Guest Post by Pliny The Elder

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 I mean DISPLACER KLAUS brought me this and he says it's from Pliny The Elder and who I am to doubt that chuckling rascal?

GREATER HOOT-BEAST

 The lovely and solemn Hoot Beast roams the plains , sustained only by smells . It is thus dependent on the numerous wild flowers and fragrant trees in the pyrrhous  lands. Unusually it does not  sniff the flowers like a thoughtful man or suckle at them like the bee, it instead draws them down their scent from the wind, numerous leagues away from the source.

It is thus provoked by unpleasant smells , sometimes chasing down and trampling the source of them , though when encountering the dense reek of man's settlements they will flee .

The nomads of the Pyrrhous  Plains lure them with perfumed youths and shear the wool from them after the winter months which they use for many purposes,  most notable their spherical hats, which they keep birds of various martial and social purpose.

SATAN

Here is a Satan , its appearance here has been crafted wading through a vast river of soul chyme where it plucks the juicey congealments that have made it through the mastications of the Gnawing Gates.

A Satans size is variable , and is known to be both like a common wading bird and a striding colossi. Its temperament is like most in New Plymouth ; cruel and disagreeable.

It is provoked by hats of all kinds and will make great fuss before commencing violence, plucking at limbs and flinging such grasped great distances .  It however is known to vastly over-estimate its ability to riddle

TABULARAPTOR

 This bird is fierce king of the Pyrrhous Plains and unlike other avian, strikes not with beak or claw but its flattened body, which is like a single blade.

A eagle or hawk will descend directly on its quarry , but the Tabularaptor will descend first at distance and come low , slicing through leg. It returns then when exsanguination  has rendered the struck into a stupourous placidity .
Its method thus forewarns by the falling of grass and stalk at a short distance.

Its nests are not made in cliff but hollow tree, rolling itself like scroll to rest such in.

The Nomads here thus fear dead trees yet strangely do not take measures against them. It is said that they owe their freedom from horse raiders to the Tabularaptor, as a single walker can lie prone evading the bird , but a ridden horse has no such recourse and will surely be victim .

The borders of the plains are indeed marked with short towers , constructed with horse skull and bisected femur to serve as grim reminder of the bird's great feast that was the end of every cavalry lead expedition here.


HUSKY GOBBLER


A simple sand sifting beast, that travels in herds among the many dead rivers along the plains.

None of its dead form can resist decay, crumbling to dust in days. Therefore no part of it can be used for construction or craft.

It is said that raising a Husky Gobbler on food that is not the silt on which it customarily consumes will mean it will not have this property .

The theory is that rocks have a "solid essence" giving them their form , and as fire has cold as its opposite, the silt has an "erosive essence" which is stored in the Husky Gobbler's body.

Indeed the nomads will serve the meat as poison to those that abuse their hospitality.
Eaten, such meat will sustain for a day or 2 , but then create 5 times the hunger it abated, causing such horrors as men eating all their clothing and then biting their own fingers off.

While peaceful , harassing the Husky Gobbler will cause it to sneeze a fine dust with such force , that skin will be abraded off muscle and muscle off bone.

VERY BAD PIG
 


It is stupid except when it is cunning, and cowardly except when it is audacious.

It is so appalling that it vomits from its rear and coughs up dung like a cat does hair.

Rank corpses arose its carnal passions and a Very Bad Pig sow will need to anoint itself with the most putrid of decays in order to distract the male from shit-fighting.

It is said that it was made with all that is terrible of the bear , wolve, cur , boar and bigamist.







 Updated to have sources and change the name of purple plains to pyrrhous plains because that was a place holder that I went with and then went , nah yeah that's fine , and then 20 minutes later hated it

art sources:



Hoot Beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrauchenia
(originally Robert Bruce Horsfall)

Satan
https://store.safariltd.com/collections/sale/products/wild-safari-wildlife-spoonbill-figurines-224829


 Tabularaptor:
it's a Argentavis magnificens and the image is everywhere 


 Husky Gobbler:
stock art of platybelodon herd , originally by Corey Ford

Very Bad Pig
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daeodon
by Jay Matternes

Using that class generator

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The Book of Peace, Edgar Maxence

Lo! I used that generator to generate the bones and now
to pour on the glistening idea meat:


Name: Deceptionist

Power source:Parasites/Weird Friends/ Pets/ Devices

Does: Healing and Blighting

Also: Noticing things

Deceptionists "adopt" weird  oversized insect ghosts, secreting the astral pheromones that manipulate their adopted bug children into tools. Mostly these "tools" are used to enhance or interfere with other beings biology.

To be able to see these WOIG the decptionist has astral perception and aura sight.

Name: Zephyr

Power Source: Nasty Bargains, Eldritch Patron

Does: Mayhem

 Also: Blast Radiuses , spread out damage, crowd control

The 5th wind is a wind that blows only ill. Hence this Wind was not assigned a compass direction. Lacking this conventional wind way of influencing and shaping the world, the Ill-Wind gives out its winds to the Zephyr; outcasts and fringe dwellers. These people lacked any other way of getting power, and so now have self-sewn bags of Trouble winds. These winds cause fumbles, bad luck, confusion, nausea, rage, inflammation, breakage, deafness, and the rarer winds given to the Zephyr most favoured by the Ill-Wind will desiccate, haemorrhage, and flay.  

Sophie Woodrow

Name: Ghoul

Power Source: Magic/Spirits/Totemic /Channeling Primal Force

Does: Fights, distance

Also: A lot of damage real fast

After the stars dies their essence spreads out into the black fine emptiness that holds the worlds. This emptiness echoes with the memories of the stars.
On moonless nights people respectively stay inside, as not to catch weird stray thoughts from alien worlds.
The night-fishers, condemned as "ghouls", disregard this taboo , and catch everything they can with their parabolic masks.
In order to protect their maligned ways the Ghouls have weaponized the "waste products" of their feeding, the scouring emptiness and starry apoptosis mechanisms.

Zdzislaw Beksinski

Name: Haptic

Power Source: Mutation or Physical superness

Does: Off-piste solutions

Also: Fixing , maintenance, repairs 

Haptics travel the seldom trod paths, both literally and analogically.
Like hemmed in organisms forced into weird ecology niches, Haptics find strange ways.

Not waiting for the slow pains of natural selection , they somehow reach into a space of possibility, flaring their bodies potential to be something Else.

This doesn't grant them raw power, more weird approaches and specialties.
Stamen that grow fruit from fear, capillaries that allow nutrient sharing, unfolding bones , smell ghosts, and ablative hides.

Secondary, their ethos of finding strange paths and niche survival means they are resourceful and painstaking with their material possessions

Terrain:UNDER LANDS

Print PDF Here are some new terrains to sprinkle around your maps or elaborate fisher-king fantasy life

BRAMBLE HELL:

Like a tangle of blackberry but with canes girthing in metres. The underlayer is passable , the ancient bottom canes arching at about 2-4 metres above you.
It's very dark , dusty ,  with a few patient lichens,  eldritch fungus and ghostly ferns. Moving vertically is an engineering project, with metres of wood, sword length thorns (technically prickles)  , and eye searing sap.  The middle layer has a bit more light,  weird dirt pockets with bizarre microbiomes , and bird nests. The top layer is a violent sea of green and crimson waving thorn cane. And birds. And insects. Violently territorial birds and insects.

 RESOURCES:
unique fungus, herbs. Emperor bramble sap. Bird eggs of some obnoxious fairy tale quest variety.

HAZARDS:
Occasional cane collapses (see Rocs below), thorns, sap,  cordyceps fungus.

BEASTS : Weasel like elegated pangolins of a variety of sizes; The smallest slinking around the tops eating birds the biggest slinking around the bottom and eating you. Rocs like to make their nests in the middle layer , sometimes causing collapses.  Dali Stilt mini elephants that migrate vertically as they grow. Spiders. Mites. Ticks. Beetles etc. Spiders that make themselves bird costumes to get birds to try and fight them. Giant red-eyed vorpal Kiwis.

OTHERS: Dueling ant knights sculpting the throne bases like ant castles , beetle grumble men, dancing fungus, millennium seeds , thorn entombed castles (maybe the cause of cargocult ant people behaviour) ,


FROZEN SKY TIDE LAND:

Underneath frozen sea ice somewhere where the tide goes out for half a year at a time.
The drowned can fake their lives better when it's out and will trade for props for their sad mummery. Most things hunker down or wander out with the tide. The crustaceans mainly rule but it's the perfect place for spirit world diplomacy

RESOURCES:
wrecks, shellfish (pearls), anything that otherwise would require going underwater to get. Corals.

HAZARDS: collapsing roofs, lurking anemones like an anus rock for your foot to enter. Ghosts. Spirits of cambain dead. Dream eating coral.

BEASTS: crustaceans (fortified tank like lobsters, long legged hair stealing crabs , eerily bone scrying isopods ) scythed beaked penguins sliding on their bellies to murder you , spirit court fox courtier. Polar bear mercenaries seeking work in the spirit worlds.

OTHERS: A shipwreck trapped in the ice above  accessed from the gash in its belly. Isopod fortune teller. The drowned that are forbidden the afterlifes of sea or land and make fake ones.

Regular Folks Doing Regular Jobs Regular Like

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So there was Shepards that wore stilts to see further and handle the terrain in Landes, I thought of them when writing about Opiliones.

And if you got to mention some people in the background of your campaign why not have something slightly fantastic about their vocation.

SHEPARDS

Weird, Plausible:
1.Stilt walking

2.Alternate animals; extra furry to the point of absurdity
  1.Llamas
  2.Poodles
  3.Rabbits
  4.Highland Cows
  5.Possums
  6.Goats


3.To chase wayward stock use 2 hooks attached together with a rope. One is thrown to catch into the fur the other is let go  to drag firm into the ground. This would be weaponized at some point in rebellions or adventures from such origins.

4.Each shepard has a particular sequence of wild-flower fields to take the animals to resulting in a colouration of the wool distinctive to that shepard. New colours are tried periodically to supplement each clan's "Classics". The resulting feuds from allegations of "colour stealing" are terrible and bloody.

5. Generations alternate between warfare and shepherding.  The slain are believed to be reincarnate as sheep , the more sheep that can looked after the more enemys slain by your father.
One human soul is split up into multiple sheep souls but exact ratio of human souls to sheep souls is variable and argued to whatever number makes the shepard's ancestral war deeds seem more impressive

6. Shepherds will not mention numbers or count near sheep , so they will never learn they have numerically advantage. They will very angry with those who do.

Weird , implausible :

1.Wield amber on a stick. Rubbing their charges (that's a pun) with it builds up enough static electricity to zap wolves , bandits , and organ thieving parrots

2.Feed iron to stock to get steel wool, knitted into a cheap, less effective chainmail variant

3. Sheep are for show and to keep the grass down as security visibility measure. The wool here is actually back combed spider silk. The spiders are kept inside the fort-like homes and feed the second born in reviled and secret tradition.

4. Animals have one side's legs shorter than the other so they can stand upright on hills, but only go one direction.

5. Beehives built onto sheep. Efficient!

6. White Sheep are herded at day and black sheep at night. Makes sense.

FISHERFOLK


Weird, Plausible:
1.Will trade for unusual hair to weave additionally into a net, this can catch wish granting Fish Princes looking for brides , or at least their servants scouting for them.

2. Claim to never fish when the moon is full or absent. Actually do but wearing masks. They catch some weird ass fish during this time and fear vengeance from the fishes relatives. A form of supernatural revenge by these people is to arrange one of these fish to be served to an enemy in public. If the enemy compliments the quality of the fish , it is believed that the fishes family will find out and send their agents after the diner.

3.Complicated family traditions about who fishes with nets, who scours for clams, and who harpoons eels. The 3 fishing styles are where the 3 dueling styles (Net and short club, Armour and Knife, Harpoons in waist  deep black water) of the region have come from.

4. Tattoo a scale on themselves for each fish they catch. When fully covered they are meant to drown themselves but it's hard to prove if some has Completely covered themselves and this is a source of banter about just how much "area" is available for tattooing in one's breeches.

5. Wreckers. Religion has loophole for cannibalism about anything coming out of the sea being a fish so will eat the causalities of the shipwrecks they cause. A fat fisherman is slang in regions nearby for a cannibal.

6.Elaborate fish mazes are made out of sticks to filter and sort the fish through them. This skill is also used to make various terrible drowning traps around the rivers and banks nearby , as these people are fiercely defensive about their patches
  Weird , implausible :
1.Walk beneath the waves with a spear, stone shoes and a breathing hose.

2.Trade family members with one species of fish  , who they never eat. Bloody feuds with those that do

3. Replace their teeth with sharp fish and shark teeth. Constantly trading and swapping and argueing merits of this over that.

4. Have Changeover houses mounted on stilts on the foreshore. Everything of the land (tools and clothing) is swapped for an equivalent made from things from the ocean before going out fishing.

5.Each family has their own droning dirge they sing constantly when working. This renders them invisible to most random monster encounters.

6. A ongoing war between the fishers that use shags and those who use otters.

CATTLE FARMER:

Weird, Plausible:


1.Cattle is painted to render them invisible to spirits . Not that spirits eat cows. They eat people. So the farmers dress like cows. It's important that the spirits don't have something to compare the costume to though.

2. Unusual animal:

   1. Capybara

   2. Dodo

   3. Tortoise

   4. Giant Snail

   5. Some kind of vegetarian dog that looks like a pug but worse

   6. Pig-Eel. It combines the worse , ornery features of both and lives in trash filled mud trenches

3. Keep attaching more and more bells, windchimes and amulets  (often made from dug up  rusted artifacts from all the old battlefields around this area) to the horns and necks of their herds. To the point that is sounds like John Zorn composition . 

4. Attach balloons and kites to their herds horns so they can see them along way off.

5.  Have to have a champion defeat the cattle's biggest bull in hand to hand combat each year before they can slaughter any. Will outsource.  Mainly an excuse to gamble.

6.  Make a beer from the strained water of the cattle shit. It's revolting but basically the only thing that repels the disease carrying ticks and worms here. If they don't like you (and complaining about the taste or smell is a sure way of pissing them off) they will charge horrendously for it.

Weirdly enough they are more favourable to someone who obviously hates the taste but is making a huge effort to pretend they are not, than they are to someone who enjoys the taste. They assume the later is just a really good liar, and shouldn't be trusted. I mean have you tried this stuff? No-one could like it!

Weird , implausible :


1. Bladders attached to butts of cattle collect methane which they sell/ trade to whoever needs a bunch of methane in your campaign.  Attend to herds in balloons with lassoing the leader and caroling with sling stone 

2. Abnormal Meat Harvesting Practices:

   1: Cows eat weird glowing plants. Get tumours. Herders remove and grow tumours. Various        methods of growing the tumour as big as possible before it gets too gristly . Much competition and    bullshit between herders about this. Cows tend to have be really good healers from the amount of    surgery they survive.

  2:Feed cattle crazy magic stuff so they become meat eating and ravenous and point them at their     hated neighbours . Cattle back on the pounds due to all the protein and die of heart attacks and then  eaten

  3:Inject digestive enzymes and suck out delicious , portable, long keeping cow slurry 

  4:Cut off heads and keep bodies underground with neck partially sewn up over winter.  Whole family has to take turns chewing cud and spitting down the neck. Only way to protect cattle from Yetis

3. Every 30th cow is a spider disguised as cow. They don't eat the cows or the herders and balloon off after a year. No-one knows why they do this , but it's good luck. I mean any non-fatal interaction with a cow sized spider is good luck.

4. Cows taught (like teaching bears "dancing") weird step patterns to avoid bullete / sand shark / death worms attacks. Each generation needs a new step pattern to avoid them learning

5. Kids ride some of the cows and use the horns as the arms of a oversized slingshot to defend the herd

6. The bones are sold to a mute mouthless people that come up from the earth , assemble the bones , dress them in old rags , breath into them , and walk them down below. They pay in something that hopefully is honey. 

REALMS OF VIOLENCE 4th edition reskin

Print PDF Like there wasn't anything else I meant to be working on...
sigh.

Okay so there is this world, like one of those "wahey olde time people were wack" (which may or may not be Renaissance propaganda), like it's a massive flat bowl (to keep the sea in duh) held aloft by armies of conquered titans, their grotesque forms even more grotesque from the weight of the world pushing down on them.  They hold the world aloft from some kind of primordial sea of the dead, where all souls go to rest.

Anyway this massive bowl shaped world progressed through various wars, empires, alien invasions, usurpation of spirits, demons and angels and parasite cosmology,   never-weres, and as ever the titans ( known formerly as KAIJU) climbing up and over their fellows to the under lip of  the world to punish and destroy).

It now has progressed to the mechanized armour and sweet looking motorcycle tracking shot level of technology, the gods having recently left to go fight some alien gods as they do. The northern and southern empires have collapsed from the aftermath of the latest alien invasion and all is warlords and bandits and here be time dragons.

Anyway so classes. Due to the bizarre semi-subjective physics of this reality, an individual can become far more powerful than any army, which means the focus of military progress has been to make super units, champions, leaders, warlords , and monsters. Some staying in the service of Daiymo or King, others becoming RONIN-X
And if you haven't guessed by now, this is a re-skin for 4th edition dungeons and dragons.

The power sources: are
Martial is
 KUNG FU. Some individual's KUNG FU is strong enough to kick physics into becoming an obedient fellow.
AND

CYBER : Most people can handle the odd implant here or there without their chi flow becoming sickened. Fortunate others can keep piling it in. These are known as Cyberborgs. New geo-nano-tech means the machine grows with its host, the enhancements coming with personal growth not mere consumer purchase (blah blah cybernetics is treated as class abilities rather than equipment that you can purchase. You can't just make an robot arm strong enough to rip a tank in half, instead one is grafted onto the host and their chi flow and it is grown to such implausible capabilities)

Divine:
is now
Administrator privileges. The gods wrote down a bunch of the short cuts and back doors they use for tinkering with the place. They made it real complicated so only the worthy can not have their eyes explode by reading it. Spells are known formally as Protocol and called spells by fucking ignorant peasants.

Arcane:
is now
 HACKING:  Wait you are waiting for permission to rewrite reality? The truly shrewd and audacious find the backdoors on their own, and when they can't, will tear them. A particular short cut , cheat,  or spell,  is known as a Glitch.  Glitches often have more abrupt , disruptive effects as compared to Protocol which tend to more restorative, status quo orientated effects.

http://www.violentia.com/

Cleric   is now  WARNURSE: taught the Protocol (spells) given to the nations and then cyborg parts because cyborg parts, they are healers, leaders , diplomats , templars and inquisitors. Their power source is CYBER and Administrator privileges

http://www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/view.pl?id=27008

Fighter     is now BOOMER: These cyberborgs are the  backbone and spear head of every army. Some keep their human form,fiendish devices appearing and disappearing as necessary, others bury it in layers of exoskeleton , techno flanges and mystery pipes. Their power source is CYBER.

Paladin  is now    SOHEI: The hammer to the WARNURSES other kind of hammer. Disdain corruption of their chi with gadgets, instead relying on fierce training and supreme discipline.
 These are warriors who are armoured in life and punching righteous! While the WARNURSE is often beholden to authority and public spotlight , the SOHEI is the special forces, black ops and elite guard.

Their power source is KUNG FU and Administrator Privileges

Ranger    is now   MOREAU:  Animals are closer to the flow of things than people. So surely one can give people greater kung fu by use of grafting animal parts? In the MOREAU's case, why yes , yes you can. (in most cases however, another entry in the monster manual happens).  Some MOREAU appear human except for a couple of traits (say a tail and cat ears) others are an animal awkwardly hunched on 2 legs. MOREAU are made in both directions from animal to fellow and from fellow to animal.
Their power source is KUNG FU

Rogue is now NINJA

....



Their power source is (rumoured) to be KUNG FU and CYBER

THESE TOOK FAR TOO LONG TO FIND FOR SHAME INTERNET FOR SHAME

Warlock is now W.I.T.C.H:  with all these demons, angels and other usurpers lying around, one would wonder "can we smoke them?".
Why yes. A huge variety of reality altering drugs can be made from them. W.I.T.C.Hs name come from the infamous girl gang (We Intend To Create Havoc) to first make a serious effort to drug themselves into super human power and Burroughian form
W.I.T.C.H'S today are still no-good punks , with the coloured hair , loitering and angular sunglasses. Each W.I.T.C.H has a particular habit (pact) whether Yokai (fey) , Usurper (Infernal), or Never-Were (Star)
Their power source is HACKING

"because I fucking said so"

Warlord is now GEOMANCER. One who studies the flow of chi and history and knows best how to direct their efforts and those of others
Their power source is KUNG FU

Sorcerer is now  BLIGHTS. Savants for tampering , backdoors , and unraveling reality on a whim.
Their power source is HACKING

Wizard  is now     PSYKER. It is some peoples nature to always find the easiest way. While BLIGHTS constantly discover, tamper and tear new paths, PSYKERS have no talent for invention, but vast ability to learn and exploit what they can learn. They hold tight any glitch they can find and wring every drop of advantage out of it, each holding to them precious their book of scams, cons and swindles. A BLIGHT has a talent for finding new glitches but lack the patience to know them as thoroughly as a PSYKER will.
Their power source is HACKING






















Barbarian is now  DRAGON the truly greatest of martial artists, their name the nickname of their greatest pioneer and bad ass.
Their power source is KUNG FU




(and there's like a bunch of other classes which is not immediately obivous what to do with.
Monks for example, some how, don't fit.  Druids I was thinking about some kind of Cyberborg that can transform into other robot shapes. Like a TRANSFORMER, but like then what was I gonna do with their magic? Like have it work via near by technology instead of plants?  I guess making the Primal power source Technology or something.
 Anyway look I got all this other shit I should be doing , and I don't have a play group for this , so I'm just writing down the easy reskins.
Also when I started typing this , I was thinking there would be a lot more weird psychic, chronolord,bursters and various warhammer stuff in here, but then the 80s anime just took up all the room and yeah. But if you are gonna run with this yourself I would recommend looking to warhammer 40,000 or other weird British gonzo sci-fi when you reskin the other classes)

OH YEAH RACES
Now I coulda made these the various nations of REALMS OF VIOLENCE but then as much fun assigning various human cultures stat modifiers is (by "fun" I mean "wack ") how about
 class as race 
Brave New World style?
As in each social class is separate from the others not by being a dwarf or an orc or something, but by choice of language, mannerisms, minor genetic modifications, quality and type of cyber implants, dietary supplements, geo-nano-bot injects and steroids.

Half Orc: Untouchable : steroid injections, growth hormones , modifications to the adrenaline and digestion system) : soldiers , sewage workers, meat vat works, Kaiju corpse disposal crews, salvage

Human: Lumpen Proletariat:  what ever they can afford or steal: thieves, scavengers, con artists, middle men, fences, entertainers

Dwarf: Proletariat: muscle grafts, bone latticing, supplementary immune system, high gravity nurseries: mining , construction, engineering, demolitions

Halfling:Bourgeoisie: reaction time implants, economy model body size, pheromone upgrades: reporter, entertainment, sales, liaisons, human resources

Gnome:Literati: life span upgrades, improved memory storage , small build for reduced use of resources, optic implants, brain "shock absorbers" for improved ability to comprehend protocol: sciences, scholars, researchers, academic

Elf:Illuminati: best life span upgrades, all look like models including access to designer (copy write protected) genes such as the Bowie , Grace Jones or the Twiggy, extensive brain capacity upgrades:  any high status positions, which they are always more qualified to do , having downloaded the required expertise.
            (Illuminati is particular apt , ignoring boring conspiracy association boringness,
 its etymology is enlightenment , as in a spiritual sense as well as a allegorical sense , "to throw light on" , and the royal family in Japan is said to have a lineage directly to the sun goddesses her self.)

Actually wait 4th edition had all these other races like shardling and stuff but fuck it, I'm done. What? No I haven't actually read the book and yes I am doing a re-skin that I would fully intend to play had I the time and interest.

Also I was going to use Japanese names for the classes , such as Eta, but wahey, discrimination against the Burakumin (Eta being a ..less polite term) is still a thing today
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin
Real glad I looked that up.