Matrix is integrated into the setting. It is part of a larger connected universe of campaigns and one-shots.

Characters

As is typical, we had some turnover in the first couple sessions, but I believe/hope we've settled into a regular group. For the first session, the following characters were present:

Jabronski (Me)

A rock.

Vacillates between slightly agitated and at peace with the universe.

Gastrolithic neurotoxic "frog" companion.

Can sporecast from within the companion.

Grench (Russ)

Kitch (Adasah)

(they/them). A two-tailed fox. Somewhere around thirty years old – seventy short of the hundred two tails is _supposed_ to take. Never left the forest. Thinks technology is dark magic.

Can transform into people (with fox-like faces)

Flying squirrel companion, Walnut (scout)

Poorly-kept sword

Acorns of healing

Maude the Badger (Onya)

(She/her) Gun lovin, bomb throwin, grumpy old lady. 

Onya: "Loosely based on my grandma, and an old weird anarchist I met as a kid. Both were kinda scary and problematic."

In typical Session 1 fashion we were still figuring things out, and we very much derailed things by the end of the session, but it was fun. Later sessions we hit our stride, but hopefully this is still entertaining. The Eye Panopticon was one of my inclusions to the setting ;).

Play Report

The PCs' cell is just outside of the Grey compound on a mission to steal a sample of the Spirit distillate. The Spirit distillate is in a locked shed at the opposite end of the camp, and can not be touched during transport lest one become Eye-Monster'd. 

There are two guards moving in rotation around the perimeter of the camp. Tax, a badger known to Maud, is overseeing some workers at the center of the camp. Recon by Kitsch's squirrel Walnut determines Tax has keys, probably to the shed.

The group split up, with Maud and Grench staying where they are and Kitsch and Jabronski heading around the perimeter to the opposite end near the shed. 

...

During this time a light from the Eye Panopticon shines on a small building near the shed and a window in the building appears to glow red in response. 

...

Grench decides to capture(??) one of the guards by...eating his head. The resulting screams alert the rest of the camp. Maud at this point throws some self-igniting fire oil to hold them off, which, unfortunately, also sets Grench's pants on fire. Grench ripped off the guard's head and doused the fire in blood. Tax and two workers run to the scene. Maud, still hidden, sees her old friend Tax was distracted by this madness, and shoots him in the head. 

...

Jabronski scouts the shed. They notice Spirit distillate is leaking out, convenient perhaps, but also dangerous. The shed's door, where the leak is occurring also faces the glowing red window. After his return, Kitsch throws Jabronski through the glowing red window. The light disappears and is replaced by two owl eyes. A matte black owl emerges, holding Jabronski, ready to fly away with him. The owl is not paying attention to Kitsch. Kitsch bashes the owl, which grabs them, throws Jabronski away, back towards Maud and Grench's side of the camp, and starts flying away.

...

Maud takes Tax's musket, murders a worker and scares the other off. More Greys are running over. Maud and Jabronski head around the perimeter of the camp, taking advantage of the confusion to get to Kitsch. Grench decides to stay behind and try to change into one of the guard's uniforms to blend in. 

...

Kitsch transforms from human form into fox form and slips out of the owl's grip and scurries under the shed. The owl begins tearing the shed apart in an attempt to get to them. 

...

En route to the shed, Jabronski goes into his frog companion's mouth and enters the mycelium matrix to discover that the owl, the Eye Monster panopticon, and a third mysterious point far to the northeast are connected via glowing threds of mycelium info transfer.

...

The owl is making slow progress getting to Kitsch and becoming increasingly covered in Spirit distillate. Jabronski and Maud arrive. Jabronski can see the Spirit distillate infecting the owl in the matrix. This is clearly _bad news_. Maud throws fire oil on the owl. The owl becomes more enraged and tears the vats of Spirit distillate open. Kitsch barely escapes. The owl is drenched and goes full Akira/Eye-monster abomination. 

...

The compound is in an uproar. 

... 

Grench is putting on pants.

BONUS: An Invitation

I recently did a light purge of my blogroll. There are enough blogs on there still that you may not have even noticed. I do them occasionally, but this time was the most expansive.

Going forward, as a rule, I will not follow any blogs that have a blogroll but don't include Weird & Wonderful Worlds on it.

I don't love how as a side effect of this it disincentivizes people from having a blogroll at all, because I love discovering new blogs through blogrolls and I love the blogospheric interconnectedness that it fosters.

But all the same, that kind of asymmetry has always bothered me. If somebody isn't interested enough in my blog to add it to their blogroll, I understand that it is not necessarily personal and that it is their prerogative to not do so, but likewise, it is my prerogative to not include them either.

One might argue that if blogrolls are just a quid pro quo that it cheapens their value. I disagree. If you add me to your blogroll, I will add you to mine, and I will read your work, and I may comment on it too, and the more actively you engage with my work, the more likely I am to actively engage with yours in kind. Maybe I would have read it anyway, maybe not, but now you know you have one more reader, and potentially more if any of my readers find you, and maybe conversations will form that wouldn't have otherwise, and what started transactionally evolves into something greater.

I'm not as active on the broader RPG/OSR/NSR internet world anymore and that will probably continue to be true; I'm trying to cut back on online stuff in general. That said, if I am on your blogroll and you are not currently on mine, please let me know and that will change.

EDIT: Following up on Semiurge's comment, if the only thing stopping you is technical complexity but the intended sentiment is there, feel free to reach out to me and we can work it out or come to an understanding or whatever makes sense.

We are Building a Religion

You have experienced something Phenomenal, so awesome and steeped in meaning and virtue, that The World must be made to understand. And so 

We are Building a Religion.

What is The Religion?

1. Nope
2. There is no roll table
3. You're just going to have to build The Religion for yourself
4. You can try ChatGPT
5. Or
6. Consult the I Ching

You may each perform a kind of Miracle, but it is never something that can be observed directly or proven (it must be taken on faith). Prophetic visions full of vague symbolism, an indomitable will, improbable successes, a presence or charm, and things of this nature.

As The Religion spreads, it amasses The Power necessary to defend itself against The World.

At first The World will respond with apathy, and The Religion will use this in its favor.

The Religion will attract the disenfranchised.

Then The World will respond with mockery, and The Religion will use this too.

The Religion will attract the scorned.

Then The World will use brute force. But by this point, The Religion can defend itself.

The Religion will attract the violent.

Finally, The World will attempt to assimilate the Religion. But by this point, The Religion will have already begun to consume The World in kind.

The Religion will attract the mindless.

This is a game about building The Religion, which you define for yourselves.

The Miracles granted by The Religion provide little benefit in themselves.

The Phenomenon alienates you from The World, at least at first.

You are opposed by The World.

And, potentially, each other.

The odds are not in your favor.

The Power comes from the acquisition of human biomass, social networks, money, hegemony, and ???????? »Â£ »Â£╔, in that order, or the reverse. 

The Power is not sourced from individuals, but from systems. The Miracles are like spears and shields torn off a nuclear-armed jet. The Power is drawn from the collective faith of its adherents.

It is your only hope of survival against The World.

As you attain The Power, The World will conform to The Religion. But, The Power is itself of The World. The more of The Power that The Religion obtains, the more like The World it becomes.

The game is as Weird, Psychedelic, Horrific, and Magical as The Religion has the ambition to be and as The World allows.

This game is not a power fantasy about individuals obtaining magical swords and accomplishing superhuman feats. It is (a power fantasy) about ideas, awe, communication, community; about building systems and defending them from predators, disease, mundanity.

This game is not for those who seek only linear things, who take pride in their ignorance, who desire the mundane or populous at the exclusion of all else, who do not consider what they want nor why, who neither understand nor have any interest in understanding. This game is ill-defined by design.

Game Design Pattern: Time Action!!!

In my continued attempts to do weird spacetime stuff with TTRPGs (The Art of Chrono War, Multi-Dimensional Hex Crawl), here's a system neutral Game Design Pattern for running conflicts with time mechanics.

These are currently untested. Might be better for fast or rules-light games, encounters with specific goals, or where there is some imposed limit on the number of Rounds (could just be a baked-in hard limit and not context specific); since individual Actions and entire Timelines may be overwritten, the pace of the conflict might be slower, all else being equal.

The idea was partially inspired by Source Control Management (Git specifically), if you know you know, but you don't need to know.

Again, totally untested, so if you catch any obvious issues with the design pattern, please let me know. I haven't run a game in a while but I'll try to incorporate this next time I run something and see how it goes.

Terminology

Basic overview of the game design pattern.

Turn: A single character's continuous Actions.

Round: Cycle of every characters' Turn, or reset after a new Timeline is created by a Time Action.

Action: General term for anything a character can do on their Turn.

Time Action: An Action of any kind that is taken backwards in time to alter a previous Turn within the Round, and that may create a new Timeline (and therefore resetting the Round).

Timeline: Linear sequence of Actions or Turns encompassing a Round. Whenever a new Timeline is created, the Round resets starting from the next Turn.

Stash Action: A special kind of Time Action, forfeiting a Turn to react to or interrupt other Actions.

Merge Action: Use a Stashed Action to react out of Turn order immediately after another Action.

Rebase Action: Use a Stashed Action to interrupt a Time Action, resolving prior to the Time Action.

Time Action Game Design Pattern

Explanation of the mechanics laid out in detail.

Time Actions

• Time Actions resolve using whatever mechanic would normally be involved for that Action. 
  
  
• They can only go back as far as the current Round.
  
  
• -X penalty on the Action for each Turn backwards.
• e.g. -1 to reset the Timeline from the previous character's Turn, -2 for two Turns back, etc.
• -X penalty is a relative term for whatever makes sense for the chosen system.
• Or, cost +X Time Action points, if you want to use a meta currency to limit Time Actions.
  
  

• If the Time Action is successful, the character may choose to accept the new Timeline and reset the Round, or revert to the original Timeline.
• If reverting to original Timeline, they are in effect forfeiting their turn, but gain +1 to their next Action or receiving a Time Action point if taking that approach.
• If accepting the new Timeline, they gain a +X bonus on their next non-Time Action where X is the number of Turns erased by the new Timeline.
  
  

• If the Time Action failed against an opposing character, the opposing character may choose to accept the new Timeline.

Stash/Merge/Rebase Actions

• Stash Action: Choose a kind of Action (e.g. running, fighting, hiding, etc.). 
• Forfeit your Turn.
• Stashed Actions may be used to Merge or Rebase.
  
  
• Merge Actions use Stashed Actions to react to another Action out of Turn with +1.
• Can react to other Merge Actions, resolving in the order they were made, each subsequent Merge Action receiving an additional +1.
• Can react to Time Actions, but not resolving until the beginning of the new Timeline, and are lost if the original Timeline is preserved.
• Can react to Rebase Actions, but only after all active Rebase Actions are resolved (otherwise it would get way too messy...).
  
  
• Rebase Actions use Stashed Actions to interrupt Actions with +1.
• Can interrupt other Rebase Actions, receiving an additional +1 for each number of Actions being interrupted.
• If a Rebase Action is successfully interrupted by another Rebase Action, it is lost.
• Can interrupt Time Actions, preserving the original Timeline or creating a different new Timeline based on how the Rebase Action alters the original Timeline.
• Can interrupt Merge Actions.

Flow of Time Action!!!

The Game Design Pattern explanation above is a better reference, but given that this is all about time, I thought it might be easier to understand at first if presented linearly.

Each sequence of continuous Actions or Turns over the course of a Round comprises a Timeline. While new Timelines reset the Round (prohibiting Time Actions further back), the character Turn order proceeds as normal.

Time Actions allow characters to create a new Timeline branching off of any Action within the Round, taking a -X Penalty (whatever that means within the system) for each Turn backwards they're attempting to erase in the Timeline.

This could alternatively use a points system to buy Time Actions rather than inducing a penalty. Or Time Actions could be tied to a specific stat or unique resolution mechanic, but I prefer the idea to just tie it to the Action itself, or a points system.

If the Time Action is successful, the character may choose to accept the new Timeline, reset the Round, and gain +X to their next (non-Time) Action, where X is the number of Turns erased by the new Timeline.

Attempting a Time Action from further back in the Timeline, where more Turns would be negated, involves a greater penalty or cost. However, if successful, it can not only turn the tides after a particularly bad Round, but can also provide a proportionately large benefit on the next (non-Time) Action.

So there's a risk/reward system involved that also reflects the natural advantage one might imagine having by successfully rewriting the Timeline in their favor.

Or, they revert to the original Timeline (in effect forfeiting their turn, but gaining +1 to their next Action or receiving a Time Action point if taking that approach).

If the Time Action failed against an opposing character, they also may choose to accept the new Timeline.

For systems with degrees of success especially, or where unexpected complications might arise, the option to reject a new Timeline, or to accept a new Timeline as the opposition even if it erases your previous Action, may be a beneficial decision.

Freaky Fractals of the Mycelium Matrix

Huffa and I have been working on something called The Mycelium Matrix, like a psychedelic animist cyberspace (perfect for my animism setting whenever I get around to properly writing that up besides anima crafting and the appendix-n).

Part of the Mycelium Matrix are the Freaky Fractals, these weird micro-events that are like psychedelic incursions, augmented realities layered on top of one's perceptions, crossing the boundary between physical reality and dream.

As part of the full set of tables and features of The Mycelium Matrix, we're planning on chopping up these writeups into bullet-points that will hopefully be a little more obviously usable, but I still like these writeups as-is and wanted to share them, so here they are.

Freaky Fractals of the Mycelium Matrix

Within the Mindscapes of the Mycelium Matrix, reality and rumination intertwine in a synesthetic transposition. What at first appears as mundane reality infinitely unfolds into a kaleidoscope of thoughts and feelings, each layer replicating onto the subsequent layer like a rainbow. Imagine any one (or two, or three…) illogically interweaving with reality like a dream.

1. A red sky and portents of crisis. Red-faced anger and shame on incongruous faces. Butt-busty baboons bawling incessantly; nagging and distracting and out of place. The baboons are really getting in the way of things. Individually they are not too powerful, but they multiply through murder. For every baboon murdered, two more fall butt-first from the red sky like little bright red comets. The baboons have the taste and nutritional value of cinnamon candies. An incorrigible chaos, at best its proliferation may be aimed before being set loose.

2. Avaricious ASMR anteaters, long tongues licking orange juice slime and nuggets of gaudy gold glitter from unsuspecting ears. A deliciously disgusting smacking sound. The more polite anteaters will trade treasures for your delicious ear stuff. For every nugget of ear stuff dug out, a chunk of perceived reality is replaced with orangeness. Battalions from the fire ant military industrial complex pour from the orangeness with a mission to colonize cleaned ears.

3. Streaking yellow arrows guide you along clear cut paths bending over the horizon. While traversing the yellow arrows, you never grow tired, hungry, thirsty, or taller. The sun shines brightly. Everything is soft, round, bouncy, smiling, and everything sings. Heatwaves burst like bass beats from Mr. Sunshine Man, everything vibrating in a heat haze. Mr. Sunshine Man is a font of knowledge, but will never tell you anything you don’t want to hear. For every truth he shines a light upon, another truth becomes a saturated parody of itself, a clearly misremembered memory, a crisp mirage seen through a polarized lens. The yellow arrows guide you down a path that could neither be more clear nor more clearly wrong.

4. A lush forest of deep time folded around the present moment like an emerald ring. Glittering mineral richness, neon bioluminescence, absinthe dew and chartreuse ponds; floating freezing superconductor monoliths, geometric patterns on circuit board forest floors. Glutinous mossy flora, fatty fauna feeding on fruits and each other, full of life and vibrancy and danger. An algorithmic maze where monsters hunt the ignorant as easy prey, stalked in the shrouding shadows of their own minds, their small worlds closing in around them. A mathemagical forest, predator and prey, man and monster. Those seeking only an exit will fail to find one; this is a survival game that must be played, but the clever define the rules for themselves.

5. Beyond the fourth wall, the world reveals itself to be a stage. Structures made of flimsy paper diorama and cardboard cutout character collage. The sky is lapis lazuli, the stars periwinkles, streaking petal comets inducing visual snow and CRT static. Like a paper fortune teller or a game of he loves me / he loves me not, frivolous premonitions and portents alike reign from the whims of the astrological astronomical Witch Qing. The Silly Stage is a duel, dance, and discourse between the Witch Qing and their audience. Who rules and who fools? Only those who do both receive a standing ovation.

6. Ultraviolet ultraviolence in a blinding white light discothèquenological mosh pit. Physically demanding freedom, free-form destruction, fertile frenetic femininity in ballroom vogue. No grudges are kept, even those are destroyed. Spiral-shaped primordial anti-monsters ambulating in non-integer dimensions like plants in hypertime, meta-rainbow mantis shrimp mod squads, a genetic sequence unhinged in the universe for good and ill, solidarity through singularity, and other such things. The only escape is through destruction. When you return to reality, something is missing, but the gaps have not been left unfilled.

Weird & Wonderful Wavelengths (Variety Show s1e4)

Take it Easy my Brother Charlie

Reruns

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Sometimes you just have to take it easy.

I haven't posted in a while, so this is just a collection of random slush pile stuff.

Heaven is here (and it has a waitlist)

I will come back to this idea after I've read TechGnosis and/or some of Erik Davis' other stuff.

A kaiju born from the insemination of a planet by tungsten rod kinetic bombardment.

If history recorded myriad Mandela Effects, generation over generation, how would we ever know? Collectively, the world is waking up to the hyperreality of its own creation, history and the present reality rewriting itself in real time.

The gods of this world are created every time someone says "I wish I had someone to talk to about this".

Under what conditions would ants or other insect-life "go to war" against humanity? What would that look like?

How can an "intelligent" carnivorous plant compete against animals? Plant as trap as dungeon as system. Something like a literal or symbolic pitcher plant?

Noah's ark did not succeed, the world starts over with new animals. The old animals in cryogenic slumber in the deep ocean.

Alien and monstrous things?

God's Breath as a Hilbert Space wave medium as a means of travelling at faster than light speeds, outside spacetime as we know it, powered by an engine of Oneness and Love.

Some ghosts are not of people, but dead ideas, emotions, memories, and dreams.

A world of intelligent birds. The PCs are humans isekaid into this world that was not designed for them, that they barely understand, and with limited means of communication. They exist on the fringe of this alien avian world, in its seedy underbelly. Elements of cyberpunk, and a more modern kind of existential and/or cosmic horror.

In Jewish mysticism, the things a mother sees or imagines before conception influence the nature of the child. A species or magic of resonance, a genetic encoding or universal consciousness driven by imagination.

Gold or some other metal or material that's a piece of the sun.

Magic pinocchio / scarface dummy carved from "the world tree", yggdrasil, etc.

Semiurge did a post inspired by this one

Undeath as an absolute ignorance towards one's own non-existence.

Roving gangs of raptor-like salarymen.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil and the forbidden fruit were not plant life at all, but skeleton and heart, the conscious awareness that to live is to end many lives while only living one, to mutilate and destroy bodies not unlike one's own.

Weird Seasons

"Seasons" caused not by change in energy, but other cyclical processes with different effects (or epiphenomenon of regular seasons). See Weird Colors.

• Different chemical composition of the air.
• Bacteria or Fungal blooms that dye surfaces or the atmosphere different colors. Change the "taste" of the air and other things.
• Major biome changes.

Soft Math

Let's take a quick break from all this heavy stuff. Sit back, relax, enjoy the smooth dulcet tones of soft math.

If you actually are interested in what Uncertainty is about, without all the baggage and preconceived notions and nonsense that comes with a pop sci understandings of quantum physics.

Game Stuff

Setting or mechanics meant to explain and explore complectity, the complexity of stateful systems.

Game mechanics involving touch.

OSR/fantasy classes:

• The Carnival King
• The May Queen
• The Fool

FIST Setting

Our universe is colonized by the USA (United Spacetimes of America), who have used bribery of world leaders and propaganda to enact a soft power takeover. FIST and CYCLOPS must work together, in secret, and with limited outside support, to take down USA.

• MC Bradley Buzch: Appropriative skater-punk / graffiti artist (JSRF-style) sponsored by Anheuser-Busch-Americorp NLC (non-liable company).
• Amerikarate™ Master: From the Mars colony on America XXX, an assimilated alien and master of the ancient authentic martial art Amerikarate™.
• Nono the Non-Euclidean Clown and the Stormfront Circus.
• Mecha-Franklin.

And finally, since you've all been asking for it and waiting so patiently, on to the main performance of the night... Pigs.

MINECRAFT▸ Pigstep ▸ Curly remix

I'm not even into Minecraft but this is good. Also, there actually will be pigs if I ever write the Animism Setting.