Velvet Hooks : Curselings, Discretion Bugs

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Might break up the formula for this series for a bit , I was becoming frustrated with trying to find the line between "just highlighting what's there" and what is a good amount of expansion. 

CURSELINGS:

Nasty , pointy , malignities.  Skulk out from the shadows cast by an innocent life . What please them is riddles and gold , but suffering most.

5 Lost Things They Know The Location Of

1. The Ever-Traitor Sword Ujulla , a sword that will slay anything if used in an attack of betray. It will of course betray the user inevitably , but delayable if the wielder sates it with treachery after treachery. 

 2.A Jar of grains from a time previous, where the moon, and  not the sun,  was the source of subsistence to all that is green and growing. They will germinate and grew into strange crops capable of feeding anything that requires something other than food to survive.

3.Time's mercy, who cast it away so they could do their duty. Now in the possession of the nameless god of forgetfulness, kept somewhere in their ever expanding library. 

4.The puckered omphalos scar left by the umbilical cord used to bring the world to life. 

5.The Atalantean Brain Crown that commanded their architectural armies of coral and blight.

DISCRETION BUGS

Small and politeful , versed well in etiquette and civility , slight delusions of draconic grandeur .

5  gatherings of society in which their guidance would be the difference between fortune and dire ruin.

1. The Feast of The Star Eaters. When a star goes out  its meat is a feast for certain great beings of shadow and all their attendants and parasites.

2. Mermaid Prom. Whose ascendance is the source of red tides before and hence. 

3.League of Insect Nations. Domains are negotiated, grudges and food chains debated, pestilences assigned, sizes granted.Various arthropods are also in attendance but  no mammal has managed the paperwork as yet.

4. Fungal Court. Deep in the rotten heart of the earth, each of the entropy lords plays against the other. The gameboard the great legal work that dictates the properties of matter. To eavesdrop here is be an ear to the great words of undoing and witness the loopholes and make-dos that hold the world together.

 5. The Theatre of Cruelty in which the poet duelists of hell cut the souls out of each other. An appreciative audience could gain the patronhood of one of these psychosurgical artists or discretely gather a writhing soul sliver.

Velvet Hooks: Crimson Contrarodron and Cryptospider

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 Sorry it's been awhile , a lot of life admin and big slog projects, and nothing to announce yet.

And you only get another one of the Velvet Hooks series! Such a cruel fate dripple! 

Crimson Contrarodon 

A polyheaded reptile beast, crippled and deluded by its diet of poppy fields, that speaks of ancient and potent knowledge.  What it could be if not addicted , is equally unknowable to the amount of truth in its stories.

1.The original species , capable of chameleon powers . If not as a living beast, as the origin for a magical cloak or armour. (pretty much in the text)

2. Turns out her stories where true! A chunk of her flesh, was taken and resurrected and raised on a diet free of opiates,, this grew a terrible lizard king with vast psychic powers. Potentially the only thing capable of standing up to its powers is the original crimson contraodron , if it can be rehabilitated and motivated.

3.She has eaten some wise figure, and the knowledge of said figure must be deduced before it gets too muddled with its other thoughts. (pretty much in the text)

4. Her memory of the old world allows the location of the bones of great and potent beasts.

5. She can speak the language of the elements when they were people,

6. It's most obviously a location based beast, but potentially other species of psychoactive flower could have an equally entrenched Contrarodron, such as Datura or Morning Glory.

Cryptospider

 A intelligent spider whose webs catch thoughts that would otherwise be lost.

1.One has formed a partnership with non-human thinker, non-human thoughts have potential to reshape the human mind into one capable of new insights or holding alien perspectives.

2.As a hex encounter, the spider approaching the party and trying to convince them of its value.

3. A town or city that use these spiders as a justice system. By feeding the guilty the lingering pains of their victims, they hope to create empathy or at the very least appropriate punishment.

4. Artists murdering each other over thought theft via spider

5.Thought fishers, people who maintain a relationship with a spider, and offer 10 secrets for a gold coin. `    

6. A cocoon is found amongst the protected wealth of someone. Somehow this cocoons contents are known and valuable enough that it has become a unit of trade, worth equal of jewels and rare metals.

Velvet Hooks: Colour Monster & Corbeau

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HULLO ALL

It's been a while but I'm back with some  sweet, sweet, <default content>

CORBEAU

Poisonous quadruped that dwells (and multiplies) in mirrors

Of the handful of monster that I think needed another pass this is the one that I think needed it the most. It's sort of awkward between being a mystic mirror beast, but not actually being that mystical .  So I'm going to expand on it now , giving 6  new abilities of the Corbeau

1. The Corbeau will stalk its prey via reflective surface. It will appear only in the reflection and not  outside it until it chooses to. It can then appear anywhere that was reflected.  So someone who spots one moving in the reflection will likely look in the surroundings for the creature , rather than the mirror itself.  Subsequently this means no Corbeau casts a shadow unless its another Corbeau. (see number 4 for an expansion of this)

2. The encounter/use the description invokes is that of a mansion abandoned with wild stories about what befouled. Then inside the mansion is a Sallow* of Corbeau stalking the party through multitude of mirror. The wild stories of the Corbeau could make the party over estimate the danger or powers of the Corbeau , but the discovery of the Corbeau as simple ( but cunning) beast might prove anticlimactical, if none of the suggested additional powers are added.

3. One such additional ability is if a Corbeau is lurking in a mirror and the mirror is broken , it multiples the Corbeau into a number equal and proportional to the fragments  resulting.  So if you wish to deny a Corbeau a perch to stalk and spring from , you would best be sure their wasn't a Corbeau hiding in the reflection. Newly created Corbeau are extremely hungry and will have mere hours to find subsequent food before starving to death. They will often turn cannibal on each other if no other food is present. 

Still water doesn't have such a property as it doesn't break into clear shards.

4. A Corbeau can create another Corbeau by looking into a mirror or reflective surface from dawn to dusk.  They will only do so if food seems plentiful enough, so not to risk having a rival or even  a predator.

5 Corbeau cannot break or harm a mirror or reflective surface. In the case of still water this means a Corbeau can walk across it as if it were solid glass and a Corbeau falling into a still pool will result in it being broken across the unmoving surface of the water

6. If a mirror contains a Corbeau and another Corbeau is within reflective range, the Corbeau in the mirror will be compelled to perfectly mimic the Corbeau outside the mirror. Any other Corbeau lurking in the mirror aren't compelled in such a way, but if multiple Corbeau are in reflective range of the mirror then they will. There is also a limit to how many Corbeau can pop into the other side of the reflection, that being one a round. But once the amount of Corbeau outside and in the mirror reach an equilibrium, the compulsion will mean the remaining Corbeau will be trapped in mimicry until one/some reflected Corbeau leave the reflected range.

 Assuming all 6 of these abilities is present here's a quick 6 hooks for them

1. Odd disappearance has lead to Mirror Merchant believing one of his mirrors is cursed but he can't work out which one it is . (one mirror has a Corbeau)

2.Mirror with Corbeau in it as trap, alternates with Mirrors that are dangerous unbroken (these render a viewer paralyzed as they stare at the reflection)

3.Dark gruneous pine forest with multiple pools for Corbeau to lurk from (pretty much in text)

4. Mirror given as a gift , really an assassination tool, a lurking Corbeau in a mirror won't show up as magical.

5.Spy using trained Corbeau to sneak messages.

6.Mansion guarded at night by turning around the paintings. Each has a mirror on the back , and a Corbeau in at least one of them.  Just before the household staff being their morning duties a goat or stray dog is let loose in the hallways for the Corbeau to catch. It will then withdraw into a mirror with its prey and the  staff can safely turn the paintings around again.

*"Sallow" being the collective noun of Corbeau

COLOUR MONSTER

An invisible colour drinker, that is it is an invisible colour and it is a drinker of colour. 

1.Giving them an additional ability of eyes rendered blank from their attacks lose any gaze attacks , so they become weapon against monsters with a gaze attack (Beholders, Medusa) . Then a party in process of making preparations against such monsters , might go off to the swamps festooned in the brightest colours they can source, ready with nets to swing as soon as their garments start bleaching.

2.Chirurgeon who do a lot of amputations could potentially create a market for Colour Monsters. As the area they drink from becomes permanently numb they wouldn't be that suitable for general medical practice. But for an amputation, this matters not. However to keep a Colour Monster might require expensive pigments regularly obtained and it might serve better to commission adventures to source them before a military campaign and then destroy them afterward.

3.Potential City Encounter/event of Colour Monsters obtained for the above purpose getting loose and running amok creating panic as people cover themselves in the blandest garments they can manage. The would-be re-captors of the beasts would need to follow a trail of invisible formerly bright things and/or create bait of the wildest colours they can find.

4. A bizarre fighting style "the Glass Arm" , whose practitioners use long glass blades and render their fighting arm invisible via the Colour Monster. Such a follower could make for a distinctive mercenary, henchman , duelist or assassin.

5. Particular long wet seasons in the Melanic Moors can cause an excess of the brightly coloured flowers the Colour Monster is want to feed upon and subsequently creates an boom of Colour Monsters. If the following season is not as long , the available food runs out and swarms of Colour Monsters roam outside the swarm seeking colour to drink, resulting in a panicked population adorning themselves drably and donning mesh over their eyes. (pretty much in the text)

6. These swarms can result in a creature , as would be encountered on a random encounter table (Crimson Contradodron for example), having been previously attacked, and is now invisible , numb to pain, and likely confused and enraged.

Velvet Hooks: Brainstormer & Capitualtors

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Another post with highlighting or creating hooks to use monsters for Fire On The Velvet Horizon.

This post features..

BRAIN-STORMERS

Maniacs who supercharged their brain with the energies and crackling knowledges of the sky itself!!!

1. A proto-brainstormer would make a great patron for adventures, requiring (and paying v.well for) a worlds-span worth of ingredients, monster parts and materials. This all resulting in a superpowered skycastled supervillain makes for a delightful twist if the players don't learn what the results of the would be dictator of the heavens plans are. (pretty much in the text)

2. The final results of research being the Golden Elixir "Anemoi". This being the substance directly injected into the Brainstormer-to-be's brain. If found or stolen in other circumstances, it makes for a certain amount of dilemma. It's worth a great deal , but selling it means it will likely result in the creation of a Brainstormer. (pretty much in the text)

3.What gives the Brainstormer their power and mental unhinging is the supernatural awareness of inner and outer workings of the heavens themselves. While they tend to not do much with that knowledge other than exert their ego, if something about the sky is needed to known (say the climate is heading towards an iceage, a hole into outer space has been created, an upcoming superstorm is approaching or even an exact weather report for a year benefiting a naval invasion) they would be the ones to know it.

4.The Cloud Palace that a Brainstormer builds is an obvious dungeon, either with one in it, or one post -Brainstormer. The post -Brainstormer palace could be run with a timer, as parts of it break up and disperse, or the whole thing could of have drifted into an area of unnatural stillness of air.

This would prevent it from falling apart and allow new occupants to have moved in and claimed it for themselves, adding another aspect to it.

(pretty much in the text)

5.One such Cloud-palace could of developed a mini-society from the former servants and kidnap victims of the Brainstormer. Maybe the kidnapped victims have no wish to return home and are praised as the Queen , now the King has fallen, by the servants. An adventuring party could be enlisted to find a stolen princess and instead find her now enthroned .

6.While a high level threat , a low level party could still deal with a Brainstormer if enlisted or able to do sufficient research about the Brainstormers former identity and thus predict and impersonate a potential kidnap victim , allowing for a great advantage in an assassination attempt.

CAPITUALTORS

Morose bisected jawed fatalists , a mercenary people that can hide inside the realm created by your eye

1. As a hex encounter, their hives "look like grey smoke piled in drifts" are found in woods. Unpredictable but not necessary dangerous unless provoked, i.e the party disturbs the hive and takes away some of the stolen art. Even if they don't mess with anything, a couple pc's might wind up having Capitulator hop inside their field of view just for something to do . (pretty much in the text)

2.The obvious use of them being hired to spy on the players, is most interesting if the players know nothing about them , and with only one character has one in their eye, they might assume the creature is invisible to the rest of the party. Assume the Capitualtor has to be present in the field of vision of the affected character to listen in , and give that character a chance to notice them.

If the party learns about the Capitualtor without the Capitualtor knowing this , this also gives them a chance to feed false information to their hirer.

The Capitualtor will need to leave the eye in order to relay this information. (pretty much in the text)

3. Their love of gambling could bring them out especially if the stakes or methods of betting are particular unusual . Even one in the employ of someone else might tempted to switch if an interesting enough bet is made. Stolen artworks could be wagered back from them

4. . What makes bets the most interesting to them are ones placed on a uninvolved individual who has a variety of forces acting upon them, especially ones where a group identity is conflict with an individual identity

5.They serve as particular difficult culprit for a "closed room" detective puzzle. So one has be inside the victims vision until they are alone, then sprung out to kill them, and hidden themselves in the eye of first person to find the body. They might still be there, pretending to be uninterested in seeing the case unfold, but really being involved. Infact if they become too interested they will lose their sense of "non-self"and fall out of their non-state of being inside someone's vision.

6. Their hatred (near hatred) for movements that are  "unembodied, unquestioning, passionate and zealous" could see them involved in a clash between art schools and victims they claim, raising the stakes to near civil war (let's assume a society where art schools are interchangable with political parties).

Velvet Hooks: Boa Boy and Boa Constructor

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More Velvet Hooks.

This series will be interspersed with other post topics but right now I don't have anything worth doing a full post on.

Also? , I'm no longer going to bother trying to label the hooks as "expanded content/original content" , as it seems arbitrary and not useful to try and divide them like that.

I'll keep the "pretty much in the text" one though.

Boa Boy:

The head of a child, the body of a snake, a simple abdead* servant . What could go wrong?

1.Boa boys are used as guards in well off houses. But where to put them? Lurking in vases , like the snake charmers money maker? One option is a fake safe, maybe being obviously hidden behind a large painting. Such a safe has boa access at the back . So when the safe is opened by intruder , the boa boy is waiting to pull them in , with the door engineered to swing shut afterwards

2. Eccentric Aristocrat with dozens of Boa boys holding up his train. He often needs to replace them , as he's prone to make wagers about his ability to shoot a glass of sherry balanced atop the head of one of his unfortunate boa boys.

He prefers Boa boys with eyes that aren't quite blue or green.

3. A Boa Boy of rare intelligence and an insatiable desire for vengeance. It murdered its first owner, making it seem like an accident. From there it moved on to another house, replacing the  Boa Boy on staff there . The "replacing" involves the current Boa Boy being set free, enlisted to  help, or if they prove too loyal  ,being killed and disposed of.

4. A isolated mansion with its owner succumbing to an heart attack. The Boa Boy staff are a particular witless example, and keep the mansion running as if the owner was still alive, rather than mummified in the tea room.

5. Certain Boa Boy are made and  sold off , but with a certain magick in their creation, sneak out at night to report back to their creator, who is slowly building up quite the blackmail portfolio,

6. Someone has let loose an illness as to have more dead children , as the poor often sell bodies they can't afford to have appropriately disposed of . The engineer of the blight doesn't need the resulting Boa Boys, they are just the byproduct of an extensive study in which the line between undead and abdead is to be understood.

*"abdead" using the term from China Miéville here as to define an animated corpse that isn't powered by necrotic energies , instead magic is used to restart and maintain its biologys.

Boa Constructor:

A vast snake with a maw full of clever hands. Makes itself a very important figure via trade and specialized construction, as to provide for its vast appetite

Encounters with Young Forms  (and pretty much in the text already)

1. Xanthic Snake: A series of brutal forest traps designed to isolate and maim , so allowing the Xanthic to gorge easily.

2.  Pavonated Snake :As above but instead of maiming, the trapped are then engaged in attempts at conversations and attempts at bargaining.

Griseous and older , expanded upon:

3 A mysterious shop sells strange and complex weaponry.   Examples are a thing like a elongated zither that will snap one of its metal strings like a bull whip, or one which resembles the fiendish child of a sextant and a scythe that will launch sharpened discs slicing through the air. Each weapon requires unique ammunition and this shop is the only place where these can be found.

4 In the treasure horde of some fabled beast lies a suit of armour. Constructed of starmetals, dragonbone, and the rarest of nights gold, it however is currently ripped nearly asunder. The construction of the armour is such that only by finding the original creator could there be any hope of seeing it repaired and modified to fit another. Spoiler Alert :  The creator is a giant snake with arms for teeth : o

5 Have a major villain or obstacle to the pc have custom armour, but if you can find the snake and bribe it , you will learn its weaknesses, Snake in question has "retired"  , having reached its maximum size and build a palace for itself.

6 Final Form of a Boa Constructor : so when they reach their maximum size a Boa Constructor will retire to its elaborate custom made palace. However this palace is actually a  womb  , factory and massive egg. It will slowly dismantle the Boa Constructor  painstakingly peeling nerves from muscles, etc, and then interlace the nerves unto a new massive frame of rubber, silk , steel , and wax.

The muscles are then attached to an engineering nightmare of levers, cogs, pulleys, and chains.

After an entire century the palace egg will hatch, revealing a Boa constructor the size of a castle and more mechanics than snake. Its frail flesh now spread like a fine web through out its bespoke colossus.

This Boa Constructor Omega will find an city that has is the right mix of vulnerability and viable potential. One that's relatively easy to take over ,  but still has the potential to  become a cultural mecca with a giant robotic snake running it.

This final form is less interested in food as it is knowledge, any city it runs will soon become renowned* for its libraries and universities

*I mean the MechaBoaConstructor overlord will likely be the first thing mentioned in conversation but the next thing is going to be the libraries and universities

Velvet Hooks: Bedlam Birds and The Blathering Bird

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It continues!
Also this book has a lot of birds in it, I'm not sure if it was because I happened to have included a disproportionate amount of birds in the images I gave Patrick , or if its because the birds that were in it were very personable.
Regardless , here's 2 more of them .

Bedlam Birds
Horrible skull headed malevolences , possessed a fiendish cunning, excellent mimicry and an inexplicable ability to always know if they are watched. Everybody hates  them

Hooks that are pretty much in the text already
1.An isolated settlers cabin, barricaded , parents insane* , their kids trying their best to tend to them.  The kids will let the players in to help , but only if they can see them (they've learned to never trust only what they can hear). They will describe laughing long skulls in the dark and beg the party to save them from them.
2. A village will enlist the party to hunt down some graverobbing, church desecrating, cultists. It's actually a Malignity** of Bedlam Birds
3.(hex filling/encounter) Two bands of long feuding armies are seen working closely together  , searching for the Bedlam Birds that have bedeviled them both. However Bedlam Birds are staying just out of reach and each night will mimic the voices of each , crudely trying to manipulate them to turn on each other
4.A search mission the players are on can be exacerbated by Bedlam Birds following them and mimicking the voices of whoever the party is looking for
Original Content Please Use
5.The ability of Bedlam Birds to always know when they are being watching , is tantalizingly potent ability. Alas as the Bedlam Bird will never co-operate , it is effectively useless for anyone else. However a Wizard and talented Psilord has attempting to isolate the ability , and will pay vast sums of money to anyone who can bring them to him alive.
6.So that Psilord? He was trying to turn Bedlam Birds into a fleshy tube with the bare minimum of brain and an eyeball that would blink when spyed upon. In his attempt to do so something went very very wrong and no further communications have come from his tower. So there's a whole tower of value just sitting there now , with nothing but it's wards, two dozen Bedlams Birds, a bunch of things that used to be Bedlams Birds, other lab experiments, and whatever happened to the Psilord and his apprentices.

* the book doesn't give a duration of the insanity, but let's assume healing magics or abilities of level 3 or higher can cure it.
** the collective noun

The Blathering Bird
A bird that would be renowned for its powers of retention and recall, if it wasn't even more well known for never shutting up .

Hooks that are pretty much in the text already
1. (hex filler/encounter) a Blathering Bird on route between one settlement to another. Useful in the sense that it can lead you to the next settlement and give you news about the last one, less usefully in the sense it will never shut up and attract additionally encounters.
 Expanded upon greatly
2.The most obvious one is to have the Blathering Bird know something the party wants to know. The way to make getting that information interesting  is to require the Blathering Bird to have its memory "jogged" . I.e physically escorting it through the series of locations and events that lead to it getting the information desired in the first place. 

3.A prison has Blathering Birds kept in cages above the prisoners communal area, as form of torture, surveillance, and mental disruption. At the end of the day the Blathering Birds are moved to a communal cage . There they are looked after by individuals saint like in their patience, who record in short hand anything new the Birds have learned, before committing it in longhand  for the overseers of the prison. But this routine has been disrupted by the sudden murder of one the Bird-tenders and the theft of his log book from his home (off site from the prison). The Crown Jewels had been stolen a month previous to this event, could one of the thieves involved be currently serving time for a unrelated crime? Does one of the Birds know? How do you go about finding the one Bird that does know? 
Original Content Please Use
 4. Villages spread out along dusty badlands that use Blathering Birds as a way of keeping up to date have send notice to royal authority that Birds are coming back to their village , completely unwillingly to talk about what they've seen. The location and timing of the reports is suggestive of something moving towards more populated areas. There are now concerns.

5.Blathering Birds are actually good defenses against some forms of telepathy, as their brains are the equivalent of very loud white noise generator 

6.A technique has been developed to store information in Blathering Birds and have it not recalled until the correct conditions are met.
 The  technique involves subjecting the Blathering Birds to a very bright, very loud , very sudden piece of theatre. The piece must around 3 minutes in length and cannot be mere chaos, it must have characters, plots, character arcs, and a resolution, all while using unique music and costumes.
At the exact middle of this , everything is stopped, and the information is clearly stated  to the Blathering Bird. Then the piece continues til its resolution. The Bird will be so overwhelmed , so interested in everything , it won't be able to know which bit to talk about first, and it will immediately have a fit. Once it has recovered from the fit it will have formed a "mnemonic cyst" around the information. It will be unable to recall any of it , unless its exposed to the exact same piece of theatre again, in which case it will blurt out the information at the half way mark.

Velvet Hooks: Atrocious Crows, Azul

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More hooks from and for Fire On The Velvet Horizon

Atrocious Crows: 
Walking birds with a depressive call,  capable of scouring humanity from the inflicted and leaving only amoral marauders. 

Hooks that are pretty much in the text already:
1Their feathers "eat" light, valuable to make into exceptional thieves cloak , shield and contain objects of dangerous radiance
2.In the darkest cells of the royal dungeon , is a circular pit lined with Atrocious Crow cages. Spies, conspirators to regicide, and holders of the old faith are sentenced  to  being lowered down into this pit for a precise amount of time; enough to experience despair  but not long enough to become an Atrous-man
3. A land has become lost , blustering villages and tight knit towns have become empty , home only to the passing bands of atrous-men.
4. (hex filler) A lone very tall , very hallow pine, with a dozen atrous men living  inside it, surrounded by a mire* of Atrocious crows. One used to be a legendary sage who knows things no other knows. But which and how to get him to willing to recall the knowledge?
5. (hex filler) The sound of manically rung church bell and loud festive music can be followed to reveal wedding under siege by Atrocious Crows, lead by multiple Empty-Men. While some of the wedding party are now catatonic and huddled under tables, the majority have holed up inside the church. They have  boarded up the windows and doors, and are drowning out the caws by ringing the bell and playing festive music as loud as they can. For now they are managing to keep it up, having had to improvise several instruments broken from the extended playing, but it is unlikely they will outlast the bitter patience of the Empty Men
Greatly Expanded Upon
6.The Atrous-men command the Crows with language unknown to all but dismissed as mere noise. However rare samples of a written form of it exist. Further more records of a collapsed ancient empire refer to a book written in this language, and the book was seen as valuable enough to ruin this empire in the attempt to obtain it.

*the collective noun of Atrocious Crows is a "Mire"

Azul:
Blazing bugs carried to earth on thunderbolt, doomed to die unless they can once again climb skyward.

Hooks that are pretty much in the text already:
 1.Clouds are hives for Azul. And like bee hives, there's a honey "Phlogiston". It's extreme dangerous, unstable , and somewhat counter-intuitively, valuable
2.<encounter> A frantic Azul chasing a storm , leaving a burning swathe behind it
3. If you need to get a sky-palace , storm fortress, or cloud garden the least feasible and practical  way is to find a downed Azul, wait until its latched onto a lightning bolt, and ride it , as it rides itself, back into the sky. However such a dangerous and nigh inconceivable plan has one thing for it, who would think to guard against such a fool's quest?
4. "Its ghostly organs are worth incalculable sums" The containment measures to keep it fresh and puissant are also a considerable amount  , but what interests us today is the damage  unleashed if they are tampered, and the gathered auction crowd present who would be subject to their damage, and that's about where the job offer begins to your p.cs
5. The lives of the storm and the Azul are linked. If an Azul can be captured and maintained beyond its own to do ,  then its storm will also be maintained. A storm that does not end can become a significant problem.
 Original content please use
6."Perhaps as the Azul lives in the air, once long ago its ancestors swarm within the earth and stone." Well turns out those weird rock echoes of the Azul aren't  its ancestors, they are its parallels in stone rather than sky. And while the Azul moves at a lightning pace, these earthen brethren , move at geologic pace. A matter of mere academic interest?  
Well it would be but a particular academic , whose particular unhinged, happens to be investigating what happens if you cast a lot of haste spells on one. Other more reasonable minds are very concerned about this , and are looking for a rag-tag band of resourceful individuals to find him before some new mountain ranges start popping up.

Velvet Hooks : Anemone Men , Ants Of Neutrality

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 I continue to see write hooks for Velvet Horizon, using what I can find in the text and making shit up when I can't
Anemone Men:
The long dreaming polyp men with deadly soporific stings.

Hooks that are pretty much in the text already:
1.Guards: to counteract the advantage that could be had by observing their sessility and making preparations , they could be placed after a flooded tunnel connecting two rooms via pools in their corner. Thus preventing easily electrocuting , burning , smoking them out or starting combat with a volley of missile fire.
2.Their Venom as a cure for Insomnia: Either tasked or hired to find one and getting the venom , or a  character is afflicted by a magic curse of sleeplessness.
3. Looking for someone who was looking for the venom: An important npc known to suffer  from insomnia was last known to be seeking out the Anemone Men before they disappeared, possible due to getting knocked out by them and is now asleep in a damp cave somewhere.
Greatly expanded on
4. The "blue world" that surviours of the venom report dreaming of , turns out to be a pocket dimension , in which has been hidden secrets to the true nature of the world. The world is not without its guards and obfuscations though.A successful trip to the world hinges on finding and interviewing surviours of the venom to piece together a map of the blue world.
5.(wandering encounter) An Anemone Men has ripped the eyes out of some poor soul, and has approached the party seeking their aid in returning the eyes to the being who apparently survived but fled.  The eyes appear to be made entirely of precious stones with near inconceivable level of craftmanship
Original content please steal
6.A city is suffering from a sleeping plague ,where-in people sometimes fail to wake , and remain in deep dreams, seemingly in distress.  The cause is a village of Anemone Men has moved into tunnels that feed into the towns aquifer , and thus their chemicals have tainted the water.



Ants Of Neutrality :
grumpy little legal minded conformists

Hooks that are pretty much in the text already:
 1. Wilderness encounter: the terrain becomes increasingly ordered and geometric , leading to the nest of the ants of neutrality.

2.Collecting the ants for use as magic-suppressing device

3.Someone valuable to the party has disappeared while riding a horse ,very drunk.  The horses returning home with very very neat braids suggests  the Ants have captured said person and will soon put them to trail.

Greatly Expanded upon
 4 A design for a powerful anti-chaos weapon requires Ants of Neutrality , a device somewhat like copulating of a sextant , a cannon, and a prism. The design has 2 versions. One which the ants antennas are mashed to a pulp and boiled down to crystallize. The weapon shines the light of order through the crystal which acts as lens. This is the lesser version. The greater version involves having an entire nest peacefully living inside the machine. But this requires obtaining a nest and transporting it without stressing the Ants by exposing them to chaotic engine, or they won't survive the trip.

Original Content please steal:
5.A powerful chaotic force is contained behind a vast vault door, with some of the locking mechanism by the presence of a hive of Neutral ants. However recent events in the city have exposed them to a form of chaotic engine the terms of their contract don't cover. So they are claiming breach of contract and will be leaving soon, resulting in the vaults integrity being compromised
 
 6.The Ants of Neutrality, a minor nuisance of the Mute-Chalk Plains, are freaking out like the proverbial canary in the goldmine,  suggesting a vast chaotic event is nigh.  By comparing the degree of freaking out the direction of said event can be determined , and thus giving the first clue.

Velvet Hooks

Print PDF

HOW ARE WE ALL ?

The post kickstarting doings are being done at a steady pace , the country is beginning to ease the social restrictions , and I have for you a new blog post series that will hopefully keep things regular around here.

This new series entails my favourite  (un)dead horse , Fire On The Velvet Horizon and giving you hooks for using all the monsters.


But before that , a quick note about the process of the book:
I gathered a range of art I had done, in a broad of a way as I could manage, including finished pieces with barely started, pieces I loved, and pieces I was embarrassed by . Patrick then respond to the ones he responded to, and sent me the writing, which I might accept, suggest changes or additions, and  in a couple of times reject.
One of the desired outcomes of the text , to which I made suggestions in aid of , was that there would be obvious hooks on how to use the monster.

So this series will also mean I will revisit that goal  and see how well it accomplished it.
I will note which hooks , to me, seemed easy to draw from the text , and which ones I'm in fresh territory. 


ABHORRER
The slug that uses civic law as its invincible shield

Hooks that are pretty much in the text already:
1. The Abhorrer has purchased an enslaved genius , the only one capable of solving the vast hyperdimensional locks protecting the vaults of the treasure moons. The Abhorrer will have them counting sand until their wits fail them.

2.The party reaches a city of renown for its wisdom and love of justice in order to seek the aid of their armies. However an Abhorrer has twisted its way into the courts of the city , and has snared up the courts with endless petty cases. Its poisonous presence hasn't yet sunk the cities leaders into apathetic cynicism, but each passing days is a drop of corrosion on their vigor and virtue.

3.To rid itself of an Abhorrer , a city has collapsed into sheer bloody anarchy , the courts aflame , open warfare between a dozen or more factions filling the streets. However the Abhorrer has hidden itself , like an encysted parasite in rotten flesh. The party is tasked to find it and kill it, at risk from rioters,overly zealous military, or any number of factions liable to mistake them for their rivals.

4. Another city seeks the path of law to rid an Abhorrer. While the Abhorrer is physically protected by law, and evidence of its wrong doing inaccessible through legal means, its powers won't be able to protect that evidence from extra-legal means, i.e the party. The relevant civil authoritys can't be official connected to the party or be shown to have directly  hired them , but through use of catspaws, anonymous drops, and arranged  "accidents" the parties services can be directed and rewarded. 

  Original material please steal:
5.  In a sinking city, one whose new buildings lay foundation on the roofs of old, a vast case against an Abhorrer is being made.  Ancient books of law must be obtained from ancient archives deep down in the old city. Among the dangers of mammoth book lice, guardians demented with age, and demi-real book beings,Abhorrer hired mercenary,  are the undead librarians zealously punishing anyone breaking the silence.  Also for your Library megadungeon needs

6. A small frontier town begins to be able to pay adventurers/the party to clear out monster lairs, establish trails and merchant routes, etc. The Burgomaster funding it is actually a front for Abhorrer  , keen to have a metropolis grown up around it.

AESKITHETES

Weird beings from a microworld. Masked , social and flanged.

 pretty much in the text
 1. An Aeskithete curator , buys art and books , pays with unusual materials  .

Hooks in the text , greatly expanded upon
2 . A vast and ruinous war might be coming to an end, if a facilitator of impeccable ability and complete neutrality can found. To that end , the party will be offered a significant reward to be magicked to the microworld of the Aeskithetes, brave the dangers there, and convince an Aeskithete to abandon its peers, and its entire generation in order to secure a lasting peace.

3. The true heir to a throne was absconded by usurpers. While the usurpers have been ousted , the heir is still missing, and it is unlikely stability can be found without them. An investigation of the possessions of the former usurpers points towards the incredibly impossibility of the heir being trapped on their own skin. Aeskithetes must be found and recruited to allow such a impossible journey.. Note that some contrivance must be order to allow the heir to still be alive, despite time passing quicker in the micro world. The heir might now be ruling a new kingdom or have sired a dynasty.

   Original material please steal:
4 World destroying events are a foot  .Meteors, vast artifacts falling from the  sky, unpredictable changes in the atmosphere. A mad solution is advanced. Find the magics that allow the Aeskithetes to expand into (for them) the marcoworld  and use them to ascend up to the marcomarcoworld and adjust the events directly

5. Books sculpted from keratin indicate the presence of Aeskithete library.  One is a catalog and it lists many otherwise lost tomes of civilization altering knowledge. The colour of the keratin is distinctive and if one  can find the being whose hair matches this colour, then one can likely find this library.

6.A character is struck by magically irrevocable wound or disease. But! Help shows up in an Aeskithete from the characters very skin, their civilization foreseeing the end , sending one of their own to bring their host unto the hosts very skin and do battle with the source of infection directly!  

Hardcover Version of Fire of the Velvet Horizon

Print PDF Sooo this took awhile , mainly because it took so long to get shit send to new zealand and then problems with the physical postal address and courier post and initially trying to get it done through blurb  .
Blurb, while great interface and quality , don't have an a4 size. They do have some fun square and landscape sizes , and those were tempting , I went with peecho instead.

And while lulu is fine, it doesn't have the paper weight that allows super black and stand-out colours.
Lulu is 60lb while peecho  I think  is 110lb (they list it as 200 which I assume is gsm so that's 110lb because 200lb is crazy) and blurb 80lb to 140lb.
I.. barely understand any of that though?


Lulu also uses ftp file transferring for files over 300meg and this has taken days and days of multiple failed and resetting upload attempts to get it there and it's fucked and was a major reason for going else where.

I mean it's entirely possible I could get the pdf smaller  (the mac Preview default program is worryingly good at resaving pdfs at smaller sizes with no obvious loss of quality) but I don't know what the fuck I'm doing and I don't want to the horror of having to then go through the pdf to make sure nothing has gone wrong, then test print it out and wait for that to show up and then when it doesn't try and track it down and then finally get it and go through it and this has take over a year of doing this , I'm not kidding.

Anyway Blurb and Peecho you can upload crazy big files without using some darkages internet shit to do so. Big ups Blurb and Peecho.


Blurb has store pages , while Peecho sadly lacks them, so I have to awkwardly make one on here , all they give you is BUYNOW link like so くコ:彡

so if you want to do some absurd over illustrated monster check out both peecho and blurb.

Now that this hardcover is live , I intend to NEVER update this book again. It's reached some kind of event horizon where any improvements I make cause an equal amount unintentional mistakes that need fixing. It is done. I have reached the limits of my limited competence. No more.

COOL STORY SO THE BOOK?

It's sexy hardcover version of the book. It has like 4-5 additionally appendix pages , which do not justify buying one if you already have the softcover. The text is bigger and clearer and considerable effort has been made to get the text out of the gutter. So there's that.

there's some (much) better photos here

(also did you know Patrick sleeps in a bed and not a rat-eaten blanket on bare floors , I am surprised)

And let's just make this a super commercial mega-mix,
first up : CONTESSA. Contessa is the best, they do pro-active diversity and representation in gaming,  here is their
site 
you get t-shirts there and/or support them directly, or find out how to register an event with them for gencon, which you should totally do if you are a lady or otherwise a member disproportionately underrepresented group in gaming and want to REPRESENT.


PEOPLE I KNOW THAT AND HAVE PAID ME MONEY TO WORK ON PROJECTS BEFORE AND THEY ARE DOING KICKSTARTERS RIGHT NOW :

Zzarchov Kowolski (who funded the original Deep Carbon Observatory , and paid me to illustrate  this )
is doing a board game,  I know nothing about boardgames I can see literally nothing about it other than here's kickstarter

Jacob Hurst (who paid me to do some small illustrations for this) has been doing this Swordfish Island thing for years and it's basically done , it's just funding the print run. Here's the kickstarter it will explain everything.

ALSO? I'M SORRY FOR PLUGGING STAB-CITY , IT FOLDED LIKE A DAMP CRANE, DUNNO IF ANYONE GOT THEIR MONEY BACK , I HOPE THEY DID

crikey all that commercialness has made exhausted tooo exhausted to put some actual game content on here, hahahah

ALSO
IF YOU ARE GOING TO PUT SOME FAKE BINOMINAL NOMENCLATURE FOR YOUR MONSTERS 1ST EDITION MONSTER MANUAL STYLE YOU FORMAT IT LIKE THIS
 Draco caustiscus sputem NOT IN ALL CAPITALS NOT WITH ANYTHING OTHER THAN THE GENUS CAPITALIZED AND IN ITALICS AND/OR UNDERLINED
So Draco is the genus , caustiscus is the species , and if there's a 3rd word it will be a subspecies (so in this case sputem). In this case (1st edition monster manual dragon names) it makes little sense for their to be a subspecies listed unless there is a shit load of slightly different black dragons. If there was going to be a subspecies it would be likely that Black dragons would be Draco caustiscus caustiscus as it's thought of as the most representivity of that species. There could be an argument  that chromatic should be the the species with each of the colours being a subspecies (So Draco chromaticus sputem for black dragon). 

However, there doesn't really seem to be any hard and fast rules about when to do species and when to do subspecies and it's more about people's careers than an exact measurement of genetic difference.
Also while botany can have cultivars ; kinda like a subsubspecies , zoology doesn't, and doesn't formally recognise "breeds" , which are the zoological equivalent of a cultivar , the closest thing is race , which is used fairly rarely and informally.

In regards to the correct way to have latin suffixes, well yes there are all kinds of rules about which to use depending on the gender of the root word, but it's been barely followed in actually biology for like a century , so fuck it. Like there's serrata and serratus and it should be standardized as one because the suffix is depend on the gender but no.

 Some suffixes , however , modify the word , so -oid or -scens.
-oid means "like a" and -scens means "an immature version of"

To make it even crazier there's a lot of greek used , and  latinized greek. Like -oid for example.

You Can Buy This Book Now

Print PDF Fire On The Velvet Horizon softcover is live on lulu now

and to fill up the rest of the post is me interviewing Patrick



What was the most fun bit of this? The least fun? Which piece of
writing are you like AWYEAH?



I think the most fun was having a good idea for the silly ones like the Thug Bug and the SailSnail, sometimes when you (I) have a funny idea I smile to myself and am very pleased with the ridiculousness of it. Writing the Paladins Of The Fall was good because it felt automatic, like something else was coming out through me and I was pleased with how it turned out. The Umbra-Technical elemental I was happy with because I looked up and realised I had been writing for two hours and usually its hard for me to write for one.





The least favourite, probably the monsters that just wouldn't turn out right like the first few of the Umbra-Technical, or the ones where I din't really listen to you to begin with, or just the times I didn't listen to you.

HAHaha You must always listen me because I am wise and kind and sting-riddled
Was there any art that never got a monster that you wish it did? Also favourite name?


Towards the end you did a bunch of really good ones that we didn't have room for. 135 140 143 144 145 are all good.








Horolognomon took a lot of fiddling to get and I am quite proud of it.



Are you jealous that I came up with Boa Constructor?


Of course, its an excellent name and I should have thought of it.


Would you consider expanding this into a whole gazetteer?

Like a thing for the world? Not now certainly. I quite like it the way it is as it provokes use and mystery and makes people build it in their heads. I would only do a larger thing if we could do something original with it.



A decent gazetterer though with maps, costumes, ecosystems , useable and graspable city info could be quite original though. Maybe it could be a split writing project? <Might redact this question>


I would be happy to split the writing with you, thought that would be a little unfair since you would still be doing the art. Also we would need to work out a method and structure so we don't tear each others skin off.



We should do stats for it sometime. What system is it most likely to
be the most useful for you? I might do 52 page rule book or Feng Shui
or Old School Hack. Yeah. But what would you use? Like personally how
much mechanics is needed for you to use this in a game? How much do
you wing it mechanically?

Basic LOTFP stat line, some simple mechanics and some cool treasure is all I need.



Favourite source of cool treasure material?


Hmm, I like the silks of the Picceous Puccoon, but probably one we haven't done yet, like what is in the @orn Owl nests? Or the strange chests of the Boa Constructor?



Which of these monster drawings are you getting tattooed on you? Would
you trust me to do it? What about if I sourced and made the ink and
needle from all natural ingredients?





Probably none of them, I pussied out of getting my latest tattoo. Maybe the Fuse Meister and no you are not sticking needles in me, that will be done in a secure environment by a professional. I do things by the book.



I will give you a deadline to get a tattoo and if you don't make it then I will do it. I'm getting a perceptive dog or a bedlam bird or something else dunno

I am very afraid that you might actually do that



So the art. Which of these monster would you be keen as to see drawn
in a more developed style by me? I doubt I'll do it but just asking.
Which monster would you most wanna see drawn by an artist that you
know from the DIYWURLD? Which monster would you most wanna see drawn by any artist ever, except maybe not future artists because google can't reach forward in time yet. (Note to do google corp. Never do
this. Also stop work on facial recognition searches. It's only going
to help cops and stalkers.)





By you I think the Xaxavraznazak, he was so pleasingly mental I want to see what you would do with him.



diywurld: I would like to see Zak take on a Boa Constructor in its palace, he would like that because its all built things and no organic forms except the snake. (No hot girls though...)




all artists: Either Leonora Fini doing a scene of the Umbra Technical Elemental in human form interacting with someone like this












Or Joseph Wright of Derby doing the Eclipse Lich





​


I agree with all of that. There could be a hot girl getting armour fitted by the Boa Constructor though?


Sure, its a bunch of metal amazon's naked in the mouth of a giga-snake, getting felt up and armoured while the snake looks pensive.



What is the next TRANSCENDENTAL MONOLITH you are planning to ERECT on
the psyspace of DIY RPGDOM now that this here for all to weep and
praise? (Like I personally know, but for the gibbering hordes at
home)?




Well, I have this quartet of adventures planned. DCO was the first, the second would be Broken Fire Regieme, the next something about storms and piracy and the last about the sea and dreams. One for each element. But as you know, I am having trouble creating at the moment so we will have to see.



I'm sure you be struck by inspiration or wrench it out of thy self with force and merit.
How could would a hardcover set of all 4 be? In a slip case or something




It would be very could would if I or we ever get it done.

BUY IT 

Teaser page for Fire on the Velvet Horizon

Print PDF So it's pretty much done. Just some final fuckery now with cover font sizes and shifting a thing to the left or right a bit.
"Wait what is done?"

Fire on The Velvet Horizon

It's a book of monsters, 100ish to be exact. The original seed for it was me asking Patrick if he would like to write monsters based on pictures , as a whimsical little experiment in reversing what had been happening for the Pariahs of Creation.
At some point he decided 100 was a good achievable number and it kinda balloon into a bit more of thing than was previous envisioned. Anyway the process involved a screaming horde of half developed drawings, sketchs, doodles, scrawls and marginalia being set at him and him them gestating whatever took residence in his head. I was often surprised at what grabbed him and where it took him.

So the book. The layout was done more or less by hand, the drawings are violent and out of my responsibility , it looks like nothing else around right now . It looks like this:

If you think that is something that exites you so much , then great.
If you have developed several twitches at it, then like, go peruse everything else in the world

It will be able for sale in about 3-4 days on lulu. So right now I'm just kinda fucking with you. Or making sure you are all Informed Customers.