Limbo final edit

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I COLLAPSED A COUPLE OF POSTS INTO THIS ONE AND NOW I'M REPOSTING IT AND MAKING A MESS OF EVERYTHING

SO this is edit number    5 of Scrawling Over The Classics Planescape part 5 Limbo, and I'm leaving it alone now:

Limbo. So here's the stuff I have to work with:

So it has no gravity or subjective gravity so you decide which way is down for you and the githerzai live here and the slaadi, with some swishy new types by me.

And lumps of raw elemental materials. Which you can learn to shape into stuff.

I am... yeah.

So yes a void with bland lumps in it.

Okay, sure pure randomness leads to nothing and blah entropy is the arrow of time pointing only to eventually heat death of the universe, but lets ignore the laws of thermodynamics and instead lets all look at  the infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters. Who I do not out-source to, despite lingering rumors of the contrary.

Basically amongst the lumps of rock and churn there is found  nearly anything if you look long enough. Things appear without history or function to drift , and slow dissolve into nothing again. These are referred to as Glecks.  Very rarely a gleck will happen of bizarre complexity . There is a table at the bottom of this post for these Artifacts of No Purpose Nor History.

There is no gravity in limbo until you get near a largish mass (say.. the size of one room cottage) then gravity is directed toward the middle of the mass. It is a gradual thing so its not like you drift too near a lump of rock and then suddenly start fall toward it. But eyes sideways berk! Glecks often have their own physical laws! So this sudden plunge could happen!

       

Some, like the above, will be invested with the slaad. Either a couple of mobs of bickering red and blues (maybe with egg laden humanoids in the middle of it) or a couple of more powerful slaad like grey slaad quantophrenic or melliflous. In these occasions they have been known to play games where each slaad seals up a number of creatures into the twisted hive and watch or listen to the creatures explore and fight . Other times a more recognizable arena is made, with an audience of slaadi and githezerai and planetravelers. The conditions of the arena are prone to sudden change by the grey or death slaadi who has claimed it.

Sometimes various structures and buildings or half a city is stolen by the slaadi and used as playground/battlezone/gladiator arena/ zoo. It's not so much a co-ordinate effort, as more a mob of slaadi all randomly have the idea at the same time and pour through a portal to drag whatever architecture and flora fits the bizarre whim.

The haphazard clumps are steadily warped and dissolved by limbo causing the ill nature of it to be even more.

These stolen landscapes/battlegrounds/arenas/playgrounds are known as a Glean and sometimes they proceed to attract more floating pieces of what ever from the churning matter seas of limbo, and grow and grow. Slaad are then more likely to dump more found structures on top of this mix. The difference between a Gleck and a Glean is that a Gleck has been generated by the chaos stuff of Limbo and a Glean is material from elsewhere brought to Limbo. It is not unlikely for Glecks and Gleans to be combined to some fashion.

The largest is know as detropolis and it is more of architectural  junk yard than a city. Yet it has  a thriving trade city , somewhat hampered by it having no portals directly opening to it, meaning visitors have to make a dangerous journey across limbo to find it. The safest bet, is to use it's trash gravity and dump a large mass of rubbish and hide in  this trash raft, the currents of limbo will guide in towards detropolis. Nothing is certain though in Limbo, and while most slaad will not bother investigated a trash raft some might.

Surprisingly detropolis is safe (ish) from slaad attacks, rumored to be because of a particular large and powerful quantophrenic slaad in it's core. Leading strength to this rumor is the fact that Whisperforms

 (which are created by quantophrenic slaad, if you don't have a cool idea of what a whisper form is , here's one; A quantophrenic slaad may invest a number of hitpoints to bring into existence a translulence version of a person that is being talked often about within 6 miles of the quadtophrenic slaad. The personage has their face distorted to look some what like the quantophrenic slaad (ala Aphex Twin videos). It will have a percentage of its ability and  hitpoints equal to the hitpoints invested (but as a percentage, so 20 hit points invested is a whisperform  at 20% the strength of the original). If the hitpoints invested are equal to personages hitpoints at full health then the whisperform has 100% of the abilities of the personage )

 of unusual power defend the city and inflict a mockery of city codes on it's inhabitants. Most of chromatic slaadi (blue,green,red) barely visit here, but Desiccated , Slangral, melliflous, spumscent  bleached,and  quantophrenic do

 damn it blogger why are messing up the font colour.

DISCARDS: native mainly to detropolis but found else where in Limbo, but very rarely outside of there.

 THey just showed up one by one and kind of just.. are. The don't really have a collective name, although in a pinch the Discards will do. The are a fairly benign bunch just kind of pottering around the place. Here is a trailer for the movie I'm totally ripping them from:The Lost Thing Trailer

There is a table to generate them at the bottom of this post.

Detropolis: yes it has cute things that are not going to drill inside your bones. Look the last post was horrible things okay? Felt like some cute happy guys. Look at that guy up there, he's just living in a cloud of wahey!

Also githzerai?

The monastery like fortresses of this guys dote the churning void here, adorned with strange devices of research and protection. Sometimes have one tower, sometimes 2 forming a card like symmetry . Some even develop until they are like spikey ball of cranky wizard monks.

Severance Blades are the Githzerai silver sword, although they would be angered with that comparison. Severance  blades give a natural free-action effect to the user and the wielder may choose instead of inflict damage on a hit, instead sever an advantage of the opponent , removing a external enhancement such as a protection magic, effects of a magic item (including armour bonuses) or even terrain advantages. This severing lasts a day. This is particular dangerous if the individual is say in elemental plane of fire and the githzerai removes the fire protection effect allowing them to survive...

Severance Blade

Also the githzerai zoom around in ships. These are called Void Razors. The ships can cut through weak spots in the planar boundarys allowing travel from remote corners of planes to another planar outskirts. Sometimes they abandon one to the slaadi, letting the slaadi go all viking on the great ring, but not before entwining strange magics to monitor the ships progress. A mob of slaad running amok will put a new ship design through every possible situation and stress. The magics also allow the ship to disintegrated remotely by the githzerai. The Voidrazors look like this

RANDOM TABLES FOLLOW:

A merry Discard of Detropolis, Limbo and unknown gentlemen.

here is some tables to generate the Discards of Detropolis, the environment of said place, artifacts of no purpose and history, and Gleans.

DISCARDS:

WHAT DOES THAT CHEEKY LITTLE GUY LOOK LIKE?

Okay so the Discards of limbo range in intelligence from a smart animal to a person in smartness.

They are pretty much just local colour and to make some npc interaction a tad more interesting by having a clock face tube cat on wheels trying to sell you a rowboat. These tables might be more excessive than is needed. But hey, random tables. If you need stats for them just reskin an animal of similar size.

How big it is?

1 the size of a large beetle or mouse

2 the size of a cat

3  the size of medium dog (colour of dog not important)

4   as big as praying mantis that is big as person who is average in size

5    the size of horse

6    the size of a elephant

roll 1d4+1 , and then roll that many time of this table. Or , more quickly, roll a d20 and look across the table a roll a d4  times.  Combine the results in some haphazard fashion. For example you are using the quick method. You roll a 11, and then roll 3. So that's hourglass (going down the table) and going across is anvil , kite and rabbit. So its some combination of those. Lets make it have a anvil for its body, hopping (loudly) with rabbit legs. There is a somehow a suggestion of a face at the front of the anvil. From its rear hovers a kite string but leading to a floating hourglass instead.

Savvy?

1   lemur    21 accordion         41 eel                      61 sting or manta ray 81fragrant herb bush

2   chain    22 wagon wheel       42 cauldron           62 mushroom               82 newt

3  barrel      23 panther             43  cart                   63 piano/harpsichord 83 walnut

4 bird cage   24 giraffe              44 windmill           64 scrolls                   84 turtle/ tortoise

5 monkey     25 gazelle             45 kangaroo           65 magnifying glass   85 mortar and pestle

6 pig             26 horse                46 sloth                  66 telescope           86 hat

7 tuba            27 donkey            47 rug                    67 spider              87 clock

8 crossbow        28 shark           48 rose bush        68 catfish               88 dried seaweed

9 catapult           29 broomstick 49 orchid               69 flounder                   89 candle

10 cutlery drawer 30 butter-churn 50 egg               70 beetle                90 pelican

11 hour glass      31 Anvil             51  kite               71 rabbit               91 hand drill

12 door                32 printing press 52  umbrella      72 bluebird           92 butterfly net

13 snake               33 organ             53 plough          73 condor              93  toasting fork

14 centipede         34 mattock         54 moose          74 vulture                94 pterodactyl

15 candelabra       35 pineapple       55 shield          75  owl                     95 possum

16 bear                36 tree                  56 bucket          76 lizard (gecko/skink) 96 bellows

17 dolphin           37 picture frame   57 teapot           77 iguana             97 mirror

18 squid               38 key(s)             58 drum             78 hedgehog      98  crocodile

19 cuttlefish        39 cat                   59 flute              79 goose           99 kiln

20 book(s)           40 dog                60 grasshopper     80 cow        100 cupboards

 and roll on this table if you want some addition pizazz . YOu could even roll twice if you are one who kicks caution out the backdoor while inviting the devil in the front!

EXTRA DOODAD OR WHATNOT

1 little jingling bells

2  Smoke stacks with weird coloured smoke puffing out

3  glowing orbs like head lights or a deep fishes lure

4  little  tiny versions of it's self run about its body making repairs and adjusments

5 has tentacles for locomotion purpose

6 wheels (or wheel) that it toddles around on it

7 Ribbons and flags, baby , ribbons and flags

8 wearing clothes , possibly well , possibly like a tree in floodwater.

9 Has some cheap gaudy scepter , miter , or incense burner of authority

10 bounces around on springs

11 attached to a balloon, either decorative or large enough to support it's weight

12 has various slogans and mottos written on it in a variety of formal scripts

HEY CAN IT TALK TO ME?

1 its communicate with elaborate colour changing

2 it talks like a regular person

3 with body percussion!

4 with only 1d6 phrases!

5 scratches or writes on the ground or a chalk board

6 silent, except for surprisingly expressive body language

Note: All Discards can communicate silently with each other, with about a sight range

 WOW WHAT'S IT DOING?

(supposing that you have not already decided that is a shop keeper, bartender or clue giver)

1 Hovering around like a humming bird , trilling musically

2 Sessile , watchful and ponderous

3 Follows people and mimics them

4 Shy, it  runs and hides

5 stacking things artfully

6 offers people little wrapped gifts

7 drawing or painting on everything

8 being cheeky and playful , knocking stuff over

9 Collects things. Has little collections of things on artful display around the place

10 Is being protective of a person or place

11 Is being a teacher /mother for 1d12 miniature versions of it

12 Eating its environment

13 dancing with steady , but drunken, rhythmic  lurches

14 Repairing its environment

15 Has a collection of objects that it has stolen. Its currently repairing and polishing them and will return them later

16 delivering messages at high speed, or asking if anyone would like a message delivered anywhere in limbo. Message will be at plot based speeds

17 Slowly dragged an improbable load

18 pushing a fancy tea trolley around , with dainty cakes. Will offer dainty cakes to p.cs

19 observing and taking notes

20 climbing it's surroundings and nearby tall objects and placing flags atop.

WOW GM THIS IS GREAT WHERES THE DUNGEON?

ah ..

So Gleans are parts of bulidings and stuff limbo has swallowed or the slaad have dragged back on some DIRE WHIM.

remember?

And detropolis is huge ball of them clumped together and constantly added to.

Here's  a table to determine what its like. If you are generating a glean, also roll on the additional What is this Glean Being Used For.

A GLEAN/SECTION OF DETROPOLIS  IS MADE FROM WHAT???

1. Mass of fused boxes, crates and rooms
2. Pillars from a 1000 lands , stacked and balanced
3. Upside down trees suspended from other upside trees by chains
4. Log cabin(s) and longhouse(s) with statues replacing some of the logs
5. Maze of severed church steeples
6. Floor, wall and possibly ceiling is made from wrought iron gates, portcullis, and taut sails and flags
7. giant sandstone bricks (Egypt like) and stained glass windows
8. Boats standing upright
9. Chinese style temple with headless stonelions. Severed animal and humanoid heads placed instead on stone lions.
10. Clay (still wet) walls with  threatening drawings carve into them
11. Staircases, huge cauldrons and tapestrys
12. Wheels, ropes, cheap  plaster walls, elaborate painted backdrops and other props from a theatre
13. Interwoven sticks and hair
14. Huge pearly shells and giant bees wax cells
15. Walls of empty shelves and iceberg hunks
16. Chimneys, mehirs, monoliths, irregular stone walls. Garden paths and herb garderns
17. Big Aztec stone faces, stacked like bricks, with child skulls inplace of the mortar
18. Curved half melted stones walls with irregular streaks of glistening metal and metal boiler plates riveted  in places
19. Vaulted archs, big wooden doors and mighty anchors
20. books nailed together and grass meadows

AND IT'S LIKE A ROOM OR A CLEARING OR WHAT?

1. Its a clearing or a open town square type thing. Choose one of the features to be the floor and the others politely bordering it
2. Its like a mess, you are pretty much crawling through tiny gaps in between what its made of
3. It is stacked like an apartment block having sex with an apartement block with most of the walls missing
4. Mostly opened with irregular partitions
5. Everything is just floating in the air like a platform game
6. The structure of it is like a winding alley way or ravine
7. The matter of it is piled like a hillock 
8. It has been formed into a cavern like space with small alcoves branching of it

OH HOW BIG IS IT? (gleeks, detropolis sections and gleans)

1. THe size of a 3 bedroom hut
2. 2 of these huts!
3. The size of a town square
4. The size of a festhall/medium buliding
5. about half a city block
6. The size of cricket pitch 

SO WHAT IS HERE THEN? d20 roll it baby

If this is a section of Detropolis roll here:

1-5 nothing at the moment

6- a copse of trees planted by Desiccated slaadi. Roll once on the Discard table to determine what the trees are growing

7 a fight between 2 creatures (1-2 is just starting, 3-4 it's in the crux of it, 5-6 one lies defeated). Roll on any encounter table you want to determine creature

8 Roll on the Artifacts of No purpose nor History. Note, if the players leave this area, without taking ridiculous methods to make sure they can find it again, the chances of every being able to find it again is  slim. As in roll again and if you get an 8 again its there

9 A bustling market selling 1 food, 2 clothing and general goods, 3 weapons and armour, 4 arcane objects and trinkets, 5 jewellery 6 roll twice

10 Various shops and professional services tucked away in little alcoves. 1 a shop , roll on above, 2 blacksmith 3 cobbler 4 leather worker 5 sage 6 healer or cleric 7 masseuse  8  Fortune teller 9 brothel catering to bizarre fetishs 10 pet shop 11 library 12 roll twice, combining results

11Fountain. Out of which flows 1 nearly rusted to dust coins 2 oil 3 blood 4 water 5 salt 6 ink

12 A mural is covering half this space made with paint , clay and mirrors. 50/50 chance it reveals the location and key of a portal somewhere in sigil if studied

13 A garden 1 medicinal 2 fruit 3 herb 4 poisonous 5 psychoactive 6 roll twice

14 Giant tools and weapons, swinging ponderously by vines/cloth/rope/chain/spider web

15 1000s and 1000s of lit candles

16 Completely out of place animals looking gormless

17-18-19 1d6 discards/ slaad/ or humanoid (githerzai , human, tiefling etc) inhabitants  and roll again

20 roll twice combine results

AND MY EXITS OUT OF HERE?

draw the shape of this section on a bit of paper. Roll a d6, trying to get it  inside this outline of the section. If it lands on the outline that's where a secret/hidden exit is. If it rolls over the outline there is no exit. If it is a 1, trace a line from the top left corner of the die (using the upright numbered face as the orientation ) on 45 degree angle. Where that line hits the the outline of the section, put an exit there. If you roll a 2,3,4 do the same  and  then for the additional corners , counting clockwise from the top left.

If it's a 5 there is trapdoor in the floor on that spot where the die landed. ANd reroll the die. If it's a 6 there is a trapdoor on the roof, and then reroll the die.

If it's a Glean/Gleck

roll a d20 here to see just what is being done with the place

1-2 A fighting pit /ring /arena 1 in use 2 empty 3 looking for new contestants 4 crowd just starting to form

3-6 Roll on detropolis table

7 Slaadi!

8.A lair for a monster (roll on any encounter table  )

9A stockpile of dangerous leaking magical equipment or a ongoing experiment, unattended at present (may contain telsa coils, caged monsters, eggs, bubbling vats , forges or kilns)

10 1d10 trees planted by dessicated slaadi. 1 in 3 chance they are around still. If you can't think of something cool for the trees to be doing, roll on the discard form table and that's what they are growing.

11 A library , the books have inside 1 words, as books do 2 words completely at random 3 pressed leaves 4 pressed faces 5 pressed insects 6 music

12A meditation room for githzerai   1 in 3 chance inhabited now

13 A wrecked Voidrazor

14 A stockpile of pickles and cheeses  and/or weapons

15 Githzerai. Doing something githzerai. Presumably some else has done a "what is that humanoid group doing" table, because I do not want to. Oh wait I think I did here scroll down a bunch.

16 Some other humanoid group like halflings or something. Roll on some other table someone else wrote

17 Seemingly empty, 50% of something there but hidden! roll again it that case. If you get this result again,ignore the 50 % thing just roll again again but make it super super hidden.

18 A theatre, 1 is perfoming, 2 is rehearsing 3 is empty but still used 4 is long abandoned 5 undergoing repairs 6 about to began / just finishing. Thespians a mix of Xaostects, githzerai, bleached slaad and others. Audience potentially anything

19 treasure stash badly hidden/well hidden, and it's rubbish!/kinda cool/ real good but someone will come looking for it and its got a tracking device

20 prisoners infected with blue /red slaad eggs. 1 slaad not here 2 slaad guarding 3 slaad with arrive in a couple of minutes 4 some other creature tied up and guarding (roll on any encounter table, reroll if it seems too stupid like a lich, but keep if it's only kinda stupid like a giant crayfish or octopus)

OKAY SO WHATS A THiS GLECK MADE OF THEN?

1. A insane warren of cardboard cells (like the picture)
2. A clump of stone with ever burning trees growing out of it
3. An iceberg with iron poles frozen in it
4. A paper thin plate of obsidian
5. A spiders web of coral
6. A hollow crystal skull
7. An Tropical island made entirely of glass
8. Smooth iron ball 50% chance of being hollow
9. Columnar Basalt
10. A ball of water 
11. A churning yet solid storm cloud
12. A castle made entirely of flesh
13. A dirt mass with giant fungus also made from dirt
14. A giant ball of string
15. Big rock mass
16. Big dirt mass
17. A frozen wave of blood
18. A honeycomb made from tin
19. A delicate fluted tower made from solid purple light, 1 in 3 chance of it existing in a radial symmetrical form
20. A goliath Diatom!
21. A big flat clay dish with miniature sand dunes
22. An massive organ fully functioning  (1 heart 2 lung 3 stomach 4 intestines 5 liver 6 brain )
23. A tent like structure like a massive leather box kite
24. A tooth
25. some kind of giant candy!
26. some kind of congealed half dried organ mass like old meat and very old coffee
27.  Snow ball
28. Roll on Discard form table, if result is an animal, it is not alive but not rotting. (..or it can be if you want, but you know that right?) 1 in 3 chance to roll again and either merge the results or have them on top each other
29. Roll on Glean table and 2 in 3 chance to roll again and either merge the results or have them on top of of each other
30. roll twice and merge the results.

HEY THIS GLECK IS THERE MADNESS IN ITS VERY PHYSCKS?
d20
1-12 no not really
13 okay it's gravity kicks in as soon as you get within 20 metres of it, thus sending you falling toward it at high speed
14 it looks flat but actually is a sphere, and if you go off one side you wind up on the other
15 weird lagging effect. every round or what have you roll a d6 1-2 affected as if by a slow 3-4 as if by a haste 5-6 nah you good
16 All surface on the Gleck are frictionless. As a grease spell but also means you do not stop sliding
17 the air tension is weird. It's like being underwater, but in air.
18 Lighting reversed. shadows glow and light sources darken
19 sound is twice as loud
20 silence, no sound can be made

SLAADI I CAN'T HELP BUT NOTICE THERE IS NOT A TABLE FOR TYPE OF SLAADI:

really? Fine

1-5 Chromatic 

4-7 Perverse , Lesser

8-9 Perverse , Coherent

9 -10Perverse, Wanton

11 grey or death slaadi

12 roll twice

Chromatic

1-2 green

3 red

4 blue

Perverse, lesser

(weaker, or more animalistic)

1 slangral

2 bleeding

3 Dessicated

4 Verminous

Perverse, Coherent

(medium to strong power, will start encounter with conversation, will have to be motivated to commence violence)

1 Quantophrenic

2 Spumescent

3 mellifluous

4 Bleached

Perverse, Wanton

(strong to very strong in power, immediately dangerous, do not approach, does not play well with others)  

1 Radiant

2 Prismatic

3-4 Fizzing

Artifacts of No Purpose Nor History

this is a table for huge weird things that can be stumbled upon in limbo. Each artifact is unique. That does not mean it can't keep showing up in unlikely places. Indeed it's incredibly unlikely that they will be in the same place as they were last time.

1 A huge brass bull (the size of a 4 story building) with 7  long necked swan heads emerging in place of its head. It is hollow and the insides of it can be accessed via its anus. If one travels up to  any of the swan heads (which is difficult climb) there is a large pearl the size of a baby's head. Looking it to this pearl's murky depths reveals a vision of who hates you the most.

If all the pearls are removed from inside the bull (and not just the swan head), it animates and relentlessly and unerring chases the pearls (going for the closest one first) and when it reach of them will swallow them up with a swan head. It will then continue until it has retrieved all of them. It cannot planeshift but will hone in on a portal large enough for it that will take it a step closer to the pearl. It will not attack or undertake action other than moving towards the pearls. Anything in its way will be crushed however if it cannot evade its great hooves.

2 A insanely complex siege engine. Anyone educated in engineering matters who attempts to decipher it's workings must make will save (d.c20) or spent all the time engrossed its endless gears and devices. They will not sleep or seek out food (and so will starve unless food is brought to them). After each week they may attempt the save again. If they are entranced for 4 weeks in a row, they discover that the underlying logic that has been teasingly out of reach, is in actual fact a cosmic farce , and will forever crush any hope of a greater order to the multiverse. They lose any lawful alignment (and can choose another off either axis to replace it) and 6 points of wisdom. However if they succeed in the 2nd will save (the one they attempt after the first week) the will gain exp equal to  200 times their level. But still be convinced that there is something more to discover in the workings of the artifact.

3 A featureless glossily black cube of 20 by 20 by 20 feet. It is immune to everything, including spheres of annihilation. Can be moved around though, but weighs as much as an iron cube of twice its size would (assuming gravity is present).

4 An endless waterworks. See picture on left.

5A great stone foot with 4 toes and inscription on its plinth. The inscription is in a language that the viewer knows (if any) , and will be describing a childhood moment of theirs of utter bitterness.

6 A rat wheel , big enough for a man to run in. Actually contains a man, naked and endlessly running and screaming. He will not respond to stimulus, and is just a weak ass 0 level human if you shot him with something. If you remove him from the wheel, he will stop screaming, and give a look expressing emotions unknown to any other. Then he will age in seconds to dust. IF this dust is mixed with water and drank , the drinker will awake from their next sleep 1d4 times 10 years younger, and haunted by dreams of eerie grandeur and loss that they will never quite shake.

7 A  large black iron crab, adorned higgledy piggledy with fine wooden chairs with lush red velvet cushions. Emerging from its head is a formidable cannon, the length of 2 horses. If the cannon is primed and fired as would you any other cannon, the ball (or indeed anything else in the barrel) shoots out and arrives somewhere else in the multiverse, unhurt. The destination is seemly random, but may be influenced by additives to the black powder used to fire it.

8 A great ornate empty frame. big enough to ride a stage coach through. Anyone passing through it feels lighter and freer but with a sadness as if something was lost a long time ago and suddenly not quite recalled.

9 A whale skeleton formed from compressed sherbet

10 A huge book, the size of emperors bed. Opening it and laboriously turning its pages  reveals blank page after blank page. Every now and now again things seem to flicker off the page just as it is turned. Shutting someone in the book will press them flat and reduce them to a inky silhouette . The may then explore a hidden 2 d world of inky silhouette in the pages out of sight, the inhabitants of which are welcoming but do their best to remain unseen. One thus transformed maybe freed from the book by cutting out their outline. They will then be able to move around the wider world as a Shadow (but without the strength drain). ANy items they have will however be only able to effect them and other shadows. They do not count as undead. The book will heal from the cutting like butter melting in the sun. It should be difficult but not entirely impossible for them to recover their original form, depending on your whims.

11A grinding wheel the size of a largish hill. On its side is a complex series of gears leading down to a small pedal drive , allowing someone of human size to pedal the wheel into motion. With this wheel one could grind down a towers worth of steel into a blade that could sever an astral cord or the fabric of the planes, depending on the quality of the steel.

12 A hourglass tall as a giraffe. If the glass is broken the sands will rush out in terrible roaring wind, to quick disappear from sight. Randomly choose a person of great personal significance in the breakers life. The sands will sweep to that person , and whip past, taking with them the curse of age. They will no longer age , naturally or by any other means.

I drew this waiting for a plane some weeks back

Print PDF

it's all the monsters (from the first edition monster manual) I could remember before the plane swooped down

Scrawling over the Classics Planescape part 4 Pandemonium

Print PDF I don't have access to a scanner and I so wanted to draw up some of this shit up and scan it.

technology is lawful evil!  Baator needs forms! Okay I found out about Henrich Kley and it's going to be like that for this post okay?   

Also cannot get camera to talk to computers , I brought a new cable for it and everything. It is frustrating no small amount I can tell you. Also? My give a shit take is on nearly empty right now and my head has the chemical buzzing like small refrigerators. I will do my Princessly best to make this worth the use of your eyeballs skins but if I just wind up type fuck shit balls arson over and over do not be too surprised.

Pandemonia

Its tunnels and winds!

I like Pandemonium . I reckon there's fun to be had here! If nothing else , you get to play some really harsh ambient drone music for a sound track. There's this c.d , called Our Glassy Azoth (not sure if that's the album or the band name) that I got for a dollar from a bargain bin that has the most amazing horrible alien soundscape noise. No listen for you, because I can't find it.

Look okay short notice , heres a live recording of Coil doing elves.  Haha that's actually the kind of joke that they would make.  Play loud for instant Pandemonia player immersion. Skip to 3 30 minutes in if you must. Best Orchestral Industrial Gay Sex Magic band ever.

 "No there's no blood in my alcohol tonite, I have some horse tranquilizer  for later, though.....I have a tranquilized horse for later... its back stage... I tranquilized a horseeeee...for later..."

It's a safe bet anyone who got that reference has owned a black trenchcoat at some point in their lives.

So tunnels and wind? NOOOo I just wanna talk about Coil... okay fine. SO for adventures here just draw maps that look like intestines fucking

weeeee!

more that here: http://dtjsoft.com/disp/mazes

Wait. ANyone need back round info on this plane?

Its wind and tunnels! Okay it's maddening dark black tunnels with wind that's either howling or skin shredding. THe sound drives everyone batfuck, and there's oh look I'm just going to paste from http://marq.wikispaces.com/  because it's more interesting than the other wiki on it and 

bold is meeee

Pandemonium is a great mass of matter pierced by uncountable tunnels carved by the howling winds of the plane. It is windy, noisy, and dark since there are no natural sources of light. The wind will quickly extinguish any normal fires, and lights that last longer draw attention of wights who have been driven insane by the constant howling wind.   No we can do better than wights. More about that soon.

Every word, scream, or shout uttered is caught by the winds and flung to every corner of all of the layers of the plane. (this is good, there is Howlers which are like spikey wolves , but guess who drew them so they rule, anyway so, I, reckon HOWLER KINGS are a thing, they are big all their spikes have grown into a crazy tall crown and they are long, dirty and elegant, and they know which caverns the whispers stick to, and so they know all kinds of stuff and they will share their eavesdroppings but they give you a little quest to do afterwards, but they get all Hannibal Lecter on you and make it something that fucks with your head in some weird way. Um.. a crude way to mechanical represent this is give the character who asked the question a saving throw penalty (say.. will?) until the player works out what this quest is testing or saying about them or trying to teach them.. This hopefully makes the player all like ahh MY HEAD. 
I'm going give an example am I not? 

I swear there was another picture of a howler that he did?

Okay You play Joe BowJob the ranger and the HowlerKing tells you want you want to know (d6 1-3 it knows, 4 -5 it vaguely knows and is a dick about it6 it does not know)  and then says okay nowwwsss youss must escort thisss limbless lamb through the whissssperingg woodsss throough the porrrtalll. ANd Joe BowJob does and all kinds of stuff trys to eat the lamb, and all his rations have worms and nothing is good to eat. and so he either has to eat crap and gets sick or he has to kill the lamb and eat it.


 THe lesson is "nature is a cold heartless fucker, stop thinking your better than everyone cause you live outdoors"
 If the character does not do the quest the HowlerKing curses you so whenever you try and sleep you overhear anything nasty said about you anywhere.
 Conversation can be accomplished by shouting and even then the words are spirited away by the wind before traveling farther then 10 feet.Would it be fun to make everyone stand in a different room and yell at each other what they are doing, while , you the d.m walk in and out of the rooms so you know what the hells going? Coz It would work well for fostering paranoia of doppelgangers, betrayal and party theft. Plus some of the monster ideas I have below.


The stale wind of Pandemonium is cold, and it steals heat from any unprotected travelers. The endless gale buffets each inhabitant, blowing sand and dirt into eyes and carrying away loose items. In some places, the wind howls so fiercely that it lifts creatures off their feet and carries them for miles before dashing their forms against some dark cliff face or another. People have been known to be battered to pieces, their bones eventually ground to dust and added to the excess of sand being blown about. I like this. Natural traps that are just small holes in the tunnel , that sand blast the skin off anything in the way of the hole. Also puzzles with say a cave with huge gorge , and whatever you want on the other side. On the players side is a series of tunnel exits blowing wind, if they block all but one up the wind flow is strong enough to shoot someone to the other side. 
MAybe have some creatures using this earlier, with a swiss cheese wall that they jam all kinds of broken weapons and glass and bones into one hole, and then pull a switch and all these hatches slam over the other holes, and the wind blasts out of the remaining hole sending all the shrapnel rocketing forward. The first layer Pandesmos has bigger tunnels and spaces suiting this kind of shenanigans.

Also the worlds most horrible hydroslide is an option here, with the players on some kind of shitty ass row boat with wheels and a sail, shooming down some absurd fast wind speed tunnels.
 And have to make lightning fast decisons, "okay youse going left or right?" "up or down?" Under the spikes or over the spikes?" There is so many video games with this kind of nonsense. Maybe this is my low level adventure idea. THe party needs to get somewhere in pandemonia and worrys about running around and being destroyed by random encounters.
 So this addlecoved cutter is like "wahey lets I'll take you on my tunnel boat, I do trips across the first layer of pandemonia once a day for some hearty jink" and the party is like sweet (or says ah fuck it, lets go rob someones house in the upper ward) 
BUT then the mad tunnel boatmen gets injuryed or killed, and the party have to follow his stupid bleeding directions or maybe if he's dead , he has the way through the tunnels written in some crazyman rhyming bullshit.

Maybe have it like this mechanic which I can't remember what the fuck it's called (friction? heat? tension?) where everytime the players choose wrong, you make a note that they have one more going-wrong-point and at the end you look at their point total and see where they end up , and the higher the point total the worser the place they arrive at.
 Or possible have a couple of number totals that are actually really good even involve racking up a point total of 14. OR just make a roll on a table and add the point total to it, and higher is worse results. Table entrys would be like oh knows fungus in the way, or Spikes at your head, or crazy cavern jump, or rough ground damages wheel, really small tunnel have to duck for cover. 


MAybe this could be a time sensitive quest so you anything slowing them down or trashing the boat (and required absurd jury rigged repairs) can be enough of a bad result to make the party cuss and shake their fists at the uncaring skys.

picture unrelated

In a few relatively sheltered places, the wind dies down to just a breeze carrying the haunting echoes from distant parts of the plane, though these sounds are so distorted that they sound like cries of torment- which they very well may be!  

Residents

There are very few residents of this plane. SEE BELOW I MADE NEW MONSTERS Beyond a few nests of fiends, the only other residents are the Banished. These wretched creatures are the descendants of mortalhumans, goblinoids, giants, dwarves, drow, and other races that could never find their way out. None recall who banished them, but they form rag-tag groups that make up the sad bastions of civilization to be found on this plane.

or short  people that replaces their heads with tools?

blah blah here is crazy man village you try and buy something but oh noes roll d12

1- absurdly cheap! Like force you at sword point to take all their stock of what ever you want to buy

2-everything is so fine. and not weird at all and totally stress this fact about how normal and happy and everything everyone is and how the equipment looks decent and the prices are fair

3-10% of money is refused on the grounds that its fake, or has rude imagery or has some royal everyone hates or looks like that guy anyway

4-Coins not used. Just rocks. Just the right kind of rocks. 1 in 4 chance of anyrock presented to the shop owner being acceptable. If players start asking about what makes an acceptable make up some shit and but still have the shop keeper turn them down 75% of the time. "oh no, you see how this sedimentary and has a slant eplisoid  tilt to it? That is normally acceptable but only if its a clockwise tilt. This , I'm afraid is counter clockwise " Encourage players to make wisdom checks to look out for just the right kind of rock. It wouldn't do them any good.

5-roll again but this time have a flat 50% chance that half way through the transaction up number of townsfolk walk into the shop, and then they and the shopkeepers matter of factly draw weapons and attack, with a completely casual indifference

6-Choose one player that everyone in town discriminates against in complete arcane way "hey look at that frigging Lobeswinger, Pike off Lobeswinger, we don't want none of your shellfish around here!"

7-Shop keeper talks backwards

8- Everything is labelled and sold as something else torches as spoons etc. Shop is in the style of general store with everything behind the counter so you have to ask for what you want

9-Everything pretends to be deaf and illiterate . Actually are not. Use charades for communication

10-Shop unattended. Everything, and I mean everything, is nailed down.

11- Shopkeeper directs all questions to a hand puppet. Hand puppet overcharges. Shopkeeper starts argument with hand puppet and stabs it. Then is helpful and gives discounts before passing out from blood loss. Immediately another shopkeeper with a hand puppet enters from back room and repeats process

12- Win a paper scissor stone contest for a discount on food and perishables. Win a paper scissor stone wind beetle xorn contest for a discount on armour and weapons. Win a paper scissor stone rock beetle xorn paladin orb of destruction crossbow fireball shoes contest for a discount on anything else.

picture unrelated

Most petitioners are immediately swallowed by the winds and merge with it. A few actually take physical form, however. They appear much as they did in life, but they are bonier, and the howling winds seem to affect them as much as they do visitors of the plane. Also, most of them are utterly insane. And some have tool heads

gravity: if you live here, you get to decide which tunnel surface is down for you. If you don't , you don't. Down stays whatever direction for you that it was when you entered Pandemonia. Until you fail 4 will saves or wisdom checks. Then you can make a wisdom check to change which tunnel surface is down for you. Note:you have to fail this wisdom check though

Howlers, and other natives will use this to their full advantage, running along the "ceiling" to drop down with impaling attacks and then to fall back up to the ceiling again.

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Layers

Pandemonium consists of four layers.

Pandesmos

This is the first layer of Pandemonium and the largest. Relative to the other layers, at least, it is the most hospitable. The headwaters of the River Styx are found here flowing sometimes through the middle of caverns and tunnels since gravity has little pull here.
waters mean fish!

fish!

fish!

Part of this cavern is given over to winter's snow and ice. Here frost giants and winter wolves prowl, seeking what prey they can find.   SUre but dull. Although if those frost giants have never had a chance to stand up in their lives and drag them selves around surprisingly fast, their bulk filling the tunnel , their eyes wild and complete devoid of sane thought, and it lunges a calloused hand grasping the unlucky torch bearer  and biting his head clean off. And now it's dark, and loud with the sounds of chewing and muttering and the scrape of a great bulk still coming toward you. 

Cocytus

Cocytus, the second layer, is known as the Layer of Lamentation. It is here that the howling winds are strongest. The caverns and tunnels of this layer are smaller than those of the previous layer. Strangely, the passages here show signs of being hand chiseled but who might have done this and when it occurred is a mystery to all but a few learned sages.
those wacky sages. Where do they learn this? Also this layer needs huge open caverns with rock formations like organ pipes that play music. Horrible music. Possibly if you had some crazy musical  artifact that you needed to play a tune on , here's where you would try and find it. Maybe there's a place here where all the music that's ever been played is being howled all at the same time by the wind whipping through frightening rock formations. The cacophony its called.

Phlegethon

The caverns and tunnels of this layer are even smaller than the previous layer and many passages require crawling to get through. Of course, this tends to focus the force of the wind, so getting through these tunnels is a miserable experience.

Dripping water joins the wind's cacophony here. AND LITTLE POOLS WITH FISH Gravity is fairly normal on this layer so it pulls the water downward.

fish!

 Minerals are leeched from the cavern roofs and walls creating stalagmite and stalactite formations of rare beauty. Of course, the wind seeks to continually distort and destroy these shards of serenity.
lets play mistake rock formations for enemys! And have people that throw poison knives standing really still near these strangely human looking rock formations! Or tucked away in little grottos or alcoves near invisible in the bizarre twisting shadows. They are deadly silent except for the occasional giggle

Agathion

Agathion is the fourth and final layer of Pandemonium. It has only isolated caverns without any connecting tunnels. These chambers, howeve r, contain portals that lead to otherplanes.

Many of these caverns have stale air within them if any at all. Surrounded by solid stone, these bubbles of space hide many secrets. It is rumored that many a deity has either stashed treasures of great value or imprisoned beasts to mighty to be slain in these small, rounded rooms of stone.

Somewhere in the lower planes someone makes sculptures by trapping animals in these spaces and using magic to sustain and spur their growth horribly them until they grow to the very contours of the spherical rock, eventually dying from the bone pushing against organs. This vast skeletal ball is then teleported out and makes a fine conversation piece for your hellish entry way.

If you find a portal leading to one of these and are willing to fight a pig that's nearly taking up the entire 20 foot diameter chamber and can kill it and dig through its guts, you can find the ring of substance and abnormal growth implanted inside it! 

Monsters


Ah lets go back to regular font 

WHEN I THINK ABOUT YOU I TOUCH MYSELF

so GasperMen gliding along the floors and ceilings real sneaky like possessed door mats or manta rays, and then rear up gibbering (will save or paralysis) if it works they snatch on to you and fly off and dump you somewhere and then go back to to split the party up more, before finishing people off.




Okay I was drawing up these ones that were going to be like the fiends of pandemonia but no scanner so pfft.
Anyway these guys. 3 kinds. The  Kleshas,  "the 3 poisons" Desiderium , Dominus, and  Abhorreo .
All Klesha are surprisingly stealthy and have exact visual knowledge of their surroundings in 300 feet radius, even through barriers such as stone or darkness. Also true seeing.

 


Desiderium appear as naked humanoid with 2 great hands emerging from their back. The hands are arranged as wings the palms open and front facing and each one is bigger than the humanoid in between them, the feet of which do not touch the ground . The hands constantly feel out the surroundings. In a narrow environment the fingers support the central figure by pressing against the sides of the tunnel but in the rare event of encounter one in a open space the hands rotate , still palm forward, but with the fingers touching the ground. The central figure appears to be a drugged haze , with eyes closed and a smile of ecstasy on its face. Wounding the central figure does nothing to change the expression even though wounds to it are fatal as any other creature.


Like all Klesha it seeks to turn others into more of it. It either does this choosing a particular avaricious individual and tailing them slightly or  by isolating an individual by killing or otherwise removing its companions. That individual is "marked" .It then silently follows just out of sight of the individual, (sometimes in a parallel tunnel) and keeps the target safe from other monsters. Natives of pandemonia can tell when someone has been "marked" by a Klesha although some are crazy or dumb enough not to care. The desiderium can the make minor illusions to hint at shelter , the re-appearance of companions or treasure if the individual is so motivated. The more effort spent to chase these the more the taint grows (represent by wisdom loss everytime the player states "I want..." or  "I need.." (either in or out of character) deduct a point of wisdom. MAybe give them a save if you want, but either way tell them they just lost a point of wisdom. Don't tell them why of course) . If the reach zero wisdom they slip into a coma. If the Desiderium can get hold of them it will spend a hour gently cooing and massaging their flesh into a malleable putty and shape them into a egg like shape. The "egg" will then hatch , and the new Desiderium will emerge (the old form appearing as the humanoid in the middle). 


Desiderium are loners however and will not remain around an "egg" that it has formed.


 If the marked individual resists desire repeatedly and shows no sign of wavering , the Desiderium will kill them if they feel the have a reasonable chance to do so.


In Combat they attack with grabbing and crushing with one hand at a time (the desiderium can only move slowly if one hand is so engaged) or flinging a grabbed individual into its companions. It can also make the tips of its fingers sticky and seize weapons or shields in this way. SOme times it will use this on a marked individual, to take a beloved object and then run away.

art by Cédric Plante done especially for this!

Dominus appear as gaunt human figure with a row of stitches running from the groin to the top of the torso. It has no sex organs and instead of a head and neck it has a tall paper crown. Blood stains are seen in the paper crown occasionally that are suggestive of a face bleeding on the other side of the crown.
Dominus are a lot more aggressive than Desiderium and will sometimes attack and kill things without regard for anything other than killing. In combat they may inflict a variety of hold person , command, and domination effects with grandiose hand gestures. They have little strategy about this other than sewing confusion. THey attack with frightful strength despite their withered frame, often grasping one opponent  by a limb and using them as a club against others. Sometimes they will already be in command of weaker inhabitants of Pandemonia and will send them forth to die, sometimes supporting them with physical attacks and powers sometime merely observing.
Dominus create more of them selves by repeatedly  dominating a stupid or weak creature and then having that serving a marked individual. The more the individual relishes or abuse there new found minion the more wisdom them they lose (effects as Desiderium) . Again once the individual has fallen into a coma, it either commands the marks minion to carry them off, or it attacks immediately. Left alone with the mark, it will take off its crown (revealing another crown underneath of the exact dimensions of the first) and place it over their head and neck. The mark head and neck are then dissolved into bloody goo by the crown over the next hour. The new Dominus will awake and proceed to strip off it's clothes , pull off any external genitals and scoop out its guts and organs, and sew itself shut, using hair , pieces of cloth or intestinal strips.


Abhorreo appear as a black blurred resembledge of beetles standing on 2 legs, with an empty skin crudely draped over it's multiple mouth parts and antennas.
It has similar approaches to reproduction as desiderium but instead uses hate, paranoia and distrust. With illusions relating to the same (same mechanics but use words like I don't trust, or suspicions  of other people in the group). 
If has gotten a mark into a coma , it will peel their skin off and stuff it full of discards shell plates from its hide. It will then leave in to rot inside the skinless corpse, and after a week a new Abherreo will emerge.


In combat they have a varying amount of bladed fangs, claws, and hooks (roll a d4 each round , thats how many attacks it gets ) and can cast off their skin and fling in to wrap around a target holding them fast like a rubber straight jacket. IF the skin is damaged beyond repair, the Abhorreo will peel a new one off the first available body. While it lacks a skin it cannot mark or use its illusion powers.


This took way too long, I am so going to sleep now. No proof reading for you, I've been at this for maybe 5 hours or something. What the butt I tells you What the butt.