NAMES

Print PDF I BEEN PUTTING ALL THE NAMES ON g+ for things and requesting fantasy races and then some people asked for Doppelganger, Grey Ooze , and Displacer Beast

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL THREADS BECAUSE THERE IS OTHERS THAT V.GOOD (or search #scrapnames if the link doesn't work because g+)

Doppelganger:
I can't think of it to be anyway interesting to have doppelganger having names. Like they are either (in my head) tormented echo monsters (like a meat mirror, like a spambot or a rogue Turning test trying to prove it and you are not real) that barely believe they are real or they are so far beyond identity that a name is like us pissing on our clothes so we know they are ours.



Grey Ooze...buh I'm still thinking about this. Okay their names are smells

1. <boiling bleach>
2. <Ironed dirty sock>
3. <rain on hot pavement>
4. <brake fluid>
5. <mouldy used firework>
6. <cheap fake lavender and pva>
7. <dry milk>
8. <raw egg>
9. <ozone>
10.<moth ball/camphor>
11.<rotten flour>

Displacer Beasts: feel like these would have a complete different understanding of space and inhabiting space and the concept of attaching a narrow band of energy to the points and vectors of an individual weirdly pointless to them. The equivalent for us would be throwing a pebble in a lake to represent someone. Displacer beast would fundamentally both know and know their not knowing of themselves and other displacer beasts
. You can describe where a thing was but it already is un-naming by trying to include a previous state as part of its identity.
Which is a complete necessity for us, but an absurdity for Displacer Beasts. Okay so maybe if they try and use a name for themselves they just choose a location that they were at because that what they think names are.

Displacer Beast Names

1. Behind You
2. Beside The Stairs
3. Under The Moon
4.Outside
5, Inside
6.Near
7.Close
8.The Roof
9.Along Gates
10.In Its Shadow
11.Not There


*tried to make a link to searching by hashtag #names but fuck I don't know


Leprechaun:

1.-Shits'havoc
2.Boss Man
3.Stocious Wily
4. Big Jobs
5.Hacksaw Perky
6.Jasper Screwy-Little-Bastard
7.Peter O'peters
8.Violent Ted
9. Nanna Belligerency
10. Frightening Tom
11.Doxie Sweets
12.Fizzer the Completely Reasonable
13."Deeply" Worrying Jim
14.Happy Sam Awful
15."Hurtling" Mertle
16. Nel The Pisser
17. Raw Knuckle
18. Grimey Carmichaels Goonly
19 "Don't Tell Me To Calm Down" Providence
20. Aednat Jane Lavender Blood Blood Blood
Pixies:

1. Scaldy Mongo Drainer
2. Cat Fucker
3.Rattooth
4.Sprinkles
5.Zebras
6.Fightscow
7.Daint Skewer
8.Pinners
9.Piragua
10.Pish
11.Flittern


Treants:

1.Cankermoss
2.Broomwild
3.Old Woman
4.Witchesbloom
5.Blackbeard
6.Elder One Wards
7.Thuja Stonecrack
8.Totara
9.Bollwyller
10. Athrotaxis
11.Roburass



Toadborn Namesss

1.Bullate
2.Anull
3.Droog
4.Rodomont
5.BogBogsBrork
6.Rokambole
7.Gullumb
8.Porgs-poon
9.Spoilate Tugs
10.Dull  Vlume
11.Plungegulp



Skaven names:

1.Sarcosis Spittle
2.Blight And Woe
3.Vex Cruels
4.AmongstYou
5.Wrack Shivet
6. Fits Twitcher
7. Slunks Carnifex
8. Viscreling Bilechild
9.Sempervirens inVitro
10.DireStickings
11.Sicksthrall


Names of Kenku:

1.Hop-Hop
2. Master Wind
3.WhiteMask
4.Zpr
5.Whistler
7. Friar Handsome
8.Dame Graves
9. 6 hearts
10.Tormentum
11.Calyx

Names of Giants

1.5 Tigers Man
2. The Great Gut of the North
3.Old Grim
4.Gorebeard
5.Bonegrinder
6.Tom Dredge
7.Annis o the moor
8. Lonesome Hun
9.The Arm in The Dark
10.Vor the Sunderer
11.Ashen Dreg  


Githyanki Names :

1. Let It Burn
2. Scorning
3.All Wars Just
4. Revelations Purposeless
5. Strangling Star
6. Disdainer
7.Hurtling Toward Pain
8. Among The Strong
9. Endlessly Falling Architect
10. Visitation Rites Anew
11. Never Failing Her

Githzerai Names:

1.reason-thunders-in-its-volcano
2.our-forge-ourselves
3.an-empty-sound
4. your-thrones-parasites
5.skilled-hand
6.what-is-ours
7:see-the-horizon
8:mourn-not
9:no-moons
10:self-efforts-great-policy
11:unender


Thri-kreen names:

1. Stop That
2.Arghhaa
3.Eating
4.Gos Over
5.Hunt Best
6. Sticky
7.Vistor
8.Politeness
9.Wears A Man
10.Very Much
11.Hello There


Dwarf Names:

1.Brain CrimeHammer
2.Toom Dirtpuncher
3.Augnusicity Slurry
4. Judas Stone
5. Biggun Godhorn
6. Maulissa Tuggles
7. Frost Berlinwall
8. Grist Wronggrinder
9. Undle Shovvelingsmire
10. Leiss Goreblock
11. Boron Hugwraith


Elf Names:
1.Whistlethroat
2.Delsmaiden Drown'a'child
3.Huntinglark
4.Ducky
5. Glimmerbone
6. Gloam Takewant
7. Hiss Godsfruit
8. Beesong Carcass
9. Selenium Pouring Harm
10. Flitting Whipperskull
11. Dove Grievous


Dragon Names:
(note young dragons name themselves after a specific point of pride, then add to that until it weighs on them that their deeds could be merely cataloged  and so give themselves sweeping titles suggestive of countless glories. There is numerous other fads and whimsys but the most notable after this is the tendency for the very oldest of dragons to have but a single word, with the implication being their name was the source of the word.

YOung dragon names:
1.Bruxatonn, Fouler of the Lake
2.Cavourous, The Cattle Scourge
3. Heinous Red, The Doom of Pigglewiddle
4. Brutus, Eater of a Million Babies
5.Xorable, Who Shat On The Moon
6. Black Virens, Usurper of Bogspoke Manor
7. Seething Disrustrix , Decimator of the Wayward Moor
8. GristleGore , Pig Despoiler

Older than that:
1.Assanine The Poison of The Sky
2. BroilGlare , The Wound of the World
3: Vux The Madderner
4.Turmoilous the Goreful
5.Hateful Histonix , the Merciful
6.Carst Whose Shadow is Loss
7.Umbral Craetagus, Scar of the Mountain
8.Ghastrosmous, The Stain on Gold

Ancient Dragon Names
1. Hunger
2. Wrath
3.Ruin
4. Lamentation
5.Death
6.Misery
7.Greed
8.Famine

Goblins

1. Big Rats
2. Fucks To You
3. Braindigger
4. Skulk
5. Rabies
6. Candy
7. Pubesmoker
8.Mocker
9. Tongues
10.Snitters
11.Ungulant

but really go to g+ search for "scrap princess and maybe try searching the hashtag #names to find many more suggests which were so excellent that I just fucked around for an hour trying to include them here in some fashion but it was fucked

the monsters they climb into each other part 2

Print PDF So I did that previous post and then I thought of more.

Okay so jellyfish have  a some what complicated life cycle with various stages appearing like completely different animals and some having a colony stage of life there as well.
So that's some food for thought there. Monsters that turn into other monsters or monsters that break bits off themselves which then have independent existence until/or than/they form a colony organism which is a different monster. Sooo lets say snakes are actually the motile sex organs of Medusa (a flowering stage) and search out new locations , have sex and make more snakes, but if conditions are very hostile to snakes they combine together to make a hydra , or if a snake finds a suitable place for forming a medusa , then it starts turning into a medusa.


Or
our souls could be a colony organism and the talking and culture we do is the sex / infomation exchange (not be confused with the sex the partially hijacked monkey body does*) but on death the individual astral organisms that make up a soul fly off and some of them clump together (possibly with other soul cells from a complete different soul colony ) to take on other  forms of life. For the bits of the soul responsible for anger form a colony organism know as wraith. Ghosts are formed from the parts of the soul responsible for nostalgia and emotional connection to places.
Other astral , intangible or undead monsters can be crudely shoehorned or reskined however you want to make up this metaphysics (Chinese and  Egyptian concepts recommended for a read).
Also this blog post

*but really that monkey is driving, you are bad at hijacking soul colony organism, I guess they get ideas out of everything the monkey does, maybe the monkey is your soul colonys form of gene shuffling?


And  here is a  combiner monster(s):
Gulp-Skiz-Puund:

Gulp are a huge (could eat a couple of camels beside each other) ray like thing but more stomach than ray. Like great leather bag with 2 piggy eyes on top most of the time they swoop along canyons and rocky mountain passes , flattened like a single bat wing then snapping opening to swallow whole a goat or blind pilgrim. They can't really fly with something in their stomach but can glide which they will do to a crack or cavelet unassailable by ground and proceed to quickly vacuum seal themselves around their food, suffocating and preventing all but tiny movements. Imagine being sealed between 2 thick layers of very tensile and  resilient rubber , with not a single gab. Even trying to move your arm near your head pulls against both layers like pulling against a 100 rubber ropes. They  rely on the thichness of their skin and the trapping of the prey to protect them against sharp objects. If they cannot fly they more or less helpless. They are mildy intelligent and have a language that is extremely good at describing geography surface area and wind currents and complicated 3 dimensional structures changing rapidly over time. They have a understanding of local languages as well. They not interested in anything other food and sleeping after food.

Skiz: a white ring with multitudal eyes  and with limbs like origami if origami used bone knives instead of paper. They cheat when they fold themselves , taking up way less or more space than they should.  They can fold round themselves forming something like a bladed worm drill. They use this to insert themselves in a desert trees core. Its limbs , when it wants or needs to jag out the top like a bone crown of scissors. They absorb nutrients from the tree and defend the tree and sometimes ambush life near the tree to fertilize the soil around the tree. They are rarely found outside the tree and are quite intelligent and with a language elegant and  sophisticated for the explaining of spatial properties  and subjective absolutes. Again like the Gulp they pick up local languages easily and will know a few, despite they lack of opptunitys to have done that. They pass their time in a dream like fugue feeding off the tree and will react with violence to anything disturbing this. Though offering anything to help the tree might calm them

Puund: The Punund are like an inch worm but without defined end. They accordion in from a few metres and then stretch out to 15 like a lumpy slinky dressed up like fake rock scenery from a b-grade movie.
They do not eat or sleep. They have not language but their minds overflow with a sense of great hopeful expectation, like an endless near arrival that not quite happens,  that is intoxicating and slightly painful to the contacters. IF they are prevented from travelling at least 10 kilometres  a day they will wither , form a dormant , pale looking thing and waste away within a year. Anyone contacting its mind during this stage will know despair but visions of unlimited possibility.

When  the Skiz or the Gulp are particularly  threatened or hunted or food is desperately scarce, or the Puuund particular is imperiled they will find one another (and they always know where each other are) and they will go together to unerring seek a Puund. When all 3 are together they flow and become one , the Gulp-Skiz-Puund. It looks like mutant terrestrial whale designed by Wayne barlowe and it is brutal , intelligent , and capable of minor alternations of space and time around itself so it can accelerate and turn and squeeze like something its size and mass should not be able to. It will single mindedly move to improve conditions to something tolerable for its parts and then separate.  The minds of the Gulp and Skiz too different to not be painful in union. Being close to the Puuund mind is worse for them however as its never-arriving-joy makes them feel like they could go home again.
For the reason these 3 creatures can form together is their origin is the same , a different aspect of reality where the rules were constantly changing and consciousness and unifying theorys and energy and matter surged in and out of each endless reinventing each other. Some how some of it got sheared off when it past to close to this world and these 3 creatures were the congealate of the exiled material. The Skiz and Gulp can dream an echo of home (which is why their lives are arranged to maximize the time unconscious and blissful) while the Puuund dealt with the shock by giving itself an constant loop of hope and amnesia , endlessly repeating the moment it thought it could leave this place.

 EDIT: Changed the text abit so its obvious there is only one of each, and the Skiz and the Gulp speak something other than their own languages , which they presumedly pick up from dreaming slightly outside reality and seeing the places where language lives as the move past them.

Together the Kobolds

Print PDF Soooo this is a filler post inspired by list of stuff suggested to me to blog about a way back.

Their name is lost to time and vaguerys of google plus's archiving service.

Anyway they suggested write about monster that combine together to form a bigger monster

SO that sounds like slime molds

SLime molds:

Quick version : they are single celled organisms that when food is scare join together to make a motile colony organism and then when some other condition they form a "flowering body" that releases spores that float far far away and turn into new single celled organisms.

SO idea 1:
Taking this pretty much as it is have dungeon slimes that are classic anime rpg slimes (small and weak and numerous). If a new niche opens up , say a large alpha predator is removed , the slimes congeal into a giant slime monster (possibly using left over parts of the old one alpha predator; lets call this version The Re-animator Slime Mold) and start using that niche instead.

Making it so it is not obvious that it was all those mini slimes forming the new one would be interesting. Maybe the only clue would be the now complete absence of mini slimes
Other ecological niches in a dungeon the slimes could form is scavengers (presuming they were decomposers before and presuming the difference is scavengers eat things that are recognizable as food and decomposers eat whats left), grazer (you weaponized all the albino cave goat and now only slitted legged jellys graze on the lichens here) , predators of varying prey sizes and habit (chaser, ambusher, stalker).

Presumedly cleaning out the dungeon off all life results in the slimes forming a giant and strange flower stretching out above the dungeons , possible seen as a sign that the place has been blessed by the gods and is now free of the taint of evil. But really it's slime sexing in the wind and now spores are being spread on the wind to seed new dungeon slimes.

Or if the slime spores are just not stuck to the adventurers boots, so next time they explore a place , even if there is not monsters there, there will be after they have left.

Possibly by slime , I could be talking a "protean force of evil" and so all monsters are combinable to make bigger monsters and monster spore spreads on the wind and boot of tomb plunderer.

There was a lot of talk that I don't know where to find now about the dungeon as a living organism, so this would dovetail nicely in with this.


I can't help be thinking of the humanoid ladder of hit dice here (ie kobold-goblin-orc-hobgoblin-ogre) and kobolds quietly insinuating themselves together to make a ogre. Or you hack into a troll and its full of goblins, like all molded together seamlessly.

Can't think of anywhere to go further with that (also warhammer orks were fungus based so lets just make that explored)

Specific Combining Monsters:

Kobobobobold: Kobolds when pushed far and deep enough out of their lairs find a secret places to mold together forming a centipede like kobobobobold. Still thin enough to squeeze in and out of tinest spaces but now a concentrated threat. Like a long line of flesh ringed with mouths yapping away in awful cacophony running along on all the fingers and toes the limbs having formed ribs and structural supports. The great mouth is full of mouths.

Destalt: a unconvincing human simulacrum , it looks wrong , it talks wrong  , something is missing. If it is sufficiently shunned or mocked, it splits into 4 humour elementals;  Blood (air ), Black bile (earth), Phlegm (water ) and yellow bile (fire), which should be somewhat like that body part , somewhat like that elemental and excessive in that temperament  
Or you could do it the other way and have certain knowledge known only by a being that is formed when the 4 humour elementals are combined.

Ghoul Giant:  Something like a tongue and something like a flatworm. Itself 2 metres long, it makes  itself a  giant's  body out of fresh corpses ,molded together with webbings of red blood like gel (that will attempt to bond to any tissue in comes in contact with becoming part of both). This ectopic tissue it uses also hijacks the nervous systems allowing it to animate and control its constituents. It is not undead. It  start with one and then collect (violently subdue , generally smashing only as much of it as it needs to get the body. It is not precise but if renders someone unconscious they can be webbed into itself and controlled).
It will fine tune its body replacing parts with fitter parts and replacing the ones damaged. It is generally limited to about the size of an elephant before its ability to control all its parts and the parts ability to hold the weight cause a limit. Though a larger or abnormal ghoul giant could possible former larger bodies or if the parts were more potent.
It seeks to use this body to access great heights (sometimes carrying spare parts if it feels the journey will lack opportunity to procure more)  and form there it splits its body and reveals its red self and undulates causing a weirdness some say is a prayer to distant sleeping gods others say is a mere mating call.

gender roll, thoughts on encounters and blogging

Print PDF

So I read this comic
and I started thinking about all the lady presentations* it missed out and making a table here to include them, But then I started thinking about how basically the majority of them would be localized to the last ten years and in the western world and then only certain parts of it. And would it be an interesting or awkward anachronism to put them in a fantasy world?
*my favourite is monster drag

Considering all the forms underground gay culture takes (link, another link, , also fuck madonna and watch Paris is Burning asap, and shit one lesbian link what is with that?)
(feel free to share better more informative links in the comments oh mysterious audience peoples)
And consider "other" genders and the awkward/colonist attempts to make them fit in the current modern western way of thinking of gender identity. Anyway my point is people are big and weird and diverse and horrid and cruel and small.
Also that drag/gender performance/ sexual identity/ gender impersonation for career advancement  blur .

Anyway here is some gender rolls/identitys that attempt to be not modern concepts awkwardly shoehorned into different worlds  but mostly still are and also some actually historical influence.

(by male / female I am meaning that which is commonly thought of as male /female in the society with the conventionally anatomy that usually implies )

(also I don't think there is not a single gender identity which isn't someone else restrictive stereotype that they have spent their life fighting against. So if these concepts feel like they are mocking you, that wasn't there intention but I will listen to any grievance you have thoughtfully)

(also it might seem that I'm implying that all the societies mentioned below marginalize or objectify even when they supposedly celebrate an other gender , using a mythologizing process to contain a gender deviance like cyst or a pearl , so it does not spread further. Okay that is exactly what I am doing because I am fucking cynical and bitter.

This is not an analysis of other cultures other genders however because that is an extraordinary difficult and loaded proposition


Audarana:
doomed but noble hyper performative.

Audarana (singular and plural) dress as their "opposite" gender in an exaggerated way. The exaggeration is in an earnest  way rather than a satirical way. For example a male role Audarana will have a elaborate beard , a epic swagger and a ringing hearty laugh. A female role Audarana will have long long plaited hair , the daintiest of bearing, and the softest disposition. An Audarana will be the most noble fairy tale version of their gender role, yet it is still obvious to the society around them that they are something else. The male role Audarana's hearty laugh will be too melodic for a man, the female role Audarana too boastful in her dutifulness and providence. The path society sees for them in tale and song is that of the doomed romantic, a
Don Quixote whose attempts to be the archetypical lead them to destruction. Audaranas themselves maybe naively unaware of the patronizing patronage of the culture around or they may slyly manipulate to their advantage.

Pronoun : as their presented gender

Drull:

androgynous troubleshooters

Drull are from a culture that is very into a pantheon of man spirits and woman spirits, with extensive protocol to do with all activities. Most protocol involves gaining the spirits approval. Society believe that when you die the pure bit of your soul goes to the after life and then all the bits that were to do with society hang around as spirits and help guide and strengthen people.

This society (let's call the Da-Pu-Und  ) however is pragmatic to understand that there is situations that come up that are,  or can be best dealt with by being, outside of the protocol. These are the realms of the Outside spirits.
The Outside spirits however are extremely disinclined to be helpful and only the Drull may talk to them and try and get their favour.

Anyone in the Da-Pu-Und who does not live up to their expected gender will quietly and pointedly shuffled in the category of Drull, which is more or less Androgynous. They are ignored and pitied but also tolerated for their perceived ability to find solutions and compromise where all else has failed. They face scorn however if they are perceived as being too manly or too womanly. Most of them leave Da-Pu-Und , especially the ones who would happily be a woman or man but can't stand the absoluteness of the roles in Da-Pu-Und. Some Drull however enjoy the weird social mobility they have and/or find it hard living outside Da-Pu-Und where other cultures don't recognize their "inbetween" gender.

Pronoun: Their or It. Often awkwardly in the 3rd person.
( "awkward 3rd person" is fair translation of Drull actually.)

okay this is taking too long, which brings me to this thing about blogging;
my interest is more lying towards working on bigger more elaborate projects rather than opening a blank page here and seeing what I am going to type today.
That's when I have the most fun here, the numerous posts that I had no idea what the content was going to be and discovered it as I typed it. The post that kinda grind are the ones where I have a clear idea and then am having to try and explain it. Not a fan of explain myself as you can prob tell.
This post is falling under the second category, like I have been chipping away it for awhile and I could of used the crucial and rare"hey I can be bothered sitting in front of the computer and actually concentrating on one thing" time on something else bigger and ongoing.

So what I am saying is I can never be bothered to do reviews and if I just occasionally update with the skeleton of an idea it is because I am working on something totally sweet.

Here is more gender skeletons that if I fleshed out this post would be delayed another week or two

Barren Mothers:

scarred truth tellers

Weapon Birthers

mothers to munitions

Indollers:

father christmases chaste saint

Wolf whores

as long as they do not have language they can live beyond manners

Gruz:

SAS gaylords (SPARTTAAAAA!!)

ENCOUNTERs

keep changing my mind on the numbers here but I'm thinking , when exploring a large area atleast, 1-2: monster 3-4: plot hook, location or evidence of wider machinations happening in the area 5-6 : "nothing" but use this as a chance to have a quick description of the local environment, or signs of the resident monsters or a false alert encounter. So if you start describing the environment the players can't immediately assume its roll initiative time

You are all lucky I just don't write about trees UPDATED PICTURES

Print PDF Seriously is there a difference between the cones of Cedrus libani and Cedrus deodora ? One book describes the cones of deodora being flattened on the top and libani tapering? But I'm finding it hard to get a good visual comparison. Other than some cones I had lying around but I'm not even what sure what tree I got them from and need a few to make sure it's not the cones just don't vary on the individual.
And both Cedars like to hold on to their cones and let them fall apart attached and deodora often don't have cones. Apparently.

Deodara have longer , softer needles and less per spray than the libani but can be pretty subjective.

ANYWAY:
Me and Patrick put a adventure module. Well he did all the writing , Alex Mayo did the final layout and Zzarchov patroned it. I did the pictures and gave feedback and ideas . (also here is the trailer. I did the music for it. Well okay I extensively sampled Wendy Carlos . Anyway:

It's sad and packed with things.

Here is reviews that very much liked it:
http://basicredrpg.blogspot.co.nz/2014/07/deep-carbon-observatory-is-game-module.html

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.co.nz/2014/07/on-deep-carbon-observatory.html

http://save.vs.totalpartykill.ca/review/deep-carbon-observatory/

Here are some reviews that also point things that we did not do well, because I like being straight up around here:
http://dungeonofsigns.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/a-strange-and-wonderful-bleakness-deep.html#comment-form

http://cauldronsandclerics.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/review-deep-carbon-observatory-by-false.html





Anyway my life is somewhat chaotic and internet access is sporadic again. People are still lying around my friends though. Or deciding that sexism/transphobia/gay hate are such trivial things that you should use them to smear people who play games you don't like or just don't argue nice enough with you.  Fuck those people.

I have noticed that some people are now saying that Zak mainly targets marginalized people for arguing. This is very funny, because Zak argues with so many dudes. Like white nerdy dudes. That are like blah blah objective game design or someshit. There is much arguing. Zak is like "oh did you know people think like this? Here is me finding out how they think by arguing with entire forum of White Nerd Dude Authority".  SO many arguements. All the time. You have no idea about all the arguing. Anyway that is one of the top 3 or 4 untrue things about Zak that have been said.
 I hate forums. I hate white nerd dude authority too. White nerd dudes seem to like them so they can argue about objective game design or some shit


Fuck anyone sending threats as well btw incase you thought I was endorsing that by not saying that. Hahaha that would be crazy for you to think that right?

Anyway here is unused pictures for DCO:

and here is some developmental sketches

and this is a lego model I made of the chair so I could do a indecipherable sketch of it for the cover