Image Response Ping Pong 22

Print PDF 29 hours to go on the kickstarter of Deep Carbon Observatory by the time I start this post , and

Patrick has told us of a tarnished city of bronze and given us this

Liu Xue

This fellow is a Halcyon Host.

Someone whose psychic potential was strong, but they lacked the focus and will to force the world to obey them.

Instead a deep unhappiness and self belief saw all their potential pouring inward.
Their predisposition for daydream and escape into a safe and golden inner world becomes hypertrophic with their psychic power.

Resulting in an ability similar to "Dream Travel" but instead they fold themselves inward , in a grotesque but somewhat comical implosion , and travel to their innerworld.


Unfortunately they cannot sustain themselves  there , and must seek employment .

An underdeveloped physical form, a lack of ability to focus on any external task, little to no charisma, their powers lack the range or power of a psychoporter , there's only one real path available.

That of the Halcyon Host, turning themselves inside out to create a portal to a sentimental inner world .
Their patrons are those with a taste for the simple and excessively sentimental , tastes often found in the totalitarian and emotionally stunted .

So they are often are hosts to those that have little regard for them, barely seeing them as anything other than a door, plopping along like poison toads through the little palaces and soft lit glades .


And now Patrick , what is stirred up by this:

A TALE OF THE WORLD WINDING DOWN

Image Response Ping Pong 18

Print PDF Patrick has shed light on the dark workings of hell and given us a better monster for the term "deodand" than the original Monster Manual 2 ever did.

It opens up a whole subsection worth of living machines, cursed swords , and wacky flintstones domestic-objects-as-fully-sentient-tormented-devices.

But we'll have to leave that unexplored today for we are responded to this image

Sha Sha Higby

Before  we begin, the mercantile purpose of this post series, i.e the promotion of the Deep Carbon Observatory Kickstarter , will rear its head.
 Here's the link, note that we have a new stretch goal, one in which we pay Brendan Strejcek (of Necropraxis fame to make all the spells contained in Deep Carbon Observatory "level-less" in the style of Wonder & Wickedness (which he wrote).
All spells being both the classic d&d ones and the ones newly featured.
If this stretch goal is reached , these spells will put in a freely accessible pdf (but not included in the book as that would throw out all the layout and shipping weight calculations)


right, with that the gild serpent of capital gain  slinks from view, we can begin your mild entertainment :

Eburnean Attendant 

The naga sunset court who rules when the sky is the assigned shade is headed by the Princess Never-Moon.

Born marked with the sorcerer crimes of her mother , her scales thin enough to be pierced with hair, her hearing as vulnerable too  .

A heartbeat at a distance sounds like the blow of a smiths hammer, a partial exhalation like the hurricanes gale.

Her attendants therefore are necromantic creations and clad in the lightest and softest fabrics.

The naga who volunteer for this fate tend to be those who have loyalty more than intelligence or personal ambition , or those who have disgraced their families and see no other way of earning back status for them.

To be come an Enurnean Attendant the naga is drugged into immobility and lower into water to which numerous flowers , herbs and fragrant tree saps are added.
 These are chosen to numb the nerves, soften the skin and flesh, stupefy the mind, strengthen the spirit, and additionally strong preservative agents
Then this bath is slowly brought to boil all the while the naga is kept on the brink of death and sleep.
The nagas flesh will be boiled and soften and fall off their bones, all the while the soul is kept in such a clouded state it doesn't realize the body has cease to function.
The end result is a fragrant skeleton naga, however a slight addled one, like one of an advanced age.

Enurnean Attendants are not the best of servants , their temperaments being either zealous and stupid, or bitter and sullen.
The Princess Never-Moon has taken to giving them masks so she can better keep track of the ones less suited to complicated tasks or ones where their loyalty to the court over her could cause problems.

This one picture is assigned bodyguard duty, (which the "zealous but stupid" is better match for) , equipped with bone-needle fans tipped with paralytic agents.

These weapons are designed to make no noise as they enter flesh , and the paralytic venoms will prevent a noisy (and thus painful to the Princess) death.

Bodyguards such equipped tend to react to loud noise by silencing the cause as quickly as they can, without waiting for the Princesses word otherwise.
This has caused more than a few diplomatic incidents.



Now Patrick, what pray tell is this?

IT WAS AN INTRIGUING MYSTERY

Image Response Ping Pong 14

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 Here we are , here we are , IMAGE RESPONSE PING PONG NUMBER 14 , in which we act as CHALLENGING MUSES in order to keep a lively series of blog posts , so to keep the sly flame of promotion burning .

 (DCOhas a kickstarter to get a limit print run, it's fully funded, but you still have the opportunity to back it and so get a print copy reliably , instead of waiting for them to be available via mail order or store front)

Patrick has envisioned a visionary god

 And given us the above to respond to ..





















This is a Abeyantal Ambassador   ,a would be an elemental if the natural of reality was configured differently. This Ambassador, the Coruscate-Illuminant, is on its way to present itself before  the protean metabeings in the process of creating a reality.
The Coruscate-Illuminant argues for light as mass, energy as tangible solidity , a world where fire is a brick .

 It is unlikely it will successfully argue its case, it would help if the Coruscate-Illuminant would form an alliance with other Abeyantal Ambassador, but it can't envision sharing reality with any other. It desires to be an endlessly neon highway in a void forever.


Okay , now back to you Patrick.

Who be these?

(the answer is here!)

Trees With Shapes

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Here is a quick selection of trees with interesting forms you might not know about it (I'm assuming baobab and sequoia are familiar enough that I don't need to include them)

Ngaio Myoporum laetum  via

Pohutukawa Metrosideros excelsa

Port Jackson Fig
Ficus rubiginosa

Screw pine, corkscrew palm Pandanus spiralis

screw palm Pandanus utilis

another screw palm Pandulus utilis

Hollywood Juniper Juniperus chinensis 'kaizuka' 

Juniperus chinensis 'Torulosa'

Dracaena reflexa 

Dracaena draco

Dracaena draco again, but note the phoenix palm for scale. Hint: phoenix palm trunk diameter is about a 50-110 cm on average 

Swamp cypress Taxodium distichum